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

thou our general,’ he took me aside to speak with him; because he said he would take further judgement of me before he would consent in so great a matter. And I, seeing deadly danger in these disorders, and thinking that there only lay our safety if he should have command who was both a soldier and whose mind was bent to high attempts and noble enterprises, did egg him forward to accept it. So that he, albeit unwilling, said yea to them at last. Which all applauded; and Corsus said nought against it, being too sleepy-sodden as we thought with drunkenness to speak or move.

“So for that night we went to bed. But in the morn, O King, was a great clamour betimes in the main court in Owlswick. And I, running forth in my shirt in the misty gray of dawn, beheld Corsus standing forth in a gallery before Gallandus’s lodgings that were in an upper chamber. He was naked to the waist, his hairy breast and arms to the armpits clotted and a-drip with blood, and in his hands two bloody daggers. He cried in a great voice, ‘Treason in the camp, but I have scotched it. He that will have Gallandus to his general, come up and I shall mix his blood with his and make them familiar.’ ”

By then had the King drawn on his silken hose, and a clean silken shirt, and was about lacing his black doublet trimmed with diamonds. “Thou tellest me,” said he, “two faults committed by Corsus. That first he lost me a battle and nigh half his men, and next did murther Gallandus in a spleen against him when he would have amended this.”

“Killing Gallandus in his sleep,” said Gro, “and sending him from the shade into the house of darkness.”

“Well,” said the King, “there be two days in every month when whatever is begun will never reach completion. And I think it was on such a day he did execute his purpose upon Gallandus.”

“The whole camp,” said Lord Gro, “is up in a mutiny against him, being marvellously offended at the murther of so worthy a man in arms. Yet durst they not openly go against him; for his veterans guard his person, and he hath let slice the guts out of some dozen or more that were foremost in murmuring at him, so that the rest are afeared to make open rebellion. I tell you, O King, your army of Demonland is in great danger and peril. Spitfire sitteth down before Owlswick in mickle strength, and there is no expectation that we shall hold out long without supply of men. There is danger too lest Corsus do some desperate act. I see not how, with so mutinous an army as his, he can dare to attempt anything at all. Yet hath he his ears filled with the continual sound of reputation, and the contempt which will be spread to the disgrace of him if he repair not soon his fault on the Rapes of Brima. It is thought that the Demons have no ships, and Laxus commandeth the sea. Yet hard it is to make any going between betwixt the fleet and Owlswick, and there be many goodly harbours and places for building of ships in Demonland. If they can stop our relieving of Corsus, and prevent Laxus with a fleet at spring, may be we shall be driven to a great calamity.”

“How camest thou off?” said the King.

“O King,” answered Lord Gro, “after this murther in Owlswick I did daily fear a fig or a knife, so for mine own health and Witchland’s devised all the ways I could to come away. And gat at last to the fleet by stealth and there took rede with Laxus, who is most hot upon Corsus for this ill deed of his, whereby all our hopes may end in smoke, and prayed me come to you for him as for myself and for all true hearts of Witchland that do seek your greatness, O King, and not decay, that you might send them succour ere all be shent. For surely in Corsus some wild distraction hath overturned his old condition and spilt the goodness you once did know in him. His luck hath gone from him, and he is now one that would fall on his back and break his nose. I pray you strike, ere Fate strike first and strike us into the hazard.”

“Tush!” said the King. “Do not lift me before I fall. ’Tis supper time. Attend me to the banquet.”

By now was Gorice the King in full festival attire, with his doublet of black tiffany slashed with black velvet and broidered o’er with diamonds, black velvet hose cross-gartered with silver-spangled bands of silk, and a great black bearskin mantle and collar of ponderous gold. The iron crown was on his head. He took down from his chamber wall, as they went by, a sword hafted of blue steel with a pommel of bloodstone carved like a dead man’s skull. This he bare naked in his hand, and they came into the banquet hall.

They that were there rose to their feet in silence, gazing expectant on the King where he stood between the pillars of the door with that sharp sword held on high, and the jewelled crab of Witchland ablaze above his brow. But most they marked his eyes. Surely the light in the eyes of the King under his beetle brows was like a light from the under-skies shed upward from the pit of hell.

He said no word, but with a gesture beckoned Corinius. Corinius stood up and came to the King, slowly, as a nightwalker, obedient to that dread gaze. His cloak of sky-blue silk was flung back from his shoulders. His chest, broad as a bull’s, swelled beneath the shining silver scales of his byrnie, that was short-sleeved, leaving his strong arms bare to view with golden rings about the wrists. Proudly he stood