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

of Stropardon. It was as if the sea and the night enfolding Demonland gasped in indignation at such things as Corinius, holding himself already an undoubted possessor of his desires, devised for that night in Krothering.

Those brethren stood abashed in the presence of such rare beauty. Heming with a deep breath spake and said, “Madam, what slender opinion soever thou hast held of us of Witchland, I pray thee be satisfied that I and my kinsman have sought to thee now with a clean heart to do thee service.”

“Princes,” said she, “scarce might ye blame me did I misdoubt you. Yet, seeing that my life’s days have been not among ambidexters and coney-catchers but lovers of clean hands and open dealing, not even after that which I this night endured will mine heart believe that all civility is worn away in Witchland. Did I not freely receive Corinius’s self when I did open my gates to him, firmly believing him to be a king and not a ravening wolf?”

Then said Heming, “Canst thou wear armour, madam? Thou art something of an height with my brother. To bring thee past the guard, if thou go armed, as I shall conduct thee, the wine they have drunken shall be thy minister. I have provided an horse. In the likeness of my young brother mayst thou ride forth tonight out of this castle, and win clean away. But in thine own shape thou mayst never pass from these thy lodgings, for he hath set a guard thereon; being resolved, come thereof what may, to visit thee here this night: in thine own chamber, madam.”

The sounds of furious revelry floated up from the banquet chamber. Mevrian heard by snatches the voice of Corinius singing an unseemly song. As in the presence of some dark influence that threatened an ill she might not comprehend, yet felt her blood quail and her heart grow sick because of it, she looked on those brethren.

She said at last, “Was this your plan?”

Heming answered, “It was the Lord Gro did most ingenuously conceive it. But Corinius, as he hath ever held him in distrust, and most of all when he hath drunken overmuch, keepeth him most firmly at his elbow.”

Cargo now did off his armour, and Mevrian calling in her women to take this and other gear fared straightway to an inner chamber to change her fashion.

Heming said to his brother, “Thou shalt need to go about it with great circumspection, to come off when we are gone so as thou be not aspied. Were I thou, I should be tempted for the rareness of the jest to await his coming, and assay whether thou couldst not make as good a counterfeit Mevrian as she a counterfeit Cargo.”

“Thou,” said Cargo, “mayst well laugh and be gay, thou that must conduct her. And art resolved, I dare lay my head to a turnip, to do thy utmost endeavour to despoil Corinius of that felicity he hath tonight decreed him, and bless thyself therewith.”

“Thou hast fallen,” answered Heming, “into a most barbarous thought. Shall my tongue be so false a traitor to mine heart as to say I love not this lady? Compare but her beauty and my youth together, how should it other be? But with such a height of fervour I do love her that I’d as lief offer violence to a star of heaven, as require of her aught but honest.”

Said Cargo, “What said the wise little boy to’s elder brother? ‘Sith thou’st gotten the cake, brother, I must e’en make shift with the crumbs.’ When you are gone, and all whisht and quiet, and I left here amid the waiting women, it shall go hard but I’ll teach ’em somewhat afore good night.”

Now opened the door of the inner chamber, and there stood before them the Lady Mevrian armed and helmed. She said, “ ’Tis no light matter to halt before a cripple. Think you this will pass i’ the dark, my lords?”

They answered, ’twas beyond all commendation excellent.

“I’ll thank thee now, Prince Cargo,” said she, stretching out her hand. He bowed and kissed it in silence. “This harness,” she said, “shall be a keepsake unto me of a noble enemy. Would someday I might call thee friend, for suchwise hast thou borne thee this night.”

Therewith, bidding young Cargo adieu, she with his brother went forth from the chamber and through the antechamber to that shadowy stairway where Corinius’s soldiers stood sentinel. These (as many more be drowned in the beaker than in the ocean), not over-heedful after their tipplings, seeing two go by together with clanking armour and knowing Heming’s voice when he answered the challenge, made no question but here were Corund’s sons returning to the banquet.

So passed he and she lightly by the sentinels. But as they fared by the lofty corridor without the Chamber of the Moon, the doors of that chamber opening suddenly left and right there came forth torchbearers and minstrels two by two as in a progress, with cymbals clashing and flutes and tambourines, so that the corridor was fulfilled with the flare of flamboys and the din. In the midst walked the Lord Corinius. The lusty blood within him burned scarlet in all his shining face, and made stand the veins like cords on the strong neck and arms and hands of him. The thick curls above his brow where they strayed below his coronal of sleeping nightshade were a-drip with sweat. Plain it was he was in no good trim, after that shrewd knock on the head Astar that day had given him, to withstand deep quaffings. He went between Gro and Laxus, swaying heavily now on the arm of this one now of the other, his right hand beating time to the music of the bridal song.

Mevrian whispered to Heming, “Let us bear out a good face so long as we be alive.”

They stood aside, hoping to be passed by unnoticed, for retreat nor concealment was there none.