III

 

 

 

TWO DAYS LATER KING CASMIR RETURNED TO THE SECRET ROOM. He plucked a feather from the belly of the stuffed blackbird and took it away to his private parlour, at the side of his bedroom. Lighting a candle from the fire, he thrust the feather into the flame, where it burned with little puffs of acrid smoke.

King Casmir watched the wisps dissipate into the air. He called: “Tamurello? Do you hear me? It is I, Casmir of Lyonesse.”

From the shadows spoke a voice: “Well then, Casmir: what now?”

“Tamurello? Is it you whom I hear?”

“What do you wish of me?”

“A sign that I truly speak with Tamurello.”

“Do you remember Shalles who now lies sightless in a ditch with his throat cut?”

“I remember Shalles.”

“Did he tell how he saw me?”

“Yes.”

“I showed him the wizard Amach ac Eil of Caerwyddwn in the full of my black dreuhwy11.”

King Casmir grunted in acquiescence. “I call your name now for a reason. My ventures stagnate. I feel frustration and anger on this account.”

“Ah, Casmir, on my word you ignore such good fortune which the Cutter of Threads has allowed you! At Haidion you bask at your ease in the warmth of a dozen blazing hearths. Your table is mounded with succulence and savour! You sleep between silken sheets; your raiment is the softest cloth; gold adorns your person. There seems an adequate population of voluptuous boys; in this regard you never need fear deprivation. When someone excites your displeasure, you utter two words and he is murdered, if he is lucky. If he is unlucky, he goes to the Peinhador. All in all, I consider you a fortunate man.”

Casmir ignored the gibes, which exaggerated his appetites; indeed, he was almost austere in his use of catamites. “Yes yes; no doubt you are right. Still, these remarks fit your case as pointedly as they do my own. I suspect that you are often provoked when events fail to suit you.”

From the shadows came a soft laugh. “One signal difference between the cases! You are applying to me, not I to you.”

Casmir responded in even tones: “I appreciate the distinction.”

“Still, you have deftly probed my sore spot. Murgen has discovered one or two of my foibles and makes as if the world were about to end, as perhaps it will someday. Have you heard of his latest quirk?”

“No.”

“A magician named Shimrod lives at Trilda, near the village Twamble.”

“I am acquainted with Shimrod.”

“If you can believe it, Murgen has appointed Shimrod to be my monitor and overseer, to ensure my deference to Murgen’s will.”

“That would seem an irksome case.”

“No matter. Should Shimrod swallow himself like a revolving snake, it is all one with me. He is easily confused; I will do as I did before, and poor Shimrod will go sprawling down uncharted abysses.”

King Casmir made a cautious suggestion: “Our destinies may well go hand in hand. Perhaps we can profit by an association.”

Again the soft laugh from the shadows. “I can put toad-heads on your enemies! I can change the stone of their castles to suet pudding. I can enchant the surf, to bring sea-warriors with mother-of-pearl eyes charging ashore out of each breaking wave! But never may I do so! Even if, through some folly, I thought it advisable.”

King Casmir said patiently: “I understand that this must be so. Still . . .”

“ ‘Still’?”

“Still this. Persilian the Magic Mirror once spoke out to me, though I had put no charge upon him. The utterance defies both fact and reason, and causes me a great puzzlement.”

“And what was the utterance?”

“Persilian spoke like this:

 

Suldrun’s son shall undertake
Before his life is gone
To sit his right and proper place
At Cairbra an Meadhan.

If so he sits and so he thrives
Then he shall make his own
The Table Round, to Casmir’s woe,
And Evandig the Throne.

 

“So spoke Persilian, and would say no more. When Suldrun bore the girl Madouc, I went to question Persilian, but then he was gone. I have long brooded over this matter. Somewhere among those words lives wisdom, had I the wit to search it out.”

After a moment the voice responded: “I care nothing for you or your prospects; and I will listen to no reproaches should your affairs go badly. Still, I am driven by my own forces in a direction which may for a time run parallel to your own. My impulse is detestation. It fixes upon Murgen, his scion Shimrod, and King Aillas of Troicinet, who at Tintzin Fyral did me savage and irreparable harm. Count me not your friend but the enemy of your enemies.”

Casmir gave a grim chuckle. At Tintzin Fyral Aillas had hanged Tamurello’s lover Faude Carfilhiot on a gallows grotesquely high, and gaunt as a spider’s leg. “Very well; you have made yourself clear.”

“Do not be too sure,” said the voice, speaking sharply. “Your surmises in regard to me will surely be incorrect! At this time Murgen’s calculated affronts cause me a great wrath. He uses the charlatan Shimrod as counterpoise to me, and sets him to bait me with his surveillances. Shimrod becomes self-important and pompous; he expects me to make a daily report upon my conduct. Ha! I will show him conduct to scorch his backside!”

“All very well,” said Casmir. “What of Persilian’s prediction? He spoke of ‘son’, but Suldrun bore a daughter only: is the prediction false?”

“Uncertain! These apparent contradictions often are masks for startling truth.”

“If so, what might be such a ‘startling truth’?”

“I suspect that she bore another child.”

Casmir blinked. “That cannot be so.”

“Well then: who was the father?”

“A nameless vagabond. In anger I did away with him.”

“He might have had much to tell you. Who else could recite precise facts?”

“There was the serving woman, and her parents, who nurtured the baby.” Casmir frowned as he thought back across the past. “The woman was a stubborn sow; she would tell me nothing.”

“She might be tricked, or inveigled. The parents might also know facts not yet revealed.”

Casmir grunted. “This seems to me a dry source. The parents were old; they might be dead.”

“Perhaps so. Still, if you like, I can send you a man who is a ferret for smelling out secrets.”

“That will suit me well.”

“Let me instruct you. His name is Visbhume. He is a wizard of very limited skill and certain curious habits, owing perhaps to yellow bloom in the cracks of the brain. You must overlook his peculiarities, and give precise orders, since at times he is flighty. Visbhume lacks all qualms; if you want your grandmother strangled, Visbhume will oblige, with care and courtesy, or, if you prefer, he will strangle his own grandmother.”

Casmir gave a dubious grunt. “Can he be trusted for steadfastness?”

“Indeed! Once started he is obsessive; he never stops, as if he is pushed by an incessant rhythm inside his head. He cannot be deterred by fear, or hunger or lust; he lacks interest in ordinary sexual procedures, and I am not even curious as to his personal habits.”

Casmir gave another grunt. “I care nothing for such matters, so long as he does his work.”

“He is single-minded. Still, supervise him closely, as his is a strange personality.”