10. A WOOING
A murmur quickly sprang up round me, which grew into shouts. "Kneel,"one whispered, "kneel, sir, or you will be seen." And another cried:"Kneel, you without beard, and do obeisance to the only Goddess, or bythe old Gods I will make myself her priest and butcher you!" And so theshouts arose into a roar.
But presently the word "Deucalion" began to be bandied about, and therecame a moderation in the zeal of these enthusiasts. Deucalion, the manwho had left Atlantis twenty years before to rule Yucatan, they mightknow little enough about, but Deucalion, who rode not many days backbeside the Empress in the golden castle beneath the canopy of snakes,was a person they remembered; and when they weighed up his possibleability for vengeance, the shouts died away from them limply.
So when the silence had grown again, and Phorenice turned and saw mestanding alone amongst all the prostrate worshippers, I stepped out fromthe crowd and passed between two of the great stones, and went acrossthe circle to where she stood beside the altar. I did not prostratemyself. At the prescribed distance I made the salutation which sheherself had ordered when she made me her chief minister, and then hailedher with formal decorum as Empress.
"Deucalion, man of ice," she retorted.
"I still adhere to the old Gods!"
"I was not referring to that," said she, and looked at me with asidelong smile.
But here Ylga came up to us with a face that was white, and a hand thatshook, and made supplication for my life. "If he will not leave the oldGods yet," she pleaded, "surely you will pardon him? He is a strongman, and does not become a convert easily. You may change him later. Butthink, Phorenice, he is Deucalion; and if you slay him here for thisone thing, there is no other man within all the marches of Atlantis whowould so worthily serve--"
The Empress took the words from her. "You slut," she cried out. "I haveyou near me to appoint my wardrobe, and carry my fan, and do you dareto put a meddling finger on my policies? Back with you, outside thiscircle, or I'll have you whipped. Ay, and I'll do more. I'll serve youas Zaemon served my captain, Tarca. Shall I point a finger at you, andsmite your pretty skin with a sudden leprosy?"
The girl bowed her shoulders, and went away cowed, and Phorenice turnedto me. "My lord," she said, "I am like a young bird in the nest that hassuddenly found its wings. Wings have so many uses that I am curious totry them all."
"May each new flight they take be for the good of Atlantis."
"Oh," she said, with an eye-flash, "I know what you have most at heart.But we will go back to the pyramid, and talk this out at more leisure. Ipray you now, my lord, conduct me back to my riding beast."
It appeared then that I was to be condoned for not offering her worship,and so putting public question on her deification. It appeared also thatYlga's interference was looked upon as untimely, and, though I could notunderstand the exact reasons for either of these things, I acceptedthem as they were, seeing that they forwarded the scheme that Zaemon hadbidden me carry out.
So when the Empress lent me her fingers--warm, delicate fingers theywere, though so skilful to grasp the weapons of war--I took themgravely, and led her out of the great circle, which she had pollutedwith her trickeries. I had expected to see our Lord the Sun takevengeance on the profanation whilst it was still in act; but none hadcome: and I knew that He would choose his own good time for retribution,and appoint what instrument He thought best, without my raising a punyarm to guard His mighty honour.
So I led this lovely sinful woman back to the huge red mammoth whichstood there tamely in waiting, and the smell of the sacrifice cameafter us as we walked. She mounted the stair to the golden castle on theshaggy beast's back, and bade me mount also and take seat beside her.But the place of the fan-girl behind was empty, and what we said as werode back through the streets there was none to overhear.
She was eager to know what had befallen me after the attack on the gate,and I told her the tale, laying stress on the worthiness of Nais,and uttering an opinion that with care the girl might be won back toallegiance again. Only the commands that Zaemon laid upon me when heand I spoke together in the sacred tongue, did I withhold, as it isnot lawful to repeat these matters save only in the High Council of thePriests itself as they sit before the Ark of the Mysteries.
"You seem to have an unusual kindliness for this rebel Nais," saidPhorenice.
"She showed herself to me as more clever and thoughtful than the commonherd."
"Ay," she answered, with a sigh that I think was real enough in its way,"an Empress loses much that meaner woman gets as her common due."
"In what particular?"
"She misses the honest wooing of her equals."
"If you set up for a Goddess--" I said.
"Pah! I wish to be no Goddess to you, Deucalion. That was for the commonpeople; it gives me more power with them; it helps my schemes. All youSeven higher priests know that trick of calling down the fire, and itpleased me to filch it. Can you not be generous, and admit that a womanmay be as clever in finding out these natural laws as your musty elderpriests?"
"Remains that you are Empress."
"Nor Empress either. Just think that there is a woman seated beside youon this cushion, Deucalion, and look upon her, and say what wordscome first to your lips. Have done with ceremonies, and have done withstatecraft. Do you wish to wait on as you are till all your manhoodwithers? It is well not to hurry unduly in these matters: I am with youthere. Yet, who but a fool watches a fruit grow ripe, and then leaves ittill it is past its prime?"
I looked on her glorious beauty, but as I live it left me cold. But Iremembered the command that had been laid upon me, and forced a smile."I may have been fastidious," I said, "but I do not regret waiting thislong."
"Nor I. But I have played my life as a maid, time enough. I am a woman,ripe, and full-blooded, and the day has come when I should be more thanwhat I have been."
I let my hand clench on hers. "Take me to husband then, and I will be agood man to you. But, as I am bidden speak to Phorenice the woman now,and not to the Empress, I offer fair warning that I will be no puppet."
She looked at me sidelong. "I have been master so long that I thinkit will come as enjoyment to be mastered sometimes. No, Deucalion, Ipromise that--you shall be no puppet. Indeed, it would take a lusty lungto do the piping if you were to dance against your will."
"Then, as man and wife we will live together in the royal pyramid, andwe will rule this country with all the wit that it has pleased the HighGods to bestow on us. These miserable differences shall be swept aside;the rebels shall go back to their homes, and hunt, and fight the beastsin the provinces, and the Priests' Clan shall be pacified. Phorenice,you and I will throw ourselves brain and soul into the government, andwe will make Atlantis rise as a nation that shall once more surpass allthe world for peace and prosperity."
Petulantly she drew her hand away from mine. "Oh, your conditions, andyour Atlantis! You carry a crudeness in these colonial manners of yours,Deucalion, that palls on one after the first blunt flavour has wornaway. Am I to do all the wooing? Is there no thrill of love under allyour ice?"
"In truth, I do not know what love may be. I have had little enoughspeech with women all these busy years."
"We were a pair, then, when you landed, though I have heard sighs andprotestations from every man that carries a beard in all Atlantis. Someof them tickled my fancy for the day, but none of them have moved medeeper. No, I also have not learned what this love may be from my ownpersonal feelings. But, sir, I think that you will teach me soon, if yougo on with your coldness."
"From what I have seen, love is for the poor, and the weak, and forthose of flighty emotions."
"Then I would that another woman were Empress, and that I were someill-dressed creature of the gutter that a strong man could pick up byforce, and carry away to his home for sheer passion. Ah! How I couldrevel in it! How I could respond if he caught my whim!" She laughed."But I should lead him a sad life of it if my liking were not so strongas his."
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"We are as we are made, and we cannot change our inwards which move us."
She looked at me with a sullen glance. "If I do not change yours, myDeucalion, there will be more trouble brewed for this poor Atlantisthat you set such store upon. There will be ill doings in this cominghousehold of ours if my love grows for you, and yours remains stillunborn."
I believe she would have had me fondle her there in the golden castle onthe mammoth's shabby back, before the city streets packed with curiouspeople. She had little enough appetite for privacy at any time. But forthe life of me I could not do it. The Gods know I was earnest enoughabout my task, and They know also how it repelled me. But I was a truepriest that day, and I had put away all personal liking to carry out thecommands which the Council had laid upon me. If I had known how to setabout it, I would have fallen in with her mood. But where any of thoseshallow bedizened triflers about the court would have been glibly in hiselement, I stuck for lack of a dozen words.
There was no help for it but to leave all, save what I actually felt,unsaid. Diplomacy I was trained in, and on most matters I had a glibenough tongue. But to palter with women was a lightness I had alwaysneglected, and if I had invented would-be pretty speeches out of myclumsy inexperience, Phorenice would have seen through the fraud on theinstant. She had been nurtured during these years of her rule on apap of these silly protestations, and could weigh their value with anexpert's exactness.
Nor was it a case where honest confession would have served my purposebetter. If I had put my position to her in plain words, it would havemade relations worse. And so perforce I had to hold my tongue, andsubmit to be considered a clown.
"I had always heard," she said, "that you colonists in Yucatan were farahead of those in Egypt in all the arts and graces. But you, sir, dosmall credit to your vice-royalty. Why, I have had gentry from the Nilecome here, and you might almost think they had never left their nativeshores."
"They must have made great strides this last twenty years, then. Whenlast I was sent to Egypt to report, the blacks were clearly masters ofthe land, and our people lived there only on sufferance. Their pyramidswere puny, and their cities nothing more than forts."
"Oh," she said mockingly, "they are mere exiles still, but they remembertheir manners. My poor face seemed to please them, at least they allwent into raptures over it. And for ten pleasant words, one of them cutoff his own right hand. We made the bargain, my Egyptian gallant andI, and the hand lies dried on some shelf in my apartment to-day as apleasant memento."
But here, by a lucky chance for me, an incident occurred which saved mefrom further baiting. The rebels outside the walls were conducting theirday's attack with vigour and some intelligence. More than once duringour procession the lighter missiles from their war engines had sungup through the air, and split against a building, and thrown splinterswhich wounded those who thronged the streets. Still there had beennothing to ruffle the nerves of any one at all used to the haps ofwarfare, or in any way to hinder our courtship. But presently, it seems,they stopped hurling stones from their war engines, and took to loadingthem with carcases of wood lined with the throwing fire.
Now, against stone buildings these did little harm, save only that theyscorched horribly any poor wretch that was within splash of them whenthey burst; but when they fell upon the rude wooden booths and rushshelters of the poorer folk, they set them ablaze instantly. There wasno putting out these fires.
These things also would have given to either Phorenice or myself littleenough of concern, as they are the trivial and common incidents ofevery siege; but the mammoth on which we rode had not been so properlyschooled. When the first blue whiff of smoke came to us down thewindings of the street, the huge red beast hoisted its trunk, and beganto sway its head uneasily. When the smoke drifts grew more dense, andhere and there a tongue of flame showed pale beneath the sunshine, itstopped abruptly and began to trumpet.
The guards who led it, tugged manfully at the chains which hung from thejagged metal collar round its neck, so that the spikes ran deep into itsflesh, and reminded it keenly of its bondage. But the beast's terrorat the fire, which was native to its constitution, mastered all itsnew-bought habits of obedience. From time unknown men have hunted themammoth in the savage ground, and the mammoth has hunted men; and themen have always used fire as a shield, and mammoths have learned todread fire as the most dangerous of all enemies.
Phorenice's brow began to darken as the great beast grew more restive,and she shook her red curls viciously. "Some one shall lose a head forthis blundering," said she. "I ordered to have this beast trained tostand indifferent to drums, shouting, arrows, stones, and fire, and thetrainers assured me that all was done, and brought examples."
I slipped my girdle. "Here," I said, "quick. Let me lower you to theground."
She turned on me with a gleam. "Are you afraid for my neck, then,Deucalion?"
"I have no mind to be bereaved before I have tasted my wedded life."
"Pish! There is little enough of danger. I will stay and ride it out. Iam not one of your nervous women, sir. But go you, if you please."
"There is little enough chance of that now."
Blood flowed from the mammoth's neck where the spikes of the collar toreit, and with each drop, so did the tameness seem to ooze out from italso. With wild squeals and trumpetings it turned and charged viciouslydown the way it had come, scattering like straws the spearmen whotried to stop it, and mowing a great swath through the crowd with itsmonstrous progress. Many must have been trodden under foot, many killedby its murderous trunk, but only their cries came to us. The goldencastle, with its canopy of royal snakes, was swayed and tossed, so thatwe two occupants had much ado not to be shot off like stones from acatapult. But I took a brace with my feet against the front, and onearm around a pillar, and clapped the spare arm round Phorenice, so as tooffer myself to her as a cushion.
She lay there contentedly enough, with her lovely face just beneath mychin, and the faint scent of her hair coming in to me with every breathI took; and the mammoth charged madly on through the narrow streets. Wehad outstripped the taint of smoke, and the original cause of fear, butthe beast seemed to have forgotten everything in its mad panic. Itheld furiously on with enormous strides, carrying its trunk aloft, anddeafening us with its screams and trumpetings. We left behind us quicklyall those who had trod in that glittering pageant, and we were carriedhelplessly on through the wards of the city.
The beast was utterly beyond all control. So great was its pace thatthere was no alternative but to try and cling on to the castle. Up therewe were beyond its reach. To have leapt off, even if we had avoidedhaving brains dashed out or limbs smashed by the fall, would have beento put ourselves at once at a frightful disadvantage. The mammoth wouldhave scented us immediately, and turned (as is the custom of thesebeasts), and we should have been trampled into a pulp in a dozenseconds.
The thought came to me that here was the High God's answer toPhorenice's sacrilege. The mammoth was appointed to carry out Theirvengeance by dashing her to pieces, and I, their priest, was to be humanwitness that justice had been done. But no direct revelation had beengiven me on this matter, and so I took no initiative, but hung on to theswaying castle, and held the Empress against bruises in my arms.
There was no guiding the brute: in its insanity of madness it doubledmany times upon its course, the windings of the streets confusing it.But by degrees we left the large palaces and pyramids behind, and gotamongst the quarters of artisans, where weavers and smiths gaped atus from their doors as we thundered past. And then we came upon themerchants' quarters where men live over their storehouses that dotraffic with the people over seas, and then down an open space thereglittered before us a mirror of water.
"Now here," thought I, "this mad beast will come to sudden stop, and aslike as not will swerve round sharply and charge back again towards theheart of the city." And I braced myself to withstand the shock, and tookfresh grip upon the woman who lay against my breast.
But with louderscreams and wilder trumpetings the mammoth held straight on, andpresently came to the harbour's edge, and sent the spray sparkling insheets amongst the sunshine as it went with its clumsy gait into thewater.
But at this point the pace was very quickly slackened. The great sewers,which science devised for the health of the city in the old King'stime, vomit their drainings into this part of the harbour, and the solidmatter which they carry is quickly deposited as an impalpable sludge.Into this the huge beast began to sink deeper and deeper before it couldhalt in its rush, and when with frightened bellowings it had come toa stop, it was bogged irretrievably. Madly it struggled, wildly itscreamed and trumpeted. The harbour-water and the slime were churnedinto one stinking compost, and the golden castle in which we clunglurched so wildly that we were torn from it and shot far away into thewater.
Still there, of course, we were safe, and I was pleased enough to be ridof the bumpings.
Phorenice laughed as she swam. "You handle yourself like a sore man,Deucalion. I owe you something for lending me the cushion of your body.By my face! There's more of the gallant about you when it comes to thetest than one would guess to hear you talk. How did you like the ride,sir? I warrant it came to you as a new experience."
"I'd liefer have walked."
"Pish, man! You'll never be a courtier. You should have sworn that withme in your arms you could have wished the bumping had gone on for ever.Ho, the boat there! Hold your arrows. Deucalion, hail me those fools inthat boat. Tell them that, if they hurt so much as a hair of my mammoth,I'll kill them all by torture. He'll exhaust himself directly, and whenhis flurry's done we'll leave him where he is to consider his evil waysfor a day or so, and then haul him out with windlasses, and tame himafresh. Pho! I could not feel myself to be Phorenice, if I had no fine,red, shaggy mammoth to take me out for my rides."
The boat was a ten-slave galley which was churning up from the fartherside of the harbour as hard as well-plied whips could make oars driveher, but at the sound of my shouts the soldiers on her foredeck stoppedtheir arrowshots, and the steersman swerved her off on a new course topick us up. Till then we had been swimming leisurely across an angle ofthe harbour, so as to avoid landing where the sewers outpoured; but westopped now, treading the water, and were helped over the side by mostrespectful hands.
The galley belonged to the captain of the port, a mincing figure ofa mariner, whose highest appetite in life was to lick the feet of thegreat, and he began to fawn and prostrate himself at once, and to wishthat his eyes had been blinded before he saw the Empress in such deadlyperil.
"The peril may pass," said she. "It's nothing mortal that will ever killme. But I have spoiled my pretty clothes, and shed a jewel or two, andthat's annoying enough as you say, good man."
The silly fellow repeated a wish that he might be blinded before theEmpress was ever put to such discomfort again.
But it seemed she could be cloyed with flattery. "If you are tired ofyour eyes," said she, "let me tell you that you have gone the way tohave them plucked out from their sockets. Kill my mammoth, would you,because he has shown himself a trifle frolicsome? You and your sort wantmore education, my man. I shall have to teach you that port-captains andsuch small creatures are very easy to come by, and very small value whengot, but that my mammoth is mine--mine, do you understand?--the propertyof Goddess Phorenice, and as such is sacred."
The port-captain abased himself before her. "I am an ignorant fellow,"said he, "and heaven was robbed of its brightest ornament when Phorenicecame down to Atlantis. But if reparation is permitted me, I have twoprisoners in the cabin of the boat here who shall be sacrificed to themammoth forthwith. Doubtless it would please him to make sport withthem, and spill out the last lees of his rage upon their bodies."
"Prisoners you've got, have you? How taken?"
"Under cover of last night they were trying to pass in between the twoforts which guard the harbour mouth. But their boat fouled the chain,and by the light of the torches the sentries spied them. They werecaught with ropes, and put in a dungeon. There is an order not to abuseprisoners before they have been brought before a judgment?"
"It was my order. Did these prisoners offer to buy their lives withnews?"
"The man has not spoken. Indeed, I think he got his death-wound in beingtaken. The woman fought like a cat also, so they said in the fort, butshe was caught without hurt. She says she has got nothing that would beof use to tell. She says she has tired of living like a savage outsidethe city, and moreover that, inside, there is a man for whose nearnessshe craves most mightily."
"Tut!" said Phorenice. "Is this a romance we have swum to? You see whataffectionate creatures we women are, Deucalion."--The galley was broughtup against the royal quay and made fast to its golden rings. I handedthe Empress ashore, but she turned again and faced the boat, hergarments still yielding up a slender drip of water.--"Produce your womanprisoner, master captain, and let us see whether she is a runawaywife, or a lovesick girl mad after her sweetheart. Then I will deliverjudgment on her, and as like as not will surprise you all with myclemency. I am in a mood for tender romance to-day."
The port-captain went into the little hutch of a cabin with a whiteface. It was plain that Phorenice's pleasantries scared him. "The manappears to be dead, Your Majesty. I see that his wounds--"
"Bring out the woman, you fool. I asked for her. Keep your carrion whereit is."
I saw the fellow stoop for his knife to cut a lashing, and presently whoshould he bring out to the daylight but the girl I had saved from thecave-tigers in the circus, and who had so strangely drawn me to herduring the hours that we had spent afterwards in companionship. It wasclear, too, that the Empress recognised her also. Indeed, she made nosecret about the matter, addressing her by name, and mockingly makinginquiries about the menage of the rebels, and the success of theprisoner's amours.
"This good port-captain tells me that you made a most valiant attempt toreturn, Nais, and for an excuse you told that it was your love forsome man in the city here which drew you. Come, now, we are willing tooverlook much of your faults, if you will give us a reasonable chance.Point me out your man, and if he is a proper fellow, I will see that heweds you honestly. Yes, and I will do more for you, Nais, since this daybrings me to a husband. Seeing that all your estate is confiscate as apenalty for your late rebellion, I will charge myself with your dowry,and give it back to you. So come, name me the man."
The girl looked at her with a sullen brow. "I spoke a lie," she said;"there is no man."
I tried myself to give her advocacy. "The lady doubtless spoke what cameto her lips. When a woman is in the grip of a rude soldiery, any excusewhich can save her for the moment must serve. For myself, I should thinkit like enough that she would confess to having come back to her oldallegiance, if she were asked."
"Sir," said the Empress, "keep your peace. Any interest you may show inthis matter will go far to offend me. You have spoken of Nais in yournarrative before, and although your tongue was shrewd and you did notsay much, I am a woman and I could read between the lines. Now regard,my rebel, I have no wish to be unduly hard upon you, though onceyou were my fan-girl, and so your running away to these ill-kemptmalcontents, who beat their heads against my city walls, is all themore naughty. But you must meet me halfway. You must give an excusefor leniency. Point me out the man you would wed, and he shall be yourhusband to-morrow."
"There is no man."
"Then name me one at random. Why, my pretty Nais, not ten months agothere were a score who would have leaped at the chance of having you fora wife. Drop your coyness, girl, and name me one of those. I warrantyou that I will be your ambassadress and will put the matter to him withsuch delicacy that he will not make you blush by refusal."
The prisoner moistened her lips. "I am a maiden, and I have a maiden'smodesty. I will die as you choose, but I will not do this indecency."
"Well, I am a maiden too, and though because I am Empress also,questions of State have to stand befor
e questions of my private modesty,I can have a sympathy for yours--although in truth it did not obtrudeunduly when you were my fan-girl, Nais. No, come to think of it, youliked a tender glance and a pretty phrase as well as any when you werefan-girl. You have grown wild and shy, amongst these savage rebels, butI will not punish you for that.
"Let me call your favourites to memory now. There was Tarca, of course,but Tarca had a difference with that ill-dressed father of yours, andwears a leprosy on half his face instead of that beard he used to trimso finely. And then there is Tatho, but Tatho is away overseas. Eron,too, you liked once, but he lost an arm in fighting t'other day, and Iwould not marry you to less than a whole man. Ah, by my face! I have it,the dainty exquisite, Rota! He is the husband! How well I remember theway he used to dress in a change of garb each day to catch your proudfancy, girl. Well, you shall have Rota. He shall lead you to wife beforethis hour to-morrow."
Again the prisoner moistened her lips. "I will not have Rota, and spareme the others. I know why you mock me, Phorenice."
"Then there are three of us here who share one knowledge."--She turnedher eyes upon me. Gods! who ever saw the like of Phorenice's eyes, andwho ever saw them lit with such fire as burned within them then?--"Mylord, you are marrying me for policy; I am marrying you for policy, andfor another reason which has grown stronger of late, and which you mayguess at. Do you wish still to carry out the match?"
I looked once at Nais, and then I looked steadily back to Phorenice. Thecommand given by the mouth of Zaemon from the High Council of the SacredMountain had to outweigh all else, and I answered that such was mydesire.
"Then," said she, glowering at me with her eyes, "you shall build me upthe pretty body of Nais beneath a throne of granite as a wedding gift.And you shall do it too with your own proper hands, my Deucalion, whilstI watch your devotion."
And to Nais she turned with a cruel smile. "You lied to me, my girl,and you spoke truth to the soldiers in the harbour forts. There is a manhere in the city you came after, and he is the one man you may not have.Because you know me well, and my methods very thoroughly, your love forhim must be very deep, or you would not have come. And so, being here,you shall be put beyond mischief's reach. I am not one of those who seeluxury in fostering rivals.
"You came for attention at the hands of Deucalion. By my face! you shallhave it. I will watch myself whilst he builds you up living."