Mistress of mistresses (32 page)

Antiope
said, 'You shall not talk to me of his likings. Bad enough to go through with
it; no need to think on't and talk on't: to be gazed on like a sweetmeat or a
dish of caviare. Not all men, Zenianthe, fall sick of this distemper.'

'But
all sorts,' said Zenianthe.

'As
a good horse may be took with the staggers. Yes, there was—', she thought a
minute. 'But not all our friends go bad. Venton, Tyarchus, Orvald, Peropeutes,
why, a dozen others, can ride, be merry at table, go a-hunting, lead a coranto,
and ne'er spoil friendship with this moping eat-me-up folly: talk as good sense
as you, cousin: better. Zenianthe,' she said after a pause, *why might we not
stay children? Or if not, why could I not be my own mistress, next month when I
shall be of age eighteen, as my brother was? What's a Protector, that sits in
Rerek two weeks' journey from us? And these great ones here, old Bodenay and
the rest: nought but for their own ends: they but play chess: if they have a
Queen, exchange her for a pair of castles and a pawn soon as they see their
vantage.' She fell silent, stroking the cat's cheeks and putting its little
ears together. Then, ‘I believe they are playing this king against the Vicar,'
she said. 'Do you not think so, cousin?'

Zenianthe
laughed. ‘I should be sorry you should wed the Vicar.'

'Hark
to the silly talk!' said the Queen, rolling the cat on its back, this way that
way with her hand, till it kicked and fought with little velvet hind-paws and
made pretence to bite her. 'You at least, cousin, might keep your senses, and
not think but and talk but of wed, wed, wed, like a popinjay. Get up!' and she
suddenly pulled the bed-clothes and the princess with them onto the floor.

The
sun was high and the hour but an hour short of noon when the king of Akkama,
having broken his fast on
a
dish of lobsters washed down with yellow wine,
walked with two or three of his gentlemen out by the back stair from his lodgings
in the southern wing of the palace of Teremne and so by paths he knew of round
to the Queen's garden, into which he entered by a way well chosen as not
observable from the windows. The garden was designed so as none should overlook
it; facing eastwards and westwards, and with a great blind wall to shelter it
from the north. Walls of hewn granite six cubits high shut it in, with deep
wide embrasures at every few paces on the east side and on the west, to look,
those upon the valley over the precipice brink and upon the great mountains
afar, these upon the main garden pleasance with its silver birch-trees and
.fish-ponds and walks and bowers, and beyond it hills again and circling
mountains, far beyond which lies Akkama. An oval pond gleamed in the midst of
that little garden, with a paved walk about it of granite, and steps of granite
going down to the walk from a double flight of terraces. Late-flowering
lilies, creamy white and with red anthers and speckled with brown and dust of
gold, filled the beds upon the terraces; there were sunflowers a-row along the
northern side, lifting their faces to the noon, and little northern mountain
plants, stone-crops and houseleeks and matted pinks, were in the joints of the
walls and between the paving-stones; and under the east wall were chairs set
out with cushions of silk, and an ivory chair for the Queen; and upon
a
carven pedestal rising from the middle of the
water,
a
chryselephantine
statue of Aphrodite Anadyomene.

'The presence 'gins to fill,' said the
Lord Alquemen,
throwing open the gate they entered by at the north-west corner and standing
clumsily aside for the king to go in; ‘yet the goddess
tarries.'                            

Derxis
walked moodily into the empty garden, flicking off a lily-head with his
walking-stick as he passed. He was something above the middle height, well
shapen and slender. His hair was straight, brushed back from the forehead, of
the colour of mud: his eyes small and hard, like pebbles, set near together:
his face a lean sneak-bill chitty-face, shaved smooth as a woman's, thin-lipped
and with little colour about the lips, the nose straight and narrow. For all
his youth (but three-and-twenty years of age), there was a deep furrow driven
upright betwixt his brows. He wore a light cloak, and doublet with puffed
sleeves after the Akkama fashion: loose breeches buckled below the knee: all
of a sober brownish colour. There were bracelets of gold cut-work on his wrists
and a linked collar of gold, broad and set with rubies between the links, hung
on his chest.

Twice
round that garden the king paced idly, with his gentlemen at his elbow mum as
he, as if they durst not speak unbidden. 'You,' he said at length. 'Was it not
you told me this was the place?'

‘I
pray your highness have but a little patience,' said Alquemen. ‘I had it by
surest ways (why, 'twas from you, my Lord Esperveris?) she cometh to this place
four times out of five a-mornings 'bout this hour.'

'You
were best get your intelligence more precise ere you serve it up to me,' said
Derxis. His voice was soft, too high of pitch for a man's voice, effeminate.
Yet Alquemen and those other lords, hard heavy and brutal to look upon, seemed
to cringe together under the reproof of that voice as boys might cringe,
lighting suddenly upon some deadly poisoned serpent.

The
king walked on, whistling an air under his breath. 'Well,' he said, after a
while, 'you're tedious company. Tell me some merry tale to pass away the time.'

Alquemen
recounted the tale of the cook that turned fisherman: a tale of a nastiness to
infect the sweet garden scents and taint the lilies' petals. The king laughed.
They, as if suddenly the air were freer, laughed loudlier with him.

'You
have remembered me,' Derxis said, 'of that conceit of the three women and the
lamprey. Or how went it? It was yours, Orynxis, ha?'

Orynxis
recounted that story. The king laid out his tongue and laughed till the tears
started. 'Come, I am merry now,' said he, as they walked now westward beside
the sunflowers. 'What's here? a toad? Give me a stone.'

Alquemen
picked one from the flower-bed. The king threw and missed. Kasmon proffered him
another. The king's hand was up for the second throw, when Antiope entered and,
seeing him, halted in the gate, fair in the line of aim.

He
dropped the stone and with a low leg wished her good morrow. 'I was not without
hope, madam,' he said with great smoothness, as she came in with her ladies and
some of her officers of state, 'to have had the happy fortune to have met you
here. I see now 'tis a- most heavenly garden; and yet but now I thought it but
ordinary. Nay, 'tis plain fact: give me leave but to tear up these flowers,
throw down the carven bauble standeth in the water there, you should see,
gentlemen, it should seem fairer yet: you, madam, the queen-rose to grace it,
and these ladies brier-roses about you to pay you honour with their meaner
sweets.'

'Sir,
I am infinitely full of business,' said the Queen. 'This is my summer
council-chamber. I did send to let you know there was a hunt prepared for you
this morning, but my gentleman of the horse told me you were not abroad yet.'

'My
chamberlain was at fault, then,' said Derxis. 'How came it, Orynxis, you gave
me not the message?'

Orynxis,
that had given it punctually, excused himself that he ne'er heard of it till
now: he would examine into it, and see him punished with whom the fault lay.

'See
to it,' Derxis said. 'Cropping of the ears were too little a punishment for
such oversight. Yet, for I mind me of your compassionate nature, madam, ask me
to pardon it, 'tis done, forgot, at your sweet asking.'

'I
pray report it to my justiciar, if aught's committed needeth correction. You
are my guest, sir, in Rialmar, and I hold on the King my father's way (upon
whom be peace); no private justice here.'

'You
speak high, madam. And that becomes you.'

The
Queen now espied at her feet the toad, where it cowered under the broad leaf of
a saxifrage. She looked direct at Derxis, then at it, then again at Derxis.

He
laughed. 'You did offer me a boar-hunt, madam. Praise my simple tastes, I am
content with throwing at a toad.'

'At
a toad?' said she, without smiling. 'Why?' 'For diversion, awaiting of you. It
is a toad. I would kill it.'

He
met in her eye an Artemisian coldness and displeasure. Then, with a sudden
little lovely grace picking up the toad, she made sure it was unhurt, made as
if to kiss it, then put it back in a safe place on the flower-bed.

Derxis
followed her as she turned away. 'What a strange pitifulness is this of yours,'
he said, walking at her side, 'that taketh compassion of malefactors and nasty
paddocks, but not of him that most needeth your dear pity.' He spoke low, for
her ear alone. Their people, his and hers, walked behind them.

She
came to a halt. 'I'm sorry, sir, but I must to business.'

'Then
my suit standeth first in the list, so hear it.'

Antiope
stood silent, with face averted. Alquemen was saying to the Princess Zenianthe,
‘I pray you then scent this flower: can speak to your ladyship plainer words
than I durst.' Zenianthe moved away. Derxis noted the Queen's lips. He gritted
his teeth and said, with a persuasive sweetness, 'Will you not show me your
garden?'

‘I
had thought you had seen it,' she said.

'How
could I see it,' said Derxis, 'but with your beauteous self to show it me?'

Antiope
turned to him. ‘I have bethought me of a game,' she said. ‘I will show you my
garden, sir, for half an hour; in which time you shall not pay me no compliments.
That will be a new thing indeed.'

'And
the wager?'

'You
may leave that to me.'

'Ha!'
said he, softly, and his eyes surveyed her with a slow appraising stare: 'that
raiseth hopes.' 'Let them not rise too high,' she said. The lubricity that
jumped pat upon Derxis's tongue he swallowed in again. He dropped a pace or so
behind her for a moment, enough to say in the ear of Lord Alque-men, 'See to it
you manage me some privacy.'

But
now came into the garden a gentleman-usher and brought a packet to the Queen's
chamberlain, who, reading the direction, handed it unopened to the Queen. 'I
pray you hold me excused, sir,' she said to Derxis, 'while I read it.'

The
king bowed assent. With a jealous sidelong look he watched her face light up as
she read. 'But who's the carrier?' she said, looking up: 'of these letters, I
mean?'

'Serene
highness,' answered he that brought them: his lordship's self that writ it bare
it, and waiteth on your disposals.'

'O
entertain him hither straight,' said Antiope. Derxis's face grew dark. 'It is my
great kinsman's kinsman, the great Lord Lessingham, come from the south upon
some matters extraordinary,' she said, turning with a lovely courtly favour to
Derxis. 'I have your leave, sir, to bid him join our company?'

The
king stood silent. Then said the knight marshal Bodenay, 'Your serenity may be
sure he had rather you gave him breathing-time to prepare himself: not come all
clagged with mire and clay into your grace's presence.'

Antiope
laughed. 'O court ceremonies! have we seen ne'er a man yet in riding-gear? No,
he shall come now.'

'Cry
you mercy, madam,' said the king; ‘I value not a courtesy hangeth long betwixt
the fingers. You did engage to show me your garden. Surely this
what's-his-name can wait our pleasure while you perform your engagement to me.'

‘I
must not', she said, *be gracious with one hand and ungracious with the other.
This is a stranger, not in reputation, yet in person ne'er yet known to us.
That your royal estate doth outgo his rank and place, 'tis more reason I use
him honourably. No, you shall see the garden, sir, and he shall see it with
us. Carry him hither straight,' she said, and the messenger went forth immediately.

Derxis
said nothing, neither did the Queen look at him.

And
truly to have looked in that moment upon that young king, even so little
crossed, had been no sight of comfort.

'What's
that Lessingham?' asked the Count Orynxis, privately in Alquemen's ear.

'Cousin
to the Vicar of Rerek,' answered he.

'Why,
'tis that same spruce youth, is't not,' said Kasmon, 'captained Mezentius's
horse six years ago? catched you napping when all hung in hazard at the battle
of Elsmo: broke up your squadrons and beat you round your own camp? was't not
Lessingham?'

'O
hold your clack,' said Alquemen. 'You came not too well out of those doings.'