Chapter XXIV: I Win My Bet

The ten days following my first walk in the garden had passed all too quickly. My leg was now completely healed, although a trifle stiff, and a considerable hindrance in walking any distance. But there was no longer any need for the crutch with which I had made my début the day after Wrexham’s departure for Miletis, and, much as I was loath to admit it, no further actual necessity for Aryenis’s arm, which had aided my first dot-and-carry-one efforts round the little walled garden.

Ten days’ undiluted bliss they had been, with day after long day in my lady’s company, at first short strolls, punctuated by long rests in the gardens about the house--sitting in the winter sunlight--then longer walks in the grounds; and of late rides into her beloved woods, elm and birch bare of leaf, and pines in their sombre green, with underfoot the matted pine-needles or the thick mass of fallen leaves, last relics of the dying year.

And day after day Aryenis unfolded more and more each new day bringing forth some new charm, some little turn of speech, some little gesture, to be visualized again and again. The long silences that come when friendship has ripened into love, when, for the time being, all happiness lies in the mere fact of being together, when the delight of simple companionship has replaced the demand for speech or self-expression, when you have learnt to be utterly contented with the mere proximity of the beloved, and words are daily less and less expressive and important, since you have passed the need for the externals that mere acquaintanceship or friendship demand--sometimes so clamorously.

It was sheer delight to me to watch Aryenis--so quick of speech in company--grow silent when we were alone; to try to fathom the thoughts behind her eyes as we rode or as we sat together in some corner of the wooded hills overlooking the rich rolling country spread below us. To catch her slow, questioning glance--that sought no answer in words--or listen to her little laugh that spelt the uttermost height and breadth and depth of rich content.

Life was very good those days--days which formed a little haven on the road that comes from nowhere and leads to Heaven knows where. It was more than unpleasing to think that another three or four days would see me riding again down the Aornos road with John and his train of stores to what we hoped would be the last act of the Shaman drama. Alec had already gone on to join Kyrlos, since I had no further need of his attentions. As we had expected, his medical knowledge had wonderfully impressed the Sakae, and his war-time experience enabled him to do some very useful work at the present juncture--the more so since the Sakae were just the class of uncomplaining, clean-fleshed patients that every surgeon loves. Moreover, he had ridden away with a dainty little cockade in his steel cap, and it was a very bright-eyed Ziné who had come riding up the winding lane to where Aryenis and I sat in the garden whence we had seen Forsyth ride off. Since also I had seen nothing more of the two girls for the rest of the morning, I concluded that Forsyth had at last really found some one who did not remind him of any one else, some one who was herself, and herself alone at every point.

And here was I sitting by the fire in Paulos’s hall, with the deer-antlers and the trophies dim above me under the shadows of the wide-timbered arches in the early winter evening, waiting for Aryenis to come downstairs from changing out of her riding-clothes. We were just back from taking Ziné to Aornos, where she had gone to spend a couple of days with Torka and his wife, a long-promised visit. Paulos, after announcing that we would dine rather later that night, had shut himself up with his steward and a bundle of land-rolls. This, since it was only just five, there would be something like three very cosy hours of firelit winter evening before dinner. And evenings with Aryenis under such conditions were, if anything, even more precious than the sunlit days in her woods.

She came at last--a slim figure on the dark stairs, gown of blue-embroidered white silk, bare of neck and arm, the gold clasps in her hair sparkling in the firelight as she seated herself on the low settle by the fire opposite to where I sat on the couch, wherein not so long before I had been a prisoner tied by the leg.

“No work to-night, Shahzadi?” I questioned. She sat there most evenings--her deft fingers busy with one or other of the endless sewing jobs that every really home-loving woman seems always to have on hand.

“No. I don’t feel like sewing to-night.”

“What do you feel like, then, lady of the red-gold locks?”

“Like sitting by the fire--and just--well, looking at it--and thinking.”

“Then we feel alike. I’ve been doing that, too. There was only one thing lacking.”

“What was that?”

“You to look at.”

“Does that help your thinking process?”

“Quite a lot. In fact, I’ve got to the stage of not being able to think sensibly without having you to look at.”

“But that’s bad, Harilek. What will you do when you go away again?”

“Come back just as soon as I can.”

“Silly! What I mean is, how will you think when you’re away if you can’t do it without some one to look at to make your thoughts work?”

“Shut my eyes and look at you. Thank goodness, I can always do that.” Which was true. I have only to shut my eyes to see Aryenis in every point, every little precious detail from the thick crown of her auburn hair down to her dainty feet. More; I can see her every movement, and sometimes when I am lucky really hear her voice--phrase after well-remembered phrase.

“Can you _really_ see me?”

“Of course I can. Can’t you see me if you shut your eyes?”

“Suppose I say I can’t?”

“Then I shan’t believe you.”

“Do you think that, even if I could, being a woman, I would admit it?”

“You might, perhaps. Under certain conditions.”

“I wonder if that’s true,” said Aryenis, contemplating the fire’s molten heart. “You speak sometimes as if you thought you knew all about me. But you don’t really.”

“I do, though. Quite a lot. Shall I tell you your life-history?”

She looked up at me from the fire. “I love being told--stories,” she said half seriously, half mockingly.

“Well, once upon a time there was a very beautiful princess--”

“All stories begin that way,” she interrupted.

“Yes; that shows they’re true. Anyway, once upon a time there was a very beautiful princess, whom some people called ‘Shahzadi.’”

I waited for the interruption which didn’t come.

“Called her ‘Shahzadi.’ And she lived in a very beautiful country, only it was not half as beautiful as she. Then once she ran into a lot of dragons--nasty ones, not the friendly kind--and she looked around for a fairy prince.”

“She didn’t. She’d given up all hopes of fairy princes then.”

“She must have been right, for no prince came, but a swineherd arrived--”

“No! A prince: a real live prince.”

“A swineherd disguised as--as--a soldier, turned up in proper ragged clothes, and argued with the dragons, and that was the end of them. Then he took the princess back to her father’s castle, and there was no end of rejoicing. When the swineherd and his friends got to Aryenis’s castle they found that her father had a war on with the dragons, and so they joined in with him, and he lent them clothes to make them look like princes.”

“Not true. A fairy godfather gave the prince some clothes such as he ought _always_ to have been wearing instead of ragged disguises.”

“So, being rigged out as a prince, the swineherd began to think about the princess. Only she had carefully changed her clothes and done her hair differently, so that she was very hard to recognize, so hard that when the swineherd went off to fight the dragons again he really couldn’t find her at all.”

“That was because he was a fool and didn’t look properly. I said all fairy princes were fools.”

But she didn’t say it quite so incisively this time.

“Then, when he met the dragons, one of them bit him, and he came home on the flat of his back with lots of time to think. While he was lying in the fairy godfather’s house, he thought out a plan for finding out where and who the princess really was. You see the dragon’s bite had quickened up his brain. It’s a way dragon’s teeth have. And that’s the end of part one.”

“Go on, Harilek, quickly! Don’t stop at all the best parts.”

“That is the real story-teller’s trick to make people pay up. I can’t go on unless I’m paid.”

“What is the price, trickster?”

“Quite cheap. A seat on my couch here.”

“That’s a big price, much too big. I’m very comfy where I am.” She settled back cosily into her seat.

“All right, lady. No payment--no story. What shall we talk about now?”

Aryenis pondered awhile. Then she got up slowly, and still more slowly came over to sit disdainfully on the extreme corner of the couch, face well averted.

“The price is terribly high--but the story _might_ be worth it. You may continue.”

“A lady who looked rather like the princess came to stay with the fairy godfather, some one whom the swineherd had met before--in fact, he’d once made a bet with her.”

“And lost.”

“Yes, and lost. But he was heaps cleverer now. He remembered that the real princess had a fairy mark on her right shoulder, that no one could see. What’s the matter, Shahzadi?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“I thought you were slipping off the couch.”

“I wasn’t,” very indignantly. “I’m paying for my story all right. I never cheat.” She edged back quite half an inch on to the couch again.

“Well, he decided that, if he could find the mark and also read the lady’s thoughts correctly, he would know if she really was the princess. So he waited for many days looking for a really good opportunity.”

“Yes. Very many days.”

“Until finally he thought that he had hit the right time. So one evening he got very close to the lady he thought was the princess.”

“By a trick!”

“As you say, by a trick. I said he was getting clever. He managed to get quite close to her, and then he put his arm round her so that she couldn’t get away--like that.” Aryenis suffered it.

“And then he wondered whether the first thing would be to read her thoughts or to look for the fairy mark. But he decided that the important point was first to see if she had the proper mark. So he drew her closer.”

Aryenis kept her face resolutely turned away. I wonder she didn’t get a crick in her neck. Besides, it must be painful to have some one speaking right into your ear.

“Pulled her quite close, and then--I wonder what he did then.”

No answer.

“Well, he very rudely--really quite rudely--slipped her low-necked frock a little lower down--so--and there, if you please, was the fairy mark.”

It was there. A little pink scar hitherto hidden by her dress, a tiny, straight, nowise unsightly cut across the ivory of her skin, now rose-pink in the firelight against the white silk and dainty mauve ribbons suddenly disclosed. Aryenis was very still, but unresisting as I turned her dear face round.

“And then he was nearly sure, but to be quite certain he decided to read her thoughts. And when he looked into her eyes he saw that she was wondering which--”

I stopped, and Aryenis looked up at me with eyes half-veiled under the drooping lids.

“Which?” she whispered, as I remained silent.

“Which--he would--kiss first. The fairy mark or her lips?”

And then I knew that I won my bet.

For a moment Aryenis did nothing, just lay quite still in my arms, one beautiful shoulder gleaming in the firelight, looking up at me with eyes now wholly dark and a mouth a thousand times more kissable than I had ever known it before. Then a slim arm that seemed made of live fire slipped round my neck, drawing my head down.

I suppose it was really a very long time after that before we returned to mere commonplaces of speech. An altogether new and even more completely adorable Aryenis cuddled cosily against me--an entirely surrendered Aryenis, with flushed cheeks and disgracefully and very beautifully untidy hair.

“Are you aware that you’ve lost your bet, sweetheart?” said I at last.

“Quite aware, fairy prince; and ready and glad to pay forfeit.”

She slipped up still closer for another kiss.

“A piece of mauve ribbon, you remember. The kind you wore that night we made the bet.”

“Yes, Harilek mine; my memory is still quite good. I’m wearing such to-night. Perhaps”--her eyes were very soft as she looked up--“perhaps I had a presentiment I should lose this evening.” Her eyelids drooped again.

“I believe you did, sweetheart. And now I’m going to make you pay up.” And I commenced to collect payment.

“This is the ‘offensive action’ part, I suppose. But don’t tear my clothes, _please_, Harilek. That bow comes undone quite easily.”

It did--as she said--and between kisses I annexed my prize.

“And what are you going to do with it?” she asked, straightening her dress as I folded up my piece of ribbon.

“Put it in my cap, so that all the world may know what I’ve won.”

“You’ll spoil it! Give it back to me and I’ll put it on properly myself.” She took it out of my hand. Then, in a proud voice, “I told you that if any one wanted my favour he would have to _take_ it!”

“And I told you I should remember that remark.”

“What a wonderful memory you’re getting these days! What else do you remember?”

So I told her other memories, some of which had to be hurriedly suppressed by kisses, until the tread of Paulos’s bearers in the passage caused her to fly upstairs like a startled deer. And it was a long time before she joined us in the dining-hall, very neat and tidy as to hair and frock, but with warm cheeks and eyes that refused to be disguised.

Paulos--as ever--was very understanding, although he did express anxiety about our appetites. After dinner, when the servants had left and we three were sitting round the fire, Aryenis next to me, but very far off--nearly a foot away she must have been--I decided to burn my boats.

“Paulos,” said I, “do you remember our talk about land?”

“Yes, lad, I do quite well.”

“Then I thought I’d tell you now that I’ve decided to take your offer and stop in Sakaeland.” I caught Aryenis as she tried to escape. “You see, I’ve found some one to help me with your people, some one to make me really one of you. To-morrow you will see a favour of mauve ribbon upon your steel cap that I wear. And your mail is going to be worn by Aryenis’s husband.”

“I always thought so from the first day I gave it you and Aryenis helped you put it on,” said Paulos simply. “I won’t talk banalities about being glad. You both know that. Come here, Aryenis.”

She went obediently, but very shyly, and he kissed her twice. “You found much more than life in the gate, child. You found life, and what is more, the best thing in the world that sometimes--alas! only sometimes--goes with it.”

He turned to me.

“Go to my room, Harilek, and fetch me that carved wooden box that stands upon my table.”

I went and brought the box, heavily carved in some scented wood, Paulos’s crest in the panel in the centre, and put it down by him. He opened it with a little key, and took out something wrapped in embroidered silk which he unfolded. As he did so I heard Aryenis, standing close--very close now--to me, give a little gasp of pleasure. It was a plain thin bangle of gold, hardly thicker than thin wire, but one of the kind which engaged girls among the Sakae always wear. But for the most part they are made of silver, since gold is very rare.

“That, Harilek,” he said, passing it to me, “I have treasured for more years than I like to think. I had it made when I was younger than you are for a lady I hoped and prayed would wear it. But there was some one else she preferred, and so it has been locked up all these years. I should like Aryenis to wear it now, if you will take it from me as a gift.”

“Gladly, Paulos. I would far rather that than one I might buy myself.”

So, with Paulos to witness, I slipped the bangle on to Aryenis’s arm, stumbling through the old formal Sakae words of promise, which time-honoured custom connects with a betrothal.

Paulos left us early, which was kind of him, after telling Aryenis to come and say good-night to him later.

“Satisfied now, my own?” said my lady, cuddling close as we sat by the fire in the half-dark after Paulos had gone. “Sakaeland for the rest of your life--no more things that fly and no more wonderful toys?”

“More than satisfied, sweetheart, since it means _you_ for the rest of my life, which is all I ask for. You’ve shown me that everything else is toys, and between us we’re going to find the things ‘that really matter.’”

“I’m so glad that you understand, even though you are a man. But, Harilek”--shyly--“how long have you been in love with me? _Really_ in love, I mean?”

“Ever since that night outside the gate, I think, heart’s delight.”

“I’m so glad. You see, I wasn’t in love with you until ever so long after that. Not until--oh, until--”

“Until when?”

Aryenis buried her face in my shoulder.

“Oh, not--not until we’d gone quite three miles on the camel next morning. At least, I wasn’t sure till then.”

“That was a long time, Shahzadi,” I laughed.

“It was.” She looked up reprovingly. “But I really liked you quite a lot before that, too. But tell me, Harilek, what are we going to do now?”

“We are going to get married the very instant your father’s finished off the Shamans. We’ve wasted a lot of time already.”

Aryenis veiled her eyes again as she answered. “Yes--perhaps we have--only really it was _you_ that wasted it.”

“Mauve-bound eagle feathers,” said I.

My Shahzadi buried her face in my arm once more, and it took a lot of persuasion--of the labial kind--before I could see it again.