Pagan Passions Read online

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Noise! Forrester, seated in the great golden palanquin supported bytwelve hefty Priests of Dionysus, had never seen or heard anything likeit. He waited there on the steps of the little Temple-on-the-Green forthe Procession to wind by, so that he could take his place at the end ofit. But the Procession looked endless.

  First came a corps of Priests and Myrmidons, leading their way stolidlythrough the paths of Central Park. Following them came the revelers, amass of men and women marching, laughing, singing, shouting, dancingtheir way along to the accompaniment of more music than Forrester hadever dreamed of.

  The Dionysians had practiced for months, and almost everything wasrepresented. There were violinists prancing along, violists and a crewof long-haired gentlemen and ladies playing the viol da gamba and theviol d'amore; there were guitarists plunking madly away, banjo playersstrumming and ukelele addicts picking at their strings, somehow allchorusing together. In a special pair of floats there were bass players,bass fiddle players and cellists, jammed tightly together and somehowmanaging to draw enormous sounds and scratches out of the biginstruments. And behind them came the main band of musicians.

  The woodwinds followed: piccolo players piping, flutists fluting, oboeplayers, red-cheeked and glassy-eyed, concentrating on making the mostpiercing possible sounds, men playing English horns, clarinets, bassclarinets, bassoons and contra-bassoons, along with men playing serpentsand, behind them, a dancing group fingering ocarinas and adding theirbit to the general tumult, and two women tootling madly away onhoarse-sounding zootibars.

  And then, near the center of the musicians, were the brass: trumpets andtrumpets-a-piston, trombones and valve trombones and Fulk horns, allblatting away to split the sky with maddening sound, Sousaphones andsaxophones and French horns and bass horns and hunting horns, and tubasalong in their own little cart, six round-cheeked men lost in the curvesof the great instruments, valiantly blowing away as they rolled by intothe woods of the park, making the city itself resound with tremendousnoise and shattering cadence. And behind them was the battery.

  Kettle drums, bass drums, xylophones, Chinese gongs, vibraphones, snaredrums and high-hat cymbals paraded by in carts, banged and stroked andtinkled enthusiastically by crew after crew of maddened tympanists. Andthen came the others, on foot: tambourines and wood blocks and paradecymbals and castanets. At the tail of this portion of the Processioncame a single old man wearing spectacles and riding in a small cartdrawn by a donkey. He had white hair and he was playing on a series ofwater-glasses filled to various levels. His ear was cocked toward theglasses with painstaking care. He was entirely inaudible in the generaldin, but he looked happy and satisfied; he was doing his bit.

  After him followed a group of entirely naked men and women playingsackbuts, and another group playing recorders. Bringing up the rear, asthe Procession curved, was a magnificent aggregation of men and womenyowling away on bagpipes of all shapes and sizes. All of the men woresporrans and nothing more; the women wore nothing at all. The music thatemanated from this group was enough to unhinge the mind.

  And then came the keyboard instruments, into the middle of which thefive theremin-players had been stuck for no reason at all. The strangehowls of this unearthly instrument filtered through the sound of pianos,harpsichords, psalters, clavichords, virginals and three giganticelectric organs pumping at full strength.

  And bringing up the very rear of the Procession was a special decoratedcart, full of color and holding a lone man with long white hair, wearinga rusty black suit and playing away, with great attention and care, onthe largest steam calliope Forrester had ever met. Jets of steam fizzedout of the top, and music bawled from the interior of the massive thingas it went by, trailing the Procession into the woods, and the entireaggregation swung into a single song, hundred upon hundreds of musiciansand singers all coming down hard on the opening strains of the Hymn toDionysus:

  "_Mine eyes have seen the glory of the Lord who rules the wine-- He has trampled out the vintage of the grapes upon the vine!_"

  The twelve Priests picked up the palanquin and Forrester adjusted hisweight so they wouldn't find it too heavy. It was impossible to think inthe mass of noise and music that went on and on, as the Procession wounduptown through the paths of Central Park, and the musicians banged andscraped and blew and pounded and stroked and plucked, and the great Hymnrose into the air, filling the entire city with the bawled chorus aseven the twelve Priests joined in, adding to the ear-splitting din:

  "_Glory, Glory, Dionysus! Glory, Glory, Dionysus! Glory, Glory, Dionysus! While his wine goes flowing on!_"

  Forrester had always been disturbed by what he thought might have been adouble meaning in that last line, but it didn't disturb him now. Nothingseemed to disturb him as the Procession wound on, and he was laughinguproariously and winking and nodding at his worshippers as they sang andplayed all around him, and the hours went by. Halfway there, he fishedin the air and brought down the small golden disks with the picture ofDionysus on them that were a regular feature of the Processional, andflung them happily into the crowd ahead.

  Only one was allowed per person, so there was not much scrambling, butsome of the coins pattered down on the various instruments, and onelanded in the old gentleman's middle-C water glass and had to be fishedout before he could go on with the Hymn.

  Carousing and noisy, the Procession finally reached the huge stand atthe far end of the park, and the music stopped. On the stand was a wholenew group of musicians: harpists, lyrists, players of the flageolet anddulcimer, two men sweating over glockenspiels, a group equipped withzithers and citharas and sitars, three women playing nose-flutes, twomen with shofars, and a tall, blond man playing a clarino trumpet. Asthe Procession ground to a halt, this new band struck up the Hymn again,played it through twice, and then stopped.

  Seven girls filed out onto the platform in front of the musicians. Onewas there representing every year since the last Sabbatical Bacchanal.Forrester, riding high on the palanquin, beamed down at them, roaringwith happy laughter. They were all for him. Having been carried to oneend of the park in triumph, he was now to march back at the head of hispeople, surrounded by seven of the most beautiful girls in New York.

  Their final selection had been left, he knew, to a brewery which hadexperience in these matters. And the girls certainly looked like thepick of anybody's crop. Forrester beamed at them again, stood up in thepalanquin and spread his arms wide.

  Then he sprang. In a flying leap, he went high into the air and did afull somersault, landing on his toes on the stage, twenty-five feetaway. The girls were kneeling in a circle around him.

  "Come, my doves!" he bellowed. "Come, my pigeons!" His Godlike goldenbaritone carried for blocks.

  He grabbed the two nearest girls by their hands and helped them to theirfeet. They blushed and lowered their eyes.

  "Come, all of you!" Forrester shouted. "We are about to begin therevels!"

  The girls rose and Forrester gestured them in closer. Then, surroundedby all seven, he threw back his head again.

  "A revel to make history!" he roared. "A revel beyond the imagination ofman! A revel fit for your God!"

  The crowd cheered wildly. Forrester picked up one of the girls, tossedher into the air and caught her easily as she descended. He set her onher feet and put his hands solidly on his hips.

  "My cup!" he shouted. "Fill you my cup!"

  Behind the stage was a corps of Priests guarding a mountainous goldenhogshead of wine, adjudged the finest wine produced during the year.

  "We shall have drink!" Forrester shouted. "We shall let the revels roaron!"

  Two priests came forward, staggering under the weight of a giganticcrystal goblet containing fully two gallons of the clear purple liquid.They bore it to Forrester with great pomp, and before them came a dozenplayers on the gahoon and the contra-gahoon, making Forrester's earsring with deafening fanfares.

  Forrester took the great goblet in one hand an
d held it with ease. Thenhe lifted it into the air with a wordless shout, filled his lungs andlaughed. He put the goblet to his lips and drained it in a single longmotion. A mighty hurrah shook the trees and rocks of the park.

  Forrester waved the goblet. "Again. Fill you my cup once more!" Heembraced the seven girls with one sweeping gesture of his arms. "Mylittle beauties must have drink! Fill you the cup!"

  He passed it back to the Priests carefully. They received it and wentback to where the others were waiting to fill it. Then they staggeredforward again and Forrester picked up the brimming goblet. He held itfor the girls, each of whom tried to outdrink the others. But it wasstill more than half-full when they were finished.

  Forrester raised it again. The crowd shouted. "Observe your God!"Forrester roared. "Observe his powers!" He threw his head back andemptied the goblet. Then, holding it in one hand, he faced theassemblage and delivered himself of one Godlike belch.

  The crowd shrieked its approval. Forrester had the goblet filled oncemore and put three of the girls in charge of it. Then he came down thesteps from the platform and began the long march back to theTemple-on-the-Green.

  The shouting, carousing revelers followed him joyfully. Halfway back,one of them stumbled forward and caught at the trailing edge of hisrobe. There was an immediate crackle and burst of static electricity,and the stumbler fell back yelping and shaking his arms. The Myrmidonscame and took him away.

  Dionysus couldn't be touched by anyone except those authorized to doso--the seven girls and the Priests. But Forrester barely noticed theaccident; he was too happy on top of his world, laughing and hugging thegirls close to him.

  Behind him, the Priests at the golden hogshead, now set free to tastethe wine themselves, had lost no time. They were dipping in busily withtheir own goblets--a good deal smaller than the two-gallon crystal onefor Dionysus himself. There was not even any need for libations; enoughran over the brimming edges of the goblets to take care of that detail,and the Priests were soon well on the way to becoming sozzled.

  The musicians, now joined by the corps which had waited on the uptownstage, struck up a new tune, and drowned out even the shouting crowds asthey cheered their God. After a little while, the crowds began to singalong with the magnificent noise:

  "_Dionysus wrapped his hand around the goblet, Around the goblet--around the goblet-- Dionysus wrapped his hand around the goblet, And we'll all get--stinking drunk!_"

  It was by no means an official hymn, but Forrester didn't mind; it wassung with such a great deal of honest enthusiasm. He himself did notjoin in the singing; he was otherwise occupied. With his arms around twoof the girls, drinking now and then from the great goblet three morewere holding, and winking and laughing at the extra two, he made hisjoyous way down the petal-strewn paths of Central Park.

  The Procession wound down through the paths, over bridges and undertunnels, singing and playing and marching and dancing madly, whileForrester, at its head, caroused as merrily as any four of them. Theyreached a bridge crossing a little stream and Forrester sprang at itwith a great somersaulting leap that carried the two girls he washolding right along with him. He set them down at the slope of thebridge, laughing and giggling and the other girls, with the Processionbehind them, soon caught up. Forrester let go of one of the girls,grabbed the goblet with his free hand and swung it in a magnificentgesture.

  "Forward!" he cried.

  The Procession surged over the bridge, Forrester at its head. He grabbedthe girl again, handing the goblet back to his corps of three carriers,and bowed and grinned at his worshippers behind him, surging forward,and at some others standing under the bridge, ankle-deep, shin-deep,even knee-deep in the rushing water, craning their necks upward to get areally good view of their God as he passed over. There were over ahundred of them there.

  Forrester didn't see a hundred of them.

  He saw one of them first, and then two more. And time seemed to stopwith a grinding halt. Forrester wanted to run and hide. He clutched thegirls closer to him with one instinctive gesture, and then realized he'dmade the wrong move. But it was too late. He was lost, he told himselfdolefully. The sun had gone out, the wine had lost its power and thecelebration had degenerated to a succession of ugly noises.

  The first face he saw belonged to Gerda Symes.

  In that timeless instant, Forrester felt that he could see every detailof the soft, small face, the dark hair, the slim, curved figure. She wassmiling up at him, but her face looked a little bewildered, as if shewere smiling only because it was the thing to do. Forrester wondered,panic-stricken, how she, an Athenan, had managed to get entry to aDionysian revel--but his wonder only lasted for a second. Then he sawthe second and third faces, and he knew.

  The second face belonged to an absolute stranger. He looked like anoafish clod, even viewed objectively, and Forrester was making noefforts in that direction. He had one arm around Gerda's waist and hewas grinning up at her, and, sideways, at Forrester with a look thatmade them co-conspirators in what was certainly planned to be Gerda'sseduction. Forrester didn't like the idea. As a matter of fact, he hatedit more than he could possibly say.

  But all he could do was trust to Gerda's own doubtless sterling goodsense. She couldn't possibly prefer a lout like her current escort togood old Bill Forrester, could she?

  On the other hand, she thought Bill Forrester was dead. She'd had tothink that; when he became Dionysus the Lesser, he couldn't justdisappear. He had to die officially--and, as far as Gerda knew, thedeath wasn't just an official formality.

  With Bill Forrester dead, then, had she turned to the oaf for comfort?He didn't look very comforting, Forrester thought. He looked like adamned outrage on the face of the Earth. Forrester disliked him on firstsight, and knew perfectly well that any future sights would onlyincrease the dislike.

  It was the third face, though that explained everything.

  The third face was as unmistakable as Gerda's, though in an entirelydifferent way. It was fleshy and pasty, and it belonged, of course, toGerda's lovable brother Ed. Forrester saw everything in one flash ofunderstanding.

  Ed Symes obviously had enough pull to get his sister invited to theBacchanal. And from the looks of Gerda, he hadn't let the matter restthere. She was holding a half-filled plastic mug of wine in one hand--amug with the picture of Dionysus stamped on it, which for some reasonincreased Forrester's outrage--and she was trying her best to look as ifshe were reveling.

  From the looks of her, Ed had managed to get her about eight inches thisside of half-pickled. And from the horribly cheerful look on Ed'scountenance, he wasn't about to stop at the half-pickled mark, either.

  Of course, from Ed's point of view--and Forrester told himself sternlythat he had to be fair about this whole thing--from Ed's point of viewthere was nothing wrong in what was happening. He wanted to cheer Gerdaup (undoubtedly the news of the Forrester demise had been quite a shockto her, poor girl), and what better way than to introduce her to his ownreligion, the best of all possible religions? The Autumn Bacchanal musthave looked like the perfect time and place for that introduction, andGerda's escort, a friend of Ed's--somehow Forrester had to think of himas Ed's friend; it was clearly not possible that he was Gerda's--hadbeen brought along to help cheer the girl up and show her the advantagesof worshipping Dionysus.

  Unfortunately, the advantages hadn't turned out to be all that had beenexpected of them. Because now Gerda had seen Forrester alive and--

  Wait a minute, Forrester told himself.

  Gerda hadn't seen William Forrester at all.

  She had seen just what she expected to see; Dionysus, God of Wine. Therewas no reason for him to shrink from her, or try to hide. Just becausehe was walking along with seven beautiful girls, drinking about sixteentimes the consumption of any normal right-thinking fish, and carousinglike the most unprincipled of men, he didn't have to be ashamed ofhimself.

  He was only doing his job.

  And Gerda did not know that he wasn't Diony
sus.

  The thought made him feel a little better, but it saddened him, too,just a bit. He set himself grimly and shouted: "Forward!" once more. Tohis own ears, his voice lacked conviction, but the crowd didn't seem tonotice. The cheered frantically. Forrester wished they would all goaway.

  He started forward. His foot found a large pebble that hadn't beenthere before, and he performed the magnificent feat of tripping on it.He flailed the air frantically, and managed to regain his balance. Thenhe was back on his feet, clutching at the girls. His big left toe hurt,but he ignored the agony bravely.

  He had to think of something to do, and fast. The crowd had seen himstumble--and that just didn't happen to a God. It wouldn't have happenedto him, either except for Gerda.

  He got his mind off Gerda with an effort and thought about what to do tocover his slip. In a moment he had it. He swore a great oath, empurplingthe air. Then he bent down and picked up the stone. He held it aloft fora second, and then threw it. Slowly and carefully he pointed his indexfinger at it, extending it and raising his thumb like a little boyplaying Stick-'Em-Up.

  "_Zap_," he said mildly, cocking the thumb forward.

  A crackling, searing bolt of blue-white energy leaped out of the tip ofhis index finger in a pencil-thin beam. It sped toward the fallingpebble, speared it and wrapped it in coruscating splendor. Then thepebble exploded, scattering into a fine display of flying dust.

  The crowd stopped moving and singing immediately.

  Only the musicians, too intent on their noisemaking to see what had goneon, went on playing. But the crowd, having seen Forrester's display andheard his oath, was as silent as a collection of statues. When a Godbecame angry, each was obviously thinking, there was absolutely notelling what was going to happen. Foxholes, some of them might have toldthemselves, would definitely be a good idea. But, of course, thereweren't any foxholes in Central Park. There was nothing to do but standvery still, and hope you weren't noticed, and hope for the best.

  Even Gerda, Forrester saw, had stopped, her face still, her hand liftedin a half-finished wave, the plastic cup forgotten.

  _I've got to do something_, Forrester thought. _I can't let this kind ofthing go on._

  He thought fast, spun around and pointed directly at Ed Symes, standingin the water below the bridge.

  "You, there!" he bellowed.

  Symes turned a delicate fish-belly white. Against this basic color, hispimples stood out strongly, making, Forrester thought, a rather unusualand somewhat striking effect. The man looked as if he wished he couldsink out of sight in the ankle-deep water.

  His mouth opened two or three times. Forrester waited, getting a gooddeal of pleasure out of the simple sight. Finally Symes spoke. "Me?"

  "Certainly you! You look like a tough young specimen."

  Symes tried to grin. The effect was ghastly. "I do?" He saidtentatively.

  "Of course you do. Your God tells you so. Do you doubt him?"

  "Doubt? No. Absolutely not. Never. Wouldn't think of it. Tough youngspecimen. That's what I am. Tough. And young. Tough young specimen.Certainly. You bet."

  "Good," Forrester said. "Now let's see you in action."

  Symes took a deep breath. He seemed to be savoring it, as if he thoughtit was going to be his very last. "Wh--what do you want me to do?"

  "I want you to pick up another stone and throw it. Let's see how highyou can get it."

  Symes was obviously afraid to move from his spot in the water. Insteadof going back to the land, he fished around near his feet and finallymanaged to come up with a pebble almost as big as his fist. He looked atit doubtfully.

  "Throw!" Forrester said in a voice like thunder.

  Symes, galvanized, threw. It flew up in the air. Forrester drew acareful bead on it, went _zap_ again with the pointed finger, andblasted the rock into dust.

  The silence hung on.

  Forrester laughed. "Not a bad throw for a mortal! And a good trick,too--a fine display!" He faced the crowd. "Now, there--what do you sayto the entertainment your God provides? Wasn't that _fun_?"

  Well, naturally it was, if Dionysus said so. A great trick, as a matterof fact. And a perfectly wonderful display. The crowd agreedimmediately, giving a long rousing cheer. Forrester waved at them, andthen turned to a squad of Myrmidons standing nearby.

  "Go to that man and his friends!" he shouted, noticing that Symes'sknees had begun to shake.

  The Myrmidons obeyed.

  "See that they follow near me. Allow them to remain close to me at alltimes--I may need a good stone-thrower later!"

  Gerda, her brother and the oaf without a name were rounded up in ahurry, and soon found themselves being hustled along, willy-nilly, outof the water, up onto the bridge and into Dionysus' van, where theyfollowed in the wake of the God, in front of the rest of the Procession.Of the three, Forrester noted, Gerda was the only one who didn't seem tothink the invitation a high honor. The sight gave him a kind of hope.

  _And at least_, he thought, _I can keep an eye on her this way_.

  The Procession wended its way on, bending slowly southward toward thelittle Temple-on-the-Green again. The musicians played energetically,switching now from the hymn to their unofficial little ditty. Someswitched before others, some switched after, and some never bothered toswitch at all. The battery, caught between the opposing claims of twoperfectly good songs and a lot of extraneous matter, filled in as bestthey could with a good deal of forceful banging and pounding, aided bythe steam calliope, and the result of all effort was a growing cacophonythat should have been terribly unpleasant but somehow wasn't.

  The shouting of the crowd, joking and singing, may have had something todo with it; nothing was clearly distinguishable, but the general feelingwas that a lot of noise was being produced, and that was all to thegood. Noise could have been packaged by the board foot and sold inquantities sufficient to equip every town meeting throughout the countryin full for seven years, and there would have been enough left over,Forrester thought, to provide for the subways, the classrooms, theoffices and even a couple of really top-grade traffic jams.

  Gerda and the others of her party marched quietly. Ed, Forresternoticed, tried a few cheers, but he got cold stares from his sister andsoon desisted. The oaf shambled along, his arm no longer around Gerda'swaist. This pleased Forrester no end, and he was in quite a happy moodby the time the Procession reached the Temple-on-the-Green.

  He was so happy that he performed his atoning high jump once again, thistime with a double somersault and a jack-knife thrown in, just to makethings interesting, and landed gently, feeling positively exhilaratedand very Godlike, on the roof of the Temple.

  As the Procession straggled in, the music stopped. Forrester cleared histhroat and shouted in his most penetrating roar to the silentassemblage: "Hear me!"

  The crowd stirred, looked up and paid him the most rapt attention.

  "On with the revels!" he roared. "Let the dancing begin! Let my wineflow like the streams of the park! Let joy be unrestrained!"

  He stood on the roof then, watching the crowd begin to disperse. It wasthe middle of the afternoon, and Forrester was amazed at how quicklythe time had passed. The Procession itself had taken a good six hoursfrom start to finish, now that he looked back on it, but it certainlyhadn't seemed so long. And he didn't even feel tired, in spite of allthe dancing and cavorting he had gone in for.

  He did feel slightly intoxicated, but he wasn't sure how much of thatfeeling was due purely and simply to the liquor he had managed toconsume. But otherwise, he told himself, he felt perfectly fine.

  The musicians were breaking up into little groups of three and four andfive and going off to play softly to themselves among the trees. The manwith the steam calliope sat exhausted over his keyboard. The old manwith the water glasses was receiving the earnest congratulations of alot of people who looked like relatives. And now that the officialmusic-making was over, a lot of amateurs playing jews'-harps andtissue-paper-covered combs and slide-whistles had broke
n out theircontraptions and were gaily making a joyful noise unto their God. If,Forrester thought, you wanted to call it joyful. The general tenor ofthe sound was a kind of swooping, batlike whine.

  Forrester stared down. There were Gerda and her brother and the oaf.They were standing close by the Temple, three Myrmidons keeping guardover them. The rest of the crowd had dissolved into little bunchesspreading all over the park. Forrester knew he would have to leave, too,and very soon. There were seven girls waiting for him down below.

  Not that he minded the idea. Seven beautiful girls, after all, wereseven beautiful girls. But he did want to keep an eye on Gerda, and hewasn't sure whether he would be able to do it when he got busy.

  Somewhere in the bushes, someone began to play a kazoo, adding the finaltouch of melancholy and heartbreak to the music. The formal andofficial part of the Bacchanal was now over.

  The _real_ fun, Forrester thought dismally, was about to begin.