Hearts of Three

CHAPTER XX

LONG the Lady Who Dreams gazed down at the playing waters. At last, with a sighed "My poor dog," she arose. The passing of Torres had meant nothing to her. Accustomed from girlhood to exercise the high powers of life and death over her semi-savage and degenerate people, human life, per se, had no sacredness to her. If life were good and lovely, then, naturally, it was the right thing to let it live. But if life were evil, ugly, and dangerous to other lives, then the thing was to let it die or make it die. Thus, to her,

Torres had been an episode unpleasant, but quickly over.

But it was too bad about the dog.

Clapping her hands loudly as she entered her chamber, to summon one of her women, she made sure that the lid of the jewel chest was raised. To the woman she gave a command, and herself returned to the platform, from where she could look into the room unobserved.

A few minutes later, guided by the woman, Francis entered the chamber and was left alone. He was not in a happy mood. Fine as had been his giving up of Leoncia, he got no pleasure from the deed. Nor was there any pleasure in looking forward to marrying the strange lady who ruled over the Lost Souls and resided in this weird lake — dwelling. Unlike Torres, however, she did not arouse in him fear or animosity. Quite to the contrary, Francis' feeling toward her was largely that of pity. He could not help but be impressed by the tragic pathos of the ripe and lovely woman desperately seeking love and a mate, despite her imperious and cavalier methods.

At a glance he recognized the room for what it was, and idly wondered if he were already considered the bridegroom, sans discussion, sans acquiescence, sans ceremony. In his brown study, the chest scarcely caught his attention. The Queen, watching, saw him evidently waiting for her, and, after a few minutes, walk over to the chest. He gathered up a handful of the gems, dropped them one by one carelessly back as if they had been so many marbles, and turned and strolled over to examine the leopard skins on her couch. Next, he sat down upon it, oblivious equally of couch or treasure. All of which was provocative of such delight to the Queen that she could no longer withstrain herself to mere spying. Entering the room and greeting him, she laughed: "Was Senor Torres a liar?"

"Was?" Francis queried, for the need of saying something, as he arose before her.

"He no longer is," she assured him. "Which is neither here nor there," she hastened on as Francis began to betray interest in the matter of Torres' end. "He is gone, and it is well that he is gone, for he can never come back. But he did lie, didn't he?"

"Undoubtedly," Francis replied. "He is a confounded liar."

He could not help noticing the way her face fell when he so heartily agreed with her concerning Torres' veracity. "What did he say?" Francis questioned.

"That he was the one selected to marry me."

"A liar," Francis commented dryly.

"Next he said that you were the selected one which was also a lie," her voice trailed off.

Francis shook his head.

The involuntary cry of joy the Queen uttered touched his heart to such tenderness of pity that almost did he put his arms around her to soothe her. She waited for him to speak.

"I am the one to marry you," he went on steadily. "You are very, beautiful. When shall we be married?"

The wild joy in her face was such that he swore to himself that never would he willingly mar that face with marks of sorrow. She might be ruler over the Lost Souls, with the wealth of Ind and with supernatural powers of mirrorgazing; but most poignantly she appealed to him as a lonely and na'ive woman, overspilling of love and totally unversed in love,

"And I shall tell you of another lie this Torres animal told to me," she burst forth exultantly. "He told me that you were rich, and that, before you married me, you desired to know what wealth was mine. He told me you had sent him to inquire into what riches I possessed. This I know was a lie. You are not marrying me for that!" with a scornful gesture at the jewel chest. Francis shook his head.

"You are marrying me for myself," she rushed on in triumph.

"For yourself," Francis could not help but lie.

And then he beheld an amazing thing. The Queen, this Queen who was the sheerest autocrat, who said come here and go there, who dismissed the death of Torres with its mere announcement, and who selected her royal spouse without so much as consulting his prenuptial wishes, this Queen began to blush. Up her neck, flooding her face to her ears and forehead, welled the pink tide of maidenly modesty and embarrassment. And such sight of faltering made Francis likewise falter. He knew not what to do, and felt a warmth of blood rising under the sun-tan of his own face. Never, he thought, had there been a inan-and-woman situation like it in all the history of men and women. The mutual embarrassment of the pair of them was appalling, and to save his life he could not have summoned a jot of initiative. Thus, the Queen was compelled to speak first.

"And now," she said, blushing still more furiously, "you must make love to me."

Francis strove to speak, but his lips were so dry that he licked them and succeeded only in stammering incoherently.

"I never have been loved," the Queen continued bravely. "The affairs of my people are not love. My people are animals without reason. But we, you and I, are man and woman. There must be wooing, and tenderness that much I have learned from my Mirror of the World. But I am unskilled. I know not how. But you, from out of the great world, must surely know. I wait. You must love me."

She sank down upon the couch, drawing Francis beside her, and true to her word, proceeded to wait. While he, bidden to love at command, was paralyzed by the preposterous impossibility of so obeying.

"Am I not beautiful?" the Queen queried after another pause. "Are not your arms as mad to be about me as I am mad to have them about me? Never have a man's lips touched my lips. What is a kiss like on the lips, I mean? Your lips on my hand were ecstasy. You kissed then, not alone my hand, but my soul. My heart was there, throbbing against the press of your lips. Did you not feel it?"

"And so," she was saying, half an hour later, as they sat on the couch hand in hand, "I have told you the little I know of myself. I do not know the past, except what I have been told of it. The present I see clearly in my Mirror of the World. The future I can likewise see, but vaguely; nor can I always understand what I see. I was born here. So was my mother, and her mother. How it chanced is that always into the life of each queen came a lover. Sometimes, as you, they came here. My mother's mother, so it was told me, left the valley to find her lover and was gone a long time for years. So did my mother go forth. The secret way is known to me, where the long dead conquistadores guard the Maya mysteries, and where Da Vasco himself stands whose helmet this Torres animal had the impudence to steal and claim for his own. Had you not come, I should have been compelled to go forth and find you, for you were my appointed one and had to be."

A woman entered, followed by a spearman, and Francis could scarce make his way through the quaint antiquated Spanish of the conversation that ensued. In commingled anger and joy, the Queen epitomized it to him.

"We are to depart now to the Long House for our wedding. The Priest of the Sun is stubborn, I know not why, save that he has been balked of the blood of all of you on his altar. He is very bloodthirsty. He is the Sun Priest, but he is possessed of little reason. I have report that he is striving to turn the people against our wedding the dog!" She clinched her hands, her face set, and her eyes blazed with royal fury. "He shall marry us, by the ancient custom, before the Long House, at the Altar of the Sun."

"It's not too late, Francis, to change your mind," Henry urged. "Besides, it is not fair. The short straw was mine. Am I not right, Leoncia?"

Leoncia could not reply. They stood in a group, at the forefront of the assembled Lost Souls, before the altar. Inside the Long House the Queen and the Sun Priest were closeted.

"You wouldn't want to see Henry marry her, would you, Leoncia?" Francis argued.

"Nor you, either," Leoncia countered. "Torres is the only one I'd like to have seen marry her. I don't like her. I would not care to see any friend of mine her husband."

"You're almost jealous," commented Henry. "Just the same, Francis doesn't seem so very cast down over his fate."

"She's not at all bad," Francis retorted. "And I can accept my fate with dignity, if not with equanimity. And I'll tell you something else, Henry, now that you are harping on this strain: she wouldn't marry you if you asked her."

"Oh, I don't know," Henry began.

"Then ask her," was the challenge. "Here she comes now. Look at her eyes. There's trouble brewing. And the priest's black as thunder. You just propose, to her and see what chance you've got while I'm around."

Henry nodded his head stubbornly.

"I will but not to show you what kind of a woman-conqueror I am, but for the sake of fair play. I wasn't playing the game when I accepted your sacrifice of yourself, but I am going to play the game now."

Before they could prevent him, he had thrust his way to the Queen, shouldered in between her and the priest, and began to speak earnestly. And the Queen laughed as she listened. But her laughter was not for Henry. With shining triumph she laughed across at Leoncia.

Not many moments were required to say no to Henry's persuasions, whereupon the Queen joined Leoncia and Francis, the priest tagging at her heels, and Henry, following more slowly, trying to conceal the gladness that was his at being rejected.

"What do you think," the Queen addressed Leoncia directly. "Good Henry has just asked me to marry him, which makes the fourth this day. Am I not well loved? Have you ever had four lovers, all desiring to marry you on your wedding day?"

"Four!" Francis exclaimed.

The Queen looked at him tenderly.

"Yourself, and Henry whom I have just declined. And, before either of you, this day, the insolent Torres; and, just now, in the Long House, the priest here." Wrath began to fire her eyes and cheeks at the recollection. "This Priest of the Sun, this priest long since renegade to his vows, this man who is only half a man, wanted me to marry him! The dog! The beast! And he had the insolence to say, at the end, that I should not marry Francis. Come. I will show him."

She nodded her own private spearmen up about the group, and with her eyes directed two of them behind the priest to includs him. At sight of this, murmurs began to arise in the crowd.

"Proceed, priest," the Queen commanded harshly. "Else will my men kill you now."

He turned sharply about, as if to appeal to the people, but the speech that trembled to his lips died unuttered at sight of the spear-points at his breast. He bowed to the inevitable, and led the way close to the altar, placing the Queen and Francis facing him, while he stood above on the platform of the altar, looking at them and over them at the Lost Souls.

"I am the Priest of the Sun," he began. "My vows are holy. As the vowed priest I am to marry this woman, the Lady Who Dreams, to this stranger and intruder, whose blood is already forfeit to our altar. My vows are holy. I cannot be false to them. I refuse to marry this woman to this man. In the name of the Sun God I refuse to perform this ceremony-"

"Then shall you die, priest, here and now," the Queen hissed at him, nodding the near spearmen to lift their spears against him, and nodding the other spearmen to face the murmuring and semi-mutinous Lost Souls.

Followed a pregnant pause. For less than a minute, but for nearly a minute, no word was uttered, no thought was betrayed by a restless movement. All stood, like so many statues; and all gazed upon the priest against whose heart the poised spears rested.

He, whose blood of heart and life was nearest at stake in the issue, was the first to act. He gave in. Calmly he turned his back to the threatening spears, knelt, and, in archaic Spanish, prayed an invocation of fruitfulness to the Sun. Eeturning to the Queen and Francis, with a gesture he made them fully bow and almost half kneel before him. As he touched their hands with his finger-tips he could not forbear the involuntary scowl that convulsed his features.

As the couple arose, at his indication, he broke a small corn-cake in two, handing a half to each.

"The Eucharist," Henry whispered to Leoncia, as the pair crumbled and ate their portions of cake.

"The Koman Catholic worship Da Vasco must have brought in with him, twisted about until it is now the marriage ceremony," she whispered back comprehension, although, at sight of Francis thus being lost to her, she was holding herself tightly for control, her lips bloodless and stretched to thinness, her nails hurting into her palms.

From the altar the priest took and presented to the Queen a tiny dagger and a tiny golden cup. She spoke to Francis, who rolled up his sleeve and presented to her his bared left forearm. About to scarify his flesh, she paused, considered till all could see her visibly think, and, instead of breaking his skin, she touched the dagger point carefully to her tongue.

And then arose rage. At the taste of the blade she threw the weapon from her, half sprang at the priest, half gave command to her spearmen for the death of him, and shook and trembled in the violence of her effort for self-possession. Following with her eyes the flight of the dagger to assure herself that its poisoned point should not strike the flesh of another and wreak its evilness upon it, she drew from the breast-fold of her dress another tiny dagger. This, too, she tested with her tongue, ere she broke Francis' skin with the point of it and caught in the cup of gold the several red blooddrops that exuded from the incision. Francis repeated the same for her and on her, whereupon, under her flashing eyes, the priest took the cup and offered the commingled blood upon the altar.

Came a pause. The Queen frowned.

"If blood is to be shed this day on the altar of the Sun God" she began threateningly.

And the priest, as if recollecting what he was loath to do, turned to the people and made solemn pronouncement that the twain were man and wife. The Queen turned to Francis with glowing invitation to his arms. As he folded her to him and kissed her eager lips, Leoncia gasped and leaned closely to Henry for support. Nor did Francis fail to observe and understand her passing indisposition, although when the flush-faced Queen next sparkled triumph at her sister woman, Leoncia was to all appearance proudly indifferent.