Now it befell that for three nights in succession the Princess
Guenevere was unable to converse with Jurgen in the Hall of
Judgment. So upon one of these disengaged evenings Duke Jurgen held
a carouse with Aribert and Urien, two of Gogyrvan's barons, who had
just returned from Pengwaed-Gir, and had queer tales to narrate of
the Trooping Fairies who garrison that place.
All three were seasoned topers, so Jurgen went to bed prepared for
anything. Later he sat up in bed, and found it was much as he had
suspected. The room was haunted, and at the foot of his couch were
two ghosts: one an impudent-looking leering phantom, in a suit of
old-fashioned armor, and the other a beautiful pale lady, in the
customary flowing white draperies.
"Good-morning to you both," says Jurgen, "and sorry am I that I
cannot truthfully observe I am glad to see you. Though you are
welcome enough if you can manage to haunt the room quietly." Then,
seeing that both phantoms looked puzzled, Jurgen proceeded to
explain. "Last year, when I was traveling upon business in
Westphalia, it was my grief to spend a night in the haunted castle
of Neuedesberg, for I could not get any sleep at all in that place.
There was a ghost in charge who persisted in rattling very large
iron chains and in groaning dismally throughout the night. Then
toward morning he took the form of a monstrous cat, and climbed upon
the foot of my bed: and there he squatted yowling until daybreak.
And as I am ignorant of German, I was not able to convey to him any
idea of my disapproval of his conduct. Now I trust that as
compatriots, or as I might say with more exactness, as former
compatriots, you will appreciate that such behavior is out of all
reason."
"Messire," says the male ghost, and he oozed to his full height,
"you are guilty of impertinence in harboring such a suspicion. I can
only hope it proceeds from ignorance."
"For I am sure," put in the lady, "that I always disliked cats, and
we never had them about the castle."
"And you must pardon my frankness, messire," continued the male
ghost, "but you cannot have moved widely in noble company if you are
indeed unable to distinguish between members of the feline species
and of the reigning family of Glathion."
"Well, I have seen dowager queens who justified some such
confusion," observed Jurgen. "Still, I entreat the forgiveness of
both of you, for I had no idea that I was addressing royalty."
"I was King Smoit," explained the male phantom, "and this was my
ninth wife, Queen Sylvia Tereu."
Jurgen bowed as gracefully, he flattered himself, as was possible in
his circumstances. It is not easy to bow gracefully while sitting
erect in bed.
"Often and over again have I heard of you, King Smoit," says Jurgen.
"You were the grandfather of Gogyrvan Gawr, and you murdered your
ninth wife, and your eighth wife, and your fifth wife, and your
third wife too: and you went under the title of the Black King, for
you were reputed the wickedest monarch that ever reigned in Glathion
and the Red Islands."
It seemed to Jurgen that King Smoit evinced embarrassment, but it is
hard to be quite certain when a ghost is blushing. "Perhaps I was
spoken of in some such terms," says Smoit, "for the neighbors were
censorious gossips, and I was not lucky in my marriages. And I
regret, I bitterly regret, to confess that, in a moment of extreme
yet not quite unprovoked excitement, I assassinated the lady whom
you now behold."
"And I am sure, through no fault of mine," says Sylvia Tereu.
"Certainly, my dear, you resisted with all your might. I only wish
that you had been a larger and a brawnier woman. But you, messire,
can now perceive, I suppose, the folly of expecting a high King of
Glathion, and the queen that he took delight in, to sit upon your
bed and howl?"
So then, upon reflection, Jurgen admitted he had never had that
experience; nor, he handsomely added, could he recall any similar
incident among his friends.
"The notion is certainly preposterous," went on King Smoit, and very
grimly he smiled. "We are drawn hither by quite other intentions. In
fact, we wish to ask of you, as a member of the family, your
assistance in a delicate affair."
"I would be delighted," Jurgen stated, "to aid you in any possible
way. But why do you call me a member of the family?"
"Now, to deal frankly," says Smoit, with a grin, "I am not claiming
any alliance with the Duke of Logreus--"
"Sometimes," says Jurgen, "one prefers to travel incognito. As a
king, you ought to understand that."
--"My interest is rather in the grandson of Steinvor. Now you will
remember your grandmother Steinvor as, I do not doubt, a charming
old lady. But I remember Steinvor, the wife of Ludwig, as one of the
loveliest girls that a king's eyes ever lighted on."
"Oh, sir," says Jurgen, horrified, "and what is this you are telling
me!"
"Merely that I had always an affectionate nature," replied King
Smoit, "and that I was a fine upstanding young king in those days.
And one of the results of my being these things was your father,
whom men called Coth the son of Ludwig. But I can assure you Ludwig
had done nothing to deserve it."
"Well, well!" said Jurgen: "all this is very scandalous: and very
upsetting, too, it is to have a brand-new grandfather foisted upon
you at this hour of the morning. Still, it happened a great while
ago: and if Ludwig did not fret over it, I see no reason why I
should do so. And besides, King Smoit, it may be that you are not
telling me the truth."
"If you doubt my confession, messire my grandson, you have only to
look into the next mirror. It is precisely on this account that we
have ventured to dispel your slumbers. For to me you bear a striking
resemblance. You have the family face."
Now Jurgen considered the lineaments of King Smoit of Glathion.
"Really," said Jurgen, "of course it is very flattering to be told
that your appearance is regal. I do not at all know what to say in
reply to the implied compliment, without seeming uncivil. I would
never for a moment question that you were much admired in your day,
sir, and no doubt very justly so. None the less--well, my nose, now,
from such glimpses of it as mirrors have hitherto afforded, does not
appear to be a snub-nose."
"Ah, but appearances are proverbially deceitful," observed King
Smoit.
"And about the left hand corner," protested Queen Sylvia Tereu, "I
detect a distinct resemblance."
"Now I may seem unduly obtuse," said Jurgen, "for I am a little
obtuse. It is a habit with me, a very bad habit formed in early
infancy, and I have never been able to break myself of it. And so I
have not any notion at what you two are aiming."
Replied the ghost of King Smoit: "I will explain. Just sixty-three
years ago to-night I murdered my ninth wife in circumstances of
peculiar brutality, as you with rather questionable taste have
mentioned."
Then Jurgen was somewhat abashed, and felt that it did not become him,
who had so recently cut off the head of his own wife, to assume the airs
of a precisian. "Of course," says Jurgen, more broad-mindedly, "these
little family differences are always apt to occur in married life."
"So be it! Though, by the so-and-sos of Ursula's eleven thousand
traveling companions, there was a time wherein I would not have
brooked such criticism. Ah, well, that time is overpast, and I am a
bloodless thing that the wind sweeps at the wind's will through
lands in which but yesterday King Smoit was dreaded. So I let that
which has been be."
"Well, that seems reasonable," said Jurgen, "and to be a trifle
rhetorical is the privilege of grandfathers. Therefore I entreat
you, sir, to continue."
"Two years afterward I followed the Emperor Locrine in his
expedition against the Suevetii, an evil and luxurious people who
worship Gozarin peculiarly, by means of little boats. I must tell
you, grandson, that was a goodly raid, conducted by a band of tidy
fighters in a land of wealth and of fine women. But alack, as the
saying is, in our return from Osnach my loved general Locrine was
captured by that arch-fiend Duke Corineus of Cornwall: and I, among
many others who had followed the Emperor, paid for our merry
larcenies and throat-cuttings a very bitter price. Corineus was not
at all broadminded, not what you would call a man of the world. So
it was in a noisome dungeon that I was incarcerated,--I, Smoit of
Glathion, who conquered Enisgarth and Sargyll in open battle and
fearlessly married the heiress of Camwy! But I spare you the
unpleasant details. It suffices to say that I was dissatisfied with
my quarters. Yet fain to leave them as I became, there was but one
way. It involved the slaying of my gaoler, a step which was, I
confess, to me distasteful. I was getting on in life, and had grown
tired of killing people. Yet, to mature deliberation, the life of a
graceless varlet, void of all gentleness and with no bowels of
compassion, and deaf to suggestions of bribery, appeared of no
overwhelming importance."
"I can readily imagine, grandfather, that you were not deeply
interested in either the nature or the anatomy of your gaoler. So
you did what was unavoidable."
"Yes, I treacherously slew him, and escaped in an impenetrable
disguise to Glathion, where not long afterward I died. My dying
just then was most annoying, for I was on the point of being married,
and she was a remarkably attractive girl,--King Tyrnog's daughter,
from Craintnor way. She would have been my thirteenth wife. And not
a week before the ceremony I tripped and fell down my own castle
steps, and broke my neck. It was a humiliating end for one who had
been a warrior of considerable repute. Upon my word, it made me think
there might be something, after all, in those old superstitions about
thirteen being an unlucky number. But what was I saying?--oh, yes!
It is also unlucky to be careless about one's murders. You will
readily understand that for one or two such affairs I am condemned
yearly to haunt the scene of my crime on its anniversary: such
an arrangement is fair enough, and I make no complaint, though of
course it does rather break into the evening. But it happened that
I treacherously slew my gaoler with a large cobble-stone on the
fifteenth of June. Now the unfortunate part, the really awkward
feature, was that this was to an hour the anniversary of the death
of my ninth wife."
"And you murdering insignificant strangers on such a day!" said
Queen Sylvia. "You climbing out of jail windows figged out as a lady
abbess, on an anniversary you ought to have kept on your knees in
unavailing repentance! But you were a hard man, Smoit, and it was
little loving courtesy you showed your wife at a time when she might
reasonably look to be remembered, and that is a fact."
"My dear, I admit it was heedless of me. I could not possibly say
more. At any rate, grandson, I discovered after my decease that such
heedlessness entailed my haunting on every fifteenth of June at
three in the morning two separate places."
"Well, but that was justice," says Jurgen.
"It may have been justice," Smoit admitted: "but my point is that
it happened to be impossible. However, I was aided by my
great-great-grandfather Penpingon Vreichvras ap Mylwald Glasanief.
He too had the family face; and in every way resembled me so
closely that he impersonated me to everyone's entire satisfaction;
and with my wife's assistance re-enacted my disastrous crime upon
the scene of its occurrence, June after June."
"Indeed," said Queen Sylvia, "he handled his sword infinitely better
than you, my dear. It was a thrilling pleasure to be murdered by
Penpingon Vreichvras ap Mylwald Glasanief, and I shall always regret
him."
"For you must understand, grandson, that the term of King Penpingon
Vreichvras ap Mylwald Glasanief's stay in Purgatory has now run out,
and he has recently gone to Heaven. That was pleasant for him, I
dare say, so I do not complain. Still, it leaves me with no one to
take my place. Angels, as you will readily understand, are not
permitted to perpetrate murders, even in the way of kindness. It
might be thought to establish a dangerous precedent."
"All this," said Jurgen, "seems regrettable, but not strikingly
explicit. I have a heart and a half to serve you, sir, with not
seven-eighths of a notion as to what you want of me. Come, put a
name to it!"
"You have, as I have said, the family face. You are, in fact, the
living counterpart of Smoit of Glathion. So I beseech you, messire
my grandson, for this one night to impersonate my ghost, and with
the assistance of Queen Sylvia Tereu to see that at three o'clock
the White Turret is haunted to everyone's satisfaction. Otherwise,"
said Smoit, gloomily, "the consequences will be deplorable."
"But I have had no experience at haunting," Jurgen confessed. "It is
a pursuit in which I do not pretend to competence: and I do not even
know just how one goes about it."
"That matter is simple, although mysterious preliminaries will be,
of course, necessitated, in order to convert a living person into a
ghost--"
"The usual preliminaries, sir, are out of the question: and I must
positively decline to be stabbed or poisoned or anything of that
kind, even to humor my grandfather."
Both Smoit and Sylvia protested that any such radical step would be
superfluous, since Jurgen's ghostship was to be transient. In fact,
all Jurgen would have to do would be to drain the embossed goblet
which Sylvia Tereu held out to him, with Druidical invocations.
And for a moment Jurgen hesitated. The whole business seemed rather
improbable. Still, the ties of kin are strong, and it is not often
one gets the chance to aid, however slightly, one's long-dead
grandfather: besides, the potion smelt very invitingly.
"Well," says Jurgen, "I am willing to taste any drink once." Then
Jurgen drank.
The flavor was excellent. Yet the drink seemed not to affect Jurgen,
at first. Then he began to feel a trifle light-headed. Next he
looked downward, and was surprised to notice there was nobody in his
bed. Closer investigation revealed the shadowy outline of a human
figure, through which the bedclothing had collapsed. This, he
decided, was all that was left of Jurgen. And it gave him a queer
sensation. Jurgen jumped like a startled horse, and so violently
that he flew out of bed, and found himself floating imponderably
about the room.
Now Jurgen recognized the feeling perfectly. He had often had it in
his sleep, in dreams wherein he would bend his legs at the knees so
that his feet came up behind him, and he would pass through the air
without any effort. Then it seemed ridiculously simple, and he would
wonder why he never thought of it before. And then he would reflect:
"This is an excellent way of getting around. I will come to
breakfast this way in the morning, and show Lisa how simple it is.
How it will astonish her, to be sure, and how clever she will think
me!" And then Jurgen would wake up, and find that somehow he had
forgotten the trick of it.
But just now this manner of locomotion was undeniably easy. So
Jurgen floated around his bed once or twice, then to the ceiling,
for practice. Through inexperience, he miscalculated the necessary
force, and popped through into the room above, where he found
himself hovering immediately over the Bishop of Merion. His eminence
was not alone, but as both occupants of the apartment were asleep,
Jurgen witnessed nothing unepiscopal. Now Jurgen rejoined his
grandfather, and girded on charmed Caliburn, and demanded what must
next be done.
"The assassination will take place in the White Turret, as usual.
Queen Sylvia will instruct you in the details. You can invent most
of the affair, however, as the Lady of the Lake, who occupies this
room to-night, is very probably unacquainted with our terrible
history."
Then King Smoit observed that it was high time he kept his
appointment in Cornwall, and he melted into air, with an easy
confidence that bespoke long practise: and Jurgen followed Queen
Sylvia Tereu.
17.