The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (e book reader online .TXT) 📖
- Author: Eric Rücker Eddison
- Performer: -
Book online «The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (e book reader online .TXT) 📖». Author Eric Rücker Eddison
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.
“Most humbly and reverently untoe my Lorde the Kynge, undir my seal.
“CORSUS.”
The King put up the writing in his bosom. “Bring me Corsus’s cup,”
said he.
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.”
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 roofbeams shook with their great shouting, while the King drank
first and passed on the cup that all might drink in turn.
But Gorice the King sat dark among them as a cliff of serpentine that
frowns above dancing surges of a springtide summer sea.
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.”
The King answered and said, “Madam, it is very good news. Yet remember
that hard it is to lift a full cup without spilling.”
Now was summer worn and harvest brought in, and on the twenty-seventh
day after these tidings aforewrit 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 quicklime a-slaking.
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 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 tonight. Witchland is not so poor I might not pay back such a
loss thrice and four times and yet have money in my purse.”
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.
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.”
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.”
“Didst thou see these letters?” asked the King.
Gro answered, “Ay.”
“Is it a true tale they tell me?”
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 ajust
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.”
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.
“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.
“To which Gallandus making answer that the preparations at Galing did
argue something to be done and not afar off, 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 southeastern 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 springtide. 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.”
“Ay,” said the King, coming out of the bath, “and did he burn it so?”
Gro answered, “He did, O King.”
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.”
“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.
“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
Comments (0)