IV
THE QUEEN'S CHAMBER
At midday on the morrow Pharaoh and the host of Pharaoh marched in pompfrom Tanis, taking the road that runs across the desert country towardsthe Red Sea of Weeds, the way that the Apura had gone. The Wanderer wentwith the army for an hour's journey and more, in a chariot driven byRei the Priest, for Rei did not march with the host. The number ofthe soldiers of Pharaoh amazed the Achaean, accustomed to the levies ofbarren isles and scattered tribes. But he said nothing of his wonderto Rei or any man, lest it should be thought that he came from among alittle people. He even made as if he held the army lightly, and askedthe priest if this was all the strength of Pharaoh! Then Rei told himthat it was but a fourth part, for none of the mercenaries and none ofthe soldiers from the Upper Land marched with the King in pursuit of theApura.
Then the Wanderer knew that he was come among a greater people than hehad ever encountered yet, on land or sea. So he went with them till theroads divided, and there he drove his chariot to the chariot of Pharaohand bade him farewell. Pharaoh called to him to mount his own chariot,and spake thus to him:
"Swear to me, thou Wanderer, who namest thyself Eperitus, though of whatcountry thou art and what was thy father's house none know, swear to methat thou wilt guard Meriamun the Queen faithfully, and wilt work no woeupon me nor open my house while I am afar. Great thou art and beautifulto look on, ay, and strong enough beyond the strength of men, yet myheart misdoubts me of thee. For methinks thou art a crafty man, and thatevil will come upon me through thee."
"If this be thy mind, Pharaoh," said the Wanderer, "leave me not inguard of the Queen. And yet methinks I did not befriend thee so ill twonights gone, when the rabble would have put thee and all thy house tothe sword because of the death of the firstborn."
Now Pharaoh looked on him long and doubtfully, then stretched out hishand. The Wanderer took it, and swore by his own Gods, by Zeus, byAphrodite, and Athene, and Apollo, that he would be true to the trust.
"I believe thee, Wanderer," said Pharaoh. "Know this, if thou keepestthine oath thou shalt have great rewards, and thou shalt be secondto none in the land of Khem, but if thou failest, then thou shalt diemiserably."
"I ask no fee," answered the Wanderer, "and I fear no death, for in oneway only shall I die, and that is known to me. Yet I will keep my oath."And he bowed before Pharaoh, and leaping from his chariot entered againinto the chariot of Rei.
Now, as he drove back through the host the soldiers called to him,saying:
"Leave us not, Wanderer." For he looked so glorious in his golden armourthat it seemed to them as though a god departed from their ranks.
His heart was with them, for he loved war, and he did not love theApura. But he drove on, as so it must be, and came to the Palace atsundown.
That night he sat at the feast by the side of Meriamun the Queen. Andwhen the feast was done she bade him follow her into her chamber whereshe sat when she would be alone. It was a fragrant chamber, dimlylighted with sweet-scented lamps, furnished with couches of ivory andgold, while all the walls told painted stories of strange gods andkings, and of their loves and wars. The Queen sank back upon theembroidered cushions of a couch and bade the wise Odysseus to sit guardover against her, so near that her robes swept his golden greaves. Thishe did somewhat against his will, though he was no hater of fair women.But his heart misdoubted the dark-eyed Queen, and he looked upon herguardedly, for she was strangely fair to see, the fairest of all mortalwomen whom he had known, save the Golden Helen.
"Wanderer, we owe thee great thanks, and I would gladly know to whomwe are in debt for the prices of our lives," she said. "Tell me of thybirth, of thy father's house, and of the lands that thou hast seen andthe wars wherein thou hast fought. Tell me also of the sack of Ilios,and how thou camest by thy golden mail. The unhappy Paris wore such armsas these, if the minstrel of the North sang truth."
Now, the Wanderer would gladly have cursed this minstrel of the Northand his songs.
"Minstrels will be lying, Lady," he said, "and they gather old taleswherever they go. Paris may have worn my arms, or another man. I boughtthem from a chapman in Crete, and asked nothing of their first master.As for Ilios, I fought there in my youth, and served the CretanIdomeneus, but I got little booty. To the King the wealth and women, tous the sword-strokes. Such is the appearance of war."
Meriamun listened to his tale, which he set forth roughly, as if he weresome blunt, grumbling swordsman, and darkly she looked on him while shehearkened, and darkly she smiled as she looked.
"A strange story, Eperitus, a strange story truly. Now tell me thus. Howcamest thou by yonder great bow, the bow of the swallow string? If myminstrel spoke truly, it was once the Bow of Eurytus of OEchalia."
Now the Wanderer glanced round him like a man taken in ambush, who seeson every hand the sword of foes shine up into the sunlight.
"The bow, Lady?" he answered readily enough. "I got it strangely. Iwas cruising with a cargo of iron on the western coast and landed on anisle, methinks the pilot called it Ithaca. There we found nothing butdeath; a pestilence had been in the land, but in a ruined hall this bowwas lying, and I made prize of it. A good bow!"
"A strange story, truly--a very strange story," quoth Meriamun theQueen. "By chance thou didst buy the armour of Paris, by chance thoudidst find the bow of Eurytus, that bow, methinks, with which thegod-like Odysseus slew the wooers in his halls. Knowest thou, Eperitus,that when thou stoodest yonder on the board in the Place of Banquets,when the great bow twanged and the long shafts hailed down on the halland loosened the knees of many, not a little was I put in mind of thesong of the slaying of the wooers at the hands of Odysseus. The fame ofOdysseus has wandered far--ay, even to Khem." And she looked straight athim.
The Wanderer darkened his face and put the matter by. He had heardsomething of that tale, he said, but deemed it a minstrel's feigning.One man could not fight a hundred, as the story went.
The Queen half rose from the couch where she lay curled up like aglittering snake. Like a snake she rose and watched him with hermelancholy eyes.
"Strange, indeed--most strange that Odysseus, Laertes' son, Odysseusof Ithaca, should not know the tale of the slaying of the wooers byOdysseus' self. Strange, indeed, thou Eperitus, who art Odysseus."
Now the neck of the Wanderer was in the noose, and well he knew it: yethe kept his counsel, and looked upon her vacantly.
"Men say that this Odysseus wandered years ago into the North, and thatthis time he will not come again. I saw him in the wars, and he was ataller man than I," said the Wanderer.
"I have always heard," said the Queen, "that Odysseus was double-tonguedand crafty as a fox. Look me in the eyes, thou Wanderer, look me in theeyes, and I will show thee whether or not thou art Odysseus," and sheleaned forward so that her hair well-nigh swept his brow, and gazed deepinto his eyes.
Now the Wanderer was ashamed to drop his eyes before a woman's, and hecould not rise and go; so he must needs gaze, and as he gazed his headgrew strangely light and the blood quivered in his veins, and thenseemed to stop.
"Now turn, thou Wanderer," said the voice of the Queen, and to him itsounded far away, as if there was a wall between them, "and tell me whatthou seest."
So he turned and looked towards the dark end of the chamber. Butpresently through the darkness stole a faint light, like the first greylight of the dawn, and now he saw a shape, like the shape of a greathorse of wood, and behind the horse were black square towers of hugestones, and gates, and walls, and houses. Now he saw a door open in theside of the horse, and the helmeted head of a man look out wearily. Ashe looked a great white star slid down the sky so that the light ofit rested on the face of the man, and that face was his own! Then heremembered how he had looked forth from the belly of the wooden horse asit stood within the walls of Ilios, and thus the star had seemed to fallupon the doomed city, an omen of the end of Troy.
"Look again," said the voice of Meriamun from far away.
So onc
e more he looked into the darkness, and there he saw the mouth ofa cave, and beneath two palms in front of it sat a man and a woman.The yellow moon rose and its light fell upon a sleeping sea, upon talltrees, upon the cave, and the two who sat there. The woman was lovely,with braided hair, and clad in a shining robe, and her eyes were dimwith tears that she might never shed: for she was a Goddess, Calypso,the daughter of Atlas. Then in the vision the man looked up, and hisface was weary, and worn and sick for home, but it was his own face.
Then he remembered how he had sat thus at the side of Calypso of thebraided tresses, on that last night of all his nights in her wave-girtisle, the centre of the seas.
"Look once more," said the voice of Meriamun the Queen.
Again he looked into the darkness. There before him grew the ruins ofhis own hall in Ithaca, and in the courtyard before the hall was a heapof ashes, and the charred bones of men. Before the heap lay the figureof one lost in sorrow, for his limbs writhed upon the ground. Anon theman lifted his face, and behold! the Wanderer knew that it was his ownface.
Then of a sudden the gloom passed away from the chamber, and once morehis blood surged through his veins, and there before him sat Meriamunthe Queen, smiling darkly.
"Strange sights hast thou seen, is it not so, Wanderer?" she said.
"Yea, Queen, the most strange of sights. Tell me of thy courtesy howthou didst conjure them before my eyes."
"By the magic that I have, Eperitus, I above all wizards who dwell inKhem, the magic whereby I can read all the past of those--I love," andagain she looked upon him; "ay, and call it forth from the storehouse ofdead time and make it live again. Say, whose face was it that thou didstlook upon--was it not the face of Odysseus of Ithaca, Laertes' son, andwas not that face thine?"
Now the Wanderer saw that there was no escape. Therefore he spoke thetruth, not because he loved it, but because he must.
"The face of Odysseus of Ithaca it was that I saw before me, Lady, andthat face is mine. I avow myself to be Odysseus, Laertes' son, and noother man."
The Queen laughed aloud. "Great must be my strength of magic," shesaid, "for it can strip the guile from the subtlest of men. Henceforth,Odysseus, thou wilt know that the eyes of Meriamun the Queen see far.Now tell me truly: what camest thou hither to seek?"
The Wanderer took swift counsel with himself. Remembering that dream ofMeriamun of which Rei the Priest had told him, and which she knew notthat he had learned, the dream that showed her the vision of one whomshe must love, and remembering the word of the dead Hataska, he grewafraid. For he saw well by the token of the spear point that he wasthe man of her dream, and that she knew it. But he could not accepther love, both because of his oath to Pharaoh and because of her whomAphrodite had shown to him in Ithaca, her whom alone he must seek, theHeart's Desire, the Golden Helen.
The strait was desperate, between a broken oath and a woman scorned. Buthe feared his oath, and the anger of Zeus, the God of hosts and guests.So he sought safety beneath the wings of truth.
"Lady," he said, "I will tell thee all! I came to Ithaca from the whitenorth, where a curse had driven me; I came and found my halls desolate,and my people dead, and the very ashes of my wife. But in a dream ofthe night I saw the Goddess whom I have worshipped little, Aphrodite ofIdalia, whom in this land ye name Hathor, and she bade me go forth anddo her will. And for reward she promised me that I should find one whowaited me to be my deathless love."
Meriamun heard him so far, but no further, for of this she made sure,that _she_ was the woman whom Aphrodite had promised to the Wanderer.Ere he might speak another word she glided to him like a snake, and likea snake curled herself about him. Then she spoke so low that he ratherknew her thought than heard her words:
"Was it indeed so, Odysseus? Did the Goddess indeed send thee to seek meout? Know, then, that not to thee alone did she speak. I also looked forthee. I also waited the coming of one whom I should love. Oh, heavy havebeen the days, and empty was my heart, and sorely through the years haveI longed for him who should be brought to me. And now at length it isdone, now at length I see him whom in my dream I saw," and she liftedher lips to the lips of the Wanderer, and her heart, and her eyes, andher lips said "Love."
But it was not for nothing that he bore a stout and patient heart, and abrain unclouded by danger or by love. He had never been in a strait likethis; caught with bonds that no sword could cut, and in toils that noskill could undo. On one side were love and pleasure--on the other abroken oath, and the loss for ever of the Heart's Desire. For to loveanother woman, as he had been warned, was to lose Helen. But again, ifhe scorned the Queen--nay, for all his hardihood he dared not tell herthat she was not the woman of his vision, the woman he came to seek. Yeteven now his cold courage and his cunning did not fail him.
"Lady," he said, "we both have dreamed. But if thou didst dream thouwert my love, thou didst wake to find thyself the wife of Pharaoh. AndPharaoh is my host and hath my oath."
"I woke to find myself the wife of Pharaoh," she echoed, wearily, andher arms uncurled from his neck and she sank back on the couch. "I amPharaoh's wife in word, but not in deed. Pharaoh is nothing to me, thouWanderer--nought save a name."
"Yet is my oath much to me, Queen Meriamun--my oath and the hospitablehearth," the Wanderer made answer. "I swore to Meneptah to hold theefrom all ill, and there's an end."
"And if Pharaoh comes back no more, what then Odysseus?"
"Then will we talk again. And now, Lady, thy safety calls me to visitthy Guard." And without more words he rose and went.
The Queen looked after him.
"A strange man," she said in her heart, "who builds a barrier with hisoath betwixt himself and her he loves and has wandered so far to win!Yet methinks I honour him the more. Pharaoh Meneptah, my husband, eat,drink, and be merry, for this I promise thee--short shall be thy days."