Meranes, the turbaned satrap, had a palace that to the west sent its gardens to the sea-edge, and on the east opened sheer upon the ever-humming hive that was his satrapy’s chief town. The palace owned a great, middle body with arm-like processes, jointed tentacles that strayed afar into odorous and flower-spangled wildernesses, and all was at once fantastically and strongly built. There were gilding and mosaic and fretwork that treated stone like flax. The palace spread, many-courted, myriad-roomed, multi-coloured. On the dusky garden side it was mingled with trees and bloom and fruit: it knew deep alleys and shadowy rings, and stone water tanks where lilies were planted and fish swam. But on the town side it rose blank and clear from the hot and clanging place. Here was the official palace—the palace of the audience, of the satrap’s government, of officials, soldiers, magi, principal men and the horde that was not principal, spies, confidants, merchants of sorts, ministers and attendants of pleasure, of orders given and received, of complaint, pleading, demand, grievances and clamour, reward and punishment, strife open and concealed, jealousy, rivalry, lies, greed, fanatic hate and fanatic devotion, and always a brew of conspiracies, great and small, very many small, and on hand perpetually one or two great. Such a cloud hung always over it, hung garden side and city side, for influences were subtle and stole between. Breathing that musk and sandal,{200} hearing always that whispering, governed Meranes, satrap of a deep province, slave only to the namer of the satraps, the eastern king who was despot of a dozen despots.

Under Meranes, the governor of the chief city was Sadyattes. The magus of most power was Artaxias.

In the middle palace, whence he might move through any arm, Meranes had his rooms for dwelling. To the right, he went to the front upon the clanging town, and the business of the satrapy. When he entered again that middle part he drew with him confidants and favourites and made for himself now counsel, now revelry and relaxation. Or, alone here, he spent much consideration upon how to keep life, honour, and satrapy, seeing that to do so he must ever please that more richly turbaned despot who herded satraps, and about whose ears ever buzzed the maligners. Or he drew to him certain of the magi and talked with them, for he was a man who trembled at times on the edge of seeing the unseen and touching the untouched, and the magi were held to be free of the king’s road to knowledge. To the left, past guarded doors, movement brought Meranes where the palace ran, many-fronded, into shadows of groves, into the realm of slippered footfall and treble voices. Here were squandered wealth, and heavy odours, and the nightingale’s song. Here the life of Meranes stayed among women. Here lay the filled seraglio, and here for soldiers stood the files of eunuchs. And for all the soldiers and the slaves, for all the blank walls and guarded doors, word-bearing winds blew through the palace from the right to the left and the left to the right. Any part of the palace might conspire with any other part against any third part.{201}

The favourite wife of the satrap was Aryenis, with just below her, creeping at times very nigh her, a woman of Egypt named Nitetis. Each had a son.

There were many women beside.

The beaded rooms and courts of the seraglio had likewise their order of importance, raying from the highly so to the less highly so, and thence to the hardly so at all. Golden cells in the comb, stood the quarters of Aryenis. Nitetis, the swarthy Egyptian, had the silver cells. These two only counted in seraglio politics, each drawing with her her faction. Next, in fair light, were clustered other women from the east and the west, the north and the south. Around these, in paler light and paler light, were gathered others.... Chamber on chamber, the palace was as a whispering shell. Ray on ray, range of rooms on range of rooms, it stretched and tapered through degrees of favour and nearness, into the cool murk of obscurity, faint clinging for support.

Aryenis had at her hand her son Alyattes, and Nitetis had at her hand her son Smerdis. The children numbered five and six years. Aryenis being first with Meranes, the palace, the city and the province called Alyattes the satrap’s heir—called him so with emphasis since last year when Meranes, taking the lad with him into the presence of the king of the whole land who was making progress, prostrated himself with his son, and besought continuance of favour toward Alyattes after Meranes had returned to the fire whence he came. Surely Alyattes was heir! The magi, tutors of the children, taught the young Smerdis to give up to, to follow the lead of his brother. Also Aryenis taught Alyattes that he was first, as she taught Nitetis that she, Aryenis, was first. The Egyptian woman,{202} dark-skinned, black-browed, and rose-lipped, somewhat younger than the other, drew up her shoulders, slid by....

Meranes, fatigued from hunting, came to the bath, was refreshed and clad in silk and gems. In the round room of the silver palms he sat before food, and when he had eaten, and drank somewhat sparingly of wine, he gave orders to admit to him the magus Artaxias. Waiting for him, he took in his hands a curiously shaped box filled with fine sand, in a cup beside it golden balls the size of pearls. The balls were for casting upon the smoothed sand, and the figures they made a sign-writing, vouchsafed by destiny. Meranes, seated on rich cushions, gathered the balls in his hand and cast them, then strove to read. The satrap was dark and bright of eye, well made, bearing power in his look. He cast the balls and brooded over the plain of sand. If expanded beneath his imagination into desert width.

Artaxias approached, stood in flowing robes. “Here is a strange figure,” said Meranes. “I cannot read it!”

The magus stooped beside him. “O Meranes, that is the scorpion of Egypt.—Look for trouble from Egypt!”

“As you know, that is come,” said Meranes. “They attack the southern borders. I go against them with ten thousand men.”

“I know, O Satrap! Perhaps it is all the woe.”

“Last night I watched the stars from the edge of the jungle. Sadyattes and I who had hunted together, watched them together.”

“If the lion will make Sadyattes his brother, who, O Meranes, will say the lion nay?”

“Sadyattes is faithful.”

“Says the sand so and the stars so?”

“Says my heart so.{203}”

“Says the fact so? The truth of the fact, O Meranes, is what I seek!”

“Should I not seek it too—a man encompassed by dangers? Do I not know that this one conspires and that one conspires? But Sadyattes is my old heart’s friend whom I trust.”

“The worst betrayers call themselves hearts’ friends! Let us try the balls again.” Taking the box he smoothed the sand, shook the balls in his hand and cast them. There appeared a tracing that might be made into the figure of a child. “The genii have sent a good sign!” said Artaxias. “I read it that they have in care the young Alyattes.” He examined the field more closely. “He lies as in a peaceful sleep.”

Meranes looked at the figure of the child. With his own hand he smoothed the sand, then put the box aside. “We watched the stars, and there was a passing of beings bearing lights from one quarter of the heaven to another.” He drank wine. “I go against the host attacking the southern border. On the way thither there is a disloyal town shall be razed to the earth. In the prison here wait men who carried false tales to the king, and ere I go they die in sight of me and of the town. Artificers build me a new palace among the hills, and there comes to me from my brother Seleuces a gift of a hundred golden bowls, a hundred embroidered robes, and a hundred slaves chosen from ten thousand.... Yet, in the round room of my inward thought, these things are only winds and odours!... What is this world and what is Meranes?”

The room of the silver palms was dimmed for coolness and every casement opened to the night. Meranes, rising from the cushions, looked forth, either hand upon carved{204} stone. The star he thought of as peculiarly his own shone at this hour and season above a pillar set between trees. Meranes watched it, white, far, and bright. “How long has it burned, and how long will it burn? Whence came it at first and where will it go? What are its adventures, and what is their weight?”

The magus stood beside him. “Part of the star is dark and part of the star is light. The dark would grow—the light would grow—and they stand in each other’s path. And yet is there but one star! Then comes on the train of happenings, and the sound in the ears of victory and defeat.... That is the star, and you are of the star, and partly dark and partly light.” He wrote in the air with his finger. “May the light grow!”

When an hour had passed the magus went from the satrap’s company. Meranes paced the room alone, then clapped his hands. Attendants came. The master would go now to the seraglio. At his command word had been sent, when he returned from hunting, to Aryenis.

In her country’s dress, Aryenis sat by the fountain from which the palace took its name—the Palace of the Fountain. It was a great marvel, the fountain, and by ancient prescription held to belong to the chief wife, the favourite in the seraglio, the woman lifted by favour to the highest rank a woman might attain. It had been called Aryenis’s since her bringing to the seraglio.

Meranes came and Aryenis made obeisance. The satrap raised her and held her in his arms. Far off there was music playing, the fountain bubbled, tinkled, sent its spray where fell upon it coloured light. The place that was a great and richly carven room, held eunuchs, slave-women, ministers and attendants of pleasure. “Go from hearing,{205}” said Meranes, and the lines fell back, leaving the fountain and a rich carpet spread beside it. The one man and woman sat embraced by the talking water.

“You are going against Egypt?”

“Yes.”

“Nitetis will not like that!”

“This land is Nitetis’s land.”

“True, true!—Your land, Meranes.”

“Is Alyattes sleeping?”

“Yes.... Would you look?”

Rising she led him through curtained archways to where, watched by slave-women, the child lay sleeping upon a golden bed. “Alyattes!...”

“He grows tall.... When I return he must leave the seraglio.”

A spasm crossed Aryenis’s face. “Is he so tall, lord?... Leave him a little longer!”

“He is ripe to be taken from women, placed among men. What! Do you not see him where he shall grow to be the king palm of the grove?”

“Yes, yes! I see him climbing steps of thrones.... Alyattes!”

“Come back to the fountain.... Were your heart parted, would the larger piece fall to Alyattes? I think it would—I think it would!... Meranes, the lesser man, to have the lesser gift.”

“Lord, thou art the man. Alyattes is a young child.”

“If a spirit appeared and said, ‘Choose between his life and Meranes!’”

“Meranes, I do not have to choose.”

“If—if—”

Aryenis bent her knees, touched the palms of her out-{206}spread hands, touched her forehead between, to the pavement. “Lord and master! How could I choose the child?”

Meranes stooped to her, strained her form to his, kissed her lips and throat and bosom. “Pearl of the Deep—Pearl closed in my hand! Long have we loved!”

“Long—long.”

“Out of me were you drawn.”

“Out of you.”

“The sun and the earth—the ocean and the river—”

“The sun and the earth—the ocean and the river—”

“Aryenis—Aryenis!”

“Smite Egypt and return!—The Egyptian here! Will you visit her, Meranes, before you go—her son and her?”

She drew upon sorceress-power, and before he left the room of the fountain won from him his word that he would leave in the shadow that Egyptian.... It seemed that Nitetis had as well be returned to Egypt whence she had been bought!

But the next day a slave won way to Meranes, fell before him, then, being bidden to speak, gave a manner of sorceress-message from Nitetis. At first said the satrap, “I do not go,” then, when the eunuch was backing from the room, recalled him. “I may come, I may not come. Say only that.”... That same day, finding an hour with naught of moment set against it, he went to that part of the seraglio given to the Egyptian. He found Nitetis prone upon cushions, her body wrapped in stuff thin and dark as the air of night, her blue-black hair dishevelled. In the distance Smerdis played with a ball.

“My lord, my lord, you go to danger! I see javelins in the air, I see arrows, I see daggers, swords—”

“Do I not every day eat and drink with danger? Rule{207} here, fight there—everywhere alike leaps the wolf, creeps the serpent!”

“Who keeps the city? Who keeps us for my lord until he returns?”

“Sadyattes keeps the city.”

“Oh, when you are gone Aryenis will rule us heavily, us here in the Fountain Palace! Oh, when you are gone your son Smerdis must say ‘my lord’ to Alyattes! Oh, Aryenis gloats upon power, envies power. Oh, she would snatch it, if she might, even from Meranes’s hand!”

“Would you not, if you could, Egyptian, strangle Aryenis!”

“Would she not strangle me? Would she not, for her son, strangle my son and yours, Meranes? Would she not do more than that—? Oh, let me speak now, for when you are gone I shall not speak! I shall creep by the wall, I shall keep Smerdis with me in the shadow—”

“Who loves me will hurt nothing that is mine—not Smerdis, not Nitetis!”

Nitetis raised herself upon her palms, looked at him from between fine waves of blackness. “O lord, ruler and god of me! Let thy slave tell thee a fault of the lion! It is not to deign to suspect other wills and purposes moving in the plain and the jungle, for that, O my king, would hurt the pride of the lion!” With her hands she drew her hair about his feet. “But I, my lord, who am only a woman out of Egypt, can see the serpent and her rings and guile! And I who am naught can see because of utter love, utter love, utter love of Meranes!”

She put her lips against his feet. “Slay me if you will! And with my last breath I will say that only the Egyptian here, that only the Egyptian here, loved you, Meranes!{208}”

“What is the serpent that you see?”

“Ah, I know not, though I seem to see a face!” Nitetis raised herself to her knees, lifted her head and laid it upon the satrap’s arm. “And Sadyattes keeps the city—Sadyattes who came from Aryenis’s country.”

Smerdis, playing in the middle court with Alyattes said, “My father and my mother play together.” After a while Alyattes, leaving the court and going to his mother where she lay in the room of the fountain, said, “Mother, the lady Nitetis and my father play together! Smerdis told me.”

At sunset the gardens filled with the inmates of the seraglio. Through the day they had stayed for coolness in jalousied rooms, or upon the violet side of pillared courts. Now they came out under sky, though yet, all around them, ran the wall that could not be scaled, that could not be pierced. Mist rose from the water tanks, hung between the trees; heavy white flowers opened disk and cup, heavy sweet odours drifted and clung, moths appeared, and all the life of the dusk. Women moved or sat or lay under the spice trees, the fig trees, the palms, the tamarisks and cedars. Those who were young and beautiful were richly dressed. Those who were old or ill-shaped or ill-favoured were work-slaves only and as such marked by a mean and fantastic garb. Eunuchs moved through the gardens, and they, too, were made into grotesques.

Aryenis, attended, with her Alyattes that was to be the satrap’s heir, entered a walk that was loved by Nitetis and given over to her by the etiquette of the place. Here was the Egyptian, Smerdis beside her. The two lay beside a stone basin where stood a rose-and-white flamingo, where upon a mound of earth a tortoise crawled.{209}

Said Aryenis, “All mud of the Nile.”

Nitetis lifted herself. “Meranes, that is master, has not yet departed.—Pearl of the Deep, who, between the first and now, has known every merchant’s stall!”

Said Aryenis: “Ah, god to whom mounts the fire! Have I known many markets? Then did I learn in them more than your one land could teach!”

“Yet it gives me hold on Meranes!” Nitetis raised herself from the rock, the tortoise, the flamingo basin. She smiled. “Have you noted that Smerdis grows as tall as Alyattes?”

Aryenis drew her veil around her. Only her eyes showed.

“O her eyes glitter!” said Nitetis inwardly, and brought glitter into her own.

“Were I Alyattes, and grown, I should nightly thank the stars that I was not Smerdis!” said Aryenis. The Egyptian drew her shoulders together, made under her breath an incantation.

Meranes went with a force of horse and foot against the troubles of the southern boundaries. His lances gleamed, his pennants waved, his drums beat, the city saw him forth, the skies hung hot, blue crystal, the throng shouted, the sand whirled in the street. Sadyattes, governor of the city, armed his gates and his walls and esteemed that he had months, one, two, and three, in which to bring to fruition a long-mellowing piece of work. Three days after Meranes went forth, Sadyattes listened, in a secret place, to a foster-brother returned from an errand forth from the province, errand to the court of the king who made straps.

The foster-brother, greetings given, felt, with an expressive gesture, his head upon his shoulders. “So near death do you walk when you go to twist and to draw and to push{210} power out of the road of power!—Here is the matter in small space. Were Meranes proved ambitious, that is to say, proved traitorous, then the prover, were he Sadyattes, might have the satrapy. Does Sadyattes fail in proving, let him beware, having annoyed!”

Sadyattes stretched his arms, then stroked a black beard. “I shall not fail. You shall go again to the mighty king, for now I have this and that for you to take!”

The foster-brother went, and after weeks the foster-brother returned. “There is this. Sadyattes is satrap when Meranes and his son Alyattes are out of the way. But the great king is busy, being troubled with rebellions and conspiracies like unto locusts for number! He has need at this time for all his strength at home. If he summoned Meranes he might be suspicious and not come. If he said, ‘Give over your satrapy!’ the revolt that Meranes now only meditates in his mind might rise at once like a giant in the way. Meranes has with him so many thousand soldiers who, it is said, die easily for him. Moreover, he is putting down this trouble to the south, and it must be put down, and Meranes still used to do it, for he does it. But the southern trouble over, it were well that Meranes and his son with him were taken off at once and with subtlety. If it were managed with secrecy, without revolt or trouble, then the great king se............