battle like a sounding sea rolled on with a ceaseless noise of riding
and slaying and the clang of arms), Juss chose. Demonland and the whole
world’s destinies hung on his choice. He had no counsellor. He had no
time for slow deliberation. In such a moment imagination, resolution,
swift decision, all high gifts of nature, are nought: swift horses
gulfed and lost in the pit which fate the enemy digged in the way
before them; except painful knowledge, stored up patiently through
years of practice, shall have prepared a road sure and clean for their
flying hooves to bear them in the great hour of destiny. So it was from
the beginning with all great captains: so with the Lord Juss in that
hour when ruin swooped upon his armies. For two minutes’ space he stood
silent; then sent Bremery of Shaws galloping westward like one minded
to break his neck with his orders to Lord Brandoch Daha, and Romenard
eastward again to Spitfire. And Juss himself riding forward among
his soldiers shouted among them in a voice that was like a trumpet
thundering, that they should now make ready for the fiercest trial of
all.
“Is my cousin mad?” said Lord Brandoch Daha, when he saw and understood
the whole substance and matter of it. “Or hath he found Corund so
tame to deal with he can make shift without me and well nigh half his
strength, and yet withstand him?”
“He looseth this hold,” answered Bremery, “to snatch at safety. ’Tis
desperate, but all other ways we but wait on destruction. Our right is
clean driven in, the left holdeth but hardly. He chargeth your highness
break their centre if you may. They have somewhat dangerously advanced
their left, and therein is their momentary peril if we be swift enough.
But remember that here, o’ this side, is their greatest power before
us, and if we be ’whelmed ere you can compass it——”
“No more but Yes,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “Time gallopeth: so must
we.”
Even so in that hour when Goldry and Zigg, giving way step by step
before superior odds, were bent back well nigh with their backs to the
river, and Corund on the Demons’ left had after a bitter battle checked
and held them and threatened now to complete in one more great blow
the ruin of them all, Juss, choosing a desperate expedient to meet a
danger that else must destroy him, weakened his hard-pressed left to
throw Brandoch Daha and well nigh eight hundred horse into Spitfire’s
battle to drive a wedge betwixt Corsus and Corinius.
It was now long past noon. The tempest of battle that had quietened
awhile for utter weariness roared forth anew from wing to wing as
Brandoch Daha hurled his horsemen upon Corsus and the subject allies,
while all along the battle-line the Demons rallied to fling back the
enemy. For a breathless while, the issue hung in suspense: then the men
of Gilta and Nevria broke and fled, Brandoch Daha and his cavalry swept
through the gap, wheeled right and left and took Corsus and Corinius in
flank and rear.
There fell in this onset Axtacus lord of Permio, the kings of Ellien
and Gilta, Gorius the son of Corsus, the Count of Tzeusha, and many
other noblemen and men of mark. Of the Demons many were hurt and many
slain, but none of great note save Kamerar of Stropardon, whose head
Corinius swapt off clean with a blow of his battle-axe, and Trentmar
whom Corsus smote full in the stomach with a javelin so that he fell
down from his horse and was dead at once. Now was all the left and
centre of the Witches’ battle thrown into great confusion, and the
allies most of all fallen into disorder and fain to yield themselves
and pray for mercy. The King, seeing the extent of this disaster, sent
a galloper to Corund, who straightway sent to Corsus and Corinius
commanding them get them at their speediest with all their folk back
into Carcë while time yet served. Himself in the meantime, showing
now, like the sun, his greatest countenance in his lowest estate, set
on with his weary army to stem the advance of Juss, who now momently
gathered fresh force against him, and to keep open for the rest of the
King’s forces their way by the bridge-gate into Carcë. Corinius, when
he understood it, galloped thither with a band of men to aid Corund,
and this did likewise Heming and Dekalajus and other captains of the
Witches. But Corsus himself, counting the day lost and considering that
he was an old man and had fought now long enough, gat him privily back
into Carcë as quickly as he was able. And truly he was bleeding from
many wounds.
By this great stand of Corund and his men was time won for a great part
of the residue of the army to escape into Carcë. And ever the Witches
were put aback and lost much ground, yet ever the Lord Corund by his
great valiance and noble heart recomforted his folk, so that they gave
back very slowly, most bloodily disputing the ground foot by foot to
the bridge-gate, that they also might win in again, so many as might.
Juss said, “This is the greatest deed of arms that ever I in the days
of my life did see, and I have so great an admiration and wonder in my
heart for Corund that almost I would give him peace. But I have sworn
now to have no peace with Witchland.”
Lord Gro was in that battle with the Demons. He ran Didarus through the
neck with his sword, so that he fell down and was dead.
Corund, when he saw it, heaved up his axe, but changed his intention in
the manage, saying, “O landskip of iniquity, shalt thou kill beside me
the men of mine household? But my friendship sitteth not on a weather
vane. Live, and be a traitor.”
But Gro, being mightily moved with these words, and staring at great
Corund wide-eyed like a man roused from a dream, answered, “Have I done
amiss? ’Tis easy remedied.” Therewith he turned about and slew a man of
Demonland. Which Spitfire seeing, he cried out upon Gro in a great rage
for a most filthy traitor, and bloodily rushing in thrust him through
the buckler into the brain.
In such wise and by such a sudden vengeance did the Lord Gro most
miserably end his life-days. Who, being a philosopher and a man of
peace, careless of particular things of earth, had followed and
observed all his days steadfastly one heavenly star; yet now in the
bloody battle before Carcë died in the common opinion of men a manifold
perjured traitor, that had at length gotten the guerdon of his guile.
Now came the Lord Juss with a great rout of men armed on his great
horse with his sword dripping with blood, and the battle sprang up into
yet more noise and fury, and great manslaying befell, and many able men
of Witchland fell in that stour and the Demons had almost put them from
the bridge-gate. But the Lord Corund, rallying his folk, swung back
yet again the battle-tide, albeit he was by a great odds outnumbered.
And he sought none but Juss himself in that deadly mellay; who when he
saw him coming he refused him not but made against him most fiercely,
and with great clanging blows they swapped together awhile, until
Corund hewed Juss’s shield asunder and struck him from his horse. Juss,
leaping up again, thrust up at Corund with his sword and with the
violence of the blow brake through the rings of his byrny about his
middle and drave the sword into his breast. And Corund felled him to
earth with a great down-stroke on the helm, so that he lay senseless.
Still the battle raged before the bridge-gate, and great wounds were
given and taken of either side. But now the sons of Corund saw that
their father had lost much of his blood and waxed feeble, and the
residue of his folk seeing it too, and seeing themselves so few against
so many, began to be abashed. So those sons of Corund, riding up to him
on either side with a band of men, made him turn back with them and go
with them in by the gate to Carcë, the which he did like a man amazed
and knowing not what he doeth. And indeed it was a great marvel how so
great a lord, wounded to the death, might sit on horseback.
In the great court he was gotten down from his horse. The Lady
Prezmyra, when she perceived that his harness was all red with blood,
and saw his wound, fell not down in a swoon as another might, but took
his arm about her shoulder and so supported, with her step-sons to help
her, that great frame which could no more support itself yet had till
that hour borne up against the whole world’s strength in arms. Leeches
came that she had called for, and a litter, and they brought him to
the banquet hall. But after no long while those learned men confessed
his hurt was deadly, and all their cunning nought. Whereupon, much
disdaining to die in bed, not in the field fighting with his enemies,
the Lord Corund caused himself, completely armed and weaponed, with the
stains and dust of the battle yet upon him, to be set in his chair,
there to await death.
Heming, when this was done, came to tell it to the King, where from
the tower above the water-gate he beheld the end of this battle. The
Demons held the bridge-house. The fight was done. The King sat in his
chair looking down to the battle-field. His dark mantle was about his
shoulders. He leaned forward resting his chin in his hand. They of his
bodyguard, nine or ten, stood huddled together some yards away as if
afraid to approach him. As Heming came near, the King turned his head
slowly to look at him. The low sun, swinging blood-red over Tenemos,
shone full on the King’s face. And as Heming looked in the face of the
King fear gat hold upon him, so that he durst not speak a word to the
King, but made obeisance and departed again, trembling like one who has
seen a sight beyond the veil.
XXXII: THE LATTER END OF ALL THE LORDS OF WITCHLAND
OF THE COUNCIL OF WAR; AND HOW THE LORD CORSUS, BEING REJECTED OF
THE KING, TURNED HIS THOUGHTS TO OTHER THINGS; AND OF THE LAST
CONJURING THAT WAS IN CARCË AND THE LAST WINE-BIBBING; AND
HOW YET ONCE AGAIN THE LADY PREZMYRA SPAKE WITH THE LORDS OF
DEMONLAND IN CARCË.
Gorice the King held in his private chamber a council of war on the
morrow of the battle before Carcë. The morning was over-cast with
sullen cloud, and though all the windows were thrown wide the sluggish
air hung heavy in the room, as if it too were pervaded by the cold
dark humour that clogged the vitals of those lords of Witchland like a
drowsy drug, or as if the stars would breathe themselves for a greater
mischief. Pale and drawn were those lords’ faces; and, for all they
strove to put on a brave countenance before the King, clean gone was
the vigour and war-like mien that clothed them but yesterday. Only
Corinius kept some spring of his old valiancy and portly bearing,
seated with arms akimbo over against the King, his heavy under-jaw set
forward and his nostrils wide. He had slept ill or watched late, for
his eyes were blood-shotten, and the breath of his nostrils was heavy
with wine.
“We tarry for Corsus,” said the King. “Had he not word of my bidding?”
Dekalajus said, “Lord, I will summon him again. These misfortunes I
fear me hang heavy on his mind, and, by your majesty’s leave, he is
scarce his own man since yesterday.”
“Do it straight,” said the King. “Give me thy papers, Corinius. Thou
art my general since Corund gat his death. I will see what yesterday
hath cost us and what power yet remaineth to crush me these snakes by
force of arms.”
“These be the numbers, O King,” said Corinius. “But three thousand
and five hundred fighting men, and well nigh half of these over much
crippled with wounds to do aught save behind closed walls. It were but
to give the Demons easy victory to adventure against them, that stand
before Carcë four thousand sound men in arms.”
The King blew scornfully through his nostrils. “Who told thee their
strength?” said he.
“It were dangerous to write them down a man fewer,” answered Corinius.
And Hacmon said, “My Lord the King, I would adventure my head they have
more. And your majesty will not forget they be all flown with eagerness
and pride after yesterday’s field, whereas our men——”
“Were ye sons of Corund,” said the King, breaking in quietly on his
speech and looking dangerously upon him, “but twigs of your father’s
tree, that he being cut down ye have no manhood left nor vital sap,
but straight wither in idiotish dotage? I will not have these womanish
counsels spoke in Carcë; no, nor thought in Carcë.”
Corinius said, “We had sure intelligence, O King, whenas they landed
that their main army was six thousand fighting men; and last night
myself spake with full a score of our officers, and had a true tale
of some few of the Demons captured by us before they were slain with
the sword. When I say to you Juss standeth before Carcë four thousand
strong, I swell not the truth. His losses yesterday were but a
flea-biting ’gainst ours.”
The King nodded a curt assent.
Corinius proceeded, “If we might contrive indeed to raise help from
without Carcë, were it but five hundred spears to distract his mind
some part from usward, nought but your majesty’s strict command should
stay me but I should assault him. It were perilous even so, but never
have you known me leave a fruit unplucked at for fear of thorns. But
until that time, nought but your straight command might win me to essay
a sally. Since well I wot it were my death, and the ruin of you, O
King, and of all Witchland.”
The King listened with unmoved countenance, his shaven lip set somewhat
in a sneer, his eyes half closed like the eyes of a cat couched
sphinx-like in the sun. But no sun shone in that council chamber. The
leaden pall hung darker without, even as morning grew toward noon. “My
Lord the King,” said Heming, “send me. To overslip their guards i’ the
night, ’tis not a thing beyond invention. That done, I’d gather you
some small head of men, enough to serve this turn, if I must rake the
seven kingdoms to find ’em.”
While Heming spoke, the door opened and the Duke Corsus entered the
chamber. An ill sight was he, flabbier of cheek and duller of eye
than was his wont. His face was bloodless, his great paunch seemed
shrunken, and his shoulders yet more hunched since yesterday. His gait
was uncertain, and his hand shook as he moved the chair from the board
and took his seat before the King. The King looked on him awhile in
silence, and under that gaze beads of sweat stood on Corsus’s brow and
his under-lip twitched.
“We need thy counsel, O Corsus,” said the King. “Thus it is: since our
ill-faced stars gave victory to the Demon rebels in yesterday’s battle,
Juss and his brethren front us with four thousand men, whiles I have
not two thousand soldiers unhurt in Carcë. Corinius accounteth us too
weak to risk a sally but and if we might contrive some diversion from
without. And that (after yesterday) is not to be thought on. Hither
and to Melikaphkhaz did we draw all our powers, and the subject allies
not for our love but for fear sake and for lust of gain flocked to our
standard. These caterpillars drop off now. Yet if we fight not, then
is our strength in arms clean spent, and our enemies need but to sit
before Carcë till we be starved. ’Tis a point of great difficulty and
knotty to solve.”
“Difficult indeed, O my Lord the King,” said Corsus. His glance shifted
round the board, avoiding the steady gaze bent on him from beneath
the eaves of King Gorice’s brow, and resting at last on the jewelled
splendour of the crown of Witchland on the King’s head. “O King,” he
said, “you demand my rede, and I shall not say nor counsel you nothing
but that good and well shall come thereof, as much as yet may be in
this pass we stand in. For now is our greatness turned in woe, dolour,
and heaviness. And easy it is to be after-witted.”
He paused, and his under-jaw wobbled and twitched. “Speak on,” said the
King. “Thou stutterest forth nothings by fits and girds, as an ague
taketh a goose. Let me know thy rede.”
Corsus said, “You will not take it, I know, O King. For we of Witchland
have ever been ruled by the rock rather than by the rudder. I had
liever be silent. Silence was never written down.”
“Thou wouldst, and thou wouldst not!” said the King. “Whence gottest
thou this look of a dish of whey with blood spit in it? Speak, or
thou’lt anger me.”
“Then blame me not, O King,” said Corsus. “Thus it seemeth to me, that
the hour hath struck whenas we of Witchland must needs look calamity
in the eye and acknowledge we have thrown our last, and lost all.
The Demons, as we have seen to our undoing, be unconquerable in war.
Yet are their minds pranked with many silly phantasies of honour and
courtesy which may preserve us the poor dregs yet unspilt from the cup
of our fortune, if we but leave unseasonable pride and see where our
advantage lieth.”
“Chat, chat, chat!” said the King. “Perdition catch me if I can find a
meaning in it! What dost thou bid me do?”
Corsus met the King’s eye at last. He braced himself as if to meet
a blow. “Throw not your cloak in the fire because your house is
burning, O King. Surrender all to Juss at his discretion. And trust
me the foolish softness of these Demons will leave us freedom and the
wherewithal to live at ease.”
The King was leaned a little forward as Corsus, somewhat dry-throated
but gathering heart as he spake, blurted forth his counsel of defeat.
No man among them looked on Corsus, but all on the King, and for
a minute’s space was no sound save the sound of breathing in that
chamber. Then a puff of hot air blew a window to with a thud, and the
King without moving his head rolled his awful glance forth and back
over his council slowly, fixing each in his turn. And the King said,
“Unto which of you is this counsel acceptable? Let him speak and
instruct us.”
All did sit mum like beasts. The King spake again, saying, “It is
well. Were there of my council such another vermin, so sottish,
so louse-hearted, as this one hath proclaimed himself, I had been
persuaded Witchland was a sleepy pear, corrupted in her inward parts.
And that were so, I had given order straightway for the sally; and,
for his chastening and your dishonour, this Corsus should have led you.
And so an end, ere the imposthume of our shame brake forth too foul
before earth and heaven.”
“I admire not, Lord, that you do strike at me,” said Corsus. “Yet I
pray you think how many Kings in Carcë have heaped with injurious
indignities them that were so hardy as give them wholesome counsel
afore their fall. Though your majesty were a half-god or a Fury out of
the pit, you could not by further resisting deliver us out of this net
wherein the Demons have gotten us caught and tied. You can keep geese
no longer, O King. Will you rend me because I bid you be content to
keep goslings?”
Corinius smote the table with his fist. “O monstrous vermin!” he cried,
“because thou wast scalded, must all we be afeared of cold water?”
But the King stood up in his majesty, and Corsus shrank beneath the
flame of his royal anger. And the King spake and said, “The council
is up, my lords. For thee, Corsus, I dismiss thee from my council.
Thou art to thank my clemency that I take not thy head for this. It
were for thy better safety, which well I know thou prizest dearer than
mine honour, that thou show not in my path till these perilous days be
overpast.” And unto Corinius he said, “On thy head it lieth that the
Demons storm not the hold, as haply their hot pride may incense them
to attempt. Expect me not at supper. I lie in the Iron Tower to-night,
and let none disturb me there at peril of his head. You of my council
must attend me here four hours ere to-morrow’s noon. Look to it well,
Corinius, that nought shalt thou do nor in any wise adventure our
forces against the Demons till thou receive my further bidding, save
only to hold Carcë against any assault if need be. For this thy life
shall answer. For the Demons, they were wisest praise a fair day at
night. If mine enemy uproot a boulder above my dwelling, so I be mighty
enow of mine hands I may, even in the nick of time that it tottereth to
leap and crush mine house, o’erset it on him and pash him to a mummy.”
So speaking, the King moved resolute with a great strong step toward
the door. There paused he, his hand upon the silver latch, and looking
tigerishly on Corsus, “Be advised,” he said, “thou. Cross not my path
again. Nor, while I think on’t, send me not thy daughter again, as
last year thou didst. Apt to the sport she is, and well enow she served
my turn aforetime. But the King of Witchland suppeth not twice of the
same dish, nor lacketh he fresh wenches if he need them.”
Whereat all they laughed. But Corsus’s face grew red as blood.
• • • • •
On such wise brake up the council. Corinius with the sons of Corund and
of Corsus went upon the walls ordering all in obedience to the word of
Gorice the King. But that old Duke Corsus betook him to his chamber
in the north gallery. Nor might he abide even a small while at ease,
but sate now in his carven chair, now on the window-sill, now on his
broad-canopied bed, and now walked the chamber floor twisting his hands
and gnawing his lip. And if he were distraught in mind, small wonder it
were, set as he was betwixt hawk and buzzard, the King’s wrath menacing
him in Carcë and the hosts of Demonland without.
So wore the day till supper-time. And at supper was Corsus, to their
much amaze, sitting in his place, and the ladies Zenambria and Sriva
with him. He drank deep, and when supper was done he filled a goblet
saying, “My lord the king of Demonland and ye other Witches, good it
is that we, who stand as now we stand with one foot in the jaws of
destruction, should bear with one another. Neither should any hide his
thought from other, but say openly, even as I this morning before the
face of our Lord the King, his thought and counsel. Wherefore without
shame do I confess me ill-advised to-day, when I urged the King to
make peace with Demonland. I wax old, and old men will oft embrace
timorous counsels which, if there be wisdom and valiancy left in them,
they soon renounce when the stress is overpast and they have leisure
to afterthink them with a sad mind. And clear as day it is that the
King was right, both in his chastening of my faint courage and in his
bidding thee, O King Corinius, stand to thy watch and do nought till
this night be worn. For went he not to the Iron Tower? And to what
end else spendeth he the night in yonder chamber of dread than to do
sorcery or his magic art, as aforetime he did, and in such wise blast
these Demons to perdition even in the spring-tide of their fortunes?
At no point of time hath Witchland greater need of our wishes than at
this coming midnight, and I pray you, my lords, let us meet a little
before in this hall that we with one heart and mind may drink fair
fortune to the King’s enchantery.”
With such pleasant words and sympathetical insinuations, working at
a season when the wine-cup had caused unfold some gayness in their
hearts that were fordone with the hard scapes and chances of disastrous
war, was Corsus grown to friendship again with the lords of Witchland.
So, when the guard was set and all made sure for the night, they came
together in the great banquet hall, whereas more than three years
ago the Prince La Fireez had feasted and after fought against them
of Witchland. But now was he drowned among the shifting tides in the
Straits of Melikaphkhaz. And the Lord Corund, that fought that night
in such valiant wise, now in that same hall, armed from throat to foot
as becometh a great soldier dead, lay in state, crowned on his brow
with the amethystine crown of Impland. The spacious side-benches were
untenanted and void their high seats, and the cross-bench was removed
to make place for Corund’s bier. The lords of Witchland sate at a
small table below the dais: Corinius in the seat of honour at the end
nearest the door, and over against him Corsus, and on Corinius’s left
Zenambria, and on his right Dekalajus son to Corsus, and then Heming;
and on Corsus’s left his daughter Sriva, and those two remaining of
Corund’s sons on his right. All were there save Prezmyra, and her had
none seen since her lord’s death, but she kept her chamber. Flamboys
stood in the silver stands as of old, lighting the lonely spaces of the
hall, and four candles shivered round the bier where Corund slept. Fair
goblets stood on the board brimmed with dark sweet Thramnian wine, one
for each feaster there, and cold bacon pies and botargoes and craw-fish
in hippocras sauce furnished a light midnight meal.