by E R Eddison
Corsus sang:
And when the blackbird leaves to sing,
And likewise serpents for to sting,
Then you may saye, and justly too,
The old world now is turned anew:
and so sank back into bloated silence.
‘My Lord the King,’ cried Prezmyra, ‘I beseech you give order for the ending of this difference between two of your council, ere it wax to dangerous heat. Let them be given a toad, O King, and spiders without delay, that they may make experiment before this goodly company.’
Therewith all fell a-laughing, and the King commanded a thrall, who shortly brought fat spiders to the number of seven and a crystal wine-cup, and inclosed with them beneath the cup a toad, and set all before the King. And all beheld them eagerly.
‘I will wager two firkins of pale Permian wine to a bunch of radishes,’ said Corund, ‘that victory shall be given unto the spiders. Behold how without resistance they do sit upon his head and pass all over his body.’
Gro said, ‘Done.’
‘Thou wilt lose the wager, Corund,’ said the King. ‘This toad taketh no hurt from the spiders, but sitteth quiet out of policy, tempting them to security, that upon advantage he may swallow them down.’
While they watched, fruits were borne in: queen-apples, almonds, pomegranates and pistick nuts; and fresh bowls and jars of wine, and among them a crystal flagon of the peach-coloured wine of Krothering vintaged many summers ago in the vineyards that stretch southward toward the sea from below the castle of Lord Brandoch Daha.
Corinius drank deep, and cried, ‘’Tis a royal drink, this wine of Krothering! Folk say it will be good cheap this summer.’
Whereat La Fireez shot a glance at him, and the King marking it said in Corinius’s ear, ‘Wilt thou be prudent? Let not thy pride flatter thee to think aught shall avail thee, any more than my vilest thrall, if by thy doing this Prince smell out my secrets.’
By then was the hour waxing late, and the women took their leave, lighted to the doors in great state by thralls with flamboys. In a while, when they were gone. ‘A plague of all spiders!’ cried Corund. ‘Thy toad hath swallowed one already.’
‘Two more!’ said Gro. ‘Thy theoric crumbleth apace, O Corund. He hath two at a gulp, and but four remain.’
The Lord Corinius, whose countenance was now aflame with furious drinking, held high his cup and catching the Prince’s eye, ‘Mark well, La Fireez,’ he cried, ‘a sign and a prophecy. First one; next two at a mouthful; and early after that, as I think, the four that remain. Art not afeared lest thou be found a spider when the brunt shall come?’
‘Hast drunk thyself horn-mad, Corinius?’ said the King under his breath, his voice shaken with anger.
‘He is as witty a marmalade-eater as ever I conversed with,’ said La Fireez, ‘but I cannot tell what the dickens he means.’
‘That,’ answered Corinius, ‘which should make thy smirking face turn serious. I mean our ancient enemies, the haskardly mongrels of Demonland. First gulp, Goldry, taken heaven knows whither by the King’s sending in a deadly scud of wind—’
‘The devil damn thee!’ cried the King, ‘what drunken brabble is this?’
But the Prince La Fireez waxed red as blood, saying, ‘This it is then that lieth behind this hudder mudder, and ye go to war with Demonland? Think not to have my help therein.’
‘We shall not sleep the worse for that,’ said Corinius. ‘Our mouth is big enough for such a morsel of marchpane as thou, if thou turn irksome.’
‘Thy mouth is big enough to blab the secretest intelligence, as we now most laughably approve,’ said La Fireez. ‘Were I the King, I would draw lobster’s whiskers on thy skin, for a tipsy and a prattling popinjay.’
‘An insult!’ cried the Lord Corinius, leaping up. ‘I would not take an insult from the Gods in heaven. Reach me a sword, boy! I will make Beshtrian cutworks in his guts.’
‘Peace, on your lives!’ said the King in a great voice, while Corund went to Corinius and Gro to the Prince to quiet them. ‘Corinius is wounded in the wrist and cannot fight, and belike his brain is fevered by the wound.’
‘Heal him, then, of this carving the Goblins gave him, and I will carve him like a capon,’ said the Prince.
‘Goblins!’ said Corinius fiercely. ‘Know, vile fellow, the best swordsman in the world gave me this wound. Had it been thou that stood before me, I had cut thee into steaks, that art caponed already.’
But the King stood up in his majesty, saying, ‘Silence, on your lives!’ And the King’s eyes glittered with wrath, and he said, ‘For thee, Corinius, not thy hot youth and rebellious blood nor yet the wine thou hast swilled into that greedy belly of thine shall mitigate the rigour of my displeasure. Thy punishment I reserve unto tomorrow. And thou, La Fireez, look thou bear thyself more humbly in my halls. Over pert was the message brought me by thine herald at thy coming hither this morning, and too much it smacked of a greeting from an equal to an equal, calling thy tribute a gift, though it, and thou, and all thy principality are mine by right to deal with as seems me good. Yet did I bear with thee: unwisely, as I think, since thy pertness nourished by my forbearance springeth up yet ranker at my table, and thou insultest and brawlest in my halls. Be advised, lest my wrath forge thunderbolts against thee.’
The Prince La Fireez answered and said, ‘Keep frowns and threats for thine offending thralls, O King, since me they affright not, and I laugh them to scorn. Nor am I careful to answer thine injurious words; since well thou knowest my old friendship unto thine house, O King, and unto Witchland, and by what bands of marriage I am bound in love to the Lord Corund, to whom I gave my lady sister. If it suit not my stomach to proclaim like a servile minister thy suzerainty, yet needest thou not to carp at this, since thy tribute is paid thee, ay, and in over-measure. But unto Demonland am I bound, as all the world knoweth, and sooner shalt thou prevail upon the lamps of heaven to come down and fight for thee against the Demons than upon me. And unto Corinius that so boasteth I say that Demonland hath ever been too hard for you Witches. Goldry Bluszco and Brandoch Daha have shown you this. This is my counsel unto thee, O King, to make peace with Demonland: my reasons, first that thou hast no just cause of quarrel with them, next (and this should sway thee more) that if thou persist in fighting against them it will be the ruin of thee and of all Witchland.’
The King bit his fingers with signs of wonderful anger, and for a minute’s time no sound was in that hall. Only Corund spake privately to the King saying, ‘Lord, O for all sakes swallow your royal rage. You may whip him when my son Hacmon returneth, but till then he outnumbers us, and your own party so overwhelmed with wine that, trust me, I would not adventure the price of a turnip on our chances if it come to fighting.’
Troubled at heart was Corund, for well he knew how dear beyond account his lady wife held the keeping of the peace betwixt La Fireez and the Witches.
In this moment Corsus, somewhat roused in an evil hour out of lethargy by the loud talk and movement, began to sing:
When all the prisons hereabout
Have justled all their prisoners out.
Because indeed they have no cause
To keepe ’em in by common laws.
Whereat Corinius, in whom wine and quarrelling and the King’s rebukes had lighted a fire of reckless and outrageous malice before which all counsels of prudence or policy were dissipated like wax in a furnace, shouted loudly, ‘Wilt see our prisoners, Prince, i’ the old banquet hall, to prove thyself an ass?’
‘What prisoners?’ cried the Prince, springing to his feet. ‘Hell’s furies! I am weary of these dark equivocations and will know the truth.’
‘Why wilt thou rage so beastly?’ said the King. ‘The man is drunk. No more wild words.’
‘Thou canst not daff me so. I will know the truth,’ said La Fireez.
‘So thou shalt,’ said Corinius. ‘This it is, that we Witches be better men than thou and thy hen-hearted Pixies, and better men than the acc
ursed Demons. No need to hide it further. Two of that brood we have laid by the heels, and nailed ’em up on the wall of the old banquet hall, as farmers nail up weasels and polecats on a barn door. And there shall they bide till they be dead: Juss and Brandoch Daha.’
‘O most villanous lie!’ said the King. ‘I’ll have thee hewn in pieces.’
But Corinius said, ‘I nurse your honour, O King. We must no longer skulk before these Pixies.’
‘Thou diest for it,’ said the King, ‘and it is a lie.’
Now was dead silence for a space. At last the Prince sat down slowly. His face was white and drawn, and he spake unto the King, slowly and in a quiet voice: ‘O King, that I was somewhat hot with you, forgive me. And if I have omitted any form of allegiance due to you, think rather that in my blood it is to chafe at such ceremonies than that I had any lack of friendship unto you or ever dreamed of questioning your over-lordship. Aught that you shall require of me and that lieth with mine honour, aught of ceremony or fealty, will I with joy perform. And, save against Demonland, is my sword ready against your enemies. But here, O King, tottereth a tower ready to fall athwart our friendship and pash it in pieces. It is known to you, O King, and to all the lords of Witchland, that my bones were whitening these six years in Impland the More if Lord Juss had not saved me from the barbarous Imps that followed Fax Fay Faz, who besieged me four months with my small following shut up in Lida Nanguna. My friendship shall you have, O King, if you yield me up my friends.’
But the King said, ‘I have not thy friends.’
‘Show me then the old banquet hall,’ said the Prince.
The King said, ‘I will show it thee anon.’
‘I will see it now,’ said the Prince, and he rose from his seat.
‘I will dissemble with thee no longer,’ said the King. ‘I do love thee well. But when thou askest me to yield up to thee Juss and Brandoch Daha, thou askest a thing all Pixyland and thy dear heart’s blood were unable to purchase from me. These be my worst enemies. Thou knowest not at what cost of toil and danger I have at last laid hand on them. And now let not thy hopes make thee an unbeliever, when I swear to thee that Juss and Brandoch Daha shall rot and die in prison.’
And for all his gentle speeches, and offers of wealth and rich advantage and upholding in peace and war, might not La Fireez shake the King. And the King said, ‘Forbear, La Fireez, or thou wilt vex me. They must rot.’
So when the Prince La Fireez saw that he might not move the King by soft words, he took up his fair crystal goblet, egg-shaped with three claws of gold to stand withal welded to a collar of gold about its middle bossed with topazes, and hurled it at Gorice the King, so that the goblet smote him on the forehead, and the crystal was brast asunder with the force of the blow, and the King’s forehead laid open, and the King strook senseless.
Therewith was huge uproar in the banquet hall; nor would Corund that any should have speedier hand therein than he, but catching up his two-edged sword and crying, ‘Look to the King, Gro! Here’s distressful revels!’ he leaped upon the table. And his sons likewise and Gallandus and the other Witches seized their weapons, and in like manner did La Fireez and his men; and there was battle in the great hall in Carcë. Corinius, whose left hand only might as now wield weapon, even so sprang forth in most gallant wise, calling upon the Prince with many vile words to abide his onset. But the fumes of unbridled potations, that being flown to his brain had made him frantic mad, wrought in his legs more foggily, dulling their wonted nimbleness. And his foot sliding in a puddle of spilt wine he fell backward a grievous fall, striking his head against the polished table. And Corsus that was now well nigh speechless and quite stupefied with drink, so that a baby might tell as well as he what meant this hubbub, reeled cup in hand, shouting, ‘Drunkenness is better for the body than physic! Drink always, and you shall never die!’ So shouting he was smitten square in the mouth by a breast of veal flung at him by Elaron of Pixyland, the captain of the Prince’s bodyguard, and so fell like a hog athwart Corinius, and there lay without sense or motion. Then were the tables overset, and wounds given and taken, and swiftly ran the tide of vantage against the Witches. For albeit the Pixies were none such great soldiers as they of Witchland, yet this served them mightily that they were well nigh sober and their foes as so many casks filled with wine, staggering and raving for the most part from their long tippling and quaffing. Nor did Corund’s amethyst avail him throughly, but the wine clogged his veins so that he waxed scant of breath and his strokes lighter and slower than they were wont.
Now for the love he bare his sister Prezmyra and for his old kindness sake for Witchland, the Prince charged his men to fight only for the overpowering of the Witches, slaying none if so it might be, and on their lives to look to it that the Lord Corund took no hurt. And when they had fairly gotten the mastery, La Fireez made certain of his folk take jars of wine and therewith souse Corund and his men most lustily in the face, while others held them at weapon’s point, until by the power of the wine both within and without they were well brought under. And they barricaded the great doorway of the hall with the benches and table tops and heavy oaken trestles, and La Fireez charged Elaron hold the door with the most of his following, and set guards without each window that none might come forth from the hall.
But the Prince himself took flamboys and went six in company to the old banquet hall, overpowered the guard, brake open the doors, and so stood before Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha that hung shackled to the wall side by side. Something dazzled they were in the sudden torch-light, but Lord Brandoch Daha spake and hailed the Prince, and his mocking haughty lazy accents were scarcely touched with hollowness, for all his hunger-starving and long watching and the cark and care of his affliction. ‘La Fireez!’ he said. ‘Day ne’er broke up till now. And methought ye were yonder false fitchews fostered in filth and fen, the spawn of Witchland, returned again to fleer and flout at us.’
La Fireez told them how things had gone, and he said, ‘Occasion gallopeth apace. Upon this bargain do I loose you, that ye come incontinently with me out of Carcë, and seek no revenge tonight upon the Witches.’
Juss said yea to this; and Brandoch Daha laughed, saying, ‘Prince, I so love thee, I could refuse thee nothing, were it shave half my beard and go in fustian till harvest-time, sleep in my clothes, and discourse pious nothings seven hours a day with my lady’s lap-dog. This night we be utterly thine. An instant only bear with us: this fare shows too good to rest untasted after so much looking on. It were discourteous too to leave it so.’ Therewith, their chains being now stricken off, he eat a great slice of turkey and three quails boned and served in jelly, and Juss a dozen plovers’ eggs and a cold partridge. Lord Brandoch Daha said, ‘I prithee break the egg-shells, Juss, when the meat is out, lest some sorcerer should prick or write thy name thereon, and so mischief thy person.’ And pouring out a stoup of wine, he quaffed it off, and filling it again, ‘Perdition catch me if it be not mine own wine of Krothering! Saw any a carefuller host than King Gorice?’ And he pledged Lord Juss in the second cup, saying, ‘I will drink with thee next in Carcë when the King of Witchland and all the lords thereof are slain.’
Thereafter they took their weapons that lay by on the table, set there to distress their souls and with little expectation they should so take them up again; and glad at heart albeit somewhat stiff of limb they went forth with La Fireez from that banquet hall.
When they were come into the courtyard Juss spake and said, ‘Herein might honour hold us back even hadst thou made no bargain with us, La Fireez. For great shame it were to us and we fell upon the lords of Witchland when they were drunk and unable to meet us in equal battle. But let us ere we be gone from Carcë ransack this hold for my kinsman Goldry Bluszco, since for his sake only and in hope to find him here we fared on this journey.’
‘So you touch no other thing but only Goldry if ye shall find him, I am content,’ said the Prince.
So when they had found keys they ransacked
all Carcë, even to the dread chamber where the King had conjured and the vaults and cellars below the river. But it availed not.
And as they stood in the courtyard in the torchlight there came forth on a balcony the Lady Prezmyra in her nightgown, disturbed by this ransacking. Ethereal as a cloud she seemed, pavilioned in the balmy night, as a cloud touched by the exhalations of the unrisen moon. ‘What transformation is this?’ said she. ‘Demons loose in the court?’
‘Content thee, dear heart,’ said the Prince. ‘Thy man is safe, and all else beside as I think; save that the King hath a broken head, the which I lament, and will without question soon be healed. They lie all in the banquet hail tonight, being too sleepy-sodden with the feast to take their chambers.’
Prezmyra cried, ‘My fears are fallen upon me. Art thou broken with Witchland?’
‘That may I not forejudge,’ he answered. ‘Tell them tomorrow that nought I did in hatred, and nought but what I was by circumstance enforced to. For I am not such a coward nor so great a villain as leave my friends caged up while strength is left me to work for their setting free.’
‘You must straightway forth from Carcë,’ said Prezmyra, ‘and that o’ the instant. My step-son Hacmon, which was sent to gather strength to awe thee if need were, rideth by now from the south with a great company. Thy horses are fresh, and ye may well outdistance the King’s men if they ride after you. If thou wilt not yet raise up a river of blood betwixt us, begone.’
‘Why fare thee well, then, sister. And doubt it not, these rifts ’tween me and Witchland shall soon be patched up and forgot.’ So spake the Prince with a merry voice, yet grieved at heart. For well he weened the King should never pardon him that blow, nor his robbing him of his prey.
But she said, sadly, ‘Farewell, my brother. And my heart tells me I shall never see thee more. When thou took’st these from prison, thou didst dig up two mandrakes shall bring sorrow and death to thee and to me and to all Witchland.’
The Prince was silent, but Lord Juss bowed to Prezmyra saying, ‘Madam, these things be on the knees of Fate. But imagine not that while life and breath be in us we shall leave to uphold the Prince thy brother. His foes be our foes for this night sake.’