The Memory Palace

by Gill Alderman

  ‘I must set you down here,’ said Georg. ‘I have business with a sick mare in Zelkova but the Plains are close, that way. You will be glad to get out of the wood!’

  ‘Indeed, for I cannot see what I seek when I am beneath the trees,’ said Parados. ‘I have no silver threepenny bit to give you but take this to remember me by.’ He cut one of the gilt buttons from his coat and handed it up to the butcher.

  ‘A sun resplendent, and a “P” for Parados,’ said the butcher, examining the button. ‘I’ll keep it with the coin I had from Koschei, here in my weskit pocket. The Archmage and Lord Parados, well, well, what tales I’ll tell! – but fare you well, Sir, and do not fear to walk over the grass of the Plains. There’s too much light there and too much wind for the zracni-kind!’

  ‘Adieu,’ said Parados and strode out at once without lingering to see the cart drive off. There was a track of sorts in front of him, a wide trail of flattened grass, and whistling ‘When a knight won his spurs’, he followed it.

  The rebel party followed Estragon into the deserted Court of Love. There was no one now to set the statues playing their drums and bells nor any lady fit to hold court.

  ‘This is a melancholy place,’ said Aurel. ‘I wish I had a mistress to enthrone there, on the dais!’

  ‘The castle is unsettled,’ said Estragon. ‘It does not know what rooms to show you, nor who you are yet – but it perceives you are honourable and kindly. Let us try that door.’

  A long, white shoot sprouted from the floor when they had gone, turned green, grew into a sapling and a tree and burst into blossom which, falling, left red apples on the tree.

  Estragon led Aurel and his men along a short passage, the artery between two painted doors and, stepping back, allowed Githon to push open the door.

  ‘So this is how the castle treats us!’ the dwarf exclaimed. The room beyond, equipped with chairs and sofas and tables for chess and backgammon, with harpsichords, spinets and a forte-piano, also contained twenty or more men. Young fops dressed in silk and lace, they lounged gossiping on the furniture. Some were smoking and others drank champagne from pewter tankards because all the glass, like Pargur’s crystal walls and Sehol’s magic, rainbow gate, had been shattered by Parados’s blow. Half a dozen of the gallants looked idly at the rebels as they entered and one drew a scimitar quickly from the piano, for he had seen the naked sword which Githon, who was not deceived, had raised.

  ‘They are Green Wolves!’ the dwarf cried. ‘The Brotherhood!’

  Then hats and lace collars were thrown aside and the Green Wolves emerged from their disguise to fight. It was the first fight for Castle Sehol and Aurel only won it because he preferred to negotiate. The second fight, in which the Brotherhood joined on the rebels’ side was with the Castle Guard, Baptist Olburn at their head; and Aurel won this after twenty minutes. Most of the Guard were killed and Olburn badly wounded but not gravely enough to prevent him being locked in his own dungeon.

  Now Castle Sehol showed itself. More of Toricello’s crazily beautiful flowers and trees grew up from pavements, staircases and turret-tops. Friendship and Concordis came from the cellar in which they had hidden themselves and welcomed Aurel and Githon especially and all the rebels generally. The Lord Marshall, Elzevir Tate, and his Council thought it expedient to visit quiet, country places, and went away. Many tales were told and, with a roll on the timpani, a fifty-gun salute and all the bells of Pargur chiming, Aurel, Captain Wayfarer, was named Regent of Castle Sehol and Hadrian and Thidma his Chiefs of Council. Aurel’s flag, gules, a mulberry leaf argent, flew beside the golden sun of Parados on the top of Probity tower and a standard with his canting arms, argent, a wayfaring tree vert, was planted on the Devil’s Bastion. Custos, no longer wandering but a fixed star in the firmament, watched over them and its five points, on which all the world had hung, were keen and bright.

  Without instruction or direction from anything other than its mysterious, alert self, the great globe of Peklo tower spun once more upon its axis and the green extent of the Plains above its northern tropic turned the colour of dry straw. The same faded yellow covered every inch of Koschei’s Mappa Mundi on the tower wall while, between the ‘a’ and the ‘i’ of ‘Plains’, there appeared the tiny, finely-detailed image of thirty pine-trees standing on a low knoll.

  Parados emerged from the long, ripe grass and stood at the foot of the hillock. The wind was blowing softly, to cool him and stir the grasses and the pine-tops languidly. This, surely, was a pleasant place in which to rest and eat the bread the horse-butcher had given him. He walked up the incline before him and, sitting down beneath the nearest tree, unbuckled and shed his heavy cuirass. There, in the sea of grass below him, his route out of the forest was clearly marked – and that of the other who had gone before him and trodden down the stems. Of the forest itself, there was no sign. It had vanished, or retreated into another dimension, and he and the piny hillock were deep in the Plains where other low hills rose, one succeeding the other to the limits of sight, and all yellow with high summer.

  Not caring how coarse and gritty it was he ate his ravel-bread and, shading his eyes with tired, sweaty hands, lay down to sleep.

  First the left hand, then the right, were lifted and opened to be read. The left was strongly marked, especially with Love and Life, but the lines etched deep as gold-lodes in the right disappeared as the palmist stroked them until the hand was as smooth and soft as a baby’s and all Reason fled. Lastly, the Om Ren (for the palmist was he, huge, mighty and grey with life fulfilled) examined the strong wrists and the veins and sinews which showed their pliant selves beneath the grimy skin.

  ‘Good,’ he muttered. ‘Excellent – not a mark or a join to be seen and a great grip too, by the look of them. A hard journey, too, to reach this place – how peacefully he sleeps! Now, Sir–’ and he opened up the cavern of his mouth to show his fangs, ‘– awake, Sir Parados, wake up!’

  The roar and the hot animal breath coming together like a gale in his face woke Parados at once. He sprang up with drawn sword.

  ‘Splendid! Magnificent – a new Galahad, a Roland reborn!’ cried the Om Ren. ‘And I – what am I, but an animated cadaver, dead meat walking, a tough hide waiting to be flayed? You shall bear witness to the last hour of the Forest’s Father, Parados – a fitting culmination to your journey.’

  Parados sheathed his sword.

  ‘I have seen the Weshni Dy and your son, Om Ren,’ he said. ‘She is a wonder and he is another. I am here because she showed me the way.’

  ‘So!’ The Om Ren drew his lips back from his teeth and bared them. ‘To see me die, to make a mock! – but I am not bitter. My life has run its course. I am not bitter but my soul is angry; soon the rage will take me.

  ‘So!’ he said again. ‘My wife directed you – she knows which way the wind blows. I am lighter than a mayfly when Fate exhales.’ He spoke more kindly so that Parados dared approach and stand beside him, child-sized beside the towering ape.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asked.

  ‘Would that you could. The only thing, alas, that you could do for me, is plunge your keen sword into my heart; but that is not permitted. I must submit. Look, the first sign – the horses! They know!’

  The herd had come up silently, to the foot of the knoll. Parados, staring down at them, thought that time itself had taken charge and overridden sense. There had been no warning of the horses’ presence, no sounds, no scents; and the tall grass he had walked through was gone, replaced by short, green turf on which the horses nervously waited, ears pricked and nostrils flaring wide.

  ‘They await the last act,’ the Om Ren said. ‘My final feat. Stand aside, Parados – you and I must part in friendship. Go!’

  He unwound his straw rope from his shoulders and tied it to one of the pines. ‘Away, Parados, away!’ he roared, terrifying the herd which neighed and reared as one horse, and sending Parados running. The Om Ren, still bellowing out his passion and agony of mind pulled on the rope so
that the pine tree screamed and one of its boughs broke off with a loud crack; but still the Om Ren pulled until the tree bent and tottered and came up from the ground, its roots tearing from their anchorage in the soil with a great sigh. It lay dying on the ground, fallen outwards, its green head at the bottom of the bank. The Om Ren gave one last tug upon his rope which separated into a cloud of stalks and chaff and blew away.

  ‘You must make another of those, my son,’ he said.

  He loped down the bank and bent to pick up the tree.

  The horses were silent now and perfectly still, their muzzles all pointing in his direction, the colts and stallions in a rough circle behind the mares and fifty or a hundred yards away, on the far perimeter of the herd, the Red Horse himself, alert, eager. He carried Nandje on his back, crouched low and red in his grease and dye and other riders of the Ima sat their horses close about.

  ‘Come Little Man, Brave Imandi, Ape-Killer, Slaughterer, Flayer, Butcher!’ the Om Ren taunted. ‘Ride closer if you dare!’ He raised his hairy arms and shook both fists at Nandje, roared once and swung the pine tree by its top. He whirled it up and round until it spun above his head, its earth-covered roots the head of a great club; and ran forward, scattering the herd. Like a rumour or a plague the excitement of the new danger swept through the herd. Even the tame horses were affected and two threw their riders and galloped off. The Red Horse snorted and pawed the ground. Nandje fought him for mastery. The mares fidgeted; some neighed and some put back their ears and snapped at one another. A bunch of colts reared and suddenly were off, galloping blindly. The rest, their panic mounting to full pitch, wheeled and followed them, the Red Horse first.

  The herd circled the knoll and Parados, standing amazed on its bank, watched them pass by, circling the mound continually, building up their combined speed and strength and moving as inexorably as a river in full spate to sweep up and over the Om Ren standing his ground in their midst. Colts rushed by, and mares with foals, fillies, more mares. A white mare was running with them. Parados recognized her – his old mount, Summer. Close behind her came one of the stallions, as dark and grey as Death himself, or Winter stripping the last leaves from the cold and naked trees. She is lovely like Nemione, he thought, and he as baleful and jealous as Koschei.

  The horses were leaving him, galloping away and carrying the raging Om Ren with them. Parados strained to see what was taking place out there, in the stampede. He attempted to rise into the air, but there was too much noise and commotion rushing by: it was impossible to think. He tried to see a crane, a lark, a falcon, himself riding in it, part of its flexible body and buoyant wings; but he could not leave the ground. The horses passed again. Nandje was still in the saddle, crouched low along the back of the Red Horse. A third time they circled the hill and Parados looked for the white mare and the grey horse; and for the Red Horse in his pride and strength, head and neck at full stretch, hooves pounding, heart pumping and mane flying up and out on the wind as if he were a part of that eternal current which coursed unceasingly across the Plains and was bred and instilled in him, through his mother’s milk, the clear streams of water which flowed through the Plains and the rich and juicy waving grass itself.

  The Red Horse broke from the herd, out of control. Nandje was a passenger on his back, vainly tugging on the reins. The Horse came on, beating the turf underfoot into a pulp, huge, unstoppable. Parados glimpsed his wild eye, his open jaw and the foam which spilled from his lips across his shoulders. He put up his arms, bent, and dodged, but the bank was steep below him and slippery with loose pine needles. He tripped and went down and, lying there defenceless, was able at last dispatch his body into Limbo, tear his soul free and send it soaring upwards to fuse with the spirit of the Red Horse.

  Parados heard his own ritual question, ‘Greeting Horse. Permit me,’ with long, horse’s ears and answered it with a loud neigh; he felt Nandje’s heels in his ribs and his knees tight about his girth; he felt, and fought, the bit with which Nandje lorded it over him and longed to shake it off – but it was too cruel and tight, wedged in the gap of his teeth and lying like an awful bony punishment across his tongue. Nandje was making him run straight, on towards the ape who, wielding his pine tree stood up in the grass and yelled defiance. He veered to avoid the club, swung round and back at the Om Ren. The herd was milling and wheeling about him, driven tighter, close-pressed by the riders on its boundary. Horse to terrify horse, he thought. Ultimate cruelty, Man’s abominable depravity. He felt the pine roots sweep his neck and his rider bent sideways. A young foal went down beside him and disappeared beneath the pounding hooves. He was angry; he wanted this to end. He wanted to punish this presumptuous ape whose father’s finger-bone and skin kept him in check. He wanted blood; he wanted to kill.

  A second blow of the tree swept Nandje from his back. He went the way of the foal and was overwhelmed, flesh to grass, as the herd trod him into the ground. The Red Horse neighed and reared in triumph. The Om Ren roared and brandished his tree.

  They met in the centre of the herd, at the still heart of the hurricane. It was at first a duel between equals, a simple matter of horn meeting wood, of two strong sets of teeth except that, as the horse and ape fought, the dejection that had entered the Om Ren’s soul prevailed and he grew weary. Raising the club above his head, he made to bring it down upon the Red Horse to break his back; but the Horse was swift and struck first, his hooves raking the ape’s chest and belly, ripping open rib-cage, muscle and hide. The Om Ren fell to the ground, writhed and died, his pine-tree striking a by-standing colt as dead as himself.

  So I have won; I have triumphed, Parados and the Red Horse thought, killing the creature who was most good to me and the friend of all animals.

  He saw Gry in the distance, shrieking and wailing over Nandje’s body and tearing her plaits open till the tangled hair flew away in her clawing fingers. There were blue flags all about her, raised in the hands of the mounted Ima, a wave of silk to hold the horses back. The blue tide turned, rolling towards him, menacing the herd. He neighed and pawed at his head and rolled on the ground until he was free of bridle and saddle. He called the herd, his voice like thunder: Ha! Ha!

  The madness of the horses was in the Ima too. They urged their mounts toward him, trying to cut him from the herd. He would have none of that but, finding the white mare and grey stallion near him, shoved them both in turn with his mighty neck and began a new stampede. He did not want to run; he wanted peace and sweet grazing, a long draught of water and to roll in clean grass; but the men had made a brute of him. He would out-run them and escape. His desire for freedom gripped the herd. He galloped and his horses swept after him. The Ima, riding with flags high and flying, came last and believed they drove the herd.

  On, beneath a burning midday sun they galloped; east across the undulating surface of the Plains. Yards became miles and miles leagues as they fled, so fast they overset time and ran through morning into red dawn. Wolves, lying down to sleep after the hunt, raised weary heads to stare at them and the wolf-mother howled. Cold night and the chill waters of the streams they splashed through soothed them. The sweat dried on them and they took new heart, galloping on beneath the stars which were huge, bright and close. The Swan, the Hoopoe and the Dancing Crane raised their wings and flew above the horses. Bail’s Sword swung over them and the warrior Bail appeared to grasp and lift it. He stepped down from the sky to run with the herd.

  Then, from the skies and myths and tales of Albion, which was so far in distance from Malthassa and yet so close in spirit, other star-beasts came leaping to join the stampede: the Great Bear, growling deep in his throat, the stalking, spotted Lynx, and great Taurus, the bull. Pegasus heard them and lifted his dripping muzzle from the well of Hippocrene which he had made with one stamp of his moon-shaped hind feet. His folded wings quivered and he suddenly unfurled them and flew with the herd. In far Thule the Kelpie which pulls men to their deaths in water swam from his loch into the air and, swift and blue as lightnin
g, crossed heath and heather until he reached the Plains. Sleipnir galloped faster than the wind on his four pairs of legs and Ambarr, Mannanan’s magic horse, ran over the seven seas. In Emain Macha Cuchulainn’s chariot-horses, which could weep and speak like men, broke free. The first was slight and slender of hoof and limb with a flowing mane and a shining coat and the second lithe and swift-leaping, powerful and long-bodied. His hooves were the size of bucklers. The Mari Lwyd, put out of the stable to make room for the Virgin and Child, left her ceaseless, lonely wandering and turned towards the Plains, her yellow teeth clacking in her bony skull and her ragged shroud flying behind her. In the heavenly pastures of Hy Brasil Mancha and Gato pricked their ears and began to run; the White Horse raised himself from his bed in the chalk Downs and the Four Horses of the Apocalypse, the White which carries a Conqueror, the Red which brings War, the Black which bears Justice and the Pale Horse whose rider is Death, roused and ran.

  Next came the war-horses, swift Veillantif, Gryngolet in his gold-bedecked harness, Charlemagne’s Tencender whose name means ‘Strife’, and the bright and lofty-crested bay Ruksh. A host of horses followed them: first and running neck and neck in line, the Godolphin and the Darley Arabians and the Byerley Turk, Nijinsky a short head behind them; Nearco, Dante, Melpomene and Lord Polo galloped close while Flick, Schlutter, Nelusko, Zorah and Jack, the father of Shetland ponies, and Janus the original Quarter Horse kept pace with Justin Morgan and the poet’s little Morgan which was nervous and jumpy as a flea, still flecked with the snow of the storm from which the herd had called him. Nimble Spot and Synon, the Wooden Horse of Troy, galloped side by side while Janus ran with the brass Fairy horse, which was shown as a wonder to Cambinskan, and wily Hogarth with the Green Knight’s great Green Horse. Finally there came a string of stragglers, Rosinante creaking her old bones, Black Beauty, The Piebald which won the National under Velvet, Tom Pearce’s Grey Mare, Trigger and, all together in a bunch, Arkite, Choru and Spooky, Canis Major yapping at their heels.