BROUGHT ABOUT FOR DEMONLAND, IN WHICH SHOULD ALSO APPEAR HER
LORD’S YET MORE GREATNESS AND ADVANCEMENT: AND HOW HER TOO
LOUD SPEAKING OF HER PURPOSE WAS THE OCCASION WHEREBY THE LORD
CORINIUS WAS TO LEARN THE SWEETNESS OF BLISS DEFERRED.
On that same twenty-sixth night of May, when Lord Juss and Lord
Brandoch Daha beheld from earth’s loftiest pinnacle the land of
Zimiamvia and Koshtra Belorn, Gro walked with the Lady Prezmyra on
the western terrace in Carcë. It wanted yet two hours of midnight.
The air was warm, the sky a bower of moonbeam and starbeam. Now and
then a faint breeze stirred as if night turned in her sleep. The walls
of the palace and the Iron Tower cut off the terrace from the direct
moonlight, and flamboys spreading their wobbling light made alternating
regions of brightness and gloom. Galloping strains of music and the
noise of revelry came from within the palace.
Gro spake: “If thy question, O Queen, overlie a wish to have me gone, I
am as lightning to obey thee howsoe’er it grieve me.”
“’Twas an idle wonder only,” she said. “Stay and it like thee.”
“It is but a native part of wisdom,” said he, “to follow the light.
When thou wast departed from the hall methought all the bright lights
were bedimmed.” He looked at her sidelong as they passed into the
radiance of a flamboy, studying her countenance that seemed clouded
with grievous thought. Fair of all fairs she seemed, stately and
splendid; crowned with a golden crown set about with dark amethysts. A
figure of a crab-fish topped it above the brow, curiously wrought in
silver and bearing in either claw a ball of chrysolite the bigness of a
thrush’s egg.
Lord Gro said, “This too was part of my mind, to behold those stars in
heaven that men call Berenice’s Hair, and know if they can outshine in
glory thine hair, O Queen.”
They paced on in silence. Then, “These phrases of forced gallantry,”
she said, “sort ill with our friendship, my Lord Gro. If I be not
angry, think it is because I father them on the deep healths thou hast
caroused unto our Lord the King on this night of nights, when the
returning year bringeth back the date of his sending, and our vengeance
upon Demonland.”
“Madam,” he said, “I would but have thee give over this melancholy.
Seemeth it to thee a little thing that the King hath pleased so
singularly to honour Corund thy husband as give him a king’s style
and dignity and all Impland to hold in fee? All took notice of it how
uncheerfully thou didst receive this royal crown when the King gave
it thee to-night, in honour of thy great lord, to wear in his stead
till he come home to claim it; this, and the great praise spoke by the
King of Corund, which methinks should bring the warmth of pride to thy
cheeks. Yet are all these things of as little avail against thy frozen
scornful melancholy as the weak winter sun availeth against congealed
pools in a black frost.”
“Crowns are cheap trash to-day,” said Prezmyra; “whenas the King, with
twenty kings to be his lackeys, raiseth up now his lackeys to be kings
of the earth. Canst wonder if my joyance in this crown were dashed some
little when I looked on that other given by the King to Laxus?”
“Madam,” said Gro, “thou must forgive Laxus in his own particular. Thou
knowest he set not so much as a foot in Pixyland; and if now he must be
called king thereof, that should rather please thee, being in despite
of Corinius that carried war there and by whatsoever means of skill or
fortune overcame thy noble brother and drave him into exile.”
“Corinius,” she answered, “tasteth in that miss that bane or ill-hap
which I dearly pray all they may groan under who would fatten by my
brother’s ruin.”
“Then should Corinius’s grief lift up thy joy,” said Gro. “Yet certain
it is, Fate is a blind puppy: build not on her next turn.”
“Am not I a Queen?” said Prezmyra. “Is not this Witchland? Have we not
strength to make curses strong, if Fate be blind indeed?”
They halted at the head of a flight of steps leading down to the inner
ward. The Lady Prezmyra leaned awhile on the black marble balustrade,
gazing seaward over the level marshes rough with moonlight. “What care
I for Laxus?” she said at last. “What care I for Corinius? A cast of
hawks flown by the King against a quarry that in dearworthiness and
nobility outshineth an hundred such as they. Nor I will not suffer mine
indignation so to witwanton with fair justice as persuade me to put
the wite on Witchland. It is most true the Prince my brother practised
with our enemies the downthrow of our fortunes, breaking open, had he
but known it, the gate of destruction for himself and us, that night
when our banquet was turned by him to a battle and our winey mirths to
bloody rages.” She was silent for a time, then said, “Oathbreakers: a
most odious name, flat against all humanity. Two faces in one hood. O
that earth would start up and strike the sins that tread on her!”
“I see thou lookest west over sea,” said Gro.
“There’s somewhat thou canst see, then, my Lord Gro, by owl-light,”
said Prezmyra.
“Thou didst tell me at the time,” he said, “with what compliments in
vows and strange well-studied promises of friendship the Lord Juss took
leave of thee at their escaping out of Carcë. Yet art thou to blame, O
Queen, if thou take in too ill part the breaking of such promises given
in extremity, which prove commonly like fish, new, stale, and stinking
in three days.”
“Sure, ’tis a small matter,” said she, “that my brother should cast
aside all ties of interest and alliance to save these great ones from
an evil death; and they, being delivered, should toss him a light
grammercy and go their ways, leaving him to be exterminated out of his
own country and, for all they know or reck, to lose his life. May the
great Devil of Hell torture their souls!”
“Madam,” said Lord Gro, “I would have thee view the matter soberly, and
leave these bitter flashes. The Demons did save thy brother once in
Lida Nanguna, and his delivering of them out of the hand of our Lord
the King was but just payment therefor. The scales hang equal.”
She answered, “Do not defile mine ears with their excuses. They have
shamefully abused us; and the guilt of their black deed planteth them
day by day more firmlier in my deeper-settled hate. Art thou so deeply
read in nature and her large philosophy, and I am yet to teach thee
that deadliest hellebore or the vomit of a toad are qualified poison to
the malice of a woman?”
The darkness of a great cloud-bank spreading from the south swallowed
up the moonlight. Prezmyra turned to resume her slow pacing down the
terrace. The yellow fiery sparkles in her eyes glinted in the flamboys’
flare. She looked dangerous as a lioness, and delicate and graceful
like an antelope. Gro walked beside her, saying, “Did not Corund drive
them forth in winter on to the Moruna, and can they continue there in
life, alone amid so many devouring perils?”
“O my lord,” she cried, “say these good tidings to the kitchen wenches,
not to me. Why, thyself didst enter in past years the very heart of the
Moruna and yet camest off, else art thou the greatest liar. This only
cankerfrets my soul: that days go by, and months, and Witchland beateth
down all peoples under him, and yet he suffereth the crown of pride,
these rebels of Demonland, to go yet untrodden under feet. Doth he deem
it the better part to spare a foe and spoil a friend? That were an
unhappy and unnatural conclusion. Or is he fey, even as was Gorice XI.?
Heaven foreshield it, yet as ill an end may bechance him and utter ruin
come on all of us if he will withhold his scourge from Demonland until
Juss and Brandoch Daha come home again to meet with him.”
“Madam,” said Lord Gro, “in these few words thou hast given me the
picture of mine own mind in small. And forgive me that I bespake thee
warily at the first, for these are matters of heavy moment, and ere
I opened my mind to thee I would know that it agreed with thine. Let
the King smite now, in the happy absence of their greatest champions.
So shall we be in strength against them if they return again, and
perchance Goldry with them.”
She smiled, and it seemed as if all the sultry night freshened and
sweetened at that lady’s smile. “Thou art a dear companion to me,” she
said. “Thy melancholy is to me as some shady wood in summer, where
I may dance if I will, and that is often, or be sad if I will, and
that is in these days oftener than I would: and never thou crossest
my mood. Save but now thou didst so, to plague me with thy precious
flattering jargon, till I had thought thee skin-changed with Laxus or
young Corinius, seeking such lures as gallants spread their wings to,
to stoop in ladies’ bosoms.”
“For I would shake thee from this late-received sadness,” said Gro. And
he said, “Thou art to commend me too, since I spake nought but truth.”
“Oh, have done, my lord,” she cried, “or I’ll dismiss thee hence.” And
as they walked Prezmyra sang softly:
He that cannot chuse but love,
And strives against it still,
Never shall my fancy move,
For he loves ’gaynst his will;
Nor he which is all his own,
And can att pleasure chuse;
When I am caught he can be gone,
And when he list refuse.
Nor he that loves none but faire,
For such by all are sought;
Nor he that can for foul ones care,
For his Judgement then is naught;
Nor he——
She broke off suddenly, saying, “Come, I have shook off the ill
disposition the sight of Laxus bred in me and of his tawdry crown.
Let’s think on action. And first, I will tell thee a thing. This we
spoke of hath been in my mind these two or three moons, ever since
Corinius’s campaigning in Pixyland. So when word came of my lord’s
destroying of the Demon host, and his driving of Juss and Brandoch Daha
like runaway thralls on the Moruna, I sent him a letter by the hand of
Viglus that bare him from our Lord the King the king’s name in Impland.
Therein I expressed how that the crown of Demonland should be a braver
crown for us than this of Impland, howsoe’er it sparkle, praying him
urge upon the King his sending of an armament to Demonland, and my lord
the leader thereof; or, if he could not as then come home to ask it,
then I entreated him make me his ambassador to lay this counsel before
the King and crave the enterprise for Corund.”
“Is not his answer in those letters I brought thee?” said Gro.
“Ay,” said she, “and a very scurvy beggarly lickspittle answer for a
great lord to send to such a matter as I propounded. Alack, it puffs
away all my wifely duty but to speak on’t, and makes me rail like a
gangrel-woman.”
“I’ll walk apart, madam,” said Gro, “if thou wouldst have privateness
to deliver thy mind.”
Prezmyra laughed. “’Tis not all so bad,” she said, “and yet it makes me
angry. The enterprise he commends, up to the hilt, and I have his leave
to broach it to the King, as his mouth-piece, and press it with him out
of all ho. But for the leading on’t, he will not have it, he. Corsus
must have it, or Corinius. Stay, let me read it out,” and standing near
one of the lights she took a parchment from her bosom. “Pooh! ’tis too
fond; I will not shame my lord to read it, even to thee.”
“Well,” said Gro, “were I the King, Corund should be my general to put
down Demonland. Corsus he may send, for he hath done great work in
his day, but in mine own judgement I like him not for such an errand.
Corinius he hath not yet forgiven for his fault at the banquet a year
ago.”
“Corinius!” said Prezmyra. “So his butchery of mine own dear land goeth
not only without reward, but hath not so much as bought him back to
favour, thou thinkest?”
“I think not,” said Lord Gro. “Besides, he is mad wroth to have
plucked that prickly fruit but for another’s eating. He bare himself
so presumptuous-ill in the hall to-night, gleeking and galling at
Laxus, slapping of his sword, and with so many more shameless braves
and wanton fashions, and worst of all his most openly seeking to toy
with Sriva, i’ this first month of her betrothal unto Laxus, it will
be a wonder if blood be not spilt betwixt them ere the night be done.
Methinks he is not i’ the mood to take the field again without some
sure reward; and methinks the King, guessing his mind, would not offer
him a new enterprise and so give him the glory of refusing it.”
They stood near the arched gateway that opened on the terrace from the
inner court. Music still sounded from the great banquet hall of Gorice
XI. Under the archway and in the shadows of the huge buttresses of the
walls it was as though the elements of gloom, expelled from the bright
circles round the flamboys, huddled with sister glooms to make a double
darkness.
“Well, my lord,” said Prezmyra, “doth thy wisdom bless my resolve?”
“Whate’er it be, yes, because it is thine, O Queen.”
“Whate’er it be!” she cried. “Dost hang in doubt on’t? What else, but
seek audience with the King as my first care in the morning. Have I not
my lord’s bidding so far?”
“And if thy zeal outrun his bidding in one particular?” said Gro.
“Why, just!” said she. “And if I bring thee not word ere to-morrow’s
noon that order is given for Demonland, and my Lord Corund named his
general for that sailing, ay, and letters sealed for his straight
recall from Orpish——”
“Hist!” said Gro. “Steps i’ the court.”
They turned towards the archway, Prezmyra singing under her breath:
Nor he that still his Mistresse payes,
For she is thrall’d therefore;
Nor he that payes not, for he sayes
Within, shee’s worth no more.
Is there then no kinde of men
Whom I may freely prove?
I will vent that humour then
In mine own selfe love.
Corinius met them in the gateway, coming from the banquet house. He
halted full in their path to peer closely through the darkness at
Prezmyra, so that she felt the heat of his breath, heavy with wine. It
was too dark to know faces but he knew her by her stature and bearing.
“Cry thee mercy, madam,” he said. “Methought an instant ’twas—but no
matter. Your best of rest.”
So saying he made way for her with a deep obeisance, jostling roughly
against Gro with the same motion. Gro, little minded for a quarrel,
gave him the wall, and followed Prezmyra into the inner court.
• • • • •
The Lord Corinius sat him down on the nearest of the benches, leaned
his stalwart back luxuriously upon the cushions and there rested,
thripping his fingers and singing to himself:
What an Ass is he
Waits a woman’s leisure
For a minute’s pleasure,
And perhaps may be
Gull’d at last, and lose her;
What an ass is he?
What need I to care
For a woman’s favour?
If another have her,
Why should I despair?
When for gold and labour
I can have my share.
If I chance to see
One that’s brown, I love her,
Till I see another
Browner is than she;
For I am a lover
Of my liberty.
A rustle behind him on his left made him turn his head. A figure stole
out of the deep shadow of the buttress nearest the archway. He leapt up
and was first in the gate, blocking it with open arms. “Ah,” he cried,
“so titmice roost i’ the shade, ha? What ransom shall I have of thee
for making me keep empty tryst last night? Ay, and wast creeping hence
to make me a fool once more the night-long and I had not caught thee.”
The lady laughed. “Last night my father kept me by him; and to-night,
my lord, wouldst thou not have been fitly served for thy shameless
ditty? Is that a sweet serenade for ladies’ ears? Sing it again, to thy
liberty, and show thyself an ass.”
“Thou art very bold to provoke me, madam, with not even a star to be
thy witness if I quite thee for’t. These flamboys are old roisterers,
grown gray in scenes of riot. They shall not blab.”
“Nay, if thou speakest in wine I’m gone, my lord;” and as he took a
step towards her, “and I return not, here or otherwise, but fling thee
off for ever,” she said. “I will not be entreated like a serving-maid.
I have borne too long with thy forced soldier fashions.”
Corinius caught his arms about her, lifting her against his broad chest
so that her toes scarce kept footing on the ground. “O Sriva,” he said
thickly, bending his face to hers, “dost think to light so great a
fire, and after walk through it and not be scorched thereat?”
Her arms were close pinioned at her sides in that strong embrace. She
seemed to swoon, as a lily swooning in the flaming noon-day. Corinius
bent down his face and kissed her fiercely, saying, “By all the sweets
that ever darkness tasted, thou art mine to-night.”
“To-morrow,” she said, as if stifled.
But Corinius said, “My dearest happiness, to-night.”
“My dear lord,” said the Lady Sriva softly, “sith thou hast made such
a conquest of my love, be not a harsh and froward conqueror. I swear
to thee by all the dreadful powers that clip the earth about, there’s
matter in it I should to my father this night, nay more, now on the
instant. ’Twas this only made me avoid thee but now: this, and no light
conceit to vex thee.”
“He can attend our pleasure,” said Corinius. “’Tis an old man, and oft
sitteth late at his book.”
“How? and thou leftest him carousing?” said she. “There’s that I must
impart to him ere the wine quite o’erflow his wits. Even this delay,
how sweet soe’er to us, is dangerous.”
But Corinius said, “I will not let thee go.”
“Well,” said she, “be a beast, then. But know I’ll cry on a rescue
shall make all Carcë run to find us, and my brothers, ay, and Laxus,
if he be a man, shall deal thee bitter payment for thy violence toward
me. But if thou wilt be thy noble self, and respect my love with
friendship, let me go. And if thou come secretly to my chamber door, an
hour past midnight; I think thou’lt find no bolt to it.”
“Ha, thou swearest it?” he said.
She answered, “Else may steep destruction swallow me quick.”
“An hour past midnight. And until then ’tis a year in my desires,” said
he.
“There spoke my noble lover,” said Sriva, giving him her mouth once
more. And swiftly she fared through the shadowy archway and across the
court to where in the north gallery her father Corsus had his chamber.
The Lord Corinius went back to his seat, and there reclined for a space
in slothful ease, humming to an old tune:
My Mistris is a shittle-cock,
Compos’d of Cork and feather;
Each Battledore sets on her dock,
And bumps her on the leather.
But cast her off which way you Will,
She will requoile to another still—
Fa, la, la, la, la, la.
He stretched his arms and yawned. “Well, Laxus, my chub-faced meacock,
this medicine hath eased powerfully my discontent. ’Tis but fair, sith
I must miss my crown, that I should have thy mistress. And to say true,
seeing how base, little, and ordinary a kingdom is this of Pixyland,
and what a delectable sweet wagtail this Sriva, whom besides I have
these two years past ne’er looked on but my mouth watered: why, I may
hold me part paid for the nonce; until I weary of her.
Love is all my life,
For it keeps me doing:
Yet my love and wooing
Is not for a Wife—
“An hour past midnight, ha? What wine’s best for lovers? I’ll go drink
a stoup, and so to dice with some of these lads to pass away the time
till then.”
XVI: THE LADY SRIVA’S EMBASSAGE
HOW THE DUKE CORSUS THOUGHT IT PROPER TO COMMIT AN ERRAND OF STATE
UNTO HIS DAUGHTER: AND HOW SHE PROSPERED THEREIN.
Sriva fared swiftly to her father’s closet, and finding her lady mother
sewing in her chair, nodding toward sleep, two candles at her left
and right, she said, “My lady mother, there’s a queen’s crown waits
the plucking. ’Twill drop into the foreign woman’s lap if thou and my
father bestir you not. Where is he? Still i’ the banquet house? Thou or
I must fetch him on the instant.”
“Fie!” cried Zenambria. “How thou’st startled me! Fall somewhat into a
slower speech, my girl. With such wild sudden talk I know not what thou
meanest nor what’s the matter.”
But Sriva answered, “Matter of state. Thou goest not? Good, then I
fetch him. Thou shalt hear all anon, mother;” and so turned towards
the door. Nor might all her mother’s crying out upon the scandal of
their so returning to the banquet long past the hour of the women’s
withdrawal turn her from this. So that the Lady Zenambria, seeing her
so wilful, thought it less evil to go herself; and so went, and in
awhile returned with Corsus.
Corsus sat in his great chair over against his lady wife, while his
daughter told her tale.
“Twice and thrice,” said she, “they passed me by, as near as I stand to
thee, O my father, she leaning most familiarly on the arm of her curled
philosopher. ’Twas plain they had never a thought that any was by to
overhear them. She said so and so;” and therewith Sriva told all that
was spoke by the Lady Prezmyra as to an expedition to Demonland, and
as to her purposed speaking with the King, and as to her design that
Corund should be his general for that sailing, and letters sealed on
the morrow for his straight recall from Orpish.
The Duke listened unmoved, breathing heavily, leaning heavily forward,
his elbow on his knees, one great fat hand twisting and pushing back
the sparse gray growth of his moustachios. His eyes shifted with sullen
glance about the chamber, and his blabber cheeks, scarlet from the
feast, flushed to a deeper hue.
Zenambria said, “Alas, and did not I tell thee long ago, my lord, that
Corund did ill to wed with a young wife? And thence cometh now that
shame that was but to be looked for. It is pity indeed of so goodly a
man, now past his prime age, she should so play at fast and loose with
his honour, and he at the far end of the world. Indeed and indeed,
I hope he will revenge it on her at his coming home. For sure I am,
Corund is too high-minded to buy advancement at so shameful a price.”
“Thy talk, wife,” said Corsus, “showeth long hair and a short wit. In
brief, thou art a fool.”
He was silent for a space, then raised his gaze to Sriva, where she
rested, her back to the massive table, half standing, half sitting, a
dainty jewel-besparkled hand planted on the table’s edge at her either
side, her arms like delicate white pillars supporting that fair frame.
Somewhat his dull eye brightened, resting on her. “Come hither,” he
said, “on my knee: so.”
When she was seated, “’Tis a brave gown,” said he, “thou wearest
to-night, my pretty pug. Red, for a sanguine humour.” His great arm
gave her a back, and his hand, huge as a platter, lay like a buckler
beneath her breast. “Thou smell’st passing sweet.”
“’Tis malabathrum in the leaf,” answered she.
“I’m glad it likes thee, my lord,” said Zenambria. “My woman still
protesteth that such, being boiled with wine, yieldeth a perfume that
passeth all other.”
Corsus still looked on Sriva. After a while he asked, “What madest thou
on the terrace i’ the dark, ha?”
She looked down, saying, “It was Laxus prayed me meet him there.”
“Hum!” said Corsus, “’Tis strange then he should await thee this hour
gone by in the paved alley of the privy court.”
“He did mistake me,” said Sriva. “And well is he served, for such
neglect.”
“So. And thou turnest politician to-night, my little puss-cat?” said
Corsus. “And thou smellest an expedition to Demonland? ’Tis like enow.
But methinks the King will send Corinius.”
“Corinius?” said Sriva. “It is not thought so. ’Tis Corund must have
it, if thou push not the matter to a decision with the King to-night, O
my father, ere my lady fox be private with him to-morrow.”
“Bah!” said Corsus. “Thou art but a girl, and knowest nought. She hath
not the full blood nor the resolution to carry it thus. No, ’tis not
Corund stands i’ the light, it is Corinius. It is therefore the King
withheld from him Pixyland, which was his due, and tossed the bauble to
Laxus.”
“Why, ’tis a monstrous thing,” said Zenambria, “if Corinius shall have
Demonland, which surely much surpasseth this crown of Pixyland. Shall
this novice have all the meat, and thou, because thou art old, have
nought but the bones and the parings?”
“Hold thy tongue, mistress,” said Corsus, looking upon her as one
looketh on a sour mixture. “Why hadst not the wit to angle for him for
thy daughter?”
“Truly, husband, I’m sorry for it,” said Zenambria.
The Lady Sriva laughed, placing her arm about her father’s bullock-neck
and playing with his whiskers. “Content thee,” she said, “my lady
mother. I have my choice, and that is very certain, of these and of all
other in Carcë. And now I bethink me on the Lord Corinius, why, there’s
a proper man indeed: weareth a shaven lip too, which, as experienced
opinion shall tell thee, far exceedeth your nasty moustachios.”