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    The Worm Ouroboros, by E. R. Eddison&mdash;A Project Gutenberg eBook
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<body>
<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67090 ***</div>

  <div class="center xlarge bold mt10 mb10">THE WORM OUROBOROS</div>

  <div class="figcenter illowp80" id="i_002">
    <img src="images/i_002.jpg" alt="" />
    <div class="caption">GORICE XII. IN CARCË.</div>
  </div>

  <div class="titlepage">
    <div class="inline mb0">
      <h1 class="drop-cap"><span class="gespertt3">THE WORM</span><br />
        <span class="gespertt1">OUROBOROS</span></h1>
    </div>

    <div class="xxlarge bold mt0">A ROMANCE BY E. R.<br />
      EDDISON, ILLUSTRATED<br />
      BY KEITH HENDERSON</div>

    <div class="mt4"><div class="figcenter illowp15">
      <img src="images/i_title.png" alt="" />
    </div></div>

    <div class="large bold mt20">JONATHAN CAPE LTD.<br />
      ELEVEN GOWER STREET<br />
      LONDON</div>
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="inline">FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1922<br />
    NEW AND CHEAPER<br />
    EDITION <span class="fright">1924</span></div>
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">v</span></p>

    <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
  </div>

  <table summary="Contents">
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#CONTENTS">Table of Contents</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#ILLUSTRATIONS">Illustrations</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#DEDICATION">Dedication</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_INDUCTION">The Induction</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>i.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_CASTLE_OF_LORD_JUSS">The Castle of Lord Juss</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>ii.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_WRASTLING_FOR_DEMONLAND">The Wrastling for Demonland</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>iii.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_RED_FOLIOT">The Red Foliot</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>iv.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#CONJURING_IN_THE_IRON_TOWER">Conjuring in the Iron Tower</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>v.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#KING_GORICES_SENDING">King Gorice’s Sending</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>vi.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_CLAWS_OF_WITCHLAND">The Claws of Witchland</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>vii.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#GUESTS_OF_THE_KING_IN_CARCE">Guests of the King in Carcë</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>viii.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_FIRST_EXPEDITION_TO_IMPLAND">The First Expedition to Impland</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>ix.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#SALAPANTA_HILLS">Salapanta Hills</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>x.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_MARCHLANDS_OF_THE_MORUNA">The Marchlands of the Moruna</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xi.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_BURG_OF_ESHGRAR_OGO">The Burg of Eshgrar Ogo</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xii.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#KOSHTRA_PIVRARCHA">Koshtra Pivrarcha</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xiii.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#KOSHTRA_BELORN">Koshtra Belorn</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xiv.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_LAKE_OF_RAVARY">The Lake of Ravary</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xv.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#QUEEN_PREZMYRA">Queen Prezmyra</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xvi.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_LADY_SRIVAS_EMBASSAGE">The Lady Sriva’s Embassage</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xvii.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_KING_FLIES_HIS_HAGGARD">The King flies his Haggard</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xviii.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_MURTHER_OF_GALLANDUS_BY_CORSUS">The Murther of Gallandus by Corsus</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xix.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THREMNIRS_HEUGH">Thremnir’s Heugh</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xx.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#KING_CORINIUS">King Corinius</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xxi.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_PARLEY_BEFORE_KROTHERING">The Parley before Krothering</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xxii.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#AURWATH_AND_SWITCHWATER">Aurwath and Switchwater</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xxiii.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_WEIRD_BEGUN_OF_ISHNAIN_NEMARTRA">The Weird begun of Ishnain Nemartra</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xxiv.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#A_KING_IN_KROTHERING">A King in Krothering</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xxv.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#LORD_GRO_AND_THE_LADY_MEVRIAN">Lord Gro and the Lady Mevrian</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xxvi.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_BATTLE_OF_KROTHERING_SIDE">The Battle of Krothering Side</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xxvii.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_SECOND_EXPEDITION_TO_IMPLAND">The Second Expedition to Impland</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xxviii.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#ZORA_RACH_NAM_PSARRION">Zora Rach nam Psarrion</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">vi</span>xxix.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_FLEET_AT_MUELVA">The Fleet at Muelva</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xxx.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#TIDINGS_OF_MELIKAPHKHAZ">Tidings of Melikaphkhaz</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xxxi.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_DEMONS_BEFORE_CARCE">The Demons before Carcë</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xxxii.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THE_LATTER_END_OF_ALL_THE_LORDS_OF_WITCHLAND">The Latter End of all the Lords of Witchland</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum smcap"><div>xxxiii.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#QUEEN_SOPHONISBA_IN_GALING">Queen Sophonisba in Galing</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#ARGUMENT_WITH_DATES">Argument: with Dates</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
        <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#BIBLIOGRAPHICAL_NOTE_ON_THE_VERSES">Bibliographical Note on the Verses</a></td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">vii</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="ILLUSTRATIONS">ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="center">
    <ul class="inline">
      <li class="smcap"><a href="#i_002">Gorice XII. in Carcë</a></li>
      <li class="smcap"><a href="#i_009">The Lords Juss, Goldry Bluszco, Spitfire, and Brandoch Daha</a></li>
      <li class="smcap"><a href="#i_191">In Koshtra Belorn</a></li>
      <li class="smcap"><a href="#i_335">Soldiers of Demonland</a></li>
      <li class="smcap"><a href="#i_359">Hippogriff in Flight</a></li>
      <li class="smcap"><a href="#i_415">The Last Conjuring in Carcë</a></li>
    </ul>
  </div>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">viii</span></p>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="center-container break">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">TRUE Thomas lay on Huntlie bank,</div>
        <div class="i2">A ferlie he spied wi his ee;</div>
        <div class="i0">And there he saw a Lady bright</div>
        <div class="i2">Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Her skirt was o the grass-green silk,</div>
        <div class="i2">Her mantle o the velvet fyne,</div>
        <div class="i0">At ilka tett of her horse’s mane</div>
        <div class="i2">Hung fifty siller bells and nine.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">True Thomas he pulld aff his cap,</div>
        <div class="i2">And louted low down on his knee:</div>
        <div class="i0">“Hail to thee, Mary, Queen of Heaven!</div>
        <div class="i2">For thy peer on earth could never be.”</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">“O no, O no, Thomas,” she says,</div>
        <div class="i2">“That name does not belang to me;</div>
        <div class="i0">I’m but the Queen of fair Elfland,</div>
        <div class="i2">That am hither come to visit thee.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">“Harp and carp, Thomas,” she says,</div>
        <div class="i2">“Harp and carp alang wi me.</div>
        <div class="i0">And if ye dare to kiss my lips,</div>
        <div class="i2">Sure of your bodie I will be.”</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">“Betide me weal, betide me woe,</div>
        <div class="i2">That weird shall never daunton me.”</div>
        <div class="i0">Syne he has kissed her rosy lips,</div>
        <div class="i2">All underneath the Eildon Tree.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i2">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>
        <div class="i18 smcap">Thomas the Rhymer.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">ix</span></p>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <h2 id="DEDICATION" title="Dedication">&nbsp;</h2>
  <div class="ml1 mb3"><i>To</i> W. G. E. <i>and to my friends</i> K. H.<br />
    <i>and</i> G. C. L. M. <i>I dedicate this book</i></div>

  <p>It is neither allegory nor fable but a Story to be read for its own
    sake.</p>

  <p>The proper names I have tried to spell simply. The <i>e</i> in Carcë
    is long, like that in Phryne, the <i>o</i> in Krothering short and the
    accent on that syllable: Corund is accented on the first syllable,
    Prezmyra on the second, Brandoch Daha on the first and fourth, Gorice
    on the last syllable, rhyming with thrice: Corinius rhymes with
    Flaminius, Galing with sailing, La Fireez with desire ease: <i>ch</i>
    is always guttural, as in loch.</p>

  <p class="small"><i>9th January 1922</i><span class="fright mr1">E. R. E.</span></p>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">xi</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak gespertt2" id="THE_INDUCTION">THE INDUCTION</h2>
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">THERE was a man named Lessingham dwelt in an old low house in Wastdale,
    set in a gray old garden where yew-trees flourished that had seen
    Vikings in Copeland in their seedling time. Lily and rose and larkspur
    bloomed in the borders, and begonias with blossoms big as saucers, red
    and white and pink and lemon-colour, in the beds before the porch.
    Climbing roses, honeysuckle, clematis, and the scarlet flame-flower
    scrambled up the walls. Thick woods were on every side without the
    garden, with a gap north-eastward opening on the desolate lake and the
    great fells beyond it: Gable rearing his crag-bound head against the
    sky from behind the straight clean outline of the Screes.</p>

  <p>Cool long shadows stole across the tennis lawn. The air was golden.
    Doves murmured in the trees; two chaffinches played on the near post
    of the net; a little water-wagtail scurried along the path. A French
    window stood open to the garden, showing darkly a dining-room panelled
    with old oak, its Jacobean table bright with flowers and silver and cut
    glass and Wedgwood dishes heaped with fruit: greengages, peaches, and
    green muscat grapes. Lessingham lay back in a hammock-chair watching
    through the blue smoke of an after-dinner cigar the warm light on the
    Gloire de Dijon roses that clustered about the bedroom window overhead.
    He had her hand in his. This was their House.</p>

  <p>“Should we finish that chapter of Njal?” she said.</p>

  <p>She took the heavy volume with its faded green cover, and read: “He
    went out on the night of the Lord’s day, when nine weeks were still
    to winter; he heard a great crash, so that he thought both heaven and
    earth shook. Then he looked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</span> into the west airt, and he thought he
    saw thereabouts a ring of fiery hue, and within the ring a man on a
    gray horse. He passed quickly by him, and rode hard. He had a flaming
    firebrand in his hand, and he rode so close to him that he could see
    him plainly. He was black as pitch, and he sung this song with a mighty
    voice—</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Here I ride swift steed,</div>
        <div class="i0">His flank flecked with rime,</div>
        <div class="i0">Rain from his mane drips,</div>
        <div class="i0">Horse mighty for harm;</div>
        <div class="i0">Flames flare at each end,</div>
        <div class="i0">Gall glows in the midst,</div>
        <div class="i0">So fares it with Flosi’s redes</div>
        <div class="i0">As this flaming brand flies;</div>
        <div class="i0">And so fares it with Flosi’s redes</div>
        <div class="i0">As this flaming brand flies.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>“Then he thought he hurled the firebrand east towards the fells before
    him, and such a blaze of fire leapt up to meet it that he could not see
    the fells for the blaze. It seemed as though that man rode east among
    the flames and vanished there.</p>

  <p>“After that he went to his bed, and was senseless for a long time, but
    at last he came to himself. He bore in mind all that had happened, and
    told his father, but he bade him tell it to Hjallti Skeggi’s son. So he
    went and told Hjallti, but he said he had seen ‘the Wolf’s Ride, and
    that comes ever before great tidings.’”</p>

  <p>They were silent awhile; then Lessingham said suddenly, “Do you mind if
    we sleep in the east wing to-night?”</p>

  <p>“What, in the Lotus Room?”</p>

  <p>“Yes.”</p>

  <p>“I’m too much of a lazy-bones to-night, dear,” she answered.</p>

  <p>“Do you mind if I go alone, then? I shall be back to breakfast. I like
    my lady with me; still, we can go again when next moon wanes. My pet is
    not frightened, is she?”</p>

  <p>“No!” she said, laughing. But her eyes were a little big. Her fingers
    played with his watch-chain. “I’d rather,” she said presently, “you
    went later on and took me. All this is so odd still: the House, and
    that; and I love it so. And after all, it is a long way and several
    years too, sometimes, in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">xiii</span> the Lotus Room, even though it is all over
    next morning. I’d rather we went together. If anything happened then,
    well, we’d both be done in, and it wouldn’t matter so much, would it?”</p>

  <p>“Both be what?” said Lessingham. “I’m afraid your language is not all
    that might be wished.”</p>

  <p>“Well, you taught me!” said she; and they laughed.</p>

  <p>They sat there till the shadows crept over the lawn and up the trees,
    and the high rocks of the mountain shoulder beyond burned red in the
    evening rays. He said, “If you like to stroll a bit of way up the
    fell-side, Mercury is visible to-night. We might get a glimpse of him
    just after sunset.”</p>

  <p>A little later, standing on the open hillside below the hawking bats,
    they watched for the dim planet that showed at last low down in the
    west between the sunset and the dark.</p>

  <p>He said, “It is as if Mercury had a finger on me to-night, Mary. It’s
    no good my trying to sleep to-night except in the Lotus Room.”</p>

  <p>Her arm tightened in his. “Mercury?” she said. “It is another world. It
    is too far.”</p>

  <p>But he laughed and said, “Nothing is too far.”</p>

  <p>They turned back as the shadows deepened. As they stood in the dark of
    the arched gate leading from the open fell into the garden, the soft
    clear notes of a spinet sounded from the house. She put up a finger.
    “Hark,” she said. “Your daughter playing <i>Les Barricades</i>.”</p>

  <p>They stood listening. “She loves playing,” he whispered. “I’m glad we
    taught her to play.” Presently he whispered again, “<i>Les Barricades
      Mystérieuses</i>. What inspired Couperin with that enchanted name?
    And only you and I know what it really means. <i>Les Barricades
      Mystérieuses.</i>”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>That night Lessingham lay alone in the Lotus Room. Its casements opened
    eastward on the sleeping woods and the sleeping bare slopes of Illgill
    Head. He slept soft and deep; for that was the House of Postmeridian,
    and the House of Peace.</p>

  <p>In the deep and dead time of the night, when the waning moon peered
    over the mountain shoulder, he woke suddenly. The silver beams shone
    through the open window on a form<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">xiv</span> perched at the foot of the bed: a
    little bird, black, round-headed, short-beaked, with long sharp wings,
    and eyes like two stars shining. It spoke and said, “Time is.”</p>

  <p>So Lessingham got up and muffled himself in a great cloak that lay on
    a chair beside the bed. He said, “I am ready, my little martlet.” For
    that was the House of Heart’s Desire.</p>

  <p>Surely the martlet’s eyes filled all the room with starlight. It was an
    old room with lotuses carved on the panels and on the bed and chairs
    and roof-beams; and in the glamour the carved flowers swayed like
    water-lilies in a lazy stream. He went to the window, and the little
    martlet sat on his shoulder. A chariot coloured like the halo about
    the moon waited by the window, poised in air, harnessed to a strange
    steed. A horse it seemed, but winged like an eagle, and its fore-legs
    feathered and armed with eagle’s claws instead of hooves. He entered
    the chariot, and that little martlet sat on his knee.</p>

  <p>With a whirr of wings the wild courser sprang skyward. The night about
    them was like the tumult of bubbles about a diver’s ears diving in a
    deep pool under a smooth steep rock in a mountain cataract. Time was
    swallowed up in speed; the world reeled; and it was but as the space
    between two deep breaths till that strange courser spread wide his
    rainbow wings and slanted down the night over a great island that
    slumbered on a slumbering sea, with lesser isles about it: a country of
    rock mountains and hill pastures and many waters, all a-glimmer in the
    moonshine.</p>

  <p>They landed within a gate crowned with golden lions. Lessingham came
    down from the chariot, and the little black martlet circled about his
    head, showing him a yew avenue leading from the gates. As in a dream,
    he followed her.</p>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">1</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_CASTLE_OF_LORD_JUSS">I: THE CASTLE OF LORD JUSS</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE RARITIES THAT WERE IN THE LOFTY PRESENCE CHAMBER FAIR AND
    LOVELY TO BEHOLD, AND OF THE QUALITIES AND CONDITIONS OF THE LORDS
    OF DEMONLAND: AND OF THE EMBASSY SENT UNTO THEM BY KING GORICE XI.,
    AND OF THE ANSWER THERETO.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">THE eastern stars were paling to the dawn as Lessingham followed his
    conductor along the grass walk between the shadowy ranks of Irish yews,
    that stood like soldiers mysterious and expectant in the darkness.
    The grass was bathed in night-dew, and great white lilies sleeping in
    the shadows of the yews loaded the air of that garden with fragrance.
    Lessingham felt no touch of the ground beneath his feet, and when he
    stretched out his hand to touch a tree his hand passed through branch
    and leaves as though they were unsubstantial as a moonbeam.</p>

  <p>The little martlet, alighting on his shoulder, laughed in his ear.
    “Child of earth,” she said, “dost think we are here in dreamland?”</p>

  <p>He answered nothing, and she said, “This is no dream. Thou, first
    of the children of men, art come to Mercury, where thou and I will
    journey up and down for a season to show thee the lands and oceans,
    the forests, plains, and ancient mountains, cities and palaces of
    this world, Mercury, and the doings of them that dwell therein. But
    here thou canst not handle aught, neither make the folk ware of thee,
    not though thou shout thy throat hoarse. For thou and I walk here
    impalpable and invisible, as it were two dreams walking.”</p>

  <p>They were now on the marble steps which led from the yew walk to the
    terrace opposite the great gate of the castle. “No need to unbar gates
    to thee and me,” said the martlet, as they passed beneath the darkness
    of that ancient portal,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">2</span> carved with strange devices, and clean through
    the massy timbers of the bolted gate thickly riveted with silver, into
    the inner court. “Go we into the lofty presence chamber and there
    tarry awhile. Morning is kindling the upper air, and folk will soon
    be stirring in the castle, for they lie not long abed when day begins
    in Demonland. For be it known to thee, O earth-born, that this land
    is Demonland, and this castle the castle of Lord Juss, and this day
    now dawning his birthday, when the Demons hold high festival in Juss’s
    castle to do honour unto him and to his brethren, Spitfire and Goldry
    Bluszco; and these and their fathers before them bear rule from time
    immemorial in Demonland, and have the lordship over all the Demons.”</p>

  <p>She spoke, and the first low beams of the sun smote javelin-like
    through the eastern windows, and the freshness of morning breathed and
    shimmered in that lofty chamber, chasing the blue and dusky shades of
    departed night to the corners and recesses, and to the rafters of the
    vaulted roof. Surely no potentate of earth, not Croesus, not the great
    King, not Minos in his royal palace in Crete, not all the Pharaohs, not
    Queen Semiramis, nor all the Kings of Babylon and Nineveh had ever a
    throne room to compare in glory with that high presence chamber of the
    lords of Demonland. Its walls and pillars were of snow-white marble,
    every vein whereof was set with small gems: rubies, corals, garnets,
    and pink topaz. Seven pillars on either side bore up the shadowy vault
    of the roof; the roof-tree and the beams were of gold, curiously
    carved, the roof itself of mother-of-pearl. A side aisle ran behind
    each row of pillars, and seven paintings on the western side faced
    seven spacious windows on the east. At the end of the hall upon a dais
    stood three high seats, the arms of each composed of two hippogriffs
    wrought in gold, with wings spread, and the legs of the seats the
    legs of the hippogriffs; but the body of each high seat was a single
    jewel of monstrous size: the left-hand seat a black opal, asparkle
    with steel-blue fire, the next a fire-opal, as it were a burning coal,
    the third seat an alexandrite, purple like wine by night but deep
    sea-green by day. Ten more pillars stood in semicircle behind the high
    seats, bearing up above them and the dais a canopy of gold. The benches
    that ran from end to end of the lofty chamber were of cedar, inlaid
    with coral and ivory, and so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span> were the tables that stood before the
    benches. The floor of the chamber was tesselated, of marble and green
    tourmaline, and on every square of tourmaline was carven the image of a
    fish: as the dolphin, the conger, the cat-fish, the salmon, the tunny,
    the squid, and other wonders of the deep. Hangings of tapestry were
    behind the high seats, worked with flowers, snake’s-head, snapdragon,
    dragon-mouth, and their kind; and on the dado below the windows were
    sculptures of birds and beasts and creeping things.</p>

  <p>But a great wonder of this chamber, and a marvel to behold, was how
    the capital of every one of the four-and-twenty pillars was hewn from
    a single precious stone, carved by the hand of some sculptor of long
    ago into the living form of a monster: here was a harpy with screaming
    mouth, so wondrously cut in ochre-tinted jade it was a marvel to hear
    no scream from her: here in wine-yellow topaz a flying fire-drake:
    there a cockatrice made of a single ruby: there a star sapphire the
    colour of moonlight, cut for a cyclops, so that the rays of the star
    trembled from his single eye: salamanders, mermaids, chimaeras, wild
    men o’ the woods, leviathans, all hewn from faultless gems, thrice the
    bulk of a big man’s body, velvet-dark sapphires, chrysolite, beryl,
    amethyst, and the yellow zircon that is like transparent gold.</p>

  <p>To give light to the presence chamber were seven escarbuncles, great as
    pumpkins, hung in order down the length of it, and nine fair moonstones
    standing in order on silver pedestals between the pillars on the dais.
    These jewels, drinking in the sunshine by day, gave it forth during the
    hours of darkness in a radiance of pink light and a soft effulgence as
    of moonbeams. And yet another marvel, the nether side of the canopy
    over the high seats was encrusted with lapis lazuli, and in that
    feigned dome of heaven burned the twelve signs of the zodiac, every
    star a diamond that shone with its own light.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Folk now began to be astir in the castle, and there came a score of
    serving men into the presence chamber with brooms and brushes, cloths
    and leathers, to sweep and garnish it, and burnish the gold and jewels
    of the chamber. Lissome they were and sprightly of gait, of fresh
    complexion and fair-haired. Horns grew on their heads. When their
    tasks were accomplished they departed, and the presence began to fill
    with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span> guests. A joy it was to see such a shifting maze of velvets,
    furs, curious needleworks and cloth of tissue, tiffanies, laces,
    ruffs, goodly chains and carcanets of gold: such glitter of jewels and
    weapons: such nodding of the plumes the Demons wore in their hair,
    half veiling the horns that grew upon their heads. Some were sitting
    on the benches or leaning on the polished tables, some walking forth
    and back upon the shining floor. Here and there were women among them,
    women so fair one had said: it is surely white-armed Helen this one;
    this, Arcadian Atalanta; this, Phryne that stood to Praxiteles for
    Aphrodite’s picture; this, Thaïs, for whom great Alexander to pleasure
    her fantasy did burn Persepolis like a candle; this, she that was rapt
    by the Dark God from the flowering fields of Enna, to be Queen for ever
    among the dead that be departed.</p>

  <p>Now came a stir near the stately doorway, and Lessingham beheld a Demon
    of burly frame and noble port, richly attired. His face was ruddy and
    somewhat freckled, his forehead wide, his eyes calm and blue like
    the sea. His beard, thick and tawny, was parted and brushed back and
    upwards on either side.</p>

  <p>“Tell me, my little martlet,” said Lessingham, “is this Lord Juss?”</p>

  <p>“This is not Lord Juss,” answered the martlet, “nor aught so worshipful
    as he. The lord thou seest is Volle, who dwelleth under Kartadza, by
    the salt sea. A great sea-captain is he, and one that did service to
    the cause of Demonland, and of the whole world besides, in the late
    wars against the Ghouls.</p>

  <p>“But cast thine eyes again towards the door, where one standeth amid
    a knot of friends, tall and somewhat stooping, in a corselet of
    silver, and a cloak of old brocaded silk coloured like tarnished gold;
    something like to Volle in feature, but swarthy, and with bristling
    black moustachios.”</p>

  <p>“I see him,” said Lessingham. “This then is Lord Juss!”</p>

  <p>“Not so,” said the martlet. “’Tis but Vizz, brother to Volle. He is
    wealthiest in goods of all the Demons, save the three brethren only and
    Lord Brandoch Daha.”</p>

  <p>“And who is this?” asked Lessingham, pointing to one of light and brisk
    step and humorous eye, who in that moment met Volle and engaged him in
    converse apart. Handsome of face he was, albeit somewhat long-nosed and
    sharp-nosed: keen and hard and filled with life and the joy of it.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span></p>

  <p>“Here thou beholdest,” answered she, “Lord Zigg, the far-famed tamer of
    horses. Well loved is he among the Demons, for he is merry of mood, and
    a mighty man of his hands withal when he leadeth his horsemen against
    the enemy.”</p>

  <p>Volle threw up his beard and laughed a great laugh at some jest that
    Zigg whispered in his ear, and Lessingham leaned forward into the hall
    if haply he might catch what was said. The hum of talk drowned the
    words, but leaning forward Lessingham saw where the arras curtains
    behind the dais parted for a moment, and one of princely bearing
    advanced past the high seats down the body of the hall. His gait
    was delicate, as of some lithe beast of prey newly wakened out of
    slumber, and he greeted with lazy grace the many friends who hailed his
    entrance. Very tall was that lord, and slender of build, like a girl.
    His tunic was of silk coloured like the wild rose, and embroidered in
    gold with representations of flowers and thunderbolts. Jewels glittered
    on his left hand and on the golden bracelets on his arms, and on the
    fillet twined among the golden curls of his hair, set with plumes of
    the king-bird of Paradise. His horns were dyed with saffron, and inlaid
    with filigree work of gold. His buskins were laced with gold, and
    from his belt hung a sword, narrow of blade and keen, the hilt rough
    with beryls and black diamonds. Strangely light and delicate was his
    frame and seeming, yet with a sense of slumbering power beneath, as
    the delicate peak of a snow mountain seen afar in the low red rays of
    morning. His face was beautiful to look upon, and softly coloured like
    a girl’s face, and his expression one of gentle melancholy, mixed with
    some disdain; but fiery glints awoke at intervals in his eyes, and the
    lines of swift determination hovered round the mouth below his curled
    moustachios.</p>

  <p>“At last,” murmured Lessingham, “at last, Lord Juss!”</p>

  <p>“Little art thou to blame,” said the martlet, “for this misprision, for
    scarce could a lordlier sight have joyed thine eyes. Yet is this not
    Juss, but Lord Brandoch Daha, to whom all Demonland west of Shalgreth
    and Stropardon oweth allegiance: the rich vineyards of Krothering, the
    broad pasture lands of Failze, and all the western islands and their
    cragbound fastnesses. Think not, because he affecteth silks and jewels
    like a queen, and carrieth himself light and dainty as a silver birch
    tree on the mountain, that his hand is light or his courage<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span> doubtful
    in war. For years was he held for the third best man-at-arms in all
    Mercury, along with these, Goldry Bluszco and Gorice X. of Witchland.
    And Gorice he slew, nine summers back, in single combat, when the
    Witches harried in Goblinland and Brandoch Daha led five hundred and
    four-score Demons to succour Gaslark, the king of that country. And now
    can none surpass Lord Brandoch Daha in feats of arms, save perchance
    Goldry alone.</p>

  <p>“Yet, lo,” she said, as a sweet and wild music stole on the ear, and
    the guests turned towards the dais, and the hangings parted, “at
    last, the triple lordship of Demonland! Strike softly, music: smile,
    Fates, on this festal day! Joy and safe days shine for this world and
    Demonland! Turn thy gaze first on him who walks in majesty in the
    midst, his tunic of olive-green velvet ornamented with devices of
    hidden meaning in thread of gold and beads of chrysolite. Mark how the
    buskins, clasping his stalwart calves, glitter with gold and amber.
    Mark the dusky cloak streamed with gold and lined with blood-red silk:
    a charmed cloak, made by the sylphs in forgotten days, bringing good
    hap to the wearer, so he be true of heart and no dastard. Mark him that
    weareth it, his sweet dark countenance, the violet fire in his eyes,
    the sombre warmth of his smile, like autumn woods in late sunshine.
    This is Lord Juss, lord of this age-remembering castle, than whom
    none hath more worship in wide Demonland. Somewhat he knoweth of art
    magical, yet useth not that art; for it sappeth the life and strength,
    nor is it held worthy that a Demon should put trust in that art, but
    rather in his own might and main.</p>

  <p>“Now turn thine eyes to him that leaneth on Juss’s left arm, shorter
    but mayhap sturdier than he, apparelled in black silk that shimmers
    with gold as he moveth, and crowned with black eagle’s feathers
    among his horns and yellow hair. His face is wild and keen like a
    sea-eagle’s, and from his bristling brows the eyes dart glances
    sharp as a glancing spear. A faint flame, pallid like the fire of a
    Will-o’-the-Wisp, breathes ever and anon from his distended nostrils.
    This is Lord Spitfire, impetuous in war.</p>

  <p>“Last, behold on Juss’s right hand, yon lord that bulks mighty as
    Hercules yet steppeth lightly as a heifer. The thews and sinews of
    his great limbs ripple as he moves beneath a skin whiter than ivory;
    his cloak of cloth of gold is heavy with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span> jewels, his tunic of black
    sendaline hath great hearts worked thereon in rubies and red silk
    thread. Slung from his shoulders clanks a two-handed sword, the pommel
    a huge star-ruby carven in the image of a heart, for the heart is his
    sign and symbol. This is that sword forged by the elves, wherewith he
    slew the sea-monster, as thou mayest see in the painting on the wall.
    Noble is he of countenance, most like to his brother Juss, but darker
    brown of hair and ruddier of hue and bigger of cheekbone. Look well on
    him, for never shall thine eyes behold a greater champion than the Lord
    Goldry Bluszco, captain of the hosts of Demonland.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now when the greetings were done and the strains of the lutes and
    recorders sighed and lost themselves in the shadowy vault of the roof,
    the cup-bearers did fill great gems made in form of cups with ancient
    wine, and the Demons caroused to Lord Juss deep draughts in honour of
    this day of his nativity. And now they were ready to set forth by twos
    and threes into the parks and pleasaunces, some to take their pleasure
    about the fair gardens and fishponds, some to hunt wild game among the
    wooded hills, some to disport themselves at quoits or tennis or riding
    at the ring or martial exercises; that so they might spend the livelong
    day as befitteth high holiday, in pleasure and action without care, and
    thereafter revel in the lofty presence chamber till night grew old with
    eating and drinking and all delight.</p>

  <p>But as they were upon going forth, a trumpet was sounded without, three
    strident blasts.</p>

  <p>“What kill-joy have we here?” said Spitfire. “The trumpet soundeth only
    for travellers from the outlands. I feel it in my bones some rascal is
    come to Galing, one that bringeth ill hap in his pocket and a shadow
    athwart the sun on this our day of festival.”</p>

  <p>“Speak no word of ill omen,” answered Juss. “Whosoe’er it be, we will
    straight dispatch his business and so fall to pleasure indeed. Some,
    run to the gate and bring him in.”</p>

  <p>The serving man hastened and returned, saying, “Lord, it is an
    Ambassador from Witchland and his train. Their ship made land at
    Lookinghaven-ness at nightfall. They slept on board, and your soldiers
    gave them escort to Galing at break of day. He craveth present
    audience.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span></p>

  <p>“From Witchland, ha?” said Juss. “Such smokes use ever to go before the
    fire.”</p>

  <p>“Shall’s bid the fellow,” said Spitfire, “wait on our pleasure? It is
    pity such should poison our gladness.”</p>

  <p>Goldry laughed and said, “Whom hath he sent us? Laxus, think you?
    to make his peace with us again for that vile part of his practised
    against us off Kartadza, detestably falsifying his word he had given
    us?”</p>

  <p>Juss said to the serving man, “Thou sawest the Ambassador. Who is he?”</p>

  <p>“Lord,” answered he, “His face was strange to me. He is little of
    stature and, by your highness’ leave, the most unlike to a great
    lord of Witchland that ever I saw. And, by your leave, for all the
    marvellous rich and sumptuous coat a weareth, he is very like a false
    jewel in a rich casing.”</p>

  <p>“Well,” said Juss, “a sour draught sweetens not in the waiting. Call we
    in the Ambassador.”</p>

  <p>Lord Juss sat in the high seat midmost of the dais, with Goldry on his
    right in the seat of black opal, and on his left Spitfire, throned
    on the alexandrite. On the dais sat likewise those other lords of
    Demonland, and the guests of lower degree thronged the benches and the
    polished tables as the wide doors opened on their silver hinges, and
    the Ambassador with pomp and ceremony paced up the shining floor of
    marble and green tourmaline.</p>

  <p>“Why, what a beastly fellow is this?” said Lord Goldry in his brother’s
    ear. “His hairy hands reach down to his knees. A shuffleth in his walk
    like a hobbled jackass.”</p>

  <p>“I like not the dirty face of the Ambassador,” said Lord Zigg. “His
    nose sitteth flat on the face of him as it were a dab of clay, and I
    can see pat up his nostrils a summer day’s journey into his head. If’s
    upper lip bespeak him not a rare spouter of rank fustian, perdition
    catch me. Were it a finger’s breadth longer, a might tuck it into his
    collar to keep his chin warm of a winter’s night.”</p>

  <p>“I like not the smell of the Ambassador,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. And
    he called for censers and sprinklers of lavender and rose water to
    purify the chamber, and let open the crystal windows that the breezes
    of heaven might enter and make all sweet.</p>


  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span></p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_009">
    <img src="images/i_009.jpg" alt="" />
    <div class="caption">THE LORDS JUSS, GOLDRY BLUSZCO, SPITFIRE, AND BRANDOCH DAHA.</div>
  </div>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span></p>

  <p>So the Ambassador walked up the shining floor and stood
    before the lords of Demonland that sat upon the high seats between the
    golden hippogriffs. He was robed in a long mantle of scarlet velvet
    lined with ermine, with crabs, woodlice, and centipedes worked thereon
    in golden thread. His head was covered with a black velvet cap with a
    peacock’s feather fastened with a brooch of silver. Supported by his
    train-bearers and attendants, and leaning on his golden staff, he with
    raucous accent delivered his mission:</p>

  <p>“Juss, Goldry, and Spitfire, and ye other Demons, I come before you
    as the Ambassador of Gorice XI., most glorious King of Witchland,
    Lord and great Duke of Buteny and Estremerine, Commander of Shulan,
    Thramnë, Mingos, and Permio, and High Warden of the Esamocian Marches,
    Great Duke of Trace, King Paramount of Beshtria and Nevria and Prince
    of Ar, Great Lord over the country of Ojedia, Maltraëny, and of
    Baltary and Toribia, and Lord of many other countries, most glorious
    and most great, whose power and glory is over all the world and whose
    name shall endure for all generations. And first I bid you be bound
    by that reverence for my sacred office of envoy from the King, which
    is accorded by all people and potentates, save such as be utterly
    barbarous, to ambassadors and envoys.”</p>

  <p>“Speak and fear not,” answered Juss. “Thou hast mine oath. And that
    hath never been forsworn, to Witch or other barbarian.”</p>

  <p>The Ambassador shot out his lips in an O, and threatened with his head;
    then grinned, laying bare his sharp and misshapen teeth, and proceeded:</p>

  <p>“Thus saith King Gorice, great and glorious, and he chargeth me to
    deliver it to you, neither adding any word nor taking away: ‘I have it
    in mind that no ceremony of homage or fealty hath been performed before
    me by the dwellers in my province of Demonland——’”</p>

  <p>As the rustling of dry leaves strewn in a flagged court when a sudden
    wind striketh them, there went a stir among the guests. Nor might the
    Lord Spitfire contain his wrath, but springing up and clapping hand to
    sword-hilt, as minded to do a hurt to the Ambassador, “Province?” he
    cried. “Are not the Demons a free people? And is it to be endured that
    Witchland should commission this slave to cast insults in our teeth,
    and this in our own castle?”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span></p>

  <p>A murmur went about the hall, and here and there folk rose from their
    seats. The Ambassador drew down his head between his shoulders like a
    tortoise, baring his teeth and blinking with his small eyes. But Lord
    Brandoch Daha, lightly laying his hand on Spitfire’s arm, said: “The
    Ambassador hath not ended his message, cousin, and thou hast frightened
    him. Have patience and spoil not the comedy. We shall not lack words to
    answer King Gorice: no, nor swords, if he must have them. But it shall
    not be said of us of Demonland that it needeth but a boorish message to
    turn us from our ancient courtesy toward ambassadors and heralds.”</p>

  <p>So spake Lord Brandoch Daha, in lazy half-mocking tone, as one who but
    idly returneth the ball of conversation; yet clearly, so that all might
    hear. And therewith the murmurs died down, and Spitfire said, “I am
    tame. Say thine errand freely, and imagine not that we shall hold thee
    answerable for aught thou sayest, but him that sent thee.”</p>

  <p>“Whose humble mouthpiece I only am,” said the Ambassador, somewhat
    gathering courage; “and who, saving your reverence, lacketh not the
    will nor the power to take revenge for any outrage done upon his
    servants. Thus saith the King: ‘I therefore summon and command you,
    Juss, Spitfire, and Goldry Bluszco, to make haste and come to me in
    Witchland in my fortress of Carcë, and there dutifully kiss my toe, in
    witness before all the world that I am your Lord and King, and rightful
    overlord of all Demonland.’”</p>

  <p>Gravely and without gesture Lord Juss harkened to the Ambassador,
    leaning back in his high seat with either arm thrown athwart the arched
    neck of a hippogriff. Goldry, smiling scornfully, toyed with the hilt
    of his great sword. Spitfire sat strained and glowering, the sparks
    crackling at his nostrils.</p>

  <p>“Thou hast delivered all?” said Juss.</p>

  <p>“All,” answered the Ambassador.</p>

  <p>“Thou shalt have thine answer,” said Juss. “While we take rede thereon,
    eat and drink;” and he beckoned the cup-bearer to pour out bright wine
    for the Ambassador. But the Ambassador excused himself, saying that he
    was not athirst, and that he had store of food and wine aboard of his
    ship, which should suffice his needs and those of his following.</p>

  <p>Then said Lord Spitfire, “No marvel though the spawn<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span> of Witchland fear
    venom in the cup. They who work commonly such villany against their
    enemies, as witness Recedor of Goblinland whom Corsus murthered with
    a poisonous draught, shake still in the knees lest themselves be so
    entertained to their destruction;” and snatching the cup he quaffed it
    to the dregs, and dashed it on the marble floor before the Ambassador,
    so that it was shivered into pieces.</p>

  <p>And the lords of Demonland rose up and withdrew behind the flowery
    hangings into a chamber apart, to determine of their answer to the
    message sent unto them by King Gorice of Witchland.</p>

  <p>When they were private together, Spitfire spake and said, “Is it to be
    borne that the King should put such shame and mockery upon us? Could a
    not at the least have made a son of Corund or of Corsus his Ambassador
    to bring us his defiance, ’stead of this filthiest of his domestics, a
    gibbering dwarf fit only to make them gab and game at their tippling
    bouts when they be three parts senseless with boosing?”</p>

  <p>Lord Juss smiled somewhat scornfully. “With wisdom,” he said, “and with
    foresight hath Witchland made choice of his time to move against us,
    knowing that thirty and three of our well-built ships are sunken in
    Kartadza Sound in the battle with the Ghouls, and but fourteen remain
    to us. Now that the Ghouls are slain, every soul, and utterly abolished
    from this world, and so the great curse and peril of all this world
    ended by the sword and great valour of Demonland alone, now seemeth the
    happy moment unto these late mouth-friends to fall upon us. For have
    not the Witches a strong fleet of ships, since their whole fleet fled
    at the beginning of their fight with us against the Ghouls, leaving us
    to bear the burden? And now are they minded for this new treason, to
    set upon us traitorously and suddenly in this disadvantage. For the
    King well judgeth we can carry no army to Witchland nor do aught in
    his despite, but must be long months a-shipbuilding. And doubt not he
    holdeth an armament ready aboard at Tenemos to sail hither if he get
    the answer he knoweth we shall send him.”</p>

  <p>“Sit we at ease then,” said Goldry, “sharpening our swords; and let
    him ship his armies across the salt sea. Not a Witch shall land in
    Demonland but shall leave here his blood and bones to make fat our
    cornfields and our vineyards.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span></p>

  <p>“Rather,” said Spitfire, “apprehend this rascal, and put to sea to-day
    with the fourteen ships left us. We can surprise Witchland in his
    strong place of Carcë, sack it, and give him to the crows to peck at,
    or ever he is well awake to the swiftness of our answer. That is my
    counsel.”</p>

  <p>“Nay,” said Juss, “we shall not take him sleeping. Be certain that his
    ships are ready and watching in the Witchland seas, prepared against
    any rash onset. It were folly to set our neck in the noose; and little
    glory to Demonland to await his coming. This, then, is my rede: I will
    bid Gorice to the duello, and make offer to him to let lie on the
    fortune thereof the decision of this quarrel.”</p>

  <p>“A good rede, if it might be fulfilled,” said Goldry. “But never will
    he dare to stand with weapons in single combat ’gainst thee or ’gainst
    any of us. Nevertheless the thing shall be brought about. Is not Gorice
    a mighty wrastler, and hath he not in his palace in Carcë the skulls
    and bones of ninety and nine great champions whom he hath vanquished
    and slain in that exercise? Puffed up beyond measure is he in his own
    conceit, and folk say it is a grief to him that none hath been found
    this long while that durst wrastle with him, and wofully he pineth for
    the hundredth. He shall wrastle a fall with me!”</p>

  <p>Now this seemed good to them all. So when they had talked on it awhile
    and concluded what they would do, glad of heart the lords of Demonland
    turned them back to the lofty presence chamber. And there Lord Juss
    spake and said: “Demons, ye have heard the words which the King of
    Witchland in the overweening pride and shamelessness of his heart hath
    spoken unto us by the mouth of this Ambassador. Now this is our answer
    which my brother shall give, the Lord Goldry Bluszco; and we charge
    thee, O Ambassador, to deliver it truly, neither adding any word nor
    taking away.”</p>

  <p>And the Lord Goldry spake: “We, the lords of Demonland, do utterly
    scorn thee, Gorice XI., for the greatest of dastards, in that thou
    basely fleddest and forsookest us, thy sworn confederates, in the sea
    battle against the Ghouls. Our swords, which in that battle ended so
    great a curse and peril to all this world, are not bent nor broken.
    They shall be sheathed in the bowels of thee and thy minions, Corsus
    to wit, and Corund, and their sons, and Corinius, and what other
    evildoers harbour in waterish Witchland, sooner than one little
    sea-pink<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span> growing on the cliffs of Demonland shall do thee obeisance.
    But, that thou mayest, if so thou wilt, feel our power somewhat, I,
    Lord Goldry Bluszco, make thee this offer: that thou and I do match
    ourselves singly each against other to wrastle three falls at the court
    of the Red Foliot, who inclineth neither to our side nor to thine in
    this quarrel. And we will bind ourselves by mighty oaths to these
    conditions, that if I overcome thee, the Demons shall leave you of
    Witchland in peace, and ye them, and the Witches shall forswear for
    ever their impudent claims on Demonland. But if thou, Gorice, win the
    day, then hast thou the glory of that victory, and withal full liberty
    to thrust thy claims upon us with the sword.”</p>

  <p>So spake the Lord Goldry Bluszco, standing in great pride and splendour
    beneath the starry canopy, and scowling terribly on the Ambassador
    from Witchland, so that the Ambassador was abashed and his knees smote
    together. And Goldry called his scribe and made him write the message
    for Gorice the King in great characters on a roll of parchment, and
    the lords of Demonland sealed it with their seals, and gave it to the
    Ambassador.</p>

  <p>The Ambassador took it and made haste to depart; but when he was come
    to the stately doorway of the presence chamber, being near the door
    and amongst his attendants, and away from the lords of Demonland, he
    plucked up heart a little and turned and said: “Rashly and to thy
    certain undoing, O Goldry Bluszco, hast thou bidden our Lord the King
    to contend with thee in wrastling. For be thou never so mighty of limb,
    yet hath he overthrown as mighty. And he wrastleth not for sport, but
    will surely work thy life’s decay, and keep the dead bones of thee with
    the bones of the ninety and nine champions whom he hath heretofore laid
    low in that exercise.”</p>

  <p>Therewith, because Goldry and the other lords scowled upon him
    terribly, and the guests near the door fell to hooting and reviling of
    the Witches, the Ambassador went forth hastily and hastily down the
    shining stairs and across the court, as one who fleeth along a lane
    on a dark and windy night, daring not to turn his head lest his eye
    behold some fearsome thing prepared to clasp him. So speeding, he was
    fain to catch up about his knees the folds of his velvet cloak richly
    worked with crabs and creeping things; and huge whooping and laughter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span>
    went up among the common lag of people without, to behold his long and
    nerveless tail thus bared to their unfriendly gaze. Insomuch that they
    fell to shouting with one accord, “Though his mouth be foul he hath a
    fair tail! Saw ye not his tail? Hurrah for Gorice who hath sent us a
    monkey for his Ambassador!”</p>

  <p>And with jibe and unmannerly yell the crowd hung lovingly upon the
    Ambassador and his train all the way down from Galing castle to the
    quays. So that it was like a sweet home-coming to him to come on board
    his well-built ship and have her rowed amain out of Lookinghaven. So
    when they had rounded Lookinghaven-ness and were free of the land, they
    hoisted sail and voyaged before a favouring breeze eastward over the
    teeming deep to Witchland.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_flower.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_WRASTLING_FOR_DEMONLAND">II: THE WRASTLING FOR DEMONLAND</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE PROGNOSTICKS WHICH TROUBLED LORD GRO CONCERNING THE MEETING
    BETWEEN THE KING OF WITCHLAND AND THE LORD GOLDRY BLUSZCO; AND HOW
    THEY MET, AND OF THE ISSUE OF THAT WRASTLING.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">“HOW could I have fallen asleep?” cried Lessingham. “Where is the
    castle of the Demons, and how did we leave the great presence chamber
    where they saw the Ambassador?” For he stood on rolling uplands that
    leaned to the sea, treeless on every side as far as the eye might
    reach; and on three sides shimmered the sea, kissed by the sun and
    roughened by the salt glad wind that charged over the downs, charioting
    clouds without number through the illimitable heights of air.</p>

  <p>The little black martlet answered him, “My hippogriff travelleth as
    well in time as in space. Days and weeks have been left behind by us,
    in what seemeth to thee but the twinkling of an eye, and thou standest
    in the Foliot Isles, a land happy under the mild regiment of a peaceful
    prince, on the day appointed by King Gorice to wrastle with Lord Goldry
    Bluszco. Terrible must be the wrastling betwixt two such champions,
    and dark the issue thereof. And my heart is afraid for Goldry Bluszco,
    big and strong though he be and unconquered in war; for there hath not
    arisen in all the ages such a wrastler as this Gorice, and strong he
    is, and hard and unwearying, and skilled in every art of attack and
    defence, and subtle withal, and cruel and fell like a serpent.”</p>

  <p>Where they stood the down was cut by a combe that descended to the sea,
    and overhanging the combe was the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span> palace of the Red Foliot, rambling
    and low, with many little towers and battlements, built of stones
    hewn from the wall of the combe, so that it was hard from a distance
    to discern what was palace and what native rock. Behind the palace
    stretched a meadow, flat and smooth, carpeted with the close wiry turf
    of the downs. At either end of the meadow were booths set up, to the
    north the booths of them of Witchland, and to the south the booths of
    the Demons. In the midst of the meadow was a space marked out with
    withies sixty paces either way for the wrastling ground.</p>

  <p>Only the birds of the air and the sea-wind were abroad as then, save
    those that walked armed before the Witches’ booths, six in company,
    harnessed as for battle in byrnies of shining bronze, with greaves
    and shields of bronze and helms that glanced in the sun. Five were
    proper slender youths, the eldest of whom had not yet beard full grown,
    black-browed and great of jaw; the sixth, huge as a neat, topped them
    by half a head. Age had flecked with gray the beard that spread over
    his big chest to his belt stiffened with studs of iron, but the vigour
    of youth was in his glance and in his voice, and in the tread of his
    foot, and in his fist so lightly handling his burly spear.</p>

  <p>“Behold, wonder, and lament,” said the martlet, “that the innocent eye
    of day should be enforced still to look upon the children of night
    everlasting. Corund of Witchland and his cursed sons.”</p>

  <p>Lessingham thought, “A most fiery politician is my little martlet:
    damned fiends and angels and nothing betwixt for her. But I’ll dance to
    none of their tunes, but wait for these things’ unfolding.”</p>

  <p>So walked those back and forth as caged lions before the Witches’
    booths, until Corund halted and leaning on his spear said to one of his
    sons, “Go in and seek out Gro that I may speak with him.” And the son
    of Corund went, and returned anon with Lord Gro, that came with furtive
    step, yet goodly and fair to behold. The nose of him was hooked like a
    sickle and his eyes great and fair like the eyes of an ox, inscrutable
    as they. Lean and spare was his frame. Pale was his face and pale his
    delicate hands, and his long black beard was tightly curled and bright
    as the coat of a black retriever.</p>

  <p>Corund said, “How is it with the King?”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span></p>

  <p>Gro answered him, “He chafeth to be at it; and to pass away the time he
    playeth at dice with Corinius, and the luck goeth against the King.”</p>

  <p>“What makest thou of that?” asked Corund.</p>

  <p>And Gro said, “The fortune of the dice jumpeth not commonly with the
    fortune of war.”</p>

  <p>Corund grunted in his beard, and laying his large hand on Lord Gro’s
    shoulder, “Speak to me a little apart,” he said; and when they were
    private, “Darken not counsel,” said Corund, “to me and my sons. Have I
    not these four years past been as a brother unto thee, and wilt thou
    still be secret toward us?”</p>

  <p>But Gro smiled a sad smile and said, “Why should we by words of ill
    omen strike yet another blow where the tree tottereth?”</p>

  <p>Corund groaned. “Omens,” said he, “increase upon us from that time
    forth when the King accepted the challenge, evilly, and flatly against
    thy counsel and mine and the counsel of all the great ones in the land.
    Surely the Gods have made him fey, having ordained his destruction and
    our humbling before these Demons.” And he said, “Omens thicken upon us,
    O Gro. First, the night raven that went widdershins round about the
    palace of Carcë, that night when the King accepted this challenge, and
    we were all drunken with wine after our great feasting and surfeiting
    in his halls. Next, the stumbling of the King whenas he went upon the
    poop of the long ship which bare us on this voyage to these islands.
    Next, the squint-eyed cup-bearer that poured out unto us yesternight.
    And throughout, the devilish pride and bragging humour of the King. No
    more: he is fey. And the dice fall against him.”</p>

  <p>Gro spake and said, “O Corund, I will not hide it from thee that my
    heart is heavy as thy heart under shadow of ill to be. For as I lay
    sleeping betwixt the strokes of night, a dream of the night stood by
    my bed and beheld me with a glance so fell that I was all adrad and
    quaking with fear. And it seemed to me that the dream smote the roof
    above my bed, and the roof opened and disclosed the outer dark, and in
    the dark travelled a bearded star, and the night was quick with fiery
    signs. And blood was on the roof, and great gouts of blood on the
    walls and on the cornice of my bed. And the dream screeched like the
    screech-owl, and cried, <i>Witchland<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span> from thy hand, O King!</i> And
    methought the whole world was lighted in a lowe, and with a great cry I
    awoke out of the dream.”</p>

  <p>“Thou art wise,” said Corund; “and belike the dream was a true dream,
    sent thee through the gate of horn, and belike it forebodeth events
    great and evil for the King and for Witchland.”</p>

  <p>Gro said, “Disclose it not to the others, for none can strive with Fate
    and gain the victory, and it would but cast down their hearts. But it
    is fitting we be ready against evil hap. If (which yet may the Gods
    forfend) ill come of this wrastling bout, fail not every one of you ere
    you act on any enterprise to take counsel of me. ‘Bare is back without
    brother behind it.’ Together must we do that we do.”</p>

  <p>“Thou hast my firm assurance on’t,” said Corund.</p>

  <p>Now began a great company to come forth from the palace and take their
    stand on either side of the wrastling ground. The Red Foliot sate in
    his car of polished ebony, drawn by six black horses with flowing manes
    and tails; before him went his musicians, pipers and minstrels doing
    their craft, and behind him fifty spearmen, weighed down with armour
    and ponderous shields that covered them from chin to toe. Their armour
    was stained with madder, in such wise that they seemed bathed in blood.
    Mild to look on was the Red Foliot, yet kingly. His skin was scarlet
    like the head of the green woodpecker. He wore a diadem of silver, and
    robes of scarlet trimmed with black fur.</p>

  <p>So when the Foliots were assembled, one stood forth with a horn at the
    command of the Red Foliot and blew three blasts. Therewith came forth
    from their booths the lords of Demonland and their men-at-arms, Juss,
    Goldry, Spitfire, and Brandoch Daha, all armed as for battle save
    Goldry, who was muffled in a cloak of cloth of gold with great hearts
    worked thereon in red silk thread. And from their booths in turn came
    the lords of Witchland all armed, and their fighting men, and little
    love there was in the glances they and the Demons cast upon each other.
    In the midst stalked the King, his great limbs muffled, like Goldry’s,
    in a cloak: and it was of black silk lined with black bearskin, and
    ornamented with crabs worked in diamonds. The crown of Witchland,
    fashioned like a hideous crab and encrusted with jewels so thickly
    that none might discern the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span> iron whereof it was framed, weighed on
    his beetling brow. His beard was black and bristly, spade-shaped and
    thick: his hair close cropped. His upper lip was shaved, displaying his
    sneering mouth, and from the darkness below his eyebrows looked forth
    eyes that showed a green light, like those of a wolf. Corund walked at
    the King’s left elbow, his giant frame an inch less in stature than
    the King. Corinius went on the right, wearing a rich cloak of sky-blue
    tissue over his shining armour. Tall and soldier-like was Corinius, and
    young and goodly to look upon, with swaggering gait and insolent eye,
    thick-lipped withal and somewhat heavy of feature, and the sun shone
    brightly on his shaven jowl.</p>

  <p>Now the Red Foliot let sound the horn again, and standing in his ebony
    car he read out the conditions, as thus:</p>

  <p>“O Gorice XI., most glorious King of Witchland, and O Lord Goldry
    Bluszco, captain of the hosts of Demonland, it is compact betwixt you,
    and made fast by mighty oaths whereof I, the Red Foliot, am keeper,
    that ye shall wrastle three falls together on these conditions, namely,
    that if Gorice the King be victorious, then hath he that glory and
    withal full liberty to enforce with the sword his claims of lordship
    over many-mountained Demonland: but if victory fall to the Lord Goldry
    Bluszco, then shall the Demons let the Witches abide in peace, and they
    them, and the Witches shall forswear for ever their claims of lordship
    over the Demons. And you, O King, and you, O Goldry Bluszco, are
    likewise bound by oath to wrastle fairly and to abide by the ruling of
    me, the Red Foliot, whom ye are content to choose as your umpire. And
    I do swear to judge justly between you. And the laws of your wrastling
    are that neither shall strangle his adversary with his hands, nor bite
    him, nor claw nor scratch his flesh, nor poach out his eyes, nor smite
    him with his fists, nor do any other unfair thing against him, but in
    all other respects ye shall wrastle freely together. And he that shall
    be brought to earth with hip or shoulder shall be accounted fallen.”</p>

  <p>The Red Foliot said, “Have I spoken well, O King, and do you swear to
    these conditions?”</p>

  <p>The King said, “I swear.”</p>

  <p>The Red Foliot asked in like manner, “Dost thou swear to these
    conditions, O Lord Goldry Bluszco?”</p>

  <p>And Goldry answered him, “I swear.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span></p>

  <p>Without more ado the King stepped into the wrastling ground on his
    side, and Goldry Bluszco on his, and they cast aside their rich mantles
    and stood forth naked for the wrastling. And folk stood silent for
    admiration of the thews and sinews of those twain, doubting which were
    mightier of build and likelier to gain the victory. The King stood
    taller by a little, and was longer in the arm than Goldry. But the
    great frame of Goldry showed excellent proportions, each part wedded to
    each as in the body of a God, and if either were brawnier of chest it
    was he, and he was thicker of neck than the King.</p>

  <p>Now the King mocked Goldry, saying, “Rebellious hound, it is fit that
    I make demonstration unto thee, and unto these Foliots and Demons that
    witness our meeting, that I am thy King and Lord not by virtue only
    of this my crown of Witchland, which I thus put by for an hour, but
    even by the power of my body over thine and by my might and main. Be
    satisfied that I will not have done with thee until I have taken away
    thy life, and sent thy soul squealing bodiless into the unknown. And
    thy skull and thy marrow-bones will I have away to Carcë, to my palace,
    to be a token unto all the world that I have been the bane of an
    hundredth great champion by my wrastling, and thou not least among them
    that I have slain in that exercise. Thereafter, when I have eaten and
    drunken and made merry in my royal palace at Carcë, I will sail with my
    armies over the teeming deep to many-mountained Demonland. And it shall
    be my footstool, and these other Demons the slaves of me, yea, and the
    slaves of my slaves.”</p>

  <p>But the Lord Goldry Bluszco laughed lightly and said to the
    Red Foliot, “O Red Foliot, I am not come hither to contend with the
    King of Witchland in windy railing, but to match my strength against
    his, sinew against sinew.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now they stood ready, and the Red Foliot made a sign with his hand, and
    the cymbals clashed for the first bout.</p>

  <p>At the clash the two champions advanced and clasped one another with
    their strong arms, each with his right arm below and left arm above
    the other’s shoulder, until the flesh shrank beneath the might of
    their arms that were as brazen bands. They swayed a little this way
    and that, as great trees swaying in a storm, their legs planted firmly
    so that they seemed to grow out of the ground like the trunks of oak
    trees. Nor did either<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span> yield ground to other, nor might either win a
    master hold upon his enemy. So swayed they back and forth for a long
    time, breathing heavily. And now Goldry, gathering his strength, gat
    the King lifted a little from the ground, and was minded to swing him
    round and so dash him to earth. But the King, in that moment when
    he found himself lifted, leaned forward mightily and smote his heel
    swiftly round Goldry’s leg on the outside, striking him behind and a
    little above the ankle, in such wise that Goldry was fain to loosen his
    hold on the King; and greatly folk marvelled that he was able in that
    plight to save himself from being thrown backward by the King. So they
    gripped again until red wheals rose on their backs and shoulders by
    reason of the grievous clasping of their arms. And the King on a sudden
    twisted his body sideways, with his left side turned from Goldry; and
    catching with his leg Goldry’s leg on the inside below the great muscle
    of the calf, and hugging him yet closer, he lurched mightily against
    him, striving to pull Goldry backward and so fall upon him and crush
    him as they fell to earth. But Goldry leaned violently forward, ever
    tightening his hold on the King, and so violently bare he forward in
    his strength that the King was baulked of his design; and clutched
    together they fell both to earth side by side with a heavy crash, and
    lay bemused while one might count half a score.</p>

  <p>The Red Foliot proclaimed them even in this bout, and each returned to
    his fellows to take breath and rest for a space.</p>

  <p>Now while they rested, a flittermouse flew forth from the Witchland
    booths and went widdershins round the wrastling ground and so returned
    silently whence she came. Lord Gro saw her, and his heart waxed heavy
    within him. He spake to Corund and said, “Needs must that I make trial
    even at this late hour if there be not any means to turn the King from
    further adventuring of himself, ere all be lost.”</p>

  <p>Corund said, “Be it as thou wilt, but it will be in vain.”</p>

  <p>So Gro stood by the King and said, “Lord, give over this wrastling.
    Great of growth and mightier of limb than any that you did overcome
    aforetime is this Demon, yet have you vanquished him. For you did throw
    him, as we plainly saw, and wrongfully hath the Red Foliot adjudged
    you evenly matched because in the throwing of him your majesty’s self
    did fall to earth. Tempt not the fates by another bout. Yours<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span> is the
    victory in this wrastling: and now we, your servants, wait but your
    nod to make a sudden onslaught on these Demons and slay them, as we
    may lightly overcome them taken at unawares. And for the Foliots, they
    be peaceful and sheep-like folk, and will be held in awe when we have
    smitten the Demons with the edge of the sword. So may you depart, O
    King, with pleasure and great honour, and afterward fare to Demonland
    and bring it into subjection.”</p>

  <p>The King looked sourly upon Lord Gro, and said, “Thy counsel is
    unacceptable and unseasonable. What lieth behind it?”</p>

  <p>Gro answered, “There have been omens, O King.”</p>

  <p>And the King said, “What omens?”</p>

  <p>Gro answered and said, “I will not hide it from you, O my Lord the
    King, that in my sleep about the darkest hour a dream of the night
    came to my bed and beheld me with a glance so fell that the hairs of
    my head stood up and pale terror gat hold upon me. And methought the
    dream smote up the roof above my bed, and the roof yawned to the naked
    air of the midnight, that laboured with fiery signs, and a bearded
    star travelling in the houseless dark. And I beheld the roof and the
    walls one gore of blood. And the dream screeched like the screech-owl,
    crying, <i>Witchland from thy hand, O King!</i> And therewith the whole
    world seemed lighted in one flame, and with a shout I awoke sweating
    from the dream.”</p>

  <p>But the King rolled his eyes in anger upon Lord Gro and said, “Well am
    I served and faithfully by such false scheming foxes as thou. It ill
    fits your turn that I should carry this deed to the end with mine own
    hand only, and in the blindness of your impudent folly ye come to me
    with tales made for scaring of babes, praying me gently to forgo my
    glory that thou and thy fellows may make yourselves big in the world’s
    eyes by deeds of arms.”</p>

  <p>Gro said, “Lord, it is not so.”</p>

  <p>But the King would not hear him, but said, “Methinks it is for loyal
    subjects to seek greatness in the greatness of their King, nor desire
    to shine of their own brightness. As for this Demon, when thou sayest
    that I have overcome him thou speakest a gross and impudent lie. In
    this bout I did but measure myself with him. But thereby know I of a
    surety that when I put forth my might he will not be able to withstand<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span>
    me; and all ye shall shortly behold how, as one shattereth a stalk of
    angelica, I will break and shatter the limbs of this Goldry Bluszco.
    As for thee, false friend, subtle fox, unfaithful servant, this long
    time am I grown weary of thee slinking up and down my palace devising
    darkly things I know not: thou, that art nought akin to Witchland, but
    an outlander, a Goblin exile, a serpent warmed in my bosom to my hurt.
    But these things shall have an end. When I have put down this Goldry
    Bluszco, then shall I have leisure to put down thee also.”</p>

  <p>And Gro bowed in sorrow of heart before the anger of the King, and held
    his peace.</p>

  <p>Now was the horn blown for the second bout, and they stepped into the
    wrastling ground. At the clashing of the cymbals the King sprang at
    Goldry as the panther springeth, and with the rush bare him backward
    and well nigh forth of the wrastling ground. But when they were carried
    almost among the Demons where they stood to behold the contest, Goldry
    swung to the left and strove as before to get the King lifted off
    his feet; but the King foiled him and bent his ponderous weight upon
    him, so that Goldry’s spine was like to have been crushed beneath
    the murthering violence of the King’s arms. Then did the Lord Goldry
    Bluszco show forth his great power as a wrastler, for, even under the
    murthering clasp of the King, he by the might that was in the muscles
    of his brawny chest shook the King first to the right and then to the
    left; and the King’s hold was loosened, and all his skill and mastery
    but narrowly saved him from a grievous fall. Nor did Goldry delay nor
    ponder how next to make trial of the King, but sudden as the lightning
    he slackened his hold and turned, and with his back under the King’s
    belly gave a mighty lift; and they that witnessed it stood amazed in
    expectancy to see the King thrown over Goldry’s head. Yet for all his
    striving might not Goldry get the King lifted clean off the ground.
    Twice and three times he strove, and at each trial he seemed further
    from his aim, and the King bettered his hold. And at the fourth essay
    that Goldry made to lift the King over his back and fling him headlong,
    the King thrust him forward and tripped him from behind, so that Goldry
    was crawled on his hands and knees. And the King clung to him from
    behind and passed his arms round his body beneath the armpits and so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span>
    back over the shoulders, being minded to clasp his two hands at the
    back of Goldry’s neck.</p>

  <p>Then said Corund, “The Demon is sped already. By this hold hath the
    King brought to their bane more than three score famous champions. He
    delayeth only till his fingers be knit together behind the neck of the
    accursed Demon to draw the head of him forward until the bones of the
    neck or the breastbone be bursten asunder.”</p>

  <p>“He delayeth over long for my peace,” said Gro.</p>

  <p>The King’s breath came out of him in great puffs and grunts as he
    strained to bring his fingers to meet behind Goldry’s neck. Nor was it
    aught else than the hugeness of his neck and burly chest that saved the
    Lord Goldry Bluszco in that hour from utter destruction. Crawled on
    his hands and knees he could nowise escape from the hold of the King,
    neither lay hold on him in turn; howbeit because of the bigness of
    Goldry’s neck and chest it was impossible for the King to fasten that
    hold upon him, for all his striving.</p>

  <p>When the King perceived that this was so, and that he but wasted his
    strength, he said, “I will loose my hold on thee and let thee up, and
    we will stand again face to face. For I deem it unworthy to grapple on
    the ground like dogs.”</p>

  <p>So they stood up, and wrastled another while in silence. Soon the King
    made trial once again of the fall whereby he had sought to throw him
    in the first bout, twisting suddenly his right side against Goldry,
    and catching with his leg Goldry’s leg, and therewith leaning against
    him with main force. And when, as before, Goldry bare forward with
    great violence, tightening his grip, the King lurched mightily against
    him, and, being still ill content to have missed his hold that never
    heretofore had failed him, he thrust his fingers up Goldry’s nose in
    his cruel anger, scratching and clawing at the delicate inner parts
    of the nostrils in such wise that Goldry was fain to draw back his
    head. Therewith the King, lurching against him yet more heavily, gat
    him thrown a grievous fall on his back, and himself fell atop of him,
    crushing him and stunning him on the earth.</p>

  <p>And the Red Foliot proclaimed Gorice the King victorious in this bout.</p>

  <p>Therewithal the King turned him back to his Witches, that loudly
    acclaimed his mastery over Goldry. He said unto Lord Gro, “It is as I
    have spoken: the testing first, next the bruising,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span> and in the last
    bout the breaking and killing.” And the King looked evilly on Gro.
    Gro answered him not a word, for his soul was grieved to see blood on
    the nails and fingers of the King’s left hand, and he thought he knew
    that the King must have been sore bested in this bout, seeing that he
    must do this beastly deed or ever he might overcome the might of his
    adversary.</p>

  <p>But the Lord Goldry Bluszco when he was come to his senses and had
    gotten him up from that great fall, spake to the Red Foliot in mickle
    wrath, saying, “This devil hath overcome me by craft, doing that which
    it is a shame to do, in that he clawed me with his fingers up my nose.”</p>

  <p>The sons of Corund raised an uproar at the words of Goldry, loudly
    crying that he was the greatest liar and dastard; and all they of
    Witchland shouted and cursed in like manner. But Goldry shouted in a
    voice like a brazen trumpet that was plain to hear above the clamour
    of the Witches, “O Red Foliot, judge now fairly betwixt me and King
    Gorice, as thou art sworn to do. Let him show his finger nails, if
    there be not blood on them. This fall is void, and I claim that we
    wrastle it anew.” And the lords of Demonland in like manner shouted
    that this fall should be wrastled anew.</p>

  <p>Now the Red Foliot had seen somewhat of what was done, and well was
    he minded to call the bout void. Yet had he forborne to do this out
    of fear of King Gorice that had looked upon him with a basilisk’s
    eye, threatening him. And now, while the Red Foliot was troubled in
    his mind, uncertain between the angry shouts of the Witches and the
    Demons whether safety lay rather with his honour or with truckling to
    King Gorice, the King spake a word to Corinius, who went straightway
    and standing by the Red Foliot spake privily in his ear. And Corinius
    menaced the Red Foliot, and said, “Beware lest thy mind be swayed by
    the brow-beating of the Demons. Rightfully hast thou adjudged the
    victory in this bout unto our Lord the King, and this talk of thrusting
    of fingers in the nose is but a pretext and a vile imagination of this
    Goldry Bluszco, who, being thrown fairly before thine eyes and before
    us all, and perceiving himself unable to stand against the King, now
    thinketh with his swaggering he can bear it away, and thinketh by
    cheats and subtleties to avoid defeat. If, against thine own beholding
    and the witness of us and the plighted word of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span> King, thou art
    so hardy as to harken to the guileful persuading of these Demons,
    yet bethink thee that the King hath overborne ninety and nine great
    champions in this exercise, and this shall be the hundredth; and
    bethink thee, too, that Witchland lieth nearer to thine Isles than
    Demonland by many days’ sailing. Hard shall it be for thee to abide the
    avenging sword of Witchland if thou do him despite, and against thy
    sworn oath as umpire incline wrongfully to his enemies in this dispute.”</p>

  <p>So spake Corinius; and the Red Foliot was cowed. Albeit he believed in
    his heart that the King had done that whereof Goldry accused him, yet
    for terror of the King and of Corinius that stood by and threatened him
    he durst not speak his thought, but in sore perplexity gave order for
    the horn to be blown for the third bout.</p>

  <p>And it came to pass at the blowing of the horn that the flittermouse
    fared forth again from the booths of the Witches, and going widdershins
    round about the wrastling ground returned on silent wing whence she
    came.</p>

  <p>When the Lord Goldry Bluszco understood that the Red Foliot would pay
    no heed to his accusation, he grew red as blood. A fearsome sight it
    was to behold how he swelled in his wrath, and his eyes blazed like
    disastrous stars at midnight, and being wood with anger he gnashed his
    teeth till the froth stood at his lips and slavered down his chin.
    Now the cymbals clashed for the onset. Therewith ran Goldry upon the
    King as one straught of his wits, bellowing as he ran, and gripped him
    by the right arm with both his hands, one at the wrist and one near
    the shoulder. And so it was that, before the King might move, Goldry
    spun round with his back to the King and by his mickle strength and
    the strength of the anger that was in him he heaved the King over his
    head, hurling him as one hurleth a ponderous spear, head-foremost to
    the earth. And the King smote the ground with his head, and the bones
    of his head and his spine were driven together and smashed, and blood
    flowed from his ears and nose. With the might of that throw Goldry’s
    wrath departed from him and left him strengthless, in such sort that
    he reeled as he went from the wrastling ground. His brethren, Juss and
    Spitfire, bare him up on either side, and put his cloak of cloth of
    gold worked with red hearts about his mighty limbs.</p>

  <p>Meanwhile dismay was fallen upon the Witches to behold<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span> their King so
    caught up on a sudden and dashed upon the ground, where he lay crumpled
    in an heap, shattered like the stalk of an hemlock that one breaketh
    and shattereth. In great agitation the Red Foliot came down from his
    car of ebony and made haste thither where the King was fallen; and the
    lords of Witchland came likewise thither stricken at heart, and Corund
    lifted the King in his burly arms. But the King was stone dead. So
    those sons of Corund made a litter with their spears and laid the King
    on the litter, and spread over him his royal mantle of black silk lined
    with bearskin, and set the crown of Witchland on his head, and without
    word spoken bare him away to the Witches’ booths. And the
    other lords of Witchland without word spoken followed after.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_pegasus.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_RED_FOLIOT">III: THE RED FOLIOT</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE ENTERTAINMENT OF THE WITCHES IN THE PALACE OF THE RED FOLIOT;
    AND OF THE WILES AND SUBTLETIES OF LORD GRO; AND HOW THE WITCHES
    DEPARTED BY NIGHT OUT OF THE FOLIOT ISLES.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">THE Red Foliot gat him back into his palace and sat in his high seat.
    And he sent unto the lords of Witchland and of Demonland that they
    should come and see him. Nor did they delay, but came straightway and
    sat on the long benches, the Witches on the eastern side of the hall
    and the Demons on the west; and their fighting men stood in order on
    either side behind them. So sat they in the shadowy hall, and the sun
    declining to the western ocean shone through the high windows of the
    hall on the polished armour and weapons of the Witches.</p>

  <p>The Red Foliot spake among them and said, “A great champion hath been
    strook to earth this day in fair and equal combat. And according to the
    solemn oaths whereby ye are bound, and whereof I am the keeper, there
    is here an end to all unpeace betwixt Witchland and Demonland, and ye
    of Witchland are to forswear for ever your claims of lordship over
    the Demons. Now for a sealing and making fast of this solemn covenant
    between you I see no likelier rede than that ye all join with me here
    this day in good friendship to forget your quarrels in drinking of the
    arvale of King Gorice XI., than whom hath reigned none mightier nor
    more worshipful in all this world, and thereafter depart in peace to
    your native lands.”</p>

  <p>So spake the Red Foliot, and the lords of Witchland assented thereto.</p>

  <p>But Lord Juss answered and said, “O Red Foliot, as to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span> the oaths sworn
    between us and the King of Witchland, thou hast spoken well; nor shall
    we depart one tittle from the article of our oaths, and the Witches
    may abide in peace for ever as for us if, as is clean against their
    use and nature, they forbear to devise evil against us. For the nature
    of Witchland was ever as a flea, that attacketh a man in the dark. But
    we will not eat nor drink with the lords of Witchland, who bewrayed
    and forsook us their sworn confederates at the sea-fight against the
    Ghouls. Nor we will not drink the arvale of King Gorice XI., who worked
    a shameful and unlawful sleight against my kinsman this day when they
    wrastled together.”</p>

  <p>So spake Lord Juss, and Corund whispered Gro in the ear, saying,
    “Were’t not for the privilege of this respected company, now were the
    time to set upon them.” But Gro said, “I prithee yet have patience.
    This were over hazardous, for the luck goeth against Witchland. Let us
    rather take them in their beds to-night.”</p>

  <p>Fain would the Red Foliot turn the Demons from their resolve, but
    without avail; they courteously thanking him for his hospitality which
    they said they would enjoy that night in their booths, being minded on
    the morrow to take to their beaked ship and fare over the unvintaged
    sea to Demonland.</p>

  <p>Therewith stood up Lord Juss, and with him the Lord Goldry Bluszco,
    that went in all his war gear, his horned helm of gold and his golden
    byrny set with ruby hearts, and bare his two-handed sword forged by
    the elves wherewith he slew the beast out of the sea in days gone by;
    and Lord Spitfire that glared upon the lords of Witchland as a falcon
    glareth, hungering for her prey; and the Lord Brandoch Daha that
    looked on them, and chiefly on Corinius, with the eye of contemptuous
    amusement, playing idly with the jewelled hilt of his sword, until
    Corinius grew ill at ease beneath his gaze and shifted this way and
    that in his seat, scowling back defiance. For all the rich array and
    goodly port and countenance of Corinius, he seemed but a very boor
    beside the Lord Brandoch Daha, and dearly did each hate the other. So
    the lords of Demonland with their fighting men went forth from the hall.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>The Red Foliot sent after them and made them in their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span> own booths to be
    served of great plenty of wine and good and delicate meats, and sent
    them musicians and a minstrel to gladden them with songs and stories
    of old time, that they might lack nought of entertainment. But for his
    other guests he let bear in the massy cups of silver, and the great
    eared wine jars holding two firkins apiece, and he let pour forth to
    the Witches and the Foliots, and they drank the cup of memory unto King
    Gorice XI., slain that day by the hand of Goldry Bluszco. Thereafter
    when their cups were brimmed anew with foaming wine the Red Foliot
    spake among them and said, “O ye lords of Witchland, will you that I
    speak a dirge in honour of Gorice the King that the dark reaper hath
    this day gathered?” So when they said yea to this, he called to him his
    player on the theorbo and his player on the hautboy, and commanded them
    saying, “Play me a solemn music.” And they played softly in the Aeolian
    mode a music that was like the wailing of wind through bare branches on
    a moonless night, and the Red Foliot leaned forth from his high seat
    and recited this lamentation:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">I that in heill was and gladness</div>
        <div class="i0">Am trublit now with great sickness</div>
        <div class="i2">And feblit with infirmitie:—</div>
        <div class="i2"><i>Timor Mortis conturbat me</i>.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Our plesance here is all vain glory,</div>
        <div class="i0">This fals world is but transitory,</div>
        <div class="i2">The flesh is bruckle, the Feynd is slee:—</div>
        <div class="i2"><i>Timor Mortis conturbat me</i>.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">The state of man does change and vary,</div>
        <div class="i0">Now sound, now sick, now blyth, now sary,</div>
        <div class="i2">Now dansand mirry, now like to die:—</div>
        <div class="i2"><i>Timor Mortis conturbat me</i>.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">No state in Erd here standis sicker;</div>
        <div class="i0">As with the wynd wavis the wicker,</div>
        <div class="i2">So wannis this world’s vanitie:—</div>
        <div class="i2"><i>Timor Mortis conturbat me</i>.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span>Unto the Death gois all Estatis,</div>
        <div class="i0">Princis, Prelattis, and Potestatis,</div>
        <div class="i2">Baith rich and poor of all degree:—</div>
        <div class="i2"><i>Timor Mortis conturbat me</i>.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">He takis the knichtis in to field</div>
        <div class="i0">Enarmit under helm and scheild;</div>
        <div class="i2">Victor he is at all mellie:—</div>
        <div class="i2"><i>Timor Mortis conturbat me</i>.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">That strong unmerciful tyrand</div>
        <div class="i0">Takis, on the motheris breast sowkand,</div>
        <div class="i2">The babe full of benignitie:—</div>
        <div class="i2"><i>Timor Mortis conturbat me</i>.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">He takis the campion in the stour,</div>
        <div class="i0">The captain closit in the tour,</div>
        <div class="i2">The lady in bour full of bewtie:—</div>
        <div class="i2"><i>Timor Mortis conturbat me</i>.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">He spairis no lord for his piscence,</div>
        <div class="i0">Na clerk for his intelligence;</div>
        <div class="i2">His awful straik may no man flee:—</div>
        <div class="i2"><i>Timor Mortis conturbat me</i>.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Art-magicianis and astrologis,</div>
        <div class="i0">Rethoris, logicianis, theologis,</div>
        <div class="i2">Them helpis no conclusionis slee:—</div>
        <div class="i2"><i>Timor Mortis conturbat me</i>.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">In medecine the most practicianis,</div>
        <div class="i0">Leechis, surrigianis, and physicianis,</div>
        <div class="i2">Themself from Death may nocht supplee:—</div>
        <div class="i2"><i>Timor Mortis conturbat me</i>.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>When the Red Foliot had spoken thus far his dirge, he was interrupted
    by an unseemly brawling betwixt Corinius and one of the sons of Corund.
    For Corinius, who gave not a fig for music or dirges, but liked well of
    carding and dicing, had brought forth his dice box to play with the son
    of Corund. They played awhile to Corinius’s great content, for at every
    throw he won and the other’s purse waxed light. But at this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span> eleventh
    stanza the son of Corund cried out that the dice of Corinius were
    loaded. And he smote Corinius on his shaven jowl with the dice box,
    calling him cheat and mangy rascal, whereupon Corinius drew forth a
    bodkin to smite him in the neck withal; but some went betwixt them, and
    with much ado and much struggling and cursing they were parted, and it
    being shown that the dice were not loaded, the son of Corund was fain
    to make amends to Corinius, and so were they set at one again.</p>

  <p>Now was the wine poured forth yet again to the lords of Witchland, and
    the Red Foliot drank deep unto the glory of that land and the rulers
    thereof. And he issued command saying, “Let my Kagu come and dance
    before us, and thereafter my other dancers. For there is no pleasure
    whereon the Foliots do more dearly dote than this pleasure of the
    dance, and sweet to us it is to behold delightful dancing, be it the
    stately splendour of the Pavane which progresseth as large clouds at
    sun-down that pass by in splendour; or the graceful Allemande; or
    the Fandango, which goeth by degrees from languorous beauty to the
    swiftness and passion of Bacchanals dancing on the high lawns under a
    summer moon that hangeth in the pine trees; or the joyous maze of the
    Galliard; or the Gigue, dear to the Foliots. Therefore delay not, but
    let my Kagu come, that she may dance before us.”</p>

  <p>Therewith hastened the Kagu into the shadowy hall, moving softly and
    rolling a little in her gait, with her head thrust forward; and a
    little flurried was she in her bearing as she darted this way and that
    her large and beautiful eyes, mild and timid, that were like liquid
    gold heated to redness. Somewhat like a heron she was, but stouter,
    and shorter of leg, and her beak shorter and thicker than the heron’s;
    and so long and delicate was her pale gray plumage that hard it was
    to say whether it were hair or feathers. So the wind instruments and
    the lutes and dulcimers played a Coranto, and the Kagu tripped up the
    hall betwixt the long tables, jumping a little and bowing a little in
    her step and keeping excellent time to the music; and when she came
    near to the dais where the Red Foliot sat ravished with delight at her
    dancing, the Kagu lengthened her step and glided smoothly and slowly
    forward toward the Red Foliot; and so gliding she drew herself up in
    stately wise and opened her mouth and drew back her head till<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span> her beak
    lay tight against her breast, flouncing out her feathers so that they
    showed like a widecut skirt with a crinoline, and the crest that was
    on her head rose up erect half again her own height from the ground,
    and she sailed majestically toward the Red Foliot. On this wise did the
    Kagu at every turn that she took in the Coranto, forth and back along
    the length of the Foliots’ hall. And they all laughed sweetly at her,
    being overjoyed at her dancing. When the dance was done, the Red Foliot
    called the Kagu to him and made her sit on the bench beside him, and
    stroked her soft gray feathers and made much of her. All bashfully she
    sat beside the Red Foliot, casting her ruby eyes in wonder upon the
    Witches and their company.</p>

  <p>Next the Red Foliot called for his Cat-bears, that stood before him
    foxy-red above but with black bellies, round furry faces, and innocent
    amber eyes, and soft great paws, and tails barred alternately with
    ruddy rings and creamy; and he said, “O Cat-bears, dance before us,
    since dearly we delight in your dancing.”</p>

  <p>They asked, “Lord, will you that we perform the Gigue?”</p>

  <p>And he answered them, “The Gigue, and ye love me.”</p>

  <p>So the stringed instruments began a swift movement, and the tambourines
    and triangles entered on the beat, and swiftly twinkled the feet of
    the Cat-bears in the joyous dance. The music rippled and ran and the
    dancers danced till the hall was awhirl with the rhythm of their
    dancing, and the Witches roared applause. On a sudden the music ceased,
    and the dancers were still, and standing side by side, paw in furry
    paw, they bowed shyly to the company, and the Red Foliot called them
    to him and kissed them on the mouth and sent them to their seats, that
    they might rest and view the dances that were to follow.</p>

  <p>Next the Red Foliot called for his white Peacocks, coloured like
    moonlight, that they might lead the Pavane before the lords of
    Witchland. In glorious wise did they spread their tails for the stately
    dance, and a fair and lovely sight it was to see their grace and the
    grandeur of their carriage as they moved to the music chaste and noble.
    With them were joined the Golden Pheasants, who spread wide their
    collars of gold,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span> and the Silver Pheasants, and the Peacock Pheasants,
    and the Estridges, and the Bustards, footing it in pomp, pointing the
    toes, and bowing and retiring in due time to the solemn strains of the
    Pavane. Every instrument took part in the stately Pavane: the lutes and
    the dulcimers, and the theorbos, and the sackbuts, and the hautboys;
    the flutes sweetly warbling as birds in the upper air, and the silver
    trumpets, and the horns that breathed deep melodies trembling with
    mystery and tenderness that shakes the heart; and the drum that beateth
    to battle, and the wild throb of the harp, and the cymbals clashing as
    the clash of armies. And a nightingale sitting by the Red Foliot sang
    the Pavane in passionate tones that dissolved the soul in their sweet,
    mournful beauty.</p>

  <p>The Lord Gro covered his face with his mantle and wept to hear and
    behold the divine Pavane; for as ghosts rearisen it raised up for him
    old happy half-forgotten days in Goblinland, before he had conspired
    against King Gaslark and been driven forth from his dear native land,
    an exile in waterish Witchland.</p>

  <p>Thereafter let the Red Foliot give order for the Galliard. Joyously
    swept forth the melody from the stringed instruments, and two dormice,
    fat as butter, spun into the hall. Wilder whirled the music, and the
    dormice capered ever higher till they bounded from the floor up to
    the beams of the vaulted roof, and down again, and up again to the
    roof-beams in the joyful dance. And the Foliots joined in the Galliard,
    spinning and capering in mad delight of the dance. And into the hall
    twirled six capripeds, footing it lightly as the music swept ever
    faster, and a one-footer that leaped hither and thither about and
    about, as the flea hoppeth, till the Witches grew hoarse with singing
    and shouting and hounding of him on. Yet ever capered the dormice
    higher and wilder than any else, and so swiftly flashed their little
    feet to the galloping music that no eye might follow their motion.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>But little enow was Lord Gro gladdened by the merry dance. Sad
    melancholy sat with him for his companion, darkening his thoughts and
    making joy hateful to him as sunshine to owls of the night. So that he
    was well pleased to mark the Red Foliot go softly from his seat on the
    dais and forth from the hall by a door behind the arras, and seeing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span>
    this, himself departed softly amid the full tide of the Galliard, forth
    of that hall of swift movement and gleeful laughter, forth into the
    quiet evening, where above the smooth downs the wind was lulled to
    sleep in the vast silent spaces of the sky, and the west was a bower
    of orange light fading to purple and unfathomable blue in the upper
    heaven, and nought was heard save the murmur of the sleepless sea, and
    nought seen save a flight of wildfowl flying against the sunset. In
    this quietness Gro walked westward above the combe until he came to
    the land’s edge and stood on the lip of a chalk cliff falling to the
    sea, and was ware of the Red Foliot, alone on that high western cliff,
    gazing in a study at the dying colours in the west.</p>

  <p>When they had stood for a while without speech, gazing over the sea,
    Gro spake and said, “Consider how as day now dieth in yonder chambers
    of the west, so hath the glory departed from Witchland.”</p>

  <p>But the Red Foliot answered him not, being in a study.</p>

  <p>Then Gro said, “Though Demonland lieth where thou sawest the sun
    descend, yet eastward out of Witchland must thou look for the morning
    splendour. Not more surely shalt thou behold the sun go up thence
    to-morrow than thou shalt see shine forth in short season the glory and
    honour and power of Witchland, and beneath her destructive sword her
    enemies shall be as grass before the sickle.”</p>

  <p>The Red Foliot said, “I am in love with peace and the soft influence of
    the evening air. Leave me; or if thou wilt stay, break not the charm.”</p>

  <p>“O Red Foliot,” said Gro, “art thou in love with peace indeed? So
    should the rising again of Witchland tune sweet music to thy thought,
    since we of Witchland love peace, nor are we stirrers up of strife, but
    the Demons only. The war against the Ghouls, whereby the four corners
    of the earth were shaken, was hatched by Demonland——”</p>

  <p>“Thou speakest,” said the Red Foliot, “clean against thine intention,
    a great praise of them. For who ever saw the like of these man-eating
    Ghouls for corruption of manners, inhuman degeneration, and deluge
    of iniquities? Who every fifth year from time immemorial have had
    their grand climacterical year, and but last year brake forth in
    never-imagined ferocity. But if they sail now, ’tis on the dark lake
    they sail,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span> grieving no earthly seas nor rivers. Praise Demonland,
    therefore, who did put them down for ever.”</p>

  <p>“I make no question of that,” answered Lord Gro. “But foul water, as
    soon as fair, will quench hot fire. Sore against our will did we of
    Witchland join with the Demons in that war, foreseeing (as hath been
    bloodily approved) that the issue must be but the puffing up of the
    Demons, who desire no other thing than to be lords and tyrants of all
    the world.”</p>

  <p>“Thou,” said the Red Foliot, “wast in thy young days King Gaslark’s
    man: a Goblin born and bred: his very foster-brother, nourished at the
    same breast. Why must I observe thee, a plain traitor against so good
    a king? Whose perfidy the common people then did openly reprove (as I
    did well perceive even so lately as last autumn, when I was in the city
    of Zajë Zaculo at the time of their festivities for the betrothal of
    the king’s cousin german the Princess Armelline unto the Lord Goldry
    Bluszco), they carrying filthy pictures of thee in the street, singing
    of thee thus:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">It was pittie</div>
        <div class="i0">One so wittie</div>
        <div class="i2">Malcontent:</div>
        <div class="i0">Leaving reason</div>
        <div class="i0">Should to treason</div>
        <div class="i2">So be bent.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">But his gifts</div>
        <div class="i0">Were but shifts</div>
        <div class="i2">Void of grace:</div>
        <div class="i0">And his braverie</div>
        <div class="i0">Was but knaverie</div>
        <div class="i2">Vile and base.”</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>Said Gro, wincing a little, “The art of it agreeth well with the
    sentiment, and with the condition of those who invented it. I will not
    think so noble a prince as thou art will set thy sails to the wind of
    the rabble’s most partial hates and envies. For the vile addition of
    traitor, I do reject and spit upon it. But true it is that, regarding
    not the god of fools and women, nice opinion, I do steer by mine own
    lode-star still. Howbeit, I came not to discourse to thee on so small a
    matter as myself. This I would say unto thee with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span> most sad and serious
    entertain: Be not lulled to think the Demons will leave the world at
    peace: that is farthest from their intent. They would not listen to thy
    comfortable words nor sit at meat with us, so set be they to imagine
    mischief against us. What said Juss? ‘Witchland was ever as a flea’:
    ay, as a flea which he itcheth to crush betwixt his finger-nails. O,
    if thou be in love with peace, a short way lieth open to thy heart’s
    desire.”</p>

  <p>Nought spake the Red Foliot, gazing still into the dim reflections of
    the sunset which lingered below a darkening sky where stars were born.
    Gro said softly, as a cat purring, “Where softening unctions failed,
    sharp surgery bringeth speediest ease. Wilt thou not leave it to me?”</p>

  <p>But the Red Foliot looked angrily upon him, saying, “What have I to do
    with your enmities? You are sworn to keep the peace, and I will not
    abide your violence nor your breaking of oaths in my quiet kingdom.”</p>

  <p>Gro said, “Oaths be of the heart, and he that breaketh them in open
    fact is oft, as now, no breaker in truth, for already were they scorned
    and trampled on by his opposites.”</p>

  <p>But the Red Foliot said again, “What have I to do with your enmities
    that set you by the ears like fighting dogs? I am yet to learn that he
    that hath a righteous heart, and clean hands, and hateth none, must
    needs be drawn into the brawls and manslayings of such as you and the
    Demons.”</p>

  <p>Lord Gro looked narrowly upon him, saying, “Thinkest thou that the
    strait path of him that affecteth neither side lieth still open for
    thee? If that were thine aim, thou shouldst have bethought thee ere
    thou gavest thy judgement on the second bout. For clear as day it
    was to us and to thine own people, and most of all to the Demons,
    that the King played foul in that bout, and when thou calledst him
    victorious thou didst loudly by that word trumpet thyself his friend,
    and unfriends to Demonland. Markedst thou not, when they left the
    hall, with what a snake’s eye Lord Juss beheld thee? Not with us only
    but with thee he refused to eat and drink, that so his superstitious
    scruples may be unhurt when he proceeds to thy destruction. For on this
    are they determined. Nothing is more certain.”</p>

  <p>The Red Foliot sank his chin upon his breast, and stood silent for a
    space. The hues of death and silence spread<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span> themselves where late the
    fires of sunset glowed, and large stars opened like flowers on the
    illimitable fields of the night sky: Arcturus, Spica, Gemini, and the
    Little Dog, and Capella and her Kids.</p>

  <p>The Red Foliot said, “Witchland lieth at my door. And Demonland: how
    stand I with Demonland?”</p>

  <p>And Gro said, “Also to-morrow’s sun goeth up out of Witchland.”</p>

  <p>For a while they spoke not. Then Lord Gro took forth a scroll from his
    bosom, and said, “The harvest of this world is to the resolute, and he
    that is infirm of purpose is ground betwixt the upper and the nether
    millstone. Thou canst not turn back: so would they scorn and spurn
    thee, and we Witches likewise. And now by these means only may lasting
    peace be brought about, namely, by the setting of Gorice of Witchland
    on the throne of Demonland, and the utter humbling of that brood
    beneath the heel of the Witches.”</p>

  <p>The Red Foliot said, “Is not Gorice slain, and drank we not but now his
    arvale, slain by a Demon? and is he not the second in order of that
    line who hath so died by a Demon?”</p>

  <p>“A twelfth Gorice,” said Gro, “at this moment of time sitteth King in
    Carcë. O Red Foliot, know thou that I am a reader of the planets of
    the night and of those hidden powers that work out the web of destiny.
    Whereby I know that this twelfth King of the house of Gorice in Carcë
    shall be a most crafty warlock, full of guiles and wiles, who by the
    might of his egromancy and the sword of Witchland shall exceed all
    earthly powers that be. And ineluctable as the levin-bolt of heaven
    goeth out his wrath against his enemies.” So saying, Gro stooped and
    took a glow-worm from the grass, saying kindly to it, “Sweeting, thy
    lamp for a moment,” and breathed upon it, and held it to the parchment,
    saying, “Sign now thy royal name to these articles, which require thee
    not at all to go to war, but only (in case war shall arise) to be of
    our party, and against these Demons that do privily pursue thy life.”</p>

  <p>But the Red Foliot said, “Wherein am I certified that thou speakest not
    a lie?”</p>

  <p>Then took Gro a writing from his purse and showed thereon a seal like
    the seal of Lord Juss; and there was written:<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span> “Unto Voll al love and
    truste: and fayll nat whenas thow saylest upon Wychlande to caste of
    iij or iv shippes for the Folyott Isles to putt downe those and brenne
    the Redd Folyott in hys hous. For if wee get nat the lyfe of these
    wormes chirted owt of them the shame will stikk on us for ever.” And
    Gro said, “My servant stole this from them while they spoke with thee
    in thine hall to-night.”</p>

  <p>Which the Red Foliot believed, and took from his belt his ink-horn
    and his pen, and signed his royal name to the articles of the treaty
    proposed to him.</p>

  <p>Therewith Lord Gro put up the parchment in his bosom and said, “Swift
    surgery. Needs must that we take them in their beds to-night; so shall
    to-morrow’s dawn bring glory and triumph to Witchland, now fixed in an
    eclipse, and to the whole world peace and soft contentment.”</p>

  <p>But the Red Foliot answered him, “My Lord Gro, I have signed these
    articles, and thereby stand I bound in enmity to Demonland. But I
    will not bewray my guests that have eaten my salt, be they never so
    deeply pledged mine enemies. Be it known to thee, I have set guards on
    your booths this night and on the booths of them of Demonland, that
    no unpeaceful deeds may be done betwixt you. This which I have done,
    by this will I stand, and ye shall both depart to-morrow in peace,
    even as ye came. Because I am your friend and sworn to your party, I
    and my Foliots will be on your side when war is between Witchland and
    Demonland. But I will not suffer night-slayings nor murthers in my
    Isles.”</p>

  <p>Now with these words of the Red Foliot, Lord Gro was as one that
    walketh along a flowery path to his rest, and in the last steps a
    gulf yawneth suddenly athwart the path, and he standeth a-gape and
    disappointed at the hither side. Yet in his subtlety he made no sign,
    but straight replied, “Righteously hast thou decreed and wisely, O Red
    Foliot, for it was truly said:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Let worthy minds ne’er stagger in distrust</div>
        <div class="i0">To suffer death or shame for what is just,</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p class="noindent">and that which we sow in darkness must unfold in
    the open light of day, lest it be found withered in the very hour
    of maturity. Nor would I have urged thee otherwise, but that I do
    throughly fear these Demons, and all my mind was to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span> take their
    plotting in reverse. Do then one thing only for us. If we set
    sail homeward and they on our heels, they will fall upon us at a
    disadvantage, for they have the swifter ship; or if they get to sea
    before us, they will lie in wait for us on the high seas. Suffer us
    then to sail to-night, and do thou on some pretext delay them here for
    three days only, that we may get us home or ever they leave the Foliot
    Isles.”</p>

  <p>“I will not gainsay thee in this,” answered the Red Foliot, “for here
    is nought but what is fair and just and lieth with mine honour. I will
    come to your booths at midnight and bring you down to your ship.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>When Gro came to the Witches’ booths he found them guarded even as
    the Red Foliot had said, and the booths of them of Demonland in like
    manner. So went he into the royal booth where the King lay in state
    on a bier of spear-shafts, robed in his kingly robes over his armour
    that was painted black and inlaid with gold, and the crown of Witchland
    on his head. Two candles burned at the head of King Gorice and two at
    his feet; and the night wind blowing through the crannies of the booth
    made them flare and flicker, so that shadows danced unceasingly on
    the wall and roof and floor. On the benches round the walls sat the
    lords of Witchland sullen of countenance, for the wine was dead in
    them. Balefully they eyed Lord Gro at his coming in, and Corinius sate
    upright in his seat and said, “Here is the Goblin, father and fosterer
    of our misfortunes. Come, let us slay him.”</p>

  <p>Gro stood among them with head erect and held Corinius with his eye,
    saying, “We of Witchland are not run lunatic, my Lord Corinius, that
    we should do this gladness to the Demons, to bite each at the other’s
    throat like wolves. Methinks if Witchland be the land of my adoption
    only, yet have I not done least among you to ward off sheer destruction
    from her in this pass we stand in. If ye have aught against me, let me
    hear it and answer it.”</p>

  <p>Corinius laughed a bitter laugh. “Harken to the fool! Are we babies and
    milksops, thinkest thou, and is it not clear as day thou stoodest in
    the way of our falling on the Demons when we might have done so, urging
    what silly counsels I know not in favour of doing it by night? And now
    is night come, and we close prisoned in our booths, and no chance to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span>
    come at them unless we would bring an hornets’ nest of Foliots about
    our ears and give warning of our intent to the Demons and every living
    soul in this island. And all this has come about since thy slinking off
    and plotting with the Red Foliot. But now hath thy guile overreached
    itself, and now we will kill thee, and so an end of thee and thy
    plotting.”</p>

  <p>With that Corinius sprang up and drew his sword, and the other Witches
    with him. But Lord Gro moved not an eyelid, only he said, “Hear mine
    answer first. All night lieth before us, and ’tis but a moment’s task
    to murther me.”</p>

  <p>Therewith stood forth the Lord Corund with his huge bulk betwixt Gro
    and Corinius, saying in a great voice, “Whoso shall point weapon
    ’gainst him shall first have to do with me, though it were one of my
    sons. We will hear him. If he clear not himself, then will we hew him
    in pieces.”</p>

  <p>They sat down, muttering. And Gro spake and said, “First behold this
    parchment, which is the articles of a solemn covenant and alliance,
    and behold where the Red Foliot hath set his sign manual thereto.
    True, his is a country of no might in arms, and we might tread him
    down and ne’er feel the leavings stick to our boot, and little avail
    can their weak help be unto us in the day of battle. But there is in
    these Isles a meetly good road and riding-place for ships, which if
    our enemies should occupy, their fleet were most aptly placed to do
    us all the ill imaginable. Is then this treaty a light benefit where
    now we stand? Next, know that when I counselled you take the Demons
    in their beds ’stead of fall upon them in the Foliots’ hall, I did so
    being advertised that the Red Foliot had commanded his soldiers to turn
    against us or against the Demons, whichever first should draw sword
    upon the other. And when I went forth from the hall it was, as Corinius
    hath so deeply divined, to plot with the Red Foliot; but the aim of my
    plotting I have shown you, on these articles of alliance. And indeed,
    had I as Corinius vilely accuseth me practised with the Red Foliot
    against Witchland, I had hardly been so simple as return into the mouth
    of destruction when I might have bided safely in his palace.”</p>

  <p>Now when Gro perceived that the anger of the Witches against him was
    appeased by his defence, wherein he spake cunningly both true words and
    lies, he spake again among them saying, “Little gain have I of all my
    pains and thought expended<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span> by me for Witchland. And better it were for
    Witchland if my counsel were better heeded. Corund knoweth how, to mine
    own peril, I counselled the King to wrastle no more after the first
    bout, and if he had ta’en my rede, rather than suspect me and threaten
    me with death, we should not be now to bear him home dead to the royal
    catacombs in Carcë.”</p>

  <p>Corund said, “Truly hast thou spoken.”</p>

  <p>“In one thing only have I failed,” said Gro; “and it can shortly be
    amended. The Red Foliot, albeit of our party, will not be won to
    attack the Demons by fraud, nor will he suffer us smite them in these
    Isles. Some fond simple scruples hang like cobwebs in his mind, and he
    is stubborn as touching this. But I have prevailed upon him to make
    them tarry here for three days’ space, while we put to sea this very
    night, telling him, which he most innocently believeth, that we fear
    the Demons, and would flee home ere they be let loose to take us at a
    disadvantage on the high seas. And home we will indeed ere they set
    sail, yet not for fear of them, but rather that we may devise a deadly
    blow against them or ever they win home to Demonland.”</p>

  <p>“What blow, Goblin?” said Corinius.</p>

  <p>And Gro answered and said, “One that I will devise upon with our Lord
    the King, Gorice XII., who now awaiteth us in Carcë. And I will not
    blab it to a wine-bibber and a dicer who hath but now drawn sword
    against a true lover of Witchland.” Whereupon Corinius leaped up in
    mickle wrath to thrust his sword into Gro. But Corund and his sons
    restrained him.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>In due time the stars revolved to midnight, and the Red Foliot came
    secretly with his guards to the Witches’ booths. The lords of Witchland
    took their weapons and the men-at-arms bare the goods, and the King
    went in the midst on his bier of spear-shafts. So went they picking
    their way in the moonless night round the palace and down the winding
    path that led to the bed of the combe, and so by the stream westward
    toward the sea. Here they deemed it safe to light a torch to show
    them the way. Desolate and bleak showed the sides of the combe in the
    wind-blown flare; and the flare was thrown back from the jewels of the
    royal crown of Witchland, and from the armoured buskins on the King’s
    feet showing stark with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span> toes pointing upward from below his bear-skin
    mantle, and from the armour and the weapons of them that bare him and
    walked beside him, and from the black cold surface of the little river
    hurrying for ever over its bed of boulders to the sea. The path was
    rugged and stony, and they fared slowly, lest they should stumble and
    drop the King.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_crab.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONJURING_IN_THE_IRON_TOWER">IV: CONJURING IN THE IRON TOWER</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE HOLD OF CARCË, AND OF THE MIDNIGHT PRACTICES OF KING GORICE
    XII. IN THE ANCIENT CHAMBER, PREPARING DOLE AND DOOM FOR THE LORDS
    OF DEMONLAND.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">WHEN the Witches were come aboard of their ship and all stowed, and
    the rowers set in order on the benches, they bade farewell to the
    Red Foliot and rowed out to the deep, and there hoisted sail and put
    up their helm and sailed eastward along the land. The stars wheeled
    overhead, and the east grew pale, and the sun came out of the sea on
    the larboard bow. Still sailed they two days and two nights, and on
    the third day there was land ahead, and morning rose abated by mist
    and cloud, and the sun was as a ball of red fire over Witchland in the
    east. So they hung awhile off Tenemos waiting for the tide, and at
    high water sailed over the bar and up the Druima past the dunes and
    mud-flats and the Ergaspian mere, till they reached the bend of the
    river below Carcë. Solitary marsh-land stretched on either side as
    far as the eye might reach, with clumps of willow and rare homesteads
    showing above the flats. Northward above the bend a bluff of land fell
    sharply to the elbow of the river, and on the other side sloped gently
    away for a few miles till it lost itself in the dead level of the
    marshes. On the southern face of the bluff, monstrous as a mountain in
    those low sedge-lands, hung square and black the fortress of Carcë.
    It was built of black marble, rough-hewn and unpolished, the outworks
    enclosing many acres. An inner wall with a tower at each corner formed
    the main stronghold, in the south-west corner of which was the palace,
    overhanging the river. And on the south-west corner<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span> of the palace,
    towering sheer from the water’s edge seventy cubits and more to the
    battlements, stood the keep, a round tower lined with iron, bearing
    on the corbel table beneath its parapet in varying form and untold
    repetition the sculptured figure of the crab of Witchland. The outer
    ward of the fortress was dark with cypress trees: black flames burning
    changelessly to heaven from a billowy sea of gloom. East of the keep
    was the water-gate, and beside it a bridge and bridge-house across the
    river, strongly fortified with turrets and machicolations and commanded
    from on high by the battlements of the keep. Dismal and fearsome to
    view was this strong place of Carcë, most like to the embodied soul of
    dreadful night brooding on the waters of that sluggish river: by day a
    shadow in broad sunshine, the likeness of pitiless violence sitting in
    the place of power, darkening the desolation of the mournful fen; by
    night, a blackness more black than night herself.</p>

  <p>Now was the ship made fast near the water-gate, and the lords of
    Witchland landed and their fighting men, and the gate opened to them,
    and mournfully they entered in and climbed the steep ascent to the
    palace, bearing with them their sad burden of the King. And in the
    great hall in Carcë was Gorice XI. laid in state for that night; and
    the day wore to its close. Nor was any word from King Gorice XII.</p>

  <p>But when the shades of night were falling, there came a chamberlain to
    Lord Gro as he walked upon the terrace without the western wall of the
    palace; and the chamberlain said, “My lord, the King bids you attend
    him in the Iron Tower, and he chargeth you bring unto him the royal
    crown of Witchland.”</p>

  <p>Gro made haste to fulfil the bidding of the King, and betook himself to
    the great banqueting hall, and all reverently he lifted the iron crown
    of Witchland set thick with priceless gems, and went by a winding stair
    to the tower, and the chamberlain went before him. When they were come
    to the first landing, the chamberlain knocked on a massive door that
    was forthwith opened by a guard; and the chamberlain said, “My lord, it
    is the King’s will that you attend his majesty in his secret chamber
    at the top of the tower.” And Gro marvelled, for none had entered that
    chamber for many years. Long ago had Gorice VII. practised forbidden
    arts therein, and folk said that in that chamber he raised up those
    spirits whereby he gat his bane. Sithence was the chamber sealed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span> nor
    had the late Kings need of it, since little faith they placed in art
    magical, relying rather on the might of their hands and the sword of
    Witchland. But Gro was glad at heart, for the opening of this chamber
    by the King met his designs half way. Fearlessly he mounted the winding
    stairs that were dusky with the shadows of approaching night and hung
    with cobwebs and strewn with the dust of neglect, until he came to
    the small low door of that chamber, and pausing knocked thereon and
    harkened for the answer.</p>

  <p>And one said from within, “Who knocketh?” and Gro answered, “Lord, it
    is I, Gro.” And the bolts were drawn and the door opened, and the King
    said, “Enter.” And Gro entered and stood in the presence of the King.</p>

  <p>Now the fashion of the chamber was that it was round, filling the
    whole space of the loftiest floor of the round donjon keep. It was
    now gathering dusk, and weak twilight only entered through the deep
    embrasures of the windows that pierced the walls of the tower,
    looking to the four quarters of the heavens. A furnace glowing in
    the big hearth threw fitful gleams into the recesses of the chamber,
    lighting up strange shapes of glass and earthenware, flasks and
    retorts, balances, hour-glasses, crucibles and astrolabes, a monstrous
    three-necked alembic of phosphorescent glass supported on a bain-marie,
    and other instruments of doubtful and unlawful aspect. Under the
    northern window over against the doorway was a massive table blackened
    with age, whereon lay great books bound in black leather with iron
    guards and heavy padlocks. And in a mighty chair beside this table
    was King Gorice XII., robed in his conjuring robe of black and gold,
    resting his cheek on his hand that was lean as an eagle’s claw. The low
    light, mother of shade and secrecy, that hovered in that chamber moved
    about the still figure of the King, his nose hooked as the eagle’s
    beak, his cropped hair, his thick close-cut beard and shaven upper
    lip, his high cheek-bones and cruel heavy jaw, and the dark eaves of
    his brows whence the glint of green eyes showed as no friendly lamp to
    them without. The door shut noiselessly, and Gro stood before the King.
    The dusk deepened, and the firelight pulsed and blinked in that dread
    chamber, and the King leaned without motion on his hand, bending his
    brow on Gro; and there was utter silence save for the faint purr of the
    furnace.</p>

  <p>In a while the King said, “I sent for thee, because thou<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span> alone wast so
    hardy as to urge to the uttermost thy counsel upon the King that is now
    dead, Gorice XI. of memory ever glorious. And because thy counsel was
    good. Marvellest thou that I wist of thy counsel?”</p>

  <p>Gro said, “O my Lord the King, I marvel not of this. For it is known to
    me that the soul endureth, albeit the body perish.”</p>

  <p>“Keep thou thy lips from overspeech,” said the King. “These be
    mysteries whereon but to think may snatch thee into peril, and whoso
    speaketh of them, though in so secret a place as this, and with me
    only, yet at his most bitter peril speaketh he.”</p>

  <p>Gro answered, “O King, I spake not lightly; moreover, you did tempt
    me by your questioning. Nevertheless I am utterly obedient to your
    majesty’s admonition.”</p>

  <p>The King rose from his chair and walked towards Gro, slowly. He was
    exceeding tall, and lean as a starved cormorant. Laying his hands upon
    the shoulders of Gro, and bending his face to Gro’s, “Art not afeared,”
    he asked, “to abide me in this chamber, at the close of day? Or hast
    not thought on’t, and on these instruments thou seest, their use and
    purpose, and the ancient use of this chamber?”</p>

  <p>Gro blenched never a whit, but stoutly said, “I am not afeared, O my
    Lord the King, but rather rejoiced I at your summons. For it jumpeth
    with mine own designs, when I took counsel secretly in my heart after
    the woes that the Fates fulfilled for Witchland in the Foliot Isles.
    For in that day, O King, when I beheld the light of Witchland darkened
    and her might abated in the fall of King Gorice XI. of glorious memory,
    I thought on you, Lord, the twelfth Gorice raised up King in Carcë; and
    there was present to my mind the word of the soothsayer of old, where
    he singeth:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Ten, eleven, twelf I see</div>
        <div class="i0">In sequent varietie</div>
        <div class="i0">Of puissaunce and maistrye</div>
        <div class="i0">With swerd, sinwes, and grammarie,</div>
        <div class="i0">In the holde of Carcë</div>
        <div class="i0">Lordinge it royally.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p class="noindent">And being minded that he singleth out you, the twelfth, as potent in
    grammarie, all my care was that these Demons<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span> should be detained within
    reach of your spells until we should have time to win home to you and
    to apprise you of their farings, that so you might put forth your
    power and destroy them by art magic or ever they come safe again to
    many-mountained Demonland.”</p>

  <p>The King took Gro to his bosom and kissed him, saying, “Art thou not a
    very jewel of wisdom and discretion? Let me embrace thee and love thee
    for ever.”</p>

  <p>Then the King stood back from him, keeping his hands on Gro’s
    shoulders, and gazed piercingly upon him for a space in silence. Then
    kindled he a taper that stood in an iron candlestick by the table
    where the books lay, and held it to Gro’s face. And the King said,
    “Ay, wise thou art and of good discretion, and some courage hast thou.
    But if thou be to serve me this night, needs must I try thee first
    with terrors till thou be inured to them, as tried gold runneth in the
    crucible; or if thou be base metal only, till that thou be eaten up by
    them.”</p>

  <p>Gro said unto the King, “For many years, Lord, or ever I came to Carcë,
    I fared up and down the world, and I am acquainted with objects of
    terror as a child with his toys. I have seen in the southern seas,
    by the light of Achernar and Canopus, giant sea-horses battling with
    eight-legged cuttle-fishes in the whirlpools of the Korsh. Yet was I
    unafraid. I was in the isle Ciona when the fires of the pit brast forth
    in that isle and split it as a man’s skull is split with an axe, and
    the green gulfs of the sea swallowed that isle, and the stench and the
    steam hung in the air for days where the burning rock and earth had
    sizzled in the ocean. Yet was I unafraid. Also was I with Gaslark in
    the flight out of Zajë Zaculo, when the Ghouls took the palace over
    our heads, and portents walked in his halls in broad daylight, and
    the Ghouls conjured the sun out of heaven. Yet was I unafraid. And
    for thirty days and thirty nights wandered I alone on the face of the
    Moruna in Upper Impland, where scarce a living soul hath been: and
    there the evil wights that people the air of that desert dogged my
    steps and gibbered at me in darkness. Yet was I unafraid; and came
    in due time to Morna Moruna, and thence, standing on the lip of the
    escarpment as it were on the edge of the world, looked southaway where
    never mortal eye had gazed aforetime, across the untrodden forests of
    the Bhavinan.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span> And in that skyey distance, pre-eminent beyond range
    on range of ice-robed mountains, I beheld two peaks throned for ever
    between firm land and heaven in unearthly loveliness: the spires and
    airy ridges of Koshtra Pivrarcha, and the wild precipices that soar
    upward from the abysses to the queenly silent snow-dome of Koshtra
    Belorn.”</p>

  <p>When Gro had ended, the King turned him away and, taking from a shelf
    a retort filled with a dark blue fluid, set it on a bain-marie, and
    a lamp thereunder. Fumes of a faint purple hue came forth from the
    neck of the retort, and the King gathered them in a flask. He made
    signs over the flask and shook forth into his hand therefrom a fine
    powder. Then said he unto Gro, holding out the powder in the open palm
    of his hand, “Look narrowly at this powder.” And Gro looked. The King
    muttered an incantation, and the powder moved and heaved, and was like
    a crawling mass of cheesemites in an overripe cheese. It increased
    in volume in the King’s hand, and Gro perceived that each particular
    grain had legs. The grains grew before his eyes, and became the size
    of mustard seeds, and then of barleycorns, swiftly crawling each over
    other. And even as he marvelled, they waxed great as kidney beans, and
    now was their shape and seeming clear to him, so that he beheld that
    they were small frogs and paddocks; and they overflowed from the King’s
    hand as they waxed swiftly in size, pouring on to the floor. And they
    ceased not to increase and grow; and now were they large as little
    dogs, nor might the King retain more than a single one, holding his
    hand under its belly while it waved its legs in the air; and they were
    walking on the tables and jostling on the floor. Pallid they were, and
    permeable to light like thin horn, and their hue a faint purple, even
    as the hue of the vapour whence they were engendered. And now was the
    room filled with them so that they mounted perforce one on another’s
    shoulders, and they were of the bigness of well fatted hogs; and they
    goggled their eyes at Gro and croaked. The King looked narrowly on Gro,
    who stood in the presence of that spectacle, the crown of Witchland in
    his hands; and the King marked that the crown trembled not a whit in
    Gro’s hands that held it. So he said a certain word, and the paddocks
    and the frogs grew small again, shrinking more swiftly than they had
    grown, and so vanished.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span></p>

  <p>The King now took from the shelf a ball the size of the egg of an
    estridge, of dark green glass. He said unto Gro, “Look well at this
    glass and tell me what thou seest.” Gro answered him, “I see a shifting
    shadow within.” The King commanded him saying, “Dash it down with all
    thy strength upon the floor.” The Lord Gro lifted the ball with both
    hands above his head, and it was ponderous as a ball of lead, and
    according to the command of Gorice the King he hurled it on the floor,
    so that it was pashed in pieces. And, behold, a puff of thick smoke
    burst forth from the fragments of the ball and took the form of one
    of human shape and dreadful aspect, whose two legs were two writhing
    snakes; and it stood in the chamber so tall that the head of it touched
    the vaulted ceiling, viewing the King and Gro malevolently and menacing
    them. The King caught down a sword that hung against the wall, and put
    it in Gro’s hand, shouting, “Smite off the legs of it! and delay not,
    or thou art but dead!” Gro smote and cut off the left leg of the evil
    wight, easily, as it were cutting of butter. But from the stump came
    forth two fresh snakes a-writhing; and so it fared likewise with the
    right leg, but the King shouted, “Smite and cease not, or thou art but
    a dead dog!” and ever as Gro hewed a snake in twain forth came two
    more from the wound, till the chamber was a maze of their wriggling
    forms. And still Gro hewed with a will, until the sweat stood on his
    brow, and he said, panting between the strokes, “O King, I have made
    him many-legged as a centipede: must I make him a myriapod ere night’s
    decline?” And the King smiled, and spake a word of hidden meaning; and
    therewith the turmoil was gone as a gust of wind departeth, and nought
    left save the shivered splinters of the green ball on the chamber floor.</p>

  <p>“Wast not afeared?” asked the King, and when Gro said nay, “Methinks
    these sights of terror should much afflict thee,” said the King, “since
    well I know thou art not skilled in art magical.”</p>

  <p>“Yet am I a philosopher,” answered Lord Gro; “and somewhat know I of
    alchymy and the hidden properties of this material world: the virtues
    of herbs, plants, stones, and minerals, the ways of the stars in their
    courses, and the influences of those heavenly bodies. And I have held
    converse with birds and fishes in their degree, and that generation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span>
    which creepeth on the earth is not held in scorn by me, but oft talk I
    in sweet companionship with the eft of the pond, and the glow-worm, and
    the lady-bird, and the pismire, and their kind, making them my little
    gossips. So have I a certain lore which lighteth me in the outer court
    of the secret temple of grammarie and art forbid, albeit I have not
    peered within that temple. And by my philosophy, O King, I am certified
    concerning these apparitions which you have raised for me, that they
    be illusions and phantasms only, able to terrify the soul indeed of
    him that knoweth not divine philosophy, but without bodily power or
    essence. Nor is aught to fear in such, save the fear itself wherewith
    they strike the simple.”</p>

  <p>Then said the King, “By what token knowest thou this?”</p>

  <p>And the Lord Gro made answer unto him, “O King, as a child weaveth a
    daisy-chain, thus easily did you conjure up these shapes of terror. Not
    in such wise fareth he that calleth out of the deep the deadly terror
    indeed; but with toil and sweat and with straining of thought, will,
    heart, and sinew fareth he.”</p>

  <p>The King smiled. “Thou sayest true. Now, therefore, since
    phantasmagoria maketh not thy heart to quail, I present thee a more
    material horror.”</p>

  <p>And he lighted the candles in the great candlesticks of iron and
    opened a little secret door in the wall of the chamber near the floor;
    and Gro beheld iron bars within the little door, and heard a hissing
    from behind the bars. The King took a key of silver of delicate
    construction, the handle slender and three spans in length, and opened
    the iron grated door. And the King said, “Behold and see, that which
    sprung from the egg of a cock, hatched by the deaf adder. The glance
    of its eye sufficeth to turn to stone any living thing that standeth
    before it. Were I but for one instant to loose my spells whereby I hold
    it in subjection, in that moment would end my life days and thine. So
    strong in properties of ill is this serpent which the ancient Enemy
    that dwelleth in darkness hath placed upon this earth, to be a bane
    unto the children of men, but an instrument of might in the hand of
    enchanters and sorcerers.”</p>

  <p>Therewith came forth that offspring of perdition from its hole,
    strutting erect on its two legs that were the legs of a cock; and a
    cock’s head it had, with rosy comb and wattles,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span> but the face of it
    like no fowl’s face of middle-earth but rather a gorgon’s out of Hell.
    Black shining feathers grew on its neck, but the body of it was the
    body of a dragon with scales that glittered in the rays of the candles,
    and a scaly crest stood on its back; and its wings were like bats’
    wings, and its tail the tail of an aspick with a sting in the end
    thereof, and from its beak its forked tongue flickered venomously. And
    the stature of the thing was a little above a cubit. Now because of
    the spells of King Gorice whereby he held it ensorcelled it might not
    cast its baneful glance upon him, nor upon Gro, but it walked back and
    forth in the candle light, averting its eyes from them. The feathers
    on its neck were fluffed up with anger and wondrous swiftly twirled
    its scaly tail, and it hissed ever more fiercely, irked by the bonds
    of the King’s enchantment; and the breath of it was noisome, and hung
    in sluggish wreaths about the chamber. So for a while it walked before
    them, and as it looked sidelong past him Gro beheld the light of its
    eyes that were as sick moons burning poisonously through a mist of
    greenish yellow in the dusk of night. And strong loathing seized him,
    so that his gorge rose to behold the thing, and his brow and the palms
    of his hands became clammy, and he said, “My Lord the King, I have
    looked steadfastly on this cockatrice and it affrighteth me no whit,
    but it is loathly in my sight, so that my gorge riseth because of it,”
    and with that he fell a-vomiting. And the King commanded that serpent
    back into its hole, whither it returned, hissing wrathfully.</p>

  <p>Now the King poured forth wine, speaking a charm over the cup, and
    when the bright wine had revived Lord Gro, the King spake saying, “It
    is well, O Gro, that thou hast shown thyself a philosopher indeed, and
    of heart intrepid. Yet even as no blade is utterly tried until one
    try it in very battle, where if it snap woe and doom wait on the hand
    that wields it, so must thou in this midnight suffer a yet fiercer
    furnace-heat of terror, wherein if thou be reduced we are both lost
    eternally, and this Carcë and all Witchland blasted with us for ever in
    ruin and oblivion. Durst abide this trial?”</p>

  <p>Gro answered, “I am hot to obey your word, O King. For well know I that
    it is idle to hope by phantoms and illusions to appal the Demons, and
    that against the Demons the deadly eye of thy cockatrice were turned
    in vain. Stout of heart<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span> are they, and instructed in all lore, and
    Juss a sorcerer of ancient power, who hath charms to blunt the glance
    of basilisk or cockatrice. He that would strike down the Demons must
    conjure indeed.”</p>

  <p>“Great,” said the King, “is the strength and cunning of the seed of
    Demonland. By main strength have they now shown mastery over us, as
    sadly witnesseth the overthrow of Gorice XI., ’gainst whom no mortal
    could stand up and wrastle and not die, till cursed Goldry, drunk
    with spleen and envy, slew him in the Foliot Isles. Nor was there any
    aforetime to outdo us in feats of arms, and Gorice X., victorious in
    single combats without number, made our name glorious over all the
    world. Yet at the last he gat his death, out of all expectation and by
    what treacherous sleight I know not, standing in single combat against
    the curled step-dancer from Krothering. But I, that am skilled in
    grammarie, do bear a mightier engine against the Demons than brawny
    sinews or the sword that smiteth asunder. Yet is mine engine perilous
    to him that useth it.”</p>

  <p>Therewith the King unlocked the greatest of those books that lay by
    on the massive table, saying in Gro’s ear, as one who would not be
    overheard, “This is that awful book of grammarie wherewith in this same
    chamber, on such a night, Gorice VII. stirred the vasty deep. And know
    that from this circumstance alone ensued the ruin of King Gorice VII.,
    in that, having by his hellish science conjured up somewhat from the
    primaeval dark, and being utterly fordone with the sweat and stress of
    his conjuring, his mind was clouded for a moment, in such sort that
    either he forgot the words writ in this grammarie, or the page whereon
    they were writ, or speech failed him to speak those words that must
    be spoken, or might to do those things which must be done to complete
    the charm. Wherefore he kept not his power over that which he had
    called out of the deep, but it turned upon him and tare him limb from
    limb. Such like doom will I avoid, renewing in these latter days those
    self-same spells, if thou durst stand by me undismayed the while I
    utter my incantations. And shouldst thou mark me fail or waver ere all
    be accomplished, then shalt thyself lay hand on book and crucible and
    fulfil whatsoever is needful, as I shall first show thee. Or quailest
    thou at this?”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span></p>

  <p>Gro said, “Lord, show me my task. And I will carry it, though all the
    Furies of the pit flock to this chamber to say me nay.”</p>

  <p>So the King instructed Gro, rehearsing to him those acts that were
    needful, and making known unto him the divers pages of the grammarie
    whereon were writ those words which must be spoken each in its due
    time and sequence. But the King pronounced not yet those words,
    pointing only to them in the book, for whoso speaketh those words in
    vain and out of season is lost. And now when the retorts and beakers
    with their several necks and tubes and the appurtenances thereof were
    set in order, and the unhallowed processes of fixation, conjunction,
    deflagration, putrefaction, and rubefication were nearing maturity,
    and the baleful star Antares standing by the astrolabe within a little
    of the meridian signified the instant approach of midnight, the
    King described on the floor with his conjuring rod three pentacles
    inclosed within a seven-pointed star, with the signs of Cancer and
    of Scorpio joined by certain runes. And in the midst of the star he
    limned the image of a green crab eating of the sun. And turning to the
    seventy-third page of his great black grammarie the King recited in a
    mighty voice words of hidden meaning, calling on the name that it is a
    sin to utter.</p>

  <p>Now when he had spoken the first spell and was silent, there was a
    deadly quiet in that chamber, and a chill in the air as of winter. And
    in the quiet Gro heard the King’s breath coming and going, as of one
    who hath rowed a course. Now the blood rushed back to Gro’s heart and
    his hands and feet became cold and a cold sweat brake forth on his
    brow. But for all that, he held yet his courage firm and his brain
    ready. The King motioned to Gro to break off the tail of a certain drop
    of black glass that lay on the table; and with the snapping of its
    tail the whole drop fell in pieces in a coarse black powder. Gro by
    the King’s direction gathered that powder and dropped it in the great
    alembic wherein a green fluid seethed and bubbled above the flame of a
    lamp; and the fluid became red as blood, and the body of the alembic
    filled with a tawny smoke, and sparks of sun-like brilliance flashed
    and crackled through the smoke. Thereupon distilled from the neck of
    the alembic a white oil incombustible, and the King dipped his rod in
    that oil and described round the seven-pointed star on the floor the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span>
    figure of the worm Ouroboros, that eateth his own tail. And he wrote
    the formula of the crab below the circle, and spake his second spell.</p>

  <p>When that was done, yet more biting seemed the night air and yet more
    like the grave the stillness of the chamber. The King’s hand shook as
    with an ague as he turned the pages of the mighty book. Gro’s teeth
    chattered in his head. He gritted them together and waited. And now
    through every window came a light into the chamber as of skies paling
    to the dawn. Yet not wholly so; for never yet came dawn at midnight,
    nor from all four quarters of the sky at once, nor with such swift
    strides of increasing light, nor with a light so ghastly. The candle
    flames burned filmy as the glare waxed strong from without: an evil
    pallid light of bale and corruption, wherein the hands and faces of the
    King Gorice and his disciple showed death-pale, and their lips black as
    the dark skin of a grape where the bloom has been rubbed off from it.
    The King cried terribly, “The hour approacheth!” And he took a phial of
    crystal containing a decoction of wolf’s jelly and salamander’s blood,
    and dropped seven drops from the alembic into the phial and poured
    forth that liquor on the figure of the crab drawn on the floor. Gro
    leaned against the wall, weak in body but with will unbowed. So bitter
    was the cold that his hands and feet were benumbed, and the liquor from
    the phial congealed where it fell. Yet the sweat stood in beads on the
    forehead of the King by reason of the mighty striving that was his, and
    in the overpowering glare of that light from the underskies he stood
    stiff and erect, hands clenched and arms outstretched, and spake the
    words <span class="allsmcap">LURO VOPO VIR VOARCHADUMIA</span>.</p>

  <p>Now with those words spoken the vivid light departed as a blown-out
    lamp, and the midnight closed down again without. Nor was any sound
    heard save the thick panting of the King; but it was as if the night
    held its breath in expectation of that which was to come. And the
    candles sputtered and burned blue. The King swayed and clutched the
    table with his left hand; and again the King pronounced terribly the
    word <span class="allsmcap">VOARCHADUMIA</span>.</p>

  <p>Thereafter for the space of ten heart-beats silence hung like a kestrel
    poised in the listening night. Then went a crash through earth and
    heaven, and a blinding wildfire through the chamber as it had been
    a thunderbolt. All Carcë quaked, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span> the chamber was filled with
    a beating of wings, like the wings of some monstrous bird. The air
    that was wintry cold waxed on a sudden hot as the breath of a burning
    mountain, and Gro was near choking with the smell of soot and the smell
    of brimstone. And the chamber rocked as a ship riding in a swell with
    the wind against the tide. But the King, steadying himself against the
    table and clutching the edge of it till the veins on his lean hand
    seemed nigh to bursting, cried in short breaths and with an altered
    voice, “By these figures drawn and by these spells enchanted, by the
    unction of wolf and salamander, by the unblest sign of Cancer now
    leaning to the sun, and by the fiery heart of Scorpio that flameth in
    this hour on night’s meridian, thou art my thrall and instrument. Abase
    thee and serve me, worm of the pit. Else will I by and by summon out of
    ancient night intelligences and dominations mightier far than thou, and
    they shall serve mine ends, and thee shall they chain with chains of
    quenchless fire and drag thee from torment to torment through the deep.”</p>

  <p>Therewith the earthquake was stilled, and there remained but a
    quivering of the walls and floor and the wind of those unseen wings and
    the hot smell of soot and brimstone burning. And speech came out of the
    teeming air of that chamber, strangely sweet, saying, “Accursed wretch
    that troublest our quiet, what is thy will?” The terror of that speech
    made the throat of Gro dry, and the hairs on his scalp stood up.</p>

  <p>The King trembled in all his members like a frightened horse, yet was
    his voice level and his countenance unruffled as he said hoarsely,
    “Mine enemies sail at day-break from the Foliot Isles. I loose thee
    against them as a falcon from my wrist. I give thee them. Turn them to
    thy will: how or where it skills not, so thou do but break and destroy
    them off the face of the world. Away!”</p>

  <p>But now was the King’s endurance clean spent, so that his knees failed
    him and he sank like a sick man into his mighty chair. But the room
    was filled with a tumult as of rushing waters, and a laughter above
    the tumult like to the laughter of souls condemned. And the King was
    reminded that he had left unspoken that word which should dismiss his
    sending. But to such weariness was he now come and so utterly was his
    strength gone out from him in the exercise of his spells, that his
    tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, so that he might not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span> speak the
    word; and horribly he rolled up the whites of his eyes beckoning to
    Gro, the while his nerveless fingers sought to turn the heavy pages
    of the grammarie. Then sprang Gro forth to the table, and against it
    sprawling, for now was the great keep of Carcë shaken anew as one
    shaketh a dice box, and lightnings opened the heavens, and the thunder
    roared unceasingly, and the sound of waters stunned the ear in that
    chamber, and still that laughter pealed above the turmoil. And Gro knew
    that it was now with the King even as it had been with Gorice VII. in
    years gone by, when his strength gave forth and the spirit tare him and
    plastered those chamber-walls with his blood. Yet was Gro mindful, even
    in that hideous storm of terror, of the ninety-seventh page whereon
    the King had shown him the word of dismissal, and he wrenched the book
    from the King’s palsied grasp and turned to the page. Scarce had his
    eye found the word, when a whirlwind of hail and sleet swept into the
    chamber, and the candles were blown out and the tables overset. And in
    the plunging darkness beneath the crashing of the thunder Gro pitching
    headlong felt claws clasp his head and body. He cried in his agony the
    word, that was the word <span class="allsmcap">TRIPSARECOPSEM</span>, and so fell a-swooning.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>It was high noon when the Lord Gro came to his senses in that chamber.
    The strong spring sunshine poured through the southern window, lighting
    up the wreckage of the night. The tables were cast down and the
    floor strewn and splashed with costly essences and earths spilt from
    shattered phials and jars and caskets: aphroselmia, shell of gold,
    saffron of gold, asem, amianth, stypteria of Melos, confounded with
    mandragora, vinum ardens, sal armoniack, devouring aqua regia, little
    pools and scattered globules of quicksilver, poisonous decoctions
    of toadstools and of yewberries, monkshood, thornapple, wolf’s bane
    and black hellebore, quintessences of dragon’s blood and serpent’s
    bile; and with these, splashed together and wasted, elixirs that
    wise men have died a-dreaming of: spiritus mundi, and that sovereign
    alkahest which dissolveth every substance dipped therein, and that
    aurum potabile which being itself perfect induceth perfection in the
    living frame. And in this welter of spoiled treasure were the great
    conjuring books hurled amid the ruin of retorts and aludels of glass
    and lead and silver, sand-baths, matrasses, spatulae, athanors, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>
    other instruments innumerable of rare design, tossed and broken on
    the chamber floor. The King’s chair was thrown against the furnace,
    and huddled against the table lay the King, his head thrown back, his
    black beard pointing skyward, showing his sinewy hairy throat. Gro
    looked narrowly at him; saw that he seemed unhurt and slept deep; and
    so, knowing well that sleep is a present remedy for every ill, watched
    by the King in silence all day till supper time, for all he was sore
    an-hungered.</p>

  <p>When at length the King awoke, he looked about him in amaze. “Methought
    I tripped at the last step of last night’s journey,” he said. “And
    truly strange riot hath left its footprints in my chamber.”</p>

  <p>Gro answered, “Lord, sorely was I tried; yet fulfilled I your behest.”</p>

  <p>The King laughed as one whose soul is at ease, and standing upon his
    feet said unto Gro, “Take up the crown of Witchland and crown me. And
    that high honour shalt thou have, because I do love thee for this night
    gone by.”</p>

  <p>Now without were the lords of Witchland assembled in the courtyard,
    being bound for the great banqueting hall to eat and drink, unto
    whom the King came forth from the gate below the keep, robed in his
    conjuring robe. Wondrous bright sparkled the gems of the iron crown
    of Witchland above the heavy brow and cheek-bones and the fierce
    disdainful lip of the King, as he stood there in his majesty, and Gro
    with the guard of honour stood in the shadow of the gate. And the King
    said, “My lords Corund and Corsus and Corinius and Gallandus, and ye
    sons of Corsus and of Corund, and ye other Witches, behold your King,
    the twelfth Gorice, crowned with this crown in Carcë to be King of
    Witchland and of Demonland. And all countries of the world and the
    rulers thereof, so many as the sun doth spread his beams over, shall do
    me obeisance, and call me King and Lord.”</p>

  <p>All they shouted assent, praising the King and bowing down before him.</p>

  <p>Then said the King, “Imagine not that oaths sworn unto the Demons by
    Gorice XI. of memory ever glorious bind me any whit. I will not be at
    peace with this Juss and his brethren, but do account them all mine
    enemies. And this night have I made a sending to take them on the waste
    of waters as they sail homeward to many-mountained Demonland.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span></p>

  <p>Corund said, “Lord, your words are as wine unto us. And well we guessed
    that the principalities of darkness were afoot last night, seeing all
    Carcë rocked and the foundations thereof rose and fell as the breast of
    the large earth a-breathing.”</p>

  <p>When they were come into the banqueting hall, the King said, “Gro
    shall sit at my right hand this night, since manfully hath he served
    me.” And when they scowled at this, and spake each in the other’s ear,
    the King said, “Whoso among you shall so serve me and so water the
    growth of this Witchland as hath Gro in this night gone by, unto him
    will I do like honour.” But unto Gro he said, “I will bring thee home
    to Goblinland in triumph, that wentest forth an exile. I will pluck
    Gaslark from his throne, and make thee king in Zajë Zaculo, and all
    Goblinland shalt thou hold for me in fee, exercising dominion over it.”</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_crab.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="KING_GORICES_SENDING">V: KING GORICE’S SENDING</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF KING GASLARK, AND OF THE COMING OF THE SENDING UPON THE DEMONS ON
    THE HIGH SEAS; WITH HOW THE LORD JUSS BY THE EGGING ON OF HIS
    COMPANIONS WAS PERSUADED TO AN UNADVISED RASHNESS.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">THE next morning following that night when King Gorice XII. sat crowned
    in Carcë as is aforesaid, was Gaslark a-sailing on the middle sea,
    homeward from the east. Seven ships of war he had, and they steered
    in column south-westward close hauled on the starboard tack. Greatest
    and fairest among them was she who led the line, a great dragon of war
    painted azure of the summer sea with towering head of a worm, plated
    with gold and wrought with overlapping scales, gaping defiance from her
    bows, and a worm’s tail erect at the poop. Seventy and five picked men
    of Goblinland sailed on that ship, clad in gay kirtles and byrnies of
    mail and armed with axes, spears, and swords. Their shields, each with
    his device, hung at the bulwarks. On the high poop sat King Gaslark,
    his sturdy hands grasping the great steering paddle. Goodly of mien and
    well knit were all they of Goblinland that went on that great ship,
    yet did Gaslark outdo them all in goodliness and strength and all
    kingliness. He wore a silken kirtle of Tyrian purple. Broad wristlets
    of woven gold were on his wrists. Dark-skinned was he as one that hath
    lived all his days in the hot sunshine: clean-cut of feature, somewhat
    hooky-nosed, with great eyes and white teeth and tight-curled black
    moustachios. Nought restful was there in his presence and bearing, but
    rashness and impetuous fire; and he was wild to look on, swift and
    beautiful as a stag in autumn.</p>

  <p>Teshmar, that was the skipper of his ship, stood at his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span> elbow. Gaslark
    said to him, “Is it not one of the three gallant spectacles of the
    world, a good ship treading the hastening furrows of the sea like a
    queen in grace and beauty, scattering up the wave-crests before her
    stem in a glittering rain?”</p>

  <p>“Yea, Lord,” answered he; “and what be the other two?”</p>

  <p>“One that I most unhappily did miss, whereof but yesterday we had
    tidings: to behold such a battling of great champions and such a
    victory as Lord Goldry obtained upon yonder vaunting tyrant.”</p>

  <p>“The third shall be seen, I think,” said Teshmar, “when the Lord Goldry
    Bluszco shall in your royal palace of Zajë Zaculo, amid pomp and high
    rejoicing, wed the young princess your cousin: most fortunate lord,
    that must be lord of her whom all just censure doth acknowledge the
    ornament of earth, the model of heaven, the queen of beauty.”</p>

  <p>“Kind Gods hasten the day,” said Gaslark. “For truly ’tis a most sweet
    lass, and those kinsmen of Demonland my dearest friends. But for whose
    great upholding time and again, Teshmar, in days gone by, where were
    I to-day and my kingdom, and where thou and all of you?” The king’s
    brow darkened a little with thought. After a time he began to say, “I
    must have more great action: these trivial harryings, spoils of Nevria,
    chasing of Esamocian black-a-moors, be toys not worthy of our great
    name and renown among the nations. Something I would enact that shall
    embroil and astonish the world, even as the Demons when they purged
    earth of the Ghouls, ere I go down into silence.”</p>

  <p>Teshmar was staring toward the southern bourne. He pointed with his
    hand: “There rideth a great ship, O king. And methinks she hath a
    strange look.”</p>

  <p>Gaslark gazed earnestly at her for an instant, then straightway shifted
    his helm and steered towards her. He spake no more, staring ever as he
    sailed, marking ever as the distance lessened more and more particulars
    of that ship. Her silken sail fluttered in tatters from the yard; she
    rowed feebly, as one groping in darkness, with barely strength to stay
    her from drifting stern-foremost before the wind. So hung she on the
    sea, as one struck stupid by some blow, doubting which way her harbour
    lay or which way her course. As a thing which hath been held in the
    flame of a monstrous candle, so seemed she, singed and besmirched with
    soot. Smashed was her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span> proud figure-head, and smashed was her high
    forecastle, and burned and shattered the carved timbers of the poop and
    the fair seats that were thereon. She leaked, so that a score of her
    crew must be still a-baling to keep her afloat. Of her fifty oars, half
    were broken or gone adrift, and many of the ship’s company lay wounded
    and some slain under her thwarts.</p>

  <p>And now was King Gaslark ware as he drew near that here was the Lord
    Juss on her ruined poop a-steering, and by him Spitfire and Brandoch
    Daha. Their jewelled arms and gear and rich attire were black with most
    stinking soot, and it was as though admiration and grief and anger were
    so locked and twined within them that none of these passions might win
    forth to outward showing on their frozen countenances.</p>

  <p>When they were within hailing distance, Gaslark hailed them. They
    answered him not, only beholding him with alien eyes. But they stopped
    the ship, and Gaslark lay aboard of her and came on board and went up
    on the poop and greeted them. And he said, “Well met in an ill hour.
    What’s the matter?”</p>

  <p>The Lord Juss made as if to speak, but no word came. Only he took
    Gaslark by both hands and sat down with a great groan on the poop,
    averting his face. Gaslark said, “O Juss, for so many a time as thou
    hast borne part in my evils and succoured me, surely right requireth I
    have part of thine?”</p>

  <p>But Juss answered in a thick, strange voice all unlike himself, “Mine,
    sayest thou, O Gaslark? What in the stablished world is mine, that
    am thus in a moment reived of him that was mine own heartstring, my
    brother, the might of mine arm, the chiefest citadel of my dominion?”
    And he burst into a great passion of weeping.</p>

  <p>King Gaslark’s rings were driven into the flesh of his fingers by the
    grip of Juss’s strong hands on his. But he scarce wist of the pain,
    such agony of mind was in him for the loss of his friend, and for the
    bitterness and wonder that it was to behold these three great lords of
    Demonland weep like frightened women, and all their ship’s company of
    tried men of war weeping and wailing besides. And Gaslark saw well that
    their lordly souls were unseated for a season because of some dreadful
    fact, the havoc whereof his eyes most woefully beheld, while its
    particulars were yet dark to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span> him, yet with a terror in darkness that
    might well make his heart to quail.</p>

  <p>By much questioning he was at last well advertised of what had
    befallen: how they the day before, in broad noon, on such a summer sea,
    had heard a noise like the flapping of wings outstretched from one
    edge of the sky to another, and in a moment the calm sea was lifted
    up and fell again and the whole sea clashed together and roared, yet
    was the ship not sunken. And there was a tumult about them of thunder
    and raging waters and black night and wildfire in the night; which
    presently passing away and the darkness lifting, the sea lay solitary
    as far as eye might reach. “And nothing is more certain,” said Juss,
    “than that this is a sending of King Gorice XII. spoken of by the
    prophets as a great clerk of necromancy beyond all other this world
    hath seen. And this is his vengeance for the woes we wrought for
    Witchland in the Foliot Isles. Against such a peril I had provided
    certain amulets made of the stone alectorian, which groweth in the
    gizzard of a cock hatched on a moonless night when Saturn burneth in a
    human sign and the lord of the third house is in the ascendant. These
    saved us, albeit sorely buffeted, from destruction: all save Goldry
    alone. He, by some cursed chance, whether he neglected to wear the
    charm I gave him, or the chain of it was broken in the plunging of the
    ship, or by some other means ’twas lost: when daylight came again, we
    stood but three on this poop where four had stood. More I know not.”</p>

  <p>“O Gaslark,” said Spitfire, “our brother that is stolen from us, with
    us it surely lieth to find him and set him free.”</p>

  <p>But Juss groaned and said, “In which star of the unclimbed sky wilt
    thou begin our search? Or in which of the secret streams of ocean where
    the last green rays are quenched in oozy darkness?”</p>

  <p>Gaslark was silent for a while. Then he said, “I think nought likelier
    than this, that Gorice hath caught away Goldry Bluszco into Carcë,
    where he holdeth him in duress. And thither must we straightway to
    deliver him.”</p>

  <p>Juss answered no word. But Gaslark seized his hand, saying, “Our
    ancient love and your oft succouring of Goblinland in days gone by make
    this my quarrel. Hear now my rede. As I fared from the east through
    the Straits of Rinath<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span> I beheld a mighty company of forty sail, bound
    eastward to the Beshtrian sea. Well it was they marked us not as we lay
    under the isles of Ellien in the dusk of evening. For touching later at
    Norvasp in Pixyland we learned that there sailed Laxus with the whole
    Witchland fleet, being minded to work evil deeds among the peaceful
    cities of the Beshtrian seaboard. And as well met were an antelope
    with a devouring lion, as I and my seven ships with those ill-doers in
    such strength on the high seas. But now, behold how wide standeth the
    door to our wishes. Laxus and that great armament are safe harrying
    eastward-ho. I make question whether at this moment more than nine
    score or ten score fighting men be left in Carcë. I have here of mine
    own nigh on five hundred. Never was fairer chance to take Witchland
    with his claws beneath the table, and royally may we scratch his face
    ere he get them forth again.” And Gaslark laughed for joy of battle,
    and cried, “O Juss, smiles it not to thee, this rede of mine?”</p>

  <p>“Gaslark,” said Lord Juss, “nobly and with that open hand and heart
    that I have loved in thee from of old hast thou made this offer. Yet
    not so is Witchland to be overcome, but after long days of labour only,
    and laying of schemes and building of ships and gathering of hosts
    answerable to the strength we bare of late against the Ghouls when we
    destroyed them.”</p>

  <p>Nor for all his urging might Gaslark move him any whit.</p>

  <p>But Spitfire sat by his brother and spake privately to him: “Kinsman,
    what ails thee? Is all high heart and swiftness to action crushed out
    of Demonland, and doth but the unserviceable juiceless skin remain to
    us? Thou art clean unlike that thou hast ever been, and could Witchland
    behold us now well might he judge that base fear had ta’en hold upon
    us, seeing that with the odds of strength so fortunately of our side we
    shrink from striking at him.”</p>

  <p>Juss said in Spitfire’s ear, “This it is, that I do misdoubt me of the
    steadfastness of the Goblins. Too like to fire among dead leaves is the
    sudden flame of their valour, a poor thing to rely on if once they be
    checked. So do I count it folly trusting in them for our main strength
    to go up against Carcë. Also it is but a wild fancy that Goldry hath
    been transported into Carcë.”</p>

  <p>But Spitfire leaped up a-cursing, and cried out, “O Gaslark,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span> thou wert
    best fare home to Goblinland. But we will sail openly to Carcë and
    crave audience of the great King, entreating him suffer us to kiss his
    toe, and acknowledging him to be our King and us his ill-conditioned,
    disobedient children. So may he haply restore unto us our brother, when
    he hath chastised us, and haply of his mercy send us home to Demonland,
    there to fawn upon Corsus or vile Corinius, or whomsoever he shall
    set up in Galing for his Viceroy. For with Goldry hath all manliness
    departed out of Demonland, and we be milksops that remain, and objects
    of scorn and spitting.”</p>

  <p>Now while Spitfire spake thus in wrath and sorrow of heart, the Lord
    Brandoch Daha fared fore and aft on the gangway about and about, as a
    caged panther fareth when feeding time is long overdue. And at whiles
    he clapped hand to the hilt of his long and glittering sword and
    rattled it in the scabbard. At length, standing over against Gaslark,
    and eyeing him with a mocking glance, “O Gaslark,” he said, “this
    that hath befallen breedeth in me a cruel perturbation which carries
    my spirits outwards, stirring up a tempest in my mind and preparing
    my body to melancholy, and madness itself. The cure of this is only
    fighting. Wherefore if thou love me, Gaslark, out with thy sword and
    ward thyself. Fight I must, or this passion will kill me quite out.
    ’Tis pity to draw upon my friend, but sith we be banned from fighting
    with our enemies, what choice remaineth?”</p>

  <p>Gaslark laughed and seized him playfully by the arms, saying, “I will
    not fight with thee, how prettily soe’er thou ask it, Brandoch Daha,
    that savedst Goblinland from the Witches”; but straight grew grave
    again and said to Juss, “O Juss, be ruled. Thou seest what temper thy
    friends are in. All we be as hounds tugging against the leash to be
    loosed against Carcë in this happy hour, that likely cometh not again.”</p>

  <p>Now when Lord Juss perceived them all against him, and hot-mouthed
    for that attempt, he smiled scornfully and said, “O my brother and my
    friends, what echoes and quail-pipes are you become who seem to catch
    wisdom by imitating her voice? But ye be mad like March hares, every
    man of you, and myself too. Break ice in one place, ’twill crack in
    more. And truly I care not greatly for my life now that Goldry is
    gone from me. Cast we lots, then, which of us three shall fare home
    to Demonland with this our ship, that is but a lame<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span> duck since this
    sending. And he on whom the lot shall fall must fare home to concert
    the raising of a mighty fleet and armament to carry on our war against
    the Witches.”</p>

  <p>So spake Lord Juss, and all they who had but a short hour ago
    felt themselves in such point that there was in them no hope of
    convalescence nor of life, had now their spirits raised in a seeming
    drunkenness, and thought only on the gladness of battle.</p>

  <p>The lords of Demonland marked each his lot and cast it in the helm of
    Gaslark, and Gaslark shook the helm, and there leapt forth the lot of
    the Lord Spitfire. Right wrathful was he. So the lords of Demonland did
    off their armour and their costly apparel that was black with soot, and
    let cleanse it. Sixty of their fighting men that were unscathed by the
    sending went aboard one of Gaslark’s ships, and the crew of that ship
    manned the ship of Demonland, and Spitfire took the steering paddle,
    and the Demons that were hurt lay in the hold of the hollow ship. They
    brought forth a spare sail and hoisted it in place of that that was
    destroyed; so in sore discontent, yet with a cheerful countenance, the
    Lord Spitfire set sail for the west. And Gaslark the king sat by the
    steering paddle of his fair dragon of war, and by him the Lord Juss and
    the Lord Brandoch Daha, who was like a war-horse impatient for battle.
    Her prow swung north and so round eastaway, and her sail broidered
    with flower-de-luces smote the mast and filled to the north-west wind,
    and those other six fared after her in line ahead with white sails
    unfurled, striding majestic over the full broad billows.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_pegasus.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_CLAWS_OF_WITCHLAND">VI: THE CLAWS OF WITCHLAND</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF KING GASLARK’S LEADING IN THE ATTEMPT ON CARCË IN THE DARK, AND HOW
    HE PROSPERED THEREIN, AND OF THE GREAT STAND OF LORD JUSS AND LORD
    BRANDOCH DAHA.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">ON the evening of the third day, whenas they drew near to within
    sight of the Witchland coast, they brailed up their sails and waited
    for the night, that so they might make the landfall after dark; for
    little to their mind it was that the King should have news of their
    farings. This was their plan, to beach their ships on the lonely shore
    some two leagues north of Tenemos, whence it was but two hours’ march
    across the fen to Carcë. So when the sun set and all the ways were
    darkened they muffled their oars and rowed silently to the low shore
    that showed strangely near in the darkness, yet ever seemed to flee and
    keep its distance as they rowed toward it. Coming at length ashore,
    they drew their ships up on the beach. Some fifty men of the Goblins
    they left to guard the ships, while the rest took their weapons. And
    when they were marshalled they marched inland over the sand-dunes and
    so on to the open fen; and seeing that the most of them by far were of
    Goblinland, it was agreed between those three, Juss, Brandoch Daha, and
    Gaslark, that Gaslark should have command of this emprise. So fared
    they silently across the marshes, that were firm enough for marching so
    it were done circumspectly, rounding the worst moss-hags and the small
    lochs that were scattered here and there. For the weather had been fine
    for a season, and little new water stood on the marsh. But as they drew
    near to Carcë the weather worsened and fine rain began to fall. And
    albeit there was little comfort marching through the drizzling murk<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span> of
    night towards that fortress of evil name, yet was Lord Juss glad at the
    rain, since it favoured surprise, and on surprise hung all their hopes.</p>

  <p>About the middle night they halted within four hundred paces of the
    outer walls of Carcë, that loomed ghostly through the watery curtain,
    silent as it had been a tomb where Witchland lay in death, rather than
    the mailed shell wherein so great a power sat waiting. The sight of
    that vast bulk couched shadowy in the rain lighted the fire of battle
    in the breast of Gaslark, nor would aught please him save that they
    should go forthwith up to the walls with all their force, and so march
    round them seeking where they might break suddenly in and seize the
    place. Nor would he listen to the counsel of Lord Juss, who would send
    forth detachments to select a spot for assault and bring back word
    before the whole force advanced. “Be sure,” said Gaslark, “that they
    within are all foxed and cupshotten the third night with swilling of
    wine, in honour of such triumph as he hath gotten by his sending, and
    but a sorry watch is kept on such a night. For who, say they, shall
    come up against Carcë now that the power of Demonland is stricken in
    pieces? The scorned Goblins, ha? A motion for laughter and derision.
    But thine advance guard might give them warning or ever our main force
    could seize the occasion. Nay, but as the Ghouls in an evil day coming
    suddenly upon me in Zajë Zaculo gat my palace taken ere we were well
    ware of their coming, so must we take this hold of Carcë. And if thou
    fearest a sally, right hotly do I desire it. For if they open the gate
    we are enough to force an entry in despite of any numbers they are like
    to have within.”</p>

  <p>Now Juss thought ill of this counsel, yet, for a strange languor that
    still hung about his wits, he would not gainsay Gaslark. So crept they
    in stealth near to the great walls of Carcë. Softly ever fell the rain,
    and breathless stood the cypresses within the outer ward, and blank and
    dumb and untenanted frowned the black marble walls of that sleeping
    castle. And dour midnight waited over all.</p>

  <p>Now Gaslark issued command, bidding them march warily round the walls
    northward, for no way was betwixt the lofty walls and the river on the
    south and east, but to the north-east was he hopeful to find a likely
    place to win into the hold. In such order went they that Gaslark with
    an hundred of his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span> ablest men led the van, and after him came the
    Demons. The main strength of the Goblins followed after, with Teshmar
    for their captain. Warily they marched, and now were they on the rising
    ground that ran back north and west from the bluff of Carcë to the fen.
    Full eager were they of Goblinland and flown with the intoxication of
    impending battle, and they of the vanguard fared apace, outstripping
    the Demons, so that Juss was fain to hasten after them lest they should
    lose touch and fall to confusion. But Teshmar’s men feared greatly to
    be left behind, nor might he hold them back, but they must run betwixt
    the Demons and the walls, meaning to join with Gaslark. Juss swore
    under his breath, saying, “See the unruly rabble of Goblinland. And
    they will yet be our undoing.”</p>

  <p>In such case stood they, nor were Teshmar’s folk more than twenty paces
    from the walls, when, sudden as night-lightning, flares were kindled
    along the walls, dazzling the Goblins and the Demons and brightly
    lighting them for those that manned the walls, who fell a-shooting
    at them with spears and arrows and a-slinging of stones. In the same
    moment opened a postern gate, whence sallied forth the Lord Corinius
    with an hundred and fifty stout lads of Witchland, shouting, “He that
    would sup of the crab of Witchland must deal with the nippers ere he
    essay the shell”; and charging Gaslark’s army in the flank he cut them
    clean in two. As one wood fared forth Corinius, smiting on either
    hand with a two-edged axe with heft lapped with bronze; and greatly
    though the folk of Gaslark outnumbered him, yet were they so taken at
    unawares and confounded by the sudden onslaught of Corinius that they
    might not abide him but everywhere gave ground before his onslaught.
    And many were wounded and some were slain; and with these Teshmar of
    Goblinland, the master of Gaslark’s ship. For smiting at Corinius and
    missing of his aim he louted forward with the blow, and Corinius hewed
    at him with his axe and the blow came on Teshmar’s neck and so hewed
    off his head. Now Gaslark with the best of his fighting men was come
    some way past the postern, but whenas they fell to fighting he turned
    back straightway to meet Corinius, calling loudly on his men to rally
    against the Witches and drive them back within the walls. So when
    Gaslark was gotten through the press to within reach of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span> Corinius, he
    thrust at Corinius with a spear, wounding him in the arm. But Corinius
    smote the spear-shaft asunder with his axe, and leapt upon Gaslark,
    giving him a great wound on the shoulder. And Gaslark took to his
    sword, and many blows they bandied that made either stagger, till
    Corinius struck Gaslark on the helm a great down-stroke of his axe,
    as one driveth a pile with a wooden mallet. And because of the good
    helm he wore, given by Lord Juss in days gone by as a gift of love and
    friendship, was Gaslark saved and his head not cloven asunder; for on
    that helm Corinius’s axe might not bite. Yet with that great stroke
    were Gaslark’s senses driven forth of him for a season, so that he fell
    senseless to the earth. And with his fall came dismay upon them of
    Goblinland.</p>

  <p>All this befell in the first brunt of the battle, nor were the lords
    of Demonland yet fully joined in the mellay, for the great press of
    Gaslark’s men were between them and the Witches; but now Juss and
    Brandoch Daha went forth mightily with their following, and took up
    Gaslark that lay like one dead, and Juss bade a company of the Goblins
    bear him to the ships, and there was he bestowed safe and sound. But
    the Witches shouted loudly that King Gaslark was slain; and at this
    chosen time Corund, that was come privily forth of a hidden door on the
    western side of Carcë with fifty men, took the Goblins mightily in the
    rear. So they, still falling back before Corinius and Corund, and their
    hearts sick at the supposed slaying of Gaslark, waxed full of doubt and
    dejection; for in the watery darkness they might nowise perceive by
    how much they outwent in numbers the men of Witchland. And panic took
    them, so that they broke and fled before the Witches, that came after
    them resolute, as a stoat holdeth by a rabbit, and slew them by scores
    and by fifties as they fled from Carcë. Scarce three score men of that
    brave company of Goblinland that went up with Gaslark against Carcë
    won away into the marshes and came to their ships, escaping pitiless
    destruction.</p>

  <p>But Corund and Corinius and their main force turned without more ado
    against the Demons, and bitter was the battle that befell betwixt them,
    and great the clatter of their blows. And now were the odds clean
    changed about with the putting of the Goblins out of the battle, since
    but few of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span> Witchland were fallen, and they were as four to one against
    the Demons, hemming them in and having at them from every side. And
    some shot at them from the wall, until a chance shot came that was like
    to have stove in Corund’s helm, who straightway sent word that when
    the rout was ended he would make lark-pies of the cow-headed doddipole
    whosoever he might be that had set them thus a-shooting, spoiling sport
    for their comrades and dangering their lives. Therewith ceased the
    shooting from the wall.</p>

  <p>And now grim and woundsome grew the battle, for the Demons mightily
    withstood the onset of the Witches, and the Lord Brandoch Daha rushed
    with an onslaught ever and anon upon Corund or upon Corinius, nor might
    either of those great captains bear up long against him, but every
    time gave back before Lord Brandoch Daha; and bitterly cursed they one
    another as each in turn was fain to save himself amid the press of
    their fighting men. Nor could one hope in one night’s space to behold
    such deeds of derring-do as were done that night by Lord Brandoch Daha,
    that played his sword lightly as one handleth a willow wand; yet death
    sat on the point thereof. In such wise that eleven stout sworders of
    Witchland were slain by him, and fifteen besides were sorely wounded.
    And at the last, Corinius, stung by Corund’s taunts as by a gadfly,
    and well nigh bursting for grief and shame at his ill speeding, leapt
    upon Lord Brandoch Daha as one reft of his wits, aiming at him a great
    two-handed blow that was apt enough to cleave him to the brisket. But
    Brandoch Daha slipped from the blow lightly as a kingfisher flying
    above an alder-shadowed stream avoideth a branch in his flight, and
    ran Corinius through the right wrist with his sword. And straight was
    Corinius put out of the fight. Nor had they greater satisfaction that
    went against Lord Juss, who mowed at them with great swashing blows,
    beheading some and hewing some asunder in the midst, till they were
    fain to keep clear of his reaping. So fought the Demons in the glare
    and watery mist, greatly against great odds, until all were smitten to
    earth save those two lords alone, Juss and Brandoch Daha.</p>

  <p>Now stood King Gorice on the outer battlements of Carcë, all armed in
    his black armour inlaid with gold; and he beheld those twain how they
    fought back to back, and how the Witches beset them on every side yet
    nowise might prevail against<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span> them. And the King said unto Gro that was
    by him on the wall, “Mine eyes dazzle in the mist and torchlight. What
    be these that maintain so bloody an advantage upon my kemperie-men?”</p>

  <p>Gro answered him, “Surely, O King, these be none other than Lord Juss
    and Lord Brandoch Daha of Krothering.”</p>

  <p>The King said, “So by degrees cometh my sending home to me. For by my
    art I have intelligence, albeit not certainly, that Goldry was taken
    by my sending; so have I my desire on him I hold most in hate. And
    these, saved by their enchantments from like ruin, have been driven mad
    to rush into the open mouth of my vengeance.” And when he had gazed
    awhile, the King sneered and said unto Gro, “A sweet sight, to behold
    an hundred of my ablest men flinch and duck before these twain. Till
    now methought there was a sword in Witchland, and methought Corinius
    and Corund not simple braggarts without power or heart, as here
    appeareth, since like boys well birched they do cringe from the shining
    swords of Juss and the vile upstart from Krothering.”</p>

  <p>But Corinius, who stood no longer in the battle but by the King, full
    of spleen and his wrist all bloody, cried out, “You do us wrong, O
    King. Juster it were to praise my great deed in ambushing this mighty
    company of our enemies and putting them all to the slaughter. And if
    I prevailed not against this Brandoch Daha your majesty needs not to
    marvel, since a greater than I, Gorice X. of memory ever glorious,
    was lightly conquered by him. Wherein methinks I am the luckier, to
    have but a gored wrist and not my death. As for these twain, they be
    stick-frees, on whom no point or edge may bite. And nought were more to
    be looked for, since we deal with such a sorcerer as this Juss.”</p>

  <p>“Rather,” said the King, “are ye all grown milksops. But I have no
    further stomach for this interlude, but straight will end it.”</p>

  <p>Therewith the King called to him the old Duke Corsus, bidding him take
    nets and catch the Demons therein. And Corsus, faring forth with nets,
    by sheer weight of numbers and with the death of near a score of the
    Witches at length gat this performed, and Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch
    Daha well tangled in the nets, and lapped about as silkworms in their
    cocoons, and so drawn into Carcë. Soundly were they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span> bumped along the
    ground, and glad enow were the Witches to have gotten those great
    fighters scotched at last. For utterly spent were Corund and his men,
    and fain to drop for very weariness.</p>

  <p>So when they were gotten into Carcë, the King let search with torches
    and bring in them of Witchland that lay hurt before the walls; and any
    Demons or Goblins that were happed upon in like case he let slay with
    the sword. And the Lord Juss and the Lord Brandoch Daha, still lapped
    tightly in their nets, he let fling into a corner of the inner court of
    the palace like two bales of damaged goods, and set a guard upon them
    until morning.</p>

  <p>As the lords of Witchland were upon going to bed they beheld westward
    by the sea a red glow, and tongues of fire burning in the night.
    Corinius said unto Lord Gro, “Lo where thy Goblins burn their ships,
    lest we pursue them as they flee shamefully homeward in the ship they
    keep from the burning. One ship sufficeth, for most of them be dead.”</p>

  <p>And Corinius betook him sleepily to bed, pausing on the way to kick at
    the Lord Brandoch Daha, that lay safely swathed in his net powerless as
    then to do him harm.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_crab.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="GUESTS_OF_THE_KING_IN_CARCE">VII: GUESTS OF THE KING IN CARCË</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE TWO BANQUET HALLS THAT WERE IN CARCË, THE OLD AND THE NEW, AND
    OF THE ENTERTAINMENT GIVEN BY KING GORICE XII. IN THE ONE HALL TO
    LORD JUSS AND LORD BRANDOCH DAHA AND IN THE OTHER TO THE PRINCE LA
    FIREEZ; AND OF THEIR LEAVE-TAKING WHEN THE BANQUET WAS DONE.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">THE morrow of that battle dawned fair on Carcë. Folk lay long abed
    after their toil, and until the sun was high nought stirred before the
    walls. But toward noon came forth a band sent by King Gorice to bring
    in the spoil; and they took up the bodies of the slain and laid them
    in howe on the right bank of the river Druima half a mile below Carcë,
    Witches, Demons, and Goblins in one grave together, and raised up a
    great howe over them.</p>

  <p>Now was the sun’s heat strong, but the shadow of the great keep
    rested still on the terrace without the western wall of the palace.
    Cool and redolent of ease and soft repose was that terrace, paved
    with flagstones of red jasper, with spleenwort, assafoetida, livid
    toadstools, dragons’ teeth, and bitter moon-seed growing in the joints.
    On the outer edge of the terrace were bushes of arbor vitae planted in
    a row, squat and round like sleeping dormice, with clumps of choke-pard
    aconite in the interspaces. Many hundred feet in length was the terrace
    from north to south, and at either end a flight of black marble steps
    led down to the level of the inner ward and its embattled wall.</p>

  <p>Benches of green jasper massily built and laden with velvet cushions
    of many colours stood against the palace wall facing to the west, and
    on the bench nearest the Iron Tower<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span> a lady sat at ease, eating cream
    wafers and a quince tart served by her waiting-women in dishes of pale
    gold for her morning meal. Tall was that lady and slender, and beauty
    dwelt in her as the sunshine dwells in the red floor and gray-green
    trunks of a beech wood in early spring. Her tawny hair was gathered
    in deep folds upon her head and made fast by great silver pins, their
    heads set with anachite diamonds. Her gown was of cloth of silver with
    a knotted cord-work of black silk embroidery everywhere decked with
    little moonstones, and over it she wore a mantle of figured satin the
    colour of the wood-pigeon’s wing, tinselled and overcast with silver
    threads. White-skinned she was, and graceful as an antelope. Her eyes
    were green, with yellow fiery gleams. Daintily she ate the tart and
    wafers, sipping at whiles from a cup of amber, artificially carved,
    white wine cool from the cellars below Carcë; and a maiden sitting at
    her feet played on a seven-stringed lute, singing very sweetly this
    song:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Aske me no more where Jove bestowes,</div>
        <div class="i0">When June is past, the fading rose;</div>
        <div class="i0">For in your beautie’s orient deepe,</div>
        <div class="i0">These flowers, as in their causes, sleepe.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Aske me no more whether doth stray</div>
        <div class="i0">The golden atomes of the day;</div>
        <div class="i0">For in pure love heaven did prepare</div>
        <div class="i0">Those powders to inrich your haire.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Aske me no more whether doth hast</div>
        <div class="i0">The nightingale when May is past;</div>
        <div class="i0">For in your sweet dividing throat</div>
        <div class="i0">She winters and keepes warme her note.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Aske me no more where those starres light,</div>
        <div class="i0">That downewards fall in dead of night;</div>
        <div class="i0">For in your eyes they sit, and there</div>
        <div class="i0">Fixed become as in their sphere.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Aske me no more if east or west</div>
        <div class="i0">The Phenix builds her spicy nest;</div>
        <div class="i0">For unto you at last shee flies,</div>
        <div class="i0">And in your fragrant bosome dyes.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span></p>

  <p>“No more,” said the lady; “thy voice is cracked this morning. Is none
    abroad yet thou canst find to tell me of last night’s doings? Or are
    all gone my lord’s gate, that I left sleeping still as though all the
    poppies of all earth’s gardens breathed drowsiness about his head?”</p>

  <p>“One cometh, madam,” said the damosel.</p>

  <p>The lady said, “The Lord Gro. He may resolve me. Though were he in the
    stour last night, that were a wonder indeed.”</p>

  <p>Therewith came Gro along the terrace from the north, clad in a mantle
    of dun-coloured velvet with a collar of raised work of gold upon silver
    purl; and his long black curly beard was perfumed with orange-flower
    water and angelica. When they had greeted one another and the lady had
    bidden her women stand apart, she said, “My lord, I thirst for tidings.
    Recount to me all that befell since sundown. For I slept soundly till
    the streaks of morning showed through my chamber windows, and then
    I awoke from a flying dream of sennets sounding to the onset, and
    torches in the night, and war’s alarums. And there were torches indeed
    in my chamber lighting my lord to bed, that answered me no word but
    straightway fell asleep as in utter weariness. Some slight scratches he
    hath, but else unhurt. I would not wake him, for balm is in slumber;
    also is he ill to do with if one wake him so. But the tattle and wild
    surmise of the servants bloweth as ever to all points of wonder: as
    that a great armament of Demonland is disembarked at Tenemos, and
    all routed last night by my lord and by Corinius, and Goldry Bluszco
    slain in single combat with the King. Or that Juss hath set a charm
    on Laxus and all our fleet, making them sail like parricides against
    this land, Juss and the other Demons leading them; and all slain save
    Laxus and Goldry Bluszco, but these brought bound into Carcë, stark
    mad and frothing at the lips, and Corinius dead of his wounds after
    slaying of Brandoch Daha. Or, foolishly,” and her green eyes lightened
    dangerously, “that it was my brother risen in revolt to wrest Pixyland
    from the overlordship of Gorice, and joined with Gaslark to that end,
    and their army overthrown and both ta’en prisoner.”</p>

  <p>Gro laughed and said, “Surely, O my Lady Prezmyra, truth masketh in
    many a strange disguise when she rideth rumour’s broomstick through
    kings’ palaces. But somewhat<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span> of herself hath she shown thee, if thou
    conclude that an event was brought to birth betwixt dark and sunrise to
    stagger the world, and that the power of Witchland bloomed forth this
    night into unbeholden glory.”</p>

  <p>“Thou speakest big, my lord,” said the lady. “Were the Demons in it?”</p>

  <p>“Ay, madam,” he said.</p>

  <p>“And triumphed on? and slain?”</p>

  <p>“All slain save Juss and Brandoch Daha, and they taken,” said Gro.</p>

  <p>“Was this my lord’s doing?” she asked.</p>

  <p>“Greatly, as I think,” said Gro; “though Corinius claimeth for himself,
    as commonly, the main honour of it.”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra said, “He claimeth overmuch.” And she said, “There were none
    in it save Demons?”</p>

  <p>Gro, knowing her thought, smiled and made answer, “Madam, there were
    Witches.”</p>

  <p>“My Lord Gro,” she cried, “thou dost ill to mock me. Thou art my
    friend. Thou knowest the Prince my brother proud and sudden to anger.
    Thou knowest it chafeth him to have Witchland over him. Thou knowest
    the time is many days overpast when he should bring his yearly tribute
    to the King.”</p>

  <p>Gro’s great ox-eyes were soft as he looked upon the Lady Prezmyra,
    saying, “Most assuredly am I thy friend, madam. Belike, if truth were
    told, thou and thy lord are all the true friends I have in waterish
    Witchland: you two, and the King: but who sleepeth safe in the favour
    of kings? Ah, madam, none of Pixyland stood in the battle yesternight.
    Therefore let thy soul be at ease. But my task it was, standing on the
    battlements beside the King, to smile and smile while Corinius and our
    fighting men made a bloody havoc of four or five hundred of mine own
    kinsfolk.”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra caught her breath and was silent a moment. Then, “Gaslark?”</p>

  <p>“The main force was his, it appeareth,” answered Lord Gro. “Corinius
    braggeth himself his banesman, and certain it is he felled him to
    earth. But I am secretly advertised he was not among the dead taken up
    this morning.”</p>

  <p>“My lord,” she said, “my desire for news drinks deep while thou art
    fasting. Some, bring meat and wine for my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span> Lord Gro.” And two damosels
    ran and returned with sparkling golden wine in a beaker, and a dish of
    lampreys with hippocras sauce. So Gro sat him down on the jasper bench
    and, while he ate and drank, rehearsed to the Lady Prezmyra the doings
    of the night.</p>

  <p>When he had ended she said, “How hath the King dealt with those twain,
    Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha?”</p>

  <p>Gro answered, “He hath them clapped up in the old banqueting hall in
    the Iron Tower.” And his brow darkened, and he said, “’Tis pity thy
    lord lay thus long abed, and so came not to the council, where Corsus
    and Corinius, backed by thy step-sons and the sons of Corsus, egged
    on the King to use shamefully these lords of Demonland. True is that
    distich which admonisheth us—</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Know when to speak, for many times it brings</div>
        <div class="i0">Danger to give the best advice to Kings;</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p class="noindent">and little for my health, and little gain withal, had
    it been had I then openly withstood them. Corinius is ever watchful to
    fling Goblin in my teeth. But Corund weigheth in their councils as his
    hand weigheth in battle.”</p>

  <p>Now as Gro spake came the Lord Corund on the terrace, calling for still
    wine to cool his throat withal. Prezmyra poured forth to him: “Thou
    art blamed to me for keeping thy bed, my lord, that shouldst have been
    devising with the King touching our enemies ta’en captive in this night
    gone by.”</p>

  <p>Corund sat by his lady on the bench and drank. “If that be all, madam,”
    said he, “then have I little to charge my conscience withal. For nought
    lies readier than strike off their heads, and so bring all to a fit and
    happy ending.”</p>

  <p>“Far otherwise,” said Gro, “hath the King determined. He let drag
    before him Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha, and with many fleers
    and jibes, ‘Welcome,’ he saith, ‘to Carcë. Your table shall not lack
    store of delicates while ye are my guests; albeit ye come unbidden.’
    Therewith he let drag them to the old banquet hall. And he bade his
    smiths drive great iron staples into the wall, whereon he let hang up
    the Demons by their wrists, spread-eagled against the wall, making both
    wrists and ankles fast to the staples with gyves of iron. And the King
    let dight the table before their feet as for a banquet, that the sight
    and the savour might torment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span> them. And he called all us of his council
    thither that we might praise his conceit and mock them anew.”</p>

  <p>Said Prezmyra, “A great king should rather be a dog that killeth clean,
    than a cat that patteth and sporteth with his prey.”</p>

  <p>“True it is,” said Corund, “that they were safer slain.” He rose from
    his seat. “’Twere not amiss,” he said, “that I had word with the King.”</p>

  <p>“Wherefore so?” asked Prezmyra.</p>

  <p>“He that sleepeth late,” said Corund, eyeing her humorously, “sometimes
    hath news for her that riseth betimes to sit on the western terrace.
    And this was I come to tell thee, that I but now beheld eastward from
    our chamber window, riding toward Carcë out of Pixyland down the Way of
    Kings——”</p>

  <p>“La Fireez?” she said.</p>

  <p>“Mine eyes be strong enow and clear enow,” said Corund, “but thou’dst
    scarce require me swear to mine own brother at three miles’ distance.
    And as for thine, I leave thee the swearing.”</p>

  <p>“Who should ride down the Way of Kings from Pixyland,” cried Prezmyra,
    “but La Fireez?”</p>

  <p>“That, madam, let Echo answer thee,” said Corund. “And it sticketh in
    my mind, that the Prince my brother-in-law is one that tieth to his
    heartstrings the remembrance of past benefits. This too, that none did
    him ever a greater benefit than Juss, that saved his life six winters
    back in Impland the More. Wherefore, if La Fireez be to share our
    revels this night, needful it is that the King command these gabblers
    to keep silence touching our entertainment of these lords in the old
    banquet hall, and in general touching the share of Demonland in this
    fighting.”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra said, “Come, I’ll go with thee.”</p>

  <p>They found the King on the topmost battlements above the water-gate
    with his lords about him, gazing eastaway toward the long low hills
    beyond which lay Pixyland. But when Corund began to open his mind
    to the King, the King said, “Thou growest old, O Corund, and like a
    good-for-nothing chapman bringest not thy wares to market ere the
    market be done. I have already ta’en order for this, and straitly
    charged my people that nought befell last night save a faring of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span>
    Goblins against Carcë, and their overthrow, and my chasing of them with
    a great slaughter into the sea. Whoso by speech or sign shall reveal to
    La Fireez that the Demons were in it, or that these enemies of mine are
    thus entertained by me to their discomfort in the old banquet hall, he
    shall lose nothing but his life.”</p>

  <p>Corund said, “It is well, O King.”</p>

  <p>The King said, “Captain general, what is our strength?”</p>

  <p>Corinius answered, “Seventy and three were slain, and the others for
    the most part hurt: I among them, that am thus one-handed for the
    while. I will not engage to find you, O King, fifty sound men in Carcë.”</p>

  <p>“My Lord Corund,” said the King, “thine eyes pierced ever a league
    beyond the best among us, young or old. How many makest thou yon
    company?”</p>

  <p>Corund leaned on the parapet and shaded his eyes with his hand that
    was broad as a smoked haddock and covered on the back with yellow
    hairs growing somewhat sparsely, as the hairs on the skin of a young
    elephant. “He rideth with three score horse, O King. One or two more
    I give you for good luck, but if a have a horseman fewer than sixty,
    never love me more.”</p>

  <p>The King muttered an imprecation. “It is the curse of chance bringeth
    him thus pat when I have my powers abroad and am left with too little
    strength to awe him if he prove irksome. One of thy sons, O Corund,
    shall take horse and ride south to Zorn and Permio and muster a few
    score fighting men from the herdsmen and farmers with what speed he
    may. It is commanded.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now was the afternoon wearing to evening when the Prince La Fireez
    was come in with all his company, and greetings done, and the tribute
    safe bestowed, and sleeping room appointed for him and his. And now
    were all gathered together in the great banquet hall that was built by
    Gorice XI., when he was first made King, in the south-east corner of
    the palace; and it far exceeded in greatness and magnificence the old
    hall where Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha were held in duress. Seven
    equal walls it had, of dark green jasper, specked with bloody spots.
    In the midst of one wall was the lofty doorway, and in the walls right
    and left of this and in those that inclosed the angle opposite the door
    were great windows placed high, giving<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span> light to the banquet hall. In
    each of the seven angles of the wall a caryatide, cut in the likeness
    of a three-headed giant from ponderous blocks of black serpentine,
    bowed beneath the mass of a monstrous crab hewn out of the same stone.
    The mighty claws of those seven crabs spreading upwards bare up the
    dome of the roof, that was smooth and covered all over with paintings
    of battles and hunting scenes and wrastling bouts in dark and smoky
    colours answerable to the gloomy grandeur of that chamber. On the walls
    beneath the windows gleamed weapons of war and of the chase, and on the
    two blind walls were nailed up all orderly the skulls and dead bones
    of those champions which had wrastled aforetime with King Gorice XI.
    or ever he appointed in an evil hour to wrastle with Goldry Bluszco.
    Across the innermost angle facing the door was a long table and a
    carven bench behind it, and from the two ends of that table, set square
    with it, two other tables yet longer and benches by them on the sides
    next the wall stretched to within a short space of the door. Midmost of
    the table to the right of the door was a high seat of old cypress wood,
    great and fair, with cushions of black velvet broidered with gold, and
    facing it at the opposite table another high seat, smaller, and the
    cushions of it sewn with silver. In the space betwixt the tables five
    iron braziers, massive and footed with claws like an eagle’s, stood in
    a row, and behind the benches on either side were nine great stands for
    flamboys to light the hall by night, and seven behind the cross bench,
    set at equal distances and even with the walls. The floor was paved
    with steatite, white and creamy, with veins of rich brown and black and
    purple and splashes of scarlet. The tables resting on great trestles
    were massy slabs of a dusky polished stone, powdered with sparks of
    gold as small as atoms.</p>

  <p>The women sat on the cross-bench, and midmost of them the Lady
    Prezmyra, who outwent the rest in beauty and queenliness as Venus the
    lesser planets of the night. Zenambria, wife to Duke Corsus, sat on her
    left, and on her right Sriva, daughter to Corsus, strangely fair for
    such a father. On the upper bench, to the right of the door, the lords
    of Witchland sat above and below the King’s high seat, clad in holiday
    attire, and they of Pixyland had place over against them on the lower
    bench. The high seat on the lower bench was set apart for La Fireez.
    Great plates and dishes of gold and silver and painted porcelain were
    set in order on the tables, laden with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span> delicacies. Harps and bagpipes
    struck up a barbaric music, and the guests rose to their feet, as the
    shining doors swung open and Gorice the King followed by the Prince his
    guest entered that hall.</p>

  <p>Like a black eagle surveying earth from some high mountain the King
    passed by in his majesty. His byrny was of black chain mail, its
    collar, sleeves, and skirt edged with plates of dull gold set with
    hyacinths and black opals. His hose were black, cross-gartered with
    bands of sealskin trimmed with diamonds. On his left thumb was his
    great signet ring fashioned in gold in the semblance of the worm
    Ouroboros that eateth his own tail: the bezel of the ring the head of
    the worm, made of a peach-coloured ruby of the bigness of a sparrow’s
    egg. His cloak was woven of the skins of black cobras stitched together
    with gold wire, its lining of black silk sprinkled with dust of gold.
    The iron crown of Witchland weighed on his brow, the claws of the crab
    erect like horns; and the sheen of its jewels was many-coloured like
    the rays of Sirius on a clear night of frost and wind at Yule-tide.</p>

  <p>The Prince La Fireez went in a mantle of black sendaline sprinkled
    everywhere with spangles of gold, and the tunic beneath it of rich
    figured silk dyed deep purple of the Pasque flower. From the golden
    circlet on his head two wings sprung aloft exquisitely fashioned in
    plates of beaten copper veneered with jewels and enamels and plated
    with precious metals to the semblance of the wings of the oleander
    hawk-moth. He was something below the common height, but stout and
    strong and sturdily knit, with red crisp curly hair, broad-faced and
    ruddy, clean-shaved, with high wide-nostrilled nose and bushy red heavy
    eyebrows, whence his eyes, most like his lady sister’s, sea-green and
    fiery, shot glances like a lion’s.</p>

  <p>When the King was come into his high seat, with Corund and Corinius
    on his left and right in honour of their great deeds of arms, and La
    Fireez facing him in the high seat on the lower bench, the thralls
    made haste to set forth dishes of pickled grigs and oysters in the
    shell, and whilks, snails, and cockles fried in olive oil and swimming
    in red and white hippocras. And the feasters delayed not to fall to
    on these dainties, while the cup-bearer bore round a mighty bowl of
    beaten gold filled with sparkling wine the hue of the yellow sapphire,
    and furnished with six golden ladles resting their handles in six
    half-moon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span> shaped nicks in the rim of that great bowl. Each guest when
    the bowl was brought to him must brim his goblet with the ladle, and
    drink unto the glory of Witchland and the rulers thereof.</p>

  <p>Somewhat greenly looked Corinius on the Prince, and whispering Heming,
    Corund’s son, in the ear, who sat next him, he said, “True it is that
    La Fireez is the showiest of men in all that belongeth to gear and
    costly array. Mark with what ridiculous excess he affecteth Demonland
    in the great store of jewels he flaunteth, and with what an apish
    insolence he sitteth at the board. Yet this lobcock liveth only by our
    sufferance, and I see a hath not forgot to bring with him to Witchland
    the price of our hand withheld from twisting of his neck.”</p>

  <p>Now were borne round dishes of carp, pilchards, and lobsters, and
    thereafter store enow of meats: a fat kid roasted whole and garnished
    with peas on a spacious silver charger, kid pasties, plates of neats’
    tongues and sweetbreads, sucking rabbits in jellies, hedgehogs baked
    in their skins, hogs’ haslets, carbonadoes, chitterlings, and dormouse
    pies. These and other luscious meats were borne round continually by
    thralls who moved silent on bare feet; and merry waxed the talk as the
    edge of hunger became blunted a little, and the cockles of men’s hearts
    were warmed with wine.</p>

  <p>“What news in Witchland?” asked La Fireez.</p>

  <p>“I have heard nought newer,” said the King, “than the slaying of
    Gaslark.” And the King recounted the battle in the night, setting forth
    as in a frank and open honesty every particular of numbers, times, and
    comings and goings; save that none might have guessed from his tale
    that any of Demonland had part or interest in that battle.</p>

  <p>La Fireez said, “Strange it is that he should so attack you. An enemy
    might smell some cause behind it.”</p>

  <p>“Our greatness,” said Corinius, looking haughtily at him, “is a lamp
    whereat other moths than he have been burnt. I count it no strange
    matter at all.”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra said, “Strange indeed, were it any but Gaslark. But sure with
    him no wild sudden fancy were too light but it should chariot him like
    thistle-down to storm heaven itself.”</p>

  <p>“A bubble of the air, madam: all fine colours without and empty wind
    within. I have known other such,” said Corinius, still resting his gaze
    with studied insolence on the Prince.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span></p>

  <p>Prezmyra’s eye danced. “O my Lord Corinius,” said she, “change first
    thine own fashion, I pray thee, ere thou convince gay attire of inward
    folly, lest beholding thee we misdoubt thy precept—or thy wisdom.”</p>

  <p>Corinius drank his cup to the drains and laughed. Somewhat reddened
    was his insolent handsome face about the cheeks and shaven jowl, for
    surely was none in that hall more richly apparelled than he. His ample
    chest was cased in a jerkin of untanned buckskin plated with silver
    scales, and he wore a collar of gold that was rough with smaragds and
    a long cloak of sky-blue silk brocade lined with cloth of silver. On
    his left wrist was a mighty ring of gold, and on his head a wreath of
    black bryony and sleeping nightshade. Gro whispered Corund in the ear,
    “He bibbeth it down apace, and the hour is yet early. This presageth
    trouble, since ever with him indiscretion treadeth hard on the heels of
    surliness as he waxeth drunken.”</p>

  <p>Corund grunted assent, saying aloud, “To all peaks of fame might
    Gaslark have climbed, but for this same rashness. Nought more pitiful
    hath been heard to tell of than his great sending into Impland, ten
    years ago, when, on a sudden conceit that a should lay all Impland
    under him and become the greatest king in all the world, he hired
    Zeldornius and Helteranius and Jalcanaius Fostus——”</p>

  <p>“The three most notable captains found on earth,” said La Fireez.</p>

  <p>“Nothing is more true,” said Corund. “These he hired, and brought ’em
    ships and soldiers and horses and such a clutter of engines of war as
    hath not been seen these hundred years, and sent ’em—whither? To the
    rich and pleasant lands of Beshtria? No. To Demonland? Not a whit. To
    this Witchland, where with a twentieth part the power a hath now risked
    all and suffered death and doom? No! but to yonder hell-besmitten
    wilderness of Upper Impland, treeless, waterless, not a soul to pay him
    tribute had he laid it under him save wandering bands of savage Imps,
    with more bugs on their bodies than pence in their purses, I warrant
    you. Or was he minded to be king among the divels of the air, ghosts,
    and hob-thrushes that be found in that desert?”</p>

  <p>“Without controversy there be seventeen several sorts of divels on
    the Moruna,” said Corsus, very loud and sudden, so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span> that all turned
    to look on him; “fiery divels, divels of the air, terrestrial divels,
    as you may say, and watery divels, and subterranean divels. Without
    controversy there be seven seen sorts, seventeen several sorts of
    hob-thrushes, and several sorts of divels, and if the humour took me I
    could name them all by rote.”</p>

  <p>Wondrous solemn was the heavy face of Corsus, his eyes, baggy
    underneath and somewhat bloodshed, his pendulous cheeks, thick blubber
    under-lip, and bristly gray moustachios and whiskers. He had eaten,
    mainly to provoke thirst, pickled olives, capers, salted almonds,
    anchovies, fumadoes, and pilchards fried with mustard, and now awaited
    the salt chine of beef to be a pillow and a resting place for new
    potations.</p>

  <p>The Lady Zenambria asked, “Knoweth any for certain what fate befell
    Jalcanaius and Helteranius and Zeldornius and their armies?”</p>

  <p>“Heard I not,” said Prezmyra, “that they were led by Will-o’-the-Wisps
    to the regions Hyperborean, and there made kings?”</p>

  <p>“Told thee by the madge-howlet, I fear me, sister,” said La Fireez.
    “Whenas I fared through Impland the More, six years ago, there was many
    a wild tale told me hereof, but nought within credit.”</p>

  <p>Now was the chine served in amid shallots on a great dish of gold,
    borne by four serving men, so weighty was the dish and its burden. Some
    light there glowed in the dull eye of Corsus to see it come, and Corund
    rose up with brimming goblet, and the Witches cried, “The song of the
    chine, O Corund!” Great as a neat stood Corund in his russet velvet
    kirtle, girt about with a broad belt of crocodile hide edged with gold.
    From his shoulders hung a cloak of wolf’s skin with the hair inside,
    the outside tanned and diapered with purple silk. Daylight was nigh
    gone, and through a haze of savours rising from the feast the flamboys
    shone on his bald head set about with thick grizzled curls, and on his
    keen gray eyes, and his long and bushy beard. He cried, “Give me a
    rouse, my lords! and if any fail to bear me out in the refrain, I’ll
    ne’er love him more.” And he sang this song of the chine in a voice
    like the sounding of a gong; and all they roared in the refrain till
    the piled dishes on the service tables rang:</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span></p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Bring out the Old Chyne, the Cold Chyne to me,</div>
        <div class="i0">And how Ile charge him come and see,</div>
        <div class="i0">Brawn tusked, Brawn well sowst and fine,</div>
        <div class="i0">With a precious cup of Muscadine:</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i5"><i>How shall I sing, how shall I look,</i></div>
        <div class="i5"><i>In honour of the Master-Cook</i>?</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">The Pig shall turn round and answer me,</div>
        <div class="i0">Canst thou spare me a shoulder? a wy, a wy.</div>
        <div class="i0">The Duck, Goose, and Capon, good fellows all three,</div>
        <div class="i0">Shall dance thee an antick, so shall the Turkey:</div>
        <div class="i0">But O! the Cold Chyne, the Cold Chyne for me:</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i5"><i>How shall I sing, how shall I look,</i></div>
        <div class="i5"><i>In honour of the Master-Cook</i>?</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">With brewis Ile noynt thee from head to th’ heel,</div>
        <div class="i0">Shal make thee run nimbler than the new oyld wheel;</div>
        <div class="i0">With Pye-crust wee’l make thee</div>
        <div class="i0">The eighth wise man to be;</div>
        <div class="i0">But O! the Old Chyne, the Cold Chyne for me:</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i5"><i>How shall I sing, how shall I look,</i></div>
        <div class="i5"><i>In honour of the Master-Cook</i>?</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>When the chine was carved and the cups replenished, the King issued
    command saying, “Call hither my dwarf, and let him act his antick
    gestures before us.”</p>

  <p>Therewith came the dwarf into the hall, mopping and mowing, clad in a
    sleeveless jerkin of striped yellow and red mockado. And his long and
    nerveless tail dragged on the floor behind him.</p>

  <p>“Somewhat fulsome is this dwarf,” said La Fireez.</p>

  <p>“Speak within door, Prince,” said Corinius. “Know’st not his quality?
    A hath been envoy extraordinary from King Gorice XI. of memory ever
    glorious unto Lord Juss in Galing and the lords of Demonland. And ’twas
    the greatest courtesy we could study to do them, to send ’em this looby
    for our ambassador.”</p>

  <p>The dwarf practised before them to the great content of the lords of
    Witchland and their guests, save for his japing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span> upon Corinius and the
    Prince, calling them two peacocks, so like in their bright plumage that
    none might tell either from other; which somewhat galled them both.</p>

  <p>And now was the King’s heart waxen glad with wine, and he pledged Gro,
    saying, “Be merry, Gro, and doubt not that I will fulfil my word I
    spake unto thee, and make thee king in Zajë Zaculo.”</p>

  <p>“Lord, I am yours for ever,” answered Gro. “But methinks I am little
    fitted to be a king. Methinks I was ever a better steward of other
    men’s fortunes than of mine own.”</p>

  <p>Whereat the Duke Corsus, that was sprawled on the table well nigh
    asleep, cried out in a great voice but husky withal, “A brace of divels
    broil me if thou sayst not sooth! If thine own fortunes come off but
    bluely, care not a rush. Give me some wine, a full weeping goblet.
    Ha! Ha! whip it away! Ha! Ha! Witchland! When wear you the crown of
    Demonland, O King?”</p>

  <p>“How now, Corsus,” said the King, “art thou drunk?”</p>

  <p>But La Fireez said, “Ye sware peace with the Demons in the Foliot
    Isles, and by mighty oaths are ye bound to put by for ever your claims
    of lordship over Demonland. I hoped your quarrels were ended.”</p>

  <p>“Why so they are,” said the King.</p>

  <p>Corsus chuckled weakly. “Ye say well: very well, O King, very well,
    La Fireez. Our quarrels are ended. No room for more. For, look you,
    Demonland is a ripe fruit ready to drop me thus in our mouth.” Leaning
    back he gaped his mouth wide open, suspending by one leg above it an
    hortolan basted with its own dripping. The bird slipped through his
    fingers, and fell against his cheek, and so on to his bosom, and so
    on the floor, and his brazen byrny and the sleeves of his pale green
    kirtle were splashed with the gravy.</p>

  <p>Whereat Corinius let fly a great peal of laughter; but La Fireez
    flushed with anger and said, scowling, “Drunkenness, my lord, is a jest
    for thralls to laugh at.”</p>

  <p>“Then sit thou mum, Prince,” said Corinius, “lest thy quality be called
    in question. For my part I laugh at my thoughts, and they be very
    choice.”</p>

  <p>But Corsus wiped his face and fell a-singing:</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span></p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Whene’er I bib the wine down,</div>
        <div class="i2">Asleepe drop all my cares.</div>
        <div class="i4">A fig for fret,</div>
        <div class="i4">A fig for sweat,</div>
        <div class="i2">A fig care I for cares.</div>
        <div class="i4">Sith death must come, though I say nay,</div>
        <div class="i4">Why grieve my life’s days with affaires?</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Come, bib we then the wine down</div>
        <div class="i2">Of Bacchus faire to see;</div>
        <div class="i2">For alway while we bibbing be,</div>
        <div class="i2">Asleepe drop all our cares.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>With that, Corsus sank heavily forward again on the table. And the
    dwarf, whose japes all else in that company had taken well even when
    themselves were the mark thereof, leaped up and down, crying, “Hear a
    wonder! This pudding singeth. When with two platters, thralls! ye have
    served it o’ the board without a dish. One were too little to contain
    so vast a deal of bullock’s blood and lard. Swift, and carve it ere the
    vapours burst the skin.”</p>

  <p>“I will carve thee, filth,” said Corsus, lurching to his feet; and
    catching the dwarf by the wrist with one hand he gave him a great box
    on the ear with the other. The dwarf squealed and bit Corsus’s thumb to
    the bone, so that he loosed his hold; and the dwarf fled from the hall,
    while the company laughed pleasantly.</p>

  <p>“So flieth folly before wisdom which is in wine,” said the King. “The
    night is young: bring me botargoes, and caviare and toast. Drink,
    Prince. The red Thramnian wine that is thick like honey wooeth the soul
    to divine philosophy. How vain a thing is ambition. This was Gaslark’s
    bane, whose enterprises of such pitch and moment have ended thus,
    in a kind of nothing. Or what thinkest thou, Gro, thou which art a
    philosopher?”</p>

  <p>“Alas, poor Gaslark,” said Gro. “Had all grown to his mind, and had he
    ’gainst all expectation gotten us overthrown, even so had he been no
    nearer to his heart’s desire than when he first set forth. For he had
    of old in Zajë Zaculo eating and drinking and gardens and treasure and
    musicians and a fair wife, all soft ease and contentment all his days.
    And at the last, howsoe’er we shape our course, cometh the poppy that
    abideth all of us by the harbour of oblivion hard to cleanse.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span> Dry
    withered leaves of laurel or of cypress tree, and a little dust. Nought
    else remaineth.”</p>

  <p>“With a sad brow I say it,” said the King: “I hold him wise that
    resteth happy, even as the Red Foliot, and tempteth not the Gods by
    over-mounting ambition to his dejection.”</p>

  <p>La Fireez had thrown himself back in his high seat with his elbows
    resting on its lofty arms and his hands dangling idly on either side.
    With head held high and incredulous smile he harkened to the words of
    Gorice the King.</p>

  <p>Gro said in Corund’s ear, “The King hath found strange kindness in the
    cup.”</p>

  <p>“I think thou and I be clean out o’ fashion,” answered Corund,
    whispering, “that we be not yet drunken; the cause whereof is that thou
    drinkest within measure, which is good, and me this amethyst at my belt
    keepeth sober, were I never so surfeit-swelled with wine.”</p>

  <p>La Fireez said, “You are pleased to jest, O King. For my part, I had as
    lief have this musk-million on my shoulders as a head so blockish as to
    want ambition.”</p>

  <p>“If thou wert not our princely guest,” said Corinius, “I had called
    that spoke in the right fashion of a little man. Witchland affecteth
    not such vaunts, but can afford to speak as our Lord the King in proud
    humility. Turkey cocks do strut and gobble; not so the eagle, who
    holdeth the world at his discretion.”</p>

  <p>“Pity on thee,” cried the Prince, “if this cheap victory turn thee so
    giddy. Goblins!”</p>

  <p>Corinius scowled. Corsus chuckled, saying to himself but loud enough
    for all to hear, “Goblins, quotha? They were small game had they been
    all. Ay, there it is: had they been all.”</p>

  <p>The King’s brow was like a foul black cloud. The women held their
    breath. But Corsus, blandly insensible of these gathering thunders,
    beat time on the table with his cup, drowsily chanting to a most
    mournful air:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">When birds in water deepe do lie,</div>
        <div class="i0">And fishes in the air doe flie,</div>
        <div class="i0">When water burns and fire doth freeze,</div>
        <div class="i0">And oysters grow as fruits on trees—</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p class="noindent">A resounding hecup brought him to a full close.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span></p>

  <p>The talk had died down, the lords of Witchland, ill at ease, studying
    to wear their faces to the bent of the King’s looks. But Prezmyra
    spake, and the music of her voice came like a refreshing shower. “This
    song of my Lord Corsus,” she said, “made me hopeful for an answer to a
    question in philosophy; but Bacchus, you see, hath ta’en his soul into
    Elysium for a season, and I fear me nor truth nor wisdom cometh from
    his mouth to-night. And this was my question, whether it be true that
    all animals of the land are in their kind in the sea? My Lord Corinius,
    or thou, my princely brother, can you resolve me?”</p>

  <p>“Why, so it is received, madam,” said La Fireez. “And inquiry will
    show thee many pretty instances: as the sea-frog, the sea-fox, the
    sea-dog, the sea-horse, the sea-lion, the sea-bear. And I have known
    the barbarous people of Esamocia eat of a conserve of sea-mice mashed
    and brayed in a mortar with the flesh of that beast named <i>bos
      marinus</i>, seasoned with salt and garlic.”</p>

  <p>“Foh! speak to me somewhat quickly,” cried the Lady Sriva, “ere in
    imagination I taste such nasty meat. Prithee, yonder gold peaches and
    raisins of the sun as an antidote.”</p>

  <p>“Lord Gro will instruct thee better than I,” said La Fireez. “For my
    part, albeit I think nobly of philosophy, yet have I little leisure
    to study it. Oft have I hunted the badger, yet never answered that
    question of the doctors whether he hath the legs of one side shorter
    than of the other. Neither know I, for all the lampreys I have eat, how
    many eyes the lamprey hath, whether it be nine or two.”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra smiled: “O my brother, thou art too too smoored, I fear me,
    in the dust of action and the field to be at accord with these nice
    searchings. But be there birds under the sea, my Lord Gro?”</p>

  <p>Gro made answer, “In rivers, certainly, though it be but birds of the
    air sojourning for a season. As I myself have found them in Outer
    Impland, asleep in winter time at the bottom of lakes and rivers, two
    together, mouth to mouth, wing to wing. But in the spring they revive
    again, and by and by are the woods full of their singing. And for the
    sea, there be true sea-cuckows, sea-thrushes, and sea-sparrows, and
    many more.”</p>

  <p>“It is passing strange,” said Zenambria.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span></p>

  <p>Corsus sang:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">When sorcerers do leave their charme,</div>
        <div class="i0">When spiders do the fly no harme.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>Prezmyra turned to Corund saying, “Was there not a merry dispute
    betwixt you, my lord, concerning the toad and the spider, thou
    maintaining that they do poisonously destroy one another, and my Lord
    Gro that he would show thee to the contrary?”</p>

  <p>“’Twas even so, lady,” said Corund, “and it is yet in controversy.”</p>

  <p>Corsus sang:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">And when the blackbird leaves to sing,</div>
        <div class="i0">And likewise serpents for to sting,</div>
        <div class="i2">Then you may saye, and justly too,</div>
        <div class="i2">The old world now is turned anew:</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p class="noindent">and so sank back into bloated silence.</p>

  <p>“My Lord the King,” cried Prezmyra, “I beseech you give order for the
    ending of this difference between two of your council, ere it wax to
    dangerous heat. Let them be given a toad, O King, and spiders without
    delay, that they may make experiment before this goodly company.”</p>

  <p>Therewith all fell a-laughing, and the King commanded a thrall, who
    shortly brought fat spiders to the number of seven and a crystal
    wine-cup, and inclosed with them beneath the cup a toad, and set all
    before the King. And all beheld them eagerly.</p>

  <p>“I will wager two firkins of pale Permian wine to a bunch of radishes,”
    said Corund, “that victory shall be given unto the spiders. Behold how
    without resistance they do sit upon his head and pass all over his
    body.”</p>

  <p>Gro said, “Done.”</p>

  <p>“Thou wilt lose the wager, Corund,” said the King. “This toad taketh no
    hurt from the spiders, but sitteth quiet out of policy, tempting them
    to security, that upon advantage he may swallow them down.”</p>

  <p>While they watched, fruits were borne in: queen-apples, almonds,
    pomegranates and pistick nuts; and fresh bowls and jars of wine, and
    among them a crystal flagon of the peach-coloured<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span> wine of Krothering
    vintaged many summers ago in the vineyards that stretch southward
    toward the sea from below the castle of Lord Brandoch Daha.</p>

  <p>Corinius drank deep, and cried, “’Tis a royal drink, this wine of
    Krothering! Folk say it will be good cheap this summer.”</p>

  <p>Whereat La Fireez shot a glance at him, and the King marking it said in
    Corinius’s ear, “Wilt thou be prudent? Let not thy pride flatter thee
    to think aught shall avail thee, any more than my vilest thrall, if by
    thy doing this Prince smell out my secrets.”</p>

  <p>By then was the hour waxing late, and the women took their leave,
    lighted to the doors in great state by thralls with flamboys. In a
    while, when they were gone, “A plague of all spiders!” cried Corund.
    “Thy toad hath swallowed one already.”</p>

  <p>“Two more!” said Gro. “Thy theoric crumbleth apace, O Corund. He hath
    two at a gulp, and but four remain.”</p>

  <p>The Lord Corinius, whose countenance was now aflame with furious
    drinking, held high his cup and catching the Prince’s eye, “Mark well,
    La Fireez,” he cried, “a sign and a prophecy. First one; next two at a
    mouthful; and early after that, as I think, the four that remain. Art
    not afeared lest thou be found a spider when the brunt shall come?”</p>

  <p>“Hast drunk thyself horn-mad, Corinius?” said the King under his
    breath, his voice shaken with anger.</p>

  <p>“He is as witty a marmalade-eater as ever I conversed with,” said La
    Fireez, “but I cannot tell what the dickens he means.”</p>

  <p>“That,” answered Corinius, “which should make thy smirking face
    turn serious. I mean our ancient enemies, the haskardly mongrels of
    Demonland. First gulp, Goldry, taken heaven knows whither by the King’s
    sending in a deadly scud of wind——”</p>

  <p>“The devil damn thee!” cried the King, “what drunken brabble is this?”</p>

  <p>But the Prince La Fireez waxed red as blood, saying, “This it is then
    that lieth behind this hudder mudder, and ye go to war with Demonland?
    Think not to have my help therein.”</p>

  <p>“We shall not sleep the worse for that,” said Corinius.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span> “Our mouth
    is big enough for such a morsel of marchpane as thou, if thou turn
    irksome.”</p>

  <p>“Thy mouth is big enough to blab the secretest intelligence, as we now
    most laughably approve,” said La Fireez. “Were I the King, I would draw
    lobster’s whiskers on thy skin, for a tipsy and a prattling popinjay.”</p>

  <p>“An insult!” cried the Lord Corinius, leaping up. “I would not take
    an insult from the Gods in heaven. Reach me a sword, boy! I will make
    Beshtrian cut-works in his guts.”</p>

  <p>“Peace, on your lives!” said the King in a great voice, while Corund
    went to Corinius and Gro to the Prince to quiet them. “Corinius is
    wounded in the wrist and cannot fight, and belike his brain is fevered
    by the wound.”</p>

  <p>“Heal him, then, of this carving the Goblins gave him, and I will carve
    him like a capon,” said the Prince.</p>

  <p>“Goblins!” said Corinius fiercely. “Know, vile fellow, the best
    swordsman in the world gave me this wound. Had it been thou that stood
    before me, I had cut thee into steaks, that art caponed already.”</p>

  <p>But the King stood up in his majesty, saying, “Silence, on your lives!”
    And the King’s eyes glittered with wrath, and he said, “For thee,
    Corinius, not thy hot youth and rebellious blood nor yet the wine thou
    hast swilled into that greedy belly of thine shall mitigate the rigour
    of my displeasure. Thy punishment I reserve unto to-morrow. And thou,
    La Fireez, look thou bear thyself more humbly in my halls. Over pert
    was the message brought me by thine herald at thy coming hither this
    morning, and too much it smacked of a greeting from an equal to an
    equal, calling thy tribute a gift, though it, and thou, and all thy
    principality are mine by right to deal with as seems me good. Yet did I
    bear with thee: unwisely, as I think, since thy pertness nourished by
    my forbearance springeth up yet ranker at my table, and thou insultest
    and brawlest in my halls. Be advised, lest my wrath forge thunderbolts
    against thee.”</p>

  <p>The Prince La Fireez answered and said, “Keep frowns and threats for
    thine offending thralls, O King, since me they affright not, and I
    laugh them to scorn. Nor am I careful to answer thine injurious words;
    since well thou knowest my old friendship unto thine house, O King,
    and unto Witchland, and by what bands of marriage I am bound in love
    to the Lord<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span> Corund, to whom I gave my lady sister. If it suit not my
    stomach to proclaim like a servile minister thy suzerainty, yet needest
    thou not to carp at this, since thy tribute is paid thee, ay, and in
    over-measure. But unto Demonland am I bound, as all the world knoweth,
    and sooner shalt thou prevail upon the lamps of heaven to come down
    and fight for thee against the Demons than upon me. And unto Corinius
    that so boasteth I say that Demonland hath ever been too hard for you
    Witches. Goldry Bluszco and Brandoch Daha have shown you this. This is
    my counsel unto thee, O King, to make peace with Demonland: my reasons,
    first that thou hast no just cause of quarrel with them, next (and this
    should sway thee more) that if thou persist in fighting against them it
    will be the ruin of thee and of all Witchland.”</p>

  <p>The King bit his fingers with signs of wonderful anger, and for a
    minute’s time no sound was in that hall. Only Corund spake privately to
    the King saying, “Lord, O for all sakes swallow your royal rage. You
    may whip him when my son Hacmon returneth, but till then he outnumbers
    us, and your own party so overwhelmed with wine that, trust me, I
    would not adventure the price of a turnip on our chances if it come to
    fighting.”</p>

  <p>Troubled at heart was Corund, for well he knew how dear beyond account
    his lady wife held the keeping of the peace betwixt La Fireez and the
    Witches.</p>

  <p>In this moment Corsus, somewhat roused in an evil hour out of lethargy
    by the loud talk and movement, began to sing:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">When all the prisons hereabout</div>
        <div class="i0">Have justled all their prisoners out,</div>
        <div class="i0">Because indeed they have no cause</div>
        <div class="i0">To keepe ’em in by common laws.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>Whereat Corinius, in whom wine and quarrelling and the King’s rebukes
    had lighted a fire of reckless and outrageous malice before which all
    counsels of prudence or policy were dissipated like wax in a furnace,
    shouted loudly, “Wilt see our prisoners, Prince, i’ the old banquet
    hall, to prove thyself an ass?”</p>

  <p>“What prisoners?” cried the Prince, springing to his feet. “Hell’s
    furies! I am weary of these dark equivocations and will know the
    truth.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span></p>

  <p>“Why wilt thou rage so beastly?” said the King. “The man is drunk. No
    more wild words.”</p>

  <p>“Thou canst not daff me so. I will know the truth,” said La Fireez.</p>

  <p>“So thou shalt,” said Corinius. “This it is: that we Witches be better
    men than thou and thy hen-hearted Pixies, and better men than the
    accursed Demons. No need to hide it further. Two of that brood we have
    laid by the heels, and nailed ’em up on the wall of the old banquet
    hall, as farmers nail up weasels and polecats on a barn door. And there
    shall they bide till they be dead: Juss and Brandoch Daha.”</p>

  <p>“O most villanous lie!” said the King. “I’ll have thee hewn in pieces.”</p>

  <p>But Corinius said, “I nurse your honour, O King. We must no longer
    skulk before these Pixies.”</p>

  <p>“Thou diest for it,” said the King, “and it is a lie.”</p>

  <p>Now was dead silence for a space. At last the Prince sat down slowly.
    His face was white and drawn, and he spake unto the King, slowly and
    in a quiet voice: “O King, that I was somewhat hot with you, forgive
    me. And if I have omitted any form of allegiance due to you, think
    rather that in my blood it is to chafe at such ceremonies than that I
    had any lack of friendship unto you or ever dreamed of questioning your
    over-lordship. Aught that you shall require of me and that lieth with
    mine honour, aught of ceremony or fealty, will I with joy perform. And,
    save against Demonland, is my sword ready against your enemies. But
    here, O King, tottereth a tower ready to fall athwart our friendship
    and pash it in pieces. It is known to you, O King, and to all the
    lords of Witchland, that my bones were whitening these six years in
    Impland the More if Lord Juss had not saved me from the barbarous Imps
    that followed Fax Fay Faz, who besieged me four months with my small
    following shut up in Lida Nanguna. My friendship shall you have, O
    King, if you yield me up my friends.”</p>

  <p>But the King said, “I have not thy friends.”</p>

  <p>“Show me then the old banquet hall,” said the Prince.</p>

  <p>The King said, “I will show it thee anon.”</p>

  <p>“I will see it now,” said the Prince, and he rose from his seat.</p>

  <p>“I will dissemble with thee no longer,” said the King.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span> “I do love thee
    well. But when thou askest me to yield up to thee Juss and Brandoch
    Daha, thou askest a thing all Pixyland and thy dear heart’s blood were
    unable to purchase from me. These be my worst enemies. Thou knowest not
    at what cost of toil and danger I have at last laid hand on them. And
    now let not thy hopes make thee an unbeliever, when I swear to thee
    that Juss and Brandoch Daha shall rot and die in prison.”</p>

  <p>And for all his gentle speeches, and offers of wealth and rich
    advantage and upholding in peace and war, might not La Fireez shake the
    King. And the King said, “Forbear, La Fireez, or thou wilt vex me. They
    must rot.”</p>

  <p>So when the Prince La Fireez saw that he might not move the King by
    soft words, he took up his fair crystal goblet, egg-shaped with three
    claws of gold to stand withal welded to a collar of gold about its
    middle bossed with topazes, and hurled it at Gorice the King, so that
    the goblet smote him on the forehead, and the crystal was brast asunder
    with the force of the blow, and the King’s forehead laid open, and the
    King strook senseless.</p>

  <p>Therewith was huge uproar in the banquet hall; nor would Corund that
    any should have speedier hand therein than he, but catching up his
    two-edged sword and crying, “Look to the King, Gro! Here’s distressful
    revels!” he leaped upon the table. And his sons likewise and Gallandus
    and the other Witches seized their weapons, and in like manner did La
    Fireez and his men; and there was battle in the great hall in Carcë.
    Corinius, whose left hand only might as now wield weapon, even so
    sprang forth in most gallant wise, calling upon the Prince with many
    vile words to abide his onset. But the fumes of unbridled potations,
    that being flown to his brain had made him frantic mad, wrought in
    his legs more foggily, dulling their wonted nimbleness. And his foot
    sliding in a puddle of spilt wine he fell backward a grievous fall,
    striking his head against the polished table. And Corsus that was now
    well nigh speechless and quite stupefied with drink, so that a baby
    might tell as well as he what meant this hubbub, reeled cup in hand,
    shouting, “Drunkenness is better for the body than physic! Drink
    always, and you shall never die!” So shouting he was smitten square
    in the mouth by a breast of veal flung at him by Elaron of Pixyland,
    the captain of the Prince’s bodyguard,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span> and so fell like a hog athwart
    Corinius, and there lay without sense or motion. Then were the tables
    overset, and wounds given and taken, and swiftly ran the tide of
    vantage against the Witches. For albeit the Pixies were none such great
    soldiers as they of Witchland, yet this served them mightily that they
    were well nigh sober and their foes as so many casks filled with wine,
    staggering and raving for the most part from their long tippling and
    quaffing. Nor did Corund’s amethyst avail him throughly, but the wine
    clogged his veins so that he waxed scant of breath and his strokes
    lighter and slower than they were wont.</p>

  <p>Now for the love he bare his sister Prezmyra and for his old kindness
    sake for Witchland, the Prince charged his men to fight only for the
    overpowering of the Witches, slaying none if so it might be, and on
    their lives to look to it that the Lord Corund took no hurt. And when
    they had fairly gotten the mastery, La Fireez made certain of his folk
    take jars of wine and therewith souse Corund and his men most lustily
    in the face, while others held them at weapon’s point, until by the
    power of the wine both within and without they were well brought under.
    And they barricaded the great doorway of the hall with the benches and
    table tops and heavy oaken trestles, and La Fireez charged Elaron hold
    the door with the most of his following, and set guards without each
    window that none might come forth from the hall.</p>

  <p>But the Prince himself took flamboys and went six in company to the old
    banquet hall, overpowered the guard, brake open the doors, and so stood
    before Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha that hung shackled to the wall
    side by side. Something dazzled they were in the sudden torch-light,
    but Lord Brandoch Daha spake and hailed the Prince, and his mocking
    haughty lazy accents were scarcely touched with hollowness, for all
    his hunger-starving and long watching and the cark and care of his
    affliction. “La Fireez!” he said. “Day ne’er broke up till now. And
    methought ye were yonder false fitchews fostered in filth and fen, the
    spawn of Witchland, returned again to fleer and flout at us.”</p>

  <p>La Fireez told them how things had gone, and he said, “Occasion
    gallopeth apace. Upon this bargain do I loose you, that ye come
    incontinently with me out of Carcë, and seek no revenge to-night upon
    the Witches.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span></p>

  <p>Juss said yea to this; and Brandoch Daha laughed, saying, “Prince, I
    so love thee, I could refuse thee nothing, were it shave half my beard
    and go in fustian till harvest-time, sleep in my clothes, and discourse
    pious nothings seven hours a day with my lady’s lap-dog. This night we
    be utterly thine. An instant only bear with us: this fare shows too
    good to rest untasted after so much looking on. It were discourteous
    too to leave it so.” Therewith, their chains being now stricken off, he
    eat a great slice of turkey and three quails boned and served in jelly,
    and Juss a dozen plovers’ eggs and a cold partridge. Lord Brandoch Daha
    said, “I prithee break the egg-shells, Juss, when the meat is out, lest
    some sorcerer should prick or write thy name thereon, and so mischief
    thy person.” And pouring out a stoup of wine, he quaffed it off, and
    filling it again, “Perdition catch me if it be not mine own wine of
    Krothering! Saw any a carefuller host than King Gorice?” And he pledged
    Lord Juss in the second cup, saying, “I will drink with thee next in
    Carcë when the King of Witchland and all the lords thereof are slain.”</p>

  <p>Thereafter they took their weapons that lay by on the table, set there
    to distress their souls and with little expectation they should so take
    them up again; and glad at heart albeit somewhat stiff of limb they
    went forth with La Fireez from that banquet hall.</p>

  <p>When they were come into the court-yard Juss spake and said, “Herein
    might honour hold us back even hadst thou made no bargain with us, La
    Fireez. For great shame it were to us and we fell upon the lords of
    Witchland when they were drunk and unable to meet us in equal battle.
    But let us ere we be gone from Carcë ransack this hold for my kinsman
    Goldry Bluszco, since for his sake only and in hope to find him here we
    fared on this journey.”</p>

  <p>“So you touch no other thing but only Goldry if ye shall find him, I am
    content,” said the Prince.</p>

  <p>So when they had found keys they ransacked all Carcë, even to the dread
    chamber where the King had conjured and the vaults and cellars below
    the river. But it availed not.</p>

  <p>And as they stood in the court-yard in the torch-light there came forth
    on a balcony the Lady Prezmyra in her nightgown, disturbed by this
    ransacking. Ethereal as a cloud she seemed, pavilioned in the balmy
    night, as a cloud touched by the exhalations<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span> of the unrisen moon.
    “What transformation is this?” said she. “Demons loose in the court?”</p>

  <p>“Content thee, dear heart,” said the Prince. “Thy man is safe, and all
    else beside as I think; save that the King hath a broken head, the
    which I lament, and will without question soon be healed. They lie all
    in the banquet hall to-night, being too sleepy-sodden with the feast to
    take their chambers.”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra cried, “My fears are fallen upon me. Art thou broken with
    Witchland?”</p>

  <p>“That may I not forejudge,” he answered. “Tell them to-morrow that
    nought I did in hatred, and nought but what I was by circumstance
    enforced to. For I am not such a coward nor so great a villain as leave
    my friends caged up while strength is left me to work for their setting
    free.”</p>

  <p>“You must straightway forth from Carcë,” said Prezmyra, “and that o’
    the instant. My step-son Hacmon, which was sent to gather strength
    to awe thee if need were, rideth by now from the south with a great
    company. Thy horses are fresh, and ye may well outdistance the King’s
    men if they ride after you. If thou wilt not yet raise up a river of
    blood betwixt us, begone.”</p>

  <p>“Why fare thee well, then, sister. And doubt it not, these rifts ’tween
    me and Witchland shall soon be patched up and forgot.” So spake the
    Prince with a merry voice, yet grieved at heart. For well he weened the
    King should never pardon him that blow, nor his robbing him of his prey.</p>

  <p>But she said, sadly, “Farewell, my brother. And my heart tells me I
    shall never see thee more. When thou took’st these from prison, thou
    didst dig up two mandrakes shall bring sorrow and death to thee and to
    me and to all Witchland.”</p>

  <p>The Prince was silent, but Lord Juss bowed to Prezmyra saying, “Madam,
    these things be on the knees of Fate. But imagine not that while life
    and breath be in us we shall leave to uphold the Prince thy brother.
    His foes be our foes for this night sake.”</p>

  <p>“Thou swearest it?” she said.</p>

  <p>He answered, “Madam, I swear it unto thee and unto him.”</p>

  <p>The Lady Prezmyra withdrew sadly to her chamber. And in short space she
    heard their horse-hooves on the bridge, and looking forth beheld where
    they galloped on the Way of Kings dim in the coppery light of a waning
    moon rising over Pixyland. So sate she by the window of Corund’s lofty
    bed-chamber<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span> gazing through the night, long after her brother and the
    lords of Demonland and her brother’s men were ridden beyond her seeing,
    long after their last hoof-beat had ceased to echo on the road. In a
    while fresh horse-hooves sounded from the south, and a noise as of many
    riding in company; and she knew it was young Hacmon back from Permio.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_flower.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_FIRST_EXPEDITION_TO_IMPLAND">VIII: THE FIRST EXPEDITION TO IMPLAND</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE HOME-COMING OF THE DEMONS, AND HOW LORD JUSS WAS TAUGHT IN A
    DREAM WHITHER HE MUST SEEK FOR TIDINGS OF HIS DEAR BROTHER. AND HOW
    THEY TOOK COUNSEL AT KROTHERING, AND DETERMINED OF THEIR EXPEDITION
    TO IMPLAND.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">MIDSUMMER night, ambrosial, starry-kirtled, walked on the sea, as the
    ship that brought the Demons home drew nigh to her journey’s end. The
    cloaks of Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha, who slept on the poop,
    were wet with dew. Smoothly they had passage through that charmed
    night, where winds were hushed asleep and nought was heard save the
    waves talking beneath the bows of the ship, the lilting changeless
    song of the steersman, and the creak, dip, and swash of oars keeping
    time to his singing. Vega burned like a sapphire near the zenith, and
    Arcturus low in the north-west, beaconing over Demonland. In the remote
    south-east Fomalhaut rose from the sea, a lonely splendour in the dim
    region of Capricorn and the Fishes.</p>

  <p>So rowed they till day broke, and a light wind sprang up fresh and
    keen. Juss waked, and stood up to scan the gray glassy surface of
    the sea spread to vast distances where sky and water faded into one.
    Astern, great clouds bridged the gates of day, boiling upwards into
    crags of wine-dark vapour and burning plumes of sunrise. In the
    stainless spaces of the sky above these sailed the horned moon, frail
    and wan as a white foam-flower blown from the waves. Westward, facing
    the thunder-smoke of dawn, the fine far ridge of Kartadza was like cut
    crystal against the sky: the first island sentinel of many-mountained
    Demonland, his topmost cliffs dawn-illumined with pale gold and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span>
    amethyst while yet the lesser heights lay obscure, lapped in the folds
    of night. And with the opening day the mists swathing the mountain’s
    skirts were lifted up in billowy masses that grew and shrank and grew
    again, made restless by the wayward winds which morning waked in the
    hollow mountain side, and torn by them into wisps and streamers. Some
    were blown upward, steaming up the great gullies in the rocks below
    the peak, while now and then a puff of cloud swam free for a minute,
    floated a minute’s space as ready to sail skyward, then indolently
    stooped again to the mountain wall to veil it in an unsubstantial
    fleece of golden vapour. And now all the western seaboard of Demonland
    lay clear to view, stretching fifty miles and more from Northhouse
    Skerries past the Drakeholms and the low downs of Kestawick and Byland,
    beyond which tower the mountains of the Scarf, past the jagged sky-line
    of the Thornbacks and the far Neverdale peaks overhanging the wooded
    shores of Onwardlithe and Lower Tivarandardale, to the extreme southern
    headland, filmy-pale in the distance, where the great range of Rimon
    Armon plunges its last wild bastion in the sea.</p>

  <p>As a lover gazing on his mistress, so gazed Lord Juss on Demonland
    rising from the sea. No word spake he till they came off
    Lookinghaven-ness and could see where beyond the beaked promontory the
    sound opened between Kartadza and the mainland. Albeit the outer sea
    was calm, the air in the sound was thick with spray from the churning
    of the waters among the reefs and swallowing shoals. For the tide ran
    like a mill-race through that sound, and the roaring of it was plain
    to hear at two miles’ distance where they sailed. Juss said, “Mindest
    thou my shepherding of the Ghoul fleet into yonder jaws? I would not
    tell thee for shame whenas the fit was on me. But this is the first day
    since the sending came upon us that I have not wished in my heart that
    the Races of Kartadza had gulped me down also and given me one ending
    with the accursed Ghouls.”</p>

  <p>Lord Brandoch Daha looked swiftly upon him and was silent.</p>

  <p>Now in a short while was the ship come into Lookinghaven and alongside
    of the marble quay. There amid his folk stood Spitfire, who greeted
    them, saying, “I made all ready to bring three of you home in triumph
    from your ship, but Volle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span> counselled against it. Glad am I that I took
    his counsel, and put by those things I had prepared. They had cut me to
    the heart to see them now.”</p>

  <p>Juss answered him, “O my brother, this noise of hammers in
    Lookinghaven, and these ten keels laid on the slips, show me ye
    have been busied on things nearer our needs than bay-leaves and the
    instruments of joy since thou camest home.”</p>

  <p>So they took horse, and while they rode they related to Spitfire all
    that had befallen since their faring to Carcë. In such wise came they
    north past the harbour, and so over Havershaw Tongue to Beckfoot where
    they took the upper path that climbs into Evendale close under the
    screes of Starksty Pike, and so came a little before noon to Galing.</p>

  <p>The black rock of Galing stands at the end of the spur that runs down
    from the south ridge of Little Drakeholm, dividing Brankdale from
    Evendale. On three sides the cliffs fall sheer from the castle walls to
    the deep woods of oak and birch and rowan tree which carpet the flats
    of Moongarth Bottom and feather the walls of the gill through which
    the Brankdale beck plunges in waterfall after waterfall. Only on the
    north-east may aught save a winged thing come at the castle, across a
    smooth grass-grown saddle less than a stone’s throw in width. Over that
    saddle runs the paven way leading from the Brankdale road to the Lion
    Gate, and within the gate is that garden of the grass walk between the
    yews where Lessingham stood with the martlet nine weeks before, when
    first he came to Demonland.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>When night fell and supper was done, Juss walked alone on the walls of
    his castle, watching the constellations burn in the moonless sky above
    the mighty shadows of the mountains, listening to the hooting of the
    owls in the woods below and the faint distant tinkle of cow-bells, and
    breathing the fragrance borne up from the garden on the night wind that
    even in high summer tasted keen of the mountains and the sea. These
    sights and scents and voices of the holy night so held him in thrall
    that it wanted but an hour of midnight when he left the battlements,
    and called the sleepy house-carles to light him to his chamber in the
    south tower of Galing.</p>

  <p>Wondrous fair was the great four-posted bed of the Lord<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span> Juss, builded
    of solid gold, and hung with curtains of dark-blue tapestry whereon
    were figured sleep-flowers. The canopy above the bed was a mosaic of
    tiny stones, jet, serpentine, dark hyacinth, black marble, bloodstone,
    and lapis lazuli, so confounded in a maze of altering hue and lustre
    that they might mock the palpitating sky of night. And therein was the
    likeness of the constellation of Orion, held by Juss for guardian of
    his fortunes, the stars whereof, like those beneath the golden canopy
    in the presence chamber, were jewels shining of their own light, yet
    with a milder radiance, as glow-worms’ sheen or dead wood glimmering in
    the dark. For Betelgeuze was a ruby shining, and a diamond for Rigel,
    and pale topazes for the other stars. The four posts of the bed were
    of the thickness of a man’s arm in their upper parts, but their lower
    parts great as his waist and carven in the image of birds and beasts:
    at the foot of the bed a lion for courage and an owl for wisdom, and
    at the head an alaunt for faithfulness of heart and a kingfisher for
    happiness. On the cornice of the bed and on the panels above the pillow
    against the wall were carved Juss’s deeds of derring-do; and the latest
    carving was of the sea-fight with the Ghouls. To the right of the bed
    stood a table with old books of songs and books of the stars and of
    herbs and beasts and travellers’ tales, and there was Juss wont to lay
    his sword beside him while he slept. All the walls were panelled with
    dark sweet-smelling wood, and armour and weapons hung thereon. Mighty
    chests and almeries hasped and bound with gold stood against the wall,
    wherein he kept his rich apparel. Windows opened to the west and south,
    and on each window-ledge stood a bowl of palest jade filled with white
    roses; and the air entering the bed-chamber was laden with their scent.</p>

  <p>About cock-crow came a dream unto Lord Juss, standing by his head and
    touching his eyes so that he seemed to wake and look about the chamber.
    And he seemed to behold an evil beast all burning as a drake, busy in
    his chamber, with many heads, the most venomous that ever he the days
    of his life had seen, and about it its five fawns, like to itself but
    smaller. It seemed to Juss that in place of his sword there lay a great
    spear of fair workmanship on the table by his bed; and it seemed to
    him in his dream that this spear had been his all his life, and was
    his greatest treasure, and that with it he might accomplish all things
    and without it scarcely aught to his mind.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span> He laboured to reach out
    his hand to the spear, but some power withheld him so that for all his
    striving he might not stir. But that beast took up the spear in its
    jaws, and went with it forth from the chamber. It seemed to Juss that
    the power that held him departed with the departing of the beast, so
    that he leaped up and snatched down weapons from the wall and made an
    onslaught on the fawns of that fell beast that were tearing down the
    woven hangings and marring with their fiery breath the figure of the
    kingfisher at the head of his bed. All the chamber was full of the reek
    of burning, and he thought his friends were with him in the chamber,
    Volle and Vizz and Zigg and Spitfire and Brandoch Daha, fighting with
    the beasts, and the beasts prevailed against them. Then it seemed to
    him that the bedpost carven in the likeness of an owl spake to him in
    his dream in human speech; and the owl said, “O fool, that shalt justly
    be put in great misery without end, except thou bring back the spear.
    Hast thou forgot that this only is thy greatest treasure and most
    worthiest thy care?”</p>

  <p>Therewith came back that grim and grisful beast into the chamber, and
    Juss assailed it, crying to the owl, “Uncivil owl, where then must I
    find my spear that this beast hath hidden?”</p>

  <p>And it seemed to him that the owl made answer, “Inquire in Koshtra
    Belorn.”</p>

  <p>So tumultuous was Lord Juss’s dream that he was flung at waking out
    of bed on to the deerskin carpets of the floor, and his right hand
    clutched the hilt of his great sword where it lay on the table by his
    bed, whereas in his dream he had beheld the spear. Mightily moved was
    he; and forthwith clothed himself, and faring through the dim corridors
    came to Spitfire’s chamber, and sat on the bed and waked him. And
    Juss told him his dream, and said, “I hold myself clean of all blame
    hereabout, for from that day forth this only hath been my care, how to
    find my dear brother and fetch him home, and only then to wreak myself
    on the Witches. And what was this spear in my dream if not Goldry? This
    vision of the night kindleth for us a beacon fire we needs must seek
    to. It bade me inquire in Koshtra Belorn, and till that be done never
    will I rest nor so much as think on aught besides.”</p>

  <p>Spitfire answered and said, “Thou beest our oldest brother, and I shall
    follow and obey thee in all that thou wilt do or shalt ordain hereof.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span></p>

  <p>Then fared Juss to the guest-chamber, where Lord Brandoch Daha lay
    a-sleeping, and waked him and told him all. Brandoch Daha snuggled him
    under the bedclothes and said, “Let me be and let me sleep yet two
    hours. Then will I rise and bathe and array myself and eat my morning
    meal, and thereafter will I take rede with thee and tell thee somewhat
    for thine advantage. I have not slept in a goose-feather bed and
    sheets of lawn these many weeks. If thou plague me now, by God, I will
    incontinently take horse over the Stile to Krothering, and let thee and
    thine affairs go to the devil.”</p>

  <p>So Juss laughed and left him in peace. And later when they had eaten
    they walked in a plashed alley, where the air was cool and the purple
    shadow on the path was dappled with bright flecks of sunshine. Lord
    Brandoch Daha said, “Thou knowest that Koshtra Belorn is a great
    mountain, beside which our mountains of Demonland would seem but little
    hills unremarked, and that it standeth in the uttermost parts of earth
    beyond the wastes of Upper Impland, and thou mightest search a year
    through all the peopled countries of the world and not find one living
    soul who had so much as beheld it from afar.”</p>

  <p>“This much I know,” said Lord Juss.</p>

  <p>“Is thine heart utterly bent on this journey?” said Brandoch Daha. “Or
    is it not preposterous, and a thing to comfort our enemies, that we
    should thus at the bidding of a dream fly to far and perilous lands,
    rather than pay Witchland presently for the shame he hath done us?”</p>

  <p>Juss answered him, “My bed is hallowed by spells of such a virtue that
    no naughty dream flown through the ivory gate nor no noisome wizardry
    hath power to trouble his sleep who sleepeth there. This dream is
    true. For Witchland there is time enow. If thou wilt not go with me to
    Koshtra Belorn, I must go without thee.”</p>

  <p>“Enough,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “Thou knowest for thee I tie my
    purse with a spider’s thread. Then fare we must to Impland, and herein
    may I help thee. For listen while I tell thee a thing. Whenas I slew
    Gorice X. in Goblinland, Gaslark gave me, along with other good gifts,
    a great curiosity: a treatise or book copied out on parchment by
    Bhorreon his secretary, wherein it speaketh of all the ways to Impland
    and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span> what countries and kingdoms lie next to the Moruna and the fronts
    thereof, and the marvels that be found in those lands. And all that is
    writ in this book was set down faithfully by Bhorreon after the telling
    of Gro, the same which now hath part with the Witchlanders. Great
    honour had Gro as then from Gaslark for his far journeyings and for
    that which is written in this book of wonders; and this it was that had
    first put it in Gaslark’s mind to send that expedition into Impland,
    which so reduced him and came so wretchedly to nought. If then thou
    wilt seek to Koshtra Belorn, come home with me to-day and I will show
    thee my book.”</p>

  <p>So spake Lord Brandoch Daha, and Lord Juss straightway ordered forth
    the horses, and sent messengers to Volle under Kartadza and to Vizz at
    Darklairstead bidding them meet him at Krothering with what speed they
    might. It was four hours before noon when Juss, Spitfire, and Brandoch
    Daha rode down from Galing and through the woods of Moongarth Bottom
    at the foot of the lake, taking the main bridle road up Breakingdale,
    that runs by the western margin of Moonmere under the buttresses of
    the Scarf. They rode slowly, for the sun was strong on their backs.
    Glassy was the lake and like a turquoise, and the birch-clad slopes
    to the east and north and the bare rugged ridges of Stathfell and
    Budrafell beyond were mirrored in its depths. On the left as they
    rode, the spurs of the Scarf impended from on high in piled bastions
    of black porphyry like giants’ castles; and little valleys choked with
    monstrous boulders, among which the silver birches crowding showed
    like tiny garden plants, ran steeply back between the spurs. Up those
    valleys appeared successively the main summits of the Scarf, savage and
    remote, frowning downward as it were between their own knees: Glaumry
    Pike, Micklescarf, and Illstack. By noon they had climbed to the
    extreme head of Breakingdale, and halted on the Stile, a little beyond
    the water-shed, under the sheer northern wall of Ill Drennock. Before
    them the pass plunged steeply into Amadardale. The lower reach of
    Switchwater shone fifteen miles or more to the west, well nigh hidden
    in the heat-haze. Nearer at hand in the north-west lay Rammerick Mere,
    bosomed among the smooth-backed Kelialand hills and the easternmost
    uplands of Shalgreth Heath, with the sea beyond; and on the valley
    floor, near the watersmeet where Transdale runs into Amadardale,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span> it
    was possible to descry the roofs of Zigg’s house at Many Bushes.</p>

  <p>When they came down thither, Zigg was out a-hunting. So they left word
    with his lady wife and drank a stirrup cup and rode on, up Switchwater
    Way, and for twelve miles and more along the southern shore of
    Switchwater. So dropped they into Gashterndale, and thence rounding the
    western slopes of Erngate End came up on to Krothering Side when the
    shadows were lengthening in the golden summer evening. The Side ran
    gently west for a league or more to where Thunderfirth lay like beaten
    gold beneath the sun. Across the Firth the pine-forests of Westmark,
    old as the world, rose toward Brocksty Edge and Gemsar Edge: a
    far-flung amphitheatre of bare cliff and scree shutting in the prospect
    to the north. High on the left towered the precipices of Erngate End;
    southward and south-eastward lay the sea. So rode they down the Side,
    through deep peaceful meadows fair with white ox-eye daisies, bluebells
    and yellow goatsbeard and sea campion, deep-blue gentians, agrimony and
    wild marjoram, and pink clover and bindweed and great yellow buttercups
    feasting on the sun. And on an eminence beyond which the land fell away
    more steeply toward the sea, the onyx towers of Krothering standing
    above woods and gardens showed milk-white against heaven and the clear
    hyaline.</p>

  <p>When they were now but half a mile from the castle Juss said, “Behold
    and see. The Lady Mevrian hath espied us from afar, and rideth forth to
    bring thee home.”</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha cantered ahead to meet her: a lady light of build and
    exceeding fair to look upon, brave of carriage like a war-horse, soft
    of feature, clear-browed, gray-eyed and proud-eyed: sweet-mouthed, but
    not as one who can speak nought but sweetness. Her robe was of pale
    buff-coloured silk, with corsage covered as by a spider’s web with fine
    golden threads; and she wore a point-lace ruffle stiffened with gold
    and silver wire and spangled with little diamonds. Her deep hair, black
    as the raven’s wing, was fastened with pins of gold, and a yellow rose
    that nestled in its coils was as the moon looking forth among thick
    clouds of night.</p>

  <p>“Doings be afoot, my lady sister,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “One King
    of Witchland have we done down since we sailed hence; and guested in
    Carcë with another, little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span> to our content. All which things I’ll tell
    thee anon. Now lieth our road south for Impland, and Krothering is but
    our caravanserai.”</p>

  <p>She turned her horse, and they rode all in company into the shadow of
    the ancient cedars that clustered to the north of the home-meads and
    pleasure gardens, stately, gaunt-limbed, flat-browed, bleak against
    the sky. On the left a lily-paven lake slept cool beneath mighty
    elms, with a black swan near the bank and her four cygnets dozing in
    a row, their heads tucked beneath their wings, so that they looked
    like balls of gray-brown froth floating on the water. The path leading
    to the bridge-gate zig-zagged steeply up the mound between low broad
    balustrades of white onyx bearing at intervals square onyx pots,
    planted some with yellow roses and some with wondrous flowers, great
    and delicate, with frail white shell-like petals. Deep, mysterious
    centres had those flowers, thick with soft hairs within, and dark
    within with velvety purple streaked with black and blood colour and
    dust of gold.</p>

  <p>The castle of Lord Brandoch Daha standing at the top of the mound was
    circled by a ditch both broad and deep. The gate before the drawbridge
    was of iron gilded and richly wrought. The towers and gate-house
    were of white onyx like the castle itself, and on either hand before
    the gate was a colossal marble hippogriff, standing more than thirty
    feet high at the withers; and the wings and hooves and talons of the
    hippogriffs and their manes and forelocks were overlaid with gold, and
    their eyes carbuncles of purest lustre. Over the gate was written in
    letters of gold:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Ye braggers an’ a’,</div>
        <div class="i0">Be skeered and awa’</div>
        <div class="i0">Frae Brandoch Daha.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>But to tell even a tenth part of the marvels rich and beautiful that
    were in the house of Krothering: its cool courts and colonnades rich
    with gems and fragrant with costly spices and strange blooms: its
    bed-chambers where, caught like Aphrodite in her golden net, the
    spirit of sleep seemed ever to shake slumber from its plumes, and none
    might be waking long in those chambers but sweet sleep overcame their
    eyelids: the Chamber of the Sun and the Chamber of the Moon, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span>
    great middle hall with its high gallery and ivory stair: to tell of
    all these were but to cloy imagination with picturing in one while of
    over-much glory and splendour.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Nought befell that night save the coming of Zigg before sun-down, and
    of those brethren Volle and Vizz in the night, having ridden hard in
    obedience to the word of Juss. In the morning when they had eaten their
    day-meal the lords of Demonland went down into the pleasaunces, and
    with them the Lady Mevrian. And in an alley that was roofed with beams
    of cedar resting on marble pillars, the beams and pillars smothered
    with dark-red roses, they sat looking eastward across a sunk garden.
    The weather was sweet and gracious, and thick dew lay on the pale
    terraced lawns that led down among flower beds to the fish-pond in the
    midst. The water made a cool mirror whereon floated yellow and crimson
    water-lilies opening to the sky. All the greens and flower-colours
    glowed warm and clean, but soft withal and shadowy, veiled in the gray
    haze of the summer morning.</p>

  <p>They sat here and there as they listed on chairs and benches, near a
    huge tank or vase of dark green jade where sulphur-coloured lilies grew
    in languorous beauty, their back-curled petals showing the scarlet
    anthers; and all the air was heavy with their sweetness. The great jade
    vase was round and flat like the body of a tortoise, open at the top
    where the lilies grew. It was carved with scales, as it were the body
    of a dragon, and a dragon’s head a-gaping reared itself at one end, and
    at the other the tail curved up and over like the handle of a basket,
    and the tail had little fore and hind feet with claws, and a smaller
    head at the end of the tail gaped downwards biting at the large head.
    Four legs supported the body, and each leg was a small dragon standing
    on its hind feet, its head growing into the parent body as the thigh or
    shoulder joint should join the trunk. In the curve of the creature’s
    neck, his back propped against its head, sat the Lord Brandoch Daha in
    graceful ease, one foot touching the ground, the other swinging free;
    and in his hands was the book, bound in dark puce-coloured goatskin and
    gold, given him by Gaslark in years gone by. Zigg watched him idly turn
    the pages while the others talked. Leaning toward Mevrian he whispered
    in her ear, “Is not he able and shapen for to subdue and put under him
    all the world: thy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span> brother? A man of blood and peril, and yet so fair
    to behold that it is a marvel?”</p>

  <p>Her eyes danced. She said, “It is pure truth, my lord.”</p>

  <p>Now spake Spitfire saying, “Read forth to us, I pray thee, the book of
    Gro; for my soul is afire to set forth on this faring.”</p>

  <p>“’Tis writ somewhat crabbedly,” said Brandoch Daha, “and most damnably
    long. I spent half last night a-searching on’t, and ’tis most apparent
    no other way lieth to these mountains save by the Moruna, and across
    the Moruna is (if Gro say true) but one way, and that from the Gulf of
    Muelva: ‘a xx dayes journeye from northe by south-est.’ For here he
    telleth of watersprings by the way, but he saith in other parts of the
    desert be no watersprings, save only springs venomous, where ‘The water
    riketh like a sething potte continually, having sumwhat a sulphureous
    and sumwhat onpleasant savor,’ and, ‘The grownd nurysheth here no
    plante nor herbe except yt bee venomous champinions or tode stooles.’”</p>

  <p>“If he say true?” said Spitfire. “He is a turncoat and a renegado.
    Wherefore not therefore a liar?”</p>

  <p>“But a philosopher,” answered Juss. “I knew him well of old in
    Goblinland, and I judge him to be one who is not false save only in
    policy. Subtle of mind he is, and dearly loveth plotting and scheming,
    and, as I think, perversely affecteth ever the losing side if he be
    brought into any quarrel; and this hath dragged him oft-times to
    misfortune. But in this book of his travels he must needs speak truth,
    as it seemeth to me, to be true to his own self.”</p>

  <p>The Lady Mevrian looked approvingly on Lord Juss and her eye twinkled.
    For well it liked her humour to hear men’s natures so divined.</p>

  <p>“O Juss, friend of my heart,” said Lord Brandoch Daha, “thy words
    proceed, as ever they did, from the true fount of wisdom, and I
    embrace them and thee. This book is a guide which we shall follow not
    helter-skelter but as old men of war. If then the right road to Morna
    Moruna lie from the Gulf of Muelva, were we not best sail straight
    thitherward and lay up our ships in that Gulf where the coast and the
    country side be without habitation, rather than fare to some nearer
    haven of Outer Impland such as Arlan Mouth whither thou and Spitfire
    fared six summers ago?”</p>

  <p>“Not Arlan Mouth, o’ this journey,” said Juss. “Some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span> sport perchance
    we might obtain there had we leisure for fighting with the accursed
    inhabitants, but every day’s delay we now do make holdeth my brother
    another day in bondage. The princes and Fazes of the Imps have many
    strong walled towns and towers in all those coastlands, and hard by in
    a mediamnis of the river Arlan, in Orpish, is the great castle of Fax
    Fay Faz, whereto Goldry and I drave him home from Lida Nanguna.”</p>

  <p>“’Tis an ill coast too, to find a landing,” said Brandoch Daha, turning
    the leaves of the book. “As he saith, ‘Ymplande the More beginnith at
    the west syde of the mowth of Arlan and occupiethe all the lond unto
    the hedeland Sibrion, and therefro sowth awaye to the Corshe, by gesse
    a vij hundered myles, wherby the se is not ther of nature favorable nor
    no haven is or cumming yn meete for shippes.’”</p>

  <p>So after some talk and searching of that book of Gro they determined
    this should be their plan: to fare to Impland by way of the Straits
    of Melikaphkhaz and the Didornian Sea, and so lay up their ships in
    the Gulf of Muelva, and landing there start straightway across the
    wilderness to Morna Moruna, even as Gro had described the way.</p>

  <p>“Ere we leave it,” said Brandoch Daha, “hear what he speaketh
    concerning Koshtra Belorn. This he beheld from Morna Moruna, whereof
    he saith: ‘The contery is hylly, sandy, and baren of wood and corne,
    as forest ful of lynge, mores, and mosses, with stony hilles. Here
    is a mighty stronge and usid borow for flying serpens in sum baren,
    hethy, and sandy grownd, and thereby the litle round castel of Morna
    Moruna stondith on Omprenne Edge, as on the limit of the worlde, sore
    wether beten and yn ruine. This castelle was brent in tyme of warre,
    spoyled and razyd by Kynge Goriyse the fourt of Wytchlande in auncient
    dayes. And they say there was blamelesse folke dwellid therein and
    ryghte gentle, nor was ther any need for Goriyse to have usid them so
    cruellie, when hee cawsyd the hole howsholde there to appere before
    hym and then slawe sum owt of hande, and the residew he throughe all
    downe the steep cliffe. And but few supervivid after the gret falle,
    and these fled awaye thorough the untrodden forests of Bavvynaune and
    withoute question perysht ther yn great sorwe and miserie. Sum fable
    that it was for thys cruel facte sake that King Goriyse was eat by
    divels on the Moruna with al hys hoste, one man<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span> onely cumming home
    again to tell of these thynges bifallen.’ Now mark: ‘From Morna Moruna
    I behelde sowthawaye two grete mowntaynes standing over Bavvinane as
    two Queenes in bewty seted in the skye by estimacion xx legues fro
    hence above meny more ise robed mowntaines supereminente. The wyche as
    I lernyd was Coschtre Belourne the one and the othere Koshtre Pivrarca.
    And I veuyed them continuallie unto the going downe of the sun, and
    that was the fayrest sighte and the most bewtifullest and gallant
    marvaille that mine eyen hath sene. Therewith talkid I with the smaule
    thynges that dwell there in the ruines and in the busschis growing
    round abowte as it ys my wonte, and amongst them one of those byrdes
    cawld martlettes that have feete so litle that they seime to have none.
    And thys litle martlette sittynge in a frambousier or raspis busche
    tolde mee that none may come alive unto Coschtra Beloorn, for the
    mantycores of the mowntaines will certeynely ete his brains ere he come
    thither. And were he so fortunate as scape these mantycores, yet cowlde
    hee never climbe up the gret cragges of yce and rocke on Koschtre
    Beloorn, for none is so stronge as to scale them but by art magicall,
    and such is the vertue of that mowntayne that no magick avayleth there,
    but onlie strength and wisdome alone, and as I seye these woulde not
    avayl to climbe those cliffes and yce ryvers.’”</p>

  <p>“What be these mantichores of the mountains that eat men’s brains?”
    asked the Lady Mevrian.</p>

  <p>“This book is so excellent well writ,” said her brother, “that thine
    answer appeareth on this same page: ‘The beeste Mantichora, whych is
    as muche as to saye devorer of menne, rennith as I herde tell, on the
    skirt of the mowntaynes below the snow feldes. These be monstrous
    bestes, ghastlie and ful of horrour, enemies to mankinde, of a red
    coloure, with ij rowes of huge grete tethe in their mouthes. It hath
    the head of a man, his eyen like a ghoot, and the bodie of a lyon
    lancing owt sharpe prickles fro behinde. And hys tayl is the tail of a
    scorpioun. And is more delyverer to goo than is fowle to flee. And hys
    voys is as the roaryng of x lyons.’”</p>

  <p>“These beasts,” said Spitfire, “were alone enough to draw me thither. I
    shall bring thee home a small one, madam, to keep chained in the court.”</p>

  <p>“That should dash me from thy friendship for ever, cousin,” said
    Mevrian, stroking the feathery ears of her little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span> marmoset that
    cuddled in her lap. “That which feedeth on brains were overnourished in
    Demonland, and belike would overrun the whole country-side.”</p>

  <p>“Send it to Witchland,” said Zigg. “Where when it hath eat up Gro and
    Corund it may sup lightly on the King, and then most fortunately starve
    for lack of its proper nutriment.”</p>

  <p>Juss stood up from his seat. “Thou and I and Spitfire,” said he to
    Brandoch Daha, “must to work roundly and gather strength, for ’tis
    already midsummer. You, Vizz, Volle, and Zigg, must have the warding of
    our homes whiles we be gone. We cannot be less than two thousand swords
    on this faring.”</p>

  <p>“How many ships, Volle,” asked Lord Brandoch Daha, “canst thou give us,
    busked and boun, ere this moon wane?”</p>

  <p>“There be fourteen afloat,” said Volle. “Besides these, ten keels lie
    on the slips at Lookinghaven, and nine more hath Spitfire but now laid
    down on the beach before his house at Owlswick.”</p>

  <p>“Thirty and three in sum,” said Spitfire. “You see we have not twiddled
    our thumbs whilst ye were gone.”</p>

  <p>Juss paced back and forth with great strides, his brow clouded and
    his jaw clenched. In a while he said, “Laxus hath forty sail, dragons
    of war. I am not so idle-headed as fare without an army into Impland,
    but certain it is that if our ill-willers would move war against us we
    stand in apparent weakness, here or abroad, to throw back their onset.”</p>

  <p>Volle said, “Of these nineteen ships a-building no more than two can
    take the water before a month be past, and but seven more ere six
    months’ time, push we never so mightily the work.”</p>

  <p>“The season weareth, and my brother wasteth in duress. We must sail ere
    another moon grow old,” said Juss.</p>

  <p>Volle said, “Then with sixteen sail thou sailest, O Juss; and then thou
    leavest us not one ship at home till more be finished and launched.”</p>

  <p>“How can we leave you so?” cried Spitfire.</p>

  <p>But Brandoch Daha looked towards his lady sister, met her glance, and
    was satisfied. “The choice lieth fair before us,” said he. “If we will
    eat the egg, little need to debate whether the shell must go.”</p>

  <p>Mevrian rose from her seat laughing, and said, “Then let<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span> the council
    rise, my lords.” And her eyes grew serious, and she said, “Shall they
    make rhymes upon us that we of Demonland, whom men repute and hold
    the mightiest lords in all the world, hung sheepishly back from this
    high needful enterprise lest, our greatest captains being abroad, our
    enemies might haply take us at home at disadvantage? It shall not be
    said of the women of Demonland that they upheld such counsels.”</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_pegasus.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="SALAPANTA_HILLS">IX: SALAPANTA HILLS</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE LANDING OF LORD JUSS AND HIS COMPANIONS IN OUTER IMPLAND AND
    THEIR MEETING WITH ZELDORNIUS, HELTERANIUS, AND JALCANAIUS FOSTUS;
    AND OF THE TIDINGS TOLD BY MIVARSH, AND THE DEALINGS OF THE THREE
    GREAT CAPTAINS ON THE HILLS OF SALAPANTA.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">ON the thirty and first day after that council held in Krothering, the
    fleet of Demonland put to sea from Lookinghaven: eleven dragons of war
    and two great ships of burthen, bound for the uttermost seas of earth
    in quest of the Lord Goldry Bluszco. Eighteen hundred Demons fared
    on that expedition, and not a man among them that was not a complete
    soldier. For five days they rowed southaway on a windless sea, and on
    the sixth the sea-cliffs of Goblinland came out of the haze on their
    starboard bow. They rowed south along the land, and on the tenth day
    out from Lookinghaven passed under the Ness of Ozam, journeying thence
    four days with a favouring wind over the open seas to Sibrion. But now,
    when they had rounded that dark promontory and were about steering east
    along the coast of Impland the More, and less than ten days’ journey
    lay betwixt them and their haven in Muelva, a dismal tempest suddenly
    surprised them. For forty days it swept them in hail and sleet over
    wide-wallowing ocean, without a star, without a course; till, on a
    fierce midnight of wind and darkness and roaring waters was Juss’s
    and Spitfire’s ship and other four in her company driven on the rocks
    on a lee shore and broken in pieces. Hardly, and after long battling
    among great waves, those brethren won ashore, weary and hurt. In the
    inhospitable light of a wet and windy dawn they mustered on the beach
    such of their folk as had escaped out of the mouth of destruction; and
    they were three hundred and thirty and three.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span></p>

  <p>Spitfire, beholding these things, spake and said, “This land hath a
    villanous look stirreth my remembrance, as but to behold verjuice
    soureth the mouth of him who once tasted thereof. Rememberest thou this
    land?”</p>

  <p>Juss scanned the low long coast-line that swept north and west to an
    estuary, and beyond ran westwards till it was lost in the scud and
    driving spray. Desolate birds flew above the welter of the surges. He
    said, “Certainly this is Arlan Mouth, where least of all I had choosed
    to come a-land with so small a head of men. Yet shalt thou prove here,
    as it hath ever been, how all occasions are but steps for us to climb
    fame by.”</p>

  <p>“Our ships lost,” cried Spitfire, “and the more part of our men, and
    worst of all, Brandoch Daha that is worth ten thousand. Easilier shall
    a little ant bib this ocean dry, than shall we in this taking perform
    our enterprise.” And he cursed and blasphemed, saying, “Cursed be the
    malice of the sea, which, having broke our power, now speweth us ashore
    here to our mere undoing; and so hath done great succour to the King of
    Witchland, and unto all the world beside great damage.”</p>

  <p>But Juss answered him, “Think not that these contrary winds come of
    fortune or by the influence of malignant and combustive stars. This
    weather bloweth out of Carcë. Even as these very waves thou beholdest
    have each his back-wash or undertow, so followeth after every sending
    an undertow of evil hap, whereby, albeit in essence a less deadly
    thing, many have been drowned and washed away who stood unremoved
    against the main stroke of the breaker. So were we twice since that day
    brought near to our bane: first, when our judgement being darkened with
    a strange distraction we went up with Gaslark against Carcë; next, when
    this storm wrecked us here by Arlan Mouth. Though by mine art I rebated
    the King’s sending, yet against the maleficial undertow that followed
    it my charms avail not, nor the virtues of all sorcerous herbs that
    grow.”</p>

  <p>“Are these things so, and wilt thou yet be temperate?” said Spitfire.</p>

  <p>“Content thee,” said Juss. “The sands run down. A certain time only
    runneth this stream for our hurt; it must now have well nigh spent
    itself, and it were too perilous for him to conjure a second time, as
    last May he conjured in Carcë.”</p>

  <p>“Who told thee that?” asked Spitfire.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span></p>

  <p>“I do but conjecture it,” answered he, “from my studying of certain
    prophetic writings touching the princes of that blood and line. Whereby
    it appeareth (yet not clearly, but riddlewise) that if one and the same
    King, essaying a second time in his own person an enterprise in that
    kind, should fail, and the powers of darkness destroy him, then is not
    his life spilt alone (as it fortuned aforetime unto Gorice VII. at his
    first attempt), but there shall be an end for ever of the whole house
    of Gorice which hath for so many generations reigned in Carcë.”</p>

  <p>“Well,” said Spitfire, “so stand we to our chance. Old muckhills will
    bloom at last.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now for nineteen days fared those brethren and their company eastward
    through Outer Impland: first across a country of winding sleepy rivers
    and reedy lakes innumerable, then by rolling uplands and champaign
    ground. At length, on an even, they came upon a heath running up
    eastward to a range of tumbled hills. The hills were not lofty nor
    steep, but rugged of outline and their surface rough with crags and
    boulders, so that it was a maze of little eminences and valleys grown
    upon by heather and fern and rank sad-coloured grass, with stunted
    thorn trees and junipers harbouring in the clefts of the rocks. On the
    water-shed, as on an horse’s withers, looking west to the red October
    sunset and south to the far line of the Didornian Sea, they came upon a
    spy-fortalice, old and desolate, and one sitting in the gate. For very
    joy their hearts melted within them, when they knew him for none other
    than Brandoch Daha.</p>

  <p>So they embraced him as one beyond hope risen from the grave. And he
    said, “Through the Straits of Melikaphkhaz was I borne, and wrecked at
    last on the lonely shore ten leagues southward from this spot, whither
    I won alone, having lost my ship and all my dear companions. In my
    mind it was that ye must fare by this road to Muelva if ye suffered
    shipwreck in the outer coasts of Impland.</p>

  <p>“Harken,” he said, “and I will tell you a wonder. A seven-night have
    I awaited you in this roosting-stead of daws and owls. And it is a
    caravanserai of great armies that pass by in the wilderness, and
    having parleyed with two I await the third. For well I think that
    here I have made discovery of a great mystery, one that hath engaged
    the speculations of wise<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span> men for years. For on that day of my coming
    hither, when sunset was red, as now you see it, behold an army marching
    up from the east with great flags a-flaunting in the wind and all kinds
    of music. Which I beholding, methought if these be enemies, then goeth
    down my life’s days with honour, and if friends, then cometh provender
    from those waggons of burthen that follow this army. A weighty
    argument; since not so much as the smell of victuals had I, save nasty
    nuts and berries of the open field, since I came forth of the sea.
    So went I, taking my weapons, on the walls of this spy-fortalice and
    hailed them, bidding them say forth their quality. And he that was
    their captain rode up under the walls, and hailed me with all courtesy
    and noble port. And who think ye ’twas?”</p>

  <p>They answered nought.</p>

  <p>“One that hath been famous,” said he, “up and down the earth for a
    marvellous valorous and brave soldier of fortune. Have ye forgot that
    enterprise of Gaslark that had its burying in Impland?”</p>

  <p>“Was he little and dark,” asked Juss, “like a keen dagger suddenly
    unsheathed at midnight? Or bright with the splendour of a pennoned
    spear at a jousting on high holiday? Or was he dangerous of aspect like
    an old sword, rusty in the midst but bright at point and edge, brought
    forth for deeds of destiny at the fated day?”</p>

  <p>“Thine arrow striketh in the triple ring o’ the mark,” said Lord
    Brandoch Daha. “Great of growth he was, and a very peacock of splendour
    in his panoply of war; and a great pitch-black stallion bare him. So I
    spake him fair, saying, ‘O most magnificent and godlike Helteranius,
    conqueror in an hundred fights, what makest thou these long years in
    Outer Impland with this great head of men? And what dark lodestone
    draws you these nine years, since with great sound of trumpets and
    tramp of horses thou and Zeldornius and Jalcanaius Fostus went forth
    to make Impland Gaslark’s footstool; since which time all the world
    believeth you lost and dead?’ And he beheld me with alien eyes, and
    made answer, ‘O Brandoch Daha, the world journeyeth to its silly will,
    but I fare alway with my purpose before me. Be it nine years, or but
    nine moons, or nine ages, what care I? Zeldornius would I encounter
    and engage him in battle, that still fleeth before my face. Eat and
    drink with me to-night; but think not to detain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span> me nor to turn me to
    idle thoughts beside my purpose. For with the dawning of the day I must
    forth again in quest of Zeldornius.’</p>

  <p>“So I ate and drank and was merry that night with Helteranius in his
    pavilion of silk and gold. And with the dawn he marshalled his army and
    marched westward toward the plains.</p>

  <p>“And on the third day, as I sat without this wall, cursing your slow
    coming, behold an army marching from the east and one leading them
    mounted on a small dun horse; and he was clad in black armour shining
    like the raven’s wing, with black eagle’s plumes in his helm, and eyes
    like the eyes of a cat-a-mountain, full of sparkling flame. Little was
    he, and fierce of face, and lithe, and hard to look on and tireless to
    look on like a stoat. And I hailed him from where I sat, saying, ‘O
    most notable and puissant Jalcanaius Fostus, shatterer of the hosts of
    men, whitherward over the lonely heaths forlorn, thou and thy great
    armament?’ And he lighted down from his horse, and took me by the arms
    with both his hands, and said, ‘If a man dream, to speak with dead
    men betokens profit. And art not thou of the dead, O Brandoch Daha?
    For in forgotten days, that now spring up in my mind as flowers in a
    weed-choked garden after many years, so bloomest thou in my memory:
    great among the great ones of the world that was, thou and thine house
    in Krothering above the sea-lochs in many-mountained Demonland. But
    oblivion, like a sounding sea, soundeth betwixt me and those days;
    and the noise of the surf stoppeth mine ears, and the mist of the sea
    darkeneth mine eyes that strain for a sight of those far times and the
    deeds thereof. Yet for those dead days’ sake, eat with me and drink
    with me to-night, since here for a night once more I pitch my moving
    tent on Salapanta Hills. And to-morrow I fare onward. For never may
    rest bring balm to my soul until I find out Helteranius and smite his
    head from his shoulders. Great shame to him but little marvel is it,
    that he still courseth before me as an hare. For traitors were ever
    dastards. And who ever heard tell of a more hellish devilish damned
    traitor than he? Nine years ago, when Zeldornius and I made ready to
    decide our quarrels by battle, word came to me in a lucky hour how
    that this Helteranius with cunning colubrine and malice viperine and
    sleights serpentine went about to attack me in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span> the rear. So turned I
    right about to crush him, but the fat chuff-cat was fled.’</p>

  <p>“So spake Jalcanaius Fostus; and I ate and drank with him that night,
    and caroused with him in his tent. And at break of day he struck camp
    and rode westaway with his army.”</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha ceased, and looked eastward toward the gates of night.
    And lo, an army faring up from the lower moor-lands, toward them on
    the ridge, horsemen and footmen in dense array, and their captain on a
    great brown horse riding in the van. Long-limbed he was and lean, all
    armed in dusty rusty armour hacked and dinted in an hundred fights,
    with worn leather gauntlets on his hands and a faded campaigning
    cloak thrown back from his shoulders. He carried his casque at his
    saddle-bow and his head was bare: the head of an old lean hunting-dog,
    with white hair swept back from a rugged brow where blue veins showed;
    great-nosed and bony-faced, with huge bushy white moustachios and
    eyebrows, and blue eyes gleaming from cavernous eye-sockets. His horse
    was curst-looking, with ears laid back and blood-shed dangerous eyes,
    and he in the saddle sat erect and unyielding as a lance.</p>

  <p>When he and his army came up upon the ridge, he drew rein and hailed
    the Demons. And he said, “On every ninth day these nine years have I
    beheld this lonely place of earth, as I pursued after Jalcanaius Fostus
    that still eludeth me and still fleeth before me; and this is strange,
    since he was ever a great fighter and engaged these nine years past
    to do battle with me. And now fear cometh upon me that eld draweth a
    veil of illusion athwart mine eyes, portending the approach of death
    or ever I perform my will. For here in the uncertain light of evening
    rise up before me shapes and semblances as of guests of Gaslark the
    king in Zajë Zaculo in days gone by: old friends of Gaslark’s out
    of many-mountained Demonland: Brandoch Daha, that slew the King of
    Witchland, and Spitfire of Owlswick, and Juss his brother, the same
    which had lordship over all the Demons ere we fared to Impland. Ghosts
    and back-comers of a world forgot. But if ye be right flesh and blood,
    speak and discover yourselves.”</p>

  <p>Juss answered him, “O most redoubtable Zeldornius and in war
    invincible, well might a man expect spirits of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span> the dead on these quiet
    hills about cockshut time. And if thou deem us such, how much more
    shall we, that be wanderers new-shipwrecked out of hungry seas, suppose
    thee but a shade, and these great hosts of thine but fetches of the
    dead that be departed, steaming up from Erebus as daylight dies?”</p>

  <p>“O most renowned and redoubtable Zeldornius,” said Brandoch Daha, “thou
    wast once my guest in Krothering. To resolve thy doubts and ours, bid
    us to supper. It were matter indeed if spirits bodiless were able to
    bib wine and eat up earthly bake-meats.”</p>

  <p>So Zeldornius let pitch his tents, and appointed the fifth hour before
    midnight for those lords of Demonland to sup with him. Ere they
    forgathered in Zeldornius’s tent they spake among themselves, and
    Spitfire said, “Was ever such a wonder or such a pitiful trick o’ the
    Fates as bringeth these three great captains to waste the remnant of
    their days in this remote wilderness? Doubt not but there’s practice in
    it, that maketh them march these long years this changeless round, each
    fleeing one that would fain encounter him, and still seeking another
    that flies before him.”</p>

  <p>“Never went man with that look of the eyes Zeldornius hath,” said Juss,
    “but he was a man ensorcelled.”</p>

  <p>“With such a look,” said Brandoch Daha, “went Helteranius and
    Jalcanaius. But mark our interest. ’Twere good to break the charm and
    claim their help for our pains. Shall’s show the old lion all the truth
    of this fact to-night?”</p>

  <p>So spake Lord Brandoch Daha, and those brethren deemed his counsel
    good. So at supper, when men’s hearts were gladdened with good cheer,
    the Lord Juss sate him down by Zeldornius and opened to him this
    matter, saying, “O renowned Zeldornius, how befalleth it that these
    nine years thou pursuest after Jalcanaius Fostus, shatterer of hosts,
    and what was your difference betwixt you that set you by the ears?”</p>

  <p>Zeldornius said, “O Juss, must I answer thee by reasons in this matter
    that is ruled by the high stars and Fate that lays men at their length?
    Enough for thee that unpeace befell betwixt me and Jalcanaius mighty
    in war, and it was confirmed between us that by the arbitrament of the
    bloody field we should end our difference. But he abode me not; and
    these nine years I seek to meet with him in vain.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span></p>

  <p>“There was a third of you,” said Juss. “What tidings hast thou of
    Helteranius?”</p>

  <p>Zeldornius answered him, “No tidings.”</p>

  <p>“Wilt thou,” said Juss, “that I enlighten thee hereon?”</p>

  <p>Zeldornius said, “Thou and thy fellows alone of the children of men
    have spoken with me since these things began. For they that dwelt in
    this region fled years ago, accounting the place accursed. A paltry
    crew they were, and mean meat enow for our swords. Speak then, if thou
    meanest me well, and show me all.”</p>

  <p>“Helteranius,” said Lord Juss, “pursueth thee these nine years, as
    thou pursuest Jalcanaius Fostus. My cousin here hath seen him but six
    days ago, in this same place, and talked with him, and shook him by
    the hand, and knew his mind. Surely ye be all three holden by some
    enchantment, that being old comrades in arms so strangely and to so
    little purpose do pursue each the other’s life. I prithee let us be
    a mean betwixt you all to set you at one again, and free you from so
    strange a thraldom.”</p>

  <p>But with those words spoken was Zeldornius grown red as blood. In a
    while he said, “It were black treachery. I’ll not credit it.”</p>

  <p>But Lord Brandoch Daha answered him, “From his own lips I received
    it, O Zeldornius. And thereto I plight my troth. This besides, that
    Jalcanaius Fostus was turned from battling with thee nine years ago (as
    he himself hath told me, and made firm his saying with most fearful
    oaths), by intelligence brought him that Helteranius was in that hour
    minded to take him in the rear.”</p>

  <p>“Ay,” said Spitfire, “and unto this day he marcheth on Helteranius’s
    track as thou on his.”</p>

  <p>With those words spoken was Zeldornius grown yellow as old parchment,
    and his white moustachios bristled like a lion’s. He sat silent awhile,
    then, resting upon Juss the cold and steady gaze of his blue eyes, “The
    world comes back to me,” he said, “and this memory therewith, that they
    of Demonland were truth-tellers whether to friend or foe, and ever
    held it shame to cog and lie.” All they bowed gravely and he said with
    a great lowe of anger in his eyes, “This Helteranius deviseth against
    me, it well appeareth, the self-same treachery whereof he was falsely
    accused to Jalcanaius Fostus. There were no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span> likelier place to crush
    him than here on Salapanta ridge. If I stand here to abide his onset,
    the lie of the ground befriendeth me, and Jalcanaius cometh at his
    heels to gather the broken meats after I have made my feast.”</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha said in Juss’s ear, “Our peacemaking taketh a pretty
    turn. Heels i’ the air: monstrous unladylike!”</p>

  <p>But nought they could say would move Zeldornius. So in the end they
    offered him their backing in this adventure. “And when the day is won,
    then shalt thou lend us thy might in our enterprise, and aid us in our
    wars with Witchland that be for to come.”</p>

  <p>But Zeldornius said, “O Juss and ye lords of Demonland, I yield you
    thanks; but ye shall not meddle in this battle. For we came three
    captains with our hosts unto this land, and beheld the land, and laid
    it under us. Ours it is, and if any meddle or make with us, were we
    never so set at enmity one with another, we must join together in
    his despite and bring him to bane. Be still then, and behold and
    see what birth fate shall bring forth on Salapanta Hills. But if I
    live, thereafter shall ye have my friendship and my help in all your
    enterprises whatsoever.”</p>

  <p>For awhile he sat without speech, his stark veined hands clenched on
    the board before him; then rising, went without word to the door of
    his pavilion to study the night. Then turned he back to Lord Juss, and
    spake to him: “Know that when this moon now past was but three days
    old I began to be troubled with a catarrh or rheum which yet troubleth
    me; and well thou wottest that whoso falleth sick on the third day
    of the moon’s age, he will die. To-night also is a new moon, and of
    a Saturday; and that betokeneth fighting and bloodshed. Also the
    wind bloweth from the south; and he that beginneth that game with a
    south wind shall have the victory. With such uncertain blackness and
    brightness openeth the door of Fate before me.”</p>

  <p>Juss bowed his head, and said, “O Zeldornius, thy speech is sooth.”</p>

  <p>“I was ever a fighter,” said Zeldornius.</p>

  <p>Far into the night sat they in the tent of renowned Zeldornius,
    drinking and talking of life and destiny and old wars and the chances
    of war and great adventure; and an hour after midnight they parted, and
    Juss and Spitfire and Brandoch Daha<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span> betook them to their rest in the
    watch-tower on the ridge of Salapanta.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>On such wise passed three days by, Zeldornius waiting with his army on
    the hill, and the Demons supping with him nightly. And on the third
    day he drew out his army as for battle, expecting Helteranius. But
    neither that day nor the next nor the next day following brought sight
    nor tidings of Helteranius, and strange it seemed to them and hard to
    guess what turn of fortune had delayed his coming. The sixth night was
    overcast, and mirk darkness covered the earth. When supper was done,
    as the Demons betook themselves to their sleeping place, they heard
    a scuffle and the voice of Brandoch Daha, who went foremost of them,
    crying, “Here have I caught a heath-dog’s whelp. Give me a light. What
    shall I do with him?”</p>

  <p>Men were roused and lights brought, and Brandoch Daha surveyed that
    which he held pinioned by the arms, caught by the entrance to the
    fortalice: one with scared wild-beast eyes in a swart face, golden
    ear-rings in his ears, and a thick close-cropped beard interlaced
    with gold wire twisted among its curls; bare-armed, with a tunic of
    otter-skin and wide hairy trousers cross-stitched with silver thread,
    a circlet of gold on his head, and frizzed dark hair plaited in two
    thick tails that hung forward over his shoulders. His lips were drawn
    back, like a cross-grained dog’s snarling betwixt fear and fierceness,
    and his white pointed teeth and the whites of his eyes flashed in the
    torch-light.</p>

  <p>So they had him with them into the tower, and set him before them, and
    Juss said, “Fear not, but tell forth unto us thy name and lineage, and
    what brings thee lurking in the night about our lodging. We mean thee
    no hurt, so thou practise not against us and our safety. Art thou a
    dweller in this Impland, or a wanderer, like as we be, from countries
    beyond the seas? hast thou companions, and if so, where be they, and
    what, and how many?”</p>

  <p>And the stranger gnashed upon them with his teeth, and said, “O devils
    transmarine, mock not but slay.”</p>

  <p>Juss entreated him kindly, giving him meat and drink, and in a while
    made question of him once more, “What is thy name?”</p>

  <p>Whereto he replied, “O devil transmarine, pity of thine<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span> ignorance sith
    thou know’st not Mivarsh Faz.” And he fell into a great passion of
    weeping, crying aloud, “Woe worth the woe that is fallen upon all the
    land of Impland!”</p>

  <p>“What’s the matter?” said Juss.</p>

  <p>But Mivarsh ceased not to wail and to lament, saying, “Out harrow and
    alas for Fax Fay Faz and Illarosh Faz and Lurmesh Faz and Gandassa
    Faz and all the great ones in the land!” And when they would have
    questioned him he cried again, “Curse ye bitterly Philpritz Faz, which
    betrayed us into the hand of the devil ultramontane in the castle of
    Orpish.”</p>

  <p>“What devil is this thou speakest of?” asked Juss.</p>

  <p>“He hath come,” he answered, “over the mountains out of the north
    country, that alone was able to answer Fax Fay Faz. And the voice of
    his speech is like unto the roaring of a bull.”</p>

  <p>“Out of the north?” said Juss, giving him more wine, and exchanging
    glances with Spitfire and Brandoch Daha. “I would hear more of this.”</p>

  <p>Mivarsh drank, and said, “O devils transmarine, ye give me strong
    waters which comfort my soul, and ye speak me soft words. But shall I
    not fear soft words? Soft words were spoke by this devil ultramontane,
    when he and cursed Philpritz spake soft words unto us in Orpish: unto
    me, and unto Fax Fay Faz, and Gandassa, and Illarosh, and unto all of
    us, after our overthrow in battle against him by the banks of Arlan.”</p>

  <p>Juss asked, “Of what fashion is he to look on?”</p>

  <p>“He hath a great yellow beard beflecked with gray,” said Mivarsh, “and
    a bald shiny pate, and standeth big as a neat.”</p>

  <p>Juss spake apart to Brandoch Daha, “There’s matter in it if this be
    true.” And Brandoch Daha poured forth unto Mivarsh and bade him drink
    again, saying, “O Mivarsh Faz, we be strangers and guests in wide-flung
    Impland. Be it known to thee that our power is beyond ken, and our
    wealth transcendeth the imagination of man. Yet is our benevolence of
    like measure with our power and riches, overflowing as honey from our
    hearts unto such as receive us openly and tell us that which is. Only
    be warned, that if any lie to us or assay craftily to delude us, not
    the mantichores that lodge beyond the Moruna were more dreadful to that
    man than we.”</p>

  <p>Mivarsh quailed, but answered him, “Use me well, you were best, and you
    shall hear from me nought but what is true.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span> First with the sword he
    vanquished us, and then with subtle words invited us to talk with him
    in Orpish, pretending friendship. But they are all dead that harkened
    to him. For when he held them closed up in the council room in Orpish,
    himself went secretly forth, while his men laid hands on Gandassa Faz
    and on Illarosh Faz, and on Fax Fay Faz that was greatest amongst us,
    and on Lurmesh Faz, and cut off their heads and set them up on poles
    without the gate. And our armies that waited without were dismayed
    to see the heads of the Fazes of Impland so set on poles, and the
    armies of the devils ultramontane still threatening us with death. And
    this big bald bearded devil spake them of Impland fair, saying these
    that he had slain were their oppressors and he would give them their
    hearts’ desire if they would be his men, and he would make them free,
    every man, and share out all Impland amongst them. So were the common
    sort befooled and brought under by this bald devil from beyond the
    mountains, and now none withstandeth him in all Impland. But I that
    had held back from his council in Orpish, fearing his guile, hardly
    escaped from my folk that rose against me. And I fled into the woods
    and wildernesses.”</p>

  <p>“Where last saw ye him?” asked Juss.</p>

  <p>Mivarsh answered him, “A three days’ journey north-west of this, at
    Tormerish in Achery.”</p>

  <p>“What made he there?” asked Juss.</p>

  <p>Mivarsh answered, “Still devising evil.”</p>

  <p>“Against whom?” asked Juss.</p>

  <p>Mivarsh answered, “Against Zeldornius, which is a devil transmarine.”</p>

  <p>“Give me some more wine,” said Juss, “and fill again a beaker for
    Mivarsh Faz. I do love nought so much as tale-telling a-nights. With
    whom devised he against Zeldornius?”</p>

  <p>Mivarsh answered, “With another devil from beyond seas; I have forgot
    his name.”</p>

  <p>“Drink and remember,” said Juss; “or if ’tis gone from thee, paint me
    his picture.”</p>

  <p>“He hath about my bigness,” said Mivarsh, that was little of stature.
    “His eyes be bright, and he somewhat favoureth this one,” pointing
    at Spitfire, “though belike he hath not all so fierce a face. He is
    lean-faced and dark of skin. He goeth in black iron.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span></p>

  <p>“Is he Jalcanaius Fostus?” asked Juss.</p>

  <p>And Mivarsh answered, “Ay.”</p>

  <p>“There’s musk and amber in thy speech,” said Juss. “I must have more of
    it. What mean they to do?”</p>

  <p>“This,” said Mivarsh: “As I sat listening in the dark without their
    tent, it was made absolute that this Jalcanaius had been deceived in
    supposing that another devil transmarine, whom men call Helteranius,
    had been minded to do treacherously against him; whereas, as the
    bald devil made him believe, ’twas no such thing. And so it was
    concluded that Jalcanaius should send riders after Helteranius to make
    peace between them, and that they two should forthwith join to kill
    Zeldornius, one falling on him in the front and the other in the rear.”</p>

  <p>“So ’tis come to this?” said Spitfire.</p>

  <p>“And when they have Zeldornius slain,” said Mivarsh, “then must they
    help this bald-pate in his undertakings.”</p>

  <p>“And so pay him for his redes?” said Juss.</p>

  <p>And Mivarsh answered, “Even so.”</p>

  <p>“One thing more I would know,” said Juss. “How great a following hath
    he in Impland?”</p>

  <p>“The greatest strength that he can make,” answered Mivarsh, “of devils
    ultramontane is as I think two score hundred. Many Imps beside will
    follow him, but they have but our country weapons.”</p>

  <p>Lord Brandoch Daha took Juss by the arm and went forth with him into
    the night. The frosted grass crunched under their tread: strange stars
    blinked in the south in a windy space betwixt cloud and sleeping earth,
    Achernar near the meridian bedimming all lesser fires with his pure
    radiance.</p>

  <p>“So cometh Corund upon us as an eagle out of the sightless blue,” said
    Brandoch Daha, “with twelve times our forces to let us the way to the
    Moruna, and all Impland like a spaniel smiling at his heel; if indeed
    this simple soul say true, as I think he doth.”</p>

  <p>“Thou fallest all of a holiday mood,” said Juss, “at the first scenting
    of this great hazard.”</p>

  <p>“O Juss,” cried Brandoch Daha, “thine own breath lighteneth at it, and
    thy words come more sprightly forth. Are not all lands, all airs, one
    country unto us, so there be great doings afoot to keep bright our
    swords?”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span></p>

  <p>Juss said, “Ere we sleep I will inform Zeldornius how the wind
    shifteth. He must face both ways now, till this field be cut. This
    battle must not go against him, for his enemies be engaged (if Mivarsh
    say true) to give the help of their swords to Corund.”</p>

  <p>So fared they to Zeldornius’s tent, and Juss said by the way, “Of
    this be satisfied: Corund bareth not blade on the hills of Salapanta.
    The King hath intelligencers to keep him advertised of all enchanted
    circles of the world, and well he knoweth what influences move here,
    and with what danger to themselves outlanders draw sword here, as
    witness the doom fulfilled these nine years by these three captains.
    Therefore will Corund, instructed in these things by his master that
    sent him, look to deal with us otherwhere than in this charmed corner
    of the earth. And he were as well take a bear by the tooth as meddle
    in the fight that now impendeth, and so bring upon him these three
    seasoned armies joined in one for his destruction.”</p>

  <p>They passed the guard with the watchword, and waked Zeldornius and told
    him all. And he, muffled in his great faded cloak, went forth to see
    guards were set and all sure against an onslaught from either side. And
    standing by his tent to give good night to those lords of Demonland, he
    said, “It likes me better so. I ever was a fighter; so, one fight more.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>The morrow dawned and passed uneventful, and the morrow’s morrow. But
    on the third morning after the coming of Mivarsh, behold, east and
    west, great armies marching from the plains, and Zeldornius’s array
    drawn up to meet them on the ridge, with weapons gleaming and horses
    champing and trumpets blowing the call of battle. No greetings were
    betwixt them, nor so much as a message of challenge or defiance, but
    Jalcanaius with his black riders rushed to the onset from the west
    and Helteranius from the east. But Zeldornius, like a gray old wolf,
    snapping now this way now that, stemmed the tide of their onslaught. So
    began the battle great and fell, and continued the livelong day. Thrice
    on either side Zeldornius went forth with a great strength of chosen
    men, in so much that his enemies fled before him as the partridge
    doth before the sparrow-hawk; and thrice did Helteranius and thrice<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span>
    Jalcanaius Fostus rally and hurl him back, mounting the ridge anew.</p>

  <p>But when it drew near to evening, and the dark day darkened toward
    night, the battle ceased, dying down suddenly into silence. Those lords
    of Demonland came down from their tower, and walked among the heaps of
    dead men slain toward a place of slabby rock in the neck of the ridge.
    Here, alone on that field, Zeldornius leaned upon his spear, gazing
    downward in a study, his arm cast about the neck of his old brown horse
    who hung his head and sniffed the ground. Through a rift in the western
    clouds the sun glared forth; but his beams were not so red as the ling
    and bent of Salapanta field.</p>

  <p>As Juss and his companions drew near, no sound was heard save from the
    fortalice behind them: a discordant plucking of a harp, and the voice
    of Mivarsh where he walked and harped before the walls, singing this
    ditty:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i2">The hag is astride</div>
        <div class="i2">This night for to ride;</div>
        <div class="i0">The devill and shee together:</div>
        <div class="i2">Through thick and through thin,</div>
        <div class="i2">Now out and then in,</div>
        <div class="i0">Though ne’er so foule be the weather.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i2">A thorn or a burr</div>
        <div class="i2">She takes for a spurre,</div>
        <div class="i0">With a lash of a bramble she rides now;</div>
        <div class="i2">Through brakes and through bryars,</div>
        <div class="i2">O’re ditches and mires,</div>
        <div class="i0">She followes the spirit that guides now.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i2">No beast for his food</div>
        <div class="i2">Dares now range the wood,</div>
        <div class="i0">But husht in his laire he lies lurking;</div>
        <div class="i2">While mischeifs, by these,</div>
        <div class="i2">On land and on seas,</div>
        <div class="i0">At noone of night are a working.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i2">The storme will arise</div>
        <div class="i2">And trouble the skies;</div>
        <div class="i0">This night, and more for the wonder,</div>
        <div class="i2">The ghost from the tomb</div>
        <div class="i2">Affrighted shall come,</div>
        <div class="i0">Cal’d out by the clap of the thunder.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span></p>

  <p>When they were come to Zeldornius, the Lord Juss spake saying, “O most
    redoubtable Zeldornius, renowned in war, surely thy prognostications by
    the moon were true. Behold the noble victory thou hast obtained upon
    thine enemies.”</p>

  <p>But Zeldornius answered him not, still gazing downwards before his
    feet. And there was Helteranius fallen, the sword of Jalcanaius Fostus
    standing in his heart, and his right hand grasping still his own sword
    that had given Jalcanaius his bane-sore.</p>

  <p>So looked they awhile on those two great captains slain. And Zeldornius
    said, “Speak not comfortably to me of victory, O Juss. So long as that
    sword, and that, had his master alive, I did not more desire mine own
    safety than their destruction who with me in days gone by made conquest
    of wide Impland. And see with what a poisoned violence they laboured my
    undoing, and in what an unexpected ruin are they suddenly broken and
    gone.” And as one grown into a deep sadness he said, “Where were all
    heroical parts but in Helteranius? and a man might make a garment for
    the moon sooner than fit the o’erleaping actions of great Jalcanaius,
    who now leaveth but his body to bedung that earth that was lately
    shaken at his terror. I have waded in red blood to the knee; and in
    this hour, in my old years, the world is become for me a vision only
    and a mock-show.”</p>

  <p>Therewith he looked on the Demons, and there was that in his eyes that
    stayed their speech.</p>

  <p>In a while he spake again, saying, “I sware unto you my furtherance if
    I prevailed. But now is mine army passed away as wax wasteth before the
    fire, and I wait the dark ferryman who tarrieth for no man. Yet, since
    never have I wrote mine obligations in sandy but in marble memories,
    and since victory is mine, receive these gifts: and first thou, O
    Brandoch Daha, my sword, since before thou wast of years eighteen
    thou wast accounted the mightiest among men-at-arms. Mightily may it
    avail thee, as me in time gone by. And unto thee, O Spitfire, I give
    this cloak. Old it is, yet may it stand thee in good stead, since this
    virtue it hath that he who weareth it shall not fall alive into the
    hand of his enemies. Wear it for my sake. But unto thee, O Juss, give I
    no gift, for rich thou art of all good gifts: only my good will give I
    unto thee, ere earth gape for me.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span></p>

  <p>So they thanked him well. And he said, “Depart from me, since now
    approacheth that which must complete this day’s undoing.”</p>

  <p>So they fared back to the spy-fortalice, and night came down on the
    hills. A great wind moaning out of the hueless west tore the clouds
    as a ragged garment, revealing the lonely moon that fled naked
    betwixt them. As the Demons looked backward in the moonlight to where
    Zeldornius stood gazing on the dead, a noise as of thunder made the
    firm land tremble and drowned the howling of the wind. And they beheld
    how earth gaped for Zeldornius.</p>

  <p>After that, the dark shut down athwart the moon, and night and silence
    hung on the field of Salapanta.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_flower.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_MARCHLANDS_OF_THE_MORUNA">X: THE MARCHLANDS OF THE MORUNA</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE JOURNEY OF THE DEMONS FROM SALAPANTA TO ESHGRAR OGO: WHEREIN IS
    SET DOWN CONCERNING THE LADY OF ISHNAIN NEMARTRA, AND OTHER NOTABLE
    MATTERS.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">MIVARSH FAZ came betimes on the morrow to the lords of Demonland, and
    found them ready for the road. So he asked them where their journey
    lay, and they answered, “East.”</p>

  <p>“Eastward,” said Mivarsh, “all ways lead to the Moruna. None may go
    thither and not die.”</p>

  <p>But they laughed and answered him, “Do not too narrowly define our
    power, sweet Mivarsh, restraining it to thy capacities. Know that
    our journey is a matter determined of, and it is fixed with nails of
    diamond to the wall of inevitable necessity.”</p>

  <p>They took leave of him and went their ways with their small army. For
    four days they journeyed through deep woods carpeted with the leaves
    of a thousand autumns, where at midmost noon twilight dwelt among
    hushed woodland noises, and solemn eyeballs glared nightly between the
    tree-trunks, gazing on the Demons as they marched or took their rest.</p>

  <p>The fifth day, and the sixth and the seventh, they journeyed by the
    southern margin of a gravelly sea, made all of sand and gravel and no
    drop of water, yet ebbing and flowing alway with great waves as another
    sea doth, never standing still and never at rest. And always by day and
    night as they came through the desert was a great noise very hideous
    and a sound as it were of tambourines and trumpets; yet was the place
    solitary to the eye, and no living thing afoot there save their company
    faring to the east.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span></p>

  <p>On the eighth day they left the shore of that waterless sea and came
    by broken rocky ground to the descent to a wide vale, shelterless and
    unfruitful, with the broad stony bed of a little river winding in the
    strath. Here, looking eastward, they beheld in the lustre of a late
    bright-shining sun a castle of red stone on a terrace of the fell-side
    beyond the valley. Juss said, “We can be there before nightfall, and
    there will we take guesting.” When they drew near they were ware,
    betwixt sunset and moonlight, of one sitting on a boulder in their path
    about a furlong from the castle, as if gazing on them and awaiting
    their coming. But when they came to the boulder there was no such
    person. So they passed on their way toward the castle, and when they
    looked behind them, lo, there was he sitting on the boulder bearing his
    head in his hands: a strange thing, which would cause any man to abhor.</p>

  <p>The castle gate stood open, and they entered in, and so by the
    court-yard to a great hall, with the board set as for a banquet, and
    bright fires and an hundred candles burning in the still air; but no
    living thing was there to be seen, nor voice heard in all that castle.
    Lord Brandoch Daha said, “In this land to fail of marvels only for an
    hour were the strangest marvel. Banquet we lightly and so to bed.”
    So they sat down and ate, and drank of the honey-sweet wine, till
    all thoughts of war and hardship and the unimagined perils of the
    wilderness and Corund’s great army preparing their destruction faded
    from their minds, and the spirit of slumber wooed their weary frames.</p>

  <p>Then a faint music, troublous in its voluptuous wild sweetness, floated
    on the air, and they beheld a lady enter on the dais. Beautiful she
    seemed beyond the beauty of mortal women. In her dark hair was the
    likeness of the horned moon in honey-coloured cymophanes every stone
    whereof held a straight beam of light imprisoned that quivered and
    gleamed as sunbeams quiver wading in the clear deeps of a summer sea.
    She wore a coat-hardy of soft crimson silk, close fitting, so that she
    did truly apparel her apparel and with her own loveliness made it more
    sumptuous. She said, “My lords and guests in Ishnain Nemartra, there be
    beds of down and sheets of lawn for all of you that be aweary. But know
    that I keep a sparrow-hawk sitting on a perch in the eastern tower, and
    he that will wake my sparrow-hawk this night long, alone without any
    company and without sleep, I shall come to him at the night’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span> end and
    shall grant unto him the first thing that he will ask me of earthly
    things.” So saying she departed like a dream.</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha said, “Cast we lots for this adventure.”</p>

  <p>But Juss spake against it, saying, “There’s likely some guile herein.
    We must not in this accursed land suffer aught to seduce our minds, but
    follow our set purpose. We must not be of those who go forth for wool
    and come home shorn.”</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha and Spitfire mocked at this, and cast lots between
    themselves. And the lot fell upon Lord Brandoch Daha. “Thou shalt not
    deny me this,” said he to Lord Juss, “else will I never more do thee
    good.”</p>

  <p>“I never could yet deny thee anything,” answered Juss. “Art not thou
    and I finger and thumb? Only forget not, whatsoe’er betide, wherefore
    we be come hither.”</p>

  <p>“Art not thou and I finger and thumb?” said Brandoch Daha. “Fear
    nothing, O friend of my heart. I’ll not forget it.”</p>

  <p>So while the others slept, Brandoch Daha waked the sparrow-hawk,
    night-long in the eastern chamber. For all that the cold hillside
    without was rough with hoar-frost the air was warm in that chamber and
    heavy, disposing strongly to sleep. Yet he closed not an eye, but still
    beheld the sparrow-hawk, telling it stories and tweaking it by the tail
    ever and anon as it grew drowsy. And it answered shortly and boorishly,
    looking upon him malevolently.</p>

  <p>And with the golden dawn, behold that lady in the shadowy doorway. At
    her entering in, the sparrow-hawk clicked its wings as in anger, and
    without more ado tucked its beak beneath its wing and went to sleep.
    But that bright lady, looking on the Lord Brandoch Daha, spake and
    said, “Require it of me, my Lord Brandoch Daha, that which thou most
    desirest of earthly things.”</p>

  <p>But he, as one bedazzled, stood up saying, “O lady, is not thy beauty
    at the dawn of day an irradiation that might dispel the mists of hell?
    My heart is ravished with thy loveliness and only fed with thy sight.
    Therefore thy body will I have, and none other thing earthly.”</p>

  <p>“Thou art a fool,” she cried, “that knowest not what thou askest.
    Of all things earthly mightest thou have taken choose; but I am not
    earthly.”</p>

  <p>He answered, “I will have nought else.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span></p>

  <p>“Thou dost embrace then a great danger,” said she, “and loss of all thy
    good luck, for thee and thy friends beside.”</p>

  <p>But Brandoch Daha, seeing how her face became on a sudden such as
    are new-blown roses at the dawning, and her eyes wide and dark with
    love-longing, came to her and took her in his arms and fell to kissing
    and embracing of her. On such wise they abode for awhile, that he was
    ware of no thing else on earth save only the sense-maddening caress of
    that lady’s hair, the perfume of it, the kiss of her mouth, the swell
    and fall of that lady’s breast straining against his. She said in his
    ear softly, “I see thou art too masterful. I see thou art one who
    will be denied nothing, on whatsoever thine heart is set. Come.” And
    they passed by a heavy-curtained doorway into an inner chamber, where
    the air was filled with the breath of myrrh and nard and ambergris, a
    fragrancy as of sleeping loveliness. Here, amid the darkness of rich
    hangings and subdued glints of gold, a warm radiance of shaded lamps
    watched above a couch, great and broad and downy-pillowed. And here for
    a long time they solaced them with love and all delight.</p>

  <p>Even as all things have an end, he said at the last, “O my lady,
    mistress of hearts, here would I abide ever, abandoning all else for
    thy love sake. But my companions tarry for me in thine halls below,
    and great matters wait on my direction. Give me thy divine mouth once
    again, and bid me adieu.”</p>

  <p>She was lying as if asleep across his breast: smooth-skinned, white,
    warm, with shapely throat leaned backward against the spice-odorous
    darknesses of her unbound hair; one tress, heavy and splendid like
    a python, coiled between white arm and bosom. Swift as a snake she
    turned, clinging fiercely about him, pressing fiercely again to his
    her insatiable sweet fervent lips, crying that here must he dwell unto
    eternity in the intoxication of perfect love and pleasure.</p>

  <p>But when in the end, gently constraining her to loose him and let him
    go, he arose and clothed and armed him, that lady caught about her a
    translucent robe of silvery sheen, as when the summer moon veils but
    not hides with a filmy cloud her beauties’ splendour, and so standing
    before him spake and said, “Go then. This is got by casting of pearls
    to hogs. I may not slay thee, since over thy body I have no other
    power. But because thou shalt not laugh overmuch, having required<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span> me
    of that which was beyond the pact and being enjoyed is now slighted of
    thee and abused, therefore know, proud man, that three gifts I here
    will grant thee thereto of mine own choosing. Thou shalt have war and
    not peace. He that thou worst hatest shall throw down and ruin thy fair
    lordship, Krothering Castle and the mains thereof. And though vengeance
    shall overtake him at the last, by another’s hand than thine shall it
    come, and to thine hand shall it be denied.”</p>

  <p>Therewith she fell a-weeping. And the Lord Brandoch Daha, with great
    resolution, went forth from the chamber. And looking back from the
    threshold he beheld both that and the outer chamber void of lady and
    sparrow-hawk both. And a great weariness came suddenly upon him. So,
    going down, he found Lord Juss and his companions sleeping on the
    cold stones, and the banquet hall empty of all gear and dank with
    moss and cobwebs, and bats sleeping head-downward among the crumbling
    roof-beams; nor was any sign of last night’s banqueting. So Brandoch
    Daha roused his companions, and told Juss how he had fared, and of the
    weird laid on him by that lady.</p>

  <p>And they went greatly wondering forth of the accursed castle of Ishnain
    Nemartra, glad to come off so scatheless.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>On that ninth day of their journey from Salapanta they came through
    waste lands of stone and living rock, where not so much as an
    earth-louse stirred with life. Gorges split the earth here and there:
    rock-walled labyrinths of gloom, unvisited for ever by sunbeam or
    moonbeam, turbulent in their depths with waters that leaped and churned
    for ever, never still and never silent. So was that day’s journey
    tortuous, turning now up now down along those river banks to find
    crossing places.</p>

  <p>When they were halted at noon by the deepest rift they had yet beheld,
    there came one hastening to them and fell down by Juss and lay panting
    face to earth as breathless from long running. And when they raised
    him up, behold Mivarsh Faz, harnessed in the gear of a black rider
    of Jalcanaius Fostus and armed with axe and sword. Great was his
    agitation, and he speechless for lack of breath. They used him kindly,
    and gave him to drink from a great skin of wine, Zeldornius’s gift,
    and anon he said, “He hath armed countless hundreds of our folk<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span> with
    weapons taken from Salapanta field. These, led by the devils his sons,
    with Philpritz cursed of the gods, be gone before to hold all the
    ways be-east of you. Night and day have I ridden and run to warn you.
    Himself, with his main strength of devils ultramontane, rideth hot on
    your tracks.”</p>

  <p>They thanked him well, marvelling much that he should be at such pains
    to advertise them of their danger. “I have eat your salt,” answered he,
    “and moreover ye are against this naughty wicked baldhead that came
    over the mountains to oppress us. Therefore I would do you good. But
    I can little. For I am poor, that was rich in land and fee. And I am
    alone, that had formerly five hundred spearmen lodging in my halls to
    do my pleasure.”</p>

  <p>“There’s need to do quickly that we do,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “How
    great start of him hadst thou?”</p>

  <p>“He must be upon you in an hour or twain,” said Mivarsh, and fell
    a-weeping.</p>

  <p>“To cope him in the open,” said Juss, “were great glory, and our
    certain death.”</p>

  <p>“Give me to think, but a minute’s while,” said Brandoch Daha. And while
    they busked them he walked musing by the lip of that ravine, switching
    pebbles over the edge with his sword. Then he said, “This is without
    doubt that stream Athrashah spoken of by Gro. O Mivarsh, runneth not
    this flood of Athrashah south to the salt lakes of Ogo Morveo, and was
    there not thereabout a hold named Eshgrar Ogo?”</p>

  <p>Mivarsh answered, “This is so. But never heard I of any so witless
    as go thither. Here where we stand is the land fearsome enough; but
    Eshgrar Ogo standeth at the very edge of the Moruna. No man hath
    harboured there these hundred years.”</p>

  <p>“Standeth it yet?” said Brandoch Daha.</p>

  <p>“For all I wot of,” answered Mivarsh.</p>

  <p>“Is it strong?” he asked.</p>

  <p>“In old times it was thought no place stronger,” answered Mivarsh. “But
    ye were as well die here by the hand of the devils ultramontane, as
    there be torn in pieces by bad spirits.”</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha turned him about to Juss. “It is resolved?” said he. Juss
    answered, “Yea;” and forthwith they started at a great pace south along
    the river.</p>

  <p>“Methought you should have been gotten clean away ere<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span> this,” said
    Mivarsh as they went. “This is but nine or ten days’ journey, and ’tis
    now the sixteenth day since ye did leave me on Salapanta Hills.”</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha laughed. “Sixteenth!” said he. “Thou’lt be rich, Mivarsh,
    if thou reckon gold pieces o’ this fashion thou dost days. This is but
    our ninth day’s journey.”</p>

  <p>But Mivarsh stood stoutly to it, saying that was the seventh day after
    their departure when Corund first came to Salapanta, “And I fleeing now
    nine days before his face chanced on your tracks, and now out of all
    expectation on you.” Nor for all their mocking would he be turned from
    this. And when, as they still pressed through the desert southward, the
    sun declined and set in a clear sky, behold the moon a little past her
    full: and Juss saw that she was seven days older than on that night she
    was when they came to Ishnain Nemartra. So he showed this wonder to
    Brandoch Daha and Spitfire, and much they marvelled.</p>

  <p>“You are much to thank me,” said Brandoch Daha, “that I kept you not a
    full year awaiting of me. Beshrew me, but that seven days’ space seemed
    to me but an hour!”</p>

  <p>“Likely enow, to thee,” said Spitfire somewhat greenly. “But all we
    slept the week out on the cold stones, and I am half lamed yet with the
    ache on’t.”</p>

  <p>“Nay,” said Juss, laughing; “I will not have thee blame him.”</p>

  <p>The moon was high when they came to the salt lakes that lay one a
    little above the other in rocky basins. Their waters were like rough
    silver, and the harsh face of the wilderness was black and silver in
    the moonlight; and it was as a country of dead bones, blind and sterile
    beneath the moon. Betwixt the lakes a rib of rock rose monstrous to
    an eminence crag-begirt on every side, with dark walls ringing it
    round above the cliffs. Thither they hastened, and as they climbed and
    stumbled among the crags a she-owl squeaked on the battlements and took
    wing ghost-like above their heads. The teeth of Mivarsh Faz chattered,
    but right glad were the Demons as they won up the rocks and entered at
    last into that deserted burg. Without, the night was still; but fires
    were burning in the desert eastward, and others as they watched were
    kindled in the west, and soon was the circle joined of twinkling points
    of red round about Eshgrar Ogo and the lakes.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span></p>

  <p>Juss said, “By an hour have we forestalled them. And behold how he
    ringeth us about as men ring a scorpion in flame.”</p>

  <p>So they made all sure, and set the guard, and slept until past dawn.
    But Mivarsh slept not, for terror of hob-thrushes from the Moruna.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_pegasus.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_BURG_OF_ESHGRAR_OGO">XI: THE BURG OF ESHGRAR OGO</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE LORD CORUND’S BESIEGING OF THE BURG ABOVE THE LAKES OF OGO
    MORVEO, AND WHAT BEFELL THERE BETWIXT HIM AND THE DEMONS; WHEREIN
    IS ALSO AN EXAMPLE HOW THE SUBTLE OF HEART STANDETH AT WHILES IN
    GREAT DANGER OF HIS DEATH.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">WHEN the Lord Corund knew of a surety that he held them of Demonland
    shut up in Eshgrar Ogo, he let dight supper in his tent, and made a
    surfeit of venison pasties and heath-cocks and lobsters from the lakes.
    Therewith he drank nigh a skinful of sweet dark Thramnian wine, in such
    sort that an hour before midnight, becoming speechless, he was holpen
    by Gro to his couch and slept a great deep sleep till morning.</p>

  <p>Gro watched in the tent, his right elbow propped on the table, his
    cheek resting on his hand, his left hand reaching forward with delicate
    fingers toying now with the sleek heavy perfumed masses of his beard,
    now with the goblet whence he sipped ever and anon pale wine of
    Permio. His thoughts inconstant as insects in a summer garden flitted
    ever round and round, resting now on the scene before him, the great
    form of his general wrapt in slumber, now on other scenes sundered by
    great gulfs of time or weary leagues of perilous ways. So that in one
    instant he saw in fancy that lady in Carcë welcoming her lord returned
    in triumph, and him, may be, crowned king of new-vanquished Impland;
    and in the next, swept from the future to the past, beheld again the
    great sending-off in Zajë Zaculo, Gaslark in his splendour on the
    golden stairs saying adieu to those three captains and their matchless
    armament foredoomed to dogs and crows on Salapanta Hills; and always,
    like a gloomy background darkening his mind, loomed the yawning void,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span>
    featureless and vast, beyond the investing circle of Corund’s armies:
    the blind blasted emptiness of the Moruna.</p>

  <p>With such fancies, melancholy like a great bird settled upon his soul.
    The lights flickered in their sockets, and for very weariness Gro’s
    eyelids closed at length over his large liquid eyes; and, too tired to
    stir from his seat to seek his couch, he sank forward on the table, his
    head pillowed on his arms. The red glow of the brazier slumbered ever
    dimmer and dimmer on the slender form and black shining curls of Gro,
    and on the mighty frame of Corund where he lay with one great spurred
    booted leg stretched along the couch, and the other flung out sideways
    resting its heel on the ground.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>It wanted but two hours of noon when a sunbeam striking through an
    opening in the hangings of the tent shone upon Corund’s eyelids, and
    he awoke fresh and brisk as a youth on a hunting morn. He waked Gro,
    and giving him a clap on the shoulder, “Thou wrongest a fair morn,” he
    said. “The devil damn me black as buttermilk if it be not great shame
    in thee; and I, that was born this day six and forty years as the years
    come about, busy with mine affairs since sunrise.”</p>

  <p>Gro yawned and smiled and stretched himself. “O Corund,” he said,
    “counterfeit a livelier wonder in thine eyes if thou wilt persuade me
    thou sawest the sunrise. For I think that were as new and unexampled a
    sight for thee as any I could produce to thee in Impland.”</p>

  <p>Corund answered, “Truly I was seldom so uncivil as surprise Madam
    Aurora in her nightgown. And the thrice or four times I have been
    forced thereto, taught me it is an hour of crude airs and mists which
    breed cold dark humours in the body, an hour when the torch of life
    burns weakest. Within there! bring me my morning draught.”</p>

  <p>The boy brought two cups of white wine, and while they drank, “A
    thin ungracious drink is the well-spring,” said Corund: “a drink for
    queasy-stomached skipjacks: for sand-levericks, not for men. And
    like it is the day-spring: an ungrateful sapless hour, an hour for
    stab-i’-the-backs and cold-blooded betrayers. Ah, give me wine,” he
    cried, “and noon-day vices, and brazen-browed iniquities.”</p>

  <p>“Yet there’s many a deed of profit done by owl-light,” said Gro.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span></p>

  <p>“Ay,” said Corund: “deeds of darkness: and there, my lord, I’m still
    thy scholar. Come, let’s be doing.” And taking his helm and weapons,
    and buckling about him his great wolfskin cloak, for the air was eager
    and frosty without, he strode forth. Gro wrapped himself in his fur
    mantle, drew on his lambskin gloves, and followed him.</p>

  <p>“If thou wilt take my rede,” said Lord Gro, as they looked on Eshgrar
    Ogo stark in the barren sunlight, “thou’lt do this honour to Philpritz,
    which I question not he much desireth, to suffer him and his folk take
    first knock at this nut. It hath a hard look. Pity it were to waste
    good Witchland blood in a first assault, when these vile instruments
    stand ready to our purpose.”</p>

  <p>Corund grunted in his beard, and with Gro at his elbow paced in silence
    through the lines, his keen eyes searching ever the cliffs and walls of
    Eshgrar Ogo, till in some half-hour’s space he halted again before his
    tent, having made a complete circuit of the burg. Then he spake: “Put
    me in yonder fighting-stead, and if it were only but I and fifty able
    lads to man the walls, yet would I hold it against ten thousand.”</p>

  <p>Gro held his peace awhile, and then said, “Thou speakest this in all
    sadness?”</p>

  <p>“In sober sadness,” answered Corund, squaring his shoulders at the burg.</p>

  <p>“Then thou’lt not assault it?”</p>

  <p>Corund laughed. “Not assault it, quotha! That were a sweet tale ’twixt
    the boiled and the roast in Carcë: I’d not assault it!”</p>

  <p>“Yet consider,” said Gro, taking him by the arm. “So shapeth the matter
    in my mind: they be few and shut up in a little place, in this far
    land, out of reach and out of mind of all succour. Were they devils
    and not men, the multitude of our armies and thine own tried qualities
    must daunt them. Be the place never so cocksure, doubt not some doubts
    thereof must poison their security. Therefore before thou risk a
    repulse which must dispel those doubts use thine advantage. Bid Juss to
    a parley. Offer him conditions: it skills not what. Bribe them out into
    the open.”</p>

  <p>“A pretty plan,” said Corund. “Thou’lt merit wisdom’s crown if thou
    canst tell me what conditions we can offer that they would take. And
    whilst thou riddlest that, remember<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span> that though thou and I be masters
    hereabout, another reigns in Carcë.”</p>

  <p>Lord Gro laughed gently. “Leave jesting,” he said, “O Corund, and never
    hope to gull me to believe thee such a babe in policy. Shall the King
    blame us though we sign away Demonland, ay and the wide world besides,
    to Juss to lure him forth? Unless indeed we were so neglectful of our
    interest as suffer him, once forth, to elude our clutches.”</p>

  <p>“Gro,” said Corund, “I love thee. But hardly canst thou receive things
    as I receive them that have dealt all my days in great stripes, given
    and taken in the open field. I sticked not to take part in thy notable
    treason against these poor snakes of Impland that we trapped in Orpish.
    All’s fair against such dirt. Besides, great need was upon us then, and
    hard it is for an empty sack to stand straight. But here is far other
    matter. All’s won here but the plucking of the apple: it is the very
    main of my ambition to humble these Demons openly by the terror of my
    sword: wherefore I will not use upon them cogs and stops and all thy
    devilish tricks, such as should bring me more of scorn than of glory in
    the eyes of aftercomers.”</p>

  <p>So speaking, he issued command and sent an herald to go forth beneath
    the battlements with a flag of truce. And the herald cried aloud and
    said: “From Corund of Witchland unto the lords of Demonland: thus saith
    the Lord Corund, ‘I hold this burg of Eshgrar Ogo as a nut betwixt the
    crackers. Come down and speak with me in the batable land before the
    burg, and I swear to you peace and grith while we parley, and thereto
    pledge I mine honour as a man of war.’”</p>

  <p>So when the due ceremonies were performed, the Lord Juss came down
    from Eshgrar Ogo and with him the lords Spitfire and Brandoch Daha and
    twenty men to be their bodyguard. Corund went to meet them with his
    guard about him, and his four sons that fared with him to Impland,
    Hacmon, namely, and Heming and Viglus and Dormanes: sullen and dark
    young men, likely of look, of a little less fierceness than their
    father. Gro, fair to see and slender as a racehorse, went at his side,
    muffled to the ears in a cloak of ermine; and behind came Philpritz
    Faz helmed with a winged helm of iron and gold. A gilded corselet had
    Philpritz, and trousers of panther’s skin, and he came a-slinking at
    Corund’s heel as the jackal slinks behind the lion.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span></p>

  <p>When they were met, Juss spake and said, “This would I know first, my
    Lord Corund, how thou comest hither, and why, and by what right thou
    disputest with us the ways eastward out of Impland.”</p>

  <p>Corund answered, leaning on his spear, “I need not answer thee in this.
    And yet I will. How came I? I answer thee, over the cold mountain
    wall of Akra Skabranth. And ’tis a feat hath not his fellow in man’s
    remembrance until now, with so great a force and in so short a space of
    time.”</p>

  <p>“’Tis well enough,” said Juss. “I’ll grant thee thou hast outrun mine
    expectations of thee.”</p>

  <p>“Next thou demandest why,” said Corund. “Suffice it for thee that the
    King hath had advertisement of your farings into Impland and your
    designs therein. For to bring these to nought am I come.”</p>

  <p>“There was many firkins of wine drunk dry in Carcë,” said Hacmon, “and
    many a noble person senseless and spewing on the ground ere morn for
    pure delight, when cursed Goldry was made away. We were little minded
    these healths should be proved vain at last.”</p>

  <p>“Was that ere thou rodest from Permio?” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “The
    merry god wrought of our side that night, if my memory cheat not.”</p>

  <p>“Thou demandest last,” said Corund, “my Lord Juss, by what right I
    bar your passage eastaway. Know, therefore, that not of mine own
    self speak I unto you, but as vicar in wide-fronted Impland of our
    Lord Gorice XII., King of Kings, most glorious and most great. There
    remaineth no way out for you from this place save into the rigour of
    mine hands. Therefore let us, according to the nature of great men,
    agree to honourable conditions. And this is mine offer, O Juss. Yield
    up this burg of Eshgrar Ogo, and therewith thy sealed word in a writing
    acknowledging our Lord the King to be King of Demonland and all ye his
    quiet and obedient subjects, even as we be. And I will swear unto you
    of my part, and in the name of our Lord the King, and give you hostages
    thereto, that ye shall depart in peace whither you list with all love
    and safety.”</p>

  <p>The Lord Juss scowled fiercely on him. “O Corund,” he said, “as little
    as we do understand the senseless wind, so little we understand thy
    word. Oft enow hath gray silver been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span> in the fire betwixt us and you
    Witchlanders; for the house of Gorice fared ever like the foul toad,
    that may not endure to smell the sweet savour of the vine when it
    flourisheth. So for this time we will abide in this hold, and withstand
    your most grievous attempts.”</p>

  <p>“With free honesty and open heart,” said Corund, “I made thee this
    offer; which if thou refuse I am not thy lackey to renew it.”</p>

  <p>Gro said, “It is writ and sealed, and wanteth but thy sign-manual, my
    Lord Juss,” and with the word he made sign to Philpritz Faz that went
    to Lord Juss with a parchment. Juss put the parchment by, saying, “No
    more: ye are answered,” and he was turning on his heel when Philpritz,
    louting forward suddenly, gave him a great yerk beneath the ribs with a
    dagger slipped from his sleeve. But Juss wore a privy coat that turned
    the dagger. Howbeit with the greatness of that stroke he staggered
    aback.</p>

  <p>Now Spitfire clapped hand to sword, and the other Demons with him, but
    Juss loudly shouted that they should not be truce-breakers but know
    first what Corund would do. And Corund said, “Dost hear me, Juss? I had
    neither hand nor part in this.”</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha drew up his lip and said, “This is nought but what was to
    be looked for. It is a wonder, O Juss, that thou shouldst hold out to
    such mucky dogs a hand without a whip in it.”</p>

  <p>“Such strokes come home or miss merely,” said Gro softly in Corund’s
    ear, and he hugged himself beneath his cloak, looking with furtive
    amusement on the Demons. But Corund with a face red in anger said,
    “It is thine answer, O Juss?” And when Juss said, “It is our answer,
    O Corund,” Corund said violently, “Then red war I give you; and this
    withal to testify our honour.” And he let lay hands on Philpritz Faz
    and with his own hand hacked the head from his body before the eyes
    of both their armies. Then in a great voice he said, “As bloodily as
    I have revenged the honour of Witchland on this Philpritz, so will I
    revenge it on all of you or ever I draw off mine armies from these
    lakes of Ogo Morveo.”</p>

  <p>So the Demons went up into the burg, and Gro and Corund home to their
    tents. “This was well thought on,” said Gro, “to flaunt the flag of
    seeming honesty, and with the motion<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span> rid us of this fellow that
    promised ever to grow thorns to make uneasy our seat in Impland.”</p>

  <p>Corund answered him not a word.</p>

  <p>In that same hour Corund marshalled his folk and assaulted Eshgrar Ogo,
    placing those of Impland in the van. They prospered not at all. Many a
    score lay slain without the walls that night; and the obscene beasts
    from the desert feasted on their bodies by the light of the moon.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Next morning the Lord Corund sent an herald and bade the Demons again
    to a parley. And now he spake only to Brandoch Daha, bidding him
    deliver up those brethren Juss and Spitfire, “And if thou wilt yield
    them to my pleasure, then shalt thou and all thy people else depart in
    peace without conditions.”</p>

  <p>“An offer indeed,” said Lord Brandoch Daha; “if it be not in mockery.
    Say it loud, that my folk may hear.”</p>

  <p>Corund did so, and the Demons heard it from the walls of the burg.</p>

  <p>Lord Brandoch Daha stood somewhat apart from Juss and Spitfire and
    their guard. “Libel it me out,” he said. “For good as I now must deem
    thy word, thine hand and seal must I have to show my followers ere they
    consent with me in such a thing.”</p>

  <p>“Write thou,” said Corund to Gro. “To write my name is all my
    scholarship.” And Gro took forth his ink-horn and wrote in a great
    fair hand this offer on a parchment. “The most fearfullest oaths thou
    knowest,” said Corund; and Gro wrote them, whispering, “He mocketh us
    only.” But Corund said, “No matter: ’tis a chance worth our chancing,”
    and slowly and with labour signed his name to the writing, and gave it
    to Lord Brandoch Daha.</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha read it attentively, and tucked it in his bosom beneath
    his byrny. “This,” he said, “shall be a keepsake for me of thee, my
    Lord Corund. Reminding me,” and here his eyes grew terrible, “so long
    as there surviveth a soul of you in Witchland, that I am still to teach
    the world throughly what that man must abide that durst affront me with
    such an offer.”</p>

  <p>Corund answered him, “Thou art a dapper fellow. It is a wonder that
    thou wilt strut in the tented field with all this womanish gear. Thy
    shield: how many of these sparkling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span> baubles thinkest thou I’d leave in
    it were we once come to knocks?”</p>

  <p>“I’ll tell thee,” answered Lord Brandoch Daha. “For every jewel that
    hath been beat out of my shield in battle, never yet went I to war that
    I brought not home an hundredfold to set it fair again, from the spoils
    I obtained from mine enemies. Now this will I bid thee, O Corund, for
    thy scornful words: I will bid thee to single combat, here and in this
    hour. Which if thou deny, then art thou an open and apparent dastard.”</p>

  <p>Corund chuckled in his beard, but his brow darkened somewhat. “I pray
    what age dost thou take me of?” said he. “I bare a sword when thou was
    yet in swaddling clothes. Behold mine armies, and what advantage I hold
    upon you. Oh, my sword is enchanted, my lord: it will not out of the
    scabbard.”</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha smiled disdainfully, and said to Spitfire, “Mark well, I
    pray thee, this great lord of Witchland. How many true fingers hath a
    Witch on his left hand?”</p>

  <p>“As many as on his right,” said Spitfire.</p>

  <p>“Good. And how many on both?”</p>

  <p>“Two less than a deuce,” said Spitfire; “for they be false fazarts to
    the fingers’ ends.”</p>

  <p>“Very well answered,” said Lord Brandoch Daha.</p>

  <p>“You’re pleasant,” Corund said. “But your fusty jibes move me not a
    whit. It were a simple part indeed to take thine offer when all wise
    counsels bid me use my power and crush you.”</p>

  <p>“Thou’dst kill me soon with thy mouth,” said Brandoch Daha. “In sum,
    thou art a brave man when it comes to roaring and swearing: a big
    bubber of wine, as men say to drink drunk is an ordinary matter with
    thee every day in the week; but I fear thou durst not fight.”</p>

  <p>“Doth not thy nose swell at that?” said Spitfire.</p>

  <p>But Corund shrugged his shoulders. “A footra for your baits!” he
    answered. “I am scarce bounden to do such a kindness to you of
    Demonland as lay down mine advantage and fight alone, against a
    sworder. Your old foxes are seldom taken in springes.”</p>

  <p>“I thought so,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “Surely the frog will have
    hair sooner than any of you Witchlanders shall dare to stand me.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span></p>

  <p>So ended the second parley before Eshgrar Ogo. The same day Corund
    essayed again to storm the hold, and grievous was the battle and hard
    put to it were they of Demonland to hold the walls. Yet in the end were
    Corund’s men thrown back with great slaughter. And night fell, and they
    returned to their tents.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>“Mine invention,” said Gro, when on the next day they took counsel
    together, “hath yet some contrivance in her purse which shall do us
    good, if it fall but out to our mind. But I doubt much it will dislike
    thee.”</p>

  <p>“Well, say it out, and I’ll give thee my censure on’t,” said Corund.</p>

  <p>Gro spake: “It hath been shown we may not have down this tree by
    hewing above ground. Let’s dig about the roots. And first give them a
    seven-night’s space for reckoning up their chances, that they may see
    morning and evening from the burg thine armies set down to invest them.
    Then, when their hopes are something sobered by that sight, and want of
    action hath trained their minds to sad reflection, call them to parley,
    going straight beneath the wall; and this time shalt thou address
    thyself only to the common sort, offering them all generous and free
    conditions thou canst think on. There’s little they can ask that we’d
    not blithely grant them if they’ll but yield us up their captains.”</p>

  <p>“It mislikes me,” answered Corund. “Yet it may serve. But thou shalt be
    my spokesman herein. For never yet went I cap in hand to ask favour of
    the common muck o’ the world, nor I will not do it now.”</p>

  <p>“O but thou must,” said Gro. “Of thee they will receive in good faith
    what in me they would account but practice.”</p>

  <p>“That’s true enough,” said Corund. “But I cannot stomach it. Withal, I
    am too rough spoken.”</p>

  <p>Gro smiled. “He that hath need of a dog,” he said, “calleth him ‘Sir
    Dog.’ Come, come, I’ll school thee to it. Is it not a smaller thing
    than months of tedious hardship in this frozen desert? Bethink thee
    too what honour it were to thee to ride home to Carcë with Juss and
    Spitfire and Brandoch Daha bounden in a string.”</p>

  <p>Not without much persuasion was Corund won to this. Yet at the last
    he consented. For seven days and seven nights<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span> his armies sat before
    the burg without sign; and on the eighth day he bade the Demons to
    a parley, and when that was granted went with his sons and twenty
    men-at-arms up the great rib of rock between the lakes, and stood below
    the east wall of the burg. Bitter chill was the air that day. Powdery
    snow light-fallen blew in little wisps along the ground, and the rocks
    were slippery with an invisible coat of ice. Lord Gro, being troubled
    with an ague, excused himself from that faring and kept his tent.</p>

  <p>Corund stood beneath the walls with his folk about him. “I have
    matter of import,” he cried, “and ’tis needful it be heard both by
    the highest and the lowest amongst you. Ere I begin, summon them all
    to this part of the walls: a look-out is enow to shield you of the
    other parts from any sudden onslaught, which besides I swear to you is
    clean without my purpose.” So when they were thick on the wall above
    him, he began to say, “Soldiers of Demonland, against you had I never
    quarrel. Behold how in this Impland I have made freedom flourish as a
    flower. I have strook off the heads of Philpritz Faz, and Illarosh,
    and Lurmesh, and Gandassa, and Fax Fay Faz, that were the lords and
    governors here aforetime, abounding in all the bloody and crying sins,
    oppression, gluttony, idleness, cruelty, and extortion. And of my
    clemency I delivered all their possessions unto their subjects to hold
    and order after their own will alone, who before did put on patience
    and endured with much heart-burning the tyranny of these Fazes, until
    by me they found a remedy for their more freedom. In like manner, not
    against you do I war, O men of Demonland; but against the tyrants that
    enforced you for their private gain to suffer hardship and death in
    this remote country: namely, against Juss and Spitfire that came hither
    in quest of their cursed brother whom the might of the great King hath
    happily removed. And against Brandoch Daha am I come, of insolence
    untamed, who liveth a chambering idle life eating and drinking and
    exercising tyranny, while the pleasant lands of Krothering and Failze
    and Stropardon, and the dwellers in the isles, Sorbey, Morvey, Strufey,
    Dalney, and Kenarvey, and they of Westmark and all the western parts
    of Demonland groan and wax lean to feed his luxury. To your hurt only
    have these three led you, as cattle to the slaughter. Deliver them to
    me, that I may chastise them, and I, that am great viceroy of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span> Impland,
    will make you free and grant you lordships: a lordship for every man of
    you in this my realm of Impland.”</p>

  <p>While Corund spake, the Lord Brandoch Daha went among the soldiers
    bidding them hold their peace and not murmur against Corund. But those
    that were most hot for action he sent about an errand preparing what he
    had in mind. So that when the Lord Corund ceased from his declaiming,
    all was ready to hand, and with one voice the soldiers of Lord Juss
    that stood upon the wall cried out and said, “This is thy word, O
    Corund, and this our answer,” and therewith flung down upon him from
    pots and buckets and every kind of vessel a deluge of slops and offal
    and all filth that came to hand. A bucketful took Corund in the mouth,
    befouling all his great beard, so that he gave back spitting. And he
    and his, standing close beneath the wall, and little expecting so
    sudden and ill an answer, fared shamefully, being all well soused and
    bemerded with filth and lye.</p>

  <p>Therewith went up great shouts of laughter from the walls. But Corund
    cried out, “O filth of Demonland, this is my latest word with you. And
    though ’twere ten years I must besiege this hold, yet will I take it
    over your heads. And very ill to do with shall ye find me in the end,
    and very puissant, proud, mighty, cruel, and bloody in my conquest.”</p>

  <p>“What, lads?” said Lord Brandoch Daha, standing on the battlements,
    “have we not fed this beast with pig-wash enow, but he must still be
    snuffing and snouking at our gate? Give me another pailful.”</p>

  <p>So the Witches returned to their tents with great shame. So hot was
    Corund in anger against the Demons, that he stayed not to eat nor drink
    at his coming down from Eshgrar Ogo, but straight gathered force and
    made an assault upon the burg, the mightiest he had yet essayed; and
    his picked men of Witchland were in that assault, and he himself to
    lead them. Thrice by main fury they won up into the hold, but all were
    slain who set foot therein, and Corund’s young son Dormanes wounded
    to the death. And at even they drew off from the battle. There fell
    in that fight an hundred and four-score Demons, and of the Imps five
    hundred, and of the Witches three hundred and ninety and nine. And many
    were hurt of either side.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Wrath sat like thunder on Corund’s brow at supper-time. He ate his meat
    savagely, thrusting great gobbets in his mouth,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span> crunching the bones
    like a beast, taking deep draughts of wine with every mouthful, which
    yet dispelled not his black mood. Over against him Gro sat silent,
    shivering now and then for all that he kept his ermine cloak about him
    and the brazier stood at his elbow. He made but a poor meal, drinking
    mulled wine in little sips and dipping little pieces of bread in it.</p>

  <p>So wore without speech that cheerless and unkindly meal, until the Lord
    Corund, looking suddenly across the board at Gro and catching his eye
    studying him, said, “That was a bright star of thine and then shined
    clear upon thee when thou tookest this bout of shivering fits and so
    wentest not with me to be soused with muck before the burg.”</p>

  <p>“Who would have dreamed,” answered Gro, “of their using so base and
    shameful a part?”</p>

  <p>“Not thou, I’ll swear,” said Corund, looking evilly upon him and
    marking, as he thought, a twinkling light in Gro’s eyes. Gro shivered
    again, sipped his wine, and shifted his glance uneasily under that
    unfriendly stare.</p>

  <p>Corund drank awhile in silence, then flushing suddenly a darker red,
    said, leaning heavily across the board at him, “Dost know why I said
    ‘not thou’?”</p>

  <p>“’Twas scarce needful, to thy friend,” said Gro.</p>

  <p>“I said it,” said Corund, “because I know thou didst look for another
    thing when thou didst skulk shamming here.”</p>

  <p>“Another thing?”</p>

  <p>“Sit not there like some prim-mouthed miss feigning an innocence
    all know well thou hast not,” said Corund, “or I’ll kill thee. Thou
    plottedst my death with the Demons. And because thyself hast no shred
    of honour in thy soul, thou hadst not the wit to perceive that their
    nobility would shrink from such a betrayal as thy hopes entertained.”</p>

  <p>Gro said, “This is a jest I cannot laugh at; or else ’tis madman’s
    brabble.”</p>

  <p>“Dissembling cur,” said Corund, “be sure that I hold him not less
    guilty that holds the ladder than him that mounts the wall. It was thy
    design they should smite us at unawares when we went up to them with
    this proposal thou didst urge on me so hotly.”</p>

  <p>Gro made as if to rise. “Sit down!” said Corund. “Answer me; didst not
    thou egg on the poor snipe Philpritz to that attempt on Juss?”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span></p>

  <p>“He told me on’t,” said Gro.</p>

  <p>“O, thou art cunning,” said Corund. “There too I see thy treachery.
    Had they fallen upon us, thou mightest have thrown thyself safely upon
    their mercy.”</p>

  <p>“This is foolishness,” said Gro. “We were far stronger.”</p>

  <p>“’Tis so,” said Corund. “When did I charge thee with wisdom and sober
    judgement? With treachery I know thou art soaked wet.”</p>

  <p>“And thou art my friend!” said Gro.</p>

  <p>Corund said in a while, “I have long known thee to be both a subtle and
    dissembling fox, and now I durst trust thee no more, for fear I should
    fall further into thy danger. I am resolved to murther thee.”</p>

  <p>Gro fell back in his chair and flung out his arms. “I have been here
    before,” he said. “I have beheld it, in moonlight and in the barren
    glare of day, in fair weather and in hail and snow, with the great
    winds charging over the wastes. And I knew it was accursed. From Morna
    Moruna, ere I was born or thou, O Corund, or any of us, treason and
    cruelty blacker than night herself had birth, and brought death to
    their begetter and all his folk. From Morna Moruna bloweth this wind
    about the waste to blast our love and bring us destruction. Ay, kill
    me; I’ll not ward myself, not i’ the smallest.”</p>

  <p>“’Tis small matter, Goblin,” said Corund, “whether thou shouldst or no.
    Thou art but a louse between my fingers, to kill or cast away as shall
    seem me good.”</p>

  <p>“I was King Gaslark’s man,” said Gro, as if talking in a dream; “and
    between a man and a boy near fifteen years I served him true and
    costly. Yet it was my fortune in all that time and at the ending
    thereof only to get a beard on my chin and remorse at heart. To
    what scorned purpose must I plot against him? Pity of Witchland, of
    Witchland sliding as then into the pit of adverse luck, ’twas that
    made force upon me. And I served Witchland well: but fate ever fought
    o’ the other side. I it was that counselled King Gorice XI. to draw
    out from the fight at Kartadza. Yet wanton Fortune trod down the scale
    for Demonland. I prayed him not wrastle with Goldry in the Foliot
    Isles. Thou didst back me. Nought but rebukes and threats of death
    gat I therefrom; but because my redes were set at nought, evil fell
    upon Witchland. I helped our Lord the King when he conjured and made a
    sending against<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span> the Demons. He loved me therefor and upheld me, but
    great envy was raised up against me in Carcë for that fact. Yet I bare
    up, for thy friendship and thy lady wife’s were as bright fires to warm
    me against all the frosts of their ill-will. And now, for love of thee,
    I fared with thee to Impland. And here by the Moruna where in old days
    I wandered in danger and in sorrow, it is fitting I behold at length
    the emptiness of all my days.”</p>

  <p>Therewith Gro fell silent a minute, and then began to say: “O Corund,
    I’ll strip bare my soul to thee before thou kill me. It is most true
    that until now, sitting before Eshgrar Ogo, it hath been present to
    my heart how great an advantage we held against the Demons, and the
    glory of their defence, so little a strength against us so many, and
    the great glory of their flinging of us back, these things were a
    splendour to my soul beholding them. Such glamour hath ever shone to me
    all my life’s days when I behold great men battling still beneath the
    bludgeonings of adverse fortune that, howsoever they be mine enemies,
    it lieth not in my virtue to withhold from admiration of them and well
    nigh love. But never was I false to thee, nor much less ever thought,
    as thou most unkindly accusest me, to compass thy destruction.”</p>

  <p>“Thou dost whine like a woman for thy life,” said Corund. “Cowardly
    hounds never stirred pity in me.” Yet he moved not, only looking dourly
    on Gro.</p>

  <p>Gro plucked forth his own sword, and pushed it towards Corund
    hilt-foremost across the board. “Such words are worse than
    sword-thrusts betwixt us twain,” said he. “Thou shalt see how I’ll
    welcome death. The King will praise thee, when thou showest the cause.
    And it will be sweet news to Corinius and them that have held me in
    their hate, that thy love hath cast me off, and thou hast rid them of
    me at last.”</p>

  <p>But Corund stirred not. After a space, he filled another cup, and
    drank, and sat on. And Gro sat motionless before him. At last Corund
    rose heavily from his seat, and pushing Gro’s sword back across the
    table, “Thou’dst best to bed,” said he. “But the night air’s o’er
    shrewd for thine ague. Sleep on my couch to-night.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>The day dawned cold and gray, and with the dawn Corund ordered his
    lines round about Eshgrar Ogo and sat down for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span> a siege. For ten days
    he sat before the burg, and nought befell from dawn till night, from
    night till dawn: only the sentinels walked on the walls and Corund’s
    folk guarded their lines. On the eleventh day came a bank of fog
    rolling westward from the Moruna, chill and dank, blotting out the
    features of the land. Snow fell, and the fog hung on the land, and
    night came of such a pitchy blackness that even by torch-light a man
    might not see his hand stretched forth at arm’s length before him. Five
    days the fog held. On the fifth night, it being the twenty-fourth of
    November, in the darkness of the third hour after midnight, the alarm
    was sounded and Corund summoned by a runner from the north with word
    that a sally was made from Eshgrar Ogo, and the lines bursten through
    in that quarter, and fighting going forward in the mirk. Corund was
    scarce harnessed and gotten forth into the night, when a second runner
    came hot-foot from the south with tidings of a great fight thereaway.
    All was confounded in the dark, and nought certain, save that the
    Demons were broken out from Eshgrar Ogo. In a space, as Corund came
    with his folk to the northern quarter and joined in the fight, came a
    message from his son Heming that Spitfire and a number with him were
    broken out at the other side and gotten away westward, and a great band
    chasing him back towards Outer Impland; and therewith that more than
    an hundred Demons were surrounded and penned in by the shore of the
    lakes, and the burg entered and taken by Corund’s folk; but of Juss and
    Brandoch Daha no certain news, save that they were not of Spitfire’s
    company, but were with those against whom Corund went in person,
    having fared forth northaway. So went the battle through the night.
    Corund himself had sight of Juss, and exchanged shots with him with
    twirl-spears in a lifting of the fog toward dawn, and a son of his bare
    witness of Brandoch Daha in that same quarter, and had gotten a great
    wound from him.</p>

  <p>When night was past, and the Witches returned from the pursuit,
    Corund straitly questioned his officers, and went himself about the
    battlefield hearing each man’s story and viewing the slain. Those
    Demons that were hemmed against the lakes had all lost their lives,
    and some were taken up dead in other parts, and some few alive. These
    would his officers let slay, but Corund said, “Since I am king in
    Impland, till that the King receive it of me, it is not this handful
    of earth-lice shall shake<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span> my safety here; and I may well give them
    their lives, that fought sturdily against us.” So he gave them peace.
    And he said unto Gro, “Better that for every Demon dead in Ogo Morveo
    ten should rise up against us, if but Juss only and Brandoch Daha were
    slain.”</p>

  <p>“I’ll be in the tale with thee, if thou wilt proclaim them dead,” said
    Gro. “And nothing is likelier, if they be gone with but two or three on
    to the Moruna, than that such a tale should come true ere it were told
    in Carcë.”</p>

  <p>“Pshaw!” said Corund, “to the devil with such false feathers. What’s
    done shows brave enow without them: Impland conquered, Juss’s army
    minced to a gallimaufry, himself and Brandoch Daha chased like runaway
    thralls up on the Moruna. Where if devils tear them, ’tis my best wish
    come true. If not, thou’lt hear of them, be sure. Dost think these can
    survive on earth and not raise a racket that shall be heard from hence
    to Carcë?”</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_crab.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="KOSHTRA_PIVRARCHA">XII: KOSHTRA PIVRARCHA</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE COMING OF THE LORDS OF DEMONLAND TO MORNA MORUNA, WHENCE THEY
    BEHELD THE ZIMIAMVIAN MOUNTAINS, SEEN ALSO BY GRO IN YEARS GONE
    BY; AND OF THE WONDERS SEEN BY THEM AND PERILS UNDERGONE AND DEEDS
    DONE IN THEIR ATTEMPT ON KOSHTRA PIVRARCHA, THE WHICH ALONE OF ALL
    EARTH’S MOUNTAINS LOOKETH DOWN UPON KOSHTRA BELORN; AND NONE SHALL
    ASCEND UP INTO KOSHTRA BELORN THAT HATH NOT FIRST LOOKED DOWN UPON HER.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">NOW it is to be said of Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha that they,
    finding themselves parted from their people in the fog, and utterly
    unable to find them, when the last sound of battle had died away
    wiped and put up their bloody swords and set forth at a great pace
    eastward. Only Mivarsh fared with them of all their following. His
    lips were drawn back a little, showing his teeth, but he carried
    himself proudly as one who being resolved to die walks with a quiet
    mind to his destruction. Day after day they journeyed, sometimes in
    clear weather, sometimes in mist or sleet, over the changeless desert,
    without a landmark, save here a little sluggish river, or here a piece
    of rising ground, or a pond, or a clump of rocks: small things which
    faded from sight amid the waste ere they were passed by a half-mile’s
    distance. So was each day like yesterday, drawing to a morrow like to
    it again. And always fear walked at their heel and sat beside them
    sleeping: clanking of wings heard above the wind, a brooding hush of
    menace in the sunshine, and noises out of the void of darkness as of
    teeth chattering. So came they on the twentieth day to Morna Moruna,
    and stood at even in the sorrowful twilight by the little round castle,
    silent on Omprenne Edge.</p>

  <p>From their feet the cliffs dropped sheer. Strange it was,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span> standing on
    that frozen lip of the Moruna, as on the limit of the world, to gaze
    southward on a land of summer, and to breathe faint summer airs blowing
    up from blossoming trees and flower-clad alps. In the depths a carpet
    of huge tree-tops clothed a vast stretch of country, through the midst
    of which, seen here and there in a bend of silver among the woods, the
    Bhavinan bore the waters of a thousand secret mountain solitudes down
    to an unknown sea. Beyond the river the deep woods, blue with distance,
    swelled to feathery hill-tops with some sharper-featured loftier
    heights bodying cloudily beyond them. The Demons strained their eyes
    searching the curtain of mystery behind and above those foot-hills; but
    the great peaks, like great ladies, shrouded themselves against their
    curious gaze, and no glimpse was shown them of the snows.</p>

  <p>Surely to be in Morna Moruna was to be in the death chamber of some
    once lovely presence. Stains of fire were on the walls. The fair
    gallery of open wood-work that ran above the main hall was burnt
    through and partly fallen in ruin, the blackened ends of the beams that
    held it jutting blindly in the gap. Among the wreck of carved chairs
    and benches, broken and worm-eaten, some shreds of figured tapestries
    rotted, the home now of beetles and spiders. Patches of colour, faded
    lines, mildewed and damp with the corruption of two hundred years,
    lingered to be the memorials, like the mummied skeleton of a king’s
    daughter long ago untimely dead, of sweet gracious paintings on the
    walls. Five nights and five days the Demons and Mivarsh dwelt in Morna
    Moruna, inured to portents till they marked them as little as men mark
    swallows at their window. In the still night were flames seen, and
    flying forms dim in the moonlit air; and in moonless nights unstarred,
    moans heard and gibbering accents: prodigies beside their beds, and
    ridings in the sky, and fleshless fingers plucking at Juss unseen when
    he went forth to make question of the night.</p>

  <p>Cloud and mist abode ever in the south, and only the foot-hills showed
    of the great ranges beyond Bhavinan. But on the evening of the sixth
    day before Yule, it being the nineteenth of December when Betelgeuze
    stands at midnight on the meridian, a wind blew out of the north-west
    with changing fits of sleet and sunshine. Day was fading as they
    stood above the cliff. All the forest land was blue with shades of
    approaching night:<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span> the river was dull silver: the wooded heights
    afar mingled their outlines with the towers and banks of turbulent
    deep blue vapour that hurtled in ceaseless passage through the upper
    air. Suddenly a window opened in the clouds to a space of clean wan
    wind-swept sky high above the shaggy hills. Surely Juss caught his
    breath in that moment, to see those deathless ones where they shone
    pavilioned in the pellucid air, far, vast, and lonely, most like to
    creatures of unascended heaven, of wind and of fire all compact, too
    pure to have aught of the gross elements of earth or water. It was as
    if the rose-red light of sun-down had been frozen to crystal and these
    hewn from it to abide to everlasting, strong and unchangeable amid
    the welter of earthborn mists below and tumultuous sky above them.
    The rift ran wider, eastward and westward, opening on more peaks and
    sunset-kindled snows. And a rainbow leaning to the south was like a
    sword of glory across the vision.</p>

  <p>Motionless, like hawks staring from that high place of prospect, Juss
    and Brandoch Daha looked on the mountains of their desire.</p>

  <p>Juss spake, haltingly as one talking in a dream. “The sweet smell,
    this gusty wind, the very stone thy foot standeth on: I know them all
    before. There’s not a night since we sailed out of Lookinghaven that I
    have not beheld in sleep these mountains and known their names.”</p>

  <p>“Who told thee their names?” asked Lord Brandoch Daha.</p>

  <p>“My dream,” Juss answered. “And first I dreamed it in mine own bed in
    Galing when I came home from guesting with thee last June. And they be
    true dreams that are dreamed there.” And he said, “Seest thou where the
    foot-hills part to a dark valley that runneth deep into the chain, and
    the mountains are bare to view from crown to foot? Mark where, beyond
    the nearer range, bleak-visaged precipices, cobweb-streaked with huge
    snow corridors, rise to a rampart where the rock towers stand against
    the sky. This is the great ridge of Koshtra Pivrarcha, and the loftiest
    of those spires his secret mountain-top.”</p>

  <p>As he spoke, his eye followed the line of the eastern ridge, where the
    towers, like dark gods going down from heaven, plunge to a parapet
    which runs level above a curtain of avalanche-fluted snow. He fell
    silent as his gaze rested on the sister peak that east of the gap
    flamed skyward in wild cliffs to an airy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span> snowy summit, soft-lined as a
    maiden’s cheek, purer than dew, lovelier than a dream.</p>

  <p>While they looked the sunset fires died out upon the mountains, leaving
    only pale hues of death and silence. “If thy dream,” said Lord Brandoch
    Daha, “conducted thee down this Edge, over the Bhavinan, through
    yonder woods and hills, up through the leagues of ice and frozen rock
    that stand betwixt us and the main ridge, up by the right road to the
    topmost snows of Koshtra Belorn: that were a dream indeed.”</p>

  <p>“All this it showed me,” said Juss, “up to the lowest rocks of the
    great north buttress of Koshtra Pivrarcha, that must first be scaled
    by him that would go up to Koshtra Belorn. But beyond those rocks not
    even a dream hath ever climbed. Ere the light fades, I’ll show thee our
    pass over the nearer range.” He pointed where a glacier crawled betwixt
    shadowy walls down from a torn snow-field that rose steeply to a
    saddle. East of it stood two white peaks, and west of it a sheer-faced
    and long-backed mountain like a citadel, squat and dark beneath the
    wild sky-line of Koshtra Pivrarcha that hung in air beyond it.</p>

  <p>“The Zia valley,” said Juss, “that runneth into Bhavinan. There lieth
    our way: under that dark bastion called by the Gods Tetrachnampf.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>On the morrow Lord Brandoch Daha came to Mivarsh Faz and said, “It is
    needful that this day we go down from Omprenne Edge. I would for no
    sake leave thee on the Moruna, but ’tis no walking matter to descend
    this wall. Art thou a cragsman?”</p>

  <p>“I was born,” answered he, “in the high valley of Perarshyn by the
    upper waters of the Beirun in Impland. There boys scarce toddle
    ere they can climb a rock. This climb affrights me not, nor those
    mountains. But the land is unknown and terrible, and many loathly
    ones inhabit it, ghosts and eaters of men. O devils transmarine, and
    my friends, is it not enough? Let us turn again, and if the Gods save
    our lives we shall be famous for ever, that came unto Morna Moruna and
    returned alive.”</p>

  <p>But Juss answered and said, “O Mivarsh Faz, know that not for fame
    are we come on this journey. Our greatness already shadoweth all the
    world, as a great cedar tree spreading his shadow in a garden; and
    this enterprise, mighty though it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span> be, shall add to our glory only so
    much as thou mightest add to these forests of the Bhavinan by planting
    of one more tree. But so it is, that the great King of Witchland,
    practising in darkness in his royal palace of Carcë such arts of
    grammarie and sendings magical as the world hath not been grieved
    with until now, sent an ill thing to take my brother, the Lord Goldry
    Bluszco, who is dear to me as mine own soul. And They that dwell in
    secret sent me word in a dream, bidding me, if I would have tidings of
    my dear brother, inquire in Koshtra Belorn. Therefore, O Mivarsh, go
    with us if thou wilt, but if thou wilt not, why, fare thee well. For
    nought but my death shall stay me from going thither.”</p>

  <p>And Mivarsh, bethinking him that if the mantichores of the mountains
    should devour him along with those two lords, that were yet a kindlier
    fate than all alone to abide those things he wist of on the Moruna, put
    on the rope, and after commending himself to the protection of his gods
    followed Lord Brandoch Daha down the rotten slopes of rock and frozen
    earth at the head of a gully leading down the cliff.</p>

  <p>For all that they were early afoot, yet was it high noon ere they were
    off the rocks. For the peril of falling stones drove them out from
    the gully’s bed first on to the eastern buttress and after, when that
    grew too sheer, back to the western wall. And in an hour or twain the
    gully’s bed grew shallow and it narrowed to an end, whence Brandoch
    Daha gazed between his feet to where, a few spear’s lengths below, the
    smooth slabs curved downward out of sight and the eye leapt straight
    from their clean-cut edge to shimmering tree-tops that showed tiny
    as mosses beyond the unseen gulf of air. So they rested awhile; then
    returning a little up the gully forced a way out on to the face and
    made a hazardous traverse to a new gully westward of the first, and so
    at last plunged down a long fan of scree and rested on soft fine turf
    at the foot of the cliffs.</p>

  <p>Little mountain gentians grew at their feet; the pathless forest
    lay like the sea below them; before them the mountains of the Zia
    stood supreme: the white gables of Islargyn, the lean dark finger of
    Tetrachnampf nan Tshark lying back above the Zia Pass pointing to the
    sky, and west of it, jutting above the valley, the square bastion
    of Tetrachnampf nan Tsurm. The greater mountains were for the most
    part sunk behind this nearer range, but Koshtra Belorn still towered
    above the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span> Pass. As a queen looking down from her high window, so
    she overlooked those green woods sleeping in the noon-day; and on
    her forehead was beauty like a star. Behind them where they sat, the
    escarpment reared back in cramped perspective, a pile of massive
    buttresses cleft with ravines leading upward from that land of leaves
    and waters to the hidden wintry flats of the Moruna.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>That night they slept on the fell under the stars, and next day, going
    down into the woods, came at dusk to an open glade by the waters of the
    broad-bosomed Bhavinan. The turf was like a cushion, a place for elves
    to dance in. The far bank full half a mile away was wooded to the water
    with silver birches, dainty as mountain nymphs, their limbs gleaming
    through the twilight, their reflections quivering in the depths of the
    mighty river. In the high air day lingered yet, a faint warmth tingeing
    the great outlines of the mountains, and westward up the river the
    young moon stooped above the trees. East of the glade a little wooded
    eminence, no higher than a house, ran back from the river bank, and in
    its shoulder a hollow cave.</p>

  <p>“How smiles it to thee?” said Juss. “Be sure we shall find no better
    place than this thou seest to dwell in until the snows melt and we
    may on. For though it be summer all the year round in this fortunate
    valley, it is winter on the great hills, and until the spring we were
    mad to essay our enterprise.”</p>

  <p>“Why then,” said Brandoch Daha, “turn we shepherds awhile. Thou shalt
    pipe to me, and I’ll foot thee measures shall make the dryads think
    they ne’er went to school. And Mivarsh shall be a goat-foot god to
    chase them; for to tell thee truth country wenches are long grown
    tedious to me. O, ’tis a sweet life. But ere we fall to it, bethink
    thee, O Juss: time marcheth, and the world waggeth: what goeth forward
    in Demonland till summer be come and we home again?”</p>

  <p>“Also my heart is heavy because of my brother Spitfire,” said Juss. “O,
    ’twas an ill storm, and ill delays.”</p>

  <p>“Away with vain regrettings,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “For thy sake
    and thy brother’s fared I on this journey, and it is known to thee that
    never yet stretched I out mine hand upon aught that I have not taken
    it, and had my will of it.”</p>

  <p>So they made their dwelling in that cave beside deep-eddying<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span> Bhavinan,
    and before that cave they ate their Yule feast, the strangest they
    had eaten all the days of their lives: seated, not as of old, on
    their high seats of ruby or of opal, but on mossy banks where daisies
    slept and creeping thyme; lighted not by the charmed escarbuncle of
    the high presence chamber in Galing, but by the shifting beams of a
    brushwood fire that shone not on those pillars crowned with monsters
    that were the wonder of the world but on the mightier pillars of the
    sleeping beechwoods. And in place of that feigned heaven of jewels
    self-effulgent beneath the golden canopy at Galing, they ate pavilioned
    under a charmed summer night, where the great stars of winter, Orion,
    Sirius, and the Little Dog, were raised up near the zenith, yielding
    their known courses in the southern sky to Canopus and the strange
    stars of the south. When the trees spake, it was not with their winter
    voice of bare boughs creaking, but with whisper of leaves and beetles
    droning in the fragrant air. The bushes were white with blossom, not
    with hoar-frost, and the dim white patches under the trees were not
    snow, but wild lilies and wood anemones sleeping in the night.</p>

  <p>All the creatures of the forest came to that feast, for they were
    without fear, having never looked upon the face of man. Little
    tree-apes, and popinjays, and titmouses, and coalmouses, and wrens, and
    gentle round-eyed lemurs, and rabbits, and badgers, and dormice, and
    pied squirrels, and beavers from the streams, and storks, and ravens,
    and bustards, and wombats, and the spider-monkey with her baby at her
    breast: all these came to gaze with curious eye upon those travellers.
    And not these alone, but fierce beasts of the woods and wildernesses:
    the wild buffalo, the wolf, the tiger with monstrous paws, the bear,
    the fiery-eyed unicorn, the elephant, the lion and she-lion in their
    majesty, came to behold them in the firelight in that quiet glade.</p>

  <p>“It seems we hold court in the woods to-night,” said Lord Brandoch
    Daha. “It is very pleasant. Yet hold thee ready with me to put some
    fire-brands amongst ’em if need befall. ’Tis likely some of these great
    beasts are little schooled in court ceremonies.”</p>

  <p>Juss answered, “And thou lovest me, do no such thing. There lieth this
    curse upon all this land of the Bhavinan, that whoso, whether he be man
    or beast, slayeth in this land or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span> doeth here any deed of violence,
    there cometh down a curse upon him that in that instant must destroy
    and blast him for ever off the face of the earth. Therefore it was
    I took away from Mivarsh his bow and arrows when we came down from
    Omprenne Edge, lest he should kill game for us and so a worse thing
    befall him.”</p>

  <p>Mivarsh harkened not, but sat all a-quake, looking intently on a
    crocodile that came ponderously out upon the bank. And now he began to
    scream with terror, crying, “Save me! let me fly! give me my weapons!
    It was foretold me by a wise woman that a cocadrill-serpent must devour
    me at last!” Whereat the beasts drew back uneasily, and the crocodile,
    his small eyes wide, startled by Mivarsh’s cries and violent gestures,
    lurched with what speed he might back into the water.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now in that place Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha and Mivarsh Faz
    abode for four moons’ space. Nothing they lacked of meat and drink,
    for the beasts of the forest, finding them well disposed, brought them
    of their store. Moreover, there came flying from the south, about the
    ending of the year, a martlet which alighted in Juss’s bosom and said
    to him, “The gentle Queen Sophonisba, fosterling of the Gods, had news
    of your coming. And because she knoweth you both mighty men of your
    hands and high of heart, therefore by me she sent you greeting.”</p>

  <p>Juss said, “O little martlet, we would see thy Queen face to face, and
    thank her.”</p>

  <p>“Ye must thank her,” said the bird, “in Koshtra Belorn.”</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha said, “That shall we fulfil. Thither only do our thoughts
    intend.”</p>

  <p>“Your greatness,” said the martlet, “must approve that word. And know
    that it is easier to lay under you all the world in arms than to ascend
    up afoot into that mountain.”</p>

  <p>“Thy wings were too weak to lift me, else I’d borrow them,” said
    Brandoch Daha.</p>

  <p>But the martlet answered, “Not the eagle that flieth against the sun
    may alight on Koshtra Belorn. No foot may tread her, save of those
    blessed ones to whom the Gods gave leave ages ago, till they be come
    that the patient years await: men like unto the Gods in beauty and in
    power, who of their own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span> might and main, unholpen by magic arts, shall
    force a passage up to her silent snows.”</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha laughed. “Not the eagle?” he cried, “but thou, little
    flitter-jack?”</p>

  <p>“Nought that hath feet,” said the martlet. “I have none.”</p>

  <p>The Lord Brandoch Daha took it tenderly in his hand and held it high in
    the air, looking to the high lands in the south. The birches swaying
    by the Bhavinan were not more graceful nor the distant mountain-crags
    behind them more untameable to behold than he. “Fly to thy Queen,” he
    said, “and say thou spakest with Lord Juss beside the Bhavinan and with
    Lord Brandoch Daha of Demonland. Say unto her that we be they that were
    for to come; and that we, of our own might and main, ere spring be well
    turned summer, will come up to her in Koshtra Belorn to thank her for
    her gracious sendings.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now when it was April, and the sun moving among the signs of heaven was
    about departing out of Aries and entering into Taurus, and the melting
    of the snows in the high mountains had swollen all the streams to
    spate, filling the mighty river so that he brimmed his banks and swept
    by like a tide-race, Lord Juss said, “Now is the season propitious
    for our crossing of the flood of Bhavinan and setting forth into the
    mountains.”</p>

  <p>“Willingly,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “But shall’s walk it, or swim it,
    or take to us wings? To me, that have many a time swum back and forth
    over Thunderfirth to whet mine appetite ere I brake my fast, ’tis a
    small matter of this river stream howso swift it runneth. But with our
    harness and weapons and all our gear, that were far other matter.”</p>

  <p>“Is it for nought we are grown friends with them that do inhabit these
    woods?” said Juss. “The crocodile shall bear us over Bhavinan for the
    asking.”</p>

  <p>“It is an ill fish,” said Mivarsh; “and it sore dislikes me.”</p>

  <p>“Then here thou must abide,” said Brandoch Daha. “But be not dismayed,
    I will go with thee. The fish may bear us both at a draught and not
    founder.”</p>

  <p>“It was a wise woman foretold it me,” answered Mivarsh, “that such a
    kind of serpent must be my bane. Yet be it according to your will.”</p>

  <p>So they whistled them up the crocodile; and first the Lord<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span> Juss fared
    over Bhavinan, riding on the back of that serpent with all his gear and
    weapons of war, and landed several hundred paces down stream for the
    stream was very strong; and thereafter the crocodile returning to the
    north bank took the Lord Brandoch Daha and Mivarsh Faz and put them
    across in like manner. Mivarsh put on a gallant face, but rode as near
    the tail as might be, fingering certain herbs from his wallet that were
    good against serpents, his lips moving in urgent supplication to his
    gods. When they were come ashore they thanked the crocodile and bade
    him farewell and went their way swiftly through the woods. And Mivarsh,
    as one new loosed from prison, went before them with a light step,
    singing and snapping his fingers.</p>

  <p>Now had they for three days or four a devious journey through the
    foot-hills, and thereafter made their dwelling for forty days’ space
    in the Zia valley, above the gorges. Here the valley widens to a
    flat-floored amphitheatre, and lean limestone crags tower heavenward on
    every side. High in the south, couched above great gray moraines, the
    Zia glacier, wrinkle-backed like some dragon survived out of the elder
    chaos, thrusts his snout into the valley. Here out of his caves of
    ice the young river thunders, casting up a spray where rainbows hover
    in bright weather. The air blows sharp from the glacier, and alpine
    flowers and shrubs feed on the sunlight.</p>

  <p>Here they gathered them good store of food. And every morning they were
    afoot before the sunrise, to ascend the mountains and make sure their
    practice ere they should attempt the greater peaks. So they explored
    all the spurs of Tetrachnampf and Islargyn, and those peaks themselves;
    the rock peaks of the lower Nuanner range overlooking Bhavinan; the
    snow peaks east of Islargyn: Avsek, Kiurmsur, Myrsu, Byrshnargyn, and
    Borch Mehephtharsk, loftiest of the range, by all his ridges, dwelling
    a week on the moraines of the Mehephtharsk glacier above the upland
    valley of Foana; and westward the dolomite group of Burdjazarshra and
    the great wall of Shilack.</p>

  <p>Now were their muscles by these exercises grown like bands of iron,
    and they hardy as mountain bears and sure of foot as mountain goats.
    So on the ninth day of May they crossed the Zia Pass and camped on the
    rocks under the south wall of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span> Tetrachnampf nan Tshark. The sun went
    down, like blood, in a cloudless sky. On either hand and before them,
    the snows stretched blue and silent. The air of those high snowfields
    was bitter cold. A league and more to the south a line of black cliffs
    bounded the glacier-basin. Over that black wall, twelve miles away,
    Koshtra Belorn and Koshtra Pivrarcha towered against an opal heaven.</p>

  <p>While they supped in the fading light, Juss said, “The wall thou seest
    is called the Barriers of Emshir. Though over it lieth the straight
    way to Koshtra Pivrarcha, yet is it not our way, but an ill way. For,
    first, that barrier hath till now been held unclimbable, and so proven
    even by half-gods that alone assayed it.”</p>

  <p>“I await not thy second reason,” said Brandoch Daha. “Thou hast had thy
    way until now, and now thou shalt give me mine in this, to come with me
    to-morrow and show how thou and I make of such barriers a puff of smoke
    if they stand in the path between us and our fixed ends.”</p>

  <p>“Were it only this,” answered Juss, “I would not gainsay thee. But
    not senseless rocks alone are we set to deal with if we take this
    road. Seest thou where the Barriers end in the east against yonder
    monstrous pyramid of tumbled crags and hanging glaciers that shuts
    out our prospect eastaway? Menksur men call it, but in heaven it
    hath a more dreadful name: Ela Mantissera, which is to say, the Bed
    of the Mantichores. O Brandoch Daha, I will climb with thee what
    unscaled cliff thou list, and I will fight with thee against the most
    grisfullest beasts that ever grazed by the Tartarian streams. But
    both these things in one moment of time, that were a rash part and a
    foolish.”</p>

  <p>But Brandoch Daha laughed, and answered him, “To nought else may I
    liken thee, O Juss, but to the sparrow-camel. To whom they said, ‘Fly,’
    and it answered, ‘I cannot, for I am a camel’; and when they said,
    ‘Carry,’ it answered, ‘I cannot, for I am a bird.’”</p>

  <p>“Wilt thou egg me on so much?” said Juss.</p>

  <p>“Ay,” said Brandoch Daha, “if thou wilt be assish.”</p>

  <p>“Wilt thou quarrel?” said Juss.</p>

  <p>“Thou knowest me,” said Brandoch Daha.</p>

  <p>“Well,” said Juss, “thy counsel hath been right once and saved us, for
    nine times that it hath been wrong, and my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span> counsel saved thee from an
    evil end. If ill behap us, it shall be set down that it had from thy
    peevish will original.” And they wrapped them in their cloaks and slept.</p>

  <p>On the morrow they rose betimes and set forth south across the snows
    that were crisp and hard for the frosts of the night. The Barriers, as
    it were but a stone’s-throw removed, stood black before them; starlight
    swallowed up size and distance that showed only by walking, as still
    they walked and still that wall seemed no nearer nor no larger. Twice
    and thrice they dipped into a valley or crossed a raised-up fold of
    the glacier; till they stood at break of day below the smooth blank
    wall frozen and bleak, with never a ledge in sight great enough to bear
    snow, barring their passage southward.</p>

  <p>They halted and ate and scanned the wall before them. And ill to do
    with it seemed. So they searched for an ascent, and found at last a
    spot where the glacier swelled higher, a mile or less from the western
    shoulder of Ela Mantissera. Here the cliff was but four or five hundred
    feet high; yet smooth enow and ill enow to look on; yet their likeliest
    choice.</p>

  <p>Some while it was ere they might get a footing on that wall, but at
    length Brandoch Daha, standing on Juss’s shoulder, found him a hold
    where no hold showed from below, and with great travail fought a
    passage up the rock to a stance some hundred feet above them, whence
    sitting sure on a broad ledge great enough to hold six or seven folk
    at a time he played up Lord Juss on the rope and after him Mivarsh. An
    hour and a half it cost them for that short climb.</p>

  <p>“The north-east buttress of Ill Stack was children’s gruel to this,”
    said Lord Juss.</p>

  <p>“There’s more aloft,” said Lord Brandoch Daha, lying back against the
    precipice, his hands clasped behind his head, his feet a-dangle over
    the ledge. “In thine ear, Juss: I would not go first on the rope again
    on such a pitch for all the wealth of Impland.”</p>

  <p>“Wilt repent and return?” said Juss.</p>

  <p>“If thou’lt be last down,” he answered. “If not, I’d liever risk what
    waits untried above us. If it prove worse, I am confirmed atheist.”</p>

  <p>Lord Juss leaned out, holding by the rock with his right<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span> hand,
    scanning the wall beside and above them. An instant he hung so, then
    drew back. His square jaw was set, and his teeth glinted under his dark
    moustachios something fiercely, as a thunder-beam betwixt dark sky and
    sea in a night of thunder. His nostrils widened, as of a war-horse at
    the call of battle; his eyes were like the violet levin-brand, and all
    his body hardened like a bowstring drawn as he grasped his sharp sword
    and pulled it forth grating and singing from its sheath.</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha sprang afoot and drew his sword, Zeldornius’s loom. “What
    stirreth?” he cried. “Thou look’st ghastly. That look thou hadst when
    thou tookest the helm and our prows swung westward toward Kartadza
    Sound, and the fate of Demonland and all the world beside hung in thine
    hand for wail or bliss.”</p>

  <p>“There’s little sword-room,” said Juss. And again he looked forth
    eastward and upward along the cliff. Brandoch Daha looked over his
    shoulder. Mivarsh took his bow and set an arrow on the string.</p>

  <p>“It hath scented us down the wind,” said Brandoch Daha.</p>

  <p>Small time was there to ponder. Swinging from hold to hold across the
    dizzy precipice, as an ape swingeth from bough to bough, the beast drew
    near. The shape of it was as a lion, but bigger and taller, the colour
    a dull red, and it had prickles lancing out behind, as of a porcupine;
    its face a man’s face, if aught so hideous might be conceived of
    human kind, with staring eyeballs, low wrinkled brow, elephant ears,
    some wispy mangy likeness of a lion’s mane, huge bony chaps, brown
    blood-stained gubber-tushes grinning betwixt bristly lips. Straight for
    the ledge it made, and as they braced them to receive it, with a great
    swing heaved a man’s height above them and leaped down upon their ledge
    from aloft betwixt Juss and Brandoch Daha ere they were well aware of
    its changed course. Brandoch Daha smote at it a great swashing blow and
    cut off its scorpion tail; but it clawed Juss’s shoulder, smote down
    Mivarsh, and charged like a lion upon Brandoch Daha, who, missing his
    footing on the narrow edge of rock, fell backwards a great fall, clear
    of the cliff, down to the snow an hundred feet beneath them.</p>

  <p>As it craned over, minded to follow and make an end of him, Juss smote
    it in the hinder parts and on the ham, shearing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span> away the flesh from
    the thigh bone, and his sword came with a clank against the brazen
    claws of its foot. So with a horrid bellow it turned on Juss, rearing
    like a horse; and it was three heads greater than a tall man in stature
    when it reared aloft, and the breadth of its chest like the chest of
    a bear. The stench of its breath choked Juss’s mouth and his senses
    sickened, but he slashed it athwart the belly, a great round-armed
    blow, cutting open its belly so that the guts fell out. Again he
    hewed at it, but missed, and his sword came against the rock, and was
    shivered into pieces. So when that noisome vermin fell forward on
    him roaring like a thousand lions, Juss grappled with it, running in
    beneath its body and clasping it and thrusting his arms into its inward
    parts, to rip out its vitals if so he might. So close he grappled it
    that it might not reach him with its murthering teeth, but its claws
    sliced off the flesh from his left knee downward to the ankle bone,
    and it fell on him and crushed him on the rock, breaking in the bones
    of his breast. And Juss, for all his bitter pain and torment, and for
    all he was well nigh stifled by the sore stink of the creature’s breath
    and the stink of its blood and puddings blubbering about his face and
    breast, yet by his great strength wrastled with that fell and filthy
    man-eater. And ever he thrust his right hand, armed with the hilt and
    stump of his broken sword, yet deeper into its belly until he searched
    out its heart and did his will upon it, slicing the heart asunder like
    a lemon and severing and tearing all the great vessels about the heart
    until the blood gushed about him like a spring. And like a caterpillar
    the beast curled up and straightened out in its death spasms, and it
    rolled and fell from that ledge, a great fall, and lay by Brandoch
    Daha, the foulest beside the fairest of all earthly beings, reddening
    the pure snow with its blood. And the spines that grew on the hinder
    parts of the beast went out and in like the sting of a new-dead wasp
    that goes out and in continually. It fell not clean to the snow, as by
    the care of heaven was fallen Brandoch Daha, but smote an edge of rock
    near the bottom, and that strook out its brains. There it lay in its
    blood, gaping to the sky.</p>

  <p>Now was Juss stretched face downward as one dead, on that giddy edge of
    rock. Mivarsh had saved him, seizing him by the foot and drawing him
    back to safety when the beast fell. A sight of terror he was, clotted
    from head to toe with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span> the beast’s blood and his own. Mivarsh bound his
    wounds and laid him tenderly as he might back against the cliff, then
    peered down a long while to know if the beast were dead indeed.</p>

  <p>When he had gazed downward earnestly so long that his eyes watered
    with the strain, and still the beast stirred not, Mivarsh prostrated
    himself and made supplication saying aloud, “O Shlimphli, Shlamphi,
    and Shebamri, gods of my father and my father’s fathers, have pity of
    your child, if as I dearly trow your power extendeth over this far and
    forbidden country no less than over Impland, where your child hath
    ever worshipped you in your holy places, and taught my sons and my
    daughters to revere your holy names, and made an altar in mine house,
    pointed by the stars in manner ordained from of old, and offered up my
    seventh-born son and was minded to offer up my seventh-born daughter
    thereon, in meekness and righteousness according to your holy will; but
    this I might not do, since you vouchsafed me not a seventh daughter,
    but six only. Wherefore I beseech you, of your holy names’ sake,
    strengthen my hand to let down this my companion safely by the rope,
    and thereafter bring me safely down from this rock, howsoever he be a
    devil and an unbeliever; O save his life, save both their lives. For
    I am sure that if these be not saved alive, never shall your child
    return, but in this far land starve and die like an insect that dureth
    but for a day.”</p>

  <p>So prayed Mivarsh. And belike the high Gods were moved to pity of his
    innocence, hearing him so cry for help unto his mumbo-jumbos, where no
    help was; and belike they were not minded that those lords of Demonland
    should there die evilly before their time, unhonoured, unsung.
    Howsoever, Mivarsh arose and made fast the rope about Lord Juss,
    knotting it cunningly beneath the arms that it might not tighten in the
    lowering and crush his breast and ribs, and so with much ado lowered
    him down to the foot of the cliff. Thereafter came Mivarsh himself down
    that perilous wall, and albeit for many a time he thought his bane was
    upon him, yet by good cragsmanship spurred by cold necessity he gat him
    down at last. Being down, he delayed not to minister to his companions,
    who came to themselves with heavy groaning. But when Lord Juss was come
    to himself<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span> he did his healing art both on himself and on Lord Brandoch
    Daha, so that in a while they were able to stand upon their feet,
    albeit something stiff and weary and like to vomit. And it was by then
    the third hour past noon.</p>

  <p>While they rested, beholding where the beast mantichora lay in his
    blood, Juss spake and said, “It is to be said of thee, O Brandoch Daha,
    that thou to-day hast done both the worst and the best. The worst,
    when thou wast so stubborn set to fare upon this climb which hath come
    within a little of spilling both thee and me. The best, whenas thou
    didst smite off his tail. Was that by policy or by chance?”</p>

  <p>“Why,” said he, “I was never so poor a man of my hands that I need turn
    braggart. ’Twas handiest to my sword, and it disliked me to see it
    wagging. Did aught lie on it?”</p>

  <p>“The sting of his tail,” answered Juss, “were competent for thine or my
    destruction, and it grazed but our little finger.”</p>

  <p>“Thou speakest like a book,” said Brandoch Daha. “Else might I scarce
    know thee for my noble friend, being berayed with blood as a buffalo
    with mire. Be not angry with me, if I am most at ease to windward of
    thee.”</p>

  <p>Juss laughed. “If thou be not too nice,” he said, “go to the beast
    and dabble thyself too with the blood of his bowels. Nay, I mock not;
    it is most needful. These be enemies not of mankind only, but each of
    other: walking every one by himself, loathing every one his kind living
    or dead, so that in all the world there abideth nought loathlier unto
    them than the blood of their own kind, the least smell whereof they do
    abhor as a mad dog abhorreth water. And ’tis a clinging smell. So are
    we after this encounter most sure against them.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>That night they camped at the foot of a spur of Avsek, and set forth at
    dawn down the long valley eastward. All day they heard the roaring of
    mantichores from the desolate flanks of Ela Mantissera that showed now
    no longer as a pyramid but as a long-backed screen, making the southern
    rampart of that valley. It was ill going, and they somewhat shaken. Day
    was nigh gone when beyond the eastern slopes of Ela they came where the
    white waters of the river they followed thundered together with a black
    water rushing down from the south-west. Below, the river ran east in a
    wide valley dropping afar to tree-clad<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span> depths. In the fork above the
    watersmeet the rocks enclosed a high green knoll, like some fragment of
    a kindlier clime that over-lived into an age of ruin.</p>

  <p>“Here, too,” said Juss, “my dream walked with me. And if it be ill
    crossing there where this stream breaketh into a dozen branching
    cataracts a little above the watersmeet, yet well I think ’tis our only
    crossing.” So, ere the light should fade, they crossed that perilous
    edge above the water-falls, and slept on the green knoll.</p>

  <p>That knoll Juss named Throstlegarth, after a thrush that waked them
    next morning, singing in a little wind-stunted mountain thorn that
    grew among the rocks. Strangely sounded that homely song on the cold
    mountain side, under the unhallowed heights of Ela, close to the
    confines of those enchanted snows which guard Koshtra Belorn.</p>

  <p>No sight of the high mountains had they from Throstlegarth, nor, for
    a long while, from the bed of that straight steep glen of the black
    waters up which now their journey lay. Rugged spurs and buttresses shut
    them in. High on the left bank above the cataracts they made their way,
    buffeted by the wind that leaped and charged among the crags, their
    ears sated with the roaring sound of waters, their eyes filled with the
    spray blown upward. And Mivarsh followed after them. Silent they fared,
    for the way was steep and in such a wind and such a noise of torrents
    a man must shout lustily if he would be heard. Very desolate was that
    valley, having a dark aspect and a ghastful, such as a man might look
    for in the infernal glens of Pyriphlegethon or Acheron. No living thing
    they saw, save at whiles high above them an eagle sailing down the
    wind, and once a beast’s form running in the hollow mountain side. This
    stood at gaze, lifting up its foul human platter-face with glittering
    eyes bloody and great as saucers; scented its fellow’s blood, started,
    and fled among the crags.</p>

  <p>So fared they for the space of three hours, and so, coming suddenly
    round a shoulder of the hill, stood on the upper threshold of that
    glen at the gates of a flat upland valley. Here they beheld a sight
    to darken all earth’s glories and strike dumb all her singers with
    its grandeur. Framed in the crags of the hillsides, canopied by blue
    heaven, Koshtra Pivrarcha stood before them. So huge he was that even
    here at six miles’ distance the eye might not at a glance behold him,
    but must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span> sweep back and forth as over a broad landscape from the
    ponderous roots of the mountain where they sprang black and sheer from
    the glacier, up the vast face, where buttress was piled upon buttress
    and tower upon tower in a blinding radiance of ice-hung precipice and
    snow-filled gully, to the lone heights where like spears menacing high
    heaven the white teeth of the summit-ridge cleft the sky. From right to
    left he filled nigh a quarter of the heavens, from the graceful peak
    of Ailinon looking over his western shoulder, to where on the east the
    snowy slopes of Jalchi shut in the prospect, hiding Koshtra Belorn.</p>

  <p>They camped that evening on the left moraine of the High Glacier of
    Temarm. Long spidery streamers of cloud, filmy as the gauze of a lady’s
    veil, blew eastward from the spires on the ridge, signs of wild weather
    aloft.</p>

  <p>Juss said, “Glassy clear is the air. That forerunneth not fair weather.”</p>

  <p>“Well, time shall wait for us if need be,” said Brandoch Daha. “So
    mightily my desire crieth unto me from those horns of ice that, having
    once looked on them, I had as lief die as leave them unclimbed. But of
    thee, O Juss, I make some marvel. Thou wast bidden inquire in Koshtra
    Belorn, and sure she were easier won than Koshtra Pivrarcha, going
    behind Jalchi by the snowfields and so avoiding her great western
    cliffs.”</p>

  <p>“There is a saw in Impland,” answered Juss, “‘Ware of a tall wife.’
    Even so there lieth a curse on any that shall attempt Koshtra Belorn
    that hath not first looked down upon her; and he shall have his death
    or ever he have his will. And from one point only of earth may a man
    look down on Koshtra Belorn; and ’tis from yonder unascended tooth
    of ice where thou seest the last beam burn. For that is the topmost
    pinnacle of Koshtra Pivrarcha. And it is the highest point of the
    stablished earth.”</p>

  <p>They were silent a minute’s space. Then Juss spake: “Thou wast ever
    greatest amongst us as a mountaineer. Which way likes thee best for our
    climbing up him?”</p>

  <p>“O Juss,” said Brandoch Daha, “on ice and snow thou art my master.
    Therefore give me thy rede. For mine own choice and pleasure, I have
    settled it this hour and more: namely to ascend into the gap between
    the two mountains, and thence turn westward up the east ridge of
    Pivrarcha.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span></p>

  <p>“It is the fearsomest climb to look on,” said Juss, “and belike the
    grandest, and for both counts I had wagered it thy choice. That gap
    hight the Gates of Zimiamvia. It, and the Koshtra glacier that runneth
    up to it, lieth under the weird I told thee of. It were our death to
    adventure there ere we had looked down upon Koshtra Belorn; which done,
    the charm is broke for us, and from that time forth it needeth but
    our own might and skill and a high heart to accomplish whatsoever we
    desire.”</p>

  <p>“Why then, the great north buttress,” cried Brandoch Daha. “So shall
    she not behold us as we climb, until we come forth on the highest tooth
    and overlook her and tame her to our will.”</p>

  <p>So they supped and slept. But the wind cried among the crags all night
    long, and in the morning snow and sleet blotted out the mountains. All
    day the storm held, and in a lull they struck camp and came down again
    to Throstlegarth, and there abode nine days and nine nights in wind and
    rain and battering hail.</p>

  <p>On the tenth day the weather abated, and they went up and crossed the
    glacier and lodged them in a cave in the rock at the foot of the great
    north buttress of Koshtra Pivrarcha. At dawn Juss and Brandoch Daha
    went forth to survey the prospect. They crossed the mouth of the steep
    snow-choked valley that ran up to the main ridge betwixt Ashnilan
    on the west and Koshtra Pivrarcha on the east, rounded the base of
    Ailinon, and climbed from the west to a snow saddle some three thousand
    feet up the ridge of that mountain, whence they might view the buttress
    and choose their way for their attempt.</p>

  <p>“’Tis a two days’ journey to the top,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “If
    night on the ridge freeze us not to death, I dread no other hindrance.
    That black rib that riseth half a mile above our camp, shall take us
    clean up to the crest of the buttress, striking it above the great
    tower at the northern end. If the rocks be like those we camped on,
    hard as diamond and rough as a sponge, they shall not fail us but by
    our own neglect. As I live, I ne’er saw their like for climbing.”</p>

  <p>“So far, well,” said Juss.</p>

  <p>“Above,” said Brandoch Daha, “I’d drive thee a chariot until we come
    to the first great kick o’ the ridge. That must we round, or ne’er
    go further, and on this side it showeth ill<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span> enough, for the rocks
    shelve outward. If they be iced, there’s work indeed. Beyond that, I’ll
    prophesy nought, O Juss, for I can see nought clear save that the ridge
    is hacked into clefts and steeples. How we may overcome them must be
    put to the proof. It is too high and too far to know. This only: where
    we would go, there have we gone until now. And by that ridge lieth, if
    any way there lieth, the way to this mountain top that we crossed the
    world to climb.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Next day with the first paling of the skies they arose all three and
    set forth southward over the crisp snows. They roped at the foot of the
    glacier that came down from the saddle, some five thousand feet above
    them, where the main ridge dips between Ashnilan and Koshtra Pivrarcha.
    Ere the brighter stars were swallowed in the light of morning they
    were cutting their way among the labyrinthine towers and chasms of the
    ice-fall. Soon the new daylight flooded the snowfields of the High
    Glacier of Temarm, dyeing them green and saffron and palest rose. The
    snows of Islargyn glowed far away in the north to the right of the
    white dome of Emshir. Ela Mantissera blocked the view north-eastward.
    The buttress that bounded their valley on the east plunged it in shadow
    blue as a summer sea. High on the other side the great twin peaks of
    Ailinon and Ashnilan, roused by the warm beams out of their frozen
    silence of the night, growled at whiles with avalanches and falling
    stones.</p>

  <p>Juss was their leader in the ice-fall, guiding them now along high
    knife-edges that fell away on either hand to unsounded depths,
    now within the very lips of those chasms, along the bases of the
    ice-towers. These, five times a man’s height, some square, some
    pinnacled, some shattered or piled with the ruins of their kind, leaned
    above the path, as ready to fall and overwhelm the climbers and dash
    their bones for ever down to those blue-green secret places of frost
    and silence where the chips of ice chinked hollow as Juss pressed
    onward, cutting his steps with Mivarsh’s axe. At length the slope eased
    and they walked out on the unbroken surface of the glacier, and passing
    by a snow-bridge over the great rift betwixt the glacier and the
    mountain side came two hours before noon to the foot of the rock-rib
    that they had scanned from Ailinon.</p>

  <p>Now was Brandoch Daha to lead them. They climbed face<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span> to the rock,
    slowly and without rest, for sound and firm as the rocks were the holds
    were small and few and the cliffs steep. Here and there a chimney gave
    them passage upward, but the climb was mainly by cracks and open faces
    of rock, a trial of main strength and endurance such as few might
    sustain for a short while only: but this wall was three thousand feet
    in height. By noon they gained the crest, and there rested on the rocks
    too weary to speak, looking across the avalanche-swept face of Koshtra
    Pivrarcha to the corniced parapet that ended against the western
    precipices of Koshtra Belorn.</p>

  <p>For some way the ridge of the buttress was broad and level. Then it
    narrowed suddenly to the width of a horse’s back, and sprang skyward
    two thousand feet and more. Brandoch Daha went forward and climbed a
    few feet up the cliff. It bulged out above him, smooth and holdless. He
    tried it once and again, then came down saying, “Nought without wings.”</p>

  <p>Then he went to the left. Here hanging glaciers overlooked the face
    from on high, and while he gazed an avalanche of ice-blocks roared down
    it. Then he went to the right, and here the rocks sloped outward, and
    the sloping ledges were piled with rubbish and the rocks rotten and
    slippery with snow and ice. So having gone a little way he returned,
    and, “O Juss,” he said, “wilt take it right forth, and that must be
    by flying, for hold there is none: or wilt go east and dodge the
    avalanche: or west, where all is rotten and slither and a slip were our
    destruction?”</p>

  <p>So they debated, and at length decided on the eastern road. It was an
    ill step round the jutting corner of the tower, for little hold there
    was, and the rocks were undercut below, so that a stone or a man loosed
    from that place must fall clear at a bound three or four thousand feet
    to the Koshtra glacier and there be dashed in pieces. Beyond, wide
    ledges gave them passage along the wall of the tower, that now swept
    inward, facing south. Far overhead, dazzling white in the sunshine,
    the broken glacier-edges and splinters jutted against the blue, and
    icicles greater than a man hung glittering from every ledge: a sight
    heavenly fair, whereof they yet had little joy, hastening as they had
    not hastened in their lives before to be out of the danger of that
    ice-swept face.</p>

  <p>Suddenly was a noise above them like the crack of a giant whip, and
    looking up they beheld against the sky a dark mass<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span> which opened like
    a flower and spread into a hundred fragments. The Demons and Mivarsh
    hugged the cliffs where they stood, but there was little cover. All
    the air was filled with the shrieking of the stones, as they swept
    downwards like fiends returning to the pit, and with the crash of them
    as they dashed against the cliffs and burst in pieces. The echoes
    rolled and reverberated from cliff to distant cliff, and the limbs of
    the mountain seemed to writhe as under a scourge. When it was done,
    Mivarsh was groaning for pain of his left wrist sore hurt with a stone.
    The others were scatheless.</p>

  <p>Juss said to Brandoch Daha, “Back, howsoever it dislike thee.”</p>

  <p>Back they went; and an avalanche of ice crashed down the face which
    must have destroyed them had they proceeded. “Thou dost misjudge me,”
    said Brandoch Daha, laughing. “Give me where my life lieth on mine own
    might and main; then is danger meat and drink to me, and nought shall
    turn me back. But here on this cursed cliff, on the ledges whereof a
    cripple might walk at ease, we be the toys of chance. And it were pure
    folly to abide upon it a moment longer.”</p>

  <p>“Two ways be left us,” said Juss. “To turn back, and that were our
    shame for ever; and to essay the western traverse.”</p>

  <p>“And that should be the bane of any save of me and thee,” said Brandoch
    Daha. “And if our bane, why, we shall sleep sound.”</p>

  <p>“Mivarsh,” said Juss, “is nought so bounden to this adventure. He hath
    bravely held by us, and bravely stood our friend. Yet here we be come
    to such a pass, I sore misdoubt me if it were less danger of his life
    to come with us than seek safety alone.”</p>

  <p>But Mivarsh put on a hardy face. Never a word he spake, but nodded his
    head, as who should say, “Forward.”</p>

  <p>“First I must be thy leech,” said Juss. And he bound up Mivarsh’s
    wrist. And because the day was now far spent, they camped under the
    great tower, hoping next day to reach the top of Koshtra Pivrarcha that
    stood unseen some six thousand feet above them.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Next morning, when it was light enough to climb, they set forth. For
    two hours’ space on that traverse not a moment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span> passed but they were
    in instant peril of death. They were not roped, for on those slabbery
    rocks one man had dragged a dozen to perdition had he made a slip. The
    ledges sloped outward; they were piled with broken rock and mud; the
    soft red rock broke away at a hand’s touch and plunged at a leap to the
    glacier below. Down and up and along, and down and up and up again they
    wound their way, rounding the base of that great tower, and came at
    last by a rotten gully safe to the ridge above it.</p>

  <p>While they climbed, white wispy clouds which had gathered in the high
    gullies of Ailinon in the morning had grown to a mass of blackness that
    hid all the mountains to the west. Great streamers ran from it across
    the gulf below, joined and boiled upward, lifting and sinking like a
    full-tided sea, rising at last to the high ridge where the Demons stood
    and wrapping them in a cloak of vapour with a chill wind in its folds,
    and darkness in broad noon-day. They halted, for they might not see
    the rocks before them. The wind grew boisterous, shouting among the
    splintered towers. Snow swept powdery and keen across the ridge. The
    cloud lifted and plunged again like some great bird shadowing them with
    its wings. From its bosom the lightning flared above and below. Thunder
    crashed on the heels of the lightning, sending the echoes rolling among
    the distant cliffs. Their weapons, planted in the snow, sizzled with
    blue flame; Juss had counselled laying them aside lest they should
    perish holding them. Crouched in a hollow of the snow among the rocks
    of that high ridge of Koshtra Pivrarcha, Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch
    Daha and Mivarsh Faz weathered that night of terror. When night came
    they knew not, for the storm brought darkness on them hours before
    sun-down. Blinding snow and sleet and fire and thunder, and wild winds
    shrieking in the gullies till the firm mountain seemed to rock, kept
    them awake. They were near frozen, and scarce desired aught but death,
    which might bring them ease from that hellish roundelay.</p>

  <p>Day broke with a weak gray light, and the storm died down. Juss stood
    up weary beyond speech. Mivarsh said, “Ye be devils, but of myself I
    marvel. For I have dwelt by snow mountains all my days, and many I
    wot of that have been benighted on the snows in wild weather. And not
    one but was starved by reason of the cold. I speak of them that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span> were
    found. Many were not found, for the spirits devoured them.”</p>

  <p>Whereat Lord Brandoch Daha laughed aloud, saying, “O Mivarsh, I fear me
    that in thee I have but a graceless dog. Look on him, that in hardihood
    and bodily endurance against all hardships of frost or fire surpasseth
    me as greatly as I surpass thee. Yet is he weariest of the three.
    Wouldst know why? I’ll tell thee: all night he hath striven against
    the cold, chafing not himself only but me and thee to save us from
    frost-bite. And be sure nought else had saved thy carcase.”</p>

  <p>By then was the mist grown lighter, so that they might see the ridge
    for an hundred paces or more where it went up before them, each
    pinnacle standing out shadowy and unsubstantial against the next
    succeeding one more shadowy still. And the pinnacles showed monstrous
    huge through the mist, like mountain peaks in stature.</p>

  <p>They roped and set forth, scaling the towers or turning them, now on
    this side now on that; sometimes standing on teeth of rock that seemed
    cut off from all earth else, solitary in a sea of shifting vapour;
    sometimes descending into a deep gash in the ridge with a blank wall
    rearing aloft on the further side and empty air yawning to left and
    right. The rocks were firm and good, like those they had first climbed
    from the glacier. But they went but a slow pace, for the climbing was
    difficult and made dangerous by new snow and by the ice that glazed the
    rocks.</p>

  <p>As the day wore the wind was fallen, and all was still when they stood
    at length before a ridge of hard ice that shot steeply up before them
    like the edge of a sword. The east side of it on their left was almost
    sheer, ending in a blank precipice that dropped out of sight without a
    break. The western slope, scarcely less steep, ran down in a white even
    sheet of frozen snow till the clouds engulfed it.</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha waited on the last blunt tooth of rock at the foot of the
    ice-ridge. “The rest is thine,” he cried to Lord Juss. “I would not
    that any save thou should tread him first, for he is thy mountain.”</p>

  <p>“Without thee I had never won up hither,” answered Juss; “and it is not
    fitting that I should have that glory to stand first upon the peak when
    thine was the main achievement. Go thou before.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span></p>

  <p>“I will not,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “And it is not so.”</p>

  <p>So Juss went forward, smiting with his axe great steps just below the
    backbone of the ridge on the western side, and Lord Brandoch Daha and
    Mivarsh Faz followed in the steps.</p>

  <p>Presently a wind arose in the unseen spaces of the sky, and tore the
    mist like a rotten garment. Spears of sunlight blazed through the
    rifts. Distant sunny lands shimmered in the unimaginable depths to the
    southward, seen over the crest of a tremendous wall that stood beyond
    the abyss: a screen of black rock buttresses seamed with a thousand
    gullies of glistening snow, and crowned as with battlements with a row
    of mountain peaks, savage and fierce of form, that made the eye blink
    for their brightness: the lean spires of the summit-ridge of Koshtra
    Pivrarcha. These, that the Demons had so long looked up to as in
    distant heaven, now lay beneath their feet. Only the peak they climbed
    still reared itself above them, clear now and near to view, showing a
    bare beetling cliff on the north-east, overhung by a cornice of snow.
    Juss marked the cornice, turned him again to his step-cutting, and in
    half an hour from the breaking of the clouds stood on that unascended
    pinnacle, with all earth beneath him.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>They went down a few feet on the southern side and sat on some rocks.
    A fair lake studded with islands lay bosomed in wooded and crag-girt
    hills at the foot of a deep-cut valley which ran down from the Gates
    of Zimiamvia. Ailinon and Ashnilan rose near by in the west, with
    the delicate white peak of Akra Garsh showing between them. Beyond,
    mountain beyond mountain like the sea.</p>

  <p>Juss looked southward where the blue land stretched in fold upon fold
    of rolling country, soft and misty, till it melted in the sky. “Thou
    and I,” said he, “first of the children of men, now behold with living
    eyes the fabled land of Zimiamvia. Is that true, thinkest thou, which
    philosophers tell us of that fortunate land: that no mortal foot may
    tread it, but the blessed souls do inhabit it of the dead that be
    departed, even they that were great upon earth and did great deeds
    when they were living, that scorned not earth and the delights and
    the glories thereof, and yet did justly and were not dastards nor yet
    oppressors?”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span></p>

  <p>“Who knoweth?” said Brandoch Daha, resting his chin in his hand and
    gazing south as in a dream. “Who shall say he knoweth?”</p>

  <p>They were silent awhile. Then Juss spake saying, “If thou and I come
    thither at last, O my friend, shall we remember Demonland?” And when he
    answered him not, Juss said, “I had rather row on Moonmere under the
    stars of a summer’s night, than be a King of all the land of Zimiamvia.
    And I had rather watch the sunrise on the Scarf, than dwell in gladness
    all my days on an island of that enchanted Lake of Ravary, under
    Koshtra Belorn.”</p>

  <p>Now the curtain of cloud that had hung till now about the eastern
    heights was rent into shreds, and Koshtra Belorn stood like a bride
    before them, two or three miles to eastward, facing the slanting rays
    of the sun. On all her vast precipices scarce a rock showed bare, so
    encrusted were they with a dazzling robe of snow. More lovely she
    seemed and more graceful in her airy poise than they had yet beheld
    her. Juss and Brandoch Daha rose up, as men arise to greet a queen in
    her majesty. In silence they looked on her for some minutes.</p>

  <p>Then Brandoch Daha spake, saying, “Behold thy bride, O Juss.”</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_mountain.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="KOSHTRA_BELORN">XIII: KOSHTRA BELORN</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    HOW THE LORD JUSS ACCOMPLISHED AT LENGTH HIS DREAM’S BEHEST, TO INQUIRE
    IN KOSHTRA BELORN; AND WHAT MANNER OF ANSWER HE RECEIVED.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">THAT night they spent safely, by favour of the Gods, under the highest
    crags of Koshtra Pivrarcha, in a sheltered hollow piled round with
    snow. Dawn came like a lily, saffron-hued, smirched with smoke-gray
    streaks that slanted from the north. The great peaks stood as islands
    above a main of level cloud, out of which the sun walked flaming, a
    ball of red-gold fire. An hour before his face appeared, the Demons
    and Mivarsh were roped and started on their eastward journey. Ill to
    do with as was the crest of the great north buttress by which they had
    climbed the mountain, seven times worse was this eastern ridge, leading
    to Koshtra Belorn. Leaner of back it was, flanked by more profound
    abysses, deeplier gashed, too treacherous and too sudden in its changes
    from sure rock to rotten and perilous: piled with tottering crags,
    hung about with cornices of uncertain snow, girt with cliffs smooth
    and holdless as a castle wall. Small marvel that it cost them thirteen
    hours to come down that ridge. The sun wheeled towards the west when
    they reached at length that frozen edge, sharp as a sickle, that was in
    the Gates of Zimiamvia. Weary they were, and ropeless; for by no means
    else might they come down from the last great tower save by the rope
    made fast from above. A fierce north-easter had swept the ridges all
    day, bringing snow-storms on its wings. Their fingers were numbed with
    cold, and the beards of Lord Brandoch Daha and Mivarsh Faz stiff with
    ice.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span></p>

  <p>Too weary to halt, they set forth again, Juss leading. It was many
    hundred paces along that ice-edge, and the sun was near setting when
    they stood at last within a stone’s throw of the cliffs of Koshtra
    Belorn. Since before noon avalanches had thundered ceaselessly down
    those cliffs. Now, in the cool of the evening, all was still. The wind
    was fallen. The deep blue sky was without a cloud. The fires of sunset
    crept down the vast white precipices before them till every ledge and
    fold and frozen pinnacle glowed pink colour, and every shadow became
    an emerald. The shadow of Koshtra Pivrarcha lay cold across the lower
    stretches of the face on the Zimiamvian side. The edge of that shadow
    was as the division betwixt the living and the dead.</p>

  <p>“What dost think on?” said Juss to Brandoch Daha, that leaned upon his
    sword surveying that glory.</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha started and looked on him. “Why,” said he, “on this: that
    it is likely thy dream was but a lure, sent thee by the King to tempt
    us on to mighty actions reserved for our destruction. On this side at
    least ’tis very certain there lieth no way up Koshtra Belorn.”</p>

  <p>“What of the little martlet,” said Juss, “who, whiles we were yet
    a great way off, flew out of the south to greet us with a gracious
    message?”</p>

  <p>“Well if it were not a devil of his,” said Brandoch Daha.</p>

  <p>“I will not turn back,” said Juss. “Thou needest not to come with me.”
    And he turned again to look on those frozen cliffs.</p>

  <p>“No?” said Brandoch Daha. “Nor thou with me. Thou’lt make me angry if
    thou wilt so vilely wrest my words. Only fare not too securely; and let
    that axe still be ready in thine hand, as is my sword, for kindlier
    work than step-cutting. And if thou embrace the hope to climb her by
    this wall before us, then hath the King’s enchantery made thee fey.”</p>

  <p>By then was the sun gone down. Under the wings of night uplifted from
    the east, the unfathomable heights of air turned a richer blue; and
    here and there, most dim and hard to see, throbbed a tiny point of
    light: the greater stars opening their eyelids to the gathering dark.
    Gloom crept upward, brimming the valleys far below like a rising tide
    of the sea. Frost and stillness waited on the eternal night to resume
    her reign. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span> solemn cliffs of Koshtra Belorn stood in tremendous
    silence, death-pale against the sky.</p>

  <p>Juss came backward a step along the ridge, and laying his hand on
    Brandoch Daha’s, “Be still,” he said, “and behold this marvel.” A
    little up the face of the mountain on the Zimiamvian side, it was as if
    some leavings of the after-glow had been entangled among the crags and
    frozen curtains of snow. As the gloom deepened, that glow brightened
    and spread, filling a rift that seemed to go into the mountain.</p>

  <p>“It is because of us,” said Juss, in a low voice. “She is afire with
    expectation of us.”</p>

  <p>No sound was there save of their breath coming and going, and of the
    strokes of Juss’s axe, and of the chips of ice chinking downwards
    into silence as he cut their way along the ridge. And ever brighter,
    as night fell, burned that strange sunset light above them. Perilous
    climbing it was for fifty feet or more from the ridge, for they had no
    rope, the way was hard to see, and the rocks were steep and iced and
    every ledge deep in snow. Yet came they safe at length up by a steep
    short gully to the gully’s head where it widened to that rift of the
    wondrous light. Here might two walk abreast, and Lord Juss and Lord
    Brandoch Daha took their weapons and entered abreast into the rift.
    Mivarsh was fain to call to them, but he was speechless. He came after,
    close at their heels like a dog.</p>

  <p>For some way the bed of the cave ran upwards, then dipped at a gentle
    slope deep into the mountain. The air was cold, yet warm after the
    frozen air without. The rose-red light shone warm on the walls and
    floor of that passage, but none might say whence it shone. Strange
    sculptures glimmered overhead, bull-headed men, stags with human faces,
    mammoths, and behemoths of the flood: vast forms and uncertain carved
    in the living rock. For hours Juss and his companions pursued their
    way, winding downward, losing all sense of north and south. Little by
    little the light faded, and after an hour or two they went in darkness:
    yet not in utter darkness, but as of a starless night in summer where
    all night long twilight lingers. They went a soft pace, for fear of
    pitfalls in the way.</p>

  <p>After a while Juss halted and sniffed the air. “I smell new-mown hay,”
    he said, “and flower-scents. Is this my fantasy, or canst thou smell
    them too?”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span></p>

  <p>“Ay, and have smelt it this half-hour past,” answered Brandoch Daha;
    “also the passage wideneth before us, and the roof of it goeth higher
    as we journey.”</p>

  <p>“This,” said Juss, “is a great wonder.”</p>

  <p>They fared onward, and in a while the slope slackened, and they felt
    loose stones and grit beneath their feet, and in a while soft earth.
    They bent down and touched the earth, and there was grass growing, and
    night-dew on the grass, and daisies folded up asleep. A brook tinkled
    on the right. So they crossed that meadow in the dark, until they stood
    below a shadowy mass that bulked big above them. In a blind wall so
    high the top was swallowed up in the darkness a gate stood open. They
    crossed that threshold and passed through a paved court that clanked
    under their tread. Before them a flight of steps went up to folding
    doors under an archway.</p>

  <p>Lord Brandoch Daha felt Mivarsh pluck him by the sleeve. The little
    man’s teeth were chattering together in his head for terror. Brandoch
    Daha smiled and put an arm about him. Juss had his foot on the lowest
    step.</p>

  <p>In that instant came a sound of music playing, but of what instruments
    they might not guess. Great thundering chords began it, like trumpets
    calling to battle, first high, then low, then shuddering down to
    silence; then that great call again, sounding defiance. Then the keys
    took new voices, groping in darkness, rising to passionate lament,
    hovering and dying away on the wind, until nought remained but a roll
    as of muffled thunder, long, low, quiet, but menacing ill. And now out
    of the darkness of that induction burst a mighty form, three ponderous
    blows, as of breakers that plunge and strike on a desolate shore; a
    pause; those blows again; a grinding pause; a rushing of wings, as of
    Furies steaming up from the pit; another flight of them dreadful in its
    deliberation; then a wild rush upward and a swooping again; confusion
    of hell, raging serpents blazing through night sky. Then on a sudden
    out of a distant key, a sweet melody, long-drawn and clear, like a
    blaze of low sunshine piercing the dust-clouds above a battle-field.
    This was but an interlude to the terror of the great main theme that
    came in tumultuous strides up again from the deeps, storming to a grand
    climacteric of fury and passing away into silence. Now came a majestic
    figure, stately and calm, born of that terror, leading to it again:<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span>
    battlings of these themes in many keys, and at last the great triple
    blow, thundering in new strength, crushing all joy and sweetness as
    with a mace of iron, battering the roots of life into a general ruin.
    But even in the main stride of its outrage and terror, that great power
    seemed to shrivel. The thunder-blasts crashed weaklier, the harsh blows
    rattled awry, and the vast frame of conquest and destroying violence
    sank down panting, tottered and rumbled ingloriously into silence.</p>

  <p>Like men held in a trance those lords of Demonland listened to the
    last echoes of the great sad chord where that music had breathed out
    its heart, as if the very heart of wrath were broken. But this was not
    the end. Cold and serene as some chaste virgin vowed to the Gods, with
    clear eyes which see nought below high heaven, a quiet melody rose from
    that grave of terror. Weak it seemed at first, a little thing after
    that cataclysm; a little thing, like spring’s first bud peeping after
    the blasting reign of cold and ice. Yet it walked undismayed, gathering
    as it went beauty and power. And on a sudden the folding doors swung
    open, shedding a flood of radiance down the stairs.</p>

  <p>Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha watched, as men watch for a star to
    rise, that radiant portal. And like a star indeed, or like the tranquil
    moon appearing, they beheld after a while one crowned like a Queen with
    a diadem of little clouds that seemed stolen from the mountain sunset,
    scattering soft beams of rosy brightness. She stood alone under that
    mighty portico with its vast shadowy forms of winged lions in shining
    stone black as jet. Youthful she seemed, as one that hath but just
    bidden adieu to childhood, with grave sweet lips and grave black eyes
    and hair like the night. Little black martlets perched on her either
    shoulder, and a dozen more skimmed the air above her head, so swift of
    wing that scarcely the eye might follow them. Meantime, that delicate
    and simple melody mounted from height to height, until in a while it
    burned with all the fires of summer, burned as summer to the uttermost
    ember, fierce and compulsive in its riot of love and beauty. So that,
    before the last triumphant chords died down in silence, that music had
    brought back to Juss all the glories of the mountains, the sunset fires
    on Koshtra Belorn, the first great revelation of the peaks from Morna
    Moruna; and over all these, as the spirit of that music to the eye made
    manifest, the image of that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span> Queen so blessed-fair in her youth and
    her clear brow’s sweet solemn respect and promise: in every line and
    pose of her fair form, virginal dainty as a flower, and kindled from
    withinward as never flower was with that divinity before the face of
    which speech and song fall silent and men may but catch their breath
    and worship.</p>

  <p>When she spoke, it was with a voice like crystal: “Thanks be and praise
    to the blessed Gods. For lo, the years depart, and the fated years
    bring forth as the Gods ordain. And ye be those that were for to come.”</p>

  <p>Surely those great lords of Demonland stood like little boys before
    her. She said again, “Are not ye Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha of
    Demonland, come up to me by the way banned to all mortals else, come up
    into Koshtra Belorn?”</p>

  <p>Then answered Lord Juss for them both and said, “Surely, O Queen
    Sophonisba, we be they thou namest.”</p>

  <p>Now the Queen carried them into her palace, and into a great hall where
    was her throne and state. The pillars of the hall were as vast towers,
    and there were galleries above them, tier upon tier, rising higher than
    sight could reach or the light of the gentle lamps in their stands that
    lighted the tables and the floor. The walls and the pillars were of a
    sombre stone unpolished, and on the walls strange portraitures: lions,
    dragons, nickers of the sea, spread-eagles, elephants, swans, unicorns,
    and other, lively made and richly set forth with curious colours of
    painting: all of giant size beyond the experience of human kind, so
    that to be in that hall was as it were to shelter in a small spot of
    light and life, canopied, vaulted, and embraced by the circumambient
    unknown.</p>

  <p>The Queen sate on her throne that was bright like the face of a river
    ruffled with wind under a silver moon. Save for those little martlets
    she was unattended. She made those lords of Demonland sit down before
    her face, and there were brought forth by the agency of unseen hands
    tables before them and precious dishes filled with unknown viands. And
    there played a soft music, made in the air by what unseen art they knew
    not.</p>

  <p>The Queen said, “Behold, ambrosia which the Gods do eat and nectar
    which they drink; on which meat and wine myself do feed, by the bounty
    of the blessed Gods. And the savour thereof wearieth not, and the glow
    thereof and the perfume thereof dieth not for ever.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span></p>

  <p>So they tasted of the ambrosia, that was white to look on and crisp to
    the tooth and sweet, and being eaten revived strength in the body more
    than a surfeit of bullock’s flesh, and of the nectar that was all afoam
    and coloured like the inmost fires of sunset. Surely somewhat of the
    peace of the Gods was in that nectar divine.</p>

  <p>The Queen said, “Tell me, why are ye come?”</p>

  <p>Juss answered, “Surely there was a dream sent me, O Queen Sophonisba,
    through the gate of horn, and it bade me inquire hither after him I
    most desire, for want of whom my whole soul languisheth in sorrow this
    year gone by: even after my dear brother, the Lord Goldry Bluszco.”</p>

  <p>His words ceased in his throat. For with the speaking of that name the
    firm fabric of that palace quivered like the leaves of a forest under a
    sudden squall. Colour went from the scene, like the blood chased from
    a man’s face by fear, and all was of a pallid hue, like the landscape
    which one beholds of a bright summer day after lying with eyes closed
    for a space face-upward under the blazing sun: all gray and cold, the
    warm colours burnt to ashes. Withal, followed the appearance of hateful
    little creatures issuing from the joints of the paving stones and the
    great blocks of the walls and pillars: some like grasshoppers with
    human heads and wings of flies, some like fishes with stings in their
    tails, some fat like toads, some like eels a-wriggling with puppy-dogs’
    heads and asses’ ears: loathly ones, exiles of glory, scaly and obscene.</p>

  <p>The horror passed. Colour returned. The Queen sat like a graven statue,
    her lips parted. After a while she said with a shaken voice, low and
    with downcast eyes, “Sirs, you demand of me a very strange matter, such
    as wherewith never hitherto I have been acquainted. As you are noble, I
    beseech you speak not that name again. In the name of the blessed Gods,
    speak it not again.”</p>

  <p>Lord Juss was silent. Nought good were his thoughts within him.</p>

  <p>In due time a little martlet by the Queen’s command brought them to
    their bed-chambers. And there in great beds soft and fragrant they went
    to rest.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span></p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp77" id="i_191">
    <img src="images/i_191.jpg" alt="" />
    <div class="caption">IN KOSHTRA BELORN.</div>
  </div>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span></p>

  <p>Juss waked long in the doubtful light, troubled at heart. At length he
    fell into a troubled sleep. The glimmer of the lamps mingled with his
    dreams and his dreams with it, so that
    scarce he wist whether asleep or waking he beheld the walls of the
    bed-chamber dispart in sunder, disclosing a prospect of vast paths of
    moonlight, and a solitary mountain peak standing naked out of a sea
    of cloud that gleamed white beneath the moon. It seemed to him that
    the power of flight was upon him, and that he flew to that mountain
    and hung in air beholding it near at hand, and a circle as the
    appearance of fire round about it, and on the summit of the mountain
    the likeness of a burg or citadel of brass that was green with eld and
    surface-battered by the frosts and winds of ages. On the battlements
    was the appearance of a great company both men and women, never still,
    now walking on the wall with hands lifted up as in supplication to the
    crystal lamps of heaven, now flinging themselves on their knees or
    leaning against the brazen battlements to bury their faces in their
    hands, or standing at gaze as night-walkers gazing into the void. Some
    seemed men of war, and some great courtiers by their costly apparel,
    rulers and kings and kings’ daughters, grave bearded counsellors,
    youths and maidens and crowned queens. And when they went, and when
    they stood, and when they seemed to cry aloud bitterly, all was
    noiseless even as the tomb, and the faces of those mourners pallid as a
    dead corpse is pallid.</p>

  <p>Then it seemed to Juss that he beheld a keep of brass flat-roofed
    standing on the right, a little higher than the walls, with battlements
    about the roof. He strove to cry aloud, but it was as if some devil
    gripped his throat stifling him, for no sound came. For in the midst
    of the roof, as it were on a bench of stone, was the appearance of one
    reclining; his chin resting in his great right hand, his elbow on an
    arm of the bench, his cloak about him gorgeous with cloth of gold, his
    ponderous two-handed sword beside him with its heart-shaped ruby pommel
    darkly resplendent in the moonlight. Nought otherwise looked he than
    when Juss last beheld him, on their ship before the darkness swallowed
    them; only the ruddy hues of life seemed departed from him, and his
    brow seemed clouded with sorrow. His eye met his brother’s, but with no
    look of recognition, gazing as if on some far point in the deeps beyond
    the star-shine. It seemed to Juss that even so would he have looked to
    find his brother Goldry as he now found him; his head unbent for all
    the tyranny of those dark powers that held him in captivity: keeping
    like a God his patient vigil, heedless alike<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span> of the laments of them
    that shared his prison and of the menace of the houseless night about
    him.</p>

  <p>The vision passed; and Lord Juss perceived himself in his bed again,
    the cold morning light stealing between the hangings of the windows and
    dimming the soft radiance of the lamps.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now for seven days they dwelt in that palace. No living thing they
    encountered save only the Queen and her little martlets, but all
    things desirous were ministered unto them by unseen hands and all
    royal entertainment. Yet was Lord Juss heavy at heart, for as often
    as he would question the Queen of Goldry, so she would ever put him
    by, praying him earnestly not a second time to pronounce that name of
    terror. At last, walking with her alone in the cool of the evening on
    a trodden path of a meadow where asphodel grew and other holy flowers
    beside a quiet stream, he said, “So it is, O Queen Sophonisba, that
    when first I came hither and spake with thee I well thought that by
    thee my matter should be well sped. And didst not thou then promise me
    thy goodness and grace from thee thereafter?”</p>

  <p>“This is very true,” said the Queen.</p>

  <p>“Then why,” said he, “when I would question thee of that I make most
    store of, wilt thou always daff me and put me by?”</p>

  <p>She was silent, hanging her head. He looked sidelong for a minute at
    her sweet profile, the grave clear lines of her mouth and chin. “Of
    whom must I inquire,” he said, “if not of thee, which art Queen in
    Koshtra Belorn and must know this thing?”</p>

  <p>She stopped and faced him with dark eyes that were like a child’s for
    innocence and like a God’s for splendour. “My lord, that I have put
    thee off, ascribe it not to evil intent. That were an unnatural part
    indeed in me unto you of Demonland who have fulfilled the weird and set
    me free again to visit again the world of men which I so much desire,
    despite all my sorrows I there fulfilled in elder time. Or shall I
    forget you are at enmity with the wicked house of Witchland, and
    therefore doubly pledged my friends?”</p>

  <p>“That the event must prove, O Queen,” said Lord Juss.</p>

  <p>“O saw ye Morna Moruna?” cried she. “Saw ye it in the wilderness?” And
    when he looked on her still dark and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span> mistrustful, she said, “Is this
    forgot? And methought it should be mention and remembrance made thereof
    unto the end of the world. I pray thee, my lord, what age art thou?”</p>

  <p>“I have looked upon this world,” answered Lord Juss, “for thrice ten
    years.”</p>

  <p>“And I,” said the Queen, “but seventeen summers. Yet that same age had
    I when thou wast born, and thy grandsire before thee, and his before
    him. For the Gods gave me youth for ever more, when they brought me
    hither after the realm-rape that befell our house, and lodged me in
    this mountain.”</p>

  <p>She paused, and stood motionless, her hands clasped lightly before
    her, her head bent, her face turned a little away so that he saw only
    the white curve of her neck and her cheek’s soft outline. All the air
    was full of sunset, though no sun was there, but a scattered splendour
    only, shed from the high roof of rock that was like a sky above them
    self-effulgent. Very softly she began again to speak, the crystal
    accents of her voice sounding like the faint notes of a bell borne from
    a great way off on the quiet air of a summer evening. “Surely time past
    is gone by like a shadow since those days, when I was Queen in Morna
    Moruna, dwelling there with my lady mother and the princes my cousins
    in peace and joy. Until Gorice III. came out of the north, the great
    King of Witchland, desiring to explore these mountains, for his pride
    sake and his insolent heart; which cost him dear. ’Twas on an evening
    of early summer we beheld him and his folk ride over the flowering
    meadows of the Moruna. Nobly was he entertained by us, and when we
    knew what way he meant to go, we counselled him turn back, and the
    mantichores must tear him if he went. But he mocked at our advisoes,
    and on the morrow departed, he and his, by way of Omprenne Edge. And
    never again were they seen of living man.</p>

  <p>“That had been small loss; but hereof there befell a great and horrible
    mischief. For in the spring of the year came Gorice IV. with a great
    army out of waterish Witchland, saying with open mouth of defamation
    that we were the dead King’s murtherers: we that were peaceful folk,
    and would not entertain an action should call us villain for all
    the wealth of Impland. In the night they came, when all we save the
    sentinels upon the walls were in our beds secure in a quiet conscience.
    They took the princes my cousins and all our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span> men, and before our eyes
    most cruelly murthered them. So that my mother seeing these things fell
    suddenly into deadly swoonings and was presently dead. And the King
    commanded them burn the house with fire, and he brake down the holy
    altars of the Gods, and defiled their high places. And unto me that was
    young and fair to look on he gave this choice, to go with him and be
    his slave, other else to be cast down from the Edge and all my bones be
    broken. Surely I chose this rather. But the Gods, that do help every
    rightful true cause, made light my fall, and guided me hither safe
    through all perils of height and cold and ravening beasts, granting me
    youth and peaceful days for ever, here on the borderland between the
    living and the dead.</p>

  <p>“And the Gods blew upon all the land of the Moruna in the fire of their
    wrath, to make it desolate, and man and beast cut off therefrom, for
    a witness of the wicked deeds of Gorice the King, even as Gorice the
    King made desolate our little castle and our pleasant places. The face
    of the land was lifted up to high airs where frosts do dwell, so that
    the cliffs of Omprenne Edge down which ye came are ten times the height
    they were when Gorice III. came down them. So was an end of flowers on
    the Moruna, and an end there of spring and of summer days for ever.”</p>

  <p>The Queen ceased speaking, and Lord Juss was silent for a space,
    greatly marvelling.</p>

  <p>“Judge now,” said she, “if your foes be not my foes. It is not hidden
    from me, my lord, that you deem me but a lukewarm friend and no helper
    at all in your enterprise. Yet have I ceased not since ye were here to
    search and to inquire, and sent my little martlets west and east and
    south and north after tidings of him thou namedst. They are swift, even
    as wingy thoughts circling the stablished world; and they returned to
    me on weary wings, yet with never a word of thy great kinsman.”</p>

  <p>Juss looked at her eyes that were moist with tears. Truth sat in them
    like an angel. “O Queen,” he cried, “why need thy little minions scour
    the world, when my brother is here in Koshtra Belorn?”</p>

  <p>She shook her head, saying, “This I will swear to thee, there hath no
    mortal come up into Koshtra Belorn save only thee and thy companions
    these two hundred years.”</p>

  <p>But Juss said again, “My brother is here in Koshtra<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span> Belorn. Mine eyes
    beheld him that first night, hedged about with fires. And he is held
    captive on a tower of brass on a peak of a mountain.”</p>

  <p>“There be no mountains here,” said she, “save this in whose womb we
    have our dwelling.”</p>

  <p>“Yet so I beheld my brother,” said Juss, “under the white beams of the
    full moon.”</p>

  <p>“There is no moon here,” said the Queen.</p>

  <p>So Lord Juss rehearsed to her his vision of the night, telling her
    point to point of everything. She harkened gravely, and when he had
    done, trembled a little and said, “This is a mystery, my lord, beyond
    my resolution.”</p>

  <p>She fell silent awhile. Then she began to say in a hushed voice, as
    if the very words and breath might breed some dreadful matter: “Taken
    up in a sending maleficial by King Gorice XII. So it hath ever been,
    that whensoever there dieth one of the house of Gorice there riseth
    up another in his stead, and so from strength to strength. And death
    weakeneth not this house of Witchland, but like the dandelion weed
    being cut down and bruised it springeth up the stronger. Dost thou know
    why?”</p>

  <p>He answered, “No.”</p>

  <p>“The blessed Gods,” said she, speaking yet lower, “have shown me many
    hidden matters which the sons of men know not neither imagine. Behold
    this mystery. There is but One Gorice. And by the favour of heaven
    (that moveth sometimes in a manner our weak judgement seeketh in vain
    to justify) this cruel and evil One, every time whether by the sword or
    in the fulness of his years he cometh to die, departeth the living soul
    and spirit of him into a new and sound body, and liveth yet another
    lifetime to vex and to oppress the world, until that body die, and the
    next in his turn, and so continually; having thus in a manner life
    eternal.”</p>

  <p>Juss said, “Thy discourse, O Queen Sophonisba, is in a strain above
    mortality. This is a great wonder thou tellest me; whereof some
    little part I guessed aforetime, but the main I knew not. Rightfully,
    having such a timeless life, this King weareth on his thumb that worm
    Ouroboros which doctors have from of old made for an ensample of
    eternity, whereof the end is ever at the beginning and the beginning at
    the end for ever more.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span></p>

  <p>“See then the hardness of the thing,” said the Queen. “But I forget
    not, my lord, that thou hast a matter nearer thine heart than this:
    to set free him (name him not!) concerning whom thou didst inquire of
    me. Touching this, know it for thy comfort, some ray of light I see.
    Question me no more till I have made trial thereof, lest it prove but a
    false dawn. If it be as I think, ’tis a trial yet abideth thee should
    make the stoutest blench.”</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_mountain.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_LAKE_OF_RAVARY">XIV: THE LAKE OF RAVARY</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE FURTHERANCE GIVEN BY QUEEN SOPHONISBA, FOSTERLING OF THE GODS,
    TO LORD JUSS AND LORD BRANDOCH DAHA; WITH HOW THE HIPPOGRIFF’S EGG
    WAS HATCHED BESIDE THE ENCHANTED LAKE, AND WHAT ENSUED THEREFROM.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">NEXT day the Queen came to Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha and made
    them go with her, and Mivarsh with them to serve them, over the meadows
    and down a passage like that whereby they had entered the mountain, but
    this led downward. “Ye may marvel,” she said, “to see daylight in the
    heart of this great mountain. Yet it is but the hidden work of Nature.
    For the rays of the sun, striking all day upon Koshtra Belorn and upon
    her robe of snow, sink into the snow like water, and so soaking through
    the secret places of the rocks shine again in this hollow chamber where
    we dwell and in these passages cleft by the Gods to give us our goings
    out and our comings in. And as sunset followeth broad day with coloured
    fires, and moonlight or darkness followeth sunset, and dawn followeth
    night ushering the bright day once more, so these changes of the dark
    and light succeed one another within the mountain.”</p>

  <p>They passed on, ever downward, till after many hours they came
    suddenly forth into dazzling sunlight. They stood at a cave’s mouth
    on a beach of sand white and clean, that was lapped by the ripples of
    a sapphire lake: a great lake, sown with islets craggy and luxuriant
    with trees and flowering growths. Many-armed was the lake, winding
    everywhere in secret reaches behind promontories that were spurs of the
    mountains that held it in their bosom: some wooded or green with lush
    flower-spangled turf to the water’s edge, some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span> with bare rocks abrupt
    from the water, some crowned with rugged lines of crag that sent down
    scree-slopes into the lake below. It was mid-afternoon, sweet-aired, a
    day of dappled cloud-shadows and changing lights. White birds circled
    above the lake, and now and then a kingfisher flashed by like a streak
    of azure flame. That was a westward facing beach, at the end of a
    headland that ran down clothed with pine-forests with open primrose
    glades from a spur of Koshtra Belorn. Northward the two great mountains
    stood at the head of a straight narrow valley that ran up to the Gates
    of Zimiamvia. Vaster they seemed than the Demons had yet beheld them,
    showing at but six or seven miles’ distance a clear sixteen thousand
    feet above the lake. Nor from any other point of prospect were they
    more lovely to behold: Koshtra Pivrarcha like an eagle armed, shadowing
    with wings, and Koshtra Belorn as a Goddess fallen a-dreaming, gracious
    as the morning star of heaven. Wondrous bright were their snows in the
    sunshine, yet ghostly and unsubstantial to view seen through the hazy
    summer air. Olive trees, gray and soft-outlined like embodied mist,
    grew in the lower valleys; woods of oak and birch and every forest tree
    clothed the slopes; and in the warmer folds of the mountain sides belts
    of creamy rhododendrons straggled upwards even to the moraines above
    the lower glaciers and the very margin of the snows.</p>

  <p>The Queen watched Lord Juss as his gaze moved to the left past Koshtra
    Pivrarcha, past the blunt lower crest of Gôglio, to a great lonely
    peak many miles distant that frowned over the rich maze of nearer
    ridges which stood above the lake. Its southern shoulder swept in a
    long majestic line of cliffs up to a clean sharp summit; northward it
    fell steeplier away. Little snow hung on the sheer rock faces, save
    where the gullies cleft them. For grace and beauty scarce might Koshtra
    Belorn herself surpass that peak: but terrible it looked, and as a
    mansion of old night, that not high noon-day could wholly dispossess of
    darkness.</p>

  <p>“There standeth a mountain great and fair,” said Lord Brandoch Daha,
    “which was hid in cloud when we were on the high ridges. It hath the
    look of a great beast couchant.”</p>

  <p>Still the Queen watched Lord Juss, who looked still on that peak.
    Then he turned to her, his hands clenched on the buckles of his
    breast-plates. She said, “Was it as I think?”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span></p>

  <p>He took a great breath. “It was so I beheld it in the beginning,”
    he said, “as from this place. But here are we too far off to see
    the citadel of brass, or know if it be truly there.” And he said to
    Brandoch Daha, “This remaineth, that we climb that mountain.”</p>

  <p>“That can ye never do,” said the Queen.</p>

  <p>“That shall be shown,” said Brandoch Daha.</p>

  <p>“List,” said she. “Nameless is yonder mountain upon earth, for until
    this hour, save only for me and you, the eye of living man hath not
    looked upon it. But unto the Gods it hath a name, and unto the spirits
    of the blest that do inhabit this land, and unto those unhappy souls
    that are held in captivity on that cold mountain top: Zora Rach nam
    Psarrion, standing apart above the noiseless lifeless snow-fields that
    feed the Psarrion glaciers; loneliest and secretest of all earth’s
    mountains, and most accursed. O my lords,” she said, “Think not to
    climb up Zora. Enchantments ring round Zora, so that ye should not
    get so near as to the edges of the snow-fields at her feet ere ruin
    gathered you.”</p>

  <p>Juss smiled. “O Queen Sophonisba, little thou knowest our mind, if thou
    think this shall turn us back.”</p>

  <p>“I say it,” said the Queen, “with no such vain purpose; but to show you
    the necessity of that way I shall now tell you of, since well I know ye
    will not give over this attempt. To none save to a Demon durst I have
    told it, lest heaven should hold me answerable for his death. But unto
    you I may with the less danger commit this dangerous counsel if it be
    true, as I was taught long ago, that the hippogriff was seen of old in
    Demonland.”</p>

  <p>“The hippogriff?” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “What else is it than the
    emblem of our greatness? A thousand years ago they nested on Neverdale
    Hause, and there abide unto this day in the rocks the prints of their
    hooves and talons. He that rode it was a forefather of mine and of Lord
    Juss.”</p>

  <p>“He that shall ride it again,” said Queen Sophonisba, “he only of
    mortal men may win to Zora Rach, and if he be man enough of his hands
    may deliver him we wot of out of bondage.”</p>

  <p>“O Queen,” said Juss, “somewhat I know of grammarie and divine
    philosophy, yet must I bow to thee for such learning, that dwellest
    here from generation to generation and dost<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span> commune with the dead.
    How shall we find this steed? Few they be, and high they fly above the
    world, and come to birth but one in three hundred years.”</p>

  <p>She answered, “I have an egg. In all lands else must such an egg lie
    barren and sterile, save in this land of Zimiamvia which is sacred
    to the lordly races of the dead. And thus cometh this steed to the
    birth: when one of might and heart beyond the wont of man sleepeth
    in this land with the egg in his bosom, greatly desiring some high
    achievement, the fire of his great longing hatcheth the egg, and the
    hippogriff cometh out therefrom, weak-winged at first as thou hast seen
    a butterfly new-hatched out his chrysalis. Then only mayst thou mount
    him, and if thou be man enow to turn him to thy will he shall bear thee
    to the uttermost parts of earth unto thine heart’s desire. But if thou
    be aught less than greatest, beware that steed, and mount only earthly
    coursers. For if there be aught of dross within thee, and thine heart
    falter, or thy purpose cool, or thou forget the level aim of thy glory,
    then will he toss thee to thy ruin.”</p>

  <p>“Thou hast this thing, O Queen?” said Lord Juss.</p>

  <p>“My lord,” she said softly, “more than an hundred years ago I found
    it, while I rambled on the cliffs that are about this charmed Lake of
    Ravary. And here I hid it, being taught by the Gods what thing I had
    found and knowing what was foreordained, that certain of earth should
    come at last to Koshtra Belorn. Thinking in my heart that he that
    should come might be of those who bare some great unfulfilled desire,
    and might be of such might as could ride to his desire on such a steed.”</p>

  <p>They abode, talking little, by the charmed lake’s shore till evening.
    Then they arose, and went with her to a pavilion by the lake, built in
    a grove of flowering trees. Ere they went to rest, she brought them the
    hippogriff’s egg, great as a man’s body, yet light of weight, rough and
    coloured like gold. And she said, “Which of you, my lords?”</p>

  <p>Juss answered, “He, if might and a high heart should only count; but I,
    because my brother it is that we must free from his dismal place.”</p>

  <p>So the Queen gave the egg to Lord Juss; and he, bearing it in his arms,
    bade her good-night, saying, “I need no other laudanum than this to
    make me sleep.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span></p>

  <p>And the ambrosial night came down. And gentle sleep, softer than sleep
    is on earth, closed their eyes in that pavilion beside the enchanted
    lake.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Mivarsh slept not. Small joy had he of that Lake of Ravary, caring for
    none of its beauties but mindful still of certain lewd bulks he had
    seen basking by its shores all through the golden afternoon. He had
    questioned one of the Queen’s martlets concerning them, who laughed at
    him and let him know that these were crocodiles, wardens of the lake,
    tame and gentle toward the heroes of bliss who resorted thither to
    bathe and disport themselves. “But should such an one as thou,” she
    said, “adventure there, they would chop thee up at a mouthful.” This
    saddened him. And indeed, little ease of heart had he since he came out
    of Impland, and dearly he desired his home, though it were sacked and
    burnt, and the men of his own blood, though they should prove his foes.
    And well he thought that if Juss should fly with Brandoch Daha mounted
    on hippogriff to that cold mountain top where souls of the great were
    held in bondage, he should never win back alone to the world of men,
    past the frozen mountains, and the mantichores, and past the crocodile
    that dwelt beside Bhavinan.</p>

  <p>He lay awake an hour or twain, weeping quietly, until out of the giant
    heart of midnight came to him with fiery clearness the words of the
    Queen, saying that by the heat of great longing in his heart that
    claspeth it must that egg be hatched, and that that man should then
    mount and ride on the wind unto his heart’s desire. Therewith Mivarsh
    sat up, his hands clammy with mixed fear and longing. It seemed to him,
    awake and alone among the sleepers in that breathless night, that no
    longing could be greater than his longing. He said in his heart, “I
    will arise, and take the egg privily from the devil transmarine and
    clasp it myself. I do him no wrong thereby, for said she not it was
    perilous? Also every man raketh the embers to his own cake.”</p>

  <p>So he arose, and came secretly to Juss where he lay with his strong
    arms circling the egg. A beam of the moon came in by a window, shining
    on the face of Juss, that was as the face of a God. Mivarsh bent over
    him and teased the egg gently from his embrace, praying fervently the
    while. And, for Juss<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span> was in a profound slumber, his soul mounting in
    vision far from earth, far from that shore divine, to lone regions
    where Goldry watched still in frozen mournful patience on the heights
    of Zora, at last Mivarsh gat the egg and bare it to his bed. Very warm
    it was, crackling to his ear as he embraced it, as of a power moving
    from withinwards.</p>

  <p>In such wise Mivarsh fell asleep, clasping the egg as a man should
    clasp his dearest. And a little before dawn it hatched in his arms
    and fell asunder, and he started awake, his arms about the neck of a
    strange steed. It went forth into the pale light before the sunrise,
    and he with it, holding it fast. The sheen of its hair was like the
    peacock’s neck; its eyes like the changing fires of a star of a windy
    night. Its nostrils widened to the breath of the dawn. Its wings
    unfolded and grew stiff, their feathers like the tail-feathers of the
    peacock pheasant, white with purple eyes, and hard to the touch as
    iron blades. Mivarsh was mounted on its back, seizing the shining mane
    with both hands, trembling. And now was he fain to descend, but the
    hippogriff snorted and reared, and he, fearing a great fall, clung
    closer. It stamped with its silver hoofs, flapping its wings, ramping
    like a lioness, tearing up the grass with its claws. Mivarsh screamed,
    torn between hope and fear. It plunged forward and leaped into the air
    and flew.</p>

  <p>The Demons, waked by the whirring of wings, rushed from the pavilion,
    to behold that marvel flown against the obscure west. Wild was its
    flight, like a snipe dipping and plunging. And while they looked, they
    saw the rider flung from his seat and heard, some moments after, a dull
    flop and splash of a body fallen in the lake.</p>

  <p>The wild steed vanished, winging toward the upper air. Rings ran
    outward from the splash, troubling the surface of the lake, marring the
    dark reflection of Zora Rach mirrored in the sleeping waters.</p>

  <p>“Poor Mivarsh!” cried Lord Brandoch Daha. “After all the weary leagues
    I made him go with me.” And he threw off his cloak, took a dagger in
    his teeth, and swam with great over-arm strokes out to the spot where
    Mivarsh fell. But nought he found of Mivarsh. Only he saw near by on
    an island beach a crocodile, big and bloated, that eyed him guiltily
    and stayed not for his coming, but lumbering into the water dived and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span>
    disappeared. So Brandoch Daha turned and swam ashore again.</p>

  <p>Lord Juss stood as a man stricken to stone. As one despaired he turned
    to the Queen, who now came forth to them wrapped in a mantle of
    swansdown; yet high he held his head. “O Queen Sophonisba, here is that
    secret glome or bottom of our days, come when we sniffed the sweetness
    of the morning.”</p>

  <p>“My lord,” said she, “the flies hemerae take life with the sun and die
    with the dew. But thou, if thou be truly great, join not hands with
    desperation. Let the sad ending of this poor servant of thine be to
    thee a monument against such folly. Earth is not ruined for a single
    shower. Come back with me to Koshtra Belorn.”</p>

  <p>He looked at the grand peak of Zora, dark against the wakening east.
    “Madam,” he said, “thou hast little more than half my years, and yet
    by another computation thou art seven times mine age. I am not light
    of will, nor thou shalt not find me a fool to thee. Let us go back to
    Koshtra Belorn.”</p>

  <p>They brake their fast quietly and returned by the way they came. And
    the Queen said, “My lords Juss and Brandoch Daha, there be few steeds
    of such a kind to carry you to Zora Rach nam Psarrion, and not ye,
    though ye be beyond the half-gods in your might and virtue, might have
    power to ride them but if ye take them from the egg. So high they fly,
    so shy they are, ye should not catch them though ye waited ten men’s
    lifetimes. I will send my martlets to see if there be another egg in
    the world.”</p>

  <p>So she despatched them, north and west and south and east. And in due
    time those little birds returned on weary wing, all save one, without
    tidings.</p>

  <p>“All have come back to me,” said the Queen, “save Arabella alone.
    Dangers attend them in the world: birds of prey, men that slay little
    birds for their sport. Yet hope with me that she may come back at last.”</p>

  <p>But the Lord Juss spake and said, “O Queen Sophonisba, to hope and wait
    lieth not in my nature, but to be swift, resolute, and exact whensoever
    I see my way before me. This have I ever approved, that the strawberry
    groweth underneath the nettle still. I will assay the ascent of Zora.”</p>

  <p>Nor might all her prayers turn him from this rashness,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span> wherein the
    Lord Brandoch Daha besides did most eagerly second him.</p>

  <p>Two nights and two days they were gone, and the Queen abode them in
    great trouble of heart in her pavilion by the enchanted lake. The third
    evening came Brandoch Daha back to the pavilion, bringing with him Juss
    that was like a man at point of death, and himself besides deadly sick.</p>

  <p>“Tell me not anything,” said the Queen. “Forgetfulness is the only
    sovran remedy, which with all my art I will strive to induce in thy
    mind and in his. Surely I despaired ever to see you in life again, so
    rashly entered into those regions forbid.”</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha smiled, but his look was ghastly. “Blame us not overmuch,
    dear Queen. Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he be sure he shall
    never hit the mark, yet as sure he is he shall shoot higher than who
    aims but at a bush.” His voice broke in his throat; the whites of his
    eyes rolled up; he caught at the Queen’s hand like a frightened child.
    Then with a mighty effort mastering himself, “I pray bear with me a
    little,” he said. “After a little good meats and drinks taken ’twill
    pass. I pray look to Juss: is a dead, think you?”</p>

  <p>Days passed, and months, and the Lord Juss lay yet as it were in
    the article of death tended by his friend and by the Queen in that
    pavilion by the lake. At length when winter was gone in middle earth,
    and the spring far spent, back came that last little martlet on weary
    wing, she they had long given up for lost. She sank in her mistress’s
    bosom, almost dead indeed for weariness. But the Queen cherished her,
    and gave her nectar, so that she gathered strength and said, “O Queen
    Sophonisba, fosterling of the Gods, I flew for thee east and south
    and west and north, by sea and by land, in heat and frost, unto the
    frozen poles, about and about. And at the last came to Demonland, to
    the range of Neverdale. There is a tarn among the mountains, that men
    call Dule Tarn. Very deep it is, and men that live by bread do hold
    it for bottomless. Yet hath it a bottom, and on the bottom lieth an
    hippogriff’s egg, seen by me, for I flew at a great height above it.”</p>

  <p>“In Demonland!” said the Queen. And she said to Lord Brandoch Daha, “It
    is the only one. Ye must go home to fetch it.”</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha said, “Home to Demonland? After we spent our powers and
    crossed the world to find the way?”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span></p>

  <p>But when Lord Juss knew of it, straightway with hope so renewed began
    his sickness to depart from him, so that he was in a few weeks’ space
    very well recovered.</p>

  <p>And it was now a full year gone by since first the Demons came up into
    Koshtra Belorn.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_pegasus.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="QUEEN_PREZMYRA">XV: QUEEN PREZMYRA</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    HOW THE LADY PREZMYRA DISCOVERED TO LORD GRO WHAT SHE WOULD HAVE
    BROUGHT ABOUT FOR DEMONLAND, IN WHICH SHOULD ALSO APPEAR HER LORD’S
    YET MORE GREATNESS AND ADVANCEMENT: AND HOW HER TOO LOUD SPEAKING
    OF HER PURPOSE WAS THE OCCASION WHEREBY THE LORD CORINIUS WAS TO
    LEARN THE SWEETNESS OF BLISS DEFERRED.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">ON that same twenty-sixth night of May, when Lord Juss and Lord
    Brandoch Daha beheld from earth’s loftiest pinnacle the land of
    Zimiamvia and Koshtra Belorn, Gro walked with the Lady Prezmyra on
    the western terrace in Carcë. It wanted yet two hours of midnight.
    The air was warm, the sky a bower of moonbeam and starbeam. Now and
    then a faint breeze stirred as if night turned in her sleep. The walls
    of the palace and the Iron Tower cut off the terrace from the direct
    moonlight, and flamboys spreading their wobbling light made alternating
    regions of brightness and gloom. Galloping strains of music and the
    noise of revelry came from within the palace.</p>

  <p>Gro spake: “If thy question, O Queen, overlie a wish to have me gone, I
    am as lightning to obey thee howsoe’er it grieve me.”</p>

  <p>“’Twas an idle wonder only,” she said. “Stay and it like thee.”</p>

  <p>“It is but a native part of wisdom,” said he, “to follow the light.
    When thou wast departed from the hall methought all the bright lights
    were bedimmed.” He looked at her sidelong as they passed into the
    radiance of a flamboy, studying her countenance that seemed clouded
    with grievous thought. Fair of all fairs she seemed, stately and
    splendid; crowned with a golden crown set about with dark amethysts. A
    figure<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span> of a crab-fish topped it above the brow, curiously wrought in
    silver and bearing in either claw a ball of chrysolite the bigness of a
    thrush’s egg.</p>

  <p>Lord Gro said, “This too was part of my mind, to behold those stars in
    heaven that men call Berenice’s Hair, and know if they can outshine in
    glory thine hair, O Queen.”</p>

  <p>They paced on in silence. Then, “These phrases of forced gallantry,”
    she said, “sort ill with our friendship, my Lord Gro. If I be not
    angry, think it is because I father them on the deep healths thou hast
    caroused unto our Lord the King on this night of nights, when the
    returning year bringeth back the date of his sending, and our vengeance
    upon Demonland.”</p>

  <p>“Madam,” he said, “I would but have thee give over this melancholy.
    Seemeth it to thee a little thing that the King hath pleased so
    singularly to honour Corund thy husband as give him a king’s style
    and dignity and all Impland to hold in fee? All took notice of it how
    uncheerfully thou didst receive this royal crown when the King gave
    it thee to-night, in honour of thy great lord, to wear in his stead
    till he come home to claim it; this, and the great praise spoke by the
    King of Corund, which methinks should bring the warmth of pride to thy
    cheeks. Yet are all these things of as little avail against thy frozen
    scornful melancholy as the weak winter sun availeth against congealed
    pools in a black frost.”</p>

  <p>“Crowns are cheap trash to-day,” said Prezmyra; “whenas the King, with
    twenty kings to be his lackeys, raiseth up now his lackeys to be kings
    of the earth. Canst wonder if my joyance in this crown were dashed some
    little when I looked on that other given by the King to Laxus?”</p>

  <p>“Madam,” said Gro, “thou must forgive Laxus in his own particular. Thou
    knowest he set not so much as a foot in Pixyland; and if now he must be
    called king thereof, that should rather please thee, being in despite
    of Corinius that carried war there and by whatsoever means of skill or
    fortune overcame thy noble brother and drave him into exile.”</p>

  <p>“Corinius,” she answered, “tasteth in that miss that bane or ill-hap
    which I dearly pray all they may groan under who would fatten by my
    brother’s ruin.”</p>

  <p>“Then should Corinius’s grief lift up thy joy,” said Gro.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span> “Yet certain
    it is, Fate is a blind puppy: build not on her next turn.”</p>

  <p>“Am not I a Queen?” said Prezmyra. “Is not this Witchland? Have we not
    strength to make curses strong, if Fate be blind indeed?”</p>

  <p>They halted at the head of a flight of steps leading down to the inner
    ward. The Lady Prezmyra leaned awhile on the black marble balustrade,
    gazing seaward over the level marshes rough with moonlight. “What care
    I for Laxus?” she said at last. “What care I for Corinius? A cast of
    hawks flown by the King against a quarry that in dearworthiness and
    nobility outshineth an hundred such as they. Nor I will not suffer mine
    indignation so to witwanton with fair justice as persuade me to put
    the wite on Witchland. It is most true the Prince my brother practised
    with our enemies the downthrow of our fortunes, breaking open, had he
    but known it, the gate of destruction for himself and us, that night
    when our banquet was turned by him to a battle and our winey mirths to
    bloody rages.” She was silent for a time, then said, “Oathbreakers: a
    most odious name, flat against all humanity. Two faces in one hood. O
    that earth would start up and strike the sins that tread on her!”</p>

  <p>“I see thou lookest west over sea,” said Gro.</p>

  <p>“There’s somewhat thou canst see, then, my Lord Gro, by owl-light,”
    said Prezmyra.</p>

  <p>“Thou didst tell me at the time,” he said, “with what compliments in
    vows and strange well-studied promises of friendship the Lord Juss took
    leave of thee at their escaping out of Carcë. Yet art thou to blame, O
    Queen, if thou take in too ill part the breaking of such promises given
    in extremity, which prove commonly like fish, new, stale, and stinking
    in three days.”</p>

  <p>“Sure, ’tis a small matter,” said she, “that my brother should cast
    aside all ties of interest and alliance to save these great ones from
    an evil death; and they, being delivered, should toss him a light
    grammercy and go their ways, leaving him to be exterminated out of his
    own country and, for all they know or reck, to lose his life. May the
    great Devil of Hell torture their souls!”</p>

  <p>“Madam,” said Lord Gro, “I would have thee view the matter soberly, and
    leave these bitter flashes. The Demons<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span> did save thy brother once in
    Lida Nanguna, and his delivering of them out of the hand of our Lord
    the King was but just payment therefor. The scales hang equal.”</p>

  <p>She answered, “Do not defile mine ears with their excuses. They have
    shamefully abused us; and the guilt of their black deed planteth them
    day by day more firmlier in my deeper-settled hate. Art thou so deeply
    read in nature and her large philosophy, and I am yet to teach thee
    that deadliest hellebore or the vomit of a toad are qualified poison to
    the malice of a woman?”</p>

  <p>The darkness of a great cloud-bank spreading from the south swallowed
    up the moonlight. Prezmyra turned to resume her slow pacing down the
    terrace. The yellow fiery sparkles in her eyes glinted in the flamboys’
    flare. She looked dangerous as a lioness, and delicate and graceful
    like an antelope. Gro walked beside her, saying, “Did not Corund drive
    them forth in winter on to the Moruna, and can they continue there in
    life, alone amid so many devouring perils?”</p>

  <p>“O my lord,” she cried, “say these good tidings to the kitchen wenches,
    not to me. Why, thyself didst enter in past years the very heart of the
    Moruna and yet camest off, else art thou the greatest liar. This only
    cankerfrets my soul: that days go by, and months, and Witchland beateth
    down all peoples under him, and yet he suffereth the crown of pride,
    these rebels of Demonland, to go yet untrodden under feet. Doth he deem
    it the better part to spare a foe and spoil a friend? That were an
    unhappy and unnatural conclusion. Or is he fey, even as was Gorice XI.?
    Heaven foreshield it, yet as ill an end may bechance him and utter ruin
    come on all of us if he will withhold his scourge from Demonland until
    Juss and Brandoch Daha come home again to meet with him.”</p>

  <p>“Madam,” said Lord Gro, “in these few words thou hast given me the
    picture of mine own mind in small. And forgive me that I bespake thee
    warily at the first, for these are matters of heavy moment, and ere
    I opened my mind to thee I would know that it agreed with thine. Let
    the King smite now, in the happy absence of their greatest champions.
    So shall we be in strength against them if they return again, and
    perchance Goldry with them.”</p>

  <p>She smiled, and it seemed as if all the sultry night freshened<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span> and
    sweetened at that lady’s smile. “Thou art a dear companion to me,” she
    said. “Thy melancholy is to me as some shady wood in summer, where
    I may dance if I will, and that is often, or be sad if I will, and
    that is in these days oftener than I would: and never thou crossest
    my mood. Save but now thou didst so, to plague me with thy precious
    flattering jargon, till I had thought thee skin-changed with Laxus or
    young Corinius, seeking such lures as gallants spread their wings to,
    to stoop in ladies’ bosoms.”</p>

  <p>“For I would shake thee from this late-received sadness,” said Gro. And
    he said, “Thou art to commend me too, since I spake nought but truth.”</p>

  <p>“Oh, have done, my lord,” she cried, “or I’ll dismiss thee hence.” And
    as they walked Prezmyra sang softly:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">He that cannot chuse but love,</div>
        <div class="i0">And strives against it still,</div>
        <div class="i0">Never shall my fancy move,</div>
        <div class="i0">For he loves ’gaynst his will;</div>
        <div class="i0">Nor he which is all his own,</div>
        <div class="i0">And can att pleasure chuse;</div>
        <div class="i0">When I am caught he can be gone,</div>
        <div class="i0">And when he list refuse.</div>
        <div class="i0">Nor he that loves none but faire,</div>
        <div class="i0">For such by all are sought;</div>
        <div class="i0">Nor he that can for foul ones care,</div>
        <div class="i0">For his Judgement then is naught;</div>
        <div class="i0">Nor he——</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>She broke off suddenly, saying, “Come, I have shook off the ill
    disposition the sight of Laxus bred in me and of his tawdry crown.
    Let’s think on action. And first, I will tell thee a thing. This we
    spoke of hath been in my mind these two or three moons, ever since
    Corinius’s campaigning in Pixyland. So when word came of my lord’s
    destroying of the Demon host, and his driving of Juss and Brandoch Daha
    like runaway thralls on the Moruna, I sent him a letter by the hand of
    Viglus that bare him from our Lord the King the king’s name in Impland.
    Therein I expressed how that the crown of Demonland should be a braver
    crown for us than this of Impland, howsoe’er it sparkle, praying him
    urge upon the King his sending of an armament to Demonland, and my lord
    the leader thereof; or, if he could not as then come home to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span> ask it,
    then I entreated him make me his ambassador to lay this counsel before
    the King and crave the enterprise for Corund.”</p>

  <p>“Is not his answer in those letters I brought thee?” said Gro.</p>

  <p>“Ay,” said she, “and a very scurvy beggarly lickspittle answer for a
    great lord to send to such a matter as I propounded. Alack, it puffs
    away all my wifely duty but to speak on’t, and makes me rail like a
    gangrel-woman.”</p>

  <p>“I’ll walk apart, madam,” said Gro, “if thou wouldst have privateness
    to deliver thy mind.”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra laughed. “’Tis not all so bad,” she said, “and yet it makes me
    angry. The enterprise he commends, up to the hilt, and I have his leave
    to broach it to the King, as his mouth-piece, and press it with him out
    of all ho. But for the leading on’t, he will not have it, he. Corsus
    must have it, or Corinius. Stay, let me read it out,” and standing near
    one of the lights she took a parchment from her bosom. “Pooh! ’tis too
    fond; I will not shame my lord to read it, even to thee.”</p>

  <p>“Well,” said Gro, “were I the King, Corund should be my general to put
    down Demonland. Corsus he may send, for he hath done great work in
    his day, but in mine own judgement I like him not for such an errand.
    Corinius he hath not yet forgiven for his fault at the banquet a year
    ago.”</p>

  <p>“Corinius!” said Prezmyra. “So his butchery of mine own dear land goeth
    not only without reward, but hath not so much as bought him back to
    favour, thou thinkest?”</p>

  <p>“I think not,” said Lord Gro. “Besides, he is mad wroth to have
    plucked that prickly fruit but for another’s eating. He bare himself
    so presumptuous-ill in the hall to-night, gleeking and galling at
    Laxus, slapping of his sword, and with so many more shameless braves
    and wanton fashions, and worst of all his most openly seeking to toy
    with Sriva, i’ this first month of her betrothal unto Laxus, it will
    be a wonder if blood be not spilt betwixt them ere the night be done.
    Methinks he is not i’ the mood to take the field again without some
    sure reward; and methinks the King, guessing his mind, would not offer
    him a new enterprise and so give him the glory of refusing it.”</p>

  <p>They stood near the arched gateway that opened on the terrace from the
    inner court. Music still sounded from the great banquet hall of Gorice
    XI. Under the archway and in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span> the shadows of the huge buttresses of the
    walls it was as though the elements of gloom, expelled from the bright
    circles round the flamboys, huddled with sister glooms to make a double
    darkness.</p>

  <p>“Well, my lord,” said Prezmyra, “doth thy wisdom bless my resolve?”</p>

  <p>“Whate’er it be, yes, because it is thine, O Queen.”</p>

  <p>“Whate’er it be!” she cried. “Dost hang in doubt on’t? What else, but
    seek audience with the King as my first care in the morning. Have I not
    my lord’s bidding so far?”</p>

  <p>“And if thy zeal outrun his bidding in one particular?” said Gro.</p>

  <p>“Why, just!” said she. “And if I bring thee not word ere to-morrow’s
    noon that order is given for Demonland, and my Lord Corund named his
    general for that sailing, ay, and letters sealed for his straight
    recall from Orpish——”</p>

  <p>“Hist!” said Gro. “Steps i’ the court.”</p>

  <p>They turned towards the archway, Prezmyra singing under her breath:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Nor he that still his Mistresse payes,</div>
        <div class="i0">For she is thrall’d therefore;</div>
        <div class="i0">Nor he that payes not, for he sayes</div>
        <div class="i0">Within, shee’s worth no more.</div>
        <div class="i0">Is there then no kinde of men</div>
        <div class="i0">Whom I may freely prove?</div>
        <div class="i0">I will vent that humour then</div>
        <div class="i0">In mine own selfe love.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>Corinius met them in the gateway, coming from the banquet house. He
    halted full in their path to peer closely through the darkness at
    Prezmyra, so that she felt the heat of his breath, heavy with wine. It
    was too dark to know faces but he knew her by her stature and bearing.</p>

  <p>“Cry thee mercy, madam,” he said. “Methought an instant ’twas—but no
    matter. Your best of rest.”</p>

  <p>So saying he made way for her with a deep obeisance, jostling roughly
    against Gro with the same motion. Gro, little minded for a quarrel,
    gave him the wall, and followed Prezmyra into the inner court.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>The Lord Corinius sat him down on the nearest of the benches, leaned
    his stalwart back luxuriously upon the cushions and there rested,
    thripping his fingers and singing to himself:</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span></p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">What an Ass is he</div>
        <div class="i2">Waits a woman’s leisure</div>
        <div class="i2">For a minute’s pleasure,</div>
        <div class="i0">And perhaps may be</div>
        <div class="i2">Gull’d at last, and lose her;</div>
        <div class="i0">What an ass is he?</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">What need I to care</div>
        <div class="i2">For a woman’s favour?</div>
        <div class="i2">If another have her,</div>
        <div class="i0">Why should I despair?</div>
        <div class="i2">When for gold and labour</div>
        <div class="i0">I can have my share.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">If I chance to see</div>
        <div class="i2">One that’s brown, I love her,</div>
        <div class="i2">Till I see another</div>
        <div class="i0">Browner is than she;</div>
        <div class="i2">For I am a lover</div>
        <div class="i0">Of my liberty.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>A rustle behind him on his left made him turn his head. A figure stole
    out of the deep shadow of the buttress nearest the archway. He leapt up
    and was first in the gate, blocking it with open arms. “Ah,” he cried,
    “so titmice roost i’ the shade, ha? What ransom shall I have of thee
    for making me keep empty tryst last night? Ay, and wast creeping hence
    to make me a fool once more the night-long and I had not caught thee.”</p>

  <p>The lady laughed. “Last night my father kept me by him; and to-night,
    my lord, wouldst thou not have been fitly served for thy shameless
    ditty? Is that a sweet serenade for ladies’ ears? Sing it again, to thy
    liberty, and show thyself an ass.”</p>

  <p>“Thou art very bold to provoke me, madam, with not even a star to be
    thy witness if I quite thee for’t. These flamboys are old roisterers,
    grown gray in scenes of riot. They shall not blab.”</p>

  <p>“Nay, if thou speakest in wine I’m gone, my lord;” and as he took a
    step towards her, “and I return not, here or otherwise, but fling thee
    off for ever,” she said. “I will not be entreated like a serving-maid.
    I have borne too long with thy forced soldier fashions.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span></p>

  <p>Corinius caught his arms about her, lifting her against his broad chest
    so that her toes scarce kept footing on the ground. “O Sriva,” he said
    thickly, bending his face to hers, “dost think to light so great a
    fire, and after walk through it and not be scorched thereat?”</p>

  <p>Her arms were close pinioned at her sides in that strong embrace. She
    seemed to swoon, as a lily swooning in the flaming noon-day. Corinius
    bent down his face and kissed her fiercely, saying, “By all the sweets
    that ever darkness tasted, thou art mine to-night.”</p>

  <p>“To-morrow,” she said, as if stifled.</p>

  <p>But Corinius said, “My dearest happiness, to-night.”</p>

  <p>“My dear lord,” said the Lady Sriva softly, “sith thou hast made such
    a conquest of my love, be not a harsh and froward conqueror. I swear
    to thee by all the dreadful powers that clip the earth about, there’s
    matter in it I should to my father this night, nay more, now on the
    instant. ’Twas this only made me avoid thee but now: this, and no light
    conceit to vex thee.”</p>

  <p>“He can attend our pleasure,” said Corinius. “’Tis an old man, and oft
    sitteth late at his book.”</p>

  <p>“How? and thou leftest him carousing?” said she. “There’s that I must
    impart to him ere the wine quite o’erflow his wits. Even this delay,
    how sweet soe’er to us, is dangerous.”</p>

  <p>But Corinius said, “I will not let thee go.”</p>

  <p>“Well,” said she, “be a beast, then. But know I’ll cry on a rescue
    shall make all Carcë run to find us, and my brothers, ay, and Laxus,
    if he be a man, shall deal thee bitter payment for thy violence toward
    me. But if thou wilt be thy noble self, and respect my love with
    friendship, let me go. And if thou come secretly to my chamber door, an
    hour past midnight; I think thou’lt find no bolt to it.”</p>

  <p>“Ha, thou swearest it?” he said.</p>

  <p>She answered, “Else may steep destruction swallow me quick.”</p>

  <p>“An hour past midnight. And until then ’tis a year in my desires,” said
    he.</p>

  <p>“There spoke my noble lover,” said Sriva, giving him her mouth once
    more. And swiftly she fared through the shadowy archway and across the
    court to where in the north gallery her father Corsus had his chamber.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span></p>

  <p>The Lord Corinius went back to his seat, and there reclined for a space
    in slothful ease, humming to an old tune:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">My Mistris is a shittle-cock,</div>
        <div class="i2">Compos’d of Cork and feather;</div>
        <div class="i0">Each Battledore sets on her dock,</div>
        <div class="i2">And bumps her on the leather.</div>
        <div class="i2">But cast her off which way you Will,</div>
        <div class="i2">She will requoile to another still—</div>
        <div class="i0">Fa, la, la, la, la, la.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>He stretched his arms and yawned. “Well, Laxus, my chub-faced meacock,
    this medicine hath eased powerfully my discontent. ’Tis but fair, sith
    I must miss my crown, that I should have thy mistress. And to say true,
    seeing how base, little, and ordinary a kingdom is this of Pixyland,
    and what a delectable sweet wagtail this Sriva, whom besides I have
    these two years past ne’er looked on but my mouth watered: why, I may
    hold me part paid for the nonce; until I weary of her.</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Love is all my life,</div>
        <div class="i2">For it keeps me doing:</div>
        <div class="i2">Yet my love and wooing</div>
        <div class="i0">Is not for a Wife—</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>“An hour past midnight, ha? What wine’s best for lovers? I’ll go drink
    a stoup, and so to dice with some of these lads to pass away the time
    till then.”</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_flower.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_LADY_SRIVAS_EMBASSAGE">XVI: THE LADY SRIVA’S EMBASSAGE</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    HOW THE DUKE CORSUS THOUGHT IT PROPER TO COMMIT AN ERRAND OF STATE UNTO
    HIS DAUGHTER: AND HOW SHE PROSPERED THEREIN.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">SRIVA fared swiftly to her father’s closet, and finding her lady mother
    sewing in her chair, nodding toward sleep, two candles at her left
    and right, she said, “My lady mother, there’s a queen’s crown waits
    the plucking. ’Twill drop into the foreign woman’s lap if thou and my
    father bestir you not. Where is he? Still i’ the banquet house? Thou or
    I must fetch him on the instant.”</p>

  <p>“Fie!” cried Zenambria. “How thou’st startled me! Fall somewhat into a
    slower speech, my girl. With such wild sudden talk I know not what thou
    meanest nor what’s the matter.”</p>

  <p>But Sriva answered, “Matter of state. Thou goest not? Good, then I
    fetch him. Thou shalt hear all anon, mother;” and so turned towards
    the door. Nor might all her mother’s crying out upon the scandal of
    their so returning to the banquet long past the hour of the women’s
    withdrawal turn her from this. So that the Lady Zenambria, seeing her
    so wilful, thought it less evil to go herself; and so went, and in
    awhile returned with Corsus.</p>

  <p>Corsus sat in his great chair over against his lady wife, while his
    daughter told her tale.</p>

  <p>“Twice and thrice,” said she, “they passed me by, as near as I stand to
    thee, O my father, she leaning most familiarly on the arm of her curled
    philosopher. ’Twas plain they had never a thought that any was by to
    overhear them. She said so and so;” and therewith Sriva told all that
    was spoke<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span> by the Lady Prezmyra as to an expedition to Demonland, and
    as to her purposed speaking with the King, and as to her design that
    Corund should be his general for that sailing, and letters sealed on
    the morrow for his straight recall from Orpish.</p>

  <p>The Duke listened unmoved, breathing heavily, leaning heavily forward,
    his elbow on his knees, one great fat hand twisting and pushing back
    the sparse gray growth of his moustachios. His eyes shifted with sullen
    glance about the chamber, and his blabber cheeks, scarlet from the
    feast, flushed to a deeper hue.</p>

  <p>Zenambria said, “Alas, and did not I tell thee long ago, my lord, that
    Corund did ill to wed with a young wife? And thence cometh now that
    shame that was but to be looked for. It is pity indeed of so goodly a
    man, now past his prime age, she should so play at fast and loose with
    his honour, and he at the far end of the world. Indeed and indeed,
    I hope he will revenge it on her at his coming home. For sure I am,
    Corund is too high-minded to buy advancement at so shameful a price.”</p>

  <p>“Thy talk, wife,” said Corsus, “showeth long hair and a short wit. In
    brief, thou art a fool.”</p>

  <p>He was silent for a space, then raised his gaze to Sriva, where she
    rested, her back to the massive table, half standing, half sitting, a
    dainty jewel-besparkled hand planted on the table’s edge at her either
    side, her arms like delicate white pillars supporting that fair frame.
    Somewhat his dull eye brightened, resting on her. “Come hither,” he
    said, “on my knee: so.”</p>

  <p>When she was seated, “’Tis a brave gown,” said he, “thou wearest
    to-night, my pretty pug. Red, for a sanguine humour.” His great arm
    gave her a back, and his hand, huge as a platter, lay like a buckler
    beneath her breast. “Thou smell’st passing sweet.”</p>

  <p>“’Tis malabathrum in the leaf,” answered she.</p>

  <p>“I’m glad it likes thee, my lord,” said Zenambria. “My woman still
    protesteth that such, being boiled with wine, yieldeth a perfume that
    passeth all other.”</p>

  <p>Corsus still looked on Sriva. After a while he asked, “What madest thou
    on the terrace i’ the dark, ha?”</p>

  <p>She looked down, saying, “It was Laxus prayed me meet him there.”</p>

  <p>“Hum!” said Corsus, “’Tis strange then he should<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span> await thee this hour
    gone by in the paved alley of the privy court.”</p>

  <p>“He did mistake me,” said Sriva. “And well is he served, for such
    neglect.”</p>

  <p>“So. And thou turnest politician to-night, my little puss-cat?” said
    Corsus. “And thou smellest an expedition to Demonland? ’Tis like enow.
    But methinks the King will send Corinius.”</p>

  <p>“Corinius?” said Sriva. “It is not thought so. ’Tis Corund must have
    it, if thou push not the matter to a decision with the King to-night, O
    my father, ere my lady fox be private with him to-morrow.”</p>

  <p>“Bah!” said Corsus. “Thou art but a girl, and knowest nought. She hath
    not the full blood nor the resolution to carry it thus. No, ’tis not
    Corund stands i’ the light, it is Corinius. It is therefore the King
    withheld from him Pixyland, which was his due, and tossed the bauble to
    Laxus.”</p>

  <p>“Why, ’tis a monstrous thing,” said Zenambria, “if Corinius shall have
    Demonland, which surely much surpasseth this crown of Pixyland. Shall
    this novice have all the meat, and thou, because thou art old, have
    nought but the bones and the parings?”</p>

  <p>“Hold thy tongue, mistress,” said Corsus, looking upon her as one
    looketh on a sour mixture. “Why hadst not the wit to angle for him for
    thy daughter?”</p>

  <p>“Truly, husband, I’m sorry for it,” said Zenambria.</p>

  <p>The Lady Sriva laughed, placing her arm about her father’s bullock-neck
    and playing with his whiskers. “Content thee,” she said, “my lady
    mother. I have my choice, and that is very certain, of these and of all
    other in Carcë. And now I bethink me on the Lord Corinius, why, there’s
    a proper man indeed: weareth a shaven lip too, which, as experienced
    opinion shall tell thee, far exceedeth your nasty moustachios.”</p>

  <p>“Well,” said Corsus, kissing her, “howe’er it shape, I’ll to the King
    to-night to move my matter with him. Meanwhile, madam,” he said to
    Zenambria, “I’ll have thee take thy chamber straight. Bolt well the
    door, and for more safety I will lock it myself o’ the outer side.
    There’s much mirth toward to-night, and I’d not have these staggering
    drunken swads offend thee, as full well might befall, whiles I am on
    mine errand of state.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span></p>

  <p>Zenambria bade him good-night, and would have taken her daughter with
    her, but Corsus said nay to this, saying, “I’ll see her safe bestowed.”</p>

  <p>When they were alone, and the Lady Zenambria locked away in her
    chamber, Corsus took forth from an oaken cupboard a great silver flagon
    and two chased goblets. These he brimmed with a sparkling yellow wine
    from the flagon and made Sriva drink with him not once only but twice,
    emptying each time her goblet. Then he drew up his chair and sinking
    heavily into it folded his arms upon the table and buried his head upon
    them.</p>

  <p>Sriva paced back and forth, impatient at her father’s strange posture
    and silence. Surely the wine lighted riot in her veins; surely in that
    silent room came back to her Corinius’s kisses hot upon her mouth,
    the strength of his arms like bands of bronze holding her embraced.
    Midnight tolled. Her bones seemed to melt within her as she bethought
    her of her promise, due in an hour.</p>

  <p>“Father,” said she at last, “midnight hath stricken. Wilt thou not go
    ere it be too late?”</p>

  <p>The Duke raised his face and looked at her. He answered “No.” “No,”
    he said again, “where’s the profit? I wax old, my daughter, and must
    wither. The world is to the young. To Corinius; to Laxus; to thee. But
    most of all to Corund, who if a be old yet hath his mess of sons, and
    mightiest of all his wife, to be his ladder to climb thrones withal.”</p>

  <p>“But thou saidst but now——” said Sriva.</p>

  <p>“Ay, when thy mammy was by. She cometh to her second childhood before
    her time, so as to a child I speak to her. Corund did ill to wed with
    a young wife, ha? Phrut! Is not this the very bulwark and rampire of
    his fortune? Didst ever see a fellow so spurted up in a moment? My
    secretary when I managed the old wars against the Ghouls, and now
    climbed clean over me, that am yet nine year his elder. Called king,
    forsooth, and like to be ta’en soon (under the King) for Dominus fac
    totum throughout all the land if a play this woman as a should. Will
    not the King, for such payment as she intends, give Demonland upon
    Impland and all the world beside? Hell’s dignity, that would I, and
    ’twere offered me.”</p>

  <p>He stood up, reaching unsteadily for the wine jug. Furtively he watched
    his daughter, shifting his gaze ever as her eye met his.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span></p>

  <p>“Corund,” said he, pouring out some wine, “would split his sides for
    laughter to hear thy mother’s prim-mouthed brabble: he that hath
    enjoined upon his wife, there’s ne’er a doubt on’t, this very errand,
    and if he visit it on her at his coming home ’twill but be with hotter
    love and gratitude for that she wins him in our despite. Trust me, ’tis
    not every lady of quality shall find favour with a King.”</p>

  <p>The casement stood open, and while they stood without speech sounds of
    a lute trembled upward from the court below, and a man’s voice, soft
    and deep, singing this song:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i2">Hornes to the bull,</div>
        <div class="i4">Hooves to the steede,</div>
        <div class="i2">To little hayres</div>
        <div class="i4">Light feete for speed,</div>
        <div class="i0">And unto lions she giveth tethe</div>
        <div class="i2">A-gaping dangerouslye.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i2">Fishes to swim,</div>
        <div class="i4">And birds to flye,</div>
        <div class="i2">And men to judge</div>
        <div class="i4">And reeson why,</div>
        <div class="i0">She teacheth. Yet for womankind</div>
        <div class="i2">None of these thinges hath she.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i2">For women beautie</div>
        <div class="i4">She hath made</div>
        <div class="i2">Their onely shielde</div>
        <div class="i4">Their onely blade.</div>
        <div class="i0">O’er sword and fire they triumph stille,</div>
        <div class="i2">Soe they but beautious be.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>The Lady Sriva knew it was Laxus singing to her chamber window. Her
    blood beat wildly, the spirit of enterprise winging her imagination not
    toward him, nor yet Corinius, but into paths strangely and perilously
    inviting, undreamed of until now. The Duke her father came towards her,
    thrusting the chairs from his way, and saying, “Corund and his mess of
    sons! Corund and his young Queen! If he conjure with the white rose,
    why not thou and I with the red? It hath as fair a look, the devil damn
    me else, and savoureth as excellent sweet perfume.”</p>

  <p>She stared at him big-eyed, with blushing cheeks. He took her hands in
    his.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span></p>

  <p>“Shall this outland woman,” he said, “and her sallow-cheeked gallant
    still ruffle it over us? Long beards, whether they be white or black,
    are too huge a blemish in our eye, methinks. The thing seemeth not
    supportable, that this precise madam with her foreign fashions—Dost
    fear to stand i’ the field against her?”</p>

  <p>Sriva put her forehead on his shoulder and said, scarce to be heard,
    “And it come to that, I’ll show thee.”</p>

  <p>“It must be now,” said Corsus. “Prezmyra, thou hast told me, seeketh
    audience betimes i’ the morning. Women are best at night-time, too.”</p>

  <p>“If Laxus should hear thee!” she said.</p>

  <p>He answered, “Tush, he need never blame thee, even if he knew on’t, and
    we can manage that. Thy silly mother prated but now of honour. ’Tis
    but a school-name; and if ’twere other, tell me whence springeth the
    fount of honour if not from the King of Kings? If he receive thee, then
    art thou honoured, and all they that have to do with thee. I am yet to
    learn dishonour lieth on that man or woman whom the King doth honour.”</p>

  <p>She laughed, turning from him toward the window, her hands still held
    in his. “Foh, thou hast given me a strong potion! and I think that
    swayeth me more than thy many arguments, O my father, which to say
    truth I cannot well remember because I did not much believe.”</p>

  <p>Duke Corsus took her by the shoulders. His face overlooked her by a
    little, for she was not tall of build. “By the Gods,” he said, “’tis a
    stronger sweet scent of the red rose to make a great man drunk withal
    than of the white, though that be a bigger flower.” And he said, “Why
    not, for a game, for a madcap jest? A mantle and hood, a mask if thou
    wilt, and my ring to prove thee mine ambassador. I’ll attend thee
    through the court-yard to the foot o’ the stairs.”</p>

  <p>She said nothing, smiling at him as she turned for him to put the great
    velvet mantle about her shoulders.</p>

  <p>“Ha,” said he, “’tis well seen a daughter is worth ten sons.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>In the meanwhile Gorice the King sate in his private chamber writing
    at a parchment spread before him on the table of polished marmolite.
    A silver lamp burned at his left<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span> elbow. The window stood open to the
    night. The King had laid aside his crown, that sparkled darkly in the
    shadow below the lamp. He put down his pen and read again what he had
    writ, in manner following:</p>

  <blockquote>

    <p>Fram Me, Gorice the Twelft, Greate Kyng of Wychlande and of
      Ympelande and of Daemonlande and of al kyngdomes the sonne
      dothe spread hys bemes over, unto Corsus My servaunte: Thys is
      to signifye to the that thoue shalt with all convenient spede
      repaire with a suffycyaunt strengthe of menne and schyppes to
      Daemonlande, bycause that untowarde and traytorly cattell that doe
      there inhabyt are to fele by the the sharpnes of My correctioun.
      I wyll the, as holdynge the place of My generalle ther, that thow
      enter forcybly ynto the sayd cuntrie and doe with al dilygence
      spoyl ravysche and depopulate that lande, enslavying oppressyng
      and puttyng to the dethe as thow shalt thynke moost servychable al
      them that shal fall ynto thy powre, and in pertyculer pullyng downe
      and ruinating all thayr stronge houlds or castels, as Galinge,
      Dreppabie, Crothryng, Owleswyke, and othere. Thys enterpryse in
      head is one of the gretest that ever was since yt is to trampe
      downe Daemonlande and once and for al to cutt thayr coames whose
      crestes may daunger us, and thow art toe onderstande that withowt
      extraordinair experiens of thy former merrits I wolde not commyt
      to the so greate a chairge, and especially in such a tyme. And
      since al gret enterpryses oughte to bee sodeynly and resolutely
      prosequuted, therefore thys oughte to bee done and executed at
      furthest in harveste nexte. Therefore yt is My commaundemente that
      thow Corsus take order for the instant furnesshynge of shippes,
      seamen, souldiers, horsemen, officiers, and pertyculer personnes,
      wepons, municions, and al other necessaries whych is thought to be
      needfull for the armie and hoast whych shalbe levied for the sayd
      entrepryse, for whyche this letter shalbe thy suffycyaunt warrant
      under My hande. Given under My signeth of Ouroboros in My pallaice
      of Carcie thys xxix daie of may, beynge the vij daie of My yeare II.</p>
  </blockquote>

  <p>The King took wax and a taper from the great gold ink-stand, and sealed
    the warrant with the ruby head of the worm Ouroboros, saying, “The
    ruby, most comfortable to the heart, brain, vigour, and memory of man.
    So, ’tis confirmed.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span></p>

  <p>In that instant, when the wax was yet soft of the King’s seal sealing
    that commission for Corsus, one tapped gently at the chamber door. The
    King bade enter, and there came the captain of his bodyguard and stood
    before the King, with word that one waited without, praying instant
    audience, “And showed me for a token, O my Lord the King, a bull’s head
    with fiery nostrils graven in a black opal in the bezel of a ring,
    which I knew for the signet of my Lord Corsus that his lordship beareth
    alway on his left thumb. And ’twas this, O King, that only persuaded
    me to deliver the message unto your Majesty in this unseasonable hour.
    Which if it be a fault in me, I do humbly hope your Majesty will
    pardon.”</p>

  <p>“Knowest thou the man?” said the King.</p>

  <p>He answered, “I might not know him, dread Lord, for the mask and great
    hooded cloak he weareth. It is a little man, and speaketh a husky
    whisper.”</p>

  <p>“Admit him,” said King Gorice; and when Sriva was come in, masked and
    hooded and holding forth the ring, he said, “Thou lookest questionable,
    albeit this token opened a way for thee. Put off these trappings and
    let me know thee.”</p>

  <p>But she, speaking still in a husky whisper, prayed that they might be
    private ere she disclosed herself. So the King bade leave them private.</p>

  <p>“Dread Lord,” said the soldier, “is it your will that I stand ready
    without the door?”</p>

  <p>“No,” said the King. “Void the ante-chamber, set the guard, and let
    none disturb me.” And to Sriva he said, “If thine errand prove not more
    honester than thy looks, this is an ill night’s journey for thee. At
    the lifting of my finger I am able to metamorphose thee to a mandrake.
    If indeed thou beest aught else already.”</p>

  <p>When they were alone the Lady Sriva doffed her mask and put back her
    hood, uncovering her head that was crowned with two heavy trammels of
    her dark brown hair bound up and interwoven above her brow and ears
    and pinned with silver pins headed with garnets coloured like burning
    coals. The King beheld her from under the great shadow of his brows,
    darkly, not by so much as the moving of an eyelid or a lineament of his
    lean visage betraying aught that passed in his mind at this disclosing.</p>

  <p>She trembled and said, “O my Lord the King, I hope you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span> will indulge
    and pardon in me this trespass. Truly I marvel at mine own boldness how
    I durst come to you.”</p>

  <p>With a gesture of his hand the King bade her be seated in a chair on
    his right beside the table. “Thou needest not be afraid, madam,” he
    said. “That I admit thee, let it make thee assured of welcome. Let me
    know thine errand.”</p>

  <p>The fire of her father’s wine shuddered down within her like a low-lit
    flame in a gust of wind as she sat there alone with King Gorice XII.
    in the circle of the lamplight. She took a deep breath to still her
    heart’s fluttering and said, “O King, I was much afeared to come, and
    it was to ask you a boon: a little thing for you to give, Lord, and yet
    to me that am the least of your handmaids a great thing to receive. But
    now I am come indeed, I durst not ask it.”</p>

  <p>The glitter of his eyes looking out from their eaves of darkness
    dismayed her; and little comfort had she of the iron crown at his
    elbow, bright with gems and fierce with uplifted claws, or of the
    copper serpents interlaced that made the arms of his chair, or of the
    bright image of the lamp reflected in the table top where were red
    streaks like streaks of blood and black streaks like edges of swords
    streaking the green shining surface of the stone.</p>

  <p>Yet she took heart to say, “Were I a great lord had done your majesty
    service as my father hath, or these others you did honour to-night,
    O King, it had been otherwise.” He said nothing, and still gathering
    courage she said, “I too would serve you, O King. And I came to ask you
    how.”</p>

  <p>The King smiled. “I am much beholden to thee, madam. Do as thou hast
    done, and thou shalt please me well. Feast and be merry, and charge not
    thine head with these midnight questionings, lest too much carefulness
    make thee grow lean.”</p>

  <p>“Grow I so, O King? You shall judge.” So speaking the Lady Sriva
    rose up and stood before him in the lamplight. Slowly she opened her
    arms upwards right and left, putting back her velvet cloak from her
    shoulders, until the dark cloak hanging in folds from either uplifted
    hand was like the wings of a bird lifted up for flight. Dazzling fair
    shone her bare shoulders and bare arms and throat and bosom. One great
    hyacinth stone, hanging by a gold chain about her neck, rested above
    the hollow of her breasts. It flashed and slept with her breathing’s
    alternate fall and swell.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span></p>

  <p>“You did threaten me, Lord, but now,” she said, “to transmew me to a
    mandrake. Would you might change me to a man.”</p>

  <p>She could read nothing in the crag-like darkness of his countenance,
    the iron lip, the eyes that were like pulsing firelight out of hollow
    caves.</p>

  <p>“I should serve you better so, Lord, than my poor beauty may. Were I a
    man, I had come to you to-night and said, ‘O King, let us not suffer
    any longer of that hound Juss. Give me a sword, O King, and I will put
    down Demonland for you and tread them under feet.’”</p>

  <p>She sank softly into her chair again, suffering her velvet cloak to
    fall over its back. The King ran his finger thoughtfully along the
    upstanding claws of the crown beside him on the table.</p>

  <p>“Is this the boon thou askest me?” he said at length. “An expedition to
    Demonland?”</p>

  <p>She answered it was.</p>

  <p>“Must they sail to-night?” said the King, still watching her. She
    smiled foolishly.</p>

  <p>“Only,” he said, “I would know what gadfly of urgency stung thee on to
    come so strangely and suddenly and after midnight.”</p>

  <p>She paused a minute, then summoning courage: “Lest another should
    first come to you, O King,” she answered. “Believe me, I know of
    preparations, and one that shall come to you in the morning praying
    this thing for another. What intelligence soever some hath, I am sure
    of that to be true that I have.”</p>

  <p>“Another?” said the King.</p>

  <p>Sriva answered, “Lord, I’ll say no names. But there be some, O King, be
    dangerous sweet suppliants, hanging their hopes belike on other strings
    than we may tune.”</p>

  <p>She had bent her head above the polished table, looking curiously down
    into its depths. Her corsage and gown of scarlet silk brocade were like
    the chalice of a great flower; her white arms and shoulders like the
    petals of the flower above it. At length she looked up.</p>

  <p>“Thou smilest, my Lady Sriva,” said the King.</p>

  <p>“I smiled at mine own thought,” she said. “You’ll laugh to hear it, O
    my Lord the King, being so different from what<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span> we spoke on. But sure,
    of women’s thoughts is no more surety nor rest than is in a vane that
    turneth at all winds.”</p>

  <p>“Let me hear it,” said the King, bending forward, his lean hairy hand
    flung idly across the table’s edge.</p>

  <p>“Why thus it was, Lord,” said she. “There came me in mind of a sudden
    that saying of the Lady Prezmyra when first she was wed to Corund and
    dwelt here in Carcë. She said all the right part of her body was of
    Witchland but the left Pixy. Whereupon our people that were by rejoiced
    much that she had given the right part of her body to Witchland.
    Whereupon she said, but her heart was on the left side.”</p>

  <p>“And where wearest thou thine?” asked the King. She durst not look at
    him, and so saw not the comic light go like summer lightning across his
    dark countenance as she spoke Prezmyra’s name.</p>

  <p>His hand had dropped from the table edge; Sriva felt it touch her knee.
    She trembled like a full sail that suddenly for an instant the wind
    leaves. Very still she sat, saying in a low voice, “There’s a word, my
    Lord the King, if you’d but speak it, should beam a light to show you
    mine answer.”</p>

  <p>But he leaned closer, saying, “Dost think I’ll chaffer with thee? I’ll
    know the answer first i’ the dark.”</p>

  <p>“Lord,” she whispered, “I would not have come to you in this deep and
    dead time of the night but that I knew you noble and the great King,
    and no amorous surfeiter that should deal falsely with me.”</p>

  <p>Her body breathed spices: soft warm scents to make the senses reel:
    perfume of malabathrum bruised in wine, essences of sulphur-coloured
    lilies planted in Aphrodite’s garden. The King drew her to him. She
    cast her arms about his neck, saying close to his ear, “Lord, I may
    not sleep till you tell me they must sail, and Corsus must be their
    captain.”</p>

  <p>The King held her gathered up like a child in his embrace. He kissed
    her on the mouth, a long deep kiss. Then he sprang to his feet, set
    her down like a doll before him upon the table by the lamp, and so sat
    back in his own chair again and sat regarding her with a strange and
    disturbing smile.</p>

  <p>On a sudden his brow darkened, and thrusting his face towards hers, his
    thick black square-cut beard jutting beneath the curl of his shaven
    upper lip, “Girl,” he said, “who sent thee o’ this errand?”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span></p>

  <p>He rolled his eye upon her with such a gorgon look that her blood ran
    back with a great leap towards her heart, and she answered, scarce to
    be heard, “Truly, O King, my father sent me.”</p>

  <p>“Was he drunk when he sent thee?” asked the King.</p>

  <p>“Truly, Lord, I think he was,” said she.</p>

  <p>“That cup that he was drunken withal,” said King Gorice, “let him prize
    and cherish it all his life natural. For if in his sober senses he
    should make no more estimation of me than think to bribe my favours
    with a bona roba; by my soul, in his evil health he had sought to do
    it, for it should cost him nothing but his life.”</p>

  <p>Sriva began to weep, saying, “O King, your gentle pardon.”</p>

  <p>But the King paced the room like a prowling lion. “Did he fear I should
    supply Corund in his place?” said he. “This was a cocksure way to make
    me do it, if indeed his practice had might to move me at all. Let him
    learn to come to me with his own mouth if he hope to get good of me.
    Other else, out of Carcë let him go and avoid my sight, that all the
    great masters of Hell may conduct him thither.”</p>

  <p>The King paused at length beside Sriva, that was perched still upon the
    table, showing a kind of sweetness in tears, sobbing very pitifully,
    her face hidden in her two hands. So for a time he beheld her, then
    lifted her down, and while he sat in his great chair, holding her on
    his knee with one hand, with the other drew hers gently from before
    her face. “Come,” he said, “I blame it not on thee. Give over all thy
    weeping. Reach me that writing from the table.”</p>

  <p>She turned in his arms and stretched a hand out for the parchment.</p>

  <p>“Thou knowest my signet?” said the King.</p>

  <p>She nodded, ay.</p>

  <p>“Read,” said he, letting her go. She stood by the lamp, and read.</p>

  <p>The King was behind her. He took her beneath the arms, bending to speak
    hot-breathed in her ear. “Thou seest, I had already chose my general.
    Therefore I let thee know it, because I mean not to let thee go till
    morning; and I would not have thee think thy loveliness, howe’er it
    please me, moveth such deep-commanding spells as to sway my policy.”</p>

  <p>She lay back against his breast, limp and strengthless, while<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span> he
    kissed her neck and eyes and throat; then her lips met his in a long
    voluptuous kiss. Surely the King’s hands upon her were like live coals.</p>

  <p>Bethinking her of Corinius, fuming at an open door and an empty
    chamber, the Lady Sriva was yet content.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_flower.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_KING_FLIES_HIS_HAGGARD">XVII: THE KING FLIES HIS HAGGARD</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    HOW THE LADY PREZMYRA CAME TO THE KING ON AN ERRAND OF STATE, AND HOW
    SHE PROSPERED THEREIN: WHEREIN IS ALSO SEEN WHY THE KING WOULD SEND
    THE DUKE CORSUS INTO DEMONLAND; AND HOW ON THE FIFTEENTH DAY OF
    JULY THESE LORDS, CORSUS, LAXUS, GRO, AND GALLANDUS, SAILED WITH A
    FLEET FROM TENEMOS.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">ON the morn came the Lady Prezmyra to pray audience of the King, and
    being admitted to his private chamber stood before him in great beauty
    and splendour, saying, “Lord, I came to thank you as occasion served
    not for me fitly so to do last night i’ the banquet hall. Sure, ’tis
    no easy task, since when I thank you as I would, I must seem too
    unmindful of Corund’s deserving who hath won this kingdom: but if I
    speak too large of that, I shall seem to minish your bounty, O King.
    And ingratitude is a vice abhorred.”</p>

  <p>“Madam,” said the King, “thou needest not to thank me. And to mine ears
    great deeds have their own trumpets.”</p>

  <p>So now she told him of her letters received from Corund out of Impland.
    “It is well seen, Lord,” said she, “how in these days you do beat down
    all peoples under you, and do set up new tributary kings to add to your
    great praise in Carcë. O King, how long must this ill weed of Demonland
    offend us, going still untrodden under feet?”</p>

  <p>The King answered her not a word. Only his lip showed a gleam of teeth,
    as of a tiger’s troubled at his meal.</p>

  <p>But Prezmyra said with great hardiness, “Lord, be not angry with me.
    Methinks it is the part of a faithful servant honoured by his master to
    seek new service. And where lieth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span> likelier service Corund should do
    you than west over seas, to lead presently an army naval thither and
    make an end of them, ere their greatness stand up again from the blow
    wherewith last May you did strike them?”</p>

  <p>“Madam,” said the King, “this charge is mine. I’ll tell thee when I
    need thy counsel, which is not now.” And standing up as if to end the
    matter, he said, “I do intend some sport to-day. They tell me thou hast
    a falcon gentle towereth so well she passeth the best Corinius hath.
    ’Tis clear calm weather. Wilt thou take her out to-day and show us the
    mounty at a heron?”</p>

  <p>She answered, “Joyfully, O King. Yet I beseech you add this favour to
    all your former goodness, to hear me yet one word. Something persuades
    me you have already determined of this enterprise, and by your putting
    of me off I do fear your majesty meaneth not Corund shall undertake it
    but some other.”</p>

  <p>Dark and immovable as his own dark fortress facing the bright morning,
    Gorice the King stood and beheld her. Sunshine streaming through the
    eastern casement lighted red-gold smouldering splendours in the heavy
    coils of that lady’s hair, and flew back in dazzling showers from the
    diamonds fastened among those coils. After a space he said, “Suppose I
    am a gardener. I go not to the butterfly for counsel. Let her be glad
    that there be rose-trees there and red stonecrops for her delight;
    which if any be lacking I’ll give her more for the asking, as I’ll give
    thee more masques and revels and all brave pleasures in Carcë. But war
    and policy is not for women.”</p>

  <p>“You have forgot, O King,” said the Lady Prezmyra, “Corund made me his
    ambassador.” But seeing a blackness fall upon the King’s countenance
    she said in haste, “But not in all, O King. I will be open as day to
    you. The expedition he strongly urged, but not for himself the leading
    on’t.”</p>

  <p>The King looked evilly upon her. “I am glad to hear it,” he said. Then,
    his brow clearing, “Know thou it for thy good, madam, order is ta’en
    for this already. Ere winter-nights return again, Demonland shall be my
    footstool. Therefore write to thy lord I gave him his wish beforehand.”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra’s eyes danced triumph. “O the glad day!” she cried. “Mine
    also, O King?”</p>

  <p>“If thine be his,” said the King.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span></p>

  <p>“Ah,” said she, “you know mine outgallops it.”</p>

  <p>“Then school thine, madam,” said the King, “to run in harness. Why
    think’st thou I sent Corund into Impland, but that I knew he had
    excellent wit and noble courage to govern a great kingdom? Wouldst have
    me a wilful child snatch Impland from him like a sampler half stitched?”</p>

  <p>Then, taking leave of her with more gracious courtesy, “We shall look
    to see thee then, madam, o’ the third hour before noon,” he said, and
    smote on a gong, summoning the captain of his guard. “Soldier,” he
    said, “conduct the Queen of Impland. And bid the Duke Corsus straight
    attend me.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>The third hour before noon the Lord Gro met with Prezmyra in the gate
    of the inner court. She had a riding-habit of dark green tiffany and
    a narrow ruff edged with margery-pearls. She said, “Thou comest with
    us, my lord? Surely I am beholden to thee. I know thou lovest not the
    sport, yet to save me from Corinius I must have thee. He plagueth me
    much this morning with strange courtesies; though why thus on a sudden
    I cannot tell.”</p>

  <p>“In this,” said Lord Gro, “as in greater matters, I am thy servant, O
    Queen. ’Tis yet time enough, though. This half hour the King will not
    be ready. I left him closeted with Corsus, that setteth presently about
    his arming against the Demons. Thou hast heard?”</p>

  <p>“Am I deaf,” said Prezmyra, “to a bell clangeth through all Carcë?”</p>

  <p>“Alas,” said Gro, “that we waked too long last night, and lay too long
    abed i’ the morning!”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra answered, “That did not I. And yet I’m angry with myself now
    that I did not so.”</p>

  <p>“How? Thou sawest the King before the council?”</p>

  <p>She bent her head for yes.</p>

  <p>“And he nay-said thee?”</p>

  <p>“With infinite patience,” said she, “but most irrevocably. My lord must
    hold by Impland till it be well broke to the saddle. And truly, when I
    think on’t, there’s reason in that.”</p>

  <p>Gro said, “Thou takest it, madam, with that clear brow of nobleness and
    reason I had looked for in thee.”</p>

  <p>She laughed. “I have the main of my desire, if Demonland<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span> shall be put
    down. Natheless, it maketh a great wonder the King picketh for this
    work so rude a bludgeon when so many goodly blades lie ready to his
    hand. Behold but his armoury.”</p>

  <p>For, standing in the gateway at the head of the steep descent to the
    river, they beheld where the lords of Witchland were met beyond the
    bridge-gate to ride forth to the hawking. And Prezmyra said, “Is it not
    brave, my Lord Gro, to dwell in Carcë? Is it not passing brave to be in
    Carcë, that lordeth it over all the earth?”</p>

  <p>Now came they down and by the bridge to the Way of Kings to meet with
    them on the open mead on the left bank of Druima. Prezmyra said to
    Laxus that rode on a black gelding full of silver hairs, “I see thou
    hast thy goshawks forth to-day, my lord.”</p>

  <p>“Ay, madam,” said he. “There is not a stronger hawk than these. Withal
    they are very fierce and crabbed, and I must keep them private lest
    they slay all other sort.”</p>

  <p>Sriva, that was by, put forth a hand to stroke them. “Truly,” she said,
    “I love them well, thy goshawks. They be stout and kingly.” And she
    laughed and said, “Truly to-day I look not lower than on a King.”</p>

  <p>“Thou mayst look on me, then,” said Laxus, “albeit I bear not my crown
    i’ the field.”</p>

  <p>“’Tis therefore I’ll mark thee not,” said she.</p>

  <p>Laxus said to Prezmyra, “Wilt thou not praise my hawks, O Queen?”</p>

  <p>“I praise them,” answered she, “circumspectly. For methinks they fit
    thy temper better than mine. These be good hawks, my lord, for flying
    at the bush. I am for the high mountee.”</p>

  <p>Her step-son Heming, black-browed and sullen-eyed, laughed in his
    throat, knowing she mocked and thought on Demonland.</p>

  <p>Meanwhile Corinius, mounted on a great white liard like silver with
    black ear-tips, mane, and tail, and all four feet black as coal, drew
    up to the Lady Sriva and spoke with her apart, saying secretly so that
    none but she might hear, “Next time thou shalt not carry it so, but
    I will have thee when and where I would. Thou mayst gull the Devil
    with thy perfidiousness, but not me a second time, thou lying cozening
    vixen.”</p>

  <p>She answered softly, “Beastly man, I did perform the very<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span> article of
    mine oath, and left thee an open door last night. If thou didst look to
    find me within, that were beyond aught I promised. And know for that
    I’ll seek a greater than thou, and a nicer to my liking: one less ready
    to swap each kitchen slut on the lips. I know thy practice, my lord,
    and thy conditions.”</p>

  <p>His face flamed red. “Were that my custom, I’d now amend it. Thou art
    so true a runt of their same litter, they shall all be loathly to me as
    thou art loathly.”</p>

  <p>“Mew!” said she, “wittily spoke, i’ faith; and right in the manner of a
    common horse-boy. Which indeed thou art.”</p>

  <p>Corinius struck spurs into his horse so that it bounded aloft; then
    cried out and said to Prezmyra, “Incomparable lady, I shall show thee
    my new horse, what rounds, what bounds, what stop he makes i’ the full
    course of the gallop galliard.” And therewith, trotting up to her, made
    his horse fetch a close turn in a flying manner upon one foot, and so
    away, rising to a racking pace, an amble, and thence after some double
    turns returning at the gallop and coming to a full stop by Prezmyra.</p>

  <p>“’Tis very pretty, my lord,” said she. “Yet I would not be thy horse.”</p>

  <p>“So, madam?” he cried. “Thy reason?”</p>

  <p>“Why,” said she, “were I the most temperate, strongest, and of the
    gentlest nature i’ the world, of the heat of the ginger, most swift to
    all high curvets and caprioles, I’d fear my crest should fall i’ the
    end, tired with thy spur-galling.”</p>

  <p>Whereat the Lady Sriva fell a-laughing.</p>

  <p>Now came Gorice the King among them with his austringers and falconers
    and his huntsmen with setters and spaniels and great fierce boar-hounds
    drawn in a string. He rode upon a black mare with eyes fire-red, so
    tall a tall man’s head scarce topped her withers. He wore a leather
    gauntlet on his right hand, on the wrist whereof an eagle sat, hooded
    and motionless, gripping with her claws. He said, “It is met. Corsus
    goeth not with us: I fly him at higher game. His sons attend him,
    losing not an hour in preparation for this journey. The rest, take
    pleasure in the chase.”</p>

  <p>So they praised the King, and rode forth with him eastaway. The Lady
    Sriva whispered Corinius in the ear, “Enchantery, my lord, ruleth in
    Carcë, and this it must be bringeth it about that none may see nor
    touch me ’twixt midnight hour and cock-crow save he that must be King
    in Demonland.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span></p>

  <p>But Corinius made as not to hear her, turning toward the Lady Prezmyra,
    that turned thence toward Gro. Sriva laughed. Merry of heart she seemed
    that day, eager as the small merlin sitting on her fist, and willing at
    every turn to have speech with King Gorice. But the King heeded her not
    at all, and gave her not a look nor a word.</p>

  <p>So rode they awhile, jesting and discoursing, toward the Pixyland
    border, rousing herons by the way whereat none made better sport than
    Prezmyra’s falcons, flown from her fist at many hundred paces as the
    quarry rose, and mounting with it to the clouds in corkscrew flights,
    ring upon ring, up and up till the fowl was but a speck in the upper
    sky, and her falcons two lesser specks beside it.</p>

  <p>But when they were come to the higher ground and the scrub and
    underwood, then the King whistled his eagle off his fist. She flew from
    him as if she would never have turned head again, yet presently upon
    his shout came in; then soaring aloft waited on above his head, till
    the hounds started a wolf out of the brake. Thereon she swooped sudden
    as a thunderbolt; and the King lighted down and helped her with his
    hunting-knife; and so again, thrice and four times till four wolves
    were slain. And that was the greatest sport.</p>

  <p>The King made much of his eagle, giving her the last wolf’s lights and
    liver to gorge herself withal. And he gave her over to his falconer,
    and said, “Ride we now into the flats of Armany, for I will fly my
    haggard: my haggard eagle caught this March in the hills of Largos.
    Many a good night’s rest hath she cost me, to wake her and man her and
    teach her to know my call and be obedient. I will fly her now at the
    big black boar of Largos that afflicteth the farmers hereabout these
    two years past and bringeth them death and loss. So shall we see good
    sport, if she be not too coy and wild.”</p>

  <p>So the King’s falconer brought the haggard and the King took her on
    his fist. A black eagle she was, red-beaked and glorious to look on.
    Her jesses were of red leather with little silver varvels whereon the
    crab of Witchland was engraved in small. Her hood was of red leather
    tasselled with silver. First she bated from the fist of the King,
    screaming and flapping her wings, but soon was quiet. And the King rode
    forth, sending his great brindled hounds before him to put up the boar;
    and all his company followed after.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span></p>

  <p>In no long time they roused the boar, that turned red-eyed and
    moody-mad on the King’s hounds, and charged among them ripping up the
    foremost so that her bowels gushed out. The King unhooded his eagle and
    flew her off his fist. But she, wild and ungentle, fastened not upon
    the boar but on a hound that held him by the ear. She fixed her cruel
    claws in the hound’s neck and picked his eyes out ere a man might speak
    two curses on her.</p>

  <p>Gro, that was by the King, muttered, “O, I like not that. ’Tis ominous.”</p>

  <p>By then was the King ridden up, and thrust the boar through with his
    spear, piercing him above and a little behind the shoulder so that
    the blade went through the heart of him and he sank down dying in his
    blood. Then the King smote his eagle in his wrath with the butt of his
    spear-shaft, but smote her lightly and with a glancing blow, and away
    she flew and was lost to sight. And the King was angry, for all that
    the boar was slain, for the loss of his hound and his haggard, and for
    her ill behaviour. So he bade his huntsmen skin the boar and bring home
    his skin to be a trophy, and so turned homeward.</p>

  <p>After a while the King called to him the Lord Gro to ride forward a
    little with him and out of earshot of the rest. The King said to him,
    “Thou hast a discontented look. Is it that I send not Corund into
    Demonland to crown the work he began at Eshgrar Ogo? Thou babblest
    besides of omens.”</p>

  <p>Gro answered, “My Lord the King, pardon my fears. For omens, indeed
    ’tis oft as the saw sayeth, ‘As the fool thinketh, so the bell
    clinketh.’ I spake in haste. Who shall weep Fate from her determined
    purpose? But since you did name Corund’s name——”</p>

  <p>“I named him,” said the King, “because I am still ringing in the ears
    with women’s talk. Whereto also I doubt not thou art privy.”</p>

  <p>“Only so much,” answered he, “that this is my thought: he were our
    best, O King.”</p>

  <p>“Haply so,” said the King. “But wouldst have me therefore hold my
    stroke in the air while occasion knocketh at the gate? I’ll tell thee,
    I am potent in art magical, but scarce may I stay time’s wing the while
    I fetch Corund out of Impland and pack him westaway.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span></p>

  <p>Gro held his peace. “Well,” said the King, “I will hear more from thee.”</p>

  <p>“Lord,” he answered, “I like not Corsus.”</p>

  <p>The King gave him a frump to his face. Gro held his peace again awhile,
    but seeing the King would have more, he said, “Since it likes your
    majesty to demand my counsel, I will speak. You know, Lord, of all your
    men in Carcë Corinius is least my friend, and if I back him you will
    be little apt to think me moved by interest. In my clear judgement, if
    Corund be barred from this journey (as reason is, I freely embrace it,
    he must bide in Impland, both to harvest there his victories and to
    deny the road to Juss and Brandoch Daha if haply they return from the
    Moruna, and besides, time, as you most justly say, O King, calleth for
    speedy action): if he be barred, you have no better than Corinius. A
    complete soldier, a tried captain, young, fierce, and resolute, and one
    that sitteth not down again when once he standeth up till that his will
    be accomplished. Send him to Demonland.”</p>

  <p>“No,” said the King. “I will not send Corinius. Hast thou not seen
    hawks that be in their prime and full pride for beauty and goodness,
    but must be tamed ere they be flown at the quarry? Such an one is he,
    and I will tame him with harshness and duress till I be certain of him.
    Also I have sworn and told him, last year when in his drunkenness he
    betrayed my counsel and o’erset all our plans, broke me from Pixyland
    and set my prisoners free, that Corund and Corsus and Laxus should
    be preferred and advanced before him until by quiet service he shall
    purchase my good will again.”</p>

  <p>“Give then the glory to Corsus, but to Corinius the rude work on’t for
    a tiring. Send him as Corsus’s secretary, and your work shall be better
    performed, O King.”</p>

  <p>But the King said, “No. Thou art a fool to think he would receive it,
    that being in disgrace could not humble himself but look bigger than
    before. And certainly I will not ask him, and so give him the glory to
    refuse it.”</p>

  <p>“My Lord the King,” said Gro, “when I said unto you, I like not Corsus,
    you did scoff. Yet ’tis no simple niceness made me say it, but because
    I do fear he shall prove a false cloth: he will shrink in the wetting
    and can abide no trial.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span></p>

  <p>“By the blight of Sathanas,” said the King, “what crazy talk is this?
    Hast forgot the Ghouls twelve years ago? True, thou wast not here. And
    yet, what skills it? When the fame hath gone back and forth through all
    the world of their great spill when Witchland stood i’ the greatest
    strait that ever she stood, and more than any other Corsus was to
    praise for our delivering. And since then, five years later, when he
    held Harquem against Goldry Bluszco, and made him at last to give over
    the siege and go home most ingloriously, and else had all the Sibrion
    coast been the Demons’ appanage not ours.”</p>

  <p>Gro bowed his head, having nought to say. The King was silent awhile,
    then bared his teeth. “When I would burn mine enemy’s house,” he said,
    “I choose me a good brand, full of pitch and rosin, apt to sputter well
    i’ the fire and fry them. Such an one is Corsus, since he fared to
    Goblinland ten years ago, on that ill faring which, had I been King, I
    never had agreed to; when Brandoch Daha took him prisoner on Lormeron
    field and despitefully used him, stripped him stark naked, shaved him
    all of one side smooth as a tennis ball and painted him yellow and sent
    him home with mickle shame to Witchland. Hell devour me, but I think
    his heart is in this enterprise. I think thou’lt see brave doings in
    Demonland when he comes thither.”</p>

  <p>Still Gro was silent, and the King said after awhile, “I have given
    thee reasons enow, I think, why I send Corsus into Demonland. There
    is yet this other, that by itself weigheth not one doit, yet with the
    others beareth down the balance if more thou lookest for. Unto mine
    other servants great tasks have I given, and great rewards: to Corund
    Impland and a king’s crown therefor, to Laxus the like in Pixyland,
    to thee by anticipation Goblinland, for so I do intend. But this old
    hunting-dog of mine sitteth yet in’s kennel with ne’er a bone to busy
    his teeth withal. That is not well, and shall no longer be neither,
    since there’s no reason for’t.”</p>

  <p>“Lord,” said Gro, “in all argument and wise prevision you have quite
    o’erset me. Yet my heart misgives me. You would ride to Galing. You
    have ta’en an horse therefor with never a star in’s forehead. Instead,
    I see there is a cloud in’s face; and such prove commonly furious,
    dogged, full of mischief and misfortune.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span></p>

  <p>They came down now upon the Way of Kings. Westward before them lay the
    marshes, with the great bulk of Carcë eight or ten miles distant their
    chiefest landmark, and the towers of Tenemos breaking the level horizon
    line beyond it. The King, after a long silence, looked down on Gro. His
    lean rugged countenance was outlined darkly against the sky, terrible
    and proud. “Thou too,” said he, “shalt be in this faring to Demonland.
    Laxus shall have sway afloat, since that is his element of water.
    Gallandus shall be secretary to Corsus, and thou shalt be with them
    in their counsels. But the main command, as I have decreed, lieth in
    Corsus. I’ll not crop his authority, no, not by an hair’s breadth. Sith
    Juss hath called the main, I will go hazard with Corsus. If I throw out
    with him, Hell rot him for a false die. But ’tis not such a cast shall
    cast away all my fortune. I have a langret in my purse shall cross-bite
    for me i’ the end and win me all, howsoe’er the Demons cog against me.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>So ended that day’s sporting. And that day, and the next, and near
    a month thereafter was the Duke Corsus busied up and down the land
    preparing his great armament. And on the fifteenth day of July was the
    fleet busked and boun in Tenemos Roads, and that great army of five
    thousand men-at-arms, with horses and all instruments of war, marched
    from their camp without Carcë down to the sea.</p>

  <p>First of them went Laxus with his guard of mariners, he wearing the
    crown of Pixyland and they loudly acclaiming him as king and Gorice
    of Witchland as his over-lord. A gallant man he seemed, ready-looking
    and hard, well-armed, with open countenance and bright seaman’s eyes,
    and brown, crisp, curly beard and hair. Next came the main foot army
    heavy-armed with axe and spear and the short Witchland hanger, yeomen
    and farmers from the low lands about Carcë or from the southern
    vineyards or the hill country against Pixyland: burly swashing fellows,
    rough as bears, hardy as wild oxen, agile as an ape; four thousand
    fighting men chose out by Corsus up and down the land as best for this
    great conquest. The sons of Corsus, Dekalajus and Gorius, rode abreast
    before them with twenty pipers piping a battle song. Surely the tramp
    of that great army on the paven way was like the tramp of Fate moving
    from the east. Gorice the King,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span> sitting in state on the battlements
    above the water-gate, sniffed with his nostrils as a lion at the scent
    of blood. It was early morn, and the wind hung southerly, and the great
    banners, blue and green and purple and gold, each with an iron crab
    displayed above it, flaunted in the sun.</p>

  <p>Now came four or five companies of horse, four hundred or more in all,
    with brazen armour and bucklers and glancing spears; and last of all,
    Corsus himself with his picked legion of five hundred veterans to bring
    up the rear, fierce soldiers of the coast-lands that followed him of
    old to the eastern main and Goblinland, and had stood beside him in
    the great days when he smote the Ghouls in Witchland. On Corsus’s
    left and right, a little behind him, rode Gro and Gallandus. Ruddy of
    countenance was Gallandus, gay of carriage and likely-looking, long of
    limb, with long brown moustachios and large kind eyes like a dog.</p>

  <p>Prezmyra stood beside the King, and with her the ladies Zenambria and
    Sriva, watching the long column marching toward the sea. Heming the
    son of Corund leaned on the battlements. Behind him stood Corinius,
    scornful-lipped, with folded arms, most glorious in holiday attire, a
    wreath of dwale about his brows, and wearing on his mighty breast the
    gold badge of the King’s captain general in Carcë.</p>

  <p>Corsus, as he rode by beneath them, planted on the point of his sword
    his great helm of bronze plumed with green-dyed estridge-plumes and
    raised it high above his head in homage to the King. The sparse gray
    locks of his hair lifted in the breeze, and pride flamed on the heavy
    face of him like a November sunset. He rode a dark bay, heavily built
    like a bear, that stepped ponderously as weighed down by his rider’s
    bulk and the great weight of gear and battle-harness. His veterans
    marching at his heel lifted their helms on spear and sword and bill,
    singing their old marching song in time to the clank of their mailed
    feet marching down the Way of Kings:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">When Corsus dwelt at Tenemos,</div>
        <div class="i0">Beside the sea in Tenemos,</div>
        <div class="i6"><i>Tirra lirra lay</i>,</div>
        <div class="i0">The Gowles came downe to Tenemos,</div>
        <div class="i0">They brent his house in Tenemos,</div>
        <div class="i6"><i>Downe derie downe day</i>.</div>
        <div class="i0"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span>But Corsus carved the Gowls</div>
        <div class="i4">The coarsest meat</div>
        <div class="i4">They ere did ete,</div>
        <div class="i0">He made him garters with their bowels.</div>
        <div class="i0">When hee came home to Tenemos,</div>
        <div class="i0">Came home agayn to Tenemos,</div>
        <div class="i6"><i>With a roundelaye</i>.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>The King held aloft his staff-royal, returning Corsus his salute, and
    all Carcë shouted from the walls.</p>

  <p>In such wise rode the Lord Corsus down to the ships with his great army
    that should bring bale and woe to Demonland.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_crab.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_MURTHER_OF_GALLANDUS_BY_CORSUS">XVIII: THE MURTHER OF GALLANDUS BY CORSUS</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE UPRISING OF THE WARS OF KING GORICE XII. IN DEMONLAND; WHEREIN
    IS SEEN HOW IN AN OLD MAN OF WAR STIFFNECKEDNESS AND TYRANNY MAY
    OVERLIVE GOOD GENERALSHIP, AND HOW A GREAT KING’S DISPLEASURE
    DURETH ONLY SO LONG AS IT AGREETH WITH HIS POLICY.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">NOUGHT befell to tell of after the sailing of the fleet from Tenemos
    till August was nigh spent. Then came a ship of Witchland from the west
    and sailed up the river to Carcë and moored by the water-gate. Her
    skipper went straight aland and up into the royal palace in Carcë and
    the new banquet hall, whereas was King Gorice XII. eating and drinking
    with his folk. And the skipper gave letters into the hand of the King.</p>

  <p>By then was night fallen, and all the bright lights kindled in the
    hall. The feast was three parts done, and thralls poured forth unto the
    King and unto them that sat at meat with him dark wines that crown the
    banquet. And they set before the feasters sweetmeats wondrous fair:
    bulls and pigs and gryphons and other, made all of sugar paste, some
    wines and spigots in their bellies to draw at, and suckets of all sorts
    cut out of their bellies to taste of, every one with his silver fork.
    Mirth and pleasure was that night in the great hall in Carcë; but now
    were all fallen silent, looking on the King’s countenance while he read
    his letters. But none might read the countenance of the King, that was
    inscrutable as the high blind walls of Carcë brooding on the fen. So
    in that waiting silence, sitting in his great high seat, he read his
    letters, which were sent by Corsus, and writ in manner following:</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span></p>

  <p>“Renouned Kinge and moste highe Prince and Lorde, Goreiyse Twelft of
    Wychlonde and of Daemounlonde and of all kingdomes the sonne dothe
    spread his bemes over, Corsus your servaunte dothe prosterate miself
    befoare your Greateness, evene befoare the face of the erthe. The
    Goddes graunte unto you moste nowble Lorde helthe and continewance
    and saffetie meny yeres. After that I hadde receaved my dispache and
    leave fram your Majestie wherby you did of your Royall goodnes geave
    and graunt unto mee to be cheefe commaundere of al the warlyke foarces
    furneshed and sent by you into Daemonlond, hit may please your Majestie
    I did with haiste carry mine armie and all wepons municions vittualls
    and othere provicions accordingly toward those partes of Daemonlonde
    that lye coasted against the estern seas. Here with xxvij schyppes and
    the moare partt of my peopell I sayling upp ynto the Frith Micklefrith
    did fynde x or xi Daemouns schyppes asayling whereof had Vol the
    commaundemente withowt the herborough of Lookingehaven, and by and by
    did mak syncke all schyppes of the sayd Voll withowt excepcioun and did
    sleay the maist paart of them that were with hym and hys ashipboard.</p>

  <p>“Nowe I lette you onderstande O my Lorde the Kyng that or ever wee
    made the landfalle I severinge my armye ynto ij trowpes had dispatched
    Gallandus with xiij schyppes north-abowt to lande with xv honderede
    menne at Eccanois, with commande that hee shoulde thenceawaye fare upp
    ynto the hylles thorow Celyalonde and soe sease the passe calld the
    Style because none schoulde cum overe fram the west; for that is a gode
    fyghtynge stede as a man myghte verry convenably hould ageynst gret
    nomberes yf he bee nat an asse.</p>

  <p>“So havinge ridd me wel of Vol, and by my hoep and secreat intilligence
    these were thayr entire flete that was nowe al sonken and putt to
    distruccioun by mee, and trewly hit was a paltry werk and light, so few
    they were agaynst my foarce agaynst them, I dyd comme alande att the
    place hyghte Grunda by the northe perte of the frith wher the watere
    owt of Breakingdal falleth into the se. Here I made make my campe with
    the rampyres thereof reachynge to the schore of the salt se baithe
    befoare and behynde of me, and drew in supplies and brent and slawe
    and sent forth hoarsmen to bryng mee in intelligence. And on the iv
    daie hadd notise of a gret powre and strengtht cumming at me from sowth
    out of Owleswyke to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">244</span> assaille mee in Grunda. And dyd fyghte agaynst
    them and dyd flinge them backe beinge iv or v thowsand souldiers. Who
    returning nexte daie towarde Owlswyke I dyd followe aftir, and so
    toke them facynge me in a plaise cauled Crosbie Owtsykes where they
    did make shifte to kepe the phords and passages of Ethrey river very
    stronge. Heare was bifaln an horable great murtheringe battell where
    Thy Servaunte dyd oppresse and overthrowe with mitch dexteritee those
    Daemons, makynge of them so bluddie and creuell a slawghter as hathe
    not been sene afore not once nor twice in mans memorye, and blythely I
    tel you of Vizze theyr cheefe capitaine kild and ded of strips taken at
    Crosby felde.</p>

  <p>“Soe have I nowe in the holow of my hand by thys victorie the conquest
    and possession of al thys lande of Daemonlande, and doe nowe purpose to
    dele with thayr castels villages riches cattell howssys and peopell in
    my waye on al thys estren seaborde within L miells compas with rapes
    and murtheres and burnyngs and all harsche dyscypline according to
    your Majesties wille. And do stande with mine armie befoare Owleswyk,
    bluddie Spitfyer’s notable great castel and forteres that alone yet
    liveth in this lande of your daungerous grivious and malitious arche
    enymies, and the same Spitfire being att my cominge fledde into the
    mowntaynes all do submytt and become your Majesties vassalls. But I
    wyll nat conclud nor determyn of peace no not with man weoman nor
    chyld of them but kyll them al, havinge always befoare my minde the
    satisfactioun of your Princely Pleasure.</p>

  <p>“Lest I be too large I leve here to tel you of many rare and remarcable
    occurants and observacions whych never the less I laye by in my mynde
    to aquent you with agaynst my coming home or by further writinge. Laxus
    bearing a kings name do puffe himself up alledging he wan the sefight
    but I shall satisfy your Majestie to the contrary. Gro followeth
    the wars in as goode sort as his lean spare bodey will wel beare. Of
    Gallandus I nedes must saye he do meddyl too much in my counsailles,
    still desyring me do thus and thus but I will nat. Heretofore in the
    like unrespective manner he hath now and then used mee which I have
    swolewed but will not no more. Who if hee go about to calumniate me in
    any thinge I praye you Lorde let mee know it though I despise baithe
    him and all such. And in acknowledgement of Your highe favors unto
    meward do kiss your Majesties hand.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span></p>

  <p>“Most humbly and reverently untoe my Lorde the Kynge, undir my seal.
    <span class="smcap">Corsus</span>.”
  </p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>The King put up the writing in his bosom. “Bring me Corsus’s cup,” said
    he.</p>

  <p>They did so, and the King said, “Fill it with Thramnian wine. Drop me
    an emerald in it to spawn luck i’ the cup, and drink him fortune and
    wisdom in victory.”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra, that had watched the King till now as a mother watches her
    child in the crisis of a fever, rose up radiant in her seat, crying,
    “Victory!” And all they fell a-shouting and smiting on the boards till
    the roof-beams shook with their great shouting, while the King drank
    first and passed on the cup that all might drink in turn.</p>

  <p>But Gorice the King sat dark among them as a cliff of serpentine that
    frowns above dancing surges of a springtide summer sea.</p>

  <p>When the women left the banquet hall the Lady Prezmyra came to the King
    and said, “Your brow is too dark, Lord, if indeed this news is all good
    that lights your heart and mind from withinward.”</p>

  <p>The King answered and said, “Madam, it is very good news. Yet remember
    that hard it is to lift a full cup without spilling.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now was summer worn and harvest brought in, and on the twenty-seventh
    day after these tidings afore-writ came another ship of Witchland out
    of the west sailing over the teeming deep, and rowed on a full tide up
    Druima and through the Ergaspian Mere, and so anchored below Carcë an
    hour before supper time. That was a calm clear sunshine evening, and
    King Gorice rode home from his hunting at that instant when the ship
    made fast by the water-gate. And there was the Lord Gro aboard of her;
    and the face of him as he came up out of the ship and stood to greet
    the King was the colour of quick-lime a-slaking.</p>

  <p>The King looked narrowly at him, then greeting him with much outward
    show of carelessness and pleasure made him go with him to the King’s
    own lodgings. There the King made Gro drink a great stoup of red wine,
    and said to him, “I am all of a muck sweat from the hunting. Go in with
    me to my baths and tell me all while I bathe me before supper. Princes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">246</span>
    of all men be in greatest danger, for that men dare not acquaint them
    with their own peril. Thou look’st prodigious. Know that shouldst thou
    proclaim to me all my fleet and army in Demonland brought to sheer
    destruction, that should not dull my stomach for the feast to-night.
    Witchland is not so poor I might not pay back such a loss thrice and
    four times and yet have money in my purse.”</p>

  <p>So speaking, the King was come with Gro into his great bath chamber,
    walled and floored with green serpentine, with dolphins carved in the
    same stone to belch water into the baths that were lined with white
    marble and sunken in the floor, both wide and deep, the hot bath on
    the left and the cold bath, many times greater, on the right as they
    entered the chamber. The King dismissed all his attendants, and made
    Gro sit on a bench piled with cushions above the hot bath, and drink
    more wine. And the King stripped off his jerkin of black cowhide and
    his hose and his shirt of white Beshtrian wool and went down into the
    steaming bath. Gro looked with wonder on the mighty limbs of Gorice the
    King, so lean and yet so strong to behold, as if he were built all of
    iron; and a great marvel it was how the King, when he had put off his
    raiment and royal apparel and went down stark naked into the bath, yet
    seemed to have put off not one whit of his kingliness and the majesty
    and dread which belonged to him.</p>

  <p>So when he had plunged awhile in the swirling waters of the bath, and
    soaped himself from head to foot and plunged again, the King lay back
    luxuriously in the water and said to Gro, “Tell me of Corsus and his
    sons, and of Laxus and Gallandus, and of all my men west over seas,
    as thou shouldest tell of those whose life or death in our conceit
    importeth as much as that of a scarab fly. Speak and fear not, keeping
    nothing back nor glozing over nothing. Only that should make me
    dreadful to thee if thou shouldst practise to deceive me.”</p>

  <p>Gro spake and said, “My Lord the King, you have letters, I think, from
    Corsus that have told you how we came to Demonland, and how we gat a
    victory over Volle in the sea-fight, and landed at Grunda, and fought
    two battles against Vizz and overthrew him in the last, and he is dead.”</p>

  <p>“Didst thou see these letters?” asked the King.</p>

  <p>Gro answered, “Ay.”</p>

  <p>“Is it a true tale they tell me?”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span></p>

  <p>Gro answered, “Mainly true, O King, though somewhat now and then he
    windeth truth to his turn, swelling overmuch his own achievement. As
    at Grunda, where he maketh too great the Demons’ army, that by a just
    computation were fewer than us, and the battle was not ours nor theirs,
    for while our left held them by the sea they stormed our camp on the
    right. And well I think ’twas to enveagle us into country that should
    be likelier to his purpose that Vizz fell back toward Owlswick in the
    night. But as touching the battle of Crossby Outsikes Corsus braggeth
    not too much. That was greatly fought and greatly devised by him, who
    also slew Vizz with his own hands in the thick of the battle, and made
    a great victory over them and scattered all their strength, coming upon
    them at unawares and taking them upon advantage.”</p>

  <p>So saying Gro stretched forth his delicate white fingers to the goblet
    at his side and drank. “And now, O King,” said he, leaning forward over
    his knees and running his fingers through the black perfumed curls
    above his ears, “I am to tell you the uprising of those discontents
    that infected all our fortunes and confounded us all. Now came
    Gallandus with some few men down from Breakingdale, leaving his main
    force of fourteen hundred men or so to hold the Stile as was agreed
    upon aforetime. Now Gallandus had advertisement of Spitfire come out of
    the west country where he was sojourning when we came into Demonland,
    disporting himself in the mountains with hunting of the bears that do
    there inhabit, but now come hot-foot eastward and agathering of men at
    Galing. And on Gallandus’s urgent asking, was held a council of war
    three days after Crossby Outsikes, wherein Gallandus set forth his
    counsel that we should fare north to Galing and disperse them.</p>

  <p>“All thought well of this counsel, save Corsus. But he took it mighty
    ill, being stubborn set to carry out his predetermined purpose, which
    was to follow up this victory of Crossby Outsikes by so many cruel
    murthers, rapes, and burnings, up and down the country side in Upper
    and Lower Tivarandardale and down by Onwardlithe and the southern
    seaboard, as should show those vermin he was their master whom they did
    require, and the scourge in your hand, O King, that must scourge them
    to the bare bone.</p>

  <p>“To which Gallandus making answer that the preparations at Galing did
    argue something to be done and not afar off,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">248</span> and that ‘This were a
    pretty matter, if Owlswick and Drepaby shall be able to enforce us cast
    our eyes over our shoulders while those before us’ (meaning in Galing)
    ‘strike us in the brains’; Corsus answereth most unhandsomely, ‘I will
    not satisfy myself with this intelligence until I find it more soundly
    seconded.’ Nor would he listen, but said that this was his mind, and
    all we should abide by it or an ill thing should else befall us: that
    this south-eastern corner of the land being gained with great terror
    and cruelty the neck of the wars in Demonland should then be broken,
    and all the others whether in Galing or otherwhere could not choose
    but die like dogs; that ’twas pure folly, because of the hardness and
    naughty ways of the country, to set upon Galing; and that he would
    quickly show Gallandus he was lord there. So was the council broke up
    in great discontent. And Gallandus abode before Owlswick, which as thou
    knowest, O King, is a mighty strong place, seated on an arm of the land
    that runneth out into the sea beside the harbour, and a paven way goeth
    thereto that is covered with the sea save at low tide of a spring-tide.
    And we drew great store of provisions thither against a siege if such
    should befall us. But Corsus with his main forces went south about
    the country, murthering and ravishing, on his way to the new house of
    Goldry Bluszco at Drepaby, giving out that from henceforth should folk
    speak no more of Drepaby Mire and Drepaby Combust that the Ghouls did
    burn, but both should shortly be burnt alike as two cinders.”</p>

  <p>“Ay,” said the King, coming out of the bath, “and did he burn it so?”</p>

  <p>Gro answered, “He did, O King.”</p>

  <p>The King lifted his arms above his head and plunged head foremost into
    the great cold swimming bath. Coming forth anon, he took a towel to
    dry himself, and holding an end of it in either hand came and stood by
    Gro, the towel rushing back and forth behind his shoulders, and said,
    “Proceed, tell me more.”</p>

  <p>“Lord,” said Gro, “so it was that they in Owlswick gave up the place at
    last unto Gallandus, and Corsus came back from the burning of Drepaby
    Mire. All the folk in that part of Demonland had he brought to misery
    in her most sharp condition. But now was he to find by sour experience
    what that neglect had bred him when he went not north to Galing as
    Gallandus had counselled him to do.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span></p>

  <p>“For now was word of Spitfire marching out from Galing with an hundred
    and ten score foot and two hundred and fifty horse. Upon which tidings
    we placed ourselves in very warlike fashion and moved north to meet
    them, and on the last morn of August fell in with their army in a place
    called the Rapes of Brima in the open parts of Lower Tivarandardale.
    All we were blithe at heart, for we held them at an advantage both in
    numbers (for we were more than three thousand four hundred fighting
    men, whereof were four hundred a-horseback), and in the goodness of our
    fighting stead, being perched on the edge of a little valley looking
    down on Spitfire and his folk. There we abode for a time, watching what
    he would do, till Corsus grew weary of this and said, ‘We are more than
    they. I will march north and then east across the head of the valley
    and so cut them off, that they escape not north again to Galing after
    the battle when they are worsted by us.’</p>

  <p>“Now Gallandus nay-said this strongly, willing him to stand and abide
    their onset; for being mountaineers they must certainly choose at
    length, if we kept quiet, to attack us up the slope, and that were
    mightily to our advantage. But Corsus, that still grew from day to day
    more hard to deal with, would not hear him, and at last sticked not to
    accuse him before them all (which was most false) that he did practise
    to gain the command for himself, and had caused Corsus to be set upon
    to have him and his sons murthered as they went from his lodging the
    night before.</p>

  <p>“And Corsus gave order for the march across their front as I have told
    it you, O King; which indeed was the counsel of a madman. For Spitfire,
    when he saw our column crossing the dale-head on his right, gave order
    for the charge, took us i’ the flank, cut us in two, and in two hours
    had our army smashed like an egg that is dropped from a watch-tower on
    pavement of hard granite. Never saw I so evil a destruction wrought on
    a great army. Hardly and in evil case we won back to Owlswick with but
    seventeen hundred men, and of them some hundreds wounded sore. And if
    two hundred fell o’ the other side, ’tis a wonder and past expectation,
    so great was Spitfire’s victory upon us at the Rapes of Brima. And now
    was our woe worsened by fugitives coming from the north, telling how
    Zigg had fallen upon the small force that was left to hold the Stile
    and clean o’erwhelmed them. So were we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span> now shut up in Owlswick and
    close besieged by Spitfire and his army, who but for the devilish folly
    of Corsus, had ne’er made head against us.</p>

  <p>“An ill night was that, O my Lord the King, in Owlswick by the sea.
    Corsus was drunk, and both his sons, guzzling down goblet upon goblet
    of the wine from Spitfire’s cellars in Owlswick. Till at last he was
    fallen spewing on the floor betwixt the tables, and Gallandus standing
    amongst us all, galled to the quick after this shame and ruin of our
    fortunes, cried out and said, ‘Soldiers of Witchland, I am aweary of
    this Corsus: a rioter, a lecher, a surfeiter, a brawler, a spiller of
    armies, our own not our enemies’, who must bring us all to hell and we
    take not order to prevent him.’ And he said, ‘I will go home again to
    Witchland, and have no more share nor part in this shame.’ But all they
    cried, ‘To the devil with Corsus! Be thou our general.’”</p>

  <p>Gro was silent a minute. “O King,” he said at last, “if so it be that
    the malice of the Gods and mine unfortune have brought me to that
    case that I am part guilty of that which came about, blame me not
    overmuch. Little I thought any word of mine should help Corsus and
    the going forward of his bad enterprise. When all they called still
    upon Gallandus, saying, ‘Ha, ha, Gallandus! weed out the weeds, lest
    the best corn fester! Be thou our general,’ he took me aside to speak
    with him; because he said he would take further judgement of me before
    he would consent in so great a matter. And I, seeing deadly danger in
    these disorders, and thinking that there only lay our safety if he
    should have command who was both a soldier and whose mind was bent to
    high attempts and noble enterprises, did egg him forward to accept
    it. So that he, albeit unwilling, said yea to them at last. Which all
    applauded; and Corsus said nought against it, being too sleepy-sodden
    as we thought with drunkenness to speak or move.</p>

  <p>“So for that night we went to bed. But in the morn, O King, was a great
    clamour betimes in the main court in Owlswick. And I, running forth in
    my shirt in the misty gray of dawn, beheld Corsus standing forth in
    a gallery before Gallandus’s lodgings that were in an upper chamber.
    He was naked to the waist, his hairy breast and arms to the armpits
    clotted and adrip with blood, and in his hands two bloody daggers. He
    cried in a great voice, ‘Treason in the camp, but I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span> have scotched it.
    He that will have Gallandus to his general, come up and I shall mix his
    blood with his and make them familiar.’”</p>

  <p>By then had the King drawn on his silken hose, and a clean silken
    shirt, and was about lacing his black doublet trimmed with diamonds.
    “Thou tellest me,” said he, “two faults committed by Corsus. That
    first he lost me a battle and nigh half his men, and next did murther
    Gallandus in a spleen against him when he would have amended this.”</p>

  <p>“Killing Gallandus in his sleep,” said Gro, “and sending him from the
    shade into the house of darkness.”</p>

  <p>“Well,” said the King, “there be two days in every month when whatever
    is begun will never reach completion. And I think it was on such a day
    he did execute his purpose upon Gallandus.”</p>

  <p>“The whole camp,” said Lord Gro, “is up in a mutiny against him, being
    marvellously offended at the murther of so worthy a man in arms. Yet
    durst they not openly go against him; for his veterans guard his
    person, and he hath let slice the guts out of some dozen or more that
    were foremost in murmuring at him, so that the rest are afeared to
    make open rebellion. I tell you, O King, your army of Demonland is
    in great danger and peril. Spitfire sitteth down before Owlswick in
    mickle strength, and there is no expectation that we shall hold out
    long without supply of men. There is danger too lest Corsus do some
    desperate act. I see not how, with so mutinous an army as his, he can
    dare to attempt anything at all. Yet hath he his ears filled with the
    continual sound of reputation, and the contempt which will be spread
    to the disgrace of him if he repair not soon his fault on the Rapes
    of Brima. It is thought that the Demons have no ships, and Laxus
    commandeth the sea. Yet hard it is to make any going between betwixt
    the fleet and Owlswick, and there be many goodly harbours and places
    for building of ships in Demonland. If they can stop our relieving of
    Corsus, and prevent Laxus with a fleet at spring, may be we shall be
    driven to a great calamity.”</p>

  <p>“How camest thou off?” said the King.</p>

  <p>“O King,” answered Lord Gro, “after this murther in Owlswick I did
    daily fear a fig or a knife, so for mine own health and Witchland’s
    devised all the ways I could to come away. And gat at last to the fleet
    by stealth and there took rede with Laxus, who is most hot upon Corsus
    for this ill<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span> deed of his, whereby all our hopes may end in smoke, and
    prayed me come to you for him as for myself and for all true hearts
    of Witchland that do seek your greatness, O King, and not decay, that
    you might send them succour ere all be shent. For surely in Corsus
    some wild distraction hath overturned his old condition and spilt the
    goodness you once did know in him. His luck hath gone from him, and he
    is now one that would fall on his back and break his nose. I pray you
    strike, ere Fate strike first and strike us into the hazard.”</p>

  <p>“Tush!” said the King. “Do not lift me before I fall. ’Tis supper time.
    Attend me to the banquet.”</p>

  <p>By now was Gorice the King in full festival attire, with his doublet
    of black tiffany slashed with black velvet and broidered o’er with
    diamonds, black velvet hose cross-gartered with silver-spangled bands
    of silk, and a great black bear-skin mantle and collar of ponderous
    gold. The Iron crown was on his head. He took down from his chamber
    wall, as they went by, a sword hafted of blue steel with a pommel of
    bloodstone carved like a dead man’s skull. This he bare naked in his
    hand, and they came into the banquet hall.</p>

  <p>They that were there rose to their feet in silence, gazing expectant on
    the King where he stood between the pillars of the door with that sharp
    sword held on high, and the jewelled crab of Witchland ablaze above his
    brow. But most they marked his eyes. Surely the light in the eyes of
    the King under his beetle brows was like a light from the under-skies
    shed upward from the pit of hell.</p>

  <p>He said no word, but with a gesture beckoned Corinius. Corinius
    stood up and came to the King, slowly, as a night-walker, obedient to
    that dread gaze. His cloak of sky-blue silk was flung back from his
    shoulders. His chest, broad as a bull’s, swelled beneath the shining
    silver scales of his byrny, that was short-sleeved, leaving his strong
    arms bare to view with golden rings about the wrists. Proudly he stood
    before the King, his head firm planted above his mighty throat and
    neck; his proud luxurious mouth, made for wine-cups and for ladies’
    lips, firm set above the square shaven chin and jaw; the thick fair
    curls of his hair bound with black bryony; the insolence that dwelt in
    his dark blue eyes tamed for the while in face of that green bale-light
    that rose and fell in the steadfast gaze of the King.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span></p>

  <p>When they had so stood silent while men might count twenty breaths,
    the King spake saying: “Corinius, receive the name of the kingdom of
    Demonland which thy Lord and King give thee, and make homage to me
    thereof.”</p>

  <p>The breath of amazement went about the hall. Corinius kneeled. The
    King gave him that sword which he held in his hand, bare for the
    slaughter, saying, “With this sword, O Corinius, shalt thou wear out
    this blemish and blot that until now rested upon thee in mine eye.
    Corsus hath proved haggard. He hath made miss in Demonland. His sottish
    folly hath shut him up in Owlswick and lost me half his force. His
    jealousy, too maliciously and bloodily bent against my friends ’stead
    of mine enemies, hath lost me a good captain. The wonderful disorder
    and distresses of his army must, if thou amend it not, swing all our
    fortune at one chop from bliss to bale. If this be rightly handled by
    thee, one great stroke shall change every deal. Go thou, and prove thy
    demerits.”</p>

  <p>The Lord Corinius stood up, holding the sword point-downward in his
    hand. His face flamed red as an autumn sky when leaden clouds break
    apart on a sudden westward and the sun looks out between. “My Lord the
    King,” said he, “give me where I may sit down: I will make where I may
    lie down. Ere another moon shall wax again to the full I will set forth
    from Tenemos. If I do not shortly remedy for you our fortunes which
    this bloody fool hath laboured to ruinate, spit in my face, O King,
    withhold from me the light of your countenance, and put spells upon me
    shall destroy and blast me for ever.”</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_crab.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THREMNIRS_HEUGH">XIX: THREMNIR’S HEUGH</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE LORD SPITFIRE’S BESIEGING OF THE WITCHES IN HIS OWN CASTLE OF
    OWLSWICK; AND HOW HE DID BATTLE AGAINST CORINIUS UNDER THREMNIR’S
    HEUGH, AND THE MEN OF WITCHLAND WON THE DAY.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">LORD SPITFIRE sat in his pavilion before Owlswick in mickle discontent.
    A brazier of hot coals made a pleasant warmth within, and lights filled
    the rich tent with splendour. From without came the noise of rain
    steadily falling in the dark autumn night, splashing in the puddles,
    pattering on the silken roof. Zigg sat by Spitfire on the bed, his
    hawk-like countenance shadowed with an unwonted look of care. His sword
    stood between his knees point downward on the floor. He tipped it
    gently with either hand now to the left now to the right, watching with
    pensive gaze the warm light shift and gleam in the ball of balas ruby
    that made the pommel of the sword.</p>

  <p>“Fell it out so accursedly?” said Spitfire. “All ten, thou saidst, on
    Rammerick Strands?”</p>

  <p>Zigg nodded assent.</p>

  <p>“Where was he that he saved them not?” said Spitfire. “O, it was vilely
    miscarried!”</p>

  <p>Zigg answered, “’Twas a swift and secret landing in the dark a mile
    east of the harbour. Thou must not blame him unheard.”</p>

  <p>“What more remain to us?” said Spitfire. “Content: I’ll hear him.
    What ships remain to us, is more to the purpose. Three by Northsands
    Eres, below Elmerstead: five on Throwater: two by Lychness: two more
    at Aurwath: six by my direction on Stropardon Firth: seven here on the
    beach.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span></p>

  <p>“Besides four at the firth head in Westmark,” said Zigg. “And order is
    ta’en for more in the Isles.”</p>

  <p>“Twenty and nine,” said Spitfire, “and those in the Isles beside. And
    not one afloat, nor can be ere spring. If Laxus smell them out and take
    them as lightly as these he burned under Volle’s nose on Rammerick
    Strands, we do but plough the desert building them.”</p>

  <p>He rose to pace the tent. “Thou must raise me new forces for to break
    into Owlswick. ’Fore heaven!” he said, “this vexes me to the guts, to
    sit at mine own gate full two months like a beggar, whiles Corsus and
    those two cubs his sons drink themselves drunk within, and play at
    cock-shies with my treasures.”</p>

  <p>“O’ the wrong side of the wall,” said Zigg, “the master-builder may
    judge the excellence of his own building.”</p>

  <p>Spitfire stood by the brazier, spreading his strong hands above the
    glow. After a time he spake more soberly. “It is not these few ships
    burnt in the north should trouble me; and indeed Laxus hath not five
    hundred men to man his whole fleet withal. But he holdeth the sea,
    and ever since his putting out into the deep with thirty sail from
    Lookinghaven I do expect fresh succours out of Witchland. ’Tis that
    maketh me champ still on the bit till this hold be won again; for then
    were we free at least to meet their landing. But ’twere most unfit at
    this time of the year to carry on a siege in low and watery grounds,
    the enemy’s army being on foot and unengaged. Wherefore, this is my
    mind, O my friend, that thou go with haste over the Stile and fetch me
    supply of men. Leave force to ward our ships a-building, wheresoever
    they be; and a good force in Krothering and thereabout, for I will not
    be found a false steward of his lady sister’s safety. And in thine
    own house make sure. But these things being provided, shear up the
    war-arrow and bring me out of the west fifteen or eighteen hundred
    men-at-arms. For I do think that by me and thee and such a head of men
    of Demonland as we shall then command Owlswick gates may be brast open
    and Corsus plucked out of Owlswick like a whilk out of his shell.”</p>

  <p>Zigg answered him, “I’ll be gone at point of day.”</p>

  <p>Now they rose up and took their weapons and muffled themselves in their
    great campaigning cloaks and went forth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span> with torch-bearers to walk
    through the lines, as every night ere he went to rest it was Spitfire’s
    wont to do, visiting his captains and setting the guard. The rain fell
    gentlier. The night was without a star. The wet sands gleamed with the
    lights of Owlswick Castle, and from the castle came by fits the sound
    of feasting heard above the wash and moan of the sullen sleepless sea.</p>

  <p>When they had made all sure and were come nigh again to Spitfire’s tent
    and Zigg was upon saying good-night, there rose up out of the shadow
    of the tent an ancient man and came betwixt them into the glare of the
    torches. Shrivelled and wrinkled and bowed he seemed as with extreme
    age. His hair and his beard hung down in elf-locks adrip with rain.
    His mouth was toothless, his eyes like a dead fish’s eyes. He touched
    Spitfire’s cloak with his skinny hand, saying in a voice like the
    night-raven’s, “Spitfire, beware of Thremnir’s Heugh.”</p>

  <p>Spitfire said, “What have we here? And which way the devil came he into
    my camp?”</p>

  <p>But that aged man still held him by the cloak, saying, “Spitfire, is
    not this thine house of Owlswick? And is it not the most strong and
    fair place that ever man saw in this countree?”</p>

  <p>“Filth, unhand me,” said Spitfire, “else shall I presently thrust thee
    through with my sword, and send thee to the Tartarus of hell, where I
    doubt not the devils there too long await thee.”</p>

  <p>But that aged man said again, “Hot stirring heads are too easily
    entrapped. Hold fast, Spitfire, to that which is thine, and beware of
    Thremnir’s Heugh.”</p>

  <p>Now was Lord Spitfire wood angry, and because the old carle still held
    him by the cloak and would not let him go, plucked forth his sword,
    thinking to have stricken him about the head with the flat of his
    sword. But with that stroke went a gust of wind about them, so that
    the torch-flames were nigh blown out. And that was strange, of a still
    windless night. And in that gust was the old man vanished away like a
    cloud passing in the night.</p>

  <p>Zigg spake: “The thin habit of spirits is beyond the force of weapons.”</p>

  <p>“Pish!” said Spitfire. “Was this a spirit? I hold it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">257</span> rather a
    simulacrum or illusion prepared for us by Witchland’s cunning, to
    darken our counsel and shake our resolution.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>On the morrow while yet sunrise was red, Lord Zigg went down to the
    sea-shore to bathe in the great rock pools that face southward across
    the little bay of Owlswick. The salt air was fresh after the rain. The
    wind that had veered to the east blew in cold and pinching gusts. In a
    rift between slate-blue clouds the low sun flamed blood-red. Far to the
    south-east where the waters of Micklefirth open on the main, the low
    cliffs of Lookinghaven-ness loomed shadowy as a bank of cloud.</p>

  <p>Zigg laid down his sword and spear and looked south-east across the
    firth; and behold, a ship in full sail rounding the ness and steering
    northward on the larboard tack. And when he had put off his kirtle he
    looked again, and behold, two more ships a-steering round the ness and
    sailing hard in the wake of the first. So he donned his kirtle again
    and took his weapons, and by then were fifteen sail a-steering up the
    firth in line ahead, dragons of war.</p>

  <p>So he fared hastily to Spitfire’s tent, and found him yet abed,
    for sweet sleep yet nursed in her bosom impetuous Spitfire; his
    head was thrown back on the broidered pillow, displaying his strong
    shaven throat and chin; his fierce mouth beneath his bristling fair
    moustachios was relaxed in slumber, and his fierce eyes closed in
    slumber beneath their yellow bristling eyebrows.</p>

  <p>Zigg took him by the foot and waked him and told him all the matter:
    “Fifteen ships, and every ship (as I might plainly see as they drew
    nigh) as full of men as there be eggs in a herring’s roe. So cometh our
    expectation to the birth.”</p>

  <p>“And so,” said Spitfire, leaping from the couch, “cometh Laxus again to
    Demonland, with fresh meat to glut our swords withal.”</p>

  <p>He caught up his weapons and ran to a little knoll that stood above
    the beach over against Owlswick Castle. And all the host ran to behold
    those dragons of war sail up the firth at dawn of day.</p>

  <p>“They dowse sail,” said Spitfire, “and put in for Scaramsey. ’Tis not
    for nothing I taught these Witchlanders on the Rapes of Brima. Laxus,
    since he witnessed that downthrow of their army, now accounteth islands
    more wholesomer<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">258</span> than the mainland, well knowing we have nor sails nor
    wings to strike across the firth at him. Yet scarcely by skulking in
    the islands shall he break up the siege of Owlswick.”</p>

  <p>Zigg said, “I would know where be his fifteen other ships.”</p>

  <p>“In fifteen ships,” said Spitfire, “it is not possible he beareth more
    than sixteen hundred or seventeen hundred men of war. Against so many I
    am strong enough to-day, should they adventure a landing, to throw ’em
    into the sea and still contain Corsus if he make a sally. If more be
    added, I am the less secure. Therefore occasion calleth but the louder
    for thy purposed faring to the west.”</p>

  <p>So the Lord Zigg called him out a dozen men-at-arms and went
    a-horseback. By then were all the ships rowed ashore under the southern
    spit of Scaramsey, where is good anchorage for ships. They were there
    hidden from view, all save their masts that showed over the spit, so
    that the Demons might observe nought of their disembarking.</p>

  <p>Spitfire rode with Zigg three miles or four, as far as the brow of
    the descent to the fords of Ethreywater, and there bade him farewell.
    “Lightning shall be slow to my hasting,” said Zigg, “till I be back
    again. Meantime, I would have thee be not too scornfully unmindful of
    that old man.”</p>

  <p>“Chirking of sparrows!” said Spitfire. “I have forgot his brabble.”
    Nevertheless his glance shifted southward beyond Owlswick to the great
    bluff of tree-hung precipice that stands like a sentinel above the
    meadows of Lower Tivarandardale, leaving but a narrow way betwixt its
    lowest crags and the sea. He laughed: “O my friend, I am yet a boy in
    thine eyes it seemeth, albeit I am well-nigh twenty-nine years old.”</p>

  <p>“Laugh at me and thou wilt,” said Zigg. “Without this word said I could
    not leave thee.”</p>

  <p>“Well,” said Spitfire, “to lull thy fears, I’ll not go a-birdsnesting
    on Thremnir’s Heugh till thou come back again.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now for a week or more was nought to tell of save that Spitfire’s army
    sat before Owlswick, and they on the island sent ever and again three
    or four ships to land suddenly about Lookinghaven or at the head of
    the firth, or southaway beyond Drepaby, as far as the coastlands under
    Rimon Armon, harrying and burning. And as oft as force was gathered
    against them, they fared aboard again and sailed back to Scaramsey. In<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">259</span>
    those days came Volle from the west with an hundred men and joined him
    with Spitfire.</p>

  <p>The eighth day of November the weather worsened, and clouds gathered
    from the west and south, till all the sky was a welter of huge watery
    leaden clouds, separated one from another by oily streaks of white. The
    wind grew fitful as the day wore. The sea was dark like dull iron. Rain
    began to fall in big drops. The mountains showed monstrous and shadowy:
    some dark inky blue, others in the west like walls and bastions of
    clotted mist against the hueless mist of heaven behind them. Evening
    closed with thunder and rain and lightning-torn banks of vapour. All
    night long the thunder roared in sullen intermission, and all night
    long new banks of thunder-cloud swung together and parted and swung
    together again. And the light of the moon was abated, and no light seen
    save the levin-brand, and the camp-fires before Owlswick, and the light
    of revelry within. So that the Demons camped before the castle were not
    ware of those fifteen ships that put out from Scaramsey on that wild
    sea and landed two or three miles to the southward by the great bluff
    of Thremnir’s Heugh. Nor were they ware at all of them that landed
    from the ships: fifteen or sixteen hundred men-at-arms with Heming of
    Witchland and his young brother Cargo for their leaders. And the ships
    rowed back to Scaramsey through the loud storm and fury of the weather,
    all save one that foundered in Bothrey Sound.</p>

  <p>But on the morn, when the tempest was abated, might all behold the
    putting forth of fourteen ships of war from Scaramsey, every ship of
    them laden with men-at-arms. They had passage swiftly over the firth,
    and came aland two miles south of Owlswick. And the ships stood off
    again from the land, but the army marshalled for battle on the meads
    above Mingarn Hope.</p>

  <p>Now Lord Spitfire let draw up his men and moved out southward from the
    lines before Owlswick. When they were come within some half mile’s
    distance of the Witchland army, so that they might see clearly their
    russet kirtles and their shields and body-armour of bronze, and the
    dull glint of their sword-blades and the heads of their spears, Volle,
    that rode by Spitfire, spake and said, “Markest thou him, O Spitfire,
    that rideth back and forth before their battle, marshalling them? So
    ever rode Corinius; and well mayst thou know him even<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">260</span> afar off by his
    showiness and jaunting carriage. Yet see a great wonder now: for who
    ever heard tell of this young hotspur giving back from the fight? And
    now, or ever we be gotten within spear-shot——”</p>

  <p>“By the bright eye of day,” cried Spitfire, “’tis so! Will he baulk me
    quite of a battle? I’ll loose a handful of horse upon them to delay
    their haste ere they be flown beyond sight and finding.”</p>

  <p>Therewith he gave command to his horsemen to ride forth upon the enemy.
    And they rode forth with Astar of Rettray, that was brother-in-law
    to Lord Zigg, for their leader. But the Witchland horse met them by
    the shallows of Aron Pow and held them in the shallows while Corinius
    with his main army won across the river. And when the main body of
    the Demons were come up and the passage forced, the Witchlanders were
    gotten clean away across the water-meadows to the pass betwixt the
    shore and the steeps of Thremnir’s Heugh.</p>

  <p>Then said Spitfire, “They stay not to form even i’ the narrow way
    ’twixt the sea and the Heugh. And that were their safety, if they had
    but the heart to turn and stand us.” And he shouted with a great shout
    upon his men to charge the enemy, and suffer not a Witch to overlive
    that slaughter.</p>

  <p>So the footmen caught hold of the stirrup-leathers of the horsemen,
    and running and riding they poured into the narrow pass; and ever was
    Spitfire foremost among his men, hewing to left and to right among the
    press, riding on that whelming battle-tide that seemed to bear him on
    to triumph.</p>

  <p>But now on a sudden was he, who with but twelve hundred men had so
    hotly followed fifteen hundred into the strait passage under Thremnir’s
    Heugh, made ware too late that he must have to do with three thousand:
    Corinius rallying his folk and turning like a wolf in the pass, while
    Corund’s sons, that had landed as aforesaid in the storm in the mirk
    of night, swept down with their battalions from the wooded slopes
    behind the Heugh. In such wise that Spitfire wist not sooner of any
    foreshadowing of disaster than of disaster’s self: the thunder of the
    blow in flank and front and rear.</p>

  <p>Then befell great manslaying between the sea-cliffs and the sea. The
    Demons, taken at that advantage, were like a man tripped in mid-stride
    by a rope across the way. By the sore onset of the Witches they were
    driven down into the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">261</span> shallows of the sea, and the spume of the sea
    was red with blood. And the Lord Corinius, now that he had done with
    feigned retreat, fared through the battle like a stream of unquenchable
    wildfire, that none might sustain his strokes that were about him.</p>

  <p>Now was Spitfire’s horse slain under him with a spear-thrust, as riding
    fetlock-deep in the yielding sand he rallied his men to fling back
    Heming. But Bremery of Shaws brought him another horse, and so mightily
    went he forth against the Witches that the sons of Corund were fain to
    give back before his onslaught, and that wing of the Witchland army was
    pressed back against the broken ground below the Heugh. Yet was that
    of little avail, for Corinius brake through from the north, thrusting
    the Demons with great slaughter back from the sea, so that they were
    penned betwixt him and Heming. Therewith Spitfire turned with some
    picked companies against Corinius; and well it seemed for awhile that
    a great force of the Witches must be whelmed or drowned in the salt
    waves. And Corinius himself stood now in great peril of his life, for
    his horse was bogued in the soft sands and might not win free for all
    his plunging.</p>

  <p>In that nick of time came Spitfire through the stour, with a band of
    Demons about him, slaying as he came. He shouted with a terrible voice,
    “O Corinius, hateful to me and mine as are the gates of Hell, now will
    I kill thee, and thy dead carcase shall fatten the sweet meads of
    Owlswick.”</p>

  <p>Corinius answered him, “Bloody Spitfire, last of three whelps, for thy
    brothers are by now dead and rotten, I shall give thee a choke-pear.”</p>

  <p>Therewith Spitfire shot a twirl-spear at him. It missed the man but
    smote the great horse in the shoulder so that he plunged and fell in
    a heap, hurt to the death. But the Lord Corinius lighting nimbly on
    his feet caught Spitfire’s horse by the bridle rein and smote it on
    the muzzle, even as he rode at him, so that the horse reared up and
    swerved. Spitfire made a great blow at him with an axe, but it came
    slantwise on the helmet ridge and glented aside in air. Then Corinius
    thrust up under Spitfire’s shield with his sword, and the point entered
    the big muscle of the arm near the armpit, and glancing against the
    bone tore up through the muscles of the shoulder. And that was a great
    wound.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">262</span></p>

  <p>Nevertheless Spitfire slacked not from the fight, but smote at him
    again, thinking to have hewn off his arm the hand whereof still
    clutched the bridle-rein. Corinius caught the axe on his shield, but
    his fingers loosed the rein, and almost he fell to earth under that
    mighty stroke, and the good bronze shield was dented and battered in.</p>

  <p>Now with the loosing of the reins was Spitfire’s horse plunged forward,
    carrying him past Corinius toward the sea. But he turned and hailed
    him, crying, “Get thee an horse. For I count it unworthy to fight with
    thee bearing this advantage over thee, I a-horseback and thou on foot.”</p>

  <p>Corinius cried out and answered, “Come down from thine horse then, and
    meet me foot to foot. And know it, my pretty throstle-cock, that I am
    king in Demonland, which dignity I hold of the King of Kings, Gorice of
    Witchland, mine only overlord. Meet it is that I show thee in combat
    singular, that vauntest thyself greatest among the rebels yet left
    alive in this my kingdom, how much greater is my might than thine.”</p>

  <p>“These be great and thumping words,” said Spitfire. “I shall thrust
    them down thy throat again.”</p>

  <p>Therewith he made as if to light down from his horse; but as he strove
    to light down, a mist went before his eyes and he reeled in his saddle.
    His men rushed in betwixt him and Corinius, and the captain of his
    bodyguard bare him up, saying, “You are hurt, my lord. You must not
    fight no more with Corinius, for your highness is unmeet for fighting
    and may not stand alone.”</p>

  <p>So they that were about him bare up great Spitfire. And the mellay that
    was stayed while those lords dealt together in single combat brake
    forth afresh in that place. But all the while had furious war swung
    and ravened below Thremnir’s Heugh, and wondrous was the valour of the
    Demons; for many hundred were slain or wounded to the death, and but a
    small force were they that yet remained to bear up the battle against
    the Witches.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now those that were with Spitfire departed with him in the secretest
    manner that they could out of the fight, wrapping about him a
    watchet-coloured cloak to hide his shining armour. They stanched the
    blood that ran from the great wound in his shoulder and bound it
    up carefully, and carried<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">263</span> him a-horseback by Volle’s command into
    Tremmerdale by secret mountain paths up to a desolate corrie east of
    Sterry Gap, under the great scree-shoot that flanks the precipices of
    the south summit of Dina. A long time he lay there senseless, like
    to one dead. For many hurts had he taken in the unequal fight, and
    greatly was he bruised and battered, but worst of all was the sore hurt
    Corinius gave him ere they parted betwixt the limits of land and sea.</p>

  <p>And when night was fallen and all the ways were darkened, came the Lord
    Volle with a few companions utterly wearied to that lonely corrie. The
    night was still and cloudless, and the maiden moon walked high heaven,
    blackening the shadows of the great peaks that were like sharks’ teeth
    against the night. Spitfire lay on a bed of ling and cloaks in the lee
    of a great boulder. Ghastly pale was his face in the silver moonlight.</p>

  <p>Volle leaned upon his spear looking earnestly upon him. They asked him
    tidings. And Volle answered, “All lost,” and still looked upon Spitfire.</p>

  <p>They said, “My lord, we have stanched the blood and bound up the wound,
    but his lordship abideth yet senseless. And greatly we fear for his
    life, lest this great hurt yet prove his bane-sore.”</p>

  <p>Volle kneeled beside him on the cold sharp stones and tended him as
    a mother might her sick child, applying to the wound leaves of black
    horehound and millefoil and other healing simples, and giving him to
    drink out of a flask of precious wine of Arshalmar, ripened for an
    age in the deep cellars below Krothering. So that in a while Spitfire
    opened his eyes and said, “Draw back the curtains of the bed, for ’tis
    many a day since I woke up in Owlswick. Or is it night indeed? How went
    the fight, then?”</p>

  <p>His eyes stared at the naked rocks and the naked sky beyond them. Then
    with a great groan he lifted himself on his right elbow. Volle put a
    strong arm about him, saying, “Drink the good wine, and have patience.
    There be great doings toward.”</p>

  <p>Spitfire stared round him awhile, then said violently, “Shall we be
    foxes and fugitive men to dwell in holes o’ the hollow mountain side?
    So the bright day is done, ha? Then off with these trammels.” And he
    fell a-tearing at the bandage on his wounds.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">264</span></p>

  <p>But Volle prevented him with strong hands, saying, “Bethink thee how on
    thee alone, O glorious Spitfire, and on thy wise heart and valiant soul
    that delighteth in furious war, resteth all our hope to ward off from
    our lady wives and dear children and all our good land and fee the fury
    of the men of Witchland, and to save alive the great name of Demonland.
    Let not thy proud heart be capable of despair.”</p>

  <p>But Spitfire groaned and said, “Certain it was that woe and evil hap
    must be to Demonland until my kinsmen be gotten home again. And that
    day I think shall never dawn.” And he cried, “Boasted he not that he is
    king in Demonland? and yet I had not my sword in his umbles. And thou
    thinkest I’ll live in shame?”</p>

  <p>Therewithal he strove again to tear off the bandages, but Volle
    prevented him. And he raved and said, “Who was it forced me from the
    battle? ’Tis pity of his life, to have abused me so. Better dead than
    run from Corinius like a beaten puppy. Let me go, false traitors! I
    will amend this. I will die fighting. Let me go back.”</p>

  <p>Volle said, “Lift up thine eyes, great Spitfire, and behold the lady
    moon, how virgin free she walketh the wide fields of heaven, and the
    glory of the stars of heaven which in their multitudes attend her. And
    as little as earthly mists and storms do dim her, but though she be hid
    awhile yet when the tempest is abated and the sky swept bare of clouds
    there she appeareth again in her steadfast course, mistress of tides
    and seasons and swayer of the fates of mortal men: even such is the
    glory of sea-girt Demonland, and the glory of thine house, O Spitfire.
    And as little as commotions in the heavens should avail to remove these
    everlasting mountains, so little availeth disastrous war, though it be
    a great fight lost as was to-day, to shake down our greatness, that are
    mightiest with the spear from of old and able to make all earth bow to
    our glory.”</p>

  <p>So said Volle. And the Lord Spitfire looked out across the mist-choked
    sleeping valley to the great rock-faces dim in the moonlight and the
    lean peaks grand and silent beneath the moon. He spake not, whether
    for strengthlessness or as charmed to silence by the mighty influences
    of night and the mountain solitudes and by Volle’s voice speaking deep
    and quiet in his ear, like the voice of night herself calming earth-born
    tumults and despairs.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">265</span></p>

  <p>After a time Volle spake once more: “Thy brethren shall come home
    again: doubt it not. But till then art thou our strength. Therefore
    have patience; heal thy wounds; and raise forces again. But shouldst
    thou in desperate madness destroy thy life, then were we shent indeed.”</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_mountain.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">266</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="KING_CORINIUS">XX: KING CORINIUS</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE ENTRY OF THE LORD CORINIUS INTO OWLSWICK AND HOW HE WAS CROWNED
    IN SPITFIRE’S SAPPHIRE CHAIR AS VICEROY OF GORICE THE KING AND
    KING IN DEMONLAND: AND HOW ALL THAT WERE IN OWLSWICK CASTLE DID SO
    RECEIVE AND ACKNOWLEDGE HIM.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">CORINIUS, having completed this great victory, came with his army north
    again to Owlswick as daylight began to fade. The drawbridge was let
    down for him and the great gates flung wide, that were studded with
    silver and ribbed with adamant; and in great pomp rode he and his into
    Owlswick Castle, over the causey builded of the living rock and great
    blocks of hewn granite out of Tremmerdale. The more part of his army
    lay in Spitfire’s camp before the castle, but a thousand were with him
    in his entry into Owlswick with Corund’s sons and the lords Gro and
    Laxus besides, for the fleet had put across to anchor there when they
    saw the day was won.</p>

  <p>Corsus greeted them well, and would have brought them to their lodgings
    near his own chamber, that they might put off their harness and don
    clean linen and festival garments before supper. But Corinius excused
    himself, saying he had eat nought since breakfast-time: “Let us
    therefore not pass for ceremony, but bring us I pray you forthright to
    the banquet house.”</p>

  <p>Corinius went in with Corsus before them all, putting lovingly about
    his shoulder his arm all befouled with dust and clotted blood. For he
    had not so much as stayed for washing of his hands. And that was scarce
    good for the broidered cloak of purple taffety the Duke Corsus wore
    about his shoulders. Howbeit, Corsus made as if he marked it not.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">267</span></p>

  <p>When they were come into the hall, Corsus looked about him and said,
    “So it is, my Lord Corinius, that this hall is something little for the
    great press that here befalleth. Many of mine own folk that be of some
    account should by long custom sit down with us. And here be no seats
    left for them. Prithee command some of the common sort that came in
    with thee to give place, that all may be done orderly. Mine officers
    must not scramble in the buttery.”</p>

  <p>“I’m sorry, my lord,” answered Corinius, “but needs must that we
    bethink us o’ these lads of mine which have chiefly borne the toil of
    battle, and well I weet thou’lt not deny them this honour to sit at
    meat with us: these that thou hast most to thank for opening Owlswick
    gates and raising the siege our enemies held so long against you.”</p>

  <p>So they took their seats, and supper was set before them: kids stuffed
    with walnuts and almonds and pistachios; herons in sauce cameline;
    chines of beef; geese and bustards; and great beakers and jars of
    ruby-hearted wine. Right fain of the good banquet were Corinius and his
    folk, and silence was in the hall for awhile save for the clatter of
    dishes and the champing of the mouths of the feasters.</p>

  <p>At length Corinius, quaffing down at one draught a mighty goblet of
    wine, spake and said, “There was battle in the meads by Thremnir’s
    Heugh to-day, my lord Duke. Wast thou at that battle?”</p>

  <p>Corsus’s heavy cheeks flushed somewhat red. He answered, “Thou knowest
    I was not. And I should account it most blameable hotheadedness to have
    sallied forth when it seemed Spitfire had the victory.”</p>

  <p>“O my lord,” said Corinius, “think not I made this a quarrel to thee.
    The rather let me show thee how much I hold thee in honour.”</p>

  <p>Therewith he called his boy that stood behind his chair, and the boy
    returned anon with a diadem of polished gold set all about with topazes
    that had passed through the fire; and on the frontlet of that diadem
    was the small figure of a crab-fish in dull iron, the eyes of it two
    green beryls on stalks of silver. The boy set it down on the table
    before the Lord Corinius, as it had been a dish of meat before him.
    Corinius took a writing from his purse, and laid it on the table for
    Corsus to see. And there was the signet upon it of the worm<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">268</span> Ouroboros
    in scarlet wax, and the sign manual of Gorice the King.</p>

  <p>“My Lord Corsus,” said he, “and ye sons of Corsus, and ye other
    Witches, I do you to wit that our Lord the King made me by these tokens
    his viceroy for his province of Demonland, and willed that I should
    bear a king’s name in this land and that under him all should render me
    obedience.”</p>

  <p>Corsus, looking on the crown and the royal warrant of the King, waxed
    in one instant deadly pale, and in the next red as blood.</p>

  <p>Corinius said, “To thee, O Corsus, out of all these great ones that
    here be gathered together in Owlswick, will I submit me for thee to
    crown me with this crown, as king in Demonland. This, that thou mayst
    see and know how most I honour thee.”</p>

  <p>Now were all silent, waiting on Corsus to speak. But he spake not a
    word. Dekalajus said privily in his ear, “O my father, if the monkey
    reigns, dance before him. Time shall bring us occasion to right you.”</p>

  <p>And Corsus, disregarding not this wholesome rede, for all he might not
    wholly rule his countenance, yet ruled himself to bite in the injuries
    he was fain to utter. And with no ill grace he did that office, to set
    on Corinius’s head the new crown of Demonland.</p>

  <p>Corinius sat now in Spitfire’s seat, whence Corsus had moved to
    make place for him: in Spitfire’s high seat of smoke-coloured jade,
    curiously carved and set with velvet-lustred sapphires, and right and
    left of him were two high candlesticks of fine gold. The breadth of
    his shoulders filled all the space between the pillars of the spacious
    seat. A hard man he looked to deal with, clothed upon with youth and
    strength and all armed and yet smoking from the battle.</p>

  <p>Corsus, sitting between his sons, said under his breath, “Rhubarb!
    bring me rhubarb to purge away this choler!”</p>

  <p>But Dekalajus whispered him, “Softly, tread easy. Let not our counsels
    walk in a net, thinking they are hidden. Nurse him to security, which
    shall be our safety and the mean to our wiping out this shaming. Was
    not Gallandus as big a man?”</p>

  <p>Corsus’s dull eye gleamed. He lifted a brimming wine-cup to toast
    Corinius. And Corinius hailed him and said,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">269</span> “My lord Duke, call in
    thine officers I pray thee and proclaim me, that they in turn may
    proclaim me king unto all the army that is in Owlswick.”</p>

  <p>Which Corsus did, albeit sore against his liking, knowing not where to
    find a reason against it.</p>

  <p>When the plaudits were heard in the courts without, acclaiming him as
    king, Corinius spake again and said, “I and my folk be a-weary, my
    lord, and would betimes to our rest. Give order, I pray thee, that they
    make ready my lodgings. And let them be those same lodgings Gallandus
    had whenas he was in Owlswick.”</p>

  <p>Whereat Corsus might scarce forbear a start. But Corinius’s eye was on
    him, and he gave the order.</p>

  <p>While he waited for his lodgings to be made ready, the Lord Corinius
    made great good cheer, calling for more wine and fresh dainties to set
    before those lords of Witchland: olives, and botargoes, and conserves
    of goose’s liver richly seasoned, taken from Spitfire’s plenteous store.</p>

  <p>In the meantime Corsus spake softly to his sons: “I like not his naming
    of Gallandus. Yet seemeth he careless, as one that feareth no guile.”</p>

  <p>And Dekalajus answered in his ear, “Peradventure the Gods ordained his
    destruction, to make him choose that chamber.”</p>

  <p>So they laughed. And the banquet drew to a close with much pleasure and
    merrymaking.</p>

  <p>Now came serving men with torches to light them to their chambers. As
    they stood up to bid good-night, Corinius said, “I’m sorry, my lord,
    if, after thy pleasant usage, I should do aught that is not convenable
    to thee. But I doubt not Owlswick Castle must be irksome to thee and
    thy sons, that were so long mewed up within it, and I doubt not ye are
    wearied by this siege and long warfare. Therefore it is my will that
    you do instantly depart home to Witchland. Laxus hath a ship manned
    ready to transport you thither. To put a fit and friendly term to our
    festivities, we’ll bring you down to the ship.”</p>

  <p>Corsus’s jaw fell. Yet he schooled his tongue to say, “My lord, so as
    it shall please thee. Yet let me know thy reasons. Surely the swords
    of me and my sons avail not so little for Witchland in this country of
    our evil-willers that we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">270</span> should sheathe ’em and go home. Howbeit, ’tis
    a matter demandeth no sweaty haste. We will take rede hereon in the
    morning.”</p>

  <p>But Corinius answered him, “Cry you mercy, needful it is that this very
    night you go ashipboard.” And he gave him an ill look, saying, “Sith
    I lie to-night in Gallandus’s lodgings, I think it fit my bodyguard
    should have thy chamber, my lord Duke, which, as I lately learned,
    adjoineth it.”</p>

  <p>Corsus said no word. But Gorius, his younger son, that was drunk with
    wine, leaped up and said, “Corinius, in an evil hour art thou come into
    this land to demand servitude of us. And thou art informed of my father
    right maliciously if thou art afeared of us because of Gallandus. ’Tis
    this viper sitteth beside thee, the Goblin swabber, told thee falsely
    this bad tale of us. And ’tis pity he is still inward with thee, for
    still he plotteth evil ’gainst Witchland.”</p>

  <p>Dekalajus thrust him aside, saying to Corinius, “Heed not my brother
    though he be hasty and rude of speech; for in wine he speaketh, and
    wine is another man. But most true it is, O Corinius, and this shall
    the Duke my father and all we swear and confirm to thee with the
    mightiest oaths thou wilt, that Gallandus sought to usurp authority for
    this sake only, to betray our whole army to the enemy. And ’twas only
    therefore Corsus slew him.”</p>

  <p>“That is a flat lie,” said Laxus.</p>

  <p>Gro laughed lightly.</p>

  <p>But Corinius’s sword leaped half naked from the scabbard, and he made
    a stride toward Corsus and his sons. “Give me the king’s name when ye
    speak to me,” he said, scowling upon them. “You sons of Corsus are not
    men to make me a stalk to catch birds with or to serve your own turn.
    And thou,” he said, looking fiercely on Corsus, “wert best go meekly,
    and not bandy words with me. Thou fool! think’st thou I am Gallandus
    come again? Thou that didst murther him shalt not murther me. Or
    think’st I delivered thee out of the toils thine own folly and thrawart
    ways had bound thee in, only to suffer thee lord it again here and cast
    all amiss again by the unquietness of thy malice? Here is the guard to
    bring you down to the ship. And well it is for thee if I slash not off
    thy head.”</p>

  <p>Now Corsus and his sons stood for a little doubting in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">271</span> their hearts
    whether it were fitter to leap with their weapons upon Corinius,
    putting their fortunes to the hazard of battle in Owlswick hall, or to
    embrace necessity and go down to the ship. And this seemed to them the
    better choice, to go quietly ashipboard; for there stood Corinius and
    Laxus and their men, and but few to face them of Corsus’s own people,
    that should be sure for his party if it came to fighting; and withal
    they were not eager to have to do with Corinius, not though it had been
    on more even terms. So at the last, in anger and bitterness of heart,
    they submitted them to obey his will; and in that same hour Laxus
    brought them to the ship, and put them across the firth to Scaramsey.</p>

  <p>There were they safe as a mouse in a mill. For Cadarus was skipper of
    that ship, a trusted liegeman of Lord Laxus, and her crew men leal and
    true to Corinius and Laxus. She lay at anchor as for that night in the
    lee of the island, and with the first streak of dawn sailed down the
    firth, bearing Corsus and his sons homeward from Demonland.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_flower.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">272</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_PARLEY_BEFORE_KROTHERING">XXI: THE PARLEY BEFORE KROTHERING</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW WARLIKE POLICY AND A PICTURE PAINTED DREW THE WAR
    WESTWARD: AND HOW THE LORD GRO WENT ON AN EMBASSAGE TO KROTHERING
    GATES, AND OF THE ANSWER HE GAT THERE.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">NOW it is to be said of Zigg that he failed not to fulfil Spitfire’s
    behest, but gathered hastily an army of more than fifteen hundred
    horse and foot out of the northern dales and the habitations about
    Shalgreth Heath and the pasture-lands of Kelialand and Switchwater
    Way and the region of Rammerick, and came in haste over the Stile.
    But when Corinius knew of this faring from the west, he marched three
    thousand strong to meet them above Moonmere Head, to deny them the way
    to Galing. But Zigg, being yet in the upper defiles of Breakingdale,
    now for the first time had advertisement of the great slaughter at
    Thremnir’s Heugh, and how the forces of Spitfire and Volle were broken
    and scattered and themselves fled up into the mountains; and so deeming
    it small gain with so little an army to give battle to Corinius, he
    turned back without more ado and returned hastily over the Stile whence
    he came. Corinius sent light forces to harry his retreat, but being not
    minded as then to follow them into the west country, let build a burg
    in the throat of the pass in a place of vantage, and stationed there
    sufficient men to ward it, and so came again to Owlswick.</p>

  <p>They that were with Corinius in Demonland numbered now more than five
    thousand fighting men: a great and redoubtable army. With these, the
    weather being fine and open, he in a short time laid under him all
    eastern Demonland,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">273</span> save Galing alone. Bremery of Shaws with but
    seventy men held Galing for Lord Juss against all assaults. So that
    Corinius, thinking this fruit should ripen later and drop into his hand
    when the rest had been gathered, resolved at winter’s end to march with
    his main army into the west country, leaving a small force to hold down
    the eastlands and contain Bremery in Galing. To this determination he
    was led by all arguments of sound soldiership, most happily seconding
    his own inclinations. For besides this of warlike policy two scarce
    weaker lodestones drew him westward: first the old cankered malice he
    bare in his heart against the Lord Brandoch Daha, that made Krothering
    his dearest prey; and next, his own lustful desires most outrageously
    burning for the Lady Mevrian. And this only for the sight of her
    picture, found by him in Spitfire’s closet among his pens and inkstands
    and other trinkets, which once looked on he swore that with Heaven’s
    will (ay, or without if so it must be) she should be his paramour.</p>

  <p>So on the fourteenth day of March, of a bright frosty morn, he with his
    main army marched up Breakingdale and over the Stile, by that same road
    that Lord Juss fared by and Lord Brandoch Daha, that summer’s day when
    they went to take counsel in Krothering before the Impland expedition.
    So came the Witches down to the watersmeet and turned aside to Many
    Bushes. There they found not Zigg nor his lady wife nor any of his
    folk, but found the house desolate. So they robbed and burned and went
    their way. And a famous castle of Juss’s they sacked and burned in the
    confines of Kelialand, and another on Switchwater Way, and a summer
    palace of Spitfire’s on a little hill above Rammerick Mere. In such
    wise they marched victoriously down Switchwater Way, and there was none
    to dispute their progress but all fled at the approach of that great
    army and hid themselves in the secret places of the mountains, avoiding
    death and fate.</p>

  <p>When he was come through the straits of Gashterndale up on to
    Krothering Side, Corinius let pitch his camp under Erngate End, at the
    foot of the scree-strewn slopes that rise steeply to the high western
    face of the mountain, where the lean embattled crags far aloft stand
    like a wall against high heaven.</p>

  <p>Corinius came to Lord Gro and said to him, “To thee will I entrust mine
    embassage to this Mevrian. Thou shalt<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">274</span> go with a flag of truce to gain
    thee entry to the castle; or if they will not admit thee, then bid her
    parley with thee without the wall. Then shalt thou use what fantastic
    courtier’s jargon nature and thine invention shall lightliest counsel
    thee, and say, ‘Corinius, by the grace of the great King and the might
    of his own hand king of Demonland, sitteth as thou well mayst see in
    power invincible before this castle. But he willed me let thee know
    that he is not come for to make war against ladies and damosels, and
    be thou of this sure, that neither to thee nor to none of thy fortress
    he will nought say nor hurt. Only this honour he proffereth thee, to
    wed thee in sweet marriage and make thee his queen in Demonland.’
    Whereto if she say yea, well and good, and we will go up peaceably
    into Krothering and possess it and the woman. But if she deny me this,
    then shalt thou say unto her right fiercely that I will set on against
    the castle like a lion, and neither rest nor give over until I have
    beaten it all to a ruin about her ears and slain the folk with the
    edge of the sword. And that which she refuseth me to have in peaceful
    love and kindness I will have of my own violent deed, that she and her
    stiff-necked Demons may know that I am their king, and master of all
    that is theirs, and their own bodies but chattels to serve my pleasure.”</p>

  <p>Gro said, “My Lord Corinius, choose I pray thee another who shall be
    fitter than I to do this errand for thee;” and so for a long time most
    earnestly besought him. But Corinius, the more he perceived the duty
    hateful to Gro, the firmer became his resolution that none but Gro
    should undertake it. So that in the end Gro perforce consented, and in
    the same hour went with eleven up to the gates of Krothering, and a
    white flag of truce was borne before him.</p>

  <p>He sent his herald up to the gate to desire speech of the Lady Mevrian.
    And in a while the gates were opened, and she came down attended to
    meet Lord Gro in the open garden before the bridge-gate. It was by
    then late afternoon, and the burning sun swam low amid streaked level
    clouds incarnadine, setting aflame the waters of Thunderfirth with the
    reflection of his beams. From the horizon, high beyond the pine-clad
    hills of Westmark, a range of clouds reared themselves, solid and of
    an iron hue; so hard-edged against the vapoury sky of sunset, that
    they seemed substantial mountains, not clouds: unearthly mountains (a
    man might fancy) divinely raised up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">275</span> for Demonland, for whom not all
    her ancient hills gave any longer refuge against her enemies. Here, in
    Krothering gates, wintersweet and the little purple daphne bush that
    blooms before the leaf breathed fragrance abroad. Yet was it not this
    sweetness in the air that troubled the Lord Gro, nor that western glory
    burning that dazzled his eyes; but to look upon that lady standing in
    the gate, white-skinned and dark, like the divine Huntress, tall and
    proud and lovely.</p>

  <p>Mevrian, seeing him speechless, said at last, “My lord, I heard thou
    hadst some errand to declare unto me. And seeing a great camp of war
    gathered under Erngate End, and having heard of robbers and evil-doers
    rife about the land these many moons, I look not for soft speech. Take
    heart, therefore, and declare plainly what ill thou meanest.”</p>

  <p>Gro answered and said, “Tell me first if thou that speakest art in
    truth the Lady Mevrian, that I may know whether to human kind I speak
    or to some Goddess come down from the shining floor of heaven.”</p>

  <p>She answered, “Of thy compliments I have nought to do. I am she thou
    namest.”</p>

  <p>“Madam,” said Lord Gro, “I would not have brought your highness this
    message nor delivered it, but that I know full well that did I refuse
    it another should bear it thee full speedily, and with less compliment
    and less sorrow than I.”</p>

  <p>She nodded gravely, as who should say, Proceed. So, with what
    countenance he might, he rehearsed his message, saying when it was
    ended, “Thus, madam, saith Corinius the king: and thus he charged me
    deliver it unto your highness.”</p>

  <p>Mevrian heard him attentively with head erect. When he had done she was
    silent a little, still studying him. Then she spake: “Methinks I know
    thee now. Thou art Lord Gro of Goblinland that bearest me this message.”</p>

  <p>Gro answered, “Madam, he thou namest went years ago from this earth. I
    am Lord Gro of Witchland.”</p>

  <p>“So it seemeth, from thy talk,” said she; and was silent again.</p>

  <p>The steady contemplation from that lady’s eyes was like a knife
    scraping his tender skin, so that he was ill at ease well nigh past
    bearing.</p>

  <p>After a little she said, “I remember thee, my lord. Let me stir thy
    memory. Eleven years ago, my brother went to war in Goblinland against
    the Witches, and overcame them on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">276</span> Lormeron field. There slew he the
    great King of Witchland in single combat, Gorice X., that until that
    day was held for the mightiest man-at-arms in all the world. My brother
    was as then but eighteen winters old, and that was the first blazing up
    of his great fame and glory. So King Gaslark made great feasting and
    great rejoicing in Zajë Zaculo because of the ridding of his land of
    the oppressors. I was at those revels. I saw thee there, my lord; and
    being but a little maid of eleven summers, sat on thy knee in Gaslark’s
    halls. Thou didst show me books, with pictures in strange colours of
    gold and green and scarlet, of birds and beasts and distant countries
    and wonders of the world. And I, being a little harmless maid, thought
    thee good and kind of heart, and loved thee.”</p>

  <p>She ceased, and Gro, like a man hath taken some drowsy drug, stood
    looking on her confounded.</p>

  <p>“Tell me,” said she, “of this Corinius. Is he such a fighter as men
    say?”</p>

  <p>“He is,” said Gro, “one of the most famousest captains that ever was.
    That might not his worst enemies gainsay.”</p>

  <p>Mevrian said, “A likely consort, think’st thou, for a lady of
    Demonland? Remember, I have said nay to crowned kings. I would know thy
    mind, for doubtless he is thy very familiar friend, since he made thee
    his go-between.”</p>

  <p>Gro saw that she mocked, and he was troubled at heart. “Madam,” said
    he, and his voice shook somewhat, “take not in too great scorn this
    vile part in me. Verily this I brought thee is the most shamefullest
    message, and flatly against my will did I deliver it unto thee. Yet
    with such constraint upon me, how could I choose but strike my forehead
    into dauntless marble and word by word deliver my charge?”</p>

  <p>“Thy tongue,” said Mevrian, “hath struck hot irons in my face. Go back
    to thy master. If he look for an answer, tell him he may read it in
    letters of gold above the gates.”</p>

  <p>“Thy noble brother, madam,” said Gro, “is not here to make good that
    answer.” And he came near to her, saying in a low voice so that only
    they two should hear it, “Be not deceived. This Corinius is a naughty,
    wicked, and luxurious youth, that will use thee without any respect
    if once he break in by force into Krothering Castle. It were wiselier
    carried to make some open show to receive him; so by fair words and
    putting of him off thou mayst yet escape.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">277</span></p>

  <p>But Mevrian said, “Thou hast mine answer. I have no ears to his
    request. Say too that my cousin the Lord Spitfire hath healed his
    wounds, and hath an army afoot shall whip these Witches from my gates
    ere many days be passed by.”</p>

  <p>So saying she returned in great scorn within the castle.</p>

  <p>But the Lord Gro returned again to the camp and to Corinius, who asked
    him how he had sped.</p>

  <p>He answered, she did utterly refuse it.</p>

  <p>“So,” said Corinius; “doth the puss thump me off? Then pause my hot
    desires an instant, only the more thunderingly to clap it on. For
    I will have her. And this coyness and pert rejection hath the more
    fixedly confirmed me.”</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_pegasus.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">278</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="AURWATH_AND_SWITCHWATER">XXII: AURWATH AND SWITCHWATER</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    HOW THE LADY MEVRIAN BEHELD FROM KROTHERING WALLS THE WITCHLAND ARMY
    AND THE CAPTAINS THEREOF: AND OF THE TIDINGS BROUGHT HER THERE OF THE WAR
    IN THE WEST COUNTRY, OF AURWATH FIELD AND THE GREAT SLAUGHTER ON
    SWITCHWATER WAY.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">THE fourth day after these doings aforewrit, the Lady Mevrian walked
    on the battlements of Krothering keep. A blustering wind blew from
    the north-west. The sky was cloudless: clear blue overhead, all else
    pearl-gray, and the air a little misty. Her old steward, stalwart and
    soldier-like, greaved and helmed and clad in a plated jerkin of bull’s
    hide, walked with her.</p>

  <p>“The hour should be about striking,” said she. “’Tis to-day or
    to-morrow my Lord Zigg named to me when they were here a-guesting. If
    but Goblinland keep tryst it were the prettiest feat, to take them so
    pat.”</p>

  <p>“As your ladyship might clap a gnat ’twixt the palms of your two
    hands,” said the old man; and he gazed again southward over the sea.</p>

  <p>Mevrian set her gaze in the same quarter. “Nothing but mist and spray,”
    she said after a few minutes’ searching. “I’m glad I sent Lord Spitfire
    those two hundred horse. He must have every man can be scraped up, for
    such a day. How thinkest thou, Ravnor: if King Gaslark come not, hath
    Lord Spitfire force enow to cope them alone?”</p>

  <p>Ravnor chuckled in his beard. “I think and my lord your brother were
    here he should tell your highness ‘ay’ to that.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">279</span> Since first I bowled a
    hoop, they taught me a Demon was under-matched against five Witches.”</p>

  <p>She looked at him a little wistfully. “Ah,” she said, “were he at home.
    And were Juss at home.” Then on a sudden she faced round northward,
    pointing to the camp. “Were they at home,” she cried, “thou shouldst
    not see outlanders insulting in arms on Krothering Side, sending me
    shameful offers, caging me like a bird in this castle. Have such things
    been in Demonland, until now?”</p>

  <p>Now came a boy running along the battlements from the far side of the
    tower, crying that ships were hove in sight sailing from the south and
    east, “And they make for the firth.”</p>

  <p>“Of what land?” said Mevrian, while they hastened back to look.</p>

  <p>“What but Goblinland?” said Ravnor.</p>

  <p>“O say not so too hastily!” cried she. They came round the turret wall,
    and the sea and Stropardon Firth opened wide and void before them. “I
    see nought,” she said; “or is yon flight of sea-mews the fleet thou
    sawest?”</p>

  <p>“He meaneth Thunderfirth,” said Ravnor, who had gone on ahead, pointing
    to the west. “They shape their course toward Aurwath. ’Tis King Gaslark
    for sure. Mark but the blue and gold of his sails.”</p>

  <p>Mevrian watched them, her gloved hand drumming nervously on the marble
    battlement. Very stately she seemed, muffled in a flowing cloak of
    white watered silk collared and lined with ermine. “Eighteen ships!”
    she said. “I dreamed not Goblinland might make so great a force.”</p>

  <p>They were silent for a time, watching the ships sail in to the mouth of
    the firth and make land at Aurwath. “Dear heavens,” she said, “were I
    a man to help them. Will Spitfire be there in time? The Witches be in
    great force.”</p>

  <p>“Your ladyship may see,” said Ravnor, walking back along the wall,
    “whether the Witchlanders have slept while these ships sailed to port.”</p>

  <p>She followed and looked. Great stir there was in the Witchland army,
    marshalling before the camp; there was coming and going and leaping on
    horseback, and faintly on the wind their trumpets’ blare was borne to
    Mevrian’s ears as she beheld them from her high watch-tower. The host
    moved forth down the meadows, all orderly, a-glitter with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">280</span> bronze and
    steel. Southward they came, passing at length through the home-meads
    of Krothering, so near that each man was plainly seen from the
    battlements, as they rode beneath.</p>

  <p>Mevrian leaned forward in an embrasure, one hand on either battlement
    at her left and right. “I would know their names,” said she. “Thou,
    that hast oft fared to the wars, mayst teach me. Gro I know, with a
    long beard; and heart-heaviness it is to see a lord of Goblinland in
    such a fellowship. What’s he beside him, yon bearded gallant, with a
    winged helm and a diadem about it, like a king’s, and beareth a glaive
    crimson-hafted? He looketh a proud one.”</p>

  <p>The old man answered, “Laxus of Witchland: the same that was admiral of
    their fleet against the Ghouls.”</p>

  <p>“’Tis a brave man to look on, and worthy a better cause. What’s he
    rideth now below us, heading their horse: ruddy and swarthy and light
    of build, hath a brow like the thundercloud, and weareth armour from
    neck to toe?”</p>

  <p>Ravnor answered, “Highness, I know him not certainly, the sons of
    Corund so favour one another. But methinks ’tis the young prince
    Heming.”</p>

  <p>Mevrian laughed. “Prince quotha?”</p>

  <p>“So moveth the world, your highness. Since Gorice set Corund in kingdom
    in Impland——”</p>

  <p>Said Mevrian, “Name him prithee Heming Faz: I warrant they trap them
    now with barbarous additions. Heming Faz, good lack! lording it now in
    Demonland.</p>

  <p>“The prime huff-cap of all,” said she after a little, “holdeth aback
    it seemeth. O here he comes. Sweet heaven, what furious horsemanship!
    Troth, and he can sit a horse, Ravnor, and hath the great figure of
    an athlete. Look where he gallopeth bare-headed down the line. I ween
    he’ll need more than golden curls to keep his head whole ere he have
    done with Gaslark, ay, and our own folk gathering from the north. I
    see he beareth his helm at the saddle-bow. To ape us so!” she cried as
    he drew nearer. “All silks and silver. Thou’dst have sworn none but a
    Demon went to battle so costly apparelled. O, for a scissors to cut his
    comb withal!”</p>

  <p>So speaking she leaned forward all she might, to watch him. And he,
    galloping by below, looked up; and marking her so watching, reined
    mightily his great chestnut horse, throwing him with the check well
    nigh on his haunches. And<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">281</span> while the horse plunged and reared, Corinius
    hailed her in a great voice, crying, “Mistress, good-morrow!” crying,
    “Wish me victory, and swift to thine arms!”</p>

  <p>So near below was he a-riding, she might scan the very lineaments of
    his face and read it as he looked up and shouted to her that greeting.
    He saluted with his sword, and spurred onward to overtake Gro and Laxus
    in the van.</p>

  <p>As if sickened on a sudden, or as if she had been ready to tread on a
    deadly stinging adder, the Lady Mevrian leaned against the marble of
    the battlements. Ravnor stepped towards her: “Is your ladyship ill?
    Why, what’s the matter?”</p>

  <p>“A silly qualm,” said Mevrian faintly. “If thou’dst medicine it, show
    me the sheen of Spitfire’s spears to the northward. The blank land
    dazzles me.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>So wore the afternoon. Twice and thrice Mevrian went upon the
    walls, but could see nought save the sea and the firths and the
    mountain-bosomed plain fair and peaceful in the spring-time: no sign
    of men or of war’s alarums, save only the masts of Gaslark’s ships
    seen over the land’s brow three miles or more to the south-west. Yet
    she knew surely that near those ships beside Aurwath harbour must be
    desperate fighting toward, Gaslark the king engaged at heavy odds
    against Laxus and Corinius and the spears of Witchland. And the sun
    wheeled low over the dark pines of Westmark, and still no sign from the
    north.</p>

  <p>“Thou didst send one forth for tidings?” she said to Ravnor, the third
    time she went on the wall.</p>

  <p>He answered, “Betimes this morning, your highness. But ’tis slow faring
    until a be a mile or twain clear of the castle, for a must elude their
    small bands that go up and down guarding the countryside.”</p>

  <p>“Bring him to me o’ the instant of his return,” said she.</p>

  <p>With a foot on the stair, she turned back. “Ravnor,” she said.</p>

  <p>He came to her.</p>

  <p>“Thou,” she said, “hast been years enow my brother’s steward in
    Krothering, and our father’s before him, to know what mind and spirit
    dwelleth in them of our line. Tell me, truly and sadly, what thou
    makest of this. Lord Spitfire is too late: other else, Goblinland too
    sudden-early (and that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">282</span> was his fault from of old). What seest thou in
    it? Speak to me as thou shouldst to my Lord Brandoch Daha were it he
    that asked thee.”</p>

  <p>“Highness,” said the old man Ravnor, “I will answer you my very
    thought: and it is, woe to Goblinland. Since my Lord Spitfire cometh
    not yet from the north, only the deathless Gods descending out of
    heaven can save the king. The Witches number at an humble reckoning
    twice his strength; and man to man you were as well pit a hound against
    a bear, as against Witches Goblins. For all that these be fierce and
    full of fiery courage, the bear hath it at the last.”</p>

  <p>Mevrian listened, looking on him with sorrowful steady eyes. “And he
    so generous-noble flown to comfort Demonland in the blackness of her
    days,” she said at last. “Can fate be so ungallant? O Ravnor, the shame
    of it! First La Fireez, now Gaslark. How shall any love us any more?
    The shame of it, Ravnor!”</p>

  <p>“I would not have your highness,” said Ravnor, “too hasty to blame us.
    If their plan and compact have gone amiss, ’tis likelier King Gaslark’s
    misprision than Lord Spitfire’s. We know not for sure which day was set
    for this landing.”</p>

  <p>While he so spake, he was looking past her seaward, a little south of
    the reddest part of the sunset. His eyes widened. He touched her arm
    and pointed. Sails were hoisted among the masts at Aurwath. Smoke, as
    of burning, reeked up against the sky. As they watched, the most part
    of the ships moved out to sea. From those that remained, some five or
    six, fire leaped and black clouds of smoke. The rest as they came out
    of the lee of the land, made southward for the open sea under oar and
    sail.</p>

  <p>Neither spake; and the Lady Mevrian leaning her elbows on the parapet
    of the wall hid her face in her hands.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now came Ravnor’s messenger at length back from his faring, and the
    old man brought him in to Mevrian in her bower in the south part of
    Krothering. The messenger said, “Highness, I bring no writing, since
    that were too perilous had I fallen in my way among Witches. But I
    had audience of my Lord Spitfire and my Lord Zigg in the gates of
    Gashterndale. And thus their lordships commanded me deliver it unto<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">283</span>
    you, that your highness should be at ease and secure, seeing that they
    do in such sort hold all the ways to Krothering, that the Witchland
    army cannot escape out of this countryside that is betwixt Thunderfirth
    and Stropardon Firth and the sea, but and if they will give battle unto
    their lordships. But if they choose rather to abide here by Krothering,
    then may our armies close on them and oppress them, since our forces do
    exceed theirs by near a thousand spears. Which to-morrow will be done
    whate’er betide, since that is the day appointed for Gaslark the king
    to land with a force at Aurwath.”</p>

  <p>Mevrian said, “They know nought then of this direful miscarriage, and
    Gaslark here already before his time and thrown back into the sea?” And
    she said, “We must apprise them on’t, and that hastily and to-night.”</p>

  <p>When the man understood this, he answered, “Ten minutes for a bite and
    a stirrup-cup, and I am at your ladyship’s service.”</p>

  <p>And in a short while, that man went forth again secretly out of
    Krothering in the dusk of night to bring word to Lord Spitfire of what
    was befallen. And the watchmen watching in the night from Krothering
    walls beheld northward under Erngate End the camp-fires of the Witches
    like the stars.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Night passed and day dawned, and the camp of the Witches showed empty
    as an empty shell.</p>

  <p>Mevrian said, “They have moved in the night.”</p>

  <p>“Then shall your highness hear great tidings ere long,” said Ravnor.</p>

  <p>“’Tis like we may have guests in Krothering to-night,” said Mevrian.
    And she gave order for all to be made ready against their coming, and
    the choicest bed-chambers for Spitfire and Zigg to welcome them. So,
    with busy preparations, the day went by. But as evening came, and still
    no riding from the north, some shadows of impatience and anxious doubt
    crept with night’s shades creeping across heaven across their eager
    expectancy in Krothering. For Mevrian’s messenger returned not. Late to
    rest went the Lady Mevrian; and with the first peeping light she was
    abroad, muffled in her great mantle of velvet and swansdown against the
    eager winds of morning. Up to the battlements she went, and with old
    Ravnor searched the blank prospect. For pale morning rose<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">284</span> on an empty
    landscape; and so all day until the evening: watching, and waiting, and
    questioning in their hearts.</p>

  <p>So went they at length to supper on this third night after Aurwath
    field. And ere supper was half done was a stir in the outer courts, and
    the rattle of the bridge let down, and a clatter of horse-hooves on
    the bridge and the jasper pavements. Mevrian sate erect and expectant.
    She nodded to Ravnor who wanting no further sign went hastily out, and
    returned in an instant hastily and with heavy brow. He spake in her
    ear, “News, my Lady. It were well you bade him to private audience.
    Drink this cup first,” pouring out some wine for her.</p>

  <p>She rose up, saying to the steward, “Come thou, and bring him with
    thee.”</p>

  <p>As they went he whispered her, “Astar of Rettray, sent by the Lord Zigg
    with matter of urgent import for your highness’s ear.”</p>

  <p>The Lady Mevrian sat in her ivory chair cushioned with rich stuffed
    silks of Beshtria, with little golden birds and strawberry leaves with
    the flowers and rich red fruits all figured thereon in gorgeous colours
    of needlework. She reached out her hand to Astar who stood before her
    in his battle harness, muddy and bebloodied from head to foot. He bowed
    and kissed her hand: then stood silent. He held his head high and
    looked her in the face, but his eyes were bloodshed and his look was
    ghastly like a messenger of ill.</p>

  <p>“Sir,” said Mevrian, “stand not in doubt, but declare all. Thou knowest
    it is not in our blood to quail under dangers and misfortune.”</p>

  <p>Astar said, “Zigg, my brother-in-law, gave me this in charge, madam, to
    tell thee all truly.”</p>

  <p>“Proceed,” said she. “Thou knowest our last news. Hour by hour since
    then, we watched on victory. I have no mean welcome feast prepared
    against your coming.”</p>

  <p>Astar groaned. “My Lady Mevrian,” said he, “you must now prepare a
    sword, not a banquet. You did send a runner to Lord Spitfire.”</p>

  <p>“Ay,” said she.</p>

  <p>“He brought us advertisement that night,” said Astar, “of Gaslark’s
    overthrow. Alas, that Goblinland was a day too soon, and so bare alone
    the brunt. Yet was vengeance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">285</span> ready to our hand, as we supposed. For
    every pass and way was guarded, and ours the greater force. So for
    that night we waited, seeing Corinius’s fires alight in his camp on
    Krothering Side, meaning to smite him at dawn of day. Now in the night
    were mists abroad, and the moon early sunken. And true it is as ill it
    is, that the whole Witchland army marched away past us in the dark.”</p>

  <p>“What?” cried Mevrian, “and slept ye all to let them by?”</p>

  <p>“In the middle night,” answered he, “we had sure tidings he was afoot,
    and the fires yet burning in his camp a show to mock us withal. By all
    sure signs, we might know he was broke forth north-westward, where he
    must take the upper road into Mealand over Brocksty Hause. Zigg with
    seven hundred horse galloped to Heathby to head him off, whiles our
    main force fared their swiftest up Little Ravendale. Thou seest, madam,
    Corinius must march along the bow and we along the bowstring.”</p>

  <p>“Yes,” said Mevrian. “Ye had but to check him with the horse at
    Heathby, and he must fight or fall back toward Justdale where he was
    like to lose half his folk in Memmery Moss. Outlanders shall scarce
    find a firm way there in a dark night.”</p>

  <p>“Certain it is we should have had him,” said Astar. “Yet certain it is
    he doubled like a hare and fooled us all to the top of our bent: turned
    in his tracks, as later we concluded, somewhere by Goosesand, and with
    all his army slipped back eastward under our rear. And that was the
    wonderfullest feat heard tell of in all chronicles of war.”</p>

  <p>“Tush, noble Astar,” said Mevrian. “Labour not Witchland’s praises, nor
    imagine not I’ll deem less of Spitfire’s nor Zigg’s generalship because
    Corinius, by art or fortune’s favour, dodged ’em in the dark.”</p>

  <p>“Dear Lady,” said he, “even look for the worst and prepare yourself for
    the same.”</p>

  <p>Her gray eyes steadily beheld him. “Certain intelligence,” said he,
    “was brought us of their faring with all speed they might eastaway past
    Switchwater; and ere the sun looked well over Gemsar Edge we were hot
    on the track of them, knowing our force the stronger and our only hope
    to bring them to battle ere they reached the Stile, where they have
    made a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">286</span> fortress of great strength we might scarce hope to howster them
    out from if they should win thither.”</p>

  <p>He paused. “Well,” said she.</p>

  <p>“Madam,” he said, “that we of Demonland are great and invincible in
    war, ’tis most certain. But in these days fight we as a man that
    fighteth hobbled, or with half his gear laid by, or as a man half
    roused from sleep. For we be reft of our greatest. Bereft of these,
    such sorrows befall us and such doom as at Thremnir’s Heugh last autumn
    shattered our strength in pieces, and now this very day yet more
    terribly hath put us down on Switchwater Way.”</p>

  <p>Mevrian’s cheek turned white, but she said no word, waiting.</p>

  <p>“We were eager in the chase,” said Astar. “I have told thee why,
    madam. Thou knowest how near to the mountains runneth the road past
    Switchwater, and the shores of the lake hem in the way for miles
    against the mountain spurs, and woods clothe the lower slopes, and
    dells and gorges run up betwixt the spurs into the mountain side. The
    day was misty, and the mists hung by the shores of Switchwater. When
    we had marched so far that our van was about over against the stead of
    Highbank that stands on the farther shore, the battle began: greatly to
    their advantage, since Corinius had placed strong forces in the hills
    on our right flank, and so ambushed us and took us at unawares. Not to
    grieve thee with a woful tale, madam, we were most bloodily overthrown,
    and our army merely brought to not-being. And in the mid rout, Zigg
    stole an instant to charge me by my love for him ride to Krothering as
    if my life lay on it and the weal of all of us, and bid you fly hence
    to Westmark or the isles or whither you will, ere the Witches come
    again and here entrap you. Since save for these walls and these few
    brave soldiers you have to ward them, no help standeth any more ’twixt
    you and these devilish Witches.”</p>

  <p>Still she was silent. He said, “Let me not be too hateful to you, most
    gracious Lady, for this rude tale of disaster. The suddenness of the
    times bar any pleasant glozing. And indeed I thought I should satisfy
    you more with plainness, than should opinion of I know not what false
    courtliness bind me to show you comfort where comfort is not.”</p>

  <p>The Lady Mevrian stood up and took him by both hands. Surely the light
    of that lady’s eyes was like the new light of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">287</span> morning glancing through
    mists on the gray still surface of a mountain tarn, and the accent of
    her voice sweet as the voices of the morning as she said, “O Astar,
    think me not so unhandsome, nor yet so foolish. Thanks, gentle Astar.
    But thou hast not supped, and sure in a great soldier battle and swift
    far riding should breed hunger, how ill soever the news he beareth. Thy
    welcome shall not be the colder because we looked for more than thee,
    alas, and for far other tidings. A chamber is prepared for thee. Eat
    and drink; and when night is done is time enough to speak more of these
    things.”</p>

  <p>“Madam,” he said, “you must come now or ’tis too late.”</p>

  <p>But she answered him, “No, noble Astar. This is my brother’s house.
    So long as I may keep it for him against his coming home I will not
    creep out of Krothering like a rat, but stand to my watch. And this is
    certain, I shall not open Krothering gates to Witches whiles I and my
    folk yet live to bar them against them.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>So she made him go to supper; but herself sat late that night alone in
    the Chamber of the Moon, that was in the donjon keep above the inner
    court in Krothering. This was Lord Brandoch Daha’s banquet chamber,
    devised and furnished by him in years gone by; and here he and she
    commonly sat at meat, using not the banquet hall across the court save
    when great company was present. Round was that chamber, following the
    round walls of the tower that held it. All the pillars and the walls
    and the vaulted roof were of a strange stone, white and smooth, and
    yielding such a glistering show of pallid gold in it as was like the
    golden sheen of the full moon of a warm night in midsummer. Lamps that
    were milky opals self-effulgent filled all the chamber with a soft
    radiance, in which the bas-reliefs of the high dado, delicately carved,
    portraying those immortal blooms of amaranth and nepenthe and moly and
    Elysian asphodel, were seen in all their delicate beauty, and the fair
    painted pictures of the Lord of Krothering and his lady sister, and
    of Lord Juss above the great open fireplace with Goldry and Spitfire
    on his left and right. A few other pictures there were, smaller than
    these: the Princess Armelline of Goblinland, Zigg and his lady wife,
    and others; wondrous beautiful.</p>

  <p>Here a long while sat the Lady Mevrian. She had a little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">288</span> lute
    wrought of sweet sandalwood and ivory inlaid with gems. While she sat
    a-thinking, her fingers strayed idly on the strings, and she sang in a
    low sweet voice:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">There were three ravens sat on a tree,</div>
        <div class="i0">They were as black as they might be.</div>
        <div class="i2"><i>With a downe, derrie down.</i></div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">The one of them said to his make,</div>
        <div class="i0">Where shall we our breakefast take?</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Downe in yonder greene field,</div>
        <div class="i0">There lies a knight slain under his shield.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">His hounds they lie downe at his feete,</div>
        <div class="i0">So well they can their master keepe.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">His haukes they flie so eagerly,</div>
        <div class="i0">There’s no fowle dare him come nie.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Downe there comes a fallow doe</div>
        <div class="i0">As great with yong as she might goe.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">She lift up his bloudy hed,</div>
        <div class="i0">And kist his wounds that were so red.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">She gat him up upon her backe,</div>
        <div class="i0">And carried him to earthen lake.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">She buried him before the prime;</div>
        <div class="i0">She was dead herselfe ere even-song time.</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">God send every gentleman</div>
        <div class="i0">Such haukes, such hounds, and such a leman.</div>
        <div class="i2"><i>With a downe, derrie down.</i></div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>With the last sighing sweetness trembling from the strings, she laid
    aside the lute, saying, “The discord of my thoughts, my lute, doth ill
    agree with the harmonies of thy strings. Put it by.”</p>

  <p>She fell to gazing on her brother’s picture, the Lord Brandoch Daha,
    standing in his jewelled hauberk laced about with gold, his hand upon
    his sword. And that lazy laughter-loving yet imperious look of the
    eyes which in life he had was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">289</span> there, wondrous lively caught by the
    painter’s art, and the lovely lines of his brow and lip and jaw, where
    power and masterful determination slumbered, as brazen Ares might
    slumber in the arms of the Queen of Love.</p>

  <p>A long while Mevrian looked on that picture, musing. Then, burying her
    face in the cushions of the long low seat she sat on, she burst into a
    great passion of tears.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_flower.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">290</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_WEIRD_BEGUN_OF_ISHNAIN_NEMARTRA">XXIII: THE WEIRD BEGUN OF ISHNAIN NEMARTRA</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE COUNSEL TAKEN BY THE WITCHES TOUCHING THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR:
    WHEREAFTER IN THE FIFTH ASSAULT THE CASTLE OF LORD BRANDOCH DAHA
    WAS MADE A PREY UNTO CORINIUS.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">NOW was little time for debate or conjecture, but with the morrow’s
    morn came the Witchland army once more before Krothering, and a herald
    sent by Corinius to bid Mevrian yield up the castle and her own proper
    person lest a worse thing befall them. Which she stoutly refusing,
    Corinius let straight assault the castle, but won it not. And in the
    next three days following he thrice assaulted Krothering, and, failing
    with some loss of men to win an entry, closely invested it.</p>

  <p>And now summoned he those other lords of Witchland to talk with him.
    “How say ye? Or what rede shall we take? They be few only within to man
    the walls; and great shame it is to us and to all Witchland if we get
    not this hold taken, so many as we be here gone up against it, and so
    great captains.”</p>

  <p>Laxus said, “Thou art king in Demonland. Thine it is to take order what
    shall be done. But if thou desire my rede, then shall I give it thee.”</p>

  <p>“I desire each one of you,” said Corinius, “to show forth to me frankly
    and freely his rede. And well ye know I strive for nought else but for
    Witchland’s glory and to make firm our conquest here.”</p>

  <p>“Well,” said Laxus, “I told thee once already my counsel, and thou wast
    angry with me. Thou madest a mighty victory on Switchwater Way; which
    had we followed up, pushing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">291</span> home the sword of our advantage till the
    hilts came clap against the breastplate of our adversary, we might now
    have exterminated from the land the whole nest of them, Spitfire, Zigg,
    and Volle. But now are they gotten away the devil knows whither, for
    the preparing of fresh thorns to prick our sides withal.”</p>

  <p>Corinius said, “Claim not wisdom after the event, my lord. ’Twas not so
    thou didst advise. Thou didst bid me let go Krothering: a thing I will
    not do, once I have set mine hand to it.”</p>

  <p>Laxus answered him, “Not only did I so advise thee as I have said, but
    Heming was by, and will bear me out, that I did offer that he or I
    with a small force should keep this comfit-box shut for thee till thou
    shouldst have done the main business.”</p>

  <p>“’Tis so,” said Heming.</p>

  <p>But Corinius said, “’Tis not so, Heming. And were it so, ’tis easily
    seen why he or thou shouldst hanker for first suck at this luscious
    fruit. Yet not so easy to see why I should yield it you.”</p>

  <p>“That,” said Laxus, “is very ill said. I see thy memory needs jogging,
    and thou art sliding into ingratitude. How many such like fruits hast
    thou enjoyed since we came out hither, that we had all the pains and
    plucking of?”</p>

  <p>“O cry thee mercy, my lord,” said Corinius, “I should have remembered,
    dreams of Sriva’s moist lips keep thee from straying. But enough of
    this fooling: to the matter.”</p>

  <p>Lord Laxus flushed. “By my faith,” said he, “this is very much to the
    matter. ’Twere well, Corinius, if thy loose thoughts were kept from
    straying. Spend men on a fortress? Better assay Galing, then: that were
    a prize worth more to our safety and our lordship here.”</p>

  <p>“Ay,” said Heming. “Seek out the enemy. ’Tis therefore we came hither:
    not to find women for thee.”</p>

  <p>Thereupon the Lord Corinius struck him across the table a great buffet
    in the face. Heming, mad wroth, snatched out a dagger; but Gro and
    Laxus catching him one by either hand restrained him. Gro said, “My
    lords, my lords, you must not word it so dangerous ill. We have but one
    heart and mind<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">292</span> here, to magnify our Lord the King and his glory. Thou,
    Heming, forget not the King hath put authority in the hand of Corinius,
    so that thy dagger set against him setteth most treasonably against the
    King’s majesty. And thou, my lord, I pray be temperate in thy power.
    Sure, for want of open war it is that our hands be so ready for these
    private brawls.”</p>

  <p>When by fair words this stew was cooled again, Corinius bade Gro say
    forth his mind, what he thought lay next to do. Gro answered, “My lord,
    I am of Laxus’s opinion. Abiding here by Krothering, we fare as idle
    cooks toying with sweetmeats while the roast spoils. We should seek out
    power and destroy it where still it fareth free, lest it swell again
    to a growth may danger us: wheresoever these lords be fled, think not
    they’ll be slack to prepare a mischief for us.”</p>

  <p>“I see,” said Corinius, “ye be all three of an accord against me. But
    there is no one beam of these thoughts your discourse hath planted in
    me, but is able to discern a greater cloud than you do go in.”</p>

  <p>“It is very true,” said Laxus, “that we do think somewhat scornfully of
    this war against women.”</p>

  <p>“Ay, there’s the cover off the dish!” said Corinius, “and a pretty
    mess within. Y’are woman-mad, every jack of you, and this blears your
    eyes to think me sick o’ the same folly. Thou and thy little dark-eyed
    baggage, that I dare swear hath months ago forgot thee for another.
    Heming here and I know not what sweet maid his young heart doteth on.
    Gro, ha! ha!” and he fell a-laughing. “Wherefore the King saddled me
    with this Goblin, he only knoweth, and his secretary the Devil: not
    I. By Satan, thou hast a starved look i’ the eyes giveth me to think
    the errand I sent thee to Krothering gates did thee no good. My cat’s
    leering look showeth me that my cat goeth a catterwawing. Dost now find
    the raven’s wing a seemlier hue in a wench’s hair to set thy cold blood
    a-leaping than tawny red? Or dost think this one hath a softer breast
    than thy Queen’s to cushion thy perfumed locks?”</p>

  <p>With that word spoken, all three of them leaped from their seats. Gro,
    with a face ashen gray, said, “At me thou mayst spit what filth thou
    wilt. I am schooled to bear with it for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">293</span> Witchland’s sake and until
    thine own venom choke thee. But this shalt thou not do whiles I live,
    thou or any other: to let thy bawdy tongue meddle with Queen Prezmyra’s
    name.”</p>

  <p>Corinius sat still in his chair in a posture of studied ease, but
    his sword was ready. His great jowl was set, his insolent blue eyes
    scornfully looked from one to another of those lords where they stood
    menacing him. “Pshaw!” said he, at last. “Who brought her name into it
    but thyself, my Lord Gro? not I.”</p>

  <p>“Thou wert best not bring it in again, Corinius,” said Heming. “Have we
    not well followed thee and upheld thee? And so shall we do henceforth.
    But remember, I am King Corund’s son. And if thou speak this wicked lie
    again, it shall cost thee thy life if I may.”</p>

  <p>Corinius threw out his arms and laughed. “Come,” said he, standing up,
    with much show of jolly friendliness, “’twas but a jest; and, I freely
    acknowledge, an ill jest. I’m sorry for it, my lords.</p>

  <p>“And now,” said he, “come we again to the matter. Krothering Castle
    will I not forgo, since ’tis not my way to turn back for any man on
    earth, no not for the Gods almighty, once I have ta’en my course. But
    I will make a bargain with you, and this it is: that we to-morrow do
    assault the hold a last time, using all our men and all our might. And
    if, as I think is most unlikely and most shameful, we get it not, then
    shall we fare away and do according to thy counsel, O Laxus.”</p>

  <p>“’Tis now four days lost,” said Laxus. “Thou canst not retrieve them.
    Howso, be it as thou wilt.”</p>

  <p>So brake up their council. But the mind and heart of the Lord Gro was
    nought peaceful within him, but tumultuous with manifold imaginings
    of hopes and fears and old desires, that intertwined like serpents
    twisting and contending. So that nought was clear to him save the
    unclear trouble of his discontent; and it was as if the conscience of a
    secret grant his inward mind made had suddenly cast a vail betwixt his
    thoughts and him that he durst not pluck aside.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Betimes on the morrow Corinius let fare against Krothering with all his
    host, Laxus from the south, Heming and Cargo<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">294</span> 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.</p>

  <p>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.”</p>

  <p>“My Lady Mevrian,” answered he, “under your safety, I shall obey you.”</p>

  <p>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.”</p>

  <p>“Alas, madam,” said he, “to our shame I may not deny it.”</p>

  <p>“O trample out any thought of shame,” said she. “A score of them
    against every one of us: the glory of our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">295</span> defence shall be for ever.
    But now ’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.”</p>

  <p>“Divine Lady,” said Astar, “but once shall one pass the cruel pass of
    death. I and your folk will defend you unto that end.”</p>

  <p>“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.</p>

  <p>“And submit thee to this Corinius?” said Astar. But she answered, “Thy
    sword hath likely cut his claws for awhile. I fear him not.”</p>

  <p>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.</p>

  <p>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.</p>

  <p>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,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">296</span> 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.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_crab.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">297</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="A_KING_IN_KROTHERING">XXIV: A KING IN KROTHERING</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    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.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">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.”</p>

  <p>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.</p>

  <p>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.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">298</span></p>

  <p>“As quickly as I might, my lord,” said she, “for I saw I was wrong.”</p>

  <p>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?”</p>

  <p>She answered, “Yes.”</p>

  <p>“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.”</p>

  <p>“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.”</p>

  <p>Whereto he, being well tippled with wine, framing the most lovely
    countenance he might, made answer, “I doubt not but to-night, madam,
    thou shalt be well advised to choose that highest condition, and till
    to-day unknown, which I shall proffer thee: to be Queen of Demonland.”</p>

  <p>She thanked him in her best manner, but said she was minded to forgo
    that supposedly pleasing eminence.</p>

  <p>“How?” said he. “Is it too little a thing for thee? Or is it as I
    think, that thou laughest?”</p>

  <p>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.”</p>

  <p>Corinius said, “True it is, some have out-bragged the world, yet I ere
    this have used them like knaves. My jack-boot 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.”</p>

  <p>But Mevrian made them set it on the far side of the board,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">299</span> and there
    sat her down, saying, “I pray thee, my Lord Corinius, unsay that word.
    Thou knowest it dislikes me.”</p>

  <p>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:
    to-night a table’s breadth: and ere night be done, not so much as——”</p>

  <p>Gro saw the wild-deer look in Lady Mevrian’s eyes. She said, “This is
    talk I have not learned to understand, my lord.”</p>

  <p>“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.”</p>

  <p>“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.”</p>

  <p>“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?”</p>

  <p>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.”</p>

  <p>But Mevrian answered, “Thy language, my lord, is too bold and vicious.
    Come to me to-morrow if thou wilt; but I’ll have thee know, patience
    only and courtesy shall get good of me.”</p>

  <p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">300</span> 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.</p>

  <p>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 indeed 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?”</p>

  <p>“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 mean season meddle not in matters that be too high
    for such as thou.”</p>

  <p>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.”</p>

  <p>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.”</p>

  <p>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.</p>

  <p>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.”</p>

  <p>“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.”</p>

  <p>“Thou must not think so,” answered Laxus. “I’ll give<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">301</span> thee still a
    Roland for thine Oliver, and tell thee ’tis most apparent thyself dost
    love this lady.”</p>

  <p>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.”</p>

  <p>“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.”</p>

  <p>“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.”</p>

  <p>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.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">302</span></p>

  <p>After a while Heming, who sat next to Gro, began to say to him in a
    whisper, “This is an ill banquet.”</p>

  <p>“Meseems rather ’tis a very good banquet,” said Gro.</p>

  <p>“Would I saw some other issue thereof,” said Heming, “than that he
    purposeth. Or how thinkest thou?”</p>

  <p>“I scarce can blame him,” answered Gro. “’Tis a most lovesome lady.”</p>

  <p>“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?”</p>

  <p>“What have I to do with it?” said Gro.</p>

  <p>“What less than I?” said Heming.</p>

  <p>“It dislikes thee?” said Gro.</p>

  <p>“Art thou a man?” said Heming. “And she that hateth him besides as
    bloody Atropos!”</p>

  <p>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 to-night. 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.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">303</span> 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.</p>

  <p>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.”</p>

  <p>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.</p>

  <p>While she pondered what interpretation lay likeliest on this sudden
    flowering of unaccustomed splendour within the chrysoprase, behold one
    of her women of the bed-chamber who brought lights, and said, standing
    before her, “Twain of those lords of Witchland would speak with your
    ladyship in private.”</p>

  <p>“Two?” said Mevrian. “There’s safety yet in numbers. Which be they?”</p>

  <p>“Highness, they be tall and slim of body. They be black-avised. They
    bear them discreet as dormice, and most commendably sober.”</p>

  <p>Mevrian asked, “Is it the Lord Gro? Hath he a great black beard, much
    curled and perfumed?”</p>

  <p>“Highness, I marked not that either weareth a beard,” said the woman,
    “nor their names I know not.”</p>

  <p>“Well,” said Mevrian, “admit them. And do thou and thy fellows attend
    me whiles I give them audience.”</p>

  <p>So it was done according to her bidding. And there entered in those two
    sons of Corund.</p>

  <p>They greeted her with respectful salutations, and Heming<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">304</span> said, “Our
    errand, most worshipful lady, was for thine own ear only if it please
    thee.”</p>

  <p>Mevrian said to her women, “Make fast the doors, and attend me in the
    ante-chamber. And now, my lords,” said she, and waited for them to
    begin.</p>

  <p>She was seated sideways in the window, betwixt the light and the dark.
    The crystal lamps shining from within the room showed deeper darknesses
    in her hair than night’s darkness without. The curve of her white arms
    resting in her lap was like the young moon cradled above the sunset. A
    falling breeze out of the south came laden with the murmur of the sea,
    far away beyond fields and vineyards, restlessly surging even in that
    calm weather amid the sea-caves of Stropardon. It was as if the sea
    and the night enfolding Demonland gasped in indignation at such things
    as Corinius, holding himself already an undoubted possessor of his
    desires, devised for that night in Krothering.</p>

  <p>Those brethren stood abashed in the presence of such rare beauty.
    Heming with a deep breath spake and said, “Madam, what slender opinion
    soever thou hast held of us of Witchland, I pray thee be satisfied that
    I and my kinsman have sought to thee now with a clean heart to do thee
    service.”</p>

  <p>“Princes,” said she, “scarce might ye blame me did I misdoubt you.
    Yet, seeing that my life’s days have been not among ambidexters and
    coney-catchers but lovers of clean hands and open dealing, not even
    after that which I this night endured will mine heart believe that all
    civility is worn away in Witchland. Did I not freely receive Corinius’s
    self when I did open my gates to him, firmly believing him to be a king
    and not a ravening wolf?”</p>

  <p>Then said Heming, “Canst thou wear armour, madam? Thou art something
    of an height with my brother. To bring thee past the guard, if thou go
    armed, as I shall conduct thee, the wine they have drunken shall be thy
    minister. I have provided an horse. In the likeness of my young brother
    mayst thou ride forth to-night out of this castle, and win clean away.
    But in thine own shape thou mayst never pass from these thy lodgings,
    for he hath set a guard thereon; being resolved, come thereof what may,
    to visit thee here this night: in thine own chamber, madam.”</p>

  <p>The sounds of furious revelry floated up from the banquet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">305</span> chamber.
    Mevrian heard by snatches the voice of Corinius singing an unseemly
    song. As in the presence of some dark influence that threatened an ill
    she might not comprehend, yet felt her blood quail and her heart grow
    sick because of it, she looked on those brethren.</p>

  <p>She said at last, “Was this your plan?”</p>

  <p>Heming answered, “It was the Lord Gro did most ingenuously conceive it.
    But Corinius, as he hath ever held him in distrust, and most of all
    when he hath drunken overmuch, keepeth him most firmly at his elbow.”</p>

  <p>Cargo now did off his armour, and Mevrian calling in her women to take
    this and other gear fared straightway to an inner chamber to change her
    fashion.</p>

  <p>Heming said to his brother, “Thou shalt need to go about it with
    great circumspection, to come off when we are gone so as thou be not
    aspied. Were I thou, I should be tempted for the rareness of the jest
    to await his coming, and assay whether thou couldst not make as good a
    counterfeit Mevrian as she a counterfeit Cargo.”</p>

  <p>“Thou,” said Cargo, “mayst well laugh and be gay, thou that must
    conduct her. And art resolved, I dare lay my head to a turnip, to do
    thy utmost endeavour to despoil Corinius of that felicity he hath
    to-night decreed him, and bless thyself therewith.”</p>

  <p>“Thou hast fallen,” answered Heming, “into a most barbarous thought.
    Shall my tongue be so false a traitor to mine heart as to say I love
    not this lady? Compare but her beauty and my youth together, how should
    it other be? But with such a height of fervour I do love her that I’d
    as lief offer violence to a star of heaven, as require of her aught but
    honest.”</p>

  <p>Said Cargo, “What said the wise little boy to’s elder brother? ‘Sith
    thou’st gotten the cake, brother, I must e’en make shift with the
    crumbs.’ When you are gone, and all whisht and quiet, and I left here
    amid the waiting women, it shall go hard but I’ll teach ’em somewhat
    afore good-night.”</p>

  <p>Now opened the door of the inner chamber, and there stood before them
    the Lady Mevrian armed and helmed. She said, “’Tis no light matter to
    halt before a cripple. Think you this will pass i’ the dark, my lords?”</p>

  <p>They answered, ’twas beyond all commendation excellent.</p>

  <p>“I’ll thank thee now, Prince Cargo,” said she, stretching<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">306</span> out her
    hand. He bowed and kissed it in silence. “This harness,” she said,
    “shall be a keepsake unto me of a noble enemy. Would someday I might
    call thee friend, for suchwise hast thou borne thee this night.”</p>

  <p>Therewith, bidding young Cargo adieu, she with his brother went forth
    from the chamber and through the ante-chamber to that shadowy stairway
    where Corinius’s soldiers stood sentinel. These (as many more be
    drowned in the beaker than in the ocean), not over-heedful after their
    tipplings, seeing two go by together with clanking armour and knowing
    Heming’s voice when he answered the challenge, made no question but
    here were Corund’s sons returning to the banquet.</p>

  <p>So passed he and she lightly by the sentinels. But as they fared by
    the lofty corridor without the Chamber of the Moon, the doors of that
    chamber opening suddenly left and right there came forth torch-bearers
    and minstrels two by two as in a progress, with cymbals clashing and
    flutes and tambourines, so that the corridor was fulfilled with the
    flare of flamboys and the din. In the midst walked the Lord Corinius.
    The lusty blood within him burned scarlet in all his shining face, and
    made stand the veins like cords on the strong neck and arms and hands
    of him. The thick curls above his brow where they strayed below his
    coronal of sleeping nightshade were a-drip with sweat. Plain it was he
    was in no good trim, after that shrewd knock on the head Astar that day
    had given him, to withstand deep quaffings. He went between Gro and
    Laxus, swaying heavily now on the arm of this one now of the other, his
    right hand beating time to the music of the bridal song.</p>

  <p>Mevrian whispered to Heming, “Let us bear out a good face so long as we
    be alive.”</p>

  <p>They stood aside, hoping to be passed by unnoticed, for retreat nor
    concealment was there none. But Corinius his eye lighting on them
    stopped and hailed them, catching them each by an arm, and crying,
    “Heming, thou’rt drunk! Cargo, thou’rt drunk, sweet youth! ’Tis a
    damnable folly, drink as drunk as you be, and these bonny wenches
    I’ve provided you. How shall I satisfy ’em, think ye, when they come
    to me with their plaints to-morn, that each must sit with a snoring
    drunkard’s head in her lap the night long?”</p>

  <p>Mevrian, as if she had all her part by rote, was leaned this while
    heavily upon Heming, hanging her head.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">307</span></p>

  <p>Heming could think on nought likelier to say, than, “Truly, O Corinius,
    we be sober.”</p>

  <p>“Thou liest,” said Corinius. “’Twas ever sign manifest of drunkenness
    to deny it. Look you, my lords, I deny not I am drunk. Therefore is
    sign manifest I am drunk, I mean, sign manifest I am sober. But the
    hour calleth to other work than questioning of these high matters. Set
    on!”</p>

  <p>So speaking he reeled heavily against Gro, and (as if moved by some
    airy influence that, whispering him of schemings afoot, yet conspired
    with the wine that he had drunken to make him look all otherwhere for
    treason than where it lay under his hand to discover it) gripped Gro by
    the arm, saying, “Bide by me, Goblin, thou wert best. I do love thee
    very discreetly, and will still hold thee by the ears, to see thou bite
    me not, nor go no more a-gadding.”</p>

  <p>Being by such happy fortune delivered out of this peril, Heming and
    Mevrian with what prudent haste they might, and without mishap or
    hindrance, got them their horses and fared forth of the main gate
    between the marble hippogriffs, whose mighty forms shone above them
    stark in the low beams of the rising moon. So they rode silently
    through the gardens and the home-meads and thence to the wild woods
    beyond, quickening now their pace to a gallop on the yielding turf. So
    hard they rode, the air of the windless April night was lashed into
    storm about their faces. The trample and thunder of hoof-beats and the
    flying glimpses of the trees were to young Heming but an undertone to
    the thunder of his blood which night and speed and that lady galloping
    beside him knee to knee set a-gallop within him. But to Mevrian’s soul,
    as she galloped along those woodland rides, those moonlight glades,
    these things and night and the steadfast stars attuned a heavenlier
    music; so that she waxed momently wondrous peaceful at heart, as with
    the most firm assurance that not without the abiding glory of Demonland
    must the great mutations of the world be acted, and but for a little
    should their evil-willers usurp her dear brother’s seat in Krothering.</p>

  <p>They drew rein in a clearing beside a broad stretch of water.
    Pine-woods rose from its further edge, shadowy in the moonshine.
    Mevrian rode to a little eminence that stood above the water and turned
    her eyes toward Krothering. Save by her instructed and loving eye
    scarce might it be seen, many<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">308</span> miles away be-east of them, dimmed in
    the obscure soft radiance under the moon. So sat she awhile looking on
    golden Krothering, while her horse grazed quietly, and Heming at her
    elbow held his peace, only beholding her.</p>

  <p>At last, looking back and meeting his gaze, “Prince Heming,” she said,
    “from this place goeth a hidden path north-about beside the firth, and
    a dry road over the marsh, and a ford and an upland horse-way leadeth
    into Westmark. Here and all-wheres in Demonland I might fare blindfold.
    And here I’ll say farewell. My tongue is a poor orator. But I mind me
    of the words of the poet where he saith:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">My mind is like to the asbeston stone,</div>
        <div class="i0">Which if it once be heat in flames of fire,</div>
        <div class="i0">Denieth to becomen cold again.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p class="noindent">Be the latter issue of these wars in my great
    kinsmen’s victory, as I most firmly trow it shall be, or in Gorice’s
    his, I shall not forget this experiment of your nobility manifested
    unto me this night.”</p>

  <p>But Heming, still beholding her, answered not a word.</p>

  <p>She said, “How fares the Queen thy step-mother? Seven summers ago this
    summer I was in Norvasp at Lord Corund’s wedding feast, and stood by
    her at the bridal. Is she yet so fair?”</p>

  <p>He answered, “Madam, as June bringeth the golden rose unto perfection,
    so waxeth her beauty with the years.”</p>

  <p>“She and I,” said Mevrian, “were playmates, she the elder by two
    summers. Is she yet so masterful?”</p>

  <p>“Madam, she is a Queen,” said Heming, nailing his very eyes on Mevrian.
    Her face half turned towards him, sweet mouth half closed, clear eyes
    uplifted toward the east, showed dim in the glamour of the moon, and
    the lilt of her body was as a lily fallen a-dreaming beside some
    enchanted lake at midnight. With a dry throat he said, “Lady, until
    to-night I had not supposed there lived on earth a woman more beautiful
    than she.”</p>

  <p>Therewith the love that was in him went like a wind and like an
    up-swooping darkness athwart his brain. As one who has too long,
    unbold, unresolved, delayed to lift that door’s latch which must open
    on his heart’s true home, he caught his arms about her. Her cheek was
    soft to his kiss, but deadly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">309</span> cold: her eyes like a wild bird’s caught
    in a purse-net. His brother’s armour that cased her body was not so
    dead nor so hard under his hand, as to his love that yielding cheek,
    that alien look. He said, as one a-stagger for his wits in the presence
    of some unlooked-for chance, “Thou dost not love me?”</p>

  <p>Mevrian shook her head, putting him gently away.</p>

  <p>Like the passing of a fire on a dry heath in summer the flame of his
    passion was passed by, leaving but a smouldering desolation of scornful
    sullen wrath: wrath at himself and fate.</p>

  <p>He said, in a low shamed voice, “I pray you forgive me, madam.”</p>

  <p>Mevrian said, “Prince, the Gods give thee good-night. Be kind to
    Krothering. I have left there an evil steward.”</p>

  <p>So saying, she reined up her horse’s head and turned down westward
    towards the firth. Heming watched her an instant, his brain a-reel.
    Then, striking spurs to his horse’s flanks so that the horse reared and
    plunged, he rode away at a great pace east again through the woods to
    Krothering.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_pegasus.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">310</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="LORD_GRO_AND_THE_LADY_MEVRIAN">XXV: LORD GRO AND THE LADY MEVRIAN</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    HOW THE LORD GRO, CONDUCTED BY A STRANGE ENAMOURMENT WITH LOST CAUSES,
    FARED WITH NONE SAVE THIS TO BE HIS GUIDE INTO THE REGIONS OF
    NEVERDALE, AND THERE BEHELD WONDERS, AND TASTED AGAIN FOR A SEASON
    THE GOODNESS OF THOSE THINGS HE DID MOST DESIRE.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">NINETY days and a day after these doings aforesaid, in the last hour
    before the dawn, was the Lord Gro a-riding toward the paling east down
    from the hills of Eastmark to the fords of Mardardale. At a walking
    pace his horse came down to the water-side, and halted with fetlocks
    awash: his flanks were wet and his wind gone, as from swift faring on
    the open fell since midnight. He stretched down his neck, sniffed the
    fresh river-water, and drank. Gro turned in the saddle, listening, his
    left hand thrown forward to slack the reins, his right flat-planted on
    the crupper. But nought there was to hear save the babble of waters in
    the shallows, the sucking noise of the horse drinking, and the plash
    and crunch of his hooves when he shifted feet among the pebbles. Before
    and behind and on either hand the woods and strath and circling hills
    showed dim in the obscure gray betwixt darkness and twilight. A light
    mist hid the stars. Nought stirred save an owl that flitted like a
    phantom out from a holly-bush in a craggy bluff a bow-shot or more down
    stream, crossing Gro’s path and lighting on a branch of a dead tree
    above him on the left, where she sat as if to observe the goings of
    this man and horse that trespassed in this valley of quiet night.</p>

  <p>Gro leaned forward to pat his horse’s neck. “Come, gossip, we must on,”
    he said; “and marvel not if thou find<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">311</span> no rest, going with me which
    could never find any steadfast stay under the moon’s globe.” So they
    forded that river, and fared through low rough grass-lands beyond, and
    by the skirts of a wood up to an open heath, and so a mile or two,
    still eastward, till they turned to the right down a broad valley and
    crossed a river above a watersmeet, and so east again up the bed of
    a stony stream and over this to a rough mountain track that crossed
    some boggy ground and then climbed higher and higher above the floor
    of the narrowing valley to a pass between the hills. At length the
    slope slackened, and they passing, as through a gateway, between two
    high mountains which impended sheer and stark on either hand, came
    forth upon a moor of ling and bog-myrtle, strewn with lakelets and
    abounding in streams and moss-hags and outcrops of the living rock; and
    the mountain peaks afar stood round that moorland waste like warrior
    kings. Now was colour waking in the eastern heavens, the bright shining
    morning beginning to clear the earth. Conies scurried to cover before
    the horse’s feet: small birds flew up from the heather: some red deer
    stood at gaze in the fern, then tripped away southward: a moorcock
    called.</p>

  <p>Gro said in himself, “How shall not common opinion account me mad,
    so rash and presumptuous dangerously to put my life in hazard? Nay,
    against all sound judgement; and this folly I enact in that very
    season when by patience and courage and my politic wisdom I had won
    that in despite of fortune’s teeth which obstinately hitherto she
    had denied me: when after the brunts of divers tragical fortunes I
    had marvellously gained the favour and grace of the King, who very
    honourably placed me in his court, and tendereth me, I well think, so
    dearly as he doth the balls of his two eyes.”</p>

  <p>He put off his helm, baring his white forehead and smooth black curling
    locks to the airs of morning, flinging back his head to drink deep
    through his nostrils the sweet strong air and its peaty smell. “Yet
    is common opinion the fool, not I,” he said. “He that imagineth after
    his labours to attain unto lasting joy, as well may he beat water in
    a mortar. Is there not in the wild benefit of nature instances enow
    to laugh this folly out of fashion? A fable of great men that arise
    and conquer the nations: Day goeth up against the tyrant night. How
    delicate a spirit is she, how like a fawn she footeth it upon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">312</span> the
    mountains: pale pitiful light matched with the primaeval dark. But
    every sweet hovers in her battalions, and every heavenly influence:
    coolth of the wayward little winds of morning, flowers awakening,
    birds a-carol, dews a-sparkle on the fine-drawn webs the tiny spinners
    hang from fern-frond to thorn, from thorn to wet dainty leaf of the
    silver birch; the young day laughing in her strength, wild with her own
    beauty; fire and life and every scent and colour born anew to triumph
    over chaos and slow darkness and the kinless night.</p>

  <p>“But because day at her dawning hours hath so bewitched me, must I yet
    love her when glutted with triumph she settles to garish noon? Rather
    turn as now I turn to Demonland, in the sad sunset of her pride. And
    who dares call me turncoat, who do but follow now as I have followed
    this rare wisdom all my days: to love the sunrise and the sundown and
    the morning and the evening star? since there only abideth the soul of
    nobility, true love, and wonder, and the glory of hope and fear.”</p>

  <p>So brooding he rode at an easy pace bearing east and a little north
    across the moor, falling because of the strange harmony that was
    between outward things and the inward thoughts of his heart into a deep
    study. So came he to the moor’s end, and entered among the skirts of
    the mountains beyond, crossing low passes, threading a way among woods
    and water-courses, up and down, about and about. The horse led him
    which way that he would, for no heed nor advice had he of aught about
    him, for cause of the deep contemplation that he had within himself.</p>

  <p>It was now high noon. The horse and his rider were come to a little
    dell of green grass with a beck winding in the midst with cool water
    flowing over a bed of shingle. About the dell grew many trees both tall
    and straight. Above the trees high mountain crags a-bake in the sun
    showed ethereal through the shimmering heat. A murmur of waters, a hum
    of tiny wings flitting from flower to flower, the sound of the horse
    grazing on the lush pasture: there was nought else to hear. Not a leaf
    moved, not a bird. The hush of the summer noon-day, breathless, burnt
    through with the sun, more awful than any shape of night, paused above
    that lonely dell.</p>

  <p>Gro, as if waked by the very silence, looked quickly about<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">313</span> him. The
    horse felt belike in his bones his rider’s unease; he gave over his
    feeding and stood alert with wild eye and quivering flanks. Gro patted
    and made much of him; then, guided by some inward prompting the reason
    whereof he knew not, turned west by a small tributary beck and rode
    softly toward the wood. Here he was stopped with a number of trees
    so thickly placed together that he was afraid he should with riding
    through be swept from the saddle. So he lighted down, tied his horse
    to an oak, and climbed the bed of the little stream till he was come
    whence he might look north over the tree-tops to a green terrace about
    at a level with him and some fifty paces distant along the hillside,
    shielded from the north by three or four great rowan trees on the far
    side of it, and on the terrace a little tarn or rock cistern of fair
    water very cool and deep.</p>

  <p>He paused, steadying himself with his left hand by a jutting rock
    overgrown with rose-campion. Surely no children of men were these,
    footing it on that secret lawn beside that fountain’s brink, nor no
    creatures of mortal kind. Such it may be were the goats and kids and
    soft-eyed does that on their hind-legs merrily danced among them;
    but never such those others of manly shape and with pointed hairy
    ears, shaggy legs, and cloven hooves, nor those maidens white of limb
    beneath the tread of whose feet the blue gentian and the little golden
    cinquefoil bent not their blossoms, so airy-light was their dancing.
    To make them music, little goat-footed children with long pointed ears
    sat on a hummock of turf-clad rock piping on pan-pipes, their bodies
    burnt to the hue of red earth by the wind and the sun. But, whether
    because their music was too fine for mortal ears, or for some other
    reason, Gro might hear no sound of that piping. The heavy silence of
    the waste white noon was lord of the scene, while the mountain nymphs
    and the simple genii of sedge and stream and crag and moorland solitude
    threaded the mazes of the dance.</p>

  <p>The Lord Gro stood still in great admiration, saying in himself, “What
    means my drowsy head to dream such fancies? Spirits of ill have I
    heretofore beheld in their manifestations; I have seen fantasticoes
    framed and presented by art magic; I have dreamed strange dreams
    a-nights. But till this hour I did account it an idle tale of poets’
    faining, that amid woods, forests, fertile fields, sea-coasts, shores
    of great rivers and fountain brinks, and also upon the tops of huge
    and high<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">314</span> mountains, do still appear unto certain favoured eyes the
    sundry-sorted nymphs and fieldish demigods. Which thing if I now
    verily behold, ’tis a great marvel, and sorteth well with the strange
    allurements whereby this oppressed land hath so lately found a means
    to govern mine affections.” And he thought awhile, reasoning thus in
    his mind: “If this be but an apparition, it hath no essence to do me
    a hurt. If o’ the contrary these be very essential beings, needs must
    they joyfully welcome me and use me well, being themselves the true
    vital spirits of many-mountained Demonland; unto whose comfort and the
    restorement of her old renown and praise I have with such a strange
    determination bent all my painful thoughts and resolution.”</p>

  <p>So on the motion he discovered himself and hailed them. The wild things
    bounded away and were lost among the flanks of the hill. The capripeds,
    leaving on the instant their piping or their dancing, crouched watching
    him with distrustful startled eyes. Only the Oreads still in a dazzling
    drift pursued their round: quiet maiden mouths, beautiful breasts,
    slender lithe limbs, hand joined to delicate hand, parting and closing
    and parting again, in rhythms of unstaled variety; here one that,
    with white arms clasped behind her head where her braided hair was
    as burnished gold, circled and swayed with a languorous motion; here
    another, that leaped and paused hovering a-tiptoe, like an arrow of the
    sun shot through the leafy roof of an old pine-forest when the warm
    hill-wind stirs the tree-tops and opens a tiny window to the sky.</p>

  <p>Gro went toward them along the grassy hillside. When he was come a
    dozen paces the strength was gone from his limbs. He kneeled down
    crying out and saying, “Divinities of earth! deny me not, neither
    reject me, albeit cruelly have I till now oppressed your land, but will
    do so no more. The footsteps of mine overtrodden virtue lie still as
    bitter accusations unto me. Bring me of your mercy where I may find out
    them that possessed this land and offer them atonement, who were driven
    forth because of me and mine to be outlaws in the woods and mountains.”</p>

  <p>So spake he, bowing his head in sorrow. And he heard, like the
    trembling of a silver lute-string, a voice in the air that cried:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">North ’tis and north ’tis!</div>
        <div class="i0">Why need we further?</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">315</span></p>
  <p>He raised his eyes. The vision was gone. Only the noon and the
    woodland, silent, solitary, dazzling, were about and above him.</p>

  <p>Lord Gro came now to his horse again, and mounted and rode northaway
    through the fells all that summer afternoon, full of cloudy fancies.
    When it was eventide his way was high up along the steep side of
    a mountain between the screes and the grass, following a little
    path made by the wild sheep. Far beneath in the valley was a small
    river tortuously flowing along a bouldery bed amid hillocks of old
    moraines which were like waves of a sea of grass-clad earth. The
    July sun wheeled low, flinging the shadows of the hills far up the
    westward-facing slopes where Gro was a-riding, but where he rode and
    above him the hillside was yet aglow with the warm low sunshine; and
    the distant peak that shut in the head of the valley, rearing his huge
    front like the gable of a house, with sweeping ribs of bare rock and
    scree and a crest of crag like a great breaker frozen to stone in mid
    career, bathed yet in a radiance of opalescent light.</p>

  <p>Turning the shoulder of the hillside at a place where the hill was
    cut by a shallow gully, he saw before him a hollow or sheltered nook.
    There, protected by the great body of the hill from the blasts of the
    east and north, two rowan trees and some hollies grew in the clefts
    of the rock above the watercourse. Under their shadow was a cave,
    not large but so big as a man might well abide in and be dry in wild
    weather, and beyond it on the right a little waterfall, so beautiful
    it was a wonder to behold. This was the fashion of it: a slab of rock,
    twice a man’s height, tilted a little forward from the hill, so that
    the water fell clear from its upper edge in a thin stream into a rocky
    basin. The water in the basin was clear and deep, but a-churn always
    with bubbles from the plunging jet from above; and over all the rocks
    about it grew mosses and lichens and little water-flowers, nourished by
    the stream at root and refreshed by the spray.</p>

  <p>The Lord Gro said in his heart, “Here would I dwell for ever had I but
    the art to make myself little as an eft. And I would build me an house
    a span high beside yonder cushion of moss emerald-hued, with those pink
    foxgloves to shade my door which balance their bells above the foaming
    waters. This shy grass of Parnassus should be my drinking cup, with
    pure white chalice poised on a hair-thin stem; and the curtains of my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">316</span>
    bed that little thirsty sandwort which, like a green heaven sown with
    milk-white stars, curtains the shady sides of these rocks.”</p>

  <p>Resting in this imagination he abode long time looking on that fairy
    place, so secretly bestowed in the fold of the naked mountain. Then,
    unwilling to depart from so fair a spot, and bethinking him, besides,
    that after so many hours his horse was weary, he dismounted and lay
    down beside the stream. And in a short while, having his spirits
    sublimed with the sweet imagination of those wonders he had beheld, he
    was fain to suffer the long dark lashes to droop over his large and
    liquid eyes. And deep sleep overcame him.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>When he awoke, all the sky was afire with the red of sunset. A shadow
    was betwixt him and the western light: the shape of one bending over
    him and saying in masterful wise, yet in accents wherein the echoes
    and memories of all sweet sounds seemed mingled and laid up at rest
    for ever, “Lie still, my lord, nor cry not a rescue. Behold, thine own
    sword; and I took it from thee sleeping.” And he was ware of a sharp
    sword pointed against his throat where the big veins lie beneath the
    tongue.</p>

  <p>He stirred not at all, neither spake aught, only looking up at her as
    at some vision of delight strayed from the fugitive flock of dreams.</p>

  <p>The lady said, “Where be thy company? And how many? Answer me swiftly.”</p>

  <p>He answered her like a dreamer, “How shall I answer thee? How shall I
    number them that be beyond all count? Or how name unto your grace their
    habitation which are even very now closer to me than hand or feet, yet
    o’ the next instant are able to transcend a main wider belike than even
    a starbeam hath journeyed o’er?”</p>

  <p>She said, “Riddle me no riddles. Answer me, thou wert best.”</p>

  <p>“Madam,” said Gro, “these that I told thee of be the company of mine
    own silent thoughts. And, but for mine horse, this is all the company
    that came hither with me.”</p>

  <p>“Alone?” said she. “And sleep so securely in thine enemies’ country?
    That showed a strange confidence.”</p>

  <p>“Not enemies, if I may,” said he.</p>

  <p>But she cried, “And thou Lord Gro of Witchland?”</p>

  <p>“That one sickened long since,” he answered, “of a mortal sickness; and
    ’tis now a day and a night since he is dead thereof.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">317</span></p>

  <p>“What art thou, then?” said she.</p>

  <p>He answered, “If your grace would so receive me, Lord Gro of Demonland.”</p>

  <p>“A very practised turncoat,” said she. “Belike they also are wearied
    of thee and thy ways. Alas,” she said in an altered voice, “thy gentle
    pardon! when doubtless it was for thy generous deeds to me-ward they
    fell out with thee, when thou didst so nobly befriend me.”</p>

  <p>“I will tell your highness,” answered he, “the pure truth. Never stood
    matters better ’twixt me and all of them than when yesternight I
    resolved to leave them.”</p>

  <p>The Lady Mevrian was silent, a cloud in her face. Then, “I am alone,”
    she said. “Therefore think it not little-hearted in me, nor forgetful
    of past benefits, if I will be further certified of thee ere I suffer
    thee to rise. Swear to me thou wilt not betray me.”</p>

  <p>But Gro said, “How should an oath from me avail thee, madam? Oaths bind
    not an ill man. Were I minded to do thee wrong, lightly should I swear
    thee all oaths thou mightest require, and lightly o’ the next instant
    be forsworn.”</p>

  <p>“That is not well said,” said Mevrian. “Nor helpeth not thy safety. You
    men do say that women’s hearts be faint and feeble, but I shall show
    thee the contrary is in me. Study to satisfy me. Else will I assuredly
    smite thee to death with thine own sword.”</p>

  <p>The Lord Gro lay back, clasping his slender hands behind his head.
    “Stand, I pray thee,” said he, “o’ the other side of me, that I may see
    thy face.”</p>

  <p>She did so, still threatening him with the sword. And he said smiling,
    “Divine lady, all my days have I had danger for my bedfellow, and
    peril of death for my familiar friend; whilom leading a delicate life
    in princely court, where murther sitteth in the wine-cup and in the
    alcove; whilom journeying alone in more perilous lands than this,
    as witness the Moruna, where the country is full of venomous beasts
    and crawling poisoned serpents, and the divels be as abundant there
    as grasshoppers on a hot hillside in summer. He that feareth is a
    slave, were he never so rich, were he never so powerful. But he that
    is without fear is king of all the world. Thou hast my sword. Strike.
    Death shall be a sweet rest to me. Thraldom, not death, should terrify
    me.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">318</span></p>

  <p>She paused awhile, then said unto him, “My Lord Gro, thou didst do me
    once a right great good turn. Surely I may build my safety on this,
    that never yet did kite bring forth a good flying hawk.” She shifted
    her hold on his sword, and very prettily gave it him hilt-foremost,
    saying, “I give it thee back, my lord, nothing doubting that that which
    was given in honour thou wilt honourably use.”</p>

  <p>But he, rising up, said, “Madam, this and thy noble words hath given
    such rootfastness to the pact of faith betwixt us that it may now
    unfold what blossom of oaths thou wilt; for oaths are the blossom of
    friendship, not the root. And thou shalt find me a true holder of my
    vowed amity unto thee without spot or wrinkle.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>For sundry nights and days abode Gro and Mevrian in that place, hunting
    at whiles to get their sustenance, drinking of the sweet spring-water,
    sleeping a-nights she in her cave beneath the holly bushes and the
    rowans beside the waterfall, he in a cleft of the rocks a little below
    in the gully, where the moss made cushions soft and resilient as the
    great stuffed beds in Carcë. In those days she told him of her farings
    since that night of April when she escaped out of Krothering: how
    first she found harbourage at By in Westmark, but hearing in a day or
    two of a hue and cry fled east again, and sojourning awhile beside
    Throwater came at length about a month ago upon this cave beside the
    little fountain, and here abode. Her mind had been to win over the
    mountains to Galing, but she had after the first attempt given over
    that design, for fear of companies of the enemy whose hands she barely
    escaped when she came forth into the lower valleys that open on the
    eastern coast-lands. So she had turned again to this hiding place in
    the hills, as secret and remote as any in Demonland. For this dale she
    let him know was Neverdale, where no road ran save the way of the deer
    and the mountain goats, and no garth opened on that dale, and the reek
    of no man’s hearthstone burdened the winds that blew thither. And that
    gable-crested peak at the head of the dale was the southernmost of
    the Forks of Nantreganon, nursery of the vulture and the eagle. And a
    hidden way was round the right shoulder of that peak, over the toothed
    ridge by Neverdale Hause to the upper waters of Tivarandardale.</p>

  <p>On an afternoon of sultry summer heat it so befell that they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">319</span> rested
    below the hause on a bastion of rock that jutted from the south-western
    slope. Beneath their feet precipices fell suddenly away from a giddy
    verge, sweeping round in a grand cirque above which the mountain rose
    like some Tartarian fortress, ponderous, cruel as the sea and sad,
    scarred and gashed with great lines of cleavage as though the face of
    the mountain had been slashed away by the axe-stroke of a giant. In the
    depths the waters of Dule Tarn slept placid and fathomless.</p>

  <p>Gro was stretched on the brink of the cliff, face downward, propped
    on his two elbows, studying those dark waters. “Surely,” he said,
    “the great mountains of the world are a present remedy if men did but
    know it against our modern discontent and ambitions. In the hills is
    wisdom’s fount. They are deep in time. They know the ways of the sun
    and the wind, the lightning’s fiery feet, the frost that shattereth,
    the rain that shroudeth, the snow that putteth about their nakedness
    a softer coverlet than fine lawn: which if their large philosophy
    question not if it be a bridal sheet or a shroud, hath not this
    unpolicied calm his justification ever in the returning year, and is it
    not an instance to laugh our carefulness out of fashion? of us, little
    children of the dust, children of a day, who with so many burdens do
    burden us with taking thought and with fears and desires and devious
    schemings of the mind, so that we wax old before our time and fall
    weary ere the brief day be spent and one reaping-hook gather us home at
    last for all our pains.”</p>

  <p>He looked up and she met the gaze of his great eyes; deep pools of
    night they seemed, where strange matters might move unseen, disturbing
    to look on, yet filled with a soft slumbrous charm that lulled and
    soothed.</p>

  <p>“Thou’st fallen a-dreaming, my lord,” said Mevrian. “And for me ’tis a
    hard thing to walk with thee in thy dreams, who am awake in the broad
    daylight and would be a-doing.”</p>

  <p>“Certes it is an ill thing,” said Lord Gro, “that thou, who hast not
    been nourished in mendicity or poverty but in superfluity of honour and
    largesse, shouldst be made fugitive in thine own dominions, to lodge
    with foxes and beasts of the wild mountain.”</p>

  <p>Said she, “It is yet a sweeter lodging than is to-day in Krothering.
    It is therefore I chafe to do somewhat. To win through to Galing, that
    were something.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">320</span></p>

  <p>“What profit is in Galing,” said Gro, “without Lord Juss?”</p>

  <p>She answered, “Thou wilt tell me it is even as Krothering without my
    brother.”</p>

  <p>Looking sidelong up at her, where she sat armed beside him, he beheld a
    tear a-tremble on her eyelid. He said gently, “Who shall foreknow the
    ways of Fate? Your highness is better here belike.”</p>

  <p>Lady Mevrian stood up. She pointed to a print in the living rock before
    her feet. “The hippogriff’s hoofmark!” she cried, “stricken in the
    rock ages ago by that high bird which presideth from of old over the
    predestined glory of our line, to point us on to a fame advanced above
    the region of the glittering stars. True is the word that that land
    which is in the governance of a woman only is not surely kept. I will
    abide idly here no more.”</p>

  <p>Gro, beholding her so stand all armed on that high brink of crag,
    setting with so much perfection in womanly beauty manlike valour,
    bethought him that here was that true embodiment of morn and eve, that
    charm which called him from Krothering, and for which the prophetic
    spirits of mountain and wood and field had pointed his path with a
    heavenly benison, meaning to bid him go northward to his heart’s
    true home. He kneeled down and caught her hand in his, embracing and
    kissing it as of her in whom all his hopes were placed, and saying
    passionately, “Mevrian, Mevrian, let me but be armed in thy good grace
    and I defy whatever there is or can be against me. Even as the sun
    lighteth broad heaven at noon-day, and that giveth light unto this
    dreary earth, so art thou the true light of Demonland which because of
    thee maketh the whole world glorious. Welcome unto me be all miseries,
    so only unto thee I may be welcome.”</p>

  <p>She sprang back, snatching away her hand. Her sword leapt singing
    from the scabbard. But Gro, that was so ravished and abused that he
    remembered of nothing worldly but only that he beheld his lady’s face,
    abode motionless. She cried, “Back to back! Swift, or ’tis too late!”</p>

  <p>He leaped up, barely in time. Six stout fellows, soldiers of Witchland
    stolen softly upon them at unawares, closed now upon them. No breath to
    waste in parley, but the clank of steel: he and Mevrian back to back
    on a table of rock, those<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">321</span> six setting on from either side. “Kill the
    Goblin,” said they. “Take the lady unhurt: ’tis death to all if she be
    touched.”</p>

  <p>So for a time those two defended them of all their power. Yet at such
    odds could not the issue stand long in doubt, nor Gro’s high mettle
    make up what he lacked of strength bodily and skill in arms. Cunning of
    fence indeed was the Lady Mevrian, as they guessed not to their hurt;
    for the first of them, a great chuff-headed fellow that thought to bear
    her down with rushing in upon her, she with a deft thrust passing his
    guard ran clean through the throat; by whose taking off, his fellows
    took some lesson of caution. But Gro being at length brought to earth
    with many wounds, they had the next instant caught Mevrian from behind
    whiles others engaged her in the face, when in the nick of time as by
    the intervention of heaven was all their business taken in reverse, and
    all five in a moment laid bleeding on the stones beside their fellows.</p>

  <p>Mevrian, looking about and seeing what she saw, fell weak and faint in
    her brother’s arms, overcome with so much radiant joy after that stress
    of action and peril; beholding now with her own eyes that home-coming
    whereof the genii of that land had had foreknowledge and in Gro’s sight
    shown themselves wild with joy thereof: Brandoch Daha and Juss come
    home to Demonland, like men arisen from the dead.</p>

  <p>“Not touched,” she answered them. “But look to my Lord Gro: I fear he
    be hurt. Look to him well, for he hath approved him our friend indeed.”</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_flower.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">322</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_BATTLE_OF_KROTHERING_SIDE">XXVI: THE BATTLE OF KROTHERING SIDE</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    HOW WORD WAS BROUGHT UNTO THE LORD CORINIUS THAT THE LORDS JUSS AND
    BRANDOCH DAHA WERE COME AGAIN INTO THE LAND, AND HOW HE RESOLVED
    TO GIVE THEM BATTLE ON THE SIDE, UNDER ERNGATE END; AND OF THE
    GREAT FLANK MARCH OF LORD BRANDOCH DAHA OVER THE MOUNTAINS FROM
    TRANSDALE; AND OF THE GREAT BATTLE, AND OF THE ISSUE THEREOF.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">LAXUS and those sons of Corund walked on an afternoon in Krothering
    home mead. The sky above them was hot and coloured of lead, presaging
    thunder. No wind stirred in the trees that were livid-green against
    that leaden pall. The noise of mattock and crow-bar came without
    intermission from the castle. Where gardens had been and arbours of
    shade and sweetness, was now but wreck: broken columns and smashed
    porphyry vases of rare workmanship, mounds of earth and rotting
    vegetation. And those great cedars, emblems of their lord’s estate and
    pride, lay prostrate now with their roots exposed, a tangle of sere
    foliage and branches broken, withered and lifeless. Over this death-bed
    of ruined loveliness the towers of onyx showed ghastly against the sky.</p>

  <p>“Is there not a virtue in seven?” said Cargo. “Last week was the sixth
    time we thought we had gotten the eel by the tail in yon fly-blown
    hills of Mealand and came empty home. When think’st, Laxus, shall’s run
    ’em to earth indeed?”</p>

  <p>“When egg-pies shall grow on apple-trees,” answered Laxus. “Nay, the
    general setteth greater store by his proclamations concerning the young
    woman (who likely never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">323</span> heareth of them, and assuredly will not be by
    them ’ticed home again), and by these toys of revenge, than by sound
    soldiership. Hark! there goeth this day’s work.”</p>

  <p>They turned at a shout from the gates, to behold the northern of those
    two golden hippogriffs totter and crash down the steeps into the moat,
    sending up a great smoke from the stones and rubble which poured in its
    wake.</p>

  <p>Lord Laxus’s brow was dark. He laid hand on Heming’s arm, saying, “The
    times need all sage counsel we can reach unto, O ye sons of Corund, if
    our Lord the King shall have indeed from this expedition into Demonland
    the victory at last of all his evil-willers. Remember, that was a great
    miss to our strength when the Goblin went.”</p>

  <p>“Out upon the viper!” said Cargo. “Corinius was right in this, not to
    warrant him the honesty of such slippery cattle. He had not served
    above a month or two, but that he ran to the enemy.”</p>

  <p>“Corinius,” said Laxus, “is yet but green in his estate. Doth he
    suppose the rest of his reign shall be but play and the enjoying of
    a kingdom? Those left-handed strokes of fortune may yet o’erthrow
    him, the while that he streameth out his youth in wine and venery and
    manageth his private spite against this lady. Slipper youth must be
    under-propped with elder counsel, lest all go miss.”</p>

  <p>“A most reverend old counsellor art thou!” said Cargo; “of
    six-and-thirty years of age.”</p>

  <p>Said Heming, “We be three. Take command thyself. I and my brother will
    back thee.”</p>

  <p>“I will that thou swallow back those words,” said Laxus, “as though
    they had never been spoke. Remember Corsus and Gallandus. Besides,
    albeit he seemeth now rather to be a man straught than one that hath
    his wits, yet is Corinius in his sober self a valiant and puissant
    soldier, a politic and provident captain as is not found besides in
    Demonland, no, nor in Witchland neither, and it were not your noble
    father; and this one in his youthly age.”</p>

  <p>“That is true,” said Heming. “Thou hast justly reproved me.”</p>

  <p>Now while they were a-talking, came one from the castle and made
    obeisance unto Laxus saying, “You are inquired for, O king, so please
    you to walk into the north chamber.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">324</span></p>

  <p>Said Laxus, “Is it he that was newly ridden from the east country?”</p>

  <p>“So it is, so please you,” with a low leg he made answer.</p>

  <p>“Hath he not had audience with King Corinius?”</p>

  <p>“He hath sought audience,” said the man, “but was denied. The matter
    presseth, and he urged me therefore seek unto your lordship.”</p>

  <p>As they walked toward the castle Heming said in Laxus’s ear, “Knowest
    thou not this brave new piece of court ceremony? O’ these days, when
    he hath ’stroyed an hostage to spite the Lady Mevrian, as to-day was
    ’stroyed the horse-headed eagle, he giveth not audience till sun-down.
    For, the deed of vengeance done, a retireth himself to his own chamber
    and a wench with him, the daintiest and gamesomest he may procure;
    and so, for two hours or three drowned in the main sea of his own
    pleasures, he abateth some little deal for a season the pang of love.”</p>

  <p>Now when Laxus was come forth from talking with the messenger from the
    east, he fared without delay to Corinius’s chamber. There, thrusting
    aside the guards, he flung wide the shining doors, and found the Lord
    Corinius merrily disposed. He was reclined on a couch deep-cushioned
    with dark green three-pile velvet. An ivory table inlaid with silver
    and ebony stood at his elbow bearing a crystal flagon already two parts
    emptied of the foaming wine, and a fair gold goblet beside it. He wore
    a long loose sleeveless gown of white silk edged with a gold fringe;
    this, fallen open at the neck, left naked his chest and one strong arm
    that in that moment when Laxus entered reached out to grasp the wine
    cup. Upon his knee he held a damosel of some seventeen years, fair and
    fresh as a rose, with whom he was plainly on the point to pass from
    friendly converse to amorous privacy. He looked angrily upon Laxus, who
    without ceremony spoke and said, “The whole east is in a tumult. The
    burg is forced which we built astride the Stile. Spitfire hath passed
    into Breakingdale to victual Galing, and hath overthrown our army that
    sat in siege thereof.”</p>

  <p>Corinius drank a draught and spat. “Phrut!” said he. “Much bruit,
    little fruit. I would know by what warrant thou troublest me with
    this tittle-tattle, and I pleasantly disposing myself to mirth and
    recreation. Could it not wait till supper time?”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">325</span></p>

  <p>Ere Laxus might say more, was a great clatter heard without on the
    stairs, and in came those sons of Corund.</p>

  <p>“Am I a king?” said Corinius, gathering his robe about him, “and shall
    I be forced? Avoid the chamber.” Then marking them stand silent with
    disordered looks, “What’s the matter?” he said. “Are ye ta’en with the
    swindle or the turn-sickness? Or are ye out of your wits?”</p>

  <p>Heming answered and said, “Not mad, my lord. Here’s Didarus that held
    the Stile-burg for us, ridden from the east as fast as his horse might
    wallop, and gotten here hard o’ the heels of the former messenger with
    fresh and more certain advertisement, fresher by four days than that
    one’s. I pray you hear him.”</p>

  <p>“I’ll hear him,” said Corinius, “at supper time. Nought sooner, if the
    roof were afire.”</p>

  <p>“The land beneath thy feet’s afire!” cried Heming. “Juss and Brandoch
    Daha home again, and half the country lost thee ere thou heard’st
    on’t. These devils are home again! Shall we hear that and still be
    swill-bowls?”</p>

  <p>Corinius listened with folded arms. His great jaw was lifted up. His
    nostrils widened. For a minute he abode in silence, his cold blue eyes
    fixed as it were on somewhat afar. Then, “Home again?” said he. “And
    the east in a hubbub? And not unlikely. Thank Didarus for his tidings.
    He shall sweeten mine ears with some more at supper. Till then, leave
    me, unless ye mean to be stretched.”</p>

  <p>But Laxus, with sad and serious brow, stood beside him and said, “My
    lord, forget not that you are here the vicar and legate of the King.
    Let the crown upon your head put perils in your thoughts, so as you may
    harken peaceably to them that are willing to lesson you with sound and
    sage advice. If we take order to-night to march by Switchwater, we may
    very well shut back this danger and stifle it ere it wax to too much
    bigness. If o’ the contrary we suffer them to enter into these western
    parts, like enough without let or stay they will overrun the whole
    country.”</p>

  <p>Corinius rolled his eye upon him. “Can nothing,” he said, “prescribe
    unto thee obedience? Look to thine own charge. Is the fleet in proper
    trim? For there’s the strength, ease, and anchor of our power, whether
    for victualling, or to shift our weight against ’em which way we
    choose, or to give<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">326</span> us sure asylum if it were come to that. What ails
    thee? Have we not these four months desired nought better than that
    these Demons should take heart to strike a field with us? If it be true
    that Juss himself and Brandoch Daha have thrown down the castles and
    strengths which I had i’ the east and move with an army against us, why
    then I have them in the forge already, and shall now bring them to the
    hammer. And be satisfied, I’ll choose mine own ground to fight them.”</p>

  <p>“There’s yet matter for haste in this,” said Laxus. “A day’s march, and
    we oppose ’em not, will bring them before Krothering.”</p>

  <p>“That,” answered Corinius, “jumpeth pat with mine own design. I’ll not
    go a league to bar their way, but receive ’em here where the ground
    lieth most favourable to meet an enemy. Which advantage I’ll employ to
    the greatest stretch of service, standing on Krothering Side, resting
    my flank against the mountain. The fleet shall ride in Aurwath haven.”</p>

  <p>Laxus stroked his beard and was silent a minute, considering this. Then
    he looked up and said, “This is sound generalship, I may not gainsay
    it.”</p>

  <p>“It is a purpose, my lord,” said Corinius, “I have long had in myself,
    stored by for the event. Let me alone, therefore, to do that my right
    is. There’s this good in it, too, as it befalleth: ’twill suffer that
    dive-dapper to behold his home again afore I kill him. A shall find it
    a sight for sore eyes, I think, after my tending on’t.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>The third day after these doings, the farmer at Holt stood in his porch
    that opened westward on Tivarandardale. An old man was he, crooked like
    a mountain thorn. But a bright black eye he had, and the hair curled
    crisp yet above his brow. It was late afternoon and the sky overcast.
    Tousle-haired sheep-dogs slept before the door. Swallows gathered in
    the sky. Near to him sat a damosel, dainty as a meadow-pipit, lithe as
    an antelope; and she was grinding grain in a hand-mill, singing the
    while:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i4">Grind, mill, grind,</div>
        <div class="i4">Corinius grinds us all;</div>
        <div class="i0">Kinging it in widowed Krothering.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">327</span></p>

  <p>The old man was furbishing a shield and morion-cap, and other tackle of
    war lay at his feet.</p>

  <p>“I wonder thou wilt still be busy with thy tackle, O my father,” said
    she, looking up from her singing and grinding. “If ill tide ill again
    what should an old man do but grieve and be silent?”</p>

  <p>“There shall be time for that hereafter,” said the old man. “But a
    little while is hand fain of blow.”</p>

  <p>“They’ll be for firing the roof-tree, likely, if they come back,” said
    she, still grinding.</p>

  <p>“Thou’rt a disobedient lass. If thou’dst but flit as I bade thee to the
    shiel-house up the dale, I’d force not a bean for their burnings.”</p>

  <p>“Let it burn,” said she, “if he be taken. What avail then for thee or
    for me to be a-tarrying? Thou that art an old man and full of good
    days, and I that will not be left so.”</p>

  <p>A great dog awoke beside her and shook himself, then drew near and laid
    his nose in her lap, looking up at her with kind solemn eyes.</p>

  <p>The old man said, “Thou’rt a disobedient lass, and but for thee, come
    sword, come fire, not a straw care I; knowing it shall be but a passing
    storm, now that my Lord is home again.”</p>

  <p>“They took the land from Lord Spitfire,” said she.</p>

  <p>“Ay, hinny,” said the old man, “and thou shalt see my Lord shall take
    it back again.”</p>

  <p>“Ay?” said she. And still she ground and still she sang:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Grind, mill, grind,</div>
        <div class="i0">Corinius grinds us all.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>After a time, “Hist!” said the old man, “was not that a horse-tread i’
    the lane? Get thee within-doors till I know if all be friendly.” And
    he stooped painfully to take up his weapon. Woefully it shook in his
    feeble hand.</p>

  <p>But she, as one that knew the step, heeding nought else, leapt up with
    face first red then pale then flushed again, and ran to the gate of
    the garth. And the sheep-dogs bounded before her. There in the gate
    she was met with a young man riding a weary horse. He was garbed like
    a soldier, and horse and man were so bedraggled with mire and dust and
    all manner of defilement they were a sorry sight to see, and so jaded
    both<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">328</span> that scarce it seemed they had might to journey another furlong.
    They halted within the gate, and all those dogs jumped up upon them,
    whining and barking for joy.</p>

  <p>Ere the soldier was well down from the saddle he had a sweet armful.
    “Softly, my heart,” said he, “my shoulder’s somewhat raw. Nay, ’tis
    nought to speak on. I’ve brought thee all my limbs home.”</p>

  <p>“Was there a battle?” said the old man.</p>

  <p>“Was there a battle, father?” cried he. “I’ll tell thee, Krothering
    Side is thicker with dead men slain than our garth with sheep i’ the
    shearing time.”</p>

  <p>“Alack and alack, ’tis a most horrid wound, dear,” said the girl. “Go
    in, and I’ll wash it and lay to it millefoil pounded with honey; ’tis
    most sovran against pain and loss of blood, and drieth up the lips of
    the wound and maketh whole thou’dst not credit how soon. Thou hast bled
    over-much, thou foolish one. And how couldst thou thrive without thy
    wife to tend thee?”</p>

  <p>The farmer put an arm about him, saying, “Was the field ours, lad?”</p>

  <p>“I’ll tell you all orderly, old man,” answered he, “but I must stable
    him first,” and the horse nuzzled his breast. “And ye must ballast me
    first. God shield us, ’tis not a tale for an empty man to tell.”</p>

  <p>“’Las, father,” said the damosel, “have we not one sweet sippet i’ the
    mouth, that we hold him here once more? And, sweet or sour, let him
    take his time to fetch us the next.”</p>

  <p>So they washed his hurt and laid kindly herbs thereto, and bound
    it with clean linen, and put fresh raiment upon him, and made him
    sit on the bench without the porch and gave him to eat and drink:
    cakes of barley meal and dark heather-honey, and rough white wine of
    Tivarandardale. The dogs lay close about him as if there was warmth
    there and safety whereas he was. His young wife held his hand in hers,
    as if that were enough if it should last for aye. And that old man,
    eating down his impatience like a schoolboy chafing for the bell,
    fingered his partisan with trembling hand.</p>

  <p>“Thou hadst the word I sent thee, father, after the fight below Galing?”</p>

  <p>“Ay. ’Twas good.”</p>

  <p>“There was a council held that night,” said the soldier.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">329</span> “All
    the great men together in the high hall in Galing, so as it was a
    heaven to see. I was one of their cupbearers, ’cause I’d killed the
    standard-bearer of the Witches, in that same battle below Galing.
    Methought ’twas no great thing I did; till after the battle, look
    you, my Lord’s self standing beside me; and saith he, ‘Arnod’ (ay, by
    my name, father), ‘Arnod,’ a saith, ‘thou’st done down the pennon o’
    Witchland that ’gainst our freedom streamed so proud. ’Tis thy like
    shall best stead Demonland i’ these dog-days,’ saith he. ‘Bear my cup
    to-night, for thine honour.’ I would, lass, thou’dst seen his eyes that
    tide. ’Tis a lord to put marrow in the sword-arm, our Lord.</p>

  <p>“They had forth the great map o’ the world, of this Demonland, to
    study their business. I was by, pouring the wine, and I heard their
    disputations. ’Tis a wondrous map wrought in crystal and bronze, most
    artificial, with waters a-glistering and mountains standing substantial
    to the touch. My Lord points with’s sword. ‘Here,’ a saith, ‘standeth
    Corinius, by all sure tellings, and budgeth not from Krothering. And,
    by the Gods,’ a saith, ‘’tis a wise disposition. For, mark, if we
    go by Gashterndale, as go we must to come at him, he striketh down
    on us as hammer on anvil. And if we will pass by toward the head of
    Thunderfirth,’ and here a pointeth it out with’s sword, ‘Down a cometh
    on our flank; and every-gate the land’s slope serveth his turn and
    fighteth against us.’</p>

  <p>“I mind me o’ those words,” said the young man, “’cause my Lord
    Brandoch Daha laughed and said, ‘Are we grown so strange by our
    travels, our own land fighteth o’ the opposite party? Let me study it
    again.’</p>

  <p>“I filled his cup. Dear Gods, but I’d fill him a bowl of mine own
    heart’s blood if he required it of me, after our times together,
    father. But more o’ that anon. The stoutest gentleman and captain
    without peer.</p>

  <p>“But Lord Spitfire, that was this while vaunting up and down the
    chamber, cried out and said, ‘’Twere folly to travel his road prepared
    us. Take him o’ that side he looketh least to see us: south through the
    mountains, and upon him in his rear up from Mardardale.’</p>

  <p>“‘Ah,’ saith my Lord, ‘and be pressed back into Murkdale Hags if
    we miss of our first spring. ’Tis too perilous. ’Tis worse than
    Gashterndale.’</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">330</span></p>

  <p>“So went it: a nay for every yea, and nought to please ’em. Till i’
    the end my Lord Brandoch Daha, that had been long time busy with the
    map, said: ‘Now that y’ have threshed the whole stack and found not the
    needle, I will show you my rede, ’cause ye shall not say I counselled
    you rashly.’</p>

  <p>“So they bade him say his rede. And he said unto my Lord, ‘Thou and
    our main power shall go by Switchwater Way. And let the whole land’s
    face blaze your coming before you. Ye shall lie to-morrow night in
    some good fighting-stead whither it shall not be to his vantage to
    move against you: haply in the old shielings above Wrenthwaite, or at
    any likely spot afore the road dippeth south into Gashterndale. But
    at point of day strike camp and go by Gashterndale and so up on to
    the Side to do battle with him. So shall all fall out even as his own
    hopes and expectations do desire it. But I,’ saith my Lord Brandoch
    Daha, ‘with seven hundred chosen horse, will have fared by then clean
    along the mountain ridge from Transdale even to Erngate End; so as when
    he turneth all his battle northward down the Side to whelm you, there
    shall hang above the security of his flank and rear that which he ne’er
    dreamed on. If he support my charging of his flank at unawares, with
    you in front to cope him, and he with so small an advantage upon us in
    strength of men: if he stand that, why then, good-night! the Witches
    are our masters in arms, and we may off cap to ’em and strive no more
    to right us.’</p>

  <p>“So said my Lord Brandoch Daha. But all called him daft to think on’t.
    Carry an army a-horseback in so small time ’cross such curst ground?
    It might not be. ‘Well,’ quoth he, ‘sith you count it not possible,
    so much the more shall he. Cautious counsels never will serve us this
    tide. Give me but my pick of man and horse to the number of seven
    hundred, and I’ll so set this masque you shall not desire a better
    master of the revels.’</p>

  <p>“So i’ the end he had his way. And past midnight they were at it, I
    wis, planning and studying.</p>

  <p>“At dawn was the whole army marshalled in the meadows below Moonmere,
    and my Lord spake among them and told us he was minded to march into
    the west country and exterminate the Witches out of Demonland; and he
    bade any man that deemed he had now his fill of furious war and deemed
    it a sweeter thing to go home to his own place, say forth his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">331</span> mind
    without fear, and he would let him go, yea, and give him good gifts
    thereto, seeing that all had done manful service; but he would have
    no man in this enterprise who went not to it with his whole heart and
    mind.”</p>

  <p>The damosel said, “I wis there was not a man would take that offer.”</p>

  <p>“There went up,” said the soldier, “such a shout, with such a stamping,
    and such a clashing together of weapons, the land shook with’t, and
    the echoes rolled in the high corries of the Scarf like thunder, of
    them shouting ‘Krothering!’ ‘Juss!’ ‘Brandoch Daha!’ ‘Lead us to
    Krothering!’ Without more ado was the stuff packed up, and ere noon
    was the whole army gotten over the Stile. While we halted for daymeal
    hard by Blackwood in Amadardale, came my Lord Brandoch Daha a-riding
    among the ranks for to take his pick of seven hundred of our ablest
    horse. Nor a would not commit this to his officer, but himself called
    on each lad by name whenso he saw a likely one, and speered would a
    ride with him. I trow he gat never a nay to that speering. My heart
    was a-cold lest he’d o’erlook me, watching him ride by as jaunty as a
    king. But a reined in’s horse and saith, ‘Arnod, ’tis a bonny horse
    thou ridest. Could he carry thee to a swine-hunt down from Erngate End
    i’ the morning?’ I saluted him and said, ‘Not so far only, Lord, but to
    burning Hell so thou but lead us.’ ‘Come on,’ saith he. ‘’Tis a better
    gate I shall lead thee: to Krothering hall ere eventide.’</p>

  <p>“So now was our strength sundered, and the main army made ready to
    march westward down Switchwater Way; with the Lord Zigg to lead the
    horse, and the Lord Volle and my Lord’s self and his brother the
    Lord Spitfire faring in the midst amongst ’em all. And with them
    yonder outland traitor, Lord Gro; but I do think him more a stick of
    sugar-paste than a man of war. And many gentlemen of worth went with
    them: Gismor Gleam of Justdale, Astar of Rettray, and Bremery of Shaws,
    and many more men of mark. But there abode with my Lord Brandoch Daha,
    Arnund of By, and Tharmrod of Kenarvey, Kamerar of Stropardon, Emeron
    Galt, Hesper Golthring of Elmerstead, Styrkmir of Blackwood, Melchar
    of Strufey, Quazz’s three sons from Dalney, and Stypmar of Failze:
    fierce and choleric young gentlemen, after his own heart, methinks;
    great horsemen, not very forecasting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">332</span> of future things afar off but
    entertainers of fortune by the day; too rash to govern an army, but
    best of all to obey and follow him in so glorious an enterprise.</p>

  <p>“Ere we parted, came my Lord to speak with my Lord Brandoch Daha. And
    my Lord looked into the lift that was all dark cloud and wind; and
    quoth he, ‘Fail not at the tryst, cousin. ’Tis thy word, that thou and
    I be finger and thumb; and never more surely than to-morrow shall this
    be seen.’</p>

  <p>“‘O friend of my heart, content thee,’ answereth my Lord Brandoch Daha.
    ‘Didst ever know me neglect my guests? And have I not bidden you to
    breakfast with me to-morrow morn in Krothering meads?’</p>

  <p>“Now we of the seven hundred turned leftward at the watersmeet up
    Transdale into the mountains. And now came ill weather upon us,
    the worst that ever I knew. ’Tis soft enow and little road enow in
    Transdale, as thou knowest, father, and weary work it was with every
    deer-track turned a water-course and underfoot all slush and mire, and
    nought for a man to see save white mist and rain above and about him,
    and soppy bent and water under’s horse-hooves. Little there was to tell
    us we were won at last to the top of the pass, and ’twere not the cloud
    blew thicker and the wind wilder about us. Every man was wet to the
    breech, and bare a pint o’ water in’s two shoes.</p>

  <p>“Whiles we were halted on the Saddle my Lord Brandoch Daha rested not
    at all, but gave his horse to his man to hold and himself fared back
    and forth among us. And for every man he had a jest or a merry look,
    so as ’twas meat and drink but to hear or to behold him. But a little
    while only would he suffer us to halt; then right we turned, up along
    the ridge, where the way was yet worse than in the dale had been, with
    rocks and pits hidden in the heather, and slithery slabs of granite.
    By my faith, I think no horse that was not born and bred to’t might
    cross such country, wet or fine; he should be foundered or should
    break his legs and his rider’s neck ere he should be gotten two hours’
    journey along those ridges; but we that rode with my Lord Brandoch
    Daha to Krothering Side were ten hours riding so, besides our halts to
    water our horses and longer halts to feed ’em, and the last part o’
    the way through murk night, and all the way i’ the wind’s teeth with
    rain blown<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">333</span> on the wind like spray, and hail at whiles. And when the
    rain was done, the wind veered to the north-west and blew the ridges
    dry. And then the little bits of rotten granite blew in our faces like
    hailstones on the wind. There was no shelter, not o’ the lee side of
    the rocks, but everywhere the storm-wind baffled and buffeted us, and
    clapped his wings among the crags like thunder. Dear Heaven, weary we
    were and like to drop, cold to the marrow, nigh blinded man and horse,
    yet with a dreadful industry pressed on. And my Lord Brandoch Daha was
    now in the van now in the rear-guard, cheering men’s hearts who marked
    with what blithe countenance himself did suffer the same hardships
    as his meanest trooper: like to one riding at ease to some great
    wedding-feast; crying, ‘What, lads, merrily on! These fen-toads of the
    Druima shall learn too late what way our mountain ponies do go like
    stags upon the mountain.’</p>

  <p>“When it began to be morning we came to our last halt, and there was
    our seven hundred horse hid in the corrie under the tall cliffs of
    Erngate End. I warrant you we went carefully about it, so as no prying
    swine of Witchland looking up from below should aspy a glimpse of man
    or horse o’ the sky-line. His highness first set his sentinels and let
    call the muster, and saw that every man had his morning meal and every
    horse his feed. Then he took his stand behind a crag of rock whence he
    could overlook the land below. He had me by him to do his errands. In
    the first light we looked down westward over the mountain’s edge and
    saw Krothering and the arms of the sea, not so dark but we might behold
    their fleet at anchor in Aurwath roads, and their camp like a batch of
    beehives so as a man might think to cast a stone into’t below us. That
    was the first time I’d e’er gone to the wars with him. Faith, he’s a
    pretty man to see: leaned forward there on the heather with’s chin on
    his folded arms, his helm laid aside so they should not see it glint
    from below; quiet like a cat: half asleep you’d say; but his eyes were
    awake, looking down on Krothering. ’Twas well seen even from so far
    away how vilely they had used it.</p>

  <p>“The great red sun leaped out o’ the eastern cloudbanks. A stir began
    in their camp below: standards set up, men gathering thereto, ranks
    forming, bugles sounding; then a score of horse galloping up the
    road from Gashterndale into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">334</span> the camp. His highness, without turning
    his head, beckoned with’s hand to me to call his captains. I ran and
    fetched ’em. He gave ’em swift commands, pointing down where the
    Witchland swine rolled out their battle; thieves and pirates who robbed
    his highness’ subjects within his streams; with standard and pennons
    and glistering naked spears, moving northward from the tents. Then
    in the quiet came a sound made a man’s heart leap within him: faint
    out of the far hollows of Gashterndale, the trumpet of my Lord Juss’s
    battle-call.</p>

  <p>“My Lord Brandoch Daha paused a minute, looking down. Then a turned him
    about with face that shone like the morning. ‘Fair lords,’ a saith,
    ‘now lightly on horseback, for Juss fighteth against his enemies.’ I
    think he was well content. I think he was sure he would that day get
    his heart’s syth of every one that had wronged him.</p>

  <p>“That was a long ride down from Erngate End. With all our hearts’ blood
    drumming us to haste, we must yet go warily, picking our way i’ that
    tricky ground, steep as a roof-slope, uneven and with no sure foothold,
    with sikes in wet moss and rocks outcropping and shifting screes. There
    was nought but leave it to the horses, and bravely they brought us down
    the steeps. We were not half way down ere we heard and saw how battle
    was joined. So intent were the Witchlanders on my Lord’s main army, I
    think we were off the steep ground and forming for the charge ere they
    were ware of us. Our trumpeters sounded his battle challenge, <i>Who
    meddles wi’ Brandoch Daha?</i> and we came down on to Krothering Side
    like a rock-fall.</p>

  <p>“I scarce know what way the battle went, father. ’Twas like a meeting
    of streams in spate. I think they opened to us right and left to ease
    the shock. They that were before us went down like standing corn under
    a hailstorm. We wheeled both ways, some ’gainst their right that was
    thrown back toward the camp, the more part with my Lord Brandoch Daha
    to our own right. I was with these in the main battle. His highness
    rode a hot stirring horse very fierce and dogged; knee to knee with him
    went Styrkmir of Blackwood o’ the one side and Tharmrod o’ the other.
    Neither man nor horse might stand up before ’em, and they faring as in
    a maze now this way now that, amid the thrumbling and thrasting o’ the
    footmen, heads and arms smitten off, men hewn in sunder from crown to
    belly, ay, to the saddle, riderless horses maddened, blood splashed up
    from the ground like the slush from a marsh.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_335">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">335</span>
    <img src="images/i_335.png" alt="" />
    <div class="caption">SOLDIERS OF DEMONLAND.</div>
  </div>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">336</span></p>

  <p>“So for a time, till we had spent the vantage of our onset and felt
    for the first time the weight of their strength. For Corinius, as it
    appeareth, was now himself ridden from the vanward where he had beat
    back for a time our main army, and set on against my Lord Brandoch Daha
    with horsemen and spearmen; and commanded his sling-casters besides to
    let freely at us and drive us toward the camp.</p>

  <p>“And now in the great swing of the battle were we carried back to the
    camp again; and there was a sweet devils’ holiday: horses and men
    tripping over tent-ropes, tents torn down, crashes of broken crockery,
    and King Laxus come thither with sailors from the fleet, hamstringing
    our horses while Corinius charged us from the north and east. That
    Corinius beareth him in battle more like a devil from Hell than a
    mortal man. I’ the first two strokes of’s sword he overthrew two of our
    best captains, Romenard of Dalney and Emeron Galt. Styrkmir, that stood
    in’s way to stop him, a flung down with’s spear, horse and man. They
    say he met twice with my Lord Brandoch Daha that day, but each time
    were they parted in the press ere they might rightly square together.</p>

  <p>“I have stood in some goodly battles, father, as well thou knowest:
    first following my Lord and my Lord Goldry Bluszco in foreign parts,
    and last year in the great rout at Crossby Outsikes, and again with
    my Lord Spitfire when he smote the Witches on Brima Rapes, and in the
    murthering great battle under Thremnir’s Heugh. But never was I in
    fight like to this of yesterday.</p>

  <p>“Never saw I such feats of arms. As witness Kamerar of Stropardon,
    who with a great two-handed sword hewed off his enemy’s leg close to
    the hip, so huge a blow the blade sheared through leg and saddle and
    horse and all. And Styrkmir of Blackwood, rising like a devil out of
    a heap of slain men, and though’s helm was lossen and a was bleeding
    from three or four great wounds a held off a dozen o’ the Witches
    with’s deadly thrusts and sword-strokes, till they had enough and
    gave back before him: twelve before one, and he given over for dead
    a while before. But all great deeds seemed trash beside the deeds of
    my Lord Brandoch Daha. In one short while had he three times a horse
    slain stark dead under him, yet gat never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">337</span> a wound himself, which was
    a marvel. For without care he rode through and about, smiting down
    their champions. I mind me of him once, with’s horse ripped and killed
    under him, and one of those Witchland lords that tilted at him on the
    ground as he leaped to’s feet again; how a caught the spear with’s two
    hands and by main strength yerked his enemy out o’ the saddle. Prince
    Cargo it was, youngest of Corund’s sons. Long may the Witchland ladies
    strain their dear eyes, they’ll ne’er see yon hendy lad come sailing
    home again. His highness swapt him such a swipe o’ the neck-bone as he
    pitched to earth, the head of him flew i’ the air like a tennis ball.
    And i’ the twinkling of an eye was my Lord Brandoch Daha horsed again
    on’s enemy’s horse, and turned to charge ’em anew. You’d say his arm
    must fail at last for weariness, of a man so lithe and jimp to look
    on. Yet I think his last stroke i’ that battle was not lighter than
    the first. And stones and spears and sword-strokes seemed to come upon
    him with no more impression than blows with a straw would give to an
    adamant.</p>

  <p>“I know not how long was that fight among the tents. Only ’twas the
    best fight I ever was at, and the bloodiest. And by all tellings ’twas
    as great work o’ the other part, where my Lord and his folk fought
    their way up on to the Side. But of that we knew nothing. Yet certain
    it is we had all been dead men had my Lord not there prevailed, as
    certain ’tis he had never so prevailed but for our charging of their
    flank when they first advanced against him. But in that last hour all
    we that fought among the tents thought each man only of this, how he
    might slay yet one more Witch, and yet again one more, afore he should
    die. For Corinius in that hour put forth his might to crush us; and
    for every enemy there felled to earth two more seemed to be raised up
    against us. And our own folk fell fast, and the tents that were so
    white were one gore of blood.</p>

  <p>“When I was a little tiny boy, father, we had a sport, swimming in
    the deep pools of Tivarandarwater, that one boy would catch ’tother
    and hold him under till he could no more for want of breath. Methinks
    there’s no longing i’ the world so sore as the longing for air when he
    that is stronger than thou grippeth thee still under the water, nor no
    gladness i’ the world like the bonny sweet air i’ thy lungs<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">338</span> again when
    a letteth thee shoot up to the free daylight. ’Twas right so with us,
    who had now said adieu to hope and saw all lost save life itself, and
    that not like to tarry long; when we heard suddenly the thunder of my
    Lord’s trumpet sounding to the charge. And ere our startled wits might
    rightly think what that portended, was the whole surging battle whipped
    and scattered like the water of a lake caught up in a white squall;
    and that massed strength of the enemy which had invested us round with
    so great a stream of shot and steel reeled first forward then backward
    then forward again upon us, confounded in a vast confusion. I trow new
    strength came to our arms; I trow our swords opened their mouths. For
    northward we beheld the ensign of Galing streaming like a blazing star;
    and my Lord’s self in a moment, high advanced above the rout, and Zigg,
    and Astar, and hundreds of our horse, hewing their way toward us whiles
    we hewed towards them. And now was reaping time for us, and time of
    payment for all those weary bloody hours we had held on to life with
    our teeth among the tents on Krothering Side, while they o’ the other
    part, my Lord and his, had with all the odds of the ground against them
    painfully and yard by yard fought out the fight to victory. And now,
    ere we well wist of it, the day was won, and the victory ours, and the
    enemy broken and put to so great a rout as hath not been seen by living
    man.</p>

  <p>“That false king Corinius, after he had tarried to see the end of the
    battle, fled with a few of his men out of the great slaughter, and as
    it later appeared gat him ashipboard in Aurwath harbour and with three
    ships or four escaped to sea. But the most of their fleet was burned
    there in the harbour to save it from our hands.</p>

  <p>“My Lord gave command to take up the wounded and tend ’em, friend and
    foe alike. Among them was King Laxus ta’en up, stunned with a mace-blow
    or some such. So they brought him before the lords where they rested a
    little way down the Side above the home meads of Krothering.</p>

  <p>“He looked ’em all in the eye, most proud and soldier-like. Then
    a saith unto my Lord, ‘It may be pain, but no shame to us to be
    vanquished after so equal and so great a fight. Herein only do I blame
    my ill luck, that it denied me fall in battle. Thou mayst now, O Juss,
    strike off my head for the treason I wrought you three years ago. And
    since I know thee of a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">339</span> courteous and noble nature, I’ll not scorn to
    ask of thee this courtesy, not to tarry but take it now.’</p>

  <p>“My Lord stood there like a war-horse after a breather. He took him by
    the hand. ‘O Laxus,’ saith he, ‘I give thee not thy head only, but thy
    sword;’ and here a gave it him hilt-foremost. ‘For thy dealings with us
    in the battle of Kartadza, let time that hath an art to make dust of
    all things so do with the memory of these. Since then, thou hast shown
    thyself still our noble enemy; and so shall we account thee still.’</p>

  <p>“Therewith my Lord commanded bring King Laxus down to the sea, and ship
    him aboard of a boat, for Corinius still held off the land with his
    ships, waiting no doubt to see if he or any other of his folk could yet
    be saved.</p>

  <p>“But as King Laxus was upon parting, my Lord Brandoch Daha, speaking
    with great show of carelessness as of some trifling matter a had by
    chance called to mind, ‘My lord,’ saith he, ‘I ne’er ask favour of any
    man. Only in a manner of return of courtesies, methought thou mightest
    be willing to bear my salutations to Corinius, sith I’ve no other
    messenger.’</p>

  <p>“Laxus answereth he would freely do it. Then saith his highness, ‘Say
    to him I will not blame him that he abode us not i’ the field after
    the battle was lost, for that had been a simple part, flatly ’gainst
    all maxims of right soldiership, and but to cast his life away. But
    freakish Fortune I blame, that twined us one from the other when we
    should have dealt together this day. He hath borne him in my halls, I
    am let to know, more i’ the fashion of a swine or a beastly ape than a
    man. Pray him come ashore ere you sail home, that I and he, with no man
    else to make betwixt us, may cast up our account. We swear him peace
    and grith and a safe conduct back to’s ships if he prevail against me
    or if I so use him that he cry for mercy. If he’ll not take this offer,
    then is he a dastard; and the whole world shall so acclaim him.’</p>

  <p>“‘Sir,’ saith Laxus, ‘I’ll punctually discharge thy message.’</p>

  <p>“Whether he did so or no, father, I know not. But if he did, it seemeth
    it was little to Corinius’s liking. For no sooner had his ship ta’en
    Laxus aboard, than she hoised sail and put out into the deep, and so
    good-bye.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>The young man ceased, and they were all three silent awhile. A faint
    breeze rippled the foliage of the oakwoods of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">340</span> Tivarandardale. The sun
    was down behind the stately Thornbacks, and the whole sky from bourne
    to bourne was alight with the sunset glory. Dappled clouds, with sky
    showing here and there between, covered the heavens, save in the west
    where a great archway of clear air opened between clouds and earth: air
    of an azure that seemed to burn, so pure it was, so deep, so charged
    with warmth: not the harsh blue of noon-day nor the sumptuous deep
    eastern blue of approaching night, but a bright heavenly blue bordering
    on green, deep, tender, and delicate as the spirit of evening. Athwart
    the midst of that window of the west a blade of cloud, hard-edged
    and jagged with teeth coloured as of live coals and dead, fiery and
    iron-dark in turn, stretched like a battered sword. The clouds above
    the arch were pale rose: the zenith like black opal, dark blue and
    thunderous grey dappled with fire.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_pegasus.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">341</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_SECOND_EXPEDITION_TO_IMPLAND">XXVII: THE SECOND EXPEDITION TO IMPLAND</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    HOW THE LORD JUSS, NOT TO BE PERSUADED FROM HIS SET PURPOSE, FOUND,
    WHERE LEAST IT WAS TO BE LOOKED FOR, UPHOLDING IN THAT RESOLVE; AND
    OF THE SAILING OF THE ARMAMENT TO MUELVA BY WAY OF THE STRAITS
    OF MELIKAPHKHAZ.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">THAT was the last ember of red summer burning when they cut them that
    harvest on Krothering Side. Autumn came, and winter months, and the
    lengthening days of the returning year. And with the first breath of
    spring were the harbours filled with ships of war, so many as had never
    in former days been seen in the land, and in every countryside from the
    western Isles to Byland, from Shalgreth and Kelialand to the headlands
    under Rimon Armon, were soldiers gathered with their horses and all
    instruments of war.</p>

  <p>Lord Brandoch Daha rode from the west, the day the Pasque flowers
    first opened on the bluffs below Erngate End and primroses made sweet
    the birch-forests in Gashterndale. He set forth betimes, and hard
    he rode, and he rode into Galing by the Lion Gate about the hour of
    noon. There was Lord Juss in his private chamber, and greeted him with
    great joy and love. So Brandoch Daha asked, “What speed?” And Juss
    answered, “Thirty ships and five afloat in Lookinghaven, whereof all
    save four be dragons of war. Zigg I expect to-morrow with the Kelialand
    levies; Spitfire lieth at Owlswick with fifteen hundred men from the
    southlands; Volle came in but three hours since with four hundred more.
    In sum, I’ll have four thousand, reckoning ships’ companies and our own
    bodyguards.”</p>

  <p>“Eight ships of war have I,” said Lord Brandoch Daha,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">342</span> “in Stropardon
    Firth, all busked and boun. Five more at Aurwath, five at Lornagay in
    Morvey, and three on the Mealand coast at Stackray Oyce, besides four
    more in the Isles. And I have sixteen hundred spearmen and six hundred
    horse. All these shall come together to join with thine in Lookinghaven
    at the snapping of my fingers, give me but seven days’ notice.”</p>

  <p>Juss gripped him by the hand. “Bare were my back without thee,” he said.</p>

  <p>“In Krothering I’ve shifted not a stone nor swept not a chamber clean,”
    said Brandoch Daha. “’Tis a muck-pit. Every man’s hand I might command
    I set only to this. And now ’tis ready.” He turned sharp toward Juss
    and looked at him a minute in silence. Then with a gravity that sat
    not often on his lips he said, “Let me be urgent with thee once more:
    strike and delay not. Do him not again that kindness we did him
    aforetime, fribbling our strength away on the cursed shores of Impland,
    and by the charmed waters of Ravary, so as he might as secure as sleep
    send Corsus hither and Corinius to work havoc i’ the land; and so put
    on us the greatest shame was ever laid on mortal men, and we not bred
    up to suffer shame.”</p>

  <p>“Thou saidst seven days,” said Juss. “Snap thy fingers and call up thy
    armies. I’ll delay thee not an hour.”</p>

  <p>“Ay, but I mean to Carcë,” said he.</p>

  <p>“To Carcë, whither else?” said Juss. “But I’ll take my brother Goldry
    with us.”</p>

  <p>“But I mean first to Carcë,” said Brandoch Daha. “Let my opinion sway
    thee once. Why, a schoolboy should tell thee, clear thy flank and rear
    ere thou go forward.”</p>

  <p>Juss smiled. “I love this new garb of caution, cousin,” said he; “it
    doth most prettily become thee. I question though whether this be not
    the true cause: that Corinius took not up thy challenge last summer,
    but let it lie, and that hath left thee hungry still.”</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha looked him sidelong in the eye, and laughed. “O Juss,”
    he said, “thou hast touched me near. But ’tis not that. That was in
    the weird that bright lady laid on me, in the sparrow-hawk castle
    in Impland forlorn: that he I held most in hate should ruin my fair
    lordship, and that to my hand should vengeance be denied. That I e’en
    must brook. O no. Think only, delays are dangerous. Come, be advised.
    Be not mulish.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">343</span></p>

  <p>But the Lord Juss’s face was grave. “Urge me no more, dear friend,”
    said he. “Thou sleep’st soft. But to me, when I am cast in my first
    sleep, cometh many a time the likeness of Goldry Bluszco, held by a
    maleficial charm on the mountain top of Zora Rach, that standeth apart,
    out of the sunlight, out of all sound or warmth of life. Long ago I
    made vow to turn neither to the right nor to the left, until I set him
    free.”</p>

  <p>“He is thy brother,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “Also is he mine own
    familiar friend, whom I love scarce less than thee. But when thou
    speakest of oaths, remember there’s La Fireez too. What shall he think
    on us after our oaths to him three years ago, that night in Carcë? Yet
    this one blow should right him too.”</p>

  <p>“He will understand,” said Juss.</p>

  <p>“He is to come with Gaslark, and thou told’st me thou dost e’en now
    expect them,” said Brandoch Daha. “I’ll leave you. I cannot for shame
    say to him, ‘Patience, friend, truly ’tis not to-day convenient.
    Thou shalt be paid in time.’ By heavens, I’d scorn to entreat my
    mantle-maker so. And this our friend that lost all and languisheth in
    exile because he saved our lives.”</p>

  <p>So saying, he stood up in great discontent and ire as if to leave
    the chamber. But Juss caught him by the wrist. “Thou dost upbraid me
    most unjustly, and well thou knowest it in thy heart, and ’tis that
    makes thee so angry. Hark, the horn soundeth at the gate, and ’tis for
    Gaslark. I’ll not let thee go.”</p>

  <p>“Well,” said Lord Brandoch Daha, “have thy will. Only ask not me to
    plead thy rotten case to them. If I speak it shall be to shame thee.
    Now thou’rt warned.”</p>

  <p>Now went they into the high presence chamber, where was bright ladies
    not a few, and captains and noble persons from up and down the land,
    and stood on the dais. Gaslark the king walked up the shining floor,
    and behind him his captains and councillors of Goblinland walked two by
    two. The Prince La Fireez strode at his elbow, proud as a lion.</p>

  <p>Blithely they greeted those lords of Demonland that rose up to greet
    them beneath the starry canopy, and the Lady Mevrian that stood betwixt
    her brother and Lord Juss so as ’twere hard to say which of the three
    was fairest to look on, so much they differed in their beauty’s glory.
    Gro, standing near, said in himself, “I know a fourth. And were she
    but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">344</span> joined with these, then were the crown of the whole earth’s
    loveliness fitted in this one chamber: in a right casket surely. And
    the Gods in heaven (if there be Gods indeed) should go pale for envy,
    having in their starry gallery no fair to match with these; not Phoebus
    Apollo, not the chaste Huntress, nor the foam-born Queen herself.”</p>

  <p>But Gaslark, when his eye lighted on the long black beard, the lean
    figure slightly stooping, the pallid brow, the curls smoothed with
    perfumed unguents, the sickle-like nose, the great liquid eyes, the
    lily hand; he, beholding and knowing these of old, waxed in a moment
    dark as thunder with the blood-rush beneath his sun-browned skin, and
    with a great sweep snatched out his sword, as if without gare or beware
    to thrust him through. Gro stepped hastily back. But the Lord Juss came
    between them.</p>

  <p>“Let alone, Juss,” cried Gaslark. “Know’st not this fellow, what a vile
    enemy and viper we have here? A pretty perfumed villain! who for so
    many years did spin me a thread of many seditions and troubles, while
    his smooth tongue gat money from me still. Blessed occasion! Now will I
    let his soul out.”</p>

  <p>But the Lord Juss laid his hand on Gaslark’s sword-arm. “Gaslark,” said
    he, “leave off thy rages, and put up thy sword. A year ago thou’dst
    done me no wrong. But to-day thou’dst have slain me a man of mine own
    men, and a lord of Demonland.”</p>

  <p>Now when they had done their greetings, they washed their hands and
    sate at dinner and were nobly served and feasted. And the Lord Juss
    made peace betwixt Gro and Gaslark, albeit ’twas no light task to
    prevail upon Gaslark to forgive him. Thereafter they retired them with
    Gaslark and La Fireez into a chamber apart.</p>

  <p>Gaslark the king spake and said, “None can gainsay it, O Juss, that
    this fight ye won last harvest tide was the greatest seen on land these
    many years, and of greatest consequence. But I have heard a bird sing
    there shall be yet greater deeds done ere many moons be past. Therefore
    it is we came hither to thee, I and La Fireez that be your friends
    from of old, to pray thee let us go with thee on thy quest across the
    world after thy brother, for sorrow of whose loss the whole world
    languisheth; and thereafter let us go with you on your going up to
    Carcë.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">345</span></p>

  <p>“O Juss,” said the Prince, “we would not in after-days that men should
    say, On such a time fared the Demons into perilous lands enchanted and
    by their strength and valorousness set free the Lord Goldry Bluszco
    (or haply, there ended their life’s days in that glorious quest); but
    Gaslark and La Fireez were not in it, they bade their friends farewell,
    hung up their swords, and lived a quiet and merry life in Zajë Zaculo.
    So let their memory be forgot.”</p>

  <p>Lord Juss sat silent a minute, as one much moved. “O Gaslark,” he said
    at length, “I’ll take thine offer without another word. But unto thee,
    dear Prince, I must bare mine heart somewhat. For thou here art come
    not strest in our quarrel to spend thy blood, only to put us yet deeper
    in thy debt. And yet small blame it were to thee shouldst thou in
    dishonourable sort revile me, as many shall cry out against me, for a
    false friend unto thee and a friend forsworn.”</p>

  <p>But the Prince La Fireez brake in upon him, saying, “I prithee have
    done, or thou’lt shame me quite. Whate’er I did in Carcë, ’twas but
    equal payment for your saving of my life in Lida Nanguna. So was all
    evened up betwixt us. Think then no more on’t, but deny me not to go
    with you to Impland. But up to Carcë I’ll not go with you: for albeit
    I am clean broke with Witchland, against Corund and his kin I will not
    draw sword nor against my lady sister. A black curse on the day I gave
    her white hand to Corund! She holdeth too much of our stock, methinks:
    her heraldry is hearts not hands. And giving her hand she gave her
    heart. ’Tis a strange world.”</p>

  <p>“La Fireez,” said Juss, “we weigh not so lightly our obligation unto
    thee. Yet must I hold my course; having sworn a strong oath that I
    would turn aside neither to the right nor to the left until I had
    delivered my dear brother Goldry out of bondage. So sware I or ever I
    went that ill journey to Carcë and was closed in prison fast and by
    thee delivered. Nor shall blame of friends nor wrongful misprision nor
    any power that is shake me in this determination. But when that is
    done, no rest remaineth unto us till we win back for thee thy rightful
    realm of Pixyland, and many good things besides to be a token of our
    love.”</p>

  <p>Said the Prince, “Thou doest right. If thou didst other thou’dst have
    my blame.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">346</span></p>

  <p>“And mine thereto,” said Gaslark. “Do not I grieve, think’st thou, to
    see the Princess Armelline, my sweet young cousin, grow every day more
    wan o’ the cheek and pale? And all for sorrow and teen for her own
    true love, the Lord Goldry Bluszco. And she so carefully brought up by
    her mother as nothing was too dear or hard to be brought to pass for
    her desire, thinking that a creature so noble and perfect could not be
    trained up too delicately. I deem to-day better than to-morrow, and
    to-morrow better than his morrow, to set sail for wide-fronted Impland.”</p>

  <p>All this while the Lord Brandoch Daha said never a word. He sat back
    in his chair of ivory and chrysoprase, now toying with his golden
    finger-rings, now twisting and untwisting the yellow curls of his
    moustachios and beard. In a while he yawned, rose from his seat and
    fell to pacing lazily up and down. He had hitched up his sword across
    his back under his two elbows, so that the shoe of the scabbard stood
    out under one arm and the jewelled hilt under the other. His fingers
    strummed little tunes on the front of the rich rose velvet doublet that
    cased his chest. The spring sunlight as he paced from shine to shade
    and to shine again, passing the tall windows, seemed to caress his face
    and form. It was as if spring laughed for joy beholding in him one that
    was her own child, clothed to outward view with so much loveliness and
    grace, but full besides to the eyes and finger-tips with fire and vital
    sap, like her own buds bursting in the Brankdale coppices.</p>

  <p>In a while he ceased his walking, and stood by the Lord Gro who sat a
    little apart from the rest. “How thinkest thou, Gro, of our counsels?
    Art thou for the straight road or the crooked? For Carcë or Zora Rach?”</p>

  <p>“Of two roads,” answered Gro, “a wise man will choose ever that one
    which is indirect. For but consider the matter, thou that art a great
    cragsman: think our life’s course a lofty cliff. I am to climb it,
    sometime up, sometime down. I pray, whither leadeth the straight road
    on such a cliff? Why, nowhither. For if I will go up by the straight
    way, ’tis not possible; I am left gaping whiles thou by crooked courses
    hast gained the top. Or if down, why ’tis easy and swift; but then,
    no more climbing ever more for me. And thou, clambering down by the
    crooked way, shalt find me a dead and unsightly corpse at the bottom.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">347</span></p>

  <p>“Grammercy for thy me’s and thee’s,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “Well,
    ’tis a most weighty principle, backed with a most just and lively
    exposition. How dost thou interpret thy maxim in our present question?”</p>

  <p>Lord Gro looked up at him. “My lord, you have used me well, and to
    deserve your love and advance your fortunes I have pondered much how
    you of Demonland might best obtain revenge upon your enemies. And I
    daily thinking hereupon, and conceiving in my head divers imaginations,
    can devise no means but one that in my fancy seemeth best, which is
    this.”</p>

  <p>“Let me hear it,” said Lord Brandoch Daha.</p>

  <p>Said Gro, “’Twas ever a fault in you Demons that you would not perceive
    how ’tis oft-times good to draw the snake from her hole by another
    man’s hand. Consider now your matter. You have a great force both for
    land and sea. Trust not too much in that. Oft hath he of the little
    force o’ercome most powerful enemies, going about to entrap them
    by sleight and policy. But consider yet again. You have a thing is
    mightier far than all your horses and spearmen and dragons of war,
    mightier than thine own sword, my lord, and thou accounted the best
    swordsman in all the world.”</p>

  <p>“What thing is that?” asked he.</p>

  <p>Gro answered, “Reputation, my Lord Brandoch Daha. This reputation of
    you Demons for open dealings even to your worst enemies.”</p>

  <p>“Tush,” said he. “’Tis but our way i’ the world. Moreover, ’tis, I
    think, a thing natural in great persons, of whatsoever country they
    be born. Treachery and double dealing proceed commonly from fear,
    and that is a thing which I think no man in this land comprehendeth.
    Myself, I do think that when the high Gods made a person of my quality
    they traced between his two eyes something, I know not what, which the
    common sort durst not look upon without trembling.”</p>

  <p>“Give me but leave,” said Lord Gro, “and I’ll pluck you a braver
    triumph in a little hour than your swords should win you in two years.
    Speak smooth words to Witchland, offer him composition, bring him to a
    council and all his great men along with him. I’ll so devise it, they
    shall all be suddenly taken off in a night, haply by setting upon them
    in their beds, or as we may find most convenient. All save Corund and
    his sons; them we may wisely spare, and conclude peace with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">348</span> them. It
    shall not by ten days delay your sailing to Impland, whither you might
    then proceed with light hearts and minds at ease.”</p>

  <p>“Very prettily conceived, upon my soul,” said Brandoch Daha. “Might I
    advise thee, thou’dst best not talk to Juss i’ this manner. Not now, I
    mean, while his mind’s so bent on matters of weight and moment. Nor I
    should not say it to my sister Mevrian. Women will oft-times take in
    sad earnest such a conceit, though it be but talk and discourse. With
    me ’tis otherwise. I am something of a philosopher myself, and thy jest
    ambleth with my humour very pleasantly.”</p>

  <p>“Thou art pleased to be merry,” said Lord Gro. “Many ere now, as the
    event hath proved, rejected my wholesome counsels to their own great
    hurt.”</p>

  <p>But Brandoch Daha said lightly, “Fear not, my Lord Gro, we’ll reject
    no honest redes of so wise a counsellor as thou. But,” and here was a
    light in the eye of him made Gro startle, “did any man with serious
    intent dare bid me do a dastard deed, he should have my sword through
    the dearest part of’s body.”</p>

  <p>Lord Brandoch Daha now turned him to the rest of them. “Juss,” said
    he, “friend of my heart, meseemeth y’are all of one mind, and none of
    my mind. I’ll e’en bid you farewell. Farewell, Gaslark; farewell, La
    Fireez.”</p>

  <p>“But whither away?” said Juss, standing up from his chair. “Thou must
    not leave us.”</p>

  <p>“Whither but to mine own place?” said he, and was gone from the chamber.</p>

  <p>Gaslark said, “He’s much incensed. What hast thou done to anger him?”</p>

  <p>Mevrian said to Juss, “I’ll follow and cool him.” She went, but soon
    returned saying, “No avail, my lords. He is ridden forth from Galing
    and away as fast as his horse might carry him.”</p>

  <p>Now were they all in a great stew, some conjecturing one thing and
    some another. Only the Lord Juss kept silence and a calm countenance,
    and the Lady Mevrian. And Juss said at length to Gaslark, “This it is,
    that he chafeth at every day’s delay that letteth him from having at
    Corinius. Certes, I’ll not blame him, knowing the vile injuries the
    fellow did him and his insolence toward thee, madam. Be not troubled.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">349</span>
    His own self shall bring him back to me when time is, as no other power
    should do ’gainst his good will; he whose great heart Heaven cannot
    force with force.”</p>

  <p>And even so, the next night after, when folk were abed and asleep,
    Juss, in his high bed-chamber sitting late at his book, heard a bridle
    ring. So he called his boys to go with him with torches to the gate.
    And there in the dancing torch-light came the Lord Brandoch Daha
    a-riding into Galing Castle, and somewhat of the bigness of a great
    pumpkin tied in a silken cloth hung at his saddle-bow. Juss met him in
    the gate alone. “Let me down from my horse,” he said, “and receive from
    me thy bed-fellow that thou must sleep with by the Lake of Ravary.”</p>

  <p>“Thou hast gotten it?” said Juss. “The hippogriff’s egg, out of Dule
    Tarn, by thyself alone?” and he took the bundle right tenderly in his
    two hands.</p>

  <p>“Ay,” answered he. “’Twas where thou and I made sure of it last summer,
    according to the word of her little martlet that first found it for us.
    The tarn was frozen and ’twas tricky work diving and most villanous
    cold. It is small marvel thou’rt a lucky man in thine undertakings, O
    Juss, when thou hast such an art to draw thy friends to second thee.”</p>

  <p>“I thought thou’dst not leave me,” said Juss.</p>

  <p>“Thought?” cried Brandoch Daha. “Didst ever dream I’d suffer thee to
    do thy foolishnesses alone? Nay, I’ll come first to the enchanted lake
    with thee, and let be Carcë i’ the meantime. Howbeit I’ll do it ’gainst
    the stream of my resolution quite.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now was but six days more of preparation, and on the second day of
    April was all ready in Lookinghaven for the sailing of that mighty
    armament: fifty and nine ships of war and five ships of burthen and
    thrice two thousand fighting men.</p>

  <p>Lady Mevrian sat on her milk-white mare overlooking the harbour
    where the ships all orderly rode at anchor, shadowy gray against the
    sun-bright shimmer of the sea, with here and there a splash of colour,
    crimson or blue or grass-green, from their painted hulls or a beam of
    the sun glancing from their golden masts or figure-heads. Gro stood
    at her bridle-rein.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">350</span> The Galing road, winding down from Havershaw
    Tongue, ran close below them and so along the sea-shore to the quays
    at Lookinghaven. Along that road the hard earth rang with the tramp
    of armed men and the tramp of horses, and the light west wind wafted
    to Gro and Mevrian on their grassy hill snatches of deep-voiced
    battle-chants or the galloping notes of trumpet and pipe and the drum
    that sets men’s hearts a-throb.</p>

  <p>In the van rode the Lord Zigg, four trumpeters walking before him in
    gold and purple. His armour from chin to toe shone with silver, and
    jewels blazed on his gorget and baldrick and the hilt of his long
    straight sword. He rode a black stallion savage-eyed with ears laid
    back and a tail that swept the earth. A great company of horse followed
    him, and half as many tall spearmen, in russet leather jerkins plated
    with brass and silver. “These,” said Mevrian, “be of Kelialand and the
    shore-steads of Arrowfirth, and his own vassalage from Rammerick and
    Amadardale. That is Hesper Golthring rideth a little behind him on
    his right hand; he loveth two things in this world, a good horse and
    a swift ship. He on the left, he o’ the helm of dull silver set with
    raven’s wings, so long of the leg thou’dst say if he rode a little
    horse he might straddle and walk it: Styrkmir of Blackwood. He is of
    our kin; not yet twenty years old, yet since Krothering Side accounted
    one of our ablest.”</p>

  <p>So she showed him all as they rode by. Peridor of Sule, captain of the
    Mealanders, and his nephew Stypmar. Fendor of Shalgreth with Emeron
    Galt his young brother, that was newly healed from the great wound
    Corinius gave him at Krothering Side; these leading the shepherds and
    herdsmen from the great heaths north of Switchwater, who will hold by
    the stirrup and so with their light bucklers and little brown swords go
    into battle with the horsemen full gallop against the enemy. Bremery in
    his ram’s-horn helm of gold and broidered surcoat of scarlet velvet,
    leading the dalesmen from Onwardlithe and Tivarandardale. Trentmar of
    Scorradale with the north-eastern levies from Byland and the Strands
    and Breakingdale. Astar of Rettray, lean and lithe, bony-faced,
    gallant-eyed, white of skin, with bright red hair and beard, riding
    his lovely roan at the head of two companies of spearmen with huge
    iron-studded shields: men from about Drepaby and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">351</span> south-eastern
    dales, landed men and home-men of Lord Goldry Bluszco. Then the
    island dwellers from the west, with old Quazz of Dalney riding in the
    place of honour, noble to look on with his snowy beard and shining
    armour, but younger men their true leaders in war: Melchar of Strufey,
    great-chested, fierce-eyed, with thick brown curling hair, horsed on a
    plunging chestnut, his byrny bright with gold, a rich mantle of creamy
    silk brocade flung about his ample shoulders, and Tharmrod on his
    little black mare with silver byrny and bats-winged helm, he that held
    Kenarvey in fee for Lord Brandoch Daha, keen and ready like an arrow
    drawn to the barbs. And after them the Westmark men, with Arnund of By
    their captain. And after them, four hundred horse, not to be surpassed
    for beauty or ordered array by any in that great army, and young
    Kamerar riding at their head, burly as a giant, straight as a lance,
    apparelled like a king, bearing on his mighty spear the pennon of the
    Lord of Krothering.</p>

  <p>“Look well on these,” said Mevrian as they passed by. “Our own men
    of the Side and Thunderfirth and Stropardon. Thou may’st search the
    wide world and not find their like for speed and fire and all warlike
    goodliness and readiness to the word of command. Thou look’st sad, my
    lord.”</p>

  <p>“Madam,” said Lord Gro, “to the ear of one that useth, as I use, to
    consider the vanity of all high earthly pomps, the music of these
    powers and glories hath a deep under-drone of sadness. Kings and
    governors that do exult in strength and beauty and lustihood and rich
    apparel, showing themselves for awhile upon the stage of the world and
    open dominion of high heaven, what are they but the gilded summer fly
    that decayeth with the dying day?”</p>

  <p>“My brother and the rest must not stay for us,” said the lady. “They
    meant to go aboard as soon as the army should be come down to the
    harbour, for their ships be to sail out first down the firth. Is it
    determined indeed that thou goest with them on this journey?”</p>

  <p>“I had so determined, madam,” answered he. She was beginning to move
    down towards the road and the harbour, but Gro put a hand on the rein
    and stopped her. “Dear lady,” he said, “these three nights together I
    have dreamed a dream: a strange dream, and all the particulars thereof
    betokening<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">352</span> heavy anxiety, increase of peril, and savage mischief;
    promising some terrible issue. Methinks if I go on this journey thou
    shalt see my face no more.”</p>

  <p>“O fie, my lord,” cried she, reaching him her hand, “give never a
    thought to such fond imaginings. ’Twas the moon but glancing in thine
    eye. Or if not, stay with us here and cheat Fate.”</p>

  <p>Gro kissed her hand, and kept it in his. “My Lady Mevrian,” he said,
    “Fate will not be cheated, cog we never so wisely. I do think there be
    not many extant that in a noble way fear the face of death less than
    myself. I’ll go o’ this journey. There is but one thing should turn me
    back.”</p>

  <p>“And ’tis?” said she, for he fell silent on a sudden.</p>

  <p>He paused, looking down at her gloved hand resting in his. “A man
    becometh hoarse and dumb,” said he, “if a wolf hath the advantage first
    to eye him. Didst thou procure thee a wolf to dumb me when I would tell
    thee? But I did once; enough to let thee know. O Mevrian, dost thou
    remember Neverdale?”</p>

  <p>He looked up at her. But Mevrian sat with head erect, like her
    Patroness divine, with sweet cool lips set firm and steady eyes fixed
    on the haven and the riding ships. Gently she drew her hand from Gro’s,
    and he strove not to retain it. She eased forward the reins. Gro
    mounted and followed her. They rode quietly down to the road and so
    southward side by side to the harbour. Ere they came within earshot of
    the quay, Mevrian spake and said, “Thou’lt not think me graceless nor
    forgetful, my lord. All that is mine, O ask it, and I’ll give it thee
    with both hands. But ask me not that I have not to give, or if I gave
    should give but false gold. For that’s a thing not good for thee nor
    me, nor I would not do it to an enemy, far less to thee my friend.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now was the army all gotten ashipboard, and farewells said to Volle and
    those who should abide at home with him. The ships rowed out into the
    firth all orderly, their silken sails unfurled, and that great armament
    sailed southward into the open seas under a clear sky. All the way
    the wind favoured them, and they made a swift passage, so that on the
    thirtieth morning from their sailing out of Lookinghaven they sighted
    the long gray cliff-line of Impland the More dim in the lowblown<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">353</span> spray
    of the sea, and sailed through the Straits of Melikaphkhaz in column
    ahead, for scarce might two ships pass abreast through that narrow way.
    Black precipices shut in the straits on either hand, and the sea-birds
    in their thousands whitened every little ledge of those cliffs like
    snow. Great flights of them rose and circled overhead as the ships
    sped by, and the air was full of their plaints. And right and left, as
    of young whales blowing, columns of white spray shot up continually
    from the surface of the sea. For these were the stately-winged gannets
    fishing that sea-strait. By threes and fours they flew, each following
    other in ordered line, many mast-heights high; and ever and anon
    one checked in her flight as if a bolt had smitten her, and swooped
    head-foremost with wings half-spread, like a broad-barbed dart of
    dazzling whiteness, till at a few feet above the surface she clapped
    close her wings and cleft the water with a noise as of a great stone
    cast into the sea. Then in a moment up she bobbed, white and spruce
    with her prey in her gullet; rode the waves a minute to rest and
    consider; then with great sweeping wing-strokes up again to resume her
    flight.</p>

  <p>After a mile or two the narrows opened and the cliffs grew lower, and
    the fleet sped past the red reefs of Uaimnaz and the lofty stacks of
    Pashnemarthra white with sea-gulls on to the blue solitude of the
    Didornian Sea. All day they sailed south-east with a failing wind. The
    coast-line of Melikaphkhaz fell away astern, paled in the mists of
    distance, and was lost to sight, until only the square cloven outline
    of the Pashnemarthran islands broke the level horizon of the sea. Then
    these too sank out of sight, and the ships rowed on south-eastward in a
    dead calm. The sun stooped to the western waves, entering his bath of
    blood-red fire. He sank, and all the ways were darkened. All night they
    rowed gently on under the strange southern stars, and the broken waters
    of that sea at every oar-stroke were like fire burning. Then out of the
    sea to eastward came the day-star, ushering the dawn, brighter than all
    night’s stars, tracing a little path of gold along the waters. Then
    dawn, filling the low eastern skies with a fleet of tiny cockle-shells
    of bright gold fire; then the great face of the sun ablaze. And with
    the going up of the sun a light wind sprang up, bellying their sails on
    the starboard tack; so that ere day declined the sea-cliffs of Muelva
    hung white above the spray-mist on their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">354</span> larboard bow. They beached
    the ships on a white shell-strand behind a headland that sheltered it
    from the east and north. Here the barrier of cliffs stood back a little
    from the shore, giving place for a fertile dell of green pasture, and
    woods clustering at the foot of the cliffs, and a little spring of
    water in the midst.</p>

  <p>So for that night they slept on board, and next day made their camp,
    discharging the ships of burthen that were laden with the horses and
    stuff. But the Lord Juss was minded not to tarry an hour more in Muelva
    than should suffice to give all needful orders to Gaslark and La Fireez
    what they should do and when expect him again, and to make provision
    for himself and those who must fare with him beyond those shadowing
    cliffs into the haunted wastes of the Moruna. Ere noon was all this
    accomplished and farewells said, and those lords, Juss, Spitfire, and
    Brandoch Daha, set forth along the beach southward towards a point
    where it seemed most hopeful to scale the cliffs. With them went the
    Lord Gro, both by his own wish and because he had known the Moruna
    aforetime and these particular parts thereof; and with them went
    besides those two brothers-in-law, Zigg and Astar, bearing the precious
    burden of the egg, for that honour and trust had Juss laid on them at
    their earnest seeking. So with some pains after an hour or more they
    won up the barrier, and halted for a minute on the cliff’s edge.</p>

  <p>The skin of Gro’s hands was hurt with the sharp rocks. Tenderly he
    drew on his lambswool gloves, and shivered a little; for the breath of
    that desert blew snell and frore and there seemed a shadow in the air
    southward, for all it was bright and gentle weather below whence they
    were come. Yet albeit his frail body quailed, even so were his spirits
    within him raised with high and noble imaginings as he stood on the
    lip of that rocky cliff. The cloudless vault of heaven; the unnumbered
    laughter of the sea; that quiet cove beneath, and those ships of war
    and that army camping by the ships; the emptiness of the blasted wolds
    to southward, where every rock seemed like a dead man’s skull and every
    rank tuft of grass hag-ridden; the bearing of those lords of Demonland
    who stood beside him, as if nought should be of commoner course to them
    pursuing their resolve than to turn their backs on living land and
    enter those regions of the dead; these things with a power<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">355</span> as of a
    mighty music made Gro’s breath catch in his throat and the tear spring
    in his eye.</p>

  <p>In such wise after more than two years did Lord Juss begin his second
    crossing of the Moruna in quest of his dear brother the Lord Goldry
    Bluszco.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_mountain.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">356</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="ZORA_RACH_NAM_PSARRION">XXVIII: ZORA RACH NAM PSARRION</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE LORD JUSS’S RIDING OF THE HIPPOGRIFF TO ZORA RACH, AND OF THE
    ILLS ENCOUNTERED BY HIM IN THAT ACCURSED PLACE, AND THE MANNER OF
    HIS PERFORMING HIS GREAT ENTERPRISE TO DELIVER HIS BROTHER OUT OF
    BONDAGE.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">LULLED with light-stirring airs too gentle-soft to ruffle her glassy
    surface, warm incense-laden airs sweet with the perfume of immortal
    flowers, the charmed Lake of Ravary dreamed under the moon. It was the
    last hour before the dawn. Enchanted boats, that seemed builded of the
    glow-worm’s light, drifted on the starry bosom of the lake. Over the
    sloping woods the limbs of the mountains lowered, unmeasured, vast,
    mysterious in the moon’s glamour. In remote high spaces of night beyond
    glimmered the spires of Koshtra Pivrarcha and the virgin snows of
    Romshir and Koshtra Belorn. No bird or beast moved in the stillness:
    only a nightingale singing to the stars from a coppice of olive-trees
    near the Queen’s pavilion on the eastern shore. And that was a note not
    like a bird’s of middle earth, but a note to charm down spirits out
    of the air, or to witch the imperishable senses of the Gods when they
    would hold communion with holy Night and make her perfect, and all her
    lamps and voices perfect in their eyes.</p>

  <p>The silken hangings of the pavilion door, parting as in the portal of
    a vision, made way for that Queen, fosterling of the most high Gods.
    She paused a step or two beyond the threshold, looking down where those
    lords of Demonland, Spitfire and Brandoch Daha, with Gro and Zigg and
    Astar,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">357</span> wrapped in their cloaks, lay on the gowany dewy banks that
    sloped down to the water’s edge.</p>

  <p>“Asleep,” she whispered. “Even as he within sleepeth against the dawn.
    I do think it is only in a great man’s breast sleep hath so gentle a
    bed when great events are toward.”</p>

  <p>Like a lily, or like a moonbeam strayed through the leafy roof into a
    silent wood, she stood there, her face uplifted to the starry night
    where all the air was drenched with the silver radiance of the moon.
    And now in a soft voice she began supplication to the Gods which are
    from everlasting, calling upon them in turn by their holy names,
    upon gray-eyed Pallas, and Apollo, and Artemis the fleet Huntress,
    upon Aphrodite, and Here, Queen of Heaven, and Ares, and Hermes, and
    the dark-tressed Earthshaker. Nor was she afraid to address her holy
    prayers to him who from his veiled porch beside Acheron and Lethe Lake
    binds to his will the devils of the under-gloom, nor to the great
    Father of All in Whose sight time from the beginning until to-day is
    but the dipping of a wand into the boundless ocean of eternity. So
    prayed she to the blessed Gods, most earnestly requiring them that
    under their countenance might be that ride, the like whereof earth had
    not known: the riding of the hippogriff, not rashly and by an ass as
    heretofore to his own destruction, but by the man of men who with clean
    purpose and resolution undismayed should enforce it carry him to his
    heart’s desire.</p>

  <p>Now in the east beyond the feathery hilltops and the great snow wall
    of Romshir the gates were opening to the day. The sleepers wakened and
    stood up. There was a great noise from within the pavilion. They turned
    wide-eyed, and forth of the hangings of the doorway came that young
    thing new-hatched, pale and doubtful as the new light which trembled
    in the sky. Juss walked beside it, his hand on the sapphire mane. High
    and resolute was his look, as he gave good-morrow to the Queen, to his
    brother and his friends. No word they said, only in turn gripped him
    by the hand. The hour was upon them. For even as day striding on the
    eastern snow-fields stormed night out of high heaven, so and with such
    swift increase of splendour was might bodily and the desire of the
    upper air born in that wild steed. It shone as if lighted by a moving
    lamp from withinward, sniffed the sweet morning air and whinnied,
    pawing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">358</span> the grass of the waterside and tearing it up with its claws of
    gold. Juss patted the creature’s arching neck, looked to the bridle he
    had fitted to its mouth, made sure of the fastenings of his armour, and
    loosened in the scabbard his great sword. And now up sprang the sun.</p>

  <p>The Queen said, “Remember: when thou shalt see the lord thy brother in
    his own shape, that is no illusion. Mistrust all else. And the almighty
    Gods preserve and comfort thee.”</p>

  <p>Therewith the hippogriff, as if maddened with the day-beams, plunged
    like a wild horse, spread wide its rainbow pinions, reared, and took
    wing. But the Lord Juss was sprung astride of it, and the grip of his
    knees on the ribs of it was like brazen clamps. The firm land seemed
    to rush away beneath him to the rear; the lake and the shore and
    islands thereof showed in a moment small and remote, and the figures
    of the Queen and his companions like toys, then dots, then shrunken to
    nothingness, and the vast silence of the upper air opened and received
    him into utter loneliness. In that silence earth and sky swirled like
    the wine in a shaken goblet as the wild steed rocketed higher and
    higher in great spirals. A cloud billowy-white shut in the sky before
    them; brighter and brighter it grew in its dazzling whiteness as they
    sped towards it, until they touched it and the glory was dissolved in a
    grey mist that grew still darker and colder as they flew till suddenly
    they emerged from the further side of the cloud into a radiance of
    blue and gold blinding in its glory. So for a while they flew with no
    set direction, only ever higher, till at length obedient to Juss’s
    mastery the hippogriff ceased from his sports and turned obediently
    westward, and so in a swift straight course, mounting ever, sped over
    Ravary towards the departing night. And now indeed it was as if they
    had verily overtaken night in her western caves. For the air waxed
    darker about them and always darker, until the great peaks that stood
    round Ravary were hidden, and all the green land of Zimiamvia, with its
    plains and winding waters and hills and uplands and enchanted woods,
    hidden and lost in an evil twilight. And the upper heaven was ateem
    with portents: whole armies of men skirmishing in the air, dragons,
    wild beasts, bloody streamers, blazing comets, fiery strakes, with
    other apparitions innumerable. But all silent, and all cold, so that
    Juss’s hands and feet were numbed with the cold and his moustachios
    stiff with hoar-frost.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">359</span></p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_359">
    <img src="images/i_359.png" alt="" />
    <div class="caption">HIPPOGRIFF IN FLIGHT.</div>
  </div>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">360</span></p>

  <p>Before them now, invisible till now, loomed the gaunt peak of Zora
    Rach, black, wintry, and vast, still towering above them for all they
    soared ever higher, grand and lonely above the frozen wastes of the
    Psarrion Glaciers. Juss stared at that peak till the wind of their
    flight blinded his eyes with tears; but it was yet too far for any
    glimpse of that which he hungered to behold: no brazen citadel, no
    coronal of flame, no watcher on the heights. Zora, like some dark
    queen of Hell that disdains that presumptuous mortal eyes should dare
    to look lovely on her dread beauties, drew across her brow a veil of
    thundercloud. They flew on, and that steel-blue pall of thunderous
    vapour rolled forth till it canopied all the sky above them. Juss
    tucked his two hands for warmth into the feathery armpits of the
    hippogriff’s wings where the wings joined the creature’s body. So
    bitter cold it was, his very eyeballs were frozen and fixed; but that
    pain was a light thing beside somewhat he now felt within him the
    like whereof he never before had known: a death-like horror as of the
    houseless loneliness of naked space, which gripped him at the heart.</p>

  <p>They landed at last on a crag of black obsidian stone a little below
    the cloud that hid the highest rocks. The hippogriff, couched on the
    steep slope, turned its head to look on Juss. He felt the creature’s
    body beneath him quiver. Its ears were laid back, its eye wide with
    terror. “Poor child,” he said. “I have brought thee an ill journey, and
    thou but one hour hatched from the egg.”</p>

  <p>He dismounted; and in that same instant was bereaved. For the
    hippogriff with a horse-scream of terror took wing and vanished down
    the mirk air, diving headlong away to eastward, back to the world of
    life and sunlight.</p>

  <p>And the Lord Juss stood alone in that region of fear and frost and the
    soul-quailing gloom, under the black summit-rocks of Zora Rach.</p>

  <p>Setting, as the Queen had counselled him to do, his whole heart and
    mind on the dread goal he intended, he turned to the icy cliff. As he
    climbed the cold cloud covered him, yet not so thick but he might see
    ten paces’ distance before and about him as he went. Ill sights enow,
    and enow to quail a strong man’s resolution, showed in his path: shapes
    of damned fiends and gorgons of the pit running in the way, threatening
    him with death and doom. But Juss, gritting his teeth,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">361</span> climbed on and
    through them, they being unsubstantial. Then up rose an eldritch cry,
    “What man of middle-earth is this that troubleth our quiet? Make an
    end! Call up the basilisks. Call up the Golden Basilisk, which bloweth
    upon and setteth on fire whatsoever he seeth. Call up the Starry
    Basilisk, and whatso he seeth it immediately shrinks up and perisheth.
    Call up the Bloody Basilisk, who if he see or touch any living thing it
    floweth away so that nought there remaineth but the bones!”</p>

  <p>That was a voice to freeze the marrow, yet he pressed on, saying in
    himself, “All is illusion, save that alone she told me of.” And nought
    appeared: only the silence and the cold, and the rocks grew ever
    steeper and their ice-glaze more dangerous, and the difficulty like
    the difficulty of those Barriers of Emshir, up which more than two
    years ago he had followed Brandoch Daha and on which he had encountered
    and slain the beast mantichora. The leaden hours drifted by, and now
    night shut down, bitter and black and silent. Sore weariness bodily
    was come upon Juss, and his whole soul weary withal and near to death
    as he entered a snow-bedded gully that cut deep into the face of the
    mountain, there to await the day. He durst not sleep in that freezing
    night; scarcely dared he rest lest the cold should master him, but must
    keep for ever moving and stamping and chafing hands and feet. And yet,
    as the slow night crept by, death seemed a desirable thing that should
    end such utter weariness.</p>

  <p>Morning came with but a cold alteration of the mist from black to
    gray, disclosing the snow-bound rocks silent, dreary, and dead. Juss,
    enforcing his half frozen limbs to resume the ascent, beheld a sight of
    woe too terrible for the eye: a young man, helmed and graithed in dark
    iron, a black-a-moor with goggle-eyes and white teeth agrin, who held
    by the neck a fair young lady kneeling on her knees and clasping his
    as in supplication, and he most bloodily brandishing aloft his spear
    of six foot of length as minded to reave her of her life. This lady,
    seeing the Lord Juss, cried out on him for succour very piteously,
    calling him by his name and saying, “Lord Juss of Demonland, have
    mercy, and in your triumph over the powers of night pause for an
    instant to deliver me, poor afflicted damosel, from this cruel tyrant.
    Can your towering spirit, which hath quarried upon kingdoms, make a
    stoop at him?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">362</span> O that should approve you noble indeed, and bless you
    for ever!”</p>

  <p>Surely the very heart of him groaned, and he clapped hand to sword
    wishing to right so cruel a wrong. But on the motion he bethought him
    of the wiles of evil that dwelt in that place, and of his brother,
    and with a great groan passed on. In which instant he beheld sidelong
    how the cruel murtherer smote with his spear that delicate lady, and
    detrenched and cut the two master-veins of her neck, so as she fell
    dying in her blood. Juss mounted with a great pace to the head of the
    gully, and looking back beheld how black-a-moor and lady both were
    changed to two coiling serpents. And he laboured on, shaken at heart,
    yet glad to have so escaped the powers that would have limed him so.</p>

  <p>Darker grew the mist, and heavier the brooding dread which seemed
    elemental of the airs about that mountain. Pausing well nigh exhausted
    on a small stance of snow Juss beheld the appearance of a man armed
    who rolled prostrate in the way, tearing with his nails at the hard
    rock and frozen snow, and the snow was all one gore of blood beneath
    the man; and the man besought him in a stifled voice to go no further
    but raise him up and bring him down the mountain. And when Juss, after
    an instant’s doubt betwixt pity and his resolve, would have passed by,
    the man cried and said, “Hold, for I am thy very brother thou seekest,
    albeit the King hath by his art framed me to another likeness, hoping
    so to delude thee. For thy love sake be not deluded!” Now the voice was
    like to the voice of his brother Goldry, howbeit weak. But the Lord
    Juss bethought him again of the words of Sophonisba the Queen, that he
    should see his brother in his own shape and nought else must he trust;
    and he thought, “It is an illusion, this also.” So he said, “If that
    thou be truly my dear brother, take thy shape.” But the man cried as
    with the voice of the Lord Goldry Bluszco, “I may not, till that I be
    brought down from the mountain. Bring me down, or my curse be upon thee
    for ever.”</p>

  <p>The Lord Juss was torn with pity and doubt and wonder, to hear that
    voice again of his dear brother so beseeching him. Yet he answered and
    said, “Brother, if that it be thou indeed, then bide till I have won
    to this mountain top and the citadel of brass which in a dream I saw,
    that I may know truly thou<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">363</span> art not there, but here. Then will I turn
    again and succour thee. But until I see thee in thine own shape I will
    mistrust all. For hither I came from the ends of the earth to deliver
    thee, and I will set my good on no doubtful cast, having spent so much
    and put so much in danger for thy dear sake.”</p>

  <p>So with a heavy heart he set hand again to those black rocks, iced and
    slippery to the touch. Therewith up rose an eldritch cry, “Rejoice,
    for this earth-born is mad! Rejoice, for that was not perfect friend,
    that relinquished his brother at his need!” But Juss climbed on, and by
    and by looking back beheld how in that seeming man’s place writhed a
    grisful serpent. And he was glad, so much as gladness might be in that
    mountain of affliction and despair.</p>

  <p>Now was his strength near gone, as day drew again toward night and he
    climbed the last crags under the peak of Zora. And he, who had all his
    days drunk deep of the fountain of the joy of life and the glory and
    the wonder of being, felt ever deadlier and darker in his soul that
    lonely horror which he first had tasted the day before at his first
    near sight of Zora, while he flew through the cold air portent-laden;
    and his whole heart grew sick because of it.</p>

  <p>And now he was come to the ring of fire that was about the summit of
    the mountain. He was beyond terror or the desire of life, and trod the
    fire as it had been his own home’s threshold. The blue tongues of flame
    died under his foot-tread, making a way before him. The brazen gates
    stood wide. He entered in, he passed up the brazen stair, he stood on
    that high roof-floor which he had beheld in dreams, he looked as in
    a dream on him he had crossed the confines of the dead to find: Lord
    Goldry Bluszco keeping his lone watch on the unhallowed heights of
    Zora. Not otherwise was the Lord Goldry, not by an hairsbreadth, than
    as Juss had aforetime seen him on that first night in Koshtra Belorn,
    so long ago. He reclined propped on one elbow on that bench of brass,
    his head erect, his eyes fixed as on distant space, viewing the depths
    beyond the star-shine, as one waiting till time should have an end.</p>

  <p>He turned not at his brother’s greeting. Juss went to him and stood
    beside him. The Lord Goldry Bluszco moved not an eyelid. Juss spoke
    again, and touched his hand. It was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">364</span> stiff and like dank earth. The
    cold of it struck through Juss’s body and smote him at the heart. He
    said in himself, “He is dead.”</p>

  <p>With that, the horror shut down upon Juss’s soul like madness.
    Fearfully he stared about him. The cloud had lifted from the mountain’s
    peak and hung like a pall above its nakedness. Chill air that was like
    the breath of the whole world’s grave: vast blank cloud-barriers: dim
    far forms of snow and ice, silent, solitary, pale, like mountains of
    the dead: it was as if the bottom of the world were opened and truth
    laid bare: the ultimate Nothing.</p>

  <p>To hold off the horror from his soul, Juss turned in memory to the
    dear life of earth, those things he had most set his heart on, men and
    women he loved dearest in his life’s days; battles and triumphs of his
    opening manhood, high festivals in Galing, golden summer noons under
    the Westmark pines, hunting morns on the high heaths of Mealand; the
    day he first backed a horse, of a spring morning in a primrose glade
    that opened on Moonmere, when his small brown legs were scarce the
    length of his fore-arm now, and his dear father held him by the foot as
    he trotted, and showed him where the squirrel had her nest in the old
    oak tree.</p>

  <p>He bowed his head as if to avoid a blow, so plain he seemed to hear
    somewhat within him crying with a high voice and loud, “Thou art
    nothing. And all thy desires and memories and loves and dreams,
    nothing. The little dead earth-louse were of greater avail than thou,
    were it not nothing as thou art nothing. For all is nothing: earth
    and sky and sea and they that dwell therein. Nor shall this illusion
    comfort thee, if it might, that when thou art abolished these things
    shall endure for a season, stars and months return, and men grow old
    and die, and new men and women live and love and die and be forgotten.
    For what is it to thee, that shalt be as a blown-out flame? and all
    things in earth and heaven, and things past and things for to come,
    and life and death, and the mere elements of space and time, of being
    and not being, all shall be nothing unto thee; because thou shalt be
    nothing, for ever.”</p>

  <p>And the Lord Juss cried aloud in his agony, “Fling me to Tartarus,
    deliver me to the black infernal Furies, let them blind me, seethe me
    in the burning lake. For so should there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">365</span> yet be hope. But in this
    horror of Nothing is neither hope nor life nor death nor sleep nor
    waking, for ever. For ever.”</p>

  <p>In this black mood of horror he abode for awhile, until a sound of
    weeping and wailing made him raise his head, and he beheld a company
    of mourners walking one behind another about the brazen floor, all
    cloaked in funeral black, mourning the death of Lord Goldry Bluszco.
    And they rehearsed his glorious deeds and praised his beauty and
    prowess and goodliness and strength: soft women’s voices lamenting,
    so that the Lord Juss’s soul seemed as he listened to arise again out
    of annihilation’s waste, and his heart grew soft again, even unto
    tears. He felt a touch on his arm and looking up met the gaze of two
    eyes gentle as a dove’s, suffused with tears, looking into his from
    under the darkness of that hood of mourning; and a woman’s voice spake
    and said, “This is the observable day of the death of the Lord Goldry
    Bluszco, which hath been dead now a year; and we his fellows in bondage
    do bewail him, as thou mayst see, and shall so bewail him again year by
    year whiles we are on life. And for thee, great lord, must we yet more
    sorrowfully lament, since of all thy great works done this is the empty
    guerdon, and this the period of thine ambition. But come, take comfort
    for a season, since unto all dominions Fate hath set their end, and
    there is no king on the road of death.”</p>

  <p>So the Lord Juss, his heart dead within him for grief and despair,
    suffered her take him by the hand and conduct him down a winding
    stairway that led from that brazen floor to an inner chamber fragrant
    and delicious, lighted with flickering lamps. Surely life and its
    turmoils seemed faded to a distant and futile murmur, and the horror of
    the void seemed there but a vain imagination, under the heavy sweetness
    of that chamber. His senses swooned; he turned towards his veiled
    conductress. She with a sudden motion cast off her mourning cloak, and
    stood there, her whole fair body bared to his gaze, open-armed, a sight
    to ravish the soul with love and all delight.</p>

  <p>Well nigh had he clasped to his bosom that vision of dazzling
    loveliness. But fortune, or the high Gods, or his own soul’s might,
    woke yet again in his drugged brain remembrance of his purpose, so that
    he turned violently from that bait prepared for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">366</span> his destruction, and
    strode from the chamber up to that roof where his dear brother sat as
    in death. Juss caught him by the hand: “Speak to me, kinsman. It is I,
    Juss. It is Juss, thy brother.”</p>

  <p>But Goldry moved not neither answered any word.</p>

  <p>Juss looked at the hand resting in his, so like his own to the very
    shape of the finger nails and the growth of the hairs on the back of
    the hand and fingers. He let it go, and the arm dropped lifeless.
    “It is very certain,” said he, “thou art in a manner frozen, and thy
    spirits and understanding frozen and congealed within thee.”</p>

  <p>So saying, he bent to gaze close in Goldry’s eyes, touching his arm and
    shoulder. Not a limb stirred, not an eyelid flickered. He caught him
    by the hand and sleeve as if to force him up from the bench, calling
    him loudly by his name, shaking him roughly, crying, “Speak to me, thy
    brother, that crossed the world to find thee;” but he abode a dead
    weight in Juss’s grasp.</p>

  <p>“If thou be dead,” said Juss, “then am I dead with thee. But till
    then I’ll ne’er think thee dead.” And he sat down on the bench beside
    his brother, taking his hand in his, and looked about him. Nought but
    utter silence. Night had fallen, and the moon’s calm radiance and the
    twinkling stars mingled with the pale fires that hedged that mountain
    top in an uncertain light. Hell loosed no more her denizens in the air,
    and since the moment when Juss had in that inner chamber shaken himself
    free of that last illusion no presence had he seen nor simulacrum of
    man or devil save only Goldry his brother; nor might that horror any
    more master his high heart, but the memory of it was but as the bitter
    chill of a winter sea that takes the swimmer’s breath for an instant as
    he plunges first into the icy waters.</p>

  <p>So with a calm and a steadfast mind the Lord Juss abode there, his
    second night without sleep, for sleep he dared not in that accursed
    place. But for joy of his found brother, albeit it seemed there was in
    him neither speech nor sight nor hearing, Juss scarce wist of his great
    weariness. And he nourished himself with that ambrosia given him by the
    Queen, for well he thought the uttermost strength of his body should
    now be tried in the task he now decreed him.</p>

  <p>When it was day, he arose and taking his brother Goldry<span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">367</span> bodily on his
    back set forth. Past the gates of brass Juss bore him, and past the
    barriers of flame, and painfully and by slow degrees down the long
    northern ridge which overhangs the Psarrion Glaciers. All that day,
    and the night following, and all the next day after were they on the
    mountain, and well nigh dead was Juss for weariness when on the second
    day an hour or two before sun-down they reached the moraine. Yet was
    triumph in his heart, and gladness of a great deed done. They lay that
    night in a grove of strawberry trees under the steep foot of a mountain
    some ten miles beyond the western shore of Ravary, and met Spitfire
    and Brandoch Daha who had waited with their boat two nights at the
    appointed spot, about eventide of the following day.</p>

  <p>Now as soon as Juss had brought him off the mountain, this frozen
    condition of the Lord Goldry was so far thawed that he was able
    to stand upon his feet and walk; but never a word might he speak,
    and never a look they gat from him, but still his gaze was set and
    unchanging, seeming when it rested on his companions to look through
    and beyond them as at some far thing seen in a mist. So that each was
    secretly troubled, fearing lest this condition of the Lord Goldry
    Bluszco should prove remediless, and this that they now received back
    from prison but the poor remain of him they had so much desired.</p>

  <p>They came aland and brought him to Sophonisba the Queen where she made
    haste to meet them on the fair lawn before her pavilion. The Queen,
    as if knowing beforehand both their case and the remedy thereof, took
    by the hand the Lord Juss and said, “O my lord, there yet remaineth a
    thing for thee to do to free him throughly, that hast outfaced terrors
    beyond the use of man to bring him back: a little stone indeed to crown
    this building of thine, and yet without it all were in vain, as itself
    were vain without the rest that was all thine: and mine is this last,
    and with a pure heart I give it thee.”</p>

  <p>So saying she made the Lord Juss bow down till she might kiss his
    mouth, sweetly and soberly one light kiss. And she said, “This give
    unto the lord thy brother.” And Juss did so, kissing his dear brother
    in like manner on the mouth; and she said, “Take him, dear my lords.
    And I have utterly put out the remembrance of these things from his
    heart. Take him, and give thanks unto the high Gods because of him.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">368</span></p>

  <p>Therewith the Lord Goldry Bluszco looked upon them and upon that fair
    Queen and the mountains and the woods and the cool lake’s loveliness,
    as a man awakened out of a deep slumber.</p>

  <p>Surely there was joy in all their hearts that day.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_mountain.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />

  <div class="chapter">

    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">369</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_FLEET_AT_MUELVA">XXIX: THE FLEET AT MUELVA</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    HOW THE LORDS OF DEMONLAND CAME AGAIN TO THEIR SHIPS AT MUELVA, AND THE
    TIDINGS THEY LEARNED THERE.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">FOR nine days’ space the lords of Demonland abode with Queen Sophonisba
    in Koshtra Belorn and beside the Lake of Ravary tasting such high and
    pure delights as belike none else hath tasted, if it were not the
    spirits of the blest in Elysium. When they bade her farewell, the Queen
    said, “My little martlets shall bring me tidings of you. And when you
    shall have brought to mere perdition the wicked regiment of Witchland
    and returned again to your dear native land, then is my time for that,
    my Lord Juss, whereof I have often talked to thee and often gladded
    my dreams with the thought thereof: to visit earth again and the
    habitations of men, and be your guest in many-mountained Demonland.”</p>

  <p>Juss kissed her hand and said, “Fail not in this, dear Queen,
    whatsoe’er betide.”</p>

  <p>So the Queen let bring them by a secret way out upon the high
    snow-fields that are betwixt Koshtra Belorn and Romshir, whence they
    came down into the glen of the dark water that descends from the
    glacier of Temarm, and so through many perilous scapes after many days
    back by way of the Moruna to Muelva and the ships.</p>

  <p>There Gaslark and La Fireez, when their greetings were done and their
    rejoicings, said to the Lord Juss, “We abide too long time here. We
    have entered the barrel and the bung-hole is stopped.” Therewithal they
    brought him Hesper Golthring, who three days ago sailing to the Straits
    for forage came back again but yesterday with a hot alarum that he met
    certain ships of Witchland: and brought them to battle: and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">370</span> gat one
    sunken ere they brake off the fight: and took up certain prisoners. “By
    whose examination,” saith he, “as well as from mine own perceiving and
    knowing, it appeareth Laxus holdeth the Straits with eight score ships
    of war, the greatest ships that ever the sea bare until this day, come
    hither of purpose to destroy us.”</p>

  <p>“Eight score ships?” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “Witchland commandeth not
    the half, nor the third part, of such a strength since we did them down
    last harvest-tide in Aurwath haven. It is not leveable, Hesper.”</p>

  <p>Hesper answered him, “Your highness shall find it truth; and more the
    sorrow on’t and the wonder.”</p>

  <p>“’Tis the scourings of his subject-allies,” said Spitfire. “We shall
    find them no such hard matter to dispatch after the others.”</p>

  <p>Juss said to the Lord Gro, “What makest thou of these news, my lord?”</p>

  <p>“I think no wonder in it,” answered he. “Witchland is of good memory
    and mindeth him of your seamanship off Kartadza. He useth not to
    idle, nor to set all on one hazard. Nor comfort not thyself, my Lord
    Spitfire, that these be pleasure-galleys borrowed from the soft
    Beshtrians or the simple Foliots. They be new ships builded for us, my
    lords, and our undoing: it is by no conjecture I say it unto you, but
    of mine own knowledge, albeit the number appeareth far greater than ere
    I dreamed of. But or ever I sailed with Corinius to Demonland, great
    buildings of an army naval was begun at Tenemos.”</p>

  <p>“I do very well believe,” said King Gaslark, “that none knoweth all
    this better than thou, because thyself didst counsel it.”</p>

  <p>“O Gaslark,” said Lord Brandoch Daha, “must thou still itch to play at
    chop-cherry when cherry-time is past? Let him alone. He is our friend
    now.”</p>

  <p>“Eight score ships i’ the Straits,” said Juss. “And ours an hundred.
    ’Tis well seen what great difference and odds there is betwixt us.
    Which we must needs encounter, or else ne’er sail home again, let alone
    to Carcë. For out of this sea is no sea-way for ships, but only by
    these Straits of Melikaphkhaz.”</p>

  <p>“We shall do of Laxus,” said Lord Brandoch Daha, “that he troweth to do
    of us.”</p>

  <p>But Juss was fallen silent, his chin in his hand.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">371</span></p>

  <p>Goldry Bluszco said, “I would allow him odds and beat him.”</p>

  <p>“It is a great shame in thee, O Juss,” said Brandoch Daha, “if thou
    wilt be abashed at this. If that they be in number more than we, what
    then? They are in hope, quarrel, and strength far inferior.”</p>

  <p>But Juss, still in a study, reached out and caught him by the sleeve,
    holding him so a moment or two, and then looked up at him and said,
    “Thou art the greatest quarreller, of a friend, that ever I knew, and
    if I were an angry man I could not abear thee. May I not three minutes
    study the means, but thou shalt cry out upon me for a milksop?”</p>

  <p>They laughed, and the Lord Juss rose up and said, “Call we a council
    of war. And let Hesper Golthring be at it, and his skippers that were
    with him o’ that voyage. And pack up the stuff, for we will away o’ the
    morn. If we like not these lettuce, we may pull back our lips. But no
    choice remaineth. If Laxus will deny us sea-room through Melikaphkhaz
    Straits, I trow there shall go up thence a crash which when the King
    heareth it he shall know it for our first banging on the gates of
    Carcë.”</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_crab.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">372</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="TIDINGS_OF_MELIKAPHKHAZ">XXX: TIDINGS OF MELIKAPHKHAZ</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF NEWS BROUGHT UNTO GORICE THE KING IN CARCË OUT OF THE SOUTH, WHERE
    THE LORD LAXUS LYING IN THE STRAITS WITH HIS ARMADA HELD THE FLEET
    OF DEMONLAND PRISONED IN THE MIDLAND SEA.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">ON a night of late summer leaning towards autumn, eight weeks after
    the sailing of the Demons out of Muelva as is aforewrit, the Lady
    Prezmyra sate before her mirror in Corund’s lofty bed-chamber in Carcë.
    The night without was mild and full of stars. Within, yellow flames
    of candles burning steadily on either side of the mirror rayed forth
    tresses of tinselling brightness in twin glories or luminous spheres
    of warmth. In that soft radiance grains as of golden fire swam and
    circled, losing themselves on the confines of the gloom where the massy
    furniture and the arras and the figured hangings of the bed were but
    cloudier divisions and congestions of the general dark. Prezmyra’s hair
    caught the beams and imprisoned them in a tawny tangle of splendour
    that swept about her head and shoulders down to the emerald clasps of
    her girdle. Her eyes resting idly on her own fair image in the shining
    mirror, she talked light nothings with her woman of the bed-chamber
    who, plying the comb, stood behind her chair of gold and tortoiseshell.</p>

  <p>“Reach me yonder book, nurse, that I may read again the words of that
    serenade the Lord Gro made for me, the night when first we had tidings
    from my lord out of Impland of his conquest of that land, and the King
    did make him king thereof.”</p>

  <p>The old woman gave her the book, that was bound in goatskin chiselled
    and ornamented by the gilder’s art, fitted with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">373</span> clasps of gold, and
    enriched with little gems, smaragds and margery-pearls, inlaid in the
    panels of its covers. Prezmyra turned the page and read:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">You meaner Beauties of the Night,</div>
        <div class="i2">That poorly satisfie our Eies,</div>
        <div class="i0">More by your number then your light,</div>
        <div class="i2">You Common-people of the Skies;</div>
        <div class="i2">What are you when the Moone shall rise?</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">You Curious Chanters of the Wood,</div>
        <div class="i2">That warble forth Dame Natures layes,</div>
        <div class="i0">Thinking your Passions understood</div>
        <div class="i2">By your weake accents; what’s your praise</div>
        <div class="i2">When Philomell her voyce shall raise?</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">You Violets that first apeare,</div>
        <div class="i2">By your pure purpel mantles knowne,</div>
        <div class="i0">Like the proud Virgins of the yeare,</div>
        <div class="i2">As if the Spring were all your own;</div>
        <div class="i2">What are you when the Rose is blowne?</div>
      </div>
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">So, when my Princess shall be seene</div>
        <div class="i2">In form and Beauty of her mind,</div>
        <div class="i0">By Vertue first, then Choyce a Queen,</div>
        <div class="i2">Tell me, if she were not design’d</div>
        <div class="i2">Th’ Eclypse and Glory of her kind.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>She abode silent awhile. Then, in a low sweet voice where all the
    chords of music seemed to slumber: “Three years will be gone next
    Yule-tide,” she said, “since first I heard that song. And not yet am I
    grown customed to the style of Queen.”</p>

  <p>“’Tis pity of my Lord Gro,” said the nurse.</p>

  <p>“Thou thinkest?”</p>

  <p>“Mirth sat oftener on your face, O Queen, when he was here, and you
    were used to charm his melancholy and make a pish of his phantastical
    humorous forebodings.”</p>

  <p>“Oft doubting not his forejudgement,” said Prezmyra, “even the while I
    thripped my fingers at it. But never saw I yet that the louring thunder
    hath that partiality of a tyrant, to blast him that faced it and pass
    by him that quailed before it.”</p>

  <p>“He was most deeply bound servant to your beauty,” said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">374</span> the old woman.
    “And yet,” she said, viewing her mistress sidelong to see how she would
    receive it, “that were a miss easily made good.”</p>

  <p>She busied herself with the comb awhile in silence. After a time she
    said, “O Queen, mistress of the hearts of men, there is not a lord in
    Witchland, nor in earth beside, you might not bind your servant with
    one thread of this hair of yours. The likeliest and the goodliest were
    yours at an eye-glance.”</p>

  <p>The Lady Prezmyra looked dreamily into her own sea-green eyes imaged in
    the glass. Then she smiled mockingly and said, “Whom then accountest
    thou the likeliest and the goodliest man in all the stablished earth?”</p>

  <p>The old woman smiled. “O Queen,” answered she, “this was the very
    matter in dispute amongst us at supper only this evening.”</p>

  <p>“A pretty disputation!” said Prezmyra. “Let me be merry. Who was
    adjudged the fairest and gallantest by your high court of censure?”</p>

  <p>“It was not generally determined of, O Queen. Some would have my Lord
    Gro.”</p>

  <p>“Alack, he is too feminine,” said Prezmyra.</p>

  <p>“Others our Lord the King.”</p>

  <p>“There is none greater,” said Prezmyra, “nor more worshipful. But for
    an husband, thou shouldst as well wed with a thunder-storm or the
    hungry sea. Give me some more.”</p>

  <p>“Some chose the lord Admiral.”</p>

  <p>“That,” said Prezmyra, “was a nearer stroke. No skipjack nor soft
    marmalady courtier, but a brave, tall, gallant gentleman. Ay, but too
    watery a planet burned at his nativity. He is too like a statua of a
    man. No, nurse, thou must bring me better than he.”</p>

  <p>The nurse said, “True it is, O Queen, that most were of my thinking
    when I gave ’em my choice: the king of Demonland.”</p>

  <p>“Fie on thee!” cried Prezmyra. “Name him not so that was too unmighty
    to hold that land against our enemies.”</p>

  <p>“Folk say it was by foxish arts and practices magical a was spilt on
    Krothering Side. Folk say ’twas divels and not horses carried the
    Demons down the mountain at us.”</p>

  <p>“They say!” cried Prezmyra. “I say to thee, he hath<span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">375</span> found it apter to
    his bent to flaunt his crown in Witchland than make ’em give him the
    knee in Galing. For a true king both knee and heart do truly bow before
    him. But this one, if he had their knee ’twas in the back side of him
    he had it, to kick him home again.”</p>

  <p>“Fie, madam!” said the nurse.</p>

  <p>“Hold thy tongue, nurse,” said Prezmyra. “It were good ye were all well
    whipped for a bunch of silly mares that know not a horse from an ass.”</p>

  <p>The old woman watching her in the glass counted it best keep silence.
    Prezmyra said under her breath as if talking to herself, “I know a man,
    should not have miscarried it thus.” The old nurse that loved not Lord
    Corund and his haughty fashions and rough speech and wine-bibbing, and
    was besides jealous that so rude a stock should wear so rich a jewel as
    was her mistress, followed not her meaning.</p>

  <p>After some time, the old woman spake softly and said, “You are full of
    thoughts to-night, madam.”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra’s eyes met hers in the mirror. “Why may I not be so and it
    likes me?” said she.</p>

  <p>That stony look of the eyes struck like a gong some twenty-year-old
    memory in the nurse’s heart: the little wilful maiden, ill to goad but
    good to guide, looking out from that Queen’s face across the years. She
    knelt down suddenly and caught her arms about her mistress’s waist.
    “Why must you wed then, dear heart?” said she, “if you were minded to
    do what likes you? Men love not sad looks in their wives. You may ride
    a lover on the curb, madam, but once you wed him ’tis all t’other way:
    all his way, madam, and beware of ‘had I wist.’”</p>

  <p>Her mistress looked down at her mockingly. “I have been wed seven years
    to-night. I should know these things.”</p>

  <p>“And this night!” said the nurse. “And but an hour till midnight, and
    yet he sitteth at board.”</p>

  <p>The Lady Prezmyra leaned back to look again on her own mirrored
    loveliness. Her proud mouth sweetened to a smile. “Wilt thou learn me
    common women’s wisdom?” said she, and there was yet more voluptuous
    sweetness trembling in her voice. “I will tell thee a story, as thou
    hast told them me in the old days in Norvasp to wile me to bed. Hast
    thou not heard tell how old Duke Hilmanes of Maltraëny, among some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">376</span>
    other fantasies such as appear by night unto many in divers places,
    had one in likeness of a woman with old face of low and little stature
    or body, which did scour his pots and pans and did such things as a
    maid servant ought to do, liberally and without doing of any harm? And
    by his art he knew this thing should be his servant still, and bring
    unto him whatsoever he would, so long time as he should be glad of the
    things it brought him. But this duke, being a foolish man and a greedy,
    made his familiar bring him at once all the year’s seasons and their
    several goods and pleasures, and all good things of earth at one time.
    So as in six months’ space, he being sated with these and all good
    things, and having no good thing remaining unto him to expect or to
    desire, for very weariness did hang himself. I would never have ta’en
    me an husband, nurse, and I had not known that I was able to give him
    every time I would a new heaven and a new earth, and never the same
    thing twice.”</p>

  <p>She took the old woman’s hands in hers and gathered them to her breast,
    as if to let them learn, rocked for a minute in the bountiful infinite
    sweetness of that place, what foolish fears were these. Suddenly
    Prezmyra clasped the hands tighter in her own, and shuddered a little.
    She bent down to whisper in the nurse’s ear, “I would not wish to die.
    The world without me should be summer without roses. Carcë without me
    should be a night without the star-shine.”</p>

  <p>Her voice died away like the night breeze in a summer garden. In the
    silence they heard the dip and wash of oar-blades from the river
    without; the sentinel’s challenge, the answer from the ship.</p>

  <p>Prezmyra stood up quickly and went to the window. She could see the
    ship’s dark bulk by the water-gate, and comings and goings, but nought
    clearly. “Tidings from the fleet,” she said. “Put up my hair.”</p>

  <p>And ere that was done, came a little page running to her chamber door,
    and when it was opened to him, stood panting from his running and said,
    “The king your husband bade me tell you, madam, and pray you go down to
    him i’ the great hall. It may be ill news, I fear.”</p>

  <p>“Thou fearest, pap-face?” said the Queen. “I’ll have thee whipped if
    thou bringest thy fears to me. Dost know aught? What’s the matter?”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">377</span></p>

  <p>“The ship’s much battered, O Queen. He is closeted with our Lord the
    King, the skipper. None dare speak else. ’Tis feared the high Admiral——”</p>

  <p>“Feared!” cried she, swinging round for the nurse to put about her
    white shoulders her mantle of sendaline and cloth of silver, that
    shimmered at the collar with purple amethysts and was scented with
    cedar and galbanum and myrrh. She was forth in the dark corridor,
    down by the winding marble stair, through the mid-court, hasting to
    the banquet hall. The court was full of folk talking; but nought
    certain, nought save suspense and wonder; rumour of a great sea-fight
    in the south, a mighty victory won by Laxus upon the Demons: Juss and
    those lords of Demonland dead and gone, the captives following with
    the morning’s tide. And here and there like an undertone to these
    triumphant tidings, contrary rumours, whispered low, like the hissing
    of an adder from her shadowy lair: all not well, the lord Admiral
    wounded, half his ships lost, the battle doubtful, the Demons escaped.
    So came that lady into the great hall; and there were the lords and
    captains of the Witches all in a restless quiet of expectation. Duke
    Corsus lolled forward in his seat down by the cross-bench, his breath
    stertorous, his small eyes fixed in a drunken stare. On the other
    side Corund sate huge and motionless, his elbow propped on the table,
    his chin in his hand, sombre and silent, staring at the wall. Others
    gathered in knots, talking in low tones. The Lord Corinius walked up
    and down behind the cross-bench, his hands clasped behind him, his
    fingers snapping impatiently at whiles, his heavy jaw held high, his
    glance high and defiant. Prezmyra came to Heming where he stood among
    three or four and touched him on the arm. “We know nothing, madam,” he
    said. “He is with the King.”</p>

  <p>She came to her lord. “Thou didst send for me.”</p>

  <p>Corund looked up at her. “Why, so I did, madam. Tidings from the fleet.
    Maybe somewhat, maybe nought. But thou’dst best be here for’t.”</p>

  <p>“Good tidings or ill: that shaketh not Carcë walls,” said she.</p>

  <p>Suddenly the low buzz of talk was hushed. The King stood in the
    curtained doorway. They rose up all to meet him, all save Corsus that
    sat drunk in his chair. The crown<span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">378</span> of Witchland shed baleful sparkles
    above the darkness of the dark fortress-face of Gorice the King, the
    glitter of his dread eyeballs, the deadly line of his mouth, the square
    black beard jutting beneath. Like a tower he stood, and behind him in
    the shadow was the messenger from the fleet with countenance the colour
    of wet mortar.</p>

  <p>The King spake and said, “My lords, here’s tidings touching the truth
    whereof I have well satisfied myself. And it importeth the mere
    perdition of my fleet. There hath been battle off Melikaphkhaz in the
    Impland seas. Juss hath sunken our ships, every ship save that which
    brought the tidings, sunk, with Laxus and all his men that were with
    him.” He paused: then, “These be heavy news,” he said, “and I’ll have
    you bear ’em in the old Witchland fashion: the heavier hit the heavier
    strike again.”</p>

  <p>In the strange deformed silence came a little gasping cry, and the Lady
    Sriva fell a-swooning.</p>

  <p>The King said, “Let the kings of Impland and of Demonland attend me.
    The rest, it is commanded that all do get them to bed o’ the instant.”</p>

  <p>The Lord Corund said in his lady’s ear as he went by, taking her with
    his hand about the shoulder, “What, lass? if the broth’s spilt, the
    meat remaineth. To bed with thee, and never doubt we’ll pay them yet.”</p>

  <p>And he with Corinius followed the King.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>It was past middle night when the council brake up, and Corund sought
    his chamber in the eastern gallery above the inner court. He found his
    lady sitting yet at the window, watching the false dawn over Pixyland.
    Dismissing his lamp-bearers that lighted him to bed, he bolted and
    barred the great iron-studded door. The breadth of his shoulders when
    he turned filled the shadowy doorway; his head well nigh touched the
    lintel. It was hard to read his countenance in the uncertain gloom
    where he stood beyond the bright region made by the candle-light, but
    Prezmyra’s eyes could mark how care sat on his brow, and there was in
    the carriage of his ponderous frame kingliness and the strength of some
    strong determination.</p>

  <p>She stood up, looking up at him as on a mate to whom she could be true
    and be true to her own self. “Well?” she said.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">379</span></p>

  <p>“The tables are set,” said he, without moving. “The King hath named me
    his captain general in Carcë.”</p>

  <p>“Is it come to that?” said Prezmyra.</p>

  <p>“They have hewn a limb from us,” answered he. “They have wit to know
    the next stroke should be at the heart.”</p>

  <p>“Is it truly so?” said she. “Eight thousand men? twice thine army’s
    strength that won Impland for us? all drowned?”</p>

  <p>“’Twas the devilish seamanship of these accursed Demons,” said Corund.
    “It appeareth Laxus held the Straits where they must go if ever they
    should win home again, meaning to fight ’em in the narrows and so crush
    ’em with the weight of’s ships as easy as kill flies, having by a great
    odds the bigger strength both in ships and men. They o’ their part kept
    the sea without, trying their best to ’tice him forth so they might do
    their sailor tricks i’ the open. A week or more he withstood it, till
    o’ the ninth day (the devil curse him for a fool, wherefore could a
    not have had patience?) o’ the ninth morning, weary of inaction and
    having wind and tide something in his favour”; the Lord Corund groaned
    and snapped his fingers contemptuously. “O I’ll tell thee the tale
    to-morrow, madam. I’m surfeited with it to-night. The sum is, Laxus
    drownded and all that were with him, and Juss with his whole great
    armament northward bound for Witchland.”</p>

  <p>“And the wide seas his. And we expect him, any day?”</p>

  <p>“The wind hangeth easterly. Any day,” said Corund.</p>

  <p>Prezmyra said, “That was well done to rest the command in thee. But
    what of our qualified young gentleman who had that office aforetime.
    Will he play o’ these terms?”</p>

  <p>Corund answered, “Hungry dogs will eat dirty puddings. I think he’ll
    play, albeit he showed his teeth i’ the first while.”</p>

  <p>“Let him keep his teeth for the Demons,” said she.</p>

  <p>“This very ship was ta’en,” said Corund, “and sent home by them in a
    bravado to tell us what betid: a stupid insolent part, shall cost ’em
    dear, for it hath forewarned us. The skipper had this letter for thee:
    gave it me monstrous secretly.”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra took away the wax and opened the letter, and knew the writer
    of it. She held it out to Corund: “Read it to me, my lord. I am tired
    with watching; I read ill by this flickering candle-light.”</p>

  <p>But he said, “I am too poor a scholar, madam. I prithee read it.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">380</span></p>

  <p>And in the light of the guttering candles, vexed with an east wind
    that blew before the dawn, she read this letter, that was conceived in
    manner following:</p>

  <blockquote>
    <p>“Unto the right high mighti and doubtid Prynsace the Quen of
      Implande, one that was your Servaunt but now beinge both a Traitor
      and a manifald parjured Traitor, which Heaven above doth abhorre,
      the erth below detest, the sun moone and starres be eschamed of,
      and all Creatures doo curse and ajudge unworthy of breth and life,
      do wish onelie to die your Penytent. In hevye sorrowe doo send
      you these advisoes which I requyre your Mageste in umblest manner
      to pondur wel, seeinge ells your manyfest Overthrowe and Rwyn att
      hand. And albeit in Carcee you reste in securitie, it is serten you
      are there as saife as he that hingeth by the Leves of a Tree in
      the end of Autumpne when as the Leves begin to fall. For in this
      late Battaile in Mellicafhaz Sea hath the whole powre of Wychlande
      on the sea been beat downe and ruwyned, and the highe Admirall of
      our whole Navie loste and ded and the names of the great men of
      accownte that were slayen at the battaile I may not numbre nor of
      the common sorte much lesse by reaisoun that the more part were
      dround in the sea which came not to Syght. But of Daemounlande not
      ij schips companies were lossit, but with great puissaunce they
      doo buske them for Carsee. Havinge with them this Gowldri Bleusco,
      strangely reskewed from his preassoun-house beyond the toombe, and
      a great Armey of the moste strangg and fell folke that ever I saw
      or herd speke of. Such is the Die of Warre. Most Nowble Prynsace
      I will speke unto you not by a Ryddle or Darck Fygure but playnly
      that you let not slipp this Occasioun. For I have drempt an evill
      Dreeme and one pourtending ruwyn unto Wychlande, beinge in my slepe
      on the verie eve of this same bataille terrified and smytten with
      an appeering schape of Laxus armde cryinge in an hyghe voise and
      lowd, An Ende an Ende an ende of All. Therefore most aernestly I
      do beseek your Magestie and your nowble Lorde that was my Frend
      before that by my venemous tresun I loste both you and him and
      alle, take order for your proper saffetie, and the thinge requyers
      Haste of your Magestes. And this must you doo, to fare strayght way
      into your owne cuntrie of Picselande and there raise Force. Be you
      before these rebalds and obstynates of Demounlande in their Prowd
      Attempts, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">381</span>to strike at Wychlande and so purchas their Frenshyp who
      it is verie sertan will in powre invintiable stand before Carsee
      or ever Wychlande shall have time to putt you downe. This Counsell
      I give you knowinge full well that the Power and Domynyon of the
      Demouns standeth now preheminent and not to be withstode. So tarry
      not by a Sinckinge Schippe, but do as I saye lest all bee loste.</p>

    <p>“One thinge more I telle you, that shall haply enforce my counsell
      unto you, the hevyeste Newes of alle.”</p>
  </blockquote>

  <p>“’Tis heavy news that such a false troker as he is should yet supervive
    so many honest men,” said Corund.</p>

  <p>The Lady Prezmyra held out the letter to her lord. “Mine eyes dazzle,”
    she said. “Read thou the rest.” Corund put his great arm about her as
    he sat down to the table before the mirror and pored over the writing,
    spelling it out with one finger. He had little book-learning, and it
    was some time ere he had the meaning clear. He did not read it out; his
    lady’s face told him she had read all ere he began.</p>

  <p>This was the last news Gro’s letter told her: the Prince her brother
    dead in the sea-fight, fighting for Demonland; dead and drowned in the
    sea off Melikaphkhaz.</p>

  <p>Prezmyra went to the window. Dawn was beginning, bleak and gray. After
    a minute she turned her head. Like a she-lion she looked, proud and
    dangerous-eyed. She was very pale. Her accents, level and quiet, called
    to the blood like the roll of a distant drum, as she said, “Succours of
    Demonland: late or never.”</p>

  <p>Corund beheld her uneasily.</p>

  <p>“Their oaths to me and to him!” said she, “sworn to us that night in
    Carcë. False friends! O, I could eat their hearts with garlic.”</p>

  <p>He put his great hands on her two shoulders. She threw them off. “In
    one thing,” she cried, “Gro counselleth us well: to tarry no more on
    this sinking ship. We must raise forces. But not as he would have it,
    to uphold these Demons, these oath-breakers. We must away this night.”</p>

  <p>Her lord had cast aside his great wolfskin mantle. “Come, madam,” said
    he, “to bed’s our nearest journey.”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra answered, “I’ll not to bed. It shall be seen now, O Corund, if
    that thou be a king indeed.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">382</span></p>

  <p>He sat down on the bed’s edge and fell to doing off his boots. “Well,”
    he said, “every one as he likes, as the good-man said when he kissed
    his cow. Day’s near dawning; I must be up betimes, and a sleepless
    night’s a poor breeder of invention.”</p>

  <p>But she stood over him, saying, “It shall be seen if thou be a true
    king. And be not deceived: if thou fail me here I’ll have no more of
    thee. This night we must away. Thou shalt raise Pixyland, which is now
    mine by right: raise power in thine own vast kingdom of Impland. Fling
    Witchland to the winds. What care I if she sink or swim? This only is
    the matter: to punish these vile perjured Demons, enemies of ours and
    enemies of all the world.”</p>

  <p>“We need ride o’ no journey for that,” said Corund, still putting off
    his boots. “Thou shalt shortly see Juss and his brethren before Carcë
    with three score hundred fighting men at’s back. Then cometh the metal
    to the anvil. Come, come, thou must not weep.”</p>

  <p>“I do not weep,” said she. “Nor I shall not weep. But I’ll not be ta’en
    in Carcë like a mouse in a trap.”</p>

  <p>“I’m glad thou’lt not weep, madam. It is as great pity to see a woman
    weep as a goose to go barefoot. Come, be not foolish. We must not part
    forces now. We must bide this storm in Carcë.”</p>

  <p>But she cried, “There is a curse on Carcë. Gro is lost to us and his
    good counsel. Dear my lord, I see something wicked that like a thick
    dark shadow shadoweth all the sky above us. What place is there not
    subject to the power and regiment of Gorice the King? but he is too
    proud: we be all too insolent overweeners of our own works. Carcë
    hath grown too great, and the Gods be offended at us. The insolent
    vileness of Corinius, the old dotard Corsus that must still be at his
    boosing-can, these and our own private quarrels in Carcë must be our
    bane. Repugn not therefore against the will of the Gods, but take the
    helm in thine own hand ere it be too late.”</p>

  <p>“Tush, madam,” said he, “these be but fray-bugs. Daylight shall make
    thee laugh at ’em.”</p>

  <p>But Prezmyra, queening it no longer, caught her arms about his neck.
    “The odd man to perform all perfectly is thou. Wilt thou see us rushing
    on this whirlpool and not swim for it ere it be too late?” And she said
    in a choked voice, “My<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">383</span> heart is near broke already. Do not break it
    utterly. Only thou art left now.”</p>

  <p>The chill dawn, the silent room, the guttering candles, and that
    high-hearted lady of his, daunted for an instant from her noble and
    equal courage, cowering like a bird in his embrace: these things were
    like an icy breath that passed by and quailed him for a moment. He took
    her by her two hands and held her off from him. She held her head high
    again, albeit her cheek was blanched; he felt the brave comrade-grip of
    her hands in his.</p>

  <p>“Dear lass,” he said, “I cast me not to be odd with none of these spawn
    of Demonland. Here is my hand, and the hand of my sons, heavy while
    breath remaineth us against Demonland for thee and for the King. But
    sith our lord the King hath made me a king, come wind, come weet, we
    must weather it in Carcë. True is that saw, ‘For fame one maketh a
    king, not for long living.’”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra thought in her heart that these were fey words. But having now
    put behind her hope and fear, she was resolved to kick against the wind
    no more, but stand firm and see what Destiny would do.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_flower.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">384</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_DEMONS_BEFORE_CARCE">XXXI: THE DEMONS BEFORE CARCË</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    HOW GORICE THE KING, ALBEIT SO STRONG A SORCERER, ELECTED THAT BY THE
    SWORD, AND CHIEFLY BY THE LORD CORUND HIS CAPTAIN GENERAL, SHOULD
    BE DETERMINED AS FOR THIS TIME THE EVENT OF THESE HIGH MATTERS; AND
    HOW THOSE TWAIN, THE KING AND THE LORD JUSS, SPAKE FACE TO FACE AT
    LAST; AND OF THE BLOODY BATTLE BEFORE CARCË, AND WHAT FRUIT WAS
    GARNERED THERE AND WHAT MADE RIPE AGAINST HARVEST.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">GORICE THE KING sate in his chamber the thirteenth morning after these
    tidings brought to Carcë. On the table under his hand were papers of
    account and schedules of his armies and their equipment. Corund sate at
    the King’s right hand, and over against him Corinius.</p>

  <p>Corund’s great hairy hands were clasped before him on the table. He
    spoke without book, resting his gaze on the steady clouds that sailed
    across the square of sky seen through the high window that faced him.
    “Of Witchland and the home provinces, O King, nought but good. All the
    companies of soldiers which were appointed to repair to this part by
    the tenth of the month are now come hither, save some bands of spearmen
    from the south, and some from Estreganzia. These last I expect to-day;
    Viglus writeth they come with him with the heavy troops from Baltary
    I sent him to assemble. So is the muster full as for these parts:
    Thramnë, Zorn, Permio, the land of Ar, Trace, Buteny, and Estremerine.
    Of the subject allies, there’s less good there. The kings of Mynia
    and Gilta: Olis of Tecapan: County Escobrine of Tzeusha: the king of
    Ellien: all be here with their contingents. But there’s mightier names
    we miss. Duke Maxtlin of Azumel hath flung off’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">385</span> allegiance and cut
    off your envoy’s ears, O King; ’tis thought for some supposed light
    part of the sons of Corsus done to his sister. That docketh us thirty
    score stout fighters. The lord of Eushtlan sendeth no answer, and now
    are we advertised by Mynia and Gilta of his open malice and treason,
    who did stubbornly let them the way hither through his country while
    they hastened to do your majesty’s commands. Then there’s the Ojedian
    levies, should be nigh a thousand spears, ten days overdue. Heming,
    that raiseth Pixyland in Prezmyra’s name, will bring them in if he may.
    Who also hath order, being on his way, to rouse Maltraëny to action,
    from whom no word as yet; and I do fear treachery in ’em, Maltraëny and
    Ojedia both, they have been so long of coming. King Barsht of Toribia
    sendeth flat refusal.”</p>

  <p>“It is known to you besides, O King,” said Corinius, “that the king of
    Nevria came in last night, many days past the day appointed, and but
    half his just complement.”</p>

  <p>The King drew back his lips. “I will not dash his spirits by blaming
    him at this present. Later, I’ll have that king’s head for this.”</p>

  <p>“This is the sum,” said Corund. “Nay, then, I had forgot the Red Foliot
    with’s folk, three hundred perchance, came in this morning.”</p>

  <p>Corinius thrust out his tongue and laughed: “One hen-lobster such as he
    shall scarce afford a course for this banquet.”</p>

  <p>“He keepeth faith,” said Corund, “where bigger men turn dastards. ’Tis
    seen now that these forced leagues be as sure as they were sealed with
    butter. Your majesty will doubtless give him audience.”</p>

  <p>The King was silent awhile, studying his papers. “What strength to-day
    in Carcë?” he asked.</p>

  <p>Corund answered him, “As near as may be two score hundred foot and
    fifty score horse: five thousand in all. And, that I weigh most, O
    King, big broad strong set lads of Witchland nigh every jack of ’em.”</p>

  <p>The King said, “’Twas not well done, O Corund, to bid thy son delay
    for Ojedia and Maltraëny. He might else have been in Carcë now with a
    thousand Pixylanders to swell our strength.”</p>

  <p>“I did that I did,” answered Corund, “seeking only your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_386">386</span> good, O King.
    A few days’ delay might buy us a thousand spears.”</p>

  <p>“Delay,” said the King, “hath favoured mine enemy. This we should have
    done: at his first landing give him no time but wink, set on him with
    all our forces, and throw him into the sea.”</p>

  <p>“If luck go with us that may yet be,” said Corund.</p>

  <p>The King’s nostrils widened. He crouched forward, glaring at Corund
    and Corinius, his jaw thrust out so that the stiff black beard on
    it brushed the papers on the table before him. “The Demons,” said
    he, “landed i’ the night at Ralpa. They come on with great journeys
    northward. Will be here ere three days be spent.”</p>

  <p>Both they grew red as blood. Corund spake: “Who told you these tidings,
    O King?”</p>

  <p>“Care not thou for that,” said the King. “Enough for thee, I know it.
    Hath it ta’en you napping?”</p>

  <p>“No,” answered he. “These ten days past we have been ready, with what
    strength we might make, to receive ’em, come they from what quarter
    they will. So it is, though, that while we lack the Pixyland succours
    Juss hath by some odds the advantage over us, if, as our intelligence
    saith, six thousand fighting men do follow him, and these forced
    besides with some that should be ours.”</p>

  <p>“Thou wouldst,” said the King, “await these out of Pixyland, with what
    else Heming may gather, afore we offer them battle?”</p>

  <p>Said Corund, “That would I. We must look beyond the next turn of the
    road, O my Lord the King.”</p>

  <p>“That would not I,” said Corinius.</p>

  <p>“That is stoutly said, Corinius,” said the King. “Yet remember, thou
    hadst the greater force on Krothering Side, yet wast overborne.”</p>

  <p>“’Tis that standeth in my mind, Lord,” said Corund. “For well I know,
    had I been there I’d a fared no better.”</p>

  <p>The Lord Corinius, whose brow had darkened with the naming of his
    defeat, looked cheerfully now and said, “I pray you but consider, O
    my Lord the King, that here at home is no room for such a sleight or
    gin as that whereby in their own country they took me. When Juss and
    Brandoch Daha and their stinking gaberlunzies do cry huff at us on
    Witchland<span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">387</span> soil, ’tis time to give ’em a choke-pear. Which with your
    leave, Lord, I will promise now to do, other else to lose my life.”</p>

  <p>“Give me thy hand,” said Corund. “Of all men else would I a chosen thee
    for such a day as this, and (were’t to-day to meet the whole power of
    Demonland in arms) to stand perdue with thee for this bloody service.
    But let us hear the King’s commands: which way soe’er he choose, we
    shall do it right gladly.”</p>

  <p>Gorice the King sat silent. One lean hand rested on the iron
    serpent-head of his chair’s arm, the other, with finger outstretched
    against the jutting cheekbone, supported his chin. Only in the deep
    shadow of his eye-sockets a lambent light moved. At length he started,
    as if the spirit, flown to some unsounded gulfs of time or space, had
    in that instant returned to its mortal dwelling. He gathered the papers
    in a heap and tossed them to Corund.</p>

  <p>“Too much lieth on it,” said he. “He that hath many peas may put more
    in the pot. But now the day approacheth when I and Juss must cast up
    our account together, and one or all shall be brought to death and
    bane.” He stood up from his chair and looked down on those two, his
    chosen captains, great men of war raised up by him to be kings over two
    quarters of the world. They watched him like little birds under the eye
    of a snake. “The country hereabout,” said the King, “is not good for
    horsemanship, and the Demons be great horsemen. Carcë is strong, and
    never can it be forced by assault. Also under mine eye should my men of
    Witchland acquit themselves to do the greatest deeds. Therefore will we
    abide them here in Carcë, until young Heming come and his levies out
    of Pixyland. Then shall ye fall upon them and never make an end till
    the land be utterly purged of them, and all the lords of Demonland be
    slain.”</p>

  <p>Corinius said, “To hear is to obey, O King. Howsoever, not to dissemble
    with you, I’d liever at ’em at once, ’stead of let them sit awhile and
    refresh their army. Occasion is a wanton wench, O King, that is quick
    to beckon another man if one look coldly on her. Moreover, Lord, could
    you not by your art, in small time, with certain compositions?——”</p>

  <p>But the King brake in upon him saying, “Thou knowest not what thou
    speakest. There is thy sword; there thy men;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_388">388</span> these my commands. See
    thou perform them punctually when time shall come.”</p>

  <p>“Lord,” said Corinius, “you shall not find me wanting.” Therewith he
    did obeisance and went forth from before the King.</p>

  <p>The King said unto Corund, “Thou hast manned him well, this
    tassel-gentle. There was some danger he should so mislike subjection
    unto thee in these acts martial as it should breed some quarrel should
    little speed our enterprise.”</p>

  <p>“Think not you that, O King,” answered Corund. “’Tis grown like an
    almanac for the past year, past date. A will feed out of my hand now.”</p>

  <p>“Because thou hast carried it with him,” said the King, “in so
    honourable and open plainness. Hold on the road thou hast begun, and be
    mindful still that into thine hand is given the sword of Witchland, and
    therein have I put my trust for this great hour.”</p>

  <p>Corund looked upon the King with gray and quick eyes shining like unto
    the eagle’s. He slapped his heavy sword with the flat of his hand:
    “’Tis a tough fox, O my Lord the King; will not fail his master.”</p>

  <p>Therewith, glad at the King’s gracious words, he did obeisance unto the
    King and went forth from the chamber.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>The same night there appeared in the sky impending over Carcë a blazing
    star with two bushes. Corund beheld it in an open space betwixt the
    clouds as he went to his chamber. He said nought of it to his lady
    wife, lest it should trouble her; but she too had from her window seen
    that star, yet spake not of it to her lord for a like reason.</p>

  <p>And King Gorice, sitting in his chamber with his baleful books, beheld
    that star and its fiery streamers, which the King rather noted than
    liked. For albeit he might not know of a certain what way that sign
    intended, yet was it apparent to one so deeply learned in nigromancy
    and secrets astronomical that this thing was fatal, being of those
    prodigies and ominous prognosticks which fore-run the tragical ends of
    noble persons and the ruins of states.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>The third day following, watchmen beheld from Carcë walls in the
    pale morning the armies of the Demons that filled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_389">389</span> the whole plain
    to southward. But of the succours out of Pixyland was as yet no sign
    at all. Gorice the King, according as he had determined, held all
    his power quiet within the fortress. But for passing of the time,
    and because it pleased his mind to speak yet face to face with the
    Lord Juss before this last mortal trial in arms should be begun
    betwixt them, the King sent Cadarus as his herald with flags of truce
    and olive-branches into the Demons’ lines. By which mission it was
    concluded that the Demons should withdraw their armies three bowshots
    from the walls, and they of Witchland should abide all within the hold;
    only the King with fourteen of his folk unarmed and Juss with a like
    number unarmed should come forth into the midst of the bateable ground
    and there speak together. And this meeting must be at the third hour
    after noon.</p>

  <p>So either party came to this parley at the hour appointed. Juss went
    bare-headed but, save for that, all armed in his shining byrny with
    gorget and shoulder-plates damasked and embossed with wires of gold,
    and golden leg-harness, and rings of red gold upon his wrists. His
    kirtle was of wine-dark silken tissue, and he wore that dusky cloak the
    sylphs had made for him, the collar whereof was stiff with broidery
    and strange beasts worked thereon in silver thread. According to the
    compact he bare no weapon; only in his hand a short ivory staff inlaid
    with precious stones, and the head of it a ball of that stone which
    men call Belus’ eye, that is white and hath within it a black apple,
    the midst whereof a man shall see to glitter like gold. Very masterful
    and proud he stood before the King, carrying his head like a stag that
    sniffs the morning. His brethren and Brandoch Daha remained a pace
    or two behind him, with King Gaslark and the lords Zigg and Gro, and
    Melchar and Tharmrod and Styrkmir, Quazz with his two sons, and Astar,
    and Bremery of Shaws: goodly men and lordly to look on, unweaponed all;
    and wondrous was the sparkle of their jewels that were on them.</p>

  <p>Over against them, attending on the King, were these: Corund king of
    Impland, and Corinius called king of Demonland, Hacmon and Viglus
    Corund’s sons, Duke Corsus and his sons Dekalajus and Gorius, Eulien
    king of Mynia, Olis lord of Tecapan, Duke Avel of Estreganzia, the Red
    Foliot, Erp the king of Ellien, and the counts of Thramnë and Tzeusha;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">390</span>
    unweaponed, but armoured to the throat, big men and strong the most of
    them and of lordly bearing, yet none to match with Corinius and Corund.</p>

  <p>The King, in his mantle of cobra-skins, his staff-royal in his hand,
    topped by half a head all those tall men about him, friend and foe
    alike. Lean and black he towered amongst them, like a thunder-blasted
    pine-tree seen against the sunset.</p>

  <p>So, in the golden autumn afternoon, in the midst of that sad main of
    sedgelands where between slimy banks the weed-choked Druima deviously
    winds toward the sea, were those two men met together for whose
    ambition and their pride the world was too little a place to contain
    them both and peace lying between them. And like some drowsy dragon of
    the elder slime, squat, sinister, and monstrous, the citadel of Carcë
    slept over all.</p>

  <p>By and by the King spake and said: “I sent for thee because I think it
    good I and thou should talk together while yet is time for talking.”</p>

  <p>Juss answered, “I quarrel not with that, O King.”</p>

  <p>“Thou,” said the King, bending his brow upon him, “art a man wise and
    fearless. I counsel thee, and all these that be with thee, turn back
    from Carcë. Well I see the blood thou didst drink in Melikaphkhaz will
    not allay thy thirst, and war is to thee thy pearl and thy paramour.
    Yet, if it be, turn back from Carcë. Thou standest now on the pinnacle
    of thine ambition; wilt leap higher, thou fall’st in the abyss. Let the
    four corners of the earth be shaken with our wars, but not this centre.
    For here shall no man gather fruit, but and if it be death he gather;
    or if, then this fruit only, that Zoacum, that fruit of bitterness,
    which when he shall have tasted of, all the bright lights of heaven
    shall become as darkness and all earth’s goodness as ashes in his mouth
    all his life’s days until he die.”</p>

  <p>He paused. The Lord Juss stood still, quailing not at all beneath that
    dreadful gaze. His company behind him stirred and whispered. Lord
    Brandoch Daha, with mockery in his eye, said somewhat to Goldry Bluszco
    under his breath.</p>

  <p>But the King spake again to the Lord Juss, “Be not deceived. These
    things I say unto thee not as labouring to scare you from your set
    purpose with frights and fairy-babes:<span class="pagenum" id="Page_391">391</span> I know your quality too well.
    But I have read signs in heaven: nought clear, but threatful unto both
    you and me. For thy good I say it, O Juss, and again (for that our last
    speech leaveth the firmest print) be advised: turn back from Carcë or
    it be too late.”</p>

  <p>Lord Juss harkened attentively to the words of Gorice the King, and
    when he had ended, answered and said, “O King, thou hast given us
    terrible good counsel. But it was riddlewise. And hearing thee, mine
    eye was still on the crown thou wearest, made in the figure of a
    crab-fish, which, because it looks one way and goes another, methought
    did fitly pattern out thy looking to our perils but seeking the while
    thine own advantage.”</p>

  <p>The King gave him an ill look, saying, “I am thy lord paramount. With
    subjects it sits not to use this familiar style unto their King.”</p>

  <p>Juss answered, “Thou dost thee and thou me. And indeed it were folly in
    either of us twain to bend knee to t’other, when the lordship of all
    the earth waiteth on the victor in our great contention. Thou hast been
    open with me, Witchland, to let me know thou art uneager to strike a
    field with us. I will be open too, and I will make an offer unto thee,
    and this it is: that we will depart out of thy country and do no more
    unpeaceful deeds against thee (till thou provoke us again); and thou,
    of thy part, of all the land of Demonland shalt give up thy quarrel,
    and of Pixyland and Impland beside, and shalt yield me up Corsus and
    Corinius thy servants that I may punish them for the beastly deeds they
    did in our land whenas we were not there to guard it.”</p>

  <p>He ceased, and for a minute they beheld each other in silence. Then the
    King lifted up his chin and smiled a dreadful smile.</p>

  <p>Corinius whispered mockingly in his ear, “Lord, you may lightly give
    ’em Corsus. That were easy composition, and false coin too methinks.”</p>

  <p>“Stand back i’ thy place,” said the King, “and hold thy peace.” And
    unto Lord Juss he said, “Of all ensuing harm the cause is in thee; for
    I am now resolved never to put up my sword until of thy bleeding head
    I may make a football. And now, let the earth be afraid, and Cynthia
    obscure her shine: no more words but mum. Thunder and blood and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">392</span> night
    must usurp our parts, to complete and make up the catastrophe of this
    great piece.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>That night the King waked late in his chamber in the Iron Tower alone.
    These three years past he had seldom resorted thither, and then
    commonly but to bear away some or other of his books to study in his
    own lodging. His jars and flasks and bottles of blue and green and
    purple glass wherein he kept his cursed drugs and electuaries of secret
    composition, his athals and athanors, his crucibles, his horsebellied
    retorts and alembics and bains-maries, stood arow on shelves coated
    with dust and hung about with the dull spider’s weavings; the furnace
    was cold; the glass of the windows was clouded with dirt; the walls
    were mildewed; the air of the chamber fusty and stagnant. The King was
    deep in his contemplation, with a big black book open before him on
    the six-sided reading-stand: the damnablest of all his books, the same
    which had taught him aforetime what he must do when by the wicked power
    of enchantment he had wanted but a little to have confounded Demonland
    and all the lords thereof in death and ruin.</p>

  <p>The open page under his hand was of parchment discoloured with age, and
    the writing on the page was in characters of ancient out-of-fashion
    crabbedness, heavy and black, and the great initial letters and the
    illuminated borders were painted and gilded in dark and fiery hues
    with representations of dreadful faces and forms of serpents and
    toad-faced men and apes and mantichores and succubi and incubi and
    obscene representations and figures of unlawful meaning. These were the
    words of the writing on the page which the King conned over and over,
    falling again into a deep study betweenwhiles, and then conning these
    words again of an age-old prophetic writing touching the preordinate
    destinies of the royal house of Gorice in Carcë:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Soo schel your hous stonde and bee</div>
        <div class="i0">Unto eternytee</div>
        <div class="i0">Yet walke warilie</div>
        <div class="i0">Wyttinge ful sarteynlee</div>
        <div class="i0">That if impiouslie</div>
        <div class="i0">The secounde tyme in the bodie</div>
        <div class="i0">Practisinge grammarie</div>
        <div class="i0">One of ye katched shulle be</div>
        <div class="i0">By the feyndis subtiltee</div>
        <div class="i0">And hys liffe lossit bee</div>
        <div class="i0"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_393">393</span>Broke ys thenne this serye</div>
        <div class="i0">Dampned are you thenne eternallie</div>
        <div class="i0">Yerth shuldestow thenne never more se</div>
        <div class="i0">Scarsly the Goddes mought reskue ye</div>
        <div class="i0">Owt of the Helle where you woll lie</div>
        <div class="i0">Unto eternytee</div>
        <div class="i0">The sterres tealde hit mee.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>Gorice the King stood up and went to the south window. The casement
    bolts were rusted: he forced them and they flew back with a shriek and
    a clatter and a thin shower of dust and grit. He opened the window and
    looked out. The heavy night grew to her depth of quiet. There were
    lights far out in the marshes, the lights of Lord Juss’s camp-fires of
    his armies gathered against Carcë. Scarcely without a chill might a man
    have looked upon that King standing by the window; for there was in the
    tall lean frame of him an iron aspect as of no natural flesh and blood
    but some harder colder element; and his countenance, like the picture
    of some dark divinity graven ages ago by men long dead, bore the
    imprint of those old qualities of unrelenting power, scorn, violence,
    and oppression, ancient as night herself yet untouched by age, young as
    each night when it shuts down and old and elemental as the primaeval
    dark.</p>

  <p>A long while he stood there, then came again to his book. “Gorice
    VII.,” he said in himself. “That was once in the body. And I have done
    better than that, but not yet well enough. ’Tis too hazardous, the
    second time, alone. Corund is a man undaunted in war, but the man is
    too superstitious and quaketh at that which hath not flesh and blood.
    Apparitions and urchin-shows can quite unman him. There’s Corinius,
    careth not for God or man a point. But he is too rash and unadvised: I
    were mad to trust him in it. Were the Goblin here, it might be carried.
    Damnable both-sides villain, he’s cast off from me.” He scanned the
    page as if his piercing eyes would thrust beyond the barriers of time
    and death and discover some new meaning in the words which should agree
    better with the thing his mind desired while his judgement forbade it.
    “He says ‘damned eternally:’ he says that breaketh the series, and
    ‘earth shouldst thou then never more see.’ Put him by.”</p>

  <p>And the King slowly shut up his book, and locked it with three
    padlocks, and put back the key in his bosom. “The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_394">394</span> need is not yet,” he
    said. “The sword shall have his day, and Corund. But if that fail me,
    then even this shall not turn me back but I will do that I will do.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>In the same hour when the King was but now entered again into his own
    lodgings, came through a runner of Heming’s to let them know that he,
    fifteen hundred strong, marched down the Way of Kings from Pixyland.
    Moreover they were advertised that the Demon fleet lay in the river
    that night, and it was not unlike the attack should be in the morning
    by land and water.</p>

  <p>All night the King sate in his chamber holding council with his
    generals and ordering all things for the morrow. All night long he
    closed not his eyes an instant, but the others he made sleep by turns
    because they should be brisk and ready for the battle. For this was
    their counsel, to draw out their whole army on the left bank before
    the bridge-gate and there offer battle to the Demons at point of day.
    For if they should abide within doors and suffer the Demons to cut
    young Heming off from the bridge-gate, then were he lost, and if the
    bridge-house should fall and the bridge, then might the Demons lightly
    ship what force they pleased to the right bank and so closely invest
    them in Carcë. Of an attack on the right bank they had no fear, well
    knowing themselves able to sit within doors and laugh at them, since
    the walls were there inexpugnable. But if a battle were now brought
    about before the bridge-gate as they were minded, and Heming should
    join in the fight from the eastward, there was good hope that they
    should be able to crumple up the battle of the Demons, driving them in
    upon their centre from the west whilst Heming smote them on the other
    part. Whereby these should be cast into a great rout and confusion and
    not be able to escape away to their ships, but there in the fenlands
    before Carcë should be made a prey unto the Witches.</p>

  <p>When it was the cold last hour before the dawn the generals took from
    the King their latest commands ere they drew forth their armies.
    Corinius came forth first from the King’s chamber a little while
    before the rest. In the draughty corridor the lamps swung and smoked,
    making an uncertain windy light. Corinius espied by the stair-head
    the Lady Sriva standing, whether watching to bid her father adieu or
    but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">395</span> following idle curiosity. Whichever it were, not a fico gave he
    for that, but coming swiftly upon her whisked her aside into an alcove
    where the light was barely enough to let him see the pale shimmer of
    her silken gown, dark hair pinned loosely up in deep snaky coils, and
    dark eyes shining. “My witty false one, have I caught thee? Nay, fight
    not. Thy breath smells like cinnamon. Kiss me, Sriva.”</p>

  <p>“I’ll not!” said she, striving to escape. “Naughty man, am I used
    thus?” But finding she got nought by struggling, she said in a low
    voice, “Well, if thou bring back Demonland to-night, then, let’s hold
    more chat.”</p>

  <p>“Harken to the naughty traitress,” said he, “that but last night didst
    do me some uncivil discourtesies, and now speaketh me fair: and what
    a devil for? if not ’cause herseemeth I’ll likely not come back after
    this day’s fight. But I’ll come back, mistress kiss-and-be-gone; ay, by
    the Gods, and I’ll have my payment too.”</p>

  <p>His lips fed deep on her lips, his strong and greedy hands softly
    mastered her against her will, till with a little smothered cry she
    embraced him, bruising her tender body against the armour he was girt
    withal. Between the kisses she whispered, “Yes, yes, to-night.” Surely
    he damned spiteful fortune, that sent him not this encounter but an
    half-hour sooner.</p>

  <p>When he was departed, Sriva remained in the shadow of the alcove to
    set in order her hair and apparel, not a little disarrayed in that
    hot wooing. Out of which darkness she had convenience to observe the
    leave-taking of Prezmyra and her lord as they came down that windy
    corridor and paused at the head of the stairs.</p>

  <p>Prezmyra had her arm in his. “I know where the Devil keepeth his tail,
    madam,” said Corund. “And I know a very traitor when I see him.”</p>

  <p>“When didst thou ever yet fare ill by following of my counsel, my
    lord?” said Prezmyra. “Or did I refuse thee ever any thing thou didst
    require me of? These seven years since I put off my maiden zone
    for thee; and twenty kings sought me in sweet marriage, but thee I
    preferred before them all, seeing the falcon shall not mate with
    popinjays nor the she-eagle with swans and bustards. And will you say
    nay to me in this?”</p>

  <p>She stood round to face him. The pupils of her great eyes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_396">396</span> were large
    in the doubtful lamplight, swallowing their green fires in deep pools
    of mystery and darkness. The rich and gorgeous ornaments of her crown
    and girdle seemed but a poor casket for that matchless beauty which was
    hers: her face, where every noble and sweet quality and every thing
    desirable of earth or heaven had framed each feature to itself: the
    glory of her hair, like the red sun’s glory: her whole body’s poise and
    posture, like a stately bird’s new-lighted after flight.</p>

  <p>“Though it be very rhubarb to me,” said Corund, “shall I say nay to
    thee this tide? Not this tide, my Queen.”</p>

  <p>“Thanks, dear my lord. Disarm him and bring him in if you may. The King
    shall not refuse us this to pardon his folly, when thou shalt have
    obtained this victory for him upon our enemies.”</p>

  <p>The Lady Sriva might hear no more, harkened she never so curiously.
    But when they were now come to the stair foot, Corund paused a minute
    to try the buckles of his harness. His brow was clouded. At length he
    spake, “This shall be a battle mortal fierce and doubtous for both
    parties. ’Gainst such mighty opposites as here we have, ’tis possible:
    No more; but kiss me, dear lass. And if: tush, ’t will not be; and yet,
    I’d not leave it unsaid: if ill tide ill, I’d not have thee waste all
    thy days a-grieving. Thou knowest I am not one of your sour envious
    jacks, bear so poor a conceit o’ themselves they begrudge their wives
    should wed again lest the next husband should prove the better man.”</p>

  <p>But Prezmyra came near to him with good and merry countenance: “Let me
    stop thy mouth, my lord. These be foolish thoughts for a great king
    going into battle. Come back in triumph, and i’ the mean season think
    on me that wait for thee: as a star waits, dear my lord. And never
    doubt the issue.”</p>

  <p>“The issue,” answered he, “I’ll tell thee when ’tis done. I’m no
    astronomer. I’ll hew with my sword, love; spoil some of their guesses
    if I may.”</p>

  <p>“Good fortune and my love go with thee,” she said.</p>

  <p>Sriva coming forth from her hiding hastened to her mother’s lodging,
    and there found her that had just bid adieu to her two sons, her face
    all blubbered with tears. In the same instant came the Duke her husband
    to change his sword, and the Lady Zenambria caught him about the neck
    and would have kissed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_397">397</span> him. But he shook her off, crying out that he
    was weary of her and her slobbering mouth; menacing her besides with
    filthy imprecations, that he would drag her with him and cast her to
    the Demons, who, since they had a strong loathing for such ugly tits
    and stale old trots, would no doubt hang her up or disembowel her and
    so rid him of his lasting consumption. Therewith he went forth hastily.
    But his wife and daughter, either weeping upon other, came down into
    the court, meaning to go up to the tower above the water-gate to see
    the army marshalled beyond the river. And on the way Sriva related all
    she had heard said betwixt Corund and Prezmyra.</p>

  <p>In the court they met with Prezmyra’s self, and she going with blithe
    countenance and light tread and humming a merry tune bade them
    good-morrow.</p>

  <p>“You can bear these things more bravelier than we, madam,” said
    Zenambria. “We be too gentle-hearted methinks and pitiful.”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra replied upon her, “’Tis true, madam, I have not the weak sense
    of some of you soft-eyed whimpering ladies. And by your leave I’ll keep
    my tears (which be great spoilers of the cheeks beside) until I need
    ’em.”</p>

  <p>When they were passed by, “Is it not a stony-livered and a shameless
    hussy, O my mother?” said Sriva. “And is it not scandalous her laughing
    and jesting, as I have told it thee, when she did bid him adieu,
    devising only how best she might coax him to save the life of yonder
    chambering traitorous hound?”</p>

  <p>“With whom,” said Zenambria, “she wont to do the thing I’d think shame
    to speak on. Truly this foreign madam with her loose and wanton ways
    doth scandal the whole land for us.”</p>

  <p>But Prezmyra went her way, glad that she had not by an eyelid’s flicker
    let her lord guess what a dread possessed her mind, who had in all the
    bitter night seen strange and cruel visions portending loss and ruin of
    all she held dear.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now, when dawn appeared, was the King’s whole army drawn out in battle
    array before the bridge-house. Corinius held command on the left. There
    followed him fifteen hundred chosen troops of Witchland, with the Dukes
    of Trace and Estreganzia, besides these kings and princes with their
    outlandish levies: the king of Mynia, Count Escobrine of Tzeusha,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_398">398</span>
    and the Red Foliot. Corsus led the centre, and with him went King Erp
    of Ellien and his green-coated sling-casters, the king of Nevria,
    Axtacus lord of Permio, the king of Gilta, Olis of Tecapan, and other
    captains: seventeen hundred men in all. The right the Lord Corund had
    chosen for himself. Two thousand Witchland troops, the likeliest and
    best, hardened to war in Impland and Demonland and the south-eastern
    borders, followed his standard, beside the heavy spearmen of Baltary
    and swordsmen of Buteny and Ar. Viglus his son was there, and the Count
    of Thramnë, Cadarus, Didarus of Largos, and the lord of Estremerine.</p>

  <p>But when the Demons were ware of that great army standing before the
    bridge-gate, they put themselves in array for battle. And their ships
    made ready to move up the river under Carcë, if by any means they might
    attack the bridge by water and so cut off for the Witches their way of
    retreat.</p>

  <p>It was bright low sunshine, and the splendour of the jewelled armour of
    the Demons and their many-coloured kirtles and the plumes that were in
    their helms was a wonder to behold. This was the order of their battle.
    On their left nearest the river was a great company of horse, and the
    Lord Brandoch Daha to lead them on a great golden dun with fiery eyes.
    His island men, Melchar and Tharmrod, with Kamerar of Stropardon and
    Styrkmir and Stypmar, were the chief captains that rode with him to
    that battle. Next to these came the heavy troops from the east, and the
    Lord Juss himself their leader on a tall fierce big-boned chestnut.
    About him was his picked bodyguard of horse, with Bremery of Shaws
    their captain; and in his battle were these chiefs besides: Astar of
    Rettray and Gismor Gleam of Justdale and Peridor of Sule. Lord Spitfire
    led the centre, and with him Fendor of Shalgreth, and Emeron, and the
    men of Dalney, great spearmen; also the Duke of Azumel, sometime allied
    with Witchland. There went also with him the Lord Gro, that scanned
    still those ancient walls with a heavy heart, thinking on the great
    King within, and with what mastery of intellect and will he ruled those
    dark turbulent and bloody men who bare sway under him; thinking on
    Queen Prezmyra. To his sick imagining, the blackness of Carcë which no
    bright morning light might lighten seemed not as of old the image and
    emblem of the royal house of Witchland and their high magnificency and
    power on earth, but rather the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_399">399</span> shadow thrown before of destiny and
    death ready to put down that power for ever. Which whether it should so
    befall or no he did not greatly care, being aweary of life and life’s
    fevers, wild longings, and exorbitant affects, whereof he thought he
    had now learned thus much: that to him, who as it seemed must still
    adhere to his own foes abandoning the others’ service, fortune through
    whatever chop could bring no peace at last. On the Demon right the
    Lord Goldry Bluszco streamed his standard, leading to battle the
    south-firthers and the heavy spearmen of Mardardale and Throwater. With
    him was King Gaslark and his army of Goblinland, and levies from Ojedia
    and Eushtlan, lately revolted from their allegiance to King Gorice.
    The Lord Zigg, with his light horse of Rammerick and Kelialand and the
    northern dales, covered their flank to the eastward.</p>

  <p>Gorice the King beheld these dispositions from his tower above the
    water-gate. He beheld, besides, a thing the Demons might not see from
    below, for a little swelling of the ground that cut off their view:
    the marching of men far away along the Way of Kings from the eastward:
    young Heming with the vassalry of Pixyland and Maltraëny. He sent a
    trusty man to apprise Corund of it.</p>

  <p>Now Lord Juss let blow up the battle call, and with the loud braying
    of the trumpets the hosts of the Demons swung forth to battle. And
    the clash of those armies when they met before Carcë was like the
    bursting of a thundercloud. But like a great sea-cliff patient for
    ages under the storm-winds’ furies, that not one night’s loud wind and
    charging breakers can wear away, nor yet a thousand thousand nights,
    the embattled strength of Witchland met their onset, mixed with them,
    flung them back, and stood unremoved. Corund’s iron battalions bare in
    this first brunt the heaviest load, and bare it through. For the ships,
    with young Hesper Golthring in command most fiercely urging them, ran
    up the river to force the bridge, and Corund whiles he met on his front
    the onset of the flower of Demonland must still be shot at by these
    behind. Hacmon and Viglus, those young princes his sons, were charged
    with the warding of the bridge and walls to burn and break up their
    ships. And they of all hands bestirring them twice and thrice threw
    back the Demons when they had gotten a footing on the bridge; until in
    fine, both sides for a long space fighting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_400">400</span> very cruelly, it fell out
    very fatally against Hesper and his power, his ships all lighted in a
    lowe and the more part of his folk burned or drowned or slain with the
    sword; and himself after many and grievous wounds in his last attempt
    left alone on the bridge, and crawling to have got away was stabbed in
    with a dagger and died.</p>

  <p>After this the ships fell back down the river, so many as might avail
    thereto, and those sons of Corund, their task manfully fulfilled, came
    forth with their folk to join in the main battle. And the smoke of the
    burning ships was like incense in the nostrils of the King watching
    these things from his tower above the water-gate.</p>

  <p>Little pause was there betwixt this first brunt and the next, for
    Heming now bare down from the east, drave in Zigg’s horsemen that were
    hampered in the heavy ground, and pressed his onset home on the Demon
    right. Along the whole line from Corund’s post beside the river to the
    eastern flank where Heming joined Corinius the Witches now set on most
    fiercely; and now were the odds of numbers, which were at first against
    them, swung mightily in their favour, and under this great side-blow
    on his flank not all the Lord Goldry Bluszco’s soldiership nor all
    the terror of his might in arms could uphold the Demons’ battle-line.
    Yard by yard they fell back before the Witches, most gloriously
    maintaining their array unbroken, though the outland allies broke and
    fled. Meantime on the Demon left Juss and Brandoch Daha most stubbornly
    withstood that onslaught, albeit they had to do with the first and
    chosen troops of Witchland. In which struggle befell the most bloody
    fighting that was yet seen that day, and the stour of battle so asper
    and so mortal that it was hard to see how any man should come out from
    it with life, since not a man of either side would budge an inch but
    die there in his steps if he might not rather slay the foe before him.
    So the armies swayed for an hour like wrastlers locked, but in the end
    the Lord Corund had his way and held his ground before the bridge-gate.</p>

  <p>Romenard of Dalney, galloping to Lord Juss where he paused a while
    panting from the violence of the battle, brought him by Spitfire’s
    command tidings from the right: telling him Goldry’s self could hold
    no longer against such odds: that the centre yet held, but at the next
    onset was like to break, or the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_401">401</span> right wing else be driven in upon
    their rear and all overwhelmed: “If your highness cannot throw back
    Corund, all is lost.”</p>

  <p>In these short minutes’ lull (if lull it were when all the time the
    battle like a sounding sea rolled on with a ceaseless noise of riding
    and slaying and the clang of arms), Juss chose. Demonland and the whole
    world’s destinies hung on his choice. He had no counsellor. He had no
    time for slow deliberation. In such a moment imagination, resolution,
    swift decision, all high gifts of nature, are nought: swift horses
    gulfed and lost in the pit which fate the enemy digged in the way
    before them; except painful knowledge, stored up patiently through
    years of practice, shall have prepared a road sure and clean for their
    flying hooves to bear them in the great hour of destiny. So it was from
    the beginning with all great captains: so with the Lord Juss in that
    hour when ruin swooped upon his armies. For two minutes’ space he stood
    silent; then sent Bremery of Shaws galloping westward like one minded
    to break his neck with his orders to Lord Brandoch Daha, and Romenard
    eastward again to Spitfire. And Juss himself riding forward among
    his soldiers shouted among them in a voice that was like a trumpet
    thundering, that they should now make ready for the fiercest trial of
    all.</p>

  <p>“Is my cousin mad?” said Lord Brandoch Daha, when he saw and understood
    the whole substance and matter of it. “Or hath he found Corund so
    tame to deal with he can make shift without me and well nigh half his
    strength, and yet withstand him?”</p>

  <p>“He looseth this hold,” answered Bremery, “to snatch at safety. ’Tis
    desperate, but all other ways we but wait on destruction. Our right is
    clean driven in, the left holdeth but hardly. He chargeth your highness
    break their centre if you may. They have somewhat dangerously advanced
    their left, and therein is their momentary peril if we be swift enough.
    But remember that here, o’ this side, is their greatest power before
    us, and if we be ’whelmed ere you can compass it——”</p>

  <p>“No more but Yes,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “Time gallopeth: so must
    we.”</p>

  <p>Even so in that hour when Goldry and Zigg, giving way step by step
    before superior odds, were bent back well nigh with their backs to the
    river, and Corund on the Demons’ left had after a bitter battle checked
    and held them and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_402">402</span> threatened now to complete in one more great blow
    the ruin of them all, Juss, choosing a desperate expedient to meet a
    danger that else must destroy him, weakened his hard-pressed left to
    throw Brandoch Daha and well nigh eight hundred horse into Spitfire’s
    battle to drive a wedge betwixt Corsus and Corinius.</p>

  <p>It was now long past noon. The tempest of battle that had quietened
    awhile for utter weariness roared forth anew from wing to wing as
    Brandoch Daha hurled his horsemen upon Corsus and the subject allies,
    while all along the battle-line the Demons rallied to fling back the
    enemy. For a breathless while, the issue hung in suspense: then the men
    of Gilta and Nevria broke and fled, Brandoch Daha and his cavalry swept
    through the gap, wheeled right and left and took Corsus and Corinius in
    flank and rear.</p>

  <p>There fell in this onset Axtacus lord of Permio, the kings of Ellien
    and Gilta, Gorius the son of Corsus, the Count of Tzeusha, and many
    other noblemen and men of mark. Of the Demons many were hurt and many
    slain, but none of great note save Kamerar of Stropardon, whose head
    Corinius swapt off clean with a blow of his battle-axe, and Trentmar
    whom Corsus smote full in the stomach with a javelin so that he fell
    down from his horse and was dead at once. Now was all the left and
    centre of the Witches’ battle thrown into great confusion, and the
    allies most of all fallen into disorder and fain to yield themselves
    and pray for mercy. The King, seeing the extent of this disaster, sent
    a galloper to Corund, who straightway sent to Corsus and Corinius
    commanding them get them at their speediest with all their folk back
    into Carcë while time yet served. Himself in the meantime, showing
    now, like the sun, his greatest countenance in his lowest estate, set
    on with his weary army to stem the advance of Juss, who now momently
    gathered fresh force against him, and to keep open for the rest of the
    King’s forces their way by the bridge-gate into Carcë. Corinius, when
    he understood it, galloped thither with a band of men to aid Corund,
    and this did likewise Heming and Dekalajus and other captains of the
    Witches. But Corsus himself, counting the day lost and considering that
    he was an old man and had fought now long enough, gat him privily back
    into Carcë as quickly as he was able. And truly he was bleeding from
    many wounds.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_403">403</span></p>

  <p>By this great stand of Corund and his men was time won for a great part
    of the residue of the army to escape into Carcë. And ever the Witches
    were put aback and lost much ground, yet ever the Lord Corund by his
    great valiance and noble heart recomforted his folk, so that they gave
    back very slowly, most bloodily disputing the ground foot by foot to
    the bridge-gate, that they also might win in again, so many as might.
    Juss said, “This is the greatest deed of arms that ever I in the days
    of my life did see, and I have so great an admiration and wonder in my
    heart for Corund that almost I would give him peace. But I have sworn
    now to have no peace with Witchland.”</p>

  <p>Lord Gro was in that battle with the Demons. He ran Didarus through the
    neck with his sword, so that he fell down and was dead.</p>

  <p>Corund, when he saw it, heaved up his axe, but changed his intention in
    the manage, saying, “O landskip of iniquity, shalt thou kill beside me
    the men of mine household? But my friendship sitteth not on a weather
    vane. Live, and be a traitor.”</p>

  <p>But Gro, being mightily moved with these words, and staring at great
    Corund wide-eyed like a man roused from a dream, answered, “Have I done
    amiss? ’Tis easy remedied.” Therewith he turned about and slew a man of
    Demonland. Which Spitfire seeing, he cried out upon Gro in a great rage
    for a most filthy traitor, and bloodily rushing in thrust him through
    the buckler into the brain.</p>

  <p>In such wise and by such a sudden vengeance did the Lord Gro most
    miserably end his life-days. Who, being a philosopher and a man of
    peace, careless of particular things of earth, had followed and
    observed all his days steadfastly one heavenly star; yet now in the
    bloody battle before Carcë died in the common opinion of men a manifold
    perjured traitor, that had at length gotten the guerdon of his guile.</p>

  <p>Now came the Lord Juss with a great rout of men armed on his great
    horse with his sword dripping with blood, and the battle sprang up into
    yet more noise and fury, and great manslaying befell, and many able men
    of Witchland fell in that stour and the Demons had almost put them from
    the bridge-gate. But the Lord Corund, rallying his folk, swung back
    yet again the battle-tide, albeit he was by a great odds outnumbered.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_404">404</span>
    And he sought none but Juss himself in that deadly mellay; who when he
    saw him coming he refused him not but made against him most fiercely,
    and with great clanging blows they swapped together awhile, until
    Corund hewed Juss’s shield asunder and struck him from his horse. Juss,
    leaping up again, thrust up at Corund with his sword and with the
    violence of the blow brake through the rings of his byrny about his
    middle and drave the sword into his breast. And Corund felled him to
    earth with a great down-stroke on the helm, so that he lay senseless.</p>

  <p>Still the battle raged before the bridge-gate, and great wounds were
    given and taken of either side. But now the sons of Corund saw that
    their father had lost much of his blood and waxed feeble, and the
    residue of his folk seeing it too, and seeing themselves so few against
    so many, began to be abashed. So those sons of Corund, riding up to him
    on either side with a band of men, made him turn back with them and go
    with them in by the gate to Carcë, the which he did like a man amazed
    and knowing not what he doeth. And indeed it was a great marvel how so
    great a lord, wounded to the death, might sit on horseback.</p>

  <p>In the great court he was gotten down from his horse. The Lady
    Prezmyra, when she perceived that his harness was all red with blood,
    and saw his wound, fell not down in a swoon as another might, but took
    his arm about her shoulder and so supported, with her step-sons to help
    her, that great frame which could no more support itself yet had till
    that hour borne up against the whole world’s strength in arms. Leeches
    came that she had called for, and a litter, and they brought him to
    the banquet hall. But after no long while those learned men confessed
    his hurt was deadly, and all their cunning nought. Whereupon, much
    disdaining to die in bed, not in the field fighting with his enemies,
    the Lord Corund caused himself, completely armed and weaponed, with the
    stains and dust of the battle yet upon him, to be set in his chair,
    there to await death.</p>

  <p>Heming, when this was done, came to tell it to the King, where from
    the tower above the water-gate he beheld the end of this battle. The
    Demons held the bridge-house. The fight was done. The King sat in his
    chair looking down to the battle-field. His dark mantle was about his
    shoulders.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_405">405</span> He leaned forward resting his chin in his hand. They of his
    bodyguard, nine or ten, stood huddled together some yards away as if
    afraid to approach him. As Heming came near, the King turned his head
    slowly to look at him. The low sun, swinging blood-red over Tenemos,
    shone full on the King’s face. And as Heming looked in the face of the
    King fear gat hold upon him, so that he durst not speak a word to the
    King, but made obeisance and departed again, trembling like one who has
    seen a sight beyond the veil.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_pegasus.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_406">406</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_LATTER_END_OF_ALL_THE_LORDS_OF_WITCHLAND">XXXII: THE LATTER END OF ALL THE LORDS OF WITCHLAND</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE COUNCIL OF WAR; AND HOW THE LORD CORSUS, BEING REJECTED OF
    THE KING, TURNED HIS THOUGHTS TO OTHER THINGS; AND OF THE LAST
    CONJURING THAT WAS IN CARCË AND THE LAST WINE-BIBBING; AND HOW YET
    ONCE AGAIN THE LADY PREZMYRA SPAKE WITH THE LORDS OF DEMONLAND IN CARCË.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">GORICE THE KING held in his private chamber a council of war on the
    morrow of the battle before Carcë. The morning was over-cast with
    sullen cloud, and though all the windows were thrown wide the sluggish
    air hung heavy in the room, as if it too were pervaded by the cold
    dark humour that clogged the vitals of those lords of Witchland like a
    drowsy drug, or as if the stars would breathe themselves for a greater
    mischief. Pale and drawn were those lords’ faces; and, for all they
    strove to put on a brave countenance before the King, clean gone was
    the vigour and war-like mien that clothed them but yesterday. Only
    Corinius kept some spring of his old valiancy and portly bearing,
    seated with arms akimbo over against the King, his heavy under-jaw set
    forward and his nostrils wide. He had slept ill or watched late, for
    his eyes were blood-shotten, and the breath of his nostrils was heavy
    with wine.</p>

  <p>“We tarry for Corsus,” said the King. “Had he not word of my bidding?”</p>

  <p>Dekalajus said, “Lord, I will summon him again. These misfortunes I
    fear me hang heavy on his mind, and, by your majesty’s leave, he is
    scarce his own man since yesterday.”</p>

  <p>“Do it straight,” said the King. “Give me thy papers, Corinius. Thou
    art my general since Corund gat his death.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_407">407</span> I will see what yesterday
    hath cost us and what power yet remaineth to crush me these snakes by
    force of arms.”</p>

  <p>“These be the numbers, O King,” said Corinius. “But three thousand
    and five hundred fighting men, and well nigh half of these over much
    crippled with wounds to do aught save behind closed walls. It were but
    to give the Demons easy victory to adventure against them, that stand
    before Carcë four thousand sound men in arms.”</p>

  <p>The King blew scornfully through his nostrils. “Who told thee their
    strength?” said he.</p>

  <p>“It were dangerous to write them down a man fewer,” answered Corinius.
    And Hacmon said, “My Lord the King, I would adventure my head they have
    more. And your majesty will not forget they be all flown with eagerness
    and pride after yesterday’s field, whereas our men——”</p>

  <p>“Were ye sons of Corund,” said the King, breaking in quietly on his
    speech and looking dangerously upon him, “but twigs of your father’s
    tree, that he being cut down ye have no manhood left nor vital sap,
    but straight wither in idiotish dotage? I will not have these womanish
    counsels spoke in Carcë; no, nor thought in Carcë.”</p>

  <p>Corinius said, “We had sure intelligence, O King, whenas they landed
    that their main army was six thousand fighting men; and last night
    myself spake with full a score of our officers, and had a true tale
    of some few of the Demons captured by us before they were slain with
    the sword. When I say to you Juss standeth before Carcë four thousand
    strong, I swell not the truth. His losses yesterday were but a
    flea-biting ’gainst ours.”</p>

  <p>The King nodded a curt assent.</p>

  <p>Corinius proceeded, “If we might contrive indeed to raise help from
    without Carcë, were it but five hundred spears to distract his mind
    some part from usward, nought but your majesty’s strict command should
    stay me but I should assault him. It were perilous even so, but never
    have you known me leave a fruit unplucked at for fear of thorns. But
    until that time, nought but your straight command might win me to essay
    a sally. Since well I wot it were my death, and the ruin of you, O
    King, and of all Witchland.”</p>

  <p>The King listened with unmoved countenance, his shaven lip set somewhat
    in a sneer, his eyes half closed like the eyes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_408">408</span> of a cat couched
    sphinx-like in the sun. But no sun shone in that council chamber. The
    leaden pall hung darker without, even as morning grew toward noon. “My
    Lord the King,” said Heming, “send me. To overslip their guards i’ the
    night, ’tis not a thing beyond invention. That done, I’d gather you
    some small head of men, enough to serve this turn, if I must rake the
    seven kingdoms to find ’em.”</p>

  <p>While Heming spoke, the door opened and the Duke Corsus entered the
    chamber. An ill sight was he, flabbier of cheek and duller of eye
    than was his wont. His face was bloodless, his great paunch seemed
    shrunken, and his shoulders yet more hunched since yesterday. His gait
    was uncertain, and his hand shook as he moved the chair from the board
    and took his seat before the King. The King looked on him awhile in
    silence, and under that gaze beads of sweat stood on Corsus’s brow and
    his under-lip twitched.</p>

  <p>“We need thy counsel, O Corsus,” said the King. “Thus it is: since our
    ill-faced stars gave victory to the Demon rebels in yesterday’s battle,
    Juss and his brethren front us with four thousand men, whiles I have
    not two thousand soldiers unhurt in Carcë. Corinius accounteth us too
    weak to risk a sally but and if we might contrive some diversion from
    without. And that (after yesterday) is not to be thought on. Hither
    and to Melikaphkhaz did we draw all our powers, and the subject allies
    not for our love but for fear sake and for lust of gain flocked to our
    standard. These caterpillars drop off now. Yet if we fight not, then
    is our strength in arms clean spent, and our enemies need but to sit
    before Carcë till we be starved. ’Tis a point of great difficulty and
    knotty to solve.”</p>

  <p>“Difficult indeed, O my Lord the King,” said Corsus. His glance shifted
    round the board, avoiding the steady gaze bent on him from beneath
    the eaves of King Gorice’s brow, and resting at last on the jewelled
    splendour of the crown of Witchland on the King’s head. “O King,” he
    said, “you demand my rede, and I shall not say nor counsel you nothing
    but that good and well shall come thereof, as much as yet may be in
    this pass we stand in. For now is our greatness turned in woe, dolour,
    and heaviness. And easy it is to be after-witted.”</p>

  <p>He paused, and his under-jaw wobbled and twitched. “Speak on,” said the
    King. “Thou stutterest forth nothings<span class="pagenum" id="Page_409">409</span> by fits and girds, as an ague
    taketh a goose. Let me know thy rede.”</p>

  <p>Corsus said, “You will not take it, I know, O King. For we of Witchland
    have ever been ruled by the rock rather than by the rudder. I had
    liever be silent. Silence was never written down.”</p>

  <p>“Thou wouldst, and thou wouldst not!” said the King. “Whence gottest
    thou this look of a dish of whey with blood spit in it? Speak, or
    thou’lt anger me.”</p>

  <p>“Then blame me not, O King,” said Corsus. “Thus it seemeth to me, that
    the hour hath struck whenas we of Witchland must needs look calamity
    in the eye and acknowledge we have thrown our last, and lost all.
    The Demons, as we have seen to our undoing, be unconquerable in war.
    Yet are their minds pranked with many silly phantasies of honour and
    courtesy which may preserve us the poor dregs yet unspilt from the cup
    of our fortune, if we but leave unseasonable pride and see where our
    advantage lieth.”</p>

  <p>“Chat, chat, chat!” said the King. “Perdition catch me if I can find a
    meaning in it! What dost thou bid me do?”</p>

  <p>Corsus met the King’s eye at last. He braced himself as if to meet
    a blow. “Throw not your cloak in the fire because your house is
    burning, O King. Surrender all to Juss at his discretion. And trust
    me the foolish softness of these Demons will leave us freedom and the
    wherewithal to live at ease.”</p>

  <p>The King was leaned a little forward as Corsus, somewhat dry-throated
    but gathering heart as he spake, blurted forth his counsel of defeat.
    No man among them looked on Corsus, but all on the King, and for
    a minute’s space was no sound save the sound of breathing in that
    chamber. Then a puff of hot air blew a window to with a thud, and the
    King without moving his head rolled his awful glance forth and back
    over his council slowly, fixing each in his turn. And the King said,
    “Unto which of you is this counsel acceptable? Let him speak and
    instruct us.”</p>

  <p>All did sit mum like beasts. The King spake again, saying, “It is
    well. Were there of my council such another vermin, so sottish,
    so louse-hearted, as this one hath proclaimed himself, I had been
    persuaded Witchland was a sleepy pear, corrupted in her inward parts.
    And that were so, I had given order<span class="pagenum" id="Page_410">410</span> straightway for the sally; and,
    for his chastening and your dishonour, this Corsus should have led you.
    And so an end, ere the imposthume of our shame brake forth too foul
    before earth and heaven.”</p>

  <p>“I admire not, Lord, that you do strike at me,” said Corsus. “Yet I
    pray you think how many Kings in Carcë have heaped with injurious
    indignities them that were so hardy as give them wholesome counsel
    afore their fall. Though your majesty were a half-god or a Fury out of
    the pit, you could not by further resisting deliver us out of this net
    wherein the Demons have gotten us caught and tied. You can keep geese
    no longer, O King. Will you rend me because I bid you be content to
    keep goslings?”</p>

  <p>Corinius smote the table with his fist. “O monstrous vermin!” he cried,
    “because thou wast scalded, must all we be afeared of cold water?”</p>

  <p>But the King stood up in his majesty, and Corsus shrank beneath the
    flame of his royal anger. And the King spake and said, “The council
    is up, my lords. For thee, Corsus, I dismiss thee from my council.
    Thou art to thank my clemency that I take not thy head for this. It
    were for thy better safety, which well I know thou prizest dearer than
    mine honour, that thou show not in my path till these perilous days be
    overpast.” And unto Corinius he said, “On thy head it lieth that the
    Demons storm not the hold, as haply their hot pride may incense them
    to attempt. Expect me not at supper. I lie in the Iron Tower to-night,
    and let none disturb me there at peril of his head. You of my council
    must attend me here four hours ere to-morrow’s noon. Look to it well,
    Corinius, that nought shalt thou do nor in any wise adventure our
    forces against the Demons till thou receive my further bidding, save
    only to hold Carcë against any assault if need be. For this thy life
    shall answer. For the Demons, they were wisest praise a fair day at
    night. If mine enemy uproot a boulder above my dwelling, so I be mighty
    enow of mine hands I may, even in the nick of time that it tottereth to
    leap and crush mine house, o’erset it on him and pash him to a mummy.”</p>

  <p>So speaking, the King moved resolute with a great strong step toward
    the door. There paused he, his hand upon the silver latch, and looking
    tigerishly on Corsus, “Be advised,” he said, “thou. Cross not my path
    again. Nor, while I think<span class="pagenum" id="Page_411">411</span> on’t, send me not thy daughter again, as
    last year thou didst. Apt to the sport she is, and well enow she served
    my turn aforetime. But the King of Witchland suppeth not twice of the
    same dish, nor lacketh he fresh wenches if he need them.”</p>

  <p>Whereat all they laughed. But Corsus’s face grew red as blood.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>On such wise brake up the council. Corinius with the sons of Corund and
    of Corsus went upon the walls ordering all in obedience to the word of
    Gorice the King. But that old Duke Corsus betook him to his chamber
    in the north gallery. Nor might he abide even a small while at ease,
    but sate now in his carven chair, now on the window-sill, now on his
    broad-canopied bed, and now walked the chamber floor twisting his hands
    and gnawing his lip. And if he were distraught in mind, small wonder it
    were, set as he was betwixt hawk and buzzard, the King’s wrath menacing
    him in Carcë and the hosts of Demonland without.</p>

  <p>So wore the day till supper-time. And at supper was Corsus, to their
    much amaze, sitting in his place, and the ladies Zenambria and Sriva
    with him. He drank deep, and when supper was done he filled a goblet
    saying, “My lord the king of Demonland and ye other Witches, good it
    is that we, who stand as now we stand with one foot in the jaws of
    destruction, should bear with one another. Neither should any hide his
    thought from other, but say openly, even as I this morning before the
    face of our Lord the King, his thought and counsel. Wherefore without
    shame do I confess me ill-advised to-day, when I urged the King to
    make peace with Demonland. I wax old, and old men will oft embrace
    timorous counsels which, if there be wisdom and valiancy left in them,
    they soon renounce when the stress is overpast and they have leisure
    to afterthink them with a sad mind. And clear as day it is that the
    King was right, both in his chastening of my faint courage and in his
    bidding thee, O King Corinius, stand to thy watch and do nought till
    this night be worn. For went he not to the Iron Tower? And to what
    end else spendeth he the night in yonder chamber of dread than to do
    sorcery or his magic art, as aforetime he did, and in such wise blast
    these Demons to perdition even in the spring-tide of their fortunes?
    At no point of time<span class="pagenum" id="Page_412">412</span> hath Witchland greater need of our wishes than at
    this coming midnight, and I pray you, my lords, let us meet a little
    before in this hall that we with one heart and mind may drink fair
    fortune to the King’s enchantery.”</p>

  <p>With such pleasant words and sympathetical insinuations, working at
    a season when the wine-cup had caused unfold some gayness in their
    hearts that were fordone with the hard scapes and chances of disastrous
    war, was Corsus grown to friendship again with the lords of Witchland.
    So, when the guard was set and all made sure for the night, they came
    together in the great banquet hall, whereas more than three years
    ago the Prince La Fireez had feasted and after fought against them
    of Witchland. But now was he drowned among the shifting tides in the
    Straits of Melikaphkhaz. And the Lord Corund, that fought that night
    in such valiant wise, now in that same hall, armed from throat to foot
    as becometh a great soldier dead, lay in state, crowned on his brow
    with the amethystine crown of Impland. The spacious side-benches were
    untenanted and void their high seats, and the cross-bench was removed
    to make place for Corund’s bier. The lords of Witchland sate at a
    small table below the dais: Corinius in the seat of honour at the end
    nearest the door, and over against him Corsus, and on Corinius’s left
    Zenambria, and on his right Dekalajus son to Corsus, and then Heming;
    and on Corsus’s left his daughter Sriva, and those two remaining of
    Corund’s sons on his right. All were there save Prezmyra, and her had
    none seen since her lord’s death, but she kept her chamber. Flamboys
    stood in the silver stands as of old, lighting the lonely spaces of the
    hall, and four candles shivered round the bier where Corund slept. Fair
    goblets stood on the board brimmed with dark sweet Thramnian wine, one
    for each feaster there, and cold bacon pies and botargoes and craw-fish
    in hippocras sauce furnished a light midnight meal.</p>

  <p>Now scarce were they set, when the flamboys burned pale in a strange
    light from without doors: an evil, pallid, bale-like lowe, such as
    Gro had beheld in days gone by when King Gorice XII. first conjured
    in Carcë. Corinius paused ere taking his seat. Goodly and stalwart he
    showed in his blue silk cloak and silvered byrny. The fair crown of
    Demonland, wherewith Corsus had been enforced to crown him on that
    great night in Owlswick, shone above his light brown curling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_413">413</span> hair.
    Youth and lustihood stood forth in every line of his great frame, and
    on his bare arms smooth and brawny, with their wristlets of gold;
    but somewhat ghastly was the corpse-like pallor of that light on his
    shaven jowl, and his thick scornful lips were blackened, like those of
    poisoned men, in that light of bale.</p>

  <p>“Saw ye not this light aforetime?” he cried, “and ’twas the shadow
    before the sun of our omnipotence. Fate’s hammer is lifted up to
    strike. Drink with me to our Lord the King that laboureth with destiny.”</p>

  <p>All drank deep, and Corinius said, “Pass we on the cups that each may
    drain his neighbour’s. ’Tis an old lucky custom Corund taught me out of
    Impland. Swift, for the fate of Witchland is poised in the balance.”
    Therewith he passed his cup to Zenambria, who quaffed it to the dregs.
    And all they, passing on their cups, drank deep again; all save Corsus
    alone. But Corsus’s eyes were big with terror as he looked on the cup
    passed on to him by Corund’s son.</p>

  <p>“Drink, O Corsus,” said Corinius; and seeing him still waver, “what
    ails the old doting disard?” he cried. “He stareth on good wine with an
    eye as ghastly as a mad dog’s beholding water.”</p>

  <p>In that instant the unearthly glare went out as a lamp in a gust of
    wind, and only the flamboys and the funeral candles flickered on the
    feasters with uncertain radiance. Corinius said again, “Drink.”</p>

  <p>But Corsus set down the cup untasted, and stayed irresolute. Corinius
    opened his mouth to speak, and his jaw fell, as of a man that
    conceiveth suddenly some dread suspicion. But ere he might speak word,
    a blinding flash went from earth to heaven, and the firm floor of the
    banquet hall rocked and shook as with an earthquake. All save Corinius
    fell back into their seats, clutching the table, amazed and dumb. Crash
    after crash, after the listening ear was well nigh split by the roar,
    the horror broken out of the bowels of night thundered and ravened in
    Carcë. Laughter, as of damned souls banqueting in Hell, rode on the
    tortured air. Wildfire tore the darkness asunder, half blinding them
    that sat about that table, and Corinius gripped the board with either
    hand as a last deafening crash shook the walls, and a flame rushed
    up the night, lighting the whole sky with a livid glare. And in that
    trisulk flash Corinius beheld<span class="pagenum" id="Page_414">414</span> through the south-west window the Iron
    Tower blasted and cleft asunder, and the next instant fallen in an
    avalanche of red-hot ruin.</p>

  <p>“The keep hath fallen!” he cried. And, deadly wearied on a sudden, he
    sank heavily into his seat. The cataclysm was passed by like a wind in
    the night; but now was heard a sound as of the enemy rushing to the
    assault. Corinius strove to rise, but his legs were over feeble. His
    eye lit on Corsus’s untasted cup, that which was passed on to him by
    Viglus Corund’s son, and he cried, “What devil’s work is this? I have a
    strange numbness in my bones. By heavens, thou shalt drink that cup or
    die.”</p>

  <p>Viglus, his eyes protruding, his hand clutching at his breast,
    struggled to rise but could not.</p>

  <p>Heming half staggered up, fumbling for his sword, then pitched forward
    on the table with a horrid rattle of the throat.</p>

  <p>But Corsus leaped up trembling, his dull eyes aflame with triumphant
    malice. “The King hath thrown and lost,” he cried, “as well I foresaw
    it. And now have the children of night taken him to themselves. And
    thou, damned Corinius, and you sons of Corund, are but dead swine
    before me. Ye have all drunk venom, and ye are dead. Now will I deliver
    up Carcë to the Demons. And it, and your bodies, with mine electuary
    rotting in your vitals, shall buy me peace from Demonland.”</p>

  <p>“O horrible! Then I too am poisoned,” cried the Lady Zenambria, and
    she fell a-swooning.</p>

  <p>“’Tis pity,” said Corsus. “Blame the passing of the cups for that. I
    might not speak ere the poison had chained me the limbs of these cursed
    devils, and made ’em harmless.”</p>

  <p>Corinius’s jaw set like a bulldog’s. Painfully gritting his teeth he
    rose from his seat, his sword naked in his hand. Corsus, that was now
    passing near him on his way to the door, saw too late that he had
    reckoned without his host. Corinius, albeit the baneful drug bound his
    legs as with a cere-cloth, was yet too swift for Corsus, who, fleeing
    before him to the door, had but time to clutch the heavy curtains ere
    the sword of Corinius took him in the back. He fell, and lay a-writhing
    lumpishly, like a toad spitted on a skewer. And the floor of steatite
    was made slippery with his blood.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_415">415</span></p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp80" id="i_415">
    <img src="images/i_415.jpg" alt="" />
    <div class="caption">THE LAST CONJURING IN CARCË.</div>
  </div>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_416">416</span></p>

  <p>“’Tis well. Through the guts,” said Corinius. No might he had to draw
    forth the sword, but staggered as one drunken, and fell to earth,
    propped against the jambs of the lofty doorway.</p>

  <p>Some while he lay there, harkening to the sounds of battle without;
    for the Iron Tower was fallen athwart the outer wall, making a breach
    through all lines of defence. And through that breach the Demons
    stormed the hold of Carcë, that never unfriendly foot had entered by
    force in all the centuries since it was builded by Gorice I. An ill
    watch it was for Corinius to lie harkening to that unequal fight,
    unable to stir a hand, and all they that should have headed the defence
    dead or dying before his eyes. Yet was his breath lightened and his
    pain some part eased when his eye rested on the gross body of Corsus
    twisting in the agony of death upon his sword.</p>

  <p>In such wise passed well nigh an hour. The bodily strength of Corinius
    and his iron heart bare up against the power of the venom long after
    those others had breathed out their souls in death. But now was the
    battle done and the victory with them of Demonland, and the lords Juss
    and Goldry Bluszco and Brandoch Daha with certain of their fighting men
    came into the banquet hall. Smeared they were with blood and the dust
    of battle, for not without great blows and the death of many a stout
    lad had the hold been won. Goldry said as they paused at the threshold,
    “This is the very banquet house of death. How came these by their end?”</p>

  <p>Corinius’s brow darkened at the sight of the lords of Demonland, and
    mightily he strove to raise himself, but sank back groaning. “I have
    gotten an everlasting chill o’ the bones,” he said. “Yon hellish
    traitor murthered us all by poison; else should some of you have gotten
    your deaths by me or ever ye won up into Carcë.”</p>

  <p>“Bring him some water,” said Juss. And he with Brandoch Daha gently
    lifted Corinius and bare him to his chair where he should be more at
    ease.</p>

  <p>Goldry said, “Here is a lady liveth.” For Sriva, that sitting on her
    father’s left hand had so escaped a poisoned draught at the passing of
    the cups, rose from the table where she had cowered in fearful silence,
    and cast herself in a flood of tears and terrified supplications about
    Goldry’s knees.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_417">417</span> Goldry bade guard her to the camp and there bestow her
    in safe asylum until the morning.</p>

  <p>Now was Corinius near his end, but he gathered strength to speak,
    saying, “I do joy that not by your sword were we put down, but by the
    unequal trumpery of Fortune, whose tool was this Corsus and the King’s
    devilish pride, that desired to harness Heaven and Hell to his chariot.
    Fortune’s a right strumpet, to fondle me in the neck and now yerk me
    one thus i’ the midriff.”</p>

  <p>“Not Fortune, my Lord Corinius, but the Gods,” said Goldry, “whose feet
    be shod with wool.”</p>

  <p>By then was water brought in, and Brandoch Daha would have given him
    to drink. But Corinius would have none of it, but jerked his head
    aside and o’erset the cup, and looking fiercely on Lord Brandoch Daha,
    “Vile fellow,” he said, “so thou too art come to insult on Witchland’s
    grave? Thou’dst strike me now into the centre, and thou wert not more a
    dancing madam than a soldier.”</p>

  <p>“How?” said Brandoch Daha. “Say a dog bite me in the ham: must I bite
    him again i’ the same part?”</p>

  <p>Corinius’s eyelids closed, and he said weakly, “How look thy womanish
    gew-gaws in Krothering since I towsed ’em?” And therewith the creeping
    poison reached his strong heartstrings, and he died.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now was silence for a space in that banquet hall, and in the silence
    a step was heard, and the lords of Demonland turned toward the lofty
    doorway, that yawned as an arched cavern-mouth of darkness; for Corsus
    had torn down the arras curtains in his death-throes, and they lay
    heaped athwart the threshold with his dead body across them, Corinius’s
    sword-hilts jammed against his ribs and the blade standing a foot’s
    length forth from his breast. And while they gazed, there walked
    into the shifting light of the flamboys over that threshold the Lady
    Prezmyra, crowned and arrayed in her rich robes and ornaments of state.
    Her countenance was bleak as the winter moon flying high amid light
    clouds on a windy midnight settling towards rain, and those lords,
    under the spell of her sad cold beauty, stood without speech.</p>

  <p>In a while Juss, speaking as one who needeth to command<span class="pagenum" id="Page_418">418</span> his voice,
    and making grave obeisance to her, said, “O Queen, we give you peace.
    Command our service in all things whatsoever. And first in this, which
    shall be our earliest task ere we sail homeward, to stablish you in
    your rightful realm of Pixyland. But this hour is over-charged with
    fate and desperate deeds to suffer counsel. Counsel is for the morning.
    The night calleth to rest. I pray you give us leave.”</p>

  <p>Prezmyra looked upon Juss, and there was eye-bite in her eyes, that
    glinted with green metallic lustre like those of a she-lion brought to
    battle.</p>

  <p>“Thou dost offer me Pixyland, my Lord Juss,” said she, “that am Queen
    of Impland. And this night, thou thinkest, can bring me rest. These
    that were dear to me have rest indeed: my lord and lover Corund; the
    Prince my brother; Gro, that was my friend. Deadly enow they found you,
    whether as friends or foes.”</p>

  <p>Juss said, “O Queen Prezmyra, the nest falleth with the tree. These
    things hath Fate brought to pass, and we be but Fate’s whipping-tops
    bandied what way she will. Against thee we war not, and I swear to thee
    that all our care is to make thee amends.”</p>

  <p>“O, thine oaths!” said Prezmyra. “What amends canst thou make? Youth I
    have and some poor beauty. Wilt thou conjure those three dead men alive
    again that ye have slain? For all thy vaunted art, I think this were
    too hard a task.”</p>

  <p>All they were silent, eyeing her as she walked delicately past
    the table. She looked with a distant and, to outward seeming,
    uncomprehending eye on the dead feasters and their empty cups. Empty
    all, save that one passed on by Viglus, whereof Corsus would not drink;
    and it stood half drained. Of curious workmanship it was, of pale
    green glass, its stand formed of three serpents intertwined, the one
    of gold, another of silver, the third of iron. Fingering it carelessly
    she raised her glittering eyes once more on the Demons, and said, “It
    was ever the wont of you of Demonland to eat the egg and give away the
    shell in alms.” And pointing at the lords of Witchland dead at the
    feast, she asked, “Were these also your victims in this day’s hunting,
    my lords?”</p>

  <p>“Thou dost us wrong, madam,” cried Goldry. “Never hath Demonland used
    suchlike arts against her enemies.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_419">419</span></p>

  <p>Lord Brandoch Daha looked swiftly at him, and stepped idly forward,
    saying, “I know not what art hath wrought yon goblet, but ’tis
    strangely like to one I saw in Impland. Yet fairer is this, and of more
    just proportions.” But Prezmyra forestalled his out-stretched hand, and
    quietly drew the cup towards her out of reach. As sword crosses sword,
    the glance of her green eyes crossed his, and she said, “Think not that
    you have a worse enemy left on earth than me. I it was that sent Corsus
    and Corinius to trample Demonland in the mire. Had I but some spark
    of masculine virtue, some soul at least of you should yet be loosed
    squealing to the shades to attend my dear ones ere I set sail. But I
    have none. Kill me then, and let me go.”</p>

  <p>Juss, whose sword was bare in his hand, smote it home in the scabbard
    and stepped towards her. But the table was betwixt them, and she drew
    back to the dais where Corund lay in state. There, like some triumphant
    goddess, she stood above them, the cup of venom in her hand. “Come not
    beyond the table, my lords,” she said, “or I drain this cup to your
    damnation.”</p>

  <p>Brandoch Daha said, “The dice are thrown, O Juss. And the Queen hath
    won the hazard.”</p>

  <p>“Madam,” said Juss, “I swear to you there shall no force nor restraint
    be put upon you, but honour only and worship shown you, and friendship
    if you will. That surely mightest thou take of us for thy brother’s
    sake.” Thereat she looked terribly upon him, and he said, “Only on this
    wild night lay not hands upon yourself. For their sake, that even now
    haply behold us out of the undiscovered barren lands, beyond the dismal
    lake, do not this.”</p>

  <p>Still facing them, the cup still aloft in her right hand, Prezmyra
    laid her left hand lightly on the brazen plates of Corund’s byrny that
    cased the mighty muscles of his breast. Her hand touched his beard, and
    drew back suddenly; but in an instant she laid it gently again on his
    breast. Somewhat her orient loveliness seemed to soften for a passing
    minute in the altering light, and she said, “I was given to Corund
    young. This night I will sleep with him, or reign with him, among the
    mighty nations of the dead.”</p>

  <p>Juss moved as one about to speak, but she stayed him with a look, and
    the lines of her body hardened again and the lioness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_420">420</span> looked forth
    anew in her peerless eyes. “Hath your greatness,” she said, “so much
    outgrown your wit, that you think I will abide to be your pensioner,
    that have been a Princess in Pixyland, a Queen of far-fronted Impland,
    and wife to the greatest soldier in this hold of Carcë, which till this
    day hath been the only scourge and terror of the world? O my lords
    of Demonland, good comfortable fools, speak to me no more, for your
    speech is folly. Go, doff your hats to the silly hind that runneth on
    the mountain; pray her gently dwell with you amid your stalled cattle,
    when you have slain her mate. Shall the blackening frost, when it hath
    blasted and starved all the sweet garden flowers, say to the rose,
    Abide with us; and shall she harken to such a wolfish suit?”</p>

  <p>So speaking she drank the cup; and turning from those lords of
    Demonland as a queen turneth her from the unregarded multitude, kneeled
    gently down by Corund’s bier, her white arms clasped about his head,
    her face pillowed on his breast.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>When Juss spake, his voice was choked with tears. He commanded Bremery
    that they should take up the bodies of Corsus and Zenambria and those
    sons of Corund and of Corsus that lay poisoned and dead in that hall
    and on the morrow give them reverent burial. “And for the Lord Corinius
    I will that ye make a bed of state, that he may lie in this hall
    to-night, and to-morrow will we lay him in howe before Carcë, as is
    fitting for so renowned a captain. But great Corund and his lady shall
    none depart one from the other, but in one grave shall they rest, side
    by side, for their love sake. Ere we be gone I will rear them such a
    monument as beseemeth great kings and princes when they die. For royal
    and lordly was Corund, and a mighty man at arms, and a fighter clean of
    hand, albeit our bitter enemy. Wondrous it is with what cords of love
    he bound to him this unparagoned Queen of his. Who hath known her like
    among women for trueness and highness of heart? And sure none was ever
    more unfortunate.”</p>

  <p>Now went they forth into the outer ward of Carcë. The night bore still
    some signs of that commotion of the skies that had so lately burst
    forth and passed away, and some torn palls of thundercloud yet hung
    athwart the face of heaven. Betwixt<span class="pagenum" id="Page_421">421</span> them in the swept places of the
    sky a few stars shivered, and the moon, more than half waxen towards
    her full, was sinking over Tenemos. Some faint breath of autumn was
    abroad, and the Demons shuddered a little, fresh from the heavy air
    of the great banquet hall. The ruins of the Iron Tower smoking to
    the sky, and the torn and tumbled masses of masonry about it, showed
    monstrous in the gloom as fragments of old chaos; and from them and
    from the riven earth beneath steamed up pungent fumes as of brimstone
    burning. Ever busily, back and forth through those sulphurous vapours,
    obscene birds of the night flitted a weary round, and bats on leathern
    wing, fitfully and dimly seem in the uncertain mirk, save when their
    passage brought them dark against the moon. And from the solitudes of
    the mournful fen afar voices of lamentation floated on the night: wild
    wailing cries and sobbing noises and long moans rising and falling and
    quivering down to silence.</p>

  <p>Juss laid his hand on Goldry’s arm, saying, “There is nought earthly in
    these laments, nor be those that thou seest circling in the reek very
    bats or owls. These be his masterless familiars wailing for their Lord.
    Many such served him, simple earthy divels and divels of the air and of
    the water, held by him in thrall by sorcerous and artificial practices,
    coming and going and doing his will.”</p>

  <p>“These availed him not,” said Goldry, “nor the sword of Witchland
    against our might and main, that brake it asunder in his hand and slew
    his mighty men of valour.”</p>

  <p>“Yet true it is,” said Lord Juss, “that none greater hath lived on
    earth than King Gorice XII. When after these long wars we held him as
    a stag at bay, he feared not to assay a second time, and this time
    unaided and alone, what no man else hath so much as once performed and
    lived. And well he knew that that which was summoned by him out of the
    deep must spill and blast him utterly if he should slip one whit, as
    slip he did in former days, but his disciple succoured him. Behold now
    with what loud striking of thunder, unconquered by any earthly power,
    he hath his parting: with this Carcë black and smoking in ruin for his
    monument, these lords of Witchland and hundreds besides of our soldiers
    and of the Witches for his funeral bake-meats, and spirits weeping in
    the night for his chief mourners.”</p>

  <p>So came they again to the camp. And in due time the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_422">422</span> moon set and the
    clouds departed and the quiet stars pursued their eternal way until
    night’s decline; as if this night had been but as other nights: this
    night which had beheld the power and glory that was Witchland by such a
    hammer-stroke of destiny smitten in pieces.</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp30">
    <img src="images/i_crab.png" alt="" />
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_423">423</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="QUEEN_SOPHONISBA_IN_GALING">XXXIII: QUEEN SOPHONISBA IN GALING</h2>
  </div>

  <div class="subhead">
    OF THE ENTERTAINMENT GIVEN BY LORD JUSS IN DEMONLAND TO QUEEN
    SOPHONISBA, FOSTERLING OF THE GODS, AND OF THAT CIRCUMSTANCE WHICH,
    BEYOND ALL THE WONDERS FAIR AND LOVELY TO BEHOLD SHOWN HER IN THAT
    COUNTRY, MADE HER MOST TO MARVEL: WHEREIN IS A RARE EXAMPLE HOW IN
    A FORTUNATE WORLD, OUT OF ALL EXPECTATION, IN THE SPRING OF THE
    YEAR, COMETH A NEW BIRTH.
  </div>

  <p class="drop-cap">NOW the returning months brought the season of the year when Queen
    Sophonisba should come according to her promise to guest with Lord Juss
    in Galing. And so it was that in the hush of a windless April dawn the
    Zimiamvian caravel that bare the Queen to Demonland rowed up the firth
    to Lookinghaven.</p>

  <p>All the east was a bower for the golden dawn. Kartadza, sharp-outlined
    as if cut in bronze, still hid the sun; and in the great shadow of
    the mountain the haven and the low
    hills and the groves of holm-oak and strawberry tree slumbered in a
    deep obscurity of blues and purples, against which the avenues of pink
    almond blossom and the white marble quays were bodied forth in pale
    wakening beauty, imaged as in a looking-glass in that tranquillity of
    the sea. Westward across the firth all the land was aglow with the
    opening day. Snow lingered still on the higher summits. Cloudless,
    bathing in the golden light, they stood against the blue: Dina,
    the Forks of Nantreganon, Pike o’ Shards, and all the peaks of the
    Thornback range and Neverdale. Morning laughed on their high ridges
    and kissed the woods that clung about their lower limbs: billowy
    woods, where rich hues of brown and purple told of every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_424">424</span> twig on all
    their myriad branches thick and afire with buds. White mists lay like
    coverlets on the water-meadows where Tivarandardale opens to the sea.
    On the shores of Bothrey and Scaramsey, and on the mainland near the
    great bluff of Thremnir’s Heugh and a little south of Owlswick, clear
    spaces among the birchwoods showed golden yellow: daffodils abloom in
    the spring.</p>

  <p>They rowed in to the northernmost berth and made fast the caravel.
    The sweetness of the almond trees was the sweetness of spring in the
    air, and spring was in the face of that Queen as she came with her
    attendants up the shining steps, her little martlets circling about her
    or perching on her shoulders: she to whom the Gods of old gave youth
    everlasting, and peace everlasting in Koshtra Belorn.</p>

  <p>Lord Juss and his brethren were on the quay to meet her, and the Lord
    Brandoch Daha. They bowed in turn, kissing her hands and bidding her
    welcome to Demonland. But she said, “Not to Demonland alone, my lords,
    but to the world again. And toward which of all earth’s harbours should
    I steer, and toward which land if not to this land of yours, who have
    by your victories brought peace and joy to all the world? Surely peace
    slept not more softly on the Moruna in old days before the names of
    Gorice and Witchland were heard in that country, than she shall sleep
    for us on this new earth and Demonland, now that those names are
    drowned for ever under the whirlpools of oblivion and darkness.”</p>

  <p>Juss said, “O Queen Sophonisba, desire not that the names of great men
    dead should be forgot for ever. So should these wars that we last year
    brought to so mighty a conclusion to make us undisputed lords of the
    earth go down to oblivion with them that fought against us. But the
    fame of these things shall be on the lips and in the songs of men from
    one generation to another, so long as the world shall endure.”</p>

  <p>They took horse and rode up from the harbour to the upper road, and
    so through open pastures on to Havershaw Tongue. Lambs frisked on the
    dewy meadows beside the road; blackbirds flew from bush to bush; larks
    trilled in the sightless sky; and as they came down through the woods
    to Beckfoot wood-pigeons cooed in the trees, and squirrels peeped with
    beady eyes. The Queen spoke little. These and all shy things of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_425">425</span> the
    woods and field held her in thrall, charming her to a silence that was
    broken only now and then by a little exclamation of joy. The Lord Juss,
    who himself also loved these things, watched her delight.</p>

  <p>Now they wound up the steep ascent from Beckfoot, and rode into Galing
    by the Lion Gate. The avenue of Irish yews was lined by soldiers of the
    bodyguards of Juss, Goldry, and Spitfire, and Brandoch Daha. These, in
    honour of their great masters and of the Queen, lifted their spears
    aloft, while trumpeters blew three fanfares on silver trumpets. Then
    to an accompaniment of lutes and theorbos and citherns moving above
    the pulse of muffled drums, a choir of maidens sang a song of welcome,
    strewing the path before the lords of Demonland and the Queen with
    sweet white hyacinths and narcissus blooms, while the ladies Mevrian
    and Armelline, more lovely than any queens of earth, waited at the head
    of the golden staircase above the inner court to greet Queen Sophonisba
    come to Galing.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>A hard matter it were to tell of all the pleasures prepared for Queen
    Sophonisba and for her delight by the lords of Demonland. The first
    day she spent among the parks and pleasure gardens of Galing, where
    Lord Juss showed her his great lime avenues, his yew-houses, his fruit
    gardens and sunk gardens and his private walks and bowers; his walks of
    creeping thyme which being trodden on sends up sweet odours to refresh
    the treader; his ancient water-gardens beside the Brankdale Beck,
    whither the water nymphs resort in summer and are seen under the moon
    singing and combing their hair with combs of gold.</p>

  <p>On the second day he showed her his herb gardens, disclosing to her
    the secret properties of herbs, wherein he was deeply learned. There
    grew that Zamalenticion, which being well beaten up with fat without
    salt is sovran for all wounds. And Dittany, which if eaten soon puts
    out the arrow and healeth the wounds; and not only by its presence
    stayeth snakes wheresoever they be handy to it, but by reason of its
    smell carried by wind and they smell it they die. And Mandragora, which
    being taken into the middle of an house compelleth all evils out of the
    house, and relieveth also headaches and produceth sleep. Also he showed
    her Sea Holly in his garden, that is born in secret<span class="pagenum" id="Page_426">426</span> places and in wet
    ones, and the root of it is as the head of that monster which men name
    the Gorgon, and the root-twigs have both eyes and nose and colour of
    serpents. Of this he told her how when taking up the root, a man must
    see to it that no sun shine on it, and he who would carve it must avert
    his head, for it is not permitted that man may see that root unharmed.</p>

  <p>The third day Juss showed the Queen his stables, where were his
    war-horses and horses for the chase and for chariot racing stabled in
    stalls with furniture of silver, and much she marvelled at his seven
    white mares, sisters, so like that none might tell one from another,
    given him in days gone by by the priests of Artemis in the lands beyond
    the sunset. They were immortal, bearing ichor in their veins, not
    blood; and the fire of it showed in their eyes like lamps burning.</p>

  <p>The fourth night and the fifth the Queen was at Drepaby, guesting with
    Lord Goldry Bluszco and the Princess Armelline, that were wedded in
    Zajë Zaculo last Yule; and the sixth and seventh nights at Owlswick,
    and there Spitfire made her lordly entertainment. But Lord Brandoch
    Daha would not have the Queen go yet to Krothering, for he had not yet
    made fair again his gardens and pleasaunces and restored his rich and
    goodly treasures to his mind after their ill handling by Corinius. And
    it was not his will that she should look on Krothering Castle until all
    was there stablished anew according to its ancient glory.</p>

  <p>The eighth day she came again to Galing, and now Lord Juss showed her
    his study, with his astrolabes of orichalc, figured with all the signs
    of the Zodiac and the mansions of the moon, standing a tall man’s
    height above the floor, and his perspectives and globes and crystals
    and hollow looking-glasses; and great crystal globes where he kept
    homunculi whom he had made by secret processes of nature, both men and
    women, less than a span long, as beautiful as one could wish to see in
    their little coats, eating and drinking and going their ways in those
    mighty globes of crystal where his art had given them being.</p>

  <p>Every night, whether at Galing, Owlswick, or Drepaby Mire, was feasting
    held in her honour, with music and dancing and merry-making and all
    delight, and poetical recitations and feats of arms and horsemanship,
    and masques and interludes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_427">427</span> the like whereof hath not been seen on
    earth for beauty and wit and all magnificence.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Now was the ninth day come of the Queen’s guesting in Demonland, and
    it was the eve of Lord Juss’s birthday, when all the great ones in the
    land were come together, as four years ago they came, to do honour on
    the morrow unto him and unto his brethren as was their wont aforetime.
    It was fine bright weather, with every little while a shower to bring
    fresh sweetness to the air, colour and refreshment to the earth, and
    gladness to the sunshine. Juss walked with the Queen in the morning
    in the woods of Moongarth Bottom, now bursting into leaf; and after
    their mid-day meal showed her his treasuries cut in the live rock under
    Galing Castle, where she beheld bars of gold and silver piled like
    trunks of trees; unhewn crystals of ruby, chrysoprase, or hyacinth, so
    heavy a strong man might not lift them; stacks of ivory in the tusk,
    piled to the ceiling; chests and jars filled with perfumes and costly
    spices, ambergris, frankincense, sweet-scented sandalwood and myrrh and
    spikenard; cups and beakers and eared wine-jars and lamps and caskets
    made of pure gold, worked and chased with the forms of men and women
    and birds and beasts and creeping things, and ornamented with jewels
    beyond price, margarites and pink and yellow sapphires, smaragds and
    chrysoberyls and yellow diamonds.</p>

  <p>When the Queen had had her fill of gazing on these, he carried
    her to his great library where statues stood of the nine Muses
    about Apollo, and all the walls were hidden with books: histories
    and songs of old days, books of philosophy, alchymy and astronomy
    and art magic, romances and music and lives of great men dead and
    great treatises of all the arts of peace and war, with pictures and
    illuminated characters. Great windows opened southward on the garden
    from the library, and climbing rose-trees and plants of honeysuckle
    and evergreen magnolia clustered about the windows. Great chairs and
    couches stood about the open hearth where a fire of cedar logs burned
    in winter time. Lamps of moonstones self-effulgent shaded with cloudy
    green tourmaline stood on silver stands on the table and by each couch
    and chair, to give light when the day was over; and all the air was
    sweet with the scent of dried rose-leaves kept in ancient bowls and
    vases of painted earthenware.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_428">428</span></p>

  <p>Queen Sophonisba said, “My lord, I love this best of all the fair
    things thou hast shown me in thy castle of Galing: here where all
    trouble seems a forgotten echo of an ill world left behind. Surely
    my heart is glad, O my friend, that thou and these other lords of
    Demonland shall now enjoy your goodly treasures and fair days in your
    dear native land in peace and quietness all your lives.”</p>

  <p>The Lord Juss stood at the window that looked westward across the lake
    to the great wall of the Scarf. Some shadow of a noble melancholy
    hovered about his sweet dark countenance as his gaze rested on a
    curtain of rain that swept across the face of the mountain wall, half
    veiling the high rock summits. “Yet think, madam,” said he, “that we
    be young of years. And to strenuous minds there is an unquietude in
    over-quietness.”</p>

  <p>Now he conducted her through his armouries where he kept his weapons
    and weapons for his fighting men and all panoply of war. There he
    showed her swords and spears, maces and axes and daggers, orfreyed and
    damascened and inlaid with jewels; byrnies and baldricks and shields;
    blades so keen, a hair blown against them in a wind should be parted
    in twain; charmed helms on which no ordinary sword would bite. And
    Juss said unto the Queen, “Madam, what thinkest thou of these swords
    and spears? For know well that these be the ladder’s rungs that we of
    Demonland climbed up by to that signiory and principality which now we
    hold over the four corners of the world.”</p>

  <p>She answered, “O my lord, I think nobly of them. For an ill part it
    were while we joy in the harvest, to contemn the tools that prepared
    the land for it and reaped it.”</p>

  <p>While she spoke, Juss took down from its hook a great sword with a haft
    bound with plaited cords of gold and silver wire and cross-hilts of
    latoun set with studs of amethyst and a drake’s head at either end of
    the hilt with crimson almandines for his eyes, and the pommel a ball of
    deep amber-coloured opal with red and green flashes.</p>

  <p>“With this sword,” said he, “I went up with Gaslark to the gates of
    Carcë, four years gone by this summer, being clouded in my mind by the
    back-wash of the sending of Gorice the King. With this sword I fought
    an hour back to back with Brandoch Daha, against Corund and Corinius
    and their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_429">429</span> ablest men: the greatest fight that ever I fought, and
    against the fearfullest odds. Witchland himself beheld us from Carcë
    walls through the watery mist and glare, and marvelled that two men
    that are born of woman could perform such deeds.”</p>

  <p>He untied the bands of the sword and drew it singing from its sheath.
    “With this sword,” he said, looking lovingly along the blade, “I have
    overcome hundreds of mine enemies: Witches, and Ghouls, and barbarous
    people out of Impland and the southern seas, pirates of Esamocia and
    princes of the eastern main. With this sword I gat the victory in many
    a battle, and most glorious of all in the battle before Carcë last
    September. There, fighting against great Corund in the press of the
    fight I gave him with this sword the wound that was his death-wound.”</p>

  <p>He put up the sword again in its sheath: held it a minute as if
    pondering whether or no to gird it about his waist: then slowly turned
    to its place on the wall and hung it up again. He carried his head high
    like a war-horse, keeping his gaze averted from the Queen as they went
    out from the great armoury in Galing; yet not so skilfully but she
    marked a glistening in his eye that seemed a tear standing above his
    lower eyelash.</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>That night was supper set in Lord Juss’s private chamber: a light
    regale, yet most sumptuous. They sat at a round table, nine in company:
    the three brethren, the Lords Brandoch Daha, Zigg, and Volle, the
    Ladies Armelline and Mevrian, and the Queen. Brightly flowed the
    wines of Krothering and Norvasp and blithely went the talk to outward
    seeming. But ever and again silence swung athwart the board, like a
    gray pall, till Zigg broke it with a jest, or Brandoch Daha or his
    sister Mevrian. The Queen felt the chill behind their merriment. The
    silent fits came oftener as the feast went forward, as if wine and good
    cheer had lost their native quality and turned fathers of black moods
    and gloomy meditations.</p>

  <p>The Lord Goldry Bluszco, that till now had spoke little, spake now not
    at all, his proud dark face fixed in staid pensive lines of thought.
    Spitfire too was fallen silent, his face leaned upon his hand, his brow
    bent; and whiles he drank amain, and whiles he drummed his fingers
    on the table. The Lord Brandoch Daha leaned back in his ivory chair,
    sipping his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_430">430</span> wine. Very demure, through half-closed eyes, like a
    panther dozing in the noon-day, he watched his companions at the feast.
    Like sunbeams chased by cloud-shadows across a mountain-side in windy
    weather, the lights of humorous enjoyment played across his face.</p>

  <p>The Queen said, “O my lords, you have promised me I should hear the
    full tale of your wars in Impland and the Impland seas, and how you
    came to Carcë and of the great battle that there befell, and of the
    latter end of all the lords of Witchland and of Gorice XII. of memory
    accursed. I pray you let me hear it now, that our hearts may be
    gladdened by the tale of great deeds the remembrance whereof shall be
    for all generations, and that we may rejoice anew that all the lords
    of Witchland are dead and gone because of whom and their tyranny earth
    hath groaned and laboured these many years.”</p>

  <p>Lord Juss, in whose face when it was at rest she had beheld that same
    melancholy which she had marked in him in the library that same day,
    poured forth more wine, and said, “O Queen Sophonisba, thou shalt hear
    it all.” Therewith he told all that had befallen since they last bade
    her adieu in Koshtra Belorn: of the march to the sea at Muelva; of
    Laxus and his great fleet destroyed and sunk off Melikaphkhaz; of the
    battle before Carcë and its swinging fortunes; of the unhallowed light
    and flaring signs in heaven whereby they knew of the King’s conjuring
    again in Carcë; of their waiting in the night, armed at all points,
    with charms and amulets ready against what dreadful birth might be
    from the King’s enchantments; of the blasting of the Iron Tower, and
    the storming of the hold in pitch darkness; of the lords of Witchland
    murthered at the feast, and nought left at last of the power and pomp
    and terror that was Witchland save dying embers of a funeral fire and
    voices wailing in the wind before the dawn.</p>

  <p>When he had done, the Queen said, as if talking in a dream, “Surely it
    may be said of these kings and lords of Witchland dead—</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i2">These wretched eminent things</div>
        <div class="i0">Leave no more fame behind ’em than should one</div>
        <div class="i0">Fall in a frost, and leave his print in snow;</div>
        <div class="i0">As soon as the sun shines, it ever melts</div>
        <div class="i0">Both form and matter.”</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_431">431</span></p>
  <p>With those words spoken dropped silence again like a pall athwart that
    banquet table, more tristful than before and full of heaviness.</p>

  <p>On a sudden Lord Brandoch Daha stood up, unbuckling from his shoulder
    his golden baldrick set with apricot-coloured sapphires and diamonds
    and fire-opals that imaged thunderbolts. He threw it before him on the
    table, with his sword, clattering among the cups. “O Queen Sophonisba,”
    said he, “thou hast spoken a fit funeral dirge for our glory as for
    Witchland’s. This sword Zeldornius gave me. I bare it at Krothering
    Side against Corinius, when I threw him out of Demonland. I bare it at
    Melikaphkhaz. I bare it in the last great fight in Witchland. Thou wilt
    say it brought me good luck and victory in battle. But it brought not
    to me, as to Zeldornius, this last best luck of all: that earth should
    gape for me when my great deeds were ended.”</p>

  <p>The Queen looked at him amazed, marvelling to see him so much moved
    that she had known until now so lazy mocking and so debonair.</p>

  <p>But the other lords of Demonland stood up and flung down their jewelled
    swords on the table beside Lord Brandoch Daha’s. And Lord Juss spake
    and said, “We may well cast down our swords as a last offering on
    Witchland’s grave. For now must they rust: seamanship and all high
    arts of war must wither: and, now that our great enemies are dead and
    gone, we that were lords of all the world must turn shepherds and
    hunters, lest we become mere mountebanks and fops, fit fellows for
    the chambering Beshtrians or the Red Foliot. O Queen Sophonisba, and
    you my brethren and my friends, that are come to keep my birthday
    with me to-morrow in Galing, what make ye in holiday attire? Weep ye
    rather, and weep again, and clothe you all in black, thinking that our
    mightiest feats of arms and the high southing of the bright star of
    our magnificence should bring us unto timeless ruin. Thinking that we,
    that fought but for fighting’s sake, have in the end fought so well
    we never may fight more; unless it should be in fratricidal rage each
    against each. And ere that should betide, may earth close over us and
    our memory perish.”</p>

  <p>Mightily moved was the Queen to behold such a violent sorrow, albeit
    she could not comprehend the roots and reason of it. Her voice shook
    a little as she said, “My Lord Juss,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_432">432</span> my Lord Brandoch Daha, and you
    other lords of Demonland, it was little in mine expectation to find in
    you such a passion of sour discontent. For I came to rejoice with you.
    And strangely it soundeth in mine ear to hear you mourn and lament your
    worst enemies, at so great hazard of your lives and all you held dear,
    struck down by you at last. I am but a maid and young in years, albeit
    my memory goeth back two hundred springs, and ill it befitteth me to
    counsel great lords and men of war. Yet strange it seemeth if there be
    not peaceful enjoyment and noble deeds of peace for you all your days,
    who are young and noble and lords of all the world and rich in every
    treasure and high gifts of learning, and the fairest country in the
    world for your dear native land. And if your swords must not rust, ye
    may bear them against the uncivil races of Impland and other distant
    countries to bring them to subjection.”</p>

  <p>But Lord Goldry Bluszco laughed bitterly. “O Queen,” he cried, “shall
    the correction of feeble savages content these swords, which have
    warred against the house of Gorice and against all his chosen captains
    that upheld the great power of Carcë and the glory and the fear
    thereof?”</p>

  <p>And Spitfire said, “What joy shall we have of soft beds and delicate
    meats and all the delights that be in many-mountained Demonland, if we
    must be stingless drones, with no action to sharpen our appetite for
    ease?”</p>

  <p>All were silent awhile. Then the Lord Juss spake saying, “O Queen
    Sophonisba, hast thou looked ever, on a showery day in spring, upon the
    rainbow flung across earth and sky, and marked how all things of earth
    beyond it, trees, mountain sides, and rivers, and fields, and woods,
    and homes of men, are transfigured by the colours that are in the bow?”</p>

  <p>“Yes,” she said, “and oft desired to reach them.”</p>

  <p>“We,” said Juss, “have flown beyond the rainbow. And there we found no
    fabled land of heart’s desire, but wet rain and wind only and the cold
    mountain-side. And our hearts are a-cold because of it.”</p>

  <p>The Queen said, “How old art thou, my Lord Juss, that thou speakest as
    an old man might speak?”</p>

  <p>He answered, “I shall be thirty-three years old to-morrow, and that
    is young by the reckoning of men. None of us be old, and my brethren
    and Lord Brandoch Daha younger than I.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_433">433</span> Yet as old men may we now look
    forth on our lives, since the goodness thereof is gone by for us.” And
    he said, “Thou O Queen canst scarcely know our grief; for to thee the
    blessed Gods gave thy heart’s desire: youth for ever, and peace. Would
    they might give us our good gift, that should be youth for ever, and
    war; and unwaning strength and skill in arms. Would they might but
    give us our great enemies alive and whole again. For better it were we
    should run hazard again of utter destruction, than thus live out our
    lives like cattle fattening for the slaughter, or like silly garden
    plants.”</p>

  <p>The Queen’s eyes were large with wonder. “Thou couldst wish it?” she
    said.</p>

  <p>Juss answered and said, “A true saying it is that ‘a grave is a rotten
    foundation.’ If thou shouldst proclaim to me at this instant the great
    King alive again and sitting again in Carcë, bidding us to the dread
    arbitrament of war, thou shouldst quickly see I told thee truth.”</p>

  <p>While Juss spake, the Queen turned her gaze from one to another round
    the board. In every eye, when he spake of Carcë, she saw the lightning
    of the joy of battle as of life returning to men held in a deadly
    trance. And when he had done, she saw in every eye the light go out.
    Like Gods they seemed, in the glory of their youth and pride, seated
    about that table; but sad and tragical, like Gods exiled from wide
    Heaven.</p>

  <p>None spake, and the Queen cast down her eyes, sitting as if wrapped
    in thought. Then the Lord Juss rose to his feet, and said, “O Queen
    Sophonisba, forgive us that our private sorrows should make us so
    forgetful of our hospitality as weary our guest with a mirthless feast.
    But think ’tis because we know thee our dear friend we use not too
    much ceremony. To-morrow we will be merry with thee, whate’er betide
    thereafter.”</p>

  <p>So they bade good-night. But as they went out into the garden under the
    stars, the Queen took Juss aside privately and said to him, “My lord,
    since thou and my Lord Brandoch Daha came first of mortal men into
    Koshtra Belorn, and fulfilled the weird according to preordainment,
    this only hath been my desire: to further you and to enhance you and
    to obtain for you what you would, so far as in me lieth. Though I be
    but a weak maid, yet hath it seemed good to the blessed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_434">434</span> Gods to show
    kindness unto me. One holy prayer may work things we scarce dare dream
    of. Wilt thou that I pray to Them to-night?”</p>

  <p>“Alas, dear Queen,” said he, “shall those estranged and divided
    ashes unite again? Who shall turn back the flood-tide of unalterable
    necessity?”</p>

  <p>But she said, “Thou hast crystals and perspectives can show thee things
    afar off. I pray bring them, and row me in thy boat up to Moonmere Head
    that we may land there about midnight. And let my Lord Brandoch Daha
    come with us and thy brothers. But let none else know of it. For that
    were but to mock them with a false dawn, if it should prove at last to
    be according to thy wisdom, O my lord, and not according to my prayers.”</p>

  <p>So the Lord Juss did according to the word of that fair Queen, and they
    rowed her up the lake by moonlight. None spake, and the Queen sate
    apart in the bows of the boat, in earnest supplication to the blessed
    Gods. When they were come to the head of the lake they went ashore on
    a little spit of silver sand. The April night was above them, mild
    with moonlight. The shadows of the fells rose inky black and beyond
    imagination huge against the sky. The Queen kneeled awhile in silence
    on the cold ground, and those lords of Demonland stood together in
    silence watching her.</p>

  <p>In a while she raised her eyes to heaven; and behold, between the two
    main peaks of the Scarf, a meteor crept slowly out of darkness and
    across the night-sky, leaving a trail of silver fire, and silently
    departed into darkness. They watched, and another came, and yet
    another, until the western sky above the mountain was ablaze with them.
    From two points of heaven they came, one betwixt the foreclaws of the
    Lion and one in the dark sign of Cancer. And they that came from the
    Lion were sparkling like the white fires of Rigel or Altair, and they
    that came from the Crab were haughty red, like the lustre of Antares.
    The lords of Demonland, leaning on their swords, watched these portents
    for a long while in silence. Then the travelling meteors ceased, and
    the steadfast stars shone lonely and serene. A soft breeze stirred
    among the alders and willows by the lake. The lapping waters lapping
    the shingly shore made a quiet tune. A nightingale in a coppice on a
    little hill sang so passionate sweet it seemed some spirit singing. As<span class="pagenum" id="Page_435">435</span>
    in a trance they stood and listened, until that singing ended, and a
    hush fell on water and wood and lawn. Then all the east blazed up for
    an instant with sheet lightnings, and thunder growled from the east
    beyond the sea.</p>

  <p>The thunder took form so that music was in the heavens, filling earth
    and sky as with trumpets calling to battle, first high, then low, then
    shuddering down to silence. Juss and Brandoch Daha knew it for that
    great call to battle which had preluded that music in the dark night
    without her palace, in Koshtra Belorn, when first they stood before
    her portal divine. The great call went again through earth and air,
    sounding defiance; and in its train new voices, groping in darkness,
    rising to passionate lament, hovering, and dying away on the wind, till
    nought remained but a roll of muffled thunder, long, low, quiet, big
    with menace.</p>

  <p>The Queen turned to Lord Juss. Surely her eyes were like two stars
    shining in the gloom. She said in a drowned voice, “Thy perspectives,
    my lord.”</p>

  <p>So the Lord Juss made a fire of certain spices and herbs, and smoke
    rose in a thick cloud full of fiery sparks, with a sweet sharp smell.
    And he said, “Not we, O my Lady, lest our desires cheat our senses. But
    look thou in my perspectives through the smoke, and say unto us what
    thou shalt behold in the east beyond the unharvested sea.”</p>

  <p>The Queen looked. And she said, “I behold a harbour town and a sluggish
    river coming down to the harbour through a mere set about with mud
    flats, and a great waste of fen stretching inland from the sea. Inland,
    by the river side, I behold a great bluff standing above the fens. And
    walls about the bluff, as it were a citadel. And the bluff and the
    walled hold perched thereon are black like old night, and like throned
    iniquity sitting in the place of power, darkening the desolation of
    that fen.”</p>

  <p>Juss said, “Are the walls thrown down? Or is not the great round tower
    south-westward thrown down in ruin athwart the walls?”</p>

  <p>She said, “All is whole and sound as the walls of thine own castle, my
    lord.”</p>

  <p>Juss said, “Turn the crystal, O Queen, that thou mayest see within the
    walls if any persons be therein, and tell us their shape and seeming.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_436">436</span></p>

  <p>The Queen was silent for a space, gazing earnestly in the crystal.
    Then she said, “I see a banquet hall with walls of dark green jasper
    speckled with red, and a massy cornice borne up by giants three-headed
    carved in black serpentine; and each giant is bowed beneath the weight
    of a huge crab-fish. The hall is seven-sided. Two long tables there
    be and a cross-bench. There be iron braziers in the midst of the hall
    and flamboys burning in silver stands, and revellers quaffing at the
    long tables. Some dark young men black of brow and great of jaw, most
    soldier-like, brothers mayhap. Another with them, ruddy of countenance
    and kindlier to look on, with long brown moustachios. Another that
    weareth a brazen byrny and sea-green kirtle; an old man he, with sparse
    gray whiskers and flabby cheeks; fat and unwieldy; not a comely old man
    to look upon.”</p>

  <p>She ceased speaking, and Juss said, “Whom seest thou else in the
    banquet hall, O Queen?”</p>

  <p>She said, “The flare of the flamboys hideth the cross-bench. I will
    turn the crystal again. Now I behold two diverting themselves with dice
    at the table before the cross-bench. One is well-looking enough, well
    knit, of a noble port, with curly brown hair and beard and keen eyes
    like a sailor. The other seemeth younger in years, younger than any
    of you, my lords. He is smooth shaved, of a fresh complexion and fair
    curling hair, and his brow is wreathed with a festal garland. A most
    big broad strong and seemly young man. Yet is there a somewhat maketh
    me ill at ease beholding him; and for all his fair countenance and
    royal bearing he seemeth displeasing in mine eyes.</p>

  <p>“There is a damosel there too, watching them while they play. Showily
    dressed she is, and hath some beauty. Yet scarce can I commend her—”
    and, ill at ease on a sudden, the Queen suddenly put down the crystal.</p>

  <p>The eye of Lord Brandoch Daha twinkled, but he kept silence. Lord Juss
    said, “More, I entreat thee, O Queen, ere the reek be gone and the
    vision fade. If this be all within the banquet hall, seest thou nought
    without?”</p>

  <p>Queen Sophonisba looked again, and in a while said, “There is a terrace
    facing to the west under the inner wall of that fortress of old night,
    and walking on it in the torchlight a man crowned like a King. Very
    tall he is: lean of body, and long of limb. He weareth a black doublet
    bedizened o’er with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_437">437</span> diamonds, and his crown is in the figure of a
    crab-fish, and the jewels thereof out-face the sun in splendour. But
    scarce may I mark his apparel for looking on the face of him, which is
    more terrible than the face of any man that ever I saw. And the whole
    aspect of the man is full of darkness and power and terror and stern
    command, that spirits from below earth must tremble at and do his
    bidding.”</p>

  <p>Juss said, “Heaven forfend that this should prove but a sweet and
    golden dream, and we wake to-morrow to find it flown.”</p>

  <p>“There walketh with him,” said the Queen, “in intimate converse, as
    of a servant talking to his lord, one with a long black beard curly
    as the sheep’s wool and glossy as the raven’s wing. Pale he is as the
    moon in daylight hours, slender, with fine-cut features and great dark
    eyes, and his nose hooked like a reaping-hook; gentle-looking and
    melancholy-looking, yet noble.”</p>

  <p>Lord Brandoch Daha said, “Seest thou none, O Queen, in the lodgings
    that be in the eastern gallery above the inner court of the palace?”</p>

  <p>The Queen answered, “I see a lofty bed-chamber hung with arras. It is
    dark, save for two branching candlesticks of lights burning before a
    great mirror. I see a lady standing before the mirror, crowned with
    a queen’s crown of purple amethysts on her deep hair that hath the
    colour of the tipmost tongues of a flame. A man cometh through the
    door behind her, parting the heavy hangings left and right. A big man
    he is, and looketh like a king, in his great wolf-skin mantle and his
    kirtle of russet velvet with ornaments of gold. His bald head set about
    with grizzled curls and his bushy beard flecked with gray speak him
    something past his prime; but the light of youth burns in his eager
    eyes and the vigour of youth is in his tread. She turneth to greet him.
    Tall she is, and young she is, and beautiful, and proud-faced, and
    sweet-faced, and most gallant-hearted too, and merry of heart too, if
    her looks belie her not.”</p>

  <p>Queen Sophonisba covered her eyes, saying, “My lords, I see no more.
    The crystal curdles within like foam in a whirlpool under a high force
    in rainy weather. Mine eyes grow sore with watching. Let us row back,
    for the night is far spent and I am weary.”</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_438">438</span></p>

  <p>But Juss stayed her and said, “Let me dream yet awhile. The double
    pillar of the world, that member thereof which we, blind instruments of
    inscrutable Heaven, did shatter, restored again? From this time forth
    to maintain, I and he, his and mine, ageless and deathless for ever,
    for ever our high contention whether he or we should be great masters
    of all the earth? If this be but phantoms, O Queen, thou’st ’ticed us
    to the very heart of bitterness. This we could have missed, unseen
    and unimagined: but not now. Yet how were it possible the Gods should
    relent and the years return?”</p>

  <p>But the Queen spake, and her voice was like the falling shades of
    evening, pulsing with hidden splendour, as of a sense of wakening
    starlight alive behind the fading blue. “This King,” she said, “in the
    wickedness of his impious pride did wear on his thumb the likeness of
    that worm Ouroboros, as much as to say his kingdom should never end.
    Yet was he, when the appointed hour did come, thundered down into the
    depths of Hell. And if now he be raised again and his days continued,
    ’tis not for his virtue but for your sake, my lords, whom the Almighty
    Gods do love. Therefore I pray you possess your hearts awhile with
    humility before the most high Gods, and speak no unprofitable words.
    Let us row back.”</p>

  <div class="center">•<span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span><span class="col2">•</span></div>

  <p>Dawn came golden-fingered, but the lords of Demonland lay along abed
    after their watch in the night. About the third hour before noon,
    the presence was filled in the high presence chamber, and the three
    brethren sat upon their thrones, as four years ago they sat, between
    the golden hippogriffs, and beside them were thrones set for Queen
    Sophonisba and Lord Brandoch Daha. All else of beauty and splendour
    in Galing Castle had the Queen beheld, but not till now this presence
    chamber; and much she marvelled at its matchless beauties and rarities,
    the hangings and the carvings on the walls, the fair pictures, the
    lamps of moonstone and escarbuncle self-effulgent, the monsters on the
    four-and-twenty pillars, carved in precious stones so great that two
    men might scarce circle them with their arms, and the constellations
    burning in that firmament of lapis lazuli below the golden canopy. And
    when they drank unto Lord Juss the cup of glory to be, wishing him long
    years and joy and greatness for ever more, the Queen took a little
    cithern saying,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_439">439</span> “O my lord, I will sing a sonnet to thee and to you my
    lords and to sea-girt Demonland.” So saying, she smote the strings, and
    sang in that crystal voice of hers, so true and delicate that all that
    were in that hall were ravished by its beauty:</p>

  <div class="center-container">
    <div class="poetry">
      <div class="stanza">
        <div class="i0">Shall I compare thee to a Summers day?</div>
        <div class="i2">Thou art more lovely and more temperate:</div>
        <div class="i0">Rough windes do shake the darling buds of Maie,</div>
        <div class="i2">And Sommers lease hath all too short a date:</div>
        <div class="i0">Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,</div>
        <div class="i2">And often is his gold complexion dimn’d;</div>
        <div class="i0">And every faire from faire some-time declines,</div>
        <div class="i2">By chance or natures changing course untrim’d;</div>
        <div class="i4">But thy eternall Sommer shall not fade</div>
        <div class="i6">Nor loose possession of that faire thou ow’st;</div>
        <div class="i4">Nor shall Death brag thou wandr’st in his shade.</div>
        <div class="i6">When in eternall lines to time thou grow’st:</div>
        <div class="i0">So long as men can breath, or eyes can see,</div>
        <div class="i0">So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p>When she had done, Lord Juss rose up very nobly and kissed her hand,
    saying, “O Queen Sophonisba, fosterling of the Gods, shame us not with
    praises that be too high for mortal men. For well thou knowest what
    thing alone might bring us content. And ’tis not to be thought that
    that which was seen at Moonmere Head last night was very truth indeed,
    but rather the dream of a night vision.”</p>

  <p>But Queen Sophonisba answered and said, “My Lord Juss, blaspheme not
    the bounty of the blessed Gods, lest They be angry and withdraw it,
    Who have granted unto you of Demonland from this day forth youth
    everlasting and unwaning strength and skill in arms, and—but hark!” she
    said, for a trumpet sounded at the gate, three strident blasts.</p>

  <p>At the sound of that trumpet blown, the lords Goldry and Spitfire
    sprang from their seats, clapping hand to sword. Lord Juss stood like a
    stag at gaze. Lord Brandoch Daha sat still in his golden chair, scarce
    changing his pose of easeful grace. But all his frame seemed alight
    with action near to birth, as the active principle of light pulses and
    grows in the sky at sunrise. He looked at the Queen, his eyes filled
    with a wild surmise. A serving man, obedient to Juss’s nod, hastened
    from the chamber.</p>

  <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_440">440</span></p>

  <p>No sound was there in that high presence chamber in Galing till in a
    minute’s space the serving man returned with startled countenance,
    and, bowing before Lord Juss, said, “Lord, it is an Ambassador from
    Witchland and his train. He craveth present audience.”</p>

  <div class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_462">
    <div class="center gespertt3 bold xlarge">THE WORM</div>
    <img src="images/i_462.jpg" alt="" />
    <div class="center gespertt2 bold xlarge">OUROBOROS</div>
  </div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_441">441</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="ARGUMENT_WITH_DATES">ARGUMENT: WITH DATES</h2>
  </div>

  <p>[Dates <i>Anno Carces Conditae</i>. The action of the story covers
    exactly four years: from the 22nd April 399 to 22nd April 403
    <span class="allsmcap">A.C.C.</span>].</p>

 <table summary="Dates">
    <thead>
      <tr>
        <th>Year<br />
          <span class="allsmcap">A.C.C.</span></th>
        <th>&nbsp;</th>
      </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">171.</td>
        <td class="dates">Queen Sophonisba born in Morna Moruna.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">187.</td>
        <td class="dates">Gorice III. eat up with mantichores beyond the Bhavinan.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">188.</td>
        <td class="dates">Morna Moruna sacked by Gorice IV. Queen Sophonisba lodged by
          divine agency in Koshtra Belorn.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">337.</td>
        <td class="dates">Gorice VII., conjuring in Carcë, slain by evil spirits.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">341.</td>
        <td class="dates">Birth of Zeldornius.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">344.</td>
        <td class="dates">Birth of Corsus in Tenemos.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">353.</td>
        <td class="dates">Corund born in Carcë.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">354.</td>
        <td class="dates">Birth of Zenambria, duchess to Corsus.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">357.</td>
        <td class="dates">Birth of Helteranius.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">360.</td>
        <td class="dates">Volle born at Darklairstead in Demonland.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">361.</td>
        <td class="dates">Birth of Jalcanaius Fostus.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">363.</td>
        <td class="dates">Birth of Vizz at Darklairstead.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">364.</td>
        <td class="dates">Gro born in Goblinland at the court of Zajë Zaculo, the
          foster-brother of Gaslark the King.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
        <td class="dates">Gaslark born in Zajë Zaculo.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">366.</td>
        <td class="dates">Laxus, high Admiral of Witchland and after king of Pixyland, born
          in Estremerine.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">367.</td>
        <td class="dates">Birth of Gallandus in Buteny.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">369.</td>
        <td class="dates">Zigg born at Many Bushes in Amadardale.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">370.</td>
        <td class="dates">Juss born in Galing.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">371.</td>
        <td class="dates">Goldry Bluszco born in Galing.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
        <td class="dates">Dekalajus, eldest of the sons of Corsus, born in Witchland.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">372.</td>
        <td class="dates">Spitfire born in Galing.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
        <td class="dates">Brandoch Daha born in Krothering.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">374.</td>
        <td class="dates">La Fireez born in Norvasp of Pixyland.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
        <td class="dates">Gorius, second of Corsus’s sons, born in Witchland.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">375.</td>
        <td class="dates">Corinius born in Carcë.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">376.</td>
        <td class="dates">Prezmyra, sister to the Prince La Fireez, second wife to Corund,
          and after Queen of Impland, born in Norvasp.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">379.</td>
        <td class="dates">Birth of Hacmon, eldest of the sons of Corund.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
        <td class="dates">Mevrian, sister to Lord Brandoch Daha, born in Krothering.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">380.</td>
        <td class="dates">Heming born, second of Corund’s sons.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">381.</td>
        <td class="dates">Dormanes born, third of Corund’s sons.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">382.</td>
        <td class="dates">Birth of Viglus, Corund’s fourth son, in Carcë.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
        <td class="dates">Recedor, King of Goblinland, privily poisoned by Corsus: Gaslark
          reigns in his stead in Zajë Zaculo.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
        <td class="dates">Sriva, daughter to Corsus and Zenambria, born in Carcë.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_442">442</span>383.</td>
        <td class="dates">Armelline, cousin-german to King Gaslark, after betrothed and wed
          to Goldry Bluszco, born in Goblinland.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">384.</td>
        <td class="dates">Cargo, youngest of the sons of Corund, born in Carcë.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">388.</td>
        <td class="dates">Goblinland invaded by the Ghouls: the flight out of Zajë Zaculo:
          Tenemos burnt: the power of the Ghouls crushed by Corsus.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">389.</td>
        <td class="dates">Zeldornius, Helteranius, and Jalcanaius Fostus sent by Gaslark
          with an armament into Impland, and there ensorcelled.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">390.</td>
        <td class="dates">The Witches harry in Goblinland: their defeat by the help of
          Demonland on Lormeron field: the slaying of Gorice X. by Brandoch
          Daha: Corsus taken captive and shamed by the Demons: Gro,
          abandoning the Goblin cause, dwells in exile at the court of
          Witchland.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">393.</td>
        <td class="dates">La Fireez, besieged by Fax Fay Faz at Lida Nanguna in Outer
          Impland, delivered by the Demons: Goldry Bluszco repulsed by
          Corsus before Harquem.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">395.</td>
        <td class="dates">Corund weds in Norvasp with the Princess Prezmyra.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">398.</td>
        <td class="dates">The Ghouls burst forth in unimagined ferocity: their harrying in
          Demonland and burning of Goldry’s house at Drepaby.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">399.</td>
        <td class="dates">Holy war of Witchland, Demonland, Goblinland, and other polite
          nations against the Ghouls: Laxus, with the countenance of his
          master Gorice XI. and by the counsel of Gro, deserts with all his
          fleet in the battle off Kartadza (eastern seaboard of Demonland):
          the Ghouls nevertheless overwhelmed by the Demons in Kartadza
          Sound, and their whole race exterminated: Gorice XI. demands
          homage of Demonland, wrastles with Goldry Bluszco, and is in that
          encounter slain. Gorice XII., renewing with happier fortune the
          artificial practices of Gorice VII. in Carcë, takes Goldry with a
          sending magical: Juss and Brandoch Daha, partly straught of their
          wits, unadvisedly go up with Gaslark against Carcë and are there
          clapped up: their delivery by the agency of La Fireez, and return
          to their own country: Juss’s dream: the council in Krothering:
          the first expedition to Impland. The King’s revenge on Pixyland
          executed by Corinius, and La Fireez dispossessed and driven into
          exile: Corund’s great march over Akra Skabranth, sudden irruption
          into Outer Impland, and conquest of that country: shipwreck of
          the Demon fleet: carnage at Salapanta: march of the Demons into
          Upper Impland: amorous commerce of Brandoch Daha with the Lady of
          Ishnain Nemartra, who lays a weird upon him: Corund besieges and
          captures Eshgrar Ogo: Juss and Brandoch Daha escape across the
          Moruna and winter by the Bhavinan.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_443">443</span>400.</td>
        <td class="dates">News of Eshgrar Ogo brought to Carcë: Corund honoured by the
          King therefor with the style of king of Impland. Juss and
          Brandoch Daha cross the Zia Pass: fight with the mantichore:
          ascent of Koshtra Pivrarcha, entrance into Koshtra Belorn, and
          entertainment by Queen Sophonisba: Juss’s vision of Goldry bound
          on Zora: the Queen’s furtherance of their designs: the hippogriff
          hatched beside the Lake of Ravary: the fatal folly of Mivarsh:
          Juss in despite of the Queen’s admonitions assays Zora Rach on
          foot and comes within a little of losing his life. Prezmyra
          Queen of Impland and Laxus king of Pixyland crowned in Carcë:
          the King sends an expedition to put down Demonland, setting
          Corsus in chief command thereof: Laxus defeats Volle by sea
          off Lookinghaven, and Corsus Vizz by land at Crossby Outsikes,
          Vizz slain on the field: cruel and despiteful policy of Corsus:
          dissensions betwixt him and Gallandus: great reversal of these
          disasters by Spitfire, Corsus’s army cut in pieces by him on the
          Rapes of Brima and the survivors besieged in Owlswick: discontent
          of the army: Corsus with his own hands murthers Gallandus in
          Owlswick: tidings brought by Gro to Carcë: Corsus degraded by the
          King, who commissions Corinius as king of Demonland to retrieve
          the matter: battle of Thremnir’s Heugh, with the overthrow of
          Spitfire’s power: Corinius crowned in Owlswick: arrest of Corsus
          and his sons and their despatch home to Witchland.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">401.</td>
        <td class="dates">Reduction of eastern Demonland by Corinius, save only Galing
          which Bremery holds with seventy men: Corinius moves west over
          the Stile: his insolent demands to Mevrian: miscarriage of
          Gaslark’s expedition to the relief of Krothering, his defeat at
          Aurwath: masterly retreat of Corinius from Krothering before
          superior numbers: his ambushing and destroying of Spitfire’s army
          on the shores of Switchwater: fall of Krothering and surrender of
          Mevrian: her escape by the counsel of Gro, the help of Corund’s
          sons, and the connivance of Laxus: her flight to Westmark and
          thence east again into Neverdale: Gro abandons the cause of
          Witchland for that of Demonland: his and Mevrian’s meeting with
          Juss and Brandoch Daha on their return home after two years:
          revolt of the east and relief of Galing: masterly dispositions
          both by Corinius and by the Demons for a decisive encounter:
          battle of Krothering Side and expulsion of the Witches from
          Demonland.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_444">444</span>402.</td>
        <td class="dates">Second expedition to Impland, in which Gaslark and La Fireez
          join the Demons, lands at Muelva on the Didornian Sea: Juss,
          Spitfire, Brandoch Daha, Gro, Zigg, and Astar cross the Moruna:
          Juss’s riding of the hippogriff to Zora Rach and deliverance of
          Goldry: Laxus sent by the King with an overwhelming power of
          ships to close Melikaphkhaz Straits against the Demons on their
          homeward voyage: battle off Melikaphkhaz: destruction of the
          Witchland armada: Laxus and La Fireez slain: a single surviving
          ship brings the tidings to Carcë: Corund called captain general
          in Carcë: gathering of the Witchland armies and their subject
          allies: landing of the Demons in the south: parley before Carcë:
          the King’s warning to Juss: implacable enmity between them: signs
          and prognosticks in the heavens: the King’s desperate resolution
          if the fight should go against him: battle before Carcë: slaying
          of Gro and Corund: defeat of the King’s forces: council of war
          in Carcë, Corinius the second time captain general: Corsus,
          counselling surrender, falls greatly into the King’s displeasure
          and is by him shamed and dismissed: in despair he compasses the
          taking off of Corinius and the sons of Corund, and unhappily
          of his own son too and his duchess, by poison, but is himself
          slain by Corinius: blasting of the Iron Tower in the miscarriage
          of the King’s last conjuring: the Demons enter into Carcë:
          their encounter there with Queen Prezmyra: her tragical end and
          triumph: in all of which is completed the fall of the empire and
          kingdom of the house of Gorice in Carcë.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="top">403.</td>
        <td class="dates">Queen Sophonisba in Demonland: the marvel of marvels that
          restored the world on Lord Juss’s natal day, the thirty-third
          year of his life in Galing.</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="chapter">
    <span class="pagenum" id="Page_445">445</span>
    <h2 class="nobreak" id="BIBLIOGRAPHICAL_NOTE_ON_THE_VERSES">BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE VERSES</h2>
  </div>

 <table summary="Note on verses">
    <thead>
      <tr>
        <th><span class="allsmcap">CHAP.</span></th>
        <th colspan="2">&nbsp;</th>
      </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum allsmcap"><div>III.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">The Funeral dirge on King Gorice XI.</td>
        <td class="tdl">William Dunbar (late 15th century) “Lament for the Makaris: quhen he wes seik.”</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="tdc"><div>„</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Lampoon on Gro</td>
        <td class="tdl">Epigram in memory of William Parrie, “a capital traitor,” executed for treason
          in 1584: quoted by Holinshed.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum allsmcap"><div>IV.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Prophecy concerning the last three Kings of the house of Gorice in Carcë</td>
        <td class="tdc"><div>——</div></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum allsmcap"><div>VII.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Song in praise of Prezmyra</td>
        <td class="tdl">Thomas Carew (1598–1639).</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="tdc"><div>„</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Corund’s Song of the Chine</td>
        <td class="tdl">“An Antidote against Melancholy” (1661).</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="tdc"><div>„</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Corsus’s “Whene’er I bib the wine down”</td>
        <td class="tdl">Anacreonta xxv.; transl. from the Greek, E. R. E.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="tdc"><div>„</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Corsus’s other ditties</td>
        <td class="tdl">From the “Roxburgh Ballads” (collected 1774).</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum allsmcap"><div>IX.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Mivarsh’s staves on Salapanta</td>
        <td class="tdl">Herrick (1591–1674), “Hesperides.”</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum allsmcap"><div>XV.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Prezmyra’s song of Lovers</td>
        <td class="tdl">Donne (1573–1631).</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="tdc"><div>„</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Corinius’s love ditty: “What an Ass is he”</td>
        <td class="tdl">“Merry Drollerie” (1691).</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="tdc"><div>„</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Corinius’s song on his Mistress</td>
        <td class="tdl"><i>Ibid.</i></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum allsmcap"><div>XVI.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Laxus’s Serenade</td>
        <td class="tdl">Anacreonta ii.; transl. from the Greek, E. R. E.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum allsmcap"><div>XVII.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">March of Corsus’s veterans</td>
        <td class="tdc"><div>——</div></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum allsmcap"><div>XXII.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Mevrian’s ballad of the Ravens</td>
        <td class="tdl">Old Ballad: “The Three Ravens.”</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum allsmcap"><div>XXIV.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Mevrian’s quotation on the asbeston stone</td>
        <td class="tdl">Robert Greene (1560–92), “Alphonsus, King of Arragon.”</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum allsmcap"><div>XXX.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Gro’s serenade to Prezmyra</td>
        <td class="tdl">Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639), verses to Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum allsmcap"><div>XXXI.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Prophecy concerning conjuring</td>
        <td class="tdc"><div>——</div></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="chapnum allsmcap"><div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_446">446</span>XXXIII.</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Lines quoted by Queen Sophonisba on the fall of Witchland</td>
        <td class="tdl">Webster (beginning of 17th century); Malfi,” Act V. v.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="tdc"><div>„</div></td>
        <td class="tdl">Queen Sophonisba’s Sonnet</td>
        <td class="tdl">Shakespeare, Sonnet xviii.</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>

  <p>The text here printed of Wotton’s poem is that of “Reliquiae
    Wottonianae,” 1st ed., 1651, edited by Izaak Walton; except that I read
    (with the earlier texts) l. 5 <i>Moone</i>, l. 8 <i>Passions</i>, l. 16
    <i>Princess</i>, instead of <i>Sun</i>, <i>Voyces</i>, <i>Mistris</i>
    of the 1651 edition.</p>

  <p>Shakespeare’s Sonnet is from the Quarto of 1609.</p>

  <p>The passage from Njal’s Saga in the Induction is quoted from the late
    Sir George Dasent’s classic translation.</p>

  <div class="center small mt10"><i>Printed in Great Britain by</i> <span class="smcap">R. &amp; R. Clark, Limited</span>,
    <i>Edinburgh</i>.</div>

  <hr class="chap" />
  <div class="figcenter illowp60">
    <img src="images/i_462.jpg" alt="" />
  </div>

  <div class="transnote mt5">
    <div class="large center"><b>Transcriber’s Notes:</b></div>
    <ul class="spaced">
      <li>Blank pages have been removed.</li>
      <li>Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.</li>
    </ul>
  </div>

<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67090 ***</div>
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