The Fate Of Arzemia - Part 2

Thus drawn into publicity at her mother's initiative, Arzemia dazzled the court with her houri-like graces not less than her imperial bearing. Here it was, however, that the girl's heart received the winged arrow from love's unerring bow, shattering all foregone imaginings as a spire smitten by lightning. It was as though a curtain had risen to reveal a magic scene with one fascination greater than all the others--and he a man whose like could well account for love like Zenobia's, and madness like Cleopatra's. In frame but little above the average, otherwise a figure reminiscent of the war-god whom the Olympians feared; unhandsome, but imposing; complexion olive, nose aquiline, eyes deep, black, flashing but mild; chin hidden by a beard, raven black; heavy hair and mustache harmonizing with the beard; thick, arched eyebrows; a curling, sensuous lip; shapely feet, shapelier hands; the whole in the attire of a Persian general. Such was Shahrbaraz to whose talents Chosroes was largely indebted for his most valuable conquests. Covered with glory, cumbered with royal favors, flattered by the courtier, idolized by the army, and lionized by the people, the general had hardly anything to wish for when Arzemia's eye met his; then all other ambitions paled before the one, all-devouring passion to kneel in tender worship before her who looked so much more divine than human.

That was Arzemia's day of destiny, and it did not close without an incident which alarmed both king and court. The cause was a sealed document found before the celebrated grand portal of Chosroes Nushirvan's white palace, warning the monarch that a plot was ripe to overthrow him by a sudden blow, and that the bodyguard was implicated in the nefarious conspiracy. Prompt action was urgent, and Chosroes, frightened out of his wits, summoned his bravest general to take temporary charge of his capital and palace. Shahrbaraz pledged himself to continued vigilance until the conspirators should be brought to grief--"Within the walls of Ctesiphon are twelve thousand golden spears; twenty-five thousand more are within the courier's call; let not thy peace be disturbed, oh, my sovereign; Shahrbaraz will not sleep," spoke the resourceful strategist with an inward laugh, and proceeded to arrange matters to suit himself.

Unaware of the cause which stirred the authorities of the court, the people wondered at the feverish activity of the military. Large bodies of troops moved out, larger ones moved into the fortifications of the splendid city, so that with the descent of night every access to the palace was under strong guard, and Ctesiphon presented the aspect of a besieged place, prepared to repel an aggressive enemy. What was going to happen that night?

As to Arzemia, untouched by this wave of commotion, she abandoned herself to an overmastering passion, burning to the core of her fiery nature; and, succumbing to the fever of her soul, she fled the confinement of her sumptuous bed-chambers to seek the cooling breeze in the garden, a separate enclosure within the royal park. It was night, and the darkness was hardly broken by the thin crescent of the new moon, when the princess nimbly picked her way to a sequestered nook on a terrace whence in daylight an extensive view of the pleasure-ground was afforded. Here in a recess was an arbor furnished exquisitely, and here, in the posture of supplication, the maiden invoked the help of Zarathustra's revealed Power--_Ahura-Mazda_.

"Thou, eternal _Ahura-Mazda_, the god of gods, the creator of light, who furtherest throughout all space the good and the true, the holy and the beautiful,--and ye bright ministers, who yearn to do his bidding,--if what I feel as fire burning in my heart is love by heaven kindled, then let no barrier stand between the one for whom I burn and me,--yea, no longer than the time required for two wind-lashed flames to rush together and melt in one celestial blaze. Messengers of _Ahura-Mazda_, my message carry to him whom fate has named my lord; bend ye walls, be deaf ye watchmen, that he who loves Arzemia fly hither unhindered!"

There had been a mysterious gleam on the lower balconies of the palace; it flared up, vanished, reappeared again, and once more; and then nothing was seen or heard save at the postern of the garden, where the signal must have been looked for and understood. Swift as a hind there sped from the mazes of the darkened palace a human figure athwart the semi-tropic thickets of the grounds, admitted another one through the rear-gate, whispered a few syllables, and returned to the white pile of a thousand apartments hushed in perfect silence. The intruder, obviously informed of the whereabouts of his object, glided like a ghost toward Arzemia's retreat, and stood enchanted by the voice which articulated the essence of his highest felicity. Hardly did the last word die on her lip when the problematic person sank on his knees and, inclining his head as in adoration, spoke in a tone thrilling with passion, "Divine child, whom _Ahura-Mazda_ graces with the light of his countenance, grant me the privilege to worship at thy feet, an humble supplicant, my heart being thine, my soul thine--forever thine."

The frightened maiden would have screamed for help had not the voice she heard recalled a succession of notes that were still ringing in her ears. In a second she realized what she trembled to believe possible.

"And who art thou, most daring of men, who fearest not to invade the inviolable privacy of Chosroes Nushirvan's daughter?" cried the maiden in fluttering apprehension, dreading the realization of her prayer.

"Forgive! I am not what I was before thine eye smote me with madness to be thy votary--thy slave,--or not to be at all," was the answer.

"_Ahura-Mazda!_ thou the man whom Iran honors--thou, Shahrbaraz?" cried the girl.

"Thy servitor, thy slave in eternity," was the appealing reiteration.

"The auspicious god-stars brought thee hither. Oh! but humble not Arzemia in thus humbling thyself; the god-stars have linked our fates and, come what may, I am thine, yea, and thou art mine in eternity!" exclaimed the enraptured maiden.

"My heaven!" was the laconic ejaculation of the great soldier who, leaping to his feet, embraced her rapturously, pressing her to his heart.

As if in hymeneal sympathy with love's delicious union, the bulbul poured forth a stream of soul-stirring song, the sweet cadence calling forth responsive notes from the thick of sylvan recesses. Tears flowed from the eyes of Arzemia and fell on the face of her lover, who raised her like an infant in his mighty arms, covering her cheeks with passionate kisses.

"Thy tears of bliss will make the angels weep in paradise, sweet goddess," whispered Persia's world-renowned hero.

"The bulbul!--I never heard the bulbul sing so sad, so sweet, so prophetic; ah! it seems to sigh and weep and speak to my heart of things words cannot express! Some spirit moves it to move our hearts," breathed Arzemia with emotion.

"Thou art creation's sympathetic harp, responsive to spiritual harmonies lower natures fail to realize; the bird's melody is to me an unmeaning song, but in thy voice I hear _Mazda's_ music which moves the heavenly spheres," said Shahrbaraz softly.

"It is bliss to receive tribute from the lip of love; but what a thing am I, compared with thee, Iran's pride, who smote the Roman and took his holy city! Who has done a greater deed? If the armies of Chosroes were thine, wouldst thou not conquer the world?"

"I have conquered earth and heaven, star of my felicity; thou being mine, what remains in all the worlds to wish for? To smite the Roman and take his holy city was less an achievement than to come near to thee, the pearl of beauty, reached at greater hazard than he faces who dives into the ocean's abyss in quest of treasure," affirmed the general.

"Alas, thou art right! O, gods!--Thy life, thy dear life--shouldst thou be found at this hour with me at this place! Dearest, what power enabled thee to pass the guards, whose heads would answer for thy presence where the king alone has right?--Go hence, O, my soul's adorer, my heart's adored, go hence, lest the _devas_ thwart our happiness! I hear the friendly spirits whisper--depart," urged Arzemia, awaking to the danger that beset her lover under the circumstances.

"Thy prayer, child of light, that bade the walls to bend and the watchmen to be deaf,--yea, and love, whom Orpheus followed to the world of shades, have leveled my pathway hither, fearless of fate. They who enter heaven laugh death to scorn. Thy presence renders me invulnerable to mortal steel. Ah! waste no second, cherub, in the thought of death or danger," cried Shahrbaraz ardently.

"Forbid it, _Ahura-Mazda_, that Iran's glory be smitten by a treacherous hand!--Yet play not with the envious fates, lest they grow jealous of Arzemia's bliss, who would no heaven take for what is here on earth," cried the girl appealingly.

"Let all thy cares henceforth be mine, divine Arzemia. My 'golden spears' hold every fort and gate, and have no will but that of thy Shahrbaraz, who could be king this hour were he inclined. To come near thee I had to act my part unfair or fair; love knows no scruples. A scheme devised by me and taken seriously by the king gave me control of Ctesiphon and court," explained the strategist.

"The god-stars rule that I be queen one day and thou my king; my Ninus thou, I thy Semiramis, with Rome and Iran prostrate at our feet!--Ah, there a light!" exclaimed the girl in alarm, her eyes having caught a glimmer in the palace.

"It is the signal for me to begone," said Shahrbaraz, and a moment later the postern closed behind him, having given and received the kiss that is a taste of Elysian rapture.

The clandestine intercourse between the greatest general and the fairest princess of Iran was thus carried on for a time, when revolutionary changes threw Ctesiphon into confusion. Chosroes Nushirvan's court was a hotbed of intrigue, and his harem a seething caldron, overflowing with all the vices and evils engendered by arbitrary rule. Among the host of jealous females under the roof of the palace, Shirin, the Christian sultana, had the upper hand, having charmed her lord to the extent of disinheriting and imprisoning Kavadh, the legitimate heir to the throne, in favor of her son Mardanshah. But a turn of the wheel gave Kavadh the reins of government, and his first act was to drag his wretched father into his vaults of uncounted treasures, and let him perish there of hunger. Seventeen brothers were next executed to insure the rule of the monstrous parricide. These fearful crimes were inspired less by vengeance than--who would have dreamed it?--by Kavadh's vehement passion for Shirin. But the distracted sultana recoiled with loathing from the murderer of her husband and her son, and when the miscreant resorted to force he held a bleeding corpse in his arms, the sultana having ended her life by a self-inflicted wound. Arzemia was her only surviving child, and Shahrbaraz knew how to provide for the safety of his worshipped princess. Shortly after Kavadh fell.

During the chaotic conditions which followed the fall of Kavadh, Shahrbaraz matured a plot for the usurpation of Iran's sovereignty. Sustained by his fifty thousand golden spears, and favored by Arzemia's friends, the dashing general entered Ctesiphon in triumph, and had himself crowned in the palace of the voluptuous Chosroes. When it transpired that Arzemia not alone favored the usurper, but was going to be wedded to him in the imperial fire-temple, her many suitors combined in organizing a conspiracy, headed by Faruch-Zad, the mighty satrap of Khorassan, who was desperately in love with the princess. Shahrbaraz was assassinated on the day set for his wedding, his body was mutilated and dragged by an ass through the streets of Ctesiphon. Arzemia's horror was scarcely exceeded by her sorrow and her vengeance; and her opportunity was not slow in coming, being called to the succession of her father's throne, when Faruch-Zad urged his suit with obtrusive audacity. Policy forced her to smile on the man she hated, while her armies were engaged in the fateful struggle against the now all-conquering hordes of overflowing Islam. Impatient of delay and tortured by uncertainty, the satrap of Khorassan resolved to take by force what was denied him by favor. But the queen's friends learned of the plot; Faruch-Zad's followers were overpowered at the portal of the palace, and he was arraigned as a traitor before the one whose hatred for him could hardly be surpassed by his love for her. Arzemia blessed the gods for the chance thus afforded her to avenge the murder of Shahrbaraz. She apostrophized the culprit with bitter contumely, and had him executed under most cruel circumstances.

Faruch-Zad was not dead an hour when tidings from the battlefield spread consternation in the court. The golden lances, long held to be invincible, sustained a crushing defeat at the hands of Islam's votaries, and among the slain was Mahmud, the intelligent elephant, who bled to death through a wound struck at the extremity of his trunk. Mahmud's fall was generally accepted as prophetic of worse things to follow, and Arzemia, seeing her empire crumbling, turned to the Magi for an ungarbled version of her horoscope which was kept for reference in the royal archives. With fatalistic resignation the youthful queen listened to the dark prophecies associated with her birth, and insisted on having her father's dream read to her, it having been kept on record with the documents of her nativity. Deeply impressed by the fearful purport of her sire's vision on the night of her coming into this world, and remembering its ghastly realization in subsequent developments, Arzemia exclaimed resignedly, "It is _Ahura-Mazda's_ immutable decree that Iran's ancient glories fade with me at whose birth the god-stars frowned. Were it not better for Arzemia not to have been born?"

The queen had hardly uttered these words when an ominous noise in the royal courtyard caused her armed guard to rush toward the entrance of the palace. Here they were met by a desperate band of conspirators led by a relative of Faruch-Zad. The encounter was short and decisive. Arzemia fell into the hands of the avenger of the dead satrap, was tortured with refined cruelty, and put to death ignominiously.

Thus perished the noblest and most virtuous sovereign lady of one of the greatest empires which succumbed to the sword of Islam.