George Gibbs - The Golden Bough

"I?"

"You, Monsieur."

Rowland was silent, looking at her, sure now of a deeper import to her meaning.

"If there is anything I can do to help Russia, to help France here, you may count upon me," he said quietly.

He might have added to help Tanya Korasov, but something warned him that a hidden fire within her had burst into a flame, which burned out all lesser ones.

Her fine eyes regarded him steadily in a moment of intense appraisal, and then she went on.

"The origin of the Priesthood of Nemi, Monsieur," she said, "is lost in the mazes of antiquity. According to one story, the priesthood began with the worship of Diana, at Nemi, near Rome, and was instituted by Orestes, who fled to Italy. Within the sanctuary at Nemi there grew a certain tree of which no branch might be broken. Only a runaway slave was allowed to break off, if he could, one of its boughs-"

"A runaway slave," he smiled. "Then I-"

She nodded. "You may think it fantastic, but that was what Monsieur Ivanitch feared when he learned last night what you were. And I-" she stopped again. "I could not believe that such things were possible-"

"They aren't," said Rowland, quietly.

His quiet voice steadied her.

"It is a strange tale," she said with a slow smile, "but you must hear it all. Only a runaway slave who succeeded in reaching the Golden Bough and broke it was entitled to challenge the Priest in single combat. If he-killed him, he reigned in the place of the priest, King of the Wood-"

"REX NEMORENSIS-" muttered Rowland.

"You've heard?"

"I read it-there," pointing to the pedestal. And as he looked, the meaning of the double bust came to him, the anguished face of the older man and the frowning face of the youth who was to take his place.

"He was afraid of me," he said. "I understand."

"The legend tells that the Golden Bough," she went on quickly, "was that which at the Sybil's bidding Æneas plucked before he visited the world of the dead, the flight of the slave was the flight of Orestes, his combat with the priest, a relic of the human sacrifices once offered to the Tauric Diana. A rule of succession by the sword which was observed down to imperial times-"

"A ghastly succession-and Ivanitch-?" he questioned.

She frowned and bent forward, her chin cupped in a hand.

"No one knows of his succession-or no one will tell. It was said that when he returned from Siberia, he killed the man who had sent him there."

"A pretty business," said Rowland, rising. "But I did not kill Kirylo Ivanitch-" he protested. "It was he himself who-" He paused and stared at Tanya thoughtfully.

"You can not deny that if he had not attacked you, he would be here, alive-now."

"That is true, perhaps. But murder-assassination-" He stopped and smiled grimly.

"Mademoiselle Korasov, I'm a soldier and have seen blood shed in a righteous cause. I kill a strange German in a trench because there is not room for us both, and because I am trained to kill as a duty I owe to France. But this-" he waved his hand toward the garden-"this is a brawl. A man attacks me. I defend myself-I strike him with my fists when I might have plunged his own knife into his heart. You saw me-I threw his knife away and fought as we do in my own country, with my hands. If he falls and strikes his head upon a stone-"

He broke off with a shrug.

"Whatever your rights, and I bear witness to them-nevertheless, Monsieur-justified as you are in our eyes and your own conscience, it was you who killed Kirylo Ivanitch."

He stared at her for a moment. Her brows were drawn, but her eyes peered beyond him, as though only herself saw with a true vision. No fanatic-no dreamer? Then what was behind her thoughts-the ones she had not uttered?

"The man is dead," he mumbled. "If I am guilty of his death, I want a court, a judge. I will abide by the law-"

But Tanya was slowly shaking her head.

"There shall be no Court, no Judges but those of Nemi. We saw-we know. There shall be no inquiry. Nemi shall bury its own dead, and you, Monsieur-"

"And I?" he asked as she paused.

"You, Monsieur Rowlan', shall be the Head of the Order of Nemi."

"But, Mademoiselle! You don't understand. I am a part of the Armies of Republican France-a part of the great machinery-a small part, lost but now restored to go on with the great task, a free world has set itself to do."

"A great task!" The girl had risen now and caught him by the arm with a grasp that seemed to try to burn its meaning into his very bones. And her voice, sunk to a whisper, came to his ears with tragic clearness. "There's a greater task for you here-Monsieur. A task that will take greater courage than facing the grenades of the trenches, a task that will take more than courage, – a task only for one of skill, intelligence and great daring. Is it danger that you seek? You will find it here-a danger that will lurk with you always, an insidious threat that will be most dangerous when least anticipated. There are others, Monsieur Rowlan', who may be taught to shoot from the trenches, but there is another destiny for you, a great destiny-to do for the world what half a million of armed men have it not within their power to do. It is here-that destiny-here at Nemi and the weapons shall be forged in your brain, Monsieur, subtle weapons, keen ones, subtler and keener than those of the enemies who will be all about you-your enemies, but more important than that-the enemies of France, or Russia, England and all the free peoples of the Earth-"

She had seemed inspired and her eager eyes, raised to his, burned with a gorgeous fire.

"Germany!" he whispered. "Here?"

"Here-everywhere. They plot-they plan, they seek control-to put men in high places where the cause of Junkerism may be served-"

"But they cannot!"

"I have not told you all. Listen!" She released his arm and sat. "You have misjudged us here. To your Western eyes we were mere actors in a morbid comedy of our own choosing, masqueraders, or fanatics, pursuing our foolish ritual in a sort of mild frenzy of self-absorption. But Nemi means something more than that. It reaches back beyond ancient Rome, comes down through the ages, through Italy, the Holy Roman Empire, through France, Germany and Russia, a secret society, the oldest in the history of the world, and the most powerful, with tentacles reaching into the politics of Free Masonry, of Socialism, of Nihilism, of Maximalism. The society of Nemi, an international society, with leaders in every party, a hidden giant with a hundred groping arms which only need a brain to actuate them all to one purpose."

She paused a moment, her hand at her heart, while she caught her breath. "And that purpose-Monsieur Rowlan'-the saving of the world from autocracy!" she said impressively.

He did not dare smile at her for her revelations were astounding, and in spite of himself all that was venturesome in his spirit had caught of her fire. The rapidity of her utterance and the nature of her disclosures for a moment struck him dumb. How much of this story that she told him was true, and how much born in the brain of the dead Ivanitch? A secret society with ramifications throughout Europe-a power which might pass into the hands of the enemies of France. Rowland was not dull, and clear thinking was slowly driving away the mists of illusion, leaving before him the plain facts of his extraordinary situation.

"I am no believer in mysticism, Mademoiselle Korasov," he said at last, smiling, "nor in a destiny written before I was born. What you tell of the history of Nemi is interesting, what you say of the Visconti very strange, startlingly so, but I am the product of an age of materialism. This drama was born and developed in the brain of a dreamer and zealot. Don't you see? A strange coincidence unhinged him. He attacked me as he might have attacked any other escaping prisoner-"