Tales Before Tolkien (31 page)

“It was some d-d-damned sharpshooter,” he said. “Right through the breast, and he never spoke to me again. My poor old Col! He was the best chap God ever created, and I do-don't care a dash what becomes of me now. I was at school with him, you know, you men.”

“Was he killed outright?” asked the Major hoarsely.

“N-no. He lived for about five minutes. But I think the sun had got into his head or he was mad with pain, for he d-d-didn't know where he was. He kept crying out about the smell of pine-trees and heather and a lot of pure nonsense about water.”

“Et dulces reminiscitur Argos,”
somebody quoted mournfully, as they went out to the desert evening.

The Drawn Arrow

by Clemence Housman

Clemence Housman published little fiction but had a greater renown for her wood engravings, some of which adorned the books of fairy tales by her brother Laurence Housman. Her writings somewhat resemble those of George MacDonald, blending myth, fantasy, and allegory with a slow, contemplative prose style. “The Drawn Arrow” concerns extremes of heroism, and personal salvation. It was probably, like the rest of Housman's fiction, written around the turn of the century, though it was first published years later in the anthology
Thirty and One Stories by Thirty and One Authors
(1923), edited by Ernest Rhys and C. A. Dawson Scott.

The king lay hid in a hollow of the red sandhills. He watched the poisonous grey asp flicking through the burnt crouch-thorn, and the little long-legged rat nimble at the fray, and the tawny flatwing that is never still; and no other life showed astir within the round horizon. Red sand was all the world, overhung by a yellow sky; the sun swung up the dome to his highest pitch.

“The half of my kingdom would I give for one draught of water.”

Not many days ago he had been on his throne, a great king, with peace at home and conquering armies abroad. Then rose the tribes ripened to revolt by a traitor half-brother; and treason had opened his gates, and fired his palace over his head; and treason had broken his ranks in the field, so that of his first army none outlived the day save himself and his armour-bearer. Now was he cut off from all relief, for his foes warded the river and held the desert wells, knowing that a few more hours must deliver him to death if not to them.

The king waited his armour-bearer and waited in vain. “He has found no water. He is dead by thirst. He is slain. He is taken.” The face of his armour-bearer rose to mind, such a face as grows over a true brave heart. “No,” thought the king, “he is not taken: he himself would take his knowledge of me out of reach of the tormentors: he is dead.”

He drew out a wavy dagger, and tested it again on his sleeve that gave way like mist, on his palm that gave way like water. The studs of emerald gave a good grip; though he were weak as a child he could yet baulk his half-brother's hate of a promised satisfaction. “Me alive he shall not have to flay. No.”

The anguish of thirst was terrible. It ached through every exhausted vein like fever, and like fever waxed and waned, stinging the brain into acute recognition of its scope, blanking it till the whole surrounding universe was impregnated with thirst, and a symbol.

Scents strangely strong took possession of his brain: the scent of a melon, the gold-laced melon that overhung the water-tank where as a boy he bathed; the scent of a woman, one bronze-dark woman: from a cup tinkling with mountain ice they drank together, and she struck him, the king, in lovely intoxication when the wine spilled into her bosom; the scent of sodden corn in the floods; the scent of camels by the summer wells; the scent of date-buds in the cool of dusk, when as a youth he stood at the ford, and saw across the water great manes stooped to lap. One draught bit keen from memory, quaffed on a day's chase, rank with bruised fennel; and another quaffed but late in the press of disastrous battle, tingeing red as he drank: it was the reek of his own blood he drew. And between all these and others came wafts of a far remembrance, a scent unrecognisable so long forgotten; it pervaded all others, it dominated all others, blossoming late from the remotest corner of the brain: it was the scent of his mother's milk.

The signal call of the restless flatwings gave a warning, and down in the trough of the sandhills he spied a figure coming. The king lay close in his lair, and pulled forward his screen of crouch-thorn. No faithful armour-bearer came here: this, by his fillet of yellow, was a man of the river hills, from a tribe of doubtful fidelity with claims to independence against him. Tough and spare he was, hairy, red as the sand; a goatskin was all his clothing, and his only weapon a staff headed with stone; a wallet and a gourd swung at his back.

At sight of the gourd the king's hand sought his dagger, and his thirst became a torment quite intolerable. Lo! the man halted not far off, sat him down on the red hillside, and loosed the thong of wallet and gourd. At that the king thrust away his screen; his sword he left, for his dagger was enough; he turned inwards the bezel of his signet-ring, as he stepped out on the crumbling, shelving sand.

Little rat and grey asp ceased fight and scudded, and the flatwing shrilled away. The hillman turned, looking up, and sprang to his feet; he held up his right hand in token of peace, but the king came on. Then he caught up his staff, poised and swung it, but dropped it again, and once more offered the sign of peace. And then the king stood and held up his right hand, for he was dizzy and weak, and he saw that the man was wary, hardy, agile, more than his match.

So the hillman said, “Come on in peace”; and as the king came close he read in him the extremes of drought, and took the gourd and offered it instantly. And the king drank, blessed him by all his gods, and gave it back to him half-drained. Also food the hillman offered; and there they sat down together and shared like brothers of dates and a morsel of bread, and passed the gourd to and fro; but from the hillman's hand hardly did it pass any lighter, for he saw how great was the thirst of the other.

Naught knew the red man of the shaking of a kingdom. He shaded his eyes, and looked.

“Yonder ride horsemen.”

Not a sign of them could the eyes of the king descry. “Belike a troop of wild ass,” he said.

“Three days,” said the hillman, “did I follow the wild ass southward, seeking a lost pair of mine who shun the bit and disown the slayer of the night lion.”

“Even so would the hillmen by their king.”

“Lions are the hillmen and not asses; let the king know!” And he added the loyal formula: “As the sun's be the king's reign.”

Still he looked. “Northward go these. They are fighting men, and many. They head for the passage of the river.”

He caught up wallet and gourd. “Do they think to take the pass of our hills?” he muttered. “Not with arms in their hands, though they should be of the royal army!”

“Stay!” said the king; and the man turned and looked sharply at him who spoke with authority in the desert of the red sandhills.

“Water and food have you given for no asking; add thereto a third boon, the sound of your name.”

“I have not asked yours,” said the hillman sullenly.

“Harken! Go you to the hillmen, and warn them that till the king's army come they keep the pass of the hills against his enemies. In the presence of the king only shall you know my name; and ask you him then whatsoever boon you will and for my sake will he grant it.”

“Give then a token.”

“No token to bear lest you fall in with the king's enemies; for you the token of my hand and eye.”

The king held up his right hand, took the other's held up likewise, and gripped it hard, and their eyes met and held till the hillman was satisfied. Released he said: “My name is Speed.”

He glanced down at his palm: a rayed disk was faintly indented from the signet. One more keen look he cast. “As the sun's be the king's reign!” he said, caught up his staff, and swung away along the trough of the red hills.

Soon he was out of sight, and the king could see no living thing but the asp and the rat and the flatwing. Northward hung a blur on the horizon, dust raised of the horse he could not discern.

Long hours trailed down the sky, and the king lay close, waiting for cover of night to amend his chances.

With the edge of dark came his faithful armour-bearer, burnt with thirst and despairing. Past speech, he gave to the king one poor plant of the water-cactus, his only gain. But the king bade him slake his own thirst with this, and live and listen. Then he told all that had passed between himself and the hillman.

The armour-bearer got his voice, and said, “O my lord, was this a hairy man, all red, hair and skin, small headed, long in the thigh?”

“Even so.”

The armour-bearer smote his hands together.

“Oh, my lord, rise, haste and flee! the enemy have that man. He passed me, I hiding, though quick were his eyes; a nimble man and light in build, but going heavy and hard like a dog that runs mad. A misgiving I had then. And later, edging above the plain, I saw far off a chase, and my man running and doubling to win the farther side, and in the end ridden down and taken. Oh, my lord, he was taken alive!”

The king, without a word, took his sword and set forward. He pointed. “Yonder is the star of my birth; be that our guide, since reason can prefer no road.”

On through the weary night they went as destiny led; slower and slower, for the armour-bearer flagged, then dropped, and the king sat and waited for light to show him his fate.

With one breath of dawn rose broad day.

“My star!” cried the king. “Look and live.”

But the armour-bearer said hoarsely, “My lord, I cannot see.”

“Yonder, in sight, is the river,” said the king, “and my horse hold the bank, and the foot cross thick as locusts, and the battle joins on this side. From all quarters the foe gathers, with pickets streaming in, keeping the wells no longer.”

“Water!” muttered the armour-bearer, and got on his feet, but reeled and could not see.

Yet, in the end, both he and the king got down from the hills to the next well, and laying their sleeves over the mud of it, drew in delicious moisture of life. Also the water-cactus grew there.

While battle raged on the river bank, and the fortune of the day hung, a cry rose up, “The king, the king!” and with it the thrill that foretells victory ran through the royal army. And the enemy broke and fled, smitten without swords by the cry.

Now when the fight was ended and the slaughter, the king, riding by the river through the camping ground of the vanquished, spied among the herd of prisoners fillets of yellow, and bethought him of Speed the hillman. At his bidding his armour-bearer went, and presently came again with a man under his hand.

“My lord, two women there bound wear the yellow. Too dazed are they for speech or for knowing friend from foe. But this man of the prisoners knows of a foul thing to tell.”

Then the prisoner told over how the hillman had been taken and brought before the traitor brother; when though he denied stoutly all knowledge of the fugitive king, his goings were held against him, and torture was ordained to make him speak. Yet still he denied stoutly, spite of all persuasion by steel and cord and fire. Then the traitor, knowing that an army drew near, and most eager for his brother's person, sent swift horsemen to the river hills, who by guile got from the tribe the mother and the sister; and he purposed to torture them also before the eyes of the hillman. But the day coming, and the battle, they were left bound in the camp.

“Where now is the hillman?” said the king.

“Yonder he lies in the river caves.”

Awhile the king stood in thought; then he ordered that the mother and sister should be kept bound, and that none should speak with them, and he took his armour-bearer with him to the river caves.

“Go in,” he said, “and see.”

And the armour-bearer went, and came out the paler.

“It is the man. Go not in my lord. Yes, my lord, he lives: his eyes are shut, but he surely lives.”

The king stood saying nought.

“My lord,” said the armour-bearer, “the title of Most Faithful, ordained by you this day for my reward, I cannot hold. This poor hillman has the better claim.”

“It is truth,” said the king. “Great shall be his reward.”

Then he turned to his guards and bade fetch the women.

“I have a mind,” he said, “to try the man, and the greater shall be his reward.”

And while his tent was pitching hard by he told his armour-bearer all that was to be done, and when the women came, put them in his hand for the doing, while he turned himself to the gathering of the captains.

So soon as the armour-bearer came again in at the tent the king bade for silence that he might speak.

“My lord, at the voices of the women he opened his eyes and sat, strong-alive yet. Oh, my lord, I got another with a stiffer throat than I to speak further. They, no less than he, doubted not the dead earnest of all; and they used all the power of woman-speech beseeching him for pity on himself and on them, and still he shook his head and denied that he had any knowledge of the king to deliver. Then that young woman, his sister, caught me by the knees beseeching pity of me, protesting that he knew nothing, for he would withhold nothing for the life of his mother and her, his sister, his twin sister. And yet when the order was given for her to be led away as to death, the hillman muttered something at her ear: ‘As the sun's be the king's reign,' I thought it to be. And the young woman looked him in the eyes, and kissed him, and with no word more, went out straight. Then was brought in a human heart fresh killed, and put into his hand as his sister's heart, with the heat and the beat of it still there. And he holds the heart and looks at his mother, and still he shakes his head.”

“Great shall be his reward,” said the king. “And the mother?”

“Oh, my lord, pardon!” said the armour-bearer, kneeling. “I have carried your command no further. Had you witnessed you could desire no further trial. Oh, my lord, spare him more.”

“Go,” said the king in anger, “and obey.” And the armour-bearer went.

When he came again tears were running down to his beard.

“Oh, my lord, I was born of woman. She uncovered the breast to her son; she was taken out struggling and crying to him to save her. And a second heart was brought in and put hot into his hand. And he sits there, holding in his blistered hands those two hearts that he takes to be his sister's and his mother's, and now one and now the other he holds against his breast to keep it warm, and he mutters over them, and all he says is: ‘As the sun's be the king's reign.' ”