Wisdom and Merchurio (conclusion)

Merchurio’s introduction is accompanied by the movement of his hand to his bare chest, his tunic hanging open.
He leans back so that his long grey hair almost reaches the ground. We are not invited to sit, but I feel it’s safe to do so, and Leda follows as always.
Twin lanterns hang from poles spaced evenly across the tent and flash their twinkle across our host’s face as the breeze slowly sways their flames. Our senses buzz with strange fumes and odours reeking from the pipe and the decades-old hides. Leda told me, years later, that at this moment she felt she had been swallowed by some great lizard and was trapped in its foul stomach.
Sitting in here, in the mouth of mythology, with us was Merchurio. It seemed he had been appraised of our plight, of our dream of flight from possessive parents, and of matrimony blessed, despite our young ages.
He considered the situation for some minutes while staring hard into my face and then at the visage of my beautiful companion. My love, my Leda.
Eventually, he sighed, took a full draught of his pipe, breathed out a cloud and spoke to us. “Fine families,” said he, “would never agree to the marriage of two so young.”
“Perhaps,” he continued, “the girl could be made ready for a man, for who can say the true age of the magical creature that is ‘woman’?
But a boy, a boy who has barely hair on his chin? Why, how can he be fit for anything but a gentleman’s amusement? Even a whore would laugh at his manhood, though she would take his fortune, nonetheless.”
He took another small puff and choked a little. He looked down and wiped away the mucus that had caught in his beard.
“No, you come for my advice - and there is no advice deemed greater to the people of your city - and it is this: do not attempt to marry. It will only lead to anger, hatred and eventual poisoned bloodshed between your two houses.
Wait out your years, boy. Do your duty by your father, your mother and your city. Then you may marry; if not this girl, then some other.”
We looked at each other in horror. There had always existed between us such a fear of similar dismissal; a worry that nothing could be done, that there was no solution to our woes. Perhaps the current strength of our bond had grown so, due to the external; the ancient weight of society, of manners, of tradition, that sought so hard to rip us asunder.
I appealed to our host, I appealed to the wise and revered Merchurio. Surely there was something could be done? Surely there was some path for us to choose other than our bitter separation? But the old man sternly shook his head and looked at me as though I should be ashamed, having come to him with this matter.
He sat staring blankly at us, unmoved by the great globular teardrops streaking Leda’s angelic face. Numb, I attempted standing and almost crawled from the tent of the great seer, collapsing into the forest clearing.
Mere moments passed but, with horror, I came to realise that Leda had not emerged with me. I hovered there, in a haze of shock, no idea of what to do next. But, eventually, such moments passed that I felt re-entry necessary. I moved again towards Merchurio’s lair.
At once the pockmarked man who had been our guide slithered from the side of the tent and barred my way. This time he was expecting my dagger to be drawn, spinning me around and reaching my arm up behind my back until I let the weapon fall with a cry of wincing pain.
And here he held me, in sweating minutes of agony while my mind raced with the evil possibilities that might be happening mere feet away, within the awful tent before me.
My imagination reeled. Time lost all meaning and relation. Then, presently, she came again. Leda, emerging through the smoke, and wearing a crown of white feathers that Merchurio had bestowed upon her.
She came close and kissed me soft. My arm was released from its snare.
I saw now, in the moon’s glow, that her face was transformed. Where she wore tears, now her complexion was rosy. Where she bore a frown, her lips were now pleated in a smile.
And then she spoke. She spoke such words that even now I can't believe they came from her lips. Lips that had just that day planned and communicated such an immediate happiness for us.
“I cannot return with you,” she said in a slow, purposeful tone. “If we cannot wed, I will soon be promised to a man with whom my father does business.
But the wise Merchurio and I have spoken, and he has agreed to keep me here, hidden among the green of the canopy, where only Apollo or Diana themselves may choose to find me.
Go now, my brave love. Return to your father and mother. Seek for me only when your service is done.”
And, with those words, I was unduly dragged from that place of strange wonder and a sack placed upon my head. Once more, I was led by my hateful guide out of the rich majesty of the woods, and into the clumsy sprawl of the city. Away from the tents and the clearing, away from Leda, away from the great Merchurio, and belched back upon the steps of my family’s residence, steps I had descended hours earlier on a quest that I felt sure would shape my life’s happiness.
And, as the great oak door swung wide, I looked up at the cold grey stone staircase that led to my family’s rooms. It seemed to stretch on forever. The foreboding staircase of my future, it seemed an impossible climb.
With Leda’s image before me, ever beckoning me onward, I lifted one foot before the other and began my arduous, heartbreaking climb.

Wisdom and Merchurio

We stepped through shadowed doorways below the eaves of a city. Spindling pathways, interconnecting veins slicing communities, marking unseen borders; such paths we followed. Me leading, she grasping my hand so tightly and following close behind.
We used the eventide well, to cloak our movements through these old corridors, these thick passageways between buildings, where the walls have been laid so close to one another that it appears there is no room to proceed. They close in, such walls, upon two lonely children running together away from families and light; avoiding sentry and night-watchman; breaking curfew and command.
Somewhere, a darkness calls us, and we go to him. This man, so enshrouded, has waited almost half an hour longer than agreed. He is angry. He wishes to be paid double; paid double to take us to Merchurio.
I give him all I have and he sneers and spits on the ground. He has a face like lemon peel, and hair grows from his every wrinkle and sore. The creature eyes Leda, attempts to paw her and ask her name. I pull forth my dagger and brandish it close to his hand. He laughs once, and turns his back to me. I don’t know if I’m winning or not. Leda’s grip advances up my arm.
He beckons us on, through streets where fetid streams wash away the sins of gin-soaked sleepers, dead and bloated on the cobbles. He beckons us on, toward Merchurio.
To the east, the city drifts downhill and flattens out at its borders with the forest. There is little change from picking our way through the claustrophobic maze of streets and buildings to dodging huge trees and overhanging branches. And it is just as dark here. The moon finds it as difficult to prick the shadows of nature as it does the shadows of man.
“Soon enough,” says our odious guide, “soon enough,” as though answering our unspoken questions as to our arrival in the house of Merchurio.
As the dense canopy appears to give way to a clearing ahead, I fancy I hear the roar of the dragon and the snort of the bull nearby. Through the trees, the moon is able to illuminate gilded spectres dancing in the forest glade. Are these satyrs and devils? Do the gods walk abroad in this place? I slow my pace, and Leda holds me across the chest, burying her head in my side. But we strive on.
As we break the treeline, an assortment of a strange and fearful kind cast their eyes towards us for a moment and then go back to their business. They are people, not faeries, demons or other and they are revelling with ale, laughter and flame. Beneath the shelter of the larger tree boughs are sat huts and skin-tents. We are not pointed in the direction of the largest of these abodes, but rather to a battered erection covered with stitched hides, where smoke drifts aimlessly from a small vent and strange lights dance within.
A flap of skin is peeled back and we are bidden entry to this hollow of madness. Inside, smoking a small pipe, sits Merchurio.

...to be concluded...