To Leoncia was it given to see an ocean separate her and Francis. To
Henry was it given to see the Queen and Francis married by so strange a
ceremony, that scarcely did he realise, until at the close, that it was
a wedding taking place. The Queen, from a flying gallery in a great
house, looked down into a magnificent drawing-room that Francis would
have recognized as builded by his father had her vision been his. And,
beside her, his arm about her, she saw Francis. Francis saw but one
thing, vastly perturbing, the face of Leoncia, immobile as death, with
thrust into it, squarely between the eyes, a slender-bladed dagger. Yet
he did not see any blood flowing from the wound of the dagger. Torres
glimpsed the beginning of what he knew must be his end, crossed himself,
and alone of all of them shrank back, refusing to see further. While the
Sun Priest saw the vision of his secret sin, the face and form of the
woman for whom he had betrayed the Worship of the Sun, and the face and
form of the maid of the village at the Long House.
As all drew back by common consent when the visions faded, Leoncia
turned like a tigress, with flashing eyes, upon the Queen, crying:
“Your mirror lies! Your Mirror of the World lies!”
Francis and Henry, still under the heavy spell of what they had
themselves beheld, were startled and surprised by Leoncia’s outburst.
But the Queen, speaking softly, replied:
“My Mirror of the World has never lied. I know not what you saw. But I
do know, whatever it was, that it is truth.”
“You are a monster!” Leoncia cried on. “You are a vile witch that lies!”
“You and I are women,” the Queen chided with sweet gentleness, “and may
not know of ourselves, being women. Men will decide whether or not I am
a witch that lies or a woman with a woman’s heart of love. In the
meanwhile, being women and therefore weak, let us be kind to each
other.”
“——And now, Priest of the Sun, to judgment. You, as priest under the Sun
God, know more of the ancient rule and procedure than do I. You know
more than do I about myself and how I came to be here. You know that
always, mother and daughter, and by mother and daughter, has the tribe
maintained a Queen of Mystery, a Lady of Dreams. The time has come when
we must consider the future generations. The strangers have come, and
they are unmarried. This must be the wedding day decreed, if the
generations to come after of the tribe are to possess a Queen to dream
for them. It is well, and time and need and place are met. I have
dreamed to judgment. And the judgment is that I shall marry, of these
strangers, the stranger allotted to me before the foundations of the
world were laid. The test is this: If no one of these will marry, then
shall they die and their warm blood be offered up by you before the
altar of the Sun. If one will marry me, then all shall live, and Time
hereafter will register our futures.”
The Sun Priest, trembling with anger, strove to protest, but she
commanded:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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