Cleopatra
Page 17
CHAPTER IV
OF THE WAYS OF CHARMION; AND OF THE CROWNING OF HARMACHIS AS THE KING OFLOVE
On the following day I received the writing of my appointment asAstrologer and Magician-in-Chief to the Queen, with the pay andperquisites of that office, which were not small. Rooms were given mein the palace, also, through which I passed at night to the highwatch-tower, whence I looked on the stars and drew their auguries. Forat this time Cleopatra was much troubled about matters political, andnot knowing how the great struggle among the Roman factions would end,but being very desirous to side with the strongest, she took constantcounsel with me as to the warnings of the stars. These I read to herin such manner as best seemed to fit the high interest of my ends. ForAntony, the Roman Triumvir, was now in Asia Minor, and, rumour ran, verywroth because it had been told him that Cleopatra was hostile to theTriumvirate, in that her General, Serapion, had aided Cassius. ButCleopatra protested loudly to me and others that Serapion had actedagainst her will. Yet Charmion told me that, as with Allienus, it wasbecause of a prophecy of Dioscorides the unlucky that the Queen herselfhad secretly ordered Serapion so to do. Still, this did not saveSerapion, for to prove to Antony that she was innocent she dragged theGeneral from the sanctuary and slew him. Woe be to those who carryout the will of tyrants if the scale should rise against them! And soSerapion perished.
Meanwhile all things went well with us, for the minds of Cleopatra andthose about her were so set upon affairs abroad that neither she northey thought of revolt at home. But day by day our party gatheredstrength in the cities of Egypt, and even in Alexandria, which is toEgypt as another land, all things being foreign there. Day by day, thosewho doubted were won over and sworn to the cause by that oath whichcannot be broken, and our plans of action more firmly laid. And everyother day I went forth from the palace to take counsel with my uncleSepa, and there at his house met the Nobles and the great priests whowere for the party of Khem.
I saw much of Cleopatra, the Queen, and I was ever more astonished atthe wealth and splendour of her mind, that for richness and varietywas as a woven cloth of gold throwing back all lights from its changingface. She feared me somewhat, and therefore wished to make a friend ofme, asking me of many matters that seemed to be beyond the province ofmy office. I saw much of the Lady Charmion also--indeed, she was ever atmy side, so that I scarce knew when she came and when she went. For shewould draw nigh with that soft step of hers, and I would turn to findher at hand and watching me beneath the long lashes of her downcasteyes. There was no service that was too hard for her, and no task toolong; for day and night she laboured for me and for our cause.
But when I thanked her for her loyalty, and said it should be had inmind in that time which was at hand, she stamped her foot, and poutedwith her lips, like an angry child, saying that, among all the thingswhich I had learned, this had I not learned--that Love's service askedno payment, and was its own guerdon. And I, being innocent in suchmatters, and, foolish that I was, holding the ways of women as of smallaccount, read her sayings in the sense that her services to the causeof Khem, which she loved, brought with them their own reward. But whenI praised so fine a spirit, she burst into angry tears and left mewondering. For I knew nothing of the trouble at her heart. I knew notthen that, unsought, this woman had given me her love, and that she wasrent and torn by pangs of passion fixed like arrows in her breast. I didnot know--how should I know it, who never looked upon her otherwise thanas an instrument of our joint and holy cause? Her beauty never stirredme--no, not even when she leaned over me and breathed upon my hair, Inever thought of it otherwise than as a man thinks of the beauty of astatue. What had I to do with such delights, I who was sworn to Isisand dedicate to the cause of Egypt? O ye Gods, bear me witness that I aminnocent of this thing which was the source of all my woe and the woe ofKhem!
How strange a thing is this love of woman, that is so small in itsbeginning and in its ends so great! See, at the first it is as thelittle spring of water welling from a mountain's heart. And at the lastwhat is it? It is a mighty river that floats argosies of joy and makeswide lands to smile. Or, perchance, it is a torrent to wash in a floodof ruin across the fields of Hope, bursting in the barriers of design,and bringing to tumbled nothingness the tenement of man's purity and thetemples of his faith. For when the Invisible conceived the order of theuniverse He set this seed of woman's love within its plan, that by itsmost unequal growth is doomed to bring about equality of law. For nowit lifts the low to heights untold, and now it brings the noble to thelevel of the dust. And thus, while Woman, that great surprise of nature,is, Good and Evil can never grow apart. For still She stands, and, blindwith love, shoots the shuttle of our fate, and pours sweet water intothe cup of bitterness, and poisons the wholesome breath of life with thedoom of her desire. Turn this way and turn that, She is at hand to meetthee. Her weakness is thy strength, her might is thy undoing. Of herthou art, to her thou goest. She is thy slave, yet holds thee captive;at her touch honour withers, locks open, and barriers fall. She isinfinite as ocean, she is variable as heaven, and her name is theUnforeseen. Man, strive not to escape from Woman and the love ofwoman; for, fly where thou wilt, She is yet thy fate, and whate'er thoubuildest thou buildest it for her!
And thus it came to pass that I, Harmachis, who had put such matters farfrom me, was yet doomed to fall by the thing I held of no account. For,see, this Charmion: she loved me--why, I know not. Of her own thoughtshe learned to love me, and of her love came what shall be told. But I,knowing naught, treated her like a sister, walking as it were hand inhand with her towards our common end.
And so the time passed on, till, at length, all things were made ready.
It was the night before the night when the blow should fall, and therewere revellings in the palace. That very day I had seen Sepa, and withhim the captains of a band of five hundred men, who should burst intothe palace at midnight on the morrow, when I had slain Cleopatra theQueen, and put the Roman and the Gallic legionaries to the sword. Thatvery day I had suborned the Captain Paulus who, since I drew him throughthe gates, was my will's slave. Half by fear and half by promises ofgreat reward I had prevailed upon him, for the watch was his, to unbarthat small gate which faces to the East at the signal on the morrownight.
All was made ready--the flower of Freedom that had been five-and-twentyyears in growth was on the point of bloom. Armed companies weregathering in every city from Abu to Athu, and spies looked out fromtheir walls, awaiting the coming of the messenger who should bringtidings that Cleopatra was no more and that Harmachis, the royalEgyptian, had seized the throne.
All was prepared, triumph hung in my hand as a ripe fruit to the hand ofthe plucker. Yet as I sat at the royal feast my heart was heavy, and ashadow of coming woe lay cold within my mind. I sat there in a placeof honour, near the majesty of Cleopatra, and looked down the lines ofguests, bright with gems and garlanded with flowers, marking those whomI had doomed to die. There before me lay Cleopatra in all her beauty,which thrilled the beholder as he is thrilled by the rushing of themidnight gale, or by the sight of stormy waters. I gazed on her as shetouched her lips with wine and toyed with the chaplet of roses on herbrow, thinking of the dagger beneath my robe that I had sworn to bury inher breast. Again, and yet again, I gazed and strove to hate her,strove to rejoice that she must die--and could not. There, too, behindher--watching me now, as ever, with her deep-fringed eyes--was thelovely Lady Charmion. Who, to look at her innocent face, would believethat she was the setter of that snare in which the Queen who loved hershould miserably perish? Who would dream that the secret of so muchdeath was locked in her girlish breast? I gazed, and grew sick at heartbecause I must anoint my throne with blood, and by evil sweep away theevil of the land. At that hour I wished, indeed, that I was nothingbut some humble husbandman, who in its season grows and in its seasongarners the golden grain! Alas! the seed that I had been doomed to sowwas the seed of Death, and now I must reap the red fruit of the harvest!
"Why, Harmachi
s, what ails thee?" said Cleopatra, smiling her slowsmile. "Has the golden skein of stars got tangled, my astronomer? ordost thou plan some new feat of magic? Say what is it that thou dost sopoorly grace our feast? Nay, now, did I not know, having made inquiry,that things so low as we poor women are far beneath thy gaze, why, Ishould swear that Eros had found thee out, Harmachis!"
"Nay, that I am spared, O Queen," I answered. "The servant of the starsmarks not the smaller light of woman's eyes, and therein is he happy!"
Cleopatra leaned herself towards me, looking on me long and steadily insuch fashion that, despite my will, the blood fluttered at my heart.
"Boast not, thou proud Egyptian," she said in a low voice which none butI and Charmion could hear, "lest perchance thou dost tempt me to matchmy magic against thine. What woman can forgive that a man should pushus by as things of no account? It is an insult to our sex which Nature'sself abhors," and she leaned back again and laughed most musically. But,glancing up, I saw Charmion, her teeth on her lip and an angry frownupon her brow.
"Pardon, royal Egypt," I answered coldly, but with such wit as I couldsummon, "before the Queen of Heaven even stars grow pale!" This I saidof the moon, which is the sign of the Holy Mother whom Cleopatra daredto rival, naming herself Isis come to earth.
"Happily said," she answered, clapping her white hands. "Why, here's anastronomer who has wit and can shape a compliment! Nay, such a wondermust not pass unnoted, lest the Gods resent it. Charmion, take thisrose-chaplet from my hair and set it upon the learned brow of ourHarmachis. He shall be crowned _King of Love_, whether he will it ornot."
Charmion lifted the chaplet from Cleopatra's brows and, bearing it towhere I was, with a smile set it upon my head yet warm and fragrant fromthe Queen's hair, but so roughly that she pained me somewhat. Shedid this because she was wroth, although she smiled with her lips andwhispered, "An omen, royal Harmachis." For though she was so very mucha woman, yet, when she was angered or suffered jealousy, Charmion had achildish way.
Having thus fixed the chaplet, she curtsied low before me, and with thesoftest tone of mockery named me, in the Greek tongue, "Harmachis, Kingof Love." Then Cleopatra laughed and pledged me as "King of Love," andso did all the company, finding the jest a merry one. For in Alexandriathey love not those who live straitly and turn aside from women.
But I sat there, a smile upon my lips, and black wrath in my heart. For,knowing who and what I was, it irked me to think myself a jest for thefrivolous nobles and light beauties of Cleopatra's Court. But I waschiefly angered against Charmion, because she laughed the loudest, and Idid not then know that laughter and bitterness are often the veils withwhich a sore heart wraps its weakness from the world. "An omen" she saidit was--that crown of flowers--and so it proved indeed. For I was fatedto barter the Double Diadem of the Upper and the Lower Land for a wreathof passion's roses that fade before they fully bloom, and Pharaoh'sivory bed of state for the pillow of a faithless woman's breast.
"_King of Love!_" they crowned me in their mockery; ay, and King ofShame! And I, with the perfumed roses on my brow--I, by descent andordination the Pharaoh of Egypt--thought of the imperishable hallsof Abouthis and of that other crowning which on the morrow should beconsummate.
But still smiling, I pledged them back, and answered with a jest. Forrising, I bowed before Cleopatra and craved leave to go. "Venus," Isaid, speaking of the planet that we know as Donaou in the morning andBonou in the evening, "was in the ascendant. Therefore, as new-crownedKing of Love, I must now pass to do my homage to its Queen." For thesebarbarians name Venus Queen of Love.
And so amidst their laughter I withdraw to my watch-tower, and, dashingthat shameful chaplet down amidst the instruments of my craft, madepretence to note the rolling of the stars. There I waited, thinking onmany things that were to be, until Charmion should come with the lastlists of the doomed and the messages of my uncle Sepa, whom she had seenthat evening.
At length the door opened softly, and she came jewelled and clad in herwhite robes, as she had left the feast.