Domnei - James Branch Cabell (top 50 books to read TXT) 📗

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.

IX 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 housefly; 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