Hearts of Three 41

Hearts of Three 41

“I have seen you before, and often,” the Queen went on.

 

“Never!” Leoncia cried out.

 

“Hush!” the Sun Priest hissed at her.

 

“There,” the Queen said, pointing at the great golden bowl. “Before, and

often, have I seen you there.

 

“You——also, there,” she addressed Henry.

 

“And you,” she confirmed to Francis, although her great blue eyes opened

wider and she gazed at him long——too long to suit Leoncia, who knew the

stab of jealousy that only a woman can thrust into a woman’s heart.

 

The Queen’s eyes glinted when they had moved on to rest on Torres.

 

“And who are you, stranger, so strangely appareled, the helmet of a

knight upon your head, upon your feet the sandals of a slave?”

 

“I am Da Vasco,” he answered stoutly.

 

“The name has an ancient ring,” she smiled.

 

“I am the ancient Da Vasco,” he pursued, advancing unsummoned. She

smiled at his temerity but did not stay him. “This is the helmet I wore

four hundred years ago when I led the ancestors of the Lost Souls into

this valley.”

 

The Queen smiled quiet unbelief, as she quietly asked:

 

“Then you were born four hundred years ago?”

 

“Yes, and never. I was never born. I am Da Vasco. I have always been. My

home is in the sun.”

 

Her delicately stenciled brows drew quizzically to interrogation, though

she said nothing. From a gold-wrought box beside her on the divan she

pinched what seemed a powder between a fragile and almost transparent

thumb and forefinger, and her thin beautiful lips curved to gentle

mockery as she casually tossed the powder into the great tripod. A sheen

of smoke arose and in a moment was lost to sight.

 

“Look!” she commanded.

 

And Torres, approaching the great bowl, gazed into it. What he saw, the

rest of his party never learned. But the Queen herself leaned forward

and gazing down from above, saw with him, her face a beautiful

advertisement of gentle and pitying mockery. And what Torres himself saw

was a bedroom and a birth in the second story of the Bocas del Toro

house he had inherited. Pitiful it was, with its last secrecy exposed,

as was the gently smiling pity in the Queen’s face. And, in that

flashing glimpse of magic vision, Torres saw confirmed about himself

what he had always guessed and suspected.

 

“Would you see more,” the Queen softly mocked. “I have shown you the

beginning of you. Look now, and behold your ending.”

 

But Torres, too deeply impressed by what he had already seen, shuddered

away in recoil.

 

“Forgive me, Beautiful Woman,” he pleaded. “And let me pass. Forget, as

I shall hope ever to forget.”

 

“It is gone,” she said, with a careless wave of her hand over the bowl.

“But I cannot forget. The record will persist always in my mind. But

you, O Man, so young of life, so ancient of helmet, have I beheld before

this day, there in my Mirror of the World. You have vexed me much of

late with your portending. Yet not with the helmet.” She smiled with

quiet wisdom. “Always, it seems to me, I saw a chamber of the dead, of

the long dead, upright on their unmoving legs and guarding through

eternity mysteries alien to their faith and race. And in that dolorous

company did it seem that I saw one who wore your ancient helmet....

Shall I speak further?”

 

“No, no,” Torres implored.

 

She bowed and nodded him back. Next, her scrutiny centred on Francis,

whom she nodded forward. She stood up upon the dais as if to greet him,

and, as if troubled by the fact that she must gaze down on him, stepped

from the dais to the floor so that she might gaze up into his face as

she extended her hand. Hesitatingly he took her hand in his, then knew

not what next to do. Almost did it appear that she read his thought, for

she said:

 

“Do it. I have never had it done to me before. I have never seen it

done, save in my dreams and in the visions shown me in my Mirror of the

World.”

 

And Francis bent and kissed her hand. And, because she did not signify

to withdraw it, he continued to hold it, while, against his palm, he

felt the faint but steady pulse of her pink finger-tips. And so they

stood in pose, neither speaking, Francis embarrassed, the Queen sighing

faintly, while the sex anger of woman tore at Leoncia’s heart, until

Henry blurted out in gleeful English:

 

“Do it again, Francis! She likes it!”

 

The Sun Priest hissed silencing command at him. But the Queen, half

withdrawing her hand with a startle like a maiden’s, returned it as

deeply as before into Francis’ clasp, and addressed herself to Henry.

 

“I, too, know the language you speak,” she admonished. “Yet am I

unashamed, I, who have never known a man, do admit that I like it. It is

the first kiss that I have ever had. Francis——for such your friend calls

you——obey your friend. I like it. I do like it. Once again kiss my

hand.”

 

Francis obeyed, waited while her hand still lingered in his, and while

she, oblivious to all else, as if toying with some beautiful thought,

gazed lingeringly up into his eyes. By a visible effort she pulled

herself together, released his hand abruptly, gestured him back to the

others, and addressed the Sun Priest.

 

“Well, priest,” she said, with a return of the sharpness in her voice,

“You have brought these captives here for a reason which I already know.

Yet would I hear you state it yourself.”

 

“O Lady Who Dreams, shall we not kill these intruders as has ever been

our custom? The people are mystified and in doubt of my judgment, and

demand decision from you.”

 

“And you would kill?”

 

“Such is my judgment. I seek now your judgment that yours and mine may

be one.”

 

She glanced over the faces of the four captives. For Torres, her

brooding __EXPRESSION__ portrayed only pity. To Leoncia she extended a

frown; to Henry, doubt. And upon Francis she gazed a full minute, her

face growing tender, at least to Leoncia’s angry observation.

 

“Are any of you unmarried?” the Queen asked suddenly. “Nay,” she

anticipated them. “It is given me to know that you are all unmarried.”

She turned quickly to Leoncia. “Is it well,” she demanded, “that a woman

should have two husbands?”

 

Both Henry and Francis could not refrain from smiling their amusement at

so absurdly irrelevant a question. But to Leoncia it was neither absurd

nor irrelevant, and in her cheeks arose the flush of anger again. This

was a woman, she knew, with whom she had to deal, and who was dealing

with her like a woman.

 

“It is not well,” Leoncia answered, with clear, ringing voice.

 

“It is very strange,” the Queen pondered aloud. “It is very strange. Yet

is it not fair. Since there are equal numbers of men and women in the

world, it cannot be fair for one woman to have two husbands, for, if so,

it means that another woman shall have no husband.”

 

Another pinch of dust she tossed into the great bowl of gold. The sheen

of smoke arose and vanished as before.

 

“The Mirror of the World will tell me, priest, what disposition shall be

made of our captives.”

 

Just ere she leaned over to gaze into the bowl, a fresh thought

deflected her. With an embracing wave of arm she invited them all up to

the bowl.

 

“We may all look,” she said. “I do not promise you we will see the same

visions of our dreams. Nor shall I know what you will have seen. Each

for himself will see and know.——You, too, priest.”

 

They found the bowl, six feet in diameter that it was, half-full of some

unknown metal liquid.

 

“It might be quicksilver, but it isn’t,” Henry whispered to Francis. “I

have never seen the like of any similar metal. It strikes me as hotly

molten.”

 

“It is very cold,” the Queen corrected him in English. “Yet is it

fire.—You, Francis, feel the bowl outside.”

 

He obeyed, laying his full palm unhesitatingly to the yellow outer

surface.

 

“Colder than the atmosphere of the room,” he adjudged.

 

“But look!” the Queen cried, tossing more powder upon the contents. “It

is fire that remains cold.”