The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (e book reader online .TXT) 📖
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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 expenens 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 boast
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 vii daie of My yeare II.
The King took wax and a taper from the great gold inkstand, 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.”
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.”
“Knowest thou the man?” said the King.
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.”
“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.”
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.
“Dread Lord,” said the soldier, “is it your will that I stand ready
without the door?”
“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 liftink of my finger I am able to metamorphose thee to a
mandrake. If indeed thou beest aught else already.”
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.
She trembled and said, “O my Lord the King, I hope you will indulge
and pardon in me this trespass. Truly I marvel at mine own boldness
how I durst come to you.”
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.”
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.”
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.
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 tonight, 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.”
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.”
“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.
“You did threaten me, Lord, but now,” she said, “to transmew me to a
mandrake. Would you might change me to a man.”
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.
“I should serve you better so, Lord, than my poor beauty may. Were I a
man, I had come to you tonight 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.’”
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.
“Is this the boon thou askest me?” he said at length. “An expedition
to Demonland?”
She answered it was.
“Must they sail tonight?” said the King, still watching her.
She smiled foolishly.
“Only,” he said, “I would know what gadfly of urgency stung thee on to
come so strangely and suddenly and after midnight.”
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.”
“Another?” said the King.
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.”
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.
“Thou smilest, my Lady Sriva,” said the King.
“I smiled at mine own thought,” she said. “You’ll laugh to hear it, O
my Lord the King, being so different from what 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.”
“Let me hear it,” said the King, bending forward, his lean hairy hand
flung idly across the table’s edge.
“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.”
“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.
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.”
But he leaned closer, saying, “Dost think I’ll chaffer with thee? I’ll
know the answer first i’ the dark.”
“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 false with me.”
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.”
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.
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?”
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.”
“Was he drunk when he sent thee?” asked the King.
“Truly, Lord, I think he was,” said she.
“That cup that he was drunken withal,” said King Gonce, “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
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