Gauntlet of Gorgons
For Michael Moorcock.
Every so often, the old Id grows weary of the Gothic style and declares a return to Classicism. He doesn’t take it so far as to pull down Nightmare Abbey and erect a villa in its place. He settles for wrapping togas around the gargoyles. It’s an attitude thing apparently. At such times, what he doesn’t know about the glory that was Greece, or the grandeur that was Rome, isn’t worth carving on an olive-stone. First he starts up the wine-presses in his cellar. Then he excavates the original amphitheatre in his extensive grounds, piles cushions on the tiered seats and throws a decadent party.
I think Engelbrecht was expecting to compete in some sort of gladiatorial contest when he received his invitation. I remember the last Imperial Bash at the Abbey. Tommy Prenderghast got confused and assumed he was attending the Highland Games. He took one of those big Roman catapults, onagers I believe they’re called, and launched the Id’s prize Doric Column into the extinct volcano moved there especially for the occasion. It was no Etna, that conical mass, but this novel method of tossing the caber wasn’t appreciated when the pillar plugged the crater. Magnanimity was as scarce as magma in the grounds that day, and we were all asked to leave.
The Id had clearly forgiven that insult, for now he sent us a fleet of chariots with rubber practice scythes attached to the wheels, and they clattered the entire membership of the Surrealist Sporting Club down rutted lanes. The awful bulk of the Abbey loomed ahead, but the dreadful effect was softened by the sweet strains of a lyre plucked from one of the turrets. Presently our host came down to greet us with blistered fingers. He had a garland of ivy on his head and sunglasses fashioned from two halves of an enormous grape. I looked out for slave-girls but there were none to be had. All the other ancient details were in order, so there was no room for complaint. Baths of milk fed by miniature aqueducts, lions in sandals and poisoned eunuchs.
He led us into the Arena and Engelbrecht drew out a sharpened salad-fork from under his robe, turning it so that the starlight reflected into my eyes. He realised he was going to be disappointed at about the same time I did. There was a musical play going on right at the centre, some dreary rubbish entitled The Sound of Mastic, and we had to sit and watch it. Hardly the orgy of violence hoped for by the plucky dwarf. But he put his modest trident to good use when the refreshments were passed around, for when I dipped my thumb into a dish of Pisum Indicum he took this inverted digit as a signal to stab three poor peas at once.
Our host had a covered gallery all to himself and sprawled on a couch like an Emperor, but this wasn’t evidence of extreme megalomania. The Id has almost no ego. He just cares to do events properly, and his bad taste is always highly refined. But the audience was growing bored and an uneasy squeaking of cushions began to drown out the songs. It was at the exact moment when Tommy Prenderghast or Chippy de Zoete might be expected to enliven proceedings with an elaborate jape, such as dragging the Ides of March into April with a pulley and a chain of flowers, that the Id stood up and shook his fist at the rows of spectators.
“So you plebeians don’t like my show? Well I hope you can suggest something better to be getting on with!”
To which there was no answer but a bashful silence, with little Charlie Wapentake finally summoning up enough nerve to confess that perhaps the production was a touch overlong, though by no means unworthy, and rather austere for modern viewers, who nonetheless were keen to become acquainted with Greek and Roman traditions, it being simply a matter of relative cultural values, and speaking of relatives, he had a sick uncle and wondered whether he might be excused the remainder of the play to rush to his bedside, escorted there by a few kindly helpers in the crowd, not that the multitude of arms suddenly raised to volunteer for the job was any indication of defeatism, but probably a general expression of sympathy, and one really ought to be grateful for such generous support.
