Now at last she turned on him, saying,
"Well is it for you, Barbarian, that if only for a while Fate has reft power from my hands. Oh! this is the bitterest drop in all my cup, that I who for a score of years ruled the world must live to suffer the insults of such as you."
"Then why not die and have done?" asked the imperturbable Jodd. "Or, if you lack the courage, why not submit to the decree of the Emperor, as so many have submitted to your decree, instead of troubling the general here with prayers for mercy? It would serve as well."
"Jodd," I said, "I command you to be silent. This lady is in trouble; attack those in power, if you will, not those who have fallen."
"There speaks the man I loved," said Irene. "What perverse fate kept us apart, Olaf? Had you taken what I offered, by now you and I would have ruled the world."
"Perhaps, Madam; yet it is right I should say that I do not regret my choice, although because of it I can no longer--look upon the world."
"I know, I know! She of that accursed necklace, which I see you still wear, came between us and spoiled everything. Now I"m ruined for lack of you and you are n.o.body for lack of me, a soldier who will run his petty course and depart into the universal darkness, leaving never a name behind him. In the ages to be what man will take count of one of a score of governors of the little Isle of Lesbos, who might yet have held the earth in the hollow of his hand and shone a second Caesar in its annals?
Oh! what marplot of a devil rules our destinies? He who fashioned those golden sh.e.l.ls upon your breast, or so I think. Well, well, it is so and cannot be altered. The Augusta of the Empire of the East must plead with the man who rejected her, for sight, or rather for her life. You understand, do you not, Olaf, that letter is a command to you to murder me?"
"Just such a command as you gave to those who blinded your son Constantine," muttered Jodd beneath his breath.
"That is what is meant. You are to murder me, and, Olaf, I"m not fit to die. Great place brings great temptations, and I admit that I have greatly sinned; I need time upon the earth to make my peace with Heaven, and if you slay my body now, you will slay my soul as well. Oh! be pitiful! Be pitiful! Olaf, you cannot kill the woman who has lain upon your breast, it is against nature. If you did such a thing you"d never sleep again; you would shudder yourself over the edge of the world!
Being what you are, no pomp or power would ever pay you for the deed. Be true to your own high heart and spare me. See, I who for so long was the ruler of many kingdoms, kneel to you and pray you to spare me," and, casting herself down upon her knees, she laid her head upon my feet and wept.
All that scene comes back to me with a strange and terrible vividness, although I had no sight to aid me in its details, save the sight of my soul. I remember that the wonder and horror of it pierced me through and through; the stab of the dagger in my eyes was not more sharp. There was I, Olaf, a mere gentleman of the North, seated in my chair of office, and there before me, her mighty head bowed upon my feet, knelt the Empress of the Earth pleading for her life. In truth all history could show few stranger scenes. What was I to do? If I yielded to her piteous prayers, it was probable that my own life and those of my wife and children would pay the price. Yet how could I clap my hands in their Eastern fashion and summon the executioners to pierce those streaming eyes of hers? "Rise, Augusta," I said, for in this extremity of her shame I gave her back her t.i.tle, "and tell me, you who are accustomed to such matters, how I can spare you who deal with the lives of others as well as with my own?"
"I thank you for that name," she said as she struggled to her feet.
"I"ve heard it shouted by tens of thousands in the circus and from the throats of armies, but never yet has it been half so sweet to me as now from lips that have no need to utter it. In times bygone I"d have paid you for this service with a province, but now Irene is so poor that, like some humble beggar-woman, she can but give her thanks. Still, repeat it no more, for next time it will sound bitter. What did you ask?
How you could save me, was it not? Well, the thing seems simple. In all that letter from Nicephorus there is no direct command that you should blind me. The fellow says that you are to treat me as I treated you, and as I treated Constantine, the Emperor--because I must. Well, I imprisoned both of you. Imprison me and you fulfil the mandate. He says that if I die you are to report it, which shows that he does not mean that I _must_ die. Oh! the road of escape is easy, should you desire to travel it. If you do not so desire, then, Olaf, I pray you as a last favour not to hand me over to common men. I see that by your side still hangs that red sword of yours wherewith once I threatened you when you refused me at Byzantium. Draw it, Olaf, and this time I"ll guide its edge across my throat. So you will please Nicephorus and win the rewards that Irene can no longer give. Baptised in her blood, what earthly glory is there to which you might not yet attain, you who had dared to lay hands upon the anointed flesh that even her worst foes have feared to touch lest G.o.d"s sudden curse should strike them dead?"
So she went on pouring out words with the strange eloquence that she could command at times, till I grew bewildered. She who had lived in light and luxury, who had loved the vision of all bright and glorious things, was pleading for her sight to the man whom she had robbed of sight that he might never more behold the young beauty of her rival. She who had imagination to know the greatness of her sins was pleading to be spared the death she dared not face. She was pleading to me, who for years had been her faithful soldier, the captain of her own guard, sworn to protect her from the slightest ill, me upon whom, for a while, it had pleased her to lavish the wild pa.s.sion of her imperial heart, who once had almost loved--who, indeed, had kissed her on the lips.
My orders were definite. I was commanded to blind this woman and to kill her in the blinding, which, in truth, I who had power of life and death, I who ruled over this island like a king by virtue of the royal commission, could do without question asked. If I _failed_ to fulfil those orders, I must be prepared to pay the price, as if I did fulfil them I might expect a high reward, probably the governorship of some great province of the Empire. This was no common prisoner. She was the ex-Empress, a mighty woman to whom tens of thousands or perhaps millions still looked for help and leadership. It was necessary to those who had seized her place and power that she should be rendered incapable of rule. It was desirable to them that she should die. Yet so delicately were the scales poised between them and the adherents of Irene, among whom were numbered all the great princes of the Church, that they themselves did not dare to inflict mutilation or death upon her. They feared lest it should be followed by a storm of wrath that would shake Nicephorus from his throne and involve them in his ruin.
So they sent her to me, the governor of a distant dependency, the man whom they knew she had wickedly wronged, being certain that her tongue, which it was said could turn the hearts of all men, would never soften mine. Then afterwards they would declare that the warrant was a forgery, that I had but wreaked a private vengeance upon an ancient foe, and, to still the scandal, degrade me from my governorship--into some place of greater power and profit.
Oh! while Irene pleaded before me and, heedless of the presence of Jodd, even cast her arms about me and laid her head upon my breast, all these things pa.s.sed through my mind. In its scales I weighed the matter out, and the beam rose against me, for I knew well that if I spared Irene I condemned myself and those who were more to me than myself, my wife, my children, and all the Northmen who clung to me, and who would not see me die without blow struck. I understood it all, and, understanding, of a sudden made up my mind--to spare Irene. Come what might, I would be no butcher; I would follow my heart whithersoever it might lead me.
"Cease, Madam," I said. "I have decided. Jodd, bid the messenger summon hither Heliodore and Martina, my wife and yours."
"Oh!" exclaimed Irene, "if these women are to be called in counsel on my case all is finished, seeing that both of them love you and are my enemies. Moreover, I have some pride left. To you I could plead, but not to them, though they blind me with their bodkins after they have stabbed me with their tongues. Excellency, a last boon! Call in your guard and kill me."
"Madam, I said that I had decided, and all the women in the world will not change my mind in this way or in that. Jodd, do my bidding."
Jodd struck a bell, once only, which was the signal for the messenger.
He came and received his orders. Then followed a pause, since Heliodore and Martina were in a place close by and must be sent for. During this time Irene began to talk to me of sundry general matters. She compared the view that might be seen from this house in Lesbos to that from the terrace of her palace on the Bosphorus, and described its differences to me. She asked me as to the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, whom she understood I had seen, inquiring as to the estimate I had formed of his character.
Lastly, with a laugh, she dwelt upon the strange vicissitudes of life.
"Look at me," she said. "I began my days as the daughter of a Greek gentleman, with no dower save my wit and beauty. Then I rose to be a ruler of the world, and knew all that it has to give of pomp and power.
Nations trembled at my nod; at my smile men grew great; at my frown they faded into nothingness. Save you, Olaf, none ever really conquered me, until I fell in the appointed hour. And now! Of this splendour there is left but a nun"s robe; of this countless wealth but one silver crucifix; of this power--naught."
So she spoke on, still not knowing to what decision I had come; whether she were to be blinded or to live or die. To myself I thought it was a proof of her greatness that she could thus turn her mind to such things while Fate hovered over her, its hand upon a sword. But it may be that she thought thus to impress me and to enmesh me in memories which would tie my hands, or even from the character of my answers to draw some augury of her doom.
The women came at length. Heliodore entered first, and to her Irene bowed.
"Greeting, Lady of Egypt," she said. "Ah! had you taken my counsel in the past, that t.i.tle might have been yours in very truth, and there you and your husband could have founded a new line of kings independent of the Empire which totters to its fall."
"I remember no such counsel, Madam," said Heliodore. "It seems to me that the course I took was right and one pleasing to G.o.d, since it has given me my husband for myself, although, it is true, wickedly robbed of his eyes."
"For yourself! Can you say so while Martina is always at his side?" she asked in a musing voice. "Well, it may be, for in this world strange things happen."
She paused, and I heard both Heliodore and Jodd move as though in anger, for her bitter shaft had gone home. Then she went on softly,
"Lady, may I tell you that, in my judgment, your beauty is even greater than it was, though it is true it has grown from bud to flower. Few bear their years and a mother"s burdens so lightly in these hot lands."
Heliodore did not answer, for at that moment Martina entered. Seeing Irene for the first time, she forgot everything that had pa.s.sed and curtseyed to her in the old fashion, murmuring the familiar words,
"Thy servant greets thee, Augusta."
"Nay, use not that t.i.tle, Martina, to one who has done with the world and its vanities. Call me "Mother" if you will, for that is the only name of honour by which those of my religious order may be known. In truth, as your mother in G.o.d, I welcome you and bless you, from my heart forgiving you those ills which you have worked against me, being, as I know well, driven by a love that is greater than any woman bears to woman. But that eating fire of pa.s.sion scorned is the heritage of both of us, and of it we will talk afterwards. I must not waste the time of the General Olaf, whom destiny, in return for many griefs, has appointed to be my jailer. Oh! Olaf," she added with a little laugh, "some foresight of the future must have taught me to train you for the post.
Let us then be silent, ladies, and listen to the judgment which this jailer of mine is about to pa.s.s upon me. Do you know it is no less than whether these eyes of mine, which you were wont to praise, Martina, which in his lighter moments even this stern Olaf was wont to praise, should be torn from beneath my brow, and if so, whether it should be done in such a fashion that I die of the deed? That and no less is the matter which his lips must settle. Now speak, Excellency."
"Madam," I said slowly, "to the best of my wit I have considered the letter sent to me under the seal and sign of the Emperor Nicephorus.
Although it might be so interpreted by some, I cannot find in that letter any direct command that I should cause you to be blinded, but only one that I should keep you under strict guard, giving you such things as are necessary to your sustenance. This then I shall do, and by the first ship make report of my action to the Emperor at Byzantium."
Now, when she heard these words, at length the proud spirit of Irene broke.
"G.o.d reward you, for I cannot, Olaf," she cried. "G.o.d reward you, saint among men, who can pay back cruel injuries with the gentlest mercy."
So saying, she burst into tears and fell senseless to the ground.
Martina ran to aid her, but Heliodore turned to me and said in her tender voice,
"This is worthy of you, Olaf, and I would not have you do otherwise.
Yet, husband, I fear that this pity of yours has signed the death-warrant of us all."
So it proved to be, though, as it chanced, that warrant was never executed. I made my report to Byzantium, and in course of time the answer came in a letter from the Emperor. This letter coldly approved of my act in set and formal phrases. It added that the truth had been conveyed publicly to those slanderers of the Emperor who announced that he had caused Irene to be first blinded and then put to death in Lesbos, whereby their evil tongues had been silenced.
Then came this pregnant sentence:
"We command you, with your wife and children and your lieutenant, the Captain Jodd, with his wife and children, to lay down your offices and report yourselves with all speed to Us at our Court of Byzantium, that we may confer with you on certain matters. If it is not convenient to you, or you can find no fitting ship in which to sail at once, know that within a month of your receipt of this letter our fleet will call at Lesbos and bring you and the others herein mentioned to our Presence."
"That is a death sentence," said Martina, when she had finished reading out this pa.s.sage. "I have seen several such sent in my day, when I was Irene"s confidential lady. It is the common form. We shall never reach Byzantium, Olaf, or, if we do, we shall never leave it more."
I nodded, for I knew that this was so. Then, at some whispered word from Martina, Heliodore spoke.
"Husband," she said, "foreseeing this issue, Martina, Jodd, and most of the Northmen and I have made a plan which we now submit to you, praying that for our sakes, if not for yours, you will not thrust it aside.
We have bought two good ships, armed them and furnished them with all things needful. Moreover, during the past two months we have sold much of our property, turning it into gold. This is our plan--that we pretend to obey the order of the Emperor, but instead of heading for Byzantium, sail away north to the land in which you were born, where, having rank and possessions, you may still become a mighty chief. If we go at once we shall miss the Imperial fleet, and I think that none will follow us."
Now I bowed my head for a while and thought. Then I lifted it and said,
"So let it be. No other road is open."