The Zimiamvia Trilogy

by E R Eddison

  The lord Admiral with his forward passed a bridge into Eastering Side and there lay. But as evening fell and the weather thickened, he called a council of his chief officers, whether it were not now the moment to dislodge and to draw westwards again toward Lessingham, happily to surprise him in the night and in these unhandy water-soggen ways destroy him. Which thing being by all applauded as good and forthwith put in ure, they came short of their suppose so far that Lessingham’s out-sentinels brought him word of the enemy’s approach in time for him to array his army to receive them.

  Day broke up, grey and wet, while Lessingham posted his men for battle. The foot, between five and six hundred strong, he posted upon the right where the high ground runs down south and east beyond the steadings. Of these was Brandremart in command, and Lessingham bade him bear forth there the Queen’s banner of Fingiswold, so as the enemy should think that here was the Captain-General and his main battle, and should that way throw the main weight of their assault accordingly. The steadings and outbuildings along the ridge in the middle he held lightly with but a handful of men, bidding them still make great show and din as if of numbers so as the Admiral should imagine a strength of men there and Lessingham’s whole force more than the little it was. The whole main body of horse Lessingham held on purpose out of sight upon his left, behind the crest of the little hill, north or leftwards of the farmstead. Towards Fitheryside the ground falls gently to a bottom of moss and bog with a little syke running along beyond it, may be a half mile’s distance from the farm. Below the steadings eastwards it is rough muirland, overrun with heather and sweet gale and here and there a dwarfed birch straggling among the blaeberry bushes and tussocks of coarse grass.

  The lord Admiral drew up his battle east of the syke, and they advanced now, the main body of foot in the centre little short of three thousand strong, and upon either wing two hundred and fifty horse. But Brandremart, beholding the enemy before him cumbered (and most of all, their horse) in soft ground where they must cross the syke, forgot in that fever the orders laid down for him by Lessingham, and forgot the vantage of his position on the hill and the odds of seven to one they bare in men against him, and suddenly, unable to abide this waiting for them to attack him up the slope, came down with his five hundred, point and edge upon them. Gayllard and Bezardes stood with Lessingham at the corner of a wall north of the northernmost cow-byre whence they could overlook the whole unfolding of the battle: the fury of Brandremart’s onset: the bloody brunt in the low wet bog-land: and now the weight of numbers thrusting him back south and west towards the upper ground: and great man-slaying they saw was befallen now. Both in a breath, they willed Lessingham take pity of Brandremart and his: bid the horse charge and succour them.

  Lessingham stood there stiff and erect, like an arrow new-fastened in the ground from a far shot. His nostrils quivered: his eyes like wind-troubled stars stared down into the hurly-burly. ‘Not yet, on your life,’ answered he. They, knowing that look, durst not for a minute speak to him again.

  ‘My lord,’ said Gayllard at length: ‘flesh and blood can no more. Let us in to help them. See, they are thrust backward up to the pigstyes and the hay-garths. Shall your men die like sheep? Shall my own brother Brandremart? And half of ’em butchered belike already! O ’tis past bearing!’

  Lessingham, never shifting his gaze, shut his hand upon Gayllard’s strong wrist like hasps of iron. ‘Will you lose me this battle?’ he said: ‘you and Brandremart?’ He watched the field in silence a minute: then, ‘He at least is about man’s work – ha! see the heads fly off: cabbages under his drawing swash-blows! But hath outjumped the time: so, as he brews so must he bake. But you,’ he said after a while, through gritted teeth, ‘you and Bezardes, be still, you were best. Show me by your quietness you be men, and fit to govern an army – ha! well done, by heavens! – govern an army. Aspy the time. Then strike. Not to stand quittering like quails when the event walketh on razors’ edges—’ In a sudden witched stillness, his voice faded to silence: a stillness and a silence that had in that rush and tumult of outward things no proper being, save as it were of shadows thrown by the sudden stiffening of Lessingham’s eye and mind to a yet tenser strain of inward readiness, while he stared across into the unequal battle, as a great beast’s sinews should gather and stiffen before the spring.

  ‘Now!’ he said, letting go Gayllard’s wrist. The word came as a trumpet’s blare, and the face of him, suddenly facing them, as the thunder-smoke of dawn.

  The lord Admiral Jeronimy, well assured now of a most complete victory, looked on the battle from a knoll upon the other side to the eastward, beholding (not without some discomfort, as at a sight his very flesh rebelled against) how the royal banner of Fingiswold staggered still backwards, with swayings and swoopings and sudden backward rushes, towards the steadings. From which contemplation he was suddenly shaken by the trumpets and shout and thundering hooves of Lessingham’s horse that swept now round and down from the shoulder of the low hill on the west, and came upon his right flank like a rock-fall. The Admiral’s two hundred and fifty horse were swept like a herd of goats before that onset, and the flank of his main army of footsoldiery left bare. These, taken at open shields with so well knit a body of fresh horsemen, and in the moment when they had supposed the work done, all save the slaying of Lessingham’s remnant among the pigstyes, found for a time in that reeling confusion no respite and no rallying-point. Brandremart, in this breathing-while, gathered his weary and bebloodied companies where the Queen’s banner still stood aloft before the steadings, and against all odds struck again. This, as the last axe-stroke when the tree creaks and totters, brought down all in havoc. The Admiral’s great army was turned to a rout, which spread many miles over Fitheryside. Belike six hundred perished. Peropeutes, that fought in the centre against Brandremart, was slain, and every man that followed him. Lessingham himself was wounded, charging the Admiral’s flank at the head of his men; but of his army the losses, save in Brandremart’s battle, were few. Of those five hundred indeed that with Brandremart had withstood the first brunt, more than a hundred fell, and scarce a man of the four hundred that remained but took some hurt or other.

  The lord Admiral, seeing this overthrow, and thinking scorn to flee when the day was lost, abode quietly in his place with sword drawn and a few about him who were of the mind to die first ere he should. Lessingham, when the flying rout began, stayed not for so much as to bind up his hurts but galloped across with his bodyguard to the Admiral to bid him peace. The Admiral, when he understood, rode down to meet Lessingham and in a noble silence offered his sword hilt foremost.

  ‘What night-dog howled you this bad counsel, my lord Admiral,’ said Lessingham, ‘to a come and held side with her grace’s enemies? Or hath God closed up the eyes of you, that you knew not the banner of the Queen’s most excellent highness of Fingiswold, your lady and mistress? Upon whose commands when I fared south now, intending from Rialmar to Laimak, I looked not to find your lordship here to bar my way with an army; for in truth I was yet to learn you were a truce-breaker and a reneguer of your written word.’

  The Admiral reddened and said, ‘You do foully, my Lord Lessingham, to abraid me with either. And I will answer you in a manner thus: that I do use to look lower than banners, which be things outward and extern, but I will pry more inward. And against the Queen’s highness (whom pray Gods tender and preserve) I ne’er drew sword; nor ne’er broke I word, much less broke solemn indenture. Only against your lordship’s usurping cousin, that minister of mischief and sergeant of Sathanas, nuzzled in all evil, against him, ’cause of a hundred forepast proofs, I drew that sword; and against you, ’cause you sustain and aid him. And so will I do again, liability and means presented. Wherefore, if my life must answer for this, so be it. For indeed I was bred up young in King Mezentius’ house and his royal father’s before him (upon whom be peace), and I am over old, in a manner, to learn new tricks.’

  Lessingham beheld him in silence for a while, th
en answered and said, ‘Of the Concordat of Ilkis have not I taken upon me to be warranty for his highness’s performance? Thus far, I one of all other, party to that concordat, have not failed of my undertaking. By God, I think I have cause against your excellency, to a sought to foin me in the belly when I go my ways south for to right things.’

  Jeronimy, facing him with unwavering gaze, made no reply.

  ‘Take back your sword, my good lord Admiral,’ said Lessingham suddenly then, giving it again hilt foremost. ‘Ill it is if, within the Queen’s highness’s dominions in these slippery times, her faithful servants cannot agree. I pray go with me not as prisoner, but upon this only bond between us of word of honour. Bezardes, stay the pursuit: spread it abroad there’s peace given and taken ’twixt me and the lord High Admiral. For the army, lie tonight at Rivershaws. And as for particulars,’ he said to Jeronimy, ‘we’ll talk on ’em tonight.’

  ‘Your excellency is very pale,’ said the Admiral, as they took hands.

  ‘Pah, a little too much blood-letting. I had forgot. Some, go send a leech,’ Lessingham swayed in the saddle: ‘nay, ’tis but a fleshing: ’twill mend.’ He steadied himself and would not dismount. Two or three galloped away: the Admiral, from a flask at his saddle-bow, poured out cordial drink. ‘Too much haste,’ he said. Lessingham, quaffing it down while they unbuckled his gorget and stopped the blood, might read in the Admiral’s dog-like eyes matter that can be profoundlier discovered by such eyes as those than by noblest tongues with their traffic of words.

  Lessingham made his quarters for that Wednesday night of the twenty-third of May in the old moated grange of Rivershaws, a league or more eastwards of Ridinghead in the water-meadows of the Fithery. Weary they were after that battle. Lessingham and Jeronimy supped private in an upper room in the south-western corner of the house, and after supper talked, as well as they could to speak or to be heard for the great noise of the wind which awoke now to strange fury after that rain-soaked day. Lessingham, in buff leather doublet and with Meszrian brocaded slippers to ease his feet, lay at his length on a settle drawn up near the table to the right of the fire. The Admiral sat yet at his wine, at the table, facing the fire and Lessingham.

  ‘No,’ Lessingham said between the gusts: ‘he must first renounce the crown: no treating till then. That done, let my head redeem the promise but I will secure him all that should be his by the Concordat, and payment too for all misdone against his rights there: Sail Aninma and so forth. But today he standeth plain usurper, and as such I’ll not treat with him save at length of weapon.’

  ‘I doubt your lordship will persuade my lord Chancellor so far,’ said the Admiral, ‘e’en and though I should second you. Many will say, mischief is that here be two usurpers, and choosing Barganax we but choose the less hurtful.’

  ‘They that will say so,’ replied Lessingham, ‘would spend their eyes to find hair upon an egg. ’Twixt the Vicar and him there’s no such likeness; and were it so indeed, you shall see I shall shortly amend it.’

  ‘It was a pity,’ the Admiral said, ‘that your lordship abode not here to see to it, ’stead of go north to Rialmar.’

  The wind roared in the chimney, and sent with a down-blow a great smother of smoke into the room. Lessingham smiled, lifting his goblet against the lamplight. ‘You think so?’ he said, and drank slowly, as tasting some private memory. But the wine was red. And no bubbles quickened its inward parts.

  He stood up and went to the western window behind his seat and, with hands for blinkers to shut out the reflections and the lamplight, peered through the glass into the darkness. The wind came in gusts that lasted two or three minutes at a time, striking the house till the solid masonry quivered: clatter of casements, squealing under the eaves and behind the wainscots, lifting of the arras, lampflames ducking and upflaring; without, trees bent and grass laid flat: a shaking, a leaping, a stamping over the hillside: then sudden silence and calm.

  Lessingham, in this din, had not heard the door open behind him; and now, turning from the window, he saw stand in the threshold a man of his guard that said, upon the salute, ‘Lord, there attendeth your commands one that nameth himself the Lord Romyrus out of Fingiswold, new ridden from the north, and prays you admit him. And bade me say, ’tis evil tidings, as he were liever not be bearer of unto your lordship.’

  Lessingham bade admit him: ‘Nay, go not, my lord Admiral. This is our late cashiered Constable: whatso he will say, can say it as well to both of us. I trust him but little, nor his news neither.’

  ‘I like not tidings that come upon a storm,’ said Jeronimy.

  Lessingham stroked his beard and smiled. ‘Omens were ever right, my lord. Let but the event answer the bodement, we say, Behold it was foretold us! If not, say, Such omens work by contraries.’ The windows rattled, and the door in a loud gust of wind blew open. Lessingham, standing with folded arms and unruffled brow and in a posture of idle elegance with his shoulders against the pillar of the fireplace, waited at ease, stirring not at all when Romyrus entered, save for a gracious word and movement of the head to bid him welcome.

  Romyrus came in: behind him the door shut to: they regarded one another in silence a minute, Jeronimy, Lessingham, and he.

  Romyrus was all spattered with mud from spurs to chest. He was like a man that has gone many nights without closing eyelid. There was ten days’ growth of beard on his cheek: his face had a yellowed withered look, like a corpse’s dug out of some recent grave; and he had the fear in his eyes like a hunted fox’s. Lessingham took him by the hand, made him sit, poured out a great bumper of wine, and made him drink it down. ‘Whence come you?’

  He answered, ‘From Rialmar.’

  ‘How then? Did her highness send you?’

  He shook his head. His eyes, ringed round like an owl’s, seemed now like a dead fish’s eyes, goggling and charged with blood, as they looked into Lessingham’s. ‘What then?’

  Without, the wind went whining down Fitherywater like a wounded beast.

  ‘Speak, man,’ said Lessingham.

  Romyrus said, ‘Derxis holds Rialmar.’ With a kind of moan he pitched forward on the table, his face buried in his hands.

  The silence congealed like blood. Out of it Lessingham said, ‘What of the Queen?’

  He answered, yet grinding his face against the table, ‘She is dead.’

  Jeronimy, that had missed these words, saw Lessingham stagger where he stood against the fireplace and turn ghastly. ‘Your excellence’s wound,’ he said, starting up. But Lessingham, seeming to gather himself like a serpent coiled, as the wind again hit the house, caught out a dagger and leapt at Romyrus, shouting terribly, ‘A lie! And here’s your death for it!’ The Admiral, swift as had been praised in a man of half his years, sprang to Lessingham’s armed hand, so turning the stroke, which yet ripped from the man’s shoulder down to the hucklebone. Lessingham threw him off and, dropping the dagger, sank upon the settle. Romyrus slid from chair to floor with a blubbering noise. The Admiral went to him, raised him, looked to the wound. Lessingham caught the bell-rope, gave it a tang: soldiers ran in: bade them see to Romyrus, bear him out, call a chirurgeon: so sank upon the couch again and there sat bolt upright, staring as a man should stare into horror of darkness.

  The wind, in its alternating fits of raging and dying, came again: first a soughing of it far off in the south-west and whistlings far away; then the return, as if some troll or evil wight should run with intermittent bursts and pauses, nearer and nearer, until with a howl of wind and huge flappings as of wings and the lashing of rain, it once more smote the house, vaulting, leading the wild round about and about as of violent waterquakes, riding the roof-tree till it was as if the roof must founder: then, in a gasp, quiet again.

  Late that night Amaury, spent with long riding from the north and his horse near foundered, rode in to Rivershaws.

  All night Lessingham lay upon his bed, open-eyed.

  And the darkness within said: I have consumed and eat up that whi
ch was within. Forehead, indeed; but no mind inhabits behind it. Eyes, but there dwells no more anything within that might receive their message. Outward ears, servants of deafness. This throat, since I swallowed all below, is become but the shudder only, above this pit that is me within you.

  And the darkness at his left hand said: Hands: fit for all noble uses. Ay, grip the bedside: is that sweet? Hands entertained for your soul’s liege ambassadors, so often, into such courts: but now never again for ever.

  And the darkness at his right hand laughed like a skull and said: Noble uses, as tonight! aim blade against him that ran to you, a wounded snipe to a stoat, to bring you true tidings, but you lay bloody hands upon.

  And the darkness that was within said again: I strive. I will burst this shell that was you. I, that am not, will swell up like a blue poisoned corpse and burst and deflower all being.

  And the darkness that was above and beneath said: I am heavy: I am fallen: I draw you: the weight and the woe for ever in your vitals of a misbegotten and never to be delivered birth.

  And the darkness that was at his feet said: For then Amaury came (Lessingham looked in the darkness towards the other bed where Amaury lay unsleeping): Amaury, that would have died a hundred deaths in Rialmar to have saved her; but when she had drunk the cup—

  The darkness within, and the darkness above, and the darkness beneath, sank, until the drag-hooks became an agony beyond mortal agonies.

  The waning moon, in the grey latter hours, said: I wax and I wane: the sickle, the plenilune, the folding darkness. I change, and I change not. You have said it: Beyond time and circumstance. You have said: Upon no conditions.

  And as the waning moon to the full, so was now the radiance as of a lunar rainbow that suffused that bedchamber upon memories, a year old that night, of Ambremerine: Vandermast’s ‘An old fool that is yet wise enough to serve your ladyship:’ Vandermast’s ‘There is no other wisdom;’ and again, ‘No other power.’ And that lady’s ‘Does that need wisdom?’ as she looked at the moon.