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.”
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.”
Prezmyra caught her breath and was silent a moment. Then, “Gaslark?”
“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.”
“My lord,” she said, “my desire for news drinks deep while thou art
fasting. Some, bring meat and wine for my 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.
When he had ended she said, “How hath the King dealt with those twain,
Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha?”
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—
Know when to speak, for many times it brings
Danger to give the best advice to Kings;
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.”
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.”
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.”
“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 them. And he called all us of his council
thither that we might praise his conceit and mock them anew.”
Said Prezmyra, “A great king should rather be a dog that killeth clean,
than a cat that patteth and sporteth with his prey.”
“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.”
“Wherefore so?” asked Prezmyra.
“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——”
“La Fireez?” she said.
“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.”
“Who should ride down the Way of Kings from Pixyland,” cried Prezmyra,
“but La Fireez?”
“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.”
Prezmyra said, “Come, I’ll go with thee.”
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
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.”
Corund said, “It is well, O King.”
The King said, “Captain general, what is our strength?”
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.”
“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?”
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.”
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.”
• • • • •
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 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.”
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.
“What news in Witchland?” asked La Fireez.
“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.
La Fireez said, “Strange it is that he should so attack you. An enemy
might smell some cause behind it.”
“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.”
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.”
“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.
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.”
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.”
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——”
“The three most notable captains found on earth,” said La Fireez.
“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?”
“Without controversy there be seventeen several sorts of divels on
the Moruna,” said Corsus, very loud and sudden, so 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.”
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.
The Lady Zenambria asked, “Knoweth any for certain what fate befell
Jalcanaius and Helteranius and Zeldornius and their armies?”
“Heard I not,” said Prezmyra, “that they were led by Will-o’-the-Wisps
to the regions Hyperborean, and there made kings?”
“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.”
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:
Bring out the Old Chyne, the Cold Chyne to me,
And how Ile charge him come and see,
Brawn tusked, Brawn well sowst and fine,
With a precious cup of Muscadine:
_How shall I sing, how shall I look,
In honour of the Master-Cook_?
The Pig shall turn round and answer me,
Canst thou spare me a shoulder? a wy, a wy.
The Duck, Goose, and Capon, good fellows all three,
Shall dance thee an antick, so shall the Turkey:
But O! the Cold Chyne, the Cold Chyne for me:
_How shall I sing, how shall I look,
In honour of the Master-Cook_?
With brewis Ile noynt thee from head to th’ heel,
Shal make thee run nimbler than the new oyld wheel;
With Pye-crust wee’l make thee
The eighth wise man to be;
But O! the Old Chyne, the Cold Chyne for me:
_How shall I sing, how shall I look,
In honour of the Master-Cook_?
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.”
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.
“Somewhat fulsome is this dwarf,” said La Fireez.
“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.”
The dwarf practised before them to the great content of the lords of
Witchland and their guests, save for his japing 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.
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.”
“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.”
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?”
“How now, Corsus,” said the King, “art thou drunk?”
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.”
“Why so they are,” said the King.
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.
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.”
“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.”
But Corsus wiped his face and fell a-singing:
Whene’er I bib the wine down,
Asleepe drop all my cares.
A fig for fret,
A fig for sweat,
A fig care I for cares.
Sith death must come, though I say nay,
Why grieve my life’s days with affaires?
Come, bib we then the wine down
Of Bacchus faire to see;
For alway while we bibbing be,
Asleepe drop all our cares.
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.”
“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.