The curtains parted again. A dark man in a pure white robe, his face and head smooth-shaven, approached the bed. He held out a broad gold cup, the rim whereof glinted with agate and sardonyx. He had no Greek, but Roxana took the cup from him and held it to Glaucon’s lips.
“Drink,” she commanded, and he was fain to obey. The Athenian felt the heavily spiced liquor laying hold of him. His eyes closed, despite his wish to gaze longer on the two beautiful women. He felt their hands caressing his cheeks. The music grew ever softer. He thought he was sinking into a kind of euthanasy, that his life was drifting out amid delightful dreams. But not cold Thanatos, but health-bearing Hypnos was the god who visited him now. When next he woke, it was with a clearer vision, a sounder mind.
* * * * * * *
Sardis the Golden, once capital of the Lydian kings and now of the Persian satraps, had recovered from the devastation by the Ionians in their ill-starred revolt seventeen years preceding. The city spread in the fertile Sardiene, one of the garden plains of Asia Minor. To the south the cloud-crowned heights of Tmolus ever were visible. To the north flowed the noble stream of Hebrus, whilst high above the wealthy town, the busy agora, the giant temple of Lydian Cybele, rose the citadel of Meles, the palace fortress of the kings and the satraps. A frowning castle it was without, within not the golden-tiled palaces of Ecbatana and Susa boasted greater magnificence and luxury than this one-time dwelling of Crœsus. The ceilings of the wide banqueting halls rose on pillars of emerald Egyptian malachite. The walls were cased with onyx. Winged bulls that might have graced Nineveh guarded the portals. The lions upbearing the throne in the hall of audience were of gold. The mirrors in the “House of the Women” were not steel but silver. [pg 170]The gorgeous carpets were sprinkled with rose water. An army of dark Syrian eunuchs and yellow-faced Tartar girls ran at the beck of the palace guests. Only the stealthy entrance of Sickness and Death told the dwellers here they were not yet gods.
Artaphernes, satrap of Lydia, had his divan, his viziers, and his audiences,—a court worthy of a king,—but the real lord of Western Asia was the prince who was nominally his guest. Mardonius had his own retinue and wing of the palace. On him fell the enormous task of organizing the masses of troops already pouring into Sardis, and he discharged his duty unwearyingly. The completion of the bridges of boats across the Hellespont, the assembling of the fleet, the collecting of provisions, fell to his province. Daily a courier pricked into Sardis with despatches from the Great King to his trusted general. Mardonius left the great levees and public spectacles to Artaphernes, but his hand was everywhere. His decisions were prompt. He was in constant communication with the Medizing party in Hellas. He had no time for the long dicing and drinking bouts the Persians loved, but he never failed to find each day an hour to spend with Artazostra his wife, with Roxana his half-sister, and with Glaucon his preserver.
Slowly through the winter health had returned to the Athenian. For days he had lain dreaming away the hours to the tune of the flutes and the fountains. When the warm spring came, the eunuchs carried him in a sedan-chair through the palace garden, whence he could look forth on the plain, the city, the snow-clad hills, and think he was on Zeus’s Olympian throne, surveying all the earth. Then it was he learned the Persian speech, and easily, for were not his teachers Artazostra and Roxana? He found it no difficult tongue, simple and much akin to Greek, and unlike most [pg 171]of the uncouth tongues the Oriental traders chattered in Sardis. The two women were constantly with him. Few men were admitted to a Persian harem, but Mardonius never grudged the Greek the company of these twain.
“Noble Athenian,” said the Prince, the first time he visited Glaucon’s bed, “you are my brother. My house is yours. My friends are yours. Command us all.”
* * * * * * *
Every day Glaucon was stronger. He tested himself with dumb-bells. Always he could lift a heavier weight. When the summer was at hand, he could ride out with Mardonius to the “Paradise,” the satrap’s hunting park, and be in at the death of the deer. Yet he was no more the “Fortunate Youth” of Athens. Only imperfectly he himself knew how complete was the severance from his old life. The terrible hour at Colonus had made a mark on his spirit which not all Zeus’s power could take away. No doubt all the one-time friends believed him dead. Had Hermione’s confidence in him remained true? Would she not say “guilty” at last with all the rest? Mardonius might have answered, he had constant letters from Greece, but the Prince was dumb when Glaucon strove to ask of things beyond the Ægean.
Day by day the subtle influence of the Orient—the lotus-eating,—“tasting the honey-sweet fruit which makes men choose to abide forever, forgetful of the homeward way”—spread its unseen power over the Alcmæonid. Athens, the old pain, even the face of Hermione, would rise before him only dimly. He fought against this enchantment. But it was easier to renew his vow to return to Athens, after wiping out his shame, than to break these bands daily tightening.