sedgelands where between slimy banks the weed-choked Druima deviously
winds toward the sea, were those two men met together for whose
ambition and their pride the world was too little a place to contain
them both and peace lying between them. And like some drowsy dragon of
the elder slime, squat, sinister, and monstrous, the citadel of Carcë
slept over all.
By and by the King spake and said: “I sent for thee because I think it
good I and thou should talk together while yet is time for talking.”
Juss answered, “I quarrel not with that, O King.”
“Thou,” said the King, bending his brow upon him, “art a man wise and
fearless. I counsel thee, and all these that be with thee, turn back
from Carcë. Well I see the blood thou didst drink in Melikaphkhaz will
not allay thy thirst, and war is to thee thy pearl and thy paramour.
Yet, if it be, turn back from Carcë. Thou standest now on the pinnacle
of thine ambition; wilt leap higher, thou fall’st in the abyss. Let the
four corners of the earth be shaken with our wars, but not this centre.
For here shall no man gather fruit, but and if it be death he gather;
or if, then this fruit only, that Zoacum, that fruit of bitterness,
which when he shall have tasted of, all the bright lights of heaven
shall become as darkness and all earth’s goodness as ashes in his mouth
all his life’s days until he die.”
He paused. The Lord Juss stood still, quailing not at all beneath that
dreadful gaze. His company behind him stirred and whispered. Lord
Brandoch Daha, with mockery in his eye, said somewhat to Goldry Bluszco
under his breath.
But the King spake again to the Lord Juss, “Be not deceived. These
things I say unto thee not as labouring to scare you from your set
purpose with frights and fairy-babes: I know your quality too well.
But I have read signs in heaven: nought clear, but threatful unto both
you and me. For thy good I say it, O Juss, and again (for that our last
speech leaveth the firmest print) be advised: turn back from Carcë or
it be too late.”
Lord Juss harkened attentively to the words of Gorice the King, and
when he had ended, answered and said, “O King, thou hast given us
terrible good counsel. But it was riddlewise. And hearing thee, mine
eye was still on the crown thou wearest, made in the figure of a
crab-fish, which, because it looks one way and goes another, methought
did fitly pattern out thy looking to our perils but seeking the while
thine own advantage.”
The King gave him an ill look, saying, “I am thy lord paramount. With
subjects it sits not to use this familiar style unto their King.”
Juss answered, “Thou dost thee and thou me. And indeed it were folly in
either of us twain to bend knee to t’other, when the lordship of all
the earth waiteth on the victor in our great contention. Thou hast been
open with me, Witchland, to let me know thou art uneager to strike a
field with us. I will be open too, and I will make an offer unto thee,
and this it is: that we will depart out of thy country and do no more
unpeaceful deeds against thee (till thou provoke us again); and thou,
of thy part, of all the land of Demonland shalt give up thy quarrel,
and of Pixyland and Impland beside, and shalt yield me up Corsus and
Corinius thy servants that I may punish them for the beastly deeds they
did in our land whenas we were not there to guard it.”
He ceased, and for a minute they beheld each other in silence. Then the
King lifted up his chin and smiled a dreadful smile.
Corinius whispered mockingly in his ear, “Lord, you may lightly give
’em Corsus. That were easy composition, and false coin too methinks.”
“Stand back i’ thy place,” said the King, “and hold thy peace.” And
unto Lord Juss he said, “Of all ensuing harm the cause is in thee; for
I am now resolved never to put up my sword until of thy bleeding head
I may make a football. And now, let the earth be afraid, and Cynthia
obscure her shine: no more words but mum. Thunder and blood and night
must usurp our parts, to complete and make up the catastrophe of this
great piece.”
• • • • •
That night the King waked late in his chamber in the Iron Tower alone.
These three years past he had seldom resorted thither, and then
commonly but to bear away some or other of his books to study in his
own lodging. His jars and flasks and bottles of blue and green and
purple glass wherein he kept his cursed drugs and electuaries of secret
composition, his athals and athanors, his crucibles, his horsebellied
retorts and alembics and bains-maries, stood arow on shelves coated
with dust and hung about with the dull spider’s weavings; the furnace
was cold; the glass of the windows was clouded with dirt; the walls
were mildewed; the air of the chamber fusty and stagnant. The King was
deep in his contemplation, with a big black book open before him on
the six-sided reading-stand: the damnablest of all his books, the same
which had taught him aforetime what he must do when by the wicked power
of enchantment he had wanted but a little to have confounded Demonland
and all the lords thereof in death and ruin.
The open page under his hand was of parchment discoloured with age, and
the writing on the page was in characters of ancient out-of-fashion
crabbedness, heavy and black, and the great initial letters and the
illuminated borders were painted and gilded in dark and fiery hues
with representations of dreadful faces and forms of serpents and
toad-faced men and apes and mantichores and succubi and incubi and
obscene representations and figures of unlawful meaning. These were the
words of the writing on the page which the King conned over and over,
falling again into a deep study betweenwhiles, and then conning these
words again of an age-old prophetic writing touching the preordinate
destinies of the royal house of Gorice in Carcë:
Soo schel your hous stonde and bee
Unto eternytee
Yet walke warilie
Wyttinge ful sarteynlee
That if impiouslie
The secounde tyme in the bodie
Practisinge grammarie
One of ye katched shulle be
By the feyndis subtiltee
And hys liffe lossit bee
Broke ys thenne this serye
Dampned are you thenne eternallie
Yerth shuldestow thenne never more se
Scarsly the Goddes mought reskue ye
Owt of the Helle where you woll lie
Unto eternytee
The sterres tealde hit mee.
Gorice the King stood up and went to the south window. The casement
bolts were rusted: he forced them and they flew back with a shriek and
a clatter and a thin shower of dust and grit. He opened the window and
looked out. The heavy night grew to her depth of quiet. There were
lights far out in the marshes, the lights of Lord Juss’s camp-fires of
his armies gathered against Carcë. Scarcely without a chill might a man
have looked upon that King standing by the window; for there was in the
tall lean frame of him an iron aspect as of no natural flesh and blood
but some harder colder element; and his countenance, like the picture
of some dark divinity graven ages ago by men long dead, bore the
imprint of those old qualities of unrelenting power, scorn, violence,
and oppression, ancient as night herself yet untouched by age, young as
each night when it shuts down and old and elemental as the primaeval
dark.
A long while he stood there, then came again to his book. “Gorice
VII.,” he said in himself. “That was once in the body. And I have done
better than that, but not yet well enough. ’Tis too hazardous, the
second time, alone. Corund is a man undaunted in war, but the man is
too superstitious and quaketh at that which hath not flesh and blood.
Apparitions and urchin-shows can quite unman him. There’s Corinius,
careth not for God or man a point. But he is too rash and unadvised: I
were mad to trust him in it. Were the Goblin here, it might be carried.
Damnable both-sides villain, he’s cast off from me.” He scanned the
page as if his piercing eyes would thrust beyond the barriers of time
and death and discover some new meaning in the words which should agree
better with the thing his mind desired while his judgement forbade it.
“He says ‘damned eternally:’ he says that breaketh the series, and
‘earth shouldst thou then never more see.’ Put him by.”
And the King slowly shut up his book, and locked it with three
padlocks, and put back the key in his bosom. “The need is not yet,” he
said. “The sword shall have his day, and Corund. But if that fail me,
then even this shall not turn me back but I will do that I will do.”
• • • • •
In the same hour when the King was but now entered again into his own
lodgings, came through a runner of Heming’s to let them know that he,
fifteen hundred strong, marched down the Way of Kings from Pixyland.
Moreover they were advertised that the Demon fleet lay in the river
that night, and it was not unlike the attack should be in the morning
by land and water.
All night the King sate in his chamber holding council with his
generals and ordering all things for the morrow. All night long he
closed not his eyes an instant, but the others he made sleep by turns
because they should be brisk and ready for the battle. For this was
their counsel, to draw out their whole army on the left bank before
the bridge-gate and there offer battle to the Demons at point of day.
For if they should abide within doors and suffer the Demons to cut
young Heming off from the bridge-gate, then were he lost, and if the
bridge-house should fall and the bridge, then might the Demons lightly
ship what force they pleased to the right bank and so closely invest
them in Carcë. Of an attack on the right bank they had no fear, well
knowing themselves able to sit within doors and laugh at them, since
the walls were there inexpugnable. But if a battle were now brought
about before the bridge-gate as they were minded, and Heming should
join in the fight from the eastward, there was good hope that they
should be able to crumple up the battle of the Demons, driving them in
upon their centre from the west whilst Heming smote them on the other
part. Whereby these should be cast into a great rout and confusion and
not be able to escape away to their ships, but there in the fenlands
before Carcë should be made a prey unto the Witches.
When it was the cold last hour before the dawn the generals took from
the King their latest commands ere they drew forth their armies.
Corinius came forth first from the King’s chamber a little while
before the rest. In the draughty corridor the lamps swung and smoked,
making an uncertain windy light. Corinius espied by the stair-head
the Lady Sriva standing, whether watching to bid her father adieu or
but following idle curiosity. Whichever it were, not a fico gave he
for that, but coming swiftly upon her whisked her aside into an alcove
where the light was barely enough to let him see the pale shimmer of
her silken gown, dark hair pinned loosely up in deep snaky coils, and
dark eyes shining. “My witty false one, have I caught thee? Nay, fight
not. Thy breath smells like cinnamon. Kiss me, Sriva.”
“I’ll not!” said she, striving to escape. “Naughty man, am I used
thus?” But finding she got nought by struggling, she said in a low
voice, “Well, if thou bring back Demonland to-night, then, let’s hold
more chat.”
“Harken to the naughty traitress,” said he, “that but last night didst
do me some uncivil discourtesies, and now speaketh me fair: and what
a devil for? if not ’cause herseemeth I’ll likely not come back after
this day’s fight. But I’ll come back, mistress kiss-and-be-gone; ay, by
the Gods, and I’ll have my payment too.”
His lips fed deep on her lips, his strong and greedy hands softly
mastered her against her will, till with a little smothered cry she
embraced him, bruising her tender body against the armour he was girt
withal. Between the kisses she whispered, “Yes, yes, to-night.” Surely
he damned spiteful fortune, that sent him not this encounter but an
half-hour sooner.
When he was departed, Sriva remained in the shadow of the alcove to
set in order her hair and apparel, not a little disarrayed in that
hot wooing. Out of which darkness she had convenience to observe the
leave-taking of Prezmyra and her lord as they came down that windy
corridor and paused at the head of the stairs.
Prezmyra had her arm in his. “I know where the Devil keepeth his tail,
madam,” said Corund. “And I know a very traitor when I see him.”
“When didst thou ever yet fare ill by following of my counsel, my
lord?” said Prezmyra. “Or did I refuse thee ever any thing thou didst
require me of? These seven years since I put off my maiden zone
for thee; and twenty kings sought me in sweet marriage, but thee I
preferred before them all, seeing the falcon shall not mate with
popinjays nor the she-eagle with swans and bustards. And will you say
nay to me in this?”
She stood round to face him. The pupils of her great eyes were large
in the doubtful lamplight, swallowing their green fires in deep pools
of mystery and darkness. The rich and gorgeous ornaments of her crown
and girdle seemed but a poor casket for that matchless beauty which was
hers: her face, where every noble and sweet quality and every thing
desirable of earth or heaven had framed each feature to itself: the
glory of her hair, like the red sun’s glory: her whole body’s poise and
posture, like a stately bird’s new-lighted after flight.
“Though it be very rhubarb to me,” said Corund, “shall I say nay to
thee this tide? Not this tide, my Queen.”
“Thanks, dear my lord. Disarm him and bring him in if you may. The King
shall not refuse us this to pardon his folly, when thou shalt have
obtained this victory for him upon our enemies.”
The Lady Sriva might hear no more, harkened she never so curiously.
But when they were now come to the stair foot, Corund paused a minute
to try the buckles of his harness. His brow was clouded. At length he
spake, “This shall be a battle mortal fierce and doubtous for both
parties. ’Gainst such mighty opposites as here we have, ’tis possible:
No more; but kiss me, dear lass. And if: tush, ’t will not be; and yet,
I’d not leave it unsaid: if ill tide ill, I’d not have thee waste all
thy days a-grieving. Thou knowest I am not one of your sour envious
jacks, bear so poor a conceit o’ themselves they begrudge their wives
should wed again lest the next husband should prove the better man.”
But Prezmyra came near to him with good and merry countenance: “Let me
stop thy mouth, my lord. These be foolish thoughts for a great king
going into battle. Come back in triumph, and i’ the mean season think
on me that wait for thee: as a star waits, dear my lord. And never
doubt the issue.”
“The issue,” answered he, “I’ll tell thee when ’tis done. I’m no
astronomer. I’ll hew with my sword, love; spoil some of their guesses
if I may.”
“Good fortune and my love go with thee,” she said.
Sriva coming forth from her hiding hastened to her mother’s lodging,
and there found her that had just bid adieu to her two sons, her face
all blubbered with tears. In the same instant came the Duke her husband
to change his sword, and the Lady Zenambria caught him about the neck
and would have kissed him. But he shook her off, crying out that he
was weary of her and her slobbering mouth; menacing her besides with
filthy imprecations, that he would drag her with him and cast her to
the Demons, who, since they had a strong loathing for such ugly tits
and stale old trots, would no doubt hang her up or disembowel her and
so rid him of his lasting consumption. Therewith he went forth hastily.
But his wife and daughter, either weeping upon other, came down into
the court, meaning to go up to the tower above the water-gate to see
the army marshalled beyond the river. And on the way Sriva related all
she had heard said betwixt Corund and Prezmyra.
In the court they met with Prezmyra’s self, and she going with blithe
countenance and light tread and humming a merry tune bade them
good-morrow.
“You can bear these things more bravelier than we, madam,” said
Zenambria. “We be too gentle-hearted methinks and pitiful.”
Prezmyra replied upon her, “’Tis true, madam, I have not the weak sense
of some of you soft-eyed whimpering ladies. And by your leave I’ll keep
my tears (which be great spoilers of the cheeks beside) until I need
’em.”
When they were passed by, “Is it not a stony-livered and a shameless
hussy, O my mother?” said Sriva. “And is it not scandalous her laughing
and jesting, as I have told it thee, when she did bid him adieu,
devising only how best she might coax him to save the life of yonder
chambering traitorous hound?”
“With whom,” said Zenambria, “she wont to do the thing I’d think shame
to speak on. Truly this foreign madam with her loose and wanton ways
doth scandal the whole land for us.”
But Prezmyra went her way, glad that she had not by an eyelid’s flicker
let her lord guess what a dread possessed her mind, who had in all the
bitter night seen strange and cruel visions portending loss and ruin of
all she held dear.
• • • • •
Now, when dawn appeared, was the King’s whole army drawn out in battle
array before the bridge-house. Corinius held command on the left. There
followed him fifteen hundred chosen troops of Witchland, with the Dukes
of Trace and Estreganzia, besides these kings and princes with their
outlandish levies: the king of Mynia, Count Escobrine of Tzeusha,
and the Red Foliot. Corsus led the centre, and with him went King Erp
of Ellien and his green-coated sling-casters, the king of Nevria,
Axtacus lord of Permio, the king of Gilta, Olis of Tecapan, and other
captains: seventeen hundred men in all. The right the Lord Corund had
chosen for himself. Two thousand Witchland troops, the likeliest and
best, hardened to war in Impland and Demonland and the south-eastern
borders, followed his standard, beside the heavy spearmen of Baltary
and swordsmen of Buteny and Ar. Viglus his son was there, and the Count
of Thramnë, Cadarus, Didarus of Largos, and the lord of Estremerine.
But when the Demons were ware of that great army standing before the
bridge-gate, they put themselves in array for battle. And their ships
made ready to move up the river under Carcë, if by any means they might
attack the bridge by water and so cut off for the Witches their way of
retreat.
It was bright low sunshine, and the splendour of the jewelled armour of
the Demons and their many-coloured kirtles and the plumes that were in
their helms was a wonder to behold. This was the order of their battle.
On their left nearest the river was a great company of horse, and the
Lord Brandoch Daha to lead them on a great golden dun with fiery eyes.
His island men, Melchar and Tharmrod, with Kamerar of Stropardon and
Styrkmir and Stypmar, were the chief captains that rode with him to
that battle. Next to these came the heavy troops from the east, and the
Lord Juss himself their leader on a tall fierce big-boned chestnut.
About him was his picked bodyguard of horse, with Bremery of Shaws
their captain; and in his battle were these chiefs besides: Astar of
Rettray and Gismor Gleam of Justdale and Peridor of Sule. Lord Spitfire
led the centre, and with him Fendor of Shalgreth, and Emeron, and the
men of Dalney, great spearmen; also the Duke of Azumel, sometime allied
with Witchland. There went also with him the Lord Gro, that scanned
still those ancient walls with a heavy heart, thinking on the great
King within, and with what mastery of intellect and will he ruled those
dark turbulent and bloody men who bare sway under him; thinking on
Queen Prezmyra. To his sick imagining, the blackness of Carcë which no
bright morning light might lighten seemed not as of old the image and
emblem of the royal house of Witchland and their high magnificency and
power on earth, but rather the shadow thrown before of destiny and
death ready to put down that power for ever. Which whether it should so
befall or no he did not greatly care, being aweary of life and life’s
fevers, wild longings, and exorbitant affects, whereof he thought he
had now learned thus much: that to him, who as it seemed must still
adhere to his own foes abandoning the others’ service, fortune through
whatever chop could bring no peace at last. On the Demon right the
Lord Goldry Bluszco streamed his standard, leading to battle the
south-firthers and the heavy spearmen of Mardardale and Throwater. With
him was King Gaslark and his army of Goblinland, and levies from Ojedia
and Eushtlan, lately revolted from their allegiance to King Gorice.
The Lord Zigg, with his light horse of Rammerick and Kelialand and the
northern dales, covered their flank to the eastward.
Gorice the King beheld these dispositions from his tower above the
water-gate. He beheld, besides, a thing the Demons might not see from
below, for a little swelling of the ground that cut off their view:
the marching of men far away along the Way of Kings from the eastward:
young Heming with the vassalry of Pixyland and Maltraëny. He sent a
trusty man to apprise Corund of it.
Now Lord Juss let blow up the battle call, and with the loud braying
of the trumpets the hosts of the Demons swung forth to battle. And
the clash of those armies when they met before Carcë was like the
bursting of a thundercloud. But like a great sea-cliff patient for
ages under the storm-winds’ furies, that not one night’s loud wind and
charging breakers can wear away, nor yet a thousand thousand nights,
the embattled strength of Witchland met their onset, mixed with them,
flung them back, and stood unremoved. Corund’s iron battalions bare in
this first brunt the heaviest load, and bare it through. For the ships,
with young Hesper Golthring in command most fiercely urging them, ran
up the river to force the bridge, and Corund whiles he met on his front
the onset of the flower of Demonland must still be shot at by these
behind. Hacmon and Viglus, those young princes his sons, were charged
with the warding of the bridge and walls to burn and break up their
ships. And they of all hands bestirring them twice and thrice threw
back the Demons when they had gotten a footing on the bridge; until in
fine, both sides for a long space fighting very cruelly, it fell out
very fatally against Hesper and his power, his ships all lighted in a
lowe and the more part of his folk burned or drowned or slain with the
sword; and himself after many and grievous wounds in his last attempt
left alone on the bridge, and crawling to have got away was stabbed in
with a dagger and died.
After this the ships fell back down the river, so many as might avail
thereto, and those sons of Corund, their task manfully fulfilled, came
forth with their folk to join in the main battle. And the smoke of the
burning ships was like incense in the nostrils of the King watching
these things from his tower above the water-gate.
Little pause was there betwixt this first brunt and the next, for
Heming now bare down from the east, drave in Zigg’s horsemen that were
hampered in the heavy ground, and pressed his onset home on the Demon
right. Along the whole line from Corund’s post beside the river to the
eastern flank where Heming joined Corinius the Witches now set on most
fiercely; and now were the odds of numbers, which were at first against
them, swung mightily in their favour, and under this great side-blow
on his flank not all the Lord Goldry Bluszco’s soldiership nor all
the terror of his might in arms could uphold the Demons’ battle-line.
Yard by yard they fell back before the Witches, most gloriously
maintaining their array unbroken, though the outland allies broke and
fled. Meantime on the Demon left Juss and Brandoch Daha most stubbornly
withstood that onslaught, albeit they had to do with the first and
chosen troops of Witchland. In which struggle befell the most bloody
fighting that was yet seen that day, and the stour of battle so asper
and so mortal that it was hard to see how any man should come out from
it with life, since not a man of either side would budge an inch but
die there in his steps if he might not rather slay the foe before him.
So the armies swayed for an hour like wrastlers locked, but in the end
the Lord Corund had his way and held his ground before the bridge-gate.
Romenard of Dalney, galloping to Lord Juss where he paused a while
panting from the violence of the battle, brought him by Spitfire’s
command tidings from the right: telling him Goldry’s self could hold
no longer against such odds: that the centre yet held, but at the next
onset was like to break, or the right wing else be driven in upon
their rear and all overwhelmed: “If your highness cannot throw back
Corund, all is lost.”