meranes, the turbaned satrap, had a palace that to the west sent its gardens to the sea-edge, and on the east opened sheer upon the ever-humming hive that was his satrapy’s chief town. the palace owned a great, middle body with arm-like processes, jointed tentacles that strayed afar into odorous and flower-spangled wildernesses, and all was at once fantastically and strongly built. there were gilding and mosaic and fretwork that treated stone like flax. the palace spread, many-courted, myriad-roomed, multi-coloured. on the dusky garden side it was mingled with trees and bloom and fruit: it knew deep alleys and shadowy rings, and stone water tanks where lilies were planted and fish swam. but on the town side it rose blank and clear from the hot and clanging place. here was the official palace—the palace of the audience, of the satrap’s government, of officials, soldiers, magi, principal men and the horde that was not principal, spies, confidants, merchants of sorts, ministers and attendants of pleasure, of orders given and received, of complaint, pleading, demand, grievances and clamour, reward and punishment, strife open and concealed, jealousy, rivalry, lies, greed, fanatic hate and fanatic devotion, and always a brew of conspiracies, great and small, very many small, and on hand perpetually one or two great. such a cloud hung always over it, hung garden side and city side, for influences were subtle and stole between. breathing that musk and sandal,{200} hearing always that whispering, governed meranes, satrap of a deep province, slave only to the namer of the satraps, the eastern king who was despot of a dozen despots.
under meranes, the governor of the chief city was sadyattes. the magus of most power was artaxias.
in the middle palace, whence he might move through any arm, meranes had his rooms for dwelling. to the right, he went to the front upon the clanging town, and the business of the satrapy. when he entered again that middle part he drew with him confidants and favourites and made for himself now counsel, now revelry and relaxation. or, alone here, he spent much consideration upon how to keep life, honour, and satrapy, seeing that to do so he must ever please that more richly turbaned despot who herded satraps, and about whose ears ever buzzed the maligners. or he drew to him certain of the magi and talked with them, for he was a man who trembled at times on the edge of seeing the unseen and touching the untouched, and the magi were held to be free of the king’s road to knowledge. to the left, past guarded doors, movement brought meranes where the palace ran, many-fronded, into shadows of groves, into the realm of slippered footfall and treble voices. here were squandered wealth, and heavy odours, and the nightingale’s song. here the life of meranes stayed among women. here lay the filled seraglio, and here for soldiers stood the files of eunuchs. and for all the soldiers and the slaves, for all the blank walls and guarded doors, word-bearing winds blew through the palace from the right to the left and the left to the right. any part of the palace might conspire with any other part against any third part.{201}
the favourite wife of the satrap was aryenis, with just below her, creeping at times very nigh her, a woman of egypt named nitetis. each had a son.
there were many women beside.
the beaded rooms and courts of the seraglio had likewise their order of importance, raying from the highly so to the less highly so, and thence to the hardly so at all. golden cells in the comb, stood the quarters of aryenis. nitetis, the swarthy egyptian, had the silver cells. these two only counted in seraglio politics, each drawing with her her faction. next, in fair light, were clustered other women from the east and the west, the north and the south. around these, in paler light and paler light, were gathered others.... chamber on chamber, the palace was as a whispering shell. ray on ray, range of rooms on range of rooms, it stretched and tapered through degrees of favour and nearness, into the cool murk of obscurity, faint clinging for support.
aryenis had at her hand her son alyattes, and nitetis had at her hand her son smerdis. the children numbered five and six years. aryenis being first with meranes, the palace, the city and the province called alyattes the satrap’s heir—called him so with emphasis since last year when meranes, taking the lad with him into the presence of the king of the whole land who was making progress, prostrated himself with his son, and besought continuance of favour toward alyattes after meranes had returned to the fire whence he came. surely alyattes was heir! the magi, tutors of the children, taught the young smerdis to give up to, to follow the lead of his brother. also aryenis taught alyattes that he was first, as she taught nitetis that she, aryenis, was first. the egyptian woman,{202} dark-skinned, black-browed, and rose-lipped, somewhat younger than the other, drew up her shoulders, slid by....
meranes, fatigued from hunting, came to the bath, was refreshed and clad in silk and gems. in the round room of the silver palms he sat before food, and when he had eaten, and drank somewhat sparingly of wine, he gave orders to admit to him the magus artaxias. waiting for him, he took in his hands a curiously shaped box filled with fine sand, in a cup beside it golden balls the size of pearls. the balls were for casting upon the smoothed sand, and the figures they made a sign-writing, vouchsafed by destiny. meranes, seated on rich cushions, gathered the balls in his hand and cast them, then strove to read. the satrap was dark and bright of eye, well made, bearing power in his look. he cast the balls and brooded over the plain of sand. if expanded beneath his imagination into desert width.
artaxias approached, stood in flowing robes. “here is a strange figure,” said meranes. “i cannot read it!”
the magus stooped beside him. “o meranes, that is the scorpion of egypt.—look for trouble from egypt!”
“as you know, that is come,” said meranes. “they attack the southern borders. i go against them with ten thousand men.”
“i know, o satrap! perhaps it is all the woe.”
“last night i watched the stars from the edge of the jungle. sadyattes and i who had hunted together, watched them together.”
“if the lion will make sadyattes his brother, who, o meranes, will say the lion nay?”
“sadyattes is faithful.”
“says the sand so and the stars so?”
“says my heart so.{203}”
“says the fact so? the truth of the fact, o meranes, is what i seek!”
“should i not seek it too—a man encompassed by dangers? do i not know that this one conspires and that one conspires? but sadyattes is my old heart’s friend whom i trust.”
“the worst betrayers call themselves hearts’ friends! let us try the balls again.” taking the box he smoothed the sand, shook the balls in his hand and cast them. there appeared a tracing that might be made into the figure of a child. “the genii have sent a good sign!” said artaxias. “i read it that they have in care the young alyattes.” he examined the field more closely. “he lies as in a peaceful sleep.”
meranes looked at the figure of the child. with his own hand he smoothed the sand, then put the box aside. “we watched the stars, and there was a passing of beings bearing lights from one quarter of the heaven to another.” he drank wine. “i go against the host attacking the southern border. on the way thither there is a disloyal town shall be razed to the earth. in the prison here wait men who carried false tales to the king, and ere i go they die in sight of me and of the town. artificers build me a new palace among the hills, and there comes to me from my brother seleuces a gift of a hundred golden bowls, a hundred embroidered robes, and a hundred slaves chosen from ten thousand.... yet, in the round room of my inward thought, these things are only winds and odours!... what is this world and what is meranes?”
the room of the silver palms was dimmed for coolness and every casement opened to the night. meranes, rising from the cushions, looked forth, either hand upon carved{204} stone. the star he thought of as peculiarly his own shone at this hour and season above a pillar set between trees. meranes watched it, white, far, and bright. “how long has it burned, and how long will it burn? whence came it at first and where will it go? what are its adventures, and what is their weight?”
the magus stood beside him. “part of the star is dark and part of the star is light. the dark would grow—the light would grow—and they stand in each other’s path. and yet is there but one star! then comes on the train of happenings, and the sound in the ears of victory and defeat.... that is the star, and you are of the star, and partly dark and partly light.” he wrote in the air with his finger. “may the light grow!”
when an hour had passed the magus went from the satrap’s company. meranes paced the room alone, then clapped his hands. attendants came. the master would go now to the seraglio. at his command word had been sent, when he returned from hunting, to aryenis.
in her country’s dress, aryenis sat by the fountain from which the palace took its name—the palace of the fountain. it was a great marvel, the fountain, and by ancient prescription held to belong to the chief wife, the favourite in the seraglio, the woman lifted by favour to the highest rank a woman might attain. it had been called aryenis’s since her bringing to the seraglio.
meranes came and aryenis made obeisance. the satrap raised her and held her in his arms. far off there was music playing, the fountain bubbled, tinkled, sent its spray where fell upon it coloured light. the place that was a great and richly carven room, held eunuchs, slave-women, ministers and attendants of pleasure. “go from hearing,{205}” said meranes, and the lines fell back, leaving the fountain and a rich carpet spread beside it. the one man and woman sat embraced by the talking water.
“you are going against egypt?”
“yes.”
“nitetis will not like that!”
“this land is nitetis’s land.”
“true, true!—your land, meranes.”
“is alyattes sleeping?”
“yes.... would you look?”
rising she led him through curtained archways to where, watched by slave-women, the child lay sleeping upon a golden bed. “alyattes!...”
“he grows tall.... when i return he must leave the seraglio.”
a spasm crossed aryenis’s face. “is he so tall, lord?... leave him a little longer!”
“he is ripe to be taken from women, placed among men. what! do you not see him where he shall grow to be the king palm of the grove?”
“yes, yes! i see him climbing steps of thrones.... alyattes!”
“come back to the fountain.... were your heart parted, would the larger piece fall to alyattes? i think it would—i think it would!... meranes, the lesser man, to have the lesser gift.”
“lord, thou art the man. alyattes is a young child.”
“if a spirit appeared and said, ‘choose between his life and meranes!’”
“meranes, i do not have to choose.”
“if—if—”
aryenis bent her knees, touched the palms of her out-{206}spread hands, touched her forehead between, to the pavement. “lord and master! how could i choose the child?”
meranes stooped to her, strained her form to his, kissed her lips and throat and bosom. “pearl of the deep—pearl closed in my hand! long have we loved!”
“long—long.”
“out of me were you drawn.”
“out of you.”
“the sun and the earth—the ocean and the river—”
“the sun and the earth—the ocean and the river—”
“aryenis—aryenis!”
“smite egypt and return!—the egyptian here! will you visit her, meranes, before you go—her son and her?”
she drew upon sorceress-power, and before he left the room of the fountain won from him his word that he would leave in the shadow that egyptian.... it seemed that nitetis had as well be returned to egypt whence she had been bought!
but the next day a slave won way to meranes, fell before him, then, being bidden to speak, gave a manner of sorceress-message from nitetis. at first said the satrap, “i do not go,” then, when the eunuch was backing from the room, recalled him. “i may come, i may not come. say only that.”... that same day, finding an hour with naught of moment set against it, he went to that part of the seraglio given to the egyptian. he found nitetis prone upon cushions, her body wrapped in stuff thin and dark as the air of night, her blue-black hair dishevelled. in the distance smerdis played with a ball.
“my lord, my lord, you go to danger! i see javelins in the air, i see arrows, i see daggers, swords—”
“do i not every day eat and drink with danger? rule{207} here, fight there—everywhere alike leaps the wolf, creeps the serpent!”
“who keeps the city? who keeps us for my lord until he returns?”
“sadyattes keeps the city.”
“oh, when you are gone aryenis will rule us heavily, us here in the fountain palace! oh, when you are gone your son smerdis must say ‘my lord’ to alyattes! oh, aryenis gloats upon power, envies power. oh, she would snatch it, if she might, even from meranes’s hand!”
“would you not, if you could, egyptian, strangle aryenis!”
“would she not strangle me? would she not, for her son, strangle my son and yours, meranes? would she not do more than that—? oh, let me speak now, for when you are gone i shall not speak! i shall creep by the wall, i shall keep smerdis with me in the shadow—”
“who loves me will hurt nothing that is mine—not smerdis, not nitetis!”
nitetis raised herself upon her palms, looked at him from between fine waves of blackness. “o lord, ruler and god of me! let thy slave tell thee a fault of the lion! it is not to deign to suspect other wills and purposes moving in the plain and the jungle, for that, o my king, would hurt the pride of the lion!” with her hands she drew her hair about his feet. “but i, my lord, who am only a woman out of egypt, can see the serpent and her rings and guile! and i who am naught can see because of utter love, utter love, utter love of meranes!”
she put her lips against his feet. “slay me if you will! and with my last breath i will say that only the egyptian here, that only the egyptian here, loved you, meranes!{208}”
“what is the serpent that you see?”
“ah, i know not, though i seem to see a face!” nitetis raised herself to her knees, lifted her head and laid it upon the satrap’s arm. “and sadyattes keeps the city—sadyattes who came from aryenis’s country.”
smerdis, playing in the middle court with alyattes said, “my father and my mother play together.” after a while alyattes, leaving the court and going to his mother where she lay in the room of the fountain, said, “mother, the lady nitetis and my father play together! smerdis told me.”
at sunset the gardens filled with the inmates of the seraglio. through the day they had stayed for coolness in jalousied rooms, or upon the violet side of pillared courts. now they came out under sky, though yet, all around them, ran the wall that could not be scaled, that could not be pierced. mist rose from the water tanks, hung between the trees; heavy white flowers opened disk and cup, heavy sweet odours drifted and clung, moths appeared, and all the life of the dusk. women moved or sat or lay under the spice trees, the fig trees, the palms, the tamarisks and cedars. those who were young and beautiful were richly dressed. those who were old or ill-shaped or ill-favoured were work-slaves only and as such marked by a mean and fantastic garb. eunuchs moved through the gardens, and they, too, were made into grotesques.
aryenis, attended, with her alyattes that was to be the satrap’s heir, entered a walk that was loved by nitetis and given over to her by the etiquette of the place. here was the egyptian, smerdis beside her. the two lay beside a stone basin where stood a rose-and-white flamingo, where upon a mound of earth a tortoise crawled.{209}
said aryenis, “all mud of the nile.”
nitetis lifted herself. “meranes, that is master, has not yet departed.—pearl of the deep, who, between the first and now, has known every merchant’s stall!”
said aryenis: “ah, god to whom mounts the fire! have i known many markets? then did i learn in them more than your one land could teach!”
“yet it gives me hold on meranes!” nitetis raised herself from the rock, the tortoise, the flamingo basin. she smiled. “have you noted that smerdis grows as tall as alyattes?”
aryenis drew her veil around her. only her eyes showed.
“o her eyes glitter!” said nitetis inwardly, and brought glitter into her own.
“were i alyattes, and grown, i should nightly thank the stars that i was not smerdis!” said aryenis. the egyptian drew her shoulders together, made under her breath an incantation.
meranes went with a force of horse and foot against the troubles of the southern boundaries. his lances gleamed, his pennants waved, his drums beat, the city saw him forth, the skies hung hot, blue crystal, the throng shouted, the sand whirled in the street. sadyattes, governor of the city, armed his gates and his walls and esteemed that he had months, one, two, and three, in which to bring to fruition a long-mellowing piece of work. three days after meranes went forth, sadyattes listened, in a secret place, to a foster-brother returned from an errand forth from the province, errand to the court of the king who made straps.
the foster-brother, greetings given, felt, with an expressive gesture, his head upon his shoulders. “so near death do you walk when you go to twist and to draw and to push{210} power out of the road of power!—here is the matter in small space. were meranes proved ambitious, that is to say, proved traitorous, then the prover, were he sadyattes, might have the satrapy. does sadyattes fail in proving, let him beware, having annoyed!”
sadyattes stretched his arms, then stroked a black beard. “i shall not fail. you shall go again to the mighty king, for now i have this and that for you to take!”
the foster-brother went, and after weeks the foster-brother returned. “there is this. sadyattes is satrap when meranes and his son alyattes are out of the way. but the great king is busy, being troubled with rebellions and conspiracies like unto locusts for number! he has need at this time for all his strength at home. if he summoned meranes he might be suspicious and not come. if he said, ‘give over your satrapy!’ the revolt that meranes now only meditates in his mind might rise at once like a giant in the way. meranes has with him so many thousand soldiers who, it is said, die easily for him. moreover, he is putting down this trouble to the south, and it must be put down, and meranes still used to do it, for he does it. but the southern trouble over, it were well that meranes and his son with him were taken off at once and with subtlety. if it were managed with secrecy, without revolt or trouble, then the great king sees as in a dream that the satrapy would pass to sadyattes who is a skilful holder of strong places and a gatherer and forwarder of wealth. but the king must be saved annoyance.”
“i will spare the mighty king,” said sadyattes.
the sky stayed hot, blue crystal, the wind lifted the dust in the streets, the wind shook the leaves of the date{211} trees, the fig trees, the spice trees of the gardens. swift horsemen rode in with tidings; there was travel of messengers between the force in the south and the jewel-city of the satrapy. riders from the south said, “meranes is a great victor. his soldiers shout his name!” going from the town they said, “meranes, all is well! sadyattes holds faithfully the city, and faithfully your palace of the fountain, your wives and your son alyattes.”
meranes fought every day, moved among his soldiers every day, received submissions every day. meranes said to himself, “i am firmly fixed; i am like the star, around which the others go!”
a horseman brought a message to sadyattes the governor: “meranes to sadyattes, greeting! i have set my heel upon rebellion. i and my army take, next week, the road to the city.”
in the garden of the palace of the fountain certain eunuchs answered a certain word and at night received a climber over the wall at the angle nearest the sea. when he came down among them they gave him a dress like their own, and one took colouring matter and darkened his face and changed its lines. then he went with them, by the moonlight walks down which floated laughter and singing and the tinkling of castanets.
there stood a pavilion by a pool where lilies grew. two slave-girls met the eunuchs here, and there followed whispering. then the servitors of the seraglio stood aside, but the man who had climbed the wall went on. at the entrance of the pavilion he encountered a third slave-woman together with a black, as huge as africa. these two also answered the sign he made, and quitting the doorway went and sat by the edge of the pool. sadyattes came into the{212} pavilion and the presence of aryenis. she sat, veiled, in the moonlight.
“did you bring that letter, sadyattes, that through those in your pay, you said that you had to bring? i have here a lamp to read it by.” as she spoke she uncovered the small flame burning in a golden boat.
sadyattes bent before her. “pearl of the deep! climbing the wall i came here, at the peril of my life, to show it—”
“and of mine. well, show—”
sadyattes put out his hand and touched her veil. “do you remember, before you came to the fountain palace, to meranes’s arms, do you remember, aryenis, a diver whose hand might have gathered you where you lay at the bottom of the sea? but a wave turned him aside, as a wave brought you here!”
“i remember the diver, sadyattes. but though i lay in the bottom of the sea, i was even there for none but meranes! in water, in earth, in fire, in this time, in that time, in all times, i and meranes have been, are, and will be for each other!”
“nitetis—”
“nitetis is mirage, false showing—”
“the false is best loved.”
“how will you show me that, diver?”
“though you speak strongly, yet will you act as the jealous act,” thought sadyattes, “and as the fearful and the proud!” aloud he said, “you have sent messages of love by swift horsemen to meranes. none have come back to you.”
“i might know that the governor of the city would know that. meranes saves his love words till he comes. i shall hear them falling, falling beside the fountain!{213}”
“nitetis sent also. he has sent love words back to nitetis.”
“ah!”
“then she sent again to him. and with her love words went words of poison.”
“against me?”
“against you and against alyattes.”
aryenis laughed. “the nile uncleanness!—but meranes listened not!”
“oh, egypt is subtle, aryenis!”
“she is ahriman’s slave!—what lie did she make to meranes?”
“powers moving about this place have used her. there is a great plot.”
“what lie?”
sadyattes drew from his girdle a written-over paper. “this is for nitetis, from meranes. it was to have been taken by the hand of the magus artaxias—my enemy, as well you know, pearl of the deep! i, having many ways, received the paper first. read aryenis.... meranes’s hand and seal.”
aryenis thought that it was so, for indeed the letter was finely forged. sadyattes and that foster-brother and a ring of principal men, with many a subtle helper that was not seen to be principal, had wrought well toward making a fine, envenomed instrument for their purposes, and the letter was great aid thereto. “read,” said sadyattes, and aryenis read nitetis’s name and love terms around it, and lines that followed, and meranes’s name, and all in the hand, so she thought, of meranes. she read in a voice that was a gathered sheaf of myriads of voices—old and old voices.{214}
“the pearl that is false, i will bray in a mortar. the rose that is true, i will set at the height of the garden....”
“they call her the rose.—meranes! meranes!”
“read—read!” said sadyattes.
“the rose that is true, i will set at the height of the garden. the bud that is mine and the rose’s, i will cherish, but the false son will i blind and turn into the desert!...”
“the palace is falling, there are waves that are rising.”
“read—read!” said sadyattes.
“the one that i left in a high place shall curse the day of his birth!”
“that is i, sadyattes, the diver.”
“aaah!”
“egypt told him this: ‘sadyattes the diver has touched the pearl that the satrap thinks gleams only for him!’ egypt gave him names of these and these in the palace of the fountain who would swear to that diver’s coming near.... many are against aryenis and with nitetis, meaning to climb by her. there are magi, there are captains who would see sadyattes hurled from the tower, and artaxias governor in his place.... powers in the palace and the city are moving against you.”
“give me that paper to tear and to burn!”
“no—no!—pearl of the deep, meranes returns presently to the city and the palace of the fountain. says nitetis, ‘lord, no word at the last had i from you!’ then says the satrap, ‘this same sadyattes, this diver, has had to do with that! there is a plot beneath my plotting. i will not wait even the day i meant to wait, but have him thrust into the dungeon below the dungeon—’”
“i will send this day a letter, indeed, to meranes—”
“to let pass your messenger would slay me and you{215} and alyattes.—mark how deeply the fountain is poisoned!”
“the horns are blowing, the drums are beating meranes’s return.... when he comes, when he sees me, when i speak with him—”
“are you so strong in faith? all this place whispers that for two years the egyptian has gained!—meranes leaves the sea for the river.”
“i will choke her mouth with sand, i will make her salt with tears, i will bear her back and shred her afar in the desert!”
“how without sight and low-minded is meranes, lying in nitetis’s arms, saying, ‘smerdis, my heir—’”
“meranes!”
“giving alyattes, his son, to sadyattes the diver.”
“alyattes! alyattes!”
“he will put out the child’s eyes—thrust him forth to beg—send, maybe, to him the executioner—” the governor of the city clasped in his hands her veil. “pearl of the deep! look upon sadyattes the diver—upon me and you and the boy alyattes—”
“i see meranes in a ring of fire.”
“protecting fire. and safe clasped with him there nitetis and smerdis! and you and me and alyattes without upon the desert sand.”
“yes, just!”
“were there a gate to enter—”
“i would creep through and sting.”
“nitetis alone—?”
“smerdis, too.”
“how would you fare, then, with meranes? and alyattes—how would he fare? hatred, torment, and death!{216}”
“to sting all to sleep—all to sleep—all....”
“the three.... and there is left alyattes, the satrap’s son, who may one day be satrap—sadyattes aiding!... i see him riding, riding, the great satrap—shining with jewels, living long and splendidly, giving his mother honour who set him, true-born in the true-born’s place!”
“meranes! meranes!”
“hopeless now to make him see or hear or know—she has been gaining so long!... who will sit here by the fountain when you are gone, strangled and cast into the sea, fed to the fishes there? one will sit here, bred by the nile, younger than you—where will be alyattes? but smerdis will be here, to be satrap after the satrap!”
“water for the thirsty—revenge for the smitten and scorned—”
“here, grovelling and death—there triumph, some sweetness, some gain!”
“he has earned it.... to creep across the ring of fire, no matter though it burns, and sting and sting and sting....”
over the walls, down in the town, came a blowing of trumpets. aryenis’s lips parted, she raised her hands, she tore the veil from her face and bosom, she panted for air. so huge, so strong of life was the passion that she felt that it gained transforming power. she lifted herself, she stood with her body slightly swaying. her eyes lengthened and narrowed, a strange smile came upon her lips. “meranes will you hurt me? then will i hurt you. look, look where you set your foot!”—her voice had a droning sound. with a circling motion, her body came to the ground, lay there wrapped in a wide veil of spangled gauze.
sadyattes, crouching beside her, showed her another{217} false writing. “see, this is the plot of nitetis and the magus artaxias, the eunuchs arses and bagios, and of my kinsman cyaxeres who would be governor when i am thrown from the tower! there are also the magi who are tutors of smerdis.”
“nitetis, take smerdis in your arms and drink both of you of what i give you!—and you drink, too, meranes!”
blue skies hung over the palace of the fountain, and sunlight searched out its ranges of rooms. black skies, picked out with stars, hung over it; night filled its corridors. sandal and musk breathed through it. coloured lights flared in strangely shaped lamps, there went a whispering of leaves, of waters and of voices. cabals, factions, conspiracies—when did the city, palace, seraglio lack in those? they never lacked, so why should they lack now? none thought that they lacked.
did nitetis truly conspire against aryenis and the young alyattes? almost certainly she did. the air was heavy in the seraglio, with an ominous brooding, as of a long-gathering, great storm. the women from north, south, east, and west took sides; the eunuchs, the slaves took sides; the children, the merchants, the musicians that were admitted. the palace murmured, looked aslant, signed with the fingers.
meranes, having conquered on the southern boundaries, approached the city of his satrapy.
all day was triumph, was blare of music, shouting and festival: all day and night.
the second dawn meranes came in sight of the city and, running toward the sea, his gleaming palace, in sight, too, of the column of welcome and triumph winding forth to meet him. meranes’s eyes shone, wine-colour{218} glowed in his cheek. he stroked the beautiful steed that he rode. “well is the world, and i am prime in it!” thought meranes.
the day went in pomp. evening drew on, and meranes, in the round room of the silver palms, a throng about him, listened to artaxias, pressing close, hastily whispering. “meranes, drive these people back. send for cyaxeres and the faithful guard. there is a plot. i tell you the bow is bent and the arrow ready to sing!”
meranes frowned. he looked at sadyattes, coming toward him, richly dressed and smiling. “i think that the magus artaxias plots against peace of mind and well enough!—i have never seen those i rule more truly welcoming.—be still, for i hear the nightingale singing in the garden!”
“you are going to the seraglio?”
“now.”
“go not, meranes!”
but meranes thrust him from him and beckoned sadyattes.
“lord,” said sadyattes, “even this room fills with rich perfume and song! the pearl of the deep awaits you, and the flower of egypt and many a lesser gem and blossom.”
“see that the palace is well guarded,” said meranes. “a raven has been croaking—croaking—”
“it is guarded well,” answered sadyattes, “though hardly does it need guarding! all is at peace, meranes, owning you lord.”
meranes passed through the cedar doors, very thick, well-made, strongly watched on either side. eunuchs welcomed him, knees and forehead to the ground, then bands of fair women.... all the place was decorated, fragrant,{219} musical, coloured, warm, voluptuous. all was for the satrap, all was for the warrior home, for the rich man, the powerful.... meranes made to turn in that swimming, coloured mist towards the room of the fountain ... then suddenly there seemed a straight road in the world to the flower that sprang in egypt. he saw nitetis, standing between pillars, robed in red gauze, with blue-black hair, with eyes that allured and lips that smiled, “come!” she stood at a distance; when he moved toward her, she moved from him. he followed—here was a great room that was hers, set with moon-like white flowers, the light coming through glass like jewels. she turned, all her form was seen through her red dress, she lifted her arms, touched her hands together above her eyes, sank down and kissed the earth before meranes.... and all the many moving figures, the eunuchs, the slaves, the human gems and blossoms, seemed to vanish, fade, and sink away. here was only a garlanded room and egypt. meranes made the sign to leave them alone.
there was an eunuch, bagios, chief of eunuchs, who held for meranes the secret hatred of a slave for a master, a worm for a trampling foot. bagios looked to sadyattes for freedom and wealth and the sweetness of revenge. bagios might time much, arrange much in the seraglio, direct those bands of welcomers, appearances, disappearances, give clear stage for happenings.... he might now go to the room of the fountain and speak of the room of the white flowers.
meranes and nitetis lay embraced. “lord, lord,” said nitetis, “you might have thought, while you were away, that aryenis was satrap! see you not how she has stolen my beauty?{220}”
looking at her he thought her the most beautiful thing in the world. “lord, lord,” she said, “and know you what she said of your son smerdis, in whom men say they see you when you were boy? ‘the ugly wretch!’ she said. ‘when meranes sleeps for good and alyattes is satrap, he shall be blinded!’”—nitetis was starry-eyed, nitetis was sugar-lipped, nitetis bloomed like the rose.—“lord, lord,” said nitetis, “she thinks always of alyattes as satrap! at heart she is mother-woman, only a little, a little is she wife-woman!”
meranes pressed his lips against the lips of nitetis. the egyptian sank her head upon his breast, curved her arm around his neck. “lord, lord, would you have smerdis humbled and blinded—smerdis that is your image as alyattes is not?... lord, lord, here is the child, dark and lovely as angels are—”
smerdis, all richly dressed, came from among the flowers. he carried a platter heaped with fruit—grape and pear and plum and nectarine. he kneeled and placed these beside meranes. “they are for you, my father, shining like god!”
the plants, the flowers, led off in this direction and in that, leaf walls hung with white bloom, and, between, narrow paths with space for subtile movement.... the flames behind the jewelled lantern glass seemed suddenly to tremble and leap. the room of the fountain came into the room of the white flowers.
meranes, yet in the arms of nitetis, bent and caressed the boy with the fruit. “by the fire! we are alike—”
nitetis’s body stiffened. she spoke in a rattling voice. “look—look!”
aryenis stood over them, her body, her lifted arm{221} curved. they saw her, grey and purple, spangled, with eyes that glittered, in her hand a poniard, wavy-lined and poisoned, wrought to a keen and piercing touch. it rose and fell—rose and fell—against the three entangled on the golden couch. it stung egypt first. she sank aside, slipped like water from the couch to the floor. “look—the serpent!” she said, and lay with her eyes upon her own blood. the boy smerdis clung to meranes, preventing him from rising from the golden bed. the quick dagger touched him next, and so deeply that life passed out almost at once. he lay among the tumbled fruit, rival no longer to alyattes.—meranes, rising, seized aryenis, but she twisted from him, and struck the dagger into his breast. “may your heart know my woe!” she drew out the blade, let it fall upon the floor. “meranes—meranes!”
meranes fell across the golden bed.... the room of the white flowers filled with those lesser blossoms and gems of the place, and with slaves and eunuchs. they made loud outcry, bagios leading. musk and sandal and smell of blood, and over the floor the scattered fruit, grape and pear and plum and nectarine, and in the centre the three fallen and aryenis. then alyattes came running into the room of the white flowers and to his mother. aryenis sat upon the bed and put her arms about him. “child—child—child!” she hid her eyes against him. nitetis stirred, raised herself upon her hand and looked around. the dagger lay in the light. the egyptian put out her hand and took it, then, drawing herself up to that mother and son, struck alyattes with it between the shoulders. aryenis lifting her eyes, straining him to her, saw the egyptian fall and die. “alyattes! alyattes!{222}”
above the wild outcry of the place was heard the entry at the cedar doors of sadyattes and armed men. the gems and the blossoms wildly scattered, the bands of eunuchs, conspirators or dully innocent, stood there, stood there, bagios well in front, dressed in red and yellow, with mad action of his arms, with explanatory torrents of words. slaves, wailing with reason, for they all might be scourged to death, brought fresh lamps so that there might be more light upon evil. through the windows poured in the night air, and droves of moths came to the lamps. when sadyattes entered the room of the white flowers aryenis was sitting upon the couch, her limbs beneath her, and in her lap the dead alyattes.
“i crept through and stung,” she said to sadyattes the diver, “but the fire has charred me black. ”