A VIRGIN'S PRAYER
For a time as they turned toward the city gate, which they had entered
that morning, silence held between Prince Lakkon and his child.
Lakkon broke it himself at last. "All is arranged as you thought best,
my Naia?" he inquired.
"Aye, my father." She turned her eyes. "The messengers have departed to
the mountains for the snows; the servants are cleaning. I have ordered
the tables set in the crystal court, inside the hedge, and I have
arranged for a band of dancers and musicians on the appointed day."
"And the robe. You did not forget the new robe?" Lakkon smiled.
Naia shook her head, her eyes dancing. "I am a woman," she replied.
"The makers came at my summons to take my measure. It will be ready on
the seventh day from this."
"That is well," Prince Lakkon said. But he sighed.
And suddenly Naia's face lost its light and grew sweetly brooding. She
stretched out a rounded arm and touched him on the breast. "You are
tired, my father," she spoke in almost crooning fashion, edging nearer
to him. "The day with Uncle Jadgor has left you weary."
"Aye, somewhat," Lakkon confessed. With a swift, yet powerful gesture,
he reached out and swept her into his arms, drawing her against his
massive chest and sinking his cheek to touch her golden hair. "Naia, my
daughter, thou knowest that I love you well," he said.
Croft quivered in his being. It seemed to him he was looking into
Lakkon's heart and reading there all his lips held back--the fatherly
love, the fatherly pain, attendant on that scene in Jadgor's apartment,
where he had spent much of the day. It was that, he felt, inspired
that sudden, almost hungry clasping of the girl's supple figure to the
father's breast--that almost plaintive cry for her assurance of her
faith in his love.
But Naia seemed not to sense any deeper reason than the mere love
between them expressed. Her red lips parted, and she laughed softly as
she lay against him, lifting a hand to his gray-shot hair. "Know that
you love me?" she repeated. "Think you I could doubt it? Did you not
give me my life? Do we not love what we create--so long as it comes
from ourselves?" She nestled her head in the hollow of his corded neck.
Above that gold-crowned head the man's face worked. "We were happy the
day of thy birth, thy mother and I," he said.
And now it seemed that at last the woman sensed some trouble
unexpressed in the mind of the man. Very gently she released herself
and sat up on the padded cushion. Her almost purple eyes looked full
into those of her parent. "Concerning what did you speak with Uncle
Jadgor today?"
"Concerning thee." Lakkon met the issue fairly now that it confronted
him at last.
"Concerning me?" To Croft every line of Naia's figure stiffened.
"Aye." Prince Lakkon sat up. He spoke swiftly, briefly, and paused. Yet
ere he paused he had fully outlined all King Jadgor planned.
And while he spoke the eyes of the woman widened swiftly, as the iris
stretched to leave her pupils deep wells of horror.
Then as Lakkon finished speaking she cried out: "No!" in swift
instinctive protest, and lifted herself upon her pink bent knees to
poise so an instant before she flung herself once more upon her
father's breast. "No!" she cried again, clinging to him. "No, no! Not
that--not that! Father, unsay it! Give me not to that beast!"
"Hush!" Prince Lakkon stayed her. "Chythron will hear your outcry."
"Chythron!" she exclaimed. "Not Chythron but all Aphur--all Tamarizia
shall hear my outcry against what Jadgor intends--every woman in the
nation shall give thanks to Azil and Ga, that she stands not in my
place."
"Naia." Her father spoke in a voice not wholly steady.
"Would you profane a shrine, sully a temple, defile a sacred thing?"
she flared. "Is a virgin's body a thing to be bartered and sold in
Aphur? Does my uncle regard me as a shameless creature who sells
herself for a price? Azil and his holy mother would veil their faces
from such marriage rites."
"Think not I wish it," her father said. "Yet can I not deny the truth
of Jadgor's words, or that the union of the houses of the two states
would work for Tamarizia's great good."
Naia was panting. "Tamarizia's?" she faltered now.
"Aye, did you not comprehend what I said concerning the welfare of our
nation?" Lakkon asked.
She shook her head. "I--I think horror must have dulled my
understanding," she said. "Explain to me again."
Long since they had left the city gates and were following a well-built
road which led off toward those mountains where Croft had first stood
and viewed the Palosian landscape in the light of this waning day. As
he reached the end of his second exposition of the facts, Prince Lakkon
turned and suddenly swept aside the purple curtain which draped the
side of the coach. He flung out an arm and pointed straight to where
the dull red walls of Himyra still shone in the afternoon rays.
"Behold Himyra, jewel on the breast of Aphur," he cried. "There she
lies. Think you I would have given ear to Jadgor's plans save for that?
Think you I would send you flesh of my loins to such a union save for
the good of unborn souls to come? Think you were it not for Himyra,
Aphur, Tamarizia herself, I would have bowed my head to the words of
Aphur's king? Nay. If so, you are wrong. But for Tamarizia and that
glory and honor which are hers and have been for a thousand cycles of
our sun, a true son of the nation must sink all thoughts of self, must
live, if by living he can serve, or should it serve better, must--die!"
* * * * *
Despite himself, Croft thrilled at the words, such as only a true
patriot might speak in such tones of fire--tones which quivered and
pulsed with emotion, one might not deny. In spite of his own sorry
rebellion of spirit, echoed, as he now knew, in the soul of the gentle
girl before him, some feeling akin to pity for this royal father of
hers, crept through his mind. Prince Lakkon was a man torn between
parental love and the love of his nation--destined, as it seemed, to
suffer, no matter how this thing fell out.
And while he spoke, the girl, his child, flesh of his flesh, crept
to his side, to kneel and gaze out at the distant walls of the city
she knew as her own. Her expression changed. Some of the indefinable
quality of girlhood seemed to fall from her and expose the deeper,
firmer woman's nature, as though a veil had been torn aside.
"And I must live for her--with--Kyphallos?" she whispered tensely as
Lakkon once more paused.
"If you can win him--hold him--sway him--with Jadgor on the throne at
Zitra you will have made Tamarizia strong."
"I--will have made--Tamarizia--strong."
O girl of gold! Croft's heart cried out as he caught her scanning
speech. O wonderful woman--so true to womanhood--so true now to the
spirit of ultimate woman, ultimate sacrifice through which attribute
of woman comes life itself! Unseen, unknown to her or the man who rode
beside her, Croft approached and bent above her in that moment of
struggle and decision. For, as she turned her eyes back to the interior
of the coach, Croft knew she had decided, and that in deciding she had
chosen the path which led against every personal impulse of her own
clean spirit.
"What am I against Tamarizia?" she said.
"You are my daughter and I love thee," said Lakkon, Aphur's prince.
"I know." Naia crept to him and laid herself in his arms. "I know,"
she murmured after a time of silence.
Lakkon's arms tightened about her as the coach swung along. Her arm
crept up and stole about his neck. Silence came down again save for the
patter of the gnuppa's feet on the stone surface of the highway which
had now left the plain and begun to scale the mountainside.
Crouched invisible, Croft turned his gaze from the man and woman to
stare out between the fluttering curtains.
The road came to an end in a mountain valley, open toward the east and
so unveiled a fresh scene of beauty to Jason's eyes.
Here was a country palace, gleaming white above a series of terraced
gardens which rose from the shores of a tiny mountain lake. Toward it
Chythron guided his steeds along a private drive which branched off
from the highway they had traversed thus far.
As though the turning had been a signal, Naia loosened the embrace
which held her and sat up, still without speaking, before Chythron
brought his team to a stand.
Then, as in the morning, Prince Lakkon helped her to descend and moved
beside her up a low, broad flight of steps to reach the portals of
their home.
* * * * *
At their heels Croft followed on. His eyes swept the scope of the
valley so far as he could mark it from the steps. Groups of the
woolly, sheep-like cattle he had seen in Himyra fed in the lush grass
of mountain meadows. Cultivated fields stretched out before his eyes.
At the top of the steps he turned briefly and looked off to the east.
There his eyes caught the glint of distant sun-kissed water--the
Central Sea, of which Prince Lakkon had spoken, he now believed.
Then the portals before which Lakkon and Naia stood swung open, and
once more a blue native appeared. Beside him was a monster beast,
similar in all respects to those Croft had seen harnessed to the tiny
trams in the cargo tunnels. It marked the advent of Lakkon and Naia
with a slow wagging of its tail, and, suddenly rearing, laid its huge
front paws, one on each of the girl's shoulders.
She spoke to the creature softly, and when it dropped back, at her
command, she patted its head. Then turning to the man of Mazzer, who
stood waiting, she proferred a command: "I am going to my apartments,
Miltos; send Maia to me there."
"You will attend me later--over our evening viands?" her father asked.
"Aye, presently," she returned as she moved toward a stair at one
end of the entrance court, which, in a smaller way, was not unlike
Prince Lakkon's Himyra palace, save that here its pavement was laid
in alternate squares of pale yellow and dull red. The treads of the
stairway, also, were of yellow and red, as Croft saw while mounting,
and the pillars which supported the balcony were yellow, while the
balcony itself was red. Here, too, as in the city, a group of white
sculpture stood at the foot of the stair. It depicted a very Hercules
of a man throttling a creature not far unlike a tiger, while behind him
crouched a woman, holding a tiny figure of a child.
All this he saw as Naia ascended without pause, reached a door, guarded
by a heavy golden curtain, swept it aside and entered into her own room.
Here, as in Himyra, Croft found couch and chairs, and windows, the
mirror basin, the pedestal, and the winged figure poised as though for
flight.
Once more the golden curtain was drawn back and a young Mazzer woman
appeared.
Naia turned. "Maia, how is the pool?"
"It should be delightful, princess," the blue girl replied. "All this
day Zitu warmed it with his light."
Naia tapped with her foot. "Procure fresh raiment and bring it
thither," she said. "The ride was tiresome and I will bathe."
Five minutes later, accompanied by Maia, who bore fresh robes, she
left the room and led the way to one end of the corridor and through
a small door to an outer stair. Descending that she passed through a
sort of sunken garden, laid out in odd geometric designs and planted
with shrubs and trees and flowers, among which gleamed the white of
ornamental urns, fire-urns, and statues toward a low, white wall in
which an opening appeared. Passing this, she turned about the angle
of a protecting inner stone screen and stood on the margin of an open
bath, its water clear as crystal and tinted a delicate amber from the
yellow bottom and sides of the peculiar onyxlike stone.
Naia bathed. Refusing to spy upon her, Croft waited without the
concealing wall, while twilight fell and the sounds of soft splashings
came to his ear. The bath took a long time. Croft fancied the girl
found some vague comfort in the soft, warm kiss of the waters tempered
all day by the sun--that to lie wrapped in their liquid caress soothed
somewhat her spirit, torn by the revelations her recent journey had
held. While he waited twilight deepened, and after a time a softer
light stole through the garden.
He lifted his gaze to the skies. Three moons hung there, casting their
blended light over mountain and valley and plain. Vaguely he wondered
which of the three he had visited during the night before--that night
with its weird experience, ending on the edge of this day which, after
all, had been but little less weird--this day in which he had found and
recognized and yielded to the one feminine counterpart of his nature,
only to find her destined to another less worthy than himself, and to
know himself unable to intervene between her and her fate.
* * * * *
While he sat there brooding the whole strange situation--a man in all
save material body--a consciousness, suffering all the pangs of spirit
he was unable to physically express, Naia came forth and moved with her
accompanying servant, a pure, white figure, through the garden to the
house.
Like her shadow, Croft pursued her every step. He stood beside her
while she sat waiting for the evening meal. He was behind her when she
reclined on the couch beside the table, opposite her father, and ate.
He dogged her steps when she once more sought the quiet of her room,
and bade Maia leave her for the night.
Hence he witnessed what no other eyes beheld as the flaring oil-lamp,
with its guttering wick little better than a candle extinguished, and
the apartment flooded only by the light of the Palosian moons, she
knelt by the mirror basin, before the winged figure on the wine-red
pedestal.
And he heard what no other ears save her own could hear as she lifted
her hands to the figure, before which she knelt--the cry of her
soul--her womanhood's suppliant prayer.
"O, Azil, Giver of Life, must this be forced upon me? O Ga, Mother of
Azil--thou virgin woman, whom Zitu ordained the one to give an angel
life, that he might speak to men of Zitu himself and teach them how to
live, do thou intercede for me! Thou knowest woman guards the sacred
flame, which is life itself; so that it burns clear and never ceasing.
Must that flame in me be fouled? Ga the Mother, Azil the Son--Azil the
Angel--hear ye my prayer!"
She ceased and knelt on, silent, with hands clasped and lovely head
bowed down.
And once more it seemed to Croft that his senses went spinning,
eddying, whirling around. Azil the Giver of Life. Ga the mother of Azil
the Son. A Virgin and a Child. And Zitu the father--God. She prayed to
them.
This was the Palosian religion, at least, in part. Strange analogy
to the earth-creed Croft found it--to the creed in which he had been
raised. Zitu was the one creative source here as elsewhere, no matter
by what name called--the source to which the projected atoms of its
thought looked back, to whom they lifted their voices in praise or
prayer.
What did it matter whether on earth or Palos, life was then the same,
and the source was one place as another, all-embracing, universal,
always the same? And Azil the Angel of Life was what? A Messianic
spirit, surely, which had come to speak to the human atoms and tell
them of the source. What else? And Ga--the medium, through which spirit
was translated into matter--the eternal woman, through whom Life came
to the incarnated man.
And to these, this maid--this other woman who had pledged herself as a
sacrifice for her nation, prayed. Alone here before the pedestal shrine
of Azil, Son of Zitu, she knelt and asked that the cup she had promised
to drink might be divinely removed from her lips since all human hope
of such a removal seemed to have died in so far as she could know.
Should that prayer go unheeded or unheard? Could the pure cry of a
clean spirit fail to reach the listening ears of the source?
No! Croft's spirit cried the word to his soul. No, no! A thousand times
no! Somehow, some way, he knew not how that prayer must be heard and
answered. He tore himself free from the spell of the kneeling figure,
and with no definite purpose in his going save to remove himself from
a privacy he felt he must no longer intrude, went blindly out of the
room.