Now he conducted her through his armouries where he kept his weapons and weapons for his fighting men and all panoply of war. There he showed her swords and spears, maces and axes and daggers, orfreyed and damascened and inlaid with jewels; byrnies and baldricks and shields; blades so keen, a hair blown against them in a wind should be parted in twain; charmed helms on which no ordinary sword would bite. And Juss said unto the Queen, "Madam, what thinkest thou of these swords and spears? For know well that these be the ladder's rungs that we of Demonland climbed up by to that signiory 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 joy in the harvest, to contemn the tools that prepared the land for it and reaped it."
While she spoke, Juss took down from its hook a great sword with a haft bound with plaited cords of gold and silver wire and cross-hilts of latoun set with studs of amethyst and a drake's head at either end of the hilt with crimson almandines 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 Gaslark to the gates of Carcë, four years gone by this summer, being clouded in my mind by the back-wash of the sending of Gorice the King. With this sword I fought an hour back to back with Brandoch Daha, against Corund and Corinius and their ablest men: the greatest fight that ever I fought, and against the fearfullest odds. Witchland himself beheld us from Carcë walls through the watery mist and glare, and marvelled that two men that are born of woman could 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 Esamocia and princes of the eastern main. With this sword I gat the victory in many a battle, and most glorious of all in the battle before Carcë 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 if pondering whether or no to gird it about his waist: then slowly turned to its place on the wall and hung it up again. He carried his head high like a warhorse, keeping his gaze averted from the Queen as they went out from the great armoury in Galing; yet not so skilfully but she marked a glistening in his eye that seemed a tear standing above his lower eyelash.
That night was supper set in Lord Juss's private chamber: a light regale, yet most sumptuous. They sat at a round table, nine in company: the three brethren, the Lords Brandoch Daha, Zigg, and Volle, the Ladies Armelline and Mevrian, and the Queen. Brightly flowed the wines of Krothering and Norvasp and blithely went the talk to outward seeming. But ever and again silence swung athwart the board, like a gray pall, till Zigg broke it with a jest, or Brandoch Daha 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.
The Lord Goldry Bluszco, 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 whiles he drank amain, and whiles he drummed his fingers on the table. The Lord Brandoch Daha leaned back in his ivory chair, sipping his wine. Very demure, through half-closed eyes, like a panther dozing in the noon-day, he watched his companions at the feast. Like sunbeams chased by cloud-shadows across a mountain-side 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 Impland seas, and how you came to Carcë and of the great battle that there befell, and of the latter end of all the lords of Witchiand and of Gorice XII. 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 Witchland are dead and gone because of whom and their tyranny earth bath groaned and laboured these many years."
Lord Juss, 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 Sophonisba, thou shalt hear it all." Therewith he told all that had befallen since they last bade her adieu in Koshtra Belorn: of the march to the sea at Muelva; of Laxus and his great fleet destroyed and sunk off Melikaphkhaz; of the battle before Carcë and its swinging fortunes; of the unhallowed light and flaring signs in heaven whereby they knew of the King's conjuring again in Carcë, 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 Witchland murthered at the feast, and nought left at last of the power and pomp and terror that was Witchland 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 dream, "Surely it may be said of these kings and lords of Witchland dead-
"These wretched eminent things
Leave no more fame behind 'em than 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."
With those words spoken dropped silence again like a pall athwart that banquet table, more tristful than before and full of heaviness.
On a sudden Lord Brandoch Daha stood up, unbuckling from his shoulder his golden baldrick set with apricot-coloured sapphires and diamonds and fire-opals that imaged thunderbolts. He threw it before him on the table, with his sword, clattering among the cups. "O Queen Sophonisba," said he, "thou hast spoken a fit funeral dirge for our glory as for Witchland's. This sword Zeldornius gave me. I bare it at Krothering Side against Corinius, when I threw him out of Demonland. I bare it at Melikaphkhaz. I bare it in the last great fight in Witchland. Thou wilt say it brought me good luck and victory in battle. But it brought not to me, as to Zeldornius, this last best luck of all: that earth should gape for me when my great deeds were ended."
The Queen looked at him amazed, marvelling to see him so much moved that she had known until now so lazy mocking and so debonair.
But the other lords of Demonland stood up and flung down their jewelled swords on the table beside Lord Brandoch Daha's. And Lord Juss spake and said, "We may well cast down our swords as a last offering on Witchland's grave. For now must they 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 mountebanks and fops, fit fellows for the chambering Beshtrians or the Red Foliot. O Queen Sophonisba, and you my brethren and my friends, that are come to keep my birthday with me to-morrow in Galing, 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 unto timeless ruin. Thinking that we, that fought but for fighting's sake, have in the end fought so well we never may fight more; unless it should be in fratricidal rage each against each. And ere that should betide, may earth close over us and our memory perish."