Domnei: A Comedy of Woman-Worship by James Branch Cabell (top 100 books to read txt) 📕

had passed. As yet she could not understand the language of her fellow prisoners, but Halaon, a eunuch who had once served a cardinal in Tuscany, informed her the proconsul was in the West Provinces, where an invading force had landed under Ranulph de Meschines.

A month had passed. She woke one night from dreams of Perion—what else should women dream of?—and found the same Ahasuerus that had brought her news of Perion's captivity, so long ago, attendant at her bedside.

He seemed a prey to some half-scornful mirth. In speech, at least, the man was of entire discretion. "The Splendour of the World desires your presence, madame." Thus the Jew blandly spoke.

She cried, aghast at so much treachery, "You had planned this!"

He answered:

"I plan always. Oh, certainly, I must weave always as the spider does…. Meanwhile time passes. I, like you, am now the servitor of Demetrios. I am his factor now at Calonak. I buy and sell. I estimate ounces. I earn my wages. Who forbids it?" Here the Jew shrugged. "And to conclude, the Splendour of the World desires your presence, madame."

He seemed to get much joy of this mouth-filling periphrasis as sneeringly he spoke of their common master.

* * * * *

Now Melicent, in a loose robe of green Coan stuff shot through and through with a radiancy like that of copper, followed the thin, smiling Jew Ahasuerus. She came thus with bare feet into the Court of Stars, where the proconsul lay on the divan as though he had not ever moved from there. To-night he was clothed in scarlet, and barbaric ornaments dangled from his pierced ears. These glittered now that his head moved a little as he silently dismissed Ahasuerus from the Court of Stars.

Real stars were overhead, so brilliant and (it seemed) so near they turned the fountain's jet into a spurt of melting silver. The moon was set, but there was a flaring lamp of iron, high as a man's shoulder, yonder where Demetrios lay.

"Stand close to it, my wife," said the proconsul, "in order that I may see my newest purchase very clearly."

She obeyed him; and she esteemed the sacrifice, however unendurable, which bought for Perion the chance to serve God and his love for her by valorous and commendable actions to be no cause for grief.

"I think with those old men who sat upon the walls of Troy," Demetrios said, and he laughed because his voice had shaken a little. "Meanwhile I have returned from crucifying a hundred of your fellow worshippers," Demetrios continued. His speech had an odd sweetness. "Ey, yes, I conquered at Yroga. It was a good fight. My horse's hoofs were red at its conclusion. My surviving opponents I consider to have been deplorable fools when they surrendered, for people die less painfully in battle. There was one fellow, a Franciscan monk, who hung six hours upon a palm tree, always turning his head from one side to the other. It was amusing."

She answered nothing.

"And I was wondering always how I would feel were you nailed in his place. It was curious I should have thought of you…. But your white flesh is like the petals of a flower. I suppose it is as readily destructible. I think you would not long endure."

"I pray God hourly that I may not!" said tense Melicent.

He was pleased to have wrung one cry of anguish from this lovely effigy. He motioned her to him and laid one hand upon her naked breast. He gave a gesture of distaste.

Demetrios said:

"No, you are not afraid. However, you are very beautiful. I thought that you would please me more when your gold hair had grown a trifle longer. There is nothing in the world so beautiful as golden hair. Its beauty weathers even the commendation of poets."

No power of motion seemed to be in this white girl, but certainly you could detect no fear. Her clinging robe shone like an opal in the lamplight, her body, only partly veiled, was enticing, and her visage was very lovely. Her wide-open eyes implored you, but only as those of a trapped animal beseech the mercy for which it does not really hope. Thus Melicent waited in the clear lamplight, with no more wavering in her face than you may find in the next statue's face.

In the man's heart woke now some comprehension of the nature of her love for Perion, of that high and alien madness which dared to make of Demetrios of Anatolia's will an unavoidable discomfort, and no more. The prospect was alluring. The proconsul began to chuckle as water pours from a jar, and the gold in his ears twinkled.

"Decidedly I shall get much mirth of you. Go back to your own rooms. I had thought the world afforded no adversary and no game worthy of Demetrios. I have found both. Therefore, go back to your own rooms," he gently said.

9.

How Time Sped in Heathenry

On the next day Melicent was removed to more magnificent apartments, and she was lodged in a lofty and spacious pavilion, which had three porticoes builded of marble and carved teakwood and Andalusian copper. Her rooms were spread with gold-worked carpets and hung with tapestries and brocaded silks figured with all manner of beasts and birds in their proper colours. Such was the girl's home now, where only happiness was denied to her. Many slaves attended Melicent, and she lacked for nothing in luxury and riches and things of price; and thereafter she abode at Nacumera, to all appearances, as the favourite among the proconsul's wives.

It must be recorded of Demetrios that henceforth he scrupulously demurred even to touch her. "I have purchased your body," he proudly said, "and I have taken seizin. I find I do not care for anything which can be purchased."

It may be that the man was never sane; it is indisputable that the mainspring of his least action was an inordinate pride. Here he had stumbled upon something which made of Demetrios of Anatolia a temporary discomfort, and which bedwarfed the utmost reach of his ill-doing into equality with the molestations of a house-fly; and perception of this fact worked in Demetrios like a poisonous ferment. To beg or once again to pillage he thought equally unworthy of himself. "Let us have patience!" It was not easily said so long as this fair Frankish woman dared to entertain a passion which Demetrios could not comprehend, and of which Demetrios was, and knew himself to be, incapable.

A connoisseur of passions, he resented such belittlement tempestuously; and he heaped every luxury upon Melicent, because, as he assured himself, the heart of every woman is alike.

He had his theories, his cunning, and, chief of all, an appreciation of her beauty, as his abettors. She had her memories and her clean heart. They duelled thus accoutred.

Meanwhile his other wives peered from screened alcoves at these two and duly hated Melicent. Upon no less than three occasions did Callistion— the first wife of the proconsul and the mother of his elder son— attempt the life of Melicent; and thrice Demetrios spared the woman at Melicent's entreaty. For Melicent (since she loved Perion) could understand that it was love of Demetrios, rather than hate of her, which drove the Dacian virago to extremities.

Then one day about noon Demetrios came unheralded into Melicent's resplendent prison. Through an aisle of painted pillars he came to her, striding with unwonted quickness, glittering as he moved. His robe this day was scarlet, the colour he chiefly affected. Gold glowed upon his forehead, gold dangled from his ears, and about his throat was a broad collar of gold and rubies. At his side was a cross-handled sword, in a scabbard of blue leather, curiously ornamented.

"Give thanks, my wife," Demetrios said, "that you are beautiful. For beauty was ever the spur of valour." Then quickly, joyously, he told her of how a fleet equipped by the King of Cyprus had been despatched against the province of Demetrios, and of how among the invaders were Perion of the Forest and his Free Companions. "Ey, yes, my porter has returned. I ride instantly for the coast to greet him with appropriate welcome. I pray heaven it is no sluggard or weakling that is come out against me."

Proudly, Melicent replied:

"There comes against you a champion of noted deeds, a courteous and hardy gentleman, pre-eminent at swordplay. There was never any man more ready than Perion to break a lance or shatter a shield, or more eager to succour the helpless and put to shame all cowards and traitors."

Demetrios dryly said:

"I do not question that the virtues of my porter are innumerable. Therefore we will not attempt to catalogue them. Now Ahasuerus reports that even before you came to tempt me with your paltry emeralds you once held the life of Perion in your hands?" Demetrios unfastened his sword. He grasped the hand of Melicent, and laid it upon the scabbard. "And what do you hold now, my wife? You hold the death of Perion. I take the antithesis to be neat."

She answered nothing. Her seeming indifference angered him. Demetrios wrenched the sword from its scabbard, with a hard violence that made Melicent recoil. He showed the blade all covered with graved symbols of which she could make nothing.

"This is Flamberge," said the proconsul; "the weapon which was the pride and bane of my father, famed Miramon Lluagor, because it was the sword which Galas made, in the old time's heyday, for unconquerable Charlemagne. Clerks declare it is a magic weapon and that the man who wields it is always unconquerable. I do not know. I think it is as difficult to believe in sorcery as it is to be entirely sure that all we know is not the sorcery of a drunken wizard. I very potently believe, however, that with this sword I shall kill Perion."

Melicent had plenty of patience, but astonishingly little, it seemed, for this sort of speech. "I think that you talk foolishly, seignior. And, other matters apart, it is manifest that you yourself concede Perion to be the better swordsman, since you require to be abetted by sorcery before you dare to face him."

"So, so!" Demetrios said, in a sort of grinding whisper, "you think that I am not the equal of this long-legged fellow! You would think otherwise if I had him here. You will think otherwise when I have killed him with my naked hands. Oh, very soon you will think otherwise."

He snarled, rage choking him, flung the sword at her feet and quitted her without any leave-taking. He had ridden three miles from Nacumera before he began to laugh. He perceived that Melicent at least respected sorcery, and had tricked him out of Flamberge by playing upon his tetchy vanity. Her adroitness pleased him.

Demetrios did not laugh when he found the Christian fleet had been ingloriously repulsed at sea by the Emir of Arsuf, and had never effected a landing. Demetrios picked a quarrel with the victorious admiral and killed the marplot in a public duel, but that was inadequate comfort.

"However," the proconsul reassured himself, "if my wife reports at all truthfully as to this Perion's nature it is certain that this Perion will come again." Then Demetrios went into the sacred grove upon the hillsides south of Quesiton and made an offering of myrtle-branches, rose-leaves and incense to Aphrodite of Colias.

10.

How Demetrios Wooed

Ahasuerus came and went at will. Nothing was known concerning this soft-treading furtive man except by the proconsul, who had no confidants. By his decree Ahasuerus was an honoured guest at Nacumera. And always the Jew's eyes when Melicent was near him were as expressionless as the eyes of a snake, which do not ever change.

Once she told Demetrios that she feared Ahasuerus.

"But I do not fear him, Melicent, though I have larger reason. For I alone of all men living know the truth concerning this same Jew. Therefore, it amuses me to think that he, who served my wizard father in a very different fashion, is to-day my factor and ciphers over my accounts."

Demetrios laughed, and had the Jew summoned.

This was in the Women's Garden, where the proconsul sat with Melicent in a little domed pavilion of stone-work which was gilded with red gold and crowned with a cupola of alabaster. Its pavement was of transparent glass, under