by E R Eddison
The third week of January the King came down from Kessarey, where he had spent Yule-tide, to Sestola, and there held council. Business done and the council risen, he took the Chancellor apart into his closet: said he would learn more of this matter of Baias. The Chancellor recounted it at large, saying in fine, ‘There, Lord, it resteth. We have, I am to confess, failed to trace the guilty persons.’
‘Such a confession we have not yet learnt to expect from you, Beroald.’
‘I hope your serenity will not think ’tis a failure likely to recur.’
‘I think not,’ said the King, steadily regarding him. ‘And that is why I think now we will not let it rest.’ There was a mock in this King’s eye.’ The Chancellor abode it without a blench.
‘I thank your serene Highness,’ he said at last, ‘for your trust in me.’
‘You have yourself to thank for that. If I trust you, ’tis because you are trustworthy.’
‘You have copies of the letters came into my hands.’
‘Yes. Fits well with certain other informations I have for your secret eye. But we will leave that affair untouched till it be nearer looked.’
‘I have not mentioned aught of these things to any person else than your serene highness.’
‘You have done as I would have you do. Keep it betwixt me and you alone. You have seen no sign, otherwhere, of its spreading into Meszria?’
‘No sign; albeit my eyes have been busy for that.’
They sat silent for awhile in the easy and comfortable freedom of a mutuality where each can, the better for the other’s presence and unvoiced comprehensions, follow his own unimpeded. Then suddenly the Chancellor was aware of his great master’s eye gaze turned upon him and studying his face as it had been an open page on which some quaint matter was characterized.
‘You are complained of,’ said the King.
‘To your highness?’
‘Not directly so. But on all hands I hear you blamed.’
‘Not groundably, it is to be hoped.’
‘Until the other day, it is ten years since I had seen your sister. They tell me it is your fault she is never set eyes on in Zayana.’
The Chancellor gave a silent laugh. ‘My fault? She is no longer in statu pupae.’ But (for I know your highness would not have me hide my mind from you), is it not come to be a by-word now-a-days that if any woman worth notice (unless she be wed already) shall go in there it must be to the tune of “Let in the maid that out a maid departed never more”?’
‘What? And will you, whom rumour hath so oft maligned, be a believer of that jade?’
‘Not I, Lord. I have my own means to sieve idle report from fact.’
‘And how much sticks after the sieving?’
‘Not too much for my taste.’
‘Nor for his duchess?’
At that, Beroald’s face was again unreadable. Only a momentary stiffening of his hand where it rested on the table did not escape the eye of the King. ‘I do not look so high,’ he cried after a pause.
‘Well, you and I have this habit in common, dear Beroald: viewing the world, to stand rather with the reals than with the nominals.’
The Chancellor bent his head in a graceful assent. ‘Since your serenity hath done me the honour, and her, to touch on the matter, I must remember you that, there, ladies are fashions: one commonly lasts him but a two or three months at most. There’s another thing too, if the Devil must draw the tongue out of my mouth.’
‘Out with it, for I’ve guessed it already.’
‘I well believe you, for your serene highness knows me. I am an ambitious man.’
‘True.’
‘Ambitious as respects my sister.’
‘O yes. Sisters can be ladders.’
‘I think not of that. Or not only.’
‘I know you are not: not beyond reason. Confess: you are yourself in honorable sort, a little in love with her?’
From betwixt half-closed eyelids, Beroald gave him a shrewd look.
‘’Tis no bad thing,’ the king said, ‘’twixt brother and sister.’ He paused. ‘To say true, having beheld and spoke with her this morning, first time since ten years, I think, and then she was but a child, I can savour and appraise in my own self some whiff or draught of this penetrating humour strained brotherly affection: its very scent: something past that of friendships yet by native notion obedient to the mind’s rein. Myself, I ne’er had a sister. But neither have you, I think, a daughter.’
The Chancellor’s finger of his right hand had made a slow dance on the table-top before him. ‘I can subtilize you points of law,’ he said. ‘But here your serene highness hath me out of my depth.’
‘I think I know where the shoe pinches,’ said the King. ‘Instance of a Queen.’
The Chancellor looked swiftly at him, then lowered his eyes again. ‘There be great examples,’ he said very soberly, ‘not necessary for everyone to follow.’
‘Well, enough said for the while.’ King Mezentius rose.
‘A notable honour: to her and to me,’ Beroald said, rising with him. Then, looking him in the eye, ‘May I add this, Lord? After a sharp frost, on the heels of over-early spring, the damage comes of too sudden sun.’
‘Content you,’ said the King. ‘I do not forget it.’
THE PASSAGE ABOVE ALLUDES TO A SCENE IN WHICH THE KING CONVERSES WITH FIORINDA. EDDISON NEVER WROTE THIS SCENE, BUT HE DESCRIBED IT IN NOTES WRITTEN ON JANUARY 26 AND 29, 1945:
The King and Fiorinda: The King of course knows (secretly – no one else knows) the parentage of Beroald and Fiorinda. He is deeply impressed with her. In this scene concentrate on her wit, incalculableness, and gaiety of heart. The King laughingly asks whether she would like him to get her a new husband. She is much honoured, but would prefer, after this first experience, to take her time and look round a little.
EDDISON PLANNED FOR KING MEZENTIUS TO RETURN TO THE DUCHESS AMALIE IN MEMISON AFTER CONVERSING WITH BEROALD AND FIORINDA IN SESTOLA. SOMETIME IN EARLY MAY 1945, EDDISON JOTTED DOWN SIMPLE EXPRESSIONS FOR A CONVERSATION ABOUT FIORINDA BETWEEN THE DUCHESS AND THE KING:
Duchess: I’m sorry to hear it.
King: Come: that’s not very reasonable – just an hearsay and fancy.
Duchess: (shrugs her shoulders)
King: I should like you to have a look at her.
Duchess: Why?
King: Because I’ve as good as told the Chancellor I would be glad to see her Duchess of Zayana.
Duchess: That was cruel of you, never to consult me.
King: Don’t jump to conclusions: nothing’s settled. He may not like her. You have a look and make up your mind.
Duchess: (angry) It’s made up already.
(later) I’m sorry I was so horrid. I’ll see her.
PROBABLY USING THE SIMPLE CONVERSATIONAL NOTES ABOVE, EDDISON COMPOSED, BETWEEN 15 AND 17 MAY 1945, A MORE DETAILED SCENE BETWEEN MEZENTIUS AND AMALIE:
A night or two later, the King being in Memison, Amalie asked whether he had a true tale, among the many tales that flew: concerning Baias’s taking off. He answered he had talked with the Chancellor and that clear as day it was that the Chancellor had himself procured it; but this were best not spoken of.
‘She hath made a fair beginning, the she-scorpion,’ said the Duchess.
The King laughed. ‘’Tis not to be denied it was somewhat highly handled. Yet fitted so well with greater matters I have in view, I had not the heart to blame him.’
The Duchess sat pensive. ‘Barganax will be home from the west in three weeks. God be thanked, not to such a wife.’
‘You have seen her?’
‘Never that I remember. Beroald keepeth her as formerly he did, close boxed. So Baias did while he had her. Wisely so, I should say. Stibium disguised with honey. Best kept out of reach.’
‘Nay, be not so unlike your dear self as fall into injustice. She was ill-served of her husband.’
‘And ill rid of him, though a vile fellow indeed. Both vile
together. Her reputation stinks to heaven.’
‘What have you to work upon ne’er having spoke unto her, save what’s prated or libelled by sluttish pamphleteers?’
‘But strongly persistent. It is easy to tell by the smoke and the sparkles that there is a fire in the chimney.’
‘See and speak with her before you judge.’
‘Well, I’ll bottle up judgment, then: I’ll not judge. She concerns not me; and truly indeed, dear my lord, I’ve no desire to look upon her.’ Amalie’s fair and lovely face wore, as she spoke, its little-maid look: half-timorous, half-humorous, all self-resolved: like as when, over the pure deeps of a tarn open to the sky at evening or morn, a light breath of wind, or a stirring here and there of the glass-smooth surface stillness with the momentary alighting, immaterial as air, of some tiny winged creature, wakes ripples that seem to react, through the starred remoteness of the moment upon that profundity, to scarce-heard echoes of the innumerable laughter of the waves of ocean: a look only not to be kissed, lest that fresh enchantment break, for the while, the reign of the present.
‘I’m sorry, then,’ said the King. Then, answering the question in Amalie’s eyes: ‘Because I myself have seen her, t’other day.’
‘So, indeed?’
‘I liked her at first word; first glance.’
‘Very strange.’
‘You may think so, if you send for her. You may feel as though you were viewing your own image in that strange artificial the learned doctor fashioned and set up in Acrozayana, which mirrors, but by contrary colors. And yet, this, a greater wonder, seeing the very forms are changed. As though my Rosa Mundi should behold in this girl her own self, looking at herself, as La Rose Noire.’
The Duchess sat silent. Presently he was aware of her hand finding his. ‘Will you look, and tell me?’ he said.
‘Well,’ answered she, after a moment, and her hand trembled: ‘I’ll consider of it; sleep on it.’
IN FEBRUARY OF 775 AZC, A MONTH AFTER THE SLAYING OF BAIAS, SUITORS SEEK OUT FIORINDA IN ZEMRY ASHERY. ON 26 JANUARY 1945, EDDISON MADE SOME NOTES ON THE MEN WHO PURSUE HER AND THE TREATMENT THEY RECEIVED:
Wooers begin to line up – Barrian, Zapheles, Morville. Barrian, huffed at her rejection of him, damns her with faint praise to the Duke (a great friend of his), and is thus the means of postponing for some time any interest in her on the Duke’s part.
The Zapheles episode is pointed by the fact that Zapheles is a professed misogynist and confirmed bachelor: Fiorinda very delicately and humorously pulls his leg about this, and (in spite of his cynical and embittered, backbiting, habit of mind) achieves the triumph of sending him away as her devoted and – so far as in him lies – loyal friend.
AS APRIL TURNED TO MAY IN 1945, EDDISON MADE MORE DETAILED NOTES ABOUT FIORINDA AND ZAPHELES:
Fiorinda and Zapheles: Zapheles comes across Fiorinda alone in the countryside about Zemry Ashery. She is in her contemplation. They know each other slightly – well enough to excuse his stopping to talk with her.
He says Barrian is much upset by her rejection of his addresses: she has done a good job there: turned him into a misogynist (of Zapheles’s own kidney). She mockingly questions the truth of this: Zapheles says it is obvious; therefore, the Duke, who had shown some curiosity about her and her affairs, is quite put off by Barrian’s damning her with faint praise. Moreover, Bellafront holds the fort.
She plays with Zapheles: makes further assignations with him; finally, after a few weeks, driving him to a recantation of his cynical attitude and having him at her feet with a proposal of marriage. (Make it clear that she is completely heart-free in all of this: merely enjoys the exercise of her power to twirl and turn Zapheles to her will.)
Fiorinda’s attitude toward Zapheles is consistently this: any approach on his part to the role of lover sets her at arm’s length. They are friends on the basis of mocking and scorning mankind (the side of her nature that lives its incarnate purity in Anthea). Zapheles soon learns to accept this, and is – on that basis – her devoted friend and admirer. (Loyal too? Well, yes – as far as in him lies!)
BETWEEN 19 AND 22 MAY 1945, EDDISON DRAFTED THE FIRST MEETING BETWEEN FIORINDA AND THE DUCHESS AMALIE:
The next Tuesday sennight the Duchess gave out that she would go down (for a week or two’s tarriance and tasting of the salt breezes) to Rojuna, a little pavillion of hers beside the sea, and take but one lady along with her. Servants were sent before to open up the house and have all in a readiness; and upon the Thursday she, with Bellafront and but a groom and two serving maids to attend them, rode for Acrozayana. There they were joyfully welcomed and entertained by Medor, who for the three months of the Duke’s absence was in charge there; and so next morning, took their way south eastward toward Krestenaya, meaning to cross the sands of the Korvish at ebb tide and found themselves an hour before noon under Zemry Ashery. The Duchess said, ‘It is Valentine’s Day, and twenty miles yet to Rojuna. We will make surprise upon my lord Chancellor: bear him a morning visit.’
The Lord Beroald was sat at meat in his privy dining-chamber with his sister. Besides Anthea and Campaspe, they had no company save Zapheles only, who, having concluded some business with the Chancellor this morning, had remained a-talking with the Lady Fiorinda till dinner time. Word being brought that the Duchess of Memison was below, the Chancellor left table and went down himself to bring her in. ‘Had we but had notice of your grace’s intending hither,’ he said, ‘there should a been entertainment to offer you better fitting this happy occasion. But if you will excuse the want of preparation and partake our simple family fare (there’s but Lord Zapheles here: chanced upon us like as thus, fortunately, your noble excellence hath done) ’twill be a joy to us indeed.’
‘Nay, ’twas but the thought took me, passing so near your gates, to greet your lordship for friendship’s sake. I am for Rojuna, and must not miss the tide for crossing of the sands. I ne’er expected to have interrupted you at dinner.’
‘I pray your grace do us that honour to come in. We are now but set: our usual hour for dinner is eleven of the clock. You are already behind time for the crossing: the tide runneth in sudden and to great height, with the wind in this quarter: ’tis much too hazardous you should attempt it, and but five miles further round by land. I cannot quit you, dear madam, disappoint us not.’
Amalie smiled. ‘I see you are a powerful persuader, as ever. Very well: we are persuaded.’ Delicately she gave him her hand, to be helped down from her horse.
As they began to mount the stairs, a murmur of talking and laughing sounded from the dining-parlour above: now a ripple of laughter that the Duchess might know for Campaspe’s: now Zapheles’s known accent as that clatter of tin cans, precise, bantering, uninviting: then a burst of merriment and, as the laughter died down, one laugh that out-stayed the rest. Low-toned it was, shot with colours borrowed from the feather-soft descending cloudgates of downiest slumber, and sun-warmed in its luxuriousness as the slow honey-dropping of those streams that have their wellspring in Mount Helicon. And yet it was a light laugh, disdainful, self-enjoying, gay, fancy-free; but with harmonies in it, sudden and fleeting, that opened upon wonder, as night opens to summer-lightnings and, with the flash’s passing, shuts down again upon a mystery deeper and darker than before. The Duchess, her foot on the stair, stayed herself for the instant as if, having come so far, she would yet change her mind for some panical terror bred in her by that laughter. This for the merest instant only: nobody marked it. Mistress of herself again, she, with Bellafront, followed the Chancellor.
‘Please your grace that I present to you my lady sister,’ said Beroald as, upon their entering the room, all rose from their seats. Fiorinda, coming from her place at the foot of the table, nearest the door, bent into a lily-like courtesy to salute the Duchess’s hand. This done, and the lady standing again at her full stature, Amalie’s eyes surveyed her over as though she knew not how to frame her look: a gaze so ambiguous that Fiorinda, a sudden flush
overspreading the pallour of her cheek and neck, said, ‘I fear your grace taketh some little dislike to see me so thus in tissue of yellow, ’stead of in widow’s weeds? But truly I have a distaste for mourning colours, and especially with spring-time soon beginning.’
‘Think not I’d such a thought,’ said the Duchess. ‘Remember we have not looked on one another till now. I was seeking for the likeness.’
‘With my brother?’
‘Yes, with your brother, I mean.’ She added, as if to herself: ‘There is not, after all, much likeness.’
To that, Fiorinda, glancing at Beroald: ‘Not much likeness in looks. But more, perhaps, in likings.’
The Duchess remained for a moment in the same uneasy contemplation, which took up its rest at last on Fiorinda’s sea-green eyes that now looked level into hers. Those eyes seemed to still their sea-fires, under this searching inspection, to a sweet and grave respect; but in the most imperceptible slant of them, and in the curves of the underlids, an intimation seemed to tremble on some edge of disclosure, untellable whether of fanged monsters stirring in their sleep in those green pools’ deeps, or of a star that danced there unseen. Then, as if started out of dreaming, the Duchess turned to the Chancellor who had let place a chair for her on his own right, Zapheles moving down to sit by Fiorinda. Upon the other side of the table Campaspe moved closer to her sister, to let Bellafront have her seat at the Chancellor’s left.
‘The King’s highness (Gods send he live forever) guesteth with Lord Stathmar, I learn, in Argyanna,’ said Beroald. ‘The Admiral showed me letters he had from him yesterday.’
‘I had letters too,’ said the Duchess, ‘the day before, in Memison: by the same courier, doubtless.’
‘Your grace means to go a-fishing at Rojuna?’ said Zapheles.
‘No, I love not the sport: go but to taste the spring coming in that way.’
‘My lord Duke is at his fishing, ’tis said, for giant sea-pike off Quedanzar: never content but with dangerous occupation.’