Zimiamvia: A Trilogy

by E R Eddison

  'Unmannered dog,' said the Duke, 'fall to. And the foul word you spoke absolves me utterly.'

  'Ay, fall to foinery: your trade, they tell me,' said Morville as they crossed blades.

  They fought in silence: the most desperate foins, cross-blows, stoccata, imbroccata, rinverso,overthwart pricks, thrusts, breaking of thrusts: sometimes closes and grips, striking with the hilts. It was well seen that each was a master in that art: Morville, may be, of the deeper grounding, but fighting as now with a less cool resolution than the Duke's and once or twice coming in with so much madness with his full career upon the body, that past belief it was how he escaped the Duke's most deadly montanto. At last the Duke, forcing him back against the table, beat him from his best ward, mastered his weapon and, their hilts being locked now, by main strength of wrist broke it from his hand. Morville took a great fall, clean over the table backwards, on his ear and left shoulder, and lay like one dead. His sword was shot far across the room: Vandermast picked it up, gave it into the hand of the Duke. In the same moment they were ware of the Lady Fiorinda standing in that doorway.

  In silence for a breath or two Barganax beheld her so stand, her nightgown of orange-colour satin fastened about her waist with a chain of pomanders and ambers and beads of pearl. Her hair, let down, untressed, freed of pins and fastenings, reached, as it had been her mantle imperial woven of all mists and stars and unpathed black darknesses of the heart of night, almost to her ankle. He said, 'When he comes to, shall it go on till I kill him, madam? or shall I let him be?'

  There was a glitter in her green eyes as if, from behind their careless outwardness of self-savouring languorous disdain, suddenly a lion's eyes had glared out, red, fiery, and hollow. 'Your grace were as good do the one as the other. Commonly, I am told, you were the death of any that angered you.' The glassy coldness of her face and of her voice was like the ice-sheathes, finger-thick, cold and transparent as glass, that enclose the live twigs and buds after a frozen thaw in winter. 'If his neck be not broke already. It concerns not me,' she said.

  'Why, it concerns you solely,' said the Duke. 'Without your ladyship, where were question of choice?' Vandermast watched his master's eagle gaze, fixed upon that lady, a mariner's upon the cynosure, out of mountainous seas: watched her most sphinxian, waiting, ironic, uncommunicative, nothing-answering smile. 'You and I,' said the Duke at last, and fetched a deep breath: ‘we are not much unequals.'

  ‘No, my friend. We are not much unequals.'

  And now the Lord Morville, coming to, looked at her standing in such sort in that unaccustomed doorway: looked at Duke Barganax. It was as if the injuries he was about to utter shrivelled between his lips. The Duke held Morville's sword in his left hand: offered it him hilt-foremost. 'Were you in my shoes, I make no doubt you'd a finished me on the floor then. May be I had been wiser do the like with you, but my way is not your way. We will now leave you and depart to Memison. Shortly there shall be set on foot a suit for a divorce to be had by the law betwixt you. And remember, I am a sure discharger of my debts to the uttermost. If you shall blab abroad, as vilely you have spoken tonight, one word against her ladyship, by all the great masters of Hell I swear 1’11 kill you.’

  'Keep it,' said Morville, refusing his sword again. 'From you I'll take nothing but your life. And the same of you,' he said to Fiorinda: then, as if afeared of her face, strode hastily from the gallery.

  Anthea, yet in her lynx dress, had marked these proceedings from a corner, herself unobserved. She now upon velvet paws, noiseless as a shadow, still unobserved, stole from the gallery on the track of Morville.

  Barganax put up his sword. 'O over-dearest Mistress of Mistresses and Queen of Queens,' he said, ‘was that rightly handled?' But that Dark Lady but only smiled, as well She knows how to do when She will judge without appeal.

  They saw now, through those western windows, how the whole wide champaign and wooded hills and bight of the lake, Memison upon its rock-throne, and the swift-rushing clouds of dawn, threw back the lovely lights and new-washed wide-eyed pure colours of the morning. And the scents and sounds of morning danced through the high gallery from floor to shadowy ceiling: a coolness and a freshness that held intoxications more potent than wine's. From those windows Barganax turned to her: from similitude to the self-substantial reality: her who in her alone unique person, through some uncircumscribable adorableness, seemed to complete and make up morning and evening and night besides and whatsoever is or has been or shall be desirable, were it in earth or heaven. 'It is almost clear dawn,' he said, and her eye-beams answered, 'Almost.'

  'And morning,' said Barganax, 'were in proof the sweet of the night, might we but take upon hand to prove it.'

  'Your grace's archery,' said that lady, and the mockery in each successive lazy word set on her lips new snares of honey and thorns, 'never, I find, roves far from the mark you should level at. And indeed tonight for the once I truly think you have perhaps deserved to be humoured.'

  That learned doctor, alone now at the window, they being departed, abode in his meditation. 'But where have you been?' he said, aware suddenly, after a long time, of Mistress Anthea a little side hand of him, very demure and morning-cool in her birch-tree kirtle. 'I had forgot you, and there's a bad-cat look in your eyes. What have you been eating? What have you done?'

  ‘I’ve been but gathering news,' answered she, avoiding his gaze. 'Nought seems newer than this of Lord Morville, eat up with wild animals in the west woods they say.'

  For a minute Doctor Vandermast regarded her in silence: her Greek features, so passionless, and so chill: her white skin, nails sharpened to claws, strong fierce milk-white teeth; and her yellow eyes, a little horrible now as though fires from the under-skies had but just died down in them. 'Could you not learn by example of the Duke, having beheld him win a man's greatest victory, which is by feeling of his power but not using it?'

  'I am not a man,' answered she. 'It was a most needful act. And,' she said, licking her lips and looking at her fingernails, ‘I won't be blamed.'

  Vandermast was silent. 'Well.' he said at length, 'I, for one at least, will not blame you over much.'

  XIII

  Short Circuit

  IT WAS EASTER in England, the fifth year after, as in this world we reckon them: nineteen hundred and nineteen. The sun's limb, flashing suddenly from behind the shoulder of Illgill Head, shot a dazzle of white light through the french window of the breakfast-room at Nether Wastdale and into Lessingham's eyes as, porridge-plate in hand, he came from the sideboard to his place at the table. Patterned to squares by the window-panes the light flooded the white table-cloth: danced upon silver, glowed warm through translucent yellow trumpets and green leaves of the wild daffodils which filled a great Venetian bowl in the table's centre. On the left, windows, with their lower sashes thrown up, widely let in the morning air and the view up the lake north-eastwards, of Gable, with outlines as of a wave-crest in the instant of breaking struck to stone, framed between severities of headlong scree-clad mountain sides. White clouds, blown to spidery streaks and flying dappled flecks, radiated, like the ribs and feathers of a fan, upwards from the sun against the stainless blue. Country noises, bleating of lambs, a cock crowing, a dog's bark, a cock pheasant's raucous rattling squawk, broke now and again the stillness which listened to, was never a silence but a stream of subdued sound: thin bird-voices, under-tones of water running over stones. Here in the room the fire crackled merrily with a smell of wood burning. Breakfast-smells, moving in a free fugato of fried Cumberland ham,

  kidneys, buttered eggs, devilled chicken-legs, steaming hot milk and the fragrancies of tea and coffee and new-made toast, came from the sideboard, where two yard-long 'sluggard's friends' of burnished copper kept warm these things and the piles of hot plates for helping them.

  No one else was down yet. Lessingham added first the salt then the sugar to his porridge, and was now drowning all with a rising ocean of cream, when Mary, still in her dark-green riding-habit, p
attered on the glass of the garden door to be let in. 'Though why all round the house and in at the window,' he said, unbolting, opening, and standing aside to let her by, 'when nature provided a door from the hall—'

  'Hungry. Want feeding.' The Terpsichorean lilt in her step as she crossed the threshold smoothed itself to a more level, more swan-maiden motion. 'Look at the sun on those daffies!' she said, pausing over them a moment on her way to the sideboard. 'And I saw the tree-creeper out there on the big ash. It doesn't ever go up and down the tree without little screams.' As if in such mirrors the springs should be looked for of such an April morning and its pied and airy loveliness: a loveliness unfolding of itself from within, radiant ever outwards, with clear morning lids uplifted upon all but itself alone, and all eyes drawn to it, taking light from its light. As if in such broken mirrors, sooner than in Mary.

  'I suppose it's the touchstone of genius,' Lessingham said, while he lifted the covers one by one to show her what was underneath.

  "A scrappet of ham: just half of that littlest slab,' she said, pointing with her finger. 'And scrambled eggs.— What is?'

  He helped the dishes while Mary held out her plate. To do what no normal person ever dreamed of doing, but do it just so; so that, soon as see it, they think: How on earth could anyone have dreamt of doing it differently!'

  'Wanted just to see,' she said: 'see how you look from outside. Where are the others?'

  'Like Sardanapalus, in bed I suppose.'

  'Bed! How people can! this time of year.'

  'I'm not so sure about that. I seem to remember occasions—'

  'O well, that's different.—What are you thinking about?' she said, watching him with eyes in which the question reposed itself like the shimmer of the sun on rippled water, half bantering half serene, as they took their seats at the table.

  'Memories. And you, Senorita?'

  'Thinking.' The diamonds and emeralds blazed and slept again on her ring as she transfixed with her fork a little piece of buttered egg, applying to the action as much deliberation of raised eyebrows and exquisite precision of touch as an artist might bring to bear upon some last and crucial detail. 'Thinking of you and your methods.'

  They went on with their breakfasts in silence. After a while Lessingham said, out of the blue, 'Are you coming abroad with me?'

  'Abroad?'

  'Get away from it all for six months. Get into step again.'

  Mary opened her eyes wide and nodded three times. 'Yes, I am. When?'

  'The sooner the better. Tomorrow. Tuesday. Wednesday.'

  'Very well.'

  'Where shall we go?' he said, keeping up the game. 'South America?' Glow-worm caves I'd like to have a look for, somewhere at the back of beyond in New Zealand? Iceland? a bit too early in the year, perhaps, for Iceland. What would you like? The world's free again, and we're free. Better choose. Anywhere except German East or France.'

  'Some island?'

  The Marquesas? We might found a kingdom in the Marquesas. I dare say the French Government are fond enough of me to stretch a point. Freehold, with powers of life and death. I king: you queen. Jim might be lord chamberlain: Anne second lady in the land, with title of princess in her own right: Charles, lord high admiral, I’ll put Milcrest on to dig out the details after breakfast'

  ‘Better be quick, or someone will find another job for you before we can get off. We've got to make up for these missed years.'

  'I was thinking just now,' said Lessingham: 'glad my dear knew the Dolomites before the rot set in. Five years ago this summer, that last time. One moment it seems a generation: another way about five minutes.'

  'And you've only been home about five days. And tomorrow, it's Rob's fourth birthday.'

  Lady Bremmerdale came in from the hall. 'Good morning, Mary,’ kissing her from behind: 'good morning, Edward. No, no, don't bother: ‘I’ll help myself. How long have you folks been up?'

  'Sunrise,' said Mary.

  'O come.'

  'Pretty nearly.'

  ‘Rode over to Wastdale Head,' said Lessingham. ‘Early service?' ‘Back to traditions.'

  Anne sat down. 'And here's my god-daughter.'

  Janet, on her best behaviour, embraced each in turn, and ensconced herself upon Anne's knee. 'I had scrambly eggs for my breakfast too. Do you know, auntie, I'd a most nasty dream. All about the most horrible, but alive, sort of wuffy snakes. And a huge great dragon: much bigger nor a house. And it had a face rather like a camel.'

  'Had it a long neck?' said Anne.

  ‘No. It was much more thick. A 'normous great green thing.'

  Lessingham said, 'What did you do with it?' Tried to eat it up.'

  'And what did it do with you?’ Janet was silent.

  'Anyhow, you did quite right. Always eat them up. I always do. They can't possibly hurt you then.'

  'Good morning everybody,' said Fanny Chedisford, very smart in her new grey tweed. 'Last as usual? Nol no Charles yet. Saved again.'

  Hty a short length,' said Charles Bremmerdale. ‘My dear Mary, I apologize.'

  'But you know Jim's poem: "Late for breakfast: shows your sense", and so on? a strict rule in this household.'

  Janet had a piece of paper which all the time she kept on folding and unfolding. 'Muwie, I've writed a story,' she said. 'It's for Rob's happy birthday present Shall I show it Father first?'

  'Yes, I should,' said Mary.

  Janet got down: brought it to Lessingham. 'Would you like to read me my story, Father? Will you read it aloud to me, please? Just you and me?'

  He received it, very conspiratorially, and read it in a whisper, his cheek against hers:

  'The Kitchen.—The cat has a baby kitten and the kitten is three weeks old. The parrot is grey with a red tail. "Oh dear" said the parrot. "I do wish cook wasn't out. "We are not sorry" said the cat and the kitten.— Tramp! tramp! tramp! "The cook" whispered the cat. "Bother" said the kitten. In came the cook. She had a large bundle in her hand. Suddenly, the cat got her temper up. She rushed at the parrots cage and tried to hurt the cook. At last she managed to drive the cook out of the kitchen. "Thank goodness" said the kitten. "Last year" said the cat. "I had six kittens, but the fool of a cook drowned them." "She really is the limit" said the kitten. "I tell you what" said the cat. "I'll eat the parrot of I can get him. Then the cat prounced on the parrot's cage got the door open and eat it.—The End.

  That's the stuff,' he said.

  'Do you like it? really?'

  ‘Yes, I like it,' he said, going over it again as if enjoying the after-taste of some nice dish.

  'Do you truly, Father? Really and truly you do?'

  'I like it There's style about it.'

  She laughed with pleasure. 'What's that mean?'

  ‘Never you mind.' He rang the bell with his foot. ‘I like the way they talk and the way they do things. And I like the finish. You go on writing like that, and you'll end somewhere between Emily Bronte and Joseph Conrad when you're grown up: a twentieth century Sappho.'

  ‘Who's Emily?'

  Tell Mr. Milcrest I want to see him,' he said to the servant: then to Janet, ‘No, not that Emily. A girl who wrote a story; and poems. Go on now, and read that to Sheila while we finish breakfast. Nothing from the post office, I suppose?' he said to the secretary.

  ‘No, sir, nothing.'

  ‘You're satisfied your arrangements will work properly in case anything should come?' ‘Absolutely.'

  ‘Good. Easter Day, just the moment they'd choose for some hurroosh. I'll be about the grounds all day, in case. Any word from Snittlegarth?'

  ‘Yes, sir, I’ve just been on the phone. Mr. Eric got your letter last night. There are some matters he's anxious to talk over with you. He's riding over: started six o'clock this morning, and hoped to be with you before noon.'

  It'll certainly have to be the Marquesas, at this rate,' Lessingham said, with a comic look at Mary. Then to Milcrest 'Come in to the library, Jack: one or two things I want seen to.' He left the room, Milc
rest following.

  ‘Eric. O my God,' said Bremmerdale sotto voce. His wife smiled at this undisguised feeling on the subject of her eldest brother.

  Mary smiled too. ‘Never mind, Charles. You and I will flee together.—Dear, will you feed these creatures and yourself,' she said to Anne. 'Ring for anything you want.' She collected Janet from the hearthrug and departed.

  Charles shook his head. 'Edward never seems to get a "let-up": how he goes on at this rate heaven knows I don't believe, until now, he's had four days together to call his own since the war started.'

  Anne said, 'Quite sure he hasn't. But Edward is Edward.'

  'I shouldn't be surprised if they sent him off to be the military governor again of one of these comic countries somewhere, before long. He'd like that.'

  'I never remember names,' said Fanny. 'Where was it he issued stamps with his own head on them, and the Foreign Office recalled him for exceeding his instructions?'

  'He always will exceed instructions,' said Charles. 'And the more honour to him for that. I only hope he won't kill himself with overwork before he's done.'

  Anne said, 'We Lessinghams take quite a lot of killing.'

  The world, at three hundred yard's range in all directions, was apprised of Eric Lessingham's arrival by the carrying-power of his voice. Not that it was a specially loud voice, but there was in it the timbre of sounding brass; so that his inquiry, in ordinary tones at the front door, for Lady Mary, reverberated past the long west wing round to the terraces above the river, causing a thrush there to drop her worm and take to flight. Despite crooked passages and double doors, Lessingham heard it plainly in the library. At the home farm the geese screamed in the paddock. Eastward in the water-gardens where, amid drifts of wild daffodil and water-blobs, the lake gives birth to the river Irt, Mary's eyebrows lifted in faint amusement and Charles Bremmerdale invoked his Maker.