SPELL OF THE MASKIMCHAPTER VII
SPELL OF THE MASKIM
As the afternoon waned, Nur-Samas’s beer-house buzzed louder and louder, until a stranger might have deemed it one vast beehive. The jolly liquor and the bouncing serving-maids about Sadasu, the hostess, were twin lures that stole the stamped silver out of the pouches of the most wary. The room was large, cool, and dark. Stools were scattered about in little groups, every seat occupied with its toper. In the hands of each was a sizable earthen jug that was replenished by the girls as often as its holder snapped his fingers or clapped his hands. Everybody was talking at once, with little heed whether his neighbour was also talking or listening. All were trying to barter broad jests or roaring at them, though scarce a man or woman there but was too tipsy to tell a straight story or understand the point of what was told them.
When Khatin, the executioner, went down the stairway to enjoy his afternoon tankard, he found Gudea, the lean “demon-ejector,” and Binit, his angular wife, who acted as hired wailer at funerals, both with their noses deep in their cups, and they only liftedthem when Khatin drew his stool close by theirs, and began to tell of the mysterious attack that had been made on the king’s own person at the great feast.
“A fearful atrocity!” the headsman was bewailing; “and the worst of it all is that no one has yet been laid by the heels and brought to me for it. Only two heads sheared to-day—wretched eunuchs who fell out with the queen-mother Tavat-Hasina. I grow sluggish for lack of work.”
“Poor Khatin!” commiserated Binit. “Yet sympathize with Gudea; for two days he has not cast out a single ‘sickness-demon,’ and I have only wailed at one funeral, that of the rich old goat Isnil, who died of sheer age. The city grows impious and healthy. Men give up calling in an honest wizard when sick, and trust to roots and herbs and those horrible Egyptian doctors. The gods must grow dreadfully angry. The Jews still refuse to worship Bel and Nabu, despite the forced labour, and this makes heaven yet more furious. Alas! Such evil times!”
Khatin raised his head, with a chuckle.
“Now by all the host of heaven!” professed he, “I think the gods must get on excellently well, even if a few less shekels are wasted on such worthy servants as you, my dear Binit and Gudea. Theydosay that even if the gods grow furious, when one really longs to be rid of a sickness, it is safer to trust the Egyptian doctors than the most noted wizard in all Babylon.”
“Khatin,” admonished Gudea, rising in his dignity, “you call yourself my friend; understand that if you call down the wrath of the gods by your blasphemies, you need expect no help from me to avert their rage.”
“No offence, brother,” responded the headsman, as soothingly as he knew how. “Here, girl, fill the noble exorcist’s jug again, and put it on my reckoning. A long pull now,—to the confusion of every Jew and traducer of the gods! Ha! What a happy life this would be, if it were all one round of quaffing palm-wine.”
“You are very generous,” remarked Gudea, appeased. “I swear these last skins Nur-Samas had sent up from Sirgulla are delightfully heady. My crown already begins to go round like a chariot wheel. You are an excellent man, my lovely Khatin, a most excellent man! By Marduk, I love you!” He had pulled his stool beside that of Khatin, put his arm around the executioner, and rocked to and fro, displaying his affection.
Khatin likewise, feeling the liquor loosening his tongue, began to grow confidential.
“Hist!” admonished he, “I am in a great way to be consoled. Do you know there is a rumour around the palace, about Daniel—”
“Daniel the ‘civil-minister,’ the great Jew?” demanded Binit, jerking her nose out of her jug.
“The very same,” grunted Khatin, chuckling again; “it is reported that Avil-Marduk—”
Before he could finish the sentence, which allaround had stopped drinking and talking that they might hear, a call came down the stairway from the street entrance.
“Where is Gudea the exorcist?” The wizard rose, not too tipsy to answer:—
“I am he. Who are you? What do you wish?”
“I am Joram, son of Saruch, the rope merchant,” came the reply. “My father is again torn by convulsions. Terrible demons are rending him. Hasten! Come and cast them out.”
Gudea put on a professional tone at once.
“Take comfort, excellent youth; you command my best skill. Yet my time is valuable; in justice to my wife I must ask five shekels.”
“Say ten, if only the demons never return.”
“Will you come also, my Khatin?” said Gudea, adjusting his long robes. “You shall see my spells accomplish that of which no Egyptian dreams. And you, wife, hasten home, bring the incense pots, aromatic herbs, cloves, garlic, the wool of a young sheep, and some raw serpent’s flesh. We shall need a powerful exorcism.” And with that Binit went her way, while Khatin followed his friend into the yet busy street.
The young man who had summoned them bore indeed a Jewish name; but, as Gudea explained, he and his father Saruch were men of true worldly wisdom. If they still prayed to Jehovah, they had long since cast off their native bigotry; they brought offerings to the temples, and knew that in times ofillness one must run for the wizard. As idlers recognized Gudea, and the whisper spread that he was headed for Saruch’s house, a great crowd followed, for there were few better sights than a skilful incantation. So, with a long train of pedlers, donkey-boys, guardsmen off duty, and their kind, the exorcist came to the dwelling of the rich Jew, beside the quays. The courtyard was open, and soon thronging, but Gudea ostentatiously bade the servants to clear a space and bring forth their master. The convulsions were over for the moment. They laid Saruch, ghastly pale, and scarce conscious, on the cushions in the sunlight of the court. Gudea knelt, blew in his nostrils and ears, and rose with a long face. To the anxious wife and son he announced solemnly:—
“Good people, you have indeed done well to summon me. Nothing less than the ‘Maskim,’ the ‘seven arch-fiends of the deep,’ have entered into the worthy Saruch.” Whereupon all the jostling crowd began to shrink and shiver, though none cried aloud lest the demons quit Saruch and slip down their gaping mouths. But Gudea reassured them pompously. “Be not afraid, excellent friends. The demons are still in Saruch, but I have muttered an infallible spell to control them as they pass out. They will enter no other.” The crowd pressed again nearer.
“Alas, noble wizard,” began the wife, weeping, “can evenyourskill eject the ‘Maskim’?” Gudea drew himself up, offended.
“Were I another exorcist, perchance you might doubt rightly. But am I not the most notable conjurer in Babylon? Fear nothing; you shall yet see Saruch walking before you, well and happy.”
“Nevertheless,” muttered Khatin, impiously, “it were no harm to call an Egyptian.” But Binit had bustled in with divers bundles, on which all cast awesome glances. Gudea unpacked; took sundry earthen pots, filled them with spices, struck fire, and presently from them drifted a thick aromatic smoke, that blew in Saruch’s face and set him coughing.
“Back, all of you. Adore the gods!” commanded the wizard. “I will now commence the never failing exorcism of the Maskim.”
There was not a whisper, while the conjurer began casting bits of wool, hair, dried flowers, and beans into the fire, each time repeating loudly:—
“Even as the bean is cast in the fire,Even as the fire consumes the bean;So may Marduk, chieftain of the gods,Drive the demons and their spell from Saruch!”
“Even as the bean is cast in the fire,Even as the fire consumes the bean;So may Marduk, chieftain of the gods,Drive the demons and their spell from Saruch!”
“Even as the bean is cast in the fire,Even as the fire consumes the bean;So may Marduk, chieftain of the gods,Drive the demons and their spell from Saruch!”
“Even as the bean is cast in the fire,
Even as the fire consumes the bean;
So may Marduk, chieftain of the gods,
Drive the demons and their spell from Saruch!”
At first Gudea stood still; then, laying off his shoes and rubbing his hands,—token of purification,—he commenced the sacred dance about the sufferer. In the first rounds he moved slowly, his white garments swelling and falling as he turned, while his watchful wife fed the fire with scraps of dry flesh, spices, and splinters of magic woods. Gudea recited incantation after incantation, calling on Marduk,Istar, Ea, and every other god to aid in driving the “seven fiends” out of Saruch’s throat. He continued, until suddenly the sick man began to quiver and foam at the mouth.
“The convulsion again!” moaned the sufferer’s wife, starting forward. “Alas! my Saruch!”
“Peace, woman!” thundered Gudea, “will you break the spell? No danger, the fiends are risen in his neck. They struggle against coming forth, but I compel them.” The sufferer almost rose from his cushions; his face was black, his eyes bloodshot.
“Glory to Marduk!” howled Gudea, “the spell works. The Maskim depart. Now, wife.” Binit leaped to her feet with a screech that sent all the sparrows scurrying from the eaves. Seven times she screamed, until every ear was tingling, and all the time Gudea danced faster, faster, in a narrow circle about Saruch.
“Come out of him! Come out of him! Away, away!” he yelled at each interval in the screeching. The sick man was tottering to his feet.
“Glory to Marduk!” bawled Gudea again, “the fiends are mastered. The final spell now, the infallible incantation.”
And every breath was bated while he chanted, still dancing, the age-honoured song of the “Maskim”:—
“Seven are they, they are seven!In the deeps below they are seven;In the crest of heaven they are seven;In the low abyss were reared the seven;Man or woman are none of the seven;Whirlwinds baneful are all the seven;Wife or child have none of the seven;Mercy or kindness have none of the seven;Prayers and tears hear none of the seven;Eager for mischief are all the seven;Sky-spirit conjure away the seven!Earth-spirit conjure away the seven!”
“Seven are they, they are seven!In the deeps below they are seven;In the crest of heaven they are seven;In the low abyss were reared the seven;Man or woman are none of the seven;Whirlwinds baneful are all the seven;Wife or child have none of the seven;Mercy or kindness have none of the seven;Prayers and tears hear none of the seven;Eager for mischief are all the seven;Sky-spirit conjure away the seven!Earth-spirit conjure away the seven!”
“Seven are they, they are seven!In the deeps below they are seven;In the crest of heaven they are seven;In the low abyss were reared the seven;Man or woman are none of the seven;Whirlwinds baneful are all the seven;Wife or child have none of the seven;Mercy or kindness have none of the seven;Prayers and tears hear none of the seven;Eager for mischief are all the seven;Sky-spirit conjure away the seven!Earth-spirit conjure away the seven!”
“Seven are they, they are seven!
In the deeps below they are seven;
In the crest of heaven they are seven;
In the low abyss were reared the seven;
Man or woman are none of the seven;
Whirlwinds baneful are all the seven;
Wife or child have none of the seven;
Mercy or kindness have none of the seven;
Prayers and tears hear none of the seven;
Eager for mischief are all the seven;
Sky-spirit conjure away the seven!
Earth-spirit conjure away the seven!”
A final howl from Binit. Saruch’s answer was a groan of mortal pain; he reeled, fell.
But the wife and son had rushed to the old Jew, and a fearful cry burst from the woman:—
“Dead! dead!” When she lifted the head, it fell back lifeless. Almost at the same moment the crowd was thrust aside by a heavy hand, and all saw the stalwart form of Isaiah striding toward Gudea, and at the Hebrew’s heels a dignified, dark-skinned man, in a spotless white robe.
“Urtasen, the great Egyptian doctor,” whispered one fellow to another.
Gudea was standing panting, gazing upon the dead, the widow, and Joram. His jaw was dropped, his eye vacant. Even his own effrontery had failed him. Isaiah plucked him roughly by the robe.
“Make your feet wings, or I will aid you,” he commanded. “You have truly raised the ‘Maskim’ now.”
The wizard recovered his tongue.
“Isaiah plucked him roughly by the robe.“‘Make your feet wings, or I will aid you.’”
“Isaiah plucked him roughly by the robe.
“‘Make your feet wings, or I will aid you.’”
“Dead?” cried he, incredulously; “he is but in a trance. He sleeps; he will awake in quiet. Thedemons tore him grievously in departing, but he is not dead.”
Urtasen had knelt by the body, examining. Now he looked upward.
“Saruch had an incurable disease. Thoth, the wisest god, could have scarce saved him in the end. But this smoke and bellowing brought on a last convulsion. With treatment he could have lived many years. Now he will wake only at the call of Osiris.”
The widow and Joram had leaped upon Gudea.
“Imposter! Juggler!” screamed the Jewess; “youboast to cure? Call my husband’s spirit back from Sheol, if you may.”
In their rage they would have wrung the wizard’s neck. Isaiah interposed. “You alone are to blame, Joram—you, false Jew, who have forsaken the faith of your fathers! Jehovah justly requites you. How long have you forgotten our law forbidding dealings with wizards and necromancers? I heard the rumour of Saruch’s state, and hastened hither with Urtasen to forestall this viper,”—with a glance toward Gudea,—“but the Most High ordained that I should come late, and you all be dealt with after your sins.”
“No more! On my father’s soul, no more!” Joram was moaning, while his tears came fast.
“You do well to weep,” was the stern retort; “but I have said enough. Now let these servants of the very fiends depart.”
Gudea had recovered his composure.
“Luckless people,” began he, “it was none otherthan the counter spells muttered by this Isaiah which ruined my incantation and gave victory to the demons. I accuse him of black magic and murder.”
But Gudea had lost all favour with the crowd. A guffaw answered him.
“Ha, scoundrel!” yelled twenty, “do not cover your mummery!” And Khatin added, “Verily, friend, if any murderer needs speech with me, his name is Gudea.”
“Out with him!” roared all the onlookers, putting forth rough hands on Binit and her husband.
“No tumult; respect the dead!” implored Isaiah.
“And my ten shekels?” howled Gudea, struggling in the clutch of ten men.
“Let the crows weigh them out to you,” groaned Joram, in his agony.
“And may I not engage to wail at the funeral?” pleaded Binit, never setting safety before business.
“Screech at your own,” admonished many at once.
Khatin joined the rest in thrusting the necromancers very ungently into the street.
“Good people,” said Isaiah to those yet in the court, “this is the house of death. Let all who are needless here go their ways.”
“You shall repent this!” belched Gudea, as they haled him away, but none heeded him.
The servants drove the rabble from the court. The portals clanged; the household was left to its grief. Khatin was laughing like a jackass.
“Ah, my wise raven! Ah, my sweetly chirping sparrow! How amiably the demons obey you! Pity they took Saruch’s soul with them when they flitted forth.”
“The Jew! the Jew and his sorceries!” groaned the wizard.
The roar of the bystanders drowned his protest. Since most had with them a heavy freight of palm-wine, they might have dipped him in the Euphrates; but at this moment a squad of police charged down the street and dispersed them. Gudea, Binit, and Khatin found themselves thrust into a side alley.
“By Nergal! my pot at Nur-Samas’s turns sour,” cried the headsman, “yet not so sour as your smile just now, dearest brother. That Isaiah is a pretty fellow also, if he is a Jew! A fine neck! Pity I missed him the other day.” He turned on his heel. For a moment Binit’s tongue flew so fast that she soon stopped for want of breath.
“Our conjuring vessels, the herbs, spices, charms, amulets—all lost. Sheerest theft! Go to the magistrate. Seize Joram, Isaiah, the widow, the—”
“Silence!” commanded her husband. “All this talked in a crowded court? Bel forefend! I could never exorcise another demon for a year. You are a fool!”
“But did I not screech beautifully?”
“Sweetly as the king’s musicians, my dear one. But how shall we be avenged on this Isaiah? All Babylon will hear of this. Woe, woe!”
“Avil-Marduk?” suggested she.
“I do not understand you, wife,” quoth the wizard, his wits still shaken by the rude events of the hour.
“Are you become senseless as a sick sheep?” cried she, scornfully. “What was Khatin about to say at the beer-house? You know the chief priest would love nothing so much as some ground for new accusations against the Jews. Go to him boldly. Accuse Isaiah of murder by means of sorceries. Say he hated Saruch because he adored our gods of Babylon. The moment your spell begins to work, the sick man falls dead. Isaiah appears the next instant. Clearest proof! If Avil-Marduk can be persuaded to make your cause his own, an accusation supported by him will be true as an oracle; though all the city might mock if you brought the charge alone.”
The wizard’s eyes were shining with relief and glee, as the inspiration came to him.
“Ah! my Binit,” cried he, merrily, “happy the day when Istar made you my wife! Not Ea himself could counsel more craftily.”
So it befell that the wizard wended his way in the cool of the evening northward to the precinct of Bel-Marduk, guardian god of Babylon.
The temple of Bel was far more than a shrine perched on the crest of aziggurat. Its walls, outbuildings, and priests’ houses covered many “large acres.” It occupied a site with the river on the west, the great “Eastern Canal” to north, and onsouth and east there was ready entrance through the towering gateways, guarded, like the king’s palace, by stone lions and winged bulls. Here sleepy priests on watch gave not a glance to the exorcist as he entered. Once past, he found himself in a broad court girdled by a façade of lofty pillars glittering with silver plating and brilliant enamel, and behind the columns all the walls shone with brightly glazed bricks. Burnished bronze glistered on the doors of the many rooms, and Gudea could just see the sheen of jewels inside the “dark room,” the great sanctuary at the end of the court, where was guarded the ark of Bel, of which the portal chanced to be open.
Through a noisy crowd of priests, priests’ wives, children, and visitors, Gudea wormed his way to the west side of the court, till almost under the shadow of the toweringziggurat. Here he was halted by a serving-man guarding a private doorway.
“Hold, friend! Your business.”
Gudea made a lowly salaam.
“Excellent sir, be so gracious as to tell whether the high priest, Avil-Marduk, my lord never-to-be-too-much-praised, is willing to listen to one of his slaves who craves his compassion.”
The sentinel put his hands on his hips.
“Now, by Bel himself, are you a peasant just from the country? Does Avil have evenings to squander on fish of your spawn? Shall I call the dogs?”
But Gudea knew his game. Down went his hand into a little bag. Up came a silver quarter shekel.
“Not so roughly. I am an honest citizen, as expert a wizard as you will find from Sippar to Erech. If at any time you have need of exorcising a demon—” here the silver changed hands, and the other replied, three shades more affably:—
“Assuredly the chief priest’s time is not for all. Still, I will endeavour—”
“Tell him Gudea, the exorcist, desires speech as to certain plottings of one Isaiah, betrothed to the daughter of the civil-minister, Daniel.”
The other vanished and returned speedily. “The high priest will speak with you,” he announced.
Gudea was led down many darkened hallways, until he entered a small, cool room, where a few lamps already twinkled, where the footfalls fell dead on heavy carpets, and all the walls were bright with blue and white tiles picturing the long-famed combat of Bel and the Dragon. There was very little furniture in the room—a few armless stools, a low table covered with writing tablets. At the extreme end stood a high arm-chair, whereon sat Avil-Marduk himself, for the moment idling over a cup of wine. Old Neriglissor, who had been invited to keep his superior company, sat at the right, on a chair much lower; at the left squatted a negro boy, watching the moment to rise and refill the cups.
Avil-Marduk vouched no sign of recognition until Gudea had come and knelt before the high seat. Then the pontiff raised his eyes.
“You say you are Gudea the exorcist?”
“Yes, noble lord,” and the wizard still knelt.
“Stand up, then. State your errand. You have something against Isaiah the Jew?”
Gudea bowed; it was not well to risk long speeches with the great. Avil demanded again:—
“Well, do not waste any time. What is the complaint?”
“Lord,” came the reply, “he commits murder.”
“Murder?” Avil raised his eyebrows. Neriglissor laid down his well-beloved wine-cup. “But why come to me? Am I the judge? Who is dead?”
“Saruch, the rich rope merchant, by birth a Jew, a most pious servant of the gods, especially of Bel-Marduk.”
“Ah, woe!” began Neriglissor; “he gave five skins to us at the last feast. Excellent wine! Cruel murder!”
“And how has this worthy servant of Bel been butchered by Isaiah?” quoth Avil, sternly. “Is justice denied? Where is the magistrate? Can assassins stalk scatheless in our very streets?”
“Alas, lord! Isaiah is worse than those who slay with dagger. What armour can repel the evil eye, the secret incantation?”
“Ah!” Avil dropped his jaw. Gudea felt uneasily that the high priest was very close to a smile. “Well, how did Saruch die?”
Whereupon Gudea launched into a long and tearful narrative of his unlucky exorcism, and how, just as the “Maskim” were mounted to Saruch’s throat,Isaiah appeared, and behold! the sufferer was dead. Gudea had seldom seen or heard of a crueller taking off; and, what was worse, it would be vast encouragement to those stubborn Jews to continue to worship their foul demon, Jehovah.
“You bring a sad tale, my friend,” patronized Avil, when the wizard was ended. “It is too true that in these days, when faith in the gods is failing and so many noblezigguratsare sinking in ruins, your noble art is threatened by these pestilential Egyptians. Your tale is but too common. But this Isaiah is no ordinary scoffer. His connection with the civil-minister makes him trebly dangerous.”
“True, lord; and if a blasphemer like him is seen to go harmless, where will be any piety in Babylon? Men serve the gods through fear only. They say, ‘If we do not, trouble hastens.’ When one mocks, yet prospers, the rest all follow after. The very priests of Bel will starve.”
“Oh, such days of impiety!” groaned Neriglissor. “Religion withers like an unwatered palm. When I was a lad, no man dared buy a kid on an ‘unfortunate day’; now—”
Avil cut him short.
“You do well to be anxious for the gods, my Gudea; but I have other reasons for wishing the end of these Jews. Not of Isaiah so much as of the civil-minister.”
Avil turned to the squatting cup-bearer, and at a motion toward the door the servant salaamed andvanished. The chief priest’s eye suddenly fixed itself on Gudea, and seemed to go through him like a sharp sword.
“Now, fellow,” and Avil’s tone was low, but piercing as his gaze, “are you a rascal of discretion? Can you lie piously? Can you lift your hands, bidding Marduk and Samas strike dead if you are perjuring? Have you the nose of a dog, the teeth of a cat, and the stealth of an adder?”
The wizard hung down his head. The priest, with a single blow, crushed a fly that lit on his palm and snapped:—
“Understand, you are clay in my fingers. At my will I dash you out as this fly. Silence now, or your wagging tongue wags your head off also.”
“Ah, lord,” answered Gudea, “Bel forbid I should whisper one secret—”
Avil sprang to his feet and paced the room.
“Hark, you knave! I see through you as through Phœnician glass. You will mortgage your soul for ten shekels,—say five rather. If I take oath from you, it will bind while your interest holds, no longer.”
“Alas, your Excellency, enemies blast my character.”
Neriglissor raised a great laugh, crying:—
“An exorcist of honesty! Hear, Heavens! Behold, Earth! Wonder of wonders!”
But Avil-Marduk ceased pacing.
“My dear wizard,” said he, in his oiliest manner,“I am infinitely delighted to have a man of your liver seek me to-night.” His voice fell to a confidential pitch. “Great things are afoot. If certain events befall,”—he hesitated,—“Daniel will become a most undesirable man to remain in high office.”
“Ah!” Gudea dropped his jaw in turn. Avil ran on:—
“If Daniel were found to have resorted to magic to work harm to Saruch, whom he hated for leaving Jehovah; if many witnesses were found who could swear ‘thus and thus the civil-minister slew Saruch with sorceries’; I say, if such testimony were brought against Daniel, it would be most ruinous to his popularity. He might even be brought to pass words with Khatin.”
“To suborn witnesses is costly,” hinted Gudea, rising to the bait.
“Suborn?” cried Avil. “I did not speak the word. I say, ‘Ifthe evidence were found.’” And then, turning suddenly, his tone lost all smoothness. “I will give you three manehs this night. If one month from to-day Daniel (Isaiah matters nothing) lies in the palace dungeon, I will weigh you two talents. If not—” The exorcist was very uneasy, while Avil’s eyes burned through him. “If not, if you play me false, if you fail, I will blow you out as a lamp! A nod from me to the vizier suffices.”
Two talents were life riches, but the wizard’s heart was thumping when he answered, “Lord,lord, I am a poor man, my skill is small. Some other—”
Avil cut him short again:—
“No grunting now, pig! After telling you this, did you expect me to say: ‘Go in peace. Tell the story to all Nana Street’? You shall do as bidden. When the evidence is ready, silent as a tomb you come to me, and I use you and your witnesses in my own time and way.”
“And if I fail?” began Gudea.
“Then, by the king’s life, you fail only once! No goad to a man’s wits like saying, ‘Do this, or visit Allat, Queen of the Dead.’”
Avil-Marduk recalled his servant, and had the three manehs wrapped in a napkin given to Gudea. With many protestations and excuses the wizard took his farewell.
“You risk all on this juggler,” declared Neriglissor when the fellow was gone. But the chief priest shook his head.
“I know him by rumour to be one of the cleverest rats in Babylon. He will have enough real bricks to build his tale with and make it credible. I have him utterly in my power. Should he confess all to Daniel, who would believe him against my denial? He will not fail.”
The “anointer” cast a shrewd glance at his superior.
“You are a man of many devices. When did it enter your head to make use of this exorcist?”
“The moment he opened his business. I had been casting about for many days for a chance like this against Daniel, and was at my wit’s end.”
“Therefore, if we were not priests, we should say, ‘Bel has wondrously favoured us’; but since we are priests, we will preserve our thanksgivings—”
“To ourselves,” interposed Avil, dryly; “and now to the other part of my business. You must ride with me to the palace. The king will hold council again.”
Neriglissor grew even more insinuating.
“My dear lord,wasthat cloak, found in the shrubbery after the assault on his Majesty, the garment of the Persian envoy?”
But Avil only gave a great shrug with his shoulders. “My very good friend,” answered he, “there are some things which if whispered to a gnat would put even my throat in peril. But I can tell you this: the subject of our debate this day might prove wondrously entertaining, if overheard by the ‘exceedingly noble’ Prince Darius.”