The sun had set, and the wide court of Blachernæ was filled with
purple light to the wall tops, like a wine-vat full to the brim; and
everything that was in the glow took colour from it, as silver does in
claret, the polished trappings of the guards' uniforms, the creamy
marble steps of the palace, the white Tunisian charger of the officer
who rode in just then, and the swallows that circled round and round
the courtyard. The world moved in that short deep dream that comes
just when the sun has slipped away to rest, when the light is
everywhere at once, so that things cast no shadows on the ground,
because they glow from within, as in fairyland, or perhaps in heaven.
The officer rode in on his charger, and after him entered a girl
slave, dressed in coarse blue cotton, and carrying on her head a small
round basket, which was covered with a clean white cloth. The four
corners of the napkin hung down, and one of them would have flapped
across her face if she had not held it between her teeth to keep it
down. It partly hid her features, and her head was tied up in a blue
cotton kerchief passed twice round and knotted upon her forehead. She
limped a little as she walked. What could be seen of her face was pale
and quiet, and had a rather fixed look.
She was walking boldly through the gate, without slackening her pace,
when one of the two sentinels stopped her, and asked where she was
going. She stood still, and one hand steadied the basket on her head,
while the other pointed to the Amena tower.
'My mistress sends some fine wheat bread and cream cheese to the wife
of the captain who keeps the tower,' said Zoë, affecting the mincing
accent very common with female slaves and Greek ladies' maids.
The second sentinel, returning on his short beat, now came up and
stood on her other side. He was a big Bulgarian, and he lifted one
corner of the cloth and looked down into the basket, merely for the
sake of detaining the girl. He saw the wheaten loaves and the cream
cheese neatly disposed on a second napkin, and the cheese was nested
in green leaves to keep it fresh. Both the soldiers at once thought of
tasting it with the points of their daggers, but at that moment the
officer of the watch strolled out of the guard-house, a magnificent
young man in scarlet and gold. The two sentinels at once turned their
backs on the cheese and Zoë, and marched away in opposite directions
on their beats, leaving her standing in the middle. The officer was
far too high and mighty a person to look at a slave-girl or her
basket, and Zoë therefore went on without turning her head, taking it
for granted that she was now free to enter. In her baggy blue cotton
clothes, and with her face almost covered by the napkin, there was
nothing about her to attract attention, unless it were her slightly
limping gait; and she instinctively made an effort to walk evenly,
for she could not help feeling ashamed of being suddenly lame, as
perfectly sound and healthy people do. But she realised that the
folded letter was in the wrong shoe and increased her lameness,
whereas if she had carried it in the other it might have made walking
easier.
She went from under the great gate into the liquid purple light in the
court, and it was pleasant to be in it. But then again it made her
think of yesterday, when she had sat in her window at sunset, not
dreaming of all that was to happen to her in one night and one day. It
made her think of the man she loved so dearly, imprisoned somewhere
under the great city, starving and thirsting no doubt, and face to
face with thoughts of death; and it was to save him that she was
crossing the courtyard of Blachernæ disguised as a household slave. It
was because there was no other way; and if Gorlias Pietrogliant failed
her, or came too late, the end would overtake her in a few hours, or
perhaps quite suddenly, which would be more merciful. She knew what
she was doing, and she did not deceive herself. They would put out her
eyes first; but that would be the least of the cruel things they would
do to her, if Gorlias failed.
She was only a weak girl, after all, and once or twice, when she
thought of the pain, a sharp little shiver ran down her back to her
very heels, and things swam before her for an instant in the deep sea
of colour; but that only lasted for a moment, and when she reached the
foot of the tower and went in under the archway that led to the door,
she was thinking of Zeno again, and of nothing else.
It was as Gorlias had told her. A very different watch was set there
since the attempt of the previous night, and she found herself face to
face with an obstacle she had not anticipated. The iron door was shut
and was guarded by two huge Africans in black mail armour, who stood
on either side with drawn scimitars.
They looked over her head as she approached them, and they seemed to
take no notice of her existence. She thought she had never seen such
expressionless faces as theirs; the features were as shiny and
motionless as bronze, and the purple haze of the sunset without filled
the deep arch and lent them an unnatural colour which was positively
terrifying.
'If you please, kind sirs,' Zoë began as she stood still, 'my mistress
sends some fine wheat bread and fresh cream cheese to the wife of the
captain.'
She might as well have spoken to statues; neither of the negroes paid
the slightest attention. But she was not to be put off so easily.
'If you please,' she repeated with pleading emphasis and more loudly,
'my mistress----'
She stopped speaking in the middle of the sentence, suddenly scared by
the immobility of the two black men, and by their size, and by the
purple glare that was reflected from their great polished scimitars,
of which one noiseless sweep could sever her head from her body. They
were like the genii in one of those tales of the Arabian Nights which
Greek story-tellers were then just learning from the Persians, and
from the Tartar merchants of Samarcand and Tashkent. Zoë had listened
to them by the hour when she was a little girl, and now she suddenly
felt an irrational conviction that she had dreamed herself into one of
them, and that the imprisoned Emperor was guarded by supernatural
beings.
However, when she looked at the motionless features and at the broad,
polished blades, she did not feel that painful shiver which had run
down her when she had thought of being tortured by the people of the
palace, and she soon took courage again and began to speak a third
time.
'If you please,' she said, but she got no further, for she had gently
plucked at the mailed sleeve of the man on her right, to attract his
attention, and he moved at once, and bent down a little.
He touched his ear with his left forefinger and shook his head slowly
to show that he was deaf, and pointed to his companion and back to his
own ear and shook his head again; and then, to Zoë's horror, he opened
his enormous mouth just before her eyes, and she saw that it was
empty. He had no tongue.
Johannes was guarded by deaf mutes, and Zoë knew Constantinople and
the ways of the palace well enough to understand that they were placed
there to make an end of any one, man or woman, who should attempt to
pass.
She tried signs, now. She took her basket from her head and set it
down on the step between the sentinels, and crouched on her heels to
uncover it and show the contents. The men saw and nodded, and then
inclined their heads to one side in that peculiar way which means
indifference all over the East. And indeed they did not care whether
the basket held cheese or sweetmeats, and their faces grew stony again
as they looked outwards, over her head.
She covered up her little basket disconsolately and rose to her feet.
The glow was beginning to fade in the courtyard, and she felt her
heart sink as the shadows deepened. It was absolutely necessary to the
success of the dangerous enterprise on which she and Gorlias had
embarked, that Johannes himself, or at least the captain's wife should
be warned of what was to take place in less than half an hour. If this
could not be done, everything might go wrong at the last minute, their
cleverly concerted trick would fail and be exposed, and she and
Gorlias, and Zeno himself, would probably pay for their audacity with
their lives.
The closed door between the sentinels was covered with iron and
studded with big nails. It was perfectly clear that it must be opened
from within, if at all, and that the men themselves would have to
knock or make some other signal by sound in order to obtain entrance
for any one who was really authorised to go in. It was also clear that
if the men on the other side of the door were stone deaf like the two
guards, they could not hear any such knocking, and no entrance would
be possible at all except when those within opened for some reason of
their own or at fixed hours. Again, thought Zoë, it followed that
there was probably some one near who could hear sounds from without,
and there was always a bare possibility, in such times, that this
person might be a secret friend to the prisoner, though supposed to
be one of his gaolers.
All these thoughts flashed across her mind in a few seconds, while she
was covering her basket. She therefore took rather more time over this
than was necessary, and as the mutes did not show signs of driving her
away, she at once began to sing, quite sure that they could not hear
her. It was a forlorn hope, indeed, but anything was worth trying. Her
voice sounded loud and clear under the archway:--
Over the water to my love, for the hour is come!
The water, the blue water, the water salt and the water fresh!
Open, my very dear love, open thy door to me,
For I have come swiftly over the water----
At this point, to Zoë's inexpressible amazement and delight, the door
really opened, and she almost choked for sheer joy.
The captain's wife appeared in the dim evening light, standing well
within, and Zoë recognised her at once from the description Gorlias
had given of her. The sentinels, being perfectly deaf, did not at
first know that the door had been opened, as they stood looking
straight before them. The stout woman spoke in a low voice.
'By four toes and by five toes,' she said, by way of answer to the
words Zoë had sung.
The girl lost no time, for there was none to lose, and though there
was little light she saw that there were four or five more armed
Ethiopians in the small chamber, so that it would be impossible to
deliver her letter.
'Tell him from Carlo Zeno to be ready at once,' she said quickly, 'and
not to show surprise at anything that happens.'
The deaf mutes outside now perceived that she was speaking with some
one, and that the entrance behind them was open. She had just handed
her basket to the captain's wife when the two turned together to see
who had opened, but almost at the same instant the heavy iron door
swung quickly on its hinges again and shut with a clang that echoed
out to the courtyard. Zoë sprang back hastily lest the door itself
should strike her as it closed, and the quick movement hurt her a
little, for she made a false step on the foot with which she limped,
turning it slightly as her weight came upon it.
That one step nearly cost her life, for though the sentinels were deaf
and dumb they were not blind. She thought they were going to let her
go away unhindered, and she was already almost out of the archway when
she felt herself seized by the arms from behind.
When she had stumbled, her low shoe had turned a little, and the
folded letter, now useless, had fallen out. As it was white, the
guards had seen it instantly on the dark pavement, and one of them had
picked it up while the other had caught her.
Zoë instinctively struggled with all her might for a few seconds, but
the dumb man twisted one of her arms behind her till it was agony to
move, and she was powerless. Her captor now handed her over to his
companion, who had sheathed his scimitar and had placed the letter
inside his steel cap. She could not look round, but she felt that the
grip on her twisted wrist changed, and she was pushed out into the
courtyard and made to walk in the direction of the palace. She could
not help limping much more than before, and in the grasp of the big
Ethiopian she felt what a small weak thing she would be in the
tormentors' hands if Gorlias did not come in time.
The purple light had almost faded below, and the grey dusk was
creeping up out of the ground, though the high upper story of the
marble palace was still bathed in the evening glow, and still a few
swallows circled round the eaves. Zoë looked up to the vast cornices
and at the fleecy pink clouds that floated in the sky, and as she was
forced along, almost as fast as she could walk, she wondered whether
she should ever again see the bright noonday sun. It would not take
long to kill her if Gorlias did not come in time.
There were many men coming and going now, and there were guards in
scarlet, drawn up at the entrance to the palace as if they were
waiting. Some slaves, hastening away, paused a moment to watch Zoë go
by, smooth-faced creatures who lived among the Emperor's women.
'There goes five hundred ducats' worth!' laughed one, in a voice like
a girl's.
'What has she done?' asked another, of the dumb Ethiopian.
The speaker was a newcomer in the palace, and the others jeered at him
for not knowing that the man was one of the mutes.
And he pushed and dragged Zoë along without noticing them. She looked
straight before her now, at the palace door, and as she went, she was
in a kind of dream, and she wondered what the room to which she was
being taken would be like, the place where she was presently to be
tortured if Gorlias did not come in time; she wondered whether it
would be light or dark, and what the colour of the walls would be.
The African hurt her very much as he forced her along, though she made
no resistance; but she did not think of the pain she felt, nor of the
pain she would surely be made to feel presently. It was as if she were
detached from her own personality, and could speculate about what was
going to happen to her, and about the men who would ask her questions,
and about the queer-looking instruments of torture that would be
brought, and even the colour of the executioner's hair. She fancied
him a red-haired man with ugly, yellow eyes and bad teeth that he
showed. She did not know whether it were fear or courage that so took
her out of herself.
But all the time she was listening for a distant sound that might
come, or that might not; and her hearing grew so sharp that she could
have heard it a mile away, and the distance between her and the palace
door grew shorter very quickly, and the ruthless mute urged her along
faster and faster, though she limped so badly.
Then her heart leapt and stood still a moment, and the Ethiopian's
grasp relaxed a little, and he slackened his pace. Not that he heard
what she heard, for he was stone deaf; but the guards who stood about
the door had begun to range themselves in even ranks on either side,
and a tall officer made signs to the African to stand out of the way.
The air rang with the music of distant silver trumpets, there was a
subdued hum of many voices and the trampling of many horses' hoofs on
the hard earth outside the court.
'The Emperor comes!' cried the officer, again motioning the mute and
his prisoner away.
The man understood well enough, and dragged her aside quickly and
roughly out of the straight way, but not out of sight; and the sounds
grew louder, and the trumpet-notes clearer, as the imperial cavalcade
passed in under the great gate. First there rode a score of guards on
their white horses; six running footmen came next, in short hose and
red tunics that fitted close to their bodies and glared in the
twilight; then two officers of the household on their chargers; and
young Andronicus himself rode in on a bay Arab mare between two
ministers of state, followed by many more guards who pressed close
upon him to protect him from any treacherous attack. He was dressed
all in cloth of gold, and his tall Greek cap was wrought with gold and
jewels; but the day had gone down, and neither the metal nor the
stones gave any light, while the scarlet uniforms of the guards and
footmen surged about him like waves of blood in the gathering dusk.
The Ethiopian held Zoë pinioned by the arms and looked over her head
as the Emperor came near. Andronicus had pale and suspicious eyes that
searched every crowd for danger, and saw peril everywhere. He hung
his head a little, his jaw was heavy, his lip was loose, and his
uneasy glance wandered continually hither and thither. There was still
plenty of light near the palace, and Zoë saw every little thing; and
the cloth of gold he wore was lit up again by the reflexion from the
marble walls.
He saw the girl, too, but though her hands were behind her, he did not
see at once that the African held them, for she stood quite still and
met his gaze. Then he perceived that the face was the most lovely he
had ever seen, and he made a motion in the saddle that was like the
rising of the snake when its prey is near, and his pale eyes gleamed,
and his loose lower lip shook and moved against the upper one.
He drew rein and spoke in a low tone to the minister on his right, a
Greek with a fawning face, who instantly made a sign to the girl to
come nearer; and the Ethiopian mute saw the gesture, and pushed her
forward with one hand, close to the Emperor's stirrup, and with the
other hand he took his steel cap very carefully from his head, drawing
it down close to his head and over his ear so that the letter should
not fall out; then, still grasping Zoë's wrist, he held the helmet up
like a cup, so that Andronicus might see what was in it.
The action needed no explaining, for the young usurper had himself
ordered that his father should be guarded by the dumb Ethiopians after
the alarm of the previous night. The Emperor looked down at the girl's
beautiful white face, but he took the letter from the soldier's steel
cap and spread it out, and read it quickly, and then passed it to the
minister at his elbow, who read it too.
He looked at Zoë again, but in his eyes her beauty was all gone at
once. She was one of those monsters that were always conspiring
against him, against his throne and his life; she was one of those
thousands whom he saw nightly in his dreams of fear, stealing upon him
when he was alone and helpless, to blind him and kill him, and to bear
his crowned father to the throne high on their shoulders. Zoë might
have been as lovely as Aphrodite herself, just wafted from the foam of
the sea by the breath of spring; to Andronicus she would have been but
one of the countless evil beings who for ever plotted his destruction.
But this one was in his power. He sat on his horse and looked down at
her, and his loose lips smiled; yet her face was still and proud, and
in her poor blue cotton slave's dress she faced him like a young
goddess.
'Who sent you with this?' he asked in the deep silence, and every man
there listened for her answer.
'Since you have read it, you know,' she answered, and there was no
tremor in her voice.
'Take care! Where is this Venetian, this Zeno?'
'I do not know.'
'Take care, again! I ask, where is he?'
Zoë was silent for a moment, and though she did not take her eyes from
the young Emperor's face she listened intently for a distant sound
that did not come.
'I do not know where he is,' she said at last, 'but I think you will
see him before long, for he is coming here.'
'Here?' Andronicus was taken by surprise. 'Here?' he repeated in
wonder.
'Yes, here,' Zoë answered, 'and soon. He has business here to-night.'
'The girl is mad,' said the Emperor, looking towards the ministers.
'Quite mad, your august Majesty,' said one.
'Evidently out of her mind, Sire,' echoed the other. 'It will be well
to put out her eyes and let her go.'
The one who had spoken first, the fawning Greek, made a sign to an
officer near him, and the latter gave an order to one of the running
footmen who stood waiting. The latter instantly ran in through the
great open doorway of the palace. Where Andronicus was, the torturer
was never hard to find.
'And pray,' asked the Emperor, with an ugly smile, 'what possible
business can a Venetian merchant have here at this hour? Will you
please to tell us?'
'A business that will be soon despatched, if God will,' answered Zoë.
She could not look away from the man who had murdered Michael
Rhangabé, and though she knew what she was risking if she did not gain
time, the longing for just vengeance was too strong for her, so that
she could not control her speech, and in her clear young voice
Andronicus heard an accent that struck terror to his heart.
'She is not mad!' he exclaimed in sudden anxiety. 'She knows
something! Make her speak!'
While the words were on his lips the running footman returned, and
after him another man came quickly, carrying a worn leathern bag. He
was very tall and thin, and he stooped, he had the face of a corpse
and there was no light in his eyes. Zoë did not see him, but he came
and stood behind her, close to the Ethiopian, and he fumbled in his
bag; and all around the uniforms of the guard were as red as blood in
the twilight.
'I am not afraid to speak, since I am caught,' Zoë said, answering the
Emperor's words, 'and what I say is true. For what you owe me, you owe
to many and many more, and the name of that debt is blood!'
'She is raving!' cried Andronicus in an unsteady voice.
'No, I am not mad,' Zoë answered, speaking loud and clear. 'Your
reckoning has been due these two years, and a man is coming within the
hour to claim it, and you shall pay all, both to others and to me,
whether you will or not!'
'Who is this creature?' asked the Emperor, but his cheeks were whiter
now.
Not a sound broke the silence, and the man with the leathern bag crept
a little nearer to the defenceless girl, and the Ethiopian's grip
tightened on her wrists. From somewhere beyond the walls of the
courtyard the neighing of a horse broke the stillness.
'Who is this girl that dares me within my own gates?' Andronicus asked
again, turning to his ministers and officers.
The Greek with the fawning face bent in his saddle towards the young
Emperor as if he were prostrating himself, and he spoke in a very low
voice.
'Your Majesty would do well to have her tongue torn out before she
says more.'
'Who is she, I say?' cried the sovereign, suddenly furious, as cowards
can be.
No one spoke. The corpse-faced man crept nearer to Zoë, his dull eyes
fixed on her features. Beyond the wall and far off the unseen horse
neighed again. It was growing darker, but all around the scarlet
tunics of the guards were as red as blood.
Then the answer came. The twisted lips of the tormentor moved slowly,
and words came from them in a thin, harsh voice, like the creaking of
the rack.
'She is Michael Rhangabé's daughter.'
'The Protosparthos?' The Emperor's voice shook again.
The corpse-faced man nodded twice in assent, and his thin lips writhed
hideously when Zoë's eyes fell on him.
'I saw her at the prison when I took him out to die,' he said.
His bony hand, all knotty and stained from his horrid work, took the
girl's delicate chin, forcing her to turn her full face to him; and
she quivered from head to foot at his touch. He knew well the
convulsive shiver that ran through the victim he touched for the first
time; he could feel it in his fingers as the musician feels the
strings; he was familiar with it, as the fisherman's hand is with the
tremor and tension of his rod when a fish strikes; and he smiled in a
ghastly way.
'Yes,' he said, 'it is she.' And he laughed.
He held her by the chin and wagged her beautiful head to right and
left.
Since the Emperor had spoken no sound had been heard but the
torturer's discordant voice; but now the outraged girl's shriek of
fury split the air.
'Wretch!'
Her small hands suddenly slipped through the Ethiopian's capacious
hold. Before he could catch her she had wrenched herself free from
both men and had struck a furious blow full in the torturer's livid
face; and though she was but a slender girl her anger gave her a man's
strength, and her swiftness lent her a sudden advantage. The man
reeled back three paces before he could steady himself again.
'Hold her!' cried Andronicus, for he feared she might have a knife
hidden on her, and both her hands were free.
But only for that instant. Though the African was huge, he was quick,
and he was behind her. Almost before the Emperor had called out, Zoë
was a prisoner again, and the man she had struck was close to her with
his battered leathern bag. He looked up to Andronicus for a command
before he began his work.
'Make her tell what she knows,' the Emperor said, reassured since she
was again fast in the African's great hands.
He leaned forward a little, the better to hear the words which pain
was to draw from Zoë's lips, and the Greek minister settled himself
comfortably in the saddle to enjoy the rare amusement of seeing a
beautiful and noble girl deliberately tortured before half a hundred
men. Some of the guards also pressed upon each other to see; but
there were some among them who had served under Rhangabé, and these
looked into one another's faces and spoke words almost under their
breath, that all together swelled to a low murmur, such as the tide
makes on a still night, just when it turns back from the ebb.
The sunset had faded, but there was light enough to see the dark
bruise across the corpse-like face where Zoë had struck it with all
her might.
The man opened his old leathern bag, and his stained hands fumbled in
it, amongst irons that were brown but not rusty, and thongs plaited
with wire, and strangely shaped tools in which there were well-greased
screws that turned easily.
But all these his knotty fingers rejected. He knew each by the touch.
They were good enough for ordinary slaves, or perhaps for a
double-dealing steward, or even a lying courtier. For a highborn
maiden victim he had an instrument far more refined and exquisitely
keen than any of these things, and he treasured it as a very rare
possession which never left him day or night; for it had been sent to
him from very far away in the south as a present of great value; and
it was alive, and needed the warmth of his body constantly lest it
should die. But there was something in the bag that belonged to it and
must be found before it could be taken from its little cage of silver
filigree in the bosom of the corpse-faced man.
He found it. His stained hand drew from the bag a dry walnut. With
the point of the knife he wore at his belt he split it carefully, and
turned the nut out of one of the half shells, tossing the other into
the bag.
The Greek minister watched him with the deepest interest, but
Andronicus drummed impatiently with his gloved fingers on the high
gilt pommel of his saddle. Yet it was all very quickly done, and
though there was less light there was still enough; and while he
waited the Emperor again read the letter Zoë had dropped.
But she watched him, calm and fearless, and ready to face death if
need be; she wondered what sort of hold Carlo Zeno would take on his
neck, when all was known. And she saw red all round him and behind him
and beside him up to his knees, the red of the guards' tunics that
were like scarlet stains in the twilight air.
Once more the restless horse neighed, far off, and another answered
him.
Then the man was ready. He took his knife and ripped Zoë's blue cotton
tunic from her throat to her left shoulder and down her side, and she
tried not even to shudder, for she did not know what was coming but
she would die bravely; and when she was dead Zeno would come, and
Gorlias, and they would avenge her. Death was but death, even by
torture, and there were worse things in life which had been spared
her.
Furthermore, if she died, it would be for a good cause, as well as to
help Zeno to be free. Therefore, now that it was all decided, she
looked a last time at the face of Andronicus, loose-lipped and cruel,
and then shut her eyes and prayed God that she might neither flinch
nor utter one word that could hinder the end, if it was at hand, as
she still hoped.
She felt the chilly air on her shoulder and side, and then something
small and hard was pressed against her, just under her arm; and hands
that felt like horns, but were horribly quick and skilful, put a
bandage round her and drew it tight, and it kept the thing in its
place.
But under that thing, which was the half walnut shell, something small
was alive and moved slowly round and round. There was no real pain at
first, but she felt that the slow and delicate irritation might drive
her mad.
Then, suddenly, a thrill of wild agony ran through her and convulsed
her body against her will, but many hands held her now and she could
not move. The horrible borer-beetle had begun to work its way into her
flesh, under the walnut shell.
The corpse-faced man had watched her attentively, and when he saw her
start his creaking voice was heard in the stillness.
'She will speak before you can count ten score,' he said.