Domnei. A Comedy of Woman-Worship

6. How Melicent Sought Oversea

It is a tale which they narrate in Poictesme, telling how love began between Perion of the Forest, who was a captain of mercenaries, and young Melicent, who was daughter to the great Dom Manuel, and sister to Count Emmerick of Poictesme. They tell also how Melicent and Perion were parted, because there was no remedy, and policy demanded she should wed King Theodoret.

And the tale tells how Perion sailed with his retainers to seek desperate service under the harried Kaiser of the Greeks.

This venture was ill-fated, since, as the Free Companions were passing not far from Masillia, their vessel being at the time becalmed, they were attacked by three pagan galleys under the admiralty of the proconsul Demetrios. Perion's men, who fought so hardily on land, were novices at sea. They were powerless against an adversary who, from a great distance, showered liquid fire upon their vessel.

Then Demetrios sent little boats and took some thirty prisoners from the blazing ship, and made slaves of all save Ahasuerus the Jew, whom he released on being informed of the lean man's religion. It was a customary boast of this Demetrios that he made war on Christians only.

And presently, as Perion had commanded, Ahasuerus came to Melicent.

The princess sat in a high chair, the back of which was capped with a big lion's head in brass. It gleamed above her head, but was less glorious than her bright hair.

Ahasuerus made dispassionate report. "Thus painfully I have delivered, as my task was, these fine messages concerning Faith and Love and Death and so on. Touching their rationality I may reserve my own opinion. I am merely Perion's echo. Do I echo madness? This madman was my loved and honoured master once, a lord without any peer in the fields where men contend in battle. To-day those sinews which preserved a throne are dedicated to the transportation of luggage. Grant it is laughable. I do not laugh."

"And I lack time to weep," said Melicent.

So, when the Jew had told his tale and gone, young Melicent arose and went into a chamber painted with the histories of Jason and Medea, where her brother Count Emmerick hid such jewels as had not many equals in Christendom.

She did not hesitate. She took no thought for her brother, she did not remember her loved sisters: Ettarre and Dorothy were their names, and they also suffered for their beauty, and for the desire it quickened in the hearts of men. Melicent knew only that Perion was in captivity and might not look for aid from any person living save herself.

She gathered in a blue napkin such emeralds as would ransom a pope. She cut short her marvellous hair and disguised herself in all things as a man, and under cover of the ensuing night slipped from the castle. At Manneville she found a Venetian ship bound homeward with a cargo of swords and armour.

She hired herself to the captain of this vessel as a servant, calling herself Jocelin Gaignars. She found no time—wherein to be afraid or to grieve for the estate she was relinquishing, so long as Perion lay in danger.

Thus the young Jocelin, though not without hardship and odd by-ends of adventure here irrelevant, came with time's course into a land of sunlight and much wickedness where Perion was.

There the boy found in what fashion Perion was living and won the dearly purchased misery of seeing him, from afar, in his deplorable condition, as Perion went through the outer yard of Nacumera laden with chains and carrying great logs toward the kitchen. This befell when Jocelin had come into the hill country, where the eyrie of Demetrios blocked a crag-hung valley as snugly as a stone chokes a gutter-pipe.

Young Jocelin had begged an audience of this heathen lord and had obtained it—though Jocelin did not know as much—with ominous facility.

7. How Perion Was Freed

Demetrios lay on a divan within the Court of Stars, through which you passed from the fortress into the Women's Garden and the luxurious prison where he kept his wives. This court was circular in form and was paved with red and yellow slabs, laid alternately, like a chess-board. In the centre was a fountain, which cast up a tall thin jet of water. A gallery extended around the place, supported by columns that had been painted scarlet and were gilded with fantastic designs. The walls were of the colour of claret and were adorned with golden cinquefoils regularly placed. From a distance they resembled stars, and so gave the enclosure its name.

Demetrios lay upon a long divan which was covered with crimson, and which encircled the court entirely, save for the apertures of the two entrances. Demetrios was of burly person, which he by ordinary, as to-day, adorned resplendently; of a stature little above the common size, and disproportionately broad as to his chest and shoulders. It was rumoured that he could bore an apple through with his forefinger and had once killed a refractory horse with a blow of his naked fist; nor looking on the man, did you presume to question the report. His eyes were large and insolent, coloured like onyxes; for the rest, he had a handsome surly face which was disfigured by pimples.

He did not speak at all while Jocelin explained that his errand was to ransom Perion. Then, "At what price?" Demetrios said, without any sign of interest; and Jocelin, with many encomiums, displayed his emeralds.

"Ay, they are well enough," Demetrios agreed. "But then I have a superfluity of jewels."

He raised himself a little among the cushions, and in this moving the figured golden stuff in which he was clothed heaved and glittered like the scales of a splendid monster. He leisurely unfastened the great chrysoberyl, big as a hen's egg, which adorned his fillet.

"Look you, this is of a far more beautiful green than any of your trinkets, I think it is as valuable also, because of its huge size. Moreover, it turns red by lamplight—red as blood. That is an admirable colour. And yet I do not value it. I think I do not value anything. So I will make you a gift of this big coloured pebble, if you desire it, because your ignorance amuses me. Most people know Demetrios is not a merchant. He does not buy and sell. That which he has he keeps, and that which he desires he takes."

The boy was all despair. He did not speak. He was very handsome as he stood in that still place where everything excepting him was red and gold.

"You do not value my poor chrysoberyl? You value your friend more? It is a page out of Theocritos—'when there were golden men of old, when friends gave love for love.' And yet I could have sworn—Come now, a wager," purred Demetrios. "Show your contempt of this bauble to be as great as mine by throwing this shiny pebble, say, into the gallery, for the next passer-by to pick up, and I will credit your sincerity. Do that and I will even name my price for Perion."

The boy obeyed him without hesitation. Turning, he saw the horrid change in the intent eyes of Demetrios, and quailed before it. But instantly that flare of passion flickered out.

Demetrios gently said:

"A bargain is a bargain. My wives are beautiful, but their caresses annoy me as much as formerly they pleased me. I have long thought it would perhaps amuse me if I possessed a Christian wife who had eyes like violets and hair like gold, and a plump white body. A man tires very soon of ebony and amber…. Procure me such a wife and I will willingly release this Perion and all his fellows who are yet alive."

"But, seignior,"—and the boy was shaken now,—"you demand of me an impossibility!"

"I am so hardy as to think not. And my reason is that a man throws from the elbow only, but a woman with her whole arm."

There fell a silence now.

"Why, look you, I deal fairly, though. Were such a woman here— Demetrios of Anatolia's guest—I verily believe I would not hinder her departure, as I might easily do. For there is not a person within many miles of this place who considers it wholesome to withstand me. Yet were this woman purchasable, I would purchase. And—if she refused—I would not hinder her departure; but very certainly I would put Perion to the Torment of the Waterdrops. It is so droll to see a man go mad before your eyes, I think that I would laugh and quite forget the woman."

She said, "O God, I cry to You for justice!"

He answered:

"My good girl, in Nacumera the wishes of Demetrios are justice. But we waste time. You desire to purchase one of my belongings? So be it. I will hear your offer."

Just once her hands had gripped each other. Her arms fell now as if they had been drained of life. She spoke in a dull voice.

"Seignior, I offer Melicent who was a princess. I cry a price, seignior, for red lips and bright eyes and a fair woman's tender body without any blemish. I cry a price for youth and happiness and honour. These you may have for playthings, seignior, with everything which I possess, except my heart, for that is dead."

Demetrios asked, "Is this true speech?"

She answered:

"It is as sure as Love and Death. I know that nothing is more sure than these, and I praise God for my sure knowledge."

He chuckled, saying, "Platitudes break no bones."

So on the next day the chains were filed from Perion de la Forêt and all his fellows, save the nine unfortunates whom Demetrios had appointed to fight with lions a month before this, when he had entertained the Soldan of Bacharia. These men were bathed and perfumed and richly clad.

A galley of the proconsul's fleet conveyed them toward Christendom and set the twoscore slaves of yesterday ashore not far from Megaris. The captain of the galley on departure left with Perion a blue napkin, wherein were wrapped large emeralds and a bit of parchment.

Upon this parchment was written:

"Not these, but the body of Melicent, who was once a princess, purchased your bodies. Yet these will buy you ships and men and swords with which to storm my house where Melicent now is. Come if you will and fight with Demetrios of Anatolia for that brave girl who loved a porter as all loyal men should love their Maker and customarily do not. I think it would amuse us."

Then Perion stood by the languid sea which severed him from Melicent and cried:

"O God, that hast permitted this hard bargain, trade now with me! now barter with me, O Father of us all! That which a man has I will give."

Thus he waited in the clear sunlight, with no more wavering in his face than you may find in the next statue's face. Both hands strained toward the blue sky, as though he made a vow. If so, he did not break it.

And now no more of Perion.

At the same hour young Melicent, wrapped all about with a flame-coloured veil and crowned with marjoram, was led by a spruce boy toward a threshold, over which Demetrios lifted her, while many people sang in a strange tongue. And then she paid her ransom.

"Hymen, O Hymen!" they sang. "Do thou of many names and many temples, golden Aphrodite, be propitious to this bridal! Now let him first compute the glittering stars of midnight and the grasshoppers of a summer day who would count the joys this bridal shall bring about! Hymen, O Hymen, rejoice thou in this bridal!"

8. How Demetrios Was Amused

Now Melicent abode in the house of Demetrios, whom she had not seen since the morning after he had wedded her. A month had passed. As yet she could not understand the language of her fellow prisoners, but Halaon, a eunuch who had once served a cardinal in Tuscany, informed her the proconsul was in the West Provinces, where an invading force had landed under Ranulph de Meschines.

A month had passed. She woke one night from dreams of Perion—what else should women dream of?—and found the same Ahasuerus that had brought her news of Perion's captivity, so long ago, attendant at her bedside.

He seemed a prey to some half-scornful mirth. In speech, at least, the man was of entire discretion. "The Splendour of the World desires your presence, madame." Thus the Jew blandly spoke.

She cried, aghast at so much treachery, "You had planned this!"

He answered:

"I plan always. Oh, certainly, I must weave always as the spider does…. Meanwhile time passes. I, like you, am now the servitor of Demetrios. I am his factor now at Calonak. I buy and sell. I estimate ounces. I earn my wages. Who forbids it?" Here the Jew shrugged. "And to conclude, the Splendour of the World desires your presence, madame."

He seemed to get much joy of this mouth-filling periphrasis as sneeringly he spoke of their common master.

Now Melicent, in a loose robe of green Coan stuff shot through and through with a radiancy like that of copper, followed the thin, smiling Jew Ahasuerus. She came thus with bare feet into the Court of Stars, where the proconsul lay on the divan as though he had not ever moved from there. To-night he was clothed in scarlet, and barbaric ornaments dangled from his pierced ears. These glittered now that his head moved a little as he silently dismissed Ahasuerus from the Court of Stars.

Real stars were overhead, so brilliant and (it seemed) so near they turned the fountain's jet into a spurt of melting silver. The moon was set, but there was a flaring lamp of iron, high as a man's shoulder, yonder where Demetrios lay.

"Stand close to it, my wife," said the proconsul, "in order that I may see my newest purchase very clearly."

She obeyed him; and she esteemed the sacrifice, however unendurable, which bought for Perion the chance to serve God and his love for her by valorous and commendable actions to be no cause for grief.

"I think with those old men who sat upon the walls of Troy," Demetrios said, and he laughed because his voice had shaken a little. "Meanwhile I have returned from crucifying a hundred of your fellow worshippers," Demetrios continued. His speech had an odd sweetness. "Ey, yes, I conquered at Yroga. It was a good fight. My horse's hoofs were red at its conclusion. My surviving opponents I consider to have been deplorable fools when they surrendered, for people die less painfully in battle. There was one fellow, a Franciscan monk, who hung six hours upon a palm tree, always turning his head from one side to the other. It was amusing."

She answered nothing.

"And I was wondering always how I would feel were you nailed in his place. It was curious I should have thought of you…. But your white flesh is like the petals of a flower. I suppose it is as readily destructible. I think you would not long endure."

"I pray God hourly that I may not!" said tense Melicent.

He was pleased to have wrung one cry of anguish from this lovely effigy. He motioned her to him and laid one hand upon her naked breast. He gave a gesture of distaste.

Demetrios said:

"No, you are not afraid. However, you are very beautiful. I thought that you would please me more when your gold hair had grown a trifle longer. There is nothing in the world so beautiful as golden hair. Its beauty weathers even the commendation of poets."

No power of motion seemed to be in this white girl, but certainly you could detect no fear. Her clinging robe shone like an opal in the lamplight, her body, only partly veiled, was enticing, and her visage was very lovely. Her wide-open eyes implored you, but only as those of a trapped animal beseech the mercy for which it does not really hope. Thus Melicent waited in the clear lamplight, with no more wavering in her face than you may find in the next statue's face.

In the man's heart woke now some comprehension of the nature of her love for Perion, of that high and alien madness which dared to make of Demetrios of Anatolia's will an unavoidable discomfort, and no more. The prospect was alluring. The proconsul began to chuckle as water pours from a jar, and the gold in his ears twinkled.

"Decidedly I shall get much mirth of you. Go back to your own rooms. I had thought the world afforded no adversary and no game worthy of Demetrios. I have found both. Therefore, go back to your own rooms," he gently said.

9. How Time Sped in Heathenry

On the next day Melicent was removed to more magnificent apartments, and she was lodged in a lofty and spacious pavilion, which had three porticoes builded of marble and carved teakwood and Andalusian copper. Her rooms were spread with gold-worked carpets and hung with tapestries and brocaded silks figured with all manner of beasts and birds in their proper colours. Such was the girl's home now, where only happiness was denied to her. Many slaves attended Melicent, and she lacked for nothing in luxury and riches and things of price; and thereafter she abode at Nacumera, to all appearances, as the favourite among the proconsul's wives.

It must be recorded of Demetrios that henceforth he scrupulously demurred even to touch her. "I have purchased your body," he proudly said, "and I have taken seizin. I find I do not care for anything which can be purchased."

It may be that the man was never sane; it is indisputable that the mainspring of his least action was an inordinate pride. Here he had stumbled upon something which made of Demetrios of Anatolia a temporary discomfort, and which bedwarfed the utmost reach of his ill-doing into equality with the molestations of a house-fly; and perception of this fact worked in Demetrios like a poisonous ferment. To beg or once again to pillage he thought equally unworthy of himself. "Let us have patience!" It was not easily said so long as this fair Frankish woman dared to entertain a passion which Demetrios could not comprehend, and of which Demetrios was, and knew himself to be, incapable.

A connoisseur of passions, he resented such belittlement tempestuously; and he heaped every luxury upon Melicent, because, as he assured himself, the heart of every woman is alike.

He had his theories, his cunning, and, chief of all, an appreciation of her beauty, as his abettors. She had her memories and her clean heart. They duelled thus accoutred.

Meanwhile his other wives peered from screened alcoves at these two and duly hated Melicent. Upon no less than three occasions did Callistion— the first wife of the proconsul and the mother of his elder son— attempt the life of Melicent; and thrice Demetrios spared the woman at Melicent's entreaty. For Melicent (since she loved Perion) could understand that it was love of Demetrios, rather than hate of her, which drove the Dacian virago to extremities.

Then one day about noon Demetrios came unheralded into Melicent's resplendent prison. Through an aisle of painted pillars he came to her, striding with unwonted quickness, glittering as he moved. His robe this day was scarlet, the colour he chiefly affected. Gold glowed upon his forehead, gold dangled from his ears, and about his throat was a broad collar of gold and rubies. At his side was a cross-handled sword, in a scabbard of blue leather, curiously ornamented.

"Give thanks, my wife," Demetrios said, "that you are beautiful. For beauty was ever the spur of valour." Then quickly, joyously, he told her of how a fleet equipped by the King of Cyprus had been despatched against the province of Demetrios, and of how among the invaders were Perion of the Forest and his Free Companions. "Ey, yes, my porter has returned. I ride instantly for the coast to greet him with appropriate welcome. I pray heaven it is no sluggard or weakling that is come out against me."

Proudly, Melicent replied:

"There comes against you a champion of noted deeds, a courteous and hardy gentleman, pre-eminent at swordplay. There was never any man more ready than Perion to break a lance or shatter a shield, or more eager to succour the helpless and put to shame all cowards and traitors."

Demetrios dryly said:

"I do not question that the virtues of my porter are innumerable. Therefore we will not attempt to catalogue them. Now Ahasuerus reports that even before you came to tempt me with your paltry emeralds you once held the life of Perion in your hands?" Demetrios unfastened his sword. He grasped the hand of Melicent, and laid it upon the scabbard. "And what do you hold now, my wife? You hold the death of Perion. I take the antithesis to be neat."

She answered nothing. Her seeming indifference angered him. Demetrios wrenched the sword from its scabbard, with a hard violence that made Melicent recoil. He showed the blade all covered with graved symbols of which she could make nothing.

"This is Flamberge," said the proconsul; "the weapon which was the pride and bane of my father, famed Miramon Lluagor, because it was the sword which Galas made, in the old time's heyday, for unconquerable Charlemagne. Clerks declare it is a magic weapon and that the man who wields it is always unconquerable. I do not know. I think it is as difficult to believe in sorcery as it is to be entirely sure that all we know is not the sorcery of a drunken wizard. I very potently believe, however, that with this sword I shall kill Perion."

Melicent had plenty of patience, but astonishingly little, it seemed, for this sort of speech. "I think that you talk foolishly, seignior. And, other matters apart, it is manifest that you yourself concede Perion to be the better swordsman, since you require to be abetted by sorcery before you dare to face him."

"So, so!" Demetrios said, in a sort of grinding whisper, "you think that I am not the equal of this long-legged fellow! You would think otherwise if I had him here. You will think otherwise when I have killed him with my naked hands. Oh, very soon you will think otherwise."

He snarled, rage choking him, flung the sword at her feet and quitted her without any leave-taking. He had ridden three miles from Nacumera before he began to laugh. He perceived that Melicent at least respected sorcery, and had tricked him out of Flamberge by playing upon his tetchy vanity. Her adroitness pleased him.

Demetrios did not laugh when he found the Christian fleet had been ingloriously repulsed at sea by the Emir of Arsuf, and had never effected a landing. Demetrios picked a quarrel with the victorious admiral and killed the marplot in a public duel, but that was inadequate comfort.

"However," the proconsul reassured himself, "if my wife reports at all truthfully as to this Perion's nature it is certain that this Perion will come again." Then Demetrios went into the sacred grove upon the hillsides south of Quesiton and made an offering of myrtle-branches, rose-leaves and incense to Aphrodite of Colias.

10. How Demetrios Wooed

Ahasuerus came and went at will. Nothing was known concerning this soft-treading furtive man except by the proconsul, who had no confidants. By his decree Ahasuerus was an honoured guest at Nacumera. And always the Jew's eyes when Melicent was near him were as expressionless as the eyes of a snake, which do not ever change.

Once she told Demetrios that she feared Ahasuerus.

"But I do not fear him, Melicent, though I have larger reason. For I alone of all men living know the truth concerning this same Jew. Therefore, it amuses me to think that he, who served my wizard father in a very different fashion, is to-day my factor and ciphers over my accounts."

Demetrios laughed, and had the Jew summoned.

This was in the Women's Garden, where the proconsul sat with Melicent in a little domed pavilion of stone-work which was gilded with red gold and crowned with a cupola of alabaster. Its pavement was of transparent glass, under which were clear running waters wherein swam red and yellow fish.

Demetrios said:

"It appears that you are a formidable person, Ahasuerus. My wife here fears you."

"Splendour of the Age," returned Ahasuerus, quietly, "it is notorious that women have long hair and short wits. There is no need to fear a Jew. The Jew, I take it, was created in order that children might evince their playfulness by stoning him, the honest show their common-sense by robbing him, and the religious display their piety by burning him. Who forbids it?"

"Ey, but my wife is a Christian and in consequence worships a Jew." Demetrios reflected. His dark eyes twinkled. "What is your opinion concerning this other Jew, Ahasuerus?"

"I know that He was the Messiah, Lord."

"And yet you do not worship Him."

The Jew said:

"It was not altogether worship He desired. He asked that men should love Him. He does not ask love of me."

"I find that an obscure saying," Demetrios considered.

"It is a true saying, King of Kings. In time it will be made plain. That time is not yet come. I used to pray it would come soon. Now I do not pray any longer. I only wait."

Demetrios tugged at his chin, his eyes narrowed, meditating. He laughed.

Demetrios said:

"It is no affair of mine. What am I that I am called upon to have prejudices concerning the universe? It is highly probable there are gods of some sort or another, but I do not so far flatter myself as to consider that any possible god would be at all interested in my opinion of him. In any event, I am Demetrios. Let the worst come, and in whatever baleful underworld I find myself imprisoned I shall maintain myself there in a manner not unworthy of Demetrios." The proconsul shrugged at this point. "I do not find you amusing, Ahasuerus. You may go."

"I hear, and I obey," the Jew replied. He went away patiently.

Then Demetrios turned toward Melicent, rejoicing that his chattel had golden hair and was comely beyond comparison with all other women he had ever seen.

Said Demetrios:

"I love you, Melicent, and you do not love me. Do not be offended because my speech is harsh, for even though I know my candour is distasteful I must speak the truth. You have been obdurate too long, denying Kypris what is due to her. I think that your brain is giddy because of too much exulting in the magnificence of your body and in the number of men who have desired it to their own hurt. I concede your beauty, yet what will it matter a hundred years from now?

"I admit that my refrain is old. But it will presently take on a more poignant meaning, because a hundred years from now you—even you, dear Melicent!—and all the loveliness which now causes me to estimate life as a light matter in comparison with your love, will be only a bone or two. Your lustrous eyes, which are now more beautiful than it is possible to express, will be unsavoury holes and a worm will crawl through them; and what will it matter a hundred years from now?

"A hundred years from now should anyone break open our gilded tomb, he will find Melicent to be no more admirable than Demetrios. One skull is like another, and is as lightly split with a mattock. You will be as ugly as I, and nobody will be thinking of your eyes and hair. Hail, rain and dew will drench us both impartially when I lie at your side, as I intend to do, for a hundred years and yet another hundred years. You need not frown, for what will it matter a hundred years from now?

"Melicent, I offer love and a life that derides the folly of all other manners of living; and even if you deny me, what will it matter a hundred years from now?"

His face was contorted, his speech had fervent bitterness, for even while he wooed this woman the man internally was raging over his own infatuation.

And Melicent answered:

"There can be no question of love between us, seignior. You purchased my body. My body is at your disposal under God's will."

Demetrios sneered, his ardours cooled. He said, "I have already told you, my girl, I do not care for that which can be purchased."

In such fashion Melicent abode among these odious persons as a lily which is rooted in mire. She was a prisoner always, and when Demetrios came to Nacumera—which fell about irregularly, for now arose much fighting between the Christians and the pagans—a gem which he uncased, admired, curtly exulted in, and then, jeering at those hot wishes in his heart, locked up untouched when he went back to warfare.

To her the man was uniformly kind, if with a sort of sneer she could not understand; and he pillaged an infinity of Genoese and Venetian ships—which were notoriously the richest laden—of jewels, veils, silks, furs, embroideries and figured stuffs, wherewith to enhance the comeliness of Melicent. It seemed an all-engulfing madness with this despot daily to aggravate his fierce desire of her, to nurture his obsession, so that he might glory in the consciousness of treading down no puny adversary.

Pride spurred him on as witches ride their dupes to a foreknown destruction. "Let us have patience," he would say.

Meanwhile his other wives peered from screened alcoves at these two and duly hated Melicent. "Let us have patience!" they said, also, but with a meaning that was more sinister.