Somnium

by Steve Moore

  ‘I think Selene, if I dare read her intentions, would have me ask my lady’s favour… a scarf, a glove, some talisman… that I may carry with me on my quest. I do not seek your love itself, although I’d joy to have it; but some small token, given with your fairest wishes, I know would speed me on my way. And so I seek for nothing more than but a tiny kindness.’

  ‘Sir Knight,’ said Lady Luna then. ‘Pray take a seat, and take a little wine and cheese and bread, and let us talk as friends. And if you do not seek my love, then more’s the cause for me to say, you have it.

  ‘You must have seen the comet, long and foul, polluting all the sky. My sages and my counsellors both tell me it is evil quite unspeakable, and only will we mitigate its ill, if we can find The Perfect Image, and show it to the sky.

  ‘And so I take it as a happy omen, that you are here on such a quest. I do not know if you’ll succeed, although of course I hope you do. Some here say man will find it, some say woman; and one alone says both.

  ‘My friend, for so I’m sure you’ll be. I will not give you glove, or scarf, or talisman.

  ‘Arcadius, be Selene’s sweetest knight, and so be mine as well. For if you seek The Perfect Image, you need much more than favours. You need a hand to hold in yours; and if we do succeed, why then, Sir Knight, you’ll win it.

  ‘And yes, my friend, I mean exactly what you think, and should these grave advisors then be scandalised, it matters not at all.

  ‘My handsome knight, wherever, in the end your quest should lead, then please do understand.

  ‘Your Lady Luna’s coming with you.’

  And so Lee read, and thought this was more charming, and more sane; and having read enough, they ate. And having ate, they drank. And having drank, they danced so many voltas, sweetly ’neath the silver Moon.

  And having danced, they kissed.

  And having kissed a fond goodnight, they took them to their chambers; and if their eyes were sad at parting, then none will be surprised…

  Monday, 8th October 1803

  I do not know quite where Lady Luna came from; it all spilled out in one enormous rush. Like Endimion Lee, who reads it in my story, I find it rather charming; and yet it is unlike whatever else I write. I almost feel as if I had no hand in this at all, and that the spirit of Morion of Lyons (who, I am quite sure, he never did exist) had written the whole through me, ghostly hand all clutching mine; as if he wanted his story to exist here on the Earth, as well as in the library of Somnium. Oh, fancy I know all this to be, and yet… yet it is the sort of pagan romance that could, perchance, have been written, if the Christians never triumphed. A vision of a pagan world, then, and of its literature, that never was… and never having been, the sweeter then it is, to have it.

  A pagan world restored, indeed. And never more will I discount the power of ladies’ kisses.

  Lady Luna’s story would, no doubt, be long enough to make a book quite in itself. And yet, I think, what’s there is quite enough (besides, no more was given me). It speaks of fair Selene, very sweetly, and more, it does foreshadow what’s to come. So, leave it as it is, and let’s be on…

  Last night I decided that it might be wiser to retire to my room immediately after supper, for after what I’d said to Jude Brown in the morning, I thought better than to speak with him at night. I feared the worst as I retreated then and met him on the stairs. He sneered at me, as so he always does, but nothing more. I did not stay to ask him why.

  I know I said those awful things to him, of crucifixion nails. And yet I knew that I had spent last Monday night in Severndroog Castle, with Cynthia of the Moon.

  I confess that this begins to make me fretful.

  What worries me besides is that so much of Somnium that I write it merges dream and fancy and desire with what’s of everyday and what’s of Goddesses of the Moon. In fiction I am all the more deliberate in this; in the waking world I’m not.

  And yet it seems to me that while I build up Somnium in my writing, somehow it builds here in The Bull as well, with Cynthia as its queen; and neither has the room for Christ or church. So if I wished them all away, and with them Reverend Kinnock, and nothing then ensued… then what to make of this?

  It is too strange a thought. I cannot think it through.

  Last night, indeed, I lost myself in claret, dreams and lovely words; and all the world was magic, for I wrote it so myself. And what was written out of claret was there to see in dreams; and what was seen in dreams was written out with claret.

  I woke for dinner; wandered down the stairs; found Cynthia waiting for me, mischief in her eye. She sat and watched me eat, and all her smiles said: ‘hurry up and finish.’

  It seemed her husband was departed for the afternoon, driving his wagon down to Woolwich, with its docks and shops and warehouses, to arrange for new deliveries: casks of sack, and hogsheads of ale, bales of pipe-tobacco and (most pleasing news to me) more bottles of the finest claret. When I had eaten, dear Cynthia Brown-eyes left the hotel in the charge of barmaid Daphne Squires (the bawdy strumpet looks at me quite oft, and all her looks are invitation; blue-eyed, though, as she is, she’s thus, to me, repellent), then took my hand and insisted I accompany her into the tavern cellar. I did not know quite what she was intending; sometimes she’s so surprising, I no longer am surprised.

  As everywhere in coaching inns, the cellar of The Bull is vast, for storage of its liquor; yet this seemed bigger yet than most and, at its western end, there was an empty space. There, by lantern-light, she asked me to look down and tell her what I saw. And there (as she knew full-well I would) I found the remnants of an ancient wall, protruding upward through the rammed-earth floor. From its construction, and its depth below the current level of the ground, I guessed it Roman. I did not know quite what to make of this, and sweet Cynthia did not help my concentration, seeming far more interested in pressing herself too close against my side, ‘the better to illuminate the old remains.’ Perhaps, I suggested, this had been some Roman beacon-post; a similar one, they say, had been built here in Armada times, and now the Admiralty Telegraph rises up in ugly splendour, a little more to Londonwards on the far side of the road, its shutters a monument to misplaced modern invention. It seems each technical advance we make must then be paid for with a loss of beauty.

  There was little else to see. In fact, as rather I’d expected the case would be, dear Cynthia was, by then, becoming becomingly importunate for kisses in the shaded cellar underground. Yet somehow I thought this was, to her, a game; and kisses were a merest part of some far greater plan. Yet be that as it may, I have to say, I did not tell her no. We were disturbed by footsteps on the stairs; the annoying Daphne Squires had sent Tom Watkins down for further bottles. In all honesty, I do not think she really needed them, but rather used young Tom to gratify her curiosity second-hand. He made too much noise, though, to take us unawares.

  Our minds now concentrated once again on olden things, dear Cynthia showed me then an ancient door, set in the north wall of the cellar. I know not where it leads, though obviously not back up to the inn above. They say there used to be a tunnel leading south-west from the Catherine Wheel to Eltham Palace, but this is simply in the wrong direction for aught to do with that. The hinges rusted and the door-panels eaten up with woodworm, I judged that door to be above two centuries old; though the inn itself is said to be more recent. An ancient and enormous lock, of dark-patina’d bronze, prevented further explorations; yet Cynthia, grown big-eyed and, so it seemed to me, just a little tipsy (we had, while down among the casks, been sampling of the tavern’s wares) assured me that her husband had the key, and all it needed was but to wait until he slept, to silently make away with it. I told her then (forearmed as I was by all my previous spying) I simply did not believe she shared a room with Judas Brown; she laughed, and kissed my nose, and simply would not answer; and, oh, she looked so saucy. She told me then that beyond that door, though she had explored it little, were tunnels, and caverns, and further old remains of
the most startling antiquity and quite bewildering artistry. I know that, given the opportunity, I will be unable to resist her offers of further exploration. And if we end up in a cave below the ground, and all she wants to do is kiss me in the dark, then I’ll say yes to anything she asks. I know not what will happen next; I confess I am intrigued.

  I really know not quite what she intends. I’m sure she leads me on, but why, and toward what, I just have no idea. I know, if only from Cynthia’s warnings about the inhabitants of Shooters Hill themselves, that there are evil people in the world; my brain says there must be evil women too, but my heart will not believe it. Most of all, I cannot think one single ill of Cynthia herself, or that she could ever take advantage of my innocence. And if she has a plan, untold to me, I’m sure it’s for my good. Perhaps I am a fool, upon the edge of a precipice. Who knows? I put my trust quite simply in the Moon, wherever she may lead, to heaven or to hell.

  And yet I cannot help but wonder, what lies down there in the cellar, what underworld below the hill..?

  But let’s again to write.

  With night came bed, with bed came sleep, with sleep at last came dream. He stood there on a tower-top, all crenellate with jewels, with Somnium spread palatiate below; while high above there rode the narrow crescent of a waning silvery Moon.

  And by his side Diana stood, now dressed in black, a strange enticing sparkle in her eye. A robe of sable velvet, sewn about with silver stardust, swathed her lovely body from the neck unto the foot; and when his mind it conjured up the pulchritude all hidden there beneath, he wished away the robe, but even dreaming found he couldn’t. Her eyes a-twinkle told him: ‘more work needed yet.’

  With finger-rings and ear-rings pendant, and necklace too besides, all made of gleaming jet surrounded up with silver, the only gold about her person now was mounted on her brow: the crescent that she always wore. The long dark feather of a raven’s wing sprang jaunty from above her ear, and all her long loose hair seemed swirling in the breeze.

  Himself, he wore the darkest garb as well, but dreaming never quite discovered what; besides, the vision by his side… the fairest beauty wrapped in midnight black and smiling red-lipped with delight… quite drew his eyes away from any other sight.

  Her little hand was clasped in his, the gentle inclination of her head it promised reassurance, said: ‘trust in me, and trust to love’.

  Then hand in hand and foot by foot, they stepped quite off the tower.

  His stomach rose, his mind turned over, and then he felt the pressure of her hand. From looking down, a hundred feet above the ground, he turned, sick-faced and pale, and lost all fear with one quick glance at laughing eyes and smiling lips, and in his ears the Moon, she chuckled soft. Then dear Diana forward-leaned, her body all-aslant, and so inclining, so inclined him too.

  And then away they drifted, soaring on the winds.

  They looped the air round Somnium’s towers and Lee stared all amazed at star-besparkled turret-jewels and windows crystal-paned, at rearing marble walls and minarets of moonstone. Looked down on from above, the palace made a matchless gem, that glittered on the maiden brow of Moon-shaped Shooters Hill; and though he’d ridden up and down the hill on occasions all too often, and thought it nothing more than barrier to travel, he saw its magic now. And knew a magic all the same would shimmer anywhere upon the Earth, in any spot how humble, had we the eyes to see it.

  Her hair all streaming out behind, she flew him on, then drifted down a-circle to the hillside that faced out northward to that old and Moon-beglimmered Thames. They landed on a grassy slope; she kissed him once for bravery, then kissed him once again, for love. Then up the hill unto a crag she pointed, and at its foot a cave.

  Like lovers laughing in their bliss, they made their way uphill. At cave-mouth, two large torches then she found, and lit them with a look. She glanced back next to see him staring at the stars, at old Polaris never wet, at Deneb, Vega, musical Capella and pulsing-strange Algol, the frightener of all the far-off Arab lands. A little sigh she gave out then, to see such innocent wonder, delighting in the lovely sparks of night.

  Her hands quite full of torches, she put her tongue into his ear, and gained all his attention. And then to tunnel’s-mouth she brought him, and led him under-hill.

  Along the shaft she led the way, his hands clasped round her waist; and though she thought it just a way to keep him on the path, the both, they knew, they liked it. She liked his hands, he liked her waist, and in the dark was everything forgiven.

  An underground lake they passed by then, all swum about with fishes luminous, gleaming in the dark. Above them, all the weight of Shooters Hill; on top of that was Somnium besides. And narrow was the tunnel, black as ink, with spiders, rats and crawling things; and every horror that there was proclaimed Diana’s beauty by its fearsome opposition.

  She took him through a maze of tunnels that, he knew, without her aid he’d never quite escape. All turnabouts and forks and crossings, quite unmarked, and oh-so-deep beneath the hill, and oh-so-deep the dark. And so at last she opened up the massive brazen door to dear Diana’s underworld; an underground apartment quite the like he’d never seen.

  She led him in and placed her torches up in sconces high upon the wall; then both together started lighting candles first, and lamps. Old books bound up in dark and crackled skin, lay yellow-paged and open on their lecterns in the corners of the room. The walls were covered round about in arras black, with silver-thread designs of all the Mansions of the Moon; inlaid upon the floor of jetty granite, pale Etrurian marble traced a magic circle, strung about the rim with names of lunar Goddesses. And at the circle’s edge, in a smoky-dark obsidian mirror, gold frame carved with naked Goddesses all-embraced, he saw, although he knew not how, the decrease-crescent of the silver-sickle Moon.

  A censer next Diana lit, and filled the room with jasmine incense, mingled all with musk. Two goblets then she filled with rainbow-glistened nectar that he knew was nothing less than dew dripped down directly from the dark eclipsèd Moon; she laughed, and told him aphroselenos it was, the like of which was never gathered since those old Thessalian dames expired with the pagan days of Rome. But not yet would she let him drink it.

  She asked him next his date of birth (as if she didn’t know it), and drew up then his astrologic chart; drew another for that very night; and laughed a little laugh.

  And next she bade him draw a couch into her magic circle, gave him then a book all writ with menstrual blood, and hung about his neck a garland wove of moonwort. Then passed him both the goblets, and told him to be still.

  He watched, all wide-eyed then, as she unstrung the velvet robe, and let it sink about her ankles. And seeing what he saw, he sat down on the couch.

  A snug black stitchet, all of leather, banded up with clasping silver, laced up far too tight about her tiny waist: he wondered how she breathed. Black silk stockings, knit like darkling spider’s-webs, lizard-skin garters silver-buckled pinching close to bulge the soft flesh of her thighs. And sandals, sable-leathered, heels both tipped with diamond points and rising up far higher than her toes, while thongs wound tight about her shapely calves.

  Her lovely breasts, all full-Moon round and full-Moon pale, they bulged and thrust above the leather banding close her ribs, their whiteness shining through a film of sable lace.

  And nothing else she wore, save jewel of jet and raven feather.

  She let him look, as much he liked; because she knew, as much he liked to look, so much she liked to show him. A charming smile, and then she pouted, mouthed a little kiss; told him then to open up the book and, when she started circling, to chant a certain chant.

  She picked up next a giant key, the like to open Hades’ door; a glint-edged silver dagger, sharp as death itself; a whip, nine-thonged upon a hazel shaft and fit to drive the dead. The key, the dagger and the whip she buckled next her waist, then took up once again her hell-belighting torch, its use to light the way down to the underworld, and waved it swiftl
y till it smoked. And then, completing her ensemble with a shed-skin symbol of eternal resurrection, a nine-foot python next she wrapped about her hips, its long, forked tongue all flickering out as if to lick the lace from off her satin breasts.

  Around the circle’s rim she moved, strange cantrips spilling softly from her lovely ruby lips, and let the serpent coil about her where it would: between her legs, betwixt her breasts, beneath her scented armpits, its quick tongue licking where she liked. All breathless then she soon became, and circled all the faster; while he, in turn, gave voice to words so strange he feared to understand.

  Blue mist trailed out behind the torch, and walled up all the circle in a strange translucent vapour. And as it thicker grew, her path it spiralled inward, until she dowsed the torch and joined him on the couch. The serpent struck out then behind his back, pulled him close and wrapped around them both, squeezed him tightly to her pulsing breasts. She kissed him like a hungry beast, all open-mouth and nipping teeth, her tongue all long and hot breath gasping in his throat.

  The next, she put his hands about her waist, leaned back and, calling out those barbarous names that first were given to the Moon when men no more they were than apes, began to raise the dead.

  And Endimion Lee, for all he dreamed, he knew young Greene was right: for here he was, below the Earth where Hecate reigned supreme. And knew her for Diana too; and loved her just the same.

  The mirror, all volcanic glass, it misted then and cleared. Surrounded by her prancing beasts the lovely Circe next appeared, half-Goddess descended of the Sun, half-naked, wholly wanton. All winks and smiles she blew a kiss, it seemed in Lee’s direction, a saucy minx with magic eyes and ocelots about her ankles. And then she turned about, and with a wand, she pointed out a pig; the next an ox; and lastly-most a wolf. And then, an eyebrow raised, an eye all wide beneath, she seemed to say: Be careful what you wish, for anything you wish you could turn out to be.