_ BOOK IV. THE LORD'S DAUGHTER AND THE ONE WHO WENT IN CHAINS
CHAPTER II
Over the marshes twilight was falling. The sun had set; the western sky was tinged with cold pale lemon; further, where the color faded into the dusky dome of night, hung a wan evening star. The land was snow-bound and desolate as far as the eye could see. The marsh-ford was glazed with a thin sheet of ice, through which, by the banks, clumps of black frozen reeds protruded. Through this ice, much broken by wheels, dark shallow water showed. On the other side of Thorney the river flowed sluggish and sullen, ice-bound along its banks. Midstream, making slow way to the island, a round clumsy coracle, such as were used by fishermen, was paddling, the only vessel abroad. In it sat two persons, the boatman and Eldris. She sat huddled forlornly in the coracle's bottom, shivering in her long black cloak.
Two carts creaked from the high-road down to the marsh-ford on the northern side of the island, and labored through, their drivers muffled to the eyes in cloaks with heavy hoods drawn close around their faces. On the island itself men appeared at intervals in the alleys between the houses. There were few camp-fires on the beach, showing that those who had come had nearly all found shelter within the houses. The air was keenly cold and very still, so that sounds carried clearly; but, unaccountably, there were few sounds. At this, the busiest time of the day, Thorney seemed strangely silent.
The coracle grounded gently on the beach, almost at the moment that the carts entered the ford on the opposite side of the island. Eldris stepped ashore, gave a bit of money to the boatman, who spat on it and cursed. She asked faintly:
"Canst tell me, friend, where might be the wine-shop of one Nicodemus?"
But the man, plainly considering that he had given good measure for the wage he had received, was surly.
"Near the end of this street that runs straight back from the beach to the other side," he answered briefly, and heaved his boat of bull's hide and wicker to his back, and went off, waiting for no further questioning. Eldris looked after him in half resentful reproach, and started up the street which cut across the island from ford to ford, walking slowly like one faint and weary from long continued exertion. In all the length of the street she saw no one who might direct her to the wine-shop. It was deserted, save for stray prowling dogs that nosed and shivered among heaps of refuse. Lights showed through chinks from behind closed doors of houses; there was a smell of cooking in the air; at times a low-pitched growl of talk or muffled boisterous laughter reached her.
Dusk was deepening fast and the cold was bitter. Eldris stumbled on toward the end of the street, her eyes searching the houses on either hand. When but three remained between her and the open strip of beach on the marsh side, she paused irresolute. One was a low and vulgar place, its door fast closed, no light to be seen about it. The second was a half burnt ruin, where cattle had been stalled. The third seemed of somewhat better class. It presented a blank wall to the street, broken only by a low and narrow door with a wicket, betraying nothing. Eldris, still hesitating, saw two carts, growing out of the gloom ahead, coming toward her. She heard the thud of the horses' feet on the frozen ground, the creak of wheels and straps, finally the voices of the drivers.
"Surely they will know this Nicodemus," she said, and started forward to hail them, when a word of one carter, shouted back to the other, a few yards to the rear, transfixed her where she stood and sent her shivering with fright as well as cold.
"Quicker, man, or we'll get no bed this night. Hito will have something to say to us for the hours we've been away, I'm thinking."
Swift terror seized on Eldris at the word. That there might be two Hitos in the country she never stopped to think. These were Eudemius's men; if they saw her, they would report to Hito at the house; she would be searched for, overtaken, and suffer the fate of captured runaway slaves. In a panic she fled back to the blank-walled house and beat upon the door.
Instantly it was opened. In her excitement she had time for no surprise at this, no feeling but relief that no time was lost. As the carters drew abreast of the door, she slipped within and slammed it shut.
"Well!" said the one who had opened. "What are you trying to do?"
"Pardon!" Eldris stammered. "There were men passing--"
At her voice the woman looked at her keenly.
"Girl, you are frozen with cold! This is no night for you to be abroad."
"I could not help it!" said Eldris with chattering teeth. Her voice failed her with her strength; before she had time to so much as see the woman's face all things grew dark before her eyes. The woman caught her as she fell.
She awoke to life again with burning pains in her face and head, and found two women bending over her. One held a bowl, from which the other was rubbing Eldris's face with snow. Both were young; both were tawdrily dressed, with many strings of beads and rings on neck and fingers. Eldris, looking at them, raised her head, and asked the first question that came into her head.
"Where am I?"
The woman with the bowl smiled a little. She was a fair-haired creature, with eyes of Saxon blue, with hollow cheeks and scarlet lips.
"Do you not know the house of Chloris?" she asked.
Eldris shook her head. Her eyes asked a question which her lips had not strength to utter. The second woman spoke; a dark-haired beauty, she, with a profile of purest Grecian outline.
"Cease thy chatter, Sada! Canst not see the girl is dead with cold and hunger? Leave me the bowl and go get food and wine."
Sada put down the bowl and ran out of the room.
"Your face was frozen," said the Greek. "It is well that you found help in time."
"You are good," Eldris murmured with stiff lips. She was dropping to sleep again through sheer exhaustion in spite of pain, when Sada returned with a tray which held a bowl, smoking hot, an ampulla of wine, and a cheap brass cup. Between them the women roused Eldris and fed her carefully. As her strength began to return, she looked about her with quickening interest. But the room told her nothing. It was small and bare, furnished with but the bed on which she lay, a copper brazier of charcoal, and a couple of wooden stools. The women, over her head, talked in low voices.
"She will sleep to-night, and to-morrow our mistress will see her," said Sada. "Where didst find her, Eunice?"
"At the door," the Greek answered. "I was stationed there to let in you know who, and heard a knock. So this girl entered, crying out that men were after her, so far as I could understand, and slammed the door before I could say her nay. You told Chloris of her, then?"
Sada nodded and laid a finger on her lips.
"She sleeps," she whispered. "Let us go."
But Eldris opened heavy eyes with effort.
"Pray you tell me where is the wine-shop of Nicodemus!" she murmured, husky with drowsiness. "It is there that I must go and wait--"
The tall Greek Eunice laid a hand on her aching head.
"Sleep now," she said. "To-morrow will be time enough to know."
And Eldris slept, as lost to the world behind the dead blank wall as Nicanor in his dungeon cell.
It seemed to her, in her sleep, that she lay with body dead but soul alive and conscious. She dreamed confusedly, strange formless dreams, in which women dark and fair, Hito, Nicanor, and herself were involved inextricably. She dreamed of stealthy whisperings behind closed doors, of laughing faces which looked down upon her as she lay with body dead and soul conscious. With awakening came remembrance and a thrill of apprehension. She lifted herself on an elbow and saw the Saxon girl Sada sitting on the floor, regarding her steadfastly.
"Have I slept long?" Eldris asked.
"It is evening again," said Sada.
"Then I must go at once!" Eldris exclaimed. She got out of bed, tottering a little, and shivering in the chilly air of the room. "If thanks be any payment for what you have done for me, you have all of mine. They are all I have to give."
Sada answered nothing. She helped Eldris to dress, combed her hair, and brought her food. Then Eldris, in a fever to be at her journey's end and know what was in store for her, said again:
"Pray you tell me where is the wine-shop of Nicodemus"--and thought the other smiled. But Sada, instead of answering, said only:
"Before you go, our mistress would hold speech with you."
"Your mistress? Are you, then, slaves?" Eldris ventured.
A strange look crossed Sada's face.
"Ay," she answered. "Slaves, who shall die in bondage."
She led Eldris from the room across a small and ill-paved court to another door.
"You will find her here," she said, and pushed Eldris gently across the threshold.
The room was lighted by many lamps, some of pottery of the cheapest sort, others of wrought bronze, and was filled with a strange and subtle perfume. There was a confusion of furniture, and the walls were hung with curtains, which gave the place a bizarre and Eastern look. So much Eldris took in with her first step forward. Then she saw a figure seated upon a mattress on the floor, a fat and shapeless figure, bunched in many garments. Atop of the fat figure was a fat face, with thin hair whose natural gray showed through its ruddy dye, with flabby painted cheeks, and heavy-lidded eyes darkened beneath with antimony. A Greek might have called it the face of a Greek, and looked again to make sure; a Roman might have called it the face of a Roman. In it one seemed to catch a hint, mysterious and elusive, of all ages and all nations. Once it had been a fine face; even, in a time long past, it had been touched with beauty. Now it was at once a relic and a monument. The substance was the same, but transmuted into coarser mould. Where had been soft blue tracings were red and angry veins; where had been gracious roundness was gross fleshiness. Only the brow, God-made, the only feature which may be neither made nor marred by human means, remained the same, broad and white, and smooth as marble.
The woman sat perfectly motionless, looking at nothing. On her fat hands, which rested on her knees, were rings set with blazing stones; on every finger a ring, and on every ring a slender chain which led back over the hand to a heavy wristlet of gold in which a great ruby burned. Her garments were held by fibulae of iron and bone, cheaply made; around her neck were many strings of beads, some of carved jet, some of silver, some of colored glass. In her grotesqueness and impassivity she might have posed as a graven goddess of some unholy rite. In the sight of her, also, was something so unexpected that Eldris stopped and stared.
"Will you close that door?" said the woman. Her voice was low-pitched and clear and very sweet, with no hint of coarseness in its modulations. Coming from such a bulk it was surprising--more, it was startling. Eldris obeyed, taken wholly aback. "Now come hither."
Eldris came.
The woman's heavy-lidded eyes settled on her as a vulture settles on its prey, devouring her, line by line, feature by feature, until, to her surprise and discomfort, Eldris felt herself flushing as though she had been under the eyes of a man.
"Whence come you?" said the soft voice; so commonplace a question and so casually asked, that Eldris was nearly betrayed into indiscretion. She caught herself and said instead:
"From Londinium."
"And you are--" The woman looked her over again. "Perhaps a dancer, or maybe a mime, running away because your master misused you?"
"A dancer--yes, that is it," said Eldris, catching at the invention. "And my master misused me, and I ran away. Now I seek the wine-shop--"
The woman laughed, a silvery tinkle of mirth.
"Child, spare your conscience!" she said lightly. "See, let me tell you how it lies with you. Whence come you? From a great house to the southward, where one Hito rules with a rod of fear. What are you? A slave, my dear, and a runaway, with your life, in consequence, forfeit and lying this moment in my hand. Some one helped you to get away, and bade you wait for him at the wine-shop of this master Nicodemus, for whom you clamor. How dare you put me and mine in jeopardy, girl, by thrusting yourself upon us? Know you not the penalty visited on those who harbor fugitive slaves?"
Eldris started back from her, gray and pinched with fear. How did the woman know? Who had told her? Eldris could not guess; knew nothing but that her life indeed lay in the fat jewelled hands resting on the woman's knees.
But the latter's tone changed. Perhaps there was in her something of the feline; the instinct of the cat to gambol with its prey. She laughed again.
"Nay, child!" she said gently. "I did but sport with thee. And I am sorry, poor hunted rabbit. Never fear, my girl--Chloris has yet to turn distress from her door. How do I know these things? Why, that is easily answered, since all night long in sleep your tongue went over this and that--such a babble as was never heard. The tongue by day may lie, but the tongue by night speaks truth. My women who waited on you did piece its fragments, and came with the whole and told me. Now I have this to say: Stay in this house, and you shall be safer than in your father's. When search is made for you, be sure the searchers will come hither, and that is the best thing that could be. You will not be the first girl who has sought shelter with Chloris. And I dare take the risk of keeping you, because I am so very sure that you will not be found. If the house be searched, no one of your description would be found herein--and you yourself might tell the stationarii so without fear. Stay with me, and you shall have food and shelter and protection from the law."
"And I--what wouldst have of me in return?" asked Eldris slowly.
"Naught but what you would give willingly," said Chloris. "Mark you this, girl: Chloris forces no man nor woman to do her bidding. If one wishes to enter here, she may enter; if one wishes to leave, she may leave. I can but repeat what I have said. Come to me and you shall be safe--I'll lay my life on that. If you will not, well, go your way; you shall not be betrayed by me or mine."
"If you would but let me be servant to you!" Eldris begged. "I am friendless and weary, and I dread to face the world again, for there is no rest nor safety for me at all. I would work in scullery or in kitchen, and serve you loyally and gladly; more than this I will not do. Once I fled to escape shame; shall I then seek that from which I fled?"
"So be it, then," said Chloris. "I shall not compel you, for that is not the way of Chloris. You have told so much while no sense was in you that you might now straighten out the tale. I see your doubts; you do not know me, yet you have your opinion. That is right, child; better for one's own peace of mind to trust too little than too much. But you need fear nothing. I, too, was friendless once, and weary once, and found no rest nor safety. That was long and long ago; but sometimes I think of it, even these days. So, if you will, tell your tale; and if you will not, keep it. But remember, I have said that your secret shall not be betrayed by me or mine. Many things I have come to hold lightly, but my promise is not one of them."
"I will tell," said Eldris. It was an impulse, born of she knew not what emotion. So she told, taking a fellow-mortal on trust for sake of the faith that was in her; and again the heavy-lidded eyes fastened on her, never wavering from her face as she told her tale.
"I am slave to the lord Eudemius, him whom men call the Torturer. Hito, who is steward there, hath persecuted me for a year and more, so that I went in dread of him. Six nights ago I escaped from that house through the help of one therein, and was told by him to seek Thorney, and Nicodemus who kept a wine-shop there. But I dared not come here direct lest I be traced at once. I wandered, seeking what food I might, and then I lost my way. For five days did I toil on, but yesterday regained my road. I had strayed wrong many miles, but it may be that this was a good thing, if it would help to throw off those pursuing. For unless I can find hiding, I shall be lost."
"And that one who aided your escape?" said Chloris.
"I do not think it would be just to speak of him," Eldris answered, hesitating. "What I have told concerns myself. There is no need that another should be put in danger through me."
"Is he your lover?"
Under those changeless, boring eyes, dull color crept into Eldris's white face.
"Nay," she answered.
"Do you, then, love him?"
"Nay," said Eldris again. "I think--" she spoke slowly, as though the words were impelled--"I think that no one loves him. Rather is he looked on with fear and hate."
"Then must he rear his head in some fashion above the herd," said Chloris, and laughed at the uncomprehension in Eldris's eyes.
But with the mention of Nicanor, remembrance of his direction returned anew to Eldris, seduced for a moment by sure promise of safety.
"He bade me go to this Nicodemus, and I dare not do otherwise," she said distressfully. "Last night I was searching for the place. If he were to come and find me not there--"
"So, he will be a runaway also?" said Chloris, lightly. And at Eldris's distress--"Fear not, foolish! Should not all slaves stand together? Body of Bacchus! Did they do so, there would shortly be no slaves! But that is as it must be. As for Nicodemus, know you what place his wine-shop is? A drinking den where violent men gather to brawl and gamble. No fit one, truly, for a maid! Rather, stay you here, and when this unloved comrade of yours arrives, why, I'll hear of it, and you shall know."
Eldris hesitated and lost her game. Chloris clapped her hands. Sada entered, with a glance full of curiosity.
"Take the girl to the kitchen," Chloris gave command. "Tell the cooks she will serve as scullery maid and naught else. And hark you, Sada girl! No word of last night's doings, or it will go hard with you. Now go, the two of you."
She waved them away, and they went out and left her sitting there.
"She is strange!" said Eldris, pondering deeply.
"Ay, strange!" Sada echoed. "Us she rules with a rod of iron, and yet--we love her, every one."
"I fear her," said Eldris, trying, after her nature, to analyze the emotions in her. "For she is old and very evil. And I was helpless, and she gave me help; homeless, and she took me in." _