Part 36
“Though it be very rhubarb to me,” said Corund, “shall I say nay to thee this tide? Not this tide, my Queen.”
“Thanks, dear my lord. Disarm him and bring him in if you may. The King shall not refuse us this to pardon his folly, when thou shalt have obtained this victory for him upon our enemies.”
The Lady Sriva might hear no more, harkened she never so curiously. But when they were now come to the stair foot, Corund paused a minute to try the buckles of his harness. His brow was clouded. At length he spake, “This shall be a battle mortal fierce and doubtous for both parties. ’Gainst such mighty opposites as here we have, ’tis possible: No more; but kiss me, dear lass. And if: tush, ’t will not be; and yet, I’d not leave it unsaid: if ill tide ill, I’d not have thee waste all thy days a-grieving. Thou knowest I am not one of your sour envious jacks, bear so poor a conceit o’ themselves they begrudge their wives should wed again lest the next husband should prove the better man.”
But Prezmyra came near to him with good and merry countenance: “Let me stop thy mouth, my lord. These be foolish thoughts for a great king going into battle. Come back in triumph, and i’ the mean season think on me that wait for thee: as a star waits, dear my lord. And never doubt the issue.”
“The issue,” answered he, “I’ll tell thee when ’tis done. I’m no astronomer. I’ll hew with my sword, love; spoil some of their guesses if I may.”
“Good fortune and my love go with thee,” she said.
Sriva coming forth from her hiding hastened to her mother’s lodging, and there found her that had just bid adieu to her two sons, her face all blubbered with tears. In the same instant came the Duke her husband to change his sword, and the Lady Zenambria caught him about the neck and would have kissed him. But he shook her off, crying out that he was weary of her and her slobbering mouth; menacing her besides with filthy imprecations, that he would drag her with him and cast her to the Demons, who, since they had a strong loathing for such ugly tits and stale old trots, would no doubt hang her up or disembowel her and so rid him of his lasting consumption. Therewith he went forth hastily. But his wife and daughter, either weeping upon other, came down into the court, meaning to go up to the tower above the water-gate to see the army marshalled beyond the river. And on the way Sriva related all she had heard said betwixt Corund and Prezmyra.
In the court they met with Prezmyra’s self, and she going with blithe countenance and light tread and humming a merry tune bade them good-morrow.
“You can bear these things more bravelier than we, madam,” said Zenambria. “We be too gentle-hearted methinks and pitiful.”
Prezmyra replied upon her, “’Tis true, madam, I have not the weak sense of some of you soft-eyed whimpering ladies. And by your leave I’ll keep my tears (which be great spoilers of the cheeks beside) until I need ’em.”
When they were passed by, “Is it not a stony-livered and a shameless hussy, O my mother?” said Sriva. “And is it not scandalous her laughing and jesting, as I have told it thee, when she did bid him adieu, devising only how best she might coax him to save the life of yonder chambering traitorous hound?”
“With whom,” said Zenambria, “she wont to do the thing I’d think shame to speak on. Truly this foreign madam with her loose and wanton ways doth scandal the whole land for us.”
But Prezmyra went her way, glad that she had not by an eyelid’s flicker let her lord guess what a dread possessed her mind, who had in all the bitter night seen strange and cruel visions portending loss and ruin of all she held dear.
• • • • •
Now, when dawn appeared, was the King’s whole army drawn out in battle array before the bridge-house. Corinius held command on the left. There followed him fifteen hundred chosen troops of Witchland, with the Dukes of Trace and Estreganzia, besides these kings and princes with their outlandish levies: the king of Mynia, Count Escobrine of Tzeusha, and the Red Foliot. Corsus led the centre, and with him went King Erp of Ellien and his green-coated sling-casters, the king of Nevria, Axtacus lord of Permio, the king of Gilta, Olis of Tecapan, and other captains: seventeen hundred men in all. The right the Lord Corund had chosen for himself. Two thousand Witchland troops, the likeliest and best, hardened to war in Impland and Demonland and the south-eastern borders, followed his standard, beside the heavy spearmen of Baltary and swordsmen of Buteny and Ar. Viglus his son was there, and the Count of Thramnë, Cadarus, Didarus of Largos, and the lord of Estremerine.
But when the Demons were ware of that great army standing before the bridge-gate, they put themselves in array for battle. And their ships made ready to move up the river under Carcë, if by any means they might attack the bridge by water and so cut off for the Witches their way of retreat.
It was bright low sunshine, and the splendour of the jewelled armour of the Demons and their many-coloured kirtles and the plumes that were in their helms was a wonder to behold. This was the order of their battle. On their left nearest the river was a great company of horse, and the Lord Brandoch Daha to lead them on a great golden dun with fiery eyes. His island men, Melchar and Tharmrod, with Kamerar of Stropardon and Styrkmir and Stypmar, were the chief captains that rode with him to that battle. Next to these came the heavy troops from the east, and the Lord Juss himself their leader on a tall fierce big-boned chestnut. About him was his picked bodyguard of horse, with Bremery of Shaws their captain; and in his battle were these chiefs besides: Astar of Rettray and Gismor Gleam of Justdale and Peridor of Sule. Lord Spitfire led the centre, and with him Fendor of Shalgreth, and Emeron, and the men of Dalney, great spearmen; also the Duke of Azumel, sometime allied with Witchland. There went also with him the Lord Gro, that scanned still those ancient walls with a heavy heart, thinking on the great King within, and with what mastery of intellect and will he ruled those dark turbulent and bloody men who bare sway under him; thinking on Queen Prezmyra. To his sick imagining, the blackness of Carcë which no bright morning light might lighten seemed not as of old the image and emblem of the royal house of Witchland and their high magnificency and power on earth, but rather the shadow thrown before of destiny and death ready to put down that power for ever. Which whether it should so befall or no he did not greatly care, being aweary of life and life’s fevers, wild longings, and exorbitant affects, whereof he thought he had now learned thus much: that to him, who as it seemed must still adhere to his own foes abandoning the others’ service, fortune through whatever chop could bring no peace at last. On the Demon right the Lord Goldry Bluszco streamed his standard, leading to battle the south-firthers and the heavy spearmen of Mardardale and Throwater. With him was King Gaslark and his army of Goblinland, and levies from Ojedia and Eushtlan, lately revolted from their allegiance to King Gorice. The Lord Zigg, with his light horse of Rammerick and Kelialand and the northern dales, covered their flank to the eastward.
Gorice the King beheld these dispositions from his tower above the water-gate. He beheld, besides, a thing the Demons might not see from below, for a little swelling of the ground that cut off their view: the marching of men far away along the Way of Kings from the eastward: young Heming with the vassalry of Pixyland and Maltraëny. He sent a trusty man to apprise Corund of it.
Now Lord Juss let blow up the battle call, and with the loud braying of the trumpets the hosts of the Demons swung forth to battle. And the clash of those armies when they met before Carcë was like the bursting of a thundercloud. But like a great sea-cliff patient for ages under the storm-winds’ furies, that not one night’s loud wind and charging breakers can wear away, nor yet a thousand thousand nights, the embattled strength of Witchland met their onset, mixed with them, flung them back, and stood unremoved. Corund’s iron battalions bare in this first brunt the heaviest load, and bare it through. For the ships, with young Hesper Golthring in command most fiercely urging them, ran up the river to force the bridge, and Corund whiles he met on his front the onset of the flower of Demonland must still be shot at by these behind. Hacmon and Viglus, those young princes his sons, were charged with the warding of the bridge and walls to burn and break up their ships. And they of all hands bestirring them twice and thrice threw back the Demons when they had gotten a footing on the bridge; until in fine, both sides for a long space fighting very cruelly, it fell out very fatally against Hesper and his power, his ships all lighted in a lowe and the more part of his folk burned or drowned or slain with the sword; and himself after many and grievous wounds in his last attempt left alone on the bridge, and crawling to have got away was stabbed in with a dagger and died.
After this the ships fell back down the river, so many as might avail thereto, and those sons of Corund, their task manfully fulfilled, came forth with their folk to join in the main battle. And the smoke of the burning ships was like incense in the nostrils of the King watching these things from his tower above the water-gate.
Little pause was there betwixt this first brunt and the next, for Heming now bare down from the east, drave in Zigg’s horsemen that were hampered in the heavy ground, and pressed his onset home on the Demon right. Along the whole line from Corund’s post beside the river to the eastern flank where Heming joined Corinius the Witches now set on most fiercely; and now were the odds of numbers, which were at first against them, swung mightily in their favour, and under this great side-blow on his flank not all the Lord Goldry Bluszco’s soldiership nor all the terror of his might in arms could uphold the Demons’ battle-line. Yard by yard they fell back before the Witches, most gloriously maintaining their array unbroken, though the outland allies broke and fled. Meantime on the Demon left Juss and Brandoch Daha most stubbornly withstood that onslaught, albeit they had to do with the first and chosen troops of Witchland. In which struggle befell the most bloody fighting that was yet seen that day, and the stour of battle so asper and so mortal that it was hard to see how any man should come out from it with life, since not a man of either side would budge an inch but die there in his steps if he might not rather slay the foe before him. So the armies swayed for an hour like wrastlers locked, but in the end the Lord Corund had his way and held his ground before the bridge-gate.
Romenard of Dalney, galloping to Lord Juss where he paused a while panting from the violence of the battle, brought him by Spitfire’s command tidings from the right: telling him Goldry’s self could hold no longer against such odds: that the centre yet held, but at the next onset was like to break, or the right wing else be driven in upon their rear and all overwhelmed: “If your highness cannot throw back Corund, all is lost.”
In these short minutes’ lull (if lull it were when all the time the battle like a sounding sea rolled on with a ceaseless noise of riding and slaying and the clang of arms), Juss chose. Demonland and the whole world’s destinies hung on his choice. He had no counsellor. He had no time for slow deliberation. In such a moment imagination, resolution, swift decision, all high gifts of nature, are nought: swift horses gulfed and lost in the pit which fate the enemy digged in the way before them; except painful knowledge, stored up patiently through years of practice, shall have prepared a road sure and clean for their flying hooves to bear them in the great hour of destiny. So it was from the beginning with all great captains: so with the Lord Juss in that hour when ruin swooped upon his armies. For two minutes’ space he stood silent; then sent Bremery of Shaws galloping westward like one minded to break his neck with his orders to Lord Brandoch Daha, and Romenard eastward again to Spitfire. And Juss himself riding forward among his soldiers shouted among them in a voice that was like a trumpet thundering, that they should now make ready for the fiercest trial of all.
“Is my cousin mad?” said Lord Brandoch Daha, when he saw and understood the whole substance and matter of it. “Or hath he found Corund so tame to deal with he can make shift without me and well nigh half his strength, and yet withstand him?”
“He looseth this hold,” answered Bremery, “to snatch at safety. ’Tis desperate, but all other ways we but wait on destruction. Our right is clean driven in, the left holdeth but hardly. He chargeth your highness break their centre if you may. They have somewhat dangerously advanced their left, and therein is their momentary peril if we be swift enough. But remember that here, o’ this side, is their greatest power before us, and if we be ’whelmed ere you can compass it——”
“No more but Yes,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “Time gallopeth: so must we.”
Even so in that hour when Goldry and Zigg, giving way step by step before superior odds, were bent back well nigh with their backs to the river, and Corund on the Demons’ left had after a bitter battle checked and held them and threatened now to complete in one more great blow the ruin of them all, Juss, choosing a desperate expedient to meet a danger that else must destroy him, weakened his hard-pressed left to throw Brandoch Daha and well nigh eight hundred horse into Spitfire’s battle to drive a wedge betwixt Corsus and Corinius.
It was now long past noon. The tempest of battle that had quietened awhile for utter weariness roared forth anew from wing to wing as Brandoch Daha hurled his horsemen upon Corsus and the subject allies, while all along the battle-line the Demons rallied to fling back the enemy. For a breathless while, the issue hung in suspense: then the men of Gilta and Nevria broke and fled, Brandoch Daha and his cavalry swept through the gap, wheeled right and left and took Corsus and Corinius in flank and rear.
There fell in this onset Axtacus lord of Permio, the kings of Ellien and Gilta, Gorius the son of Corsus, the Count of Tzeusha, and many other noblemen and men of mark. Of the Demons many were hurt and many slain, but none of great note save Kamerar of Stropardon, whose head Corinius swapt off clean with a blow of his battle-axe, and Trentmar whom Corsus smote full in the stomach with a javelin so that he fell down from his horse and was dead at once. Now was all the left and centre of the Witches’ battle thrown into great confusion, and the allies most of all fallen into disorder and fain to yield themselves and pray for mercy. The King, seeing the extent of this disaster, sent a galloper to Corund, who straightway sent to Corsus and Corinius commanding them get them at their speediest with all their folk back into Carcë while time yet served. Himself in the meantime, showing now, like the sun, his greatest countenance in his lowest estate, set on with his weary army to stem the advance of Juss, who now momently gathered fresh force against him, and to keep open for the rest of the King’s forces their way by the bridge-gate into Carcë. Corinius, when he understood it, galloped thither with a band of men to aid Corund, and this did likewise Heming and Dekalajus and other captains of the Witches. But Corsus himself, counting the day lost and considering that he was an old man and had fought now long enough, gat him privily back into Carcë as quickly as he was able. And truly he was bleeding from many wounds.
By this great stand of Corund and his men was time won for a great part of the residue of the army to escape into Carcë. And ever the Witches were put aback and lost much ground, yet ever the Lord Corund by his great valiance and noble heart recomforted his folk, so that they gave back very slowly, most bloodily disputing the ground foot by foot to the bridge-gate, that they also might win in again, so many as might. Juss said, “This is the greatest deed of arms that ever I in the days of my life did see, and I have so great an admiration and wonder in my heart for Corund that almost I would give him peace. But I have sworn now to have no peace with Witchland.”
Lord Gro was in that battle with the Demons. He ran Didarus through the neck with his sword, so that he fell down and was dead.
Corund, when he saw it, heaved up his axe, but changed his intention in the manage, saying, “O landskip of iniquity, shalt thou kill beside me the men of mine household? But my friendship sitteth not on a weather vane. Live, and be a traitor.”
But Gro, being mightily moved with these words, and staring at great Corund wide-eyed like a man roused from a dream, answered, “Have I done amiss? ’Tis easy remedied.” Therewith he turned about and slew a man of Demonland. Which Spitfire seeing, he cried out upon Gro in a great rage for a most filthy traitor, and bloodily rushing in thrust him through the buckler into the brain.
In such wise and by such a sudden vengeance did the Lord Gro most miserably end his life-days. Who, being a philosopher and a man of peace, careless of particular things of earth, had followed and observed all his days steadfastly one heavenly star; yet now in the bloody battle before Carcë died in the common opinion of men a manifold perjured traitor, that had at length gotten the guerdon of his guile.
Now came the Lord Juss with a great rout of men armed on his great horse with his sword dripping with blood, and the battle sprang up into yet more noise and fury, and great manslaying befell, and many able men of Witchland fell in that stour and the Demons had almost put them from the bridge-gate. But the Lord Corund, rallying his folk, swung back yet again the battle-tide, albeit he was by a great odds outnumbered. And he sought none but Juss himself in that deadly mellay; who when he saw him coming he refused him not but made against him most fiercely, and with great clanging blows they swapped together awhile, until Corund hewed Juss’s shield asunder and struck him from his horse. Juss, leaping up again, thrust up at Corund with his sword and with the violence of the blow brake through the rings of his byrny about his middle and drave the sword into his breast. And Corund felled him to earth with a great down-stroke on the helm, so that he lay senseless.
Still the battle raged before the bridge-gate, and great wounds were given and taken of either side. But now the sons of Corund saw that their father had lost much of his blood and waxed feeble, and the residue of his folk seeing it too, and seeing themselves so few against so many, began to be abashed. So those sons of Corund, riding up to him on either side with a band of men, made him turn back with them and go with them in by the gate to Carcë, the which he did like a man amazed and knowing not what he doeth. And indeed it was a great marvel how so great a lord, wounded to the death, might sit on horseback.
In the great court he was gotten down from his horse. The Lady Prezmyra, when she perceived that his harness was all red with blood, and saw his wound, fell not down in a swoon as another might, but took his arm about her shoulder and so supported, with her step-sons to help her, that great frame which could no more support itself yet had till that hour borne up against the whole world’s strength in arms. Leeches came that she had called for, and a litter, and they brought him to the banquet hall. But after no long while those learned men confessed his hurt was deadly, and all their cunning nought. Whereupon, much disdaining to die in bed, not in the field fighting with his enemies, the Lord Corund caused himself, completely armed and weaponed, with the stains and dust of the battle yet upon him, to be set in his chair, there to await death.
Heming, when this was done, came to tell it to the King, where from the tower above the water-gate he beheld the end of this battle. The Demons held the bridge-house. The fight was done. The King sat in his chair looking down to the battle-field. His dark mantle was about his shoulders. He leaned forward resting his chin in his hand. They of his bodyguard, nine or ten, stood huddled together some yards away as if afraid to approach him. As Heming came near, the King turned his head slowly to look at him. The low sun, swinging blood-red over Tenemos, shone full on the King’s face. And as Heming looked in the face of the King fear gat hold upon him, so that he durst not speak a word to the King, but made obeisance and departed again, trembling like one who has seen a sight beyond the veil.
XXXII: THE LATTER END OF ALL THE LORDS OF WITCHLAND
OF THE COUNCIL OF WAR; AND HOW THE LORD CORSUS, BEING REJECTED OF THE KING, TURNED HIS THOUGHTS TO OTHER THINGS; AND OF THE LAST CONJURING THAT WAS IN CARCË AND THE LAST WINE-BIBBING; AND HOW YET ONCE AGAIN THE LADY PREZMYRA SPAKE WITH THE LORDS OF DEMONLAND IN CARCË.
Gorice the King held in his private chamber a council of war on the morrow of the battle before Carcë. The morning was over-cast with sullen cloud, and though all the windows were thrown wide the sluggish air hung heavy in the room, as if it too were pervaded by the cold dark humour that clogged the vitals of those lords of Witchland like a drowsy drug, or as if the stars would breathe themselves for a greater mischief. Pale and drawn were those lords’ faces; and, for all they strove to put on a brave countenance before the King, clean gone was the vigour and war-like mien that clothed them but yesterday. Only Corinius kept some spring of his old valiancy and portly bearing, seated with arms akimbo over against the King, his heavy under-jaw set forward and his nostrils wide. He had slept ill or watched late, for his eyes were blood-shotten, and the breath of his nostrils was heavy with wine.
“We tarry for Corsus,” said the King. “Had he not word of my bidding?”
Dekalajus said, “Lord, I will summon him again. These misfortunes I fear me hang heavy on his mind, and, by your majesty’s leave, he is scarce his own man since yesterday.”
“Do it straight,” said the King. “Give me thy papers, Corinius. Thou art my general since Corund gat his death. I will see what yesterday hath cost us and what power yet remaineth to crush me these snakes by force of arms.”
“These be the numbers, O King,” said Corinius. “But three thousand and five hundred fighting men, and well nigh half of these over much crippled with wounds to do aught save behind closed walls. It were but to give the Demons easy victory to adventure against them, that stand before Carcë four thousand sound men in arms.”
The King blew scornfully through his nostrils. “Who told thee their strength?” said he.
“It were dangerous to write them down a man fewer,” answered Corinius. And Hacmon said, “My Lord the King, I would adventure my head they have more. And your majesty will not forget they be all flown with eagerness and pride after yesterday’s field, whereas our men——”
“Were ye sons of Corund,” said the King, breaking in quietly on his speech and looking dangerously upon him, “but twigs of your father’s tree, that he being cut down ye have no manhood left nor vital sap, but straight wither in idiotish dotage? I will not have these womanish counsels spoke in Carcë; no, nor thought in Carcë.”