Gill Alderman - The Memory Palace

‘In Espmoss, at the sign of the Rampant Lion in Grope Lane, Brother Fox concluded his negotiations. The midsummer madness was full on him and the moon shone bright in the street outside; or else why did he spend his own coin and risk his reputation for sternness and severity to please his favourite Novice? He had chosen the woman as one might a peach, for colour and ripeness and for the complex odours which assailed his keen nose when he bent his head and applied that huge organ to her silk-shrouded bosom. He pinched Ysera carefully on the buttocks, paid over his silver to the bawd, and brought the wench home to the cloister.

‘Koschei sat quietly on his mattress of straw and thought about Woman, soft where he was hard, tender where he was vigorous, submissive where he was masterful. The moon shone on his windowsill and a narrow ray of its light penetrated the cell and lit a square of flagstones by the door. At length, that door was thrice tapped and a scented, warm and breathing bundle of silks propelled into the room by the plump hand of Brother Fox. The door closed. Koschei did not hear Brother Fox’s footsteps as he walked away; the monk might still be eaves- or, rather, hinge-dropping, peering through the crack with a hot and beady eye. Koschei did not care: Ysera stood before him, packed in her silks like a surprise parcel. She had on a veil, and a wrapper of silver, but her face was dark like his and her veilings shrouded her upper body only for her lower was encased in tight trousers which shimmered as she gently moved, eyeing him. He had never before seen a woman trousered. The sight was almost too much for him. Her curves, her differences, her fascinating sex, all were revealed as the garment writhed and glittered with her movements which, every second, became bolder and more seductive.

‘“I dance for you,” she whispered.

‘Koschei reached out and took her in his arms. He untied her first veil, and her second, and kissed her on the lips. Then, turning his head the better to kiss her tiny, right ear, he saw a shadow tremble and settle itself across the square of moonlight on the floor. The Fox! But wait – it was no man’s shadow, being female and at once sinuous and slender. For a moment he thought it must belong to Ysera but, no, her shadow and his were twined together at the edge of the room. His ardour faded, his desire fell away; he did not kiss the ear of the pretty whore in his embrace but pushed her from him and stared into the night beyond the window, where stood the owner of the intrusive shadow –

‘A woman, leaning casually against the tracery. She was naked and her long hair fell down her back in a great cascade and was as white and pallid as the moon’s light; she had her back to him and her hands were upraised to her head, one holding a brush and the other a comb. All Koschei’s passion and his firm resolve deserted him. He did not want Ysera nor any other woman, kind or cruel, but this one, this enigma who stood so carelessly outside his window, and he concentrated on the splendour of her hair. He wished to kneel down and worship this Unknown and felt his heart and soul dance merrily together in his chest.

‘“You must go,’ he told Ysera and threw her silks back at her. “Go!”

‘“But, lord,” she said entreatingly, “Oh new Beloved, Best of Men – Bright Youth, how can I leave such a one as you before I have seen the manner of your make?”

‘“Go to the Brother who brought you here. His appetite surely exceeds mine now; he will satisfy you lickerishness.”

‘“Very well.” Ysera bowed her head. “Yet – be blessed, young Novice, and enjoy whatever life brings henceforward – even your pain and your longing which, I see, is for the unattainable and not for common women like myself. Farewell.”

‘“Good bye,’ said Koschei, hardly aware of her going.

‘Now the door was shut and he alone again; but with this dream, this vision, at his window. Should he call out to it, approach it – touch it through the unglazed window-arch? He knelt on his mattress and held up his hands in prayer. The Unknown stirred and, as she turned toward him, let down her hair to cover her nakedness. He recognized her, his sister-neophyte, Nemione Sophronia, chaste star and lodestone of the novice-class, daughter of the town’s chief magistrate, Ninian Baldwin.

‘Koschei shivered on trembling knees and felt his whole body shake. For an instant she was there, solid, tangible – but he would never be able to prove that now – and then she was gone. No one was there in the cloister outside the window, nothing but the arabesques of stone and the empty roundels carved by chaste monks long ago; nothing but the moonlight setting the cloister garden ablaze with its consuming, dazzling white light. He looked down and saw that, although Nemione had disappeared, her shadow still lay on the floor of his cell. Marvelling, exhausted, he stretched himself out beside it, laid one hand on the shadow’s empty breast and slept the heavy, sweat-exuding sleep of the damned. But, in her own cell, the false Novice of the Order and true of the magic Arts woke still and –’

Guy faltered and stopped speaking. Opening his eyes, he saw the dimly lit interior of the vardo and the gypsy, Helen Lacey, who touched his lips with a cold forefinger and said,

‘Amen! But softly now; be still.’

His head swam. She, as enigmatic and beautiful as his creation, Nemione, smiled with a dozen curved and lovely sets of lips. The mirrorwork on her bodice reflected his myriad dazed faces.

‘I’ll be all right in a minute,’ he said. ‘It’s nerves.’

‘You are all right now.’

He felt steady, back at the reins. She, he realized, had willed him calm.

‘Shall I go on?’

‘No. I have enough – it is old stuff, that.’

‘Yes, from Koschei’s First Pilgrimage .’

‘Old matter,’ Helen mused, ‘ancient and far-off, full of the magic of your fantasies, Nemione and Koschei compounded of my dreams and yours. Us. We, as we were but are no more. You and I as we might be if – if all the world were paper and every tree had golden leaves and every flower a pearl at its heart. If. But. To no purpose. Besides, Koschei is not in the Cloister. He is in the Forest.’

He did not understand and continued to stare at her, mesmerized by her dark eyes. He used to call them ‘snake’s eyes’. They were still that, bottomless pools in which he saw the tiny twin images of himself.

‘My Love,’ he whispered. ‘My one Truth.’

Helen’s breathing changed: the even gusts became deep snatching breaths.

‘Don’t!’ she cried. ‘Is it not enough to have possessed my body a hundred times, and my soul with your words?’

He looked away, at her velvet skirt, her rings, her soft, mirrored breast to which, he noticed, was pinned a small, gold cross. It looked gimcrack and poor amongst the finery; but such, he thought, was once my talisman too. He should ask her why she wore it there, beside the pagan glories, but something else distracted him: a thin sliver of light had pierced the darkness of her bed beside him. It was moonlight, the moonlight he had conjured in his tale and so, since the curtains which covered the window over the bed were only half-drawn, it had crept into and enchanted the small, close room, touching the many crystals there, the looking glasses, the glossy china and Helen’s agonized face.

‘Leave my vardo now,’ she commanded. ‘Before it is too late.’

She folded her hands in her lap and bowed her head. He thought, I cannot bear to go; but I must. The intimacy of mind is over, she has some other task and does not want me here, a distraction – at least I am that. Should I return to Dominic? – and Alice. The remembrance of Alice’s youth flowed into and tantalized him. He had abandoned her in the afternoon; hours had passed.