The Mezentian Gate. E. Eddison R.
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way home they might deliver it to him and (if he were of like mind) join him in this offer.
The princes sat in Eldir, last week of June, to consider of their envoys’ report. Judging the business, upon examination, to be a chestnut not easy to unhusk, or with unpricked fingers, they thought fittest to accept the proffer of parley. Accordingly, after delays which all had show of reason but had origin, most of them, in Argyanna or Laimak, upon the twenty-fifth of August, in the wayside inn at Mornagay, both sides met.
The Lord Emmius Parry, arm in arm with his brother upon the stairs in their way up to the chamber where their conference should be, stayed him a moment (the others being gone before). ‘You took all means that the answer, on that matter of yours, should be brought hither? Not miss you by going past us to Laimak?’
‘All means. I am not a fool.’
‘I like it not, seeing, by our last intelligence ’twas directly said the letter but waited signature and should be sent you by speedy hand within twenty-four hours from them. This, in Laimak yesterday afore breakfast. A master card to deal unto them today, held we but that in our hand.’
‘I’ve plied every mean to hasten it, this two months past,’ said Supervius. ‘Much against my own nature, too: Satan sain them, sire and filly both. Ay, and I do begin to think I did ill to follow your counsel there, brother.’
Emmius laughed. ‘I may come upon you for this hereafter.’
‘To cap and knee them, like some rascally suitor for a chipping; and so be thus trained. Even to putting away of my wife, too, not to miss of this golden chance, and she at the long last with child; and nought but black looks so from my uncle Sidonius, for that slight upon his daughter. ’Twas ill done. Would it were undone.’
‘Go, I would have you resolute and patient: not as thus, full of vertibility. Nothing was lost for asking, and this an addition most worth your waiting for.’
Being set, they now fell to business. The princes, using mediocrity and eschewing all kind of provocation, first argued their case. Supervius, in answer, spoke much, full of compliment indeed but with small show of compliancy: later, when, leaving generalities, they fell to disputing of particular facts, he spoke little: Emmius, here a word and there a word. When they had thus spent near two hours but to tiffle about the matter, Prince Keriones, as a man wearied past bearing of these jugglings and equivocations, laid the question plump and fair: Were the Parry resolved to content them with nought less than leave things where they stood: Mereus in Lailma?
There was no answer. Supervius looked at the ceiling. ‘You are a harsh stepfather, when his own people would have him back, to wish to put him out again; and with our help, God save the mark!’ Emmius raised an eyebrow, then fell to tracing with his pen-point little jags and stars on the paper before him. Keriones repeated his question. ‘Briefly so,’ said Supervius, and thrust out his jaw.
‘Will you stand upon that, my Lord Emmius Parry?’ said the prince. And, upon Emmius’s shrugging his shoulders and saying, ‘At least it conveniently brings us back to a base on which we can, maybe, by further debate frame some mean toward agreement’, ‘Then,’ said the prince, gathering up his papers, ‘our work is but waste work, for we will not for our part any longer endure this thing.’
Supervius opened his mouth for some damageful rejoinder, but his brother, checking him with a hand upon his arm, made for both: ‘I pray you yet have patience awhile. Nor I nor my brother desire troubles in the land. But if, spite of that, troubles be raised, we are not unprepared; men may wisely beware how they stamp upon our peaceful stockinged feet, be it in the north there or nigher home.’
‘You think to cow us,’ said Keriones violently, ‘with threats of war? seeing that by fraud, art and guile you can no further? But you shall find that neither are we unprepared. Neither are we without friends to fight beside us, if needs must, in our just quarrel. Yea, friends right high and doubtable: out of Fingiswold, if you goad us to that. We will call in King Mardanus to aid us.’
There was a silence. One or two startled as if a rock had fallen from the sky. The Lord Emmius smiled, drumming delicately on the table with his fingers. ‘Our words, of both sides,’ he said at last, ‘out-gallop our thoughts: sign we are hungry. These be not matters to be swept up in a rage, as boys end a game of marbles. Let’s dine and forget ’em awhile. Then, with minds refreshed, chance our invention may devise a picture shall please us all.’
Kresander said beneath his breath, but Supervius, as catching the sense of it, reddened to the ears, ‘He that shaketh hands with a Parry, let him count the fingers a receiveth back again.’
But Keriones, his brow clearing (as though that rude discourtesy, contrariwise to its sense and purpose, wrought in him but to second Emmius’s pleasant words and with potenter force than theirs), said to Emmius, ‘You have counselled well, my lord. Truly, he that will argue matters of state on an empty belly hath his guts in his brains.’
While they waited for dinner, there were brought in spice-plates and wines. Emmius said, ‘I pray you do me that favour as to taste this wine. I brought it north on purpose for our entertainment. It is of Meszria, of their famousest vintage: a golden wine of Armash.’ With his own hand he filled round the goblets from the jewelled silver flagon. ‘Prince Kresander, I’ll pledge you first: I know not why, unless ’tis because you and I have, of all of us, journeyed farthest to this meeting-place.’ With that, he drained his cup: ‘To our soon agreement.’ Kresander, flushing in the face with an awkward look, drained his. And now, carousing deep healths, the whole company pledged one another.
They dined lightly on what the inn afforded: capon, neats’ tongues, bacon pies, sallets, and round white cheeses pressed in the hill-farms above Killary. These things, with much quaffing down of wine, soon warmed them to quips and merriment, so that, dinner being done, they came again, with minds cleared and blood cooled, to their chief matter subject.
‘Ere we begin,’ said Emmius, ‘I would say but this. With what intent came we to this place, if not to seek agreement? Yet we spent the morning upon a dozen prickly questions, most of them not worth the reward paid to a courtesan for a night’s lodging, and yet each enough by itself to stir up the gall of some or other of us and set us by the ears. How were it now if we set about it another way: talk first on those matters whereon we are at one? And, most worth of all, this: that we will have no foreign hand meddling in Rerek. That is an old tried maxim, profitably observed by us in all our private differences whatsoever, and by our fathers, and fathers’ fathers.’
‘Your lordship has well and truly said,’ said Kresander; ‘as myself, most of all, should feel the mischief, were outlanders to come in upon us from that quarter. So much the more, then, behoveth some not to bring things to that pass that others may think it a less evil to fetch in help from without than to abide the injustices put upon them within the land.’
Emmius said, ‘Our private differences it is for us to untangle and set in order as we have had wont to: not by war, nor by threat of war, but by wise policy, giving a little back when need be, between ourselves. They cannot, unless we have ta’en leave of our sober wits, to be let hunt counter to that cardinal trending of our politic.’
‘What of Kessarey?’ said Keriones. ‘Was not that by war-stirring or war-threat? What of Telia? Nay, I cry you mercy, finish your say, my lord. I desire our agreement as much as you desire it.’
‘As much as that?’ Alvard said, behind his hand. ‘Mich ’em God dich ’em! Fine agreement there, then!’
‘Kessarey,’ replied Emmius Parry, ‘was anciently of Laimak; we but fetched it back where it belonged. Telia, by full franchise and liberties, chose their governor. We are here not to treat of things over and done with, but of this late unhappy accident in Lailma.’
‘Good,’ said Prince Keriones. ‘There’s yet comfort, if you say that. Afore dinner, it seemed you would have but one way in Lailma, and that your own way.’
‘No, no. I never said so. I never thought so.’
‘My Lord Supervius said it.’