The Zimiamvia Trilogy

by E R Eddison

  ‘Two?’ said Mevrian. ‘There’s safety yet in numbers. Which be they?’

  ‘Highness, they be tall and slim of body. They be black-advised. They bear them discreet as dormice, and most commendably sober.’

  Mevrian asked, ‘Is it the Lord Gro? Hath he a great black beard, much curled and perfumed?’

  ‘Highness, I marked not that either weareth a beard,’ said the woman, ‘nor their names I know not.’

  ‘Well,’ said 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 good-night.’

  Now opened the door of the inner chamber, and there stood before them the Lady Mevrian 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 torch-bearers 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 Corinius. 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.

  Mevrian 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 e
ars, 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 Mevrian. Her face half turned towards him, sweet mouth half closed, clear eyes uplifted toward the east, showed dim in the glamour of the moon, and the lilt of her body was as a lily fallen a-dreaming beside some enchanted lake at midnight. With a dry throat he said, ‘Lady, until tonight I had not supposed there lived on earth a woman more beautiful than she.’

  Therewith the love that was in him went like a wind and like an up-swooping darkness athwart his brain. As one who has too long, unbold, unresolved, delayed to lift that door’s latch which must open on his heart’s true home, he caught his arms about her. Her cheek was soft to his kiss, but deadly cold: her eyes like a wild bird’s caught in a purse-net. His brother’s armour that cased her body was not so dead nor so hard under his hand, as to his love that yielding cheek, that alien look. He said, as one a-stagger for his wits in the presence of some unlooked-for chance, ‘Thou dost not love me?’

  Mevrian shook her head, putting him gently away.

  Like the passing of a fire on a dry heath in summer the flame of his passion was passed by, leaving but a smouldering desolation of scornful sullen wrath: wrath at himself and fate.

  He said, in a low shamed voice, ‘I pray you forgive me, madam.’

  Mevrian said, ‘Prince, the Gods give thee good-night. Be kind to Krothering. I have left there an evil steward.’

  So saying, she reined up her horse’s head and turned down westward towards the firth. Heming watched her an instant, his brain a-reel. Then, striking spurs to his horse’s flanks so that the horse reared and plunged, he rode away at a great pace east again through the woods to Krothering.

  XXV

  LORD GRO AND THE LADY MEVRIAN

  How the Lord Gro, conducted by a strange enamourment with lost causes, fared with none save this to be his guide into the regions of Neverdale, and there beheld wonders, and tasted again for a season the goodness of those things he did most desire.

  NINETY days and a day after these doings aforesaid, in the last hour before the dawn, was the Lord Gro a-riding toward the paling east down from the hills of Eastmark to the fords of Mardardale. At a walking pace his horse came down to the waterside, and halted with fetlocks awash: his flanks were wet and his wind gone, as from swift faring on the open fell since midnight. He stretched down his neck, sniffed the fresh river-water, and drank. Gro turned in the saddle, listening, his left hand thrown forward to slack the reins, his right flat-planted on the crupper. But nought there was to hear save the babble of waters in the shallows, the sucking noise of the horse drinking, and the plash and crunch of his hooves when he shifted feet among the pebbles. Before and behind and on either hand the woods and strath and circling hills showed dim in the obscure grey betwixt darkness and twilight. A light mist hid the stars. Nought stirred save an owl that flitted like a phantom out from a hollybush in a craggy bluff a bow-shot or more down stream, crossing Gro’s path and lighting on a branch of a dead tree above him on the left, where she sat as if to observe the goings of this man and horse that trespassed in this valley of quiet night.

  Gro leaned forward to pat his horse’s neck. ‘Come, gossip, we must on,’ he said; ‘and marvel not if thou find no rest, going with me which could never find any steadfast stay under the moon’s globe.’ So they forded that river, and fared through low rough grass-lands beyond, and by the skirts of a wood up to an open heath, and so a mile or two, still eastward, till they turned to the right down a broad valley and crossed a river above a watersmeet, and so east again up the bed of a stony stream and over this to a rough mountain track that crossed some boggy ground and then climbed higher and higher above the floor of the narrowing valley to a pass between the hills. At length the slope slackened, and they passing, as through a gateway, between two high mountains which impended sheer and stark on either hand, came forth upon a moor of ling and bog-myrtle, strewn with lakelets and abounding in streams and mosshags and outcrops of the living rock; and the mountain peaks afar stood round that moorland waste like warrior kings. Now was colour waking in the eastern heavens, the bright shining morning beginning to clear the earth. Conies scurried to cover before the horse’s feet: small birds flew up from the heather: some red deer stood at gaze in the fern, then tripped away southward: a moorcock called.

  Gro said in himself, ‘How shall not common opinion account me mad, so rash and presumptuous dangerously to put my life in hazard? Nay, against all sound judgement; and this folly I enact in that very season when by patience and courage and my politic wisdom I had won that in despite of fortune’s teeth which obstinately hitherto she had denied me: when after the brunts of divers tragical fortunes I had marvellously gained the favour and grace of the King, who very honourably placed me in his court, and tendereth me, I well think, so dearly as he doth the balls of his two eyes.’

  He put off his helm, baring his white forehead and smooth black curling locks to the airs of morning, flinging back his head to drink deep through his nostrils the sweet strong air and its peaty smell. ‘Yet is common opinion the fool, not I,’ he said. ‘He that imagineth after his labours to attain unto lasting jo
y, as well may he beat water in a mortar. Is there not in the wild benefit of nature instances enow to laugh this folly out of fashion? A fable of great men that arise and conquer the nations: Day goeth up against the tyrant night. How delicate a spirit is she, how like a fawn she footeth it upon the mountains: pale pitiful light matched with the primeval dark. But every sweet hovers in her battalions, and every heavenly influence: coolth of the wayward little winds of morning, flowers awakening, birds a-carol, dews a-sparkle on the fine-drawn webs the tiny spinners hang from fern-frond to thorn, from thorn to wet dainty leaf of the silver birch; the young day laughing in her strength, wild with her own beauty; fire and life and every scent and colour born anew to triumph over chaos and slow darkness and the kinless night.

  ‘But because day at her dawning hours hath so bewitched me, must I yet love her when glutted with triumph she settles to garish noon? Rather turn as now I turn to Demonland, in the sad sunset of her pride. And who dares call me turncoat, who do but follow now as I have followed this rare wisdom all my days: to love the sunrise and the sundown and the morning and the evening star? Since there only abideth the soul of nobility, true love, and wonder, and the glory of hope and fear.’

  So brooding he rode at an easy pace bearing east and a little north across the moor, falling because of the strange harmony that was between outward things and the inward thoughts of his heart into a deep study. So came he to the moor’s end, and entered among the skirts of the mountains beyond, crossing low passes, threading a way among woods and water-courses, up and down, about and about. The horse led him which way that he would, for no heed nor advice had he of aught about him, for cause of the deep contemplation that he had within himself.

  It was now high noon. The horse and his rider were come to a little dell of green grass with a beck winding in the midst with cool water flowing over a bed of shingle. About the dell grew many trees both tall and straight. Above the trees high mountain crags a-bake in the sun showed ethereal through the shimmering heat. A murmur of waters, a hum of tiny wings flitting from flower to flower, the sound of the horse grazing on the lush pasture: there was nought else to hear. Not a leaf moved, not a bird. The hush of the summer noon-day, breathless, burnt through with the sun, more awful than any shape of night, paused above that lonely dell.