Now it came to me. Suddenly the black energy pulsed and coiled between the stars. The silver threads arced and twisted making impossible connections. Heavy drops of blood fell like summer rain. Huge shadows spread to obscure a mass of suns. I was in agony. I screamed. My sickness had become an intense burning sensation. I did all I could to shrink it and rid myself of it. Gravity is present but invisible, explained by the presence of identical worlds unseen by us.They nest, one inside the other, separated by density and mass. The only clue we have oftenstance is the Dark Flow!
He was teaching me something. Was he hypnotising me? Is that what had happened the first time I met him? Was I learning what he wished me to learn? Should I have listened better? Perhaps if I had been in a different situation I would have done. The science involved was over my head! Was it time I turned to Harlequin in pursuit of my love? I was crying hard now. I gave no further attention to Father Grammaticus. Silver roads? An illusion? Still crying I stood up. I shook my head to rid it of the images. I closed my eyes. Began to sway. My girls. How could I not think of them? I was tired of the pain, of the prospect of a future which no longer contained my girls. It felt like dying.
I came to know what death was. I couldn’t tell anyone. I knew what it felt like when people said they were in God’s hands. Even now I had almost no control over my thoughts or my limbs. I watched the black tendrils snake amongst the brightness, appearing to absorb it. I saw what looked grey and yellow, like flames flaring and dying. I was outside the galaxy. From Limbo the universe was a rippling pool of many dimensions. Everything had the familiarity of a recently remembered dream. Time had no shape. All kinds of strange, uncomfortable thoughts blossomed into images. Faces leered. Faces cried out, begging me for aid. She was there in a thousand aspects. Faces showed pity, love, pain. I couldn’t help them. I had no volition. My whole being, every part, every inch of me, wanted to rest, to sleep. I became unable to move or think. I lost any sense of identity, any memory, any emotion. Yet still Father Grammaticus continued to talk in that calm, cultivated voice. I wanted to escape. I could neither move nor think. I felt myself grow entirely numb. I wept until there were no more tears.
I was dead.
38
COMMITMENT
I spent the night at the abbey. I slept fitfully, dreaming of Moll and Prince Rupert as Emperor and Empress in my old tarot deck. While my pain was still considerable I couldn’t entirely blame them for what had happened. Rupert was an exceptionally interesting man. He was larger than life, intelligent, well mannered and funny. They made an extraordinary couple. Then why had she wanted to spend so much time with me? She said she loved me. About a hundred times. I’d had good reason to think she cared about me. Had she been setting me up, involving me in Rupert’s plot to save the king? Well, she had succeeded. In the morning my head was surprisingly clear. During breakfast, which we all attended at dawn, I asked the abbot if his invitation were still open. I reminded him what he had said the previous evening.
Superficially I remembered very little of what Father Grammaticus had told me either the first time he had showed me his Cosmolabe or on the previous night. Yet it seemed to me I had absorbed the saliencies on a profound, subconscious level. I had heard a lot of weird cosmic notions in my time and his, though perhaps more complicated and elaborately supported, had to be among the weirdest. Barry Bayley had a fascination for barmy cosmic theories. He collected them the way some people accumulated incredibly bad records or movies. The weirder they were, the more they delighted him. But even Barry had never presented me with anything quite like this!
My scepticism was inclined to dismiss pretty much anything which didn’t conform to conventional cosmological notions. Admittedly, I had learned nothing at school to explain my experience of the Alsacia. I decided that if I stayed there for a while, with no one to distract me, I might be able to learn a bit more or at very least lose myself in my work.
This was not the first time my natural hard-headedness had led me to storm ahead with a plan into which someone was trying to manipulate me. I went back to Ladbroke Grove. I packed a bag and I told Helena I would be gone for a few days. She said she had no interest in my plans. I kissed the girls and said I should be back soon but if I was gone longer they were not to worry and were to be good and look after their mother.
I returned with the bag I’d packed. The abbot himself met me at the abbey.
I told Father Grammaticus that I remembered almost nothing of what he had said to me the previous evening.
‘You need make no conscious effort,’ he assured me. ‘It is in you now. Yesterday, my main hope was to help you find peace and sleep. And, conversely, I did that by bringing out certain innate gifts you possess. Like His Grace, you have a talent which I and most others lack. You will one day travel on the moonbeam roads, which I cannot do. Already you have an instinct for using those roads. I have had to learn patience and accept that I shall never see all you will see. Once I envied that talent. Now I understand what it costs. You are a natural adept. I was not conjured into existence. I have made my own journey and I have been given the lifetime I needed, indeed prayed for, to make it.’
‘An adept? Is that to do with understanding the supernatural?’ I had never knowingly travelled on what he called the moonbeam roads. I had only a hazy idea what he meant. In my semitrance state I had seen those silvery strands branching away in all directions. I associated them with the abbot’s notions of Radiant Time.
‘As an adept you will gain direct knowledge of things I shall never experience.’
‘The twentieth century?’
He smiled. ‘Much more.’
‘You spoke of Radiant Time. What is that?’
He raised his eyebrows to indicate that he might not be intelligent enough to know. ‘To understand Radiant Time you must first know that creation takes myriad disguises. Our Creator’s mind is infinitely more complex and varied than any human mind imaginable. We use machines, made according to His wisdom, to measure, manipulate, imitate and survey His creation. The key to much of this remains, of course, an understanding of Radiant Time.’
‘It must have something to do with time travel!’ I remembered that strange ride with Moll across the commons, when I had first met her. I had resisted so much memory. Now I was being forced to confront reality—and, for that matter, unreality.
‘And that’s why you were so glad to welcome me? Because I could come and go through the gate?’
‘That, and your height.’ Perhaps as a joke, he said this at a point when I ducked to avoid a particularly low ceiling. He, of course, was almost a foot shorter than me and, like a few in the Alsacia, found my height amusing. Sometimes I felt like Gulliver in Lilliput. ‘Your broad back!’ He reached up to clap me on it. For a moment I felt like a favourite horse.
We walked through the abbey to the cell they had allotted me. There had been no problem about finding me space. The abbey was built to accommodate many more monks than the current number. ‘We are particularly suited for guests.’ Grammaticus smiled, wished me a pleasant stay and went on his way.
By monkish standards this room was luxurious. The ceiling was a bit low but there was a washcloth, towels, a mirror, water jug and washbasin, two kinds of nineteenth-century soap, a packet of shampoo crystals, a shaving brush and a modern safety razor. The bed was surprisingly comfortable. I took off my clothes to stretch out on it, meaning to rest briefly. I fell asleep almost immediately and awoke feeling well rested and in much better spirits. I had brought a book with me—an early pocket edition of Paradise Lost, John Milton’s extraordinary epic examining, among other things, faith itself. I had always loved it as I loved Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, the first book I had bought with my own money because it contained a picture of a dragon. Thanks to Bunyan I had grown up believing that fiction should have at least two narratives, the surface story and the implied one. The faith of both writers had impressed but never converted me. It was their visionary intellect that in
spired me. I was impressed by Milton’s intelligence and talent but I was no further forward in understanding his God who was, surely, the ultimately sophisticated Protestant figure, allowing no other manifestation in its hierarchy. The freedom of choice he permitted his beloved Lucifer was precisely zero. Read that and you examine the American soul. Its great dilemma. Torn between seventeenth-century conservatives and eighteenth-century radicals. I made a couple of self-pitying notes in my diary. Then I washed as thoroughly as I could in the cold water.
As I got dressed I thought about Molly and her mother again. I was still astonished by the way Mrs Melody had deliberately revealed my relationship with her daughter to Helena. Feeling the anger returning, I did everything I could to concentrate on my new book. I was again wavering in my intention to throw in my lot with the Cavaliers. I couldn’t hesitate any longer. I needed to find Prince Rupert and offer him my hand.
Telling a friar I hoped to be back in time for supper, I left the abbey and headed up towards the square. From The Swan With Two Necks spread warmth, light and cheerful noise. My spirits rose and I entered the saloon bar in some style. Prince Rupert and Claude Duval sat there, amongst their friends and followers. For a moment there was a pause. Then a cheer. Then a louder cheer as my friends greeted me. Good fellows all, willing to die for their cause and die again, especially brave because they never anticipated their own longevity. I was so glad to see them that I didn’t care why this was happening or where. Rather than spoil the moment I pushed my way to the bar to order drinks.
I was too late, of course. Claude Duval was already buying the shants. Duval’s close friend, the ‘giant’ Nick Nevison, a little shorter than myself, leaned on the bar and told some protracted tale of the open road. He was an untidy, good-humoured man with long, wild hair and an air of jovial patience. Frequently involved with Duval on various exploits riding the High Toby, his shorter partner, Jemmy Hind, was not with him. The majority of his listeners were Cavalier tobymen, sworn to rob the nouveaux riches so the vieux riches could be restored to the throne! A tale of sword and snobbery.
While I shared few of their ideals, I think I liked Duval and the rest because they remained contemptuous of people who gave up inconvenient ideals. In the solid reality of that bar I found it impossible to think as mature men and women were supposed to think. Gallant rogues representing justice against authority appealed to our common frustrations. Idealism and its goals had to be nurtured and celebrated. Justice was generally established in increments by one person at a time, one tear at a time, until drop by drop, cup by cup, bucket by bucket, river by river we had enough to make a lake and then an ocean. That was the optimism at the core of my existential understanding of the universe. I understood now that Molly had come to consider my ideals futile. She had turned into Helena. She probably thought I was naïve. I was never sure what brought on that cynicism. Perhaps she wanted to emulate her mother, having no ties to any individual? The fact was she wasn’t there and I couldn’t bring myself to ask after her.
Sitting at the head of a long trestle table, Prince Rupert told his audience of his adventures in what they called High India and what I suspected was actually East Africa. The prince talked of the fabled Prester Johannes who in two mighty battles defeated the Five Great Kings of Congo. He spoke of adventures in the Sa’Ha’Ra, the desert land which possessed so much hidden history and wealth, of the tribes and creatures who lived there. These included the great Sun Eagle, Ta’a, which was captured by the Paladins of Chad and kept in a cage made of silver water.
As Prince Rupert finished his story the door opened and Captain St Claire stood there, a little hesitant. I was very glad to see him. He saluted me and sauntered in.
Welcoming Captain St Claire, Prince Rupert ordered him a shant of dark porter and called upon him to speak of his travels. The truth was the northerner did not take the same pleasure in telling as he did in listening. He stumbled and blushed his way through a tale of eating roasted rats in the West Indies but was relieved when he could finish and accept his shant. For a Parliament’s man, St Claire was no thin-lipp’d finger-wagger. Everyone enjoyed his company as much as I did. Later, I stood next to him near the back of the bar and asked him why he trusted me to keep his secret.
His answering smile was almost sweet. ‘I trust you for more than that, Master Moorcock.’
I took this as a well-intentioned compliment and changed the subject. I wondered if he had ever visited the American mainland. He had. He knew Maracaibo, New York and Boston pretty well. He had unusual views on the subject of the West Indies, he said. But, in spite of my laughing insistence, he refused to elaborate.
Typically, the evening continued with everyone in splendid spirits. For a while I kept remembering Molly there but the shants helped me forget. These roisterers behaved like disciplined men familiar with death and warfare and took their leisure seriously. They told incredibly funny tales and for a short while I felt some of the old happiness come back, but soon my spirits began to sink. I didn’t want to return to the abbey so, feeling as if I intruded. I sat in the shadows near the stairs.
At length, Prince Rupert came up to me and, looking away as if he spoke to himself, began a quiet soliloquy. ‘Believe me, Master Michael, I’ve soldiered and explored all over the world, and I’ve loved. People and animals, the animate and inanimate, all have taught me a great deal. And I’ve learned best to recognise when I’ve become not merely a sharer of dreams but a dream in my own right. In short, I know when I have become a young woman’s fantasy, and I have to say I was frightened by your Molly’s greed for experiences we almost shared some years before. Of course, we have both changed. I know when I am just a good lover or when I am a cherished and idealised memory. I had little doubt I was a wonderful memory and must soon become a disappointing reality. I chose not to exploit that. Your finding us that night had the effect of slowing the inevitable, that was all. But I have to admit here a selfish reason which allowed her to stay. You know the plan we have discussed in the past concerning the king?’
I said that I did.
‘She’s important to that plan. We need a woman with us. One who can shoot and fence as well as flirt. Though let’s hope none of us will be forced to draw a weapon.’
So that was it. One need was paramount. The king must be saved! Even if I were not completely convinced by the prince’s reasoning it was a comfort to believe him. By now I was glad of the respite. For all that I still loved her, I wanted Molly out of the picture so I could think clearly and act according to my conscience rather than compromise with her needs.
It emerged that neither of us had seen Molly since that particular evening. I told him how her mother had called on my wife. He frowned a little, understanding the implications. ‘Mrs Melody believes all reality’s a mere dream,’ he said. ‘A familiar notion. We brood upon it when we’re young. Even more so in the Orient. And what matters it? So it is a dream, in a way. God’s perhaps? Or is that blaspheming? I’ll ask the bishop when I see him!’ He put his arm around my shoulders. ‘Some think they’ll find adventure here. Some’—he paused—‘hope to rekindle romance. Some seek sanctuary when that other world feels dull or too complicated or too dangerous. Here we can make the wildest plans. Reality is of a different order. Here we are safe from our enemies. And here we can plot impossible dreams and find distraction, adventure, even success of sorts.’ He lowered his head and smiled. ‘But there’s more vexing you than a doxy who knows not her own mind.’
‘Do you remember our fight at the Inn?’ I asked. ‘When Nixer almost defeated us?’
‘I do. We showed ’em our mettle! In the end they scampered off like rats from a terrier!’
‘Do you recall, sir, another occasion when you were less successful?’
He frowned. Then laughed. ‘Only in my nightmares!’ He became a touch uneasy. ‘Why?’
‘I’m curious, that’s all.’ As I’d suspected, he did not remember clearly all that happened there. I said, ‘I’ve made u
p my mind. I’m prepared to come in with you.’
He gasped involuntarily. He had not expected that! He put out his hand and gripped mine. ‘And I thought we had lost you,’ he said. ‘We were unsure how to continue since Nixer and his men damaged parts of my great Cosmolabe which will take months to remake. As a result we conceived other plans. It involves courage, deception, effrontery, skill and manly self-possession. Only one who steps forward to volunteer those qualities in a wild and impossible cause need ask to be considered’. And he offered me a sudden boyish grin.
‘How would I be of use to such a plan?’ I had not expected to feel so elated. I had missed his friendship.
‘You are tall, like myself, Porthos and Nick, and another tall man is needed. Also, you have the means to lead us home should we lose control.’
‘So the abbot says, though I don’t understand and can scarce believe it.’
‘Think seriously on it, Master Moorcock. We cannot dare fail in our ambition. Would you let the king be killed?’
‘Of course not!’ That was an easy one. I was against all capital punishment. ‘But I still don’t understand…’
‘Come with us. We can get there without your help. But we might not return unless you’re there. It’s dangerous. You know that? But if you’re with us, we’re all safer. You have skills—the abbot must have told you.’
‘I’ll come with you. I give you my word. But I really have no particular skills. There are a score here at least who would be of more use to you than I!’