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

>like the rays of Sirius on a clear night of frost and wind at Yule-tide.

 

The Prince La Fireez went in a mantle of black sendaline sprinkled

everywhere with spangles of gold, and the tunic beneath it of rich

figured silk dyed deep purple of the Pasque flower. From the golden

circlet on his head two wings sprung aloft exquisitely fashioned in

plates of beaten copper veneered with jewels and enamels and plated

with precious metals to the semblance of the wings of the oleander

hawk-moth. He was something below the common height, but stout and

strong and sturdily knit, with red crisp curly hair, broad-faced and

ruddy, cleanshaved, with high wide-nostrilled nose and bushy red heavy

eyebrows, whence his eyes, most like his lady sister’s, sea-green and

fiery, shot glances like a lion’s.

 

When the King was come into his high seat, with Corund and Corinius on

his left and right in honour of their great deeds of arms, and La

Fireez facing him in the high seat on the lower bench, the thralls

made haste to set forth dishes of pickled grigs and oysters in the

shell, and whilks, snails, and cockles fried in olive oil and swimming

in red and white hippocras. And the feasters delayed not to fall to on

these dainties, while the cupbearer bore round a mighty bowl of beaten

gold filled with sparkling wine the hue of the yellow sapphire, and

furnished with six golden ladles resting their handles in six half-moon shaped nicks in the rim of that great bowl. Each guest when the

bowl was brought to him must brim his goblet with the ladle, and drink

unto the glory of Witchland and the rulers thereof.

 

Somewhat greenly looked Corinius on the Prince, and whispering Heming,

Corund’s son, in the ear, who sat next him, he said, “True it is that

La Fireez is the showiest of men in all that belongeth to gear and

costly array. Mark with what ridiculous excess he affecteth Demonland

in the great store of jewels he flaunteth, and with what an apish

insolence he sitteth at the board. Yet this lobcock liveth only by our

sufferance, and I see a hath not forgot to bring with him to Witchland

the price of our hand withheld from twisting of his neck.”

 

Now were borne round dishes of carp, pilchards, and lobsters, and

thereafter store enow of meats: a fat kid roasted whole and garnished

with peas on a spacious silver charger, kid pasties, plates of neats’

tongues and sweetbreads, sucking rabbits injellies, hedgehogs baked in

their skins, hogs’ haslets, carbonadoes, chitterlings, and dormouse

pies. These and other luscious meats were borne round continually by

thralls who moved silent on bare feet; and merry waxed the talk as the

edge of hunger became blunted a little, and the cockles of men’s

hearts were warmed with wine.

 

“What news in Witchland?” asked La Fireez.

 

“I have heard nought newer,” said the King, “than the slaying of

Gaslark.” And the King recounted the battle in the night, setting

forth as in a frank and open honesty every particular of numbers,

times, and comings and goings; save that none might have guessed from

his tale that any of Demonland had part or interest in that battle.

 

La Fireez said, “Strange it is that he should so attack you. An enemy

might smell some cause behind it.”

 

“Our greatness,” said Corinius, looking haughtily at him, “is a lamp

whereat other moths than he have been burnt. I count it no strange

matter at all.”

 

Prezmyra said, “Strange indeed, were it any but Gaslark. But sure with

him no wild sudden fancy were too light but it should chariot him like

thistle-down to storm heaven itself.”

 

“A bubble of the air, madam: all fine colours without and empty wind

within. I have known other such,” said Corinius, still resting his

gaze with studied insolence on the Prince.

 

Prezmyra’s eye danced. “O my Lord Corinius,” said she, “change first

thine own fashion, I pray thee, ere thou convince gay attire of inward

folly, lest beholding thee we misdoubt thy precept—or thy wisdom.”

 

Corinius drank his cup to the drains and laughed. Somewhat reddened

was his insolent handsome face about the cheeks and shaven jowl, for

surely was none in that hall more richly apparelled than he. His ample

chest was cased in a jerkin of untanned buckskin plated with silver

scales, and he wore a collar of gold that was rough with smaragds and

a long cloak of skyblue silk brocade lined with cloth of silver. On

his left wrist was a mighty ring of gold, and on his head a wreath of

black bryony and sleeping nightshade. Gro whispered Corund in the ear,

“He bibbeth it down apace, and the hour is yet early. This presageth

trouble, since ever with him indiscretion treadeth hard on the heels

of surliness as he waxeth drunken.”

 

Corund grunted assent, saying aloud, “To all peaks of fame might

Gaslark have climbed, but for this same rashness. Nought more pitiful

hath been heard to tell of than his great sending into Impland, ten

years ago, when, on a sudden conceit that a should lay all Impland

under him and become the greatest king in all the world, he hired

Zeldornius and Helteranius and Jalcanaius Fostus–”

 

“The three most notable captains found on earth,” said La Fireez.

 

“Nothing is more true,” said Corund. “These he hired, and brought ‘em

ships and soldiers and horses and such a clutter of engines of war as

hath not been seen these hundred years, and sent ‘em—whither? To the

rich and pleasant lands of Beshtria? No. To Demonland? Not a whit. To

this Witchland, where with a twentieth part the power a bath now

risked all and suffered death and doom? No! but to yonder hell-besmitten wilderness of Upper Impland, treeless, waterless, not a soul

to pay him tribute had he laid it under him save wandering bands of

savage Imps, with more bugs on their bodies than pence in their

purses, I warrant you. Or was he minded to be king among the divels of

the air, ghosts, and hob-thrushes that be found in that desert?”

 

“Without controversy there be seventeen several sorts of divels on the

Moruna,” said Corsus, very loud and sudden, so that all turned to look

on him; “fiery divels, divels of the air, terrestrial divels, as you

may say, and watery divels, and subterranean divels. Without

controversy there be seven seen sorts, seventeen several sorts of hob-thrushes, and several sorts of divels, and if the humour took me I

could name them all by rote.”

 

Wondrous solemn was the heavy face of Corsus, his eyes, baggy

underneath and somewhat bloodshed, his pendulous cheeks, thick blubber

upper-lip, and bristly gray moustachios and whiskers. He had eaten,

mainly to provoke thirst, pickled olives, capers, salted almonds,

anchovies, fumadoes, and pilchards fried with mustard, and now awaited

the salt chine of beef to be a pillow and a resting place for new

potations.

 

The Lady Zenambria asked, “Knoweth any for certain what fate befell

Jalcanaius and Helteranius and Zeldornius and their armies?”

 

“Heard I not,” said Prezmyra, “that they were led by Will-o’-the-Wisps

to the regions Hyperborean, and there made kings?”

 

“Told thee by the madge-howlet, I fear me, sister,” said La Fireez.

“Whenas I fared through Impland the More, six years ago, there was

many a wild tale told me hereof, but nought within credit.”

 

Now was the chine served in amid shallots on a great dish of gold,

borne by four serving men, so weighty was the dish and its burden.

Some light there glowed in the dull eye of Corsus to see it come, and

Corund rose up with brimming goblet, and the Witches cried, “The song

of the chine, O Corund!” Great as a neat stood Corund in his russet

velvet kirtle, girt about with a broad belt of crocodile hide edged

with gold. From his shoulders hung a cloak of wolf’s skin with the

hair inside, the outside tanned and diapered with purple silk.

Daylight was nigh gone, and through a haze of savours rising from the

feast the flamboys shone on his bald head set about with thick

grizzled curls, and on his keen gray eyes, and his long and bushy

beard. He cried, “Give me a rouse, my lords! and if any fail to bear

me out in the refrain, I’ll ne’er love him more.” And he sang this

song of the chine in a voice like the sounding of a gong; and all they

roared in the refrain till the piled dishes on the service tables

rang:

 

Bring out the Old Chyne, the Cold Chyne to me.

And how lie charge him come and see.

Brawn tusked, Brawn well sowst and fine.

With a precious cup of Muscadine:

How shall I sing, how shall I look,

In honour of the Master-Cook?

The Pig shall turn round and answer me.

Canst thou spare me a shoulder? a wy, a wy.

The Duck, Goose, and Capon, good fellows all three.

Shall dance thee an antick, so shall the Turkey:

But O! the Cold Chyne, the Cold Chyne for me:

How shall I sing, how shall I look,

In honour of the Master-Cook?

With brewis lie noynt thee from head to th’ heel.

Shal make thee run nimbler than the new oyld wheel;

With Pye-crust wee’l make thee

The eighth wise man to be;

But O! the Old Chyne, the Cold Chyne for me:

How shall I sing, how shall I look,

In honour of the Master-Cook?

 

When the chine was carved and the cups replenished, the King issued

command saying, “Call hither my dwarf, and let him act his antick

gestures before us.”

 

Therewith came the dwarf into the hall, mopping and mowing, clad in a

sleeveless jerkin of striped yellow and red mockado. And his long and

nerveless tail dragged on the floor behind him.

 

“Somewhat fulsome is this dwarf,” said La Fireez.

 

“Speak within door, Prince,” said Corinius. “Know’st not his quality?

A hath been envoy extraordinary from King Gorice XI. of memory ever

glorious unto Lord Juss in Galing and the lords of Demonland. And

‘twas the greatest courtesy we could study to do them, to send ‘em

this looby for our ambassador.”

 

The dwarf practised before them to the great content of the lords of

Witchland and their guests, save for his japing upon Corinius and the

Prince, calling them two peacocks, so like in their bright plumage

that none might tell either from other; which somewhat galled them

both.

 

And now was the King’s heart waxen glad with wine, and he pledged Gro,

saying, “Be merry, Gro, and doubt not that I will fulfil my word I

spake unto thee, and make thee king in Zajë Zaculo.”

 

“Lord, I am yours for ever,” answered Gro. “But methinks I am little

fitted to be a king. Methinks I was ever a better steward of other

men’s fortunes than of mine own.”

 

Whereat the Duke Corsus, that was sprawled on the table well nigh

asleep, cried out in a great voice but husky withal, “A brace of

divels broil me if thou sayest not sooth! If thine own fortunes come

off but bluely, care not a rush. Give me some wine, a full weeping

goblet. Ha! Ha! whip i’ away! Ha! Ha! Witchland! When wear you the

crown of Demonland, O King?”

 

“How now, Corsus,” said the King, “art thou drunk?”

 

But La Fireez said, “Ye sware peace with the Demons in the Foliot

Isles, and by mighty oaths are ye bound to put by for ever your claims

of lordship over Demonland. I hoped your quarrels were ended.”

 

“Why so