Lamekis

by Charles de Fieux

  I got into her room disguised as a Bour-rouk,259 accompanied by a slave whose zeal, bravery and loyalty I could count on. The King’s rooms were always open except at ungodly hours, so I was hoping that in my honorable clothes I could infiltrate as far as the wicked woman’s room and in case anyone was uneasy or curious about me being there I had some reference letters that I could say would keep me safe around the Queen and since I did not know when I needed to show up, I was trying to find where I would have to go when summoned.

  It was lucky for the guilty parties that I did not find them. We got all the way to Clemelis’ room, where a surprising solitude prevailed. The single glass-paned closet was locked. I got the idea that she was shut up inside (because jealousy can convince you of the most unlikely things) and I had to get in. With much effort we forced the door and found that everything was set up (I was sure) to confirm my suspicions. In the weal light of a candle burning in a lantern a porphyry portrait260 became visible, of the Houcaïs, which inflamed my fury so much that I smashed it to pieces.

  The expedition, in which I took unusual pleasure, agitated me so much that I felt sick. I flopped onto the sofa next to the table I was leaning on, but as I did so I touched something with my hand. I brought the candle over and saw a paper on which was written a draft of a letter with a number of corrections. It was Clemelis’ handwriting. I read, or better said deciphered it hungrily.

  Clemelis’ Letter

  How could you ever doubt, ingrate, that I love you? I barely knew you and my heart was yours in all its tenderness. That I love you, alas! There has been no moment of my life that wasn’t devoted to you. I see you everywhere. I search for you everywhere and I ask everyone I see about you. After this, you ask me if I love you…

  Suspicion can do anything when you are blinded by jealousy! I shook with rage at the sight of such plainly expressed passion. I kept the letter as proof that my grudge was justified and then hid myself in the closet hoping that the traitor would come sooner or later to deliver herself to my righteous fury.

  I was wrong. I waited all night and the next day, but no one came. My astonishment was beyond compare. I had no doubt that I was betrayed, but what baffled me was by whom? I had confided my secret to no one. Even my slave did not know what brought me to the place. As for Zelimon, unless he was in on it with Clemelis, which seemed unlikely, no one could have found out. I concluded that my wife was with the Houcaïs in one of his country mansions. There was no way I could find out if that were true, especially if I went there, without putting my plan at risk. It was too important for me to jeopardize it; my role was to wait. I hid myself in another house until Clemelis came back. Everyday I sent my slave to the Court to get immediate information. The treacherous woman, I told myself, cannot stay in the arms of her lover forever. She will come back sooner or later and my vengeance will hound her. In the end she will succumb.

  No news of Clemelis came for eight days. I started getting impatient and taking measures to make a new search, but then the slave I used as a messenger showed up out of breath and with ecstatic eyes. I had ordered him to report to me when the Houcaïs or my wife returned. He obviously guessed, since he so often witnessed my worried state, that both were terribly important to me. He informed me that the King had just appeared in public. I trembled with joy. According to my assumptions Clemelis should not be long in coming to the Court. Oh, how dreadful is chance! My conjecture was only too right. She came that very evening.

  As soon as I was sure, I went in disguise again to the palace. But I was dismayed and disappointed when I got to her room to find Clemelis surrounded by a crowd of people, saying that something extraordinary had happened. When I heard what it was, I was not surprised; I really should have expected it and thus made provisions. The closet that I had forced open and the broken bust of the King were causing a stir. My wife, who could not understand it, was scared and crying about the violence. The King was informed and came directly to her room to found out more about the unusual event. A rumor was quietly spread around about a secret conspiracy: to the simplest of events in the Courts they attributed the most complicated principles.

  The King stayed with Clemelis for more than three hours and then left looking distracted and lost. I took advantage of the moment when the crowd followed him to sneak into my wife’s rooms and I jumped into the first place I could hide—it was a wardrobe with a door that opened onto Clemelis’ bedroom. I saw her through the keyhole. Could I have been in a better place?

  I waited with inexpressible impatience for the calm of night to help my plan. With zenghuis in hand and glued to the door I was listening closely in order to slip into the room just at the right time when all of a sudden I heard a shrill cry that sharpened my attention. I cracked open the door so that I could hear better what was going on. A man was hiding in her room like me and had obviously tried to attack her. I couldn’t believe it! It was Zelimon. I knew it at Clemelis’ first curses. What did he want? Sinouis, imagine how ready I was. I had just learned that he was a traitor and the most deceitful of all men.

  After Clemelis called him all the names he deserved, she commanded him to leave or else she would ruin him. “If it weren’t for the extreme respect I have for your father,” she added, “the King would know about your aberration right now…You love me, you say? Lovely excuse and nice way to win me over! Until now I thought you were a reasonable man, but I didn’t know you. Surely you’ve lost your mind and the best thing that could happen to you would be to get someplace safe. Leave and don’t say anything. You should already be gone.”

  Instead of leaving, Zelimon asked to speak for a minute, not to make excuses, he said, but to do her an important service that was a matter of life and death. She barely heard my name, but it changed her mind. She pressed him for information about me, what had happened to me and why he knew more than she did.

  The question made Zelimon hesitate, all prepared as he was to answer. He cut himself short over and over. First he started off by saying that the love I had for a young Phoenician girl was the reason I stayed away. Right after that he said I was jealous and if it were not for him I would have finished her off. He did not say that he was the one who told me everything I believed. What I found out in all this was that he was a cheat, a seducer and for that I had to get my revenge.

  It was different for Clemelis. Not only did she believe everything he said, but she even forgave him, provided that, she said, he give her a faithful account of my plot with the young girl (whom he had invented by saying she had helped me to recover). Zelimon, who was madly in love and therefore thought he was getting lucky, painted me with the blackest colors and told far-fetched tales that were as false as he was. I could not stand it anymore. I burst into the room and in spite of my disguise Clemelis recognized me and held out her arms. I answered her with my zenghuis. Zelimon saw that he was caught in his treachery and tried in vain to escape. Then he stood still like a statue and took the punishment he deserved.

  Just as I was feeling satisfied with a legitimate vengeance, a cruel thought poisoned the sweetness. If Clemelis was innocent, I told myself, and the traitor whom I had just punished had the same effect on me in his situation as he had had before in mine, I would be the cruelest, most savage of all men! This idea spawned a thousand regrets. I looked at poor Clemelis; death pallor covered her lovely face. She fell down with her arms outstretched, in the same position she held to embrace me. My eyes swelled with tears at the cruel sight. “Heavens,” I cried, “what have I done?” I could say no more. I was so overwhelmed by remorse and grief that I passed out.

  When I came back to my senses, I was in chains, in a dark dungeon, surrounded by people trying to wake me up and waiting to make me talk. I had barely opened my eyes when a voice shouted to tell Boldeon. I trembled. Certainly he had to interrogate me. What did I have to say to him? What proof did I have of the dishonor that made me commit the crime? Simple conjectures: a letter that could be interpreted differently, the words of a traitor w
ho, maybe, wasn’t one anymore or who could have denied everything with as much gall as he had had to say it in the first place. Far from being in control over things, I was repulsed by them. I would have preferred to die a thousand times on the scaffold than to save myself by admitting such a shameful history. I felt like I was being dishonored twice.

  Boldeon came as I was brooding over the tragedy. I was expecting to be buried in the harshest harangue—I was mistaken. He approached me looking sad but gentle. He asked why I was pushed to such violent extremes and what his son could have done to deserve the awful treatment I inflicted on him. “I come here,” he said, “less as a father who should demand your condemnation than as a judge trying to find an excuse not to punish you. The King, as upset as he is with you, really wants to know how you can justify yourself. Answer me frankly. Your sincerity will, perhaps, pardon you. As for myself, I can’t believe that you committed such cruelty without a reason, extraordinary perhaps, but legitimate. Speak, I’m ready to listen.”

  I held my silence. Boldeon was surprised and tried all his diplomacy to make me change my mind. After he saw that his efforts were in vain, he got up and warned me gravely to change my attitude or it would spell my certain death. I said as little to his threats as to the promises he had made a minute earlier and he left mumbling about my blindness and the fate I was preparing for myself.

  An hour later the door of my prison opened and they threw in the unfortunate slave who had helped me. He had just suffered the gil-gan-gis261 and they were giving him the customary meal. As soon as he entered he fell at my feet and begged me in a flood of tears to spare him the second assault that they would inflict on him if I refused to speak. “If you knew” he said to me, “everything I just suffered, you would take pity on your poor slave. I’d prefer the cruelest death to torture like this.”

  I was sorry for him, but my mind was made up. Without answering his plea I ordered him to tell me everything that happened after I passed out. He told me that Clemelis’ servants had woken up at the sound of Zelimon’s wails after I stabbed him. They ran in with the palace guards and howled so loudly at the sight of the bloodshed that the King, Queen and the whole Court were woken up and crowded into Clemelis’ room to see what has going on. The Houcaïs looked furious and swore by his sacred belly262 to punish the perpetrator with death. Then he was taken aback when he learned from Zelimon, who had regained consciousness, that I was the criminal whom he had just condemned. The Queen not only supported his outrage, but she swore herself to see me die.

  After this they examined Clemelis’ wounds and the doctors unanimously agreed that it would take a miracle for her to survive, which incensed everyone’s resentment against me. And since the poor slave refused to confess, he was condemned to the gil-gan-gis where he would mercilessly lose his life in the torture of the four,263 unless I took pity on his unfortunate fate.

  Two hours later Boldeon came back. He came to know my final decision and when I persevered in my silence, he declared me condemned. I accepted the sentence without saying a word, surprisingly calm.

  The dinner that started the gil-gan-gis was brought to me in the middle of the night and shook my confidence. I couldn’t take it, but there was no mercy. If I did not talk, I would go to the four in two hours. The Houcaïs desperately wanted to know why I had committed such violent acts and he believed that the gil-gan-gis was an infallible means to the truth. He had ordered it and no one had tried to intervene for me since everyone was angry. What would have become of me, great Vilkonhis, if you had not taken pity on my misery!

  The Goulu-grand-gak264 was just starting to take off my tunic to deliver me to the four when the grand Tok-ho-dor sounded. At the venerable toll we all lay face down on the ground until the public criers had made their announcement. It did not take long: the Houcaïs and the Queen were going to be anointed so they could cancel their vow against me. I thanked Vilkonhis. The Goulu-grand-gak put my tunic back on me and led me to my cell until they decided my fate.

  Boldeon came to see me two hours later. “The royal anointment is done,” he exclaimed. “The King is free of his vow and sent me here one last time. You have been pardoned on the condition that you state the real reason that compelled you to try to kill Clemelis and my poor son.”

  In spite of everything he said to get me to answer, I persevered in my silence. He left boiling with anger. A few days later they came and took me on a very long walk escorted by a lot of guards. When we reached the shores of the sea, two men got in a boat with me and sailed away. In the middle of the sea they stuck me in a barrel and cast me adrift.

  Sinouis saves Lamekis

  “Heavens,” Sinouis interrupted, “what are you saying? Was that really the outcome of the merciful anointment? How did you escape from this great danger?”

  I was about to answer him by telling the rest of my story when something cold and slimy rubbed against my body. I turned my head in fright and saw a snake, much bigger than I was, slithering up to me. Then its head, body and tail started coiling up. My animal instinct knew it was a female of the species I looked like under the monstrous spell. I slithered away in disgust and buried myself under a nearby rock. Of course my safeguard was useless; the female in love followed me and when I tried to get out, I was entwined by her awful body and I could think of no way to escape the awful torture.

  “Come here, Sinouis,” I yelled. “Come here and use all your strength to get me out of this cruel embrace.”

  “Well, what can I do?” he had flown away and was perched on a dry branch. “Have you forgotten how powerless I am in my sad lot?”

  “Ah! You’re abandoning me. Can’t you at least try to help me? Or are you one of those fickle friends who run away at the very moment when they could be useful?”

  Sinouis was obviously hurt by my insinuation and came down without really knowing what he could do for me, but he risked coming all the way up the narrow crevasse in the rock. His eyes, as sad as they were, gave me heart. I made a furious effort and he was not so powerless seeing that he got me free of the bonds encircling me. I was no sooner free than I hurried away as fast as I could from that deadly hole. Sinouis, who did not recognize me and mistook me for the enemy trying to get at him to strangle the sad cries that he was uttering at my fate, flew up on top of a rock. He was so scared that he fell off at the very moment when the snake came out to follow me. What great luck! He delivered me of my implacable enemy. Sinouis barely touched its body:265 it hissed three times, stretched out, opened its mouth and died in front of us.

  The sight was so fascinating to me that I, too, hissed but in joy and Sinouis regained his courage. At that moment I felt everything that my friend must have felt and instead of laughing inside like I had done before, I swore that if the opportunity ever rose again, I would kill my enemy for good.

  After talking a little while about our harsh destinies, we agreed to find a different refuge until it pleased the Heavens to end our tragedy. We decided to set out the next night and my plan was to find some house and shrewdly try get some information about where we were and how we might get back to the kingdom of the Abdalles where I could look for the divine woman who would put us back in our original form. If Clemelis, I told myself, is still alive, maybe I will find a way to get together with her. A glimmer of hope made me imagine that my vengeance was unjust and it was she who would make me happy again one day.

  While waiting to leave, Sinouis urged me to tell how I miraculously escaped from the barrel in the sea. So, I continued my story.

  Lamekis and the giant birds

  The rolling of the barrel was so violent that my senses were burning up. I called upon the Creator and made for him a sacrifice of the cruel death I was condemned to. They say that a ray of hope always shines in our soul no matter how desperate we may be. I did not experience it in this situation. I did not try to fool myself at all—I was lost for good and the only consolation I had was the hope of dying quickly to stop my suffering.

  It’s no
use pretending to be strong! We are weak when we see death approaching. An accident happened that not only rattled my apparent surrender, but made me scared of the great danger I was facing: I noticed that water was leaking into my rolling vessel. I sought desperately to fix the new daunting problem and finally, after a hard search, I found where death was slowly entering. It was a hole; I plugged it up with my finger. Every wave rolled me out of place and the water took the opportunity to leak in. What could I do to save myself? “Oh Vilkonhis,” I screamed, “why are you holding me in suspense? Finish me off! You swore to; I see it. Is it fun for you to toss me around in despair? I ask you for no favors but to let me die right now. Are you so cruel as to refuse me?”

  I finished this plea just as some turbulence, inexpressibly stronger than any before, made me think that my prayers were answered. It was not hard to figure out that an awful storm was driving the waves up to the clouds. I heard a ghastly grinding during the violent jolts. Oh Heavens, how could I endure this terrible time? It was like the universe was shattering. Every minute I thought that the boards of my frail vessel were going to be smashed in. The constant shock of the waves on my barrel was like a blacksmith hammering an anvil. Oh Sinouis, what a state I was in! It was beyond me. And there are situations that are beyond words—I could not describe it to you if I tried.

  The dire situation lasted for quite a while. During the long hours I lost my strength. I had stopped thinking about the hole and the barrel was slowly but surely filling up with seawater. Now it was almost half-full. Finally, I was going to die. But then a jolt even more terrible still than all the others smashed my refuge to pieces and left me in open water. An ounce of courage, or better said the approach of death tried in vain to save my life against everything hammering away at it. I floundered and almost sunk to the bottom of the sea. The weight of my body was dragging me down; my mouth and ears were filling with water.