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?”
“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. Dry
withered leaves of laurel or of cypress tree, and a little dust. Nought
else remaineth.”
“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.”
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.
Gro said in Corund’s ear, “The King hath found strange kindness in the
cup.”
“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.”
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.”
“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.”
“Pity on thee,” cried the Prince, “if this cheap victory turn thee so
giddy. Goblins!”
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.”
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:
When birds in water deepe do lie,
And fishes in the air doe flie,
When water burns and fire doth freeze,
And oysters grow as fruits on trees—
A resounding hecup brought him to a full close.
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?”
“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 _bos
marinus_, seasoned with salt and garlic.”
“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.”
“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.”
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?”
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.”
“It is passing strange,” said Zenambria.
Corsus sang:
When sorcerers do leave their charme,
When spiders do the fly no harme.
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?”
“’Twas even so, lady,” said Corund, “and it is yet in controversy.”
Corsus sang:
And when the blackbird leaves to sing,
And likewise serpents for to sting,
Then you may saye, and justly too,
The old world now is turned anew:
and so sank back into bloated silence.
“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.”
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.
“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.”
Gro said, “Done.”
“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.”
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 wine of Krothering
vintaged many summers ago in the vineyards that stretch southward
toward the sea from below the castle of Lord Brandoch Daha.
Corinius drank deep, and cried, “’Tis a royal drink, this wine of
Krothering! Folk say it will be good cheap this summer.”
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.”
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.”
“Two more!” said Gro. “Thy theoric crumbleth apace, O Corund. He hath
two at a gulp, and but four remain.”
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?”
“Hast drunk thyself horn-mad, Corinius?” said the King under his
breath, his voice shaken with anger.
“He is as witty a marmalade-eater as ever I conversed with,” said La
Fireez, “but I cannot tell what the dickens he means.”
“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——”
“The devil damn thee!” cried the King, “what drunken brabble is this?”
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.”
“We shall not sleep the worse for that,” said Corinius. “Our mouth
is big enough for such a morsel of marchpane as thou, if thou turn
irksome.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Heal him, then, of this carving the Goblins gave him, and I will carve
him like a capon,” said the Prince.
“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.”
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.”
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 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.”
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.”
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.
In this moment Corsus, somewhat roused in an evil hour out of lethargy
by the loud talk and movement, began to sing:
When all the prisons hereabout
Have justled all their prisoners out,
Because indeed they have no cause
To keepe ’em in by common laws.
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?”
“What prisoners?” cried the Prince, springing to his feet. “Hell’s
furies! I am weary of these dark equivocations and will know the
truth.”
“Why wilt thou rage so beastly?” said the King. “The man is drunk. No
more wild words.”
“Thou canst not daff me so. I will know the truth,” said La Fireez.
“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.”
“O most villanous lie!” said the King. “I’ll have thee hewn in pieces.”
But Corinius said, “I nurse your honour, O King. We must no longer
skulk before these Pixies.”
“Thou diest for it,” said the King, “and it is a lie.”
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.”
But the King said, “I have not thy friends.”
“Show me then the old banquet hall,” said the Prince.
The King said, “I will show it thee anon.”
“I will see it now,” said the Prince, and he rose from his seat.
“I will dissemble with thee no longer,” said the King. “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.”
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.”
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.
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, 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.
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.
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.
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.”
“So you touch no other thing but only Goldry if ye shall find him, I am
content,” said the Prince.
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.
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 of the unrisen moon.
“What transformation is this?” said she. “Demons loose in the court?”
“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.”
Prezmyra cried, “My fears are fallen upon me. Art thou broken with
Witchland?”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.
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.”
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.”
“Thou swearest it?” she said.
He answered, “Madam, I swear it unto thee and unto him.”