Nicanor - Teller of Tales Part 5

And so came Fate, hard following on his heels.

II

For out of the gray mists of morning came soldiers, six or eight, with ring of weapons and shuffling thud of feet; and with them was a centurion in command. These overtook Nicanor where he went slowly back toward Thorney; and the centurion laid a rough hand upon him and bade him halt. Nicanor turned; but before he could ask angrily why they had stopped him, his wrists were fast in handcuffs and he was a prisoner in chains. He turned upon the centurion.

"Now what is this? I have done no wrong. I demand release!"

"Demand if it please thee," the soldier said. "But in truth I think thee something more than fool to let thyself be thus caught doddering by the way. To escape once, and baffle all the great lord Eudemius's searchers, and then be stumbled upon like any sheep--faugh! I expected better things of thee!"

"Now have I naught at all to do with the lord Eudemius!" said Nicanor.

He explained, carefully, who he was, and whence he came and to whom he belonged, and they turned a deaf ear to him. He was the man they sought, even the slave of Eudemius, escaped three days ago, with a reward out for his capture. This last explained it, but that Nicanor could not know. They insisted that they were in the right; all he could say and do would not convince them otherwise.

They skirted around Londinium by a street lined widely with tombs, and struck a road leading south and slightly west, which the men, talking among themselves, named the Noviomagus road. Ten miles, and they reached the station known by that name, and here took horse, with Nicanor mounted behind a guard. The road led through the neck of the great forest of Anderida, and came out again into the open, and they followed it until three hours after noon. Then they turned aside into a narrower branch road, and so rode easily for another hour until they entered a grove of ilex trees. To the farther end of this they came abruptly, and saw before them open country, a broad and gentle slope of hill; and on its summit a great stately house, white-walled, with outbuildings in the copse around it. In the centre of the blank wall of the front of the house which confronted them, was a gateway, with gates of bronze, and a porter's lodge. Here the porter, looking through his wicket, asked their business, and, being told, directed them around to the rear. So they entered at another smaller gate, and were in a court, open to the sky and surrounded on all sides by buildings, where slaves were working.

This, Nicanor learned from the soldiers' talk, was in the quarters of the slaves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Were I that woman, I should have wanted to love him.'"]

And here the centurion found the overseer, and talked with him long and earnestly. The overseer paid over the reward, and the centurion, as Nicanor saw without at all understanding the transaction, returned certain broad pieces, which the steward hid away upon himself with a furtive glance around. The soldier then departed with his men, his tongue in his cheek; and the overseer came to where Nicanor stood in chains, and looked at him. He was a very fat man, with little eyes sunk in unwholesome flesh, and was far haughtier than the great lord Eudemius himself. When he saw Nicanor's face, he began unexpectedly to curse and bl.u.s.ter, and said:

"How now, fellow! Is this a trick thou and thy mates have played upon me, to obtain my master's gold? Thou art not he who escaped three days ago."

But light had broken upon Nicanor, and he answered:

"So I told them, and so thou couldst have seen if thou hadst looked before thou didst pay--and receive back--thy master's gold. If this be thy practice, sure thy lord must be the poorer for thy loyal service!"

But the overseer was talking very fast, without paying heed at all.

"By my head, but this is a scurvy trick to play a man! But now thou art here, here shalt thou stay in that other's place; for it would go hard with me were my lord to learn that reward had been paid for nothing--and a slave is a slave to him."

Nicanor turned on him in a blaze of wrath, and the fat overseer, wary of the lean strength of him, called his men.

"Take him to the armorer's and have put upon him the collar. And on pain of punishment let no man say he is not the one who went away."

So they put upon him the brazen collar of slaveship, with the name of Eudemius engraved thereon; and set him to work among the household slaves. And he, being alone, was helpless, and could do no more than bide his time as best he might.

But at first, when his bonds galled, he stormed, raging in fury at his impotence and the high-handedness of those who had betrayed him to his servitude. Finding that this brought him but blows and curses, and was of no manner of good, he calmed down and simmered inwardly. Then--and herein he surprised himself--he began to take an interest in this new life into which he had been cast. He had abiding faith in himself, and this is a thing of which every man has need; he was undergoing a new experience, which at the outset was interesting. When he became tired of it--well, he would then find means of escape. The work was not over hard, since there were many hands to lighten it; he was brought into contact with a magnificence of which he had never dreamed. As always, he kept his eyes and ears open; with his strange, sure prescience that all he could see and hear and know would be useful to him, somehow, somewhen, he set out to learn all he could of the life of the great mansion and of those who dwelt therein.

So he found out many things; and one day he found Varia, the great lord's daughter.

The house was so vast that one might lose himself with ease among its many halls and courts and pa.s.sages if he did not know its plan. Nicanor, sent one day on an errand to the kitchens, reached them in safety; and then took the wrong way back, and found himself wandering in a part of the house new to him. This did not trouble him, for by then he was well known among the household servants, and was sure of soon meeting some one who would set him right. So, quite without thought, he pushed open a door at random, and then abruptly lost all his wits through sheer amazement and delight.

For he was in a garden, beautiful to his eyes beyond all words, with broad terraces and gleaming marble steps where peac.o.c.ks strutted; with at one end a fountain banked in a tangle of roses, where sprays of water fell with silvery splash and tinkle; with marble seats and statues gleaming from the cool gloom of trees. Around the garden were high walls, vine-hung, with the surrounding buildings of the villa for a broken background. An untamed profusion of green life rioted here; pale flowers of night, whose fragrance hung heavy on the air, swam in a sea-green dusk; ivy clung and clambered along the crannies of gray walls; roses sprawled in a red torrent of perfume over the yellowing images of old G.o.ds and heroes. In one corner a placid lake gazed still-eyed at the sky, with white swans floating on its mirrored black and silver. Nicanor drew breath with a quick pleasure which was almost pain; here one might think great thoughts and dream great dreams. For it was as a bit of that Forgotten Land of dreams, through which all men have journeyed, though the road to it is lost, with a glamour of mystery and a charm upon it which held him spellbound.

Out of the velvet shadow into the still evening light, one came toward him, in silence, with dark hair hanging in heavy braids on either side of her pale face, with dusky eyes and scarlet lips and jewels that glimmered in the folds of her perfumed robes. He bowed before her, keeping his eyes upon her face; for though he was a slave, he was first a man, and next a poet, which means a lover of all things beautiful, and he had never seen a woman like her in all his life before.

"Who art thou?" she said. And though she was a great lady and the daughter of that n.o.ble house, she was yet a girl, and scarce beyond her childhood, and she drooped her head before his glance.

"Nicanor, thy slave," he answered, but his voice was not a slave's voice.

"Why art thou here?" she asked him. "This is mine own place, where none but I and my women come."

"I crave thy pardon, lady," he said; and told her how he came. In turn, her eyes rested on his face; and he, meeting them, felt his pulses leap to a sudden shock which sent the blood back pounding to his heart. For they were wandering eyes, awake and seeing, yet which slept, with no light of reason in them. So then he understood why the name of their lady was spoken throughout the household in hushed tones as of one dead; why she was so closely hidden from the eyes of the world. And she was the Lady Varia,--the lord Eudemius's only child,--the last of his great house, fair, futile flower.

"Nicanor," she repeated, with a pretty halting on the word. Her voice was low and dreaming, more tender than a dove's. "Where have I heard that name? Why, Nerissa hath told me thou art he who telleth tales to the men and maids at evening. See, it is evening now. Wilt not tell me too a tale? I should like it, for sometimes I am very lonely."

She was far above him as the stars; but she was a woman, and he a man--and the first tale was told within a garden. She held out a hand to him, and he took it and touched it to his forehead, and it fluttered in his and then lay still. She led him to a bench by the sleeping lake, a child whose will might not be thwarted, and bade him tell her tales such as he told her men and maidens. This the sure instinct of his art taught him he might not do, since those tales which held them thralled were not for such as she. But he locked his hands about his knee, and thought an instant, his head flung back and his eyes intent and eager, with an odd shining deep within them.

So his tale began, in the deep-voiced chant which had rung out by moor and camp-fire, hushed now, that the peace of the evening's stillness might not be broken. She sat quite still beside him, her hands clasped childlike in her lap, listening with parted lips. The dusk deepened, and the golden moon hung over the surrounding wall and flooded the garden in wan h.o.a.ry light. The pool lay a lake of silver in a black fringe of trees. The night flowers breathed forth drowsy perfume, making heavy the summer air. Nicanor's voice rolled on, endlessly through the scented darkness....

Until Nerissa, the old nurse, came upon them suddenly, clamoring for her charge. Varia sprang to her and kissed her, with fond coaxing arms about her, so that she relented, since her lady's will was law. She dismissed Nicanor, and he crossed his arms before his face, and went away from Paradise.

Varia hid her face on her nurse's shoulder--poor groping soul that found its happiness in things so small--and said:

"He hath told me tales, Nerissa, so strange and wonderful that never was aught like them in all the world. I will have him to come again, for I am so happy--so happy! And thou shalt not tell, for then he could not come, and he is not to suffer for it. Promise, Nerissa, dear Nerissa--it is but a little thing!"

Thus Varia.

And Nicanor--ah, Nicanor! That night there opened to him a new world,--a world of beauty and of sweetness and of pain. He, a son of the soil, knowing his roughness, his uncouthness, his bondage, never giving them a thought till then, had led her by the hand, a daughter of the stars, for a little s.p.a.ce, the barriers down between them. One bit of common ground they had; beyond it, distance immeasurable and impa.s.sable.

That night Nicanor was once more seeking, always seeking, for something vague and left unnamed; past the river-ford of Thorney, where ever that night-long search began; and so through all the world to where a garden lay in moonlight. Here also he would have sought, for he knew that what he strove to find was waiting. But a web of moonlight held him back from entering; and from the outer darkness an old man's voice came to him, clear as a deep-toned bell, which said:

"The price of heart's blood and heart's desire is pain, and for what thou gainest, thou must pay the price."

III

In the garden was a little narrow door, vine-hung, which led to the outer world. No one ever used this door; for long years it had stood locked, and the key to it was lost,--so long lost that no one ever thought to look and see that the lock was clean and newly oiled that it might turn without noise; and the vines which half hid it on the inner side could tell no tales.

Marcus, oldest of all the many household slaves, white-headed and shrunken, and bent with the toil of years, squatted by the fire in the court of the slaves' quarters, cleaning a copper pot with a swab of twigs soaked in oil to pliancy. Within the house a feast was in progress, so that all the slaves were there on service, and Marcus had the fire to himself. He crooned softly as he scrubbed; and the flames struck gleams of light from the collar of bra.s.s about his neck and the round shining sides of the kettle, as it turned and twisted in his hands.

Presently Nicanor came into the circle of firelight, staggering under the weight of a great cask upon his back, with sweat-matted hair that streaked his face, and straining muscles. Out of the zone of light he pa.s.sed, with only the panting of labored breath and the pad of naked feet; and the darkness swallowed him. Following came another, also laden; and another, with a squat stone jar upon his shoulder; and yet another, each giving out every ounce of power within him, straining like a beast of burden beneath the yoke, that those in the great house might be served perfectly and without fault. They pa.s.sed; and from the kitchens came a rattle of crockery, a hiss of burning fat, the shrill voices of cooks and scullery women.

Marcus flung his mop into the fire, got himself to his feet, and went after them, kettle in hand. The fire, left to itself, cast wavering gleams upon the dark walls about the court, the bare trodden ground, the covered well in its centre.

Marcus, seeking Nerissa to give the kettle to her, came to the garden, and stood in the entrance and looked across it. Further than this even he dared not venture, since all the s.p.a.ce within was sacred to the lord's daughter and her women. Opposite him, across the open lawn, were the wide steps, white in the moonlight, leading to the tessellated walk above. Beyond this, light shone softly from Lady Varia's chamber, half screened by the tall slender columns of the gallery. The two windows, reaching to the floor and giving upon the terrace, were open to the warm air; in the room the lights were low. Marcus saw suddenly the Lady Varia herself enter the room alone, walking slowly, like one unwilling or tired. Then he would have gone, lest he be reprimanded; but even as he turned, the vines along the farther wall rustled, though no wind stirred. So that Marcus, faithful old watch-dog, drew back in the shadows and waited, thinking no danger, yet bound to see that all was well.

This was what he saw: Lady Varia moving within the low-lighted room, pausing before her dressing-table near the tall silver lamp, to remove the weight of jewels which loaded her, aimless, and with slow uncertain steps like a child too weary to know rightly what it does. And from the darkness by the wall a figure coming with swift silent strides across the turf to the marble steps, black as a shadow in the moonlight, lean and lithe and with an untamed shock of hair. The figure stood upon the lowest step and called softly,--a tender, wordless call which drifted low across the night and scarcely reached to Marcus's ears. Marcus felt for the knife-hilt at his belt. But the Lady Varia, within the lighted room, heard the call, and stepped across the threshold with head raised and hands hanging at her sides like any sleep-walker, and crossed the pavement where the moonlight lay in silver, and came down the steps, slowly, yet hesitating never at all. Marcus, watching in wonder and fright and awe, saw the black figure lift her hand and kiss it; saw the two walk hand in hand across the garden into the dusky jungle of tall shrubbery. So that Marcus was in two minds,--whether to give the alarm at once, and have the intruder captured, or whether to go up quietly himself and find out what was going on.

In the end he crept along through the shadow beneath the walls; and presently, as he came, heard a voice speaking softly, yet with pa.s.sion.

The words were plainly audible, and Marcus heard, and crept closer yet and listened,--listened to words such as in all his stunted life he had never heard before; words which stirred forgotten memories of other things once known, once loved and lost, which he understood in part, and felt more than he understood. He crouched in the shelter of a wide-leaved plant, seeing only the outline of a black figure on the stone bench, and a white one half lost in the darkness beside it. The spell of the voice wrapped him round, deep-toned, vibrant, yet hushed into accord with the stillness of the night. Bent on capture, he found himself all at once held captive, his mind swayed as gra.s.s in the wind to the sweep of that other's fancy. But abruptly the voice ceased, and the stillness settled deeper. Marcus heard a rustle of soft garments upon the bench; a low voice saying:

"More--more! Cease not, I pray thee, friend!"

And that other voice, answering: