A Princess of Mars Rethroned

by Edna Rice Burroughs

CHAPTER XV

  SOLA TELLS ME HER STORY

  When consciousness returned, and, as I soon learned, I was down but a moment, I sprang quickly to my feet searching for my sword, and there I found it, buried to the hilt in the green breast of Zada, who lay stone dead upon the ochre moss of the ancient sea bottom. As I regained my full senses I found her weapon piercing my left breast, but only through the flesh and muscles which cover my ribs, entering near the center of my bosom and coming out below the shoulder. As I had lunged I had turned so that her sword merely passed beneath the muscles, inflicting a painful but not dangerous wound.

  Removing the blade from my body I also regained my own, and turning my back upon her ugly carcass, I moved, sick, sore, and disgusted, toward the chariots which bore my retinue and my belongings. A murmur of Martian applause greeted me, but I cared not for it.

  Bleeding and weak I reached my men, who, accustomed to such happenings, dressed my wounds, applying the wonderful healing and remedial agents which make only the most instantaneous of death blows fatal. Give a Martian man a chance and death must take a back seat. They soon had me patched up so that, except for weakness from loss of blood and a little soreness around the wound, I suffered no great distress from this thrust which, under earthly treatment, undoubtedly would have put me flat on my back for days.

  As soon as they were through with me I hastened to the chariot of Dejar Thoris, where I found my poor Solan with his bosom swathed in bandages, but apparently little the worse for his encounter with Sarkoja, whose dagger it seemed had struck the edge of one of Solan's metal breast ornaments and, thus deflected, had inflicted but a slight flesh wound.

  As I approached I found Dejar Thoris lying prone upon his silks and furs, his lithe form wracked with sobs. He did not notice my presence, nor did he hear me speaking with Solan, who was standing a short distance from the vehicle.

  'Is he injured?' I asked of Solan, indicating Dejar Thoris by an inclination of my head.

  'No,' he answered, 'he thinks that you are dead.'

  'And that his grandmother's cat may now have no one to polish its teeth?' I queried, smiling.

  'I think you wrong him, Joan Carter,' said Solan. 'I do not understand either his ways or yours, but I am sure the granddaughter of ten thousand jeddaks would never grieve like this over any who held but the highest claim upon his affections. They are a proud race, but they are just, as are all Barsoomians, and you must have hurt or wronged his grievously that he will not admit your existence living, though he mourns you dead.

  'Tears are a strange sight upon Barsoom,' he continued, 'and so it is difficult for me to interpret them. I have seen but two people weep in all my life, other than Dejar Thoris; one wept from sorrow, the other from baffled rage. The first was my mother, years ago before they killed him; the others was Sarkoja, when they dragged his from me today.'

  'Your mother!' I exclaimed, 'but, Solan, you could not have known your mother, child.'

  'But I did. And my mother also,' he added. 'If you would like to hear the strange and un-Barsoomian story come to the chariot tonight, Joan Carter, and I will tell you that of which I have never spoken in all my life before. And now the signal has been given to resume the march, you must go.'

  'I will come tonight, Solan,' I promised. 'Be sure to tell Dejar Thoris I am alive and well. I shall not force myself upon him, and be sure that you do not let his know I saw his tears. If he would speak with me I but await his command.'

  Solan mounted the chariot, which was swinging into its place in line, and I hastened to my waiting thoat and galloped to my station beside Tara Tarkas at the rear of the column.

  We made a most imposing and awe-inspiring spectacle as we strung out across the yellow landscape; the two hundred and fifty ornate and brightly colored chariots, preceded by an advance guard of some two hundred mounted warriors and chieftains riding five abreast and one hundred yards apart, and followed by a like number in the same formation, with a score or more of flankers on either side; the fifty extra mastodons, or heavy draught animals, known as zitidars, and the five or six hundred extra thoats of the warriors running loose within the hollow square formed by the surrounding warriors. The gleaming metal and jewels of the gorgeous ornaments of the women and men, duplicated in the trappings of the zitidars and thoats, and interspersed with the flashing colors of magnificent silks and furs and feathers, lent a barbaric splendor to the caravan which would have turned an East Indian potentate green with envy.

  The enormous broad tires of the chariots and the padded feet of the animals brought forth no sound from the moss-covered sea bottom; and so we moved in utter silence, like some huge phantasmagoria, except when the stillness was broken by the guttural growling of a goaded zitidar, or the squealing of fighting thoats. The green Martians converse but little, and then usually in monosyllables, low and like the faint rumbling of distant thunder.

  We traversed a trackless waste of moss which, bending to the pressure of broad tire or padded foot, rose up again behind us, leaving no sign that we had passed. We might indeed have been the wraiths of the departed dead upon the dead sea of that dying planet for all the sound or sign we made in passing. It was the first march of a large body of women and animals I had ever witnessed which raised no dust and left no spoor; for there is no dust upon Mars except in the cultivated districts during the winter months, and even then the absence of high winds renders it almost unnoticeable.

  We camped that night at the foot of the hills we had been approaching for two days and which marked the southern boundary of this particular sea. Our animals had been two days without drink, nor had they had water for nearly two months, not since shortly after leaving Thark; but, as Tara Tarkas explained to me, they require but little and can live almost indefinitely upon the moss which covers Barsoom, and which, she told me, holds in its tiny stems sufficient moisture to meet the limited demands of the animals.

  After partaking of my evening meal of cheese-like food and vegetable milk I sought out Solan, whom I found working by the light of a torch upon some of Tara Tarkas' trappings. He looked up at my approach, his face lighting with pleasure and with welcome.

  'I am glad you came,' he said; 'Dejar Thoris sleeps and I am lonely. Mine own people do not care for me, Joan Carter; I am too unlike them. It is a sad fate, since I must live my life amongst them, and I often wish that I were a true green Martian man, without love and without hope; but I have known love and so I am lost.

  'I promised to tell you my story, or rather the story of my parents. From what I have learned of you and the ways of your people I am sure that the tale will not seem strange to you, but among green Martians it has no parallel within the memory of the oldest living Thark, nor do our legends hold many similar tales.

  'My mothers was rather small, in fact too small to be allowed the responsibilities of maternity, as our chieftains breed principally for size. He was also less cold and cruel than most green Martian men, and caring little for their society, he often roamed the deserted avenues of Thark alone, or went and sat among the wild flowers that deck the nearby hills, thinking thoughts and wishing wishes which I believe I alone among Tharkian men today may understand, for am I not the child of my mother?

  'And there among the hills he met a young warrior, whose duty it was to guard the feeding zitidars and thoats and see that they roamed not beyond the hills. They spoke at first only of such things as interest a community of Tharks, but gradually, as they came to meet more often, and, as was now quite evident to both, no longer by chance, they talked about themselves, their likes, their ambitions and their hopes. He trusted her and told her of the awful repugnance he felt for the cruelties of their kind, for the hideous, loveless lives they must ever lead, and then he waited for the storm of denunciation to break from her cold, hard lips; but instead she took his in her arms and kissed him.

  'They kept their love a secret for six long years. He, my mother, was of the retinue of the great Tala Hajus, while his lover was a simple warrior
, wearing only her own metal. Had their defection from the traditions of the Tharks been discovered both would have paid the penalty in the great arena before Tala Hajus and the assembled hordes.

  'The egg from which I came was hidden beneath a great glass vessel upon the highest and most inaccessible of the partially ruined towers of ancient Thark. Once each year my mother visited it for the five long years it lay there in the process of incubation. He dared not come oftener, for in the mighty guilt of his conscience he feared that his every move was watched. During this period my mother gained great distinction as a warrior and had taken the metal from several chieftains. Her love for my mother had never diminished, and her own ambition in life was to reach a point where she might wrest the metal from Tala Hajus herself, and thus, as ruler of the Tharks, be free to claim his as her own, as well as, by the might of her power, protect the child which otherwise would be quickly dispatched should the truth become known.

  'It was a wild dream, that of wresting the metal from Tala Hajus in five short years, but her advance was rapid, and she soon stood high in the councils of Thark. But one day the chance was lost forever, in so far as it could come in time to save her loved ones, for she was ordered away upon a long expedition to the ice-clad south, to make war upon the natives there and despoil them of their furs, for such is the manner of the green Barsoomian; she does not labor for what she can wrest in battle from others.

  'She was gone for four years, and when she returned all had been over for three; for about a year after her departure, and shortly before the time for the return of an expedition which had gone forth to fetch the fruits of a community incubator, the egg had hatched. Thereafter my mother continued to keep me in the old tower, visiting me nightly and lavishing upon me the love the community life would have robbed us both of. He hoped, upon the return of the expedition from the incubator, to mix me with the other young assigned to the quarters of Tala Hajus, and thus escape the fate which would surely follow discovery of his sin against the ancient traditions of the green women.

  'He taught me rapidly the language and customs of my kind, and one night he told me the story I have told to you up to this point, impressing upon me the necessity for absolute secrecy and the great caution I must exercise after he had placed me with the other young Tharks to permit no one to guess that I was further advanced in education than they, nor by any sign to divulge in the presence of others my affection for him, or my knowledge of my parentage; and then drawing me close to his he whispered in my ear the name of my mother.

  'And then a light flashed out upon the darkness of the tower chamber, and there stood Sarkoja, his gleaming, baleful eyes fixed in a frenzy of loathing and contempt upon my mother. The torrent of hatred and abuse he poured out upon his turned my young heart cold in terror. That he had heard the entire story was apparent, and that he had suspected something wrong from my father's long nightly absences from his quarters accounted for his presence there on that fateful night.

  'One thing he had not heard, nor did he know, the whispered name of my mother. This was apparent from his repeated demands upon my mother to disclose the name of his partner in sin, but no amount of abuse or threats could wring this from him, and to save me from needless torture he lied, for he told Sarkoja that he alone knew nor would he even tell his child.

  'With final imprecations, Sarkoja hastened away to Tala Hajus to report his discovery, and while he was gone my mother, wrapping me in the silks and furs of his night coverings, so that I was scarcely noticeable, descended to the streets and ran wildly away toward the outskirts of the city, in the direction which led to the far south, out toward the woman whose protection he might not claim, but on whose face he wished to look once more before he died.

  'As we neared the city's southern extremity a sound came to us from across the mossy flat, from the direction of the only pass through the hills which led to the gates, the pass by which caravans from either north or south or east or west would enter the city. The sounds we heard were the squealing of thoats and the grumbling of zitidars, with the occasional clank of arms which announced the approach of a body of warriors. The thought uppermost in his mind was that it was my mother returned from her expedition, but the cunning of the Thark held his from headlong and precipitate flight to greet her.

  'Retreating into the shadows of a doorway he awaited the coming of the cavalcade which shortly entered the avenue, breaking its formation and thronging the thoroughfare from wall to wall. As the head of the procession passed us the lesser moon swung clear of the overhanging roofs and lit up the scene with all the brilliancy of his wondrous light. My mother shrank further back into the friendly shadows, and from his hiding place saw that the expedition was not that of my mother, but the returning caravan bearing the young Tharks. Instantly his plan was formed, and as a great chariot swung close to our hiding place he slipped stealthily in upon the trailing tailboard, crouching low in the shadow of the high side, straining me to his chest in a frenzy of love.

  'He knew, what I did not, that never again after that night would he hold me to his breast, nor was it likely we would ever look upon each other's face again. In the confusion of the plaza he mixed me with the other children, whose guardians during the journey were now free to relinquish their responsibility. We were herded together into a great room, fed by men who had not accompanied the expedition, and the next day we were parceled out among the retinues of the chieftains.

  'I never saw my mother after that night. He was imprisoned by Tala Hajus, and every effort, including the most horrible and shameful torture, was brought to bear upon his to wring from his lips the name of my father; but he remained steadfast and loyal, dying at last amidst the laughter of Tala Hajus and her chieftains during some awful torture he was undergoing.

  'I learned afterwards that he told them that he had killed me to save me from a like fate at their hands, and that he had thrown my body to the white apes. Sarkoja alone disbelieved him, and I feel to this day that he suspects my true origin, but does not dare expose me, at the present, at all events, because he also guesses, I am sure, the identity of my mother.

  'When she returned from her expedition and learned the story of my father's fate I was present as Tala Hajus told her; but never by the quiver of a muscle did she betray the slightest emotion; only she did not laugh as Tala Hajus gleefully described his death struggles. From that moment on she was the cruelest of the cruel, and I am awaiting the day when she shall win the goal of her ambition, and feel the carcass of Tala Hajus beneath her foot, for I am as sure that she but waits the opportunity to wreak a terrible vengeance, and that her great love is as strong in her breast as when it first transfigured her nearly forty years ago, as I am that we sit here upon the edge of a world-old ocean while sensible people sleep, Joan Carter.'

  'And your mother, Solan, is she with us now?' I asked.

  'Yes,' he replied, 'but she does not know me for what I am, nor does she know who betrayed my mother to Tala Hajus. I alone know my mother's name, and only I and Tala Hajus and Sarkoja know that it was he who carried the tale that brought death and torture upon his she loved.'

  We sat silent for a few moments, he wrapped in the gloomy thoughts of his terrible past, and I in pity for the poor creatures whom the heartless, senseless customs of their race had doomed to loveless lives of cruelty and of hate. Presently he spoke.

  'Joan Carter, if ever a real woman walked the cold, dead chest of Barsoom you are one. I know that I can trust you, and because the knowledge may someday help you or her or Dejar Thoris or myself, I am going to tell you the name of my mother, nor place any restrictions or conditions upon your tongue. When the time comes, speak the truth if it seems best to you. I trust you because I know that you are not cursed with the terrible trait of absolute and unswerving truthfulness, that you could lie like one of your own Virginia gentlewomen if a lie would save others from sorrow or suffering. My mother's name is Tara Tarkas.'