This thought of spring and greenness wrung him: happiness and hope had been strangers so long. He cried out loudly, ‘My hands! My hands, I have lost my hands!’ repeating his cry as the snow coalesced once more into that elusive, travelling indefinable shape: ‘I have lost my hands!’
A voice of great warmth and felicity came to him out of the storm,
‘I shall find you!’
The snow rose in a long plume and eddied across him. Then the man who was the source of the voice was on the ground beside him and the greater bulk, from which he had nimbly separated himself, became a huge, red-coloured horse so that, instantly, he knew where he was and who was his rescuer.
‘Nandje!’ he said weakly. ‘It is Nandje, from the Marches of SanZu, Nandje the son of Nandje, isn’t it? – did I make you Imandi? I certainly meant to.’
‘“He will come crying out of the storm like a child,”’said the other, not heeding his words. ‘It is you then, Parados. Do you see, the storm is already dying?’
He looked down on it from the unsteady stance to which Nandje had raised him. Indeed, the snow was light on the yellow earth and the wiry grass stems which grew in it were plentiful.
‘That is my name,’ he said, while the little man, who wore nothing beside a pair of boots and two lengths of cloth belted about his middle with linked silver discs, bent down before him and laid a cold ear on his chest.
‘I am alive, if only just,’ he said.
‘I listen to your soul. Curious – I hear nothing. Have you lent it to someone? There is a great stillness which surely comes of suffering – a great silence.’
‘I was imprisoned for some time – a long time.’
‘Long enough no doubt, but no matter. I, Nandje of the Ima, Rider of the Red Horse, will bring you to safety. Come now, up on the Horse with me.’ He pushed Parados close against the warm bulk of the horse, which never moved but only looked backward at them with bright, intelligent eyes.
‘Speak to him before I put you on his back!’ said Nandje.
The correct words came from some crammed-full niche of his memory:
‘Greeting, Horse. Permit me.’
He watched the long face of the horse while Nandje took firm hold of his left leg and propelled him upward, into the saddle. It seemed to nod, almost imperceptibly and then looked away from him and raised its ears, tilting them eagerly forward.
‘He is keen to go – that is a wholly favourable sign,’ said Nandje. ‘Permit me also, Horse.’ Briefly touching the heavy stirrup in his upward flight, the little man landed astride, in the gap between the saddle and the muscular hind-quarters of the horse. ‘Will you pick up the reins? This is a solemn occasion.’
‘How can I?’
‘You can move your arms!’
The little man gave him no further help and Parados obeyed, manoeuvring the reins between his stumps. In this place, other qualities ruled. The reins, every part and piece of the bridle including the bit, were made of the hide of the last Om Ren; but he had not, when he first thought of them, made them so supple, nor imagined that the long hairs of the forest ape would still be on them, soft against his scars. The reins fell, or looped themselves perhaps (his disbelief was in total suspension) into the right places over his arms. His legs tightened round the body of the horse and the thick saddle-skirts. There was a miracle: it bounded forward into a gallop. He rode. Nandje, at his back, leaned forward and his long grey hair and the red grease on it came forward also, across his nose and mouth, and brought the scents of wood-smoke and burning oil with it.
‘Stillness is a good quality, next to peace,’ he said. ‘It will redeem you, and all of us.’
‘Stillness seems to hold us – though we move,’ said Parados. ‘Does this land of hillocks go on for ever?’
‘No one knows; but we shall arrive at our destination.’
The low hills looked brown, the yellow earth becoming shadowed and mysterious by distance, the growing grasses insignificant. Had there been snow? There was no sign of it.
‘The Horse out-runs the wind,’ said Nandje in his ear.
‘But look over your shoulder! There is no storm, no snow – only the hills.’
‘Spring has come.’
‘So swiftly?’
‘You are here.’
As if to convince him, not only that his privation was ended but that hope had returned, some trees appeared in the near distance, a small grove or thicket of them which as they approached put out fresh, young leaves and pollen-laden catkins whose sweet perfume was a fleeting memory, sensed and gone as they rushed past.
‘Praise the Absolute and all the Gods and Spirits!’ said Nandje. ‘Those were the mulberries we used to harvest. We shall soon be home – I must tell the young women that they flower. We have had no berries after our meat since they were babes on the breast.’
‘Where is “home”? Shall I recognize it?’
Laughter, somewhat stained with a meaty breath, blew across Parados’s face.
‘Don’t you remember? We live beneath the ground.’
There were the young women, though no time had passed, gathering round the Horse with arms outspread in welcome, pretty bare arms patterned with red grease. Young men too, dressed (or un-dressed) like Nandje, and older men and women, children, dogs, ancients, horses, more horses – so many of these, a herd, a multitude: all of them gathered about him, the Horse and Nandje.
One of the young women was pushed forward out of the crowd, solemn with the moment. This too, was an occasion. Parados looked down at her and felt his heart leap. She was like no woman he knew or remembered, entirely blameless. Returning his look, she said,
‘The Horse has a new Rider!’
He was lifted down by sinewy, dusty arms, which pushed and shoved each other in their eagerness to touch him. He lay on a litter at her feet (bare, a silver anklet on the right) and she was giving orders to lift and carry him. The litter swayed, up and down the unceasing hillocks, level with her blue-clad hips. She smiled down at him.
‘I am the Imandi’s daughter,’ she said. ‘The youngest daughter of the Rider: I am Gry. I must care for you now you have come to us – at last, Parados.’
He smiled back. Thoughts of food and water, sleep, a comfortable bed, of her, Gry, with, beside, beneath him intervened. In his fancy, he was whole.
Gry, still smiling, shook her head.
‘Care for you, Parados,’ she said, ‘nor pander to your insanity.’
‘No! I am not mad.’
‘You are unclean; and you have lost your soul. How could that happen? How could you let that happen?’
The people, who still crowded after him but now at a little, respectful, distance were singing. He listened to them:
‘I-o, I-ay, Spring is here!’
Men came forward to help him from the litter. A low, dark entrance waited at his feet and, looking for a moment beyond it, he saw that the brown and yellow soil had disappeared already and that the rolling hills were green with new grass and studded with small trees in flower. Birds sang. He saw some of them: pairs of turtle-doves, larks ascending, and coveys of tiny quails hurrying about their spring business of mating, laying, sitting on eggs.
Gry knelt on the ground.
‘A little more crawling!’ she said. ‘Follow me into the house.’
The passageway was short. No more than a dip of the kneeling body was required, acknowledgement of the earth above him. He stood up slowly in the house. It was dark like all caves, and warm; dry as bone.
‘I can’t see much,’ he said to Gry. She stood close to him, ready to support him if he failed.
‘I will make light.’
He heard her moving, across an earthen floor. Her bare feet made gentle, soothing sounds. A sharper noise and flame leaped in her hands. Witchcraft? Magic?
‘How did you do that?’
‘I have matches – lucifers from Vonta. We buy them when we sell at the horse fair.’
‘Lucifers?’ The name was unwe
lcome here, where he felt safe.
‘An old god, evil is he not? Red as fire. The mages call him Urthamma and treat him with extreme caution – like fire.’ Gry bent gracefully in the darker centre of the house, bringing her flame low. He saw kindling, logs. Soon, he was seated by the fire on woven cushions and skins, a skin and sinew back-rest supporting him.
The luxury of having his filthy clothing removed and hot water squeezed over him from a sponge of dried mosses, of having red grease smelling of pine woods rubbed into his skin, and his hair and beard combed and clipped disturbed him not at all. He was content. Gry went to a big chest which stood by the wall and took a clean shirt and a suit of heather-coloured linen out of it.
‘Grandfather’s chest?’ he asked her and was amazed when she laughed at his words and sang,
‘She gave him a suit of the very, very best
And the soldier put it on.’
‘Am I a soldier?’ he said.
‘Yes. In the Lays, Parados is a mighty paladin.’
‘Sing me one of your Lays.’
‘Later, when you are ready to sleep. Lift yourself a little now and I will dress you. These clothes come from Pargur – they are a little out of style now, but the very best as the song tells.’
When the garments were on him, he realized that they were new. Gry set a bowl and a beaker down by the fire and knelt to spoon the contents of the bowl into his mouth. The stuff was sharp-tasting, nearly liquid: a kind of yoghurt or curd.
‘Now take your kumiz, and you will sleep. Look, I have made your bed already.’
‘Before I came here?’
‘My father had a prophetic dream two nights ago. He got up from it immediately and began to search for you.’
At about that time, he thought, I was telling Lèni (if she ever existed) how Koschei made Rosalia – here, in this country? In my country? (If it exists.)
‘Drink your milk,’ said Gry. ‘I have put a parsley-stem in it to help you.’
He bent over the beaker and took the hollow stem in his mouth. Though it was rougher in his mouth than a paper straw and the room was dark and firelit and Gry there fantastic in her blue skirts and silver ornaments, he felt as happy as an infant sitting on his little classroom chair. He sucked at the mare’s milk, finding its taste astringent like the curds. When he had drunk it all he at once became sleepy. Gry helped him to lie comfortably on the bed, arranging the pillows, covering him with a soft fleece.
‘Close your eyes,’ she said, ‘and I will tell you how young Parados met the Witches of Albion.’
She began to speak in a low monotone, in verse which rocked along and rhymed in couplets. It was his story after all, a part of his past history and he heard her in prose and saw the old images and pictures pass before him as he slept.
‘Hands were strong then, strong for gripping,
‘Strong for war and games, for loving,’
… soft, careful how and where they made contact with the other body, gentle if not yet adept. Helen moved them wherever she desired their touch. June, midsummer. The grass on the hillside was high and ready to flower – it should be cut within the week and they were spoiling part of the hay-crop under their naked bodies, not caring, past feeling how the strong stems marked them. He pulled back from her, wanting to look and unable long to bear the sight of her longing for him displayed so wantonly under the blue and open sky.
‘Poor Guy,’ she said. ‘But I’m not sorry I kept you waiting.’
‘What?’ Her words had intruded where no words were necessary. He remained where he was, kneeling over her, noticing that her skin was the exact colour of oak-galls, that her black hair was tangled and stuck together in snake-locks which did not – quite – writhe but –
‘You may have me now, if that is what you want,’ she said.
Still he remained, drawn back from her, feeling his insatiability impossibly wane.
‘Am I not your heart’s desire?’ said Helen.
‘Yes –’ but he was not certain; he questioned himself, his body reflecting each successive stage of his self-doubt. Helen knelt too, her brown arms about him.
‘I am the appetizer,’ she said. ‘Let us say that is what I am, the choice morsel of manrieli, a taste of the richer cake to come! Come on – get up. We shall take a short stroll.’
‘Someone will see us!’
‘No. Hold your amazement tight about you. It is all the covering you need. Trust in me – there is no need for clothing, which covers up the truth.’
Then she led him upwards, following the sloping contours of the hill until they stood beside the thorns which ringed its hollow summit, naked still and closer to the sky. He stared down on the coloured fields spread out from hill-foot to horizon. A golden glaze had touched everything: the crops were all on the point of flowering.
‘Look out – behind you!’ said Helen suddenly. He started and swung round expecting – what? A hiker? Someone from the village out with a dog and both, either, now a witness to his folly, embarrassment, deceit. He was never (never, never, each time he relived the scene) prepared for the sight of a crowd of women naked as the day, as Helen, as himself. They stood there in a semi-circle, bare feet half-concealed in the clovers and grass which grew abundantly there and which could never be harvested because this hill of Karemarn was an ancient site, a ring-fort four or five thousand years old. Small Neolithic cattle had grazed – the women stood waiting, as it seemed, for him.
‘What am I to do?’ he whispered.
‘“Be not afeared!”’ she quoted, smiled at him and raised her left hand. One of the women stepped forward, a young one – quite the youngest there. Her hair was the colour the corn would turn, when it was ripe; her eyes the colour of the corn-flowers in the garden of his cottage, electric, startling. She, herself, had an air of half-maturity like a green apple only just touched with red and she held something in her hand. A sack, he saw, as she lifted it and put it in Helen’s hand.
‘Thank you, Maid.’
Helen lifted the sack still higher, toward his head.
‘No!’ he said and tried to jerk away. He could not move of course, all volition – of his will – had left him. He felt like a puppet. He would dance to their tune, he knew it. Helen had quelled his desire with a few words and could conjure it again whenever she wished. The sack came down over his head. Strong, deft fingers tied it in place and while they worked, he tried to see through it. The hessian was coarsely-woven and lay like thick mesh across his face. He saw parts of the women, sections of sky, torn and whirling boughs on the trees for they were turning him, spinning him about till he was dizzy. He stumbled over the grass. Thorns growing in it pricked his feet and he fell at last on hands and knees, stars and fast-revolving suns illuminating the blackness in his head and a heavy warmth and smell of calf-feed from the sack filling his nose and mouth.
‘Give him a drink!’ called one of the women.
‘Poor man!’ cried another.
He tried again to dodge them, blind as he was in the sack, but their feet and legs were all about him, kicking, hemming him in. Liquid poured down over him, soaking the sack and cascading over his face, down his neck and out of the sack again, down his chest. It was beer. He breathed its suffocating, yeasty scent and licked it from his lips. The women began to call out again, one to another, their voices confident. He recognized the accents of his county and village in some.
‘Is he strong?’
‘Strong enough!’
‘Has he come far?’
‘Far enough!’
‘How far?’
‘Up the hill!’
‘How far is that?’
‘A mile and many more years!’
Something would happen now. They would release him – or destroy him. Again, though he was unprepared when it began, he recognized the rightness of it. He felt their hands on him, many fingers lightly tapping, tickling, playing, a flock of small scurrying creatures. Some climbed his arms or ran down his legs: they did hot discr
iminate. He bent, trying to shield himself, and heard their shrieks of laughter.
‘He is bold,’ said one ironically.
‘We’ll make him bolder,’ another replied. Some of the hands applied themselves, with great will and perseverance to his arms, pulling him straight, forcing him to unbend. Others laid hold of his ankles. He fell on his back. His shrouded head thumped the hard ground under the turf, but no one took any notice and, as soon as he was spread for them he felt the first one mount him.
Soon, he lost count of them. He was their toy, nothing more – nor less, and in great pain with his longing for them and with his inability to bring his wonderful agony to an end. ‘Helen,’ he said repeatedly, ‘Helen?’ but got nothing in return except the howling and squeals of animals. Indeed, he heard the women addressing each other with the names of the beasts.
‘You next, dear Sow.’
‘It is your turn, Sister Ewe.’
‘Yours now, sweet Heifer. Come to the Bull.’
Darkness seemed to come, beyond the veil of the sack. It grew cool and dew made the grass damp under him, unless it was his sweat, who still lay passive for the women and active as a ram. One of those who had the village voice spoke up,
The Memory Palace Page 27
