Vergil in Averno: Book Two of the Vergil Magus Series

by Avram Davidson

  Some speak. Some spin.

  Some weave.

  “Iohan! I’m damned glad to see you — ”

  “And I, you, Master. For — ”

  “That small bell you gave me? May have saved my — ”

  “Master, what I’m thinking, it’s that it’s best we consider getting back. Away from — ”

  And, as often when two talk more or less at the same time, they two more or less at the same time fell silent. After a moment the boy gave a slight bow, a slight gesture. Vergil said, “If you mean it is for me to talk first, you being man and I master, then what I wish to say is that I give you leave to finish what it was which you were saying.”

  Iohan nodded, swallowed, made a broader gesture. “Ser, such types has been roaming roundabout here, and such talk I hear talked by them I hasn’t asked to say so much as Salve, and it’s give me firm impression, ser, as there are them here who as you might say mean to speed the parting guest.”

  Vergil grunted. “Meaning us?”

  “Therefore.”

  Vergil sighed. “There is so much I’ve observed of very recently myself as to make me feel I needn’t ask you to say more right now. There’s a great deal of unfinished business, but it may be that our own part in it may be finishable from elsewhere. ‘Pay, pack, proceed’ — eh?”

  “Ser?”

  “Traditional military order . . . of some sort. Matters not finished here? Let them send after me to discuss that. More advice wanted? Let them disburse for the advice they’ve had, then ask me for more. Do you observe, my lad, what it is which I am about to do?”

  He had his money in his hand, his account tablets in the other. For a second only Iohan stared, and rubbed his brown curls. Then: “Ah! You be about to pay, ser. Then I’m about to pack, ser. And then — ”

  “ — then we may proceed, ser.”

  Settling accounts with the lodgings-master took longer than Vergil liked, but an attempt to speed matters would have had no better result than the presentation of further demands, most of them and likely all of them for sure mythical — and then as well he wished to give no appearance of nervousness. Some accounts he paid in full with no question, some he questioned but paid in full, some he simply refused with an impassive no. And as at last the keeper of the house made some particularly preposterous demand for sundry quintals of the best barley, Vergil said, “The best barley has never even been smelled in your stables. Take the money and snap your talley-sticks in two.”

  “ ‘Take the money.’ I’ll take the futtering money, sure, yes — and I’ll take the horse too, until — ”

  “The horse is rented and her rent is up; if you’d like a lawsuit with her livery stableman — but perhaps you’d like me to report all this to the magnates instead?”

  The man looked him full in the face and gave one silent snarl. Then, with a sullen shrug, he snapped his talley-sticks and tossed them away. Then he swept the money off the counting-board, and whither it went, Vergil cared not. The mare was saddled, the saddlebags full; he mounted. Only a step into the street and he struck his forehead. “The fly!” he said, sharply. Half-turned.

  But Iohan was equal sharp. “That great fly in that great bottle, ser?”

  “Yes! I must — ”

  “Ser, I’ve opened it and let out. The bottle, ser, be packed. The fly — who knows. Surely Master didn’t want it? I can’t certain recollect you ordered me to do what I done, but I be almost sure of it.”

  Vergil had no recollection of ordering it at all, but, it being exactly as he would have wished to have ordered, he gave his head a brisk shake. Then: “Where is the beast going?” he demanded. “Why are you leading her this way? This is not the way to the Great Gate at all; what ails you, boy?”

  “Confusion ails me, ser, for it’s not me as is leading she, but it’s as she’s got her own notions, and so far,” as the mare picked up her hooves and increased her pace, “it’s all as I be able to do is hold on to her. What? Give you the reins? Aye — ”

  But tug as he would, gentle her as he would, attempt to guide her as he might, the mare swerved not from her own course. “This is absurd. It is in fact so absurd that I shall let her go as she pleases . . . just to see where she pleases.”

  And where she pleased was to lead along the broad lane which, as every evidence of sight and smell indicated, led to the Dung Gate. To the great jollification of loungers, loiterers, and guards. The chief duty guard was vastly diverted to see the fine horse anticking and prancing through the filthy puddles despite the evident desire of her master and his man to control her. Like cleave to like, the duty guard observed. Expel nature with a pitchfork, sure she do still return, he said, chuckling, absently fiddling with his filthy book and filthier pen. Then some notion occurred to him that checked his grinning and hurrawing for a moment. “Say, by duty I bennot suppose to leave yous gann out by thic gate,” he brayed, some sudden definition of “duty” coming to his mind.

  Iohan twisted his head. “The cursed trot’s a vehicle with dung inside, ben’t she?” he demanded, and trying, seemingly, to hold on to the bridle for dear life, else be tossed into the muck and steaming mud. At this the guard and lay-company laughed loud, Vergil reached for the book, had it in hand, crusty pen hasty dipped in ink which never saw India, scribbled his scrawl, tossed a coin, tossed the book, more curvetting, hoots, jeers: They were outside the walls. The chief duty guard howled that they were not to come back by the same way. “Nor by Here we shan’t!” muttered Iohan. The mare wrangled till the gate was gone from sight. Then she of a sudden settled into a perfectly steady pace.

  “Hop up, Iohan, quick! She may get bored with good behavior!” The mare was no great heavy animal, but neither one she bore on her back now was of great weight . . . as weight be gauged in pounds. And — sure enough! — no sooner was Iohan fixed in his place, than she was off again; she ran, she ran, she ran at a swift but holdable pace . . . that is, one at which she held herself. Her mounts were content with holding on to her.

  And then she cantered, and then she let herself into a quick but certainly a restful walk. And as she did she turned her head and rolled her eyes. Aside the road was an obelisk on which words and signs were carved. “What be that’n, ser, please?”

  Vergil squinted to read the half-obscured words. “Ah, yes. Oh, so. That is the Proscription Stone. Anyone banished, exiled, or proscribed from the limits of the municipium the Very Rich City of Averno, let him take heed: These are the limits thereof, further he may not go, pains of death await him…. More or less that is what it says. And what say you?”

  “ ‘Exiled from — ’ Well, ser. You say such, such I must believe it say. Leave them proscribe me, ser. No fear, my Here, I’ll violate them boundaries. — Ser, ser! Ben’t the air cleaner?”

  The very cleanly winds, which must indeed have felt themselves proscribed from entering the municipal limits of the Very Rich City, most certainly had blown the air here clean. The path was not the one which they had taken, coming in; what of it; nothing of it. Sooner or later it would reach a road. Meanwhile they were gone from Averno, passed clean out of its unclean jurisdictions, as the path turned (sure enough! very soon they came upon a paved way: Imperial stones it was the mare’s hooves now trod; there was safety in the very sound and thought), though they could not see the city itself, yet that corner of the evening sky was fouled and smudged and seemed darklier than night: though now and then a flame, flames shot up.

  Oft was I wearied when I worked at thee…. In a way, now, now being a fragment of oft, Vergil was weary. Weary, in one way, was far too weak a word. But in another way he felt as though a burden as great as any borne by mule or serf had been rolled from off his back and shoulders. It was the day’s end in more than one sense. There was, rising now, moon enough to light them: against the horizon, the moon loomed large. Some remnants of day lingered to the side. Overhead, the stars.

  • • •

  They had passed the night in rude comfort enough at a clean-
enough inn. At the early morning there was a cup of hot wine and a bowl of chestnut-meal well cooked. Thin mists swirled through the trees, they were up high, and on a strange road, but this did not bother: It was a road that would lead them back to the small port that was — still and again — home.

  Where it led them before then, however, was to a small military post with a crow’s-eye view of the surrounding country. A hare could not have come along within miles, in daylight without being observed, let alone armed men. It need have been no surprise that they themselves, then, were, so to speak, expected; the surprise was by whom they were expected.

  “It be a lictor,” said Iohan, in a dismal voice. Wiggled his back, and rubbed the nape of his neck.

  “It is not only a lictor,” Vergil said, by no means joyful himself; “it is the lictor. Ah, well. — Ser Lictor! Greetings!” He had hardly expected to meet him here, on the berm of a rural road, still holding his officially bundled rods and ax. There was, however, no pomander box, nor was one needed so near the sweet-smelling woods — expected by Vergil not, the lictor seemed surely to be expecting Vergil; why?

  Soon answered. “Saw you coming down below at the bend of the road there,” he said. There was no grimness in his manner, neither was it quite the same as it had been at their last meeting. Almost automatically he now drew himself up. “Master Vergil, a Citizen of Rome, I greet you in the name of the Senate and the People of Rome. His Honor the Legate Imperial is within, and …” And here formalities concluded. The man was more puzzled than anything else. Iohan, ceasing to fear for his back or his neck, slipped from where he had been holding the mare’s head and clasped his hands for Vergil’s more easy dismounting, then at once returned. Once again the animal looked back, rolled her eyes; then she bent to crop a clump of grass. None of her antic moods seemed now upon her.

  “Well, Lictor, what is it? What brings you here, with his Honor back in Averno?”

  A shake of the head. “Oh, he’s not, my ser. He’s within. And he’s seemingly had a shock of some sort. I do want you to see him, as I’m sure he’ll be wanting to see you, but first let me tell you what’s this about . . . so far as I know what it’s about. Seems that the Excise stopped some fellow ambling along on a mule and stopped him to ask for a declaration. Well, he — so they tell me, I wasn’t there — puffed and huffed, said he was a courier on official business from the Very Rich City to his Excellence” — Vergil rapidly ran titles and authorities through his mind: His Excellence, that would be the Viceroy of the South, with office at, or, rather, right outside of, Naples, whose Doge was notoriously prickly about any possible rival in power — ”and he needn’t show nor even have nor make a declaration. Which in its way is of course true. However, for one thing: why, if bound from Averno to Naples, why be on this road? Hardly the most direct one. For another, if a courier, why going so slow?”

  He looked at Vergil, as if expecting, or half-expecting, him to answer on behalf of the alleged courier. Vergil not doing so, on went the lictor with his account. The unsatisfactory answer had given the excise men reason to make the fellow dismount, his baggage had been examined, they had indeed contained dispatches, but, although asked to wait till the matter were taken up with the soldiery, the courier had not done so. “Tried to cut across country, from this bend in the road to the other, foolish to think he could have gotten away with it, a mule can do it, yes; suppose he saw no bloody great cavalry horses, thought himself safe, but these wiry little hill-horses — ponies, almost — which the soldiery have got here can go most anywhere a mule can go, and go it faster. Shorten the tale: they locked him up for the night, then, having been informed that his Honor was stopped here — and also on route to see his Excellence — why, they brought all his burthen here, too. And his Honor, by authority so vested in him and his honored office by Imperial Sign and Seal, opened it. Which is what seems to have given him this shock. Please to come along, Ser Vergil.”

  Shock. It would not need too great a degree of bad news to constitute a shock for Casca, considering what low state of health and spirit the Legate Imperial had been in when last seen. Not many steps brought them across the invariable moat (dry now, but sharply staked: one never knew) and into the guard-post proper, nor thence into a small room, evidently the decurion’s. The decurion was there, looking as like to every other decurion as to conjecture vision of there being somewhere, a mold to make them. And, there, too, was Casca. It was not certain to Vergil that Casca recognized exactly who this newcomer was, but the lictor having gotten as far as “You Honor, one Master Vergil, a Citizen of Rome, whom — ” when Casca broke in upon the reintroduction. Vergil had heard the older man’s voice as they had approached, wondered at its flat and high-pitched tone, but the tone turned as Casca now spoke to him.

  “… yes, it’s true, it’s true, it’s true, I did fear that there might be some slackening in the reigns of state if I left at the usual time to make my usual report, but though half I hesitated to leave, more than half I felt I needed to discuss it all with the Viceroy, so leave I did at the usual time, and now I am confused about the time, and so you are here to help me.” The rambling words, part-explanation, part-appeal, stopped. Abruptly. Almost at once Casca said, “Help me, then. I say you must help.” He turned his ruined face to the decurion. Who turned his own face to Vergil.

  The decurion was inclined to be brusque. “Don’t dally and stand about, citizen,” he said. “You are required to assist the Imperial Officer — to assist any Imperial Officer when called upon.”

  “Decurion,” said Vergil. “I am more than mere willing. I am indeed eager. But his Honor has yet to say, though he’s asked my help, what help is it he asks of me. Ser Legate,” he addressed the man who sat, sick-faced, crouched and quivering, before him in the guardroom, “what is it, ser, which — ”

  Casca said, “I am perplexed. I am confused. Badly, very badly confused. What is the date?” Vergil answered, now being able to answer a given question, though little he saw why it should be a matter of either confusion or perplexity: They were not, after all, some foraging party lost in woods for weeks. He named the month, named the number of the day, declared the relation to the ides and calends, he named the Consuls-in-Office, the Imperial reign-year, and the number of the indiction, that fifteen-year tax-cycle being just about to turn. There was a small smell of small wine and of old leather in the small room . . . doubtless the leather was that of the decurion’s harness. There was also a small smell of the decurion as well.

  “… confused …” said Casca. “I wish that you would not confuse me, master . . . whatever your name is. Now tell me. Tell me ever so simply. The date. What the date?”

  This time and before Vergil could answer, the decurion, a classically rugged-looking old legionary, face as leathery as harness, and with callouses under his chin from the helmet-straps of years; this time the decurion gestured Vergil, not to speech but silence, said, halfway between Attention and At Ease, “Ser. Beg to report. Eleventh day of September. Ser.”

  At this brief answer, couched in the military report terms familiar from years, old Casca seemed to gain control. To be . . . anyway . . . less confused. “The eleventh day.”

  “Ser. Eleventh.”

  Casca limply inclined his hand. Vergil, eyes following the movement, saw that there appeared to be an entire strongbox of documents next to the folding chair in which Casca sat. Sat, and trembled. The Imperial Eagle was embossed in the upper right-hand corner; in the center was the single letter A and an insigne and under that the initials for Latin: “the Very Rich City.” In size it was something between a dispatch box and a chest for treasure; it was made of cedar wood bound in bull’s-hide; and it seemed to be not alone old but to have had a long, hard life. Though the box had been corded, tied, knotted, sealed, all this lay around it, with several clean and fresh cuts in the cordage. (Though the cordage had not been new, either: Averno had grown rich not alone from what it earned but from what it had not spent.) And toward all this gestu
red the Legate’s wasted, quivering hand.

  “Open it, Dec,” he said. The decurion at once obeyed. A mass of documents lay within, some on parchment and some on papyrus. Some were certainly palimpsests, from which older writing had been thriftily soaked or scraped so that new texts might be inscribed thereon. Some of the number (Vergil could not guess what the number might be) had had their own seals broken; others, visibly, had remained unopened. Again Casca gestured, again the decurion obeyed an order; obeyed it correctly, though no words had passed. He picked up the first item, presented it to his superior. Who gestured that Vergil take it, that Vergil should open it; commanded, “Read …”

  Not more than a few words of the commencement of a formal (and a lengthy) salutation had Vergil read when he was interrupted. “The date, man. The date? What date?”

  “Ser Legate.” He scanned it swiftly. “The thirteenth of September.”

  “The thirteenth? The thirteenth? How comes this to be dated the thirteenth? — when you both assure me that today is the eleventh?”

  Vergil. “Merely at a hazard . . . a guess . . . documents are sometimes dated in advance in preparation for them to be signed subsequently . . . on the date designated, for — ”

  Said Casca, “These are already signed.”

  Vergil’s eyes went at once to the bottom of the document in his hands. Whose signature was there he could not at once make out, he had a swift impression it had been signed in stencil, that great invention to aid those who could not write even their own names; but signed it had been. Perhaps Casca had made another gesture, for the decurión, not skilled in the subtle movements of the accomplished secretary, had attempted to remove the sheet from Vergil’s hands. Vergil did not yield it over, there was a silent struggle (Iohan said later that the lictor declared the decurion had actually put his other hand to his sword), then the thing passed from the one man to the other. And Vergil cried, “O the gods, Casca!”