Somnium

by Steve Moore

  And yet, I have to think: if prayers like this can so succeed, what else could be achieved? And more than this: I should not offer any prayer that’s ill-considered.

  The other news I heard at dinner was rather more the serious. Last night, it seems, armed robbers had burst into an army officer’s house in Woolwich, down below the hill. The foolish man had tried to fight, and for his pains had got a pistol ball that shattered all his knee. An army surgeon took his leg off; they say it took but fifteen seconds, and yet I do not like to think of how he screamed. This is too much a world of pain.

  Returning to my room this afternoon, I heard the harpsichord again. I thought of Liz to start, and then I thought of Cynthia. I left my room and went downstairs, and followed all those sweetest notes, and found myself once more in Cynthia’s parlour. She smiled at me: I knew she’d used those lovely sounds to draw me there deliberate. And so I spent the time till supper all alone with Cynthia Brown-eyes (for having begun to nickname her so, I find now that I cannot think of her in any other way). I wrote a fair copy then of all I had of Somnium, to send it to my Liz when next I post a letter; she played me sweet pavanes. I had to smile, and all my thoughts, they ran back to last night. Some tunes I knew, and some I’d never heard before. Some were by John Bull; it struck me strangely then to hear them played in a tavern also called The Bull. And some, I thought, could only have been written in the Moon. I had to admire the beauty of her playing (if truth be told, she made my Lizzie sound a charming child; and yet, at the same time, I thought my Lizzie’s playing all the sweeter for its childish charm); I cried her ‘bravo’ with each passing piece. The smiles she gave me in return were, quite simply, lovely.

  More strange than this: when I had written all my pages, then she asked me once again to read them out aloud. I did so gladly, remembering yesterday afternoon: and as I did, then sweet and soft, she began to play continuo accompaniment, so beautiful I could hardly fit my stumbling words around her lovely, liquid notes. She smiled; I read my text with tears all streaming; I had not ever thought that such a combination could be quite so oddly pleasing.

  And when we finished, she told me that my words were lovelier than any she had ever heard; more lovely still than they had been the previous afternoon. I told her that they were not mine; that someone, somehow seemed to write them through me; and more they only came to life accompanied by her music. I could not think of any other way to express my thanks for all she’d added to my work and so, I do confess, I kissed her (more, I kissed her on the lips). And when I had, I sat back quite in horror, and blushed for shame; these things they may be well in dark of night when we are drunk, but in the afternoon? A moment then, I wished I was in Asia, out there in the wind-blown Gobi desert, where none could see me redden; and then she smiled and kissed me in return. And after that we thought it best to make our way to supper.

  Oh Cynthia Brown-eyes, how you do confuse me. When first I wrote of Somnium’s Diana, so I thought of Liz, and told myself it was a way to love my darling sister in the abstract, for the world will not allow me to love her as I would. Now I find I think of Cynthia, just as unattainable to me, because she has a husband. And yet she tempts me just as much as Liz, and both of them they know they do it. And so I wonder if there’s something here that tells me more of dear divine Diana: a virgin and a temptress too, for all our artists paint her naked. And so I think of Cynthia naked too, and then decide I’d better not.

  And if I’d better not, then perhaps I’d better think of something else. And so, perhaps the best for me is, once again, to write.

  At last, new-dressed and freshly-shaved, Lee let the softly-whispering maidens of the Moon a-smiling take his hand. They led him on and outside to a courtyard far-removed from Somnium’s entry gate, where Queen Diana, huntress-clad, awaited his arrival.

  All dressed in fur and softest leather now she was, with fine morocco boots extending foot to thigh, a tiny skirt of panther-skin, and tiger-hide her tunic. A tiger’s head her pretty hat, all jaunty perched upon her lovely hair, its savage teeth in sabrecurves across her charming brow. Centred in her forehead, a cat’s-eye sapphire gleamed in gold; around her lovely neck, a chain of garnets hung, all interspersed with topaz, and withal a dripping emerald pendant. Right shoulder burdened with a quiver, her left hand held a Moon-curved bow of ancient close-grained yew, and horn. The leopard-gleam was glinting in her eye, and on her ruby lips a smile.

  And yet, for all he thought her ravishing to view, a sight more curious still first captured his attention.

  ‘I’d swear by all my life and she I love, who stands now here before me, that I had slept the whole night through,’ he said. ‘And yet I see no sign of daylight…’

  ‘And so you will not, gentle sir,’ she told him then, a little chuckle in her voice. ‘For here in Somnium I allow no sun. All is stars and Moonlight here, and velvet night, aurorae, comets all ablaze and meteors all a-sparkle. For in the day, all men forget their dreams; while here, in nighted Somnium, all remember me.’

  ‘Dear lady,’ he responded, ‘if ever there was one, below the starry night, of whom it could be said, “once seen and ne’er forgot”, then it was you, my bright-eyed queen… for your image is all embranded in my soul.’

  ‘Oh, gallant knight, go to!’ she laughed. ‘The night is not yet old enough to press your fond desires. Rather, tell me this…

  ‘If given long, curvaceous bow, and quiver-full of goose-quilled shafts… then can you shoot and hit a target, small and far away?’

  ‘Madam,’ he told her, smiles awry, ‘I have my fingers and my thumbs, and more, I am an Englishman. The froggish knights of Agincourt, or rather still, of Crecy… they would not ask me this.’

  ‘So prove your English skill,’ she demanded with a grin, handing over bow and quiver, then pointing to a deer-shaped plaque of wood. ‘The target, as you see, is yonder distant hart…’

  ‘Another heart I’d have in mind, if this was Cupid’s bow,’ he said, and nocked a shaft. ‘And will you wager on my skill?’

  ‘Five hits in five to win a kiss,’ she told him, saucy-eyed and smiling pertly. ‘If you think you can…’

  ‘And if I can’t, then bell my cap and give me bladder on a stick, and let me be my lady’s fool!’

  He grinned, and drew, and shot, and almost missed the mark, it being rather further than at first he had surmised. With greater concentration then, he shut an eye and shot again, his second hit more centred than the first. And so the third, the fourth, the fifth, all hissed and sang and thudded home, a cluster of desire.

  Expectant then, he turned and let a sweeping bow demand reward.

  ‘Well shot, my proud and noble knight!’ she said, a little minxish in her tone. ‘But now before I give you wager’s due, pray let me shoot as well…’

  She took the bow, and barely looking, shot and split his first shaft end to end. And then in order, one by one, the second to the fifth, she split them just the same. An eyebrow raised, she turned and smiled; and whelmed with chastened wonder, he could do naught but stare.

  Exuberant pride now quite forgot, he waited while she downed the bow, then took her gently in his arms. Lost a moment in her exquisite face, at last he pressed a reverent kiss upon her soft and sweet-moist lips, as if the chastest maiden ever living ’neath the whole of wide blue heaven was wrapped in his embrace.

  And then her tiny little tongue-tip wiggled in between his teeth; and with the lingering of the kiss, so he found celestial bliss.

  Time-distorted, he knew not whether eternity had been compressed into an instant, or an instant sempiternal stretched; only that her berapturing kiss still ended long before he wished. And yet, at last, his lovely lynx-eyed Moon-cat queen slipped supplely from his grasp, placed a dainty finger-tip quite full upon his nose, and pushed him back a pace. And laughed a little laugh.

  ‘Wooden harts are well enough for practise shafts,’ she told him then, ‘but moving targets prove one’s skill. So will you hunt the deer with me, around
about this woody hill?’

  ‘Oh gladly, fairest lady,’ Endimion Lee said then. ‘Yet this old hill’s a robber-haunt, and I’d not have you risk your beauty in the hands of such as they…’

  She laughed, and with a little hand she tilted up her tigerhat, then swept back swift her luscious locks.

  ‘I think we’ll be alright,’ she softly said, ‘for no longer now is this the Shooters Hill you know, but rather is it mine. A Moon-hill here upon the Earth, with Somnium its crown, its oak-woods now a private park, its wells and springs all gushing wine. And here the white hart roams, that killed the once revives the twice, and so provides us sport for evermore.’

  ‘Then, loveliest maid that ever was, I’ll sport with you in any way you wish, and if it only lasts for ever, then even this will be too short.’

  At that she took his hand and led him from the courtyard, through an arch all painted darkest blue and specked with golden stars. At farther side they found themselves in Somnium’s massy stables and the low-roof brick-built kennels of the baying lunar hounds.

  ‘My page, he warned of Hecat’s hunting-dogs,’ laughed bold Endimion Lee, ‘and yet I think that yours could track the comets ’cross the stars and even turn men’s dreams at bay, while hers are only fit to course the depths and ’venge on gore and shattered souls…’

  ‘Oh, mine are quite the same as hers,’ she grinned, ‘for she’s the same as me. And if I light the sky above, then she’s the darkness of the earth below.

  ‘But these are puzzles for another time. So let’s to horse, and on our way. A mare for you, I think, a stallion for me; for we should always ride the other sex, if only for the sake of piquancy.’

  A sable stallion and a milky mare were brought forth then, already saddled, by a pair of lunar nymphs. With half a laugh Diana placed a booted foot within the silver stirrup, then sprang and threw a long and shapely leg across the horse’s back and sat the leather saddle mannish-style. Endimion Lee was swift in emulation, then leant to take another bow and quiver, handed up to him by widely grinning Moon-maid.

  ‘Dear knight,’ his lady smirked awry, ‘your face is wonder-baffled, for never have you seen a dame, a queen, or Goddess even yet, who rode the same as I. So if I send you back to court, then tell your lady-friends that riding half a saddle only gives them half the thrill, and never will they gallop, leap or curvet fast as me.

  ‘And neither, I think, will you!’

  ‘Dear Queen,’ he laughed, and looked direct into her lovely eye, ‘one thing I learned when I was very young was “always let a lady win”. And now I’ve told you this, then you will never know if triumphs that ensue are all of yours or part of mine, and so I think we should agree that sharing honours of our sport is far the best for both, for even kisses won or lost are none so sweet as kisses held in common.’

  ‘No time for kissing now, my friend!’ She kicked her horse into a trot, and raised a curving horn that dangled ready at her saddle, brought it to her full and pursing lips, and sounded it sublime. And at its mellow tone there opened up a gate, releasing then a pack of red-eared hounds, all furry-white and baying ’neath a gold-sparked Moon, that swift passed by the skittered horses, muzzles downward pointing to the vaguely fragrant ground.

  And then, behind the pack, there came Diana’s nymphs, each hardly clad at all, their lovely legs all wrapped around the waists of gargant mastiff-hounds that slavered as they ran. With bows and quivers all were armed, and gleeful laughter sped them on their way. And sped a thought once more to Lee’s remembrance then, of young Bart Greene and all he’d said of Hecat’s hounds and the terrored fury of her hunt; and thought, instead of down to hell, this pack would take him straight to heaven. So laughing too, he joined them then, and spurred to catch their mistress.

  They rode on side by side and out the postern gate, then turned to canter straight along by glorious Somnium’s marbled walls. And though old Amphion may have played the louder, to raise up mighty holds and Theban towers, he knew a sweeter music underlay these smooth curvaceous breastworks. No defensive ramparts these, for never army of the world had come up hereabouts, as long as world there was. Inviolate like its queen stood matchless Somnium, and almost quite as fair.

  On opposite hand, the hilltop stretched away, both strange and quite familiar. Its woods were oak and ash and beech, and yet they stretched more wide than any he remembered, and so the hilltop too was larger, rounder and more full, somehow, of all that made a tree-decked height appealing to the sense. By moonlight it was gloried, and yet, when round he looked at tiger-clad Diana, all else was quite forgot, except her smile, her streaming hair, her eyes.

  The nymphs hallooed ahead and off she galloped, faster yet than moonbeams or the lightning flashing bright across the clearest night-time sky. And as he spurred to join her all he heard was fairy chuckles, gently mocking, and then her lilting laughter calling ‘catch me if you can’. But that he doubted any could, unless the lady let them.

  They rode on then and swift left Somnium’s soaring towers behind. And then they came to Roman Watling Street, and found it quite transfigured.

  He knew it, for it ran the same east-west across the hill; and yet he knew it not. For now its surface sparked with marble plates that glittered ’neath the stars, all mortared close with gold-dust. And either side was statue-strewn with all the emperors of the world and, on pedestals raised higher yet, of all the women that they loved. And all those women, in their looks, their eyes, their smiles, reflected something greater; something of Diana, the Lovely of the Moon.

  Across they went and down an ancient stony lane, hounds a-howl and mastiffs baying, horns all winding on the moonlit air. On past gushing fountains, spurting springs, and hill-arisen brooks the which he knew, in any world that really was at all, would burble on and rivers soon become, and flush themselves in mighty tidal Thames, the world’s imperial stream.

  Halloos and horns, and then the hart they saw, snow-white its fur and silver-antlered, silvered too its hooves. It sprang and dashed and brake through bushes, bounded on from rock to boulder, turned a tree and plunged down hill. Arrows whistled (not Diana’s), missed, and then away it went, and leaped, and disappeared from view.

  All excited now, a tongue-tip to her lip and soft breasts heaving, thighs clamped tight about her stallion’s saddle, sweet Diana cried away and swiftly then was gone. And so they rode, sometime together, sometime not, about the hill for most the day. Strange slopes they crossed, that seemed to slide, from top to bottom, into places still unformed; crags next rose up quite unbidden, and from their peaks revealed vistas where the stars skimmed by beneath the Earth; and tree-lined avenues led to shadowed places quite unmapped. All matter then seemed mutable and turmoiled ’neath the Moon; the pole-star of the world Diana’s eyes alone. And yet he knew this was enough, for worlds and all their riches count for nothing, next to love.

  At last, when they had rode enough for their enjoyment and, it seemed, explored too many permutations of the strange and dizzied world, the white hart turned at bay. It stood, regarding Somnium’s queen, and in its eye was all the self-same love Endimion Lee would claim was but his own. And so Diana Regina, arrow nocked and smile forgot, nodded then and drew and shot; and all the spheres above the Earth conspired then to guide her shaft to its appointed mark. A silent sigh and then the white hart knelt and lay its length upon the ground; and all that were around, Goddess, man and nymph and hound, were still-tongued in its honour.

  Young Melissa swift dismounted next, took brocade robe and covered up entire the carcase of the prey; and all then joined their queen to turn their backs and offer silent prayer. And when they looked again, the hart was gone; and only seen as distant flash of white amongst the trees.

  A fond farewell they bade it then, and thanked it for the sport. And so they next returned, their horses at a stately walk, to jewelled and towered Somnium; which in his heart, if not quite yet his mind, seemed sweet and longed-for home to Moon-besmitten Lee. For there dwelt dear Diana, q
ueen and Goddess both of all he was or wished for.

  They supped. They drank. They talked. They kissed. They bid each other sweetest dreams, and parted then, Endimion Lee to bed alone, his lady to he knew not what. And knowing nothing, left her free; and freeing her, he freed himself. And slept.

  Monday, 1st October 1803

  No sleep for me last night. I wrote until the sky was grey with dawn, though found myself at times distracted. At midnight I heard horses leave; at nearly three they did return. And then for half an hour after that I heard the sound of booted feet about the inn below that, though they tried for silence, still they scuffed; and then there was the sound of something dropped, and afterwards a muffled oath. I stayed within my room and checked the key was in the lock; what Jude Brown does is Jude Brown’s business and none of mine, especially at that time of night. I simply hoped that Cynthia was safe abed and sweetly dreaming in her room (I confess that in the evening when I sat to write, awhile I placed my chair quite near the open doorway, so I could glance along the corridor without; and so I watched, and saw, and now I do believe that Cynthia and her wretched husband sleep in separate rooms. Such prying, of course, is no gentlemanly thing to do; and yet I had to know).

  And when at last I did retire, I dreamt of Lizzie bathing, sweet and naked, eyes half-closed and mouth half-opened. And, oh, those soft white breasts of hers, with warm and soapy water lapping all around them. So sweet, so lovely. And then she realised that I was watching, and simply smiled, and closed her eyes, and let me look. A crescent then was on her brow, and so I knew her, on the sudden, Elizabeth and Diana both. And when I woke, the dream combining with the hunting scene I wrote last night, gave me thought of yet another dream to write up next in Somnium. For if Somnium is a world and book of dreams, it seems so right to me that dreams themselves should write it.

  Tomorrow I shall have to ask dear Cynthia to send to Woolwich for more paper, and while she does, perhaps for further ink; I had not thought to write so much so quickly (or quite so much here in this journal). Yet everything I write seems well enough, and nothing is to waste. I think my Goddess whispers in my ear and tells me what to write; and every word she whispers pleases me. The Somnium we’ve made is far from anything I expected; and if Diana tells me what to write, then every word it seems to mean: ‘Sweet Goddess, how I love you.’ And if in truth that’s what she wants to hear, I’m more than glad to say it. I’d say it louder, longer, but she knows it’s true already.