Текст книги "The Worm Ouroboros"

Автор книги: Эрик Рукер (Рюкер) Эддисон

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

Corund said, "It is well, O King."

The King said, "Captain general, what is our strength?"

Corinius answered, "Seventy and three were slain, and the others for the most part hurt: I among them, that am thus onehanded for the while. I will not engage to find you, O King, fifty sound men in Carcë."

"My Lord Corund," said the King, "thine eyes pierced ever a league beyond the best among us, young or old. How many makest thou yon company?"

Corund leaned on the parapet and shaded his eyes with his hand that was broad as a smoked haddock and covered on the back with yellow hairs growing somewhat sparsely, as the hairs on the skin of a young elephant. "He rideth with three score horse, O King. One or two more I give you for good luck, but if a have a horseman fewer than sixty, never love me more."

The King muttered an imprecation. "It is the curse of chance bringeth him thus pat when I have my powers abroad and am left with too little strength to awe him if he prove irksome. One of thy sons, O Corund, shall take horse and ride south to Zorn and Permio and muster a few score fighting men from the herdsmen and farmers with what speed he may. It is commanded."

Now was the afternoon wearing to evening when the Prince La Fireez was come in with all his company, and greetings done, and the tribute safe bestowed, and sleeping room appointed for him and his. And now ere all gathered together in the great banquet hall that was built by Gorice XI., when he was first made King, in the southeast corner of the palace; and it far exceeded in greatness and magnificence the old hall where Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha were held in duress. Seven equal walls it had, of dark green jasper, specked with bloody spots. In the midst of one wall was the lofty doorway, and in the walls right and left of this and in those that inclosed the angle opposite the door were great windows placed high, giving light to the banquet hall. In each of the seven angles of the wall a caryatide, cut in the likeness of a three-headed giant from ponderous blocks of black serpentine, bowed beneath the mass of a monstrous crab hewn out of the same stone. The mighty claws of those seven crabs spreading upwards bare up the dome of the roof, that was smooth and covered all over with paintings of battles and hunting scenes and wrastling bouts in dark and smoky colours answerable to the gloomy grandeur of that chamber. On the walls beneath the windows gleamed weapons of war and of the chase, and on the two blind walls were nailed up all orderly the skulls and dead bones of those champions which had wrastled aforetime with King Gorice XI. or ever he appointed in an evil hour to wrastle with Goldry Bluszco. Across the innermost angle facing the door was a long table and a carven bench behind it, and from the two ends of that table, set square with it, two other tables yet longer and benches by them on the sides next the wall stretched to within a short space of the door. Midmost of the table to the right of the door was a high seat of old cypress wood, great and fair, with cushions of black velvet broidered with gold, and facing it at the opposite table another high seat, smaller, and the cushions of it sewn with silver. In the space betwixt the tables five iron braziers, massive and footed with claws like an eagle's, stood in a row, and behind the benches on either side were nine great stands for flamboys to light the hail by night, and seven behind the cross bench, set at equal distances and even with the walls. The floor was paved with steatite, white and creamy, with veins of rich brown and black and purples and splashes of scarlet. The tables resting on great trestles were massy slabs of a dusky polished stone, powdered with sparks of gold as small as atoms.

The women sat on the cross-bench, and midmost of them the Lady Prezmyra, who outwent the rest in beauty and queenliness as Venus the lesser planets of the night. Zenambria, wife to Duke Corsus, sat on her left, and on her right Sriva, daughter to Corsus, strangely fair for such a father. On the upper bench, to the right of the door, the lords of Witchland sat above and below the King's high seat, clad in holiday attire, and they of Pixyland had place over against them on the lower bench. The high seat on the lower bench was set apart for La Fireez. Great plates and dishes of gold and silver and painted porcelain were set in order on the tables, laden with delicacies. Harps and bagpipes struck up a barbaric music, and the guests rose to their feet, as the shining doors swung open and Gorice the King followed by the Prince his guest entered that hall.

Like a black eagle surveying earth from some high mountain the King passed by in his majesty. His byrny was of black chain mail, its collar, sleeves, and skirt edged with plates of dull gold set with hyacinths and black opals. His hose were black, cross-gartered with bands of sealskin trimmed with diamonds. On his left thumb was his great signet ring fashioned in gold in the semblance of the worm Ouroboros that eateth his own tail: the bezel of the ring the head of the worm, made of a peach-coloured ruby of the bigness of a sparrow's egg. His cloak was woven of the skins of black cobras stitched together with gold wire, its lining of black silk sprinkled with dust of gold. The iron crown of Witchland weighed on his brow, the claws of the crab erect like horns; and the sheen of its jewels was many-coloured like the rays of Sirius on a clear night of frost and wind at Yule-tide.

The Prince La Fireez went in a mantle of black sendaline sprinkled everywhere with spangles of gold, and the tunic beneath it of rich figured silk dyed deep purple of the Pasque flower. From the golden circlet on his head two wings sprung aloft exquisitely fashioned in plates of beaten copper veneered with jewels and enamels and plated with precious metals to the semblance of the wings of the oleander hawk-moth. He was something below the common height, but stout and strong and sturdily knit, with red crisp curly hair, broad-faced and ruddy, cleanshaved, with high wide-nostrilled nose and bushy red heavy eyebrows, whence his eyes, most like his lady sister's, sea-green and fiery, shot glances like a lion's.

When the King was come into his high seat, with Corund and Corinius on his left and right in honour of their great deeds of arms, and La Fireez facing him in the high seat on the lower bench, the thralls made haste to set forth dishes of pickled grigs and oysters in the shell, and whilks, snails, and cockles fried in olive oil and swimming in red and white hippocras. And the feasters delayed not to fall to on these dainties, while the cupbearer bore round a mighty bowl of beaten gold filled with sparkling wine the hue of the yellow sapphire, and furnished with six golden ladles resting their handles in six half– moon shaped nicks in the rim of that great bowl. Each guest when the bowl was brought to him must brim his goblet with the ladle, and drink unto the glory of Witchland and the rulers thereof.

Somewhat greenly looked Corinius on the Prince, and whispering Heming, Corund's son, in the ear, who sat next him, he said, "True it is that La Fireez is the showiest of men in all that belongeth to gear and costly array. Mark with what ridiculous excess he affecteth Demonland in the great store of jewels he flaunteth, and with what an apish insolence he sitteth at the board. Yet this lobcock liveth only by our sufferance, and I see a hath not forgot to bring with him to Witchland the price of our hand withheld from twisting of his neck."

Now were borne round dishes of carp, pilchards, and lobsters, and thereafter store enow of meats: a fat kid roasted whole and garnished with peas on a spacious silver charger, kid pasties, plates of neats' tongues and sweetbreads, sucking rabbits injellies, hedgehogs baked in their skins, hogs' haslets, carbonadoes, chitterlings, and dormouse pies. These and other luscious meats were borne round continually by thralls who moved silent on bare feet; and merry waxed the talk as the edge of hunger became blunted a little, and the cockles of men's hearts were warmed with wine.

"What news in Witchland?" asked La Fireez.

"I have heard nought newer," said the King, "than the slaying of Gaslark." And the King recounted the battle in the night, setting forth as in a frank and open honesty every particular of numbers, times, and comings and goings; save that none might have guessed from his tale that any of Demonland had part or interest in that battle.

La Fireez said, "Strange it is that he should so attack you. An enemy might smell some cause behind it."

"Our greatness," said Corinius, looking haughtily at him, "is a lamp whereat other moths than he have been burnt. I count it no strange matter at all."

Prezmyra said, "Strange indeed, were it any but Gaslark. But sure with him no wild sudden fancy were too light but it should chariot him like thistle-down to storm heaven itself."

"A bubble of the air, madam: all fine colours without and empty wind within. I have known other such," said Corinius, still resting his gaze with studied insolence on the Prince.

Prezmyra's eye danced. "O my Lord Corinius," said she, "change first thine own fashion, I pray thee, ere thou convince gay attire of inward folly, lest beholding thee we misdoubt thy precept-or thy wisdom."

Corinius drank his cup to the drains and laughed. Somewhat reddened was his insolent handsome face about the cheeks and shaven jowl, for surely was none in that hall more richly apparelled than he. His ample chest was cased in a jerkin of untanned buckskin plated with silver scales, and he wore a collar of gold that was rough with smaragds and a long cloak of sky-blue silk brocade lined with cloth of silver. On his left wrist was a mighty ring of gold, and on his head a wreath of black bryony and sleeping nightshade. Gro whispered Corund in the ear, "He bibbeth it down apace, and the hour is yet early. This presageth trouble, since ever with him indiscretion treadeth hard on the heels of surliness as he waxeth drunken."

Corund grunted assent, saying aloud, "To all peaks of fame might Gaslark have climbed, but for this same rashness. Nought more pitiful hath been heard to tell of than his great sending into Impland, ten years ago, when, on a sudden conceit that a should lay all Impland under him and become the greatest king in all the world, he hired Zeldornius and Helteranius and Jalcanaius Fostus-"

"The three most notable captains found on earth," said La Fireez.

"Nothing is more true," said Corund. "These he hired, and brought 'em ships and soldiers and horses and such a clutter of engines of war as hath not been seen these hundred years, and sent 'em-whither? To the rich and pleasant lands of Beshtria? No. To Demonland? Not a whit. To this Witchland, where with a twentieth part the power a bath now risked all and suffered death and doom? No! but to yonder hell– besmitten wilderness of Upper Impland, treeless, waterless, not a soul to pay him tribute had he laid it under him save wandering bands of savage Imps, with more bugs on their bodies than pence in their purses, I warrant you. Or was he minded to be king among the divels of the air, ghosts, and hob-thrushes that be found in that desert?"

"Without controversy there be seventeen several sorts of divels on the Moruna," said Corsus, very loud and sudden, so that all turned to look on him; "fiery divels, divels of the air, terrestrial divels, as you may say, and watery divels, and subterranean divels. Without controversy there be seven seen sorts, seventeen several sorts of hob– thrushes, and several sorts of divels, and if the humour took me I could name them all by rote."

Wondrous solemn was the heavy face of Corsus, his eyes, baggy underneath and somewhat bloodshed, his pendulous cheeks, thick blubber upper-lip, and bristly gray moustachios and whiskers. He had eaten, mainly to provoke thirst, pickled olives, capers, salted almonds, anchovies, fumadoes, and pilchards fried with mustard, and now awaited the salt chine of beef to be a pillow and a resting place for new potations.

The Lady Zenambria asked, "Knoweth any for certain what fate befell Jalcanaius and Helteranius and Zeldornius and their armies?"

"Heard I not," said Prezmyra, "that they were led by Will-o'-the-Wisps to the regions Hyperborean, and there made kings?"

"Told thee by the madge-howlet, I fear me, sister," said La Fireez. "Whenas I fared through Impland the More, six years ago, there was many a wild tale told me hereof, but nought within credit."

Now was the chine served in amid shallots on a great dish of gold, borne by four serving men, so weighty was the dish and its burden. Some light there glowed in the dull eye of Corsus to see it come, and Corund rose up with brimming goblet, and the Witches cried, "The song of the chine, O Corund!" Great as a neat stood Corund in his russet velvet kirtle, girt about with a broad belt of crocodile hide edged with gold. From his shoulders hung a cloak of wolf's skin with the hair inside, the outside tanned and diapered with purple silk. Daylight was nigh gone, and through a haze of savours rising from the feast the flamboys shone on his bald head set about with thick grizzled curls, and on his keen gray eyes, and his long and bushy beard. He cried, "Give me a rouse, my lords! and if any fail to bear me out in the refrain, I'll ne'er love him more." And he sang this song of the chine in a voice like the sounding of a gong; and all they roared in the refrain till the piled dishes on the service tables rang:

Bring out the Old Chyne, the Cold Chyne to me.

And how lie charge him come and see.

Brawn tusked, Brawn well sowst and fine.

With a precious cup of Muscadine:

How shall I sing, how shall I look,

In honour of the Master-Cook?

The Pig shall turn round and answer me.

Canst thou spare me a shoulder? a wy, a wy.

The Duck, Goose, and Capon, good fellows all three.

Shall dance thee an antick, so shall the Turkey:

But O! the Cold Chyne, the Cold Chyne for me:

How shall I sing, how shall I look,

In honour of the Master-Cook?

With brewis lie noynt thee from head to th' heel.

Shal make thee run nimbler than the new oyld wheel;

With Pye-crust wee'l make thee

The eighth wise man to be;

But O! the Old Chyne, the Cold Chyne for me:

How shall I sing, how shall I look,

In honour of the Master-Cook?

When the chine was carved and the cups replenished, the King issued command saying, "Call hither my dwarf, and let him act his antick gestures before us."

Therewith came the dwarf into the hall, mopping and mowing, clad in a sleeveless jerkin of striped yellow and red mockado. And his long and nerveless tail dragged on the floor behind him.

"Somewhat fulsome is this dwarf," said La Fireez.

"Speak within door, Prince," said Corinius. "Know'st not his quality? A hath been envoy extraordinary from King Gorice XI. of memory ever glorious unto Lord Juss in Galing and the lords of Demonland. And 'twas the greatest courtesy we could study to do them, to send 'em this looby for our ambassador."

The dwarf practised before them to the great content of the lords of Witchland and their guests, save for his japing upon Corinius and the Prince, calling them two peacocks, so like in their bright plumage that none might tell either from other; which somewhat galled them both.

And now was the King's heart waxen glad with wine, and he pledged Gro, saying, "Be merry, Gro, and doubt not that I will fulfil my word I spake unto thee, and make thee king in Zajл Zaculo."

"Lord, I am yours for ever," answered Gro. "But methinks I am little fitted to be a king. Methinks I was ever a better steward of other men's fortunes than of mine own."

Whereat the Duke Corsus, that was sprawled on the table well nigh asleep, cried out in a great voice but husky withal, "A brace of divels broil me if thou sayest not sooth! If thine own fortunes come off but bluely, care not a rush. Give me some wine, a full weeping goblet. Ha! Ha! whip i' away! Ha! Ha! Witchland! When wear you the crown of Demonland, O King?"

"How now, Corsus," said the King, "art thou drunk?"

But La Fireez said, "Ye sware peace with the Demons in the Foliot Isles, and by mighty oaths are ye bound to put by for ever your claims of lordship over Demonland. I hoped your quarrels were ended."

"Why so they are," said the King.

Corsus chuckled weakly. "Ye say well: very well, O King, very well, La Fireez. Our quarrels are ended. No room for more. For, look you, Demonland is a ripe fruit ready to drop me thus in our mouth." Leaning back he gaped his mouth wide open, suspending by one leg above it an hortolan basted with its own dripping. The bird slipped through his fingers, and fell against his cheek, and so on to his bosom, and so on the floor, and his brazen byrny and the sleeves of his pale green kirtle were splashed with the gravy.

Whereat Corinius let fly a great peal of laughter; but La Fireez flushed with anger and said, scowling, "Drunkenness, my lord, is a jest for thralls to laugh at."

"Then sit thou mum, Prince," said Corinius, "lest thy quality be called in question. For my part I laugh at my thoughts, and they be very choice."

But Corsus wiped his face and fell a-singing:

Whene'er I bib the wine down.

Asleepe drop all my cares.

A fig for fret.

A fig for sweat.

A fig care I for cares.

Sith death must come, though I say nay.

Why grieve my life's days with affaires?

Come, bib we then the wine down

Of Bacchus faire to see;

For alway while we bibbing be.

Asleepe drop all our cares.

With that, Corsus sank heavily forward again on the table. And the dwarf, whose japes all else in that company had taken well even when themselves were the mark thereof, leaped up and down, crying, "Hear a wonder! This pudding singeth. When with two platters, thralls! ye have served it o' the board without a dish. One were too little to contain so vast a deal of bullock's blood and lard. Swift, and carve it ere the vapours burst the skin."

"I will carve thee, filth," said Corsus, lurching to his feet; and catching the dwarf by the wrist with one hand he gave him a great box on the ear with the other. The dwarf squealed and bit Corsus's thumb to the bone, so that he loosed his hold; and the dwarf fled from the hall, while the company laughed pleasantly.

"So flieth folly before wisdom which is in wine," said the King. "The night is young: bring me botargoes, and caviare and toast. Drink, Prince. The red Thramnian wine that is thick like honey wooeth the soul to divine philosophy. How vain a thing is ambition. This was Gaslark's bane, whose enterprises of such pitch and moment have ended thus, in a kind of nothing. Or what thinkest thou, Gro, thou which art a philosopher?"

"Alas, poor Gaslark," said Gro. "Had all grown to his mind, and had he 'gainst all expectation gotten us overthrown, even so had he been no nearer to his heart's desire than when he first set forth. For he had of old in Zajл Zaculo eating and drinking and gardens and treasure and musicians and a fair wife, all soft ease and contentment all his days. And at the last, howsoe'er we shape our course, cometh the poppy that abideth all of us by the harbour of oblivion hard to cleanse. Dry withered leaves of laurel or of cypress tree, and a little dust. Nought else remaineth."

"With a sad brow I say it," said the King: "I hold him wise that resteth happy, even as the Red Foliot, and tempteth not the Gods by over-mounting ambition to his dejection."

La Fireez had thrown himself back in his high seat with his elbows resting on its lofty arms and his hands dangling idly on either side. With head held high and incredulous smile he harkened to the words of Gorice the King.

Gro said in Corund's ear, "The King hath found strange kindness in the cup."

"I think thou and I be clean out o' fashion," answered Corund, whispering, "that we be not yet drunken; the cause whereof is that thou drinkest within measure, which is good, and me this amethyst at my belt keepeth sober, were I never so surfeit-swelled with wine."

La Fireez said, "You are pleased to jest, O King. For my part, I had as lief have this musk-million on my shoulders as a head so blockish as to want ambition."

"If thou wert not our princely guest," said Corinius, "I had called that spoke in the right fashion of a little man. Witchland affecteth not such vaunts, but can afford to speak as our Lord the King in proud humility. Turkey cocks do strut and gobble; not so the eagle, who holdeth the world at his discretion."

"Pity on thee," cried the Prince, "if this cheap victory turn thee so giddy. Goblins!"

Corinius scowled. Corsus chuckled, saying to himself but loud enough for all to hear, "Goblins, quotha? They were small game had they been all. Ay, there it is: had they been all."

The King's brow was like a foul black cloud. The women held their breath. But Corsus, blandly insensible of these gathering thunders, beat time on the table with his cup, drowsily chanting to a most mournful air:

When birds in water deepe do lie.

And fishes in the air doe flue.

When water burns and fire doth freeze.

And oysters grow as fruits on trees-

A resounding hecup brought him to a full close.

The talk had died down, the lords of Witchland, ill at ease, studying to wear their faces to the bent of the King's looks. But Prezmyra spake, and the music of her voice came like a refreshing shower. "This song of my Lord Corsus," she said, "made me hopeful for an answer to a question in philosophy; but Bacchus, you see, hath ta'en his soul into Elysium for a season, and I fear me nor truth nor wisdom cometh from his mouth to-night. And this was my question, whether it be true that all animals of the land are in their kind in the sea? My Lord Corinius, or thou, my princely brother, can you resolve me?"

"Why, so it is received, madam," said La Fireez. "And inquiry will show thee many pretty instances: as the sea-frog, the sea-fox, the sea-dog, the sea-horse, the sea-lion, the sea-bear. And I have known the barbarous people of Esamocia eat of a conserve of sea-mice mashed and brayed in a mortar with the flesh of that beast named bos marinus, seasoned with salt and garlic."

"Foh! speak to me somewhat quickly," cried the Lady Sriva, "ere in imagination I taste such nasty meat. Prithee, yonder gold peaches and raisins of the sun as an antidote."

"Lord Gro will instruct thee better than I," said La Fireez. "For my part, albeit I think nobly of philosophy, yet have I little leisure to study it. Oft have I hunted the badger, yet never answered that question of the doctors whether he hath the legs of one side shorter than of the other. Neither know I, for all the lampreys I have eat, how many eyes the lamprey hath, whether it be nine or two."

Prezmyra smiled: "O my brother, thou art too too smoored, I fear me, in the dust of action and the field to be at accord with these nice searchings. But be there birds under the sea, my Lord Gro?"

Gro made answer, "In rivers, certainly, though it be but birds of the air sojourning for a season. As I myself have found them in Outer Impland, asleep in winter time at the bottom of lakes and rivers, two together, mouth to mouth, wing to wing. But in the spring they revive again, and by and by are the woods full of their singing. And for the sea, there be true sea-cuckows, sea-thrushes, and sea-sparrows, and many more."

"It is passing strange," said Zenambria.

Corsus sang:

When sorcerers do leave their charme. When spiders do the fly no harme.

Prezmyra turned to Corund saying, "Was there not a merry dispute betwixt you, my lord, concerning the toad and the spider, thou maintaining that they do poisonously destroy one another, and my Lord Gro that he would show thee to the contrary?"

"'Twas even so, lady," said Corund, "and it is yet in controversy."

Corsus sang:

And when the blackbird leaves to sing.

And likewise serpents for to sting.

Then you may saye, and justly too.

The old world now is turned anew:

and so sank back into bloated silence.

"My Lord the King," cried Prezmyra, "I beseech you give order for the ending of this difference between two of your council, ere it wax to dangerous heat. Let them be given a toad, O King, and spiders without delay, that they may make experiment before this goodly company."

Therewith all fell a-laughing, and the King commanded a thrall, who shortly brought fat spiders to the number of seven and a crystal wine– cup, and inclosed with them beneath the cup a toad, and set all before the King. And all beheld them eagerly.

"I will wager two firkins of pale Permian wine to a bunch of radishes," said Corund, "that victory shall be given unto the spiders. Behold how without resistance they do sit upon his head and pass all over his body."

Gro said, "Done."

"Thou wilt lose the wager, Corund," said the King. "This toad taketh no hurt from the spiders, but sitteth quiet out of policy, tempting them to security, that upon advantage he may swallow them down."

While they watched, fruits were borne in: queen-apples, almonds, pomegranates and pistick nuts; and fresh bowls and jars of wine, and among them a crystal flagon of the peach-coloured wine of Krothering vintaged many summers ago in the vineyards that stretch southward toward the sea from below the castle of Lord Brandoch Daha.

Corinius drank deep, and cried, "'Tis a royal drink, this wine of Krothering! Folk say it will be good cheap this summer."

Whereat La Fireez shot a glance at him, and the King marking it said in Corinius's ear, "Wilt thou be prudent? Let not thy pride flatter thee to think aught shall avail thee, any more than my vilest thrall, if by thy doing this Prince smell out my secrets."

By then was the hour waxing late, and the women took their leave, lighted to the doors in great state by thralls with flamboys. In a while, when they were gone. "A plague of all spiders!" cried Corund. "Thy toad hath swallowed one 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."