The Worm Ouroboros - E. R. Eddison (best books to read non fiction txt) 📗

about a torch that burns in a fog. Great was the clatter of cups, and great the clinking of glass as in their drunkenness the Witches cast down the priceless beakers on the floor, smashing them in shivers. And huge din there was of laughter and song; and amidst of it, women’s voices singing, albeit near drowned in the hurly burly. For they constrained Mevrian’s damosels in Krothering to sing and dance before them, howsoever woeful at heart. And to other entertainment than this of dance and song was many a black-bearded reveller willing to constrain them; and sought occasion thereto, but this by stealth only, and out of eyeshot of their general. For heavily enow was his wrath fallen on some who rashly flaunted in his face their light disports, presuming to hunt in such fields while their lord went still a-fasting.

After a while Heming, who sat next to Gro, began to say to him in a whisper, “This is an ill banquet.”

“Meseems rather ’tis a very good banquet,” said Gro.

“Would I saw some other issue thereof,” said Heming, “than that he purposeth. Or how thinkest thou?”

“I scarce can blame him,” answered Gro. “ ’Tis a most lovesome lady.”

“Is not the man a most horrible open swine? And is it to be endured that he should work his lewd purpose on so sweet a lady?”

“What have I to do with it?” said Gro.

“What less than I?” said Heming.

“It dislikes thee?” said Gro.

“Art thou a man?” said Heming. “And she that hateth him besides as bloody Atropos!”

Gro looked him a swift searching look in the eye. Then he whispered, his head bowed over some raisins he was a-picking: “If this is thy mind, ’tis well.” And speaking softly, with here and there some snatch of louder discourse or jest between whiles lest he should seem too earnestly engaged in secret talk, he taught Heming orderly and clearly what he had to do, discovering to him that Laxus also, being bit with jealousy, was of their accord. “Thy brother Cargo is aptest for this. He standeth about her height, and by reason of his youth is yet beardless. Go find him out. Rehearse unto him word by word all this talking that hath been between me and thee. Corinius holdeth me too deep suspect to suffer me out of his eye tonight. Unto you sons of Corund therefore is the task; and I biding at his elbow may avail to hold him here i’ the hall till it be performed. Go; and wise counsel and good speed wait on your attempts.”

The Lady Mevrian, being escaped to her own chamber in the south tower, sat by an eastern window that looked across the gardens and the lake, past the sea-lochs of Stropardon and the dark hills of Eastmark, to the stately ranges afar which overhang in midair Mosedale and Murkdale and Swartriverdale and the inland sea of Throwater. The last lights of day still lingered on their loftier summits: on Ironbeak, on the gaunt wall of Skarta, and on the distant twin towers of Dina seen beyond the lower Mosedale range in the depression of Neverdale Hause. Behind them rolled up the ascent of heaven the wheels of quiet Night: holy Night, mother of the Gods, mother of sleep, tender nurse of all little birds and beasts that dwell in the field and all tired hearts and weary: mother besides of strange children, affrights, and rapes, and midnight murders bold.

Mevrian sat there till all the earth was blurred in darkness and the sky a-throb with starlight, for it was yet an hour until the rising of the moon. And she prayed to Lady Artemis, calling her by her secret names and saying, “Goddess and Maiden chaste and holy; triune Goddess, Which in heaven art, and on the earth Huntress divine, and also hast in the veiled sunless places below earth Thy dwelling, viewing the large stations of the dead: save me and keep me that am Thy maiden still.”

She turned the ring upon her finger and scanned in the gathering gloom the bezel thereof, which was of that chrysoprase that is hid in light and seen in darkness, being as a flame by night but in the daytime yellow or wan. And behold, it palpitated with splendour from withinward, and was as if a thousand golden sparks danced and swirled within the stone.

While she pondered what interpretation lay likeliest on this sudden flowering of unaccustomed splendour within the chrysoprase, behold one of her women of the bedchamber who brought lights, and said, standing before her, “Twain of those lords of Witchland would speak with your ladyship in private.”

“Two?” said Mevrian. “There’s safety yet in numbers. Which be they?”

“Highness, they be tall and slim of body. They be black-avised. They bear them discreet as dormice, and most commendably sober.”

Mevrian asked, “Is it the Lord Gro? Hath he a great black beard, much curled and perfumed?”

“Highness, I marked not that either weareth a beard,” said the woman, “nor their names I know not.”

“Well,” said Mevrian, “admit them. And do thou and thy fellows attend me whiles I give them audience.”

So it was done according to her bidding. And there entered in those two sons of Corund.

They greeted her with respectful salutations, and Heming said, “Our errand, most worshipful lady, was for thine own ear only if it please thee.”

Mevrian said to her women, “Make fast the doors, and attend me in the antechamber. And now, my lords,” said she, and waited for them to begin.

She was seated sideways in the window, betwixt the light and the dark. The crystal lamps shining from within the room showed deeper darknesses in her hair than night’s darkness without. The curve of her white arms resting in her lap was like the young moon cradled above the sunset. A falling breeze out of the south came laden with the murmur of the sea, far away beyond fields and vineyards, restlessly surging even in that calm weather amid the sea-caves