Domnei Part 14

Then Demetrios said:

"I must depart into a doubtful exile. I have been powerful and valiant, I have laughed loud, I have drunk deep, but heaven no longer wishes Demetrios to exist. I am unable to support my sadness, so near am I to my departure from all I have loved. I cry farewell to all diversions and sports, to well-fought battles, to furred robes of vair and of silk, to noisy merriment, to music, to vain-gloriously coloured gems, and to brave deeds in open sunlight; for I desire--and I entreat of every person--only compa.s.sion and pardon.

"Chiefly I grieve because I must leave Melicent behind me, unfriended in a perilous land, and abandoned, it may be, to the malice of those who wish her ill. I was a noted warrior, I was mighty of muscle, and I could have defended her stoutly. But I lie broken in the hand of Destiny. It is necessary I depart into the place where sinners, whether crowned or ragged, must seek for unearned mercy. I cry farewell to all that I have loved, to all that I have injured; and so in chief to you, dear Melicent, I cry farewell, and of you in chief I crave compa.s.sion and pardon.

"O eyes and hair and lips of Melicent, that I have loved so long, I do not hunger for you now. Yet, as a dying man, I cry to the clean soul of Melicent--the only adversary that in all my lifetime I who was once Demetrios could never conquer. A ravening beast was I, and as a beast I raged to see you so unlike me. And now, a dying beast, I cry to you, but not for love, since that is overpast. I cry for pity that I have not earned, for pardon which I have not merited. Conquered and impotent, I cry to you, O soul of Melicent, for compa.s.sion and pardon.

"Melicent, it may be that when I am dead, when nothing remains of Demetrios except his tomb, you will comprehend I loved, even while I hated, what is divine in you. Then since you are a woman, you will lift your lover's face between your hands, as you have never lifted my face, Melicent, and you will tell him of my folly merrily; yet since you are a woman, you will sigh afterward, and you will not deny me compa.s.sion and pardon."

She gave him both--she who was prodigal of charity. Orestes came, with Ahasuerus at his heels, and Demetrios sent Melicent into the Women's Garden, so that father and son might talk together. She waited in this place for a half-hour, just as the proconsul had commanded her, obeying him for the last time. It was strange to think of that.

It was not gladness which Melicent knew for a brief while. Rather, it was a strange new comprehension of the world. To Melicent the world seemed very lovely.

Indeed, the Women's Garden on this morning lacked nothing to delight each sense. Its hedges were of flowering jessamine; its walkways were spread with new sawdust tinged with crocus and vermilion and with mica beaten into a powder; and the place was rich in fruit-bearing trees and welling waters. The sun shone, and birds chaunted merrily to the right hand and to the left. Dog-headed apes, sacred to the moon, were chattering in the trees. There was a statue in this place, carved out of black stone, in the likeness of a woman, having enamelled eyes and three rows of b.r.e.a.s.t.s, with the lower part of her body confined in a sheath; and upon the glistening pedestal of this statue chameleons sunned themselves with distended throats. Round about Melicent were nodding armaments of roses and gillyflowers and narcissi and amaranths, and many violets and white lilies, and other flowers of all kinds and colours.

To Melicent the world seemed very lovely. Here was a world created by Eternal Love that people might serve love in it not all unworthily.

Here were anguishes to be endured, and time and human frailty and temporal hardship--all for love to mock at; a sea or two for love to sever, a man-made law or so for love to override, a shallow wisdom for love to deny, in exultance that these ills at most were only corporal hindrances. This done, you have earned the right to come--come hand-in-hand--to heaven whose liege-lord was Eternal Love.

Thus Melicent, who knew that Perion loved her.

She sat on a stone bench. She combed her golden hair, not heeding the more coa.r.s.e gray hairs which here and there were apparent nowadays. A peac.o.c.k came and watched her with bright, hard, small eyes; and he craned his glistening neck this way and that way, as though he were wondering at this other shining and gaily coloured creature, who seemed so happy.

She did not dare to think of seeing Perion again. Instead, she made because of him a little song, which had not any words, so that it is not possible here to retail this song.

Thus Melicent, who knew that Perion loved her.

24.

_How Orestes Ruled_

Melicent returned into the Court of Stars; and as she entered, Orestes lifted one of the red cushions from Demetrios' face. The eyes of Ahasuerus, who stood by negligently, were as expressionless as the eyes of a snake.

"The great proconsul laid an inconvenient mandate upon me," said Orestes. "The great proconsul has been removed from us in order that his splendour may enhance the glories of Elysium."

She saw that the young man had smothered his own father in the flesh as Demetrios lay helpless; and knew thereby that Orestes was indeed the son of Demetrios.

"Go," this Orestes said thereafter; "go, and remember I am master here."

Said Melicent, "And by which door?" A little hope there was as yet.

But he, as half in shame, had pointed to the entrance of the Women's Garden. "I have no enmity against you, outlander. Yet my mother desires to talk with you. Also there is some bargaining to be completed with Ahasuerus here."

Then Melicent knew what had prompted the proconsul's murder. It seemed unfair Callistion should hate her with such bitterness; yet Melicent remembered certain thoughts concerning Dame Melusine, and did not wonder at Callistion's mania half so much as did Callistion's son.

"I must endure discomfort and, it may be, torture for a little longer,"

said Melicent, and laughed whole-heartedly. "Oh, but to-day I find a cure for every ill," said Melicent; and thereupon she left Orestes as a princess should.

But first she knelt by that which yesterday had been her master.

"I have no word of praise or blame to give you in farewell. You were not admirable, Demetrios. But you depart upon a fearful journey, and in my heart there is just memory of the long years wherein according to your fashion you were kind to me. A bargain is a bargain. I sold with open eyes that which you purchased. I may not reproach you."

Then Melicent lifted the dead face between her hands, as mothers caress their boys in questioning them.

"I would I had done this when you were living," said Melicent, "because I understand now that you loved me in your fashion. And I pray that you may know I am the happiest woman in the world, because I think this knowledge would now gladden you. I go to slavery, Demetrios, where I was queen, I go to hardship, and it may be that I go to death. But I have learned this a.s.suredly--that love endures, that the strong knot which unites my heart and Perion's heart can never be untied. Oh, living is a higher thing than you or I had dreamed! And I have in my heart just pity, poor Demetrios, for you who never found the love of which I must endeavour to be worthy. A curse was I to you unwillingly, as you--I now believe--have been to me against your will. So at the last I turn anew to bargaining, and cry--in your deaf ears--_Pardon for pardon, O Demetrios!_"

Then Melicent kissed pitiable lips which would not ever sneer again, and, rising, pa.s.sed into the Women's Garden, proudly and unafraid.

Ahasuerus shrugged so patiently that she was half afraid. Then, as a cloud pa.s.ses, she saw that all further buffetings would of necessity be trivial.

For Perion, as she now knew, was very near to her--single of purpose, clean of hands, and filled with such a love as thrilled her with delicious fears of her own poor unworthiness.

25.

_How Women Talked Together_

Dame Melicent walked proudly through the Women's Garden, and presently entered a grove of orange trees, the most of which were at this season about their flowering. In this place was an artificial pool by which the trees were nourished. On its embankment sprawled the body of young Diophantus, a child of some ten years of age, Demetrios' son by Tryphera. Orestes had strangled Diophantus in order that there might be no rival to Orestes' claims. The lad lay on his back, and his left arm hung elbow-deep in the water, which swayed it gently.

Callistion sat beside the corpse and stroked its limp right hand. She had hated the boy throughout his brief and merry life. She thought now of his likeness to Demetrios.

She raised toward Melicent the dilated eyes of one who has just come from a dark place. Callistion said:

"And so Demetrios is dead. I thought I would be glad when I said that.

Hah, it is strange I am not glad."

She rose, as though with hard effort, as a decrepit person might have done. You saw that she was dressed in a long gown of black, pleated to the knees, having no clasp or girdle, and bare of any ornamentation except a gold star on each breast.

Callistion said:

"Now, through my son, I reign in Nac.u.mera. There is no person who dares disobey me. Therefore, come close to me that I may see the beauty which besotted this Demetrios, whom, I think now, I must have loved."

"Oh, gaze your fill," said Melicent, "and know that had you possessed a t.i.the of my beauty you might have held the heart of Demetrios." For it was in Melicent's mind to provoke the woman into killing her before worse befell.

But Callistion only studied the proud face for a long while, and knew there was no lovelier person between two seas. For time here had pillaged very sparingly; and if Dame Melicent had not any longer the first beauty of her girlhood, Callistion had nowhere seen a woman more handsome than this hated Frankish thief.

Callistion said:

"No, I was not ever so beautiful as you. Yet this Demetrios loved me when I, too, was lovely. You never saw the man in battle. I saw him, single-handed, fight with Abradas and three other knaves who stole me from my mother's home--oh, very long ago! He killed all four of them.

He was like a horrible unconquerable G.o.d when he turned from that finished fight to me. He kissed me then--blood-smeared, just as he was.... I like to think of how he laughed and of how strong he was."