 33 Queen Sofenizba in Gaeling Of the entertainment given by Lord Jus in Demonland to Queen Sofenizba, fosterling of the gods, and of that circumstance which, beyond all the wonders fair and lovely to behold, shone her in that country, made her most to marvel, wherein is a rare example how in a fortunate world, out of all expectation, in the spring of the year, cometh a new birth. Now the returning months brought the season of the year when Queen Sofenizba should come according to her promise, to guest with Lord Jus in Gaeling, and so it was that in the hush of a windless, air-full dawn, the zimmy-ambient caravelle that bared the Queen to Demonland rode up the Firth to looking-haven. All the east was a bower for the golden dawn. Cartadza, sharp outlined as if cut in bronze, still hid the sun. And in the great shadow of the mountain, the haven and the lower hills, and the groves of Holmork and Strawberry Tree slumbered in a deep obscurity of blues and purples, against which the avenues of pink almond blossom and the white marble keys were bodied forth in pale, wakening beauty, imaged as in a looking-glass in that tranquillity of the sea. Nextward, across the Firth, all the land was aglow with the opening-day. Snow lingered still on the higher summits, cloudless, bathing in the golden light there stood against the blue, Dena, the forks of Nantra-Garnon, Pike or Shards, and all the peaks of the Thornback Range and Nevedale. Mourning laughed on their high ridges and kissed the woods that plung about their lower limbs, billowy woods, where rich hues of brown and purple told of every twig on all their myriad branches, thick and the fire with buds. White mists lay like coverlets on the water-medals, where Tiver-Randedale opens to the sea. On the shores of Bothry and Scaramsey, and on the mainland near the great bluff of Thremney's Hurk, and a little south of Owlswick, clear spaces among the birchwoods shod golden yellow, daffodils a bloom in the spring. They rode into the northernmost berth, and made fast to the caravelle. The sweetness of the almond trees was the sweetness of spring in the air, and spring was in the face of that queen as she came with her attendance up the shining steps, a little marklets circling about her or perching on her shoulders, she to whom the gods of old gave youth everlasting and peace everlasting in Kostra-Beloan. Lord Jus and his brethren were on the key to meet her, and the Lord brandocked a heart, their bowed in turn, kissing her hands and bidding her welcome to Demonland. But she said, not to Demonland alone, my lords, to the world again, and toward which of all earth's harbours should I steer, and toward which land, if not to this land of yours, who have by your victories brought peace and joy to all the world. Surely peace slept not more softly on the marooner in old days before the names of Goraes and which land were heard in that country, than she shall sleep for us on this new earth and Demonland, now that those names are drowned for ever under the whirlpools of oblivion and darkness. Just said, O Queen Sofenisba, desire not that the names of great men dead should be forgot for ever. Or should these wars that we last year brought to so mighty a conclusion to make us undisputed lords of the earth go down to oblivion with them that fought against us? But the fame of these things shall be on the lips and in the songs of men from one generation to another, so long as the world shall endure. They took horse and rode up from the harbour to the upper road, and saw through open pastures on to have a sure tongue. Lambs frisked on the dewy meadows beside the road. Blackbirds flew from bush to bush, larks trilled in the sightless sky, and as they came down through the woods to Beckfoot, wood-pigeons cooed in the trees, and squirrels peeped with beady eyes. The Queen spoke little. These and all shy things of the woods and field held her in thrall, charming her to a silence that was broken only now and then by a little exclamation of joy. The Lord Just, who himself also loved these things, watched her delight. Now they wound up the steeper cent from Beckfoot, and rode into Gailing by the Lion-Gate. The avenue of Irish use was lined by soldiers of the body-guards of Just, Gouldery and Spitfire, and Brandoc de Haar. These, in honour of their great masters and of the Queen, lifted their spears aloft, while trumpeters blew three fanfares on silver trumpets. Then to an accompaniment of loots and the oarboars and sitherns moving above the pulse of muffled drums, a choir of maidens sang a song of welcome, strewing the path before the Lords of Demonland and the Queen, with sweet white hyacinths and narcissus blooms, while the lad is mevrian and armour-line, more lovely than any Queens of Earth, waited at the head of the golden staircase above the inner court, to greet Sulfon Isber come to Gailing. A hard matter it were to tell of all the pleasures prepared for Queen Sulfon Isber and for her delight by the Lords of Demonland. The first day she spent among the parks and pleasure-gardens of Gailing, where Lord Just showed her his great lime avenues, his yew-houses, his fruit-gardens and sunk-gardens, and his private walks and bowers, his walks of creeping time, which being trodden on sends up sweet orders to refresh the treader, his ancient water-gardens beside the Brankdale Beck, wither the water-nifts resort in summer, and are seen under the moon singing and combing their hair with combs of gold. On the second day he showed her his herb-gardens, disclosing to her the secret properties of herbs, wherein he was deeply learned. There grew that zamalantician, which, being well beaten up with fat without salt, is sovereign for all wounds, and Dittany, which, if eaten, soon puts out the arrow and healeth the wounds, and not only by its presence stayeth snakes whosoever they be handed to it, but by reason of its smell carried by wind, and their smell at their die, and Mandragora, which being taken into the middle of an house, compeleth all evils out of the house, and relieveeth also headaches and produces sleep. Also he showed a sea-holy in his garden, that is born in secret places and in wet ones, and the root of it is as the head of that monster which men name the Gorgon, and the root twigs have both eyes and nose and colour of serpents. Of this he told a howl when taking up the root, a man must see to it that no sun shine on it, and he who would carve it must avert his head, for it is not permitted that man may see that root unharmed. The third day just showed the queen his stables, where were his war-horses and horses for the chairs, and for chariot-racing, stabled in stalls with furniture of silver, and much she marvelled at his seven white mares, sisters, so like that none might tell one from another, given him in days gone by by the priests of Artemis in the lands beyond the sunset. There were immortal, bearing eye-core in their veins, not blood, and the fire of it showed in their eyes like lamps burning. The fourth night, and the fifth, the queen was at Dreperby, guesting with Lord Goldry Bluscoe and the Princess Armourline, that were wedded in Zajezekulor last yule, and the sixth and seventh nights at Owlswick, and their spitfire made her lordly entertainment. But Lord Brandoc de Haar would not have the queen go yet to croathering, for he had not yet made fair again his gardens and pleasantries, and restored his rich and goodly treasures to his mind after their ill-handling by Carinius, and it was not his will that she should look on croathering-castle until all was there established new according to its ancient glory. The eighth day she came again to Gaeling, and now Lord just showed her his study, with his astral-herbs of Orycholk, figured with all the signs of the Zodiac and the mansions of the moon, standing a tall man's height above the floor, and his perspectives and gloves and crystals and hollow-looking glasses, and great crystal globes where he kept homonculi, whom he had made by secret processes of nature, both men and women, less than a span long, as beautiful as one could wish to see in their little coats, eating and drinking and going their ways in those mighty globes of crystal where his art had given them being. Every night, whether at Gaeling, Owl's, Wick or Draperby-Meyer, was feasting held in her honour, with music and dancing and merry-making and all the light, and poetical recitations and feats of arms and horsemanship, and masks and interludes, the like whereof hath not been seen on earth, her beauty and wit and all magnificence. Now was the ninth day come of the Queen's guesting in demon-land, and it was the eve of Lord Jus's birthday, when all the great ones in the land were come together, as four years ago they came, to do honour on the morrow unto him, and unto his brethren, as was their one to four time. It was fine bright weather, with every little while a shower to bring fresh sweetness to the air, colour and refreshment to the earth, and gladness to the sunshine. Jus walked with the Queen in the morning, in the woods of Moongoth Bottom now bursting into leaf, and after their midday meal showed her his treasuries cut in the live rock under Gaelin Castle, where she beheld bars of gold and silver piled like trunks of trees, unhewn crystals of ruby, chrysopraes or hyacinth, so heavy a strong man might not lift them. Stacks of ivory in the tusk piled to the ceiling, chests and jars filled with perfumes and costly spices, ambergris, frankincense, sweet-scented sandalwood and myrrh and spikenoid. Cups and beakers and eared wine jars and lamps and caskets made of pure gold, worked in chast with the forms of men and women and birds and beasts and creeping things, and ornamented with jewels beyond price, margarites and pink and yellow sapphires, smiragds and chrysoberrels and yellow diamonds. When the Queen had had her fill of gazing on these, he carried her to his great library, where statues stood of the nine muses about Apollo, and all the walls were hidden with books, histories and songs of old dares, books of philosophy, alchemy and astronomy and art-magic, romances and music, and lives of great men dead and great treatises of all the arts of peace and war with pictures and illuminated characters. Great windows opened southward on the garden from the library, and climbing rose-trees and plants of honeysuckle and evergreen magnolia clustered about the windows. Great chairs and couches stood about the open hearth, where a fire of cedar logs burned in wintertime. Lamps of moon-stones, self-effulgent, shaded with clody-green tourmaline, stood on silver stands on the table and by each couch and chair to give light when the dare was over, and all the air was sweet with the scent of dried rose-leaves kept in ancient bowls and vases of painted earthenware. Queen Soffin has besaid, My Lord, I love this best of all the fair things thou hast shown me in thy castle of Gaelin, here where all trouble seems a forgotten echo of an ill world left behind. Surely my heart is glad, O my friend, that thou and these other lords of demon-land shall now enjoy your goodly treasures and fair dares in your dear native land, in peace and quietness all your lives. The Lord just stood at the window that looked westward across the lake to the great wall of the scarf, some shadow of a noble melancholy hovered about his sweet dark countenance, as his gears rested on a curtain of rain that swept across the face of the mountain wall, half veiling the high rock summits. Yet think, madam, said he, that we be young of years, and to strenuous minds there is an unquietude in over-quietness. Now he conducted her through his armories, where he kept his weapons and weapons for his fighting men, and all panoply of war. There he shot her swords and spears, maces and axes and daggers, offrid and damascened and inlaid with jewels, burnies and bouldrocks and shields, blades so keen a hair-blown against them in a win should be parted in twain, charmed helms on which no ordinary sword would bite. And just said unto the queen, Madam, what thinkest there were these swords and spears? For know well that these be the ladders' rungs that we of demon land climbed up by, to that seniority and principality which now we hold over the four corners of the world. She answered, O my Lord, I think nobly of them! For an ill-part it were while we joined the harvest, to contend the tools that prepared the land for it and reaped it. While she spoke, just took down from its hook a great sword, with a half-bound with plaited cords of gold and silver wire, cross-hills of latunes set with studs of amethyst, and a drakes head at either end of the hilt with crimson almond-dines for his eyes, and the pommel a ball of deep amber-coloured opal with red and green flashes. With this sword, said he, I went up with gazelot to the gates of Karsie, four years gone by this summer, being clouded in my mind by the back-wash of the sending of Gerais the King. With this sword I fought an hour back to back with Brandoc de Haar, against Corund and Carinius and their earblest men, the greatest fight that ever I fought, and against the fearfulest odds, which land himself beheld us from Karsie walls through the watery mist and glare, and marvelled that two men that are born of woman can perform such deeds. He untied the bands of the sword, and drew it singing from its sheath. With this sword, he said, looking lovingly along the blade, I have overcome hundreds of mine-enemies, witches and ghouls, and barbarous people out of Impland and the Southern Seas, pirates of Esomorquia, and princes of the Eastern Main. With this sword I got the victory in many a battle, and most glorious of all in the battle before Karsie last September. There, fighting against great Corund in the press of the fight, I gave him with this sword the wound that was his death wound. He put up the sword again in its sheath, held it a minute as it pondering whether or not a gird it about his worst, then slowly turned to its place on the wall and hung it up again. He carried his head high like a war-horse, keeping his gaze averted from the queen as they went out from the great armory in Gaeling. Yet not so skillfully, but he marked a glistening in his eye that seemed a tear standing above his lower eyelash. That night was superset in Lord Just's private chamber, a light regale yet most sumptuous. They sat at a round table, nine in company, the three brethren, the lords brand of Bihar, Zeig and Vol, the ladies Amaline and Mevrian, and the queen. They floated the wines of Crothering and Novasp, and blithely went the talk to outward seeming. But ever and again silence swung a thwart the board, like a gray pall, till Zeig broke it with a jest, or Brandoc de Ha, or his sister Mevrian. The queen felt the chill behind their merriment. The silent fits came oftener as the feast went forward, as if wine and good cheer had lost their native quality and turned fathers of black moods and gloomy meditations. Lord Goldry Bluscoe, that till now had spoke little, spake now not at all, his proud dark face fixed in staid, pensive lines of thought. Spitfire too was fallen silent, his face leaned upon his hand, his brow bent, and whilst he drank a man, and whilst he drummed his fingers on the table. The lord Brandoc de Ha leaned back in his ivory chair, sipping his wine. Very demure, through half-closed eyes, like a panther dozing in the noonday, he watched his companions at the feast. Like sunbeams chased by cloud-shadows across a mountainside in windy weather, the lights of humorous enjoyment played across his face. The queen said, O my lords, you have promised me I should hear the full tale of your wars in Impland and the Implant Seas, and how you came to Caucy, and of the great battle that there befell, and of the latter end of all the lords of which land, and of Gourais the twelfth of memory accursed. I pray you let me hear it now, that our hearts may be gladdened by the tale of great deeds, the remembrance whereof shall be for all generations, and that we may rejoice anew, that all the lords of which land are dead and gone, because of whom on their tyranny earth has grown and laboured these many years. Lord Jus, in whose face when it was at rest she had beheld that same melancholy which she had marked in him in the library that same day, poured forth more wine and said, O Queen Sophanisba, thou shalt hear it all. Therewith he told all that had befallen since they last bade her adieu in Costa Belorne, of the march to the sea at Muelva, of Laxus and his great fleet destroyed and sunk off Melikafkas, of the battle before Carsey and its swinging fortunes, of the unhullowed light and flaring signs in heaven, whereby they knew of the king's conjuring again in Carsey, of their waiting in the night, armed at all points, with charms and amulets ready against what dreadful birth might be from the king's enchantments, of the blasting of the iron tower, and the storming of the hold in pitch darkness, of the lords of which land murdered at the feast, and naught left at last of the power and pomp and terror that was which land, save dying embers of a funeral fire, and voices wailing in the wind before the dawn. When he had done, the queen said, as if talking in a drink, surely it may be said of these kings and lords of which land dead, these wretched, eminent things leave no more fame behind them that should one fall in a frost and leave his print in snow, as soon as the sun shines it ever melts, both form and matter. But those words spoken, dropped silence again like a pall of thwart that banquet-table, more tristful than before, and full of heaviness. On a sudden, Lord Brandoc de Haar stood up, unbuckling from his shoulder his golden boulderic set with apricot-colored sapphires and diamonds and fire-opels that imaged thunderbolts. He threw it before him on the table with his sword, clattering among the cups. "'O Queen Soffernisba,' said he, there has spoken a fit funeral dirge for our glory as for which lands. This sword Zeldornius gave me. I bear it at crothering side against Carinius when I threw him out of demon-land. I bear it at Melikafkas. I bear it in the last great fight in which land. Thou wilt say it brought me good luck and victory in battle, but it brought not to me as to Zeldornius, this last best look of all, that earth should gap for me when my great deeds were ended.' The Queen looked at him amaz'd, marvelling to see him so much moved that she had known until now so lazy mocking and so debonair. But the other lords of which land stood up and flung down their jewelled swords on the table beside Lord Brandoc de Haas. And Lord just spake and said, We may well cast down our swords as a last offering on which land's grave, for now must their rust. Seamanship and all high arts of war must wither, and now that our great enemies are dead and gone, we that were lords of all the world must turn shepherds and hunters, lest we become mere mount-a-banks and fobs, if it fell us for the chambering bestrians or the red foleyot. O Queen Sofanisba, and you, my brethren, and my friends, that have come to keep my birthday with me to-morrow in Gaeling, what make ye in holiday attire? Weep ye, rather, and weep again, and clothe you all in black, thinking that our mightiest feats of arms and the high southing of the bright star of our magnificence should bring us on to timeless ruin, thinking that we, that thought but for fighting's sake, have in the end thought so well we never may fight more, unless ye should be in fratricidal rage each against each, and ere that should be tied may earth close over as in our memory perish. Mightyly moved was the Queen to behold such a violent sorrow, albeit she could not comprehend the roots and reason of it. Her voice shook a little, as she said, my lord just, my lord brand up to ha, and you other lords of demon-land, it was little in my expectation to find in you such a passion of sour discontent, for I came to rejoice with you, and strangely it sounded in my ear to hear you mourn and lament your worst enemies, but saw great hazard of your lives, and all your held dear struck down by you at last. I am but a maid and young in years, albeit my memory goes back two hundred springs, and ill it befiteth me to counsel great lords and men of war. Yet strange it seemeth if there be not peaceful enjoyment and noble deeds of peace for you, all your dares, who are young and noble and lords of all the world, and rich in every treasure and high gifts of learning, and the fairest country in the world for your deonative land. And if your swords must not rust, ye may bear them against the uncivil races of Impland, and other distant countries to bring them to subjection. But Lord Goldry Blusker laughed bitterly, O queen, he cried, shall the correction of feeble savages contend to these swords, which have ward against the house of Garice, and against all his chosen captains, that upheld the great power of Caucy, and the glory and the fear thereof? And Spitfire said, what joy shall we have of soft beds and delicate meats, and all the delights that be in many mountain-demon land, if we must be stingless drones, with no action to sharpen our appetite for ease? All were silent a while. Then the Lord just spoke, saying, O Queen Sophanisba, hast thou looked ever on a showery day in spring, upon the rainbow flung across earth and sky, and marked how all things of earth beyond it, trees, mountainsides and rivers and fields and woods, and homes of men, are transfigured by the colors that are in the bow? Yes, she said, and oft desire to reach them. We, said just, have flown beyond the rainbow, and there we found no fabled land of heart's desire, but wet rain and wind only, and the cold mountain side, and our hearts are a cold because of it. The Queen said, how old art thou, my Lord just, that thou speakest as an old man might speak? He answered, I shall be thirty-three years old tomorrow, and that is young by the reckoning of men. None of us be old, and my brethren and Lord Brandoc Dahar younger than I. Yet as old men may we now look forth on our lives, since the goodness thereof is gone by for us. And he said, Thou, O Queen, canst scarcely know our grief, for to thee the blessed gods gave thy heart's desire, youth for ever, and peace. Would they might give us our good gift, that should be youth for ever, and war, and unwaning strength and skill in arms? Would they might but give us our great enemies alive and whole again, for better it were we should run hazard again of utter destruction, than thus live out our lives like cattle fattening for the slaughter, or like silly garden-plants? The Queen's eyes were large with wonder. Thou couldst wish it, she said? Just answered and said, the true saying it is that a grave is a rotten foundation. If Thou shouldst proclaim to me at this instant the great King alive again, and sitting again in carcy, bidding us to the dread arbitrement of war, Thou shouldst quickly see, I told the truth. While just speck the Queen turned her gaze from one to another round the board. In every eye when he spoke of carcy she saw the lightning of the joy of battle, as of life returning to men held in a deadly trance. And when he had done, she saw in every eye the light go out. Like gods there seemed, in the glory of their youth and pride seated about that table, but sad and tragical, like gods exiled from wide heaven. None speck, and the Queen cast down her eyes, sitting as if wrapped in thought. Then the Lord just rose to his feet and said, O Queen Sofenizba, forgive us that our private sorrows should make us so forgetful of our hospitality, as weary our guest with a mirthless feast. But think, tears, because we know thee, our dear friend, we use not too much ceremony. For we will be merry with thee, whatever be tied thereafter. So they bared good night. But as they went out into the garden under the stars, the Queen took just aside privately and said to him, My Lord, since thou and my Lord brandook the hear came first of mortal men into Kostra-Beloan and fulfilled the weird according to pre-ordainment, this only hath been my desire, to further you, and to enhance you, and to obtain for you what you would, so far as in me lieth. Though I be but a weak maid, yet hath it seemed good to the blessed gods to show kindness unto me. One holy prayer may work things we scarce dream of. Wilt thou that I pray to them to-night? The last dear Queen, said he, Shall those estranged and divided ashes unite again? Who shall turn back the flood-tide of unalterable necessity? But she said, Thou hast crystals and perspectives can show thee things afar off. I pray bring them, and row me in thy boat up to moon me ahead, that we may land there about midnight, and let my Lord brandook the hear come with us and thy brothers, but let none else know of it, for that were but to mock them with a false dawn, if he should prove at last to be according to thy wisdom, O my Lord, and not according to my prayers. So the Lord just did according to the word of that fair Queen, and they rode her up the lake by moonlight, non-speak, and the Queen set apart in the boughs of the boat, in earnest supplication to the blessed gods. And there were come to the head of the lake there went a shore on a little spit of silver sand. The April night was above them, mild with moonlight. The shadows of the fells rose inky-black and beyond imagination huge against the sky. The Queen kneeled awhile in silence on the cold ground, and those lords of demon-land stood together in silence watching her. In a while she raised her eyes to heaven, and behold, between the two main peaks of the scarf, a meteor crept slowly out of darkness and across the night sky, leaving a trail of silver fire, and silently departed into darkness. They watched, and another came, and yet another, until the western sky above the mountain was ablaze with them. From two points of heaven they came, one betwixt the four claws of the lion, and one in the dark sign of cancer, and there that came from the lion was sparkling like the white fires of Regal or Altair, and there that came from the crab were halty-red like the luster of Antares. The lords of demon-land, leaning on their swords, watched these portents for a long while in silence. Then the travelling meteors ceased, and the steadfast stars shone lonely and serene. A soft breeze stirred among the olders and willows by the lake. The lapping waters lapping the shingly shore made a quiet tune. A nightingale in a coppice on a little hill sang so passionate sweet it seemed some spirit singing. As in a trance they stood and listened, until that singing ended, and a hush fell on the water, and wood, and lawn. Then all the east blazed up for an instant with sheet lightnings, and thunder growled from the east beyond the sea. The thunder took form so that music was in the heavens, filling earth and sky as with trumpets calling to battle. First high, then low, then shuddering down to silence. Jusson Brandoc the Har knew it for that great call to battle, which had prelude the music in that dark night without her palace in Costa Belon, when first they stood before her portal divine. The great call went again through earth and air, sounding defiance, and in its train new voices, groping in darkness, rising to passionate lament, hovering, and dying away on the wind, till not remained but a roll of muffled thunder, long, low, quiet, big with menace. The queen turned to Lord Juss. Surely her eyes were like two stars shining in the gloom. She said in a drowned voice, Thy Perspectives, my Lord! So the Lord just made a fire of certain spices and herbs, and smoke rose in a thick cloud full of fiery sparks, with a sweet, sharp smell. And he said, Not we, o' my lady, lest our desires cheat our senses, but look thou in my perspectives through the smoke, and say unto us what thou shalt behold in the east beyond the unharvested sea. The queen looked, and she said, I behold a harbour town, and a sluggish river coming down to the harbour, through a mirror set about with mud-flats, and a great waste of fenn stretching inland from the sea. In land by the riverside, I behold a great bluff standing above the fenns, and walls about the bluff, as it were a citadel, and the bluff and the walled hold perched thereon, or black like old night, and like throned iniquity sitting in the place of power, darkening the desolation of that fenn. The queen said, O' the walls throned down, or is not the great round tower south-westward throned down in ruin a thwart the walls? She said, All is hall and sound as the walls of thine own castle, my lord. Just said, Turn the crystal, o' queen, that thou mayest see within the walls if any persons be therein, and tell us their shape and seeming. The queen was silent for a space, gazing earnestly in the crystal. Then she said, I see a banquet-hole, with walls of dark green jasper speckled with red, and a massy cornice borne up by giants three-headed, carved in black serpentine, and each giant is bowed beneath the weight of a huge crab-fish. The hall is seven-sided. Two long-tables thereby and a cross-bench. There be Iambrasias in the midst of the hall, and flamboyes burning in silver stands, and revelers quaffing at the long-tables. Some dark young men black of brow and great of jaw, most soldier-like, brothers may have. Other with them, ruddy of countenance and kindlier to look on, with long brown mustachios. Another that weareth a brazen bernie and sea-green curdle, an old man he, with sparse gray whiskers and flabby cheeks, fat and unwieldy, not a cumbly old man to look upon. She ceased speaking, and just said, Whom thou seeest else in the banquet-hole, o' queen? She said, The flare of the flamboyes hide at the cross-bench. I will turn the crystal again. Now I behold two diverting themselves with dice at the table before the cross-bench. One is well-looking enough, well-knit, of a noble port, with curly brown hair and beard, and keen eyes like a sailor. The other seemeth younger in years, younger than any of you, my lords. He is smooth-sherved, of a fresh complexion and fair-curling hair, and his brow is wreathed with a festal garland, a most big, broad, strong and seemingly young man. Yet is there a somewhat maketh me ill at ease beholding him, but for all his fair countenance and royal bearing he seemeth displeasing in my eyes. There is a damazel there, too, watching them while they play. Showily dressed she is, and hath some beauty. It scarce can I commend her. And, ill at ease, on a sudden, the queen suddenly put down the crystal. The eye of Lord Brandoc the Heart twinkled, but he kept silence. Lord just said, More I entreat thee, o' queen, how the reek be gone, and the vision fade. Let this be all within the banquet-hole. Seeest thou not without? Queen Sophanes were looked again, and in a while said, There is a terrace, facing to the west, under the inner wall of that fortress of old night, and walking on it in the torchlight a man crowned like a king. Very tall he is, lean of body, and long of limb. He weareth a black doublet, bedisoned o'er with diamonds, and his crown is in the figure of a crabfish, and the jewels thereof outfares the sun in splendor. But scarce may I mark his apparel for looking on the face of him, which is more terrible than the face of any man that ever I saw. And the whole aspect of the man is full of darkness, and power, and terror, and stern command, that spirits from below earth must tremble at, and do his bidding. Just said, Heaven forefend that this should prove but a sweet and golden dream, and we work to-morrow to find it flown. They walketh with him, said the queen, in intimate converse, as of a servant talking to his Lord, one with a long black beard, curly as the sheep's wool, and glossy as the raven's wing. Pale he is as the moon in daylight hours, slender, with fine-cut features, and great dark eyes, and his nose hooked like a reaping-hook, gentle-looking and melancholy-looking, yet noble. Lord Brandoc de Haar said, See is there none, or queen, in the lodgings that be in the eastern gallery above the inner court of the palace? The queen answered, I see a lofty bed-chamber hung with aris. It is dark, save for two branching candlesticks of light burning before a great mirror. I see a lady standing before the mirror, crowned with a queen's crown of purple amethysts on her deep hair, that hath the color of the tipmost tongs of a flame. A man comeeth through the door behind her, parting the heavy hangings left and right. A big man he is, and looketh like a king, in his great wolf-skin mantle, and his kirtle of russet velvet with ornaments of gold. His bald head set about with grizzled curls, and his bushy beard flecked with gray speak him something past his prime. But the light of youth burns in his eager eyes, and the vigor of youth is in his tread. She turneth to greet him, told she is, and young she is, and beautiful, and proud first, and sweet first, and most gallant hearted too, and merry of heart too, if her looks belie her not. Queen Sophonisba covered her eyes, saying, My lords, I see no more. The crystal curdles within like foam in a whirl-pool under a high force in rainy weather. My eyes grow sore with watching. Let us roll back, for the night is far spent and I am weary. But just stared her and said, Let me dream yet a while. The double pillar of the world, that member thereof which we, blind instruments of inscrutable heaven, did shatter, restored again. From this time forth to maintain, I and he, his and mine, ageless and deathless for ever, for ever our high contention, whether he or we, should be great masters of all the earth. If this be but phantoms or queen, those to taste us to the very heart of bitterness, this we could have missed, unseen and unimagined, but not now. Yet how were it possible the gods should relent in the year's return? But the queen spoke, and her voice was like the falling shades of evening, pulsing with hidden splendour, as of a sense of awakening starlight alive behind the fading blue. This king, she said, in the wickedness of his impious pride, did wear on his thumb the likeness of that worm or roboros, as much as to say his kingdom should never end. Yet was he, when the appointed hour did come, thundered down into the depths of hell. And if now he be raised again, and his days continued, it is not for his virtue but for your sake, my lords, whom the almighty gods do love. Therefore I pray you, possess your hearts a while with humility, before the most high gods, and speak no unprofitable words. Let us row back. Dawn came golden-fingered, but the lords of Demonland lay a longer bed after their watch in the night. About the third hour before noon the presence was filled in the high-presence chamber, and the three brethren sat upon their thrones as four years ago they sat, between the golden hippogriffs, and beside them were thrones set for Queen Suffer Nisba and Lord Brandoc de Haar. All else of beauty and splendour in Gael and Castle had the Queen beheld, but not till now this presence chamber, and much she marveled at its matchless beauties and rare-writers, the hangings and the carvings on the walls, the fair pictures, the lamps of Moonstone and Escar Bunkel's self-affulgent. The monsters on the four-and-twenty pillars carved in precious stones so great that two men might scarce circle them with their arms, and the constellations burning in that firmament of Lapis Lazuli below the golden canopy. And when they drank unto Lord Jus the cup of glory to be, wishing him long years and joy and greatness for evermore, the Queen took a little cither and saying, O my Lord, I will sing a sonnet to thee, and to you, my lords, and to see Gert demon land. So saying, she smote the strings, and sang in that crystal voice of hers, so true and delicate, that all that were in that hall were ravished by its beauty. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? How art more lovely and more temperate? Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer's lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, and often is his gold complexion dimmed, and every fair from fair some time declines, by chance or nature's changing course untrimmed. But thy eternal summer shall not fade, nor lose possession of that fair thou ost. Nor shall death brag thou wondrous in his shed, and in eternal lines to time thou grossed. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee. When she had done, Lord just rose up very nobly, and kissed her hand, saying, O Queen Sophonisba, fosterling of the gods, shame us not with praises that be too high for mortal men. For well thou knowest what thing alone might bring us content, and is not to be thought that that which was seen at moon-mere-head last night was very truth indeed, and rather the dream of a night vision. But Queen Sophonisba answered and said, My Lord just, blaspheme not the bounty of the blessed gods, lest they be angry and withdraw it, who have granted unto you of demon-land from this day forth, youth everlasting, and unwaning strength, and skill in arms, and— But hark! she said, for a trumpet sounded at the gate, three strident blasts. At the sound of that trumpet-blown, the Lord's goldery and spit-fire sprang from their seats, clapping hand to sword. Lord just stood like a staggered gaze. Lord Brandoc de Haar sat still in his golden chair, scarce changing his pose of easeful grace, but all his frame seemed a light with action near to birth, as the active principle of light pulses and grows in the sky at sunrise. He looked at the Queen, his eyes filled with a wild-sum eyes. A serving man, obedient to just his nod, hastened from the chamber. All sound was there in that high-presence chamber in Geling, till in a minute's space the serving man returned with startled countenance, and, bowing before Lord Jus, said, Lord, it is an ambassador from which land and his train. He craved the present audience. End of Chapter 33 End of the Worm or Lobberos