The Zimiamvia Trilogy

by E R Eddison

  The Vicar stood up. He spat, wiped his mouth upon his sleeve, gave a hitch to his kirtle, walked to where his horse was, and climbed leisurely into the saddle. Then, gathering the reins, he with a look bade Gabriel mount too and come with him. They turned now at a walking pace toward Laimak. For a full mile they rode on without word spoken. Then, ‘You, my pretty pigsnye,’ the Vicar said: ‘study to be quiet and to meddle with your own business, not with matters too high for you. And remember, or I’ll kill you, all these things were by my prescription and commandment to the least tittle. D’ye hear?’

  ‘I both hear, highness, and obey,’ said he.

  ‘And carry that hand of yours to the leech when we come home,’ said the Vicar: ‘loadstone is available against dog-bites and invenoming.’

  So, without further word spoken, they came at length, and the Vicar’s great dogs beside him, through the meadows home to Laimak.

  It was now afternoon, the third day after these things aforesaid. Lessingham and Amaury came to a halt below the Stringway. Amaury said, ‘I would give all I have would you but turn back now.’

  Lessingham laughed.

  ‘Had we but half the horse, your own tried men to follow you, that were security: but go alone with a bare dozen men, ’tis tempting of the Gods, stark folly: put your neck in the bear’s mouth.’

  ‘What’s new in that, sweet nurse-mother? Have I not lodged in my cousin’s house fifty times ere now as cousins should, not as an armed enemy?’

  ‘He had not the cause he now hath.’

  ‘’Las, is it not a fair peace I bring him home then?’

  ‘Too fair for him that’s foul.’

  ‘’Tis a peace I’ll justify,’ said Lessingham, ‘’gainst all skilled advocates in the world.’

  ‘He’ll say you have been open-handed at his expense. And remember, the fox his secretary ran to him first with the tale: will a put the worst face upon it.’

  Lessingham said, ‘I’d a been as open-handed with my own. And for foxes, I deal not with ’em, neither regard ’em.’ He touched the rein, and Maddalena stepped daintily upon the Stringway.

  For a half-hour beyond Anguring the road was through beech-woods mixed with chestnut and oak and sycamore, a pleasant green shade: Owlswater ran between rocky banks on their left below them as they rode. Then the woods thinned away, and the river wound gleaming through water-meadows, where in scattered droves black cows grazed or lay, smaller and smaller in the distance, and fields bounded with dry walls stretched on either hand, with here and there a white farmstead, to the rough hill-pastures and the open fell. Here and there men made hay. Smoke went up blue and still in the air where no breeze moved. All the skirts of the mountains were spotted with browsing sheep. On the right, the upper ridges of the Forn, shadowless in the afternoon sunlight, were of a delicate peach-like colour against the blue. Lessingham rode with Amaury a hundred paces or more ahead of his company. Lessingham was in his byrny of black iron, ringed with gold links about the neck and wrists. He wore a low honey-coloured ruff. He went bare-headed for pleasure of the air, and carried his helm at the saddle-bow. The folk in the fields stood up to salute him as he rode by.

  They came riding now round the curve of a hill to the last house. It was built beside the road on their right. Upon the left, three sycamore-trees, old and bare of branches below, made an overarching shade before the house, so that, as they rode up, the road went as through a gateway between those trees and the house, and over the brow fell away out of sight. And through that arched way, as in a picture framed, they might see now Laimak couchant upon its rock, bare and unkind of aspect, pallid in the sunshine and with cold blue shadows; beholding which, Amaury shivered in the warm sun and, angry with himself for that, cursed aloud. And now, beyond this last farmstead, the road became but a bridleway, and there were fields no more, but moorish grounds and marsh and rank pasture with sometimes stretches of lush grass and sometimes sedges and peaty pools: the sharp squawk of a water hen, the sudden flight of wild-duck, or a heron heavily taking the air, borne swiftly on her slow flapping wings. Three black crows rose from a grassy patch on the right a hundred paces ahead and departed on furtive wing. Amaury kept his eye on the place. ‘Carrion,’ he said, as they came nearer. ‘One of his cursed dogs; and that’s an omen,’ as they came alongside.

  Lessingham looked and rode on. ‘I would have you learn a new tune, dear Amaury,’ he said; ‘not melancholy yourself to melancholy’s self and die of your apprehensions.’

  So came they at length to the castle of the Parrys and rode north-about to the gatehouse and up by the deep hewn passage way to the main gateway, high upon the northern verge, and there was the Vicar and his men to welcome Lessingham. The Vicar was in his brown velvet kirtle, with a belt about his middle of old silver. About his shoulders was his great robe or mantle of state, of red tartarine, and upon his brow a coronal of gold. With so much unexampled show of honourable respect he received Lessingham, as offer to hold the bridle while he dismounted; then took his arms about him and kissed him. Then he made him go up with him to his private chamber in the tower above Hagsby’s Entry. ‘Nay,’ he said, when they were private there, ‘I would hear no word from Gabriel. I would have it from your lips, cousin. And first, is it well?’

  ‘’Tis not altogether bad,’ answered Lessingham, pouring out some wine.

  ‘’Tis victory?’

  ‘My coming home should warrant you that. Did you ever know me put up my sword with the work half done?’

  ‘You did promise me Outer Meszria in the hollow of my hand: that in a month. ’Tis bare three weeks since then. I’m not Grizell Greedigut to ask aught past reason, but somewhat I hope you have brought me.’

  ‘Outer Meszria? Did I promise so little?’ said Lessingham. ‘If that should content you, cousin, you shall be more than content with this when you shall have understood it and considered of it;’ and with that he pulled forth from his bosom a parchment and writing sealed with seals.

  ‘I can read,’ said the Vicar, ‘though none of the best, yet meanly,’ reaching out his hand for it.

  ‘First I’ll rehearse it to you at large,’ said Lessingham.

  ‘Nay,’ said the Vicar, and took it: ‘if any words seem dark, you shall make it more open, cousin. I like ’em best naked: you shall put the frills and furbelows on it anon.’ He read it, sitting back easily in his great chair. His face as he read was open as a book, with the light full on it from the high window beside them, and Lessingham watched it, sipping his wine. There was not, as he read, so much as a passing shadow ruffled the noble serenity of the Vicar’s brow or stirred the repose of those lineaments about the eyes and nose and jowl that could, upon an ill wind’s blowing, wake to so much bestial ferocity. Nor was there any new note in his voice when, having read and read it again, at last he spoke. ‘These articles express a concordat made ’twixt me of the one part, acting within my sovereignty vicarial and as Lord Protector for the Queen, and of t’other part Duke Barganax and (’pon their by instrument accepting of it) those other scum of the world, Jeronimy, I mean, Roder, and Beroald?’

  ‘And in case any one of them shall not within fifteen days accept it,’ said Lessingham, ‘then falleth it to the ground, and our hands free of either part. That’s why I hold the army still on the Zenner. But they’ll accept, ne’er fear it.’

  ‘And ’tis execute in duplicate, cousin, by you in virtue of your full powers on my behalf? And Zayana hath my seal, as I have his?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lessingham.

  The Vicar let fall the parchment and clapped his hands. Six men-at-arms upon the instant leaped out upon Lessingham from behind and ere he could raise finger clamped chains upon him that shackled him, wrist and elbow, knee and foot. Lessingham saw that Gabriel Flores was come in with them and was beside his master. The Vicar started from his chair like a ravening tiger. He smote Lessingham across the face with the parchment. The countenance of Lessingham was for a moment transported with terrible anger: he neither
spoke nor moved, but he became white as death. The Vicar, mastering himself, sat down again. Under the clutch of his hands the arms of his chair shook and trembled. He glared with his eyes upon Lessingham who, of his right colour again, had now in his grey eyes the steadiness of levelled steel.

  The Vicar opened his mouth and said, and his words came thick and stumbling as a man’s that is drunk with wine: ‘Overmuch have I trusted you. Yet this showed little wit, to come tell me to my face of this betrayal, that stinks more ugly in the sight of God than do all the carrion of this world. But you shall see I have a short way with such checking buzzards. A guard upon him! In an hour’s time, cut his neck. Chop his carcase for the dogs, but spike up the head upon the main gate. I’ll look on it before supper.’

  Gabriel was shivering and twitching in all his body, like a little terrier dog at the edge of a duckpond. The Vicar looked around at him, then back at Lessingham who was stood up now, taller by a head than the soldiers that held him shackled. Even upon that brink of fate and death he stood with so good a grace and presence as if a soul of iron informed him; looking upon the Vicar as from above, and in his grey eyes, keen and speckled, something very like a smile, as if he knew something that was not true. ‘Well,’ said the Vicar, ‘have you nothing to say?’

  ‘Nothing but this,’ answered he: ‘that you were wont to act upon no great resolution without you first had slept upon it. It seems the Gods have infatuated your high subtle wisdom, if now you will do a wrong irrevocable both to yourself and me, and not e’en sleep upon it. Your matter hath not turned out so ill aforetime, following of my counsels.’

  The Vicar glowered motionless as a bull in granite; his eyes were fixed no longer on Lessingham’s eyes, but below them, on his mouth or beard. The guard, obedient to a covert sign from Gabriel, made a motion to take Lessingham away. The Vicar turned suddenly and Gabriel’s elbow shrank in his brazen grip. ‘Stay,’ he said. ‘I’ll not let truth go by, albeit she were pointed out to me by a dissembling tyke. Tomorrow’s as good as today. And to make sure, unto you, Gabriel, I commit him in charge; doubt not but that I shall call to you for a strict account of your dealing with him. For his life and safe keeping your life shall answer. Here are the keys,’ and he threw them on the table.

  Gabriel took them with a beaten scowling look.

  XII

  NOBLE KINSMEN IN LAIMAK

  THE VICAR’S DREAM • ARGUMENT OF MIDNIGHT • ADAMANT GRINDS ADAMANT • THE RIDER IN SADDLE AGAIN • ‘POLICY AND HER TRUE ASPECT’ • NUPTIAL FLIGHT OF THE PEREGRINES • LESSINGHAM CAPTAIN-GENERAL • CONCEITS OF A LORD PROTECTOR • REVELRY; AND A MEETING AT DAWN • NORTH.

  THE Lord Horius Parry awoke between midnight and cock-crow, being troubled and vexed with a certain unpleasing dream. And this was the beginning of his dream: that Gabriel sat at his knee reading in a book of the Iliad wherein was told the fate of the lady Simë that she was (and here Gabriel, not knowing the meaning of the Greek word, asked him the meaning). And though upon waking he knew not the word, and knew besides that in the Iliad is no such tale and no such lady, it seemed to him in his dream that the word meant ‘gutted like a dog’. Thereupon in his dream the Vicar was remembered of that old tale of Swanhild, Gudrun’s daughter, wed in the old time to King Jormunrek, and by him, upon lying slanders of Bikki, adjudged to die and be trod with horses in the gate; but, for the loveliness of her eyes that looked upon them, the horses would not tread upon her, but still swerved and reared and spared her, until Bikki let do a sack about her head, hiding her eyes, and she was trodden so and so slain. And now was the dream troubled and made unclear, as a breeze ruffles water and does away the reflected shapes and colours; and when it cleared, there was a wide plain lay amid mountains, all in a summer’s evening and pleasant sunshine air, and in the midst upon a little rise of ground a table, and before the table three thrones. And the Vicar thought he saw himself sitting upon the left-hand throne, and he thought he knew in his dream that he was a king; and the plain was filled with people assembled as for some occasion, and they waited there in silence in their multitude, innumerable as the sands of the sea. And the Vicar looked upon himself, upon the king, and saw that he was both in feature and in apparel like to the Assyrian kings in the great stone likenesses carved of them of old, and his beard long and tightly frizzed and curled, and his belted robe incrusted with every kind of precious stone, so that it glittered green and purple and with sparkles of fiery red; and he was cruel and fell to look upon, and with white glinting teeth. And behold there walked a woman before the thrones, fair as the moon, clothed in a like glittering garment as the king’s; and he knew in his dream that this was that lady Simë, and when he beheld her steadfastly he saw (yet without mazement, as in dreams the singularest and superlative wonder, impossibilities and fictions beyond laughter, will seem but trivial and ordinary) that she was Lessingham. It seemed to him that this she-Lessingham did obeisance to the king, and took her seat on the right-hand throne; and immediately upon the third throne he beheld the queen that sat there betwixt them, as it had been a queen of hell. She was attired in a like garment of precious stones; her hair was the colour of wet mud, her eyes like two hard pebbles, set near together, her nose straight and narrow, her lips thin and pale, her face a lean sneak-bill chitty-face; she had a waiting, triumphing look upon her face; and he loathed her. And now went men before the thrones, bearing on a great stand or easel a picture framed, and showed it to that bright lady; and it seemed to the Vicar that she gave a terrible cry and covered her eyes; and the men turned the picture that all might see, and he could not discern the picture to understand it; but only the writing upon it, in great letters: UT COMPRESSA PEREAT. And he thought the whole multitude in their thousands took up those words and howled them aloud with a howling like the howling of wolves. And he shouted and leapt awake, sitting up in the dark in his great canopied bed in Laimak, all shaking and sweating.

  For a minute he sat so, listening to the darkness, which was as if some vast body had been flung into the pool of night and made waves upon it that were his own blood-beats. Then with an obscene and blasphemous oath he felt for tinder, struck a light, and lighted the candles on the table by his bed in the silver candlesticks that stood there, and his sword beside them, and a goblet, and wine in a great-bellied bottle of green glass with a stopper of gold. As the new-kindled candleflames shrank dim in the moment before the melting of the tallow, questionable shadows crouched in the recesses of the walls and vaulted ceiling. A puff of wind stirred the curtain by the window. Then the candles burned up. Pyewacket, waked by his shout, was come from the foot of the bed and laid her chin on his thigh, looking up at him with great speaking eyes in the bright beams of the candles. The Vicar poured out wine, a brimming goblet, and guzzled it down at one gulp. Then he stood up and abode for a while staring at the candleflames and as if listening. At length he clad himself in breeches and gown, buckled on his sword, took and lighted a lantern, and unbolted the door. Gabriel was in his place without, asleep on his bed made up upon the floor across the threshold. The Vicar woke him with his foot and bade him give him the keys. He gave them in silence and would have come with him, but the Vicar with a kind of snarl bade him remain. Gabriel, considering this, and his disordered looks, and the sword at his thigh, watched him go with his bitch at his heel, through the ante-room and through the further door, that led to his private chamber, and when he was gone sat down on his pallet bed again, licking his lips.

  The Vicar went down by a privy passage of his own to the prison where Lessingham was mewed up; went in by means of his private key, and locked the door behind him. He held up the lantern. Lessingham lay in the far corner, with his ankles shackled to a ball of lead great as a man’s two fists. His left arm was free, but the other wrist locked in a manacle with a long chain from that to his foot. His cloak of costly silken stuff was rolled for a pillow for his cheek. The Vicar came nearer. With his dream still upon him, he stood looking upon Lessingham and listening, as upon some horrid
sudden doubt, for the sound of his breathing. In a deep stillness he lay there on the cobblestones, and with so much lithe strength and splendour of limb and chest and shoulder that the mould and dank of that place and the sweating walls, with trickles of wet that glistered in the lantern-light, seemed to take on an infection from his presence and put on a kind of beauty. Yet so still and without sound as he slept, had he been dead he could scarce have lain more still. Pyewacket gave a low growl. The Vicar caught her by the collar and flashed the lantern near Lessingham’s face. Upon that, he sat up wide awake, and with great coolness looked upon the Vicar.