The Worm Ouroboros, E. R. Eddison [best e reader for academics txt] 📗

treatises of all the arts of peace and war, with pictures and illuminated characters. Great windows opened southward on the garden from the library, and climbing rose-trees and plants of honeysuckle and evergreen magnolia clustered about the windows. Great chairs and couches stood about the open hearth where a fire of cedar logs burned in winter time. Lamps of moonstones self-effulgent shaded with cloudy green tourmaline stood on silver stands on the table and by each couch and chair, to give light when the day was over; and all the air was sweet with the scent of dried rose-leaves kept in ancient bowls and vases of painted earthenware.

Queen Sophonisba said, “My lord, I love this best of all the fair things thou hast shown me in thy castle of Galing: here where all trouble seems a forgotten echo of an ill world left behind. Surely my heart is glad, O my friend, that thou and these other lords of Demonland shall now enjoy your goodly treasures and fair days in your dear native land in peace and quietness all your lives.”

The Lord Juss stood at the window that looked westward across the lake to the great wall of the Scarf. Some shadow of a noble melancholy hovered about his sweet dark countenance as his gaze rested on a curtain of rain that swept across the face of the mountain wall, half veiling the high rock summits. “Yet think, madam,” said he, “that we be young of years. And to strenuous minds there is an unquietude in over-quietness.”

Now he conducted her through his armouries where he kept his weapons and weapons for his fighting men and all panoply of war. There he showed her swords and spears, maces and axes and daggers, orfreyed and damascened and inlaid with jewels; byrnies and baldricks and shields; blades so keen, a hair blown against them in a wind should be parted in twain; charmed helms on which no ordinary sword would bite. And Juss said unto the Queen, “Madam, what thinkest thou of these swords and spears? For know well that these be the ladder’s rungs that we of Demonland climbed up by to that signiory and principality which now we hold over the four corners of the world.”

She answered, “O my lord, I think nobly of them. For an ill part it were while we joy in the harvest, to contemn the tools that prepared the land for it and reaped it.”

While she spoke, Juss took down from its hook a great sword with a haft bound with plaited cords of gold and silver wire and cross-hilts of latoun set with studs of amethyst and a drake’s head at either end of the hilt with crimson almandines for his eyes, and the pommel a ball of deep amber-coloured opal with red and green flashes.

“With this sword,” said he, “I went up with Gaslark to the gates of Carcë, four years gone by this summer, being clouded in my mind by the backwash of the sending of Gorice the King. With this sword I fought an hour back to back with Brandoch Daha, against Corund and Corinius and their ablest men: the greatest fight that ever I fought, and against the fearfullest odds. Witchland himself beheld us from Carcë walls through the watery mist and glare, and marvelled that two men that are born of woman could perform such deeds.”

He untied the bands of the sword and drew it singing from its sheath. “With this sword,” he said, looking lovingly along the blade, “I have overcome hundreds of mine enemies: Witches, and Ghouls, and barbarous people out of Impland and the southern seas, pirates of Esamocia and princes of the eastern main. With this sword I gat the victory in many a battle, and most glorious of all in the battle before Carcë last September. There, fighting against great Corund in the press of the fight I gave him with this sword the wound that was his death-wound.”

He put up the sword again in its sheath: held it a minute as if pondering whether or no to gird it about his waist: then slowly turned to its place on the wall and hung it up again. He carried his head high like a warhorse, keeping his gaze averted from the Queen as they went out from the great armoury in Galing; yet not so skilfully but she marked a glistening in his eye that seemed a tear standing above his lower eyelash.

That night was supper set in Lord Juss’s private chamber: a light regale, yet most sumptuous. They sat at a round table, nine in company: the three brethren, the Lords Brandoch Daha, Zigg, and Volle, the Ladies Armelline and Mevrian, and the Queen. Brightly flowed the wines of Krothering and Norvasp and blithely went the talk to outward seeming. But ever and again silence swung athwart the board, like a gray pall, till Zigg broke it with a jest, or Brandoch Daha or his sister Mevrian. The Queen felt the chill behind their merriment. The silent fits came oftener as the feast went forward, as if wine and good cheer had lost their native quality and turned fathers of black moods and gloomy meditations.

The Lord Goldry Bluszco, that till now had spoke little, spake now not at all, his proud dark face fixed in staid pensive lines of thought. Spitfire too was fallen silent, his face leaned upon his hand, his brow bent; and whiles he drank amain, and whiles he drummed his fingers on the table. The Lord Brandoch Daha leaned back in his ivory chair, sipping his wine. Very demure, through half-closed eyes, like a panther dozing in the noonday, he watched his companions at the feast. Like sunbeams chased by cloud-shadows across a mountainside in windy weather, the lights of humorous enjoyment played across his face.

The Queen said, “O my lords, you have promised me I should hear the full tale of your wars in Impland and the Impland seas,