Now I heard Irene turn with a swift and furious movement.
"Your birthright, boy," she cried. "What birthright have you save that which my body gave?"
"I thought that my father had more to do with this matter of imperial right than the Grecian girl whom it pleased him to marry for her fair face," answered Constantine insolently, adding: "Learn your station, mother. Learn that you are but the lamp which once held the holy oil, and that lamps can be shattered."
"Aye," she answered, "and oil can be spilt for the dogs to lap, if their gorge does not rise at such rancid stuff. The holy oil forsooth! Nay, the sour dregs of wine jars, the outscourings of the stews, the filth of the stables, of such is the holy oil that burns in Constantine, the drunkard and the liar."
It would seem that before this torrent of coa.r.s.e invective Constantine quailed, who at heart always feared his mother, and I think never more so than when he appeared to triumph over her. Or perhaps he scorned to answer it. At least, addressing Jodd, he said,
"Captain, I and my officers, standing yonder unseen, have heard something of what pa.s.sed in this place. By what warrant do you and your company take upon yourselves to pa.s.s judgment upon this mother of mine?
That is the Emperor"s right."
"By the warrant of capture, Augustus," answered Jodd. "We Northmen took the palace and opened the gates to you and your Armenians. Also we took her who ruled in the palace, with whom we had a private score to settle that has to do with our general who stands yonder, blinded. Well, it is settled in his own fashion, and now we do not yield up this woman, our prisoner, save on your royal promise that no harm shall come to her in body. As for the rest, it is your business. Make a cook-maid of her if you will, only then I think her tongue would clear the kitchen. But swear to keep her sound in life and limb till h.e.l.l calls her, since otherwise we must add her to our company, which will make no man merrier."
"No," answered Constantine, "in a week she would corrupt you every one and breed a war. Well," he added with a boisterous laugh, "I"m master now at last, and I"ll swear by any saint that you may name, or all of them, no harm shall come to this Empress whose rule is done, and who, being without friends, need not be feared. Still, lest she should sp.a.w.n more mischief or murder, she must be kept close till we and our councillors decide where she shall dwell in future. Ho! guards, take my royal father"s widow to the dower-palace, and there watch her well. If she escapes, you shall die beneath the rods. Away with the snake before it begins to hiss again."
"I"ll hiss no more," said Irene, as the soldiers formed up round her, "yet, perchance, Constantine, you may live to find that the snake still has strength to strike and poison in its fangs, you and others. Do you come with me, Martina?"
"Nay, Lady, since here stands one whom G.o.d and you together have given me to guard. For his sake I would keep my life in me," and she touched me on the shoulder.
"That whelp who is called my son spoke truly when he said that the fallen have no friends," exclaimed Irene. "Well, you should thank me, Martina, who made Olaf blind, since, being without eyes, he cannot see how ugly is your face. In his darkness he may perchance mistake you for the beauteous Egyptian, Heliodore, as I know you who love him madly would have him do."
With this vile taunt she went.
"I think I"m crazed," said the Emperor, as the doors swung to behind her. "I should have struck that snake while the stick is in my hand. I tell you I fear her fangs. Why, if she could, she"d make me as that poor man is, blind, or even butcher me. Well, she"s my mother, and I"ve sworn, so there"s an end. Now, you Olaf, you are that same captain, are you not, who dashed the poisoned fig from my lips that this tender mother of mine would have let me eat when I was in liquor; yes, and would have swallowed it yourself to save me from my folly?"
"I am that man, Augustus."
"Aye, you are that man, and one of whom all the city has been talking.
They say, so poor is your taste, that you turned your back upon the favours of an Empress because of some young girl you dared to love. They say also that she paid you back with a dagger in the eyes, she who was ready to set you in my place."
"Rumour has many tongues, Augustus," I answered. "At least I fell from the Empress"s favour, and she rewarded me as she held that I deserved."
"So it seems. Christ! what a dreadful pit is that. Is this another of her gifts? Nay, answer not; I heard the tale. Well, Olaf, you saved my life and your Northmen have set me on the throne, since without them we could scarcely have won the palace. Now, what payment would you have?"
"Leave to go hence, Augustus," I answered.
"A small boon that you might have taken without asking, if you can find a dog to lead you, like other blind wretches. And you, Captain Jodd, and your men, what do you ask?"
"Such donation as it may please the Augustus to bestow, and after that permission to follow wherever our General Olaf goes, since he is our care. Here we have made so many enemies that we cannot sleep at night."
"The Empress of the World falls from her throne," mused Constantine, "and not even a waiting-maid attends her to her prison. But a blinded captain finds a regiment to escort him hence in love and honour, as though he were a new-crowned king. Truly Fortune is a jester. If ever Fate should rob me of my eyes, I wonder, when I had nothing more to give them, if three hundred faithful swords would follow me to ruin and to exile?"
Thus he thought aloud. Afterwards he, Jodd and some others, Martina among them, went aside, leaving me seated on a bench. Presently they returned, and Constantine said,
"General Olaf, I and your companions have taken counsel. Listen. But to-day messengers have come from Lesbos, whom we met outside the gates.
It seems that the governor there is dead, and that the accursed Moslems threaten to storm the isle as soon as summer comes and add it to their empire. Our Christian subjects there pray that a new governor may be appointed, one who knows war, and that with him may be sent troops sufficient to repel the prophet-worshippers, who, not having many ships, cannot attack in great force. Now, Captain Jodd thinks this task will be to the liking of the Northmen, and though you are blind, I think that you would serve me well as governor of Lesbos. Is it your pleasure to accept this office?"
"Aye, with thankfulness, Augustus," I answered. "Only, after the Moslems are beaten back, if it pleases G.o.d that it should so befall, I ask leave of absence for a while, since there is one for whom I must search."
"I grant it, who name Captain Jodd your deputy. Stay, there"s one more thing. In Lesbos my mother has large vineyards and estates. As part payment of her debt these shall be conveyed to you. Nay, no thanks; it is I who owe them. Whatever his faults, Constantine is not ungrateful.
Moreover, enough time has been spent upon this matter. What say you, Officer? That the Armenians are marshalled and that you have Stauracius safe? Good! I come to lead them. Then to the Hippodrome to be proclaimed."
BOOK III
EGYPT
CHAPTER I
TIDINGS FROM EGYPT
That curtain of oblivion without rent or seam sinks again upon the visions of this past of mine. It falls, as it were, on the last of the scenes in the dreadful chamber of the pit, to rise once more far from Byzantium.
I am blind and can see nothing, for the power which enables me to disinter what lies buried beneath the weight and wreck of so many ages tells me no more than those things that once my senses knew. What I did not hear then I do not hear now; what I did not see then I do not see now. Thus it comes about that of Lesbos itself, of the shape of its mountains or the colour of its seas I can tell nothing more than I was told, because my sight never dwelt on them in any life that I can remember.
It was evening. The heat of the sun had pa.s.sed and the night breeze blew through the wide, cool chamber in which I sat with Martina, whom the soldiers, in their rude fashion, called "Olaf"s Brown Dog." For brown was her colouring, and she led me from place to place as dogs are trained to lead blind men. Yet against her the roughest of them never said an evil word; not from fear, but because they knew that none could be said.
Martina was talking, she who always loved to talk, if not of one thing, then of another.
"G.o.d-son," she said, "although you are a great grumbler, I tell you that in my judgment you were born under a lucky star, or saint, call it which you will. For instance, when you were walking up and down that Hall of the Pit in the palace at Constantinople, which I always dream of now if I sup too late----"
"And your spirit, or double, or whatever you call it, was kindly leading me round the edge of the death-trap," I interrupted.
"----and my spirit, or double, making itself useful for once, was doing what you say, well, who would have thought that before so very long you would be the governor, much beloved, of the rich and prosperous island of Lesbos; still the commander, much beloved, of troops, many of them your own countrymen, and, although you are blind, the Imperial general who has dealt the Moslems one of the worst defeats they have suffered for a long while."
"Jodd and the others did that," I answered. "I only sat here and made the plans."
"Jodd!" she exclaimed with contempt. "Jodd has no more head for plans than a doorpost! Although it is true," she added with a softening of the voice, "that he is a good man to lean on at a pinch, and a very terrible fighter; also one who can keep such brain as G.o.d gave him cool in the hour of terror, as Irene knows well enough. Yet it was you, Olaf, not even I, but you, who remembered that the Northmen are seafolk born, and turned all those trading vessels into war-galleys and hid them in the little bays with a few of your people in command of each. It was you who suffered the Moslem fleet to sail unmolested into the Mitylene harbours, pretending and giving notice that the only defence would be by land.
Then, after they were at anchor and beginning to disembark, it was you who fell on them at the dawn and sank and slew till none remained save those of their army who were taken prisoners or spared for ransom. Yes, and you commanded our ships in person; and at night who is a better captain than a blind man? Oh! you did well, very well; and you are rich with Irene"s lands, and sit here in comfort and in honour, with the best of health save for your blindness, and I repeat that you were born under a lucky star--or saint."
"Not altogether so, Martina," I answered with a sigh.
"Ah!" she replied, "man can never be content. As usual, you are thinking of that Egyptian, I mean of the lady Heliodore, of whom, of course, it is quite right that you should think. Well, it is true that we have heard nothing of her. Still, that does not mean that we may not hear.
Perhaps Jodd has learned something from those prisoners. Hark! he comes."
As she spoke I heard the guards salute without and Jodd"s heavy step at the door of the chamber.
"Greeting, General," he said presently. "I bring you good news. The messengers to the Sultan Harun have returned with the ransom. Also this Caliph sends a writing signed by himself and his ministers, in which he swears by G.o.d and His Prophet that in consideration of our giving up our prisoners, among whom, it seems, are some great men, neither he nor his successors will attempt any new attack upon Lesbos for thirty years.
The interpreter will read it to you to-morrow, and you can send your answering letters with the prisoners."
"Seeing that these heathen are so many and we are so few, we could scarcely look for better terms," I said, "as I hope they will think at Constantinople. At least the prisoners shall sail when all is in order.