CHAPTER 7
The rainbow-lit stream had borne him into an unknown world, beguiling, enchanting, scented with the pervasive perfume of damp moss and incense. He had landed in an ancient wood of wonderful cork trees whose branches were behung with glowing globes and blue fruits, the moon shone as brightly as daylight on a flock of sheep and goats miraculously bedecked with wreaths of blue anemones and lilies who were grazing peacefully on the banks of a blue river.
In the middle of the broad glade a group of girls, hands linked, were turning a circle, their naked limbs bathed in the colours of the rainbow. Each of them was playing a stringed instrument wrought in gold and a flock of snow-white birds flew around their heads like a moving crown. As Marcus gaped at this dream-like vision he became aware that an exotic scent permeated the air, a celestial perfume, as strong as incense and more inebriating than wine. He stood surrounded by a scene of overwhelming beauty, wrapped in a magical, mysterious aura when suddenly he heard a voice calling him from the river behind him:
“Come here, stranger. I want to talk to you.”
He turned round and stared at the blue river, where a splendid Uri had just appeared out of thin air as if summoned by a painter’s brush, born from the water itself and a handful of clay. Marcus had longed to see her again and had even combed the forest for her for hours, but he was so surprised that while he gazed at her as if mesmerised at the same time he glanced around, terrified she would vanish again. But this time Uri emerged from the waters and gestured to the other virgins who disappeared into the dark. She paced towards him majestically and calmly started to talk:
“I was waiting for you because I need to talk to you. You should not be here. This is the valley of dreams and no human has ever seen it or heard the sacred music. Powerful giants stand guard over it, demon sentries who keep intruders out. You who are not clothed in the ceremonial garb should not be here, stranger. Listen, I have a message for you that comes from the stars, they have sent me to reveal their design, and I will reveal it, even if death were to scythe me before I could speak, tomorrow others would come in my place, no secret can be kept forever. I know that you are no weary traveller who has halted to bathe his swollen feet. You are no one’s guest in this remote forest, you are here to roam the hills and glades seeking the stag with golden horns.”
“The stag with golden horns? Do you know, then, who I am?”
“Exactly because I know who you really are that I implore you in name of the gods you invoke every day; go away! Go, as I ask you to. Say nothing to your fellows about these magic fields where the rivers run with the sweetest wine and the fluttering birds sing like angels.”
Marcus answered with a challenging air:
“So the stars want me to go away, do they? And can you give me a single good reason for me to obey?”
“Have you inhaled the fragrance of our flowers? Have you smelt how they scent the air? Let the daughters of dreams go on strolling in this sweet meadow, give them one more cup of joy. If you tell what you have seen my people will die, and it is not yet time for them to go to their long night, it is not time for them to go hand in hand together into the shadows of a golden twilight, the signal has not come.”
“You know that nothing lives for ever, nothing is eternal.”
“Nobody can snatch a sleeping child from its mother’s womb. If this should happen before its allotted time, before the sun’s chariot is ready, the voice of my people will be silenced forever, the Father will hear our invocations to love no more. Let the hungry earth feed on our bodies when the time comes, then, and only then, we will be ready to follow the impatient neighing of the winged horses who will carry us far away. Then, and only then, we will dress in our scarlet cloaks, gather our shells and lift the veil from the face of death, abandoning all we have here without regrets. But if you dare deny us our rightful end the whole world will curse you and you will discover the paradise of tears. Whereas if you leave us as free as the fireflies who shine in the dark of the night, winging over the leaves from bush to bush up hill and down dale, illuminating solitary paths as they seek a companion, like fireflies we will light our lamps for you, and for you alone we will play the music of dreams on our harps when evening comes.”
Uri continued to speak but Marcus was no longer listening to her, he stared at her, determined she would not escape a second time, and suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrists without saying a word. Her touch sent a hot shiver through him, a strange, unknown, sweet languor, a novel feeling of excitement bordering on madness, a sense of dizziness, as if he had drunk too much and danced too much at the Atlantis Inn at the foot of the Capitoline hill. The sensation of unbridled folly travelled slowly up his body from his ankles to the nape of his neck and made him even more determined to never let her go, to the contrary, the more she glared at him, her lips twisted in disgust, her proud, feline eyes radiating sparks of wrath, the tighter he held her, blinded by a passion which had awoken the beast in him that never really slept.
“Let me go, no one can hold me against my will.” She hissed.
Marcus was still that arrogant bully who thought that water should gush out of arid rocks on his orders, the usual Roman adventurer, convinced that he could make the very stars acknowledge him master by the strength of arms. With bloodshot eyes he gripped her tighter and tighter, his fingers biting into her slender wrists like steel bands. Even though a small inner voice told him to let her go, a mysterious, malign force urged him on to hurt her despite himself, until he felt her abandon all resistance and collapse like a wounded bird scrutinising the invisible over the horizon with dull eyes. For a moment he stared at her and felt remorse, loosening his grip, .... and Uri wrenched her hands away and as swiftly as a gazelle pursued by a wolf leapt onto the rocks. Never taking her fiery eyes off him she shouted:
“You can’t capture birdsong with your coarse fists, barbarian.” Then she curled up on the ground in a fetal position and drew an imaginary circle around herself with her open hands; the circle immediately became a crystal sphere and with a deft gesture the girl gathered her long hair into it, crossed her arms on her breast as if to stop her heart from bursting and whispered the single word, “Arius”, before vanishing.
With the name of the god her father on her lips Uri and her sphere had dissolved into thin air in less time than it takes a heart to beat. With her the blue glade, the anemones, the lilies and the old monk’s cave all disappeared too. Marcus was left leaning forward, frozen in the act of his triumphal capture, unable to believe his own eyes, empty-handed, broken-hearted. Shocked and trembling, his hands curled into fists until his nails were digging into the palms of his hands, his face livid with blind rage, deformed into a demonic glare.
“When I catch you, you treacherous bitch, I swear I’ll put your head under my knee and your neck under my heel, but if the gods do not permit me to capture you again, then may I be forever cursed and with these same hands that could not hold you I will tear my own heart from my breast.”
Bellowing his grievances into the night, Marcus plunged blindly into the undergrowth, breasting his way through the low, moonlit bushes like a delirious surfer. Swearing and babbling like a madman, he cursed everyone and everything, himself above all. His cries loud enough to frighten the black night shades, he howled: “Uri, where are you, Uri?”. Racing furiously he fell, picked himself up, fell again, yelling Uri’s name all the while, running faster and faster until the sweat trickled down his forehead and stung his eyes. Exhausted and thwarted he fell to the ground and rolled over and over, biting the ground and clutching his breast and belly trying to suffocate his longing for her.
Much later Janu found him lying dirty on the damp grass, felled like an uprooted tree, curled up, trembling, his lips gripped tight shut, his wiry red hair even more ruffled than usual.
Next day the two men searched desperately for the cave, the old monk and the girl without finding any vestige. Marcus and his slave worked their way back along all the paths they had m
arked on their maps but the forest had swallowed all trace, including the signs they had made on the tree trunks. They walked for miles without landmarks until they came to the beech woods; from there they climbed up to the pools of boiling water and then down to Vicus lake where the woods were already covered in fiery scarlet berries. They followed the sun’s course for hours while livid, black clouds raced westwards, billowing into bizarre shapes.
To Marcus the shapes all looked like female figures; women in the form of serpents, flying winged women, sirens, women, women, women all around him on earth and in the skies. Swearing and cursing the whole chain of the Cimina Mountains, he continued his desperate search for a sign, combing the rocks, the brambles, the glades and the high plateaus, but found absolutely nothing either then or the next day. In the end he was forced to give up and face the thankless task of remapping all the paths.
When evening fell the two of them would seek refuge in a handy cave under the indifferent gaze of the moonlit trees, but nothing was the same as before. Marcus would lie on his makeshift pallet of bracken for hours studying the old monk’s parchment. It was the only proof he had, sleep eluded him, he dwelled obsessively on his encounters with Uri, on the cryptic juxtapositions of the stars and planets the old monk had shown him, but mainly on how to find the mysterious cave which led to the tombs and the golden bier. More and more often he found himself asking his slave:
“What hour of the night is it, my faithful Janu?“
“The moon has risen, my lord, to illuminate the livid sky with its alabaster disk and now rests like a rotten apple, laughing as it looks down on the mountains, counting the hours until it sets, we are just halfway through the night, Lord.”
“Can you too feel this uncanny dark silence tonight, my friend? Although it has no breath and no lips, silence talks, it tells of dangers near and far, and yet when a not a leaf stirs and the crickets are silent in the woods, a strange, subtle fear pervades the spirit, the cold clear moon, like a faithless sentry, illuminates all, prying into hidden corners. Everything around us here appears secret, prohibited, and prevents me from getting any sleep. What say you to a throw or two of dice? No! No! I’m no fit company for anyone this evening, I can’t stop thinking about that young priestess, my ears are still ringing with her strange plea for help, but what terrible spell was hidden in that message from the stars? And I can’t forget how she disappeared in that crystal sphere, and how when I tried to find her I got lost in the wilderness and the more I tried to find my way out, the more entangled I got.”
“If the old man says she is Arius’s daughter and her tribe of women have been here since ancient times then you shouldn’t be so surprised at her prodigious powers, Master.”
“And you expect me to believe that tale spun by that dribbling old bag of bones? If he hadn’t been so decrepit, if he hadn’t dragged his feet like two rotten lumps of wood, I would have carved him a new profile and would have helped him find eternal peace sooner than he expected. The truth of the matter is that listening to him confused me, but on the other hand I have to believe the evidence of my own eyes. And then there must be more than meets the eye to his stories, otherwise how could a parcel of women, however divine they are, dig all those caves, tunnels, bridges and secret passages which lead to the tombs?”
“But thinking about it, perhaps there was no need to dig in the sense that we mean, Master, physically dig for year after year. Perhaps those tunnels through the volcanic rock were dug by the power of thought alone, without the need for any human agency.”
“What do you mean? Explain better.”
“Simply that priest-magicians asked their god for help and their prayers were answered. A superior being could create endless tunnels and massive bridges in a blink, and the same superior being could easily find metal masses hidden in the depths of the earth and bring them to the surface all ready to be worked on.”
“That’s what the old monk wanted me to believe. At first I took him for a lunatic, but now, thinking about it… there was something about him, an aura of power, his burning eyes, they told more secrets than all the words in the world.”
“And if a divine helping hand wasn’t enough, Master, there’s always the art of magic, that magic practised by superior beings, superior brains, demigods, much more than an art really, something they learned from the divinity they sprang from which goes beyond the ability to see through the veils that obscure the future. If those seven priestesses are the founders of the Etruscan race, divine initiators of the Tyrrhenian civilization, they must possess potent talismans they can use to trace borders with the infinite, they must possess the alchemist’s secret of how to make bronze, silver, gold and platinum by magic spells. All these marvellous secrets and magic spells are forever forbidden to human beings, so there’s no point in seeking an answer, Master.”
“But if those virgins of noble descent were really the founders of this fabulous race, my faithful friend, then shouldn’t their blood have had to remain pure? They couldn’t possibly have debased it with blood from the local tribes, so where did they get the men to perpetrate their superior breed from? But now I come to think of it, the monk mentioned new people, men who came from islands and peninsulas far away beyond our seas, not pirates, they must have been something else. Perhaps they were the ones who dug that underground temple.”
“If you want to know what I think, Master, that old man who talked like a prophet and not like a word-merchant, knew far more than he was prepared to say.”
“I think you’re right, my faithful Janu. Before, while I was keeping my vigil, I was listening to the frogs croaking in the stagnant waters of that pond when I thought I felt a light breath behind me and for a moment I hoped it was him. I long to speak to him again, but then I saw that there was no one there and I felt oppressed by a strange fear, like a bunch of grapes wrung in the press. I know I shouldn’t keep you awake, but this journey has become too difficult, I’m sure that I won’t get a wink of sleep tonight either.”
“Usually it’s the screeching of the night jars that keeps you awake, Master, but tonight all is silent. But don’t worry, O Lord, tomorrow I will make you a tisane of sweet nettle juice which will calm your agitated spirits and when evening comes you’ll be asleep as soon as the sun goes down. ”
“Many thanks, but now do you think that you can manage to keep your eyes open a little while longer? I feel uneasy, perhaps you could play the flute, or … tell me that story about the princess who was kidnapped and held in the dungeons of her own palace.”
“That story again, Master? If you want I could tell you one of Aesop’s fables instead, like the one about the fox and the lion!”
“Aesop… Aesop, let me see if I can remember, wasn’t he that ugly, deformed Athenian slave who was freed because of the wonderful stories about animals he made up? When exactly did he live?”
“Great Aesop lived in the time of the Pharaoh Amasis. Before he was freed he was the slave of Iadmone, and I don’t think he can have been ugly because all the statues of him, carved by a pupil of Lysippos’, show a tall, well-built man. What’s more he must have been attractive because he was the lover of Usenna, the most beautiful and famous dancer of her time. As far as his wonderful fables are concerned they have all become immortal, listen to this one:
- An old lion lay mortally ill in a cave. His friend the fox went to see him often and one day the lion said to the fox: ”If you really want to do something for me so that I can go on living, bring me the great stag from the forest, I will only get better if I can eat his heart. Spin him one of your clever tales and persuade him to come here.” The fox set off to find the stag in the forest and once he had found him he greeted him saying: “I am the bearer of great news, my dear friend.
You know that our king, the lion, is gravely ill and is on his deathbed. Now the problem is, who is fit to reign our forest after him? We all know that the boar lacks intelligence, the bear sleeps too much and is unreliable, the panther is as irritable
as an old maiden aunt and the tiger is too much of a braggart. The king thinks that the only animal worthy of the sceptre is the stag. Truly, you have an imposing mien, your horns command respect, what more is there to say? So the forest has decided that you should reign after the lion. Come with me and await his passing.”
The stag puffed up with pride as he listened to the cunning fox and set off immediately with him to the king’s cavern, in blissful ignorance of the fate that awaited him.
As soon as the lion saw him he lunged at him, but he only managed to scratch his ears with his claws because as soon as the stag was attacked he fled into the trees of the forest.
The desperate king of the forest roared and whimpered in pain and hunger and implored his friend the fox to try again. “Please, please, bring me the stag back with another of your cunning tricks.” The fox was upset too because his efforts had been in vain, but he said: ”You have set me a difficult, unpleasant task but I want to help you once more.”
He went to look for the stag again and found him covered in blood in his den licking his wounds. As soon as he saw him the stag leapt up with all his hackles raised in wrath and said: ”Fox, you are the outcast of society, the lowliest animal in the whole forest, don’t you dare come near me again if you value your life. “
And the fox answered boldly: ”O long-horned stag, why so timid and cowardly? Why are you so suspicious of your own friends? The king seized you by the ears because he wanted to give you advice, instructions on the delicate task of government, because he is at his last gasp, but if you can’t even take a little scratch from a dying animal’s claw what sort of king will you make? The lion is right to be angry now, in fact he’s thinking of making the wolf king of the forest. Just imagine what a wicked sovereign we’d have then. But if you come back with me now and manage to conquer your fear, the crown may still be yours. I swear the king will do you no wrong and all I wish is to be your humble servant.” These were the words the cunning fox used to beguile the wretched stag a second time, but this time as soon as he set hoof in the cave the lion finally managed to capture his prey and eat his fill. While the lion greedily devoured bones, marrow and liver, the watching fox managed to grab the heart and eat it without being seen.
Once the lion had taken the edge off his hunger he began to search through the rest of the carcass looking for the heart. He went through it bit by bit, but there was no sign of the heart. Then the fox, keeping his distance, said: “That stupid stag obviously didn’t have a heart, Great King, there’s no point in looking for it, what heart could any animal stupid enough to venture twice into the lion’s den have?”
“What will I do without your stories, my faithful servant? That whatshisname… Aesop, obviously understood the human soul, ready to do anything for honours... but I don’t want to think of serious things this evening, my spirit is tormented by strange presentments, I’d like to hear something cheerful, recite some of your poetry please.”
“Just as dreams vanish in the morning light, all my poetry has vanished in me this evening. The muse is a strange creature, Master, on those rare occasions when she’s there she blinds you, but when she pokes her timid head out of her burrow to indulge us poor mortals, if we don’t grab her immediately she spreads her wings and flies away. I seek her constantly, both within and without, but often all I find is her companion, the demon enchantress.... often the only way to find poetry is to dig into the right vein, here, where the blood flows through my wrists. Listen, Master, these are the lines I dedicated to her, to the muse:
I have sought you in the hot ashes of my hearth,
In the pebbles in my garden,
Among the cherry blossoms, behind the thorns on each rose,
By candlelight I have sought you,
In the smoke over the rooftops I have sought you,
On the highest mountain I have sought you,
In the treetops, I have sought you,
I have dug deep with my bare hands and I have sought you,
In the midst of every flower’s roots I have sought you!”
“By all the gods, Janu, a poet as fine as you should wear the myrtle crown, what will I do without your poetry when this journey is over, my friend? But go now, go and rest. There’s a heaviness to the air tonight which beckons to deep slumber, dead sleep or perhaps the sleep of the dead. Goodnight Janu, my faithful friend, I won’t disturb you again tonight, but stay a moment! Tell me, you have been very sad over the last few days, sadder than usual, but I have promised you your freedom when we get back from this journey, you’ll be freed from slavery, like the great fable-teller Aesop. You should be happy, you’ll be free day and night, as free as the air, free even when your eyes are closed, free to go or to stay, you’ll even be able to sing your songs on the temple steps if you so desire, why aren’t you happy? No! Never mind, don’t bother answering, go to sleep now my good servant, you’re already nodding off.”
“Sleep well too, Master. May the gods send you sweet repose.”
Janu went to sleep in the depths of the cave and while Marcus Fabius sat in the lantern light meditating on the day’s events he was already dreaming of his lovely Orphea.