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

were they bumped along the ground, and glad enow were the Witches to have gotten those great fighters scotched at last. For utterly spent were Corund and his men, and fain to drop for very weariness.

So when they were gotten into Carcë, the King let search with torches and bring in them of Witchland that lay hurt before the walls; and any Demons or Goblins that were happed upon in like case he let slay with the sword. And the Lord Juss and the Lord Brandoch Daha, still lapped tightly in their nets, he let fling into a corner of the inner court of the palace like two bales of damaged goods, and set a guard upon them until morning.

As the lords of Witchland were upon going to bed they beheld westward by the sea a red glow, and tongues of fire burning in the night. Corinius said unto Lord Gro, “Lo where thy Goblins burn their ships, lest we pursue them as they flee shamefully homeward in the ship they keep from the burning. One ship sufficeth, for most of them be dead.”

And Corinius betook him sleepily to bed, pausing on the way to kick at the Lord Brandoch Daha, that lay safely swathed in his net powerless as then to do him harm.

VII Guests of the King in Carcë

Of the two banquet halls that were in Carcë, the old and the new, and of the entertainment given by King Gorice XII in the one hall to Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha and in the other to the prince La Fireez; and of their leave-taking when the banquet was done.

The morrow of that battle dawned fair on Carcë. Folk lay long abed after their toil, and until the sun was high nought stirred before the walls. But toward noon came forth a band sent by King Gorice to bring in the spoil; and they took up the bodies of the slain and laid them in howe on the right bank of the river Druima half a mile below Carcë, Witches, Demons, and Goblins in one grave together, and raised up a great howe over them.

Now was the sun’s heat strong, but the shadow of the great keep rested still on the terrace without the western wall of the palace. Cool and redolent of ease and soft repose was that terrace, paved with flagstones of red jasper, with spleenwort, asafoetida, livid toadstools, dragons’ teeth, and bitter moonseed growing in the joints. On the outer edge of the terrace were bushes of arbor vitae planted in a row, squat and round like sleeping dormice, with clumps of choke-pard aconite in the interspaces. Many hundred feet in length was the terrace from north to south, and at either end a flight of black marble steps led down to the level of the inner ward and its embattled wall.

Benches of green jasper massily built and laden with velvet cushions of many colours stood against the palace wall facing to the west, and on the bench nearest the Iron Tower a lady sat at ease, eating cream wafers and a quince tart served by her waiting-women in dishes of pale gold for her morning meal. Tall was that lady and slender, and beauty dwelt in her as the sunshine dwells in the red floor and gray-green trunks of a beech wood in early spring. Her tawny hair was gathered in deep folds upon her head and made fast by great silver pins, their heads set with anachite diamonds. Her gown was of cloth of silver with a knotted cord-work of black silk embroidery everywhere decked with little moonstones, and over it she wore a mantle of figured satin the colour of the wood-pigeon’s wing, tinselled and overcast with silver threads. White-skinned she was, and graceful as an antelope. Her eyes were green, with yellow fiery gleams. Daintily she ate the tart and wafers, sipping at whiles from a cup of amber, artificially carved, white wine cool from the cellars below Carcë; and a maiden sitting at her feet played on a seven-stringed lute, singing very sweetly this song:

“Aske me no more where Jove bestowes,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beautie’s orient deepe,
These flowers, as in their causes, sleepe.

Aske me no more whether doth stray
The golden atomes of the day;
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to inrich your haire.

Aske me no more whether doth hast
The nightingale when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters and keepes warme her note.

Aske me no more where those starres light,
That downewards fall in dead of night;
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become as in their sphere.

Aske me no more if east or west
The Phenix builds her spicy nest;
For unto you at last shee flies,
And in your fragrant bosome dyes.”

“No more,” said the lady; “thy voice is cracked this morning. Is none abroad yet thou canst find to tell me of last night’s doings? Or are all gone my lord’s gate, that I left sleeping still as though all the poppies of all earth’s gardens breathed drowsiness about his head?”

“One cometh, madam,” said the damosel.

The lady said, “The Lord Gro. He may resolve me. Though were he in the stour last night, that were a wonder indeed.”

Therewith came Gro along the terrace from the north, clad in a mantle of dun-coloured velvet with a collar of raised work of gold upon silver purl; and his long black curly beard was perfumed with orange-flower water and angelica. When they had greeted one another and the lady had bidden her women stand apart, she said, “My lord, I thirst for tidings. Recount to me all that befell since sundown. For I slept soundly till the streaks of morning showed through my chamber windows, and then I awoke from a flying dream of sennets sounding to the onset, and torches in the night, and war’s alarums. And there were torches indeed in my chamber