by E R Eddison
She looked upon the Earl’s face, whose smoulder of thwarted anger mirrored, weakly may be, some locked-up passion within herself: upon the Chancellor’s, that carried in its stoniness at this moment deep-seated likenesses to her own: last, upon the high Admiral’s, which gave back (of any quality of hers) no reflection at all. They did obeisance to her; Roder, with a low leg, kissing her hand. ‘The King is ready,’ she said to them, as if speaking not to lords but to cur-dogs. ‘You may go in.’
King Mezentius sat to receive them in a large chamber fairly hung with arras, the light streaming in through open western windows behind him. At this other side of the table the lords commissioners, at a sign from his hand, took their seats facing him: Jeronimy in the midst, Beroald on his right, Roder on his left. They laid out their papers. No person else was present. The table was empty before the King, neither pen, ink nor paper. ‘I have commanded this council at your request,’ he said. ‘Speak without fear, all your mind. Gloze nothing: hold nothing back. The business, I understand, is of Rerek.’
The Admiral cleared his throat. ‘My Lord the King, it needs not to say that there worketh in us but one thought and purpose, and that is to behave ourselves, waking and sleeping, as constant loyal faithful servants unto your serenity’s person and, under your ordination and pleasure expressed and laid upon us, to perform (within the measure of our capacities) all that should enure to the safety of this Triple Kingdom and of the common weal thereof.’
‘True, it needs not to say,’ said the King. ‘I know it. Proceed you therefore, my good lord Admiral, to the matter. What of Rerek?’
The Admiral paused, as a swimmer might pause upon a high bank before the plunge. His fingers toyed with the jewel of the kingly order of the hippogriff that hung by a crimson ribbon about his neck. ‘For me, Lord,’ he said at last, ‘it is by so much the harder to urge, in a manner, this matter upon your serene highness’s gracious attention (even although I hold it most crying needful), by how much it hath been my happiness to have served you and followed your fortunes since your earliest years: seen your unexampled uprising by wisdom and by might and main to this triple throne you have for yourself erected, as history remembereth not the like, so as it is become a common saying upon men’s lips in these latter years, Pax Mezentiana. And it hath befallen me, through accident of birth and upbringing, to have longer enjoyed the high honour of your inward counsels than any here of mine equals now extant, albeit they be, I am very certain (save in this prime advantage of intimate acquaintance with your settled policy and the roots thereof) more abler men than I. Therefore I speak with due reservation’ – here the Chancellor shifted slightly in his chair, and Roder, as if to shade the glare of the sun, leaned over his papers, his hand across his eyes – ‘I speak, in a manner, with reservation, and most of all in this business that concerneth—’
The King smiled. ‘Come, noble Jeronimy: we are friends. I am not to eat you. You mean the Vicar is my not distant kinsman, and that I have, with eyes open and for reasons not perhaps beyond the guessing of those inmost in my counsels, ridden him on what you begin to think too rashly light a rein. That’s common ground. You came not here to tell me (nor to learn of me) that. What of it, then?’
‘I thank your highness. Well, to cut short the argument, my lord Chancellor hath here informations and reports, from divers independent intelligencers, throughly tried and not to be doubted, that (despite your plain warning to him to disband his army) he yet draweth strength to it about Laimak. Please your serenity peruse the evidences.’ He turned to the Chancellor, who, rising, spread on the table before the King a sheaf of writings.
But the King put them aside. ‘I know it. If they reported otherwise, it were an untruth. What then? You would put me in mind we may have to enforce our command?’
‘By showing the whip: that at least, and at all events.’
The King glanced his eye over the papers, then, pushing them slowly and thoughtfully across the table to Beroald, shook his head. ‘He will never attack me. These preparations are not against me.’
‘Saving your serenity’s presence,’ said Roder: ‘against whom, then?’
‘Against the future. Which, being unknown, he prudently hath fear of. He can look round and conclude he hath many and powerful enemies.’
‘Truly, my Lord the King,’ said Beroald, ‘I would not, for my part, gainsay him as for that. Some would say your serene highness alone standeth ’twixt him and the uniting of ’em to rid the world of him. Indeed there be some malignant grumblers –’ He paused. ‘Is it your pleasure I speak plain, Lord?’
‘More than that: I command you.’
‘With deep respect, then. There be some who murmur that your highness do play with fire may blaze out i’ the end to burn their houses: think you ought to protect them, ’stead of suffer this man to grow big, run loose, and in his own time devour us all. They forget not the hellish cruelties used by him upon both small and great, and innocent persons amongst ’em (’tis not denied), upon pretext of putting down the rebellion in the Marches five years ago.’
‘Was not that well done, then,’ said the King, ‘to put it down? Was it not his duty? You are not a child, Beroald. You were there. You need not me to tell you this realm stood never in your life-time in so fearful danger as when (I and the Admiral being held, with the main of my strength, in deadly and doubtful conflict with Akkama in the far north) Valero, following the Devil’s enticements and his own wicked will and ambitious desires, raised rebellion most formidable to my great empire and obedience. By what strong hand was it if not by the Parry’s alone, that the stirrers-up of those unnatural and treasonable commotions were put to the worst? And this to the evil example of all such as would hereafter attempt the like villany. And victory is not unbloody. Are you so hardy as question my rewarding him therefore?’
‘My Lord the King, you do know my whole mind in this matter,’ replied the Chancellor, ‘and my love and obedience.’
‘But you thought I’d ne’er come back from Middlemead, a year ago?’
‘I thought neither your highness nor I should ever come back. Yet must I remember you, it was bitterly against my will you enforced me to stay behind while yourself did enter that cockatrice’s den single-handed and alone.’
‘Yet that worked?’
‘It worked. And for this sole reason, because (under favour of heaven) your serene highness was there to handle it. Another than yourself, were he a man of our own day or the greatest you could choose out of times past since history began: it had been the death of him. And that you do know, Lord, in your heart, better than I.’
‘To speak soberly, that is simple truth, dear Beroald,’ said the King. ‘And thinking upon that, you may wisely trust me in this much lesser danger now.’
There fell a silence. Jeronimy caught the King’s eye. ‘I would add but this,’ he said. ‘There is not a man in the Three Kingdoms would trust him an inch were your highness out of the way.’
‘However, I am here,’ answered the King. ‘You may securely leave him to me.’
Again there fell a silence. The Admiral broke it, his eyes in a dog-like fidelity fastening on his great master’s and taking assurance, may be, from the half-humorous glints, sun-blink on still water, that came and went across the depths of all-swaying all-tolerant all-sufficient certitude which then looked forth upon him. ‘God redeem us from omens: but we were great failers of our love and duty to your highness if we sat speechless, for want of courage to come to the kernel of the thing.’
‘Which is?’
‘That all men are mortal.’
The King laughed: Olympian laughter, that the whole air in that room was made heady and fresh with it. ‘Why, you talk,’ he said, ‘as if there were no provision made. You three here in the south: Bodenay and a dozen more, seasoned captains and counsellors, to uphold the young King in Rialmar: Ercles and Aramond in north Rerek: Barganax in Zayana. Shall all these appear i’ the testing-time bodgers and bunglers, at odds amon
g themselves? Will you tell me the fleet is helpless? Or the army, Roder?’
‘A prentice hand upon the tiller,’ said the Admiral, ‘and a storm toward, ’tis a perilous prospect, like to try all our seamanship.’
‘Let me not leave your minds in doubt,’ said the King. ‘When I farewell, it shall not be to commit the Kingdom to a bunch of ninnies and do-littles, but to men. The Duke of Achery, as legitimate heir, must look to it. He will need all his wits, and yours. I have instructed him fully, in every principle and its particular bearings, this summer, ere I came south now.’
Jeronimy said, ‘The Duke of Zayana is also in question.’
‘He hath his apanage. He hath no thought of claiming more than his own. You may trust him, as were he mine own younger self, to be loyal and true to’s young brother (so the boy have the wisdom and common generousness to play his part), and, were Styllis to die, to be as loyal and as true to’s young sister, as Queen. Let me remember you, too: his kingdom is over far other things than lands, rivers, lakes, and the bodies of men. In the camp and the council-chamber I have nurtured him up to be expert in all that a prince should be master of; but, in heart, he is poet and painter. What to Emmius Parry was second subject in the symphony, is to Barganax first subject. He is of Meszria, born and bred. If let live, he will let live. But,’ said King Mezentius, his eyes upon them, ‘he is my son: therefore not a man to be mocked or teased. If forced to it, a hath that in him will make him able, and he be once set forth upon that path, to overthrow any person whatsoever who should pretend to usurp upon his right. – Well?’ he said, watching them sit as men who in imagination see a load presented for them which they begin to think shall prove heavier than their powers may avail to carry. ‘Tell me not you are not the men I have known you.’
The Chancellor broadened his chest and looked with resolute eye from the King to his colleagues, then again to the King. ‘With deep humility,’ he said, ‘and I think I speak for these lords as well as for myself: your highness hath told us no new thing, but all lendeth force to the argument that ’twere prudent something be done to contain the power of the Vicar. If (which God forbid) it should someday fall to us, bereft of your serene highness, to shoulder this sackful of contending interests, that were a heavy task indeed, yet not so heavy as we should shrink from, nor doubt our ability (under heaven) to perform it as your highness would have desired and expected of us. But if the Vicar must sit by in embattled strength straddling over the middle kingdom, aspying when we were deepliest otherwhere embroiled and ready then to take us, then were we as good as—’ He broke off, meeting the King’s eye, keen, weighing, meditative, upon him: lifted his head like a war-horse, and set his jaw. ‘What skills it to reason further?’ he said, in his most chilling iron-hard voice. ‘I have followed your serene highness into the mouth of destruction too many times to boggle at this.’
The King, listening, tranquil and remote, utterly at ease, made no sign. Only when his speckled grey eyes, as though by chance, came back to Beroald’s, their glance was friendly.
‘If it be permissible to ask,’ said the Admiral; ‘hath all this that your highness hath been pleased to express to us as touching his grace of Zayana been made plain to Duke Styllis?’
The King answered, ‘Yes. And he is content. Hath moreover sworn oath to me to respect his brother’s rights, and my will and policy.’
‘Did the Duke of Zayana,’ asked Roder, ‘swear too?’
‘It did not need.’
The commissioners began to gather up their papers. ‘And we are to understand it is your highness’s considered decision,’ said Beroald, ‘to move in no way against Rerek?’
‘He keeps his vicariate,’ replied the King. ‘No more. No less. I may need to handle him myself in this manner of his maintaining of an army afoot by secret means. My lords Jeronimy and Roder, prepare me proposals tomorrow (and be ready to put ’em in act ’pon shortest notice) for making some show of power about Kessarey and the Marches.’
With that, he rose, liker to a man in the high summer of his youth than to one in his fifty-fourth year: ‘On the far view,’ he said, turning to dismiss them, ‘I mean, when my day shall be over, I see no deadly danger from him, so but North and South stand firm in support of the succession. If they stand not so, that will not be my affair; but the affair of him that shall be man enough to deal with it. And now, you to your charge, I to mine.’
‘What think you of this, my lord Chancellor?’ said the Admiral, as they took their way across the great open quadrangel of the fortress.
Lord Beroald answered: ‘I think the tide is now at high flood that began to run a year ago. And were it an ordinary man, and not our Lord the King, I should think he was fey.’
‘We have entered with him between the clashing rocks ere now,’ said the Admiral, ‘and at every tack found his dangerous courses safer than our own fears. I see no wisdom but to do so again.’
‘There is no choice. And you, my Lord Roder?’
‘We have no choice,’ answered he in a sullen growl. ‘But there’s nought but ill to come of it.’
XXXVIII
CALL OF THE NIGHT-RAVEN
QUEEN Rosma, observing from her window the occasion of those lords coming from the council, went to find the King. She found him alone in the empty council-chamber, seated not in his chair of state but sideways on the stone of the window-seat, seemingly wrapped in his thoughts. He showed neither by movement nor by look that he heard the opening or shutting of the door, or was aware of her waiting presence. After a while she came nearer: ‘Lord, if it be your will, I would desire to speak with you in privity between us two. If this be not a fit time, I pray you appoint another.’
King Mezentius turned his eyes upon her and regarded her for a minute as a man lost in the profundities of his meditation might regard some object, table or chair or shadow thrown by the sun, which should chance within his vision.
‘Let it be for another time,’ she said, ‘if that be better. I had thought your highness’s mind being full with matters of the council, which this concerns, the occasion might be good. The thing can wait. Only I hope it must not wait too long.’
Still gazing upon her, he seemed to come back to earth. His brows cleared. ‘Let it be now, madam. I am, to times, as a barber’s chair that fits all buttocks. Albeit,’ and he gave her a laughing look, yet as out of a louring heart, ‘I think I am for the while unfit company for honest civil ladies.’ He stood up and with a scenical, histrionical, elegance of courtliness, kissed her hand. ‘But not here. I’ll breathe fresh air ’twixt this and supper or burst else. Come, I’ll row you on the firth: seek variety i’ the open face of the sea, since pinched earth affordeth none. Get on your cloak, dear faithful help-fellow of an outworn office. When we be launched on the deep, and but the sea-larks to overhear us, speak your fill: I shall not drown you. I see you are come prepared. Nay, not for drowning: I mean for plain speech. You’re painted against betrayals.’
‘Truly, dear my Lord, I know not what you mean. Betrayals of what?’
‘Of another kind of red very good for the cheeks. Of blushing.’
When they were come down to the water-gate, the firth lay under the cool of the evening at the slack-water of full sea, smooth and still as a duck-pool. Eastward and south-eastward the cliffs of the many isles and skerries, and of the headlands that reach down into Sestola Firth from the low-ranging jagged hills in the Neck of Bish, were walls of gold facing the splendour of the declining sun; and upon every sand-spit of the shore-line of Daish, under an immense peacefulness of unclouded heaven, thousands of gulls and curlew and sea-larks and sea-pies with scarlet bills awaited the turn of the tide. The King’s boatmen held the boat against the jetty while the Queen took her place in the stern upon a cushion of cloth of silver. The King, facing her on the thwart amidships, took the oars, pushed off, and with a few powerful strokes was clear of the great shadow of the fortress. Presently, warmed with the exercise, he put off his doublet, threw it in the bo
ws behind him, tucked up his shirt-sleeves of white cambric, and, settling to a slow steady stroke, held southwards down the firth. His eyes were on Rosrna, hers on him.
For a long time neither uttered word. Then the Queen broke silence: ‘Why must your highness stare upon me so strangely?’
He pulled his right, so that the sun shone full in her eyes, then, resting on his oars, leaned forward to watch her, a kind of mockery on his face. The water talked under the bows: a silvery babble, voluble at first from the way given by that stroke, then dying down to silence as the last water-drops fell from his oar-blades. ‘I was wishing,’ he said, ‘that you were capable to do something of your own motion, undirected and uncontrolled by me: something I had not foreseen in you.’
‘I think,’ she said, ‘there is some distemper working in your highness of late; making you brood vanities: making you, when I ask you any question, answer without sense or reason.’
