A Victor of Salamis 18Book II · The Charming by Roxana
18
Literature · Adventure
A Victor of Salamis 18
Book II · The Charming by Roxana
DavisEnglish
Glaucon’s longing for the old life ebbed and flowed. Sometimes the return of memory maddened him. Who had done it?—had forged that damning letter and then hid it with Seuthes? Themistocles? Impossible. Democrates?—“the friend with the understanding heart no less than a brother dear,” as Homer said? More impossible. An unknown enemy, then, had stolen the fleet order from Themistocles? But what man had hated Glaucon? One answer remained,—unwittingly the athlete had offended some god, forgotten some vow, or by sheer good fortune had awakened divine jealousy. Poseidon had been implacable toward Odysseus, Athena toward Hector, Artemis toward Niobe,—Glaucon could only pray that his present welcome amongst the Persians might not draw down another outburst of Heaven’s anger.
More than all else was the keen longing for Hermione. He saw her in the night. Vainly, amidst the storms of the gathering war, he had sought a messenger to Athens. In this he dared ask no help from Mardonius. Then almost from the blue a bolt fell that made him wish to tear Hermione from his heart.
A Carian slave, a trusted steward at the Athenian silver mines of Laurium, had loved his liberty and escaped to Sardis. The Persians questioned him eagerly, for he knew all the gossip of Athens. Glaucon met the runaway, who did not know then who he was, so many Greek refugees were always fluttering around the king’s court. The Carian told of a new honour for Democrates.
“He is elected strategus for next year because of his proud patriotism. There is talk, too, of a more private bit of good fortune.”
“What is it?”
“That he has made successful suit to Hermippus of Eleusis for his daughter,—the widow of Glaucon, the dead outlaw. They say the marriage follows at the end of the year of mourning—Sir, you are not well!”
“I was never better.” But the other had turned ashen. He quitted the Carian abruptly and shut himself in his chamber. It was good that he wore no sword. He might have slain himself.
Yet, he communed in his heart, was it not best? Was he not dead to Athens? Must Hermione mourn him down to old age? And whom better could she take than Democrates, the man who had sacrificed even friendship for love of country?
Artabanus, the vizier, gave a great feast that night. They drank the pledge, “Victory to the king, destruction to his enemies.” The lords all looked on Glaucon to see if he would touch the cup. He drank deeply. They applauded him. He remained long at the wine, the slaves bore him home drunken. In the morning Mardonius said Xerxes ordered him to serve in the cavalry guards, a post full of honour and chance for promotion. Glaucon did not resist. Mardonius sent him a silvered cuirass and a black horse from the steppes of Bactria,—fleet as the north wind. In his new armour he went to the chambers of Artazostra and Roxana. They had never seen him in panoply before. The brilliant mail became him rarely. The ladies were delighted.
“You grow Persian apace, my Lord Prexaspes,”—Roxana always called him by his new name now,—“soon we shall hail you as ‘your Magnificence’ the satrap of Parthia or Asia or some other kingly province in the East.”
“I do well to become Persian,” he answered bitterly, unmoved by the admiration, “for yesterday I heard that which makes it more than ever manifest that Glaucon the Athenian is dead. And whether he shall ever rise to live again, Zeus knoweth; but from me it is hid.”
Artazostra did not approach, but Roxana came near, as if to draw the buckle of the golden girdle—the gift of Xerxes. He saw the turquoise shining on the tiara that bound her jet-black hair, the fine dark profile of her face, her delicate nostrils, the sweep of drapery that half revealed the form so full of grace. Was there more than passing friendship in the tone with which she spoke to him?
“You have heard from Athens?”
“Yes.”
“And the tidings were evil.”
“Why call them evil, princess? My friends all believe me dead. Can they mourn for me forever? They can forget me, alas! more easily than I in my lonesomeness can forget them.”
“You are very lonely?”—the hand that drew the buckle worked slowly. How soft it was, how delicately the Nile sun had tinted it!
“Do you say you have no friends? None? Not in Sardis? Not among the Persians?”
“I said not that, dear lady,—but when can a man have more than one native country?—and mine is Attica, and Attica is far away.”
“And you can never have another? Can new friendships never take the place of those that lie forever dead?”
“I do not know.”
“Ah, believe, new home, new friends, new love, are more than possible, will you but open your heart to suffer them.”
The voice both thrilled and trembled now, then suddenly ceased. The colour sprang into Roxana’s forehead. Glaucon bowed and kissed her hand. It seemed to rise to his lips very willingly.
“I thank you for your fair hopes. Farewell.” That was all he said, but as he went forth from Roxana’s presence, the pang of the tidings brought by the Carian seemed less keen.
The hosts gathered daily. Xerxes spent his time in dicing, hunting, drinking, or amusing himself with his favourite by-play, wood-carving. He held a few solemn state councils, at which he appeared to determine all things and was actually guided by Artabanus and Mardonius. Now, at last, all the colossal machinery which was to crush down Hellas was being set in motion. Glaucon learned how futile was Themistocles’s hope of succour to Athens from the Sicilian Greeks, for,—thanks to Mardonius’s indefatigable diplomacy,—it was arranged that the Phœnicians of Carthage should launch a powerful armament against the Sicilians, the same moment Xerxes descended on Sparta and Athens. With calm satisfaction Mardonius watched the completion of his efforts. All was ready,—the army of hundreds of thousands, the twelve hundred war-ships, the bridges across the Hellespont, the canal at Mt. Athos. Glaucon’s admiration for the son of Gobryas grew apace. Xerxes was the outward head of the attack on Hellas. Mardonius was the soul. He was the idol of the army—its best archer and rider. Unlike his peers, he maintained no huge harem of jealous concubines and conspiring eunuchs. Artazostra he worshipped. Roxana he loved. He had no time for other women. No servant of Xerxes seemed outwardly more obedient than he. Night and day he wrought for the glory of Persia. Therefore, Glaucon looked on him with dread. In him Themistocles and Leonidas would find a worthy foeman.
Daily Glaucon felt the Persian influence stealing upon him. He grew even accustomed to think of himself under his new name. Greeks were about him: Demaratus, the outlawed “half-king” of Sparta, and the sons of Hippias, late tyrant of Athens. He scorned the company of these renegades. Yet sometimes he would ask himself wherein was he better than they,—had Democrates’s accusation been true, could he have asked a greater reward from the Barbarian? And what he would do on the day of battle he did not dare to ask of his own soul.
Xerxes left Sardis with the host amidst the same splendour with which he had entered. Glaucon rode in the Life Guard, and saw royalty frequently, for the king loved to meet handsome men. Once he held the stirrup as Xerxes dismounted—an honour which provoked much envious grumbling. Artazostra and Roxana travelled in their closed litters with the train of women and eunuchs which followed every Persian army. Thus the myriads rolled onward through Lydia and Mysia, drinking the rivers dry by their numbers; and across the immortal plains of Troy passed that army which was destined to do and suffer greater things than were wrought beside the poet-sung Simois and Scamander, till at last they came to the Hellespont, the green river seven furlongs wide, that sundered conquered Asia from the Europe yet to be conquered.
Here were the two bridges of ships, more than three hundred in each, held by giant cables, and which upbore a firm earthen road, protected by a high bulwark, that the horses and camels might take no fright at the water. Here, also, the fleet met them,—the armaments of the East, Phœnicians, Cilicians, Egyptians, Cyprians,—more triremes and transports than had ever before ridden upon the seas. And as he saw all this power, all directed by one will, Glaucon grew even more despondent. How could puny, faction-rent Hellas bear up against this might? Only when he looked on the myriads passing, and saw how the captains swung long whips and cracked the lash across the backs of their spearmen, as over driven cattle, did a little comfort come. For he knew there was still a fire in Athens and Sparta, a fire not in Susa nor in Babylon, which kindled free souls and free hands to dare and do great things. “Whom will the high Zeus prosper when the slaves of Xerxes stand face to face with men?”
A proud thought,—but it ceased to comfort him, as all that afternoon he stood near the marble throne of the “Lord of the World,” whence Xerxes overlooked his myriads while they filed by, watched the races of swift triremes, and heard the proud assurances of his officers that “no king since the beginning of time, not Thothmes of Egypt, not Sennacherib of Assyria, not Cyrus nor Darius, had arrayed such hosts as his that day.”
Then evening came. Glaucon was, after his wont, in the private pavilion of Mardonius,—itself a palace walled with crimson tapestry in lieu of marble. He sat silent and moody for long, the bright fence of the ladies or of the bow-bearer seldom moving him to answer. And at last Artazostra could endure it no more.
“What has tied your tongue, Prexaspes? Surely my brother in one of his pleasantries has not ordered that it be cut out? Your skin is too fair to let you be enrolled amongst his Libyan mutes.”
The Hellene answered with a pitiful attempt at laughter.
“Silent, am I? Then silent because I am admiring your noble ladyship’s play of wit.”
Artazostra shook her head.
“Impossible. Your eyes were glazed like the blue of Egyptian beads. You were not listening to me. You were seeing sights and hearkening to voices far away.”
“You press me hard, lady,” he confessed; “how can I answer? No man is master of his roving thoughts,—at least, not I.”
“You were seeing Athens. Are you so enamoured of your stony country that you believe no other land can be so fair?”
“Stony it is, lady,—you have seen it,—but there is no sun like the sun that gilds the Acropolis; no birds sing like the nightingales from the grove by the Cephissus; no trees speak with the murmur of the olives at Colonus, or on the hill slope at Eleusis-by-the-Sea. I can answer you in the words of Homer, the singer of Hellas, the words he sets on the tongue of a wanderer and outcast, even as I. ‘A rugged land, yet nurse of noble men, and for myself I can see naught sweeter than a man’s own country.’ ”
The praise of his native land had brought the colour into the cheeks of the Athenian, his voice rose to enthusiasm. He knew that Roxana was watching him intently.
“Beautiful it must be, dear Hellene,” she spoke, as she sat upon the footstool below the couch of her brother, “yet you have not seen all the world. You have not seen the mystic Nile, Memphis, Thebes, and Saïs, our wondrous cities; have not seen how the sun rises over the desert, how it turns the sand hills to red gold, how at sunset the cliffs glow like walls of beryl and sard and golden jasper.”
“Tell then of Egypt,” said Glaucon, clearly taking pleasure in the music of her voice.
“Not to-night. I have praised it before. Rather I will praise also the rose valleys of Persia and Bactria, whither Mardonius took me after my dear father died.”
“Are they very beautiful also?”
“Beautiful as the Egyptian’s House of the Blessed, for those who have passed the dread bar of Osiris; beautiful as Airyana-Væya, the home land of the Aryans, whence Ahura-Mazda sent them forth. The winters are short, the summers bright and long. Neither too much rain nor burning heat. The Paradise by Sardis is nothing beside them. One breathes in the roses, and hearkens to the bulbuls—our Aryan nightingales—all day and all night long. The streams bubble with cool water. At Susa the palace is fairer than word may tell. Hither the court comes each summer from the tedious glories of Babylon. The columns of the palace reach up to heaven, but no walls engirdle them, only curtains green, white, and blue,—whilst the warm sweet breeze blows always thither from green prairies.”
“You draw a picture fair as the plains of Elysium, dear lady,” spoke Glaucon, his own gaze following the light that burned in hers, “and yet I would not seek refuge even in the king’s court with all its beauty. There are times when I long to pray the god, ‘Give to me wings, eagle wings from Zeus’s own bird, and let me go to the ends of the earth, and there in some charmed valley I may find at last the spring of Lethe water, the water of forgetfulness that gives peace.’ ”
Roxana looked on him; pity was in her eyes, and he knew he was taking pleasure in her pitying.
“The magic water you ask is not to be drunk from goblets,” she answered him, “but the charmed valley lies in the vales of Bactria, the ‘Roof of the World,’ high amid mountains crowned with immortal snows. Every good tree and flower are here, and here winds the mystic Oxus, the great river sweeping northward. And here, if anywhere, on Mazda’s wide, green earth, can the trouble-tossed have peace.”
“Then it is so beautiful?” said the Athenian.
“Beautiful,” answered Mardonius and Artazostra together. And Roxana, with an approving nod from her brother, arose and crossed the tent where hung a simple harp.
“Will my Lord Prexaspes listen,” she asked, “if I sing him one of the homely songs of the Aryans in praise of the vales by the Oxus? My skill is small.”
“It should suffice to turn the heart of Persephone, even as did Orpheus,” answered the Athenian, never taking his gaze from her.
The soft light of the swinging lamps, the heavy fragrance of the frankincense which smouldered on the brazier, the dark lustre of the singer’s eyes—all held Glaucon as by a spell. Roxana struck the harp. Her voice was sweet, and more than desire to please throbbed through the strings and song.
“O far away is gliding
The pleasant Oxus’s stream,
I see the green glades darkling,
I see the clear pools gleam.
I hear the bulbuls calling
From blooming tree to tree.
Wave, bird, and tree are singing,
‘Away! ah, come with me!’
“By Oxus’s stream is rising
Great Cyrus’s marble halls;
Like rain of purest silver,
His tinkling fountain falls;
To his cool verdant arbours
What joy with thee to flee.
I’ll join with bird and river,
‘Away! rest there with me!’
“Forget, forget old sorrows,
Forget the dear things lost!
There comes new peace, new brightness,
When darksome waves are crossed;
By Oxus’s streams abiding,
From pang and strife set free,
I’ll teach thee love and gladness,—
Rest there, for aye, with me!”
The light, the fragrance, the song so pregnant with meaning, all wrought upon Glaucon of Athens. He felt the warm glow in his cheeks; he felt subtle hands outstretching as if drawing forth his spirit. Roxana’s eyes were upon him as she ended. Their gaze met. She was very fair, high-born, sensitive. She was inviting him to put away Glaucon the outcast from Hellas, to become body and soul Prexaspes the Persian, “Benefactor of the King,” and sharer in all the glories of the conquering race. All the past seemed slipping away from him as unreal. Roxana stood before him in her dark Oriental beauty; Hermione was in Athens—and they were giving her in marriage to Democrates. What wonder he felt no mastery of himself, though all that day he had kept from wine?
“A simple song,” spoke Mardonius, who seemed marvellously pleased at all his sister did, “yet not lacking its sweetness. We Aryans are without the elaborate music the Greeks and Babylonians affect.”
“Simplicity is the highest beauty,” answered the Greek, as if still in his trance, “and when I hear Euphrosyne, fairest of the Graces, sing with the voice of Erato, the Song-Queen, I grow afraid. For a mortal may not hear things too divine and live.”
Roxana replaced the harp and made one of her inimitable Oriental courtesies,—a token at once of gratitude and farewell for the evening. Glaucon never took his gaze from her, until with a rustle and sweep of her blue gauze she had glided out of the tent. He did not see the meaning glances exchanged by Mardonius and Artazostra before the latter left them.
When the two men were alone, the bow-bearer asked a question.
“Dear Prexaspes, do you not think I should bless the twelve archangels I possess so beautiful a sister?”
“She is so fair, I wonder that Zeus does not haste from Olympus to enthrone her in place of Hera.”
The bow-bearer laughed.
“No, I crave for her only a mortal husband. Though there are few in Persia, in Media, in the wide East, to whom I dare entrust her. Perhaps,”—his laugh grew lighter,—“I would do well to turn my eyes westward.”
Glaucon did not see Roxana again the next day nor for several following, but in those days he thought much less on Hermione and on Athens.
