The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (e book reader online .TXT) 📖
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me while I give them audience.”
So it was done according to her bidding. And there entered in those
two sons of Corund.
They greeted her with respectful salutations, and Heming said, “Our
errand, most worshipful lady, was for thine own ear only if it please
thee.”
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.
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.
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.”
“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?”
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 tonight 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.”
The sounds of furious revelry floated up from the banquet 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.
She said at last, “Was this your plan?”
Heming answered, “It was the Lord Gro did most ingeniously 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.”
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.
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.”
“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
tonight decreed him, and bless thyself therewith.”
“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.”
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 goodnight.”
Now opened the door of the inner chamber, and there stood before them
the Lady Mevnan armed and helmed. She said, “‘Tis no light matter to
halt before a cripple. Think you this will pass i’ the dark, my
lords?”
They answered, ‘twas beyond all commendation excellent.
“I’ll thank thee now, Prince Cargo,” said she, stretching 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.”
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.
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 torchbearers
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 Connius.
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.
Mevnan whispered to Heming, “Let us bear out a good face so long as we
be alive.”
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?”
Mevrian, as if she had all her part by rote, was leaned this while
heavily upon Heming, hanging her head.
Heming could think on nought likelier to say, than, “Truly, O
Corinius, we be sober.”
“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!”
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.”
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 hoofbeats 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.
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 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.
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:
My mind is like to the asbeston stone.
Which if it once be heat in flames of fire.
Denieth to becomen cold again.
“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.”
But Heming, still beholding her, answered not a word. 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?”
He answered, “Madam, as June bringeth the golden rose unto perfection,
so waxeth her beauty with the years.”
“She and I,” said Mevrian, “were playmates, she the elder by two
summers. Is she yet so masterful?”
“Madam, she is a Queen,” said Heming, nailing his very eyes on Mevnan.
Her face half
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