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

and his cursed Sons.”

 

Lessingham thought, “A most fiery politician is my little martlet:

damned fiends and angels and nothing betwixt for her. But I’ll dance

to none of their tunes, but wait for these things’ unfolding.”

 

So walked those back and forth as caged lions before the Witches’

booths, until Corund halted and leaning on his spear said to one of

his sons, “Go in and seek out Gro that I may speak with him.” And the

son of Corund went, and returned anon with Lord Gro, that came with

furtive step yet goodly and fair to behold. The nose of him was hooked

like a sickle and his eyes great and fair like the eyes of an ox,

inscrutable as they. Lean and spare was his frame. Pale was his face

and pale his delicate hands, and his long black beard was tightly

curled and bright as the coat of a black retriever.

 

Corund said, “How is it with the King?”

 

Gro answered him, “He chafeth to be at it; and to pass away the time

he playeth at dice with Corinius, and the luck goeth against the

King.”

 

“What makest thou of that?” asked Corund.

 

And Gro said, “The fortune of the dice jumpeth not commonly with the

fortune of war.”

 

Corund grunted in his beard, and laying his large hand on Lord Gro’s

shoulder, “Speak to me a little apart,” he said; and when they were

private, “Darken not counsel,” said Corund, “to me and my sons. Have I

not these four years past been as a brother unto thee, and wilt thou

still be secret toward us?”

 

But Gro smiled a sad smile and said, “Why should we by words of ill

omen strike yet another blow where the tree tottereth?”

 

Corund groaned. “Omens,” said he, “increase upon us from that time

forth when the King accepted the challenge, evilly, and flatly against

thy counsel and mine and the counsel of all the great ones in the

land. Surely the Gods have made him fey, having ordained his

destruction and our humbling before these Demons.” And he said, “Omens

thicken upon us, O Gro. First, the night raven that went widdershins

round about the palace of Carcë, that night when the King accepted

this challenge, and we were all drunken with wine after our great

feasting and surfeiting in his halls. Next, the stumbling of the King

whenas he went upon the poop of the long ship which bare us on this

voyage to these islands. Next, the squint-eyed cupbearer that poured

out unto us yesternight. And throughout, the devilish pride and

bragging humour of the King. No more: he is fey. And the dice fall

against him.”

 

Gro spake and said, “O Corund, I will not hide it from thee that my

heart is heavy as thy heart under shadow of ill to be. For as I lay

sleeping betwixt the strokes of night, a dream of the night stood by

my bed and beheld me with a glance so fell that I was all adrad and

quaking with fear. And it seemed to me that the dream smote the roof

above my bed, and the roof opened and disclosed the outer dark, and in

the dark travelled a bearded star, and the night was quick with fiery

signs. And blood was on the roof, and great gouts of blood on the

walls and on the cornice of my bed. And the dream screeched like the

screech-owl, and cried, Witchland from thy hand, O King! And

methought the whole world was lighted in a lowe, and with a great cry

I awoke out of the dream.”

 

“Thou art wise,” said Corund; “and belike the dream was a true dream,

sent thee through the gate of horn, and belike it forebodeth events

great and evil for the King and for Witchland.”

 

Gro said, “Disclose it not to the others, for none can strive with

Fate and gain the victory, and it would but cast down their hearts.

But it is fitting we be ready against evil hap. If (which yet may the

Gods forfend) ill come of this wrastling bout, fail not every one of

you ere you act on any enterprise to take counsel of me. ‘Bare is back

without brother behind it.’ Together must we do that we do.”

 

“Thou hast my firm assurance on’t,” said Corund.

 

Now began a great company to come forth from the palace and take their

stand on either side of the wrastling ground. The Red Foliot sate in

his car of polished ebony, drawn by six black horses with flowing

manes and tails; before him went his musicians, pipers and minstrels

doing their craft, and behind him fifty spearmen, weighed down with

armour and ponderous shields that covered them from chin to toe. Their

armour was stained with madder, in such wise that they seemed bathed

in blood. Mild to look on was the Red Foliot, yet kingly. His skin was

scarlet like the head of the green woodpecker. He wore a diadem of

silver, and robes of scarlet trimmed with black fur.

 

So when the Foliots were assembled, one stood forth with a horn at the

command of the Red Foliot and blew three blasts. Therewith came forth

from their booths the lords of Demonland and their men-at-arms, Juss,

Goldry, Spitfire, and Brandoch Daha, all armed as for battle save

Goldry, who was muffled in a cloak of cloth of gold with great hearts

worked thereon in red silk thread. And from their booths in turn came

the lords of Witchland all armed, and their fighting men, and little

love there was in the glances they and the Demons cast upon each other.

In the midst stalked the King, his great limbs muffled, like Goldry’s,

in a cloak: and it was of black silk lined with black bearskin, and

ornamented with crabs worked in diamonds. The crown of Witchland,

fashioned like a hideous crab and encrusted with jewels so thickly that

none might discern the iron whereof it was framed, weighed on his

beetling brow. His beard was black and bristly, spade-shaped and thick:

his hair close cropped. His upper lip was shaved, displaying his

sneering mouth, and from the darkness below his eyebrows looked forth

eyes that showed a green light, like those of a wolf. Corund walked at

the King’s left elbow, his giant frame an inch less in stature than the

King. Corinius went on the right, wearing a rich cloak of skyblue tissue

over his shining armour. Tall and soldierlike was Corinius, and young

and goodly to look upon, with swaggering gait and insolent eye,

thick-lipped withal and somewhat heavy of feature, and the sun shone

brightly on his shaven jowl.

 

Now the Red Foliot let sound the horn again, and standing in his ebony

car he read out the conditions, as thus:

 

“O Gorice XI., most glorious King of Witchland, and O Lord Goldry

Bluszco, captain of the hosts of Demonland, it is compact betwixt you,

and made fast by mighty oaths whereof I, the Red Foliot, am keeper,

that ye shall wrastle three falls together on these conditions,

namely, that if Gorice the King be victorious, then hath he that glory

and withal full liberty to enforce with the sword his claims of

lordship over manymountained Demonland: but if victory fall to the

Lord Goldry Bluszco, then shall the Demons let the Witches abide in

peace, and they them, and the Witches shall forswear for ever their

claims of lordship over the Demons. And you, O King, and you, O Goldry

Bluszco, are likewise bound by oath to wrastle fairly and to abide by

the ruling of me, the Red Foliot, whom ye are content to choose as

your umpire. And I do swear to judge justly between you. And the laws

of your wrastling are that neither shall strangle his adversary with

his hands, nor bite him, nor claw nor scratch his flesh, nor poach out

his eyes, nor smite him with his fists, nor do any other unfair thing

against him, but in all other respects ye shall wrastle freely

together. And he that shall be brought to earth with hip or shoulder

shall be accounted fallen.”

 

The Red Foliot said, “Have I spoken well, O King, and do you swear to

these conditions?”

 

The King said, “I swear.”

 

The Red Foliot asked in like manner, “Dost thou swear to these

conditions, O Lord Goldry Buszco?”

 

And Goldry answered him, “I swear.”

 

Without more ado the King stepped into the wrastling ground on his

side, and Goldry Bluszco on his, and they cast aside their rich

mantles and stood forth naked for the wrastling. And folk stood silent

for admiration of the thews and sinews of those twain, doubting which

were mightier of build and likelier to gain the victory. The King

stood taller by a little, and was longer in the arm than Goldry. But

the great frame of Goldry showed excellent proportions, each part

wedded to each as in the body of a God, and if either were brawnier of

chest it was he, and he was thicker of neck than the King.

 

Now the King mocked Goldry, saying, “Rebellious hound, it is fit that

I make demonstration unto thee, and unto these Foliots and Demons that

witness our meeting, that I am thy King and Lord not by virtue only of

this my crown of Witchland, which I thus put by for an hour, but even

by the power of my body over thine and by my might and main. Be

satisfied that I will not have done with thee until I have taken away

thy life, and sent thy soul squealing bodiless into the unknown. And

thy skull and thy marrow-bones will I have away to Carcë, to my

palace, to be a token unto all the world that I have been the bane of

an hundredth great champion by my wrastling, and thou not least among

them that I have slain in that exercise. Thereafter, when I have eaten

and drunken and made merry in my royal palace at Carcë, I will sail

with my armies over the teeming deep to manymountained Demonland. And

it shall be my footstool, and these other Demons the slaves of me,

yea, and the slaves of my slaves.”

 

But the Lord Goldry Bluszco laughed lightly and said to the Red

Foliot, “O Red Foliot; I am not come hither to contend with the King

of Witchland in windy railing, but to match my strength against his,

sinew against sinew.”

 

Now they stood ready, and the Red Foliot made a sign with his hand,

and the cymbals clashed for the first bout.

 

At the clash the two champions advanced and clasped one another with

their strong arms, each with his right arm below and left arm above

the other’s shoulder, until the flesh shrank beneath the might of

their arms that were as brazen bands. They swayed a little this way

and that, as great trees swaying in a storm, their legs planted firmly

so that they seemed to grow out of the ground like the trunks of oak

trees. Nor did either yield ground to other, nor might either win a

master hold upon his enemy. So swayed they back and forth for a long

time, breathing heavily. And now Goldry, gathering his strength, gat

the King lifted a little from the ground, and was minded to swing him

round and so dash him to earth. But the King, in that moment when he

found himself lifted, leaned forward mightily and smote his heel

swiftly round Goldry’s leg on the outside, striking him behind and a

little above the ankle, in such wise that Goldry was fain to loosen

his