But the Amazon did not answer. The chief priest’s look darkened over her. “Not to us the offence, but to the god!” he said; and turning with the two, went away.
The press in the king’s court further lessened. Came, threading her way through the groups, an old handmaid, one named Eunica. She spoke to Lindane. “My mistresses, the old queen and her daughters, would have speech with you, Amazon!”
Lindane followed her across the court and by a passage to a steep stair, and so to an upper room lined with oak. Here sat the old queen with a silver distaff in her hands, and beside her a basket of coloured wool. The daughters sat near her on cushions, and they, too, had distaffs, and in the back of the room handmaids wove at a mighty loom.
Spoke the old queen. “Stranger woman, were you bond or free before my son the king took you?”
Said Lindane, “My mother is the queen of my country.”
“Then you shall have,” answered the old queen, “an ivory distaff to spin with. There are here three daughters of kings, and they all have ivory distaffs. Sit down and spin.”
There was but an hour to spin before dusk fell, with supper for that great house. All descended from the upper room, but they did not eat, that eve, in hall, because the king and his chief men were feasting there, and wine, wine, wine was flowing.
In Sandanis’s hall the torchlight was bright, but through the rest of the house it flared dim. At last the Amazon came to a place where was hardly any light, to a cell in the wall where she would sleep that night with Eunica, the old handmaid. So near was it to the great central room of the house that there might be heard in waves the mingled voices of the feasting men. What light there was seemed to come from that place of triumph, stealing through cracks in the wall.
Eunica had a bed of straw spread with sheepskins. The two bondwomen sat upon it, in the cell narrow as a tomb.
“I was the daughter of a king,” said old Eunica. “Sandanis’s father brought me here. Then I was young like you, but my hair was never red like yours. The old queen was young, too. She made herself a terror to me, but Myrtus cared more for my hand than he did for her whole body. But Myrtus died. Long, long ago, Myrtus died.... Sandanis was to have wed the king’s sister of the next island. But the maiden perished at sea, being brought here by her brothers. Now there is talk of a bride from another island. When she comes, if Sandanis yet holds you in liking, she will hate you. She will find occasion against you. When Sandanis likes you no longer, then, if you break a water-jar, or if there is a knot in your weaving, she will have you beaten. And when Sandanis likes you no longer, he will not care—he will not lift a finger to help you!”