A Fish Dinner in Memison - Zimiamvian Trilogy 02

by E R Eddison

  'How should I know?'

  ‘I had thought you had come that way.'

  'Yes. But scarcely from taking an inventory.'

  'Ha, so there the wind sits?'

  He stood up as she came towards him, and they faced each other in silence. Then, light as the stirring of air in the overarching roof of poplar leaves above them, she laughed: held out a hand to him, which he after a pause dutifully, and with some faint spice of irony to sauce the motion, kissed;

  'Your ladyship has some private jest?'

  She sat down, elegantly settling herself on the rose-coloured marble bench, and elegantly drawing down, to smell to, a spray of honeysuckle. The black lashes veiled her eyes, as she inhaled from eight little branching horns of crimson, apricot-gold, and creamy colour, the honeysuckle's sweetness. Then, letting go the trailing flower, she looked round at him sitting now beside her. ‘I was diverted,' she said, 'by your look, my noble brother. That look you had, I remember, when you enveigled me to fall in with your pretty plan touching my former husband.'

  'As we mount the hill,' said the Chancellor, 'the prospect opens more large. That was beginnings.'

  'O, I spoke not of beginnings: not with that Borgian look." Piazza steps in Krestenaya.'

  'Leave this talk,' said the Chancellor.

  'Having yourself, before, fobbed him off on me like a base coin, to serve your own turn,' said she; 'and, soon as well rid of him, teased me to taking of this Morville: so much the better alliance for you, as being by some distant removes able to claim kinship with the Parrys. You think, I suppose, that, holding in me the Queen of Spades, you shall always be able to command the Ace to take knaves with?'

  'Fie, sister!'

  'Fie, brother! And you shall see, I'll play cards for love, not for policy. And next time you shall need to play me the King of Hearts, to be worth my Ace to trump him.'

  'What's this?' said the King behind them: 'chancellors with kings i' their hands? That was ever ruin, sure, whether to him that held or him that was holden.'

  'Serene highness,' said the Chancellor, rising and turning about to face his master: ‘you do know me: I ne'er play cards.'

  The King laughed. ‘Nor I: save now and then with the Devil; and that's now and then both good and needful.' Well six foot tall stood the Chancellor, clean of build and soldier-like; but the King, in black-bearded majesty, with eagle eyes, from under his black bonnet plumed with black eagle's feathers, looked down to him. The Duchess of Memison on the King's arm was as the beauty of an autumn evening leaning on night: a beauty of clouds and fire, of red-gold effulgence of sunset shining low through pine-tops and fern-fronds, when a little mist steals along the hillside and homing wild-duck stream high against the west. That Dark Lady, still seated, still with her back towards them, had but reached a jewelled hand to the honeysuckle to draw it down again to smell to.

  'My Lady Fiorinda.'

  She turned, saw, and rose, all duty and obedience, yet with the self-ordered unhasting haste of a foam-footed wave of the sea in calm June weather. 'Your gentle pardon, not to have known your highness' voice. Madam, your grace's humble servant.'

  'I have pardoned worse than that,' said the King, 'in a Valkyrie.'

  'In a Valkyrie? Am I that?'

  'Answer her, madam.'

  'O,' said the Duchess, 'she is none of mine. Let her answer for herself.'

  'None of-yours? and in lovely Memison? where the very birds do fly to you at your becking? By whose doing but by yours should I have met her this morning, on a white horse, galloping, at the first spring of day as I rode up through your oak-groves.'

  'As to speak of Valkyries,' said Fiorinda: 'I had supposed rather that your highness thought my horse had ta'en command of me: so swift as you rode me down and had him by the bridle.'

  The King met her eyes, green and hard. 'It is best way,' he said, 'with a Valkyrie: safer treat Goddess as woman than woman as Goddess. And, as to speak of pardon: tell me not, mistress! You knew. And studied so to sit on: note whether I'd call you.'

  She stood silent, looking down, as a statue unconcerned save that from the faint lifting, like the wings of a sea-swallow in flight, of her slender black eye-brows and from some subtle change about her mouth, there seemed to be shed about her a coldness as of the waste between the worlds.

  'I have procured a place for you,' said the King: lady of the bedchamber to the Duchess. Will you thank me for it?'

  She looked up, and first at the Duchess. 'I’ll thank both, and offend none. And, so please your serenity, I'll ask my husband's leave first'

  'No need,' said the King. 'That's asked and given this hour since. And now attend me, Beroald.' He said apart to the Duchess, looking into her green eyes across her fingers as he raised her hand to his hps, 'You see, madonna: I will do your way.'

  The Chancellor? O I am glad,' said she, and it was as if some benediction came and went like a breath of honeysuckle among common garden sweetnesses.

  'Then, ladies, give us leave for an hour. 'Fore God, matters of state, here in Memison, serve as salt pilchards and fumadoes 'twixt the wines, lest too much sweetness quite cloy us. Even as lovely Memison and your dear acquaintance, madam, are my noonday shadow and greenery in the desert of great action.'

  'And yourself,' said the Duchess, 'Lord of us and all; and yet slave yourself to that same desert.'

  'Of one thing only, in earth or heaven, am I slave.' 'And 'tis?'

  'Of my own self will,' said the King, laughing at her. 'Come Chancellor.'

  They two walked away slowly, over the lawn and through under that colonnade to another lawn, a hundred and fifty paces in length, may be, and forty across, with the long eastward-facing wall of the castle to bound it on the further side. Fair in the midst of that lawn they now began to pace the full length of it back and forth with slow and deliberate strides; and whiles they talked, whiles they seemed, falling silent, to weigh the matter. Low was their talk, and in that open sun-smitten place no danger of eavesdropping; unless the blackbird that hopped before them, jerking his tail, should listen and understand their discourse; or the martin, skimming to and fro in flashes of black and silver, still coming and returning again to her nest in the colonnade.

  'I have eggs on the spit, Beroald.'

  'I know,' said the Chancellor, very soberly.

  ‘How should you know? I never told you.'

  1 can smell them, even through this air of lilies.'

  'Beroald, I have resolved to employ you in a matter I did mean, until this morning, none should have hand in but myself only. Am I well advised, think you?'

  'If your serenity mean, well advised in undertaking of the thing, how can I answer, knowing not for certain what it is?'

  'I mean,' said the King, and there was a tartness in his voice, 'is it well advised to open, even to you, a business of so much peril and import?'

  The Chancellor paused. Then, 'That is a question,' he said, 'my Lord the King, that neither you nor I can answer. The event only can answer it.'

  ‘You say, then, the event must show whether I be a fool to trust you? whether you be, as I think, a man of mettle, and a man of judgement, and my man?'

  'Your highness hath spoke my thought with your own mouth.'

  'As cold as that?'

  'Well, there is this besides,’ said the Chancellor: that you were always my furtherer; and I, having looked on this world for five times seven years, have learnt this much of wisdom, to "bow to the bush I get bield frae” '

  'A fair-weather friend could say that,' said the King, searching his face. 'But we are to put into a sea we cannot sound.'

  The Chancellor replied, ‘I can say no more; save that, if this be action indeed, as your highness (as I have ever known you) counteth action, then, choosing me or any other man, you have but a weak staff to lean unto.'

  'Enough. Beroald, my eye is on the Parry.' 'So are lesser eyes.' 'These four years.'

  'Since his crashing for you of Valero's rebellion in the March of Ulba. You ha
ve taken your time.'

  'I would let him run on in his course of spending.’

  'Yet remember,' said the Chancellor, 'his policy is that

  of the duck: above water, idle and scarce seen to stir; but under water, secretly and speedily swimming towards his purpose.'

  The King said, ‘I know an otter shall pluck down yonder duck by the foot when least she doubts it'

  It will need civil war now to bring him in.’

  'He is my Vicar in Rerek. Will it not argue a feeble statecraft if I, that have reigned twenty-five years in troubles and disquietudes, cannot now command my own officer without I make war against him?'

  'Your serenity may have information we know not of. But most certain it is that, ever since the overthrow of those attempts in the Marches made him higher crested, he hath used your royal commission as his grappling-iron to grapple to his private allegiance the whole mid kingdom 'twixt Megra and the Zenner. I say not he meaneth openly to outbeard the sovereign himself. I think not so. But waiteth his time.'

  They took a turn in silence. Then said the King, letting his right fore-arm, that had lain loosely about the Lord Beroald's neck, slip back till the hand shut strong upon his shoulder: 'You remember we lately found a league in hand 'mongst some discontented spirits in Rerek and the Marches, which practice, though the branches on't were easily cut off, yet was it thought to have a more dangerous and secret root. I myself have since, by divers ways, as many lines meet in the dial's centre, come nearer to the truth. There be five or six, instruments of his: names, were I to name 'em you'd ne'er believe me: so many showing friends, so many unshowing enemies. I have letters, enough to satisfy me. Advise me: what shall I do?'

  'Summon them before you, himself and all, and let them answer the matter. If their answer be not sufficient, take off their heads.'

  'What? When the cry "Puss, puss, where art thou?" were next way to fright 'em to open rebellion? Mend your counsel, my lord Chancellor: this serves not.'

  'Serene highness, I am a man of law, and should meddle no further than my commission. Yet is it the platform and understanding of all law that the King, just cause arising, may lawfully act without the law? You are our great pilot, on whom all we cast our eyes and seek our safety. For security of your person, it were good this Vicar were made away. This then is my counsel: assure yourself well of your forces, and, that done, strike: and at unawares.'

  The King laughed in his great black beard. 'You have confirmed my very resolve, and so shall it be. But with two provisoes. First, I'll not, like an unskilful boor, kill my good hawk 'cause she turns haggard: I'll tame my Horius Parry, not end him.'

  Tm sorry, then,' said the Chancellor. 'He is a buzzard: he is of bad carry: you can make him do nothing.'

  'Who are you, to prescribe and measure my ability?'

  It should not be for my honesty to flatter you. Moreover, your highness hath proved him a man that neither believeth anything that another man speaketh, nor speaketh anything himself worthy to be believed.'

  'I say to you,' said the King, ‘I’ll bring him to lure. As some reclaim ravens, kestrels, pies, what not, and man them for their pleasure, have I not so used him as my own these years and years? I would not lose him for twice the purchase of that dominion he holdeth for me.'

  Beroald said, 'If my words be too thin to carry so tough a matter, let your serene highness be advised further: require of my lord Admiral, or Earl Roder, or old Bodenay, your knight marshall in Rialmar, their opinions; or your tributary princes in north Rerek: they'll say the same.'

  But the King answered him, 'Not all of you, Beroald, on your bended knees, nor all my liege subjects up and down the Three Kingdoms, might move me in this. Besides,' he said, halting and turning to look Beroald in the eye, '(and here's second proviso): to be King, as I have ever opinioned and ever set my course according, should be by competency, not by privilege. If I of myself be not competent of this thing to perform it, better goodnight then and a new king i' the land.

  'Hearken, therefore, and note it well. Twas not by chance I guested with him in Laimak two weeks since in such loving-kindness, in my progress, and well forced; nor by chance that I removed thence with great show of pomp south hither into Meszria. It was to lull them. For all this I did, knowing secretly that he is to meet one night, in some convenient place remote among the upper waters of the Zenner. with five or six (the same I spoke on), there to complete and make up their plot for seizing of Rerek to be a kingdom of itself, with him king thereof. Of time, place, and other particulars of this meeting set, I expect information hourly. You and I, we two alone, will keep that tryst with 'em: wherein if I bring not the rest to destruction and him to his obedience, at least I'll die attempting it

  ‘Well? will you go, or bide behind?'

  The Chancellor very pale and proud of mien, gazing as if into some distance, said after a minute: I'll go, my Lord the King.' The King took him by both hands and kissed him. 'And yet,' said the Chancellor, facing him now squarely, 'I would, with your serene highness' leave, say one word.'

  'Say on, what thee lust.'

  'This, then: I think you are stark mad. And yet,' he said and drew up his lip, ‘I may well humour my master in this, to suffer myself to be murdered along with him; for I am not afraid of my death.'

  The King looked strangely at him: so might some eagle-baffling mountain look upon its own steadfastness imagined dim in some lake where rufflings of the water mar the reflection: so, it may be, might Zeus the cloud-gatherer look down, watching out of Ida. 'If such fate expect my life, then better so. This must be for us a master-hour, an hour that judgeth all others. I'll not turn back, Beroald.'

  III

  A Match and Some Lookers on

  TIME, you know, is a curious business', said Lord Anmering, tilting his head forward a little to let the brim of his panama hat shade his eyes; for it was teatime, and the afternoon sun, from beyond the cricket field below, blazed out of cloudless blue full in their faces. 'Love of money, we're told,—root of all evil. Gad! I think otherwise. I think Time strikes deeper.'

  Lady Southmere replenished the vacuum with one of the more long-drawn, contemplative, and non-committal varieties of the inimitable transatlantic 'Aha'.

  'Look at Mary', he said. 'Look at me. If I wasn't her father: wasn't thirty-two years her senior. Wouldn't I know what to do with her?'

  'Well, I dare say you would.'

  'Easy enough when they're not your own,' he said, as they walked on slowly, coming to a halt at the top of two flights of shallow steps that led down to the field from the gardens. 'But when they are,—By Jove, that's the style!' The ball, from a magnificent forward drive, sailed clean over the far fence, amid shouts of applause, for six. 'If you let your boy go and smash my melon-houses, knocking the bowling about like that, I'll tell you, I'll have no more to do with him. We mustn't forget,' he said, lower again: 'she's very young. Never force the pace.'

  'O but don't I just agree? And the very dearest, sweetest,—'

  ‘You know her, well as I do. No, you don't, though. Look there,' putting up his eye-glass to examine the telegraph board: 'eighty. Eighty: a hundred and sixty-three: that's eighty-four to win. Not so bad, with only three wickets down. It's that boy of yours is doing it: wonderful steady play: nice style too: like to see him make his century. You know our two best bats, Chedisford and that young Macnaghten, didn't add up to double figures between 'em: Hugh's got his work cut out for him. Look at that! pretty warm bowling. A strong team old Playter's brought us over this time from Hyrnbastwick: Jove, I'd like to give 'em a whacking for a change. Well, Hugh and Jim seem settled to it. Would you like to come down over there: get a bit of shade?'

  ‘I would like to do anything anybody tells me to. This is just too perfect.' She turned, before coming down the steps, to look back for a minute to the great west front of Anmering Blunds, where it ranged beyond green lawns and flower-beds and trim deep-hued hedges of clipped box and barberry and yew: long rows of mullioned window
s taking the sun, whose beams seemed to have fired the very substance of the ancient brickwork to some cool-burning airy essence of gold. This wing, by Inigo Jones, was the newest part, masking from this side the original flint-built house that had been old Sir Robert Scarnside's whom Henry VIII made first Earl of Anmering. Round to the right, in the home park, stood up, square and grey, Anmering church tower. A sheltering wood of oak, ash, beech and sycamore was a screen for hall and church and garden against the east; and all the midsummer leafage of these trees seemed, at this hour, impregnate with that golden light. Northwards, all lay open, the ground falling sharply to the creek, salt marshes and sand-dunes and thence-away, to the North Pole, the sea. Southwards and landwards, park and wood and meadow and arable rose gently to the heaths and commons: Bestarton, Sprowswood, Toftrising. Lady Southmere, waiting on the silence a minute, might hear as under-tones to the voices of the cricket field (of players and lookers on, click of wood against leather as the batsman played) the faint far-off rumour of tide-washed shingle, and, from trees, the woodpigeon's rustic, slumbrous, suddenly started and suddenly checked, discourse: Two coos, tak' two coos, Taffy, tak' two coos, Taffy tak’—. From golden rose to larkspur a swallowtail butterfly fluttered in the heat. 'Just too perfect for words,' she saidf turning at last.

  They came down the steps and began walking, first north, and so round by the top end of the cricket field towards the tents. 'I'll make a clean breast of it,' she said: 'twenty-six years now I have been English and lived in the Shires; and yet, Blunds in summer, well, it gets me here: sends me downright home-sick.' Just as, underneath all immediate sounds or voices, those distant sea-sounds were there for the listening, so in Lady South-mere's speech there survived some pleasant native intonations of the southern States. .

  'Home-sick?' said Lord Anmering. 'Virginia?'

  'No, no, no: just for Norfolk. Aren't I English? and isn't your Norfolk pure England as England ought to be?'

  'Better get Southmere to do an exchange: give me the place in Leicestershire and you take Blunds.'