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“To-morrow the war is ended,” a cup-bearer had told a butler in Glaucon’s hearing, and never noticed how the Athenian took a horseshoe in his slim fingers and straightened it, whilst looking on the scorched columns of the Acropolis. At length the sun spread his last gold of the evening. The eunuchs called Glaucon to the pavilion of Artazostra, who came forth with Roxana for their farewell.
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.
As he passed out of the tent and into the night, where the morning stars were burning, and where the first red was creeping upward from the sea, two figures glided forth from the next pavilion. He knew them and shrank from them. They were Artazostra and Roxana.
Before him rose the Rock of Athena,—the same, yet not the same. The temple of his fathers was vanishing in smoke and ashes. What wonder that he turned to Artazostra at his side with a bitter smile. “Lady, your people have their will. But do not think Athena Nikephorus, the Lady of Triumphs, will forget this day when we stand against you in battle.” She did not answer him.
Roxana shrank back, grieved and wondering, but Artazostra seized his arm quickly. “What is this, Prexaspes? All is not well. Your manner is strange!” He shook her off, almost savagely. “Call me not Prexaspes,” he cried, not in Persian, but in Greek. “I am Glaucon of Athens; as Glaucon I must live, as Glaucon die. No man—not though he desire it—can disown the land that bore him.
Again on the knoll by the temple, apart from the rushing fugitives, Mardonius reined. His companion was once more beside him. He leaned that she might hear him through the tumult. “The battle is lost. The camp is defenceless. What shall we do?” Artazostra flung back the gold-laced cap and let the sun play over her face and hair. “We are Aryans,” was all her answer.
“The general’s page,” ran the whisper, and other whispers, far softer, followed. None heard the quick words passed back and forth betwixt the two riders. “You may be riding to death, Artazostra. What place is a battle for women?” “What place is the camp for the daughter of Darius, when her husband rides to war? We triumph together; we perish together. It shall be as Mazda decrees.”
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 was not slain, that was certain, but Artazostra feared the worst. The proud daughter of Darius found it hard to bear up. “My husband has many enemies. Hitherto the king’s favour has allowed him to mock them. But if my brother deserts him, his ruin is speedy. Ah! Ahura-Mazda, why hast Thou suffered us to see this day?” Glaucon said what he could of comfort, which was little.
I only know he would rather have men say, ‘Xerxes conquered a proud nation, hard to subdue,’ than, ‘He conquered a feeble race of whining slaves.’ ” “Excellent! In all save your vain confidence of victory, you seem wise beyond your youth. You are handsome. You are noble—” “Very noble,” interposed Mardonius. “And you saved the lives of Mardonius and Artazostra.
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