PHRADATES TRIUMPHS
The morning sun, shining from a cloudless sky, danced upon the rippling harbor before the eyes of the two prisoners as they were led to the Royal Citadel where Memnon had established himself. The Rhodian had been placed in command of all the western border of the empire after the disaster on the Granicus, and his authority was nominally supreme.
They were conducted to an antechamber of the council room to await their turn. They found themselves surrounded by a throng in which the Greeks far outnumbered the barbarians. Sullen looks were levelled at them by the officers who came and went. Ephialtes, who had been exiled from Athens, smiled at them mockingly. Neoptolemus, the Lyncestian, and Amyntas, son of Antiochus, who had been concerned in the murder of Philip, Thrasybulus, and others who had become exiles from their native land for various crimes, passed them in the crowd of civil and military officials whose faces and garb indicated the widely scattered races that they represented.
"See," Clearchus said to Chares. "There goes the Tyrian!"
Phradates was making his way through the hall, holding his head high and ignoring the salutes that were offered to him. He wore a magnificent cloak of purple, under which he concealed his maimed right arm, and his spurs clanked on the marble floor.
"They are the same spurs he used to get away with from the battle," Chares observed. "He seems to be a person of some importance here, and that will do us no good."
"He has us this time safely enough," Clearchus said bitterly.
"That is true," Chares replied. "I wish I had struck him harder! His head must be of iron."
"Do you think the oracle was accomplished when we found Artemisia?" Clearchus inquired anxiously.
"I do not know," the Theban replied, "but only Phœbus can save us now."
"Come along," the captain of the guard said roughly, "the general is waiting for you."
He led them into the council room, where Memnon sat behind a table littered with documents. With him were Orontobates, Phradates, and a few of the higher officers. The famous Rhodian raised his head from the letter that he had been reading and looked keenly at the two young men.
"You are charged with being spies of the Macedonian," he said abruptly. "What have you to reply?"
"It is not true," Chares answered. "We are here on private business alone."
"He lies!" Phradates broke in. "I saw them both at Thebes in the army of Alexander, and again in the battle of the Granicus. They are spies!"
"What he says is partly true," Chares replied coolly, "but it also true that we are not spies and that he knows it. We have left the army of Alexander."
"Why did you come here?" Memnon asked.
"We came in search of Artemisia, a young woman of Athens," Clearchus said. "She was stolen before the war began. We followed the army in obedience to the oracle at Delphi for the purpose of finding her. When we learned that she was here, we came hither to seek her."
"It is all false," Phradates cried. "Put them to the torture and they will reveal the truth!"
"Spoken like a Phœnician," Chares said scornfully, "but it is only among savages that they torture free men. Do you remember, Tyrian, what was done to you when you came as a spy to Thebes?"
Phradates bit his lip and was silent.
"Alexander sent thee back to Tyre," Chares continued, "and he gave thee a message to deliver to thy king, Azemilcus. Hast thou forgotten it? He told thee to bid him prepare the altar in the temple of Heracles, for that he was coming with his army to make sacrifice there. He is on his way."
Chares spoke boldly, and the threat conveyed in his words had an evident effect upon the minds of the men who heard him. Many of them, like Phradates, had seen with their own eyes the impetuous charge of the Macedonians across the Granicus, and they knew in their hearts that the Great King had no troops that could have withstood it. Sardis, Ephesus, Miletus, and all the Carian cities in the north had fallen, and the mutterings of the approaching storm were all about them. Would the great walls of Halicarnassus, upon which they had been toiling, give them shelter? Misgiving seized their minds, and they looked questioningly at each other and at Memnon. None could read what was passing in the thoughts of the wily Rhodian, but no doubt he reflected upon the jealousy of the Persians, his masters, which had forbidden him to lead his Greeks into the battle of the Granicus and which still encompassed him, all the more vigilant because of his promotion. He must have thought, too, of his wife and children, hostages in the hands of Darius. He knew that Clearchus and Chares had told the truth. Would it not be well to have two young men of influence in Greece and on terms of intimacy with Alexander to speak for him in case of need?
With his eyes on Memnon's furrowed face, Clearchus, with the subtle intelligence of an Athenian, divined something of what was passing in his mind.
"Say no more," he whispered to Chares. "He will save us if he can."
Memnon at last raised his head and glanced about him. "I am inclined to think that the story these men tell is true," he said deliberately.
An angry murmur rose from the crowd, and Phradates' face flushed darkly.
"Who was the girl in the litter?" said Ephialtes. "Was she this Artemisia whom they were seeking?"
There was a sneer in the exile's tone that brought the blood to Chares' cheek.
"She was not," he answered. "She was Thais. You may have seen her, Ephialtes, before they drove you from Athens."
"Thais?" Thrasybulus said. "Why not send for her? She may be able to tell whether these speak truth or falsehood."
"Let her be brought before us," Memnon commanded. "Remove the prisoners until she comes. My Lord Orontobates, I wish to consult with you concerning the disposition of the fleet."
Clearchus and Chares were conducted back to the antechamber, while a tall, handsome man, wearing the headdress and insignia of a Persian noble of high rank, bent beside the Rhodian over a map which showed the coast on either side of the city. Although Memnon had been made general and civil governor of the western provinces, he well knew that Orontobates had been placed beside him to watch every act of his, and that the Great King was bound, even though it might be against his own judgment, to take the word of the Persian before that of the mercenary. It was no wonder that the brow of the general was thoughtful and his face careworn, surrounded as he was by traps and pitfalls, and with the terrible army that he had been chosen to defeat drawing hourly more near.
They were still studying headland and bay when Thais and her escort arrived. As if by accident, she took her position full in the sunlight that streamed in through a lofty window cut in the gray stone wall of the fortress. There was a stir of surprise in the room as she entered, and the gaze of every man was bent upon her. The bright flood touched the coils of her hair and filled them with changing gleams. It bathed her face in a rich glow, warm and delicate as the blush upon the petals of a rose. The folds of her chiton, leaving bare the rounded grace of her neck and the swell of her bosom, swept down to her little white feet, shod with saffron sandals, and revealed the firm curves of her figure, youthful, erect, and elastic as a wand of willow. The yellow light sparkled and ran through the topaz chain that rose and fell with her breathing.
As she stood there, a butterfly danced in upon the sunlight, fluttered about her head, and finally settled upon her hair, slowly opening and shutting its red-brown wings, mottled with darker spots. Like a sudden breeze in a ripened field of grain, a whisper of admiration and superstitious wonder ran through the room. Thais raised her eyes, and the shadow of a smile parted her crimson lips, showing the pearly gleam of her teeth.
Thus for a moment she stood in the sunlight before the gaze of the assemblage that thronged about the Rhodian general. The flower of her womanhood seemed to exhale a nameless, sensuous fascination, like the strange perfume of a rare exotic, the spell of which was longing and desire.
"Bring in the prisoners," Memnon said.
Clearchus and Chares were led into the room before Thais. She turned to them with a swift warning in her glance that stopped the words of protest on the lips of the Theban.
"Leave them to me," her eyes seemed to say.
"Do you know these men?" Memnon asked courteously.
"I know them," she assented, in a voice that sounded singularly sweet and timid. "They are Chares, who was of Thebes, and Clearchus, of Athens."
"Can you tell what brought them here?" Memnon asked.
"They left Athens in search of Artemisia, as all Athens knows," Thais returned.
Her answer had substantiated the story of the prisoners. Memnon turned inquiringly to Orontobates.
"It may be that this is some trick," the Persian said softly, in his own tongue. "Who knows that they have not concerted this story for this occasion?"
"My lord's suspicion is just," Thais returned, smiling upon Orontobates and addressing him in his own language; "but he will observe that I have not seen these men since they left Athens, and, indeed, I did not know they were here."
"Then why did you come here yourself?" Orontobates asked, returning her smile.
"I came because I learned that Artemisia was here, and I, too, wished to find her," Thais replied.
Orontobates shook his head incredulously. "If this young woman, for whom all Athens seems to be seeking, is here in Halicarnassus, doubtless she can be found," he remarked.
"My lord is right," Thais said quietly, "for I have found her."
"Shall we send for her?" Memnon asked, turning to Orontobates, who sat thoughtfully stroking his beard, "or shall we set the prisoners free?"
"Thou knowest that Darius commanded us to send him our captives, so that he might learn for himself concerning the Macedonians," the Persian replied. "We have had few to send, and I think he would like to question these men. By their own confession, they have been in Alexander's army. Dost thou not think it might be well to obey the command relating to them?"
Memnon saw that if he refused he might be charged with disobedience to the Great King, whose lightest word was law, and he could not afford to take the risk.
"Thy words are wise," he said smoothly, hiding the anger that he felt at the Persian's interference. "It shall be as thou hast said. Take away the prisoners," he added to the guard, "and let them be sent to-night to Babylon with the messenger who is to carry my letters to King Darius, my master,—may he live forever!"
"It is well," said Orontobates, with a shade of mockery in his voice.
Clearchus' face grew pale. The thought that Artemisia was so near and that he was about to be separated from her, perhaps forever, without being permitted to see her again, was a blow under which he staggered.
"Why send us both?" Chares demanded, restraining himself with an effort. "I know all that Clearchus knows, and I will tell it freely to the Great King if you will let him go free."
"Two are better than one," Orontobates said. "Thou wilt tell what thou knowest, whether freely or not."
"Take them away," Memnon said harshly, "and see that they speak with nobody before their departure."
Thais followed them with her eyes to the door, where Chares turned his head and smiled at her. She gave him back the smile bravely; but as he passed out of her sight her face changed and became like marble. Her eyes sought those of Orontobates, and she spoke to him in an even voice that vibrated with the intensity of her passion.
"I am a woman, O Persian," she said, "but I say to thee and to thy master that if harm befalls either of these men, the proudest palaces of thy kings shall be their funeral pyre."
A dead hush followed this defiance, and all eyes were turned upon the Persian in expectation of an outbreak; but Orontobates merely smiled upon her as though she were a petulant child and turned again to the study of the maps spread out before him.