Mistress of mistresses

by E R Eddison

  XV

  Rialmar Vindemiatrix

  curbing of the hippogriff a queen fancy-free ride in the forest: sudden light vandermast's wayside garden the house of peace naiad and dryad and oread 'sparkling-throned heavenly aphrodite' spring-scents of ambremerine whirlpool and a new stillness '. . . with an immortal goddess: not clearly knowing' 'swift-flying doves to draw you' meditation among nymphs by firelight the rose and the adamant summer night: antiope autumn dusk: the storing and the brooding.

  Queen Antiope proclaimed for Michaelmas day a day's delight and pleasure, to ride a-hawking. That was a brisk sweet autumn morning. Lessingham, booted and ready at his window, sniffed the air. Amaury came in: bade him good morrow. 'Well,' said Lessingham to that reproving eye: 'what now?' Amaury took a looking-glass from the wall and held it for him.

  'Is there a smudge on my nose? Is my beard awry?' He leaned to survey himself with a mock solicitudeness.

  Amaury set down the glass. 'O think not I care a flea, though old Bodenay and a dozen more of 'em shall be killed right out, with your denying them all respite and very sleep. But, for your own self—'

  'Will you count how many shirts I have sweat at tennis this week?'

  Tennis! Six weeks now, and the last three I think you're stark mad,' said Amaury. 'A half-year's business thrust into twenty days: the whole engine and governance of the Queen's strength in the north here picked in pieces and put together good and new: a great new body of intelligencers thrown abroad for a watch on Akkama, till now so ill neglected: the town in act to be stocked 'gainst a twelve months' siege if need were: works set in hand to make sure all defences: all things viewed, all put upon examination: the Constable and half the officers here cashiered: three or four heads ta'en off: every man else, by your own sole doing, manned and tamed to your fist,—'

  'Well,' said Lessingham, 'we should think the soul was never put into the body to stand still.' He took his hat. 'He that could dine with the smoke of roast meat, Amaury, should he not soon be rich? When I've set all in order: a week or two now: then off with my commission, throw it by and we'll begone overseas.'

  Amaury followed him through the door.

  Bright sun shone on Rialmar fair and beautifully as Jhey rode down through the market-place. By the Quiren Way they rode, and so to the old town gate, and so out, and so, winding steeply down the shoulder of that great hill, south-about into the levels of Revarm. Orvald and Tyarchus led, with the guard of honour; then the Queen in her close-bodied green riding-habit trimmed with pearls: Anamnestra, Zenianthe, Paphirrhoe: Amaury: the Lord Bosra, new taken for Constable in Rialmar: accipitraries, seven or eight, with spaniels and red setting-dogs; and, to bring up the rear, with a tartaret haggard hooded on his fist, Lessingham upon Madda-lena, deep in counsel with the old knight marshal.

  The morning they spent in the open river-meads, flying at wildfowl. The river, meandering in mighty curves a mile and more this way and that way, ran shallow upon great widths of shingle; ever now and again they forded it with a plashing and a clank of hooves among shifting stones. The dogs must swim oft at these crossings, but nowhere was it deeper than wet the horses' bellies. Out of the north-east the wind blew sharp from the mountains, making sport difficult. The sun in a blue sky shone on rough blue waves of the river and on pale swifter waves of wind-swept grass. An hour past midday they rode up through lava, picking a way among bosses and ridges of it as among stooks in a cornfield before harvest home, and so by wide sloping stretches of black sand, a country that seemed made of coal-dust, to a grassy saddle between two smooth cratered hills. Here, sheltered from the wind by the breast of the hill above them, they halted to eat a little and take their ease.

  'What means your highness to do this afternoon?' asked Tyarchus. 'Turn back? or on over the hause and ride races on the flats there?'

  'My Lord Tyarchus,' said Zenianthe, 'blindfold we'd know you! Your highness were best let him have his way. His eyas flew ill this morning, so the sport's suddenly out of fashion.'

  'Be kind to him,' said the Queen. "Twas so God made him.' -

  'And that's why there's nought he hateth worse in the world,' said the princess, 'than dance, for instance.'

  'Now I think on't,' said the Queen: 'danced not one single measure upon my birthday.'

  'Truth is,' said Tyarchus, ‘I am somewhat nice in matter of whom I shall dance withal.'

  Zenianthe laughed. 'True. For you came first to me. Showed knowledge, if not judgement.'

  'O Zenianthe, and would you not dance with him?' said the Queen.

  'Bade him try Myrilla first. So as, if he trod not upon her dress, as 'pon yours, cousin, a year ago—'

  'That's unfair,' said Tyarchus. 'Her highness had forgot and forgiven.'

  Antiope seemed to have settled with this talk to a yet sweeter companionship with the green earth where she sat; and not now in her eyes only, but most subtly in all her frame and pose as she rested there, was a footing it as of little mocking faunish things, round and round, in a gaiety too smooth and too swift for eye to follow. 'Most unfair,' she said. 'To make amends, ought I dance with you myself to-night?'

  'Madam, I take that most kindly.'

  'But in a dress,' said she, 'without a train.' They laughed. 'But I was but thinking. No; may be, all for all, better it were you, cousin, danced with him.'

  'That,' said Zenianthe, 'I take most unkindly.'

  'A penance for you', replied the Queen, 'for your un-kindness to him.'

  'A penance?' Tyarchus turned to the princess. 'Shall's make friends then, as both offended?'

  'I know the sure way to content him,' said Lessingham. 'Do him that favour as to let him try this new jennet of his 'gainst your grace's Tessa.'

  'And to take down his pride 'pon the same motion,' said Zenianthe.

  'Tessa?' said Tyarchus; 'was not she bred in the great horse-lands beyond the Zenner, of that race and stock your highness's father (upon whom be peace) so cherished and increased there, stablished since generations in that good land, and 'longeth now to Duke Barganax? Well, if I win, shall I have her?'

  'No,' said the Queen, laughing at him across her fingers that played bob together. 'If you win, you shall have leave not to dance: neither me nor Zenianthe.'

  'A pretty forfeit! There you stand both to gain.'

  'You too; for do you not hate to dance? What could be fairer?'

  'If your grace must be answered,—thus then: choice to dance with neither or with both.'

  'My Lord Lessingham,' the Queen said, rising, and all rose with her; 'have you not your mare of that same breed? and shall she rest attemptless?'

  Lessingham laughed with his eyes. 'So your serene highness rode not in the race, though mine be seven year old, I doubt not mounted on her to outride any that treads on four pasterns. But let me remember that those who will eat cherries with great princes shall have their eyes dasht out with the stones. We low subjects—'

  'No excuses,' said the Queen. 'I'll stake a jewel upon it. Come, cousin,' to Zenianthe: 'you and I; Lessingham, Orvald, Amaury, Tyarchus: that's six, upon well-breathed horses.'

  With that, they took saddle again and rode on north, over the hause and so down into woodlands of silver birch with open turfy stretches, and among the grass pallid drifts of the autumn crocus. Where the glade ran wide before them near on a mile without bend, those six took station. After some justling and curvetting, Paphirrhoe with a wave of a white handkercher gave them the start. As they galloped, now in broad sunshine, now through airs dappled with lights and shadows, wet earth-scents flew. Rabbits that washed their faces or nibbled among the grass fled left and right to the shelter of bramble or hazel-coppice or birch-wood. Grey silver in the sun were the trunks and branches, and the twigs red as it had been copper glowing against the blue. At a mile the Queen led, outgalloping Tyarchus for all his spurring. The forest ride swung west now, and after a while south-westwards, into the sun, and began to fall gently away towards a bottom of green grass. Lessingham, for the sun's glory
in his eyes, scarce could see. He leaned forward, whispered Maddalena, touched her neck: in a burst of speed she carried him past Tyarchus. As by conduct of some star he rode now: a timeless chase, wherein he lost at length all wareness save of his own riding that seemed now to outswift the wind; and of Antiope ahead, on her black mare.

  At a three lanes' end she drew rein. The black mare stood with head down and with heaving and smoking flanks. Lessingham too drew rein. Maddalena herself was breathed and weary: she had carried the heavier load. On either hand were wide billowing tracts of whinbushes in full flower, yellow, of a sharp, stinging scent. On either hand upon the edges, of the wood, silver birches in their livery of autumn swayed in the bright air.

  'We have outridden them all,' Antiope said, a little breathless yet with hard riding, as she turned in the saddle to Lessingham who was halted now within hand-reach. "Las, and I have ridden my hair loose. Will you hold my reins while I see to it?'

  She dropped reins: pulled off her gloves: began gathering with her fingers the coil of hair which, heavy, pythonlike, of the sheen of palest mountain gold, was fallen at her neck. Lessingham made no answer, neither moved. This that he looked on was become suddenly a thing to darken sight and shake the stability of nature. The wind was on that sudden fallen, and no breath stirred. On the stillness came a flutter of wings, of a wood-pigeon flapping down unseen among tree-tops. The Queen looked round into Lessingham's face. The stillness laid its finger upon her too, even to the holding in of breath. Like a lute-string strained in an air too thin to carry sound, the silence trembled. The Queen parted her lips, but no voice came.

  At a grating of hinges upon the left, Lessingham swung round in his saddle to behold, with eyes startled as out of sleep and dreams, a wicket gate that opened in a low red brick wall smothered all over with dark red climbing roses. A garden close was within that gate, sweet with a hundred smells and colours of flowers, and beyond the garden a low-built old timbered house in measurable good reparations, straw-thatched, and with slender chimneys of hrickwork and long low windows. A vine hung the porch with green leaves and pendulous black clusters. The wall on either hand betwixt porch and window, besides all the length betwixt the windows of the ground-floor and of the bedchambers above these, was a ripening-place for apricocks and pears and peaches trained orderly against the wall; and the slant rays of the sun turned the hanging fruits to gold, sending long shadows of them sideways on the wall, deep purple shadows against the warm and ruddy hues of the brickwork. The decline of postmeridian brought coolness to the autumn air. Homing doves rested pink feet on the roof-ridge. A smell of wood-smoke came from the house. And, cap in hand upon the top step of three that led down from that wicket gate, there stood to greet them, as bidding welcome to expected guests, that same logical doctor, last seen by Lessingham in the far southlands of Zayana. Well past all mistaking Lessingham knew him: knew besides the little cat, white as new snow, that rubbed head against the skirt of that old man's gaberdine and looked ever with blue eyes upon Antiope. The sun's splendour swung at mid-evening's height above great oak-woods. These, and a high upland training across the north behind the house, shut out all distances; not a birch was to be seen; no whins flaunted yellow flowers; no galloping hoof drew near. Only Tessa and Maddalena munched the wayside grass: from the roof came the turtle dove's soft complaint: from the woodside a lowing of cattle sounded, and nearer at hand a babble of running water. Upon the left, to the right of the sun, a holm-oak upreared its statuesque magnificence of bough and foliage, nearly black, but with a stir of radiance upon it like a scattering of star-dust. Doctor Vandermast was saying to Antiope, watching her face the while with most searching gaze, 'I hope, madam, that in these particularities I have nothing forgot. I hope you shall find all perfect even as your ladyship gave in charge at my depart.'

  'Ladyship? Give in charge?' she said, looking on him and on this new scene with the look of one whose senses, fresh wakened out of sleep, stand doubtful amid things of waking knowledge and things of dream. 'Nay, you mistake, sir. And yet—'

  Vandermast came down the steps: put into her hands that little cat. It purred and snuggled its face into the warm between arm and bosom. 'I have been here before,' she said, still in a slow wonder. 'That is most certain. And this learned man I have known. But when, and where—'

  The eyes of that Vandermast, watching her gaze about her and turn in the end, with a lovely lost abandoning of the riddle, to Lessingham, were of a lynx-like awareness. And there stirred in them a queer, half humorous look, as of a mind that pleasantly chews the cud of its knowledge while it beholds the sweet comedy of others led in a maze. 'If I might humbly counsel your noble grace and excellent highness,' said he, 'vex not your mind with un-entangling of perplexities, nor with no back-reckonings. Please to dismount you and come now in to your summer-house, on purpose trimmed up for you. And you, my Lord Lessingham, to decide all doubts be ruled by me. For I say unto you, it is a short ride hither from Rialmar but, to-night, a far ride back. So as not to-night, no not in ten nights' riding could you come to Rialmar on your swift mare. Wherefore, settle your heart, my lord, and be patient. Pray you come in.'

  Lessingham looked at Antiope. Her eyes said yes. He leaped from the saddle: gave her his hand. Her hand in his was an imponderable thing: a cool flame, a delicious-ness of mellifluous flowers; her coming down, a motion to convince the sea-swallow of too dull a grace, outpara-goned by hers. Vandermast swung back the gate: Lessingham looked round: 'What of the horses?'

  Vandermast smiled and answered, 'They will not stray: no horse strayeth here.'

  'Lip-wisdom,' said Lessingham, and set about taking off of saddles and bridles. 'It is my way, on the road, to see her watered and fed ere I feed myself, not leave her to horse-boys. And I'll the same for her grace's.'

  'Here', answered that old man, 'is water. And, for the grass of this wayside, 'tis of. a singular virtue. Pastures of earth renew but the blood and animal spirits: but this of mine being grazed upon turneth in the vitals not to blood but ichor.'

  As one expressed with sleep, Lessingham stared upon him. But Vandermast, with that close smile, turned to Antiope. 'As your ladyship hath cited to me ere this, the Poetess's words: —Gold is pure of rust." '

  Quite lost, yet too deeply taken with the sweetness of the place to seek answers, she shook her head. Without more words, they entered; and before them went that learn'd philosopher between lupins, blue and yellow, and flaming lychnis, roses and speckled lilies and lavender and rosemary and sweet thyme and pink and white anemones, up the paven walk.

  Dim was the low-ceilinged hall that now they entered from that bright garden: to the left a table of pale oak shining with age ran long and narrow under the southern windows, and places laid there for supper, and chairs with cushions of dark velvet, and at the near end an armful of white roses in a bowl of crystal. Beams, smoked black with age, ribbed the ceiling: a "fire burned of logs under a great open chimney over against the door with a settle before it and deep chairs for ease. In the western end of that hall a window opened, and another, lesser, to the left of the fire. In the corner between was some instrument of music, a spinet or clavichord, and a stool to sit and play. There were pictures hung on the walls, and thick brocaded curtains drawn back between the windows. A bare oaken staircase to the right of the fire led to the upper chambers.

  'If your ladyship would shift your riding-clothes before supper?' said the doctor. 'And you, my lord? For for you besides there is a chamber I have prepared you, looking west, but your ladyship's south and east.' Lessingham heard, when the Queen was gone up, little cries of wonderment from above-stairs: past all mistaking, Zenianthe's voice laughing and joying with Antiope. He reached out a hand towards the fire: felt its warmth; then walked to the clavichord, opened the laburnum-wood lid and let his finger wander on the keys. The thin blade-like sweetness of the strings sprang on the air and there lay stretched, as if the first hueless streaks of a dawn which comes up seaward without wind should lie listen
ing to their own grey stillness. He turned and was face to face with Vandermast. They looked each in the other's eye for a little without speaking. Then Lessingham said with a tartness on his tongue, 'And you, signior, with your so much outward submissiveness but, (or I sadly misjudge), without that inward awfulness 'tshould in honesty proceed from: What in truth are you?'

  ‘I am', answered he, 'even as your excellence: a two-legged living creature, gressible, unfeathered. Will you that I conduct you to your chamber?'

  Lessingham watched him for a moment through his eyelashes; then, with a slow smile, 'If you please,' he said. 'And what house is this?' he said, when they were come up, and he beheld the fair chamber and, in a bedazzlement, his own clothes and gear laid out ready upon chest and bed.

  'By your leave,' said the learned doctor, fetching a bootjack; 'not to weight our presence with servants for the while, suffer me help your excellence off with your boots.' Lessingham sat down: voluptuous deep cushions of sunset-coloured silk boiled up about him like swelling water-waves. He gave a leg to Vandermast. 'Well, it is, as I conceit it, the house of peace,' said that old man. 'And some would think this strange, that to this house should your lordship choose to come, that have the renown of a very thunder-smith and a carver in the wake of armipo-tent Ares.'

  'It is part of your wisdom, I see,' said Lessingham: 'for a hot man cool drink.'

  When they were come down again and, by invitation of their host, sat at board for supper, it was with strange company and strange household folk to change the plates. The sun had set. All down the supper-table candles were burning, and on tables and chests besides and on sconces of silver on the walls. Antiope had her place in the table's midst, facing the room and the firelight; over against her sat the other ladies: upon her right hand, Doctor Vandermast; upon her left, one whose face was hard to see, but his eyes seemed large past nature and Lessingham noted of his ears that they were sharp-pricked and hairy. Of extreme litheness and soft grace was every movement he made: pricking of ears, turning of the head or shoulders, reaching hands slender and fieldish as Campaspe's own to plate or winecup. And that was seen of his hands that they were furred or hairy, and the nails on the delicate fingers dark like tortoise-shell. Still would he be speaking whisper-talk in the Queen's ear, and ever, as she gave ear to that whispering, would a thoughtful cast overtake her countenance, as if with the swoop of some winged thing that checked and hung hovering in the sun-path of her thought; and ever, as this befell, would her glance meet Lessingham's.