C. L. Moore - The Black Gods Kiss

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The Black God's Kiss

by C.L. Moore

(1934)

THEY BROUGHT IN Joiry's tall commander, struggling between two men-at-arms who tightly

gripped the ropes which bound their captive's mailed arms. They picked their way between mounds of

dead as they crossed the great hall toward the dais where the conqueror sat, and twice they slipped a

little in the blood that spattered the flags. When they came to a halt before the mailed figure on the dais,

Joiry's commander was breathing hard, and the voice that echoed hollowly under the helmet's confines

was hoarse with fury and despair.

Guillaume the conqueror leaned on his mighty sword, hands crossed on its hilt, grinning down from his

height upon the furious captive before him. He was a big man, Guillaume, and he looked bigger still in his

spattered armor. There was blood on his hard, scarred face, and he was grinning a white grin that split his

short, curly beard glitteringly. Very splendid and very dangerous he looked, leaning on his great sword

and smiling down upon fallen Joiry's lord, struggling between the, stolid men-at-arms.

"Unshell me this lobster," said Guillaume in his deep lazy voice. "We'll see what sort of face the fellow

has who gave us such a battle. Off with his helmet, you."

But a third man had to come up and slash the straps which held the iron helmet on, for the struggles of

Joiry's commander were too fierce, even with bound arms, for either of the guards to release their hold.

There was a moment of sharp struggle; then the straps parted and the helmet rolled loudly across the

flagstones.

Guillaume's white teeth clicked on a startled oath. He stared. Joiry's lady glared back at him from

between her captors, wild red hair tousled, wild lion-yellow eyes ablaze.

"God curse you!" snarled the lady of Joiry between teeth. "God blast your black heart!"

Guillaume scarcely heard her. He was still staring, as men stared when they first set eyes upon Jirel of

Joiry. She was tall as most men, and as savage as the wildest of them, and the fall of Joiry was bitter

enough to her heart as she stood snarling curses up at her conqueror. The face above her mail might not

have fair in a woman's head-dress, but in the steel setting of her armor it had a biting, sword-edge beauty

as keen as the flash of blades. The red hair was short upon high, defiant head, and the yellow blaze of her

eyes held fury as a crucible holds fire.

Guillaume's stare melted into a slow smile. A little light kindled behind his eyes as he swept the long,

strong lines of her with a practised gaze. The smile broadened, suddenly he burst into full-throated

laughter, a deep bellow of amusement and delight.

"By the Nails!" he roared. "Here's welcome for the warrior! And what forfeit d'ye offer, pretty one, for

your life?"

She blazed a curse at him.

"So? Naughty words for a mouth so fair, my lady. We'll not deny you put up a gallant battle. No man

could have done better, and many have done worse, But Guillaume--" He inflated his splendid chest and

grinned down at her from the depths of his jutting beard. "Come to me, pretty one," he commanded. "I'll

wager your mouth is sweeter than your words."

Jirel drove a spurred heel into the shin of one guard and twisted from his grip as he howled, bringing up

an iron knee into the abdomen of the other. She had writhed from their grip and made three long strides

toward the door before Guillaume caught her. She felt his arms closing about her from behind, and lashed

out with heels in a futile assault upon his leg armor, twisting like a maniac, fighting with her knees and

spurs, straining hopelessly at the ropes which bound her arms. Guillaume laughed and whirled her round,

grinning down into the blaze of her yellow eyes. Then deliberately he set a fist under her chin and tilted

her mouth up to his. There was a cessation of her hoarse curses.

"By Heaven, that's like kissing a sword-blade," said Guillaume, lifting his lips at last.

Jirel choked something that was mercifully muffled as she darted her head sidewise, like a serpent

striking, and sank her teeth into his neck. She missed the jugular by a fraction of an inch.

Guillaume said nothing, then. He sought her head with a steady hand, found it despite her wild writhing,

sank iron fingers deep into the hinges of her jaw, forcing her teeth relentlessly apart. When he had her

free he glared down into the yellow hell of her eyes for an instant. The blaze of them was hot enough to

scorch his scarred face. He grinned and lifted his ungauntleted hand, and with one heavy blow in the face

he knocked her halfway across the room. She lay still upon the flags.

Jirel opened her yellow eyes upon darkness. She lay quiet for a while, collecting her scattered

thoughts. By degrees it came back to her, and she muffled upon her arm a sound that was half curse and

half sob. Joiry had fallen. For a time she lay rigid in the dark, forcing herself to the realization.

The sound of feet shifting on stone near by brought her out of that particular misery. She sat up

cautiously, feeling about her to determine in what part of Joiry its liege lady was imprisoned. She knew

that the sound she had heard must be a sentry, and by the dank smell of the darkness that she was

underground. In one of the little dungeon cells, of course. With careful quietness she got to her feet,

muttering a curse as her head reeled for an instant and then began to throb. In the utter dark she felt

around the cell. Presently she came to a little wooden stool in a corner, and was satisfied. She gripped

one leg of it with firm fingers and made her soundless way around the wall until she had located the door.

The sentry remembered, afterward, that he had heard the wildest shriek for help which had ever rung in

his ears, and he remembered unbolting the door. Afterward, until they found him lying inside the locked

cell with a cracked skull, he remembered nothing.

Jirel crept up the dark stairs of the north turret, murder in her heart. Many little hatreds she had known

in her life, but no such blaze as this. Before her eyes in the night she could see Guillaume's scornful,

scarred face laughing, the little jutting beard split with the whiteness of his mirth. Upon her mouth she felt

the remembered weight of his, about her the strength of his arms. And such a blast of hot fury came over

her that she reeled a little and clutched at the wall for support. She went on in a haze of red anger, and

something like madness burning in her brain as a resolve slowly took shape out of the chaos of her hate.

When that thought came to her she paused again, mid-step upon the stairs, and was conscious of a little

coldness blowing over her. Then it was gone, and she shivered a little, shook her shoulders and grinned

wolfishly, and went on.

By the stars she could see through the arrow-slits in the wall it must be near to midnight. She went

softly on the stairs, and she encountered no one. Her little tower room at the top was empty. Even the

straw pallet where the serving-wench slept had not been used that night. Jirel got herself out of her armor

alone, somehow, after much striving and twisting. Her doeskin shirt was stiff with sweat and stained with

blood. She tossed it disdainfully into a corner. The fury in her eyes had cooled now to a contained and

secret flame. She smiled to herself as she slipped a fresh shirt of doeskin over her tousled red head and

donned a brief tunic of link-mail. On her legs she buckled the greaves of some forgotten legionary, relic

of the not long past days when Rome still ruled the world. She thrust a dagger through her belt and took

her own long two-handed sword bare-bladed in her grip. Then she went down the stairs again.

She knew there must have been revelry and feasting in the great hall that night, and by the silence

hanging so heavily now she was sure that most of her enemies lay still in drunken slumber, and she

experienced a swift regret for the gallons of her good French wine so wasted. And the thought flashed

through her head that a determined woman with a sharp sword might work some little damage among the

drunken sleepers before she was overpowered. But she put that idea by, for Guillaume would have

posted sentries to spare, and she must not give up her secret freedom so fruitlessly.

Down the dark stairs she went, and crossed one corner of the vast central hall whose darkness she

was sure hid wine-deadened sleepers, and so into the lesser dimness of the rough little chapel that Joiry

boasted. She had been sure she would find Father Gervase there, and she was not mistaken. He rose

from his knees before the altar, dark in his robe, the starlight through the narrow window shining upon his

tonsure.

"My daughter!" he whispered. "My daughter! How have you escaped? Shall I find you a mount? If you

can pass the sentries you should be in your cousin's castle by daybreak."

She hushed him with a lifted hand.

"No," she said. "It is not outside I go this night. I have a more perilous journey even than that to make.

Shrive me, father."

He stared at her.

"What is it?"

She dropped to her knees before him and gripped the rough cloth of his habit with urgent fingers.

"Shrive me, I say! I go down into hell tonight to pray the devil for a weapon, and it may be I shall not

return."

Gervase bent and gripped her shoulders with hands that shook.

"Look at me!" he demanded. "Do you know what you're saying? You go--"

"Down!" She said it firmly. "Only you and I know that passage, father--and not even we can be sure of

what lies beyond. But to gain a weapon against that man I would venture into perils even worse than

that."

"If I thought you meant it," he whispered, "I would waken Guillaume now and give you into his arms. It

would be a kinder fate, my daughter."

"It's that I would walk through hell to escape," she whispered back fiercely. "Can't you see? Oh, God

knows I'm not innocent of the ways of light loving--but to be any man's fancy, for a night or two, before

he snaps my neck or sells me into slavery--and above all, if that man were Guillaume! Can't you

understand?"

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摘要：

TheBlackGod'sKissbyC.L.Moore(1934) THEYBROUGHTINJoiry'stallcommander,strugglingbetweentwomen-at-armswhotightlygrippedtheropeswhichboundtheircaptive'smailedarms.Theypickedtheirwaybetweenmoundsofdeadastheycrossedthegreathalltowardthedaiswheretheconquerorsat,andtwicetheyslippedalittleinthebloodthats...

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C. L. Moore - The Black Gods Kiss

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