Celebrantë - Part Three

Ghena had smiled in fond remembrance but all at once, her tone took on a different timbre and the pace of her oration quickened. “Now, my dear Zena, the night wears on and I must strive to be more concise. However, for the sake of your curiosity, and so that you will know what questions to ask me in future, I will tell you of a few of the people I have known.

I travelled as companion to the Queen of Sheba on her embassy to King Solomon of Israel. Despite what is implied in the Bible, she and he never became lovers. I know this of a certainty because she shared my bed every night during her visit to that land. I have thought of Nicaule often these past few years perhaps because, ultimately, I failed her. When I left, I fear she lost her mind because she surrounded herself with the most beautiful women she could find in an effort to replace me. She took out her frustration on their bodies and eventually, one of her female concubines murdered her.

For a time, before she was married to Menelaus, I was the lover of Helen of Sparta. Later, I tried to dissuade her from the mad adventure with Paris (a vain and foolish boy) but too late, I discerned the malevolent machinations of the Gods in the matter and my advice went unheeded. I saw the deaths of brave Hector and heroic Achilles and witnessed the burning of the ‘topless towers of Illium’.

I it was that told Homer of those events and persuaded him to write of it, just as I later instructed the Roman poet Publius Vergilius.

I accompanied Pythias the Greek in his quest for Ultima Thule and showed him the way to Britain. I also was the guide to Philo of Byzantium when he journeyed in search of Wonders to report. I spoke many times to Plato, Socrates and other great thinkers though their attitude towards women angered me greatly. Diogenes of Sinope was my firm favourite of those I regard as the Athenian philosophers, though he was not actually one himself. He made it a point of honour to treat all with equal disrespect whether man, woman, Lord or Lady. He was first called Cynic by me.

I knew, in every sense, the great Alexander, who was far less great and much more vindictive and cruel than history records. I did not mourn his death. Noble Leonidas however, I had earlier loved for a season and our parting on a hill above the pass at Thermopyle was fraught with sorrow.

I did not grieve when the Hellenic peoples turned from their Gods for I knew that foreshadowed their end. So it was, for without belief to sustain them, their power faded quickly. Most wasted themselves in needless squabbles and one by one they disappeared or were murdered by their own kind. My mistress, Aphrodite, called me to her but I was too late to do aught but consign her body to the sacred fire. Zeus had killed her when in a furious rage but he was last as he was first, consuming himself finally in his utter despair.

So the old world hegemony was inherited by the Romans. They were a people of practical skill but they lacked what I think of as true humanity. They were interested only in might and the tribute of what they believed to be inferior races. The Goths, for instance were a farming people who sought only land to cultivate. It took the cruelty and perfidy of Rome to turn them into warriors. Alaric, that gallant and honest man was always welcome to my bed but he was provoked so outrageously that his occupation of Rome seemed to me only fitting. In short, it was the Romans themselves who were the real Barbarians. The worst of them, and that is saying much indeed, was Caesar. When I first met him, along with his acolyte, the brutish Antonius, I already despised him for his treatment of the Gauls but when he landed in Egypt, pursuing Pompeius, I came close to despair. That was a period when, because of my fear of Roman domination, I made several foolish interventions which I later had great cause to regret. I seduced Cleopatra and after that her sister, Arsinoë, believing that through them I might turn the tide of history but all my strategies resulted in debacle. I repented far enough to warn Caesar of the conspiracy against him but his arrogance knew no bounds. His assassination was inevitable but I knew it would solve nothing.

Again I took to travelling, in search of greater wisdom.
Four centuries earlier, I had spent several years in a far Eastern land as companion to a man called Siddhartha Guatama. He was perhaps the wisest man I had ever known but I began to hear rumours of a preacher in Galilee whose philosophy echoed his. I decided to seek him out and I travelled to Judea. There I met a woman of noble birth called Miryam of Magdala. She was beautiful and of a tender nature and we soon became lovers. She it was who told me more of Yeshua the Nazarene and his ministry. Together we travelled to Mount Eremos, near Capernaum to hear him speak. His message seemed to overflow with love for his fellow men and I was deeply impressed, Miryam even more so, and together we approached that gentle man.

When they set eyes upon each other I quickly saw that she was smitten and he not less so. I bowed to the inevitable and wished them well but I could see that others did not. Most of the Nazarene’s companions accepted her presence, if reluctantly, but Simeon, the one also called Cephas, was clearly mortally offended. It did not bode well and a shadow crossed my heart. It was well that I stayed in the land for although I could do nothing to prevent what later transpired, I was able to aid my former lover. Simeon Cephas later accused Yehuda of Kerioth of treachery and named Miryam as Yehuda’s lover. She would have been stoned had I not protected her and engineered her escape.

I know not exactly what occurred but I strongly suspect that Simeon was the true betrayer. My suspicions hardened when he took the leadership of the group to himself and began to embellish the prophet’s story in order to gain more recruits to his cause. However, I cared little for this and I brought Miryam to Gaul where she lived out a life wounded and shortened by her grief.

Another four hundred years or so later, in Mecca, I met a merchant called Muhammed ibn Abdullah, a selfish, tyrannical man who treated his wife as a chattel. In trying to effect reconciliation between them, I told him of Yeshua the Nazarene and his teaching of universal love. This proved disastrous for he saw in the lessons only that which he wanted to see and he cultivated a yen to bed me and add me to his household. I declined his offer scornfully. I believe that my contempt for him unhinged his mind and he retreated to live in a cave. He emerged a few years later, even more deranged, and declared himself a prophet. Thus are the so called great religions born!

For a time, I despaired of mankind and returned to Britain in the vain hope of finding Elfinesse again. The Romans had not long left and Angles, Saxons, Jutes and other northern tribes were pouring into the land and settling there. I quickly grew fond of the newcomers and my optimism was restored. I loved to go on the open seas with the northmen and one journey commanded by a Dane called Thorvald introduced me to a country that I had never seen or imagined to exist. I had never been further east than the Indian sub-continent and though I had known since being instructed by Lorellinthë, that the world was a sphere and revolved around the sun, I suspected that the west of Europe was separated from China by a wide but possibly navigable sea. This was five hundred years before Lief Ericsson landed in North America and no tales or sagas were told of the trip I took for I was the only survivor. Thorvald’s ship foundered off what is now Connecticut and I was swept ashore by the storm which had sunk our long-boat.

The people there thought I was a sea Goddess and though I demurred I was treated with a respect I hardly deserved. That was my experience throughout my long sojourn in America. All the peoples I met were hospitable and as I travelled west (for I purposed to find my way home that way) I was offered guides until those who attended me grew to the size of a small tribe. After much wandering, I came upon a people in the far north who knew the way into what is now Kamchatka and a small boat was built to convey me there. I took only two female companions with me on the trip through the Aleutian Islands and bade the remainder of my retinue head south and found a new people in the broad, empty lands we had discovered.

My two companions, Iskaha and Tessanaphi were their names, made our way south, island hopping until we reached the Japanese island of Hokkaido. We were not mistreated there but we felt unwelcome and so soon struck out west for the main continental land mass again. I had devised a rudimentary way to measure our latitude, and I decided upon forty degrees north as an appropriate point at which to head due west, as I knew from previous experience that this would take us north of the great mountain ranges. This was a piece of great good fortune for it brought us directly into the city of Beijing. As travellers from a foreign land, we were regarded with suspicion by the folk who worked the land but in the great city we were feted and presented to the Emperor. My hair and eye colour fascinated the Chinese though they were, in truth, more disconcerted than attracted. My companions however were universally accepted and they decided to remain and live out their lives in the Emperor’s court.

So, I headed west alone, taking such companions on the road as presented themselves. It was a weary journey but eventually I reached the Caspian Sea, and I was in territory better known to me. It was then an easier path, through Persia and the recently converted Muslim lands until I rested for a while in the familiar olive groves of Greece. From there I slowly made my way west and north till I was once again in my beloved Britain. It had taken me thirteen years, and though I had not set out with that intent, I had circumnavigated the Globe, almost a thousand years before Ferdinand Magellan.

And now I must hurry to complete this brief history for I see my Zena’s eyes are heavy though she struggles to pretend they are not. So you see, my tired one, I have much to tell that should be told. I have been companion to or had converse with many who are celebrated or notorious. Among others whose bed I shared were Boudicca of the Iceni, Katherine of all the Russias and Eleanor of Aquitaine. I was with Elizabeth Tudor at Hatfield House when she heard of her accession and at that, I quietly faded into the background though I know for certain that she never forgot me. Of far less wisdom and nobility of soul were Madame de Pompadour and Marie Antoinette though they were more adventurous in the art of love.

Among those whom delighted me most and sometimes least were men and women of artistic achievement. Leonardo and Dante were a huge disappointment whilst Michelangelo was like a tiger. I know why la Giaconda smiles her secret smile and who modelled for Pietà.

Two millennia before those days, tiny Sappho, she of the bluish-black, almost violet-seeming hair wrote many poems for me in Lesbos though most were lost when she was exiled to Sicily. Omar Khayyam too, immortalised me in verse now missing. But most dear to me of all poets was sweet William, boyish in his enthusiasm and able, with the simplest words to charm the birds from the trees. He was the most human of all artists and the kindest for he strove to protect my anonymity by cleverly reversing my colouring and referring to me as ‘his dark lady’. I loved him dearly and he remains without peer, in any time and place on this earth. Elizabeth of Wimpole Street was soft and loving but Christina had the Rossetti tendency towards gloomy reflections on love, life and death. Poor, doomed Keats moved my heart with his yearning and pretty Fanny repented of her teasing too late to provide him with the life-long love he deserved.

I will tell you of many others I have known and loved in due course but for now, these fleeting glimpses must suffice

Ghena finished her condensed personal history and then her expression became serious. “So now you have a little idea of who and what I may be. But I must tell you why I have confided this to you. Oh, my Zena, after five millennia on this earth I am failing. I feel increasingly insubstantial and I know that the light inside me flickers and wanes. The words I now speak are an echo of what Lorellinthë said to me forty three centuries ago.

She counselled me not to intervene directly in the affairs of humankind for two reasons. Firstly because mortals had the right to find their own way but secondly for fear that if I did interfere with the course of history, I would become what I loathed; a Dictator, enamoured of power and unable to relinquish it. She gave no clear instruction but hinted that I may advise when asked; and when I could, inspire individuals in whom I saw merit, to do good rather than evil.

I did not always closely follow this guidance as I have indicated but I eventually learned the wisdom of her philosophy when my well-intentioned meddling had the opposite effect to that I had intended. For two thousand years now, I have heeded the stricture, even when it has sorely tested my heart. Just observing when the marauding Norman’s invaded my beloved island was test indeed. And there have been much greater challenges and worse atrocities before and since, as you must know if you are any kind of student of history. But just as I confined myself to protecting Ealdgyth Swan-Neck and ensuring her survival in 1066, I likewise limited myself to advising a few significant individuals during later crises. But the effort of restraining myself for so long has taken its toll. I grow weary at last and I know that my time here nears its end.”

I began to weep when she talked of weariness and endings and she held me tightly for a while. “Everything comes to an end, my darling,” she said tenderly, “just as everything has a beginning. This may indeed be your beginning but I have not yet arrived at the request I need to make of you.”

She sat me up higher on her lap so that we could look into each other’s eyes. “Zena, I have had a growing conviction, for a century or more, that I had one last task to perform. One of crucial importance to mankind. You see, historians and philosophers have struggled for millennia to understand the past. However, they have been deprived of information critical to their aim of providing mankind with the perspective it needs to avoid possible excesses in the future. The best of them realised this and were frustrated by their enforced ignorance. Two especially, both of whom I knew and loved, greatly influenced my thinking on this.

The earlier was Karl Marx, that genial bear of a man, who used to say to me that history tends to repeat itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. The later was George Santayana, a Spaniard whom I admired far above any of his compatriots. We talked of the issue many times, though he knew not of the extent and range of my knowledge. Eventually, he arrived at a phrase that has echoed in my mind ever since. He said that ‘those who have forgotten their past are condemned to repeat it’.
So my final task has become clear to me at last. I possess information that the world needs. To withhold it longer is selfish and, far worse that that, it would be supreme error. Knowledge can be perilous indeed, when in the wrong hands, but humanity has a right to know its own past.

Every fibre of my body tells me that you and I were destined to meet. My heart wishes to believe that I have been permitted one last, great love, and perhaps that is a part of it. But in my mind is the certainty that the skills you possess are the other part, and the proof that fate has had a hand. For you, my Zena, tell me you are a writer and a publisher. I wish to tell you the story of my life and hope that you will be inspired to write it down for me. Then, if you will, I ask you to ensure its publication so that it reaches the people without the censorship or depredations that vested interests may wish to impose.

Will you do this for me?”

I stared into Ghena’s eyes for a full minute. I had immediately decided upon my answer but I wished to find something else in her, in addition to her fervour to complete something she thought of as a sacred duty. I found what I was searching for but asked her anyway so that I would have the joy of hearing her say it.

“And what will you do for me?” I asked.

“I will love you,” was her simple reply. “And I will love you whether or not you do as I ask.”

I kissed her fully on the lips hardly able to contain myself. “Yes! Of course I’ll do it. There was never any doubt from the moment you began to tell me of yourself. If you had not asked, I would have begged you to allow me to be your biographer, just as I begged you to make love to me.”

“Oh, my mischievous Zena, you gladden my heart. Our time together will be blessed, however long it be. Perhaps I will have many years with you, perhaps only one or two but our purpose will unite us in a way few, if any have ever known.”

I shook from my mind all concerns about time. The future would be as it would and for the moment I was content. I settled again onto her lap and bathed in the glow I felt.

“Now Zena,” she said and her voice became serious, “you must rest. I shall kiss you goodnight and you will sleep soundly. You will remember our talk together perfectly but I’m afraid that you will forget much of what took place before. Not completely but your memory will be hazy. You cannot yet understand why, but it is necessary.” Then she kissed me.

I awoke in the late morning. I was lying on the couch in my living room. A duvet had been laid over me and I was warm and felt fully refreshed. I lay quietly for perhaps a quarter of an hour replaying in my mind what had been done and said the previous night. Intellectually, what I had been told seemed preposterous but my heart insisted it was true. Also, although I felt uplifted and rejuvenated, more alive than I had ever felt before, there was a place in me that seemed incomplete. Something, or rather someone was missing.

I threw aside the duvet and trailed into my bedroom. The sun was shining through the window, casting a wide beam of light across the bed. On the dressing table was a large vase, full of red roses. The whole room smelled of their heady perfume.

The bed had been made but in its centre, laid out in a circle, was a glittering, torc-like necklace of roped silver. It was the twin of what Ghena had worn last night but with one exception. The brilliant adorning it, forty carats at least, matched the colour of my eyes, vivid green whilst her jewel had been blue.

‘Is this a real emerald?’ I thought in wonder. ‘It must be worth a King’s ransom!’

I picked up the note that lay underneath the necklace. It said, “This is now yours. Tonight, wear it and nothing else for I will come to you. Ghena.”