Frankish captain who has brought about my death is Perion de la Forêt.
He has not ever faltered in the duel between us since your paltry
emeralds paid for his first armament.--Why, yes, I lied. I always hoped
the man would do as in his place I would have done. I hoped in vain.
For many long and hard-fought years this handsome maniac has been
assailing Nacumera, tirelessly. Then the water-demon's daughter, that
strange and wayward woman of Brunbelois, attempted to ensnare him. And
that too was in vain. She failed, my spies reported--even Dame
Mélusine, who had not ever failed before in such endeavours."
"But certainly the foul witch failed!" cried Melicent. A glorious
change had come into her face, and she continued, quite untruthfully,
"Nor did I ever believe that this vile woman had made Perion prove
faithless."
"No, the fool's lunacy is rock, like yours. _En cor gentil domnei per
mort no passa_, as they sing in your native country.... Ey, how
indomitably I lied, what pains I took, lest you should ever know of
this! And now it does not seem to matter any more.... The love this man
bears for you," snarled Demetrios, "is sprung of the High God whom we
diversely worship. The love I bear you is human, since I, too, am only
human." And Demetrios chuckled. "Talk, and talk, and talk! There is no
bird in any last year's nest."
She laid her hand upon his unmoved hand, and found it cold and swollen.
She wept to see the broken tyrant, who to her at least had been not all
unkind.
He said, with a great hunger in his eyes:
"So likewise ends the duel which was fought between us two. I would
salute the victor if I could. ... Ey, Melicent, I still consider you
and Perion are fools. We have a not intolerable world to live in, and
common-sense demands we make the most of every tidbit this world
affords. Yet you can find in it only an exercising-ground for
infatuation, and in all its contents--pleasures and pains alike--only
so many obstacles for rapt insanity to override. I do not understand
this mania; I would I might have known it, none the less. Always I
envied you more than I loved you. Always my desire was less to win the
love of Melicent than to love Melicent as Melicent loved Perion. I was
incapable of this. Yet I have loved you. That was the reason, I
believe, I put aside my purchased toy." It seemed to puzzle him.
"Fair friend, it is the most honourable of reasons. You have done
chivalrously. In this, at least, you have done that which would be not
unworthy of Perion de la Forêt." A woman never avid for strained
subtleties, it may be that she never understood, quite, why Demetrios
laughed.
He said:
"I mean to serve you now, as I had always meant to serve you some day.
Ey, yes, I think I always meant to give you back to Perion as a free
gift. Meanwhile to see, and to writhe in seeing your perfection, has
meant so much to me that daily I have delayed such a transfiguration of
myself until to-morrow." The man grimaced. "My son Orestes, who will
presently succeed me, has been summoned. I will order that he conduct
you at once into Perion's camp--yonder by Quesiton. I think I shall not
live three days."
"I would not leave you, friend, until--"
His grin was commentary and completion equally. Demetrios observed:
"A dead dog has no teeth wherewith to serve even virtue. Oh, no, my
women hate you far too greatly. You must go straightway to this Perion,
while Demetrios of Anatolia is alive, or else not ever go."
She had no words. She wept, and less for joy of winning home to Perion
at last than for her grief that Demetrios was dying. Woman-like, she
could remember only that the man had loved her in his fashion. And,
woman-like, she could but wonder at the strength of Perion.
Then Demetrios said:
"I must depart into a doubtful exile. I have been powerful and valiant,
I have laughed loud, I have drunk deep, but heaven no longer wishes
Demetrios to exist. I am unable to support my sadness, so near am I to
my departure from all I have loved. I cry farewell to all diversions
and sports, to well-fought battles, to furred robes of vair and of
silk, to noisy merriment, to music, to vain-gloriously coloured gems,
and to brave deeds in open sunlight; for I desire--and I entreat of
every person--only compassion and pardon.
"Chiefly I grieve because I must leave Melicent behind me, unfriended
in a perilous land, and abandoned, it may be, to the malice of those
who wish her ill. I was a noted warrior, I was mighty of muscle, and I
could have defended her stoutly. But I lie broken in the hand of
Destiny. It is necessary I depart into the place where sinners, whether
crowned or ragged, must seek for unearned mercy. I cry farewell to all
that I have loved, to all that I have injured; and so in chief to you,
dear Melicent, I cry farewell, and of you in chief I crave compassion
and pardon.
"O eyes and hair and lips of Melicent, that I have loved so long, I do
not hunger for you now. Yet, as a dying man, I cry to the clean soul of
Melicent--the only adversary that in all my lifetime I who was once
Demetrios could never conquer. A ravening beast was I, and as a beast I
raged to see you so unlike me. And now, a dying beast, I cry to you,
but not for love, since that is overpast. I cry for pity that I have
not earned, for pardon which I have not merited. Conquered and
impotent, I cry to you, O soul of Melicent, for compassion and pardon.
"Melicent, it may be that when I am dead, when nothing remains of
Demetrios except his tomb, you will comprehend I loved, even while I
hated, what is divine in you. Then since you are a woman, you will lift
your lover's face between your hands, as you have never lifted my face,
Melicent, and you will tell him of my folly merrily; yet since you are
a woman, you will sigh afterward, and you will not deny me compassion
and pardon."
She gave him both--she who was prodigal of charity. Orestes came, with
Ahasuerus at his heels, and Demetrios sent Melicent into the Women's
Garden, so that father and son might talk together. She waited in this
place for a half-hour, just as the proconsul had commanded her, obeying
him for the last time. It was strange to think of that.
* * * * *
It was not gladness which Melicent knew for a brief while. Rather, it
was a strange new comprehension of the world. To Melicent the world
seemed very lovely.
Indeed, the Women's Garden on this morning lacked nothing to delight
each sense. Its hedges were of flowering jessamine; its walkways were
spread with new sawdust tinged with crocus and vermilion and with mica
beaten into a powder; and the place was rich in fruit-bearing trees and
welling waters. The sun shone, and birds chaunted merrily to the right
hand and to the left. Dog-headed apes, sacred to the moon, were
chattering in the trees. There was a statue in this place, carved out
of black stone, in the likeness of a woman, having enamelled eyes and
three rows of breasts, with the lower part of her body confined in a
sheath; and upon the glistening pedestal of this statue chameleons
sunned themselves with distended throats. Round about Melicent were
nodding armaments of roses and gillyflowers and narcissi and amaranths,
and many violets and white lilies, and other flowers of all kinds and
colours.
To Melicent the world seemed very lovely. Here was a world created by
Eternal Love that people might serve love in it not all unworthily.
Here were anguishes to be endured, and time and human frailty and
temporal hardship--all for love to mock at; a sea or two for love to
sever, a man-made law or so for love to override, a shallow wisdom for
love to deny, in exultance that these ills at most were only corporal
hindrances. This done, you have earned the right to come--come
hand-in-hand--to heaven whose liege-lord was Eternal Love.
Thus Melicent, who knew that Perion loved her.
She sat on a stone bench. She combed her golden hair, not heeding the
more coarse gray hairs which here and there were apparent nowadays. A
peacock came and watched her with bright, hard, small eyes; and he
craned his glistening neck this way and that way, as though he were
wondering at this other shining and gaily coloured creature, who seemed
so happy.
She did not dare to think of seeing Perion again. Instead, she made
because of him a little song, which had not any words, so that it is
not possible here to retail this song.
Thus Melicent, who knew that Perion loved her.
24.
_How Orestes Ruled_
Melicent returned into the Court of Stars; and as she entered, Orestes
lifted one of the red cushions from Demetrios' face. The eyes of
Ahasuerus, who stood by negligently, were as expressionless as the eyes
of a snake.
"The great proconsul laid an inconvenient mandate upon me," said
Orestes. "The great proconsul has been removed from us in order that
his splendour may enhance the glories of Elysium."
She saw that the young man had smothered his own father in the flesh as
Demetrios lay helpless; and knew thereby that Orestes was indeed the
son of Demetrios.
"Go," this Orestes said thereafter; "go, and remember I am master
here."
Said Melicent, "And by which door?" A little hope there was as yet.
But he, as half in shame, had pointed to the entrance of the Women's
Garden. "I have no enmity against you, outlander. Yet my mother desires
to talk with you. Also there is some bargaining to be completed with
Ahasuerus here."
Then Melicent knew what had prompted the proconsul's murder. It seemed
unfair Callistion should hate her with such bitterness; yet Melicent
remembered certain thoughts concerning Dame Mélusine, and did not
wonder at Callistion's mania half so much as did Callistion's son.
"I must endure discomfort and, it may be, torture for a little longer,"
said Melicent, and laughed whole-heartedly. "Oh, but to-day I find a
cure for every ill," said Melicent; and thereupon she left Orestes as a
princess should.
But first she knelt by that which yesterday had been her master.
"I have no word of praise or blame to give you in farewell. You were
not admirable, Demetrios. But you depart upon a fearful journey, and in
my heart there is just memory of the long years wherein according to
your fashion you were kind to me. A bargain is a bargain. I sold with
open eyes that which you purchased. I may not reproach you."
Then Melicent lifted the dead face between her hands, as mothers caress
their boys in questioning them.
"I would I had done this when you were living," said Melicent, "because
I understand now that you loved me in your fashion. And I pray that you
may know I am the happiest woman in the world, because I think this
knowledge would now gladden you. I go to slavery, Demetrios, where I
was queen, I go to hardship, and it may be that I go to death. But I
have learned this assuredly--that love endures, that the strong knot
which unites my heart and Perion's heart can never be untied. Oh,
living is a higher thing than you or I had dreamed! And I have in my
heart just pity, poor Demetrios, for you who never found the love of
which I must endeavour to be worthy. A curse was I to you unwillingly,
as you--I now believe--have been to me against your will. So at the
last I turn anew to bargaining, and cry--in your deaf ears--_Pardon for
pardon, O Demetrios!_"
Then Melicent kissed pitiable lips which would not ever sneer again,
and, rising, passed into the Women's Garden, proudly and unafraid.
Ahasuerus shrugged so patiently that she was half afraid. Then, as a
cloud passes, she saw that all further buffetings would of necessity be
trivial.
For Perion, as she now knew, was very near to her--single of purpose,
clean of hands, and filled with such a love as thrilled her with
delicious fears of her own poor unworthiness.
25.
_How Women Talked Together_
Dame Melicent walked proudly through the Women's Garden, and presently
entered a grove of orange trees, the most of which were at this season
about their flowering. In this place was an artificial pool by which
the trees were nourished. On its embankment sprawled the body of young
Diophantus, a child of some ten years of age, Demetrios' son by
Tryphera. Orestes had strangled Diophantus in order that there might be
no rival to Orestes' claims. The lad lay on his back, and his left arm
hung elbow-deep in the water, which swayed it gently.
Callistion sat beside the corpse and stroked its limp right hand. She
had hated the boy throughout his brief and merry life. She thought now
of his likeness to Demetrios.
She raised toward Melicent the dilated eyes of one who has just come
from a dark place. Callistion said:
"And so Demetrios is dead. I thought I would be glad when I said that.
Hah, it is strange I am not glad."
She rose, as though with hard effort, as a decrepit person might have
done. You saw that she was dressed in a long gown of black, pleated to
the knees, having no clasp or girdle, and bare of any ornamentation
except a gold star on each breast.
Callistion said:
"Now, through my son, I reign in Nacumera. There is no person who dares
disobey me. Therefore, come close to me that I may see the beauty which
besotted this Demetrios, whom, I think now, I must have loved."
"Oh, gaze your fill," said Melicent, "and know that had you possessed a
tithe of my beauty you might have held the heart of Demetrios." For it
was in Melicent's mind to provoke the woman into killing her before
worse befell.
But Callistion only studied the proud face for a long while, and knew
there was no lovelier person between two seas. For time here had
pillaged very sparingly; and if Dame Melicent had not any longer the
first beauty of her girlhood, Callistion had nowhere seen a woman more
handsome than this hated Frankish thief.
Callistion said:
"No, I was not ever so beautiful as you. Yet this Demetrios loved me
when I, too, was lovely. You never saw the man in battle. I saw him,
single-handed, fight with Abradas and three other knaves who stole me
from my mother's home--oh, very long ago! He killed all four of them.
He was like a horrible unconquerable god when he turned from that
finished fight to me. He kissed me then--blood-smeared, just as he
was.... I like to think of how he laughed and of how strong he was."
The woman turned and crouched by the dead boy, and seemed painstakingly
to appraise her own reflection on the water's surface.
"It is gone now, the comeliness Demetrios was pleased to like. I would
have waded Acheron--singing--rather than let his little finger ache. He
knew as much. Only it seemed a trifle, because your eyes were bright
and your fair skin was unwrinkled. In consequence the man is dead. Oh,
Melicent, I wonder why I am so sad!"
Callistion's meditative eyes were dry, but those of Melicent were not.
And Melicent came to the Dacian woman, and put one arm about her in that
dim, sweet-scented place, saying, "I never meant to wrong you."
Callistion did not seem to heed. Then Callistion said:
"See now! Do you not see the difference between us!" These two were
kneeling side by side, and each looked into the water.
Callistion said:
"I do not wonder that Demetrios loved you. He loved at odd times many
women. He loved the mother of this carrion here. But afterward he would
come back to me, and lie asprawl at my feet with his big crafty head
between my knees; and I would stroke his hair, and we would talk of the
old days when we were young. He never spoke of you. I cannot pardon
that."
"I know," said Melicent. Their cheeks touched now.
"There is only one master who could teach you that drear knowledge--"
"There is but one, Callistion."
"The man would be tall, I think. He would, I know, have thick, brown,
curling hair--"
"He has black hair, Callistion. It glistens like a raven's wing."
"His face would be all pink and white, like yours--"
"No, tanned like yours, Callistion. Oh, he is like an eagle, very
resolute. His glance bedwarfs you. I used to be afraid to look at him,
even when I saw how foolishly he loved me--"
"I know," Callistion said. "All women know. Ah, we know many things--"
She reached with her free arm across the body of Diophantus and
presently dropped a stone into the pool. She said:
"See how the water ripples. There is now not any reflection of my poor
face or of your beauty. All is as wavering as a man's heart.... And now
your beauty is regathering like coloured mists. Yet I have other
stones."
"Oh, and the will to use them!" said Dame Melicent.
"For this bright thieving beauty is not any longer yours. It is mine
now, to do with as I may elect--as yesterday it was the plaything of
Demetrios.... Why, no! I think I shall not kill you. I have at hand
three very cunning Cheylas--the men who carve and reshape children into
such droll monsters. They cannot change your eyes, they tell me. That
is a pity, but I can have one plucked out. Then I shall watch my
Cheylas as they widen your mouth from ear to ear, take out the
cartilage from your nose, wither your hair till it will always be like
rotted hay, and turn your skin--which is like velvet now--the colour of
baked mud. They will as deftly strip you of that beauty which has
robbed me as I pluck up this blade of grass.... Oh, they will make you
the most hideous of living things, they assure me. Otherwise, as they
agree, I shall kill them. This done, you may go freely to your lover. I
fear, though, lest you may not love him as I loved Demetrios."
And Melicent said nothing.
"For all we women know, my sister, our appointed curse. To love the
man, and to know the man loves just the lips and eyes Youth lends to
us--oho, for such a little while! Yes, it is cruel. And therefore we
are cruel--always in thought and, when occasion offers, in the deed."
And Melicent said nothing. For of that mutual love she shared with
Perion, so high and splendid that it made of grief a music, and wrung a
new sustainment out of every cross, as men get cordials of bitter
herbs, she knew there was no comprehension here.
26.
_How Men Ordered Matters_
Orestes came into the garden with Ahasuerus and nine other attendants.
The master of Nacumera did not speak a syllable while his retainers
seized Callistion, gagged her, and tied her hands with cords. They
silently removed her. One among them bore on his shoulders the slim
corpse of Diophantus, which was interred the same afternoon (with every
appropriate ceremony) in company with that of his father. Orestes had
the nicest sense of etiquette.
This series of swift deeds was performed with such a glib precipitancy
that if was as though the action had been rehearsed a score of times.
The garden was all drowsy peace now that Orestes spread his palms in a
gesture of deprecation. A little distance from him, Ahasuerus with his
forefinger drew upon the water's surface designs which appeared to
amuse the Jew.
"She would have killed you, Melicent," Orestes said, "though all
Olympos had marshalled in interdiction. That would have been
irreligious. Moreover, by Hercules! I have not time to choose sides
between snarling women. He who hunts with cats will catch mice. I aim
more highly. And besides, by an incredible forced march, this Comte de
la Forêt and all his Free Companions are battering at the gates of
Nacumera--"
Hope blazed. "You know that were I harmed he would spare no one. Your
troops are all at Calonak. Oh, God is very good!" said Melicent.
"I do not asperse the deities of any nation. It is unlucky. None the
less, your desires outpace your reason. Grant that I had not more than
fifty men to defend the garrison, yet Nacumera is impregnable except by
starvation. We can sit snug a month. Meanwhile our main force is at
Calonak, undoubtedly. Yet my infatuated father had already recalled
these troops, in order that they might escort you into Messire de la
Forêt's camp. Now I shall use these knaves quite otherwise. They will
arrive within two days, and to the rear of Messire de la Forêt, who is
encamped before an impregnable fortress. To the front unscalable walls,
and behind him, at a moderate computation, three swords to his one. All
this in a valley from which Daedalos might possibly escape, but
certainly no other man. I count this Perion of the Forest as already
dead."
It was a lumbering Orestes who proclaimed each step in his enchained
deductions by the descent of a blunt forefinger upon the palm of his
left hand. Demetrios had left a son but not an heir.
Yet the chain held. Melicent tested every link and found each obdurate.
She foresaw it all. Perion would be surrounded and overpowered. "And
these troops come from Calonak because of me!"
"Things fall about with an odd patness, as you say. It should teach you
not to talk about divinities lightly. Also, by this Jew's advice, I
mean to further the gods' indisputable work. You will appear upon the
walls of Nacumera at dawn to-morrow, in such a garb as you wore in your
native country when the Comte de la Forêt first saw you. Ahasuerus
estimates this Perion will not readily leave pursuit of you in that
event, whatever his lieutenants urge, for you are very beautiful."
Melicent cried aloud, "A bitter curse this beauty has been to me, and
to all men who have desired it."
"But I do not desire it," said Orestes. "Else I would not have sold it
to Ahasuerus. I desire only the governorship of some province on the
frontier where I may fight daily with stalwart adversaries, and ride
past the homes of conquered persons who hate me. Ahasuerus here assures
me that the Emperor will not deny me such employment when I bring him
the head of Messire de la Forêt. The raids of Messire de la Forêt have
irreligiously annoyed our Emperor for a long while."
She muttered, "Thou that once wore a woman's body--!"
"--And I take Ahasuerus to be shrewd in all respects save one. For he
desires trivialities. A wise man knows that woman are the sauce and not
the meat of life; Ahasuerus, therefore, is not wise. And in consequence
I do not lack a handsome bribe for this Bathyllos whom our good
Emperor--misguided man!--is weak enough to love; my mother goes in
chains; and I shall get my province."
Here Orestes laughed. And then the master of Nacumera left Dame
Melicent alone with Ahasuerus.
27.
_How Ahasuerus Was Candid_
When Orestes had gone, the Jew remained unmoved. He continued to dabble
his finger-tips in the water as one who meditates. Presently he dried
them on either sleeve so that he seemed to embrace himself.
Said he, "What instruments we use at need!"
She said, "So you have purchased me, Ahasuerus?"
"Yes, for a hundred and two minae. That is a great sum. You are not as
the run of women, though. I think you are worth it."
She did not speak. The sun shone, and birds chaunted merrily to the
right hand and to the left. She was considering the beauty of these
gardens which seemed to sleep under a dome of hard, polished blue--the
beauty of this cloistered Nacumera, wherein so many infamies writhed
and contended like a nest of little serpents.
"Do you remember, Melicent, that night at Fomor Beach when you snatched
a lantern from my hand? Your hand touched my hand, Melicent."
She answered, "I remember."
"I first of all saw that it was a woman who was aiding Perion to
escape. I considered Perion a lucky man, for I had seen the woman's
face."
She remained silent.
"I thought of this woman very often. I thought of her even more
frequently after I had talked with her at Bellegarde, telling of
Perion's captivity.... Melicent," the Jew said, "I make no songs, no
protestations, no phrases. My deeds must speak for me. Concede that I
have laboured tirelessly." He paused, his gaze lifted, and his lips
smiled. His eyes stayed mirthless. "This mad Callistion's hate of you,
and of the Demetrios who had abandoned her, was my first
stepping-stone. By my advice a tiny wire was fastened very tightly
around the fetlock of a certain horse, between the foot and the heel,
and the hair was smoothed over this wire. Demetrios rode that horse in
his last battle. It stumbled, and our terrible proconsul was thus
brought to death. Callistion managed it. Thus I betrayed Demetrios."
Melicent said, "You are too foul for hell to swallow." And Ahasuerus
manifested indifference to this imputed fault.