by E R Eddison
Zenianthe took the little cat into her arms. ‘Well, I am talking. What about?’
‘You must think of something,’ said the Queen. ‘Something useful. “How best to rid away an unwelcome guest”: a lesson on that would be good now.’
‘You have nothing to learn from me there, cousin,’ said Zenianthe.
Antiope’s face was serious. ‘I have flaunted flags enough,’ she said, ‘to show what way the wind blows. A year ago it should not have been so.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Zenianthe, ‘a man might think it fit to stay till he had the Lord Protector’s word to bid him be gone. But you might try with your own word. And yet some would like well to hold a king, and so goodly a young gentleman besides, at their apron-strings.’
‘You can have him for me,’ said the Queen.
‘I am humbly beholden to your highness; but I think he is not a man to take the sorb-apple and leave the peach on the dish.’
Antiope said, ‘You are both naughty and dull this morning. I think I’ll send you away like the rest.’ She surveyed her cousin’s supine form, brown hair spread in sweet tangled confusion on the pillow, and morning face. ‘No, you’re not good,’ she said, sitting down on the bed’s edge. ‘And you will not help me.’
‘Do your hair in some nasty fashion. That may disgust him.’
‘Well, give me a scissors,’ said the Queen: ‘I’ll cut it off, if that might serve. But no. Not that: not even for that.’
‘Might fetch you a back-handed stroke too, reverse the thing you played for. High squeaking voice: if he be but half a man (as you said t’other day), half a woman should be nicer to his liking than the whole.’
Antiope said, ‘You shall not talk to me of his likings. Bad enough to go through with it; no need to think on’t and talk on’t: to be gazed on like a sweetmeat or a dish of caviare. Not all men, Zenianthe, fall sick of this distemper.’
‘But all sorts,’ said Zenianthe.
‘As a good horse may be took with the staggers. Yes, there was—’ She thought a minute. ‘But not all our friends go bad. Venton, Tyarchus, Orvald, Peropeutes, why, a dozen others, can ride, be merry at table, go a-hunting, lead a coranto, and ne’er spoil friendship with this moping eat-me-up folly: talk as good sense as you, cousin: better. Zenianthe,’ she said after a pause, ‘why might we not stay children? Or if not, why could I not be my own mistress, next month when I shall be of age eighteen, as my brother was? What’s a Protector, that sits in Rerek two weeks’ journey from us? And these great ones here, old Bodenay and the rest: nought but for their own ends: they but play chess: if they have a Queen, exchange her for a pair of castles and a pawn soon as they see their vantage.’ She fell silent, stroking the cat’s cheeks and putting its little ears together. Then, ‘I believe they are playing this king against the Vicar,’ she said. ‘Do you not think so, cousin?’
Zenianthe laughed. ‘I should be sorry you should wed the Vicar.’
‘Hark to the silly talk!’ said the Queen, rolling the cat on its back, this way that way with her hand, till it kicked and fought with little velvet hind-paws and made pretence to bite her. ‘You at least, cousin, might keep your senses, and not think but and talk but of wed, wed, wed, like a popinjay. Get up!’ and she suddenly pulled the bed-clothes and the princess with them onto the floor.
The sun was high and the hour but an hour short of noon when the king of Akkama, having broken his fast on a dish of lobsters washed down with yellow wine, walked with two or three of his gentlemen out by the back stair from his lodgings in the southern wing of the palace of Teremne and so by paths he knew of round to the Queen’s garden, into which he entered by a way well chosen as not observable from the windows. The garden was designed so as none should overlook it; facing eastwards and westwards, and with a great blind wall to shelter it from the north. Walls of hewn granite six cubits high shut it in, with deep wide embrasures at every few paces on the east side and on the west, to look, those upon the valley over the precipice brink and upon the great mountains afar, these upon the main garden pleasance with its silver birch-trees and fish-ponds and walks and bowers, and beyond it hills again and circling mountains, far beyond which lies Akkama. An oval pond gleamed in the midst of that little garden, with a paved walk about it of granite, and steps of granite going down to the walk from a double flight of terraces. Late-flowering lilies, creamy white and with red anthers and speckled with brown and dust of gold, filled the beds upon the terraces; there were sunflowers a-row along the northern side, lifting their faces to the noon, and little northern mountain plants, stone-crops and houseleeks and matted pinks, were in the joints of the walls and between the paving-stones; and under the east wall were chairs set out with cushions of silk, and an ivory chair for the Queen; and upon a carven pedestal rising from the middle of the water, a chryselephantine statue of Aphrodite Anadyomene.
‘The presence ’gins to fill,’ said the Lord Alquemen, throwing open the gate they entered by at the north-west corner and standing clumsily aside for the king to go in; ‘yet the goddess tarries.’
Derxis walked moodily into the empty garden, flicking off a lily-head with his walking-stick as he passed. He was something above the middle height, well shapen and slender. His hair was straight, brushed back from the forehead, of the colour of mud: his eyes small and hard, like pebbles, set near together: his face a lean sneak-bill chitty-face, shaved smooth as a woman’s, thin-lipped and with little colour about the lips, the nose straight and narrow. For all his youth (but three-and-twenty years of age), there was a deep furrow driven upright betwixt his brows. He wore a light cloak, and doublet with puffed sleeves after the Akkama fashion: loose breeches buckled below the knee: all of a sober brownish colour. There were bracelets of gold cut-work on his wrists and a linked collar of gold, broad and set with rubies between the links, hung on his chest.
Twice round that garden the king paced idly, with his gentlemen at his elbow mum as he, as if they durst not speak unbidden. ‘You,’ he said at length. ‘Was it not you told me this was the place?’
‘I pray your highness have but a little patience,’ said Alquemen. ‘I had it by surest ways (why, ’twas from you, my Lord Esperveris?) she cometh to this place four times out of five a-mornings ’bout this hour.’
‘You were best get your intelligence more precise ere you serve it up to me,’ said Derxis. His voice was soft, too high of pitch for a man’s voice, effeminate. Yet Alquemen and those other lords, hard heavy and brutal to look upon, seemed to cringe together under the reproof of that voice as boys might cringe, lighting suddenly upon some deadly poisoned serpent.
The king walked on, whistling an air under his breath. ‘Well,’ he said, after a while, ‘you’re tedious company. Tell me some merry tale to pass away the time.’
Alquemen recounted the tale of the cook that turned fisherman: a tale of a nastiness to infect the sweet garden scents and taint the lilies’ petals. The king laughed. They, as if suddenly the air were freer, laughed loudlier with him.
‘You have remembered me,’ Derxis said, ‘of that conceit of the three women and the lamprey. Or how went it? It was yours, Orynxis, ha?’
Orynxis recounted that story. The king laid out his tongue and laughed till the tears started. ‘Come, I am merry now,’ said he, as they walked now westward beside the sunflowers. ‘What’s here? a toad? Give me a stone.’
Alquemen picked one from the flower-bed. The king threw and missed. Kasmon proffered him another. The king’s hand was up for the second throw, when Antiope entered and, seeing him, halted in the gate, fair in the line of aim.
He dropped the stone and with a low leg wished her good morrow. ‘I was not without hope, madam,’ he said with great smoothness, as she came in with her ladies and some of her officers of state, ‘to have had the happy fortune to have met you here. I see now ’tis a most heavenly garden; and yet but now I thought it but ordinary. Nay, ’tis plain fact: give me leave but to tear up these flowers, throw down the carven bauble sta
ndeth in the water there, you should see, gentlemen, it should seem fairer yet: you, madam, the queen-rose to grace it, and these ladies brier-roses about you to pay you honour with their meaner sweets.’
‘Sir, I am infinitely full of business,’ said the Queen. ‘This is my summer council-chamber. I did send to let you know there was a hunt prepared for you this morning, but my gentleman of the horse told me you were not abroad yet.’
‘My chamberlain was at fault, then,’ said Derxis. ‘How came it, Orynxis, you gave me not the message?’
Orynxis, that had given it punctually, excused himself that he ne’er heard of it till now: he would examine into it, and see him punished with whom the fault lay.
‘See to it,’ Derxis said. ‘Cropping of the ears were too little a punishment for such oversight. Yet, for I mind me of your compassionate nature, madam, ask me to pardon it, ’tis done, forgot, at your sweet asking.’
‘I pray report it to my justiciar, if aught’s committed needeth correction. You are my guest, sir, in Rialmar, and I hold on the King my father’s way (upon whom be peace); no private justice here.’
‘You speak high, madam. And that becomes you.’
The Queen now espied at her feet the toad, where it cowered under the broad leaf of a saxifrage. She looked direct at Derxis, then at it, then again at Derxis.
He laughed. ‘You did offer me a boar-hunt, madam. Praise my simple tastes, I am content with throwing at a toad.’
‘At a toad?’ said she, without smiling. ‘Why?’
‘For diversion, awaiting of you. It is a toad. I would kill it.’
He met in her eye an Artemisian coldness and displeasure. Then, with a sudden little lovely grace picking up the toad, she made sure it was unhurt, made as if to kiss it, then put it back in a safe place on the flower-bed.
Derxis followed her as she turned away. ‘What a strange pitifulness is this of yours,’ he said, walking at her side, ‘that taketh compassion of malefactors and nasty paddocks, but not of him that most needeth your dear pity.’ He spoke low, for her ear alone. Their people, his and hers, walked behind them.
She came to a halt. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I must to business.’
‘Then my suit standeth first in the list, so hear it.’
Antiope stood silent, with face averted. Alquemen was saying to the Princess Zenianthe, ‘I pray you then scent this flower: can speak to your ladyship plainer words than I durst.’ Zenianthe moved away. Derxis noted the Queen’s lips. He gritted his teeth and said, with a persuasive sweetness, ‘Will you not show me your garden?’
‘I had thought you had seen it,’ she said.
‘How could I see it,’ said Derxis, ‘but with your beauteous self to show it me?’
Antiope turned to him. ‘I have bethought me of a game,’ she said. ‘I will show you my garden, sir, for half an hour; in which time you shall not pay me no compliments. That will be a new thing indeed.’
‘And the wager?’
‘You may leave that to me.’
‘Ha!’ said he, softly, and his eyes surveyed her with a slow appraising stare: ‘that raiseth hopes.’
‘Let them not rise too high,’ she said.
The lubricity that jumped pat upon Derxis’s tongue he swallowed in again. He dropped a pace or so behind her for a moment, enough to say in the ear of Lord Alquemen, ‘See to it you manage me some privacy.’
But now came into the garden a gentleman-usher and brought a packet to the Queen’s chamberlain, who, reading the direction, handed it unopened to the Queen. ‘I pray you hold me excused, sir,’ she said to Derxis, ‘while I read it.’
The king bowed assent. With a jealous sidelong look he watched her face light up as she read. ‘But who’s the carrier?’ she said, looking up: ‘of these letters, I mean?’
‘Serene highness,’ answered he that brought them: ‘his lordship’s self that writ it bare it, and waiteth on your disposals.’
‘O entertain him hither straight,’ said Antiope. Derxis’s face grew dark. ‘It is my great kinsman’s kinsman, the great Lord Lessingham, come from the south upon some matters extraordinary,’ she said, turning with a lovely courtly favour to Derxis. ‘I have your leave, sir, to bid him join our company?’
The king stood silent. Then said the knight marshal Bodenay, ‘Your serenity may be sure he had rather you gave him breathing-time to prepare himself: not come all clagged with mire and clay into your grace’s presence.’
Antiope laughed. ‘O court ceremonies! Have we seen ne’er a man yet in riding-gear? No, he shall come now.’
‘Cry you mercy, madam,’ said the king; ‘I value not a courtesy hangeth long betwixt the fingers. You did engage to show me your garden. Surely this what’s-his-name can wait our pleasure while you perform your engagement to me.’
‘I must not,’ she said, ‘be gracious with one hand and ungracious with the other. This is a stranger, not in reputation, yet in person ne’er yet known to us. That your royal estate doth outgo his rank and place, ’tis more reason I use him honourably. No, you shall see the garden, sir, and he shall see it with us. Carry him hither straight,’ she said, and the messenger went forth immediately.
Derxis said nothing, neither did the Queen look at him.
And truly to have looked in that moment upon that young king, even so little crossed, had been no sight of comfort.
‘What’s that Lessingham?’ asked the Count Orynxis, privately in Alquemen’s ear.
‘Cousin to the Vicar of Rerek,’ answered he.
‘Why, ’tis that same spruce youth, is’t not,’ said Kasmon, ‘captained Mezentius’s horse six years ago? Catched you napping when all hung in hazard at the battle of Elsmo: broke up your squadrons and beat you round your own camp? Was’t not Lessingham?’
‘O hold your clack,’ said Alquemen. ‘You came not too well out of those doings.’
‘Came as fast as his horse could carry him,’ said Orynxis. ‘Kasmon’s ride they call it now: home through the outer Corridor, and near broke his neck i’ the end. You two were best hold together, lest this fellow trounce you again. Nay, but sadly, know you aught else of him, Alquemen? The Parry is a hard man, I’ve heard tell.’
Alquemen answered, ‘They are two notable knaves together: both of a hair, and both cousin germans to the Devil.’
The Queen sat now in her ivory chair: Zenianthe to right of her, and upon her left, standing, Bodenay. Raviamne, Paphirrhoe, and Anamnestra, ladies of honour, with half a dozen more, court-men and lords of Fingiswold, made a half circle behind her. Derxis and his troop of gentry stood a little apart upon her right. The Queen, looking round, noted how he, with an uncivil insolence, stood now with his back towards her. As moved by some sudden toy taking her in the head, she whispered Zenianthe to sit in the siege royal while she herself, spite of all protests of the old Lord Bodenay and other grave persons about her, took place among her girls behind it.
Lessingham, ushered in by the north-western gate, walked between the sunflowers and the sun, that even at cloudless midday made but a temperate heat in that mountain country of the north. He was bare-headed, in his mail-coat of black iron and gold, black silk hosen and black leather riding-boots, dusty from the journey. So came he towards them, with clanking silver spurs. And as he came, he gathered with the sweep of his eyes, resting with no inconvenient intensity upon this person or that, all the posture of their company: the staid elders that curiously regarded him; Derxis and his, haughty and uneasy like cattle when the dog comes towards them; Zenianthe in the chair and her companions, who lent to that stone-walled garden a delicacy, as of tender feet trampling the fine soft bloom of grass.
Now were greetings given and taken. Lessingham said, ‘You must pardon me, noble ladies and you my lords of Fingiswold, to a come without all ceremony and even in my riding-clothes. But the message was, the Queen was here, and did desire me come instantly to present my service.’
‘Well, sir,’ said Zenianthe, ‘and will you not present it? This is the
siege royal.’
Lessingham bowed. ‘You become it most excellent well, madam.’
‘That is strangely spoken,’ said she. ‘Or did you look then to find some rustic girl, should know not how to draw the skirt about her ankles?’
Antiope, with a hand on Raviamne’s arm, watched him very demurely.
‘Your ladyship shall not find me so flat nor so stupid,’ answered he. ‘No, but I can tell ’twixt the dusky lily and the white. I am not colour-blind.’
Zenianthe laughed. ‘You have seen my picture? May be the paint had faded.’
The eye-tricks and signs they bandied amongst them did not escape Lessingham. ‘No, madam,’ he answered, ‘I have not seen her highness’s picture. But I have heard.’
‘Was “dusky lily” to say, uncomely?’
‘Had your ladyship hearkened more carefully, you would have noted I stressed the “lily”.’
Antiope spoke: ‘It is a wonder you will not know the Queen, sir, when you see her.’
He looked at them in turn: Antiope, Paphirrhoë, Zenianthe, Anamnestra, Raviamne, Antiope again. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘not till she tell me I may. That were too unmannerly, find her out sooner than she meant.’
They fell a-laughing, and Zenianthe, catching Antiope’s eye, stood up. ‘The fox was near driven, your highness, when he took this muse,’ she said.
‘A most good and courtly answer, sir,’ said the Queen. ‘And cometh from the south: none here could have turned it so. And you’ll not be angry with us for this game of play?’
‘Serenissime princess and my sovereign lady,’ said Lessingham, ‘humbled on my knee I kiss your grace’s hand.’
King Derxis, being turned about now, looked upon these actions. With an insolent stare he went over Lessingham from brow to boots and so back and so down to boots again. And now he came to them. ‘Pray you present to me this gentleman, madam. I were loth to lose aught of his discourse, so pleasant as it seemeth.’
‘Sir,’ said the Queen, ‘this is my cousin Lord Lessingham, he that must be my captain of war against my enemies. Your highness knows him by repute?’