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"Aye, shortly. She listened, and asked whether I were sure that I had got the truth from him. She added that I had best test it by what I could win from you by any arts that a man may use. For, Heliodore, because of something that my god-mother, Martina, said to her, it is fixed in her mind that you are black-skinned and very ugly.
"Because, if not, although we be but one against ten, I think that ere the General Olaf is cut down or taken there will be good fighting this night." Then I spoke, saying, "Captain Jodd, and comrades, I will answer your question, and if I speak wrongly let the Augusta correct me. This is the trouble. The lady Heliodore here is my affianced wife.
"I have seen several such sent in my day, when I was Irene's confidential lady. It is the common form. We shall never reach Byzantium, Olaf, or, if we do, we shall never leave it more." I nodded, for I knew that this was so. Then, at some whispered word from Martina, Heliodore spoke.
Then I laid down the harp. At last a voice, the voice of Heliodore speaking whence I knew not, asked, "Do the dead sing, or is it a living man? And if so, how is that man named?" "A living man," I replied, "and he is named Olaf, son of Thorvald, or otherwise Michael.
"Aye, if she said that she lied, though thrice she has striven to murder her, I have no time to tell you how, but was always baffled by those who watched. Yet she might have succeeded at last, so, although Heliodore fought against it, it was best that she should go. Those who are parted may meet again; but how can we meet one who is dead until we too are dead?" "How did she go?"
So far as we could discover, it was in the neighbourhood of this city that Heliodore had escaped from Musa, and there, if anywhere, I hoped to gain tidings of her fate. Also something within my heart drew me to those images of forgotten gods or men.
Comrades, look on her whom the Empress ordered me to kill, and say whether, were she your affianced, you would kill her even to please the Empress," and, stepping to one side, I showed them Heliodore in all her loveliness standing against the tree, the drawn dagger in her hand. Now from those that Jodd had summoned there went up a roar of "No," while even the rest were silent.
How strange it was that after all my vision had been fulfilled and it had been my lot to meet her of whom I had dreamed, wearing that necklace of which I had found one-half upon the Wanderer in his grave-mound. Were I and the Wanderer the same spirit, I asked of myself, and she of the dream and Heliodore the same woman? Who could tell?
She paused, and I heard both Heliodore and Jodd move as though in anger, for her bitter shaft had gone home. Then she went on softly, "Lady, may I tell you that, in my judgment, your beauty is even greater than it was, though it is true it has grown from bud to flower. Few bear their years and a mother's burdens so lightly in these hot lands."
Heliodore told me then for the first time how she was glad he had made it clear so soon that what she drank from the gold cup which now stood upon our table was no more than rose water.
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