CHAPTER XII
THE SORROWS OF A KING
King Ninus, lord of all Assyria, lay cursing in his royal litter, while slaves and attendants bore him northward on the banks of the Euphrates. Presently they left their course, struck eastward till they reached the Tigris and again turned north, whence, with many rests and long, forced marches in the cool of night, the stricken King at length was placed upon his couch at Nineveh.
Full many a grievous matter rode upon the monarch's mind, and the pale attending leech wrought vainly to quell his patient's fever, one augmented by a sleepless, boiling rage within. By day the King would fret; by night he rioted throughout his dreams and found no rest.
First there was his wound, a ragged, half-healed gash, laid open by a lion's claw and running from a point beneath his arm-pit to his hip. It was not the wound itself, nor the pain thereof, which fired the hunter's wrath, but rather the truth that he, Ramân-Nirari—the greatest hunter since beasts and hunters were—should miss his kill and seek his life in flight. Of witnesses there were only three: Shidur-Kam, a warrior whom the King might trust to entrench his tongue behind his teeth, and a slave who was safer still, for Ninus had cast his body into the Euphrates; but, then, there was a girl—a red-haired girl—who perched in the boughs of a citron tree and laughed as the King sped underneath, a wounded lion leaping at his horse's haunch.
At another time the monarch might have held this face, and the echo of a bubbly laugh, in pleasing memory; yet raillery, directed at a royal personage in the stress of flight, begets a recollection of a different breed. So the mocking laughter haunted Ninus through all the day and caused him to wake at night and grind his teeth in fury.
"Argol," said he, to the faithful leech beside him, "give order that a thousand horse repair to the region of our lion hunt. Command them to scour the country round about in a circuit of thirty leagues and bring me every red-haired wench they may chance to find. By Gibil's flame! I have a pressing need of them!"
The leech sighed sadly, tapped upon a gong of bronze, then waited in silence till an officer strode in, saluted, and sank upon his knees. The order given and the soldier gone, Argol administered a sleeping draught and sat once more at his weary post.
Yet the King slept not, for still another matter lay heavy on his heart. There was a certain man called Azet, the venerable seer who had prophesied with lies. Before the hunt he had opened the carcasses of seven cranes, finding in the entrails of each and all an omen of success. Full thirty beasts, said Azet, should the King o'ercome, returning unto Nineveh triumphant and sound of limb. Was not this prophet, then, to blame for the ills which had come to pass? Wherefore should he prophesy unto evil ends, or cause witch-women to laugh from the boughs of citron trees? Could virtue not be found in the vitals of seven sacred cranes? or was this holy man but a monster and a fool?
The King's dark brow grew darker still with troublous thought, as he questioned his leech for the hundredth time in fretful tones: