"Good luck to you, Olaf," said Martina as I followed him. "Be sure to tell me the news later--or to-morrow."
Then the chamberlain led me, not into the audience hall, as I had expected, but to the private imperial dining chamber. Here, reclining upon couches in the old Roman fashion, one on either side of a narrow table on which stood fruits and flagons of rich-hued Greek wine, were the two greatest people in the world, the Augusta Irene and the Augustus Constantine, her son.
She was wonderfully apparelled in a low-cut garment of white silk, over which fell a mantle of the imperial purple, and I noted that on her dazzling bosom hung that necklace of emerald beetles separated by golden sh.e.l.ls which she had caused to be copied from my own. On her fair hair that grew low upon her forehead and was parted in the middle, she wore a diadem of gold in which were set emeralds to match the beetles of the necklace. The Augustus was arrayed in the festal garments of a Caesar, also covered with a purple cloak. He was a heavy-faced and somewhat stupid-looking youth, dark-haired, like his father and uncles, but having large, blue, and not unkindly eyes. From his flushed face I gathered that he had drunk well of the strong Greek wine, and from the sullen look about his mouth that, as was common, he had been quarrelling with his mother.
I stood at the end of the table and saluted first the Empress and then the Emperor.
"Who"s this?" he asked, glancing at me.
"General Olaf, of my guard," she answered, "Governor of the State Prison. You remember, you wished me to send for him to settle the point as to which we were arguing."
"Oh! yes. Well, General Olaf, of my mother"s guard, have you not been told that you should salute the Augustus before the Augusta?"
"Sire," I answered humbly, "I have heard nothing of that matter, but in the land where I was bred I was taught that if a man and a woman were together I must always bow first to the woman and then to the man."
"Well said," exclaimed the Empress, clapping her hands; but the Emperor answered: "Doubtless your mother taught you that, not your father. Next time you enter the imperial chamber be pleased to forget the lesson and to remember that Emperors and Empresses are not men and women."
"Sire," I answered, "as you command I will remember that Emperors and Empresses are not men and women, but Emperors and Empresses."
At these words the Augustus began to scowl, but, changing his mind, laughed, as did his mother. He filled a gold cup with wine and pushed it towards me, saying:
"Drink to us, soldier, for after you have done so, our wits may be better matched."
I took the cup and holding it, said:
"I pledge your Imperial Majesties, who shine upon the world like twin stars in the sky. All hail to your Majesties!" and I drank, but not too deep.
"You are clever," growled the Augustus. "Well, keep the cup; you"ve earned it. Yet drain it first, man. You have scarce wet your lips. Do you fear that it is poisoned, as you say yonder fruits are?" And he pointed to a side-table, where stood a jar of gla.s.s in which were those very figs that had been sent to the princes in the prison.
"The cup you give is mine," interrupted Irene; "still, my servant is welcome to the gift. It shall be sent to your quarters, General."
"A soldier has no need of such gauds, your Majesties," I began, when Constantine, who, while we spoke, had swallowed another draught of the strong wine, broke in angrily:
"May I not give a cup of gold but you must claim it, I to whom the Empire and all its wealth belong?"
s.n.a.t.c.hing up the beaker he dashed it to the floor, spilling the wine, of which I, who wished to keep my head cool, was glad.
"Have done," he went on in his drunken rage. "Shall the Caesars huckster over a piece of worked gold like Jews in a market? Give me those figs, man; I"ll settle the matter of this poison."
I brought the jar of figs, and, bowing, set them down before him. That they were the same I knew, for the gla.s.s was labelled in my own writing and in that of the physician. He cut away the sealed parchment which was stretched over the mouth of the jar.
"Now hearken you, Olaf," he said. "It is true that I ordered fruit to be sent to that fool-Caesar, my uncle, because the last time I saw him Nicephorus prayed me for it, and I was willing to do him a pleasure. But that I ordered the fruit to be poisoned, as my mother says, is a lie, and may G.o.d curse the tongue that spoke it. I will show you that it was a lie," and plunging his hand into the spirit of the jar, he drew out two of the figs. "Now," he went on, waving them about in a half-drunken fashion, "this General Olaf of yours says that these are the same figs which were sent to the Caesar, I mean the blind priest, Father Nicephorus. Don"t you, Olaf?"
"Yes, Sire," I answered, "they were placed in that bottle in my presence and sealed with my seal."
"Well, those figs were sent by me, and this Olaf tells us they are poisoned. I"ll show him, and you too, mother, that they are _not_ poisoned, for I will eat one of them."
Now I looked at the Augusta, but she sat silent, her arms folded on her white bosom, her handsome face turned as it were to stone.
Constantine lifted the fig towards his loose mouth. Again I looked at the Augusta. Still she sat there like a statue, and it came into my mind that it was her purpose to allow this wine-bemused man to eat the fig.
Then I acted.
"Augustus," I said, "you must not touch that fruit," and stepping forward I took it from his hand.
He sprang to his feet and began to revile me.
"You watch-dog of the North!" he shouted. "Do you dare to say to the Emperor that he shall not do this or that? By all the images my mother worships I"ll have you whipped through the Circus."
"That you will never do," I answered, for my free blood boiled at the insult. "I tell you, Sire," I went on, leaving out certain words which I meant to speak, "that the fig is poisoned."
"And I tell you that you lie, you heathen savage. See here! Either you eat that fig or I do, so that we may know who speaks the truth. If you won"t, I will. Now obey, or, by Christ! to-morrow you shall be shorter by a head."
"The Augustus is pleased to threaten, which is unnecessary," I remarked.
"If I eat the fig, will the Augustus swear to leave the rest of them uneaten?"
"Aye," he answered with a hiccough, "for then I shall know the truth, and for the truth I live, though," he added, "I haven"t found it yet."
"And if I do not eat it, will the Augustus do so?"
"By the Holy Blood, yes. I"ll eat a dozen of them. Am I one to be hectored by a woman and a barbarian? Eat, or I eat."
"Good, Sire. It is better that a barbarian should die than that the world should lose its glorious Emperor. I eat, and when you are as I soon shall be, as will happen even to an emperor, may my blood lie heavy on your soul, the blood which I give to save your life."
Then I lifted the fig to my lips.
Before ever it touched them, with a motion swift as that of a panther springing on its prey, Irene had leapt from her couch and dashed the fruit from my hand. She turned upon her son.
"What kind of a thing are you," she asked, "who would suffer a brave man to poison himself that he may save your worthless life? Oh! G.o.d, what have I done that I should have given birth to such a hound? Whoever poisoned them, these fruits are poisoned, as has been proved and can be proved again, yes, and shall be. I tell you that if Olaf had tasted one of them by now he would have been dead or dying."
Constantine drank another cup of wine, which, oddly enough, seemed to sober him for the moment.
"I find all this strange," he said heavily. "You, my mother, would have suffered me to eat the fig which you declare is poisoned; a matter whereof you may know something. But when the General Olaf offers to eat it in my place, with your own royal hand you dash it from his lips, as he dashed it from mine. And there is another thing which is still more strange. This Olaf, who also says the figs are poisoned, offered to eat one of them if I promised I would not do so, which means, if he is right, that he offered to give his life for mine. Yet I have done nothing for him except call him hard names; and as he is your servant he has nothing to look for from me if I should win the fight with you at last. Now I have heard much talk of miracles, but this is the only one I have ever seen. Either Olaf is a liar, or he is a great man and a saint.
He says, I am told, that the monkey which ate one of those figs died.
Well, I never thought of it before, but there are more monkeys in the palace. Indeed, one lives on the terrace near by, for I fed it this afternoon. We"ll put the matter to the proof and learn of what stuff this Olaf is really made."
On the table stood a silver bell, and as he spoke he struck it. A chamberlain entered and was ordered to bring in the monkey. He departed, and with incredible swiftness the beast and its keeper arrived. It was a large animal of the baboon tribe, famous throughout the palace for its tricks. Indeed, on entering, at a word from the man who led it, it bowed to all of us.
"Give your beast these," said the Emperor, handing the keeper several of the figs.
The baboon took the fruits and, having sniffed at them, put them aside. Then the keeper fed it with some sweetmeats, which it caught and devoured, and presently, when its fears were allayed, threw it one of the figs, which it swallowed, doubtless thinking it a sweetmeat.
A minute or two later it began to show signs of distress and shortly afterwards died in convulsions.
"Now," said Irene, "now do you believe, my son?"
"Yes," he answered, "I believe that there is a saint in Constantinople.
Sir Saint, I salute you. You have saved my life and if it should come my way, by your brother saints! I"ll save yours, although you are my mother"s servant."
So speaking, he drank off yet another cup of wine and reeled from the room.