Vergil in Averno: Book Two of the Vergil Magus Series (15 page)

Absently, yet with some touch of playful scorn, Vergil had asked if the boy might like to stay and study them. There. The young face, which had lit up for a moment, sank into some show of contempt not the least bit playful. “ ‘Study them’? Mayhap, master. That might be, ser. But . . . ser . . .
here?
Were I lingered here, ‘twould be my death I’d study.”

Vergil had said nothing more of that. Now he came down, greeted his servant, looked at the mare.
Still,
she looked familiar —
had
he ever mounted her before her hiring? She looked, also, in good fettle. “They care for her well, then, boy?”

The boy flung his head back, looked at his employer eyes-to-eyes, though the eyes of one of them looked up and the other’s eyes looked down. “
‘They’?
Ser,
I
cares for her.
‘Well’?
Didn’t I feed her, she’d go ill-fed. Didn’t I sleep in her stall, like that they’d cut her tail off to sell the hairs; belike worse they’d do to her . . . though she’s a canny beast, master, ser. Seems this morning she wants to be the better for a ride about, and thus, ser, I have taked the liberty. For perhaps you, too, ser. Therefore.”

Iohan’s
therefore
included a good deal more than a rhetor might allow. But it was full understood. He had laced his fingers and was about to bend and help Vergil mount when suddenly he stopped. He did say nothing, but his eyes moved, and Vergil’s followed their direction. It was Cadmus they saw, and this the second day in a row that Vergil had seen him. Whether the King of Fools still danced in the muddy market or hung bright tapetties upon the black walls or flung garlands round the necks of black mules, Vergil had lately neither heard nor inquired. But yesterday he had seen him close.

Yesterday he had seen him close. The madman had walked along heavily, looking neither up nor down; his madness lay well-heavy upon him and in this burden there was no room for gaiety and abandon. His lips had moved and muttered, but the tone of voice was thick, and his very color was not as it had been before; there were no roses in his cheeks, no frenzy, fine or otherwise, played round about his eyes and mouth; but his face was the color of slate, and the instant thought in Vergil’s mind had been,
This man looks as though he were already dead….

But today, today again came Cadmus, walking close next to Vergil. This was yet another Cadmus: swift his speech, pale his lips and face, but not, today, corpse-pale; the words came forth jerkily. “What will he do, what will he do, what will he — ”

Vergil had not thought to interrupt him, for to interrupt a madman was notoriously as dangerous as to interrupt a sleepwalker; no such information burdened the mind of Iohan. “What will
who
do, me sire?” asked he.

And Cadmus answered, without anger, without surprise, “He whose life I am obliged to live.” The stop at the end of this was the only full stop in all his speech; instantly after it he resumed his “What will he do?” and this changed to “What will be done, what will be done, what, what, what?” And then he passed out of their hearing and, rounding a corner, out of their seeing as well.

Iohan gave his head a quick shake. His hands had stayed clasped. He said, “Be pleased to mount up, ser, for if we tarry, one of them local brutes will fling an insult at or a turd at me, and I shall be obliged to fight him, ser.”

Vergil placed his ankle in the clasped hands and mounted. The mare gave what seemed to be a gratified sigh, but Vergil’s mind was not on this. “Slavery at the forge does not produce good manners,” he said. And rode.

Iohan seemed moody. “Ah, ser, the freedmen here are worse than the slaves . . . and the citizens, worse than the freedmen.”

As if to prove a point, by and by someone rough-hailed them from a small upper window. Vergil did not know the house, but he knew the face; rough-skinned, warty, pop-eyed though it was, still it brought a rush of thoughts far from ugly with it; still . . . “Magnate Rano,” Vergil said politely. “If you are well — ”

But Magnate Rano did not seem to desire the complimentary salutation completed; perhaps, in fact, he never had heard it completed. It was in fact not impossible (Vergil thought) that the man had never before even heard it begun. “Come up!” said Magnate Rano. His head withdrew, an order was barked, was heard repeated by a second voice, by and by the small door in the large gate opened. A surly servant appeared, gestured, said sourly, “In!” He cleared his throat, pursed his lips, seemed about to spit. Did not. Iohan unclenched his fists.

But, Vergil not dismounting, the doorkeeper, mantling his annoyance very little, repeated, “In! In!”

“Open the gates.” — Vergil.

The doorkeeper, now more astonished than sullen, and realizing that the visitor intended to ride in, exclaimed, “Nuh! Nuh! In! Down!”

Perhaps it was the rough tones of Rano (different, certainly, from his previous manner when in his own home), perhaps the presumption of yet another troll-thrall, perhaps fatigue exhibiting itself in the form of pride, perhaps all of these and more of these than he could have then and there said in words or even formed in thoughts; whatever: Vergil turned to Iohan (who had clenched his fists again, perhaps unwise, but he was still quite young), said, “As you are the servant of a wizard, you may wish to observe how one turns a man into a toad.” And lightly he struck against his leg the light stick he carried; it was not the willow wand of the Order, but perhaps the inhospitable Janus did not know that. For a second or so the man stared at the slight rod as though curious why anyone should think he feared its sting; then, as Vergil began simultaneously to make an odd sound in his chest or throat and to cause the stick to make little jumps, the doorkeeper’s eyes bulged, his mouth gaped and showed its filthy teeth; the odd sound became audible as a low, slow croaking: the man vanished.

In an instant the bolts were heard grating, and then, first one side, then the other, of the great iron-bound gates were swung open. The doorkeeper bowed so low that not alone his scurfy scalp but his scabby neck was displayed.

“You are to treat my servant well,” said Vergil, riding into the courtyard. “And my horse.”

Bows, grunts, groans.

Vergil dismounted.

A servant of quite a different sort was there to guide him to the upper story; grave, silent, composed: a Greek perhaps, or Syrian. Any nostalgia for the groves of Arcadia or the rivers of Damascus that wrenched his heart (and how could it not?) his face well concealed. This house was not Rano’s, but besides Rano there were gathered there most of the magnates Vergil had met before, and some whom he had not. Though the day was still young, preparations for what elsewhere would have been an evening’s entertainment had been made. On the side tables were set out such eatables as roasted goat-lung, boiled owls’ eggs, bitter almonds, and a huge cabbage cut in slices; also parsley and watercress: sure signs that an occasion of serious bibbling lay ahead. There were also crowns of ivy, but though meant for the same purpose, namely the avoidance of drunkenness, they were meant to be worn and not eaten. Broad gestures invited the visitor to take part, some of the gestures so broad as to indicate that participation had begun without him. Vergil set a garland on his head and he nibbled, and, for a while, said nothing.

“My lord seems pensive,” said someone strange to him, perhaps one of the outsiders who had inherited a business in Averno and returned now and then to show he was still liable to return now and then, in hopes of minimizing the inevitable peculation for which prolonged absence from business gives such excellent opportunity to those who remain present at the business scene. A flaccid fellow, this, with sense enough to be dressed neither negligently nor ostentatiously; but this was perhaps due to his valet, and his valet could not provide him with sense in conversation . . . or, for that matter, much in anything else.

“Perhaps my lord is thinking of this important matter now before us.” The immediate matter now before them consisted of an enormous quantity of wine, so spiced and honeyed and fruited as to lead one to suspect the quality of the vintages whose tastes were thus disguised. “Great heat, what we might term, I ask my lord’s opinion, intense heat? Eh — not only produces great effects when produced on the surface, but performs very wonderful transformations among things below the surface, as we may see in
De Natura Fossilium …
in
De Natura Fossilium
we may see that — but surely my lord will know of all this, of course, being a Consul of Philosophy, as I do perceive.”

Vergil thought it likely that the man perceived very little, but instead he said, “Hardly. No. Nor am I to be honored as ‘lord’ ” — some old echo in this thought here; but he did not pause. “Neither am I nor was I ever a Consul in Philosophy; I was a student and sat at the feet of more than one. But I am not one.” The fellow heard him out politely. But he was clearly dubious about the disclaimer; it may be that he was dubious about anyone’s disclaiming an honor, for it was less than dubious that he would disclaim any himself. Somewhere he had picked up the title of
De Natura Fossilium,
and the being able to mention it and the scrap or two of something contained in it was for him a merchandise or coinage that would never wear out. A fortunate man (thought Vergil), to have so little and to be so rich.

They were saved by Lars Melanchthus from any further need to discuss any sentence in
De Natura Fossilium.
Lars Melanchthus shouted, “Well, you have eat enough salad and such now, Wizard, needn’t fear getting slop-slop; so, now, Wizard,
drink!”
Vergil did usually not require shouts in order to drink, the drink need not be “the best Falernian,” but this time it might have been that without the shout he would have done without the drink. Still, the shout had come. A single word came to his mind, and said more than a volume of elaborate Stoic philosophy.
Therefore
. One of the butlers came forward and dispensed for Vergil, who bowed, poured his libation-drops, and sipped. The wine was, alas, just as he feared. But dally as he would, he was from time to time summoned to drink more. The magnates needed no shouts to urge themselves on. Again Melanchthus called out, wiping his oozy chin. “We were sending to send for you, Wizard, yes! Yes! Only, being wizard, you knew, ha-ho!”

Ha-ho,
indeed, thought Vergil. What he knew was that there was enough strong spice and crushed fig in this ghastly mixture, this hideous hippocras, to physic a horse sicker than Hermus had been. Perhaps if he drank enough of it, it might numb his taste . . . or distaste. So . . .
therefore
. . . he did drink more. In any civilized city the leading men would regard drunkenness with abhorrence; hence the customary precautions against it. But here, here the alexipharmic salad herbs, the roasted goat-lung, the boiled owls’ eggs, the ivy wreaths, and all of that was evidently a mere show: They did not wish to use these to prevent becoming drunk, they were determined to become drunk in spite of having used them. A mere show. As was so much in Averno. Ah, well . . . His mind thought and sought another saw or wise-word or . . . Ah. When in Averno …

When in Averno,
what?
This time the arriving of the answer was interrupted, for when one of the servants stumbled slightly and spilled somewhat more than a few libation-drops upon the costly robe of Grobi, Grobi, without even rising, struck the cupbearer such a blow below the navel that, with one sick shriek, he fell, doubling up, and crashed to the floor, where he lay, still writhing, and bleeding among the shattered shards of the mixing bowl which his fall had brought crashing down with him. Much laughter among the magnates. Grobi next performed an action closely similar to one that Vergil had already seen locally performed before: Hoisting his robe, he urinated . . . not, to be sure, directly onto the floor, but onto the man who lay there.
Immense
laughter among the magnates.

And so the rank ritual continued. There being neither water-clock nor sandglass in sight, Vergil did not know how long it had continued, when, by the arrival of steaming goblets which, from their vile odor, did not contain hot wine however bad, he was given notice that the first stage of the gathering was coming to a close. The goblets held that horrid black brew, broth of Sparta, made of pigs’ bones, vinegar, sows’ wombs, and salt; by some account a general staple of that ever-dangerous kingdom; by other accounts merely the sole sustenance provided for the Spartan striplings during their long term of semi-secluded training. Here in Averno it was regarded as a cure for the drunkenness against which the cabbage, parsley, cress, and so on and on had been no prophylactic at all, nor even the eggs of owls, sacred to Athenian Minerva who had ever from ancient times been the adversary of Asian Dionysus and thus of all drunkenness.

“ ‘Twould have been better to have cooked the salad in the soup,” croaked Vergil. The magnates bellowed loudly at this, then — many of them — vomited into the broad basins held for them by the servants, gulped more of the black hell-broth — and on
that
went. And on. And on.

By and by the next stage of the session was reached. And even by the standards of stinking Averno, by that time the chamber stank.

The same silent Levantine (if Levantine he was) who had shown Vergil up to the chamber on the second story materialized with a miraculously clean table, and —

— and the case containing Vergil’s carefully made maps. Who now asked, demanded, “How came those here, Magnates?” For, certainly, he had not brought them with him.

There were a few grunts of
“Uhl”
of surprise, not . . . it seemed . . . of surprise that the maps were there as that he should ask how they came to be there. One who spoke better Latin than the others took it upon himself to answer. “You made them, Master Wizard, for us. Not so? It will be that we have bought, and so . . . and so we have brought.” The still-silent Greek or Syrian, or be he whatever he was (he was or had been, surely, a slave: that was the substance . . . and the essence . . . of his condition), carefully removed the maps from the cylindrical case of cow’s leather; set them on the table. The man was as one who makes motions behind a sheet at a shadow-play, whilst the dialogue is pronounced by others. On the side.