Part 39 (1/2)
”Oh.... And possibly you gave Sanang a chance because he still holds your--affections!”
She said, crimson with the pain of the accusation: ”I tore my heart out of his keeping.... I told you that.... And, believing--trying to believe what you say to me, I have tried to tear my soul out of the claws of Erlik.... Why are you angry?”
”I don't know.... I'm not angry.... The whole horrible situation is breaking my nerve, I guess.... With whom were you talking before I came in?”
After a silence the girl's smile glimmered.
”I'm afraid you won't like it if I tell you.”
”Why not?”
”You--such things perplex and worry you.... I am afraid you won't like me any the better if I tell you who it was I had been talking with.”
His intent gaze never left her. ”I want you to tell me,” he repeated.
”I--I was talking with Sa-n'sa,” she faltered.
”With whom?”
”With Sa-n'sa.... We called her Sansa.”
”Who the d.i.c.kens is Sansa?”
”We were three comrades at the Temple,” she said timidly, ”--Yulun, Sansa, and myself. We loved each other. We always went to the Lake of the Ghosts together--for protection----”
”Go on!”
”Sansa was a girl of the Aroulads, born at Buldak--as was Temujin. The night she was born three moon-rainbows made circles around her Yalak.
The Baroula.s.s hors.e.m.e.n saw this and prayed loudly in their saddles. Then they galloped to Yian and came crawling on their bellies to Sanang Noane with the news of the miracle. And Sanang came with a thousand riders in leather armour. And, 'What is this child's name?' he shouted, riding into the Yalak with his black banners flapping around him like devil's wings.
”A poor Manggoud came out of the tent of skins, carrying the new born infant, and touched his head to Sanang's stirrup. 'This babe is called Tchagane,' he said, trembling all over. 'No!' cries Sanang, 'she is called Sansa. Give her to me and may Erlik seize you!'
”And he took the baby on his saddle in front of him and struck his spurs deep; and so came Sansa to Yian under a roaring rustle of black silk banners.... It is so written in the Book of Iron.... Allahou Ekber.”
Cleves had leaned his elbow on the table, his forehead rested in his palm.
Perhaps he was striving in a bewildered way to reconcile such occult and amazing things with the year 1920--with the commonplace and noisy city of New York--with this pretty, modern, sunlit sitting-room in the Ritz-Carlton on Madison Avenue--with this girl in her morning negligee opposite, her coffee and melon fragrant at her elbow, her wonderful blue eyes resting on him.
”Sansa,” he repeated slowly, as though striving to grasp even a single word from the confusion of names and phrases that were sounding still in his ears like the vibration of distant and unfamiliar seas.
”Is this the girl you were talking with just now? In--in _this_ room?”
he added, striving to understand.
”Yes.”
”She wasn't here, of course.”
”Her body was not.”