Admirable.
No doubt.
But that was for the next year, and that was for the Viceroy. As for Vergil, and for now, what? For as for Averno: nothing.
• • •
Iohan had stood with them, so pale and drawn that Vergil would have been shocked, had not the greater, the unspeakably greater shock been spread out before them in what they had not yet learned to speak of as “Lake Averno.” Casca was long silent (Vergil, totally silent, though his mind screamed several names, and over and over again); then Casca said, “It is just as well that I find I do not remember the name of whatever philosopher it was who said that the truest happiness possible for a man was to stand safely on a cliff in a storm and, watching a ship being sunk beneath the cliff, thank his guardian genius he was not aboard. I . . . somehow . . . I do not feel such happiness. Or any happiness at all.” And at this Iohan had given a shuddering sob, then turned away his face and covered it with one hand.
• • •
On their way back to the small port city that was now, once again, home, Iohan — save for the few short questions and replies required by the performance of his usual work — had said nothing. It was not until (with no cry at all of thalassa!) they once again espied the sea that Iohan, having once looked back at the thin smudge of smoke which alone now marked upon the sky, murmured something else. It being too low for his master to hear, his master, after an abstracted moment, turned his face and raised his brows. “They did be canny things, them arts of fire and metal,” the boy said. Then, an instant later, in a dogged tone different from the tone of puzzled memory, remarked, “They do be canny things . . . them arts of fire and metal.”
“Yes,” said Vergil. And, “We are nigh safe home.”
The mare now turned again her head and gave him that characteristic, almost arch, look. He stroked her muzzle. “Thou good beast . . . served me well, well, well…. I cannot keep thee, though.” She flung her head, still looking at him. Then it seemed as though, even whilst they regarded one another, that something dulled and dimmed in her eye, her head turned round and down, and she ambled on the road. And thus reminded of the essential and essentially unexisting details of quotidian life, Vergil said, “Iohan, when we are to my lodging-place, tend the mare as best you can . . . and . . . ah! yes! see that you give her a double handful of the best white barley….” Iohan nodded, nodded; unchanged, that wan, drawn look; and why “changed,” should one expect it to be? Solely that a horse might eat, and eat, however scantly, well? “ — and then . . . Iohan . . . I intend presently to speak you, about your . . . our . . . arrangements . . . employment . . . and then — Iohan — the mare must go back, of course, to Fulgence — so bring her back. Tell him to prepare his account. I shall . . . presently …”He moved his hand. What need of words. The boy nodded, nodded. They did not, man and master, look each other in the face. There was no need.
— Later, Vergil sat, blank, exhausted, in the sole chair in his rented room, the confused memory of the return from Averno unreeling before his eyes as though some tapestry or painted cloth upon two great spools. Charge: one penny for the Commander of the Legions (one shrug had he given at the sight of the site where once Averno had crouched). The Commander of the Legions . . . what time the Viceroy of the South had said something close to the Commander’s ear, gesturing the while to Vergil; what had the Commander of the Legions said? — Nothing. What had he given Vergil? For that matter, what he owed Vergil? Nothing. He had given one shrug and he had given Vergil two decades of troops — they must return that way anyway — two decades of troops to company Vergil, his mare, his man, as they returned — lagging, lagging — aware of a total absence of joy. Suppose Sisyphus to have been acquitted his need of forever toiling up his hill in Hell, would he have made the last journey in joy? Or would mere fatigue have extinguished all other emotion, as a torch extinguished in a sconce? The troops were useful, very useful, the troops kept apart the hordes they met upon the roads. Hordes, hordes, some mere seekers after curiosity. “Master, Master, what happened?” — Some, so many some as to exhaust all pity. “Master, hast ‘ee heard of such a one? my son? my daughter? my sister’s son? Master, master, has thee heard?” He had not heard. And those who asked him naught, and told him naught, but did their best to avoid the soldiery, men of grom glance with many an unsaddled horse and mule and many an empty sack and cask and box, for who knows what they had hoped to find, for the tugging out and for the picking up? Nor did they dare purse lips to phrase the words their faces and their glances saith well enough: salvage . . . plunder . . . loot …
Later, then, Vergil sitting, blank, exhausted, in his chair in rented rooms, now and then some thought coming straying to his wasted mind, as Cadmus was made king in order that the king must die, there being no greater sacrifice than the sacrifice of a king, or . . . many times, uselessly uselessly: Whence came Cadmus, and what his early tale? . . . there came again Iohan, all but dead with trudging and fatigue and latent, latent shock, saying:
“Master, Fulgence gives you full quittance for the steed, and he says, says Fulgence, ‘There is no accompt, all is paid; if you are well, it is well, and he is well …’ ”
Some long while silence buzzed in Vergil’s ear. Then he arose. “Iohan, youth is your blessing and youth shall be your cure, so lie you down and rest; I shall be some small while gone.” And down he went the ladder to the level ground, and began to walk the streets, no destination in his mind, no purpose, no explanation, only some thought of the few coins still in his purse: how he would divide them with the boy, and then — But there was, really, no “… and then …” — Whom should he meet?
A woman, certainly not young, surely not yet old: the favored house-servant of the Matron Gunsedilla; what was the she’s name? He knew it not; she knew him well. Up she flung her arms, and “Ah! Master Vergil! the gods be praised for having brought you safe again, grains and incense and drops of the best wine I will be offering them, for glad I am to see you — ”
“Woman — ”
“You will sure and soon come visit, ser? An old servant and a faithful one, I has my privileges, ser, I must tell you straight, matron has missed you, master. ‘Missed you,’ what do I say? Matron has languished, master. Since you gone away, ser, to tell the truth, and it’s a funny thing of me, master, ser, that I must tell the truth, let them as like it not, lick — but let me mind me mouth, ser mage and master ser. Since you gone away, matron, she keeped to her room, she keeped to her room the untire time, master, and hardly scarce she eat a thing. To tell the truth, master.”
Last of all which he would hear: the tale of the Matron Gunsedilla. Her image came into his mind, he thrust it away, he confused it, he did not confuse, he was perhaps going mad, why should he not go mad, the image of the Matron Gunsedilla did not come clear into his mind at all, it was imposed upon, it lay beneath, the image of the mare….
Prima, was that the mare’s name? It made no difference. The way the matron turned her head and rolled her eyes, the way the mare rolled her eyes as she turned her head, the recollection that Matron Gunsedilla had studied magic: how — !
As though he read it on some fresh-writ scroll, clearly it now came to him: how she, being aware of the plot to bring him to Averno, but being unable to prevent it, in order to see him safe thither and safe there and safe thence, she had not only, somehow, caused the stallion, Hermus, to be ill, but she had, by the same and by whichever art, call it metamorphosis or — no, not quite shape-shifting — call it by whatever name, she had inhabited the body of the mare. Until that last moment when he had thanked the mare.
This, she, Gunsedilla, had done for him; this was the way her seemingly mad dash had saved him, had saved Iohan; could she, have anyone, have done more for him? Why had she done it? The reasons obvious, though the means complex. What could he now, henceforth, do for her? The answers obvious, though the question complex. Walking the narrow and the broader streets, he thought of all of this, and long he thought of all
of this. At length he concluded that he, if he would not do more, could certainly not do less, than he had done before.
He would continue, not often, but as often as before, stop by of an afternoon, and discuss aubenry, envoûtement, white magic so called, and this and that and that and this. He would continue, as often as before, if not often, to come now and then of an evening to attend at the readings from Homer. And, however much, however often, he might feel at least a bit impatient, however much he might wish to ignore, when those very slightly protuberant eyes would roll his way, and ask their invariable and inevitable question, he would not ignore it, nevermore could he ignore it; he would reply, as always and as before:
“Yes, madame. Indeed, Matron. It was very well done, madame.
“Indeed …”
As before.
Aurelio.
Had his, Vergil’s, feet carried him this far? To the new house he had builded for the freedman Aurelio? And such different, cleanlier, more worthy task, than that which came his way next! No. Aurelio was not sitting in his new house, Aurelio was but sitting on the barber’s bench, awaiting his turn to be trimmed and shaved. Aurelio rose and bowed and gave a cheerly friendly smile, gesturing Vergil should sit beside him; Vergil did. Vergil saw no signs in the goodly old man’s face of any toil or torment or of sorrow. Aurelio was perhaps, probably, not even aware that Vergil had left. So be it.
“Aurelio …”
“Ser. I hope I see you well, me ser.”
“Aurelio — ”
“Your new gray cap befits you well, me ser.”
What babble was this? For so soon the words were said, Vergil, though well he knew he wore no cap, brushed hand over head: no cap. Again:
“Aurelio. As to your adopted daughter.”
The old man nodded. Perhaps his blue eyes were not quite so clear. Age, with hast’ning steps — “Yes, sir, it has been done. It has been done, it has been registered, she be my daughter now as long I’ve planned, and we lives in that good house together with two good servants. And, by and by — ”
“You spoke of chosing a groom-to-be for her, from the prentices of the better trades, Aurelio.”
“I did, ser. And, ser, I shall. Fact: I’d begun already. None as I’ve found, as yet. But there be time, ser. There be time.”
Something there was in Vergil’s mind, something more than family chitter and chatter in a barber’s shop. What. Anon it came to him. “Aurelio. What think you of the arts of fire and metal?”
A serious and considering look upon the old man’s face. But not a puzzled one. “Why, ser, why, master, as for them, I’ve naught but great respect for them. It be no gewgaw, gimcrack trade, covering gingerbread with gold leaf or dipping marchpanes in honey. It be’s a manly and a steady thing, as must last forever. Ah, Messer Vergil, they be clever, canny things, them arts of fire and metal.”
It was to be. It was as good as done. Of course they twain younglings must suit each other. But, bend the twig, the tree inclines. Had he, Vergil, for whom never marriage had been arranged, left, such matters, all, to his own heart and head and pounding blood — had he had e’er such luck as would make him wish to urge such courses on another?
“Aurelio, there dwells with me, and you know where, a young man, as of now merely my body-servant and my horse-boy. But I know his nature to be good, and — ”
The master barber beckoned to Aurelio, who gestured him a gesture, as he slowly rose. “I take your meaning, ser. And, so soon as both we’ve done, let us arrange a further meeting. And let us talk of this.”
Hardly had he sat him on the barber stool, Aurelio, when the first journeyman barber beckoned to Vergil. Seemingly the man knew him by sight, else his first words proclaimed a liberty taken; “Ah, master, they have trimmed you ill: and, sure, it’s been a few days, some, since you were last shaved at all.” He sharped his knife, mixed the soft soap in the bowl, prepared the hot cloth. “Master Aurelio,” the man said, stooping, in his confident, almost overconfident, barber’s voice, “has got no more keen of sight, good man though he be; but truly, messer, from a bit away, just a bit, ser, it do look as though master wears a neat gray cap. Yet I’d ha’ sworn the master’s hair was black — ”
“Oh, damn it, barber, man, it is black!”
Across the journeyman’s smooth face, a trifle plump, passed a look of well-acted professional demur, as when one tells a glover that the gloves are tight. He said no word, merely with the gentlest of pressures urged Vergil forward to gaze into a basin, still, of water: as it might be one which someone like Gunsedilla had prepared to use to gaze at the reflection of the sun or of the moon. Vergil looked. He saw his features in the calm, reflective water. He saw himself flinch as he observed his sunken eyes, his hollow cheeks, how gaunt and grim his face, how pinched his mouth. All this shall pass, he thought, with rest, and —
He saw his beard, pitch-black; he saw his hair. His hair was gray.
• • •
Returning, reflective, to his house, beginning now to muse upon the future, and how he must, for all the tragic days just gone, he should need get money in his purse; when there came upon him, running as full-tilt, who but Iohan. Who gasped, “Master! Master! Money! Money! Money!”
Startled, more than so, by this vocal repetition of his private thought, and thinking as perhaps the rent is sudden demanded in advance, said Vergil as much to soothe the lad as reassure himself, “Why, Iohan, I have not lately counted them, but there are coins enough inside my purse — ” He made a move toward it. But Iohan, shaking his head till his brown curls shook, gestured with his right hand toward his left. The left held a small leathern case which Vergil had not seen before, and its straps the young man had wound tight around that hand, doubtless for safekeeping.
“Master,” Iohan said, between panting breaths, “whenas I had tooken care of brushing out your robes and hanging of them up, so then I ‘gins to unpack your chests and portmantles, ser; then of a sudden I takes to shaking, ser, then I needs must piss, so I step out to the gallery over the back-stable yard, though keeps I ever the outer door in view (having barred the inner).” And on he babbled: concluding, “And it be for sure upon my life, my master, ser, as ne’er I seen this case before.” He swung its heavy weight by his left hand. “ — But there it lay, when I return and lifts the ruddy robe as whosoever give thee . . . back there …” He did not mention the city’s name; indeed, he never did again mention it. — ”And there lay this case!” Was he sure he had not packed it? He was sure. Was and could he be sure that no one might have slipped it in the larger carry-case … back there …? He could not be sure. Would he say he was so certain he could swear against he drown in water it had it been impossible for someone, somehow, to have stolen, swift, into his master’s room, here, here, and slipped it — swift! — beneath “the ruddy robe” — ?
His lips trembled. “I was taken sudden sick, bethinking me of — I could not swear. Indeed, ser . . . I thought I heard . . . perhaps saw . . . but nothing I can clearly speak of. Ser, I do not know!” He seemed he would, another question more, break into tears.
Two shops down, the shop of Cosimo the goldsmith and moneychanger. Who took the case up in practiced, knowing hands, opened it, aloud counted out, stopped at ten, the total tally, the purses sealed and sealed. “Ah, this is Rano’s gold,” he said, a slight glance at the seals sufficing. He spoke softly, for goldsmiths seldom speak up loud. “Rano got him sundry golds outside, before — ” He stopped short. Goldsmiths are not often wont to speak of one man’s business to another. Cosimo counted on his checkered cloth. “Has Messer Vergil Mage perhaps heard of some newfangled system of numeration come forth, some say, from Araby? — some say, from farther yet? No matter. None.” The gold was counted, the purses sealed again, a receipt was passed across the checkered cloth, a look exchanged; Vergil and his servant left the shop.
To Iohan, he said, “Half of this is mine.”
The fellow stared at him. “Ser … all of it is yours.”
> “Half of it is mine. I shall take a house, somewhere. Buy books. More books. Many books. Set up an elaboratory. Perhaps I shall engage a boat and take some rest on the Isle of Goats.” He gestured. There it still stood . . . did not stand . . . floated on the miraculous blue waters of the Parthenopean Bay.
“But half of it is yours. You will — as yet — take no house, buy no books, set up no elaboratory, engage no boat. If indeed you think to take some rest, it will be best, I think, that you take it apart from me for a while . . . for we shall part, I must tell you, Iohan….”
“Master, I doesn’t want to leave you — ”
“ — for a while, and it will be some great long while — ”
“Master, hasn’t I been faithful?”
“With a part of your half this” — he showed the receipt — ”I propose to pay for your indentures as an apprentice in the arts of fire and metal, for you still find them to be canny things. Which indeed they are. And, when you have finished your apprenticeship, part of this shall pay your journeyman’s fee. Part of it shall be your bridegroom’s portion, if you are minded then to marry. And, when you shall have finished your master-piece, and become passed as a master into the guild, part of it shall be to set you up in work.”
Iohan nodded, slowly, slowly, as all this was said. His face remained sober as before. When Vergil finished, he said, “And then, master, may I work for you? — with you? In that elaboratory?”
Vergil said, “There is time enough to think of that. So. Well. And what might you want now?”
There was no hesitation. “Ser, I has one brother, older than me, he works with horses, just as I did, but back in our village. He fed me several year from his own share of the bad bread. Every day at one hour past the hour of noon, the carrier leaves from here for there, and I knows the carrier well, from old. If I might have one silver piece of money, ser — but one? only one? to send my brother?”
Vergil in Averno: Book Two of the Vergil Magus Series Page 22
