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

by Avram Davidson

  And for all that Vergil had the longer limbs, and for all his anger, he could never catch the lout. In fact … that is, it was probably a fact, but never put to the test … had Bruno belonged, or had his family belonged, to any even small confraternity or society, he, Bruno, if matched among other contesting athletes at one of the set competitions, with their limbs oiled, and dusted with any of the socially-approved colors of dust; Bruno, if started off by the tran-tran of the starter’s trumpet, might have been able to win a race. And, hence, a prize, not of money value, but a prize.

  But his family cared for none of those things.

  What they cared for was, that Bruno, when the barrow was not at use for wheeling a scrawny shoat, head lolling loosely in a puddle of congealing blood (later carefully removed for a blood-pudding, and never mind what loose bristles and worse, even, filth one might find in the pudding: they could be simply spat out), should wheel the barrow as near along the public path to someone else’s land, anyone else’s land so long as someone/anyone was known to be elsewhere at the moment, as might be: and then Bruno would steal as many of someone else’s chestnuts, even beechnuts or acorns, mast was mast, as many and as much as he could stuff into a sack. And dump the sack into the barrow. This to be repeated as often as Bruno felt like it. Usually not for very long, for he was no lover of labor; but so long as he brought back something, neither father nor stepmother was likely to make much matter of it. For, if they dared, they would (and sometimes did) let their pigs gather mast right off the ground on others’ land. But they seldom dared, save only if they knew the owners or tenants or their keepers were afar off and gone elsewhere. Therefore even a sackload of stolen stuff in a barrow was to them a victory of purest gain.

  They laughed, likely, when speaking of it.

  And although they were slovens even in the manner in which they dressed the carcasses, still, a fire they had to make to boil water and scald the swine somewhat so as scrape the bristles off … almost off … and into the embers of the fire they tossed the trotters of the pig, to loosen the skin so as the easier to rip it off the slotted feet (figure what nice matter had accumulated between the slots), buyers how grubby or how gruff expected at least a somewhat clean couples of pigsfeet. And Bruno liked to nibble on these toasted skin-flaps. What did he with them, after nibbling?

  Once, Vergil (Mariu, Marius) was walking that way, alone: something struck him, clut! Between his shoulders; swift, he swiveled round; something struck him, clut! Upon his chest. Facing him was Bruno, no dissembling now, as to who had or who had not, thrown; no readiness to run: he stood, as it were, between his father and his stepmother and (eyes drawn, instantly, to the ground; what saw he, the Boy Vergil, there? the nasty suckets of the swine’s foot-flaps, moist from the Bruno’s mouth, saw he there), and Bruno called out, “Ya! Foh! Oliphaunt-boy! Grey-eyes! Son of a bitch!” and “Bastard!”

  More shocked than angry, the boy’s eyes now went at once to the faces of the older couple; at once (he expected) one of them would give the Bruno a cuff — no such thing. Bruno held his nose (it had but a bit before snuffed up without dismay the stinking contents of the unemptied hog’s guts), then, releasing it, cried out his insults yet again. Surely, if the parents did not wish to cuff him publicly, at least they would speak to him — no such thing. They spoke nothing. “Pfew!” cried Bruno, making anyway a show of holding his nose (not free of smuts, itself); “O pópoi!” and again he called out his insults. Vergil’s eyes kept turning from the parents to the son; at any moment one of the elders would turn and give a look of deep disprovai. Surely. A gesture, then — Surely?

  Husband and wife stood there, their faces carved out of dark marble, they heard nothing, they saw nothing: she with her huge dugs and haunches; he with his head as hairless as a snake’s. Then, almost as though on signal, each, both, they opened their mouths.

  “Hogsmeat, fresh, fresh!” he called. And she —

  “Cheap, cheap! A stiver off!”

  “There are persons and places where one with the wit may learn more,” Numa had said. “Of course, ‘In the woods,’ of course, of course.” His large hands, broken with age, moved, then, as though rather dismissing what everyone knew … knew, in this case, what was meant by “In the woods.”

  “There are certain schools, ‘secret schools,’ some call them; they are as secret as the smoke from Etna, from Mongibel’s dark stithy; and of these, likely the best is in Sevilla. You would laugh, were I to tell you the price, now you would laugh, but afterwards you would not laugh; besides … you might never have to pay it. And in Athens there are sundry schools, sundry seigniories of learningship, as it were,” he spoke on, he spoke lower than before, almost as though he were talking … not to the boy, there … not to the thrall creeping along the wall with — was that a rat in one hand, which he was holding by the tail? “the thing” slouched away into the shadows, the curtain-hanging moved and then moved no more: the slight sounds of the stick stirring in the tub began again. “… Illyriodorus,” the warlock was saying, “though he and I were never fellow, sour wine would turn sweet in that one’s mouth. Nevertheless.” What that nevertheless might bode, Vergil was not, then and there, to know.

  And by and by the old sorcerer, if that was what Numa was, said, Go.

  He had gone. So. His thoughts had much occupied him in the going. Suddenly he realized, not exactly that he did not know where he was, for well he seemed to know the way, but that had he known in his everyday mind it was likely he would have gone another way. Though, as he clearly realized in a moment, he should have come this precise way through the woods. It was still somedel light.

  “My child! My boy! Mar! My Mar!”

  “Emma!” They embraced. She was grown rather smaller and lighter, he thought. She still kept her old, usual place: a section of a log with one end hewn and sunken in the ground, the upper one long ago adzed shorter and then smoothed for a seat. Her ankles, her feet, he saw, were vastly swollen. Scarce, he supposed, might she totter from her bed to her seat in the dooryard. She kissed him yet again, then murmured something which he could not at first catch; then he knew he had, after all, caught it, for it was repeated by a voice now raised within the house, where the light of one (he saw it could be no more) tiny lamp yellowed, slightly, the shadows by the partly-opened door. The voice had been going on, going on, but in his happiness to have again the dearly-loved old woman to hug, and in his guilt at not having wished enough to have come before this long time despite the possibility of a scene with Bruno, he had not picked up what that voice had been droning; it suddenly seemed that people had been murmuring, muttering, whispering, droning at him all the afternoon and evening …

  “… sits all day and does no work and yet wants water,” the voice burst out into a higher note, “let her drink her own,” and the voice droned down again.

  The dim sweet face turned to him and her age-softened hand held out a broken cup to him. He nodded, took it. He knew where the spring was. In a moment he was back; she did not even nod her thanks, but drank at once. And drank. He went softly once again and filled the cup. This time, as she finished, she signalled something to him. Suddenly he found an egg in his hand. Poor old woman, she had no pet, somehow she had always a hen about, pecking and dipping its head at the bits she fed it from her own bread. An egg: that was always a treat she had for him. He nodded gratefully, bent over, ready to throw back his head and drink it so soon as he had cracked the shell; suddenly of a sudden some huge shape had swum swiftly out of the darkness, and had deftly snatched the very egg from his hand: the woman Euphronia it was: and she made some ugly scornful sound in her thick throat, and swiftly she was gone. She did not even bother to shout at him, for well she knew that she had wounded not alone one but two people; and that her sudden swooping-down had startled more than a shout; moreover, she now had the egg.

  Sudden tears flowed on old Emma’s cheek. And much I would, he felt the words, it was more than thought and it was other than speech; the dame Euph
ronia had snatched off Emma’s egg? And much I would that she would find scald Cacas rat inside of it; what noise now issued from the house? No mere scream, but full-voiced ullulations of terror, welling forth, and louder and louder — He blew a kiss to the old one, Emma, and, light-footed, soft-footed, so hurried away into the gathering darkness. He knew that for now, at least, no one would follow him.

  And not long afterwards he thought of a sort of equation.

  Numa: Power without goodness.

  Emma: Goodness without power.

  And for long afterwards he thought of that equation. And when he learned well how to write letters, he wrote that down. But there were things, he was learning, and things he was to go on learning, questions without answers and answers without questions, and statements beyond orderings; things and thoughts which could not be written down: not written down as simply as an equation: things not writable, things not to be written. At all.

  Some time had passed. It was another day.

  You require to be a mage; we have none such about here. About, where, then, did they have one such? Or more than one …? Was there an order of them? Numa had spoken of a man in Athens, and of schools in Sevilla. Clearly, he, Numa, had met and known the man; it was not clear if he had gone to such a school or schools, or even if he had been in Sevilla at all. Of course one might ask. Suppose, though, that asking such a question and receiving an answer to it were but part of a sequence, and of a limited sequence, too. Would it be well to begin, so to speak, using it up? It was far from being thrice three years, at which time he would be under some sort of command to return to Numa. But not yet.

  What yet?

  Seeing, he fell asleep again. He had been mistaken. It was not a dream and he was not at sea. He was in a forest, there ahead of him was Numa’s house: but what a change! It lay fallen in, in ruins, and the grass, the creeper, and the vine had grown over it. Moss lay upon the shattered boards. Someone or something was panting heavily nearby.

  How near? He turned his head. Caca was there, the fouled clothes sloughing and in tatters. Caca was there, on all fours, with offals in the mouth. Observed, the creature dropped them between the forepaws, and snarled, like any dog. There were sounds from behind, swifter than thought something sounded, whirling, whistling, past Vergil’s ears, and Caca leaped, writhed, fell back twisting, lay dead with a crossbowman’s bolt in the side.

  Overhead, the glittering — It was a dream. He was awake and on the deck of a ship. He recognized the tawny shores of land, needed no cry of, “What land? what coast of people?” which was the traditional question asked of the pilot. Brundisium lay near ahead, and there he had been born; thence the Appian Way led whither all roads led: to Yellow Rome. He had much to do, it was some weeks before, even, he bethought him of the port; then one day he heard the fluter and the middle drum which signalled that a ship was in preparation for a voyage, and that all who would go with her had better hasten to be on board. In fact, as he walked towards the water he heard one man ask another, “What keeps her here? I thought she’d gone by now?” He asked as one might ask an idle question. And, as easily, the one he’d asked made answer. “It seems they await one sole passenger more,” and they strolled away, easy of mind as it appeared, as well they may be, whose way is not with water.

  Now he heard a hoot and a whistle and a yammer of words which, for the most part, were really no words at all; he recognized the voice of Bruno. Bruno he had not seen often, lately, but once in recent months: he saw him peeling a scab off some portion of his unsweet person, deeply intent upon the matter, as one examining a leaf from some sibyl. But now the fellow was at another occupation: as often, he was jeering at someone. And of a sudden, no longer hidden from Vergil’s view by trees, there went along and alone, who but the nigromant, Numa, of whom Bruno had sneered that he had no more power, that he was grown too old: none the younger just now. What had brought him forth from his feculent den? the young Vergil wondered … asked himself, did he want to be like Numa? No. Was that the price one paid for wisdom; some said the price was one eye: No. No more than he wanted to be like Bruno. At all. Still …

  What had brought Numa forth? For sure, only an errand which he could never even trust his thrall Caca to do … fetch a small jug or gourd of water (was he not holding something like that in his farther hand?), say, from the live waters of a running brook; not to wash with, God knows … perhaps for a certain ceremony or spell requiring a certain hour … if indeed he was on a quest and if indeed his quest sought water … Or perhaps “the thing” had since died (in which case it had been no dream). And now the flutist and the drummer suddenly broke off their music; certain men appeared upon the side of the vessel, voices called, voices answered, gestures made, gestures returned; and now it seemed evident that Numa, stooped and slow, was the “one sole passenger more” for which the ship was waiting? And then where was he going? Likely enough, where the ship was going … if not beyond. He seemed indeed very, very old. And he did not hasten him.

  Half-loping behind Numa at a half-safe pace (willing to wound, but half afraid to strike), came the lout Bruno, ever enjoying to harass someone for nought … or ought. “Quack! Quack! Duck-foot!” he gabbled, only meaning but to mock; “quack-quack, duck-foot! Numa! Foh! Pfew!” he held his snout between his fingers. Old Numa turned and looked: no word he said, then; he only turned to look. The louse-bub chuckled his booby pleasure at seeing another either vexed or (better yet!) in pain. “Pfew! Numa! Foh! Clout-rag! Suck!”

  And Numa, old Numa? He, as he turned away, spoke only the brief words said to those without pride or shame; Vergil meanwhile (suddenly, in fact, he could not have said why) bethought him of what he’d seen a-hanging and a-stinking before Numa’s door; and of the vatic voice. And of the vatic voice, what?

  And Numa, old Numa (tattered, dirty, old evil Numa: but still …)? He, as he turned away, spoke only the brief words said to those without pride or shame. “You have no face,” he said. “You have no face.”

  And, in a moment, even before the Bruno began his shrill and terrified and endless scream, Vergil perceived that this was now quite true. And was utterly sure that he knew where that face now was: it was hanging by the door of Caca’s cave.

  * Avram made the following note to himself in the manuscript:The Death of Vergil: for the very last scene in the very last book, repeat this scene, after the appearance and vanishing of the little child by the barrel in which VM has his severed-apart body placed: which child, according to the old legend greets the too-early visit of the Emperor, as the child runs thrice around the barrel, with the cry of, “Cursed be the day that ever ye came here!”… and then the final scene, with the shepherd in the snow: full circle … 4-16-89

  V

  Interlude At Sea

  From Corsica’s Loriano (its trade, though limited, had even so a somewhat antic tone to it: henna, senna, leeches, peaches, chamois hides, and musk) he had taken water on a tramp trader crawling longside the littoral of the Ligurians … coming from Naples, Zenos had swung north towards Elba in order to take advantage of the wind, and to avoid the Gulf of Dread; now there was another wind to catch, and another course to take. It did seem to him, though, that this, naturally, other course was not taking them at all past Liguria, where in ancient days … so men said … the piddle of lynxes had solidified to form amber: always a great article of trade — Liguria, and the lands of the Franks, and then of the Catalands: where were they? He would soon enough see places not those at all; and, by and by, seeing the vast Herculean Columns and scenting the wild cold wind off the Sea of Atlantis — seeing the gryphons wheeling, gyring overhead …

  “What shore?” he asked the helmsman, captain, and crew, “what shore? what coast of people?” But they answered him not, were shifty and silent, not with any great insolence, but with the evasion of those who do not answer because they merely do not choose to and because they do not have to. He soon saw that strict truth did not form any part of the philosophy of the masters, mates,
and crewmen of a tramp trader. And why should it? when it did not suit them? They were merchant-men and merchants do not invariably deliver the merchandise as ordered and paid for. There was, after all, nothing in particular for Vergil in the lands of the Catalands, any more than there had been in Frankland or Liguria. He had wanted an escape? Very well, he had gotten one. He shrugged. And he made himself easy. He would see. From the moment of his final shrug he relaxed. The shipmen relaxed, too. Then ho! for the lands of the Troglodytes and of the Estridge-Eaters and those who sold the shaggy skins of wild men (such as Punes hanged up in their Temples to Bel, Melcarth, and Juno … particularly to Juno), also, the great plume feathers of great birds which could not fly, and those who traded the horns of strange wild goats (scraped translucent thin) full of sand of gold; traded them for cloth of scarlet and crimson, small bronze bridle bells and copper cauldrons (in series of ever-diminishing size so they fitted one inside the other) and cloaks of softest finest wool dyed the color of russet leaves such as lie so thickly of autumns in the Shadowed Valley And now and then, for boot, these dwellers on the western shores past the dragon-guarded Garden, handsful of beryl and of moonstones they gave, and tourmalines, agates, jasper, jade, and jet. What was strict truth on such a voyage? Oliphaunts baying on the beaches, and Black men in hooded cloaks who sold salt in slices of many colors which the Empery knew not salt to be: rose-red slices, yellow, blue, and green.