by E R Eddison
Lessingham’s eyes took on their veiled inward-dreaming look and his lips their smile that had first snared Barganax’s fancy, holding a mirror as it were to Fiorinda’s smile. ‘I was never more sober in my life,’ he said, his hand softly stroking Maddalena’s back. There was a secret beat of music in his voice, like as had been in the Duke’s when, upon Ambremerine to the singing of the faun, he had spoken that stave into his mistress’s ear.
They rode the next league in silence, up the deep ravine of Scandergill above which the valley spreads out into wide flats, and the road strikes across to the north side through oak-woods that turned with their overarching shade the cloudy May night to inky darkness. A drizzling rain was falling when they came out of the forest and followed the left bank of Owlswater up to the bridge above the waters-meet at Storby, where Stordale opens a gateway into the hills to the north and the Stordale Beck tumbles into Owldale white over a staircase of waterfalls. The keeper of the bridge-house took the password and came down to offer his duty to Lessingham: he flew an owl to carry tidings of their approach to the Vicar in Laimak, and another, because of the darkness, to Anguring that they should have lights to light them over the Stringway. Two hours above Storby they halted half an hour for their company, left behind in their wild riding beyond Ristby. Now the road narrowed and steepened, climbing in zig-zags under the cliffs at the base of Little Armarick and tapering at last to a four-foot ledge with the jutting rock of Anguring Combust above it and the under-cut wall of the gorge below. At the bottom of that gorge, two hundred feet beneath the road, Owlswater whitened in foam and thunder over the ruins of old Anguring castle, that twenty years ago the Lord Horius Parry had flung down there from its rock, when after a long siege he had by stratagem won it and burnt it up along with his brother and his brother’s wife and their sons and daughters and all their folk, glad to have rooted out at last this tree that had stood as a shadow against the sun to mar the fair growth of his own lordship in Laimak. Then had he let build, over against it on the left bank of the gorge, his own new fortalice of Anguring, upon a backward and upward running crest, to command at close range both the road below the former castle, and the Stringway. Upon this Stringway Maddalena now delicately stepped, her soul calm, amid the flurry of winds and unseen furious waters and flare-lit darknesses, with the comfort of a familiar master-mind speaking to her through pressure of knee and through sensitive touch of bit upon lips and tongue. The gorge was here barely twenty paces broad, and a huge slab, fallen in ancient times from the mountain face above, was jammed like a platter or meat-dish caught and gripped there up on edge: one edge of the platter jammed where the road ended under old Anguring, and the other jammed against the gorge’s brink where new Anguring sat perched like a preying bird. Along that slab’s upturned edge ran the road: an arched footway of rock, too narrow for two horses meeting to pass one another: the inexpugnable gateway from the south into upper Owldale and the pasture lands of Laimak. Lessingham rode it unconcerned, giving Maddalena her head and letting her take her time, in the smoky glare of a dozen torches brought down to the cliff’s edge out of Anguring. Amaury and the rest were fain to lead their horses across.
A little before midnight Lessingham blew horn under Laimak.
The Vicar received Lessingham by torchlight in the great main gate above the gatehouse. He advanced three steps to meet Lessingham, and embraced and kissed him on both cheeks. Lessingham said, ‘Your highness is to thank me indeed. I have set ’em all by the ears, and in that suspectuous squabbling insecurity declared war upon them. It resteth now but to raise force and crush them ere they run together again. I’ll tell you all at large, but first I would bathe and shift me; and indeed I have not eat these eight hours, since dinner-time at Ketterby.’
‘’Tis provided,’ said the Vicar. ‘Let’s hold more chat over the supper table.’
Half an hour past midnight supper was set in the great banquet-hall which was shapen like an L, the main member forty cubits in length and the shorter twenty-five. Amaury and they of Lessingham’s company had place at the far end of the long table by the door at the end of the main body of the hall that opened on the great court. The Vicar sat with Lessingham at a little round table at the northern corner whence they might see everywhere in the hall both ways, left and right, and be out of earshot of the rest and talk at ease. The hall was of black obsidian-stone, with deep mullioned windows along its north-western wall. Devilish heads, five cubits in bigness from brow to chin, were carven in high relief along the five other walls: thirteen heads in all, very deformed and uglisome, laying out their tongues; and on the end of each tongue was stood a lamp brightly burning, and the eyes of the great faces were looking-glasses nicely cut up with facets to throw back the rays of the lamps, so that the whole banquet-room was lit with a brilliance of lamplight. It was mizzly weather, very cold for the time of year; the Vicar bade light a fire of logs in the great hearth that stood on the inner angle opposite their table.
Lessingham, in a pleasant ease now after nigh five days’ riding, sat eating of his supper, a neat’s tongue, some jellied quails, a sallet of endives lettuces and salsify, with hippocras and a quince pie to end it, while the Vicar, leaning over the table at his cousin’s elbow and drinking chill wine, talked long and low in his ear. Gabriel Flores, upon pretext of hospitable attentions, tarried by the table. ‘Care not for Gabriel, he is inward in my counsels,’ said the Vicar.
‘Not in mine,’ said Lessingham.
‘Well, pug, begone,’ said the Vicar then; ‘we have no love for you.’
‘O I do love my little Gabriel,’ said Lessingham; ‘yet sometimes he is dearest to me in absence. And that humour’s on me now; and so, Gabriel, good night.’ Gabriel gat him gone with an ill grace.
‘Filth and damnation of these free towns in the north there!’ said the Vicar, reaching out a broad and hairy hand for the leavings of the tongue, which he threw to a great dog that, prick-eared and alert, watched their meal as a peri should watch the things of Paradise. ‘I trust ere long to wash my hands in the umbles of the knaves; but all taketh time, and here’s trouble upon trouble ever since the old King died. And, like a fool, I laughed to think my hands were untied then.’
‘I would you had not needed act so suddenly,’ said Lessingham. ‘These soldiers you have packed off north I could a used to your great vantage in the south now. Tella, Lailma, Veiring, and Abaraima, you told me, swapt up a roguish bargain with Ercles; opened their gates to him; called him their captain?’
‘Ay: ’stead of Mandricard, that held it in my interest these five years.’
‘Mandricard,’ said Lessingham, ‘was never the man to serve your turn; I told you that five years ago, cousin. Too irresolute, fawning on the tag-rag people for favour today, putting ’em down with a bloody petulance tomorrow; such an uncertain seat: such jaggings on the bit: spoil your best of horses.’
‘Pah! ’Twas not one man’s insufficiency raised this smother,’ said the Vicar. ‘Hath been brewing for years. I have had my finger on their pulses. I saw it afore yesterday. And Veiring, worst of all. God’s body! I tell you Prince Ercles’ self did say to my face (when there was less coolness ’twixt us than nowadays befalleth): said if they of Veiring did trouble him as they did me, he would send his men with shovels and pickaxes and throw it into the sea.’
‘You have despatched Arcastus, you say, and a thousand men?’
‘Twelve, no, fifteen hundred: not as upon serious action: only to cow ’em with a show of strength: stop other sheep from following of those through the same gate. But harkee, I have yet one good cogging die ready upon the cast,’ and his voice fell to a growling whisper: ‘a likely lad with a good point to his knife and a well shut mouth and a good habit of miching round by unseen ways: tickled his belly with two hundred gold pieces, and five hundred more upon performance: if he but wriggle his way into Eldir—’ the Vicar drank. ‘Gabriel procured him, and that at some third remove. My hand’s not seen in’t. If aught miscarry, shou
ld slander blow hitherward I can securely ’gainst all contradictions disown him.’
Lessingham leaned back in his chair and stretched. He regarded his cousin with a look of profound enjoyment which, when the adder eyes met his, livened to the shadow of a smile. ‘I do sadly fear, cousin, this most taking simple-heartedness of yours,’ he said. ‘Consider: ’tis barely two months since the Chancellor took up one of your instruments in his garden in Zayana and hanged him there. I know ’twas given out ’twas Zapheles worked that poppet’s strings, not to make too much pother of it; but in all their private counsels there was no question made but you did do it. And now Ercles: that old dog-fox is not to be caught with your springes, cousin. I would you had been in Zayana; you should a seen the labour I had untying of those bands of alliance your known ways had knit them together withal; and but for that, little enough of trust or friendship amongst ’em. My work had been easy else.’
The Vicar turned upon him eyes of stone. ‘You have your ways,’ he said. ‘I mine.’
‘What strength have you in Owldale?’ asked Lessingham, as a falcon leaves playing with her mate in the upper air to stoop at her proper prey. ‘Four thousand men?’
‘Just, if you’ll drink drunk and see each man double,’ answered he.
‘Two thousand? and my own riders, eight hundred more.’
‘Nay, I reckoned them in,’ said the Vicar.
‘I must have more,’ said Lessingham, and sprang up. ‘We must come down upon them like a thunderbolt ere they have time to consider too much and stick together again, else is all this work wasted.’
‘Softly, softly,’ said the Vicar. ‘’Tis but boys and women count to go through presently their designments a royal point; my policy runneth deeper. I’ll clear my rear in the north first. Besides, I’ve thought on a business for you north-away; but that must wait again. For this present matter, I will first make sure of Ercles and Aramond.’
Lessingham paced a dozen times to and again from the table to the fire. ‘Cousin,’ he said then, coming to a stop before the table, ‘you have taken my rede ere now, and have you ever fallen down by it?’ The Vicar shrugged his shoulders. Lessingham’s eyes were a-sparkle. ‘Seeing I have begun,’ said he, ‘I will stoutly go through. You can hold Laimak and Anguring with as many men as chestnuts you could carry in two fists. Give me the rest, and your warrant to raise what more I may. Ere a month be past I’ll grab you Outer Meszria in the hollow of my hand.’
‘You’ve a sweet vein in speech,’ the Vicar said; ‘but you know as well as I we cannot now lay hand on above two thousand five hundred men, and there’s four or five thousand needed for such an enterprise.’
‘Yet shall you see me undertake it,’ said Lessingham. Things least feared are least defended and observed. And remember, one great stroke i’ the southlands, and these factions that vex you i’ the north there shall fizzle like a lamp when the oil is out. Time enough then to sort them, put ’em to rights.’
The Vicar’s great spreading nostrils widened and the red blood flushed his face, as if set a-boiling with the heat of the imperious eager and resolute imaginings that burned in Lessingham’s speech and bearing. He stood up now heavily, and for a minute faced Lessingham in silence. Then, clapping a heavy hand upon either shoulder of Lessingham, ‘We’ll sleep on’t,’ he said. ‘The more spacious that the tennis-court is, the more large is the hazard. And if you think, cousin, to thrust all this down my pudding-house at a gob, well, the Devil eat your soul for me then, for you are sadly mistook.’
That was the twenty-seventh of May. Upon the twenty-ninth Duke Barganax, his scheme well laid now, moved north with his bodyguard of five hundred picked men-at-arms to Rumala, there to wait Barrian and Melates with the levies of Krestenaya and Memison ere he should descend into Outer Meszria and the marches. Here was good hopes, soon as the ducal banner should be shown north of the Zenner and the Vicar’s garrison shut up by siege in Argyanna, that the whole March of Ulba should rise to resume their old affinities and fling off the yoke of Rerek. So upon the fifth day from Zayana, being now the second of June, came the Duke to Rumala. Upon that same day at evening the lord Admiral weighed anchor and put out from Sestola with sixteen fighting ships all manned and six ships of burden, a great and redoubtable power of men: two thousand five hundred of his own sailors, men inured to war by land as well as by sea, besides two thousand footmen of the royal garrison in Meszria and the Earl Roder himself on board with the Admiral. Roder’s chosen riders, three hundred strong, veterans all of ten years’ service, fared by land for lack of room a-shipboard. The like was Egan to do, with four hundred Meszrian horse. The Salimat was set for their meeting-place, of the power that went by sea, and the horse, and the Chancellor with nigh two thousand more old levies of Fingiswold. These tarried in Zayana yet a day or two for Zapheles, who was raising of forces south in Armash and Daish. All these were appointed to meet on Wednesday the seventh of June upon the Salimat, where the highway from Zayana to Ulba crosses Nephory Edge at its lowest; and that is the best vantage ground for an army to stand against an enemy faring from the north, for it gives a clear wide prospect west and north and east over the low-lying marchlands of Outer Meszria and Ulba, and the lie of the land is good for falling upon him if he will attack up the pass, and it is a strong place too to hold upon defence if need be, and a place well apt by nature for hidden ambushes and espial of any army that should fare by that road whether south or north.
The High Admiral put out upon the flood-tide from Sestola and dropped down the firth with a favouring wind. But at nightfall the wind had freshened so that it was dangerous sailing among the islands. The fleet lay up till dawn in sheltered water behind Lashoda; by then was a high sea running, and when they were come out into the open they must beat up northwards all day against a headwind and at night were glad to run for shelter in to Spruna mouth. With these delays and adverse winds it was not until the evening of the third day that they made Peraz Firth and anchored about supper-time at the head of the firth over against the town. Here were sumpter horses and mules and bullock carts to meet them, and the next day they landed the army and the stuff, and, leaving a thousand of Jeronimy’s men to mind the ships, came on the morrow in a day’s march up through the flowering valley of Biulmar and camped the same evening in the Salimat. Roder’s three hundred horse, punctual to the day appointed, came in before night. The Meszrian horse with Egan were late: nought known of them since these had set forth without them from Zayana, after six hours’ vain waiting. Roder cursed them. Of Beroald, with his two thousand, there was no sign, nor no word.
Morning rose abated with cloud and mist. A blanket of vapour rolling down the smooth rock hummocks east of the pass lay damp about the tents. The Admiral sent a man of trust east through the hills to Rumala to advertise the Duke that the Salimat was held and all well, and another to find out the Chancellor. Intelligencers had gone well a week before into Outer Meszria and the borderlands. An hour before noon came in tidings by one of these, that upon Sunday Lessingham had crossed the Zenner with no great strength of men and appeared before Fiveways: that the accursed people of that town had, against expectation, opened their gates to him: that there he lay as late as Tuesday, and there men drew to him, by twos and threes, here a score and there a score; mainly, ’twas thought, from the March, but some few, ’twas spoken, from the Meszrian border upon pretext he did owe their allegiance, bearing the Queen’s warrant and upholding her right. An hour later came in others with more fresh advertisement, how but yesterday, upon their own observation, Lessingham was marched out of Five-ways, in strength some fifteen hundred foot and a thousand horse: that ’twas said seven hundred of the footmen were veterans of the Parry’s, the rest raw levies: the horse mainly Lessingham’s own: that with these he was turned north-east along the road by the river, as if his intents were aimed for Kutarmish. Upon which tidings, Roder took Jeronimy by the sleeve and walked out of earshot of their officers.
‘What rede will you take now, my l
ord Admiral? One mischief never comes alone. Here you have the Chancellor a day behind time and still no news of him, and we with our powers thus clipped sit but and look on. If Kutarmish fall, then is Outer Meszria lost without a stroke, and that the richest land of all in the south here.’
‘Ibian will hold Kutarmish, never doubt it,’ said the Admiral.
‘Say he do,’ replied Roder. ‘Shall then these ram-cats of Meszria reap all the honour, whiles we of the Queen’s true party sit quittering here? ’Twill breed discontent i’ the army, too, forget not. I have felt it ere now: ears pricked up for every air that bloweth a doubt if it be we truly or these of the other party do truly uphold her interest.’
‘That,’ said Jeronimy, ‘is a main uncertainty of currents and shifting sands we needs must in a manner sleep and eat withal since first he was deputed overseer of her nonage, whose innocent right doth so justify his wrong.’
‘It lieth upon us, saving your reverence, my lord Admiral,’ said Roder, ‘not but eat and sleep only, but stand up and act. Consider: if this intelligence (and ’tis well seconded) be not all out, we be now two to one against him.’
‘He is strong in horse, and of great reputation in that arm,’ said Jeronimy.
‘I redoubt him not,’ said Roder, ‘in that particular.’
‘All in all,’ said Jeronimy, ‘his force, be it little, is well strengthed. A little gold overvalueth much lead or iron.’
Roder spat on the ground and scowled. ‘Were’t mine alone to command,’ said he, after a minute, ‘I’d down into the flats today: with my new broom sweep him one swap, and sweep him out of Meszria.’
The Admiral softly blew out his cheeks and shook his head. ‘Let us wait, my lord, till tomorrow. The Chancellor will sure be come then.’
The morrow dawned fair. All the morning fog hung over the countryside to the northwards, so that it showed dull like the bloom on a black grape; above it the sky was blue and tender, and all the near stretches of the wide vale of the Zenner lay bright under the’ sun, but in a soft brightness, with the dwellings of men and the paleness here and there of a winding stream, and the winding empty high-road coming south across the low land till at length it breasted the slopes of these southern hills and came up to cross the Salimat. At noon came hot news of the vicarian army marching west again. By the third hour past noon they were in sight, coming south-east over the brow two leagues away, above Aptyssa. The camp in the Salimat was pitched a little to the south below the hause, not to let it be known from the northward how strongly the road was held. In the hause and upon the northern slope it was jopplety ground of rock and heather: little knolls and dingles, in which Jeronimy and Roder now disposed their army on either side of the road, hidden and well posted for overwhelming of Lessingham should he assay the pass. He came on but slowly. It was three hours more ere he began to drive in Jeronimy’s outposts on the Hazanat beck. Roder’s patience was long since drained away, and he was for setting upon them then and there while daylight lasted. ‘Nay, we must bide fast,’ said Jeronimy. ‘Would you throw away the advantage we do hold upon him and fight on ground of his own choosing; aptest too for cavalry, wherein we are weakest?’
