_ BOOK IV. THE PALACE OF BLACHERNE
CHAPTER XII. LAEL TELLS OF HER TWO FATHERS
Word passed from the garden to the knots of people on the height: "Come down quickly. They are making ready for the boat race." Directly the reservoirs, the pavilions, and the tesselation about them were deserted.
The Princess Irene, with her suite, made the descent to the garden more at leisure, knowing the regatta would wait for her. So it happened she was at length in charge of what seemed a rear guard; but how it befell that Sergius and Lael drew together, the very last of that rear guard, is not of such easy explanation.
Whether by accident or mutual seeking, side by side the two moved slowly down the hill, one moment in the shade of the kingly pines, then in the glowing sunshine. The noises of the celebration, the shouting, singing, calling, and merry outcries of children ascended to them, and through the verdurousness below, lucent as a lake, gleams of color flashed from scarfs, mantles, embroidered jackets, and flaming petticoats.
"I hope you are enjoying yourself," he said to Lael, upon their meeting.
"Oh, yes! How could I help it--everything is delightful. And the Princess--she is so good and gracious. Oh, if I were a man, I should go mad with loving her!"
She spoke with enthusiasm; she even drew her veil partially aside; yet Sergius did not respond; he was asking himself if it were possible the girl could be an impostor. Presently he resolved to try her with questions.
"Tell me of your father. Is he well?"
At this she raised her veil entirely, and in turn asked: "Which father do you mean?"
"Which father," he repeated, stopping.
"Oh, I have the advantage of everybody else! I have two fathers."
He could do no more than repeat after her: "Two fathers!"
"Yes; Uel the merchant is one of them, and the Prince of India is the other. I suppose you mean the Prince, since you know him. He accompanied me to the landing this morning, and seated me in the boat. He was then well."
There was no concealment here. Yet Sergius saw the disclosure was not complete. He was tempted to go on.
"Two fathers! How can such thing be?"
She met the question with a laugh. "Oh! If it depended on which of them is the kinder to me, I could not tell you the real father."
Sergius stood looking at her, much as to say: "That is no answer; you are playing with me."
"See how we are falling behind," she then said. "Come, let us go on. I can talk while walking."
They set forward briskly, but it was noticeable that he moved nearer her, stooping from his great height to hear further.
"This is the way of it," she continued of her own prompting. "Some years ago, my father, Uel, the merchant, received a letter from an old friend of his father's, telling him that he was about to return to Constantinople after a long absence in the East somewhere, and asking if he, Uel, would assist the servant who was bearer of the note in buying and furnishing a house. Uel did so, and when the stranger arrived, his home was ready for him. I was then a little girl, and went one day to see the Prince of India, his residence being opposite Uel's on the other side of the street. He was studying some big books, but quit them, and picked me up, and asked me who I was? I told him Uel was my father. What was my name? Lael, I said. How old was I? And when I answered that also, he kissed me, and cried, and, to my wonder, declared how he had once a child named Lael; she looked like me, and was just my age when she died"--
"Wonderful!" exclaimed Sergius.
"Yes, and he then said Heaven had sent me to take her place. Would I be his Lael? I answered I would, if Uel consented. He took me in his arms, carried me across the street and talked so Uel could not have refused had he wanted to."
The manner of the telling was irresistible. At the conclusion, she turned to him and said, with emotion: "There, now. You see I really have two fathers, and you know how I came by them: and were I to recount their goodness to me, and how they both love me, and how happy each one of them is in believing me the object of the other's affection, you would understand just as well how I know no difference between them."
"It is strange; yet as you tell it, little friend, it is not strange," he returned, seriously. They were at the instant in a bar of brightest sunlight projected across the road; and had she asked him the cause of the frown on his face, he could not have told her he was thinking of Demedes.
"Yes, I see it--I see it, and congratulate you upon being so doubly blessed. Tell me next who the Prince of India is."
She looked now here, now there, he watching her narrowly.
"Oh! I never thought of asking him about himself."
She was merely puzzled by an unexpected question.
"But you know something of him?"
"Let me think," she replied. "Yes, he was the intimate of my father Uel's father, and of his father before him."
"Is he so old then?"
"I cannot say how long he has been a family acquaintance. Of my knowledge he is very learned in everything. He speaks all the languages I ever heard of; he passes the nights alone on the roof of his house"--
"Alone on the roof of his house!"
"Only of clear nights, you understand. A servant carries a chair and table up for him, and a roll of papers, with pen and ink, and a clock of brass and gold. The paper is a map of the heavens; and he sits there watching the stars, marking them in position on the map, the clock telling him the exact time."
"An astronomer," said Sergius.
"And an astrologer," she added; "and besides these things he is a doctor, but goes only amongst the poor, taking nothing from them. He is also a chemist; and he has tables of the plants curative and deadly, and can extract their qualities, and reduce them from fluids to solids, and proportionate them. He is also a master of figures, a science, he always terms it, the first of creative principles without which God could not be God. So, too, he is a traveller--indeed I think he has been over the known world. You cannot speak of a capital or of an island, or a tribe which he has not visited. He has servants from the farthest East. One of his attendants is an African King; and what is the strangest to me, Sergius, his domestics are all deaf and dumb."
"Impossible!"
"Nothing appears impossible to him."
"How does he communicate with them?"
"They catch his meaning from the motion of his lips. He says signs are too slow and uncertain for close explanations."
"Still he must resort to some language."
"Oh, yes, the Greek."
"But if they have somewhat to impart to him?"
"It is theirs to obey, and pantomime seems sufficient to convey the little they have to return to him, for it is seldom more than, 'My Lord, I have done the thing you gave me to do.' If the matter be complex, he too resorts to the lip-speech, which he could not teach without first being proficient in it himself. Thus, for instance, to Nilo"--
"The black giant who defended you against the Greek?"
"Yes--a wonderful man--an ally, not a servant. On the journey to Constantinople, the Prince turned aside into an African Kingdom called Kash-Cush. I cannot tell where it is. Nilo was the King, and a mighty hunter and warrior. His trappings hang in his room now--shields, spears, knives, bows and arrows, and among them a net of linen threads. When he took the field for lions, his favorite game, the net and a short sword were all he cared for. His throne room, I have heard my father the Prince say, was carpeted with skins taken by him in single combats."
"What could he do with the net, little Princess?"
"I will give you his account; perhaps you can see it clearly--I cannot. When the monster makes his leap, the corners of the net are tossed up in the air, and he is in some way caught and tangled... Well, as I was saying, Nilo, though deaf and dumb, of choice left his people and throne to follow the Prince, he knew not where."
"Oh, little friend! Do you know you are talking the incredible to me? Who ever heard of such thing before?"
Sergius' blue eyes were astare with wonder.
"I only speak what I have heard recounted by my father, the Prince, to my other father, Uel.... What I intended saying was that directly the Prince established himself at home he began teaching Nilo to converse. The work was slow at first; but there is no end to the master's skill and patience; he and the King now talk without hindrance. He has even made him a believer in God."
"A Christian, you mean."
"No. In my father's opinion the mind of a wild man cannot comprehend modern Christianity; nobody can explain the Trinity; yet a child can be taught the almightiness of God, and won to faith in him."
"Do you speak for yourself or the Prince?"
"The Prince," she replied.
Sergius was struck with the idea, and wished to go further with it, but they were at the foot of the hill, and Lael exclaimed, "The garden is deserted. We may lose the starting of the race. Let us hurry."
"Nay, little friend, you forget how narrow my skirts are. I cannot run. Let us walk fast. Give me a hand. There now--we will arrive in time."
Near the palace, however, Sergius dropped into his ordinary gait; then coming to a halt, he asked: "Tell me to whom else you have related this pretty tale of the two fathers?"
His look and tone were exceedingly grave, and she studied his face, and questioned him in turn: "You are very serious--why?"
"Oh, I was wondering if the story is public?" More plainly, he was wondering whence Demedes had his information.
"I suppose it is generally known; at least I cannot see why it should not be."
The few words swept the last doubt from his mind; yet she continued: "My father Uel is well known to the merchants of the city. I have heard him say gratefully that since the coming of the Prince of India his business has greatly increased. He used to deal in many kinds of goods; now he sells nothing but precious stones. His patrons are not alone the nobles of Byzantium; traders over in Galata buy of him for the western markets, especially Italy and France. My other father, the Prince, is an expert in such things, and does not disdain to help Uel with advice."
Lael might have added that the Prince, in course of his travels, had ascertained the conveniency of jewels as a currency familiar and acceptable to almost every people, and always kept a store of them by him, from which he frequently replenished his protege's stock, allowing him the profits. That she did not make this further disclosure was probably due to ignorance of the circumstances; in other words, her artlessness was extreme enough to render her a dangerous confidant, and both her fathers were aware of it.
"Everybody in the bazaar is friendly to my father Uel, and the Prince visits him there, going in state; and he and his train are an attraction"--thus Lael proceeded. "On his departure, the questions about him are countless, and Uel holds nothing back. Indeed, it is more than likely he has put the whole mart and city in possession of the history of my adoption by the Prince."
In front of the palace she broke off abruptly: "But see! The landing is covered with men and women. Let us hurry."
Presently they issued from the garden, and were permitted to join the Princess. _