“Then Angro-mainyus, death’s dark spirit made
That mighty serpent, Winter, with its snow,
To swallow up within its months of cold
The teeming earth, the flowing water-streams,
While storm-clouds cast upon the earth their pestilent shade.”
“You are melancholy, Prince of Iran! Let us not think of Angro-mainyus. Are the days not passing swiftly? When the forty days of mourning shall have passed, shall we not be happy?”
He drew her closely to him. “Most happy, beloved! But I am filled with forebodings of evil. Like some threatening Angro-mainyus, jealously watching the Spirit of Life at his creation and the children of men in their happiness, does the form of the new King of Kings loom up in the sky. I seem to feel even now the malignant hate with which he ever seemed to regard Bardya, and me because I was Bardya’s friend. When I think of the absolute power of life and death vested in him and his opportunity to wreak vengeance upon those he hates, I am troubled. What if he refuse to give you to me? What if he choose to bestow you upon another?”
He felt the small hand now resting in his clench and harden. She looked up into his face as she answered slowly and solemnly:
“As for me, though he inflict death, yet shall he not bend my will! I have chosen you alone of all the world. Your wife I shall be or I shall die. Listen, Prince of Iran! I am moved to say—some spirit prompts my soul to salute you, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. At your side shall I be Queen of the world! Is it not to be so?”
He drew her closer to him and kissed her forehead. “Hush, life of mine!” he replied. “Start no such thoughts in my soul! Am I not oath-bound? If I were not so, should I plunge Iran into bloody civil war that I may wear a crown? Let Ahura-Mazda’s will be done! If Cambyses and Bardya cease to exist, in spite of my loyal support, then shall I deem myself most fortunate to sit on the throne of Cyrus at the side of his daughter. Ah, if only Cambyses had a soul like Athura, what a happy year would this be for the nations!”