ARYENIS’S HOME-COMING
When I got into the dining-hall I found every one at breakfast. Aryenis
said good-morning very nicely and politely, but made no reference to
dragons and fairy princes.
Kyrlos asked Forsyth to keep him company during the day. He was going
to see some of the chief men of the district, and would ride on to
Miletis in the afternoon, probably arriving latish. Aryenis and I were
to go with the baggage by the main road.
After expounding all this Kyrlos and Forsyth, with Torka in attendance,
went off, and Aryenis and I went out to find our horses waiting. The
baggage animals had already started, and we passed them near the north
gate, Payindah, very debonair on a pony, riding with Temra at the head.
It was colder that morning. There was a fresh breeze blowing, and
little wisps of cloud that cleared later in the day. But the cold
suited Aryenis, as it does all really fair people, and the wind whipped
the colour to her cheeks, and made her eyes sparkle over the big collar
of her fur-lined riding-coat.
We rode leisurely along the road and took the turning to Uncle
Paulos’s, our escort clattering behind.
“You haven’t told me what we’ve come for,” I said. “You didn’t say
anything about it yesterday when we left. Is it a surprise visit to
your fairy godfather?”
“No. It’s a surprise we--he’s got for you.”
“For me! Why, he only saw me for the first time yesterday.”
“But that doesn’t matter to fairy godfathers, does it, how many times
they’ve seen people?”
She went on:
“I do hope you’ll like what he’s got for you. It’s something just to
tell you that he’s glad you’ve brought me back. You see, he’s very fond
of me really.”
“Then I’m sure I’ll like it.”
We rode in among the trees up to the house and went into the hall,
where a fire was burning, and found Paulos sitting on his couch. It was
too cold as yet for the lawn. The hall was a big place with one or two
bits of really good statuary, showing distinct tracing of Greek craft;
some trophies of arms on the panelled wall, and some skins of beasts on
the dark wooden floor. There were bears still in the upper valleys in
Sakaeland, and a certain number of spotted deer on the lower hills.
“Looking more than ever like the morning, Aryenis,” said he as she
kissed him. “The winter always suits you best. You’ve just the skin and
hair for furs, child. Now take your cloak off and sit down by the fire
while I tell Harilek what you’ve got for him.”
“What _you’ve_ got, uncle mine,” said Aryenis hurriedly.
“I grow old and careless in my speech. I mean what I’ve got.”
He turned to me.
“Harilek, do you wear mail in your country?”
“Not now. Our people used to, but when the noise weapons, as you call
them, came in, folk gave up mail, because it was weight for no purpose,
since the balls I showed you yesterday pierce it. But in this last war
we took to wearing helmets of steel once again, and found some profit
in them, since sometimes the balls glanced off.”
I wasn’t capable of explaining in archaic Greek the difference between
high-velocity rifle-bullets and low-velocity shrapnel, and even if I
had been it would have taken a long time to explain that to a man who’d
never seen either gun or rifle.
“Well, now you go to a war where the enemy have no such weapons, only
arrows, swords, and the like. Therefore mail will be of use to you.”
“I was only thinking that yesterday when Kyrlos made me put on a mail
jerkin,” said I.
“You and I are about the same size, Harilek, or rather, you are the
size I was before I became a cripple, and I have my old mail still
by me. It is well kept, and, moreover, it is specially good, for, as
I told you yesterday, I was once a lover of weapons and studied them
deeply. We Sakae take great pride in our arms, handing them down from
father to son.
“But I have no son, and I have long pondered to whom I should leave my
war-gear when I die, for I have no relatives left save only Aryenis’s
father. I hoped that some day she might bring a son here to whom it
might pass. But I should be over-old by then, and I would like to see
some good soldier wear it before I die.
“Now, but for you, Aryenis would not be here to-day, and I should be
still lonelier. So I would like you very much, if you will humour
an old man, to take my mail and weapons and give me the pleasure of
seeing a brave man wear them once more, more especially one to whom I
owe a great deal, and Aryenis, who is to me as a daughter, owes more.
She also wishes it, so that when you go into battle you may have some
memento of her gratitude. ’Twill be a gift from us both, since all I
have is hers.”
I thought it was nice of the old man to put it as he did, and from what
I knew of and about him it seemed to me a good mantle to assume.
“I thank you very much, Paulos. I shall be more than pleased to wear
your mail and use your weapons. Aryenis told me something about you
yesterday, and nothing would please me better than such a gift from you
both.”
“I hoped you would accept. And making the wish father to the thought,
Aryenis got you garments yesterday in Aornos that they might be ready
for you here to-day. Thus I shall have the pleasure of seeing you in my
harness before you ride on. She will show you the way.”
Aryenis led me to a room off the main hall, where a servant was
waiting.
“You will find the clothes in there, and when you have changed, come
back here and we will show you the mail.”
“So you did choose my clothes, after all, Aryenis, being grown up!
Thank you,” said I as I entered the room.
The servant, a hatchet-faced old archer who had followed Paulos, helped
me put on the new clothes that were laid out, and very comfortable I
found them. The under-garments were of softest linen, and over those
were a wadded vest and fleece-lined leather jerkin, with long loose
trousers gartered from ankle to knee with plaited leather straps.
When I had put them on, with the new sandals, not unlike _chaplis_,
but more elaborate, I went back to the hall, where I found Aryenis and
Paulos looking over a set of mail and weapons which had not been there
when I left.
Aryenis examined me with a critical eye. “They fit nicely, Harilek; do
they not?”
I admitted they did.
“That is the advantage of having a woman to choose them for you, you
see. Had you got them yourself, you would not have looked so well.”
Paulos examined the clothes carefully.
“You have a good eye, child. They fit well. But that sleeve is not
right; the under-sleeve is tucked up, I think.”
Aryenis looked at it. “Yes. I will put it right. Hold out your hand,
Harilek.”
I held out my arm, and undoing the wrist she pushed back the leather to
pull the fleece under-sleeve into place. Then she stood staring at my
arm.
“Harilek! You were making up things last night. You’ve got all the
wiggly purple marks.”
I looked at my arm. Sure enough, I’d forgotten those scars right across
my forearm from two bullet wounds that had gone septic.
“True, Shahzadi; but remember you said that the fairy prince--the one
you mentioned at the end--who killed all the dragons had no marks, ‘not
even a little one on his face.’ I’ve got several of them, including a
long red one on my cheek under this bandage. So we shall have to make
another story to fit in with these marks.”
She did up my sleeve without a word.
Paulos looked at us inquiringly. “What’s the story of the wiggly marks?”
“We were telling fairy stories by the fire last night about dragons
and things. And I said that dragons’ claws made wiggly purple marks,
and I forgot that I had some on my arm, only not from dragons--wounds
from war--and Aryenis saw them just now. So I suppose she thought I had
really been fighting dragons, and was surprised.”
I thought that was neatly out of it, and hoped Aryenis did, too.
Paulos held up a mail shirt, a lovely thing, long sleeves ending in
mittens with slit wrists, so that you could have your hands bare if you
wanted to, woven in alternate rows of black and silvered steel that
shimmered in the light.
“We have an old custom in this country, Harilek, that, when a man first
puts on his mail and girds on his weapons for war, it is done for him
by a woman of his house. But you are a stranger in a far land, and have
no womenkind here. Therefore Aryenis will do proxy for them if you are
willing. If you wear my mail I should like to see you don it in our old
formal fashion.”
I could but agree, so Aryenis passed the mail shirt over my head, and
helped me adjust it in place. It came about halfway to my knees, and
was very light. I had expected something heavier.
Then Paulos gave her a belt of linked silver plates chased and
enamelled with little patterns, the centre one a cross, which she
girded round my waist.
Then he handed her the short sword-sheath to fasten on, and last the
sword, which she gave me hilt first. It was a most beautiful bit
of armourer’s work, with the queer filigree inlays in the steel: a
two-foot double-edged blade ribbed down both sides with treble grooves
to within two inches of the point, and a hilt of chiselled silver with
little turquoise studs let in irregularly.
I sheathed it, and then she handed me my pistol-holster, which I
strapped on to the under-leather of the belt.
It was a very grave-eyed Aryenis that helped me on with all this
paraphernalia of war, quite a different person from the dancing-eyed
girl who had chaffed me the day before about not being grown up,
different again from the dreamy one who had sat looking into the fire
talking of dragons and fairy princesses. But then that is the charm of
Aryenis, that she is ever different and yet always the same.
“They fit you well and they suit you, Harilek,” said Paulos. “It does
me good to see them out again. I feel the younger for it. We old folk
live our lives again in you young people. Now for the helmet and then
you are complete, for I will not give you the long bow, which, I
understand, you cannot use, nor indeed do you need it, having your own
weapons.”
Aryenis took up the steel cap, with its pointed centre and the low
sweeping brim that covered all the back of the head round to the
temples on either side. It was of bright polished steel, with a thin
filigree pattern of silver beaten in all round above the rim. In front
was an embossed silver plate fixed to the steel with two little sockets
in it and a ring. Reaching up with both hands, she put it on my head,
pulled up the chin-strap, and stepped back to see the effect.
“They fit as though made for him, uncle; don’t they?”
“They do. I thought that we were of a size. Now, Harilek, you will be
able to go out to this war of our people armed after their own fashion.
You take with you, along with an old man’s armour, an old man’s prayers
for your safety and his wishes for your good fortune. And also I
know”--he turned to Aryenis--“the prayers and wishes of the lady who
armed you.”
“And the most heartfelt gratitude as well, Harilek. God keep you safe
even as you saved me.”
I thanked them as best I could, rather stammeringly, I think.
“Now we will drink to the good fortune of my old arms on Harilek,”
said Paulos, clapping his hands. Whereupon the old hatchet-faced man
brought us in wine of Paulos’s best, and they drank to me. The old
archer also drank and said a few words, which Aryenis translated as
meaning to say that I looked a proper kind of soldier, and that he
hoped I would carry the arms as worthily as his master had done. I
think there was an old family-retainer spice of doubt in his mind on
the point.
“And now we must ride,” said Aryenis, putting on her cloak. “I want to
get to Miletis early to-day and see every one. It’s too wonderful to be
getting home after thinking I had seen the last of it all. Good-bye,
uncle mine, and thank you for everything.”
“Good-bye, child,” he said, kissing her. “Come and see me when the men
ride away, and when this young man comes back, bring him, too, that I
may hear how he has carried my arms. Good-bye, Harilek, and all good
fortune mark your days. Remember that the Brown Sakae strike low, ever,
upward from the knee.”
He gave me his hand, and then Aryenis and I went out to the horses, the
statuesque old man, with his grim scarred retainer standing behind him,
watching us as we went.
Our escort apparently knew what to expect, for they evinced no surprise
at my new rig-out, and one of them carried a package behind his saddle,
which I guessed was my old clothes. But as I came down the steps they
all touched their steel caps in salute to my new arms and to me wearing
them, as is the custom of the Sakae when men don mail for the first
time, and spoke to me, wishing me, as Aryenis translated, good fortune
and high honour in war.
Considering we were complete strangers not knowing their tongue, and
come in from Heaven alone knows where, I must say the Sakae were
extraordinarily friendly. Never did we meet with a trace of enmity
or jealousy among all Kyrlos’s people. This I attribute to Aryenis’s
impossibly exaggerated account of our doings in the gate, for the Sakae
consider personal valour as the greatest of passports to position.
Money they count not at all, and birth but little; while they have but
small respect even for an hereditary chief until he has proven himself
a man. But once a man has shown that his courage is beyond reproach,
then they will follow him through thick and thin, and--if he be just
and impartial--abide by his rule in peace if he be set over them,
although they prefer to be ruled by those of good birth, considering
such as more likely to deal impartial justice.
They drank to me from goblets of wine sent out by Paulos, and Aryenis
made them a little speech on my behalf, which they seemed to approve.
Then we mounted our horses, rode out of the grounds, and set our faces
toward Miletis.
Riding down the lane, Aryenis pointed out to me the long stretch of
Paulos’s land, which ran all along the hill for several miles, and down
below into the broad valley.
“Some day, when we’ve more time, I’ll show you over it. There are some
lovely bits up there among the woods.”
From the road on this day of cloud-flecked blue sky, with the autumn
sunshine and the fresh cool breeze in our faces, it looked very
beautiful, although many of the trees were nearly bare. In summer
it must have been perfectly lovely, as Aryenis said, and even now
the splashes of russet and crimson among the barer trees made a very
gorgeous contrast to the more sombre pines.
“It was very kind of you, Aryenis, to think of this handsome gift. It
really was a surprise, and one that I appreciated tremendously.”
“A gift for a gift,” said she. “But ours is only a little one, whereas
yours to me is the greatest that man or woman can give and beyond all
repayment. But we hoped that perchance some day in battle our gift
might give you life as you gave me, and so indirectly we would repay
like with like. I’m so glad you’re pleased.”
“You say ‘the greatest gift man or woman can give,’ Aryenis. Could any
one else give a greater--a fairy prince, for instance?”
Aryenis looked out over her horse’s ears. Then, rather reflectively:
“A fairy prince or a fairy princess might give something bigger. Yes;
if they were the right ones with the right marks, something much
bigger, because it would mean not only life, but lots and lots more.”
“I wish I were a fairy prince, then. I should like to give such a gift
as you speak of.”
“Perhaps you will be some day--when you meet the princess--or--when you
_know_ she is the princess.”
“When I’ve seen the mark on her shoulder, for instance?”
Aryenis reflected again.
“Perhaps. If she had one. But then you might have difficulty in seeing
it; she mightn’t like to show it. You said yourself that women didn’t
like having marks. And all fairy princesses are women.”
“And are all women fairy princesses?”
“They ought to be sometime to some man who knows how to be a fairy
prince.”
“Don’t you think every man could play that part to the right sort of
princess?”
“Yes, I do. Only not if he had gone bad, which is a man’s way of
growing up. Only the kind that don’t grow up can be fairy princes.”
“Have we grown up, then, Wrexham and Forsyth and I?”
Aryenis did not reflect this time. She said straight off without any
previous consideration:
“No. You have none of you grown up, not even Forsyth, though I think he
likes to pretend that he has. As for you, Harilek, you will never grow
up, however long you live.”
“How can you tell whether men have grown up--Shahzadi?”
“I like it when you call me Shahzadi; it sounds nice. How do I tell
when men are grown up? Oh, in lots of ways. Whether they like toys is
one thing.”
“What do you call ‘toys’?”
“Oh, horses, armour, bows and arrows, games, and things like that.”
“And what other things?”
Aryenis reflected again, contemplating the distant hills and the snow.
“How they speak to women sometimes. Most of all, how they treat a woman
and how they look at her.”
“And how do _you_ think they ought to treat women?”
“Well, like you all treated me when I first came to you. I wasn’t
exactly got up for a party.” She blushed a little. “And you all treated
me just as if I had been wearing my most ordinary frocks, and then you
turned out of your tent and lived in the cold wind outside, and gave me
your best clothes--rather ragged ones they were.
“And after that you spoke to me always as if I were a princess, and got
up when I came to meals, and generally danced attendance on me hand
and foot, and your men did just what you do, and servants can’t change
quickly. They do what they have been accustomed to see their masters
doing for a long time.
“So I was sure none of you had grown up. I knew that when you were
untying me behind the rock while Payindah was shooting. I was very
frightened, but a woman has to think awfully quickly sometimes, and I
knew before even you’d got my arms free that _you_ hadn’t grown up,
anyway.”
“You must judge very quickly, Shahzadi. How do you do it?”
“Every woman does, and perhaps I am quicker than most. You see I
could tell from your eyes that, although you were trying to be very
businesslike, you were really feeling even shyer than I was, so I knew
it was all right.”
“Thank you, Shahzadi. You give us good characters in fact.”
“Quite good. All of you, though Forsyth was really too clever at doing
my hair for a little thing that hasn’t grown up.”
“He has several sisters.”
“Sisters!” said Aryenis scornfully. “I wouldn’t like Stephnos to do my
hair. He’d pull it out by the roots. But I wouldn’t mind Forsyth doing
it every day. Sisters! Other people’s, perhaps!”
“That’s just what I said, and then he got quite annoyed.”
“Which shows that he hasn’t grown up too much yet.”
I came to the conclusion that Aryenis was not a bad judge of character.
She is certainly amazingly observant.
After about two hours we overtook and passed the baggage horses, and I
think Payindah got the shock of his life when I rode past him complete
in mail and steel cap. Temra appeared surprised, but also, I fancied,
pleased, and greeted me in the same words that the escort had used,
apparently a set phrase for such an occasion.
Presently, up a low hill in front, I saw a long white blur--a largish
town--and Aryenis, with her eyes gleaming, pointed it out.
“Miletis, Harilek. In another hour or so we shall be home.” She
whispered the last word to herself again.
We rode up the hillside among the fields and fruit trees and the
scattered villages, and every now and then women and children and men
at the roadside would wave to Aryenis with cries of joy.
“Look, there are people riding down the road,” she said, as we came
round a bend under the mulberries. “I believe--yes, it is--it’s Ziné
come to meet me.”
She put her mare into a canter and then into a gallop, and went off
like an arrow.
Coming down toward us was a little group of people on horseback. There
was a girl in front riding with a tall man on a big roan--big, that is,
as the Sakae horses go. Behind them were other mounted men, grooms, and
archers.
The girl had evidently recognized Aryenis about the same time, and
swept down on her. The two pulled up as they met, and as we reached
them they were off their horses--which we caught just in time--laughing
and crying in each other’s arms.
The tall man dismounted, and flung his reins to one of his escort.
Then, holding out both hands to Aryenis, he drew her to him when
he had disentangled her from the other girl, and kissed her on the
forehead. All three were talking rapidly and excitedly in their own
language. I stood holding my pony’s reins in the background, and I
think none of them thought of me for a couple of minutes at least. Then
the elderly man noticed me, and said something to Aryenis, who turned
round and called me. Speaking in Greek, she introduced him to me as her
uncle, Kyrlos’s brother, Milos.
He knew all about us, for Kyrlos had sent off a letter by a swift mount
the afternoon Aryenis had returned, and another with more detail next
day. He thanked me in much the same way as Kyrlos had done, and asked
after my wound. I explained that it was practically healed, and that
the bandage would be off in a day or two. Then Aryenis presented me to
Ziné, a pretty girl with dark-brown hair. The picture we had found had
not been too flattering.
We mounted again and rode on up to the city, the two girls talking
hard in front, and Milos and I behind them. He asked me details of our
adventures as we rode along, speaking slowly in Greek. I could see he
was looking at my dress curiously from time to time, and at last he
asked me whence I got it, so I told him.
“I thought I knew the helmet,” he said, “though it is years since I
have seen it. So Paulos sends you to war in his mail, does he? You
could not carry a better man’s arms if you searched the whole land.
One of the bravest, and there be many brave men in our country. And
from what I have heard you also have some claim to be counted in their
number. Kyrlos wrote me a full account.”
The Sakae had a very straightforward manner of talking, and seemed to
say exactly what they thought. It was clear that their long residence
in Asia had not tinged them with Asiatic indirectness of speech.
Like Paulos, he displayed great interest in our weapons, and wanted me
to show him how they fired. We had to make a rule after that not to
fire except in case of need, for ammunition was precious, and we did
not know how long we were going to be in Sakaeland. So we spread the
story that we never fired them except in actual battle or for practice,
it being considered unlucky to do so. Otherwise I think we should have
got through our ammunition in the first week.
Miletis was a large edition of Aornos: the same long granite walls,
the same high gates, and the same broad clean streets, lined for the
most part with fruit trees. It stood at one side of a long hill above
the river, and beyond it the hills climbed to meet the lower slopes
of Saghar Mor, whose snow-peaks towered above us some twenty-five
miles away. They rose in long rolling slopes, covered with ilex and
pine, and higher up with thick fir forest and rhododendron groves,
aflame in summer with gorgeous scarlet blossoms. Most of the wealthier
inhabitants have country villas in the higher hills, where they spend
the hottest of the summer months.
We got the same shower of greetings as we had at Aornos, but even more
noticeable here in Aryenis’s own city, and we progressed very slowly
through the crowded street.
At the north end of the town we came to a wide open space, and on the
farther side saw the white stone walls of Kyrlos’s palace, overlooking
the river. They were loopholed and crenellated, and there was a guard
at the gate; but the whole look of the place was peaceful, and the
great doors stood wide open. It was clearly not the home of one who
ruled his people by fear. In the gateway was a throng of folk--archers
in uniform keeping back the crowd, archers in undress, servants, men,
and women--all hurrying to greet their mistress, whom they had believed
dead.
They swarmed about Aryenis’s horse and kissed her hands, shouting,
cheering, the women throwing her handfuls of winter flowers, until
finally we pulled up at the big sweeping marble stairway that led up to
the main building, and there they simply mobbed her.
There were old grey-bearded men in the fawn tunics, evidently officials
of sorts, hurrying down the stairs; some younger men in mail, doubtless
officers there on business connected with the war; women servants
with their short full skirts and embroidered short-sleeved bodices;
grooms; indoor servants; two falconers; and an apple-visaged old woman,
shrill-tongued, with keen old eyes, in heavily embroidered white
clothes with turquoise-studded silver necklace and bangles, pushing her
way through the crowd.
Aryenis sat on her horse in the middle of them, laughing and smiling,
and once, I think, furtively wiping away tears from her eyes as she
tried to shake hands with about a dozen people per hand at once.
Then the old woman forced her shrill way to the front, and Aryenis
slipped from the saddle to be smothered in her old nurse’s ample
embrace.
After that she emerged from the throng, I don’t know quite how, and
going up three steps waved the people back, calling for silence, which
she quickly got. All Miletis seemed to do exactly what she told it. And
while she stood there two great deerhounds leapt down the steps and
fawned about her, jumping up to lick her hands. Then she petted them,
and made them lie down at her feet.
When there was silence, she proceeded to make a speech, which,
although I could not understand, I gathered was a short résumé of her
adventures, for I could see the people’s faces working, and grim-faced
men clapping their hands to their weapons, as the silence grew and they
hushed--listening to Aryenis’s clear voice.
Then she stopped (I discovered later that she had just told them about
the old chief’s death in the gate).
“Harilek,” she called, looking at me over the heads of the crowd, who
turned to see whom she was speaking to--“Harilek; come up here and
stand by me while I talk to my people.”
So I slipped off my pony, giving it to the nearest man, and pushed
my way through the crowd, who made way for me in silence, looking at
me, doubtless wondering who I was. I walked up the steps to where she
stood, the deerhounds at her feet, with the throng of servants and
soldiers, men and women of all kinds in front, and the little circle
of grave-visaged elders and mail-clad officers just above her.
“Stand there and let them see you, Harilek; I want them to know you.
I’m going on talking.”
And on she went. She was evidently telling of her escape now, for the
crowd began to cheer, while the men threw their caps into the air and
the women shrilled their applause and clapped their hands softly in
Sakae fashion.
Then suddenly, in her rather dramatic way, she stopped, turned, and
pointed to me, standing there like a fool in Paulos’s mail with my
bandaged face.
After that they mobbed us both, while the old lady nearly wrung
my hands off, and I was glad when we got up the stairway to the
building. Just as we reached the doors, Aryenis turned on me with eyes
suspiciously bright and, I think, slightly moist.
“Welcome, Harilek, to the home I’d never have seen again except for
you.”
And so we entered the wide doors, with Ziné and Milos behind us, and
the deerhounds walking on either side of Aryenis trying to lick her
hands.