Chapter XVII: Aryenis’s Home-Coming

When I got into the dining-hall I found every one at breakfast. Aryenis said good-morning very nicely and politely, but made no reference to dragons and fairy princes.

Kyrlos asked Forsyth to keep him company during the day. He was going to see some of the chief men of the district, and would ride on to Miletis in the afternoon, probably arriving latish. Aryenis and I were to go with the baggage by the main road.

After expounding all this Kyrlos and Forsyth, with Torka in attendance, went off, and Aryenis and I went out to find our horses waiting. The baggage animals had already started, and we passed them near the north gate, Payindah, very debonair on a pony, riding with Temra at the head.

It was colder that morning. There was a fresh breeze blowing, and little wisps of cloud that cleared later in the day. But the cold suited Aryenis, as it does all really fair people, and the wind whipped the colour to her cheeks, and made her eyes sparkle over the big collar of her fur-lined riding-coat.

We rode leisurely along the road and took the turning to Uncle Paulos’s, our escort clattering behind.

“You haven’t told me what we’ve come for,” I said. “You didn’t say anything about it yesterday when we left. Is it a surprise visit to your fairy godfather?”

“No. It’s a surprise we--he’s got for you.”

“For me! Why, he only saw me for the first time yesterday.”

“But that doesn’t matter to fairy godfathers, does it, how many times they’ve seen people?”

She went on:

“I do hope you’ll like what he’s got for you. It’s something just to tell you that he’s glad you’ve brought me back. You see, he’s very fond of me really.”

“Then I’m sure I’ll like it.”

We rode in among the trees up to the house and went into the hall, where a fire was burning, and found Paulos sitting on his couch. It was too cold as yet for the lawn. The hall was a big place with one or two bits of really good statuary, showing distinct tracing of Greek craft; some trophies of arms on the panelled wall, and some skins of beasts on the dark wooden floor. There were bears still in the upper valleys in Sakaeland, and a certain number of spotted deer on the lower hills.

“Looking more than ever like the morning, Aryenis,” said he as she kissed him. “The winter always suits you best. You’ve just the skin and hair for furs, child. Now take your cloak off and sit down by the fire while I tell Harilek what you’ve got for him.”

“What _you’ve_ got, uncle mine,” said Aryenis hurriedly.

“I grow old and careless in my speech. I mean what I’ve got.”

He turned to me.

“Harilek, do you wear mail in your country?”

“Not now. Our people used to, but when the noise weapons, as you call them, came in, folk gave up mail, because it was weight for no purpose, since the balls I showed you yesterday pierce it. But in this last war we took to wearing helmets of steel once again, and found some profit in them, since sometimes the balls glanced off.”

I wasn’t capable of explaining in archaic Greek the difference between high-velocity rifle-bullets and low-velocity shrapnel, and even if I had been it would have taken a long time to explain that to a man who’d never seen either gun or rifle.

“Well, now you go to a war where the enemy have no such weapons, only arrows, swords, and the like. Therefore mail will be of use to you.”

“I was only thinking that yesterday when Kyrlos made me put on a mail jerkin,” said I.

“You and I are about the same size, Harilek, or rather, you are the size I was before I became a cripple, and I have my old mail still by me. It is well kept, and, moreover, it is specially good, for, as I told you yesterday, I was once a lover of weapons and studied them deeply. We Sakae take great pride in our arms, handing them down from father to son.

“But I have no son, and I have long pondered to whom I should leave my war-gear when I die, for I have no relatives left save only Aryenis’s father. I hoped that some day she might bring a son here to whom it might pass. But I should be over-old by then, and I would like to see some good soldier wear it before I die.

“Now, but for you, Aryenis would not be here to-day, and I should be still lonelier. So I would like you very much, if you will humour an old man, to take my mail and weapons and give me the pleasure of seeing a brave man wear them once more, more especially one to whom I owe a great deal, and Aryenis, who is to me as a daughter, owes more. She also wishes it, so that when you go into battle you may have some memento of her gratitude. ’Twill be a gift from us both, since all I have is hers.”

I thought it was nice of the old man to put it as he did, and from what I knew of and about him it seemed to me a good mantle to assume.

“I thank you very much, Paulos. I shall be more than pleased to wear your mail and use your weapons. Aryenis told me something about you yesterday, and nothing would please me better than such a gift from you both.”

“I hoped you would accept. And making the wish father to the thought, Aryenis got you garments yesterday in Aornos that they might be ready for you here to-day. Thus I shall have the pleasure of seeing you in my harness before you ride on. She will show you the way.”

Aryenis led me to a room off the main hall, where a servant was waiting.

“You will find the clothes in there, and when you have changed, come back here and we will show you the mail.”

“So you did choose my clothes, after all, Aryenis, being grown up! Thank you,” said I as I entered the room.

The servant, a hatchet-faced old archer who had followed Paulos, helped me put on the new clothes that were laid out, and very comfortable I found them. The under-garments were of softest linen, and over those were a wadded vest and fleece-lined leather jerkin, with long loose trousers gartered from ankle to knee with plaited leather straps.

When I had put them on, with the new sandals, not unlike _chaplis_, but more elaborate, I went back to the hall, where I found Aryenis and Paulos looking over a set of mail and weapons which had not been there when I left.

Aryenis examined me with a critical eye. “They fit nicely, Harilek; do they not?”

I admitted they did.

“That is the advantage of having a woman to choose them for you, you see. Had you got them yourself, you would not have looked so well.”

Paulos examined the clothes carefully.

“You have a good eye, child. They fit well. But that sleeve is not right; the under-sleeve is tucked up, I think.”

Aryenis looked at it. “Yes. I will put it right. Hold out your hand, Harilek.”

I held out my arm, and undoing the wrist she pushed back the leather to pull the fleece under-sleeve into place. Then she stood staring at my arm.

“Harilek! You were making up things last night. You’ve got all the wiggly purple marks.”

I looked at my arm. Sure enough, I’d forgotten those scars right across my forearm from two bullet wounds that had gone septic.

“True, Shahzadi; but remember you said that the fairy prince--the one you mentioned at the end--who killed all the dragons had no marks, ‘not even a little one on his face.’ I’ve got several of them, including a long red one on my cheek under this bandage. So we shall have to make another story to fit in with these marks.”

She did up my sleeve without a word.

Paulos looked at us inquiringly. “What’s the story of the wiggly marks?”

“We were telling fairy stories by the fire last night about dragons and things. And I said that dragons’ claws made wiggly purple marks, and I forgot that I had some on my arm, only not from dragons--wounds from war--and Aryenis saw them just now. So I suppose she thought I had really been fighting dragons, and was surprised.”

I thought that was neatly out of it, and hoped Aryenis did, too.

Paulos held up a mail shirt, a lovely thing, long sleeves ending in mittens with slit wrists, so that you could have your hands bare if you wanted to, woven in alternate rows of black and silvered steel that shimmered in the light.

“We have an old custom in this country, Harilek, that, when a man first puts on his mail and girds on his weapons for war, it is done for him by a woman of his house. But you are a stranger in a far land, and have no womenkind here. Therefore Aryenis will do proxy for them if you are willing. If you wear my mail I should like to see you don it in our old formal fashion.”

I could but agree, so Aryenis passed the mail shirt over my head, and helped me adjust it in place. It came about halfway to my knees, and was very light. I had expected something heavier.

Then Paulos gave her a belt of linked silver plates chased and enamelled with little patterns, the centre one a cross, which she girded round my waist.

Then he handed her the short sword-sheath to fasten on, and last the sword, which she gave me hilt first. It was a most beautiful bit of armourer’s work, with the queer filigree inlays in the steel: a two-foot double-edged blade ribbed down both sides with treble grooves to within two inches of the point, and a hilt of chiselled silver with little turquoise studs let in irregularly.

I sheathed it, and then she handed me my pistol-holster, which I strapped on to the under-leather of the belt.

It was a very grave-eyed Aryenis that helped me on with all this paraphernalia of war, quite a different person from the dancing-eyed girl who had chaffed me the day before about not being grown up, different again from the dreamy one who had sat looking into the fire talking of dragons and fairy princesses. But then that is the charm of Aryenis, that she is ever different and yet always the same.

“They fit you well and they suit you, Harilek,” said Paulos. “It does me good to see them out again. I feel the younger for it. We old folk live our lives again in you young people. Now for the helmet and then you are complete, for I will not give you the long bow, which, I understand, you cannot use, nor indeed do you need it, having your own weapons.”

Aryenis took up the steel cap, with its pointed centre and the low sweeping brim that covered all the back of the head round to the temples on either side. It was of bright polished steel, with a thin filigree pattern of silver beaten in all round above the rim. In front was an embossed silver plate fixed to the steel with two little sockets in it and a ring. Reaching up with both hands, she put it on my head, pulled up the chin-strap, and stepped back to see the effect.

“They fit as though made for him, uncle; don’t they?”

“They do. I thought that we were of a size. Now, Harilek, you will be able to go out to this war of our people armed after their own fashion. You take with you, along with an old man’s armour, an old man’s prayers for your safety and his wishes for your good fortune. And also I know”--he turned to Aryenis--“the prayers and wishes of the lady who armed you.”

“And the most heartfelt gratitude as well, Harilek. God keep you safe even as you saved me.”

I thanked them as best I could, rather stammeringly, I think.

“Now we will drink to the good fortune of my old arms on Harilek,” said Paulos, clapping his hands. Whereupon the old hatchet-faced man brought us in wine of Paulos’s best, and they drank to me. The old archer also drank and said a few words, which Aryenis translated as meaning to say that I looked a proper kind of soldier, and that he hoped I would carry the arms as worthily as his master had done. I think there was an old family-retainer spice of doubt in his mind on the point.

“And now we must ride,” said Aryenis, putting on her cloak. “I want to get to Miletis early to-day and see every one. It’s too wonderful to be getting home after thinking I had seen the last of it all. Good-bye, uncle mine, and thank you for everything.”

“Good-bye, child,” he said, kissing her. “Come and see me when the men ride away, and when this young man comes back, bring him, too, that I may hear how he has carried my arms. Good-bye, Harilek, and all good fortune mark your days. Remember that the Brown Sakae strike low, ever, upward from the knee.”

He gave me his hand, and then Aryenis and I went out to the horses, the statuesque old man, with his grim scarred retainer standing behind him, watching us as we went.

Our escort apparently knew what to expect, for they evinced no surprise at my new rig-out, and one of them carried a package behind his saddle, which I guessed was my old clothes. But as I came down the steps they all touched their steel caps in salute to my new arms and to me wearing them, as is the custom of the Sakae when men don mail for the first time, and spoke to me, wishing me, as Aryenis translated, good fortune and high honour in war.

Considering we were complete strangers not knowing their tongue, and come in from Heaven alone knows where, I must say the Sakae were extraordinarily friendly. Never did we meet with a trace of enmity or jealousy among all Kyrlos’s people. This I attribute to Aryenis’s impossibly exaggerated account of our doings in the gate, for the Sakae consider personal valour as the greatest of passports to position. Money they count not at all, and birth but little; while they have but small respect even for an hereditary chief until he has proven himself a man. But once a man has shown that his courage is beyond reproach, then they will follow him through thick and thin, and--if he be just and impartial--abide by his rule in peace if he be set over them, although they prefer to be ruled by those of good birth, considering such as more likely to deal impartial justice.

They drank to me from goblets of wine sent out by Paulos, and Aryenis made them a little speech on my behalf, which they seemed to approve. Then we mounted our horses, rode out of the grounds, and set our faces toward Miletis.

Riding down the lane, Aryenis pointed out to me the long stretch of Paulos’s land, which ran all along the hill for several miles, and down below into the broad valley.

“Some day, when we’ve more time, I’ll show you over it. There are some lovely bits up there among the woods.”

From the road on this day of cloud-flecked blue sky, with the autumn sunshine and the fresh cool breeze in our faces, it looked very beautiful, although many of the trees were nearly bare. In summer it must have been perfectly lovely, as Aryenis said, and even now the splashes of russet and crimson among the barer trees made a very gorgeous contrast to the more sombre pines.

“It was very kind of you, Aryenis, to think of this handsome gift. It really was a surprise, and one that I appreciated tremendously.”

“A gift for a gift,” said she. “But ours is only a little one, whereas yours to me is the greatest that man or woman can give and beyond all repayment. But we hoped that perchance some day in battle our gift might give you life as you gave me, and so indirectly we would repay like with like. I’m so glad you’re pleased.”

“You say ‘the greatest gift man or woman can give,’ Aryenis. Could any one else give a greater--a fairy prince, for instance?”

Aryenis looked out over her horse’s ears. Then, rather reflectively:

“A fairy prince or a fairy princess might give something bigger. Yes; if they were the right ones with the right marks, something much bigger, because it would mean not only life, but lots and lots more.”

“I wish I were a fairy prince, then. I should like to give such a gift as you speak of.”

“Perhaps you will be some day--when you meet the princess--or--when you _know_ she is the princess.”

“When I’ve seen the mark on her shoulder, for instance?”

Aryenis reflected again.

“Perhaps. If she had one. But then you might have difficulty in seeing it; she mightn’t like to show it. You said yourself that women didn’t like having marks. And all fairy princesses are women.”

“And are all women fairy princesses?”

“They ought to be sometime to some man who knows how to be a fairy prince.”

“Don’t you think every man could play that part to the right sort of princess?”

“Yes, I do. Only not if he had gone bad, which is a man’s way of growing up. Only the kind that don’t grow up can be fairy princes.”

“Have we grown up, then, Wrexham and Forsyth and I?”

Aryenis did not reflect this time. She said straight off without any previous consideration:

“No. You have none of you grown up, not even Forsyth, though I think he likes to pretend that he has. As for you, Harilek, you will never grow up, however long you live.”

“How can you tell whether men have grown up--Shahzadi?”

“I like it when you call me Shahzadi; it sounds nice. How do I tell when men are grown up? Oh, in lots of ways. Whether they like toys is one thing.”

“What do you call ‘toys’?”

“Oh, horses, armour, bows and arrows, games, and things like that.”

“And what other things?”

Aryenis reflected again, contemplating the distant hills and the snow.

“How they speak to women sometimes. Most of all, how they treat a woman and how they look at her.”

“And how do _you_ think they ought to treat women?”

“Well, like you all treated me when I first came to you. I wasn’t exactly got up for a party.” She blushed a little. “And you all treated me just as if I had been wearing my most ordinary frocks, and then you turned out of your tent and lived in the cold wind outside, and gave me your best clothes--rather ragged ones they were.

“And after that you spoke to me always as if I were a princess, and got up when I came to meals, and generally danced attendance on me hand and foot, and your men did just what you do, and servants can’t change quickly. They do what they have been accustomed to see their masters doing for a long time.

“So I was sure none of you had grown up. I knew that when you were untying me behind the rock while Payindah was shooting. I was very frightened, but a woman has to think awfully quickly sometimes, and I knew before even you’d got my arms free that _you_ hadn’t grown up, anyway.”

“You must judge very quickly, Shahzadi. How do you do it?”

“Every woman does, and perhaps I am quicker than most. You see I could tell from your eyes that, although you were trying to be very businesslike, you were really feeling even shyer than I was, so I knew it was all right.”

“Thank you, Shahzadi. You give us good characters in fact.”

“Quite good. All of you, though Forsyth was really too clever at doing my hair for a little thing that hasn’t grown up.”

“He has several sisters.”

“Sisters!” said Aryenis scornfully. “I wouldn’t like Stephnos to do my hair. He’d pull it out by the roots. But I wouldn’t mind Forsyth doing it every day. Sisters! Other people’s, perhaps!”

“That’s just what I said, and then he got quite annoyed.”

“Which shows that he hasn’t grown up too much yet.”

I came to the conclusion that Aryenis was not a bad judge of character. She is certainly amazingly observant.

After about two hours we overtook and passed the baggage horses, and I think Payindah got the shock of his life when I rode past him complete in mail and steel cap. Temra appeared surprised, but also, I fancied, pleased, and greeted me in the same words that the escort had used, apparently a set phrase for such an occasion.

Presently, up a low hill in front, I saw a long white blur--a largish town--and Aryenis, with her eyes gleaming, pointed it out.

“Miletis, Harilek. In another hour or so we shall be home.” She whispered the last word to herself again.

We rode up the hillside among the fields and fruit trees and the scattered villages, and every now and then women and children and men at the roadside would wave to Aryenis with cries of joy.

“Look, there are people riding down the road,” she said, as we came round a bend under the mulberries. “I believe--yes, it is--it’s Ziné come to meet me.”

She put her mare into a canter and then into a gallop, and went off like an arrow.

Coming down toward us was a little group of people on horseback. There was a girl in front riding with a tall man on a big roan--big, that is, as the Sakae horses go. Behind them were other mounted men, grooms, and archers.

The girl had evidently recognized Aryenis about the same time, and swept down on her. The two pulled up as they met, and as we reached them they were off their horses--which we caught just in time--laughing and crying in each other’s arms.

The tall man dismounted, and flung his reins to one of his escort. Then, holding out both hands to Aryenis, he drew her to him when he had disentangled her from the other girl, and kissed her on the forehead. All three were talking rapidly and excitedly in their own language. I stood holding my pony’s reins in the background, and I think none of them thought of me for a couple of minutes at least. Then the elderly man noticed me, and said something to Aryenis, who turned round and called me. Speaking in Greek, she introduced him to me as her uncle, Kyrlos’s brother, Milos.

He knew all about us, for Kyrlos had sent off a letter by a swift mount the afternoon Aryenis had returned, and another with more detail next day. He thanked me in much the same way as Kyrlos had done, and asked after my wound. I explained that it was practically healed, and that the bandage would be off in a day or two. Then Aryenis presented me to Ziné, a pretty girl with dark-brown hair. The picture we had found had not been too flattering.

We mounted again and rode on up to the city, the two girls talking hard in front, and Milos and I behind them. He asked me details of our adventures as we rode along, speaking slowly in Greek. I could see he was looking at my dress curiously from time to time, and at last he asked me whence I got it, so I told him.

“I thought I knew the helmet,” he said, “though it is years since I have seen it. So Paulos sends you to war in his mail, does he? You could not carry a better man’s arms if you searched the whole land. One of the bravest, and there be many brave men in our country. And from what I have heard you also have some claim to be counted in their number. Kyrlos wrote me a full account.”

The Sakae had a very straightforward manner of talking, and seemed to say exactly what they thought. It was clear that their long residence in Asia had not tinged them with Asiatic indirectness of speech.

Like Paulos, he displayed great interest in our weapons, and wanted me to show him how they fired. We had to make a rule after that not to fire except in case of need, for ammunition was precious, and we did not know how long we were going to be in Sakaeland. So we spread the story that we never fired them except in actual battle or for practice, it being considered unlucky to do so. Otherwise I think we should have got through our ammunition in the first week.

Miletis was a large edition of Aornos: the same long granite walls, the same high gates, and the same broad clean streets, lined for the most part with fruit trees. It stood at one side of a long hill above the river, and beyond it the hills climbed to meet the lower slopes of Saghar Mor, whose snow-peaks towered above us some twenty-five miles away. They rose in long rolling slopes, covered with ilex and pine, and higher up with thick fir forest and rhododendron groves, aflame in summer with gorgeous scarlet blossoms. Most of the wealthier inhabitants have country villas in the higher hills, where they spend the hottest of the summer months.

We got the same shower of greetings as we had at Aornos, but even more noticeable here in Aryenis’s own city, and we progressed very slowly through the crowded street.

At the north end of the town we came to a wide open space, and on the farther side saw the white stone walls of Kyrlos’s palace, overlooking the river. They were loopholed and crenellated, and there was a guard at the gate; but the whole look of the place was peaceful, and the great doors stood wide open. It was clearly not the home of one who ruled his people by fear. In the gateway was a throng of folk--archers in uniform keeping back the crowd, archers in undress, servants, men, and women--all hurrying to greet their mistress, whom they had believed dead.

They swarmed about Aryenis’s horse and kissed her hands, shouting, cheering, the women throwing her handfuls of winter flowers, until finally we pulled up at the big sweeping marble stairway that led up to the main building, and there they simply mobbed her.

There were old grey-bearded men in the fawn tunics, evidently officials of sorts, hurrying down the stairs; some younger men in mail, doubtless officers there on business connected with the war; women servants with their short full skirts and embroidered short-sleeved bodices; grooms; indoor servants; two falconers; and an apple-visaged old woman, shrill-tongued, with keen old eyes, in heavily embroidered white clothes with turquoise-studded silver necklace and bangles, pushing her way through the crowd.

Aryenis sat on her horse in the middle of them, laughing and smiling, and once, I think, furtively wiping away tears from her eyes as she tried to shake hands with about a dozen people per hand at once.

Then the old woman forced her shrill way to the front, and Aryenis slipped from the saddle to be smothered in her old nurse’s ample embrace.

After that she emerged from the throng, I don’t know quite how, and going up three steps waved the people back, calling for silence, which she quickly got. All Miletis seemed to do exactly what she told it. And while she stood there two great deerhounds leapt down the steps and fawned about her, jumping up to lick her hands. Then she petted them, and made them lie down at her feet.

When there was silence, she proceeded to make a speech, which, although I could not understand, I gathered was a short résumé of her adventures, for I could see the people’s faces working, and grim-faced men clapping their hands to their weapons, as the silence grew and they hushed--listening to Aryenis’s clear voice.

Then she stopped (I discovered later that she had just told them about the old chief’s death in the gate).

“Harilek,” she called, looking at me over the heads of the crowd, who turned to see whom she was speaking to--“Harilek; come up here and stand by me while I talk to my people.”

So I slipped off my pony, giving it to the nearest man, and pushed my way through the crowd, who made way for me in silence, looking at me, doubtless wondering who I was. I walked up the steps to where she stood, the deerhounds at her feet, with the throng of servants and soldiers, men and women of all kinds in front, and the little circle of grave-visaged elders and mail-clad officers just above her.

“Stand there and let them see you, Harilek; I want them to know you. I’m going on talking.”

And on she went. She was evidently telling of her escape now, for the crowd began to cheer, while the men threw their caps into the air and the women shrilled their applause and clapped their hands softly in Sakae fashion.

Then suddenly, in her rather dramatic way, she stopped, turned, and pointed to me, standing there like a fool in Paulos’s mail with my bandaged face.

After that they mobbed us both, while the old lady nearly wrung my hands off, and I was glad when we got up the stairway to the building. Just as we reached the doors, Aryenis turned on me with eyes suspiciously bright and, I think, slightly moist.

“Welcome, Harilek, to the home I’d never have seen again except for you.”

And so we entered the wide doors, with Ziné and Milos behind us, and the deerhounds walking on either side of Aryenis trying to lick her hands.