Jurgen - James Branch Cabell (reading a book TXT) 📗

asking your good graces now,” said Jurgen, “nor the good will of any man alive that has a handsome daughter or a handsome wife. For now I have the aid of a lad that was very recently made Duke of Logreus: and with his countenance I can look out for myself, and I can get justice done me everywhere, in all the bedchambers of the world.”

And Jurgen snapped his fingers, and was about to turn away from the King. There was much sunlight in the hall, so that Jurgen in this half-turn confronted his shadow as it lay plain upon the flagstones. And Jurgen looked at it very intently.

“Of course,” said Jurgen presently, “I only meant in a manner of speaking, sir: and was paraphrasing the splendid if hackneyed passage from Sornatius, with which you are doubtless familiar, in which he goes on to say, so much more beautifully than I could possibly express without quoting him word for word, that all this was spoken jestingly, and without the least intention of offending anybody, oh, anybody whatever, I can assure you, sir.”

“Very well,” said Gogyrvan Gawr: and he smiled, for no reason that was apparent to Jurgen, who was still watching his shadow sidewise. “Tomorrow, I repeat, I must talk with you more privately. Today I am giving a banquet such as was never known in these parts, because my daughter is restored to me, and because my daughter is going to be queen over all the Britons.”

So said Gogyrvan, that was King of Glathion and Lord of Enisgarth and Camwy and Sargyll: and this was done. And everywhere at the banquet Jurgen heard talk of this King Arthur who was to marry Dame Guenevere, and of the prophecy which Merlin Ambrosius had made as to the young monarch. For Merlin had predicted:

“He shall afford succor, and shall tread upon the necks of his enemies: the isles of the ocean shall be subdued by him, and he shall possess the forests of Gaul: the house of Romulus shall fear his rage, and his acts shall be food for the narrators.”

“Why, then,” says Jurgen, to himself, “this monarch reminds me in all things of David of Israel, who was so splendid and famous, and so greedy, in the ancient ages. For to these forests and islands and necks and other possessions, this Arthur Pendragon must be adding my one ewe lamb; and I lack a Nathan to convert him to repentance. Now, but this, to be sure, is a very unfair thing.”

Then Jurgen looked again into a mirror: and presently the eyes of the lad he found therein began to twinkle.

“Have at you, David!” said Jurgen, valorously; “since after all, I see no reason to despair.”

XII Excursus of Yolande’s Undoing

Now Jurgen, self-appointed Duke of Logreus, abode at the court of King Gogyrvan. The month of May passed quickly and pleasantly: but the monstrous shadow which followed Jurgen did not pass. Still, no one noticed it: that was the main thing. For himself, he was not afraid of shadows, and the queerness of this one was not enough to distract his thoughts from Guenevere, nor from his lovemaking with Guenevere.

For these were quiet times in Glathion, now that the war with Rience of Northgalis was satisfactorily ended: and lovemaking was now everywhere in vogue. By way of diversion, gentlemen hunted and fished and rode a-hawking and amicably slashed and battered one another in tournaments: but their really serious pursuit was lovemaking, after the manner of chivalrous persons, who knew that the King’s trumpets would presently be summoning them into less softly furnished fields of action, from one or another of which they would return feet foremost on a bier. So Jurgen sighed and warbled and made eyes with many excellent fighting-men: and the Princess listened with many other ladies whose hearts were not of flint. And Gogyrvan meditated.

Now it was the kingly custom of Gogyrvan when his dinner was spread at noontide, not to go to meat until all such as demanded justice from him had been furnished with a champion to redress the wrong. One day as the gaunt old King sat thus in his main hall, upon a seat of green rushes covered with yellow satin, and with a cushion of yellow satin under his elbow, and with his barons ranged about him according to their degrees, a damsel came with a very heartrending tale of the oppression that was on her.

Gogyrvan blinked at her, and nodded. “You are the handsomest woman I have seen in a long while,” says he, irrelevantly. “You are a woman I have waited for. Duke Jurgen of Logreus will undertake this adventure.”

There being no help for it, Jurgen rode off with this Dame Yolande, not very well pleased: but as they rode he jested with her. And so, with much laughter by the way, Yolande conducted him to the Green Castle, of which she had been dispossessed by Graemagog, a most formidable giant.

“Now prepare to meet your death, sir knight!” cried Graemagog, laughing horribly, and brandishing his club; “for all knights who come hither I have sworn to slay.”

“Well, if truth-telling were a sin you would be a very virtuous giant,” says Jurgen, and he flourished Thragnar’s sword, resistless Caliburn.

Then they fought, and Jurgen killed Graemagog. Thus was the Green Castle restored to Dame Yolande, and the maidens who attended her aforetime were duly released from the cellarage. They were now maidens by courtesy only, but so tender is the heart of women that they all wept over Graemagog.

Yolande was very grateful, and proffered every manner of reward.

“But, no, I will take none of these fine jewels, nor money, nor lands either,” says Jurgen. “For Logreus, I must tell you, is a fairly well-to-do duchy, and the killing of giants is by way of being my favorite pastime. He is well paid that is well satisfied. Yet if you must reward me for such a little service, do