There was an eunuch, Bagios, chief of eunuchs, who held for Meranes the secret hatred of a slave for a master, a worm for a trampling foot. Bagios looked to Sadyattes for freedom and wealth and the sweetness of revenge. Bagios might time much, arrange much in the seraglio, direct those bands of welcomers, appearances, disappearances, give clear stage for happenings.... He might now go to the Room of the Fountain and speak of the Room of the White Flowers.
Meranes and Nitetis lay embraced. “Lord, lord,” said Nitetis, “you might have thought, while you were away, that Aryenis was satrap! See you not how she has stolen my beauty?”
Looking at her he thought her the most beautiful thing in the world. “Lord, lord,” she said, “and know you what she said of your son Smerdis, in whom men say they see you when you were boy? ‘The ugly wretch!’ she said. ‘When Meranes sleeps for good and Alyattes is satrap, he shall be blinded!’”—Nitetis was starry-eyed, Nitetis was sugar-lipped, Nitetis bloomed like the rose.—“Lord, lord,” said Nitetis, “she thinks always of Alyattes as satrap! At heart she is mother-woman, only a little, a little is she wife-woman!”
Meranes pressed his lips against the lips of Nitetis. The Egyptian sank her head upon his breast, curved her arm around his neck. “Lord, lord, would you have Smerdis humbled and blinded—Smerdis that is your image as Alyattes is not?... Lord, lord, here is the child, dark and lovely as angels are—”
Smerdis, all richly dressed, came from among the flowers. He carried a platter heaped with fruit—grape and pear and plum and nectarine. He kneeled and placed these beside Meranes. “They are for you, my father, shining like god!”
The plants, the flowers, led off in this direction and in that, leaf walls hung with white bloom, and, between, narrow paths with space for subtile movement.... The flames behind the jewelled lantern glass seemed suddenly to tremble and leap. The Room of the Fountain came into the Room of the White Flowers.
Meranes, yet in the arms of Nitetis, bent and caressed the boy with the fruit. “By the fire! We are alike—”
Nitetis’s body stiffened. She spoke in a rattling voice. “Look—look!”
Aryenis stood over them, her body, her lifted arm curved. They saw her, grey and purple, spangled, with eyes that glittered, in her hand a poniard, wavy-lined and poisoned, wrought to a keen and piercing touch. It rose and fell—rose and fell—against the three entangled on the golden couch. It stung Egypt first. She sank aside, slipped like water from the couch to the floor. “Look—the serpent!” she said, and lay with her eyes upon her own blood. The boy Smerdis clung to Meranes, preventing him from rising from the golden bed. The quick dagger touched him next, and so deeply that life passed out almost at once. He lay among the tumbled fruit, rival no longer to Alyattes.—Meranes, rising, seized Aryenis, but she twisted from him, and struck the dagger into his breast. “May your heart know my woe!” She drew out the blade, let it fall upon the floor. “Meranes—Meranes!”
Meranes fell across the golden bed.... The Room of the White Flowers filled with those lesser blossoms and gems of the place, and with slaves and eunuchs. They made loud outcry, Bagios leading. Musk and sandal and smell of blood, and over the floor the scattered fruit, grape and pear and plum and nectarine, and in the centre the three fallen and Aryenis. Then Alyattes came running into the Room of the White Flowers and to his mother. Aryenis sat upon the bed and put her arms about him. “Child—child—child!” She hid her eyes against him. Nitetis stirred, raised herself upon her hand and looked around. The dagger lay in the light. The Egyptian put out her hand and took it, then, drawing herself up to that mother and son, struck Alyattes with it between the shoulders. Aryenis lifting her eyes, straining him to her, saw the Egyptian fall and die. “Alyattes! Alyattes!”