CHAPTER XVII - DIPLOMACY

“Girl, you may go!”

As a child Lais had always assumed the superior position in her relationship with Vedrona, an attitude she ostensibly modified as the years went by; but her purpose and design were still the same. Never endangering her cause by precipitate action, content to wait for a whole year rather than take an uncertain step, complacently smiling if the way was difficult and roundabout by which she reached some trifling point, she never relinquished an advantage once secured. Vedrona had long been conscious of the usurpation of her rights and prerogatives, but they passed away by such an imperceptible, intangible process that she failed to apprehend it until too late, and Lais was found to be in quiet and apparently unconscious possession.

This unpreventable and mysterious deflection of authority - recognised and significantly smiled at by others long before the Prince had discovered it - at length began to vex and irritate Vedrona. Like an ever­present and invisible ghost it haunted and disturbed her peace of mind; it laid its death-like hand upon all her pleasures, embittered her love for

Lais, gave birth to doubt and distrust, until it became a kind of vampire feeling upon her blood. Nature demanded sleep, and while she slept the ghoul returned to feast.

Mathematical precision may possibly be attained, but the imperfection of humanity prevents its being maintained. In the most perfect model room may still be found for improvement. So in the progress of craft there is always one point where either the design is carelessly exposed or an excess of zeal is equally destructive of the plan.

It was so with Lais. She had passed the crisis that occasioned more anxiety than she was willing to allow with a success far beyond her anticipation. Glarces had practically recovered himself, and under his guidance the old relationship, which was so dangerously disturbed, had been renewed. In fact, the whole incident had apparently been forgotten, and Lais not only congratulated herself, but also prepared to take advantage of it. It was in this spirit and determination she exceeded all former encroachments of authority in the dismissal of Æna as she imperiously swept into the presence of the Princess.

“My dear Vedrona,” she added, with patronising grandiloquence, before the girl had time to depart,” I really cannot understand why you keep that girl so persistently at your side. She is insipid and dull past all endurance.”

Vedrona's cheeks crimsoned. For an instant she was uncertain whether to bid the slave remain: but she allowed her to go.

“You have at length surpassed yourself,” she replied, with an effort suppressing her indignation and speaking in a tone of quiet authority worthy of Glarces himself.” But I will not complain, since it affords a long-desired opportunity of our coming to an understanding. Will you for the future remember that in my own rooms, as well as in the palace generally, with my mother's approval the authority is mine.”

“What new folly is this, Vedrona?” she asked languidly, as if she had no interest in anything but a new flower she had taken from a vase.

“It has been a folly, but it shall be so no longer. For the future I will manage my own business.”

“Ha! ha! You really amuse me. I have had a doubt whether you had sufficient energy to be aroused, but my stratagem has succeeded beyond my expectation.”

“You are pleased to be vague.”

“Of course I am; and it will suit me to remain so if by that means I can bring out such unexpected queenly graces from my sister. Shall I play Glarces to your Majesty, that you may take a lesson in the management of him in your new character?”

Vedrona's eyes flashed with indignation.

“You play Glarces! Do you remember your Babylonian story of Tiamat and Marduk?”

“You say wisely, my sister; I think I might fail.” And then, with languid indifference: “Ah, well; it seems as if the gods have decreed failure as my lot for the day. I came to do you a kindness, and by a luckless move have destroyed my purpose.”

Vedrona was disarmed in a moment by this assumption of the penitential mood. Lais could play with her as a cat with a disabled bird. The purity and innocence of the one was no rival to, only at the mercy of, the Mephistophelian cunning of the other.

“Nay, you must not wrongfully blame the gods, when all the error is my own because I failed to understand your comedy.”

“But there was much of truth mixed up with my device,” replied Lais.” The presence of that girl really irritates me beyond all measure.”

“Then send me notice of your coming, and I will grant her freedom till you leave me.”

“Can you not understand that it is her influence on you that I fear more than for myself? It is you, not I, who have to look forward to being Queen; and I am only anxious that you should be so in its greatest, noblest sense. But with a stupid, soulless child for your chosen and constant companion, how can you hope to be more than a child yourself? Get rid of her. Put in her place a slave with the mind and spirit of a woman; then you may fit yourself to rule.”

Vedrona smiled and shook her head.

“You forget the difference between our natures, Lais; the woman that would please you would make my life unbearable.”

“But this girl has no intelligence. She is like a lily among flowers, void of everything save a colourless prettiness.”

“And does the purity of the lily excite your prejudice?” Vedrona had quite recovered her usual composure, and the childlike simplicity of her mind maddened Lais.

“You do not flatter me,” she answered scornfully, “if you imagine that I possess either favour or prejudice for any slave. As for your Morning, as you call her, she has not character sufficient to suggest an opinion.”

Vedrona laughed heartily.

“I thought you would fail in attempting to play the character of Glarces. He would say something like this: ‘Without a well-formed opinion, based upon evidence, it is impossible to arrive at any just estimate.’ Now, according to your own hero, you have not evidence to prosecute your cause, so we will dismiss Æna for the time.”

“With pleasure. And if you could do so as easily as myself there would soon be an end to her mischief.”

“Now, will you tell me what other changes you would advise in my surroundings; then I will say what I would do with yours.”

“You, indeed! Ha! ha! Has Zachra been giving you lessons in the art of humour? Are you serious in proposing such an undertaking? The establishment of Lais revised by Vedrona! I wonder what it would be like.”

The innocent idea had so surprised her as to completely throw her off guard, and she unadvisedly gave expression to her real feelings in reply. Her words of keen sarcastic contempt cut deeply, and were fully noted by the Princess.

“Yes; I suppose I should make a difference equal to that which divides us from each other,” she replied reflectively. Then, with growing dignity: “I never realised how great that was - never had any wish or thought to do so - until your words compel me to remember what you have so recently said, that I am Sahama's future Queen.”

Lais was undecided how to answer for an instant. Her usual tact had played her false in a trying emergency.

“Go on,” she said, determined to defy what could not be evaded; “remind me that I am only a homeless orphan.” “No, Lais, you will never be that so long as Glarces and I remain. But why do you so delight in vexing me every time we meet? Do you not remember the old days? Why may we not be now as then?”

“Because we are not children but women now; and have to bear the responsibilities of our positions. Do I vex you - and why is it? Simply that I take a sisterly regard in your welfare, and would help you in the duties you are physically unable to undertake alone. For my reward I am reminded of my poverty and dependence.”

“What ungracious frenzy has bewitched you?” replied Vedrona, with an unusual amount of spirit. “Whatever misunderstanding or change of feeling has taken place, if any, is due to yourself. You avoid our company, preferring whom we know not, nor seek to know, lest you should think we attempt to touch your freedom of action, and when, once in a time, you choose to visit me, you arrogate to yourself the ordering of my slaves, and have me wait upon your bidding.”

“I have no wish to order your slaves nor control yourself; my hopes and desires for you have been of a far different nature. But while you and Glarces talk so much of your justice to others, you do not fail to wrong me in all I do.”

“You know we have no wish to do so.”

“But you do it. Now hear what I have to say, and you shall be your own judge. I know I have been much away from you, and in this have been suspected of many things. Now I will tell you why. For a whole year Casca and I have shared a secret. The feared loss of your mother so long ago first made me really think of you as Queen, and I began to work out a plan to make you the most popular of all your predecessors. Casca offered to aid me in this, which has been so far matured as to warrant us in now taking you into our confidence. This is the reason for my visit.”

“Then, dear, I have wronged you. But forgive me.”

“Hear what I have to say. Some time ago - you will remember, it was the day before Glarces went to Meshrac - I met your other girl, Zillah, in the fernery. She told me so much about herself as to lead me to enlist her help, since she is able to do more for you than even I can, and it was the thought of her being neglected by you in favour of that inanity that prompted me to send her away.”

“But she neither wins my confidence nor seeks to give me her own. In fact, she does not suit me. I shall ask Glarces to get me another ‘Night’ to take her place. Then if you wish, you may have Zillah.”

“Not for the world, much as I appreciate her. If you only knew her story and true value, you would not wish to part with her.”

“Has she a story? What is it ?”

“She has; and the most interesting one you ever listened to, or she would not have won my ear. I don't generally seek my companions among slaves.”

“I will send for her at once, and hear what she has to say,” she answered, reaching towards her chime.

“Don't do that. The girl is naturally proud, and needs careful treatment. She knows that I intend to speak to you to-day, and to send for her would encourage the idea that you attach importance to her story, which would be suicidal to the scheme I have in my mind. I can tell you the whole history, which, when you know, in a week or month you may casually refer to in her presence, and gather the details at your convenience without betraying any great or unusual interest.” Then laying her hand significantly upon Vedrona's arm, she added: “It will be necessary for me to teach you that real success is not reached by over-kindness and morbid sympathy, but rather by tact and diplomacy.”

Vedrona shook her head incredulously. “Tell me her story.”

Lais had so far gained her point. Truth had been employed to the extent of decently robing and disguising her lie, by which the suspicion of the past had been completely destroyed, and its reappearance in the future almost certainly prevented. In the security this afforded she had now to manipulate the story of the Iberian to bring about the desirable dismissal of Æna and establish Zillah in her position of confidence. It was a difficult, a delicate task; but herein lay its chief zest to Lais. Vedrona, touched by her natural abhorrence of wrong, would send the girl home at once; Lais traced in the incident the hand of the gods to assist in making Sahama's future Queen greater than all those who had gone before her. The one was fearful of the vengeance of Iberia; the other laughed at the idea, if watch and guard was kept that Zillah did not communicate her whereabouts, and when she had fulfilled the will of the gods, such rewards could be made to her as to secure not only her contentment, but also ensure the favour of the king, which was her great desire.

“But if I granted her but half the freedom you advise, she would soon be my mistress and I her slave.”

“Oh, no! You are a woman. And that could never be.” “And why?”

“Her first attempt to usurp your place would rouse that feeling in you - only to a greater extent - I tried to evoke when I dismissed your - musical genius (!) just now. It would make a true, active, energetic woman of you. But without some such provocation you will never have sufficient courage to oppose a grasshopper.”

“I am, and hope I shall continue to be, what the gods have made me. They have placed me where I am, and have given me the nature which in their wisdom was thought best. Why should I try to change it - why oppose their will by my imperfect one? No, Lais, I cannot grant your wish in this and be true. Æna has and must retain my confidence, and I cannot give it to Zillah.”

“To argue with the wind is always a useless folly,” Lais answered, with a despairing resignation, “so I suppose I must be content to let you have your own way. The years of womanhood are already upon you, and the duties and responsibilities of your position overshadow you; but you heed them not - prefer to remain a child. Where is your spirit, Vedrona? Why do you not come from your retirement and associate with men and women - take your part in the events of life, and so fit yourself for guiding and controlling the affairs which must so shortly be your own? Glarces is what he is, physically, because of his contests in the gymnasium, and mentally from his arguments at the baths. Why do you refuse to take him as your example in these things? The mysterious forces and powers of womanhood are not to be neglected and trifled with. Never try to deceive yourself with the idea that the gods make women, their efforts stop at children - women have to fashion and complete themselves. In the child is reposed the possibility, but we have to use and mould it, or by and by all the restrained energies of nature will overflow and wreck and ruin be the result. You cannot dam back all the waters of all the rivers without endangering a catastrophe.”

Glarces had quietly entered in time to hear his own name mentioned, and paused without interrupting her. When she finished Vedrona mutely raised her eyes to him in an appeal for assistance, so before Lais was aware of his presence he playfully laid his hands upon her shoulders and set himself to reply upon the fragment he had overheard without having any clear idea of the argument.

“Would not those mysterious forces be better compared with the sap of a tree?” he enquired. “And do not some trees bud early, others late, each being governed by habit and temperament? Yet in none do we see any sudden rush or carrying away in the fury of rising sap to which that unfoldment is due. Nature never hurries, my sister, but all the trees are clothed in due time.”

His advent just then was most inopportune to the cause of Lais. It destroyed her last hope in a scheme promising so well. With Vedrona conquest was only a matter of time, but she knew Glarces better. It was the fortune of war, however, and had to be accepted, trusting to fortune for what might follow.

“But suppose the usual time for budding had passed, my eavesdropping philosopher, and the sap gave no sign of rising?”

“Then neither you nor I have power to make it do so.” “We might induce it.”

“Perhaps; if we could only solve the secret - how?”

“And that secret I will solve, or die in the attempt.” Then with her face crimson from the inevitable frustration of her purpose she left the room.

Glarces watched her departure in speechless consternation. “What strange development is this, my sister?” he enquired. She rose from her divan, and crossed the room to salute him.

“I am not sure that I know exactly what is the matter,” she replied. “One thing, I have unintentionally done her a serious wrong, for which I am most sincerely sorry; but she appears to be willing to accept my apology only on condition of her being allowed to order my conduct and companions for the future. I don't understand, but I think she wishes me to be a kind of second Lais, and I could never do that, could I? You would not care to be without me, would you?”

“Certainly not! But tell me what has passed.”

“She has explained to me that for more than a year past, she with the assistance of Casca, has been busy on some scheme designed to make me the most popular of all Sahama's Queens, but they have kept the secret until all the plans were complete. This is the point in which I have wronged her by my suspicions about her absence and reserve.”

“I thought she would clear that up, and am glad for all our sakes that she has done so.”

“Now comes the curious part,” she resumed. “You remember that unfortunate occurrence between Casca, Zillah, and Maphir?”

“Perfectly!”

“It appears that morning Lais overheard Zillah speaking of her capture by a band of traders who carried her to Susa. Lais questioned her, and learned the whole story of her being the only daughter of the chief counsellor to the King of Iberia, and at once our sister accepted her presence as a provision of the gods to assist in the carrying out of her scheme, in pursuit of which she desires me to dismiss Æna and accept Zillah in her place.”