by E R Eddison
'Then 'tis fitted,' said the Duke, and stood up.
'Will you appoint someone: County Medor if you please: to draw it out for us with Gabriel Flores?'
'Yes, Medor: he hath noted down all for my behalf,' said
Barganax. 'And remember yet constantly of this,' he said, walking apart with Lessingham to the pavilion door while the others gathered up their papers: "Tis you and I make this peace, but 'tis you must keep it. Were't the Vicar alone, I'd not waste ink and parchment 'pon a concordat I'd know he should tear, soon as advantage should wink at him to the transgressing of it. But in this I see something, that you, my Lord Lessingham, have took it upon your honour, and stand warranty unto me, that this peace shall hold.'
'Here,' answered Lessingham, 'I must use a like licence as did your grace but now. He is not at my apron-strings as a child by his nurse. But so far as in me lies, I faithfully affirm by my solemned oath he' shall in all points abide by this agreement.'
Upon this, said with great grandeur by the Lord Lessingham, they two struck hand together. As they so stood, handfasted for a moment upon that peacemaking, it was as if a third stood with them: not perceivably in distinction of bodily presence, yet with a strange certitude made known to each in the other and apparent so: so that to the sense of each the other was lost, drunk up, confounded, in this new presence. So they stood, not three but two. But to the Duke the black beard and masculine presence of Lessingham were become as a cloak only, cloaking but not hiding; or as some fortress of old night, strong to preserve that which, to the Duke familiar yet ever new, unseizable as some flower dreamt of by God but not yet unfolded in Elysium, looked from its windows. So too to Lessingham was the Duke become, but as a might of sunrise rather or of white noon; and that wonder seen at the window was for Lessingham as a forgotten music remembered again and lost again, as in that May night three weeks ago in Acrozayana.
Gabriel said at his elbow, 'Pray your worship, I had rather meddle no further in this. Amaury hath a more apter hand than I for't.'
Lessingham looked down coldly at him. 'Belike he hath. But his highness did design your presence mainly for such work as this. You were best go through with it.'
Gabriel stood uncertain. 'So please you, I had rather not. So please you, I see little of his highness' design in this,' he said, gathering boldness with speaking but to a shoulder. ‘I am a simple poor servant of his: not a great lord. May be's some trick in it; but to sell his highness' interest, I'd rather not set my pen to it, no not to the drawing of it, so please you.'
'Well, begone then,' said Lessingham, tartly; 'for indeed I have suffered too long your impertinences in these proceedings, like a sparrow chirping and chittering to other sparrows. Begone, go.'
Gabriel stood yet in doubt. 'Yet, consider, my lord,—'
Lessingham gave him a sudden look. 'Unless you mean to be kicked,' he said. 'Begone.'
And with great swiftness Gabriel went.
Gabriel went by chosen by-ways and with much circumspection, so that it was mid evening when he rode down through the skirts of the forest where alders and birches increase upon the oaks, and came upon the Zenner a mile below Kutarmish bridge and scarce ten miles as the crow flies from Ilkis whence he had set forth. His little brown horse swam the river, and now in another mile he turned with secure mind up into the highroad and so, 'twixt gallops and breathing times, had by nightfall left behind him the long straight causeway through the fens that runs south and north past the solitary walled bluff of Argyanna. At Ketterby he halted to bait his horse and sup at the moated house: mutton pies, tripe, cheese, and garlic, and thick black beer; would not stay, but rode on and slept in his cloak under the moon on the open heath a little this side of Ristby; saddled up again before daylight; came to Storby when folk were first astir at the bridge-house; ate breakfast at Anguring, and, galloping hard, an hour later met the Lord Horius Parry riding with a half dozen of his gentlemen in the water-meadows a league below Laimak.
'Now we shall know somewhat,' said the Vicar, as Gabriel clambered down from the saddle, took his master by the foot, and with a clumsy reverence kissed it. 'Chatter and surmise these two days past have fleshed us: set teeth on edge to ask for truth. Give it me in a word: good or bad?'
'Highness, 'tis very good,' answered he. In the midst of the great dogs sniffing his boots and breeches he stood unbonneted, shifting from leg to leg, his eyes shifting but ever coming back to meet the Vicar's.
'That and no more?'
'I have been schooled by your highness to answer no more than your highness shall please to ask.'
The Vicar looked at him piercingly for a moment, then gave a great barking laugh. 'Good is enough,' he said. Then, 'Mandricard,' he said, swinging round in his saddle so that those others, edging and craning nearer for news, drew laughably back as if upon some danger: 'you and the rest go home: announce these tidings. I'll take air awhile yet, talk on some small matters concern not you. Fare you well.'
'May we not know, but largely,—?' Count Mandricard began to say. He was a big bacon-faced side-lipped man with the carriage of a king and a voice like the undertones of bronze, but his words withered on his lips as he met the eye of the Vicar. 'Fare you well,' the Vicar said, after an instant's pause. And, being that they, like Gabriel, were not without schooling, they obediently departed.
'Well?' said the Vicar. 'The sum?'
He answered, 'Sum is, their whole power beat in pieces in a main battle beside the Zenner, at Lorkan, a three leagues down from Kutarmish 'pon the Meszrian bank; and yonder Duke laid at your highness' disposal, ready for treading like a frog beneath your boot.'
The Vicar, motionless in the saddle, head erect, gazing through half-closed eyelids down the valley, took in a breath through his nostrils, and the leather doublet creaked that encased his mighty chest. Under the freckons his face flamed like sunrise before stormy weather. 'That was well done,' he said. He shook the rein and turned at a walking pace east along a bridle-path that led to the mountain. Gabriel mounted and followed at his elbow.
'The Duke: ta'en, then? or how?'
Gabriel answered, 'I would not have your highness fall to too sudden a conclusion. No, not ta'en; nor not like to be now. Yet was in hand to be.'
'In hand to be?' said the Vicar, looking round at him. Gabriel held his peace. 'When was this battle?' said the Vicar.
He answered, 'Upon Saturday: five days gone.' And now as they rode he told of it point by point, to the coming down of the Duke to Ilkis out of Rumala. 'By the blood of Satan!' said the Vicar, 'had I been there, I doubt I should a made so delicate fine-fingered a matter on't. This bastard line in Meszria springeth too rank a crop of weeds for my liking. Go, I'd a been sore tempted to take his head while God gave me opportunity; so by one gallon of blood save an ocean of cares to come.'
They rode on for a few minutes in silence. 'What's the end on't?' he said. 'Surrender without all conditions?'
'Scarcely thus,' said Gabriel.
'What then?' said the Vicar.
'Indeed,' said Gabriel, and showed his teeth like a ferret, 'it were fittest your highness should wait till my Lord Lessingham come home. He will resolve you of all this, ne'er a doubt on't.'
Their horse-hooves, clattering among the stones as they forded a beck, measured the laden silence. Gabriel, with a sidelong glance, noted how the Vicar, bull-like and erect in an inscrutability as of hewn granite, gazed steadily between his horse's ears; only there was a duller red showed now under his fair skin between the freckons. Gabriel hazarded no more glances. A bittern boomed in the marshes far away.
'Fittest I should wait?' said the Vicar in a slow purring quietness. Gabriel, biting his Up near until the blood came, rose stiff in his stirrups with head drawn back till his beard pointed skywards. The Vicar, regarding him snakishly, drew back his thin lips in a smile. 'I have not taken hold of you yet, my friend,' he said. His fingers like brazen clamps tightened their grip on Gabriel's elbow, while the thumbnail with an erudite cruelty searched th
e tissues between bone and bone, then at the one intolerable place bored in like a beak. Gabriel's leather sleeve spared him effusion of blood but not the torment. He writhed forward till his forehead hit the saddle-bow, then up again with a sudden motion as of a puppet worked by springs. 'I cannot bear it,' he said, ‘I cannot bear it.'
The Vicar's hand relaxed but, like an iron gin, held him still. ‘I can wait?' he said, still with that low purring; 'more patience than you, it seems, my little pigsnye? But I'll none of your michery; you shall lay yourself open to me, my pug, lest I open you indeed, see what colour your guts are of, as you've seen me do to others ere now. Well then, is't restore his appanage?'
'Yes,' said Gabriel, 'and without conditions: without suzerainty.'
'If you gape upon me,' said the Vicar, ‘I’ll make dogs-meat of you. What's done, 'tis my doing, not for such vermin as you to question or pronounce upon.'
'Your highness yet needs not to eat and devour up me, that had neither hand nor part in't. For indeed there's worse to come too.'
'Make haste with it,' said the Vicar. "Tis my doing, d'ye hear? Remember that, if you would keep your belly unripped.'
Gabriel said, 'First there's the regency.'
The Vicar reined in his horse: near threw him on his haunches. Gabriel paused, meeting his lord's eye that had the wicked look of a bull's about to charge. 'God's blood! and might I not give him the regency and ne'er ask leave of thee?' For the moment Gabriel's thoughts were so intent for his proper safety that he forgot his cue to speak. 'Regent of what, fool?' said the Vicar. They were bearing now down towards the road again. Gabriel answered, 'Great part of Meszria: but upon your "highness' suzerainty.'
'Great part? What's that? The main south of Zayana, south of thex neck? Memison? Doth it bar Sestola and ports besides that should give him the key to the sea? 'Twas a prime act of policy lodged the Admiral aforetime in Sestola to keep Zayana's wings clipped. Speak, fool? What part, fool?'
'All these,' said he, his flesh shrinking to feel the threat of that iron grip: 'all south of the mountains from Ruyar to Salimat.'
'What of the north?'
'Jeronimy confirmed regent, 'pon homage done unto your highness.'
'Ha, and was that well done, think you?'
"Twas your highness' doing: not for me to question.'
'Damned measled hog, answer to the matter, or we'll cut your tongue out: was it well done to entrust my borders to this nannicock, for Zayana to make use of as the monkey do the cat's foot?'
Gabriel faced him with the boldness of a weasel driven into a corner. 'Must I answer?'
'You must.'
'Then', said Gabriel, 'I answer your highness. Yes: it was well done.'
'Why so?' said the Vicar. 'Answer me, filth, you were best.'
Gabriel said, 'Let go my arm then, and Fll answer.' The Vicar flung him off with so rude a violence, Gabriel near lost his saddle. 'Because', said Gabriel then, 'sith your highness had given free peace and amnesty to Beroald and Roder both, and commissioned my Lord Lessingham too to pledge you body and soul to Barganax to yield up all, as if you, not he, had been the vanquished party: a thing I would not swallow, and therefore left him,—'
"Tis a lie,' said the Vicar. 'When! Pyewacket! Ill-mauger! Peck-i'-the-crown! Loo! Loo! Hie on! Tear him! Tear him!'
Gabriel was barely in time drawing of his hanger as the dogs charged. One he slew with a down-cut, but the next in the next instant had caught his wrist of the hand that gripped the hilt. His horse reared, fell backwards: Gabriel was fallen clear, but before he was gotten upon his feet they had pulled him down and, with a hideous din, set about worrying him like a fox. The Vicar leaped from his saddle, calling them off, smiting left and right among them with his riding-switch: in a moment they were in hand again, obedient, shamefaced, waiting for his eye. All save Ill-mauger, that with that bite had tasted blood: he, huge, yellow-heckled, wolfish, snarling and slavering at the lips, crouched for another spring. The Vicar grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and flung him aside. He stood his ground, bristling, savage-eyed, ears laid back, growling on a deep inward-taken breath. As the Vicar made a step towards him with uplifted switch, he gathered himself and leapt at the Vicar's throat They went down together, rolling over and over in an evil hugger-mugger as it had been of wolf and bear. The Vicar for all his bigness scarce outwent the dog in weight of bone and sinew, but it was swiftly seen that he was more deft and agile than a wolf, in strength not overmatched, and in his present mood as wolfish and as implacable. And now was an ill music of the Vicar's snarls and pants and grunts and the clashing of the great beast's teeth as he snapped at air; for the Vicar, now uppermost now under in their fight for the mastery, was never shaken nor loosened from his grasp, of his right hand iron-fast upon the throat. Little by little he tightened his grip to a better purchase, then suddenly the music changed, as his left hand found its quarry, a crueller and more ingenious hold. At length the stifled shrieks died down into a gurgling and sodden quiet The Vicar, uppermost now, was grovelled face downwards on his adversary, and now, as a whirlwind hushes upon the centre, the leaping medley of limbs, part dog part man, began to be still. Gabriel marked how the great muscles of the Vicar's neck worked under their low-growing cropped stubble of red hair like the neck-muscles of a preying lion, and how his breath came and went, in laboured snuffs and snorts through his nostrils. At length he raised himself on his hands and knees. The dog was dead, bitten clean through the weasand.
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 m
ade 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.'