Lilith (36 page)

“What are they doing here?” Lilith asked.

“This is the course,” I said. “They hang metal rings from the arches, and you have to gallop under and pierce them with a lance.”

“It must be very difficult. How big are they?”

“Like this.” I made a ring in the air with my curled fingers. “But they look even smaller when you’re trying to take them at full gallop.”

“And were you very good at it?”

“I used to be,” I said. “I won the Junior Championship one year at the county fair.”

“Did you really, Vincent? Oh, I wish I could see you! I’d give anything if you would ride for me!”

I turned to smile at her, leaning with assumed casualness against the trunk of the oak beneath which we were standing. “What would you give?” I asked.

“Oh, anything. I have so little. My flute, my loom, my prisms.”

“Your happiness?” I asked.

Her eyes darkened instantly with a look of solemn intensity. “I can’t barter and trade with that,” she said. “That I must give freely, or it has no value.”

I looked into her eyes in a long-sustained gaze of growing gravity, feeling within myself the ebbing of will and pride in a strangely craven and ecstatic process of submission for which it seemed that I had yearned all my life. I do not think I have a more abject or exalted memory from all my days with Lilith than this: myself taking her fingers in my hands and bowing my head before her in an attitude of obeisance to kiss them lightly and ceremoniously, murmuring, “I’ll ride for you, Lilith, if you want me to.”

“Oh, my love,” she whispered. She left her hands in mine for a moment, standing motionless with joy, and then loosened one gently to lay it on my shoulder in a quaint courtly gesture.

“There, I have knighted you,” she said. “And you must wear my colors in the tournament.” She unwound the blue silk scarf from her throat and tied it about my forearm, which I held out obediently, watching her eyes. They had become marvelously gay. “Now you are my champion.”

“How shall I ride?” I asked. “As the Knight of Poplar Lodge?”

“Yes, that sounds splendid. And it
is
my domain, isn’t it? Are you glad to ride for me?”

“Yes.” I lifted my arm and fingered the pale silken tassel. “It’s a beautiful banner. I hope I can do it credit.”

“Oh, you will,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter if you don’t win a prize, because I’ve won enough today.”

“Well, I’ll try,” I said. “But you mustn’t expect too much; I haven’t ridden for years.”

She laughed suddenly with delight. “How did you arrange it, Vincent? You told me you didn’t have a horse!”

“I don’t. But I had a wonderful stroke of luck. Come down to the paddock and we’ll look at our horse. I haven’t even seen him myself, yet.”

We walked down among the gathering crowd, past a hastily erected wooden platform where the heralds were to sit with their trumpets and trombones, to a railed paddock in a wooded hollow below the course. Here there were horses being saddled and curried, their fine hides gleaming in the dappled sunlight among the trees. They lifted their hoofs sometimes, stamping, tossing their heads and blowing long nervous whinnies in the warm silence of the summer afternoon. The air was full of their odor—a heroic smell which I have always loved—warm, salty and golden, like sunlight on blood. Lilith stood at the paddock rails to watch them, clutching her yellow hair close about her face like a coif and smiling with delight at their beauty.

“How lovely they are! Which is yours, Vincent?”

“There, I think.”

I pointed to where my friend Howie Elliot crouched at the feet of a great bronze-colored stallion, polishing its hoofs with an oiled rag. He hooted to it softly sometimes when it dipped its head and shifted its feet impatiently, arching its huge burnished neck.

“Oh, he’s the most beautiful of all!” Lilith cried, clasping her hands together. “What a wonderful horse we have!”

“Yes, he is.” I felt a mingled sense of pride and apprehension and the privilege and responsibility of riding so wonderful an animal. I called to Howie, who raised his head and waved to me.

“Hey, Vince! I thought you was lost! Come on over and have a look at him.”

We climbed through the railings and walked to where the stallion was tethered under a large oak. Howie stood up as we approached, lifting his plaster-encased arm and grinning regretfully.

“Can’t do much good with this thing,” he said, “but he don’t look too bad, does he?”

“He’s the most beautiful one of all,” Lilith said. “He shines like gold.”

“This is Miss Scott, Howie,” I said, introducing her by the conventional pseudonym for protecting the identity of patients. “Howie Elliot.”

“How-do, ma’am. Vince never told me he was goin’ to bring you. He’s a sly devil. I reckon you’ll bring him all the luck he needs.”

“I don’t think he’ll need any, with a horse like this,” Lilith said. She reached out to lay her hand on the stallion’s muzzle. The animal shivered and whinnied under her touch, nuzzling her breast with its great gaping nostrils and leaving a smear of moisture on her blouse. She laughed and hugged its huge sleek snout against her.

“Howie’s letting me ride him because he broke his arm,” I said.

“That’s very kind of you,” Lilith said. “And I have to thank you, too, because I’ve never seen a tournament before.”

“Aw, it’s a favor to me,” Howie said. He stood looking puzzled and abashed by her careless loveliness. “You come from Stonemont, ma’am?”

“No, I’m only visiting here.”

“I didn’t remember seein’ you before.”

“No.”

“Can I take him for a little run in the woods here, Howie?” I asked. “I’d like to get the feel of him a little before I ride.”

“Yeah, I was goin’ to tell you to do that. You better take the lance, too. I got it right over yonder by the tree.”

“Oh, let me get it!” Lilith cried. She ran to where the long oaken shaft stood propped against a branch and lowered it slowly, running her hands along the polished wood, touching the steel ferrule and cord-bound haft with wonder. “I’ve never seen one,” she said, looking up at us with a delighted smile. “I didn’t know they were even made any more. How heavy it is!”

“Yeah, it’s too heavy for you, ma’am,” Howie said. He relieved her of it laughingly and, when I had mounted the stallion, handed it up to me.

“Now, let me tell you a little bit about him,” he said. “His name’s Prince, an’ he likes to hear it now an’ then. I got him so’s I can turn him with my knees: just a little nudge’ll get him back in line, but if he’s goin’ way off, bang him good an’ hard a couple of licks. He’s got a good flat run when he’s gallopin’ all out; if he starts slowin’ up just yell his name a couple of times. He’s used to that. He knows about them arches, an’ you won’t have no trouble. Let him have lots of rein, though; he’s got a real soft mouth. Just handle him with the knees, is best.”

“All right. Thanks, Howie.”

I swung the stallion out of the paddock and settled the lance under my arm. It was one of those profoundly remembered acts which bring back with them a bewildering wave of perfectly preserved emotions, giving one for an instant the ghostly sensation of having slipped in time. How many summer Sunday afternoons were recaptured by that set of simple movements! Not the afternoons themselves, that is, but my response to them. The tug of the lance under my armpit, the heft of it along my forearm, the clasp of thighs about the horse’s barrel, the creak of leather, the fume of horse flesh re-created, in an instant of tumultuous waking wonder, the boy’s spirit which had inhabited me on those afternoons and seemed to make run fresh in me some eternal vein of valor which I had never thought to tap again.

I rode the stallion down through the oak woods to a stretch of open meadowland, testing his reactions to the physical commands of my knees, feeling his sensitivity to the bit and adjusting myself to the rhythms of his body, aware, as I did so, of his own examinations of my capacities as a horseman; each of us subtly assessing the skill, strength and courage of the other as we established that mysterious covenant between mount and rider which is one of the great delights of horsemanship. At the edge of the woods I urged him from a trot into a thrilling headlong gallop, holding the lance level and sighting along it while I watched with hypnotic pleasure the solid world ahead of us, sundered by his speed, loosen and pour past in a stream of riven, helter-skelter things. Horses’ hoofs have always broken the world apart for me—and time, as well, I think—providing me with a wild entry into what seems to be (when I try to imagine it at all) the heart of reality: a splendid panoramic flux, the taste of wind, and the blown scent of a thousand forfeited flowers.

After a few minutes I reined the stallion in, calling his name to settle him, and came cantering back through the oaks to where Lilith and Howie stood waiting at the paddock rails.

“Vincent, you ride beautifully,” Lilith said. I felt my heart glow with pride as she lifted her face to me, her eyes brilliant with admiration.

“How do you like him?” Howie asked, grinning.

“He’s a real beauty, Howie.”

“Yeah, you looked real good up there. You’ll do real good.”

He nodded and stroked the stallion’s muzzle, speaking to it with rough affection. “You-all git along all right, don’t you? Big old Prince.”

“You’d better go find a place along the ropes,” I said to Lilith. “It’ll be getting crowded soon, and you won’t be able to see.”

“Yes.” She stretched her hand up to me and I reached down to feel the cool momentary clasp of her fingers.

As she walked away among the crowd of gathering spectators I had, in spite of my conviction of her great and genuine interest in the event, a moment of anxious realization that if she wished to escape she would have an excellent opportunity of doing so, among the throngs and confusion of the tournament grounds; but I was reassured to find that from my position in the saddle I could see along the whole length of the list, whose roped boundaries stretched down to the paddock area, and that, with moderate vigilance, I would be able to keep her in sight throughout the tournament. I watched her move up through the crowd—how easy it was to identify her by her wild golden hair—to the upper end of the course, finding a place beside the ropes, where a pair of awed farmers parted to admit her.

“You got a real pretty girl there,” Howie said. “By golly, I never seen one just like that in my life. That her scarf you got on your arm?”

“Yes.”

He grinned and nodded. “How you want to ride? I got to make out a entry card with your name on it.”

“As the Knight of Poplar Lodge,” I said. “Is that all right with you? It’s where I work.”

“Yeah, sure. I’m down as owner an’ trainer; that’s all I care about. I’ll take it on up there, ’cause they’re gittin ready to start.”

“Thanks, Howie.”

He walked away toward the judges’ stand with the entry slip, and I used the interim to make myself more familiar to the stallion, leaning forward to pat his neck and speaking to him softly. The other riders had mounted, and with the hushed stir of readiness in the paddock the horses had become nervous, snorting and sidling tensely. There were twelve entries, most of them trim, long-legged hunters of the type that Maryland breeders favor, as well as several placid-looking work horses, nondescript in appearance, but, I knew from experience, well trained and cunning in this type of contest. The riders for the most part were serious-faced country boys in faded jeans and calico shirts, although there was a sprinkling among them of “Hunt Club types”—breeders and gentleman farmers—in gleaming boots and jodhpurs. All of them had a charming and challenging air of earnestness which I greatly respected; the tournament was a small affair—not one of the major county contests—but they nevertheless took part in it with a quiet determination which gave to such events, in spite of their invariable outward air of improvisation, a kind of intensity and dignity to which I was extremely sensitive. I looked about at my fellow riders with admiration.

In a moment Howie returned and stood waiting to hand me up the lance, which I had set down after my trial gallop. There was a delay of several minutes, due to a crisis of some kind that had arisen in the judges’ stand, calling forth all the parliamentary instincts of two ladies in straw hats and printed cotton frocks who scurried about with documents clutched to their bosoms, consulting faintly embarrassed, vaguely nodding officials with judges’ badges pinned to their suspender straps. When this had been resolved the musicians in the bandstand opposite, after much confused exchanging of sheet music, adjusting of stands and scraping of folding chairs, raised their brass instruments and broke into a blaring rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It was followed by a tremendous cheer from the crowd, who added to their appreciation several chicken bones and empty popcorn boxes, flung in jocular tribute toward the bandstand. I raised my eyes to where Lilith stood watching at the upper end of the course. She lifted her hand to me and then carried it to her lips, touching them lightly with her finger tips in the token of a kiss. As she did so a sudden hellish wail broke forth above the tournament grounds—a rising, anguished, demonic howl, increasing in pitch by bitter quivering octaves until it had faded across the threshold of audible intensity. The hush which followed it was broken by a series of ugly regurgitative sounds, and then a mechanized and chucklingly apologetic voice, introducing the order of events over the loudspeakers. I felt the stallion shudder and start at the sound, and I leaned forward to comfort him, grinning somewhat foolishly at Howie, for I, too, had been shaken.

The judges and sponsors were introduced by microphone, the procedure of tournament announced, and then the Roll of Knights—interrupted by a cheer from the crowd after each champion’s name—called grandly. I could not repress a smile of pride on seeing Lilith clasp her hands together excitedly when my own was called. There were to be ten charges by each competitor, with the Tournament Prize going to whichever knight won the greatest number of charges. Victory in an individual charge was determined both by accuracy and speed, a tie in the number of taken rings being resolved by the time of the charge. As there were only three arches on the course, and a considerable number of riders might be expected to take all three rings successfully, this made speed a vital factor. I was to ride eighth, a position which seemed very favorable to me, for I considered it a psychological disadvantage to ride early and have to compete with the as yet unknown achievements of my rivals.