Then from between two thrones at the Hall’s further end there glided a woman clad all in white. It was impossible to mistake that grace and dignity. I would fain have flung myself at her feet, but something in the hushed look of her face held me back. I even closed my eyes, that look so plainly was not meant for me. For the mask had fallen, and I saw straight into the bared heart of her who was at once more and less than other women, the heart of Lah, the Queen. A stifled sob reached my ears, and behold, she had thrown herself upon the hard stone of the floor, and with clasped hands, knelt, a suppliant, before the unmoved figures of the royal dead.
Then her voice, her wonderful, beautiful voice, broke the silence.
“O Rulers of the people of the Walled City! I cry out to you. The gods have turned away in anger. Edba, herself once a woman, heeds me no longer. I am not of your race. I have come a stranger to this land, but I ask you, have I not given back good measure for all that the land has given me? Surely, has prosperity come upon your people, O Throned Ones who sit and answer not. Much riches have I brought to them; my rule has been strong; my justice known abroad. The wicked tremble before my face, and the doer of brave deeds have I exalted! See, an empty throne awaits me in your midst. Does that anger you that I, a woman and a stranger, should there take my place? Then listen, Great Ones. Give me but a single little gift from out your store. Turn to me the heart of the stranger. Behold, I kneel to you, I, Lah, who kneel not even to the gods. Hear then my oath: my throne shall remain empty throughout the ages. Take back your kingdom if it please you. Strip from me my riches. Take all—I care not, but turn to me this one heart. Leave but my beauty and my lover.”
Her voice died away, and again there was silence. Then the Queen rose from her knees, and a splendid passion clothed her from head to foot.
“Ye answer not, O Rulers of the people of the Walled City! In peace have I come to you. Look to it that I come not again in war. For neither the dead nor the living shall stay my will. Ye sit upon thrones indeed, but at my pleasure. If the stranger love me, it is well, for me and for ye also. For I can scatter your ashes to the winds, and I can fling ye, one and all, upon a funeral pyre. For Lah can hate, as well as love, and when she comes again, she comes your friend or foe.”
Then she passed. And I, in mute amazement that was half terror, stayed her not, but went back softly, groping in the dark for the door that had let me within this sepulchre.
For this woman was not as other women, and her words were not meant for me to hear. So I locked them away in my breast, and only thus after many days do I set them down, that he, my friend, may take from them some comfort.
For I know now, without room for doubt, whose love it was for which the Queen pleaded of the silent dead, within the Burial Hall of Kings.
Chapter XIV
The Flower of Death
We were now in the Palace, and the place was besieged. About its walls (and they were thick indeed, or this tale had not been written) a howling mob surged through the day and still unwearied made hideous the night.