The Zimiamvia Trilogy

by E R Eddison

  XX

  THUNDER OVER REREK

  THE BAYING TO RAGNAROK • LESSINGHAM FORCES PEACE • BEROALD’S FORE-JUDGEMENT • THE VICAR WILL STILL PLAY MACHIAVEL • YET IS SEEMINGLY PERSUADED • COMING OF THE PARRY TO ARGYANNA • HOMAGE DONE BY HIM TO BARGANAX • THE DUKE AND HIS VICAR • STRANGE BROTHERHOOD • BARGANAX TO FIORINDA.

  LESSINGHAM upon that night’s morrow took his way westwards with his army slowly towards Mornagay, sending word before so that all the bruit should run in all Rerek, and so through Meszria to Zayana, of this back-winter, and of need come upon all that stood now in civil strife to lay that by, and think on an enemy indeed. He had it now fully from Amaury: how Derxis, by the employment of spies, by traitors whom he had greased well in their hands, or by some other advisoes, had obtained entry for himself and some few of his men into Rialmar; where, with the chancing together of several matters which fell out well to his hand and he used them better, he had contrived his purpose so close as procure the murder, at one chop, of Bodenay and a dozen more. Which done, the Queen’s power, made headless, might no longer but sever and dissolve, leaving this Derxis to be his own carver: a beast unmerciless.

  Lessingham, now for two days, scarce took bite nor sup. Whether he slept none knew: only that not an hour in the night but somewhere was he to be seen about the camp, armed and in his riding-coat. Save to give orders, not a word had he for any man, neither durst any speak with him. It was, through these days, as if there rode there a man abiding indeed in his bodiness, but lapped in lead: in all else deceased, but his great heart carried him. And now began to be heard in a susurration about men’s ears, the thing that in all those months past in Rialmar had not been spoke nor imagined except by Derxis, with so wise a discretion had Lessingham and the Queen refrained themselves: but now it was said, What grief was this that should so benumb a man, for but loss of his Queen? And it was answered, Past question, she loved him paramour and no other. Which coming to Amaury’s ears, he was highly displeased: said to him that let fall the word, ‘I should slit thy tongue for chattering so wide,’ and by all discreet means wrought to scotch this prittle-prattle. But the rumour, once sown, ran like quitch-grass in a garden, much underground; and yet to no bad effect, knitting their hearts the closer in his service as to a man not great only, but great and unhappy. For of such kind were most that followed Lessingham, that their loves grew up as the watercresses, slowly, but with a deep root: not so ready to praise the sun at his uprising as worship him at his downgate.

  The third afternoon they came to Mornagay. Lessingham would not lie here, but press on by Killary and so by the Tivots and Scorradale Heath to be in Bardardale before nightfall. Amaury rode with him, and, after the carriage beasts were well through the ford, they two drew ahead. On the great open mile-wide ridge of the heath Lessingham reined in Maddalena and, turning in the saddle, looked back northwards. The sun was set in a clear sky: the heath was become a darkness made up of all shades of blackish greens: the sky a pallour of all greys akin to blue: tarns and standing waters gleamed lighter than the sky itself, as if lit from under.

  From the east, little white wisps of mist came like feelers drifting from right to left over the dark heathland.

  Lessingham spoke: “You were with me that night thirteen months ago, in Mornagay.’

  ‘Yes’

  ‘Never name it again. Never name to me again aught that came of it.’

  ‘No, my lord.’

  ‘What think you, Amaury? Is it true that all things have their life, their limits, their diseases, and their death?’

  ‘All things?’

  ‘Yes, all.’

  ‘Not all, my lord.’

  ‘What then? What hath not?’

  ‘You have bid me never name it.’

  ‘I say, all things, Amaury. Dispute it not, else God knows I might murder you. I am in these days become a wild beast, first made fierce with tying, and then let loose. And not I alone: so is all become.’

  ‘I hope, not murder me, that loved you ’bove the world.’

  ‘Yes, you and all. Then gallop apace to my ruin.’

  ‘O, this is madness.’

  ‘No,’ said Lessingham, and his voice was like the muttering of distant thunder: ‘it is like the Twilight of the Gods: the baying of the hell-dog before Gnipa’s cave: the crowing of the cocks in the three worlds: will you call that nightingales? –

  ‘Geyr nú Garmr mjök fyrir Gnípuhelli:

  Festr mun slitna, enn Freki renna!’

  ‘Yes, Amaury: “The fast must be loos’d, and the Wolf run free.”’

  Amaury sat silent, his jaw set. Those feelers had by now drawn a coverlet of mist over all the heath, hiding the ground. On the hummock where Lessingham and Amaury waited, their horses’ feet were in the mist but their own heads in clear air, and the stars clear and bright above them.

  Lessingham laughed. ‘Say over to me again, those words he used. For God knows I have dreamed and waked and dreamed till I know not well which is dream and which true.’

  ‘I dare not say it.’

  ‘Say it,’ said Lessingham terribly.

  Amaury obeyed: ‘He said, “If not to be my Queen, then you shall at least be no longer the strumpet of a soldier of fortune.”’

  A full minute Lessingham neither spoke nor moved. His face, seen sideways, proud and unreadable against the May night, showed like stone or iron. There came the ring of bridles up from the Scorradale side, of the vanward nearing the brow. Lessingham shook rein, turned and rode away down before them into Bardardale. Amaury, following beside Maddalena’s off hind quarter, heard him say in his teeth, ‘I have shut my mind against these things.’ Then suddenly drawing rein and staring into Amaury’s eyes through the darkness: ‘Remember that,’ he said. ‘But remember, too, not winged horses shall prevail him to outskip my vengeance. And so, Amaury, to work.’

  There went messengers now, while Lessingham and the Admiral lay in Bardardale, betwixt them and the Chancellor before Laimak. By this, in a few days it was brought to a meeting betwixt them, and a charter of peace sealed with Lessingham upon provisoes and a truce to endure until the fourteenth day of June, and in the mean season counsel to be had for that matter with the Duke, late come up to Argyanna after sojourning at home awhile in Zayana. Upon the tenth of June came these lords, Lessingham, Beroald, and Jeronimy, with Amaury, to Argyanna. Here with the Duke was Count Zapheles, and the Lords Melates and Barrian and a dozen besides, men of mark. Medor, wielding by procuration the ducal power, abode yet in Zayana.

  Lessingham was greatly feasted and nobly received, nor, when they fell to their business, seeking of agreement, were they slow to find sured ground: at first, common cause against Derxis, to destroy him and revenge his abomination in Rialmar: secondly, King Mezentius’s lawful issue being by two murders in this short while miserably dead, there remained no colourable pretender to the throne but the Duke, whose claim thus stood waterfast. But when it was to speak of the Lord Horius Parry, and upon what terms the Duke and his would take him into their peace again, straight they lost (as for agreeing) more in a minute than they got in a day: Lessingham of the one side, all they of the other against him. The Duke required surrender without all conditions: ‘Which, come what will, he cannot choose but be forced unto, in a month or less. By God, I discommend your wit, my Lord Lessingham, if you think I know not a fox by his bush now, or think, now I hold him earthed in Laimak, I’ll let this one wend free at your asking, to play me such another touch as last winter he did.’

  ‘He will never surrender without conditions,’ said Lessingham. ‘Why should he? Would you or I?’

  ‘Well,’ said the Duke, ‘no more blind reckonings. This is the one sure card: soon as ever I have him, to cut off his head.’

  Lessingham answered, ‘We be all agreed that it is time we began to destroy our enemies, and first let us begin at Derxis that hath done villanies not to be spoken and threateneth our mere being. For this, we must give over even rightful quarrels amo
ngst ourselves, else can we never achieve it. And the Vicar is a great captain not easily to be spared in the manage of so great a war as this. Besides, our folk of Rerek are stubborn and hard and can not easily digest the government of a stranger.’

  ‘They have by many a hundred rebelled against him now,’ said Barganax.

  ‘That,’ replied Lessingham, ‘was when I was not by.’

  ‘They will obey you sooner than him. Let him go.’

  Lessingham stroked his beard. ‘No. If your grace take that way, I sit out.’

  Two days they argued it. The second, the Chancellor took Lessingham apart: said, ‘My Lord Lessingham, you have gotten the right ear of his grace; but in this you will not move him. This ill weed of yours, maugre your warming and watering, hath now been parched up. Only bethink you: upon what consideration, but of this man alone, should the Duke have seized power in Rerek and, by implication, in Fingiswold? ’Gainst his sister he’d ne’er a stood usurper, but ’gainst this man only that under her name cloaked his large ambitions. Your lordship hath heard how myself did in aid of that enterprise allege a law which barreth women from kingdom to the end the realm fall not into the hands of a strange prince or nation. ’Tis of questionable authority: I lent it mine, not for any quarrel with the Queen’s highness (on whom be peace), but because I would not trust this man. You and he sort very ill together. If conscience will not suffer you to oppose his interest, then get you gone for a season: leave him to us. We shall speedily deal with him.’

  ‘The things,’ replied Lessingham, ‘which be main counts against his highness my cousin were done when I was beyond the Wold upon the Queen’s business. For all that was then misdone I have, upon his behalf, offered atonement.’

  ‘I see your lordship will not hear reason,’ said Beroald. ‘Well, you are like to pay dear upon your bond.’

  ‘That the Gods must rule,’ answered he. ‘But remember, I am upon safe conduct here in Argyanna, and with right upon safe conduct to return to that army I have afoot, and with that, be it little in numbers, I have ere this done somewhat. And remember the lord Admiral is upon parole to go back with me if this peace be not concluded. And if his grace will have no peace (and a hard peace for the other is this I offer you, and good for his grace), but will, as is now said, slay the Vicar, then I will promise you this: it shall be so countervenged that it shall be spoken of a hundred years hereafter.’

  Beroald said, ‘We will not talk on thunder.’

  ‘Lessingham,’ said the Duke, coming upon them in this: ‘the man is not by a noble heart such as yours in any way to be avouched or defended. Must our friendship fly in pieces for sake of such a villain?’

  ‘If our friendship, my lord Duke (which the Gods forfend) must fly in pieces, ’tis because, to end his heroical great defence that hath so long time held you off and your armies, you will in cold blood use this same cruelty I have so oft checked in himself, of the beheading-block. But if my friendship be aught, then prove it: for I have told your grace I will, so you give him but to me, be answerable upon my honour and upon my life that he shall all repay and no more disease you.’

  ‘But to what wild purpose—?’ Barganax paused silent for a minute, looking in Lessingham’s eyes. There sat in them a bantering mocking look that he knew, but as belonging to other eyes: not to these speckled grey eyes of Lessingham, but to green eyes, beaconing as from every unrest and from every incertitude and peril, which things, taking on those eyes’ allurance, burned high and desirable beyond all lusts and fires.

  ‘Each to his taste,’ Lessingham said. ‘I have given you reasons enough in policy. And if you will have more, say he is a dangerous horse: say I taste a pleasure in such riding.’

  ‘Say you will break your neck, my Lord Lessingham,’ said the Chancellor.

  But Barganax and Lessingham, like as formerly at the council-board in Ilkis, now faced one another as if, for all their company about them, they stood alone, and a third presiding: a third, perceived but by them alone; and scarcely, indeed, to be named a third, as being present strangely to the Duke in the person of Lessingham, and to Lessingham in the Duke.

  Two days later, a little before noon, Lessingham rode into Laimak. It was a day of close, hazy weather, boiling up for thunder-storms. The Chancellor’s armies still held siege before the castle, for the allies had no mind that the Vicar should use this truce for getting in of provision, then defy them anew and so drag on. Lessingham and his they let through with no delays, for he bare letters of credence under seal of Zayana. All the valley for a mile about the castle was wasted with fire and eaten up. The Vicar greeted Lessingham as a man might greet a son long given up for lost. He carried him to his closet in the keep, and hither was dinner brought them, poor campaigning fare indeed: bacon pies, black rye bread, cheese, and smoked fish, with a runlet of muscadine to wash it down and a little joy the heart withal.

  ‘Are you come with a treaty in your wallet?’ said the Vicar when the waiting-men had set all in order and, upon his command, left them to dine private.

  Lessingham smiled. ‘No more treaties, cousin, of my making. I have somewhat here: but you shall sign for yourself, if it like you; and no room for cavil afterward.’

  ‘It will keep till after dinner.’

  ‘Yes. It will keep so long: not much longer.’

  The Vicar looked swiftly up. Lessingham’s face, careless and with eyes averted, was not to be read. ‘You’re come none too soon,’ said the Vicar then, and took in a great mouthful. ‘Rations left for seven days. Starving men make best fighters; but ’tis not a discipline fit to hold ’em to too long: though it be good to savage ’em, yet in this other ’tis as bad, that drawn out beyond a day or two it sloweth and feebleth the animal spirits. And so ninth day from this had I set for the grand carousal, warm meat and blood puddings i’ the field below there, and the leavings for the crows to pick on.’

  ‘Rant it not to me as if I were a woman,’ said Lessingham. ‘You have not sufficiency to withstand their forces: not one hour, in the open.’

  ‘Well: end so, then.’ He watched Lessingham through half-shut lids. ‘Better so than swallow another treaty like the last you crammed down my throat, cousin.’

  ‘Your highness is a great soldier,’ said Lessingham; ‘but politician, not so good. How should you now look for so good a treaty as that? which was just and equal, but you did break every article and published your every breach too from the house-tops. Be thankful if I have saved you your life, and some few false beams of your supposed honour.’

  ‘So!’

  For a long while, eyeing each other, they ate and drank in silence. The Vicar’s neck swelled like a puff-adder’s. At length, ‘You’ve been a weary while,’ he said, ‘dallying on the door-step: more than a fortnight. Talking with those devils (the sweat and swink they’ve cost me!) Might a talked to me ere this, I’d have thought?’

  Lessingham said nothing, only with a delicate air raised his cup and drank, regarding his cousin the while with level and thoughtful eyes. The Vicar took a gobbet of bacon-rind out of his mouth: leaned sideways to give it to Pyewacket. The play of the light revealed, as might some great master’s brush, the singularity that belonged, but seldom so lively seen as now, to his strangely-sorted countenance: heavy eyelids, wide-winged jutting nose, lean lips like a snake’s, delicate ears, ruffianly reddish-be-bristled jowl, serene smooth forehead, small swift-darting eyes: a singularity of brutish violence joined with some nobler element in a marriage wherein neither was ever all subdued to other, nor yet ever all distinct; so that divorce must needs have crippled a little both, as well the good as the bad. And upon Lessingham, while he so watched this renewing of a pageant he knew well, a mantle seemed to fall, enduing limb and sinew and poise of neck and head with a grander and yet more pantherine grace. And the Grecian lineaments of Lessingham, and the eyes of him thus savouring his cousin, seemed not so much to be informed now with a swift beast’s majesty or an eagle’s, but rather as if strength and mastery shoul
d take to itself the airy loveliness of a hummingbird, and so hang hovering on viewless wings, as the bird quivers bodiless upon air beside a flower, uncertain into which honeyed fold amid petals it shall aim its long and slender beak.

  ‘You were ever at your best,’ he said after a little, ‘back to the wall. Trouble is, set you at your ease, you fall athinking. And that is bad for you.’

  ‘I know not, cousin, what you account good for a man. My belt’s half a foot the shorter since Yule-tide.’

  ‘What dispossessed your wits,’ Lessingham said, ‘soon as my back was turned, treat this Duke as you would some poor-spirited slow boy? And did I not tell you what he is? And could you not use him accordingly?’

  ‘That which is, is,’ said the Vicar, and drank and spat ‘That which was, was. That which shall be, ’tis that concerneth me and you. This new turn in Rialmar,’ fleet as a viper’s his eyebeam flashed upon Lessingham’s face and away, ‘hath upsy-versied all, ha? Or how think you on’t? Look you,’ he said, after a silence, and leaned forward, elbows on the table: ‘I will tell you a thought of mine: may be good, may be naught, howsome’er hath come me oft in mind since Kutarmish set all afire here. That Derxis. Could a been used, ha? Matter of marriage, had’t been nicely handled.’ He paused, studying through red eyelashes Lessingham’s face, inscrutable and set now as a God’s likeness done in marble. ‘And so, using Akkama to put down Zayana, afterward – well, there be ways and means.’

  Lessingham toyed with his wine-cup. ‘Ways and means!’ He tossed off the wine, sprang up, walked to the window, and there stood looking down on him as in a high displeasure. ‘Pray talk to me of your soldiering, for there I can but admire, and even love you. But these twisting policies, I can but laugh at ’em.’