The King of Swords by Michael Moorcock

Author:Michael Moorcock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

5

THE LADY JANE PENTALLYON

THE OLD, BEAUTIFUL lady led them into the cool room. Meats and wines and fruits were upon the table of polished oak. Jars of flowers everywhere made the air sweet. She looked at Corum more often than she looked at Jhary. And at Corum she looked almost fondly.

Corum removed his helm with a bow. “We thank you, lady, for this gracious hospitality. I find much kindness in your land, as well as hatred.”

She smiled, nodding. “Some are kind,” she said, “but not many. The elf folk as a race are kinder.”

He said politely: “The elf folk, lady?”

“Your folk.”

Jhary removed a crumpled hat from within his jerkin. It was the hat he always wore. He looked at it sorrowfully. “It will take much to straighten that to its proper shape. These adventures are hardest of all on hats, I fear. The Lady Jane Pentallyon speaks of the Vadhagh race, Prince Corum, or their kin, the Eldren, who are not greatly different, save for the eyes, just as the Melnibonéans and the Nilanrians are offshoots of the same race. In this land they are known sometimes as Elves—sometimes as devils, djinns, even gods, depending upon the region.”

“I am sorry,” said the Lady Jane Pentallyon gently. “I had forgotten that your people prefers to use its own names for its race. And yet the name ‘Elf’ is sweet to my ears, just as it is sweet to speak your language again after so many years.”

“Call me what you will, lady,” Corum said gallantly, “for almost certainly I owe you my life, and, perhaps, my peace of mind. How came you to learn our tongue?”

“Eat,” she said. “I have made the food as tender as I could, knowing that the elf folk have more delicate palates than we. I will tell you my story while you banish your hunger.”

And Corum began to eat, discovering that this was the finest Mabden food he had ever eaten. Compared with the food he had had in the town it was light as air and delicately flavoured. The Lady Jane Pentallyon began to speak, her voice distant and nostalgic.

* * *

“I was a girl,” she said, “of seventeen years, and I was already mistress of this manor, for my father had died crusading and my mother had contracted the plague while on a visit to her sister. So, too, had my little brother died, for she had taken him with her. I was distressed, of course, but not old enough to know then that the best way of dealing with sorrow is to face it, not try to escape it. I affected not to care that all my family were dead. I took to reading romances and to dreaming of myself as a Guinevere or an Isolde. These servants you have seen were with me then and they seemed little younger in those days. They respected my moods and there was none to check me as a kind of quiet madness came over me and

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