The Worm Ouroboros. E.R. Eddison
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already.”
“Two more!” said Gro. “Thy theoric crumbleth apace, O Corund. He hath two at a gulp, and but four remain.”
The Lord Corinius, whose countenance was now aflame with furious drinking, held high his cup and catching the Prince’s eye, “Mark well, La Fireez,” he cried, “a sign and a prophecy. First one; next two at a mouthful; and early after that, as I think, the four that remain. Art not afeared lest thou be found a spider when the brunt shall come?”
“Hast drunk thyself horn-mad, Corinius?” said the King under his breath, his voice shaken with anger.
“He is as witty a marmalade-eater as ever I conversed with,” said La Fireez, “but I cannot tell what the dickens he means.”
“That,” answered Corinius, “which should make thy smirking face turn serious. I mean our ancient enemies, the haskardly mongrels of Demonland. First gulp, Goldry, taken heaven knows whither by the King’s sending in a deadly scud of wind—”
“The devil damn thee!” cried the King, “what drunken brabble is this?”
But the Prince La Fireez waxed red as blood, saying, “This it is then that lieth behind this hudder mudder, and ye go to war with Demonland? Think not to have my help therein.”
“We shall not sleep the worse for that,” said Corinius. “Our mouth is big enough for such a morsel of marchpane as thou, if thou turn irksome.”
“Thy mouth is big enough to blab the secretest intelligence, as we now most laughably approve,” said La Fireez. “Were I the King, I would draw lobster’s whiskers on thy skin, for a tipsy and a prattling popinjay.”
“An insult!” cried the Lord Corinius, leaping up. “I would not take an insult from the Gods in heaven. Reach me a sword, boy! I will make Beshtrian cutworks in his guts.”
“Peace, on your lives!” said the King in a great voice, while Corund went to Corinius and Gro to the Prince to quiet them. “Corinius is wounded in the wrist and cannot fight, and belike his brain is fevered by the wound.”
“Heal him, then, of this carving the Goblins gave him, and I will carve him like a capon,” said the Prince.
“Goblins!” said Corinius fiercely. “Know, vile fellow, the best swordsman in the world gave me this wound. Had it been thou that stood before me, I had cut thee into steaks, that art caponed already.”
But the King stood up in his majesty, saying, “Silence, on your lives!” And the King’s eyes glittered with wrath, and he said, “For thee, Corinius, not thy hot youth and rebellious blood nor yet the wine thou hast swilled into that greedy belly of thine shall mitigate the rigour of my displeasure. Thy punishment I reserve unto tomorrow. And thou, La Fireez, look thou bear thyself more humbly in my halls. Over pert was the message brought me by thine herald at thy coming hither this morning, and too much it smacked of a greeting from an equal to an equal, calling thy tribute a gift, though it, and thou, and all thy principality are mine by right to deal with as seems me good. Yet did I bear with thee: unwisely, as I think, since thy pertness nourished by my forbearance springeth up yet ranker at my table, and thou insultest and brawlest in my halls. Be advised, lest my wrath forge thunderbolts against thee.”
The Prince La Fireez answered and said, “Keep frowns and threats for thine offending thralls, O King, since me they aifright not, and I laugh them to scorn. Nor am I careful to answer thine injurious words; since well thou knowest my old friendship unto thine house, O King, and unto Witchland, and by what bands of marriage I am bound in love to the Lord Corund, to whom I gave my lady sister. If it suit not my stomach to proclaim like a servile minister thy suzerainty, yet needest thou not to carp at this, since thy tribute is paid thee, ay, and in over-measure. But unto Demonland am I bound, as all the world knoweth, and sooner shalt thou prevail upon the lamps of heaven to come down and fight for thee against the Demons than upon me. And unto Corinius that so boasteth I say that Demonland hath ever been too hard for you Witches. Goldry Bluszco and Brandoch Daha have shown you this. This is my counsel unto thee, O King, to make peace with Demonland: my reasons, first that thou hast no just cause of quarrel with them, next (and this should sway thee more) that if thou persist in fighting against them it will be the ruin of thee and of all Witchland.”
The King bit his fingers with signs of wonderful anger, and for a minute’s time no sound was in that hall. Only Corund spake privately to the King saying, “Lord, O for all sakes swallow your royal rage. You may whip him when my son Hacmon returneth, but till then he outnumbers us, and your own party so overwhelmed with wine that, trust me, I would not adventure the price of a turnip on our chances if it come to fighting.”
Troubled at heart was Corund, for well he knew how dear beyond account his lady wife held the keeping of the peace betwixt La Fireez and the Witches.
In this moment Corsus, somewhat roused in an evil hour out of lethargy by the loud talk and movement, began to sing:
When all the prisons hereabout
Have justled all their prisoners out.
Because indeed they have no cause
To keepe ’em in by common laws.
Whereat Corinius, in whom wine and quarrelling and the King’s rebukes had lighted a fire of reckless and outrageous malice before which all counsels of prudence or policy were dissipated like wax in a furnace, shouted loudly, “Wilt see our prisoners, Prince, i’ the old banquet hall, to prove thyself an ass?”
“What prisoners?” cried the Prince, springing to his feet. “Hell’s furies! I am weary of these dark equivocations and will know the truth.”
“Why wilt thou rage so beastly?” said the King. “The man is drunk. No more wild words.”
“Thou canst not daff me so. I will know the truth,” said La Fireez.
“So thou shalt,” said Corinius. “This it is, that we Witches be better men than thou and thy hen-hearted Pixies, and better men than the accursed Demons. No need to hide it further. Two of that brood we have laid by the heels, and nailed ’em up on the wall of the old banquet hall, as farmers nail up weasels and polecats on a barn door. And there shall they bide till they be dead: Juss and Brandoch Daha.”
“O most villanous lie!” said the King. “I’ll have thee hewn in pieces.”
But Corinius said, “I nurse your honour, O King. We must no longer skulk before these Pixies.”
“Thou diest for it,” said the King, “and it is a lie.”
Now was dead silence for a space. At last the Prince sat down slowly. His face was white and drawn, and he spake unto the King, slowly and in a quiet voice: “O King, that I was somewhat hot with you, forgive me. And if I have omitted any form of allegiance due to you, think rather that in my blood it is to chafe at such ceremonies than that I had any lack of friendship unto you or ever dreamed of questioning your over-lordship. Aught that you shall require of me and that lieth with mine honour, aught of ceremony or fealty, will I with joy perform. And, save against Demonland, is my sword ready against your enemies. But here, O King, tottereth a tower ready to fall athwart our friendship and pash it in pieces. It is known to you, O King, and to all the lords of Witchiand, that my bones were whitening these six years in Impland the More if Lord Juss had not saved me from the barbarous Imps that followed Fax Fay Faz, who besieged me four months with my small following shut up in Lida Nanguna. My friendship shall you have, O King, if you yield me up my friends.”
But the King said, “I have not thy friends.”
“Show me then the old banquet hall,” said the Prince.
The King said, “I will show it thee anon.”
“I will see it now,” said the Prince, and he rose from his seat.
“I will dissemble with thee no longer,” said the King. “I do love thee well. But when thou askest me to yield up to thee Juss and Brandoch Daha, thou askest a thing all Pixyland and thy dear heart’s blood