And then they were upon the beach, and some crowd of people stood a bit apart, not frightened, no, but perhaps shy. And one other man stepped forward and he and the shipper clasped each others’ hands and for a moment it seemed their fingers made motions one or more upon the others; then Vergil looked about him: a sweet shore, with leaning trees, a gentle coast of gentle people; they did laugh gentle laughter when he spoke to them in Latin, then they came closer and of their own motion, and the language which they spoke was soft and they spoke it slowly and they smiled. He did not of course know the lingua of the Guaramanty and so he did not know if this was it at all.
“Where are you going?” he called to the crewmen. “We have only just come ashore,” for they were wading out to their vessel, which they had not deigned to beach.
“Let your heart be easy, ser and lord,” the captain called. “This poor fellow hath been a cast away here some long time while, so long the while that he has not eaten bread nor ought of his familiar diet,” as he spoke he turned his head and spoke over his shoulder and kept on wading into the deepening shallow. “So soon as we have victualed him and give him fresh clouts to wear upon his carc and as the poet says, ‘Wine to make his face shine,’ we do return with goods for trade.” He scuttled up the side of the craft after his crewmen, calling loud, “Fear the folk not, taste their quaint grub and drink their liquid fruit, we’ll not be half a smallish sand-glass.” He shouted a word, merely a syllable, towards the shore, Vergil knew it not, clearly the islanders knew it well; at once, almost, one of them offered a vessel with a tempting liquor within, repeating what seemed the same word the shipman called.
Vergil sniffed it; it was very fragrant. He sipped of it; it was quite delicious; without further delay he drained it down, without further thought he held the vessel out, noting only that it was old: where the handle had been was rubbed quite smooth with use: but it was clean. With a happy murmur the people filled it from a larger jug; no doubt —
He left the thought forgotten, and he drank again. Again, the slow and simple laughter of the locals. They were naked, and they were not ashamed. He paused, the cup at his lip. “Guaramanties?” They chuckled and they said something; it was not quite the same word, but it seemed similar. Was their name simel, but not the same? Did they imitate him, not with total success? They touched him, they rubbed his skin, they ran their fingers through his hair, they touched his virile member as it had been, say, his nose … all: very, very, gently. Gently they pulled at him, gently they pushed at him, gently they drew him to where a larger number of them reclined between the sunlight and the shade. And here the same slow, soft, smiling scene was repeated.
The sunlight had wandered quite a ways away and the shade had gone all long when Vergil, seeing of a sudden through a gap atween the trees the ship far off under sail, chuckled aloud. “Well they have diddled me!” he said. “They recognized by the semaphores of the smoke that they had a fellow-member of some league and coven here ashore, and, as twas clear to them at once, as tis clear to me now, there would not fit in comfort or perhaps in supplies yet another man aboard the ship, they simply set me on this shore and took him aboard instead. Well done, was well and clever done!” and here he laughed until the tears, swam down into his beard.
And all the islanders laughed with him. It was not likely that they understood at all why he was a-laugh, but they were all quick to merriment anyway; in a moment they had turned away from him and gan a languid game of tossing some golden fruit from one to another, and this amused him quite as much as had the contemplation of the trickery. “And now it is my own turn to wait until some ship of men from that world of sweat and sorrow, wars and woes, may find me here. And if this be not so swift, well, well enough.” Here he made gestures to them that he was thirsty, but it seemed they heard him not. He forced himself to think of a word, no force had force with him, but soon enough he thought he recked it well enough. “Nawm!” he called. “Mawn!” he called. “Num-num. Numma!” It must have been near enough, for at once a one of them let throw the fruit and turned aside and poured him somewhat from the great jug. And he drank of it, drank he of it deep. “I am tired,” he muttered. “I would not think more. I would sleep.” And he fell laxly on his back and in a moment he turned slowly to one side, as little loath as the babb that turneth in the womb.
Slowly seeketh the mind of a man who hath travelled over far lands and dreameth in the folly of his heart. ‘Would that I were here, or would that I were there,’ and many are the wishes he conceiveth. And yet he too is fated to lie low in dust and blood amongst the dead. And do the dead have dreams?*
Perhaps he felt the warmth of the sun retreating from the sands. Perhaps the chill he felt was that of night. Was dew falling? was all the world gone damp? It was in no way unpleasant, merely he wondered. Merely he wondered what voice he heard, calling from afar, in scrannel tones a-calling, “The Mother of the Owl is cold, is cold! The Mother of the Owl is cold …”
Somehow he knew the old one’s name was Teter, and that in him there was no harm. And somehow he knew that the large one’s name was Alcinoüs. Somehow he knew that these were no names ever they gave themselves.
And somehow he knew that Alcinoüs meant to kill him. Although, somehow, he knew not why. There were many things he knew not now, and sometimes his mind seemed clear and sometimes it did not. Sometimes he thought, Now the Black Dream again again. And sometimes he did not.
Despite the taken-for-granted teaches of the organized and historical religion, the goat-footed nymphs were nought but the she-forms of the goat-footed satyrs. Another article of faith a-shattered … not through the scornful preaching of some peripatetic philosopher or from any word of home-grown cynic; but from the simple sight. His sight was clearer now. Often. “Numph,” said the old one, jerking his lugs (“ears” they could scarce be called) to the scarp of rock and shale and scree, through which over and down floated a whisp, a fraction, a ghost of a breeze: “Numph” — and hardly had his nares recognized a slight new scent, scarcely had he time more than to reflect on that well-known vowel-shift: hybris to hubris, Ludda to Lydda, Cumae to Kyme, Tur to Tyre, than she appeared, far less dainty than dumpty, thumping rather than tripping, tween tree and tree; in her hair flowers … or … anyway what looked like parsnip greens; the nymph was scarcely of the sort seen on krater or in illumed pages of parchment. The nymph of that island, someone had writted, smites the hearts of men as twere the face and form of Elen of Troy. Vergil swiftly thought on all this with a sinking of the spirit (his spirit must have risen if it could sink at all now) at the sight of this figure, this native of the rocks: low-hipped of body, long of head, heavy and almost horse-like yellow teeth broken here and there, huge nose, huge chin: could only allow himself, astonnied, to listen to the vatic voice (who knew if Troy had yet burned in war or if Troy and war and burning were yet to come?) “Was this the face that launched the thousand ships, and burned the topless towers of Ilium?” — “Numph,” emphasized old Teter. “Numph.”
Vergil felt rather somewhat the same surprise as once, when so very young a man as scarcely to be called a man at all, after even so some long time (to him, then, some long time) of not having seen a certain sight, a certain she had bared her breast to him: a gesture in the great game between the sexes (“The silly game,” who had said that? certain it was not that certain she, he’d instantly bethought him), but where he’d thought to have seen something like the size and shape and color of one-half the small fruit of the rose-mulberry, he saw instead something like an omelette made from the egg of a damned odd bird. And the voice of Emmalina murmured at his ear-well, “Now you know what a woman’s nipple looks like.” And what am I supposed to do about it? was his thought. Emmalina solved the mystery, said to the servant, unseen by him till then, “Give me the child.”
The satyrs had sometimes been beset by children of men (though certainly and surely not by any children of the Lotophages, and indeed they left the one the other entirely alone: why did
the satyrs never drink of the liquid of the Scarlet Fig nor eat of its fruit? because it reminded them of honey they conceited it was of honey-taste, a laithly taste to them. The satyrs were always enemy to the bee.) … beset by children of men, who hooted and cast stones. In saying, “children of men,” this is metaphor as used by the ever-licensed poet; one does not mean boys and girls. The crew of foreign ships is meant, or some of the crew; crews very seldom being recruited from aristocrates or philosophes. Nor would one suppose them to be the crews of ships of Tartis: the Tartis-system, though in decay, would from ancient usage and experience well know better than to antagonize any on any shore or coast. Men off casually-come-thither ships of the less dulcet ports of empery had sometimes hooted and cast stones. Did thee and me ask them why, the whores’ gets, they would stone thee and me. The satyrs were perhaps not very deep of apprehension, yet perhaps they were … Beset, they fled to their homes in the rocks, to eat of their harsh, dull diet: the prickly eringion, for example, which grows only on salt sea-sand or on rugged, stoney waste and is by mankind used only as antidote for deadly nightshade; such things as those they ate.
But of the soothing Scarlet Fig, ate they never, not.
Folk thought that satyrs were funny. It was common and frequent at festivals for some to be got up as satyrs — the horns all wrong and the ears all wrong — mincing along or conveyed along in wagon, wearing protrusive artifacts fashioned of wood and leather; and folk would laugh, for folk thought that satyrs were funny. But they were not funny. Word could not convey their sometime brutal malignity.
There were no happy satyrs.
Often he had seen them eating samphire, raw, on crag-faces where, he might have, moments earlier, have made his oath, even the chamois and the rock-tibbu dared not adventure; once, in such a place, just, he had seen them copulating, fast and bloody and fierce. Twice he had encountered a set of them mumbling off the splintered ground handfulls of windfalls of some small stone-fruit which lay in ragged heaps smelling as sour as an unwashed rustic wine-press; two simply moved away as even sheep would move away; old Teter remained squatting and munching; and one had stamped off, making that noise deep in his chest; and one, before leaving, had looked at him — for a swift flash of time like a glint off a shard of glass — had looked into his face, and spat the small fruit-stone at his, the man’s chest. Perhaps — ah no! the first time the satyr had spet the stone on the man’s back; it was the second time that one spat it almost in his face, but hit his chest: the spittle had left a stain, a smear. Samphire and stone-fruit often had he seen them eat … harsh eryngion carobs, often; pod and all … and the fleshy leaves of some thick succulent, and stalks of giant fennel and mallows in the marsh, he had seen them eat.
He had seen them crushing between their inhuman teeth the seeds and stalks of the common asphodella: a lily, edible, but just quite barely.
One need be very well-fed indeed to admire a mead of golden asphodel indeed from an æsthetic viewpoint alone, and from as far away as possible. It damned well stank, for one thing. Its seeds were hard to gather and hard to grind, for another. Hard-handed, hard-hearted masters would feed the mealy mush of asphodella to their slaves; wild men and satyrs would crunch it and munch it, seeds, stalks, and all. It was, in short, well-suited to feed the common ghosts in hell, whilst the shades of kings and queens and heroes dined off golden apples in The Islands of the Blessed; far, far beyond the twain Pillars of Melcarth or Hercul or Atlas (take your pick), nigh unto the inhumanely wide and wild waters of the great dark grey and green Atlantis Sea, there where Melcarth bathed. So The Matter sayeth. And more, The Matter sayeth not.
Asphodel the man knew, samphire, small stone-fruit he knew, eryngion and carobs, succulents and fennel and mallows of the marsh he knew: and he knew the satyrs ate them for their meat.
What else did the satyrs eat?
What else.
Once, abruptly and terrifyingly, he had turned a corner of some natural buttress below the cliffs, and there squatted a band or sept of them: all stained with blood, they were eating … well, one of them was eating … the still-green content of a goat-kid’s maw. And the rest of them were eating the goat-kid. There was of course, no fire.
After that, he made him careful where he walked. And in what mind and manner. By now he was quite sure that the insolence of the satyrs towards him was daily growing; they must not have been used to the near-presence of a man so much, and it hostiled them. By now he was sure in particular of one such sullen satyr in particular, a shaggy, scarred bull-buck with half-coil horns turning sharply aside which did not quite match; and he was sure, too, of the thick, thick nails upon the creature’s so-odd hands or paws (though in no manner odd for a satyr) thick, thick spotted yellow-brown nails they were, like … in a way … the nails upon the toes of some rough country man of the human folk. And he was sure, too, of the bull-buck’s member: in full view, one could hardly call it his privy member: set, like those of all bull-buck satyrs, at a prominent angle forward and upward; this phallus, then, though not in full truth ithyphallic (those of the younger bucks, dark-glans half-slid forward had half-protruding from the hoodskin more like those of some men, like so many men, like so many acorns: and it seemed to him, to this man, that he himself for long had felt assured that this was why the oak was most sacred of sacral trees, in that it sembled, this generative part of this tree, this acorn, that same part of man himself) — and, he felt, this man, that he felt, this man, he felt he knew his name was Vergil (Vergilius M., carved thin and deep into the small wooden spoon still in the pouch he still had been able to keep with him), and this feeling was a now fairly new one, for, living among the satyrs, almost, and living much upon their own wild fresh food (he had not eaten any flesh-meat-food): and no more upon the sweet and yielding fruit and its liquid juices used of the island men and women, he felt, too, that his mind was clearer now than foretime.
Clearer now than foretime, but not at all by all means clear, “foretime” itself was not clear; uncertainties and fears swirled about him in more ways than that now. So much more often, rocks fell upon him: stones, then, they had not gotten to rocks; stones clinked and clicked and clattered, rather like the clattering and clicking of the satyr hooves. Stones bouncing off the hills and clifts and clephts upon him, not hurled (it seemed), merely they had been scruffed and kicked down upon him; not by an accident had their compact turds — good that they were compact! — had their dungins been thrown … not yet … could the satyrs throw things, actually? one did not know … of much other was he uncertain, also fearful, and it was the uncertain nature of his fears, and the fearfulness of his uncertainties which lunged and rippled in his mind and heart.
— dungballs like some small dark-brown fruits; idly the thought, as he now and then saw them smoking and could feel, from very near, their natural heat, hot from the hotter heats of the natural bodies that produced them; idly the thought that one might dry them and use them for fuel … or, saunce drying, heap them and husband their heats: level them: and thus they would supply a heat which, if not fiercely hot, would be steady hot, keeping a closed container very warm and a steady rate of warmth … something one could not say of other heats, perhaps not even under the steadiest of attendance and attention. Nor remembered why he’d thought this (alchemy! occymy! such odd words!), nor what, further it meant or even could mean either … it hardly mattered … the mists still swirled somewhat in his head, hardly did it even matter that the bull-buck satyr with the rather crooked horns had, very clearly — if anything was clear — determined to kill him.
Near the great Pillars, someone (Hercules, Mercules, Herodotus, Helcarth, Melcarth: who were they? who were they?) had said, there lived the people called … called … the words now thick-a-mist in Vergil’s mind … ah! called Atlanteans; who were said to eat no sentient things and … and what? The rude winds rule the mists, the old heath-hags say. As anyone may say, may see, but … The notion that by eating one’s like, however distantly like — The Atlant
eans eat no living thing and never dream — there!
Where?
— that eating, awake, one’s like, like by reason of life, might cause a semblance of life to appear during sleep, this was a thought he thought might be interesting to examine; but so swiftly as the thought had come, even so swiftly had it gone.
And there was the crook-horn much-scarred satyr, the brazen bull-buck (was he hateful of the man because the man had merely looked upon the nymph and smelled of her in her season and her heat?), high upon a ledge, quite easily they leaped from ledge to ledge, his eyes ruddled and his swarty-beardy face set between a rictus and a scowl, his shag hip pressed straining against a boulder, and now the man did not feel that he himself could move, and yet he saw the boulder move.
There were rumors that there were islands in the west where great dogs roamed, and the shipskipper had said that the people of this island were of the far-off Guaramanty folk: the Guaramanties were famous for their dogs, anyone might cite you the story of King Cyril of Guaramantia, made captive and captive carried away by the Berbari; one thousand of his own trained dogs-of-war, cuffed and caressed by his own hands, fed from his own fingers with bread warmed even briefly in his own oxters that they might know his own-most scent, wearing his own scarlet harness; one thousand of them, so men said, had traced and tracked him down across the leagues and leagues of desert, full of dead men’s cities where the dead had turned to stone and yet still stood, oddly, upon pedestals, men and women made into marble — had tracked him along at first by night and then at first in early dawn and then in level daylight, then they gat them close to earth and crawled upon their bellies like the lizards so that none saw them and then at length in moonless night had in full force attacked and roaring in their rage had the Guaramanty war-dogs girt their own king’s captors round about and then attacked and tore their royal master’s captors into mere offals, so soon to be bloated and fly-blown: all but himself the Emir of Berbary who scorned not to squat and crouch between King Cyril’s legs like any petty-dog: whence he half-arose and at Cyril’s command unloosed his bounds: and then King Cyril allowed his dogs one half-day’s feasting upon the dead, after which he took the scarlet harness off the body of Sargo, his single dog which died (died of joy, some said, to lick his Royal Master’s hands) and fastened it upon the trembling body of the Emir and marched him back with his nape in a leash which Cyril held himself. The list of that one’s ransom would fill many a thick great codex and the last item on that lengthy list was all and every woman in the Emirs house held: which and whom he gat. He scorned to sink his poise on any single one of them, merely he kept them ever at turning the querns to grind the meal from which was baked the very bread which fed his, King Cyril’s thousand dogs of war: anyone might cite you this story
The Scarlet Fig: Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series Page 17