Thus spoke King Ulf from his tall throne builded of apple-wood with rivets of copper.
“His majesty,” replied the barons of Ecben, “speaks as a king should; and we of Ecben are well rid of an unbeliever who has offered any such affront to our most holy and excellent gods.”
“In fact, the man’s attitude toward religious matters was always dubious, where his morals were, alas, but too well known,” remarked the late archbishop of Ecben, as he hastily put on the robes of the high priest of Kuri.
And Ettaine bent toward her husband fondly. All happiness adorned Ettaine: she was as fair and merry as sunlight upon the sea: you saw that Ettaine was the most beautiful of all the women of this world.
“Delight of both my eyes,” said Queen Ettaine, “you speak as a king should. And, as for that Alfgar—!” A shrug rounded off her exact opinion.
PART TWO: Of Alfgar in His Journeying
“Loyalty is a Fine Jewel; yet Many that Wear it Die Beggars.”
Chapter VI. We Come to Davan
IT IS told that young Alfgar fared alone to the dark wood of Darvan. This was an unwholesome place into which, of their own accord, entered few persons whose intentions were philanthropic: yet Alfgar journeyed toward Darvan now that the summoning of Ettarre had led him out of the set ways of life. And it is told also that under the outermost trees of this forest sat a leper wrapped about with an old yellow robe so that his face might not be seen. Beside him, to the left side of this leper, was grazing a red he-goat.
This leper rang a little bell, and he cried out, “Hail, brother! and do you give me now a proper gift in the king’s name.”
“There are many kings,” said Alfgar, “and the most of them are no very notable creatures. Yet in so far that a king is royal, a dream rules in his heart: so must each king of men serve one or another dream which is not known to lesser persons.”
“Do you give me my asking, then,” the leper replied, with a dryness suited to his more practical trend of thought, “in the name of Ulf, that is King over Rorn and Ecben. For my hands are frail; they are wasted with my disease: and I cannot do all the destroying I desire.”
Alfgar said to this leper: “Ulf is but a little king, whom my cunning overthrew at Strathgor, and whom my pleasure raised up again in Ecben. Yet Ulf is royal, in that he would not forsake his gods, for all that they had forsaken him. Moreover, Ulf is my king now. And therefore I may not deny you.”
So then the leper told his asking, and for the moment Alfgar seemed unpleased. But he smiled by and by; and, in that grave and lordly manner of his, which merely rational persons found unendurable, young Alfgar said:
“To you that ask in my king’s name I must give perforce your asking. For I will not depart from the old way of Ecben. And besides, my hands have touched the hands of Ettarre, and in the touch of sword-hilts and of sceptres and of money bags there is no longer any delight.”
The leper then touched Alfgar’s hands, and straightway they were frail and shriveled. They became as the hands of an aged person. They shook with palsy, and all strength was gone out of the hands which had made an end of many warriors in the noisy press of battle.
Then yet another queer thing happened upon the edge of the wood of Darvan. It was that Ettaine and Ulf, and all the lords that yesterday had served King Alfgar, and all the houses and the towers of Tagd and Sorram and Pen Loegyr, and of every other town which was in Ecben, now passed by this unwholesome place in the seeming of brightly colored mists. And Alfgar wondered if these matters had ever been true matters, or if all the things which Alfgar had known in the days of his wealth and hardihood were only a part of some ancient dreaming. But the leper put off his yellow robe, and in the likeness of a very old, lean man he pursued these mists and tore and scattered them with strong hands.
Chapter VII. ‘The King Pays!’
SO WAS it Alfgar gave that which was asked in his king’s name, and the fallen champion passed as a weakling into the dark wood, and came near to the fires which burned in Darvan. They that dwelt there then swarmed about him, squeaking merrily,—
“The King pays!”
To every side you saw trapped kings in their torment, well lighted by the sputtering small fires of their torment, so that you saw each king was crowned and proud and silent. And to every side you saw the little people of Darvan inflicting all the democratic infamies which their malice could devise against these persons who had dared to be royal.
Alfgar went down beneath a smothering cluster of slender and hairy bodies, smelling of old urine, which leapt and cluttered everywhere about him, scrambling the one over another like playful rats. He could do nothing with the frail hands which the leper had given him, nor indeed could the might of any champion avail against the people of Darvan when they had squeaked,—
“The King pays!”
Then the trapped kings also cried out to him, with human voices:
“Have courage, brother! Our foes are little, but envy makes them very strong and without either fear or shame when they have scented that which is royal. There is no power upon earth which can withstand the little people of Darvan when once they have raised their hunting-cry, ‘The King pays!’ Have courage, brother! for time delivers all kings of men into the power of the little people of Darvan. It is great agony which they put upon us, and from all that which is mortal in us they get their mirth, filthily. But do you have courage, brother, for to that dream which rules in our hearts they may not attain, nor may they vex that dream; even the nature of that dream evades them; they may not ever comprehend or defile that very small, pure gleam of majesty which has caused us royal persons to be other than they are: and it is this knowledge which maddens the little people of Darvan. So do you have courage, as all we have courage!”
Meanwhile the little people of Darvan were getting their sport with Alfgar in disastrous ways. It is not possible to tell of that which was done to him, for they were an ingenious race. Yet he came through the wood alive, because upon him was the mark of the witch-woman whose magic is more strong than is that magic of time which betrays all kings of men into the power of the little people of Darvan.
So he came through that wood yet living. But behind Alfgar those kings of men that were his peers remained secure in the dark paradise of envy, and the little people of Darvan attended to all their needs.
Such faithful service did this little people render very gladly to every king, because of envy: which, with not ever failing charity, endows the most weak with nimbleness and venom, as though, through the keen magic of envy, the sluggish, naked, and defenceless earthworm had become a quick serpent; and which is long-suffering in the while that, like a cunning sapper, it undermines the ways of the exalted; and which builds aspiringly, beyond the dreams of any mortal architect, its bedazzling edifices of falsehood, very quaintly adorned with small gargoyles of unpleasant truths, and sees to it, too, that the imposing structure is well lighted everywhere with malign wit and comfortably heated with moral indignation; and which is a most learned scholar that writes the biographies of the brave, and is open-handed to reward the faithful also with lewd epitaphs; and which, with a noble patience, follows after its prey more steadfastly than any hound pursues its prey; and which piously deludes the over-pious, alike in mosques and in chapels and in synagogues and in pagodas, with a cordial faith that all their betters are by very much their inferiors, if but the truth were known; and which is more eloquent than any angel to deride the truth; and which pleasantly seasons gossip; and which, with its consoling droll whisper, colors the more permanent misfortunes of our kindred and nearer intimates with agreeability; and which weaves, with kinglike opulence, about all kings of men its luxuriant and gross mythology, of drunkenness and theft and lust; and which handsomely enlivens every gathering so often as envy appears under some one of those lesser titles such as this monarch over-modestly affects when envy goes incognito among mankind as zeal, or as candor, or as moral duty; and which yet retained in Darvan its dark paradise, wherein envy ruled without any check or concealment, and wherein the kings of men paid a fit toll to the king of passions for every sort of high endeavor.