Domnei. A Comedy of Woman-Worship

by James Branch Cabell

  PART FOUR

  AHASUERUS

  Of how a knave hath late compassion

  On Melicent's forlorn condition;

  For which he saith as ye shall after hear:

  "Dame, since that game we play costeth too dear,

  My truth I plight, I shall you no more grieve

  By my behest, and here I take my leave

  As of the fairest, truest and best wife

  That ever yet I knew in all my life."

  21. How Demetrios Held His Chattel

  It is a tale which they narrate in Poictesme, telling how Demetrios returned into the country of the pagans and found all matters there as he had left them. They relate how Melicent was summoned.

  And the tale tells how upon the stairway by which you descended from the Women's Garden to the citadel—people called it the Queen's Stairway, because it was builded by Queen Rudabeh very long ago when the Emperor Zal held Nacumera—Demetrios waited with a naked sword. Below were four of his soldiers, picked warriors. This stairway was of white marble, and a sphinx carved in green porphyry guarded each balustrade.

  "Now that we have our audience," Demetrios said, "come, let the games begin."

  One of the soldiers spoke. It was that Euthyclos who (as you have heard) had ventured into Christendom at the hazard of his life to rescue the proconsul. Euthyclos was a man of the West Provinces and had followed the fortunes of Demetrios since boyhood.

  "King of the Age," cried Euthyclos, "it is grim hearing that we must fight with you. But since your will is our will, we must endure this testing, although we find it bitter as aloes and hot as coals. Dear lord and master, none has put food to his lips for whose sake we would harm you willingly, and we shall weep to-night when your ghost passes over and through us."

  Demetrios answered:

  "Rise up and leave this idleness! It is I that will clip the ends of my hair to-night for the love of you, my stalwart knaves. Such weeping as is done your wounds will perform."

  At that they addressed themselves to battle, and Melicent perceived she was witnessing no child's play. The soldiers had attacked in unison, and before the onslaught Demetrios stepped lightly back. But his sword flashed as he moved, and with a grunt Demetrios, leaning far forward, dug deep into the throat of his foremost assailant. The sword penetrated and caught in a link of the gold chain about the fellow's neck, so that Demetrios was forced to wrench the weapon free, twisting it, as the dying man stumbled backward. Prostrate, the soldier did not cry out, but only writhed and gave a curious bubbling noise as his soul passed.

  "Come," Demetrios said, "come now, you others, and see what you can win of me. I warn you it will be dearly purchased."

  And Melicent turned away, hiding her eyes. She was obscurely conscious that a wanton butchery went on, hearing its blows and groans as if from a great distance, while she entreated the Virgin for deliverance from this foul place.

  Then a hand fell upon Melicent's shoulder, rousing her. It was Demetrios. He breathed quickly, but his voice was gentle.

  "It is enough," he said. "I shall not greatly need Flamberge when I encounter that ruddy innocent who is so dear to you."

  He broke off. Then he spoke again, half jeering, half wistful. Said Demetrios:

  "I had hoped that you would look on and admire my cunning at swordplay. I was anxious to seem admirable somehow in your eyes … I failed. I know very well that I shall always fail. I know that Nacumera will fall, that some day in your native land people will say, 'That aged woman yonder was once the wife of Demetrios of Anatolia, who was pre-eminent among the heathen.' Then they will tell of how I cleft the head of an Emperor who had likened me to Priapos, and how I dragged his successor from behind an arras where he hid from me, to set him upon the throne I did not care to take; and they will tell how for a while great fortune went with me, and I ruled over much land, and was dreaded upon the wide sea, and raised the battlecry in cities that were not my own, fearing nobody. But you will not think of these matters, you will think only of your children's ailments, of baking and sewing and weaving tapestries, and of directing little household tasks. And the spider will spin her web in my helmet, which will hang as a trophy in the hall of Messire de la Forêt."

  Then he walked beside her into the Women's Garden, keeping silence for a while. He seemed to deliberate, to reach a decision. All at once Demetrios began to tell of that magnanimous contest which he had fought out in Theodoret's country with Perion of the Forest.

  "To do the long-legged fellow simple justice," said the proconsul, as epilogue, "there is no hardier knight alive. I shall always wonder whether or no I would have spared him had the water-demon's daughter not intervened in his behalf. Yes, I have had some previous dealings with her. Perhaps the less said concerning them, the better." Demetrios reflected for a while, rather sadly; then his swart face cleared. "Give thanks, my wife, that I have found an enemy who is not unworthy of me. He will come soon, I think, and then we will fight to the death. I hunger for that day."

  All praise of Perion, however worded, was as wine to Melicent. Demetrios saw as much, noted how the colour in her cheeks augmented delicately, how her eyes grew kindlier. It was his cue. Thereafter Demetrios very often spoke of Perion in that locked palace where no echo of the outer world might penetrate except at the proconsul's will. He told Melicent, in an unfeigned admiration, of Perion's courage and activity, declaring that no other captain since the days of those famous generals, Hannibal and Joshua, could lay claim to such preeminence in general estimation; and Demetrios narrated how the Free Companions had ridden through many kingdoms at adventure, serving many lords with valour and always fighting applaudably. To talk of Perion delighted Melicent: it was with such bribes that Demetrios purchased where his riches did not avail; and Melicent no longer avoided him.

  There is scope here for compassion. The man's love, if it be possible so to call that force which mastered him, had come to be an incessant malady. It poisoned everything, caused him to find his statecraft tedious, his power profitless, and his vices gloomy. But chief of all he fretted over the standards by which the lives of Melicent and Perion were guided. Demetrios thought these criteria comely, he had discovered them to be unshakable, and he despairingly knew that as long as he trusted in the judgment heaven gave him they must always appear to him supremely idiotic. To bring Melicent to his own level or to bring himself to hers was equally impossible. There were moments when he hated her.

  Thus the months passed, and the happenings of another year were chronicled; and as yet neither Perion nor Ayrart de Montors came to Nacumera, and the long plain before the citadel stayed tenantless save for the jackals crying there at night.

  "I wonder that my enemies do not come," Demetrios said. "It cannot be they have forgotten you and me. That is impossible." He frowned and sent spies into Christendom.

  22. How Misery Held Nacumera

  Then one day Demetrios came to Melicent, and he was in a surly rage.

  "Rogues all!" he grumbled. "Oh, I am wasted in this paltry age. Where are the giants and tyrants, and stalwart single-hearted champions of yesterday? Why, they are dead, and have become rotten bones. I will fight no longer. I will read legends instead, for life nowadays is no longer worthy of love or hatred."

  Melicent questioned him, and he told how his spies reported that the Cardinal de Montors could now not ever head an expedition against Demetrios' territories. The Pope had died suddenly in the course of the preceding October, and it was necessary to name his successor. The College of Cardinals had reached no decision after three days' balloting. Then, as is notorious, Dame Mélusine, as always hand in glove with Ayrart de Montors, held conference with the bishop who inspected the cardinals' dinner before it was carried into the apartments where these prelates were imprisoned together until, in edifying seclusion from all worldly influences, they should have prayerfully selected the next Pope.

  The Cardinal of Genoa received on the fourth day a chicken stuffed with a deed to the pal
aces of Monticello and Soriano; the Cardinal of Parma a similarly dressed fowl which made him master of the bishop's residence at Porto with its furniture and wine-cellar; while the Cardinals Orsino, Savelli, St. Angelo and Colonna were served with food of the same ingratiating sort. Such nourishment cured them of indecision, and Ayrart de Montors had presently ascended the papal throne under the title of Adrian VII, servant to the servants of God. His days of military captaincy were over. Demetrios deplored the loss of a formidable adversary, and jeered at the fact that the vicarship of heaven had been settled by six hens. But he particularly fretted over other news his spies had brought, which was the information that Perion had wedded Dame Mélusine, and had begotten two lusty children—Bertram and a daughter called Blaniferte—and now enjoyed the opulence and sovereignty of Brunbelois.

  Demetrios told this unwillingly. He turned away his eyes in speaking, and doggedly affected to rearrange a cushion, so that he might not see the face of Melicent. She noted his action and was grateful.

  Demetrios said, bitterly, "It is an old and tawdry history. He has forgotten you, Melicent, as a wise man will always put aside the dreams of his youth. To Cynara the Fates accord but a few years; a wanton Lyce laughs, cheats her adorers, and outlives the crow. There is an unintended moral here—" Demetrios said, "Yet you do not forget."

  "I know nothing as to this Perion you tell me of. I only know the Perion I loved has not forgotten," answered Melicent.

  And Demetrios, evincing a twinge like that of gout, demanded her reasons. It was a May morning, very hot and still, and Demetrios sat with his Christian wife in the Court of Stars.

  Said Melicent, "It is not unlikely that the Perion men know to-day has forgotten me and the service which I joyed to render Perion. Let him who would understand the mystery of the Crucifixion first become a lover! I pray for old sake's sake that Perion and his lady may taste of every prosperity. Indeed, I do not envy her. Rather I pity her, because last night I wandered through a certain forest hand-in-hand with a young Perion, whose excellencies she will never know as I know them in our own woods."

  Said Demetrios, "Do you console yourself with dreams?" The swart man grinned.

  Melicent said:

  "Now it is always twilight in these woods, and the light there is neither green nor gold, but both colours intermingled. It is like a friendly cloak for all who have been unhappy, even very long ago. Iseult is there, and Thisbe, too, and many others, and they are not severed from their lovers now.. Sometimes Dame Venus passes, riding upon a panther, and low-hanging leaves clutch at her tender flesh. Then Perion and I peep from a coppice, and are very glad and a little frightened in the heart of our own woods."

  Said Demetrios, "Do you console yourself with madness?" He showed no sign of mirth.

  Melicent said:

  "Ah, no, the Perion whom Mélusine possesses is but a man—a very happy man, I pray of God and all His saints. I am the luckier, who may not ever lose the Perion that to-day is mine alone. And though I may not ever touch this younger Perion's hands—and their palms were as hard as leather in that dear time now overpast—or see again his honest and courageous face, the most beautiful among all the faces of men and women I have ever seen, I do not grieve immeasurably, for nightly we walk hand-in-hand in our own woods."

  Demetrios said, "Ay; and then night passes, and dawn comes to light my face, which is the most hideous to you among all the faces of men and women!"

  But Melicent said only:

  "Seignior, although the severing daylight endures for a long while, I must be brave and worthy of Perion's love—nay, rather, of the love he gave me once. I may not grieve so long as no one else dares enter into our own woods."

  "Now go," cried the proconsul, when she had done, and he had noted her soft, deep, devoted gaze at one who was not there; "now go before I slay you!" And this new Demetrios whom she then saw was featured like a devil in sore torment.

  Wonderingly Melicent obeyed him.

  Thought Melicent, who was too proud to show her anguish: "I could have borne aught else, but this I am too cowardly to bear without complaint. I am a very contemptible person. I ought to love this Mélusine, who no doubt loves her husband quite as much as I love him—how could a woman do less?—and yet I cannot love her. I can only weep that I, robbed of all joy, and with no children to bewail me, must travel very tediously toward death, a friendless person cursed by fate, while this Mélusine laughs with her children. She has two children, as Demetrios reports. I think the boy must be the more like Perion. I think she must be very happy when she lifts that boy into her lap."

  Thus Melicent; and her full-blooded husband was not much more light-hearted. He went away from Nacumera shortly, in a shaking rage which robbed him of his hands' control, intent to kill and pillage, and, in fine, to make all other persons share his misery.

  23. How Demetrios Cried Farewell

  And then one day, when the proconsul had been absent some six weeks, Ahasuerus fetched Dame Melicent into the Court of Stars. Demetrios lay upon the divan supported by many pillows, as though he had not ever stirred since that first day when an unfettered Melicent, who was a princess then, exulted in her youth and comeliness.

  "Stand there," he said, and did not move at all, "that I may see my purchase."

  And presently he smiled, though wryly. Demetrios said next:

  "Of my own will I purchased misery. Yea, and death also. It is amusing…. Two days ago, in a brief skirmish, a league north of Calonak, the Prankish leader met me hand to hand. He has endeavoured to do this for a long while. I also wished it. Nothing could be sweeter than to feel the horse beneath me wading in his blood, I thought.. Ey, well, he dismounted me at the first encounter, though I am no weakling. I cannot understand quite how it happened. Pious people will say some deity was offended, but, for my part, I think my horse stumbled. It does not seem to matter now. What really matters, more or less, is that it would appear the man broke my backbone as one snaps a straw, since I cannot move a limb of me."

  "Seignior," said Melicent, "you mean that you are dying!"

  He answered, "Yes; but it is a trivial discomfort, now I see that it grieves you a little."

  She spoke his name some three times, sobbing. It was in her mind even then how strange the happening was that she should grieve for Demetrios.

  "O Melicent," he harshly said, "let us have done with lies! That Frankish captain who has brought about my death is Perion de la Forêt. He has not ever faltered in the duel between us since your paltry emeralds paid for his first armament.—Why, yes, I lied. I always hoped the man would do as in his place I would have done. I hoped in vain. For many long and hard-fought years this handsome maniac has been assailing Nacumera, tirelessly. Then the water-demon's daughter, that strange and wayward woman of Brunbelois, attempted to ensnare him. And that too was in vain. She failed, my spies reported—even Dame Mélusine, who had not ever failed before in such endeavours."

  "But certainly the foul witch failed!" cried Melicent. A glorious change had come into her face, and she continued, quite untruthfully, "Nor did I ever believe that this vile woman had made Perion prove faithless."

  "No, the fool's lunacy is rock, like yours. En cor gentil domnei per mort no passa, as they sing in your native country…. Ey, how indomitably I lied, what pains I took, lest you should ever know of this! And now it does not seem to matter any more…. The love this man bears for you," snarled Demetrios, "is sprung of the High God whom we diversely worship. The love I bear you is human, since I, too, am only human." And Demetrios chuckled. "Talk, and talk, and talk! There is no bird in any last year's nest."

  She laid her hand upon his unmoved hand, and found it cold and swollen. She wept to see the broken tyrant, who to her at least had been not all unkind.

  He said, with a great hunger in his eyes:

  "So likewise ends the duel which was fought between us two. I would salute the victor if I could. … Ey, Melicent, I still consider you and Perion are fools. We have a not i
ntolerable world to live in, and common-sense demands we make the most of every tidbit this world affords. Yet you can find in it only an exercising-ground for infatuation, and in all its contents—pleasures and pains alike—only so many obstacles for rapt insanity to override. I do not understand this mania; I would I might have known it, none the less. Always I envied you more than I loved you. Always my desire was less to win the love of Melicent than to love Melicent as Melicent loved Perion. I was incapable of this. Yet I have loved you. That was the reason, I believe, I put aside my purchased toy." It seemed to puzzle him.

  "Fair friend, it is the most honourable of reasons. You have done chivalrously. In this, at least, you have done that which would be not unworthy of Perion de la Forêt." A woman never avid for strained subtleties, it may be that she never understood, quite, why Demetrios laughed.

  He said:

  "I mean to serve you now, as I had always meant to serve you some day. Ey, yes, I think I always meant to give you back to Perion as a free gift. Meanwhile to see, and to writhe in seeing your perfection, has meant so much to me that daily I have delayed such a transfiguration of myself until to-morrow." The man grimaced. "My son Orestes, who will presently succeed me, has been summoned. I will order that he conduct you at once into Perion's camp—yonder by Quesiton. I think I shall not live three days."

  "I would not leave you, friend, until—"

  His grin was commentary and completion equally. Demetrios observed:

  "A dead dog has no teeth wherewith to serve even virtue. Oh, no, my women hate you far too greatly. You must go straightway to this Perion, while Demetrios of Anatolia is alive, or else not ever go."

  She had no words. She wept, and less for joy of winning home to Perion at last than for her grief that Demetrios was dying. Woman-like, she could remember only that the man had loved her in his fashion. And, woman-like, she could but wonder at the strength of Perion.