by E R Eddison
Now as soon as Juss had brought him off the mountain, this frozen condition of the Lord Goldry was so far thawed that he was able to stand upon his feet and walk; but never a word might he speak, and never a look they gat from him, but still his gaze was set and unchanging, seeming when it rested on his companions to look through and beyond them as at some far thing seen in a mist. So that each was secretly troubled, fearing lest this condition of the Lord Goldry Bluszco should prove remediless, and this that they now received back from prison but the poor remain of him they had so much desired.
They came aland and brought him to Sophonisba the Queen where she made haste to meet them on the fair lawn before her pavilion. The Queen, as if knowing beforehand both their case and the remedy thereof, took by the hand the Lord Juss and said, ‘O my lord, there yet remaineth a thing for thee to do to free him throughly, that hast outfaced terrors beyond the use of man to bring him back: a little stone indeed to crown this building of thine, and yet without it all were in vain, as itself were vain without the rest that was all thine: and mine is this last, and with a pure heart I give it thee.’
So saying she made the Lord Juss bow down till she might kiss his mouth, sweetly and soberly, one light kiss. And she said, ‘This give unto the lord thy brother.’ And Juss did so, kissing his dear brother in like manner on the mouth; and she said, ‘Take him, dear my lords. And I have utterly put out the remembrance of these things from his heart. Take him, and give thanks unto the high Gods because of him.’
Therewith the Lord Goldry Bluszco looked upon them and upon that fair Queen and the mountains and the woods and the cool lake’s loveliness, as a man awakened out of a deep slumber.
Surely there was joy in all their hearts that day.
XXIX
THE FLEET AT MUELVA
How the Lords of Demonland came again to their ships at Muelva, and the tidings they learned there.
FOR nine days’ space the lords of Demonland abode with Queen Sophonisba in Koshtra Belorn and beside the Lake of Ravary tasting such high and pure delights as belike none else hath tasted, if it were not the spirits of the blest in Elysium. When they bade her farewell, the Queen said, ‘My little martlets shall bring me tidings of you. And when you shall have brought to mere perdition the wicked regiment of Witchland and returned again to your dear native land, then is my time for that, my Lord Juss, whereof I have often talked to thee and often gladded my dreams with the thought thereof: to visit earth again and the habitations of men, and be your guest in many-mountained Demonland.’
Juss kissed her hand and said, ‘Fail not in this, dear Queen, whatsoe’er betide.’
So the Queen let bring them by a secret way out upon the high snow-fields that are betwixt Koshtra Belorn and Romshir, whence they came down into the glen of the dark water that descends from the glacier of Temarm, and so through many perilous scapes after many days back by way of the Moruna to Muelva and the ships.
There Gaslark and La Fireez, when their greetings were done and their rejoicings, said to the Lord Juss, ‘We abide too long time here. We have entered the barrel and the bung-hole is stopped.’ Therewithal they brought him Hesper Golthring, who three days ago sailing to the Straits for forage came back again but yesterday with a hot alarum that he met certain ships of Witchland: and brought them to battle: and gat one sunken ere they brake off the fight: and took up certain prisoners. ‘By whose examination,’ saith he, ‘as well as from mine own perceiving and knowing, it appeareth Laxus holdeth the Straits with eight score ships of war, the greatest ships that ever the sea bare until this day, come hither of purpose to destroy us.’
‘Eight score ships?’ said Lord Brandoch Daha. ‘Witchland commandeth not the half, nor the third part, of such a strength since we did them down last harvest-tide in Aurwath haven. It is not leveable, Hesper.’
Hesper answered him, ‘Your highness shall find it truth; and more the sorrow on’t and the wonder.’
‘’Tis the scourings of his subject-allies,’ said Spitfire. ‘We shall find them no such hard matter to dispatch after the others.’
Juss said to the Lord Gro, ‘What makest thou of these news, my lord?’
‘I think no wonder in it,’ answered he. ‘Witchland is of good memory and mindeth him of your seamanship off Kartadza. He useth not to idle, nor to set all on one hazard. Nor comfort not thyself, my Lord Spitfire, that these be pleasure-galleys borrowed from the soft Beshtrians or the simple Foliots. They be new ships builded for us, my lords, and our undoing: it is by no conjecture I say it unto you, but of mine own knowledge, albeit the number appeareth far greater than ere I dreamed of. But or ever I sailed with Corinius to Demonland, great buildings of an army naval was begun at Tenemos.’
‘I do very well believe,’ said King Gaslark, ‘that none knoweth all this better than thou, because thyself didst counsel it.’
‘O Gaslark,’ said Lord Brandoch Daha, ‘must thou still itch to play at chop-cherry when cherry-time is past? Let him alone. He is our friend now.’
‘Eight score ships i’ the Straits,’ said Juss. ‘And ours an hundred. ’Tis well seen what great difference and odds there is betwixt us. Which we must needs encounter, or else ne’er sail home again, let alone to Carcë. For out of this sea is no sea-way for ships, but only by these Straits of Melikaphkhaz.’
‘We shall do of Laxus,’ said Lord Brandoch Daha, ‘that he troweth to do of us.’
But Juss was fallen silent, his chin in his hand.
Goldry Bluszco said, ‘I would allow him odds and beat him.’
‘It is a great shame in thee, O Juss,’ said Brandoch Daha, ‘if thou wilt be abashed at this. If that they be in number more than we, what then? They are in hope, quarrel, and strength far inferior.’
But Juss, still in a study, reached out and caught him by the sleeve, holding him so a moment or two, and then looked up at him and said, ‘Thou art the greatest quarreller, of a friend, that ever I knew, and if I were an angry man I could not abear thee. May I not three minutes study the means, but thou shalt cry out upon me for a milksop?’
They laughed, and the Lord Juss rose up and said, ‘Call we a council of war. And let Hesper Golthring be at it, and his skippers that were with him o’ that voyage. And pack up the stuff, for we will away o’ the morn. If we like not these lettuce, we may pull back our lips. But no choice remaineth. If Laxus will deny us sea-room through Melikaphkhaz Straits, I trow there shall go up thence a crash which when the King heareth it he shall know it for our first banging on the gates of Carcë.’
XXX
TIDINGS OF MELIKAPHKHAZ
Of news brought unto Gorice the King in Carcë out of the south, where the Lord Laxus lying in the straits with his armada held the fleet of Demonland prisoned in the Midland Sea.
ON a night of late summer leaning towards autumn, eight weeks after the sailing of the Demons out of Muelva as is aforewrit, the Lady Prezmyra sate before her mirror in Corund’s lofty bed-chamber in Carcë. The night without was mild and full of stars. Within, yellow flames of candles burning steadily on either side of the mirror rayed forth tresses of tinselling brightness in twin glories or luminous spheres of warmth. In that soft radiance grains as of golden fire swam and circled, losing themselves on the confines of the gloom where the massy furniture and the arras and the figured hangings of the bed were but cloudier divisions and congestions of the general dark. Prezmyra’s hair caught the beams and imprisoned them in a tawny tangle of splendour that swept about her head and shoulders down to the emerald clasps of her girdle. Her eyes resting idly on her own fair image in the shining mirror, she talked light nothings with her woman of the bed-chamber who, plying the comb, stood behind her chair of gold and tortoise-shell.
‘Reach me yonder book, nurse, that I may read again the words of that serenade the Lord Gro made for me the night when first we had tidings from my lord out of Impland of his conquest of that land, and the King did make him king thereof.’
The old woman gave her the book, tha
t was bound in goat-skin chiselled and ornamented by the gilder’s art, fitted with clasps of gold, and enriched with little gems, smaragds and margery-pearls, inlaid in the panels of its covers. Prezmyra turned the page and read:
You meaner Beauties of the Night,
That poorly satisfie our Eies,
More by your number than your light,
You Common-people of the Skies;
What are you when the Moone shall rise?
You Curious Chanters of the Wood,
That warble forth Dame Natures layes,
Thinking your Passions understood
By your weake accents; what’s your praise
When Philomell her voyce shall raise?
You Violets that first apeare,
By your pure purpel mantles knowne,
Like the proud Virgins of the yeare,
As if the Spring were all your own;
What are you when the Rose is blowne?
So, when my Princess shall be seene
In form and Beauty of her mind,
By Vertue first, then Choyce a Queen,
Tell me, if she were not design’d
Th’ Eclypse and Glory of her kind.
She abode silent awhile. Then, in a low sweet voice where all the chords of music seemed to slumber: ‘Three years will be gone next Yule-tide,’ she said, ‘since first I heard that song. And not yet am I grown customed to the style of Queen.’
‘’Tis pity of my Lord Gro,’ said the nurse.
‘Thou thinkest?’
‘Mirth sat oftener on your face, O Queen, when he was here, and you were used to charm his melancholy and make a pish of his phantastical humorous forebodings.’
‘Oft doubting not his forejudgement,’ said Prezmyra, ‘even the while I thripped my fingers at it. But never saw I yet that the louring thunder hath that partiality of a tyrant, to blast him that faced it and pass by him that quailed before it.’
‘He was most deeply bound servant to your beauty,’ said the old woman. ‘And yet,’ she said, viewing her mistress sidelong to see how she would receive it, ‘that were a miss easily made good.’
She busied herself with the comb awhile in silence. After a time she said, ‘O Queen, mistress of the hearts of men, there is not a lord in Witchland, nor in earth beside, you might not bind your servant with one thread of this hair of yours. The likeliest and the goodliest were yours at an eye-glance.’
The Lady Prezmyra looked dreamily into her own sea-green eyes imaged in the glass. Then she smiled mockingly and said, ‘Whom then accountest thou the likeliest and the goodliest man in all the stablished earth?’
The old woman smiled. ‘O Queen,’ answered she, ‘this was the very matter in dispute amongst us at supper only this evening.’
‘A pretty disputation!’ said Prezmyra. ‘Let me be merry. Who was adjudged the fairest and gallantest by your high court of censure?’
‘It was not generally determined of, O Queen. Some would have my Lord Gro.’
‘Alack, he is too feminine,’ said Prezmyra.
‘Others our Lord the King.’
‘There is none greater,’ said Prezmyra, ‘nor more worshipful. But for an husband, thou shouldst as well wed with a thunder-storm or the hungry sea. Give me some more.’
‘Some chose the lord Admiral.’
‘That,’ said Prezmyra, ‘was a nearer stroke. No skip-jack nor soft marmalady courtier, but a brave, tall, gallant gentleman. Ay, but too watery a planet burned at his nativity. He is too like a statua of a man. No, nurse, thou must bring me better than he.’
The nurse said, ‘True it is, O Queen, that most were of my thinking when I gave ’em my choice: the king of Demonland.’
‘Fie on thee!’ cried Prezmyra. ‘Name him not so that was too unmighty to hold that land against our enemies.’
‘Folk say it was by foxish arts and practices magical a was spilt on Krothering Side. Folk say ’twas divels and not horses carried the Demons down the mountain at us.’
‘They say!’ cried Prezmyra. ‘I say to thee, he hath found it apter to his bent to flaunt his crown in Witchland than make ’em give him the knee in Galing. For a true king both knee and heart do truly bow before him. But this one, if he had their knee ’twas in the back side of him he had it, to kick him home again.’
‘Fie, madam!’ said the nurse.
‘Hold thy tongue, nurse,’ said Prezmyra. ‘It were good ye were all well whipped for a bunch of silly mares that know not a horse from an ass.’
The old woman watching her in the glass counted it best keep silence. Prezmyra said under her breath as if talking to herself, ‘I know a man should not have miscarried it thus.’ The old nurse that loved not Lord Corund and his haughty fashions and rough speech and wine-bibbing, and was besides jealous that so rude a stock should wear so rich a jewel as was her mistress, followed not her meaning.
After some time, the old woman spake softly and said, ‘You are full of thoughts tonight, madam.’
Prezmyra’s eyes met hers in the mirror. ‘Why may I not be so and it likes me?’ said she.
That stony look of the eyes struck like a gong some twenty-year-old memory in the nurse’s heart: the little wilful maiden, ill to goad but good to guide, looking out from that Queen’s face across the years. She knelt down suddenly and caught her arms about her mistress’s waist. ‘Why must you wed then, dear heart?’ said she, ‘if you were minded to do what likes you? Men love not sad looks in their wives. You may ride a lover on the curb, madam, but once you wed him ’tis all t’other way: all his way, madam, and beware of “had I wist.”’
Her mistress looked down at her mockingly. ‘I have been wed seven years tonight. I should know these things.’
‘And this night!’ said the nurse. ‘And but an hour till midnight, and yet he sitteth at board.’
The Lady Prezmyra leaned back to look again on her own mirrored loveliness. Her proud mouth sweetened to a smile. ‘Wilt thou learn me common women’s wisdom?’ said she, and there was yet more voluptuous sweetness trembling in her voice. ‘I will tell thee a story, as thou hast told them me in the old days in Norvasp to wile me to bed. Hast thou not heard tell how old Duke Hilmanes of Maltraëny, among some other fantasies such as appear by night unto many in divers places, had one in likeness of a woman with old face of low and little stature or body, which did scour his pots and pans and did such things as a maid servant ought to do, liberally and without doing of any harm? And by his art he knew this thing should be his servant still, and bring unto him whatsoever he would, so long time as he should be glad of the things it brought him. But this duke, being a foolish man and a greedy, made his familiar bring him at once all the year’s seasons and their several goods and pleasures, and all good things of earth at one time. So as in six months’ space, he being sated with these and all good things, and having no good thing remaining unto him to expect or to desire, for very weariness did hang himself. I would never have ta’en me an husband, nurse, and I had not known that I was able to give him every time I would a new heaven and a new earth, and never the same thing twice.’
She took the old woman’s hands in hers and gathered them to her breast, as if to let them learn, rocked for a minute in the bountiful infinite sweetness of that place, what foolish fears were these. Suddenly Prezmyra clasped the hands tighter in her own, and shuddered a little. She bent down to whisper in the nurse’s ear, ‘I would not wish to die. The world without me should be summer without roses. Carcë without me should be a night without the star-shine.’
Her voice died away like the night breeze in a summer garden. In the silence they heard the dip and wash of oar-blades from the river without; the sentinel’s challenge, the answer from the ship.
Prezmyra stood up quickly and went to the window. She could see the ship’s dark bulk by the water-gate, and comings and goings, but nought clearly. ‘Tidings from the fleet,’ she said. ‘Put up my hair.’
And ere that was done, came a little page running to her chamb
er door, and when it was opened to him, stood panting from his running and said, ‘The king your husband bade me tell you, madam, and pray you go down to him i’ the great hall. It may be ill news, I fear.’
‘Thou fearest, pap-face?’ said the Queen. ‘I’ll have thee whipped if thou bringest thy fears to me. Dost know aught? What’s the matter?’
‘The ship’s much battered, O Queen. He is closeted with our Lord the King, the skipper. None dare speak else. ’Tis feared the high Admiral—’
‘Feared!’ cried she, swinging round for the nurse to put about her white shoulders her mantle of sendaline and cloth of silver, that shimmered at the collar with purple amethysts and was scented with cedar and galbanum and myrrh. She was forth in the dark corridor, down by the winding marble stair, through the mid-court, hasting to the banquet hall. The court was full of folk talking; but nought certain, nought save suspense and wonder; rumour of a great sea-fight in the south, a mighty victory won by Laxus upon the Demons: Juss and those lords of Demonland dead and gone, the captives following with the morning’s tide. And here and there like an undertone to these triumphant tidings, contrary rumours, whispered low, like the hissing of an adder from her shadowy lair: all not well, the lord Admiral wounded, half his ships lost, the battle doubtful, the Demons escaped. So came that lady into the great hall; and there were the lords and captains of the Witches all in a restless quiet of expectation. Duke Corsus lolled forward in his seat down by the cross-bench, his breath stertorous, his small eyes fixed in a drunken stare. On the other side Corund sate huge and motionless, his elbow propped on the table, his chin in his hand, sombre and silent, staring at the wall. Others gathered in knots, talking in low tones. The Lord Corinius walked up and down behind the cross-bench, his hands clasped behind him, his fingers snapping impatiently at whiles, his heavy jaw held high, his glance high and defiant. Prezmyra came to Heming where he stood among three or four and touched him on the arm. ‘We know nothing, madam,’ he said. ‘He is with the King.’
