Read Online The Harp and the Blade by John Myers Myers - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John Myers Myers
Ads: Link
work will live after him? I strummed, trying to decide which verses would be most fitting, then determined to improvise. My mind was quick with excitement, and line after line fell in place. The Frankish tirade, excellent for the purpose, was the form I chose. I didn’t have enough time to polish it, of course, but it served well enough.
“The king of the rats once set his seal
Pompously under this decree:
Whereas cats use rats for a meal
And whereas rats don’t like it, we
Order our subjects mercilessly
To hunt down cats, vile each by each,
Leaving none to prolong the breed;
When the last one yowls its final screech
Rats can—but will no more be—feed.
Chilbert, Rex, his cross. All heed!”
Some of the foe were trying to shout me down, but Oliver made them shut up. Not that he enjoyed my song, but he wanted all the quiet he could get while he thought things out. The fact that we now had shields as well as a wall to protect us was diconcerting him. I therefore directed the next strophe at him.
“A rat whose hide was a dirty red
Squeaked that the king had ordered well.
‘A cat’s most winsome when most dead,
Nine times dead and deep in Hell!
Come on,’ he bragged, ‘my wrath is fell!’
But when they’d tracked down two of the pests
He and his army stopped, perplexed.
‘The king’s decree,’ he coughed, ‘suggests
That we corner cats, but now what next?
There were no directions in the text.’ ”
Conan furnished my only applause. Oliver had turned his back and was beginning to give orders, so I raised my voice above his while I rubbed things in.
“There were forty rats and only a brace
Of cats, but these with great disdain
Yawned in the flea-scarred red rat’s face
And entered a cave to dodge the rain;
While all the rats endured the pain
Of being washed, which is not their way
And they were foodless—the cats both ate,
Then snugly slept till a drier day
Making the bold avengers wait
Shivering under a sky in spate. ”
I didn’t blame them—there wasn’t anything else they could have done—but I knew that none of the survivors would ever think of that night of drenched discomfort without painful twinges of shame.
Oliver had found that more than four at our wall crowded each other. He was telling them off into groups of that number, and I gave them all a final boastful warning.
“I will not say that the rats went mad
(One needs a mind for a brain attack),
But they lost what minor sense they had
And rushed the cats, who cuffed them back—
But kept a few for the morning snack.
And so it went till the day was past,
When one they couldn’t stomach—that’s
The rank red rat—limped home at last.
‘ Where are the rest?’ asked the king of the rats.
‘All traitors, sire. They’ve changed to cats!’ ”
I had no more than time to put my harp down when they were on us, but we were not worried yet. We hunched behind our shields and took things as easily as possible, wounding two whose excitement allowed us good openings. After ten minutes Oliver called them back, and four others immediately faced us.
Defensive fighting is not so tiring, but by the time we had engaged all of the squads we were working hard. We’d been nicked in several more places, too, and sweat made the cuts sting. “We won’t last another full round,” Conan muttered. “Let’s get rough.”
They had become so used to having us conserve our strength that we took them grandly by surprise. “Over!” Conan yelled; and we cleared the wall before they were set and hacked at their legs. The two we slashed went down, and we turned on the others before help could race to them. Comfortably hedged but a second before by an additional comrade on each side, they were not steeled to meet us on even terms. They were more anxious to leave than to fight, and so did neither. We were doomed men for whom there was no such thing as risk, and they had no chance against our smashing charge as they
“The king of the rats once set his seal
Pompously under this decree:
Whereas cats use rats for a meal
And whereas rats don’t like it, we
Order our subjects mercilessly
To hunt down cats, vile each by each,
Leaving none to prolong the breed;
When the last one yowls its final screech
Rats can—but will no more be—feed.
Chilbert, Rex, his cross. All heed!”
Some of the foe were trying to shout me down, but Oliver made them shut up. Not that he enjoyed my song, but he wanted all the quiet he could get while he thought things out. The fact that we now had shields as well as a wall to protect us was diconcerting him. I therefore directed the next strophe at him.
“A rat whose hide was a dirty red
Squeaked that the king had ordered well.
‘A cat’s most winsome when most dead,
Nine times dead and deep in Hell!
Come on,’ he bragged, ‘my wrath is fell!’
But when they’d tracked down two of the pests
He and his army stopped, perplexed.
‘The king’s decree,’ he coughed, ‘suggests
That we corner cats, but now what next?
There were no directions in the text.’ ”
Conan furnished my only applause. Oliver had turned his back and was beginning to give orders, so I raised my voice above his while I rubbed things in.
“There were forty rats and only a brace
Of cats, but these with great disdain
Yawned in the flea-scarred red rat’s face
And entered a cave to dodge the rain;
While all the rats endured the pain
Of being washed, which is not their way
And they were foodless—the cats both ate,
Then snugly slept till a drier day
Making the bold avengers wait
Shivering under a sky in spate. ”
I didn’t blame them—there wasn’t anything else they could have done—but I knew that none of the survivors would ever think of that night of drenched discomfort without painful twinges of shame.
Oliver had found that more than four at our wall crowded each other. He was telling them off into groups of that number, and I gave them all a final boastful warning.
“I will not say that the rats went mad
(One needs a mind for a brain attack),
But they lost what minor sense they had
And rushed the cats, who cuffed them back—
But kept a few for the morning snack.
And so it went till the day was past,
When one they couldn’t stomach—that’s
The rank red rat—limped home at last.
‘ Where are the rest?’ asked the king of the rats.
‘All traitors, sire. They’ve changed to cats!’ ”
I had no more than time to put my harp down when they were on us, but we were not worried yet. We hunched behind our shields and took things as easily as possible, wounding two whose excitement allowed us good openings. After ten minutes Oliver called them back, and four others immediately faced us.
Defensive fighting is not so tiring, but by the time we had engaged all of the squads we were working hard. We’d been nicked in several more places, too, and sweat made the cuts sting. “We won’t last another full round,” Conan muttered. “Let’s get rough.”
They had become so used to having us conserve our strength that we took them grandly by surprise. “Over!” Conan yelled; and we cleared the wall before they were set and hacked at their legs. The two we slashed went down, and we turned on the others before help could race to them. Comfortably hedged but a second before by an additional comrade on each side, they were not steeled to meet us on even terms. They were more anxious to leave than to fight, and so did neither. We were doomed men for whom there was no such thing as risk, and they had no chance against our smashing charge as they
Similar Books
