Читать книгу Queen Cleopatra - Talbot Mundy - Страница 13

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As there are blessing and cursing, so there is magic of two kinds: the one, personal and selfish; having its roots in fear and hatred, that is known as Black Art, and it leads into the limbus of annihilation. But the other is a natural result of spiritual rebirth—an awakening to recognition of all nature and its forces as a host of eager, ever-present friends.

—Fragment from The Diary Of Olympus.

LOLLIANÈ saw Apollodorus beckon from a breastwork built by Diomedes to defend the ford by arrow-fire in flank. She left Cleopatra's side, and when he saw her coming, he withdrew behind a gabion.

"Sleep—rest yourself, Apollodorus," she advised. "I never saw you so weary. Lie there in the corner on that lion-skin and sleep."

He laughed, peering around the gabion and over the breastwork, to make sure none was listening.

"Don't you admire our strategy? How great is Diomedes! He has set these earthworks to defend us from our own men! Subtler than a serpent! Flatterer! He called me Curlylocks! 'Ho! You there, Curlylocks!' He saw me just now as he rode toward the ford. 'You love your handsome face,' he said, 'so I can count on you to try to save your beauty! Stay here. You shall have a dozen archers. Fire on our men if they start retreating!' Generalship!"

Suddenly his mood changed. He seized her by the right hand, deadly serious, and she glimpsed the man behind his mask of affectation.

"Lollianè! Is a life worth living—is a death worth dying—to have done one thing nobly?"

"What can a woman do nobly and well," she answered, "except to bring forth children? And a child might be a coward. There is no foreseeing the end of anything."

He laughed again. "If there are gods, let them be blamed for endings! Whose praise do you value?"

"Yours! Apollodorus, why ask? Why pretend? You know! I was as frank with you as you have been inscrutable! I never asked more than a moment's taking of the love I offered. Are you satiated with love? Are you afraid of consequences? Afraid of Cleopatra's jealousy? She only uses you, Apollodorus. When someone more useful appears she will yield you to me or to anyone else. It is oh, so little I ask of you! Praise? Hers and your own—none other!"

"Nearer than most to the target," said Apollodorus. "Nevertheless, you miss by two spans."

"How?" she asked him. "Tell me."

"No praise other than your own is worth to you the breath it uses."

"I could let hers go," she answered. "Mine? I would praise myself forever, and sing songs forever, if I had yours! But not lip praise. Praise from the heart, Apollodorus! Once! I would remember it beyond death."

Apollodorus was too weary to conceal his thought. He saw her with the searching sculptor's eye that looks through surfaces to principles and labors to interpret them.

"I will never—never praise myself," she said, "until you praise me. If I understood you, I would make you love me. But not greedily. I would not ask too much. I had a little Jewish slave-girl who used to tell me stories. Once she told me of a man named Samson. I forget the woman's name, but she shore Samson's locks to win him. Shall I shear your locks, Apollodorus? I would not do what that other woman did. She sold him to his enemies. But I would let you go if you would love me—utterly and truly—from your heart—once!"

Weariness had stripped him of his skill and she could see what underlay the cynicism in his eyes. Her intuition leaped. She understood! She understood him too well, reining in her triumph even as it broke loose, lest it run away with her and lose him after all.

"Apollodorus! You, too! You shall win your own praise! Two by two we do things. One by one we pay the price of doing. I am not afraid."

She held her arms toward him.

"Kiss me!"

He raised her right hand to his lips and in a moment she was in his arms.

"You are lovely, Lollianè. Any man might call me fortunate, and you have used wise words, but I think you stole them from Olympus, letting go the half of what he said: it is a world of clever sayings and of unwise deeds!"

He lifted her and made her stand against the gabion, her face toward the sinking sun. His eyes were set again, into that curious, appraising, sculptor's stare, incredulous of anything but his own ability to see.

She trembled, sure of him at last—yet sure he would be merciless.

"There is no song here," he said, "nor any splendor of dawning hope. Could anything be worse?"

"Nothing," she agreed, "unless it were to lose you."

"That is for you, or for death to determine," he answered. "Listen. While she and you and Charmian stood watching Achillas kill a man, whose feet he was not fit to lick, I crouched where Herod talked to Diomedes. Do you know what a fool in a rascal's hands can be, and what might come of it?"

She laughed. "I know to what extremes Apollodorus led me! Am I a fool? Are you a—?"

"Races are won at the finishing post," he answered. "All plans look like madness until laurels are awarded. You are not in Herod's hands yet—yet, I said—you heard me—yet! But she, you, I and all of us will be unless—"

"The gods forbid! There is Tros," she said. "Tros' ship—"

"Out of reach! Herod has persuaded Diomedes to leave two-thirds of our army here to deceive the enemy, while—for her own sake, mind you!—she is to be forced to go with Herod to his little principality in Galilee! Diomedes has agreed—agreed with Herod!—trusts him!—thinks a promise made by Herod can mean anything but treachery! And yet priests tell us there are gods—as if whatever gods there truly were would not protect us against honest fools like Diomedes!"

"We can prevent it! It is not too late! We can prevent it!" said Lollianè. "There is a boat coming. It can take us to Tros' ship."

"Look!" said Apollodorus, pointing.

Herod's cavalry—a thousand desert swordsmen mounted on mares from a land where it was rumored even Parthians feared to travel, were in full view, pouring along the highroad between the beach and Cleopatra's camp.

"Listen, Lollianè. Listen now. Attend to me, and think of Herod. Diomedes will be daggered in the neck before to-night's moon rises. Cleopatra is the prize!"

"Then warn her! Why not?"

"She would refuse the only possible way of escape."

"Speak plainly, Apollodorus."

"I see you are not strong enough," he said. "A race is won by never fearing to go down under the wheels. I will try another way. Perhaps I can kill Herod in the dark."

"He has too many servants, Apollodorus. You could never get near him. But I might do it! I will prove to you, I love you! Bid me do it!"

"No," he answered. "Murder is a man's work."

"Apollodorus, you are weary. If your hand should slip we should be worse off—all of us instead of one. No—I will do it! I! What was your plan? Let him carry me off believing I am Cleopatra? He would kill me when he learned of his mistake, and I prefer this other risk. Better a death by daggers than the arms of Herod!"

"It is a good thing not to be afraid to die," Apollodorus answered. "It is much the best way to prolong life. Not to fear shame is to rise above it."

"But to love?" she asked.

Apollodorus laughed. "I do not know what love is. I have never felt it. Passion I know, and admiration. I admire you. I will admire you more if you will save her by tricking Herod."

"By being befouled by Herod!"

"There are bodies lovelier than yours, my Lollianè," said Apollodorus. "There are many lovelier than hers. If I need women, or if you need men, there are a thousand either of us might have for a nod. Can Herod rape your spirit? If he can, then stay here. You would not be worthy of the race we run."

"Worthy?" Lollianè said. "Do you mean—do you mean—?"

"I admire you, Lollianè; and I do not know what love is. If your bravery should cause me to admire you more, I do not see that I could love you less, if love is anything."

"But you will loathe me, as I loathe Herod!"

"If you think that, stay here, Lollianè."

"Apollodorus, if you loved—"

"I dare say that I never loved," he answered. "I have asked Olympus what is love? His explanation was as interesting as the problem, and as difficult to understand! But I will tell you what I told him: To love is to let neither death, nor anything whatever that is less than death, dissuade you from any course. That is how I win chariot races."

"His answer?"

"Oh," he smiled. "You know that Sphinx-face."

"Is dishonor less than death?" asked Lollianè.

"Whose? What others think of you is much less. What you yourself know—death is a mere incident compared to that."

"If you had tasted love, Apollodorus, you would know that what you think of me is more to me than all else—life—death—anything! If I should do what you ask; and if, later, you should think me Herod's cast-off rubbish—"

"Lollianè!"

"Strange," she said, "that I should trust you! I will do this thing, Apollodorus."

He took her in his arms.

"You will remember me?" she asked.

"I think you have taught me at last what love is, Lollianè. I will come for you."

"You will—?"

"I will come for you."