look upon matters in a more favorable light.
Until that time she kept her head tightly swathed in a cloth night and day to conceal her hair. She claimed that she did so in grief for the good life that I had destroyed, but I myself believed that she did so to annoy me, knowing how I loved her fair tresses. Finally, during a moment of ardor, she flung off the cloth to show me that her fair curls had become straight black hair during our life with the Siccani.
“See for yourself what you have done to me,” she said accusingly. “Do you finally realize my suffering? Formerly I had the fair hair of the goddess. Now the surroundings to which you have subjected me have shaped me to them, and my beautiful hair is like the black, coarse mane of the Siccanian women.”
I touched her hair in disbelief. It was still as soft as before, but black it was. At first this seemed a miracle to me. I remembered her amazing skill in transforming herself and thought that the darkness of the gloomy forest and the terrifying nights had in truth blackened her hair. But reason triumphed and I began to laugh. “How vain you are, Arsinoe! As a priestess you naturally had to dye your hair, since the goddess’s tresses are like the sun. No wonder you have mourned the loss of your beauty case. This is your real hair, and I love it just as I love everything about you, even your vanity, for it proves that you wish to be more beautiful in my eyes than you are. Of course miracles do happen, that I cannot deny, but how could even the most capricious deity have thought of turning your fair hair black?”
Eyes shining with anger, she said, “I am a woman of the goddess, and the goddess is the most capricious of all deities. You should know that, Turms, and believe her. This is evidence of your cruelty toward me. If I succeed in propitiating the goddess, perhaps she will yet restore my hair to its fairness.”
“Precisely,” I mocked her. “If we ever reach a civilized city and you have sufficient money with which to buy the necessary dyes. You cannot deceive me in this matter and make me believe the impossible.”
Her slender fingers gripped my shoulders and her eyes turned to dark pools as in our moments of passion. “Turms, in the name of the goddess and in the name of our son, I swear that it is the truth. Of course I am a woman and as such lie to you in insignificant matters because you are a man and unable to understand everything. I admit that. But why should I lie about something that changes my whole appearance and life and makes me a completely different woman? You must believe me.”
Looking into her eyes and hearing her oath, I began to tremble. If she had sworn only in the name of the goddess I would not have believed her, for that she had done also in the past and lied. Aphrodite, after all, is the most deceptive of goddesses and still one is compelled to love her. But I could not believe that she would lie in the name of our son.
Little Hiuls was crawling on the floor of the cave beyond the reach of Hanna’s eye. I took him into my lap and gave him a greasy bone to suck.
To Arsinoe I said, “Lay your hand on our son’s head and repeat your oath. Then I will believe you even though I cannot understand.”
Without a moment’s hesitation Arsinoe placed her hand, brown from the sun, on Hiul’s head, rubbed his sprouting hair and repeated the oath. I had to believe her. Age grays a man’s hair, so why couldn’t displeasure blacken the hair of a capricious woman? It is not an ordinary occurrence but Arsinoe was not an ordinary woman.
When she had finally convinced me she began to smile, wiped the tears from her eyes, wound her arms around my neck and scolded me.
“How could you hurt me so, Turms, when just a few moments ago we were swaying on a cloud? I thought I had lost you when you doubted my words. Now I know that you are all mine just as you should be.” She touched her hair and asked shyly, “Am I much uglier now than before?”
I looked at her. With her bare shoulders and black hair which emphasized their whiteness she was more beautiful than ever. She had strung a necklace for herself out of red berries, and the moonstone gleamed between her breasts. My heart swelled at the sight of her.
“Arsinoe, you are fairer than ever before. There is no one like you. Each time I take you in my arms you are like a new woman. I love you.”
After that Arsinoe conformed to Siccanian life and ornamented herself with colored stones, coral, feathers and soft pelts. From the women she learned how to color her brows slantingly and to widen her mouth. The Siccani valued circles on their cheeks and serpentine streaks on their bodies, but such marks were irremovable and Arsinoe did not wish to have her skin slashed. I realized then that she had no intention. of spending her entire life among the Siccani.
2.
Mikon remained with us for a year, and the Siccanians brought their sick from near and far to be healed. But he practiced his profession carelessly and declared that the Siccanian priests were fully as capable as he of healing wounds, putting broken bones in splints and submerging the sick into a curative sleep with the sound of a small drum.
“I have nothing to learn from them,” he said, “nor they from me. Nothing makes any difference. Perhaps it is proper to relieve the pains of the body, but who will heal the suffering spirit, when not even one who is consecrated can find peace in his heart?”
I could not cheer him in his depression. One morning, having awakened late, Mikon looked at the blue mountains and radiant sunshine, touched the grass, breathed the warm fragrance of the forest and took my hand in his own trembling hands.
“This is my moment of clarity,” he said. “I am enough of a physician to know that I am either ill or slowly being poisoned by the Siccanian potion. I am living in a haze and can no longer distinguish the real from the unreal. But perhaps the worlds are passing one another or are within one another so that at times I can live in two worlds simultaneously.”
He gave me one of his rare smiles. “My moment of clarity must have little significance since I see you supernaturally tall, and your body glows like fire through your clothes. But ever since I first began to think, I have pondered the meaning of everything. For that reason I became consecrated and learned much that was beyond this reality. But even such secret knowledge is limited. Only the Siccanians’ poisonous potion has provided me with the answer to why I was born and what the purpose of life is.”
He released my hand, again touched the grass and looked at the blue mountains and said, “I should rejoice at my knowledge, but nothing gladdens me. It is as though I had run too long a distance. I am not consoled by the thought that some day I will awaken again, that the earth will be green and beautiful and that it will be a joy to live.”
I looked at him pityingly, but as I looked I saw death behind his swollen face. I wanted to be kind to him because he was my friend, but he was angered by my look.
“You don’t have to pity me,” he said sharply. “You don’t have to pity anyone, because you are what you are. Showing me pity is an affront, for I have served as a herald for you if nothing more. I ask only that you recognize me again when next we meet. That will suffice.”
At that moment his swollen face was ugly in my eyes, and the envy that shone from it darkened the radiant dawn. Realizing it himself, he covered his eyes, rose, and walked away with uncertain steps.
When I tried to restrain him he said, “My throat is dry. I am going to the stream to drink.”
I wanted to lead him there but he repulsed me angrily and did not look back. Nor did he return from the stream. We sought him in vain and the Siccanians looked for him in the thickets and gorges until I realized that he had meant another stream.
I did not condemn his action but as a friend granted him the choice of continuing this life or of ending it like a task that has grown too heavy. After we had mourned him we made a sacrifice to his memory, and thereafter I felt greatly unburdened, for his melancholy had long thrown a shadow over our lives. But Hiuls missed him greatly, for he had taught the boy to walk, listened to his first words, and whittled playthings with his sharp physician’s knife.
When she realized what had happened, Arsinoe became indignant and blamed me for not keeping an eye on Mikon.
