The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (english readers txt) 📕

in head is one of the gretest that ever was since yt is to trampe

downe Daemonlande and once and for al to cutt thayr coames whose

crestes may daunger us, and thow art toe onderstande that withowt

extraordinair expenens of thy former merrits I wolde not commyt to the

so greate a chairge, and especially in such a tyme. And since al gret

enterpryses oughte to bee sodeynly and resolutely prosequuted,

therefore thys oughte to bee done and executed at furthest in harveste

nexte. Therefore yt is My commaundemente that thow Corsus take order

for the instant furnesshynge of shippes, seamen, souldiers, horsemen,

officiers, and pertyculer personnes, wepons, municions, and al other

necessaries whych is thought to be needfull for the armie and boast

whych shalbe levied for the sayd entrepryse, for whyche this letter

shalbe thy suffycyaunt warrant under My hande. Given under My signeth

of Ouroboros in My pallaice of Carcie thys xxix daie of may, beynge

the vii daie of My yeare II.

The King took wax and a taper from the great gold inkstand, and sealed

the warrant with the ruby head of the worm Ouroboros, saying, “The

ruby, most comfortable to the heart, brain, vigour, and memory of man.

So, ‘tis confirmed.”

In that instant when the wax was yet soft of the King’s seal sealing

that commission for Corsus, one tapped gently at the chamber door. The

King bade enter, and there came the captain of his bodyguard and stood

before the King, with word that one waited without, praying instant

audience, “And showed me for a token, O my Lord the King, a bull’s

head with fiery nostrils graven in a black opal in the bezel of a

ring, which I knew for the signet of my Lord Corsus that his lordship

beareth alway on his left thumb. And ‘twas this, O King, that only

persuaded me to deliver the message unto your Majesty in this

unseasonable hour. Which if it be a fault in me, I do humbly hope your

Majesty will pardon.”

“Knowest thou the man?” said the King.

He answered, “I might not know him, dread Lord, for the mask and great

hooded cloak he weareth. It is a little man, and speaketh a husky

whisper.”

“Admit him,” said King Gorice; and when Sriva was come in, masked and

hooded and holding forth the ring, he said, “Thou lookest

questionable, albeit this token opened a way for thee. Put off these

trappings and let me know thee.”

But she, speaking still in a husky whisper, prayed that they might be

private ere she disclosed herself. So the King bade leave them

private.

“Dread Lord,” said the soldier, “is it your will that I stand ready

without the door?”

“No,” said the King. “Void the ante-chamber, set the guard, and let

none disturb me.” And to Sriva he said, “If thine errand prove not

more honester than thy looks, this is an ill night’s journey for thee.

At the liftink of my finger I am able to metamorphose thee to a

mandrake. If indeed thou beest aught else already.”

When they were alone the Lady Sriva doffed her mask and put back her

hood, uncovering her head that was crowned with two heavy trammels of

her dark brown hair bound up and interwoven above her brow and ears

and pinned with silver pins headed with garnets coloured like burning

coals. The King beheld her from under the great shadow of his brows,

darkly, not by so much as the moving of an eyelid or a lineament of

his lean visage betraying aught that passed in his mind at this

disclosing.

She trembled and said, “O my Lord the King, I hope you will indulge

and pardon in me this trespass. Truly I marvel at mine own boldness

how I durst come to you.”

With a gesture of his hand the King bade her be seated in a chair on

his right beside the table. “Thou needest not be afraid, madam,” he

said. “That I admit thee, let it make thee assured of welcome. Let me

know thine errand.”

The fire of her father’s wine shuddered down within her like a low-lit

flame in a gust of wind as she sat there alone with King Gorice XII.

in the circle of the lamplight. She took a deep breath to still her

heart’s fluttering and said, “O King, I was much afeared to come, and

it was to ask you a boon: a little thing for you to give, Lord, and

yet to me that am the least of your handmaids a great thing to

receive. But now I am come indeed, I durst not ask it.”

The glitter of his eyes looking out from their eaves of darkness

dismayed her; and little comfort had she of the iron crown at his

elbow, bright with gems and fierce with uplifted claws, or of the

copper serpents interlaced that made the arms of his chair, or of the

bright image of the lamp reflected in the table top where were red

streaks like streaks of blood and black streaks like edges of swords

streaking the green shining surface of the stone.

Yet she took heart to say, “Were I a great lord had done your majesty

service as my father hath, or these others you did honour tonight, O

King, it had been otherwise.” He said nothing, and still gathering

courage she said, “I too would serve you, O King. And I came to ask

you how.”

The King smiled. “I am much beholden to thee, madam. Do as thou hast

done, and thou shalt please me well. Feast and be merry, and charge

not thine head with these midnight questionings, lest too much

carefulness make thee grow lean.”

“Grow I so, O King? You shall judge.” So speaking the Lady Sriva rose

up and stood before him in the lamplight. Slowly she opened her arms

upwards right and left, putting back her velvet cloak from her

shoulders, until the dark cloak hanging in folds from either uplifted

hand was like the wings of a bird lifted up for flight. Dazzling fair

shone her bare shoulders and bare arms and throat and bosom. One great

hyacinth stone, hanging by a gold chain about her neck, rested above

the hollow of her breasts. It flashed and slept with her breathing’s

alternate fall and swell.

“You did threaten me, Lord, but now,” she said, “to transmew me to a

mandrake. Would you might change me to a man.”

She could read nothing in the crag-like darkness of his countenance,

the iron lip, the eyes that were like pulsing firelight out of hollow

caves.

“I should serve you better so, Lord, than my poor beauty may. Were I a

man, I had come to you tonight and said, ‘O King, let us not suffer

any longer of that hound Juss. Give me a sword, O King, and I will put

down Demonland for you and tread them under feet.’”

She sank softly into her chair again, suffering her velvet cloak to

fall over its back. The King ran his finger thoughtfully along the

upstanding claws of the crown beside him on the table.

“Is this the boon thou askest me?” he said at length. “An expedition

to Demonland?”

She answered it was.

“Must they sail tonight?” said the King, still watching her.

She smiled foolishly.

“Only,” he said, “I would know what gadfly of urgency stung thee on to

come so strangely and suddenly and after midnight.”

She paused a minute, then summoning courage: “Lest another should

first come to you, O King,” she answered. “Believe me, I know of

preparations, and one that shall come to you in the morning praying

this thing for another. What intelligence soever some hath, I am sure

of that to be true that I have.”

“Another?” said the King.

Sriva answered, “Lord, I’ll say no names. But there be some, O King,

be dangerous sweet suppliants, hanging their hopes belike on other

strings than we may tune.”

She had bent her head above the polished table, looking curiously down

into its depths. Her corsage and gown of scarlet silk brocade were

like the chalice of a great flower; her white arms and shoulders like

the petals of the flower above it. At length she looked up.

“Thou smilest, my Lady Sriva,” said the King.

“I smiled at mine own thought,” she said. “You’ll laugh to hear it, O

my Lord the King, being so different from what we spoke on. But sure,

of women’s thoughts is no more surety nor rest than is in a vane that

turneth at all winds.”

“Let me hear it,” said the King, bending forward, his lean hairy hand

flung idly across the table’s edge.

“Why thus it was, Lord,” said she. “There came me in mind of a sudden

that saying of the Lady Prezmyra when first she was wed to Corund and

dwelt here in Carcë. She said all the right part of her body was of

Witchland but the left Pixy. Whereupon our people that were by

rejoiced much that she had given the right part of her body to

Witchland. Whereupon she said, but her heart was on the left side.”

“And where wearest thou thine?” asked the King. She durst not look at

him, and so saw not the comic light go like summer lightning across

his dark countenance as she spoke Prezmyra’s name.

His hand had dropped from the table edge; Sriva felt it touch her

knee. She trembled like a full sail that suddenly for an instant the

wind leaves. Very still she sat, saying in a low voice, “There’s a

word, my Lord the King, if you’d but speak it, should beam a light to

show you mine answer.”

But he leaned closer, saying, “Dost think I’ll chaffer with thee? I’ll

know the answer first i’ the dark.”

“Lord,” she whispered, “I would not have come to you in this deep and

dead time of the night but that I knew you noble and the great King,

and no amorous surfeiter that should deal false with me.”

Her body breathed spices: soft warm scents to make the senses reel:

perfume of malabathrum bruised in wine, essences of sulphur-coloured

lilies planted in Aphrodite’s garden. The King drew her to him. She

cast her arms about his neck, saying close to his ear, “Lord, I may

not sleep till you tell me they must sail, and Corsus must be their

captain.”

The King held her gathered up like a child in his embrace. He kissed

her on the mouth, a long deep kiss. Then he sprang to his feet, set

her down like a doll before him upon the table by the lamp, and so sat

back in his own chair again and sat regarding her with a strange and

disturbing smile.

On a sudden his brow darkened, and thrusting his face towards hers,

his thick black square-cut beard jutting beneath the curl of his

shaven upper lip, “Girl,” he said, “who sent thee o’ this errand?”

He rolled his eye upon her with such a gorgon look that her blood ran

back with a great leap towards her heart, and she answered, scarce to

be heard, “Truly, O King, my father sent me.”

“Was he drunk when he sent thee?” asked the King.

“Truly, Lord, I think he was,” said she.

“That cup that he was drunken withal,” said King Gonce, “let him prize

and cherish it all his life natural. For if in his sober senses he

should make no more estimation of me than