At the Queen's Mercy

by Mabel Fuller Blodgett

The people of the Walled City, maddened by their priests, cried out for blood, and it added an unfailing interest to the cry that we who heard it knew right well for whose blood they were thus loudly clamoring.

But the Queen was deaf to the tumult, nor did she seem to heed the fact that as the days wore on, the multitude, grown bolder, now cursed the name of her who shielded thus the enemies of the gods.

Agno was not idle. Abroad the wolves leaped at the gates; the royal archers shot them down by hundreds, and in turn were slain. Grim death walked thus a hundred paces off, and we within, moved by the will of her who reigned supreme, lived softly and spoke not of that which chiefly filled our thoughts. That it was the beginning of the end, we knew, but one forbade the hint of danger, and we obeyed.

Meanwhile the serene, luxurious life of the Palace flowed quietly on, like some broad, placid stream that speeds not nor frets, for all the thunder of the waterfall at hand.

Lestrade, grown strangely moody, and Astolba, with white, hushed face, sat with me, guests in the Queen’s banquet-hall; but I alone drank from the royal cup, and on me alone did the eyes of Lah rest with the look that was at once both promise and fulfilment.

I am a prudent man, but a man has need of more than prudence to guard against a foe like this. For the Queen was to me all woman in those days, and the spell of her beauty and her new-born gentleness was on me.

Also the uncertainty of these golden hours, and the sense of ever-present danger, went to my head like wine. I set it down in penance for the sin of my unfaithfulness. I forgot the garnered store of wealth, whose secret I had held; I forgot my friend; I forgot the maid that I had sworn to save. And it was in a mood like this, that Astolba found me, the morning of the fifth day of the siege of the Palace.

I was on my way to meet the Queen, and my whole soul was in my errand, so that I looked with the less kindness and the more impatience on the hand that stayed me. It was a small hand and white, but I am not Lestrade, and I had little thought for its beauty. None the less I am a man, and its weakness should have held me as its fairness might not do. Yet it was with more haste than gentleness that I asked Astolba’s errand. Had I been less amorously engaged with my own purpose, I think the terror in the upturned face would have touched me to the quick; as it was, I set her story down more to the vain fears of any maid in such a case, than to the score of her with whom the tale chiefly dealt—for it was of the Queen that Astolba spoke; the Queen, who, as I have said, was all meekness and sweet humility with me. Yet this is what Astolba told me, and little did I think that I should so soon see reason in her speech:—

“It was night at about the eleventh hour,” she began; “I lay shivering upon my couch, and I could not sleep. You remember that I had asked Lah’s permission to go from the banquet, and as I passed, you had turned kindly to me, and bade me take courage, while even as you spoke the hideous cries from without came faintly to my ears. Perhaps your notice stirred the hatred of the Queen, for indeed of late she does hate me. At least she looked at me, and her look pierced me through and through. The thought of it kept me awake. I was cold with fear though the night was warm. I shall die with terror in this evil place. Oh, if you be a man, help me to escape or kill me quickly! But I tell you I will not longer live this life of horror.”

So Astolba cried, and I, with a coldness that I can never enough regret, asked her to speak plainly and to the point; what else of evil had the Queen done? Or had she compassed all wickedness in a single look?