by E R Eddison
Betimes on the morrow Corinius let fare against Krothering with all his host, Laxus from the south, Heming and Cargo from the east against the main gates, and himself from the west where the walls and towers showed strongest but the natural strength of the place weaker than elsewhere. Now they within were few, because of Mevrian’s sending of those two hundred horse to follow Zigg and those came not back after Switchwater; and as the day wore, and still the battle went forward, and still were wounds given and taken, the odds swung yet heavier against them of Demonland, and more and more must the castle hold of its own strength only, for there were not whole men left enow to man the walls. And now had Corinius well nigh won the castle, faring up on the walls west of the donjon tower where he and his fell to clearing the battlements, rushing on like wolves. But Astar of Rettray stayed him there with so great a sword-stroke on the helm that he overthrew him all astonied down without the wall and into the ditch; but his men drew him forth and saved him. So was the Lord Corinius put out of the fight; but greatly still he egged on his men. And about the fifth hour after noon the sons of Corund gat the main gate.
Lady Mevrian bare in that hour with her own hand a stoup of wine to Astar in a lull of the battle. While he drank, she said, ‘Astar, the hour demandeth that I pledge thee to obedience, even as I pledged mine own folk and Ravnor that here commandeth my garrison in Krothering.’
‘My Lady Mevrian,’ answered he, ‘under your safety, I shall obey you.’
She said, ‘No conditions, sir. Harken and know. First I will thank thee and these valiant men that so mightily warded us and golden Krothering against our enemies. This was my mind, to ward it unto the last, because it is my dear brother’s house, and I count it unworthy Corinius should stable his horses in our chambers, and carousing amid his drunkards do hurt to our fair banquet hall. But now, by hard necessity of disastrous war, hath this thing come to pass, and all fallen into his hand save only this keep alone.’
‘Alas, madam,’ said he, ‘to our shame I may not deny it.’
‘O trample out any thought of shame,’ said she. ‘A score of them against every one of us: the glory of our defence shall be for ever. But not ’tis for me mainly he still beareth against Krothering so great and peisant strokes as thick as rain falleth from the sky. And now must ye obey me and do my commandment; else must we perish, for even this tower we are not enough to hold against him many days.’
‘Divine Lady,’ said Astar, ‘but once shall one pass the cruel pass of death. I and your folk will defend you unto that end.’
‘Sir,’ said she, standing like a queen before him, ‘I shall now defend myself and our precious things in Krothering more certainly than ye men of war may do.’ And she showed him shortly that this was her design, to yield up the keep unto Corinius under promise of a safe conduct for Astar and Ravnor and all her men.
‘And submit thee to this Corinius?’ said Astar. But she answered, ‘Thy sword hath likely cut his claws for awhile. I fear him not.’
Of all this would Astar at first have nought to do, and the old steward withal was well nigh mutinous. But so firm of purpose was she, and withal showed them so plainly that this was the only hope to save herself and Krothering, and the Witches must else sack the house of Krothering and in a few days win the keep, ‘and then, snaky despair; and the fault on’t not in fortune but in ourselves, that could not frame ourselves to our fortune’; that at last with heavy hearts they consented to do her bidding.
Without more ado, was a parley called, Mevrian speaking for herself from a high window opening on the court and Gro for Corinius. In which parley it was articled that she should render up the tower; and that the fighting men which were within should have peace and safe passage whither they would; and that there should be no scathe nor outrage done to Krothering neither to the lands thereof; and that all this should be writ down and sealed under the hands of Corinius, Gro, and Laxus, and the gates opened to the Witches and all keys delivered up within an half hour of the giving of the sealed writing into Mevrian’s hand.
Now was all this performed accordingly, and Krothering keep rendered to the Lord Corinius. Astar and Ravnor and their men would have abided as prisoners for Mevrian’s sake, but Corinius would not suffer it, vowing with bloody imprecations that he would let slay out of hand any man of them he should take after an hour’s space within three miles of Krothering. So, under Mevrian’s strait commands, they departed.
XXIV
A KING IN KROTHERING
How the Lord Corinius would take unto himself a queen in Demonland, and made him a bridal feast thereto: wherein is a notable instance how unto them which the Gods do love helpers are raised up and comforters even in the midst of their enemies.
THAT same evening Corinius let dight a banquet in the Chamber of the Moon for some two score of his chiefest men, a very pompous and kingly entertainment; and conceiving that he might now very well avail to accomplish his pleasure touching the Lady Mevrian, he sent her word by one of his gentlemen that she should attend him there. And she sending answer to tell him gently all else in the castle was at his service, but for herself she was quite fordone and greatly desired rest and sleep that night, he fell a-laughing immoderately and saying, ‘A most unseasonable desire, and one that smacketh besides of mockery, since well she knoweth what this night I do intend. Wish her to repair to us, and that right swiftly, lest I fetch her.’
To that message sent her came she in a short while herself to answer, dressed all in funereal black, her gown and close-fitting bodice of black sendal slashed with black sarcenett, and about her throat a chain of sapphires darkly lustrous. Very nobly she carried her head. Framed with the piled and braided masses of her night-dark hair, her face showed pale indeed, but unruffled and undismayed.
All at her coming in stood up to greet her; and Corinius said, ‘Lady, thou didst change thy mind quickly since thou didst first affirm thou never wouldst yield up Krothering unto me.’
‘As quickly as I might, my lord,’ said she, ‘for I saw I was wrong.’
He abode silent a minute, his eyes like amorous surfeiters over-running her fair form. Then said he, ‘Thou didst wish to purchase safety for thy friends?’
She answered, ‘Yes.’
‘For thine own self,’ said Corinius, ‘it had made no jot of difference. Be witness unto me the omnisciency of the Gods, whereunto is nothing concealable, I mean thee only good.’
‘My lord,’ said she, ‘I embrace the comfort of that word. And know that good to me is mine own freedom: not conditions of any man’s choosing.’
Whereto he, being well tippled with wine, framing the most lovely countenance he might, made answer, ‘I doubt not but tonight, madam, thou shalt be well advised to choose that highest condition, and till today unknown, which I shall proffer thee: to be Queen of Demonland.’
She thanked him in her best manner, but said she was minded to forgo that supposedly pleasing eminence.
‘How?’ said he. ‘Is it too little a thing for thee? Or is it as I think, that thou laughest?’
She said, ‘My lord, it should little beseem me that am of the seed of men of war since long generations to trap my mind with the false shows of a greatness that is gone. Yet I pray you forget not this: the dominion of the Demons hath used to soar a pitch above common royalty, and like the eye of day regarded kings from above. And for this style of Queen thou offerest me, I say unto thee it is an addition I desire not, who am sister unto him that writ that writing above the gate that all ye had tasted the truth thereof had he been here to meet with you.’
Corinius said, ‘True it is, some have out-bragged the world, yet I ere this have used them like knaves. My jackboot hath known things in Carcë, madam, I’ll not gall thy heart to tell thee of.’ But perceiving a great lowe of disdainful anger blaze in Mevrian’s eye, ‘Cry you mercy,’ said he, ‘incomparable lady; this was beside the mark. I would not sully our new friendship with memories of— Ho there! A chair beside me for the Queen.’
But Mevrian made them set it on the far side of the board, and there sat her down, saying, ‘I pray thee, my Lord Corinius, unsay that word. Thou knowest it dislikes me.’
He looked on her in silence for a minute, leaned forward across the board, his lips parted a little and between them his breath coming and going thick and swift. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘sit there, and it like thee, madam, and manage my delights by stages. Last year the wide world betwixt us: this year the mountains: yestereve Krothering walls: tonight a table’s breadth: and ere night be done, not so much as—’
Gro saw the wild-deer look in Lady Mevrian’s eyes. She said, ‘This is talk I have not learned to understand, my lord.’
‘I shall learn it thee,’ said Corinius, his face aflame. ‘Lovers live by love as larks by leeks. By Satan, I do love thee as thou wert the heart out of my body.’
‘My Lord Corinius,’ said she, ‘we ladies of the north have little stomach for these fashions, howe’er they commend them in waterish Witchland. If thou’lt have my friendship, bring me service therefor, and that in season. This is no fit table-talk.’
‘Why there,’ said he, ‘we’re in fast agreement. I’ll blithely show thee all this, and a quainter thing beside, in thine own chamber. But ’twas beyond my hopes thou’dst grant me that so suddenly. Are we so happy?’
In great shame and anger the Lady Mevrian stood up from the table. Corinius, something unsteadily, leaped to his feet. For all his bigness, so tall she was she looked him level in the eye. And he, as when in the face of a night-ranging beast suddenly a man brandishes a bright light, stood stupid under that gaze, the springs of action strangely frozen in him on a sudden, and said sullenly, ‘Madam, I am a soldier. Truly mine affection standeth not upon compliment. That I am impatient, put the wite on thy beauty not on me. Pray you, be seated.’
But Mevrian answered, ‘Thy language, my lord, is too bold and vicious. Come to me tomorrow if thou wilt; but I’ll have thee know, patience only and courtesy shall get good of me.’
She turned to the door. He, as if with the turning away of that lady’s eyes the spell was broke, cried loudly upon his folk to stay her. But there was none stirred. Therewith he, as one that cannot command his own indecent appetites, o’ersetting bench and board in eager haste to lay hands on her, it so betided that he tripped up with one of these and fell a-sprawling. And ere he was gotten again on his feet, the Lady Mevrian was gone from the hall.
He rose up painfully, proffering from his lips a mud-spring of barbarous and filthy imprecations; so that Laxus who helped raise him up was fain to chide him, saying, ‘My lord, unman not thyself by such a bestial transformation. Are not we yet with harness on our backs in a kingdom newly gained, the old lords thereof discomfited in deed but not yet ta’en nor slain, studying belike to raise new powers against us? And above such and so many affairs wilt thou make place for the allurements of love?’
‘Ay!’ answered he. ‘Nor shall such a sapless ninny as thou avail to cross me therein. Ask thy little gamesome Sriva, when thou comest home to wed her, if I be not better able than thou to please a woman. She’ll tell thee! I’ the main season meddle not in matters that be too high for such as thou.’
Both Gro and the sons of Corund were by and heard those words. The Lord Laxus schooled himself to laugh. He turned toward Gro, saying, ‘The general is far gone in wine.’
Gro, marking Laxus’s face flushed red to the ears for all his studied carelessness, answered him softly, ‘’Tis so, my lord. And in wine is truth.’
Now Corinius, bethinking him that it was yet early and the feast barely well begun, let set a guard on all the passages which led to Mevrian’s lodgings, to the end that she might not issue therefrom but there wait on his pleasure. That done, he bade renew their feasting.
No stint of luscious meats and wines was there, and the lords of Witchland sat them down again right eagerly to the good banquet. Laxus spoke secretly to Gro: ‘I wot well thou takest in very ill part these doings. Let it stand firm in thy mind that if thou shouldst deem it fitting to play him a trick and steal the lady from him, I’ll not stand i’ the way on’t.’
‘In a bunch of cards,’ said Gro, ‘knaves wait upon the kings. It were not so ill done and we made it so here. I heard a bird sing lately thou hadst a quarrel to him.’
‘Thou must not think so,’ answered Laxus. ‘I’ll give thee still a Roland for thine Oliver, and tell thee ’tis most apparent thyself dost love this lady.’
Gro said, ‘Thou chargest me with a sweet folly is foreign to my nature, being a grave scholar that if ever I did frequent such toys have long eschewed them. Only meseems ’tis an ill thing if she must be given over unto him against her will. Thou knowest him of a rough and mere soldierly mind, besides his dissolute company with other women.’
‘Tush,’ said Laxus, ‘he may go his gate for me, and be as close as a butterfly with the lady. But out of policy, ’twere best rid her hence. I’d not be seen in’t. That provided, I’ll second thee all ways. If he lie here the summer long in amorous dalliance, justly might the King abraid us that midst o’ the day’s sport we gave his good hawk a gorge, and so lost him the game.’
‘I see,’ said Gro, smiling in himself, ‘thou art a man of sober government and understanding, and thinkest first of Witchland. And that is both just and right.’
Now went the feast forward with great surfeiting and swigging of wine. Mevrian’s women that were there, much against their own good will, to serve the banquet, set ever fresh dishes before the feasters and poured forth fresh wines, golden and tawny and ruby-red, in the goblets of jade and crystal and hammered gold. The air in the fair chamber was thick with the steam of bake-meats and the vinous breath of the feasters, so that the lustre of the opal lamps burned coppery, and about each lamp was a bush of coppery beams like the beams about a torch that burns in a fog. Great was the clatter of cups, and great the clinking of glass as in their drunkenness the Witches cast down the priceless beakers on the floor, smashing them in shivers. And huge din there was of laughter and song; and amidst of it, women’s voices singing, albeit near drowned in the hurly burly. For they constrained Mevrian’s damosels in Krothering to sing and dance before them, howsoever woeful at heart. And to other entertainment than this of dance and song was many a black-bearded reveller willing to constrain them; and sought occasion thereto, but this by stealth only, and out of eye-shot of their general. For heavily enow was his wrath fallen on some who rashly flaunted in his face their light disports, presuming to hunt in such fields while their lord went still a-fasting.
After a while Heming, who sat next to Gro, began to say to him in a whisper, ‘This is an ill banquet.’
‘Meseems rather ’tis a very good banquet,’ said Gro.
‘Would I saw some other issue thereof,’ said Heming, ‘than that he purposeth. Or how thinkest thou?’
‘I scarce can blame him,’ answered Gro. ‘’Tis a most lovesome lady.’
‘Is not the man a most horrible open swine? And is it to be endured that he should work his lewd purpose on so sweet a lady?’
‘What have I to do with it?’ said Gro.
‘What less than I?’ said Heming.
‘It dislikes thee?’ said Gro.
‘Art thou a man?’ said Heming. ‘And she that hateth him besides as bloody Atropos!’
Gro looked him a swift searching look in the eye. Then he whispered, his head bowed over some raisins he was a-picking: ‘If this is thy mind, ’tis well.’ And speaking softly, with here and there some snatch of louder discourse or jest between whiles lest he should seem too earnestly engaged in secret talk, he taught Heming orderly and clearly what he had to do, discovering to him that Laxus also, being bit with jealousy, was of their accord. ‘Thy brother Cargo is aptest for this. He standeth about her height, and by reason of his youth is yet beardless. Go find him out. Rehearse unto him word by word all this talking that hath been between me and thee. Corinius holdeth me too deep suspect to suffer me out of his eye ton
ight. Unto you sons of Corund therefore is the task; and I biding at his elbow may avail to hold him here i’ the hall till it be performed. Go; and wise counsel and good speed wait on your attempts.’
The Lady Mevrian, being escaped to her own chamber in the south tower, sat by an eastern window that looked across the gardens and the lake, past the sea-lochs of Stropardon and the dark hills of Eastmark, to the stately ranges afar which overhang in mid-air Mosedale and Murkdale and Swartriverdale and the inland sea of Throwater. The last lights of day still lingered on their loftier summits: on Ironbeak, on the gaunt wall of Skarta, and on the distant twin towers of Dina seen beyond the lower Mosedale range in the depression of Neverdale Hause. Behind them rolled up the ascent of heaven the wheels of quiet Night: holy Night, mother of the Gods, mother of sleep, tender nurse of all little birds and beasts that dwell in the field and all tired hearts and weary: mother besides of strange children, affrights, and rapes, and midnight murders bold.
Mevrian sat there till all the earth was blurred in darkness and the sky a-throb with starlight, for it was yet an hour until the rising of the moon. And she prayed to Lady Artemis, calling her by her secret names and saying, ‘Goddess and Maiden chaste and holy; triune Goddess, Which in heaven art, and on the earth Huntress divine, and also hast in the veiled sunless places below earth Thy dwelling, viewing the large stations of the dead: save me and keep me that am Thy maiden still.’
She turned the ring upon her finger and scanned in the gathering gloom the bezel thereof, which was of that chrysoprase that is hid in light and seen in darkness, being as a flame by night but in the day-time yellow or wan. And behold, it palpitated with splendour from withinward, and was as if a thousand golden sparks danced and swirled within the stone.
While she pondered what interpretation lay likeliest on this sudden flowering of unaccustomed splendour within the chrysoprase, behold, one of her women of the bedchamber who brought lights said, standing before her, ‘Twain of those lords of Witchland would speak with your ladyship in private.’