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

to war with Demonland?

Think not to have my help therein.”

 

“We shall not sleep the worse for that,” said Corinius. “Our mouth is

big enough for such a morsel of marchpane as thou, if thou turn

irksome.”

 

“Thy mouth is big enough to blab the secretest intelligence, as we now

most laughably approve,” said La Fireez. “Were I the King, I would

draw lobster’s whiskers on thy skin, for a tipsy and a prattling

popinjay.”

 

“An insult!” cried the Lord Corinius, leaping up. “I would not take an

insult from the Gods in heaven. Reach me a sword, boy! I will make

Beshtrian cutworks in his guts.”

 

“Peace, on your lives!” said the King in a great voice, while Corund

went to Corinius and Gro to the Prince to quiet them. “Corinius is

wounded in the wrist and cannot fight, and belike his brain is fevered

by the wound.”

 

“Heal him, then, of this carving the Goblins gave him, and I will

carve him like a capon,” said the Prince.

 

“Goblins!” said Corinius fiercely. “Know, vile fellow, the best

swordsman in the world gave me this wound. Had it been thou that stood

before me, I had cut thee into steaks, that art caponed already.”

 

But the King stood up in his majesty, saying, “Silence, on your

lives!” And the King’s eyes glittered with wrath, and he said, “For

thee, Corinius, not thy hot youth and rebellious blood nor yet the

wine thou hast swilled into that greedy belly of thine shall mitigate

the rigour of my displeasure. Thy punishment I reserve unto tomorrow.

And thou, La Fireez, look thou bear thyself more humbly in my halls.

Over pert was the message brought me by thine herald at thy coming

hither this morning, and too much it smacked of a greeting from an

equal to an equal, calling thy tribute a gift, though it, and thou,

and all thy principality are mine by right to deal with as seems me

good. Yet did I bear with thee: unwisely, as I think, since thy

pertness nourished by my forbearance springeth up yet ranker at my

table, and thou insultest and brawlest in my halls. Be advised, lest

my wrath forge thunderbolts against thee.”

 

The Prince La Fireez answered and said, “Keep frowns and threats for

thine offending thralls, O King, since me they aifright not, and I

laugh them to scorn. Nor am I careful to answer thine injurious words;

since well thou knowest my old friendship unto thine house, O King,

and unto Witchland, and by what bands of marriage I am bound in love

to the Lord Corund, to whom I gave my lady sister. If it suit not my

stomach to proclaim like a servile minister thy suzerainty, yet

needest thou not to carp at this, since thy tribute is paid thee, ay,

and in over-measure. But unto Demonland am I bound, as all the world

knoweth, and sooner shalt thou prevail upon the lamps of heaven to

come down and fight for thee against the Demons than upon me. And unto

Corinius that so boasteth I say that Demonland hath ever been too hard

for you Witches. Goldry Bluszco and Brandoch Daha have shown you this.

This is my counsel unto thee, O King, to make peace with Demonland: my

reasons, first that thou hast no just cause of quarrel with them, next

(and this should sway thee more) that if thou persist in fighting

against them it will be the ruin of thee and of all Witchland.”

 

The King bit his fingers with signs of wonderful anger, and for a

minute’s time no sound was in that hall. Only Corund spake privately

to the King saying, “Lord, O for all sakes swallow your royal rage.

You may whip him when my son Hacmon returneth, but till then he

outnumbers us, and your own party so overwhelmed with wine that, trust

me, I would not adventure the price of a turnip on our chances if it

come to fighting.”

 

Troubled at heart was Corund, for well he knew how dear beyond account

his lady wife held the keeping of the peace betwixt La Fireez and the

Witches.

 

In this moment Corsus, somewhat roused in an evil hour out of lethargy

by the loud talk and movement, began to sing:

 

When all the prisons hereabout

Have justled all their prisoners out.

Because indeed they have no cause

To keepe ‘em in by common laws.

 

Whereat Corinius, in whom wine and quarrelling and the King’s rebukes

had lighted a fire of reckless and outrageous malice before which all

counsels of prudence or policy were dissipated like wax in a furnace,

shouted loudly, “Wilt see our prisoners, Prince, i’ the old banquet

hall, to prove thyself an ass?”

 

“What prisoners?” cried the Prince, springing to his feet. “Hell’s

furies! I am weary of these dark equivocations and will know the

truth.”

 

“Why wilt thou rage so beastly?” said the King. “The man is drunk. No

more wild words.”

 

“Thou canst not daff me so. I will know the truth,” said La Fireez.

 

“So thou shalt,” said Corinius. “This it is, that we Witches be better

men than thou and thy hen-hearted Pixies, and better men than the

accursed Demons. No need to hide it further. Two of that brood we have

laid by the heels, and nailed ‘em up on the wall of the old banquet

hall, as farmers nail up weasels and polecats on a barn door. And

there shall they bide till they be dead: Juss and Brandoch Daha.”

 

“O most villanous lie!” said the King. “I’ll have thee hewn in

pieces.”

 

But Corinius said, “I nurse your honour, O King. We must no longer

skulk before these Pixies.”

 

“Thou diest for it,” said the King, “and it is a lie.”

 

Now was dead silence for a space. At last the Prince sat down slowly.

His face was white and drawn, and he spake unto the King, slowly and

in a quiet voice: “O King, that I was somewhat hot with you, forgive

me. And if I have omitted any form of allegiance due to you, think

rather that in my blood it is to chafe at such ceremonies than that I

had any lack of friendship unto you or ever dreamed of questioning

your overlordship. Aught that you shall require of me and that lieth

with mine honour, aught of ceremony or fealty, will I with joy

perform. And, save against Demonland, is my sword ready against your

enemies. But here, O King, tottereth a tower ready to fall athwart our

friendship and pash it in pieces. It is known to you, O King, and to

all the lords of Witchiand, that my bones were whitening these six

years in Impland the More if Lord Juss had not saved me from the

barbarous Imps that followed Fax Fay Faz, who besieged me four months

with my small following shut up in Lida Nanguna. My friendship shall

you have, O King, if you yield me up my friends.”

 

But the King said, “I have not thy friends.”

 

“Show me then the old banquet hall,” said the Prince.

 

The King said, “I will show it thee anon.”

 

“I will see it now,” said the Prince, and he rose from his seat.

 

“I will dissemble with thee no longer,” said the King. “I do love thee

well. But when thou askest me to yield up to thee Juss and Brandoch

Daha, thou askest a thing all Pixyland and thy dear heart’s blood were

unable to purchase from me. These be my worst enemies. Thou knowest

not at what cost of toil and danger I have at last laid hand on them.

And now let not thy hopes make thee an unbeliever, when I swear to

thee that Juss and Brandoch Daha shall rot and die in prison.”

 

And for all his gentle speeches, and offers of wealth and rich

advantage and upholding in peace and war, might not La Fireez shake

the King. And the King said, “Forbear, La Fireez, or thou wilt vex me.

They must rot.”

 

So when the Prince La Fireez saw that he might not move the King by

soft words, he took up his fair crystal goblet, egg-shaped with three

claws of gold to stand withal welded to a collar of gold about its

middle bossed with topazes, and hurled it at Gorice the King, so that

the goblet smote him on the forehead, and the crystal was brast

asunder with the force of the blow, and the King’s forehead laid open,

and the King strook senseless.

 

Therewith was huge uproar in the banquet hall; nor would Corund that

any should have speedier hand therein than he, but catching up his

two-edged sword and crying, “Look to the King, Gro! Here’s distressful

revels!” he leaped upon the table. And his sons likewise and Gallandus

and the other Witches seized their weapons, and in like manner did La

Fireez and his men; and there was battle in the great hall in Carcë.

Corinius, whose left hand only might as now wield weapon, even so

sprang forth in most gallant wise, calling upon the Prince with many

vile words to abide his onset. But the fumes of unbridled potations,

that being flown to his brain had made him frantic mad, wrought in his

legs more foggily, dulling their wonted nimbleness. And his foot

sliding in a puddle of spilt wine he fell backward a grievous fall,

striking his head against the polished table. And Corsus that was now

well nigh speechless and quite stupefied with drink, so that a baby

might tell as well as he what meant this hubbub, reeled cup in hand,

shouting, “Drunkenness is better for the body than physic! Drink

always, and you shall never die!” So shouting he was smitten square in

the mouth by a breast of veal flung at him by Elaron of Pixyland, the

captain of the Prince’s bodyguard, and so fell like a hog athwart

Corinius, and there lay without sense or motion. Then were the tables

overset, and wounds given and taken, and swiftly ran the tide of

vantage against the Witches. For albeit the Pixies were none such

great soldiers as they of Witchland, yet this served them mightily

that they were well nigh sober and their foes as so many casks filled

with wine, staggering and raving for the most part from their long

tippling and quaffing. Nor did Corund’s amethyst avail him throughly,

but the wine clogged his veins so that he waxed scant of breath and

his strokes lighter and slower than they were wont.

 

Now for the love he bare his sister Prezmyra and for his old kindness

sake for Witchland, the Prince charged his men to fight only for the

overpowering of the Witches, slaying none if so it might be, and on

their lives to look to it that the Lord Corund took no hurt. And when

they had fairly gotten the mastery, La Fireez made certain of his folk

take jars of wine and therewith souse Corund and his men most lustily

in the face, while others held them at weapon’s point, until by the

power of the wine both within and without they were well brought

under. And they barricaded the great doorway of the hall with the

benches and table tops and heavy oaken trestles, and La Fireez charged

Elaron hold the door with the most of his following, and set guards

without each window that none might come forth from the hall.

 

But the Prince himself took flamboys and went six in company to the

old banquet hall, overpowered the guard, brake open the doors, and so

stood before Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch