MOTHER AND SON
Not the least sumptuous range of halls and chambers in the queen's
palace had been devoted, from his boyhood, to the accommodation of her
son. Here, surrounded by his own servants, he had lived ever since he
could walk alone in princely state and magnificence, imitating, though
on a less extended scale, the splendour of the Great King's court, and
exacting from his attendants those ceremonious observances which
somewhat chafed his father's spirit, causing the fiery old warrior to
break out in words and gestures savouring rather of the swordsman's
impatience than the monarch's dignity. Here too he had been trained
under the queen's own eye in manly exercises befitting his rank,
practising mimic warfare on the wide terraces of the royal dwelling, and
even hunting the lion in dangerous earnest through its spacious
paradise, a wilderness in the heart of the swarming city.
It had been the policy of Semiramis, as it was her pleasure, to keep the
future monarch under her own eye and within her immediate influence,
teaching him to depend on her alone for all his occupations and
amusements, thus obtaining an ascendancy over his young mind, which
daily custom rendered so easy and natural, that he never attempted to
shake it off.
Arrogant at the feast, valorous in the fray, reckless and unscrupulous
in the gratification of every passing desire, every whim of the moment,
he was yet in his mother's presence the same loving wayward child, who,
though wilful and petulant, had ever looked to her alone for succour and
encouragement, had run to her knee with a bruised skin or a tear-stained
face, and would have begged of her, with equal confidence, a bunch of
grapes and a string of pearls worth a king's ransom.
It was not strange then, that, waking from his heavy slumbers after the
banquet, with a vague impression of some unfulfilled desire burning at
his heart, his first wish was for his mother's presence, even before he
remembered the purpose for which he wanted her assistance and advice.
Semiramis, on this the morning after his return from a campaign in which
her boy had won no slight reputation as a warrior, passing into his
chamber according to custom, found him, as she had often found him
before, tossing, heated, and restless on his couch, pushing his short
dishevelled locks off his brow, while he turned on her a glance, half
mirthful, half imploring, from eyes deep liquid and beautiful as her
own.
The queen's head was tired, her dress arranged with the utmost skill and
care, while in her gait and bearing there was a dignity of repose no
less graceful than becoming; but if her dark locks had been unbound, her
robes shaken into disorder, and her fair face heated with the flush of
mirth, pleasure, or excitement, surely never had been seen so wondrous a
resemblance as existed between that unquiet youth on the couch and the
beautiful woman who bent over him to lay her hand against his hot
forehead with a gesture of endearment and caress.
"What ails my boy?" asked Semiramis, looking fondly down on her
graceless offspring. "Was the triumph yesterday so long and wearisome?
the wine of Eshcol last night so rough and new? Or has he left his heart
among the daughters of Egypt, in exchange for the fame and high repute
of valour he has brought with him from the Nile?"
"I wish I had never gone there!" answered Ninyas petulantly. "I wish the
reins had rotted in his hand who turned my chariot from the Gates of
Brass to leave Babylon and all the pleasures it contained!"
"It would not have been like your father's child," said the queen, "to
have forborne going forth to warfare with the host. You would not be
_my_ son," she added more tenderly, "did not your heart leap to the
rattle of a quiver and the roll of a chariot, wheeling at a gallop
amongst the spearmen. Think you it was no pain to me when I sent you
down yonder to learn your first lesson in war, under the eye of my lord
the king? But you have made yourself a name for valour, and I am
content."
"Valour!" repeated Ninyas. "Men have a strange way of computing courage
and portioning out the fame, which is indeed of small value when you
have got it. Is it such a great deed to be driven under shield in a
chariot of iron through ranks of half-armed wretches flying for their
lives? I saw one of our bowmen stand his ground in a vineyard, when we
passed the Nile, having three arrows in his limbs and a spear through
his body. But Arbaces scarce cast an eye on him as he drove by in hot
haste to bring up the rearguard of spears; and I thought, if a man would
be accounted mighty, it were well to be born a king's son. Valour
indeed! That very day, an hour later, I would have bartered all the
valour and all the fame of the Assyrian army for a cup of the roughest
wine that ever burst a skin. I love pleasure, for my part; and whosoever
will have it is welcome to my share of hunger and thirst, long marches,
weary sieges, heat, privation, night watches, and all the troubles of
war."
The queen smiled, well pleased, as it would seem, with this frank
confession of opinions, in which of all women on earth she was the least
inclined to share. Had she been a man, she thought, the saddle should
have been her only home, the spear never out of her hand. Not even
Ninus, with his insatiable desire for fame, should have flaunted so far
and wide the banners of Assyria, so pushed the conquests of the mighty
line founded by Nimrod the Great. And yet here was one of her own
blood, her very counterpart, who, being of the stronger and nobler sex,
could sit calmly down in the flush of his youth to scoff at warlike
honours, to confess his unworthy preference of inglorious ease and
material pleasures to the immortality of a hero.
"For one so young," said she, "you have already attained to high
dignity. Even my lord the king has spoken of you as a judicious leader
and a man of valour in fight. Arbaces himself was obliged to admit,--my
son, you are ill at ease,--Arbaces, I say, though so devoted to the
king's interests that he seems to look with an evil eye on the king's
successor, could not but acknowledge that on the field you were a worthy
descendant of the line of Ashur; though in camp, he added, the example
of one prince was more injurious to the discipline of armies than the
taking of ten towns by assault, with all the license and outrages of a
storm."
There was enough of his father's nature in the lion's cub to bring the
flash to his eye, the scowl to his brow, while he listened.
"Arbaces dared to speak thus of _me_!" he exclaimed, springing to his
feet, and grasping instinctively at a gilded javelin standing against
the wall. "He must be a bold man, this chief captain of the Assyrian
host."
"He must be a bold man," repeated the queen, "since he is _your_ enemy
and _mine_."
"Let him beware!" said the prince. "I can take up my mother's quarrel as
heartily as my own. He will have no woman to deal with if he crosses
_me_. And yet," he added, sinking back on the couch, and turning his
head aside amongst its cushions, "there is not in the whole empire one
whom I would so gladly call my friend."
A shade of perplexity crossed the queen's brow; but she forced a
careless laugh while she asked,
"What have you, the future ruler of all the earth, to gain from this
war-worn spearman, whose very existence hangs on the breath of your
father, my lord the king?"
He turned to her with one of the caressing gestures of his childhood;
and even the queen's steadfast heart wavered for a moment in the
merciless prosecution of her schemes.
"Mother," he said, "you have never denied me from my youth upward what
I asked. Give me now the daughter of Arbaces, and I am content. If she
be withheld from me, I care not to look on an unveiled woman again."
As the light of morning creeps over a fair landscape, the queen's smile
brightened her face into matchless beauty; as the summer sky is mirrored
in the lake, that smile was reflected on the glowing features of her
son. Again how comely they were, and how alike!
"Is she then so fair," asked Semiramis, "this pale slender girl, to whom
you flung a cup of gold yesterday from your chariot in return for a posy
of flowers? Such exchanges, my son, are made every day in follies like
yours; but I did not believe that a bow drawn thus at random could have
sent its shaft so deftly through the joints of _your_ harness. Is there
magic about the girl, that she draws men to her feet with a mere look
and sign? I have heard that her mother was a daughter of the stars."
"The daughters of earth are good enough for me," replied the prince.
"But if this one comes not into my tent, I will never look in the face
of woman again."
"The tent is not to be despised," answered Semiramis, glancing round the
gilding and vermilion, the beams of cedar, the inlaid flooring, the
purple hangings, of that painted chamber. "And she must be difficult to
please, if she find fault with its lord. Nevertheless, there are
obstacles in our way. Arbaces would surely neither wish nor dare to
oppose us, and, if he did, could be silenced or removed. But how shall
we set aside the opposition of my lord the king?"
"He would never consent," said Ninyas. "I know it too well. The
mill-stone is not harder than the heart of the Great King. May he live
for ever!"
"May he live for ever!" repeated the queen. "Those of Nimrod's race are
indeed immortal; and you have little to hope from the lapse of time.
Tell me, my son--do you really love this girl so much?"
"I would give my whole life afterwards," he answered passionately, "to
bring her here into my dwelling for a year and a day."
At the moment, no doubt, he spoke truth. The stream of a passing
inclination, stemmed by opposition and difficulty, had swelled into a
torrent of desire he had neither power nor inclination to control.
"And if you might take this fair dove to your bosom," continued the
queen, "would you consent to forego Babylon and its pleasures? Would you
make your escape in secret, and remain for a season in seclusion, until
the wrath of the Great King was overpast?"
"I am ready to go now," answered the impetuous boy. "My horses are of
the purest breed in all the land of Shinar. I will fly with her to the
ends of the earth."
"You need not go farther than Ascalon," replied his mother with a smile.
"In mine ancient stronghold, rude and timeworn though it be, I can still
count many a friend who would beard Ninus and all his line at my
lightest word. And the common multitude are devoted to my service far
more than in Nineveh, or even here in Babylon, which but for me would
still have been a mere hamlet of huts in a marsh. My son, if ever you
come to rule, trust no longer to the people's gratitude than while you
have benefits to confer: the loyalty of a nation is seldom proof against
a rise in the price of corn. Nevertheless, in lofty Ascalon you may be
safe and secret enough, until time and my constant entreaties shall have
softened the resentment of my lord the king. The girl is willing, of
course," continued the queen, tenderly and in a half-sorrowful tone;
"for such faces as yours are made to be the ruin of all who look on them
too freely."
No woman, she was thinking, could resist that smile of her boy's--so
fond, so winning, so like her own.
Ninyas hesitated; and once more his hand stole towards the javelin by
the wall.
"There must be neither delay," said he, "nor hesitation. The girl would
love well enough without doubt; but--but--" here the blood flew to his
temples and the angry light to his eye--"another has seen her, and would
fain make her his own: one who brought here tidings from the camp before
the host marched in--a goodly youth and a brave warrior. Nevertheless,
he must die."
"Not so," exclaimed the queen, turning pale. "Believe me, this is a
matter to be carried through by the fine wit of woman, rather than the
strong hand of man. You must abide wholly by my counsel. I have never
failed you, my son. Shall I fail you now in this your great need?"
It is possible that, had he trusted implicitly to his mother's guidance,
her heart might have been softened and her purpose set aside even now;
but he flung his head up impatiently, and threatened where he should
have confided or cajoled.
"I will not wait a day!" he exclaimed angrily. "I will not sit still
while another is in my place. Sarchedon loves this girl very dearly, and
in a few hours I may be too late."
"Sarchedon does _not_ love her," hissed the queen through her clenched
teeth, while her face turned white. "Foolish boy!" she added, recovering
her self-command, "with all your manhood and your valour, you are as
much a child as when you cried on my knee for a lotus-flower or a
pomegranate; and you must even have your toy to-day, at any sacrifice,
though you tire of it to-morrow, like the wilful babe you are."
"I am satisfied when I have what I want," answered Ninyas. "Is it not so
with us all, from the Great King to the spearman that marches by his
chariot? Even Ninus will chafe and roar and lash himself into rage like
the lion of the desert, if the merest trifle runs contrary to his whim.
Am I not his _son_, mother, as well as _yours_?"
"You are more easily ruled than your father," answered the queen. "And
it is well for you, my boy, that with your mother's form and features
you inherit her temperament--joyous, placable, and easily moulded to the
wishes of those you love." She spoke in a light, bantering tone, not
entirely devoid of scorn. "Carry your toy with you, if so it must be;
but do not murmur at the measures I take for your safety, nor quarrel
with the restraint that can alone preserve you from the king's anger, as
a young warrior chafes under the weight of that harness which fences
death from his heart."
"I only ask for the daughter of Arbaces," was his reply. "Give me the
desire of mine eyes, and do with me what you will."
"You shall carry her off from her father's house to-night," said the
queen. "Follow my counsel, and you shall pounce on the girl, swift and
secure as the hawk when she strikes a partridge on the mountain. Ride
out of the Great Gates, taking Sethos, or some one attendant whom you
can trust, with bow and spear, as though you purposed hunting the lion
in the desert. Let none see you return, but steal back to the city in
the darkness of night. I will take order for such a band of spearmen to
be under arms as no single household could attempt to resist, and I will
place one at their head who knows neither compunction nor remorse. With
these you shall force the gate of the chief-captain's palace. When they
have gained possession of the court, I need scarce tell you, my son, so
lately returned from warfare, the rights of those who occupy the
stronghold of an enemy--the women's apartments are not far to seek. A
shawl may be round her head, and the girl herself on the back of your
best horse or swiftest dromedary, in less time than it will take to put
to the sword such few servants as Arbaces can muster in the first watch
of night. Ere the alarm is sounded and the city in arms, you should be
many a furlong off in the desert, galloping towards your place of
refuge, like a wild stag to the hill."
"And Arbaces?" asked Ninyas. "He has the courage of a lion. He will
resist to the death."
"Arbaces will take his chance like another," answered the queen coldly.
"An adversary who stands in the path, my son, must be ridden down ere we
can pass on. Nevertheless, I will not have a hair of _your_ head fall in
this business. A few priests of Baal shall accompany the spearmen, wrap
one of their linen robes about you, and thus avoid detection as well as
danger; but do not neglect to wear your armour underneath. Is that a
proven harness I see yonder, thrown aside in the corner?"
"It is inlaid with gold," answered Ninyas lightly, "and curiously
wrought; but Pharaoh's bowmen have blunted many a shaft on it, and it
turns the thrust of a spear as it were a bulrush."
While he spoke, the queen had taken a helmet from amongst the other
pieces of armour, and placed it, laughing, on her brows.
"They say I am like my mother," exclaimed her son, "in face and bearing.
By the beauty of Ashtaroth, it must be true! When I look at you I seem
to see my own image on the march stooping down to drink from a stream!"