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Updated: June 4, 2025
As in a dream, I watched the giant Jodd cut down a gorgeous captain, the axe shearing through his golden armour as though it were but silk. I watched a comrade of my own fall beneath a spear-thrust. I gazed at the face of Heliodore, who stared wide-eyed at the red scene, and at the white-lipped Irene, who was clinging to my arm.
"I trust that I should know also how to control my love," broke in Martina sharply. "Come, waste no more time in talk. Let us search." Then she took me by the hand and led me to where she had last seen Heliodore. "She has vanished away," she said, "here is nothing but rock." "It cannot be," I answered. "Oh! that I had my eyes again, if for an hour, I who was the best tracker in Jutland.
Now, when she heard these words, at length the proud spirit of Irene broke. "God reward you, for I cannot, Olaf," she cried. "God reward you, saint among men, who can pay back cruel injuries with the gentlest mercy." So saying, she burst into tears and fell senseless to the ground. Martina ran to aid her, but Heliodore turned to me and said in her tender voice,
One, which you can give, Augusta, is of the world; the other, which I can give him here, is only a woman's heart, yet, as I think, of another eternal world that you do not know. I say what Olaf says. Let Olaf speak, Augusta." "Empress," I said slowly, "again I thank you, but it may not be. My fate lies here," and I laid my hand upon the heart of Heliodore.
Now Heliodore spoke for the first time. "And has not the Empress of the World called a poor maid of blood as noble as her own by shameful names?" she asked. "For the second," I went on before Irene could answer, "I cannot do that either, for it would be foul treason as well as murder to lift my sword against your anointed Majesty.
She led me to the cliff, and up it to perhaps twice the height of a man, then round a projecting rock. "Here is a hole," she said, "such as jackals might make. Perchance it leads into one of the old tombs whereof the mouth is sealed. It was on the edge of the hole that I found the cake, therefore doubtless Heliodore went down it. Now, what shall we do?" "Follow, I think. Where is it?"
The loneliness was sucking up my life as the dry sand sucks water. Had you not come, Olaf, within some few days or weeks I should have died." Now I spoke for the first time, saying, "And did you wish to die, Heliodore?" "No. Before the war between Musa and my father, Magas, news came to us from Byzantium that Irene had killed you. All believed it save I, who did not believe."
Thus fell Irene, the mighty Empress of the Eastern Empire! Now during all these years Heliodore and I were left in peace at Lesbos. I was not deposed from my governorship of that isle, which prospered greatly under my rule. Even Irene's estates, which Constantine had given me, were not taken away.
Thus I led up the subject of Prince Magas and his rebellion, and learned that he had been killed at a place about fifty miles south from Kurna. Then I asked if it were true that his daughter had been killed with him. "What do you know of the lady Heliodore?" she asked sharply.
Thinking them murderers or robbers, I defended myself, and there they lie, save one, who fled away wounded. Then the Empress appeared and ordered me to kill the lady Heliodore.
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