somewhat oracularly. "The warden of the marches is a noble soldier
and a true knight, be his faith what it may. But I thought he might
have wedded the Lady Fatima, whom he saved, and who saved him from
death."
"He was born and bred a Roman and a Christian," she said, "and he
loved the Lady Agatha before she was my age. I saw him at the court
reception, looking every inch a hero and a prince, along with his two
lieutenants, who seemed worthy of such a place."
"And who are they?" asked the chief, quickly. "Anemas, I know, is
one, but who is the other?"
"Do you not know?" she answered at last, distinctly blushing as her
father watched her. "The other is the young Norwegian prince, just
promoted to be colonel in the imperial guard."
"And is he, too, Roman and Christian?" asked her father, promptly.
"He is high in honor with the emperor, and was baptized as a youth.
He has seen battle in five countries; for all that he is but
four-and-twenty. He is the tallest of all these battle-axe
guardsmen, and as fair-skinned as the fairest lady of the court. But
he can hardly speak Greek yet, and does not look in the least like a
Roman or a Greek. He has blue eyes and long hair, of the color of
silk from the cocoon. And his battle-axe is so enormously heavy that
when he let me take it in my hand to feel its weight, it fell to the
ground with a crash," the girl rattled on.
"Have you spoken with him, my daughter?" the old man peremptorily
asked.
"Once," she said, "in the open court, as we came from the Magnaura; I
was with the Lady Agatha, when the warden and his officers came up,
and Anemas presented to me his young comrade in arms. He bowed, and
smiled, and said nice things in his broken Greek, but he looked so
tremendous in his golden coat of mail, and his casque and plume, that
I could hardly answer him, father," she murmured; and, as the sire
still looked at her, she blushed again.
"And did you see the famous empress?" asked the father, wishing to
make the girl talk of other things.
"Oh yes! the crash of the battle-axe, when I let it drop on the
marble pavement, amused the royal circle. The little boy princes
laughed aloud, and Basil cried out that girls should not handle
weapons, and the empress stepped forward and flashed upon me with her
great eyes, and asked who I was. She is the most beautiful woman in
the world. Those beside her look like slaves. But when she stared
at me with her imperious look, I felt that I should faint, if Anemas
had not taken my arm and led me away. Father, there is nothing in
all Rome so lovely, so bewitching, so terrible!"
"And she is absolute mistress of our conqueror. Allah! the just, the
merciful, thy stricken people will be avenged at last!"
Here the conversation of father and daughter was interrupted by the
entrance of Anemas himself. The old emir's son was now about
five-and-twenty, of the finest Arab type, spare, sinewy, and finely
proportioned. His limbs, hands, and feet were delicate and supple.
His features were sharply cut, handsome, and intelligent; the tint, a
pure brown, with keen, black eyes, and a short, curled beard of jetty
hue. He resembled the lord warden, but was slighter and darker, for
he was of pure Fatimite descent, and had no European blood in his
veins. He wore his uniform as an officer of the body-guard, and bore
himself as what he was, a brilliant soldier of that splendid and
renowned corps.
He greeted his father with profound respect and affection, for, Roman
and Christian as he had become, he held fast to the ceremonial
traditions of his ancient race. He kissed his sister, and, by a
look, encouraged her to leave them for a conference alone.
"Father," said the gallant youth, standing before his sire's divan in
an attitude of deep respect and affection, "I am come to ask your
blessing and to claim your advice. I was preparing to be ordered
with my own corps on service in the new Bulgarian war, and I burned
to show these proud Byzantines that a son of Abd-el-Aziz can hold his
own with the bravest swords of Rome. For three years I have worn the
imperial uniform, but have never yet seen action in their ranks.
They shall see the son of the great emir challenge to single combat
the foremost champion in the enemies' host. And the name of Anemas
shall live in the annals of Byzantine glory."
"Go, my son," the old man broke in, "go and prove yourself a true
soldier of the race of Ali. Even in the uniform of our conquerors
you will do honor to our blood."
"But, alas! my father, there is an obstacle to my joining my corps.
The emperor has need of some diplomatic relations with the Fatimite
caliph of Kairouan. You know that, after the disasters of the
imperial armies and fleet in Sicily, and the death of the emperor's
cousin at Rametta, the general-in-chief, Nicetas, was taken prisoner,
and has been detained by Al Muizz, the caliph, in El Mehdia, on the
African coast. Nicephorus ardently desires peace with both caliphs
of Kairouan and of Cordova, as all three kingdoms are closely pressed
by the growing power of Otto, the Teuton emperor of the west. And he
is anxious to obtain the ransom of his beloved officer and friend,
Nicetas. The embassy to Muizz is to be headed by the patrician
Nicholas. But they designate me, as a descendant of the Prophet, to
be his secretary and second, and persona grata, to a Fatimite
sovereign. As an officer of the guard, I cannot refuse such a
command. But if I go to Africa, I shall lose all chance of joining
the Bulgarian campaign. I come to beg you, father, to petition the
emperor that he may employ my sword in war, and not my tongue in
diplomatic wrangles."
"You are young, my son," said the old chief, in a meditative tone, as
if weighing the future in his mind; "you will have ample
opportunities of meeting in battle these barbarians of the
north--your day of glory may come--ah! only too soon it may be, for
your father's peace--but the opportunity of seeing our own people
again on the African coast is not to be lost. It will be noble
revenge for me that our conqueror has need of my son to restore his
honor, and to rescue his commander from a Saracen prison. You will
never have such a mission again. You have twenty years yet to fight
the Bulgars. No; go to Kairouan, and take to the caliph there a
message from a Roman prison, that the defeated emir of Crete does not
despair of Islam."
The son submitted, and took a dutiful and loving farewell of his
sire; and, seeing his sister in the terrace below, he hurried forth
to give her his news. The young Sophia, who now had but dim memories
of her life as a Saracen child of the harem, was far more truly
converted to Rome and to the Cross than her brother, and had absorbed
the religion of the Virgin Mother with all the ecstatic fervor of a
Christian girl. Her keen intelligence, and her experience of the
Sacred Palace, showed her the importance such a mission would prove
to her brother, her father, and all the survivors of Crete. She
warmly pressed her brother to make the most of his good fortune, and
by no means to attempt any escape from the task.
Long and tenderly the brother and sister poured out their hearts to
each other, till at last Sophia found courage to say, "Brother, I,
too, have a mission for you in the far west. There is another
caliphate in Andalusia--how many more caliphs there may be in Asia
and in Africa I know not--but Hakim, the new caliph of Cordova, whose
ambassadors are now in the city, is on terms of amity with Rome. At
his court still lives, in strict seclusion, as a Saracen girl must
do, Fatima, the daughter of Ben Senoussi, my own dearest cousin, from
whom I have had, as I have told you, sad but loving greetings. Go
from Africa to Spain with the embassy about to start, under
Theodosius the deacon and Michael the secretary; obtain a place in
their mission, but contrive a meeting with Fatima. I will trust you
with presents from me. Urge her from me to come to visit us here in
my father's mansion. I long to see her. I yearn to try if she can
be led to see how much a woman gains when she accepts the Cross and
learns to pray at the altar of the Mother of God."
"It is impossible. She would not see me--she would not listen to a
word from me, if she did see me. It is impossible. Sister, say no
more," said the young guardsman, with an air of dejection.
"Anemas, you have not ceased to love her? You loved her, you have
told me, when you were both of the same age, and I remember how fit
to be loved she was."
"Yes; she was kind, good, merciful, but she never really loved me,
much as we had been together. But from the hour she saw the Roman
prisoner, her cousin, the Lord Basil Digenes, she could think of no
one but him, and for his sake she has lived in solitude ever since."
"He will have been married to Princess Agatha long before you can
reach Spain. Seek her again, Anemas, urge your own love, and when
she hears of this marriage she will listen. Bring her to me.
Anemas, she shall be your bride, or else the bride of Christ!"
Anemas was despatched on his mission to the caliph of Kairouan, Al
Muizz, then at the height of his glory. The Roman embassy, after
touching at Messina and Syracuse, crossed to the port of El Mehdia,
then in its era of prosperity and power. The Roman envoys were
amazed to find on the African coast another Saracen kingdom, almost
as splendid and as flourishing as the caliphate of Andalusia itself.
The docks of the African seaport were crowded with ships from Syria,
Alexandria, Sicily, and Spain, with galleys from Venice, Pisa, and
Amalphi. The palaces of Muizz and of his chief emirs were almost as
rich and luxurious as those of Abd-er-Rahman himself at Cordova. The
culture of the Fatimite court of Kairouan was not equal to that of
the Ommeyads of Spain, and the civilization of the African people was
not so advanced as that of the long-settled Cordovan dynasty of the
west. But the military energy and movement of troopers was even more
conspicuous. For at this very season the caliph was preparing the
vast expedition which a few years afterwards was destined to march
into Egypt, and, under the famous commander Jouhar, to transfer the
dynasty to the banks of the Nile, and to found at Kahira the modern
city of Cairo. It was the preparation for this great revolution in
the world of Islam which the young Anemas was able to witness.
The mission was successful; peace was made between Muizz and
Nicephorus, for both had other enemies to meet and other conquests to
win. And Anemas, in returning, adopted his sister's advice, and had
no difficulty in finding an honorable welcome in the Andalusian
capital of Hakim II. As the son of Abd-el-Aziz, the old kouropas,
and as the brother of Sophia, he had at last obtained an interview
with Fatima, who lived with her sister and aunts in a retired villa
that had been assigned to them in the mountains of the Sierra Morena,
north of Cordova.
Fatima received Anemas in the terrace of their garden looking out
towards the east upon the mountains of Granada. She was accompanied
by her young sister, as if she had resolved not to listen to a word
of love. Fatima was now in the full maturity of her beauty, to which
a life of meditation and solitude had given a peculiar aspect of
spiritual refinement. She had always refused that close veiling and
seclusion of women which had begun to spread over the Moslem world.
She asked rapid questions as to her dear Sophia, whom she remembered
almost as a child; as to the aged emir, who had so stoutly defended
Crete, the nature of his imprisonment, and the treatment that the
Cretan captives had received at Byzantium: Was dear little Sophia
really a Christian, and about to be a nun? Was she happy? Had she
quite forgotten her father's faith and people? Was the kouropas held
in honor, and was he at peace, and was he satisfied with his lot?
These and such questions she eagerly poured out to her young
compatriot from the Byzantine court.
Anemas answered her questions truthfully, and at length. And, in
turn, he put to her some similar questions of his own:
Was she satisfied with her life in a Spanish retreat? Would she live
and die in a mountain hermitage? Was this the destiny of Islam?
Were not the followers of the Prophet as much divided among
themselves as the followers of Christ? Could true believers in the
Koran still feel that Allah was purposed to lead them ever on to
victory? Could she wonder if a soldier felt that true religion
taught him to serve his commander and be faithful to the standard
under which he was sworn, and to the land in which God had destined
him to live? Did she not think that an officer was doing his duty if
he gave his life to his service, and left the mysteries of Heaven to
the imaums of Islam, or to the patriarchs of Christ?
"There is but one God," she said, with profound earnestness; "I know
but one God, and I care not if he be named the Trinity or Allah. I
have lived so long in this Andalusian caliphate, I have seen enough
of the Romans of the empire." She sighed as she uttered that name.
"I have seen and heard enough to know that Christendom and Islam have
each much that is godlike and good, and much that is of Sheitan and
evil. This splendid capital of Cordova is in many things, in most
things, the counterpart of Byzantium, as rich, as luxurious, as
corrupt, as elegant, as turbulent. These Ommeyads here execrate the
Fatimites--Abbasides from the first contend with Kharijis. There are
as many sects among Mussulmans as there are among Christians, as many
dynasties, as many wars. Bagdad, Damascus, Haleb, Antioch, Edessa,
Fostat, Kairouan, Andalusia, war on each other as often as Byzantine,
Bulgarian, Lombard, Calabrian, Frank, or Saxon. Whether it be Allah
and his Prophet or Christ and His Mother who inspire these rivalries
and combats, I know not. All that I know is that it is not the one
God."
"Does not Christendom, with its culture and its freedom, its poetry,
its art, its ritual, offer, at least to women, a richer, nobler life?
So my sister Sophia asserts, and longs to show you. Oh! that you
could be persuaded to visit her in my father's house at Prote, and
see our Byzantine world, our Christian Church!"
"The Byzantine world," she said, sadly, "differs not so very much
from our Cordovan world. It may have more art, more ceremony, more
priests and nuns I dare believe, but it has less poetry, less
science, less philosophy, less learning. Its women have a freer
life--it may be a happier and a wiser. Its men are less chivalrous,
and faithful, and resolute. There may be more saints in Christendom.
There are more heroes in Islam."
"Has not Christendom its heroes, too?" he asked, suddenly, looking at
her with passionate devotion.
"God forbid that I should doubt it," she said, with a deep sigh.
Silence ensued, and each could feel the tremor in the soul of the
other. Rapturous memories and cruel sorrows crowded through the mind
of the woman. Eager hopes rose in the mind of the man. They gazed
upon each other in silence. At length, as she looked at the young
chief, Fatima saw again in the young Anemas the strange blending of
the Saracen and the Roman, that figure which, for long years, had
been the warrior-saint of her inmost dreams and devotions. Anemas,
too, was now spiritually a Digenes himself, with the heroic temper of
Saracen and of Crusader compounded in one.
"Can I never hope to utter those words which have been on my lips in
my long journey to this land?" he said, and, seizing her hand, he
held her close to him--gazing into her eyes with passion and
devotion. "Can I hope?"
She suffered her hand to remain for an instant in his grasp. "It is
too late in my life for me to change my creed--my home--my people.
It is too late in life for me to think of happiness. I will live and
die here a lonely woman, who has known too much sorrow to dream of
being happy, or of making any one happy." She paused, and, looking
at the young soldier again with tender compassion, she added, "I must
think over my message which I mean to send your sister and your
father. Yes; I will see you again before we part."
XXII
The Stars in Their Courses
It was midnight of a dark and still evening on the Bosphorus, and
peace had, for the most part, descended upon the great city; the
lamps in the houses were extinguished, and the tramp of the sentries
and the challenges of the watch alone were heard. The harbor lights
in the Golden Horn, at the point of Keras, burned steadily, and
across the straits shone the imperial light-house of Chrysopolis.
Within the walls of the Sacred Palace the central pharos stood forth
in its lofty tower and cast its glare far out into the Propontis.
Out of the gloom there passed, within the circle of its rays, a light
skiff rowed by stout boatmen, wherein were seated two men, closely
wrapped in long, dark cloaks, which served as a disguise. One was
blindfolded, and was patiently listening to the instructions of his
companion and guide.
Psellus, a cubicular attendant attached to the person of the
Basilissa, was explaining in a low voice the business on which his
charge, Aaron Ben Ammon, had been summoned to exercise his art.
Aaron was a Jew, originally of Alexandria, in Egypt, who had studied
astrology, necromancy, alchemy, and many of the black arts, first
from heretical anchorites of the Thebais, and afterwards in Bagdad
and Damascus, as well as in Armenian and Byzantine cloisters. His
profound learning in the casting of horoscopes, in extracting
prophecies by occult sorceries, in the procuring love philters, and
occasionally, it was whispered, even more insidious drugs, had gained
him a sinister fame, which made him in great demand in the Byzantine
world of fashion, while it made his profession one of personal risk.
The growing taste for these unholy experiences among the great ladies
of the empire had caused the government of late to be strict in
putting the law in motion, while the patriarch was even more keen to
punish the adepts of these arts by the resources within the power of
the Church. Aaron, therefore, had willingly submitted to be carried
disguised and blindfolded to an interview with a person unknown, in a
spot that he would not be able to reveal.
"Most learned doctor," said Psellus, as he slipped into the hand of
Aaron a heavy purse of bezants, "a lady of wealth, whose name, abode,
and position you will forbear to seek if you value your life, and who
will double and treble this largess if you act with absolute
discretion, will herself explain to you in person her purpose, and
she desires to receive from your own hand the horoscopes of those
persons of whose nativities I have already given you the exact day
and hour. Of these you are now to bring the result of your astral
investigations."
"Lead me to her ladyship; her will is my law. Silence, discretion,
disguise are as needful to me as to my client--ay, much more so, were
it not that Ashmodai watches over the lives of those whose eyes he
has opened."
Psellus listened intently to these last words of the astrologer, for
part of his instructions had been that on the return journey, if the
sign had been given, he was to have the Jew drowned in the Bosphorus,
to secure his absolute discretion. They now passed into the imperial
harbor of Boucoleon, and, mooring the boat to the quay, after giving
the countersign to the guard, proceeded to ascend the path up from
the sea towards the pharos, which now shone over the chrysotriclinium
of the imperial palace. Guiding the Jew with his left hand, Psellus
drew him past the chapel of Elias and the oratory of St. Clement, to
the corner of the terrace of the new basilica. There a small
robing-room stood in the great garden surrounding the new church, and
communicated by a winding staircase with the upper rooms of the
Sacred Palace. Psellus now removed the bandage from Aaron's eyes,
placed him on a couch, and desired him to wait the approach of his
client. Nor was there anything visible in this garden dressing-room
to distinguish it from an ordinary apartment in any of the mansions
of the city or suburbs.
Presently a majestic and graceful woman glided into the room--she was
wrapped in a great black cloak, and closely veiled. She motioned to
the attendants to withdraw, and to the astrologer to approach.
"Most learned doctor of astral science," she said, in her clear, soft
voice of command, "you have brought me the calculations your learning
has enabled you to make as to the future of the persons whose
nativities were supplied to you?"
"Your Eminence shall be satisfied. The horoscopes of both are the
most wonderful that our science has ever revealed to me. They
indicate most amazing changes of life, incredible splendor of ascent,
and signs of imminent peril."
"Call me simply lady--I am no more," said Theophano, "and give me the
details of each horoscope."
The astrologer was a swarthy, spare old Hebrew, with hooked nose and
fine features, distinguished by eyes of intense keenness, though they
had a sinister aspect, like those of a trapped beast. Theophano
watched him behind her yashmak as closely as he did her, for ever and
anon he stole furtive glances at her, hoping to penetrate her secret.
"The first whose nativity I have calculated is that of one born
fifty-six years, one hundred and thirteen days, and seven hours, from
this moment. It was a birth under the sign of the Lion, at an hour
charged with vast possibilities in the future. At that instant the
zodiac was moved by portentous lights, and the earth shook with
tremors, as I have ascertained in the records of our art that are
stored in the great observatory at Antakia in Syria. There lived and
studied the mighty seer, Mohammed Ben Djafar, of Batan, my ever
revered lord and master."
"But what has been the horoscope of this child of miracle and
wonder?" she said, hurriedly, caring little for the pompous claims of
the Jew.
"'The right ascension into the mansion of life and glory' tells of a
career of battle, victory, and fame, which, at the hour wherein we
are, forms one unbroken career of success and triumph."
"Most learned doctor," said the empress, peremptorily, "what are the
signs of the future? What is passed and gone we all know without the
science of Mohammed of Batan, whom here we call Albatenius, and
without the aid of your most profound self, Doctor Ben Ammon. What
of the future of this person, I ask?"
"Madam, I hesitate to impart to you what I have found," said the Jew,
with a cunning look as he sought her eyes; "it is terrible. The
declination to the 'house of death' stands close to the right
ascension to the 'house of life.'"
Theophano gave a sudden start in spite of her self-control. Her
piercing eyes, which she unveiled to watch the Jew, gleamed with a
light of joy. She stretched out her hand from her wrappings to take
the scroll, whereon the astrologer had marked the rise and fall of
the star record. As she put out her arm, the keen astrologer noticed
the flash of a superb armlet of rubies, such as he well knew could
only be found in the imperial treasury. And now, having his first
suspicions confirmed, he felt sure that he recognized the wonderful
eyes of Anastasia, the daughter of Craterus the Laconian. Years ago,
Ben Ammon had frequent dealings with Craterus, whom he had supplied
with amulets, charms, trinkets, and gems from Egypt, Syria, and
Mesopotamia, and had often noticed the beauty of the girl, and,
indeed, had cast her horoscope with a brilliant future. Aaron now
felt sure that he was confronted by the empress herself.
Astrologers, in ancient as in modern ages, have been far more
physiognomists than astronomers; and, in his further conversation,
Aaron thought only to indulge the humors or the passions of his
sovereign, and repeated the jargon of his "science" only to mislead
and excite her.
"Lady," he said, with profound solemnity, watching her expression
intently, "it is my duty to tell you that a second year cannot pass
from this hour before this person shall find death--death, sudden,
alas! and shameful." She gleamed again, and her frame thrilled.
Aaron continued in the same voice of a prophet. "He (or is it she?)
will die hated, unlamented, and despised. The stars so reveal to us
the book of fate." Silence ensued.
"And now, what of the second nativity you have calculated?" she
asked, at length.