The Scarlet Fig: Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series (22 page)

“You see … Doge….”

The Doge did not perhaps entirely see. He saw, where he had hoped to see a heap of gold solidi or a pile of glittering golden ducats, he saw Vergil. Called “Magus.” Only Vergil he saw.

He saw me.

“All mage men are mad!” exclaimed the Doge. Then he saw his mage man slightly open the right hand, saw a sparkle, saw the hand come up, come out, extend, open wide. Something there upon the palm: a very small imago of Doge Tauro himself upon his well-known huge horse Troyano, or, rather, on that horse’s imago. It was well-wrought. Was it not well-wrought?

And was it not wrought of gold?

I passed it to him.

He held it up between first finger and thumb. All (all there a-nigh him, that is) might see it. And all did. And a slight stir there was amongst them all, by one, by that particular one, whom all knew would have the golden Duke upon the golden horse, and all moved aside so that the Duke, Dux, the Doge, might let have: he did not move. Only his eyes moved and they moved towards me. They moved again to me.

I made some movements of my own. I moved my mouth. Somewhat sad, my mouth. Not quite absolutely sad, my mouth. Not quite smiling, my mouth. I moved my hand. Hapless, my hand? Empty, my hand. The courtiers murmured. The courtiers moved … a bit … about. And beneath the table and upon the floor, amongst the scraps and spittles and phlegms and bones, the mastives rooted in the reeds and rushes; the servants had not, to be sure, swept out the old such, but had lately added some new: wormwood, its fresh and bitter odor somewhat concealing the ill smell of the others; and amongst all this the mastives rooted and rottled and made all men fear them with their small sharp teeth — all men (including me) save Doge Tauro, that is, who now and then pounded them upon the head and under the chin with his shaggy fists, then see them fawn and grovel.

The Doge was not altogether happy (the Doge was not absolutely
unhappy
either; the Doge now had a golden horse, and a golden Doge), but the Doge was not the least puzzled. The Doge apprehended perfectly that — for now, at least — there was no more gold.

He turned at once (for
him
: at once) to move a previous question. “What name this great Work, who? book
who
?”

The courtiers rustled and fidgeted, of all things they were not accustomed to hear their duke speak of books;
they
never spoke of them. Sooner they would speak of the chameleon and the crocodile … but not much sooner. “Ah, that is very curious, Duke,” I said, wondering how much longer this charade must last. I had something in the athenor … almost always I had something in the athenor … “Its name is the same as the oath.
Magno Homero.
Just so. Great Homer is the name of the mysterious book on occymy. One does not know why.” If I had told him that the name if the mysterious book was
Caca Pudenda
, he would not have been any more bemused. He would certainly have believed. “Yes,” I said. “Consider, for example, the verse,” I could see that Tynus was listening, “the verse,
And Ulysses brought all the treasure thither
.” The Bull was wearing a robe of deepest red, and it made his always ruddy face more rufous yet; perhaps, too, the mention of treasure raised a flush. Tauro was not especially greedy as these things go, but he had great expenses — how they robbed him! — “
And Ulysses brought all the treasure thither. The gold and the stubborn bronze and the finely-woven raiment.
May
raiment,
for example, mean the woven filter-cloth? that the
bronze
be used as a flux for the projection into gold? or that the bronze itself is to be projected into gold? and is
stubborn
in reduction? But here is the difficulty, that bronze is
not
all that stubborn in reduction.” Tynus, I saw, standing tall and attent with his halberd, Tynus slightly nodded. “By the way, Dux, they say that Ulysses was the founder of Olisboa, in the land of the Lusitaynes, where, where, tis said, the wild mares oft conceive by the west wind: such colts do not live long, so one hears —”

“And neither doth the wind that gets ‘em,” growled the Duke. This was not merely promising, this was astounding; had the Doge caught a wit, as one may catch an ague? Thus encouraged, I continued. “Another text from the
Magno Homero
, mi Lord:
For a month only I remained, taking joy in my children, my wedded wife, and my wealth
— does this mean that the Great Work took but a month? No modern philosophers would consider so short a time possible;
Magno Homero
gives us much to ponder. —
and then to Ægypt did my spirit bid me voyage.
The ‘voyage’ of course is the journey into the elaboratory where all works of philosophy and occymy take place;
Ægypt,
by
Ægypt
is meant Great Ægypt, another name for the elaboratory: the
regressus ad utero
, this journey. —
when I had fitted out my ships
, we may be sure that by
ships
is meant not mere sea-vessels, but vessels for
alchymy; fitted out
, baked new clay pipes for the alembic, perhaps — this teaches us not to use twice-used pipes, do you see —
Nine ships I fitted out
, this may well mean nine vapor-baths, vulgarly called ‘Double-boilers,’ such as those devised by Mary of Ægypt, she who also made a Major Speculum …
fitted out, and the host gathered speedily.
”

I had him, I could tell that I had him, not the Doge, no: Tynus. He had forgotten even to pretend that he was not intent on what I was saying. “Now, Dux,” I went on, “ ‘
the host
,’ is that not perhaps the Philosophers’ Stone? The image of the gold ‘gathering’ in the upper section of the bath like butter gathering in the churn is an infinitely intriguing one, of course all alchymical images are intriguing, but that of course hardly means that they are all true.” I sighed.

All the while I had been giving this succinct exegesis of the mysterious text, just as the interest of the metal-worker Tynus had increased, so the light of wit had been dying out of the Doge’s eyes, being replaced by a sort of glaze. He plucked at his red, red robe.

“Mad,” muttered the Doge. “All mages? Mad.”

But the Doge did not sound quite utterly convinced of this. He turned his head a bit, and gazed at me out of the corners of his eyes.

And the secrets of that Eastern King of Cappadoce? One does not know. They must have been of much worth. His knowledge of alchymy was fabulous. Yet he died poor. He died in exile and he died poor. He died old, too.
Very
old, violently, by murder. So one hears.

VIII

The Teeth of the Oliphaunt

Later, in the deeps of that night, he heard that sound which was the sound … along with the lionel’s roar … preeminently the sound of Africa: the voice of an oliphaunt, baying on the beach. — the
beach
? surely he had not become entirely disoriented in the darkness? (the lamp had quite expired and not even a glowing coal marked where it had burned, supported on the tripod of three ithyphallic satyrs) … and, surely, the beach — where still lay the ship, its sides now scraped and caulked and painted, still slowly being laded full of dried dates which would grow dryer yet before ever they reached their final market (and who knew where or when that would be); dates and salts, and jars of some strange oils, and more: he knew not what more: surely the beach did not lie in the direction whence came that great sound of baying and that clash of tushes? No. It did not; he was able to orient himself by something as simple as the head of the bed; the sound grew louder. What ailed the beast? for this was no mere adventitious cry of warning or of menace; perhaps the beast was in rut … perhaps it was in pain …

Sound of anguished (he soon decided) baying, cries of alarm from the awakening household, sight of torches and of the smoke of torches and of little flecks of fire floating off the torches: hastily Vergil donned a garment and a pair of sandals, and gat him down to the scene.

Heard, as he went, Huldah’s voice. Also anguished.

Huldah was no cossetted nor dandled woman-child, feeding pulse or poppy-seed out of her palm to the pea-hens; Huldah would smite the wild sow and her sounder, did they come to root in the plantings so carefully planted. “You have your mast in the woods!” would she say as she smote them; “Get hence!” Thee and me, the wild sow and her speckled weans would slay and eat: from Huldah they turned with a snuffle and a squeal or two. And they got them hence.

“Very well,” said she, breaking into the silence which she had maintained throughout his telling of his tale; “I asked,
You
answered. Now I know of at least one king and occymy … But a thing you forgot to say. In the matter of his, whatever-it-was, buried deep in the steadily fermenting flameless fire and heat of the dung-heaps of his midden …”

“Yes?” he asked.

“
Was he fond of cheese?
”

He scanned her face for any sign of laughter; none was there: but then he scanned her eyes. “The Court will sentence you to six taps with a wet bullrush if—”

Again she begged mercy from the court: what patience, what relish of strange things and odd, what had those agate eyes
seen
? not but yesterday she had told him of having sailed round the farthest shores of Lybya (so far away that scarce the name of
Africa
still clung to it) in the farthest south
*
, until one day the sun rose from a quite contrary corner of the sky. When he, after a moment of astonishment, “Then you have made the circumnavigation as Hanno of Carthage, and the Herodotus has been wrong to doubt it!” And she: “Yes.” No more. “Yes.”

Rather, he felt himself like some pedagogue, stuffy lecturer in the furred and hooded academic gown, droning on at great length about the need to refresh that heat-producing dung-heap with new-made dung: as though she had never observed such things for herself, as though there were no dung-heaps in the lands along and behind her coasts: as though, in fact, the milk served them twice and thrice daily had been milked from trees.

He hasted to the conclusion of his discourse — already, he feared, over-long delayed. The occymist was obliged, eventually, by necessity to teach his apprentice to follow his the master’s secret notes … but so very often the master could not bring himself to disclose his greatest secrets: and in such a case (it was the very common case) he taught him to read a special and simpler cypher in which the most simple notes disclosed only the most simple knowledge: boil this, thrice … let this cool … for such and such a space of time … place such and such a substance in the pelican and add such and such an amount of water … or whatever the liquid medium was …

And so on.

In which case, should the apprentice take it into his mind to run off to another occymist, he had not taken with him the knowledge the most valuable.

Very often, of course, the apprentice, made sullen by the fairly useless passing of the years and himself so very insufficiently instructed,
did
run off. And very often he ran off to yet another occymist (where else?) whose long-time apprentice had also run off … and for the same reason. Ignorance was thus exchanged. Imagine a twain conversations about that time.

“What is this?”

“Master. An Alembic.”

“What do you do with it?”

“Master. Whatever I am told to.”

A sound as of steam. “No….” the word
fool
unspoken, but hanging in the air; “No … what had
he
have you do with it?”

The man searching his mind and keeping wise his face. “
Well
… Master …”

And, at more or less the same time. “Tell me,” a wave of a hand much-stained with the acids of the elaboratory; “tell me what you recognize?”

“Master. — This is an athanor. And this … I had not seen before. It does look like a threble pelican.”

Master purses his lips, neither very favorably nor very unfavorably impressed. “At least you can adduce from minor to major. Well. And
this
?”

Time for a quick change of subject. While the new applicant searched his memory. “Master. I did see the Peacock in the Vase of Hermes —”