her entering in, the sparrow-hawk clicked its wings as in anger, and
without more ado tucked its beak beneath its wing and went to sleep.
But that bright lady, looking on the Lord Brandoch Daha, spake and
said, “Require it of me, my Lord Brandoch Daha, that which thou most
desirest of earthly things.”
But he, as one bedazzled, stood up saying, “O lady, is not thy beauty
at the dawn of day an irradiation that might dispel the mists of hell?
My heart is ravished with thy loveliness and only fed with thy sight.
Therefore thy body will I have, and none other thing earthly.”
“Thou art a fool,” she cried, “that knowest not what thou askest.
Of all things earthly mightest thou have taken choose; but I am not
earthly.”
He answered, “I will have nought else.”
“Thou dost embrace then a great danger,” said she, “and loss of all thy
good luck, for thee and thy friends beside.”
But Brandoch Daha, seeing how her face became on a sudden such as
are new-blown roses at the dawning, and her eyes wide and dark with
love-longing, came to her and took her in his arms and fell to kissing
and embracing of her. On such wise they abode for awhile, that he was
ware of no thing else on earth save only the sense-maddening caress of
that lady’s hair, the perfume of it, the kiss of her mouth, the swell
and fall of that lady’s breast straining against his. She said in his
ear softly, “I see thou art too masterful. I see thou art one who
will be denied nothing, on whatsoever thine heart is set. Come.” And
they passed by a heavy-curtained doorway into an inner chamber, where
the air was filled with the breath of myrrh and nard and ambergris, a
fragrancy as of sleeping loveliness. Here, amid the darkness of rich
hangings and subdued glints of gold, a warm radiance of shaded lamps
watched above a couch, great and broad and downy-pillowed. And here for
a long time they solaced them with love and all delight.
Even as all things have an end, he said at the last, “O my lady,
mistress of hearts, here would I abide ever, abandoning all else for
thy love sake. But my companions tarry for me in thine halls below,
and great matters wait on my direction. Give me thy divine mouth once
again, and bid me adieu.”
She was lying as if asleep across his breast: smooth-skinned, white,
warm, with shapely throat leaned backward against the spice-odorous
darknesses of her unbound hair; one tress, heavy and splendid like
a python, coiled between white arm and bosom. Swift as a snake she
turned, clinging fiercely about him, pressing fiercely again to his
her insatiable sweet fervent lips, crying that here must he dwell unto
eternity in the intoxication of perfect love and pleasure.
But when in the end, gently constraining her to loose him and let him
go, he arose and clothed and armed him, that lady caught about her a
translucent robe of silvery sheen, as when the summer moon veils but
not hides with a filmy cloud her beauties’ splendour, and so standing
before him spake and said, “Go then. This is got by casting of pearls
to hogs. I may not slay thee, since over thy body I have no other
power. But because thou shalt not laugh overmuch, having required me
of that which was beyond the pact and being enjoyed is now slighted of
thee and abused, therefore know, proud man, that three gifts I here
will grant thee thereto of mine own choosing. Thou shalt have war and
not peace. He that thou worst hatest shall throw down and ruin thy fair
lordship, Krothering Castle and the mains thereof. And though vengeance
shall overtake him at the last, by another’s hand than thine shall it
come, and to thine hand shall it be denied.”
Therewith she fell a-weeping. And the Lord Brandoch Daha, with great
resolution, went forth from the chamber. And looking back from the
threshold he beheld both that and the outer chamber void of lady and
sparrow-hawk both. And a great weariness came suddenly upon him. So,
going down, he found Lord Juss and his companions sleeping on the
cold stones, and the banquet hall empty of all gear and dank with
moss and cobwebs, and bats sleeping head-downward among the crumbling
roof-beams; nor was any sign of last night’s banqueting. So Brandoch
Daha roused his companions, and told Juss how he had fared, and of the
weird laid on him by that lady.
And they went greatly wondering forth of the accursed castle of Ishnain
Nemartra, glad to come off so scatheless.
• • • • •
On that ninth day of their journey from Salapanta they came through
waste lands of stone and living rock, where not so much as an
earth-louse stirred with life. Gorges split the earth here and there:
rock-walled labyrinths of gloom, unvisited for ever by sunbeam or
moonbeam, turbulent in their depths with waters that leaped and churned
for ever, never still and never silent. So was that day’s journey
tortuous, turning now up now down along those river banks to find
crossing places.
When they were halted at noon by the deepest rift they had yet beheld,
there came one hastening to them and fell down by Juss and lay panting
face to earth as breathless from long running. And when they raised
him up, behold Mivarsh Faz, harnessed in the gear of a black rider
of Jalcanaius Fostus and armed with axe and sword. Great was his
agitation, and he speechless for lack of breath. They used him kindly,
and gave him to drink from a great skin of wine, Zeldornius’s gift,
and anon he said, “He hath armed countless hundreds of our folk with
weapons taken from Salapanta field. These, led by the devils his sons,
with Philpritz cursed of the gods, be gone before to hold all the
ways be-east of you. Night and day have I ridden and run to warn you.
Himself, with his main strength of devils ultramontane, rideth hot on
your tracks.”
They thanked him well, marvelling much that he should be at such pains
to advertise them of their danger. “I have eat your salt,” answered he,
“and moreover ye are against this naughty wicked baldhead that came
over the mountains to oppress us. Therefore I would do you good. But
I can little. For I am poor, that was rich in land and fee. And I am
alone, that had formerly five hundred spearmen lodging in my halls to
do my pleasure.”
“There’s need to do quickly that we do,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “How
great start of him hadst thou?”
“He must be upon you in an hour or twain,” said Mivarsh, and fell
a-weeping.
“To cope him in the open,” said Juss, “were great glory, and our
certain death.”
“Give me to think, but a minute’s while,” said Brandoch Daha. And while
they busked them he walked musing by the lip of that ravine, switching
pebbles over the edge with his sword. Then he said, “This is without
doubt that stream Athrashah spoken of by Gro. O Mivarsh, runneth not
this flood of Athrashah south to the salt lakes of Ogo Morveo, and was
there not thereabout a hold named Eshgrar Ogo?”
Mivarsh answered, “This is so. But never heard I of any so witless
as go thither. Here where we stand is the land fearsome enough; but
Eshgrar Ogo standeth at the very edge of the Moruna. No man hath
harboured there these hundred years.”
“Standeth it yet?” said Brandoch Daha.
“For all I wot of,” answered Mivarsh.
“Is it strong?” he asked.
“In old times it was thought no place stronger,” answered Mivarsh. “But
ye were as well die here by the hand of the devils ultramontane, as
there be torn in pieces by bad spirits.”
Brandoch Daha turned him about to Juss. “It is resolved?” said he. Juss
answered, “Yea;” and forthwith they started at a great pace south along
the river.
“Methought you should have been gotten clean away ere this,” said
Mivarsh as they went. “This is but nine or ten days’ journey, and ’tis
now the sixteenth day since ye did leave me on Salapanta Hills.”
Brandoch Daha laughed. “Sixteenth!” said he. “Thou’lt be rich, Mivarsh,
if thou reckon gold pieces o’ this fashion thou dost days. This is but
our ninth day’s journey.”
But Mivarsh stood stoutly to it, saying that was the seventh day after
their departure when Corund first came to Salapanta, “And I fleeing now
nine days before his face chanced on your tracks, and now out of all
expectation on you.” Nor for all their mocking would he be turned from
this. And when, as they still pressed through the desert southward, the
sun declined and set in a clear sky, behold the moon a little past her
full: and Juss saw that she was seven days older than on that night she
was when they came to Ishnain Nemartra. So he showed this wonder to
Brandoch Daha and Spitfire, and much they marvelled.
“You are much to thank me,” said Brandoch Daha, “that I kept you not a
full year awaiting of me. Beshrew me, but that seven days’ space seemed
to me but an hour!”
“Likely enow, to thee,” said Spitfire somewhat greenly. “But all we
slept the week out on the cold stones, and I am half lamed yet with the
ache on’t.”
“Nay,” said Juss, laughing; “I will not have thee blame him.”
The moon was high when they came to the salt lakes that lay one a
little above the other in rocky basins. Their waters were like rough
silver, and the harsh face of the wilderness was black and silver in
the moonlight; and it was as a country of dead bones, blind and sterile
beneath the moon. Betwixt the lakes a rib of rock rose monstrous to
an eminence crag-begirt on every side, with dark walls ringing it
round above the cliffs. Thither they hastened, and as they climbed and
stumbled among the crags a she-owl squeaked on the battlements and took
wing ghost-like above their heads. The teeth of Mivarsh Faz chattered,
but right glad were the Demons as they won up the rocks and entered at
last into that deserted burg. Without, the night was still; but fires
were burning in the desert eastward, and others as they watched were
kindled in the west, and soon was the circle joined of twinkling points
of red round about Eshgrar Ogo and the lakes.
Juss said, “By an hour have we forestalled them. And behold how he
ringeth us about as men ring a scorpion in flame.”
So they made all sure, and set the guard, and slept until past dawn.
But Mivarsh slept not, for terror of hob-thrushes from the Moruna.
XI: THE BURG OF ESHGRAR OGO
OF THE LORD CORUND’S BESIEGING OF THE BURG ABOVE THE LAKES OF OGO
MORVEO, AND WHAT BEFELL THERE BETWIXT HIM AND THE DEMONS;
WHEREIN IS ALSO AN EXAMPLE HOW THE SUBTLE OF HEART STANDETH AT
WHILES IN GREAT DANGER OF HIS DEATH.
When the Lord Corund knew of a surety that he held them of Demonland
shut up in Eshgrar Ogo, he let dight supper in his tent, and made a
surfeit of venison pasties and heath-cocks and lobsters from the lakes.
Therewith he drank nigh a skinful of sweet dark Thramnian wine, in such
sort that an hour before midnight, becoming speechless, he was holpen
by Gro to his couch and slept a great deep sleep till morning.
Gro watched in the tent, his right elbow propped on the table, his
cheek resting on his hand, his left hand reaching forward with delicate
fingers toying now with the sleek heavy perfumed masses of his beard,
now with the goblet whence he sipped ever and anon pale wine of
Permio. His thoughts inconstant as insects in a summer garden flitted
ever round and round, resting now on the scene before him, the great
form of his general wrapt in slumber, now on other scenes sundered by
great gulfs of time or weary leagues of perilous ways. So that in one
instant he saw in fancy that lady in Carcë welcoming her lord returned
in triumph, and him, may be, crowned king of new-vanquished Impland;
and in the next, swept from the future to the past, beheld again the
great sending-off in Zajë Zaculo, Gaslark in his splendour on the
golden stairs saying adieu to those three captains and their matchless
armament foredoomed to dogs and crows on Salapanta Hills; and always,
like a gloomy background darkening his mind, loomed the yawning void,
featureless and vast, beyond the investing circle of Corund’s armies:
the blind blasted emptiness of the Moruna.
With such fancies, melancholy like a great bird settled upon his soul.
The lights flickered in their sockets, and for very weariness Gro’s
eyelids closed at length over his large liquid eyes; and, too tired to
stir from his seat to seek his couch, he sank forward on the table, his
head pillowed on his arms. The red glow of the brazier slumbered ever
dimmer and dimmer on the slender form and black shining curls of Gro,
and on the mighty frame of Corund where he lay with one great spurred
booted leg stretched along the couch, and the other flung out sideways
resting its heel on the ground.
• • • • •
It wanted but two hours of noon when a sunbeam striking through an
opening in the hangings of the tent shone upon Corund’s eyelids, and
he awoke fresh and brisk as a youth on a hunting morn. He waked Gro,
and giving him a clap on the shoulder, “Thou wrongest a fair morn,” he
said. “The devil damn me black as buttermilk if it be not great shame
in thee; and I, that was born this day six and forty years as the years
come about, busy with mine affairs since sunrise.”
Gro yawned and smiled and stretched himself. “O Corund,” he said,
“counterfeit a livelier wonder in thine eyes if thou wilt persuade me
thou sawest the sunrise. For I think that were as new and unexampled a
sight for thee as any I could produce to thee in Impland.”
Corund answered, “Truly I was seldom so uncivil as surprise Madam
Aurora in her nightgown. And the thrice or four times I have been
forced thereto, taught me it is an hour of crude airs and mists which
breed cold dark humours in the body, an hour when the torch of life
burns weakest. Within there! bring me my morning draught.”
The boy brought two cups of white wine, and while they drank, “A
thin ungracious drink is the well-spring,” said Corund: “a drink for
queasy-stomached skipjacks: for sand-levericks, not for men. And
like it is the day-spring: an ungrateful sapless hour, an hour for
stab-i’-the-backs and cold-blooded betrayers. Ah, give me wine,” he
cried, “and noon-day vices, and brazen-browed iniquities.”
“Yet there’s many a deed of profit done by owl-light,” said Gro.
“Ay,” said Corund: “deeds of darkness: and there, my lord, I’m still
thy scholar. Come, let’s be doing.” And taking his helm and weapons,
and buckling about him his great wolfskin cloak, for the air was eager
and frosty without, he strode forth. Gro wrapped himself in his fur
mantle, drew on his lambskin gloves, and followed him.
“If thou wilt take my rede,” said Lord Gro, as they looked on Eshgrar
Ogo stark in the barren sunlight, “thou’lt do this honour to Philpritz,
which I question not he much desireth, to suffer him and his folk take
first knock at this nut. It hath a hard look. Pity it were to waste
good Witchland blood in a first assault, when these vile instruments
stand ready to our purpose.”
Corund grunted in his beard, and with Gro at his elbow paced in silence
through the lines, his keen eyes searching ever the cliffs and walls of
Eshgrar Ogo, till in some half-hour’s space he halted again before his
tent, having made a complete circuit of the burg. Then he spake: “Put
me in yonder fighting-stead, and if it were only but I and fifty able
lads to man the walls, yet would I hold it against ten thousand.”
Gro held his peace awhile, and then said, “Thou speakest this in all
sadness?”
“In sober sadness,” answered Corund, squaring his shoulders at the burg.
“Then thou’lt not assault it?”
Corund laughed. “Not assault it, quotha! That were a sweet tale ’twixt
the boiled and the roast in Carcë: I’d not assault it!”
“Yet consider,” said Gro, taking him by the arm. “So shapeth the matter
in my mind: they be few and shut up in a little place, in this far
land, out of reach and out of mind of all succour. Were they devils
and not men, the multitude of our armies and thine own tried qualities
must daunt them. Be the place never so cocksure, doubt not some doubts
thereof must poison their security. Therefore before thou risk a
repulse which must dispel those doubts use thine advantage. Bid Juss to
a parley. Offer him conditions: it skills not what. Bribe them out into
the open.”
“A pretty plan,” said Corund. “Thou’lt merit wisdom’s crown if thou
canst tell me what conditions we can offer that they would take. And
whilst thou riddlest that, remember that though thou and I be masters
hereabout, another reigns in Carcë.”
Lord Gro laughed gently. “Leave jesting,” he said, “O Corund, and never
hope to gull me to believe thee such a babe in policy. Shall the King
blame us though we sign away Demonland, ay and the wide world besides,
to Juss to lure him forth? Unless indeed we were so neglectful of our
interest as suffer him, once forth, to elude our clutches.”
“Gro,” said Corund, “I love thee. But hardly canst thou receive things
as I receive them that have dealt all my days in great stripes, given
and taken in the open field. I sticked not to take part in thy notable
treason against these poor snakes of Impland that we trapped in Orpish.
All’s fair against such dirt. Besides, great need was upon us then, and
hard it is for an empty sack to stand straight. But here is far other
matter. All’s won here but the plucking of the apple: it is the very
main of my ambition to humble these Demons openly by the terror of my
sword: wherefore I will not use upon them cogs and stops and all thy
devilish tricks, such as should bring me more of scorn than of glory in
the eyes of aftercomers.”
So speaking, he issued command and sent an herald to go forth beneath
the battlements with a flag of truce. And the herald cried aloud and
said: “From Corund of Witchland unto the lords of Demonland: thus saith
the Lord Corund, ‘I hold this burg of Eshgrar Ogo as a nut betwixt the
crackers. Come down and speak with me in the batable land before the
burg, and I swear to you peace and grith while we parley, and thereto
pledge I mine honour as a man of war.’”
So when the due ceremonies were performed, the Lord Juss came down
from Eshgrar Ogo and with him the lords Spitfire and Brandoch Daha and
twenty men to be their bodyguard. Corund went to meet them with his
guard about him, and his four sons that fared with him to Impland,
Hacmon, namely, and Heming and Viglus and Dormanes: sullen and dark
young men, likely of look, of a little less fierceness than their
father. Gro, fair to see and slender as a racehorse, went at his side,
muffled to the ears in a cloak of ermine; and behind came Philpritz
Faz helmed with a winged helm of iron and gold. A gilded corselet had
Philpritz, and trousers of panther’s skin, and he came a-slinking at
Corund’s heel as the jackal slinks behind the lion.
When they were met, Juss spake and said, “This would I know first, my
Lord Corund, how thou comest hither, and why, and by what right thou
disputest with us the ways eastward out of Impland.”
Corund answered, leaning on his spear, “I need not answer thee in this.
And yet I will. How came I? I answer thee, over the cold mountain
wall of Akra Skabranth. And ’tis a feat hath not his fellow in man’s
remembrance until now, with so great a force and in so short a space of
time.”
“’Tis well enough,” said Juss. “I’ll grant thee thou hast outrun mine
expectations of thee.”
“Next thou demandest why,” said Corund. “Suffice it for thee that the
King hath had advertisement of your farings into Impland and your
designs therein. For to bring these to nought am I come.”
“There was many firkins of wine drunk dry in Carcë,” said Hacmon, “and
many a noble person senseless and spewing on the ground ere morn for
pure delight, when cursed Goldry was made away. We were little minded
these healths should be proved vain at last.”
“Was that ere thou rodest from Permio?” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “The
merry god wrought of our side that night, if my memory cheat not.”
“Thou demandest last,” said Corund, “my Lord Juss, by what right I
bar your passage eastaway. Know, therefore, that not of mine own
self speak I unto you, but as vicar in wide-fronted Impland of our
Lord Gorice XII., King of Kings, most glorious and most great. There
remaineth no way out for you from this place save into the rigour of
mine hands. Therefore let us, according to the nature of great men,
agree to honourable conditions. And this is mine offer, O Juss. Yield
up this burg of Eshgrar Ogo, and therewith thy sealed word in a writing
acknowledging our Lord the King to be King of Demonland and all ye his
quiet and obedient subjects, even as we be. And I will swear unto you
of my part, and in the name of our Lord the King, and give you hostages
thereto, that ye shall depart in peace whither you list with all love
and safety.”
The Lord Juss scowled fiercely on him. “O Corund,” he said, “as little
as we do understand the senseless wind, so little we understand thy
word. Oft enow hath gray silver been in the fire betwixt us and you
Witchlanders; for the house of Gorice fared ever like the foul toad,
that may not endure to smell the sweet savour of the vine when it
flourisheth. So for this time we will abide in this hold, and withstand
your most grievous attempts.”
“With free honesty and open heart,” said Corund, “I made thee this
offer; which if thou refuse I am not thy lackey to renew it.”
Gro said, “It is writ and sealed, and wanteth but thy sign-manual, my
Lord Juss,” and with the word he made sign to Philpritz Faz that went
to Lord Juss with a parchment. Juss put the parchment by, saying, “No
more: ye are answered,” and he was turning on his heel when Philpritz,
louting forward suddenly, gave him a great yerk beneath the ribs with a
dagger slipped from his sleeve. But Juss wore a privy coat that turned
the dagger. Howbeit with the greatness of that stroke he staggered
aback.
Now Spitfire clapped hand to sword, and the other Demons with him, but
Juss loudly shouted that they should not be truce-breakers but know
first what Corund would do. And Corund said, “Dost hear me, Juss? I had
neither hand nor part in this.”
Brandoch Daha drew up his lip and said, “This is nought but what was to
be looked for. It is a wonder, O Juss, that thou shouldst hold out to
such mucky dogs a hand without a whip in it.”
“Such strokes come home or miss merely,” said Gro softly in Corund’s
ear, and he hugged himself beneath his cloak, looking with furtive
amusement on the Demons. But Corund with a face red in anger said,
“It is thine answer, O Juss?” And when Juss said, “It is our answer,
O Corund,” Corund said violently, “Then red war I give you; and this
withal to testify our honour.” And he let lay hands on Philpritz Faz
and with his own hand hacked the head from his body before the eyes
of both their armies. Then in a great voice he said, “As bloodily as
I have revenged the honour of Witchland on this Philpritz, so will I
revenge it on all of you or ever I draw off mine armies from these
lakes of Ogo Morveo.”
So the Demons went up into the burg, and Gro and Corund home to their
tents. “This was well thought on,” said Gro, “to flaunt the flag of
seeming honesty, and with the motion rid us of this fellow that
promised ever to grow thorns to make uneasy our seat in Impland.”
Corund answered him not a word.
In that same hour Corund marshalled his folk and assaulted Eshgrar Ogo,
placing those of Impland in the van. They prospered not at all. Many a
score lay slain without the walls that night; and the obscene beasts
from the desert feasted on their bodies by the light of the moon.
• • • • •
Next morning the Lord Corund sent an herald and bade the Demons again
to a parley. And now he spake only to Brandoch Daha, bidding him
deliver up those brethren Juss and Spitfire, “And if thou wilt yield
them to my pleasure, then shalt thou and all thy people else depart in
peace without conditions.”
“An offer indeed,” said Lord Brandoch Daha; “if it be not in mockery.
Say it loud, that my folk may hear.”
Corund did so, and the Demons heard it from the walls of the burg.
Lord Brandoch Daha stood somewhat apart from Juss and Spitfire and
their guard. “Libel it me out,” he said. “For good as I now must deem
thy word, thine hand and seal must I have to show my followers ere they
consent with me in such a thing.”
“Write thou,” said Corund to Gro. “To write my name is all my
scholarship.” And Gro took forth his ink-horn and wrote in a great
fair hand this offer on a parchment. “The most fearfullest oaths thou
knowest,” said Corund; and Gro wrote them, whispering, “He mocketh us
only.” But Corund said, “No matter: ’tis a chance worth our chancing,”
and slowly and with labour signed his name to the writing, and gave it
to Lord Brandoch Daha.