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

Mevrian, “admit them. And do thou and thy fellows attend

me while I give them audience.”

 

So it was done according to her bidding. And there entered in those

two sons of Corund.

 

They greeted her with respectful salutations, and Heming said, “Our

errand, most worshipful lady, was for thine own ear only if it please

thee.”

 

Mevrian said to her women, “Make fast the doors, and attend me in the

ante-chamber. And now, my lords,” said she, and waited for them to

begin.

 

She was seated sideways in the window, betwixt the light and the dark.

The crystal lamps shining from within the room showed deeper

darknesses in her hair than night’s darkness without. The curve of her

white arms resting in her lap was like the young moon cradled above

the sunset. A falling breeze out of the south came laden with the

murmur of the sea, far away beyond fields and vineyards, restlessly

surging even in that calm weather amid the sea-caves of Stropardon. It

was as if the sea and the night enfolding Demonland gasped in

indignation at such things as Corinius, holding himself already an

undoubted possessor of his desires, devised for that night in

Krothering.

 

Those brethren stood abashed in the presence of such rare beauty.

Heming with a deep breath spake and said, “Madam, what slender opinion

soever thou hast held of us of Witchland, I pray thee be satisfied

that I and my kinsman have sought to thee now with a clean heart to do

thee service.”

 

“Princes,” said she, “scarce might ye blame me did I misdoubt you.

Yet, seeing that my life’s days have been not among ambidexters and

coney-catchers but lovers of clean hands and open dealing, not even

after that which I this night endured will mine heart believe that all

civility is worn away in Witchland. Did I not freely receive

Corinius’s self when I did open my gates to him, firmly believing him

to be a king and not a ravening wolf?”

 

Then said Heming, “Canst thou wear armour, madam? Thou art something

of an height with my brother. To bring thee past the guard, if thou go

armed, as I shall conduct thee, the wine they have drunken shall be

thy minister. I have provided an horse. In the likeness of my young

brother mayst thou ride forth tonight out of this castle, and win

clean away. But in thine own shape thou mayst never pass from these

thy lodgings, for he hath set a guard thereon; being resolved, come

thereof what may, to visit thee here this night: in thine own chamber,

madam.”

 

The sounds of furious revelry floated up from the banquet chamber.

Mevrian heard by snatches the voice of Corinius singing an unseemly

song. As in the presence of some dark influence that threatened an ill

she might not comprehend, yet felt her blood quail and her heart grow

sick because of it, she looked on those brethren.

 

She said at last, “Was this your plan?”

 

Heming answered, “It was the Lord Gro did most ingeniously conceive

it. But Corinius, as he hath ever held him in distrust, and most of

all when he hath drunken overmuch, keepeth him most firmly at his

elbow.”

 

Cargo now did off his armour, and Mevrian calling in her women to take

this and other gear fared straightway to an inner chamber to change

her fashion.

 

Heming said to his brother, “Thou shalt need to go about it with great

circumspection, to come off when we are gone so as thou be not aspied.

Were I thou, I should be tempted for the rareness of the jest to await

his coming, and assay whether thou couldst not make as good a

counterfeit Mevrian as she a counterfeit Cargo.”

 

“Thou,” said Cargo, “mayst well laugh and be gay, thou that must

conduct her. And art resolved, I dare lay my head to a turnip, to do

thy utmost endeavour to despoil Corinius of that felicity he hath

tonight decreed him, and bless thyself therewith.”

 

“Thou hast fallen,” answered Heming, “into a most barbarous thought.

Shall my tongue be so false a traitor to mine heart as to say I love

not this lady? Compare but her beauty and my youth together, how

should it other be? But with such a height of fervour I do love her

that I’d as lief offer violence to a star of heaven, as require of her

aught but honest.”

 

Said Cargo, “What said the wise little boy to’s elder brother? ‘Sith

thou’st gotten the cake, brother, I must e’en make shift with the

crumbs.’ When you are gone, and all whisht and quiet, and I left here

amid the waiting women, it shall go hard but I’ll teach ‘em somewhat

afore goodnight.”

 

Now opened the door of the inner chamber, and there stood before them

the Lady Mevnan armed and helmed. She said, “‘Tis no light matter to

halt before a cripple. Think you this will pass i’ the dark, my

lords?”

 

They answered, ‘twas beyond all commendation excellent.

 

“I’ll thank thee now, Prince Cargo,” said she, stretching out her

hand. He bowed and kissed it in silence. “This harness,” she said,

“shall be a keepsake unto me of a noble enemy. Would someday I might

call thee friend, for suchwise hast thou borne thee this night.”

 

Therewith, bidding young Cargo adieu, she with his brother went forth

from the chamber and through the ante-chamber to that shadowy stairway

where Corinius’s soldiers stood sentinel. These (as many more be

drowned in the beaker than in the ocean), not over-heedful after their

tipplings, seeing two go by together with clanking armour and knowing

Heming’s voice when he answered the challenge, made no question but

here were Corund’s sons returning to the banquet.

 

So passed he and she lightly by the sentinels. But as they fared by

the lofty corridor without the Chamber of the Moon, the doors of that

chamber opening suddenly left and right there came forth torchbearers

and minstrels two by two as in a progress, with cymbals clashing and

flutes and tambourines, so that the corridor was fulfilled with the

flare of flamboys and the din. In the midst walked the Lord Connius.

The lusty blood within him burned scarlet in all his shining face, and

made stand the veins like cords on the strong neck and arms and hands

of him. The thick curls above his brow where they strayed below his

coronal of sleeping nightshade were a-drip with sweat. Plain it was he

was in no good trim, after that shrewd knock on the head Astar that

day had given him, to withstand deep quaffings. He went between Gro

and Laxus, swaying heavily now on the arm of this one now of the

other, his right hand beating time to the music of the bridal song.

 

Mevnan whispered to Heming, “Let us bear out a good face so long as we

be alive.”

 

They stood aside, hoping to be passed by unnoticed, for retreat nor

concealment was there none. But Corinius his eye lighting on them

stopped and hailed them, catching them each by an arm, and crying,

“Heming, thou’rt drunk! Cargo, thou’rt drunk, sweet youth! ‘Tis a

damnable folly, drink as drunk as you be, and these bonny wenches I’ve

provided you. How shall I satisfy ‘em, think ye, when they come to me

with their plaints to-morn, that each must sit with a snoring

drunkard’s head in her lap the night long?”

 

Mevrian, as if she had all her part by rote, was leaned this while

heavily upon Heming, hanging her head.

 

Heming could think on nought likelier to say, than, “Truly, O

Corinius, we be sober.”

 

“Thou liest,” said Corinius. “‘Twas ever sign manifest of drunkenness

to deny it. Look you, my lords, I deny not I am drunk. Therefore is

sign manifest I am drunk, I mean, sign manifest I am sober. But the

hour calleth to other work than questioning of these high matters. Set

on!”

 

So speaking he reeled heavily against Gro, and (as if moved by some

airy influence that, whispering him of schemings afoot, yet conspired

with the wine that he had drunken to make him look all otherwhere for

treason than where it lay under his hand to discover it) gripped Gro

by the arm, saying, “Bide by me, Goblin, thou wert best. I do love

thee very discreetly, and will still hold thee by the ears, to see

thou bite me not, nor go no more a-gadding.”

 

Being by such happy fortune delivered out of this peril, Heming and

Mevrian with what prudent haste they might, and without mishap or

hindrance, got them their horses and fared forth of the main gate

between the marble hippogriffs, whose mighty forms shone above them

stark in the low beams of the rising moon. So they rode silently

through the gardens and the home-meads and thence to the wild woods

beyond, quickening now their pace to a gallop on the yielding turf. So

hard they rode, the air of the windless April night was lashed into

storm about their faces. The trample and thunder of hoofbeats and the

flying glimpses of the trees were to young Heming but an undertone to

the thunder of his blood which night and speed and that lady galloping

beside him knee to knee set a-gallop within him. But to Mevrian’s

soul, as she galloped along those woodland rides, those moonlight

glades, these things and night and the steadfast stars attuned a

heavenlier music; so that she waxed momently wondrous peaceful at

heart, as with the most firm assurance that not without the abiding

glory of Demonland must the great mutations of the world be acted, and

but for a little should their evil-willers usurp her dear brother’s

seat in Krothering.

 

They drew rein in a clearing beside a broad stretch of water. Pine-woods rose from its further edge, shadowy in the moonshine. Mevrian

rode to a little eminence that stood above the water and turned her

eyes toward Krothering. Save by her instructed and loving eye scarce

might it be seen, many miles away be-east of them, dimmed in the

obscure soft radiance under the moon. So sat she awhile looking on

golden Krothering, while her horse grazed quietly, and Heming at her

elbow held his peace, only beholding her.

 

At last, looking back and meeting his gaze, “Prince Heming,” she said,

“from this place goeth a hidden path north-about beside the firth, and

a dry road over the marsh, and a ford and an upland horse-way leadeth

into Westmark. Here and all-wheres in Demonland I might fare

blindfold. And here I’ll say farewell. My tongue is a poor orator. But

I mind me of the words of the poet where he saith:

 

My mind is like to the asbeston stone.

Which if it once be heat in flames of fire.

Denieth to becomen cold again.

 

“Be the latter issue of these wars in my great kinsmen’s victory, as I

most firmly trow it shall be, or in Gorice’s his, I shall not forget

this experiment of your nobility manifested unto me this night.”

 

But Heming, still beholding her, answered not a word. She said, “How

fares the Queen thy step-mother? Seven summers ago this summer I was

in Norvasp at Lord Corund’s wedding feast, and stood by her at the

bridal. Is she yet so fair?”

 

He answered, “Madam, as June bringeth the golden rose unto perfection,

so waxeth her beauty with the years.”

 

“She and I,” said Mevrian, “were playmates, she the elder by two

summers. Is she yet so masterful?”

 

“Madam, she is a Queen,” said Heming, nailing his very eyes on Mevnan.

Her face half