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

by Avram Davidson

  “Ah. ‘They say.’ And which giant may be, if one may ask?”

  “They don’t say.”

  “Ah. I rather thought not. Just so. A giant.’ Easy to say. Which giant? Not so easy.”

  Festus was a moment silent. Then he said, also. “Ah.” And added, “You be a rare skip tic, Ser.” Vergil was not sure if the man sounded shocked. Or relieved.

  They rode on, with occasional stops, to pass round a water-skin, some dates or figs, to dismount very briefly for bodily reliefs. At no time did they gallop; twould have been folly to do so on so dim, and oft-times unseen, paths. At first light they got down for long enough to build a small fire and make some gruel. After this was done, and the fire pissed out, Festus bowed, and said, “Here I must leave you, Doctor, Ser. And return. Have no fear they guides might rob ye: they do not durst. Farewell.” Vergil thanked him, returned the bow; all remounted and went their different ways.

  One thing now, as he and the not very talkative Sylvestro and Amulo and the quite silent Masked Man Caniacus cantered on through the thorny wastes, often the bushes covered with what at first he had thought were small white flowers, but soon enough had realized were the shells of snails (if quick, if dead, he did not discover): one comment of the man Festus ran through his mind; there was little in the sameness of the passing scene to divert his thoughts, and for the time being he did not much wish to think of the immediate and ungentle future.

  Festus had said, as they sate their last moments warming their hands by the embers, “Ane thing I took notice of, Me Ser Lord Doctor Mage.”

  Vergil was glad the fellow had not crammed in every possible title which had come along with the green robe and the thumb-ring; Titular Baron of Brabantia, for one thing; Authorized to Plumb the Depths of the Cloaca Maxima, for another. Well. Magehood obliges. “And what is that one thing, Festus, man?”

  “Grey of poll ye departed from our Tingitayne, whenas headed south. Black as tar that poll when ye return.”

  Again the vatic voice, like a blow aside the head. Had he? He had!. Hardly pausing to bethink an answer, yet he gave him one; “It was the Fig,” he said. “The Scarlet Fig: makes rough men subtle and old ones young.”

  Festus just a moment considered this. Then he gave a deep nod. And handed back the empty bowl to Sylvestro. And asked no further. Of Juvens and Senex? Asked no further.

  By and by the waste lands and their thorns and snails gave way to a place of tilled and walled-in green garths of farming folk. No one fled as the four men came riding by on the narrow path between the tilths: a small sign but a certain one that the Pax Romana still obtained, no matter which king or sub-king here held rule. A certain russet in the far-off hills affirmed something which he had for some time now suspected, namely that they had passed from White Mauretayne to Red.

  White Mauretayne, its cities of alabaster and elephant-colored marble (actually, many of their buildings did have, anyway, fronts of such stones, however thin-cut) dazzling the coastland in the sun; White Mauretayne was under the nominal suzereignty of Spestibanu, “Chief of Kings” — these were of course petty and not Electoral Kings — and it traded with Aspamia, Lusitayne, Ægypt, Greece, Lybya, and Rome. Red Mauretayne had no coast, save that which, rolled over and over and beat upon by many dry and heavy winds, constantly cast up stones and sands.

  Red Mauretayne had neither chiefs nor kings.

  It had, however, a wealth of rocks.

  And it was Vergil’s devoir to cross it all until coming to Tripolitayne, thence by any northard way to Leptismayna at the end of the Terrapetra, and thence take water to Italy … to any of the Three Italies over which the Emperor was ex officio King. Vergil would have wished to continue on into Ægypt, if only to see those great pyramidal structures which the enslaved Children of the Isræls had builded for King Pharoah, so long and long ago: Treasure Cities, they were called, because of the wealths which the Ægyptim rulers had stored therein: and indeed, each one with its many policies or out-buildings, might rightly be called a city, entire of itself: rather like those palaces in Frankland, each so large as to be counted as an urbs, and had its own mayor.

  This Terrapetra, then, was widely-known to be the same length as the entirety of all three parts of Italy; almost he might quail at the prospect: and yet he did not. Some men, in Quint’s phrase, suffered from the itch to write; Vergil, he now acknowledged, suffered from an itch to wander. Suffered from? It was indeed not a suffering, not even a sufferance; it was a joy, as joyful as any experienced in the elaboratory, waiting in an expectation of even greater joy for the joyful release and relief. Even in a land of stone might not many new and strange and quitely unexpected happenings occur?

  Such a thing happened even sooner than could have been anticipated.

  For, whilst yet the habitations of the sons of men and women, of the blowers of fire, were still thin upon the ground, the four of them had made a usual stop in a fairly secluded spot just a bit off the path; it was an indentation in a ridge of rock, protecting them from the gaze of strangers (peaceful, true, the habitants had seemed: but there be times when even public men would be a while in secret: even kings must live by nature; Vergil’s own Father had a saying for such occasions, did a small boy ask, “where are you going?” hear his sire say, simple, “Where th’ Emp’ror goes on foot” … even Himself the August Caesar did not go everywhere in the carriage of state.) And each had sought a niche or cleft of his own, when hear arise a scream of terror from Amulo and Sylvestro of, The basilisk! The basilisk! whilst, heads hastily covered with their cloaks, they made quick, clumsily, to leap each upon his horse, and flee away (for the first time on this journey) at full gallop. Caniacus alone did not move to do so; almost wedged in his own niche in the stoney clift, he needs could not. Merely he, too, covered his eyes, that they might not meet those of the deadly thing which now crept up along towards him, hissing with its spittley tongue and rattling with its dull red and dull black scales, whipping its thicky blunt tail so as to make a sound … all this, chiefly to affright the intended victim to ope his eyes: then would the basilisk fix him with his pop-eyes and all-penetrating gaze and lo! what once had been a living man of blood and flesh were now a man-like figure, all of stone!

  Terrapetra!

  Vergil, it had not seen; he, remembering the wise old saw of the Second Emperor, festina lente, slowly hasten, with lentorous stealth picked up a large flat rock (not knowing, even, what he might encover underneath: the creature’s whelp? an alacrand, or scorpio, an asp?), and moving with deliberate haste on tipty-toes, dashed it flat down upon the monster and at once jumped upon the rock and trad with all his might and e’en daunced upon it. “It is safe to look now,” then said he.

  Caniacus uncovered his eyes, saw the ugly taloned claws and stumpty tail give their last quiver. Bracing himself with hands prest flat upon the rocky walls of the clift, he rose him up, he stepped forward, he with one sweeping geste removed his mask! his face was pale, unblemished but was pale, he embraced Vergil with both his arms, and pressing close to him, kissed him on the mouth. A second’s work it was, he stepped the half-pace back, drew down his mask, and went forward into the open and gat upon his horse. A light-bodied steed it was, with slender and smooth legs; quite some different from the heavier, shag-footed horses of Europe. Vergil followed suit.

  The path was almost wide enough now to be called a road, there were cart-tracks upon it, and so, somehow, they were riding side by side. Vergil turned his head: no one else. Ahead, too, all was empty. Caniacus, reading his movements and perhaps his mind, said, “We shall not see them again. That’s well.” Pressing with a swift and slight movement some fingers against the thin slit in his mask, he leaned a bit to one side, and spat. His voice somedel bit husky; Vergil had not heard him say so many words the whole journey long, so far. Wondered (Vergil), was his voice by nature husky? was it some emotion of the moment? and, for that matter, was his skin naturally pale? was it so by absence of the sun alone? was it pale because his natal
color had fled from fear of the basilisk? One might think very much of these matters, but to what end? to what end?

  There was a certain sort of person, he or she (more often she, but perhaps not very much more), who, not content to ask a question which was no concern of their’s to ask, would, getting no answer, ask it yet again. Again. Himself, he thought the red-hot bridle and the red-hot bit not too harsh for the mouth of such a one.

  Himself, he would not even ask once.

  Coming to a rise in the road: before them lay a small city, with a castellated wall. Pointing to it with the light stick with which he only sometimes lightly touched his horse, “The journey,” said Caniacus, “begins here.” Only here? thought Vergil. Up to here, then, he thought, was nil.

  Vergil had paused to answer a townsman’s light comment about the clemency of the weather, and took advantage of having the man’s ear to ask the way to the yard of Bodmi the cooper. “Bodmi the cooper,” the man repeated, had begun to gesture with mouth open to say more, had stopped with the next word unsaid, and slightly enclined his head to a young man who had slowed his step. “Bodmi the cooper?” the young man repeated the words, this was (Vergil noted) the third repetition of the name in almost as many seconds. Well, three was, according to the mathematicians, an especially auspicious number: containing, or consisting of, as it did, the first odd plus the first even number.

  “Please to come with me, me ser,” and with that the fellow started off, but still he gazed at Vergil, as one perhaps slightly hopeful of a question being answered which had, however, not been asked. This look almost at once faded away. The stripling was well set-up, and dark-eyed with emphatic dark brows and clear skin; however he did not return Vergil’s polite smile. There had been something abstracted, so it seemed, in his expression; almost intent upon waiting for something, expectant the expression as (the phrase came again to Vergil) that of an athlete waiting under the echoing portico for the sound of the trumpet. But, in a moment, seeing that Vergil was indeed coming along with him, the lad turned his face full forward. The trumpet had not sounded. There did not seem to be anything about Vergil in particular which was displeasing to him, and he had, after all, volunteered to be his guide, so there was likely nothing bothersome about his destination either. Of what had the youngling’s look reminded him? Memory for once was instantly obliged to reply: it was the look of a prisoner, who, hearing the sounds of footfall, turns his head, for one brief moment looks through the bars with well-controlled hope on him who walks along, free; and with that short glimpse sees that the one who walks has no message of freedom for him, and — still controlled — turns away his face, and looks at him no more.

  Once only Vergil spoke, saying, “It is kind of you to show me the way.” And the young fellow made sole answer in a level sound which was either yea or nay, or neither nay nor yea. Forward they went, the two of them, making their tread upon the uneven paving stones with here and there a spur of grass atween them, and neither spoke more word.

  Presently they came to a door in a wall, rather larger than most such, and (Vergil thought) a cooper would need a larger door or gateway than might be required by someone making articles smaller or at any rate narrower than the largest vat or barrel; in they went. A pleasant smell of fresh-cut seasoned wood there was in the yard directly open to the gate, where a man somedel beyond the middle-years of life sat shaving a splint. “Uncle Bodmi, this gentleman wanted you,” the boy said, and, even as the cooper answered with a “Good for you, Rustus,” directly Rustus took his leave. As, plainly, no thanks were desired from Vergil, he offered none.

  Bodmi the cooper had, clearly, been shaving splints for many years, one did not take up such a craft in middle life, and his hands continued working on, on, as he gave Vergil a look of polite enquiry. “Master Bodmi, the man Benninaly,” the cooper nodded fairly rapidly, it was clear that no explanation about “the man Benninaly,” introduced by Caniacus, was at all needed; “sent me to see you about getting ‘a couple pair barrels’ for —”

  “— for a caravan, yes, me ser: they would be like those setting over there in yan corner, as I’ve yet to repair, with one side concave somewhat so as to set more conveniently again the side of a caravan-beast; but them as I indicate are for the asses to carry the wine-must from the pressing-vat to the vintner’s cellar; and you would be wanting them some size larger, of course.” Vergil nodded his agreement, and for a while they discussed the size somewhat larger, and the kind of wood, and the price to be paid, and when it was to be paid; and … and then they became silent. In such a moment, in one’s boyhood, the custom was to say Zeus Prime, and so, not having said it in years, one said it now. Bodmi repeated the words under his breathy looked at his work with the splint (stave, some called it), seemed satisfied, set it down on a pile, took up another and began to shave it. Without looking up at Vergil, he said, “That lad is one of my brother’s boys, Rustus you see, me ser …”

  Vergil nodded, and some comment seeming indicated, said, “An obliging and a comely lad.”

  The cooper gave a sound between a gasp and a sigh, and a spasm seemed to take his face for a moment. “That’s the dreaded part of it all,” said he. Almost at once he added, “It is a terrible thing, me ser, to be the Father of man-twins!” His ser said nothing, he knew not what to say; so after a few seconds wait, said he, in a murmur, “Tell me …”

  “Ah, ser! what is there to tell? By your way of speech I observe you to be a man of much schooling, and therefore you must know, that such is the doing of immortal Jove … ‘Zeus’ you may call him, Ser … and all of it comes about a cause of that lass Leda … ”

  Light, after a fashion, came to Vergil. “Castor and Pollux!” he exclaimed.

  “ ‘Castor and Pollux’, just so, Ser. Different ways is the story told by unlearned people, but we here in this long land and wide, we have the right telling of it. Leda, she was taken by Jove in the form of a swan, for the gods and goddesses may semble what forms they will. Aye, and out of one egg came Elen, twice a princess and twice a queen —” There were most certainly more than merely several forms of the story, but Vergil forebore to mention that: for one he did not desire particularly that Bodmi should think him unlearned, and for another he did not wish to distract the man in his telling of his own story — and one which Vergil had never heard before — “— twice a queen,” Bodmi went on; “and from out the other egg came the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, twin brothers they were born, clasping one another in their arms; such was their affection from the moment of birth, a rare sort of birth it was: and the shells, I means the broken-open halves of them one shell, they lies a treasure somewhere in the adyt of a temple, I believes. But I doesn’t of right know where.”

  Vergil believed that the man believed, and Vergil was willing enough to know (or, at any rate, to believe) that halves of some huge eggs indeed were lying as treasures in the inner shrine of a temple somewhere, it might be anywhere, one could not be sure: but one could for sure be sure that the huge eggs had never come from within the body of any human woman: many names had that great island where lived the great bird whence issued such great egg, greater by far than any mere estridge egg: one had to make a navigation far down “the bluffs and courses of Azania,” fragrant with frankincense, past solitary stinking Zelya-Zayla, past the courting-places of the oliphaunt, and the Region called Agysimbia where the monoceroses assemble for their balloting; and farther down and farther south than that, almost an inhuman distance for an ordinary vessel to make its way — and perhaps no ordinary vessel indeed ever had made it — Hanno’s, yes … Huldah’s, yes — several names that great red island had, such as Camaracada, Phebolia, Cernea, Meruthias and Maddergaunt, Menuthia, Ophir, and the Great Red Island of the Moon: perhaps others yet to him unknow: and Marius the Tyrian had claimed it was no mere island but a continent, and a note to the Aristotle reported that it roamed with huge wild dogs striped like the Horses of the Sun … which all added together might make testimony that the place existed
: testimony … certainly it was not proof … great names aside: perhaps it was not even evidence …

  While he had been yet thinking of this aspect of the matter, and allowing his mind a bit to wander, as one gathering off of thorn-bushes the wool of wild muttons not beherded for the fleecing; the cooper, Bodmi, had been speaking again; and so Vergil, off gathering his wool at the ends of the world, had missed something of what had been said, so was brought up short, and quite in much confusion, by what the man Bodmi was saying now: “ … and so one of the twain must go and be a leper … ” What! What!

  Bodmi, as much, perhaps, surprised by his customer’s surprise, broke off what he had been saying, almost droning; sate slightly leaning forward on his banc, one end of the splint he was holding atween his feet, and yet his hands went on with their work, went on, went on, the thin shavings falling upon his shoes: man must do his work though the heavens gin fall: perhaps after all the heavens will not continue falling, but man must continue working, all the same.

  “Bodmi,” Vergil began.

  “Bodmi: You must have patience with me, now, you won’t forget that I am a foreigner for all that we are both under the rule of Rome: I come from a far-off land …” — Bodmi nodded — “… and though you are kind enough to call me learned, still no man can have learned everything.” — Bodmi nodded — “Tell me then, though I don’t wish to cause you pain: why is it that ‘one of the twins must go and be a leper,’ why, Bodmi, why?”

  And so the man began again, though this time, the current of his mind and thoughts having been interrupted, and it being necessary to accept that Vergil did not know everything about the matter, he went on without his previous fluency: broken, halting, slowly, as one who endeavors to explain to a child something which the grown man has known so long he has been without the habit of having to explain it.