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He saw the gaudy dresses of the eunuchs, the litters, and from them peering forth the veiled women. Did Artazostra think now the Hellenes were mad fools to look her brother’s power in the face?
Unlike his peers, he maintained no huge harem of jealous concubines and conspiring eunuchs. Artazostra he worshipped. Roxana he loved. He had no time for other women. No servant of Xerxes seemed outwardly more obedient than he. Night and day he wrought for the glory of Persia. Therefore, Glaucon looked on him with dread. In him Themistocles and Leonidas would find a worthy foeman.
Mardonius answered nothing. Long since he had learned the folly of setting his will against that of the masterful princess at his side. And was not victory certain? Was not Artazostra doing even as Semiramis of Nineveh had done of old? “The army is ready, Excellency,” declared an adjutant, bowing in his saddle.
Forasmuch as Glaucon the Athenian did save from death my servant and my sister, Mardonius and Artazostra, I do enroll him among the ‘Benefactors of the King,’ a sharer of my bounty forever. Let his name henceforth be not Glaucon, but Prexaspes. Let my purple cap be touched upon his head. Let him be given the robe of honour and the girdle of honour. Let the treasurer pay him a talent of gold.
“Then it is so beautiful?” said the Athenian. “Beautiful,” answered Mardonius and Artazostra together. And Roxana, with an approving nod from her brother, arose and crossed the tent where hung a simple harp. “Will my Lord Prexaspes listen,” she asked, “if I sing him one of the homely songs of the Aryans in praise of the vales by the Oxus? My skill is small.”
Then evening came. Glaucon was, after his wont, in the private pavilion of Mardonius,—itself a palace walled with crimson tapestry in lieu of marble. He sat silent and moody for long, the bright fence of the ladies or of the bow-bearer seldom moving him to answer. And at last Artazostra could endure it no more. “What has tied your tongue, Prexaspes?
A general rode up to the chariot with his report, and Mardonius was suffered to gallop to his own tents, blessing Mazda; he had saved the Athenian, yet had not told a lie. The ever ready eunuchs of Artazostra ran to tell Mardonius of the Hellene’s strange desertion, even before their lord dismounted. Mardonius was not astonished now, however much the tidings pained him.
She stood silent, while the good-humoured king smiled down on her, till Artazostra came from her seat by Mardonius and whispered in her ear. Every neck in the crowded pavilion was craned as Artazostra spoke to Xerxes.
And if I dreamed I was a Persian, I wake to find myself a Greek. Therefore forget me forever. I go to my own!” “Prexaspes, my lover,”—Roxana, strong in fear and passion, clung about his girdle, while again Artazostra seized him,—“last night I was in your arms. Last night you kissed me. Are we not to be happy together? What is this you say?”
Mardonius looked once across the field. His men were fleeing like sheep. And so it passed,—the dream of a satrapy of Hellas, of wider conquests, of an empire of the world. He kissed the face of Artazostra and pressed her still form against his breast. “For Mazda, for Eran, for the king!” he shouted, and threw away his sword.
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