Domnei, James Branch Cabell [red scrolls of magic .TXT] 📗

his retainers seized Callistion, gagged her, and tied her hands with cords. They silently removed her. One among them bore on his shoulders the slim corpse of Diophantus, which was interred the same afternoon (with every appropriate ceremony) in company with that of his father. Orestes had the nicest sense of etiquette.

This series of swift deeds was performed with such a glib precipitancy that if was as though the action had been rehearsed a score of times. The garden was all drowsy peace now that Orestes spread his palms in a gesture of deprecation. A little distance from him, Ahasuerus with his forefinger drew upon the water’s surface designs which appeared to amuse the Jew.

“She would have killed you, Melicent,” Orestes said, “though all Olympos had marshalled in interdiction. That would have been irreligious. Moreover, by Hercules! I have not time to choose sides between snarling women. He who hunts with cats will catch mice. I aim more highly. And besides, by an incredible forced march, this Comte de la Forêt and all his Free Companions are battering at the gates of Nacumera⁠—”

Hope blazed. “You know that were I harmed he would spare no one. Your troops are all at Calonak. Oh, God is very good!” said Melicent.

“I do not asperse the deities of any nation. It is unlucky. None the less, your desires outpace your reason. Grant that I had not more than fifty men to defend the garrison, yet Nacumera is impregnable except by starvation. We can sit snug a month. Meanwhile our main force is at Calonak, undoubtedly. Yet my infatuated father had already recalled these troops, in order that they might escort you into Messire de la Forêt’s camp. Now I shall use these knaves quite otherwise. They will arrive within two days, and to the rear of Messire de la Forêt, who is encamped before an impregnable fortress. To the front unscalable walls, and behind him, at a moderate computation, three swords to his one. All this in a valley from which Daedalos might possibly escape, but certainly no other man. I count this Perion of the Forest as already dead.”

It was a lumbering Orestes who proclaimed each step in his enchained deductions by the descent of a blunt forefinger upon the palm of his left hand. Demetrios had left a son but not an heir.

Yet the chain held. Melicent tested every link and found each obdurate. She foresaw it all. Perion would be surrounded and overpowered. “And these troops come from Calonak because of me!”

“Things fall about with an odd patness, as you say. It should teach you not to talk about divinities lightly. Also, by this Jew’s advice, I mean to further the gods’ indisputable work. You will appear upon the walls of Nacumera at dawn tomorrow, in such a garb as you wore in your native country when the Comte de la Forêt first saw you. Ahasuerus estimates this Perion will not readily leave pursuit of you in that event, whatever his lieutenants urge, for you are very beautiful.”

Melicent cried aloud, “A bitter curse this beauty has been to me, and to all men who have desired it.”

“But I do not desire it,” said Orestes. “Else I would not have sold it to Ahasuerus. I desire only the governorship of some province on the frontier where I may fight daily with stalwart adversaries, and ride past the homes of conquered persons who hate me. Ahasuerus here assures me that the Emperor will not deny me such employment when I bring him the head of Messire de la Forêt. The raids of Messire de la Forêt have irreligiously annoyed our Emperor for a long while.”

She muttered, “Thou that once wore a woman’s body⁠—!”

“⁠—And I take Ahasuerus to be shrewd in all respects save one. For he desires trivialities. A wise man knows that woman are the sauce and not the meat of life; Ahasuerus, therefore, is not wise. And in consequence I do not lack a handsome bribe for this Bathyllos whom our good Emperor⁠—misguided man!⁠—is weak enough to love; my mother goes in chains; and I shall get my province.”

Here Orestes laughed. And then the master of Nacumera left Dame Melicent alone with Ahasuerus.

XXVII How Ahasuerus Was Candid

When Orestes had gone, the Jew remained unmoved. He continued to dabble his fingertips in the water as one who meditates. Presently he dried them on either sleeve so that he seemed to embrace himself.

Said he, “What instruments we use at need!”

She said, “So you have purchased me, Ahasuerus?”

“Yes, for a hundred and two minae. That is a great sum. You are not as the run of women, though. I think you are worth it.”

She did not speak. The sun shone, and birds chaunted merrily to the right hand and to the left. She was considering the beauty of these gardens which seemed to sleep under a dome of hard, polished blue⁠—the beauty of this cloistered Nacumera, wherein so many infamies writhed and contended like a nest of little serpents.

“Do you remember, Melicent, that night at Fomor Beach when you snatched a lantern from my hand? Your hand touched my hand, Melicent.”

She answered, “I remember.”

“I first of all saw that it was a woman who was aiding Perion to escape. I considered Perion a lucky man, for I had seen the woman’s face.”

She remained silent.

“I thought of this woman very often. I thought of her even more frequently after I had talked with her at Bellegarde, telling of Perion’s captivity.⁠ ⁠… Melicent,” the Jew said, “I make no songs, no protestations, no phrases. My deeds must speak for me. Concede that I have laboured tirelessly.” He paused, his gaze lifted, and his lips smiled. His eyes stayed mirthless. “This mad Callistion’s hate of you, and of the Demetrios who had abandoned her, was my first stepping-stone. By my advice a tiny wire was fastened very tightly around the fetlock of