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

by Avram Davidson

  Cappadoce and other States of western Little Asia, glimpse there a scene at random: does alum glitter on that goat-strewn hill? would it not taint the soil? much cared goats about tainted soil, if a prickle of grass broke the ground a goat would eat it: Alum of Little Asia, keep in mind: alum? … well … hill slick and pale as a woman’s pap….

  Children or folk of low degree, think they not, Kings are served first: “‘Rank has its privileges’?” but those who have had meat at a royal or ducal court know that tis not so: for one, despite the privilege of rank, one who holds a crown or coronet is held free of greed, though privilege may so entitle him, first to eat; it is high fine style to forego the privilege and let others be served before; also, though a thousand precautions are taken that no venom finds its way into the king’s dish, suppose some does? A thousand times better that someone else eat it first. A rare table is a royal one, and gazelle (or as it might be) is a fine dish, small, tender, rare in more ways than one: see a large platter of roast gazelle appear, a few men so like the king that might they be his uncles raise their eyes and look upon it with anticipation; before which one of the kinsman of the noble stirrup does the dish pause first? (I was not there, this I but heard). See, too, the king himself lift up his royal head, speak no word, make no gesture, guided merely by this look alone the servant places the platter before Himself. Who then takes but a morsel, out of ceremony, and lets the roast pass on. Eh? So?

  No.

  There the gazelle, that so seldom-found dish, so richly dressed and savory, there it is set and there it stays, stays settled; and the king (He of Cappadoce, I mean) eats of it, head, haunch, harslet, he crunches the brown crisp crackled skin and sucks the dainty pettitoes and the richly yielding marrow-bones. Now and then a kinsman steals a look, but that is all he is suffered to steal. Others may enjoy the smell. Only the king enjoys the meat. He leaves perhaps a drop or two of sauce, a spot or so of grease. Only a spot or so. Gazelle is too good to be greasy.

  Not even the greatly-welcomed foreign guest has gotten so much as a drachm or scruple of the costly sauce, though in all other things the foreign guest (not I, you may be assured) is greatly honored. Not for a moment does the king so much as allude to the gazelle, in fact — what gazelle? the gazelle, running more swiftly even than Time, a creature living nine times the lifespan of a corby, the corby itself living nine times the lifespan of a man (so sayeth that great physician Chiron the Centaur): a gazelle: the King had consumed it in a quarter of an hour — in fact … what gazelle? And scarcely for a moment does the king fail to praise the foreign guest who has travelled hither, a most learned alchymist and natural philosopher, one who has studied the chameleon and the crocodile and knows the uses of the alembic as another man might know the uses of … well, any commonplace thing. A comb. An oil scraper in the baths.

  Nor would the Cappadocian King in the length of a single meal, the entire durance of it, even once leave the table pleading (or leaving assumed) a corporal necessity during which absence let a still-fearful guest suspect the King took an antidote against a slow-acting venom: no. Far from it. See him by dulcet gesture as one who takes for granted a thing for which indulgence will be allowed; a movement of the brows and an exquisitely molded moue of the mouth, receive back the same cup before it could be quite emptied and hold the same so his favored small son might sip from it and then and not before then with lovely gratitude send the cup back and by and by, not that one would see, but one would hear the Cappadocian King and his dandelled son relieve their bladders into a traditionally golden basin held by some thrall on bended knees.

  Meanwhile the Queen, wearing a robe of horrible richness, was sitting in the Queen’s place, and the King sometimes spoke to her, as protocol — not to say good manners — required. Good manners were required. Perhaps not more. She made no slightest answer nor regarded him her lord at all nor changed her face, but continued eating; the King never seemed actually to have asked her a question and hence never required an answer. The general meal may have been heavy with such items as a roast brawn with a candied quince atween its white tushes, and a broiled mutton with gilded horns (the gazelle did not count; in fact — what gazelle?), but portions of these did not appear on the Queen’s silver plate (the King’s were of gold); perhaps she found them too heavy. Principally on her plate appeared small birds: francolins, peredrix, the delicate ortolan, dove-squabs farced with grated chestnuts and pistuquim and chopped figs or jujubes; and very neatly indeed she broke their tiny bones or pulled them from their softened spines and sockets. She ate steadily, she partook copious amounts of the rich, sweet flawns with a jeweled spoon, and of pasties and of other pastries; but she had gained no flesh, the flesh had melted away from beneath her sallow skin a long time ago, and the skin hung or rested loosely, loosely, upon the skull in flaps and folds. She was very much older than the King, it was evident, and could hardly have been the Mother of the young child a sitting in his lap. But whom the King married and by marriage made his Queen and who was the Mother of his children were of clean different things. The several men at the table who so greatly resembled the King spoke (seldom) to the King, but spoke him as to one’s Father, which was curious indeed, and (seldom) to the Queen, and as to one’s Mother, which was most curious: some appeared anxious and haggard, and some resigned … and haggard: but as for age and appearance they might have been his older brothers. Or, as I have said, his uncles. Very curious.

  It must not be thought that the King himself ate no dainties, and merely subsisted on meat, like a Hun; far from it. I recall it being mentioned that he was very fond of certain little cakes made of the finest sifted wheat flour, moiled in a mortar with oil of opium; also that he much liked small cheese tarts, the fillings of which were confected out of mothers’ milk, richer than that of ewes.

  She wore much gold — rings almost as large as armils and armils almost as large as greaves and a coronet only slightly smaller than a crown. One might have thought her the Queen Dowager, did not the King Himself say, sometimes, something like this: “The weather has been beautiful, my wife, and I hope that you have enjoyed it much.” The Queen’s reply was to quarter a fricaseed peacock/pullet with her fingers and then to wipe her fingers on some bits of mealy bread and then to give the bits of bread to her small white doggies of the Malta breed. She seemed old, quite, quite old, this Queen; perhaps it was a marriage pro forma, a marriage for reasons of state; but, yet — One wondered, too, at the source of the gold. Had the King robbed it from the Arimaspeans or from shroffs or griffins or projected it by alchymical means in his own well-famed elaboratory or earned it by the more simple way of debasing his own currency?

  At night the same small child (possibly the one named Ozymandias, who but then that King of the Cappadocians had had so many sons and they all had names, unlike those of a certain not very philoprogenitive King of Phrygia who merely gave his sons numbers), at night the same small child … not ever once out of the guest’s eyes for a moment long enough for a drop of wine to distill its way down the cup’s smooth sides — would by indulgence spend the night sleeping in the guest traveler’s tent upon a scarlet fleece after having lisped him a lullaby, perhaps the one in the Chrestomathy beginning

  Little one, little one, eat thy millet-meal

  With candied figs much rich in crystallized honey,

  And Daddo shall capture sixteen lion cubs and,

  Cutting out their claws and collions, make them

  Into house-pets for thee

  Though perhaps not. It would have been a rare guest not by now charmed out of all thoughts of suspicion. I would be such a rare one and would not have been there; had I ever been asked? Yes. The night would pass and the day and even it might be the month. Business would be done (one would not hurry business) and the guest would agree to sell his secret and … the King of Cappadocea after all not being able to guarantee the safety and security of guest and gear outside his own borders, see finally the guest philosopher and occymist accept a parchmen
t of accompt scaled with several sundry seals, guaranteeing payment of … say … an hundred thousand golden solids to be paid over at the Agency of the Kingdom of Cappadocea in Mickelgarth, Byzantinope, that great city. And see (I would not see, merely I have heard) the traveler-alchemist in full good health and let him even travel a day’s march past the last of the Marches of Cappadocea and then see him well suddenly part his lips a bit puzzled and roll a bit his eyes bemused and fall silently off his horse or camel, and dead by the time he struck upon the foreign soil. And see the caravan-men, rather bored than otherwise, remove the rich gifts and the parchment of accompt and even the very clothing upon the immediately-buried body (immediately buried except for the head, of course, that being brought back to Cappadocea, for the King to look upon — once — after which it was laid upon an ant-hill until it was in such cleanly state to be set atop the Tower of Skulls; each Eastern King having his own Tower of Skulls, chiefly for the amusement and instruction of the children, but often for the instruction of others: principally that of the councillors, ministers, and wives of the aforesaid Kings of the East; and now and then their own heads … but this is already a sufficiently long digression ….)

  And by the time the body of the foreign guest and occymist had slid off his mount for the last time, the King of the Very Valiant and Prosperous Kingdom of the Cappadocians and his dandeled son had taken the antidote both of them. In very vain for the guest to have thought I shall drink of every cup and eat of every dish and I shall take the most puissant antidote and thus beshrew the venom and I shall live long and richly, in vain.

  For only the king of that country knew that poison (I did not know it, that is, not for certain, but I suspected that it had in its original form been sprinkled in the calyx of a flower (perhaps the simple shallow chalice of the wild white rose and the pink nectarium within) sure to be sipped of by at least one bee of the hive from which came the honey added to the wine for, not the first cup of wine, of one thereafter) and only the King of that country knew that antidote and only he knew also the necessary and essential manner of the taking it.

  And here let me make mention, merely, of the kistos, a small knife, the handle of which is bound with the skin of a green viper or other poison snake, and can be used to cut venomous plants in safety.

  So ergo let his manner be never so cultivated and let him discourse the poems of Pindar never so well and the science of Algibberonius and let him point out in the heaven Bootes, the cold Ox-Car, wherein shines bright Arcturus: I would have none of it, not even to be in the same country with it.

  They say that King died poor, in exile and in want. But they say that he died old.

  The Doge of Naples was too clumsy to be a poisoner, too simple to be a tyrant, too stupid to know one poet or one star from another; if there was a difference between the chameleon and the crocodile, he did not know it; he was even too slovenly to keep the pulp of the lemonade out of his beard. Let me, therefore, pluck it out and wipe it off as the price of living free of tyranny and poison. King Stork wears many crowns. Long live King Log!

  As a further exemplum of what I have been saying (and as a sort of flourish, if you will), I went on to recite an exemplary paragraph. “Menalaus of the light-hair led them to the house, to be seated on benches and on chairs. Then he said, ‘Let water for the hands be brought in a beautiful pitcher of silver and pour it out over a bowl of gold, that the guests may wash, and spread a polished table by their side. Your Serenity,” I said, “will not have failed to notice the alchymical — the occymal — symbols: ‘Menalaus of the light-hair’ is obviously the sun with its rays, and the pitcher of silver and the bowl of gold are, equally obviously, the — ”

  Failed to notice? The Doge would have failed to notice a golden scorpion with a silver sting unless it had stung him in a very private part; I was speaking over his head. Not either to any of the courtiers was I speaking, for though they were slyer they were not wiser. Among the guards lined up was one not at all a full-time guardsman, he was an armorer, frequently hauled up by the Camerlengo because he made such a good appearance with his strong body and his full black beard, when he would have much rather been working at the whetstone and the forge. I meant to fetch his attention, pique his interest, stimulate his understanding of the fact that a mage was not a mere magician. And when, as he some day must, he determined to leave the ducal service, it was my intention to engage him in my own; his hands made very neat repairs, I’d noticed. And his weapons’ edges were, among all, most keen. Tynus, his name was.

  The Doge’s attention, as usual, was slow. He was always at least a bit behind. “The work who?” he demanded.

  “I am obliged to you for your patience with me, Doge. — A learned Greek.”

  He had asked me a question about occymy. He had gotten an answer.

  And had had his beard wiped too. His noble court, as corrupt as all, or anyway almost all noble courts, sat about scarcely listening, idly picking at the pig and poultry bones which had already been well-picked. The Doge kept open table. Now and then the courtiers turned their backs or raised their hands to sneer. Nothing would make them change their feculent ways, which could only be modified if now and then one of them had his nose broken or his ribs cracked or his throat-box bruised, or was turned into a toad or made to vanish, reappearing under a far-distant sky where the Dog-Star rose at dawn and foul animals were not confined to the arena because, for one thing, there was no arena there, and, for another, foul animals were there at large, wild and not confined; sometimes such people were returned to tell the tale. Then, for a while, landmarks were respected, peasants did not lose their farms to enclosers, and bribes were only moderate and pro forma. Therefore they turned their backs or their faces away before they presumed sneer.

  A Greek, a Greek, a learned Greek! Duke Tauro knew where he was not (not where alchymical secrets were learned by murder instead of by experiment and by patient labor). Alpha from Delta he scarcely knew, Gamma from Digamma why certes he did not know; he knew oranges from lemons — at least in the form of juice — he knew tolerable from intolerable corruption — and he knew that Greeks were learned. Why, let him ask the very slave who washed his feet, “Ah, what say the frogs in that show-chorus, slave, what?” — hear the slave at once answer, do you hear? at once! answer, “Brekekekex koax koax, ‘Your Serenity.’ ” Now, there was learning!

  “Then make me gold, Body of Bacchus!” shouted Doge Tauro, why was this withheld from him? Meherc, magno, hornero, caca pudenda! “Make” A slight, a mysterious thought came unformed to him: “Eh?”

  “Ah, Doge. Your Serenity is right to say, eh? The Doge has put the ducal finger upon it. For one thing, do we have the complete Work? The scrolls or codex look complete, but they may have been confected from scraps … scraps and wreckage collected in the wake of the wars which have ravaged Greece and the Grecian lands in all the centuries since ancient times … So that is one problem. And another problem is, in regard to this great Work, although the gist of the text is obvious, as for ensample, the well-wrought vessels and the shining gold, perhaps properly a chapter-heading — but what does it precisely mean?

  “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.