The Worm Ouroboros, Eric Rücker Eddison [epub ebook reader txt] 📗

kings? Ah, madam, none of Pixyland stood in the battle yesternight.

Therefore let thy soul be at ease. But my task it was, standing on the

battlements beside the King, to smile and smile while Corinius and our

fighting men made a bloody havoc of four or five hundred of mine own

kinsfolk.”

 

Prezmyra caught her breath and was silent a moment. Then, “Gaslark?”

 

“The main force was his, it appeareth,” answered Lord Gro. “Corinius

braggeth himself his banesman, and certain it is he felled him to

earth. But I am secretly advertised he was not among the dead taken up

this morning.”

 

“My lord,” she said, “my desire for news drinks deep while thou art

fasting. Some, bring meat and wine for my Lord Gro.” And two damosels

ran and returned with sparkling golden wine in a beaker, and a dish of

lampreys with hippocras sauce. So Gro sat him down on the jasper bench

and, while he ate and drank, rehearsed to the Lady Prezmyra the doings

of the night.

 

When he had ended she said, “How bath the King dealt with those twain,

Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha?”

 

Gro answered, “He bath them clapped up in the old banqueting hall in the

Iron Tower.” And his brow darkened, and he said, “‘Tis pity thy lord lay

thus long abed, and so came not to the council, where Corsus and

Corinius, backed by thy step-sons and the sons of Corsus, egged on the

King to use shamefully these lords of Demonland. True is that distich

which admonisheth us—Know when to speak, for many times it brings

Danger to give the best advice to Kings; and little for my health, and

little gain withal, had it been had I then openly withstood them.

Corinius is ever watchful to fling Goblin in my teeth. But Corund

weigheth in their councils as his hand weigheth in battle.”

 

Now as Gro spake came the Lord Corund on the terrace, calling for

still wine to cool his throat withal. Prezmyra poured forth to him:

“Thou art blamed to me for keeping thy bed, my lord, that shouldst

have been devising with the King touching our enemies ta’en captive in

this night gone by.”

 

Corund sat by his lady on the bench and drank. “If that be all,

madam,” said he, “then have I little to charge my conscience withal.

For nought lies readier than strike off their heads, and so bring all

to a fit and happy ending.”

 

“Far otherwise,” said Gro, “hath the King determined. He let drag

before him Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha, and with many fleers and

jibes, ‘Welcome,’ he saith, ‘to Carcë. Your table shall not lack store

of delicates while ye are my guests; albeit ye come unbidden.’

Therewith he let drag them to the old banquet ball. And he bade his

smiths drive great iron staples into the wall, whereon he let hang up

the Demons by their wrists, spread-eagled against the wall, making

both wrists and ankles fast to the staples with gyves of iron. And the

King let dight the table before their feet as for a banquet, that the

sight and the savour might torment them. And he called all us to his

council thither that we might praise his conceit and mock them anew.”

 

Said Prezmyra, “A great king should rather be a dog that killeth

clean, than a cat that patteth and sporteth with his prey.”

 

“True it is,” said Corund, “that they were safer slain.” He rose from

his seat. “‘Twere not amiss,” he said, “that I had word with the

King.”

 

“Wherefore so?” asked Prezmyra.

 

“He that sleepeth late,” said Corund, eyeing her humorously,

“sometimes hath news for her that riseth betimes to sit on the western

terrace. And this was I come to tell thee, that I but now beheld

eastward from our chamber window, riding toward Carcë out of Pixyland

down the Way of Kings–”

 

“La Fireez?” she said.

 

“Mine eyes be strong enow and clear enow,” said Corund, “but thou’dst

scarce require me swear to mine own brother at three miles’ distance.

And as for thine, I leave thee the swearing.”

 

“Who should ride down the Way of Kings from Pixyland,” cried Prezmyra,

“but La Fireez?”

 

“That, madam, let Echo answer thee,” said Corund. “And it sticketh in

my mind, that the Prince my brother-in-law is one that tieth to his

heartstrings the remembrance of past benefits. This too, that none did

him ever a greater benefit than Juss, that saved his life six winters

back in Impland the More. Wherefore, if La Fireez be to share our

revels this night, needful it is that the King command these gabblers

to keep silence touching our entertainment of these lords in the old

banquet hall, and in general touching the share of Demonland in this

fighting.”

 

Prezmyra said, “Come, I’ll go with thee.”

 

They found the King on the topmost battlements above the water-gate with

his lords about him, gazing eastaway toward the long low hills beyond

which lay Pixyland. But when Corund began to open his mind to the King,

the King said, “Thou growest old, O Corund, and like a good-for-nothing

chapman bringest not thy wares to market ere the market be done. I have

already ta’en order for this, and straitly charged my people that nought

befell last night save a faring of the Goblins against Carcë, and their

overthrow, and my chasing of them with a great slaughter into the sea.

Whoso by speech or sign shall reveal to La Fireez that the Demons were

in it, or that these enemies of mine are thus entertained by me to their

discomfort in the old banquet hall, he shall lose nothing but his life.”

 

Corund said, “It is well, O King.”

 

The King said, “Captain general, what is our strength?”

 

Corinius answered, “Seventy and three were slain, and the others for

the most part hurt: I among them, that am thus onehanded for the

while. I will not engage to find you, O King, fifty sound men in

Carcë.”

 

“My Lord Corund,” said the King, “thine eyes pierced ever a league

beyond the best among us, young or old. How many makest thou yon

company?”

 

Corund leaned on the parapet and shaded his eyes with his hand that

was broad as a smoked haddock and covered on the back with yellow

hairs growing somewhat sparsely, as the hairs on the skin of a young

elephant. “He rideth with three score horse, O King. One or two more I

give you for good luck, but if a have a horseman fewer than sixty,

never love me more.”

 

The King muttered an imprecation. “It is the curse of chance bringeth

him thus pat when I have my powers abroad and am left with too little

strength to awe him if he prove irksome. One of thy sons, O Corund,

shall take horse and ride south to Zorn and Permio and muster a few

score fighting men from the herdsmen and farmers with what speed he

may. It is commanded.”

 

Now was the afternoon wearing to evening when the Prince La Fireez was

come in with all his company, and greetings done, and the tribute safe

bestowed, and sleeping room appointed for him and his. And now ere all

gathered together in the great banquet hall that was built by Gorice

XI., when he was first made King, in the southeast corner of the

palace; and it far exceeded in greatness and magnificence the old hall

where Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha were held in duress. Seven

equal walls it had, of dark green jasper, specked with bloody spots.

In the midst of one wall was the lofty doorway, and in the walls right

and left of this and in those that inclosed the angle opposite the

door were great windows placed high, giving light to the banquet hall.

In each of the seven angles of the wall a caryatide, cut in the

likeness of a three-headed giant from ponderous blocks of black

serpentine, bowed beneath the mass of a monstrous crab hewn out of the

same stone. The mighty claws of those seven crabs spreading upwards

bare up the dome of the roof, that was smooth and covered all over

with paintings of battles and hunting scenes and wrastling bouts in

dark and smoky colours answerable to the gloomy grandeur of that

chamber. On the walls beneath the windows gleamed weapons of war and

of the chase, and on the two blind walls were nailed up all orderly

the skulls and dead bones of those champions which had wrastled

aforetime with King Gorice XI. or ever he appointed in an evil hour to

wrastle with Goldry Bluszco. Across the innermost angle facing the

door was a long table and a carven bench behind it, and from the two

ends of that table, set square with it, two other tables yet longer

and benches by them on the sides next the wall stretched to within a

short space of the door. Midmost of the table to the right of the door

was a high seat of old cypress wood, great and fair, with cushions of

black velvet broidered with gold, and facing it at the opposite table

another high seat, smaller, and the cushions of it sewn with silver.

In the space betwixt the tables five iron braziers, massive and footed

with claws like an eagle’s, stood in a row, and behind the benches on

either side were nine great stands for flamboys to light the hail by

night, and seven behind the cross bench, set at equal distances and

even with the walls. The floor was paved with steatite, white and

creamy, with veins of rich brown and black and purples and splashes of

scarlet. The tables resting on great trestles were massy slabs of a

dusky polished stone, powdered with sparks of gold as small as atoms.

 

The women sat on the crossbench, and midmost of them the Lady

Prezmyra, who outwent the rest in beauty and queenliness as Venus the

lesser planets of the night. Zenambria, wife to Duke Corsus, sat on

her left, and on her right Sriva, daughter to Corsus, strangely fair

for such a father. On the upper bench, to the right of the door, the

lords of Witchland sat above and below the King’s high seat, clad in

holiday attire, and they of Pixyland had place over against them on

the lower bench. The high seat on the lower bench was set apart for La

Fireez. Great plates and dishes of gold and silver and painted

porcelain were set in order on the tables, laden with delicacies.

Harps and bagpipes struck up a barbaric music, and the guests rose to

their feet, as the shining doors swung open and Gorice the King

followed by the Prince his guest entered that hall.

 

Like a black eagle surveying earth from some high mountain the King

passed by in his majesty. His byrny was of black chain mail, its

collar, sleeves, and skirt edged with plates of dull gold set with

hyacinths and black opals. His hose were black, cross-gartered with

bands of sealskin trimmed with diamonds. On his left thumb was his

great signet ring fashioned in gold in the semblance of the worm

Ouroboros that eateth his own tail: the bezel of the ring the head of

the worm, made of a peach-coloured ruby of the bigness of a sparrow’s

egg. His cloak was woven of the skins of black cobras stitched

together with gold wire, its lining of black silk sprinkled with dust

of gold. The iron crown of Witchland weighed on his brow, the claws of

the crab erect like horns; and the sheen of its jewels was many-coloured