Vergil in Averno: Book Two of the Vergil Magus Series
Page 14
“The father-fire!”
Who had burst forth with this interruption? — cried out three words, and struck the table three times as though hammering an ingot on a forge? Vergil did not know, thought best to get on “… in which the fires have never, ever, during the periods which my studies cover, either shifted, changed, or waned. In this one area — which a magnate has just suggested may be called that of the Father Fire — ” But he had already lost the attention of his audience.
Were these ponderous grandees a-drunk again? — So suddenly? Why were they rolling from side to side, facing first one fellow, then another? Whence this sudden upburst of babblement? What reason for the intensely odd faces he now saw them pull? A tiny bell sounded; none attended. It grew louder, sweeter, was joined by another, by another; here and there an iron-forger or a wool-puller brushed absently or even (with some slight aware vexation) pulled at his own thick and shaggy ear: vain. The bells grew louder, they sounded from every corner of the room, and yet, still, they sounded sweet. Perhaps after all they were not bells but rare exotic birds. Perhaps after all they were not birds, birds notoriously did not live long in Averno; if a capon lived long enough to become fat enough for the spit or the pot, that was the long of it. But be they what they were, ringing and singing, eventually they overcame the sound of the magnates bellowing — a bellowing in which Vergil was able only to make out some references to the father-fire, to hecatombs, hec-a-tombs, and some few other words which, rather like the common converse of Cadmus, might be intelligible as single words but made no sensible connection to communication.
Not, at least, to Vergil.
And so at length the magnates became silent.
And so did the ringing and the singing.
“I would point out, Magnates,” Vergil went on, calmly as before, and as though these singular tintinnabulations had never occurred and as though he had had no part in them; “I would point out that the area of the overlap, that area of, if you wish, the Father Fire, is not large enough to contain all the present manufacturies of your city. But I would also wish to point out that there is one thing, which, although you know it well, perhaps do not well appreciate. And those are the malodorous breaths which escape from the clefts of your rocks, there, deep in your valley. It is well known to you, I have seen, that these stinking airs are sometimes inflammable. And I have been drawing up a scheme, one which is indeed not yet finished, whereby these bad vapors may be put to good uses. Each crack and cleft and pit from which they issue may be covered with a sort of iron helmet, and the fumes conveyed thence through pipes, much as the aqueducts for which our Empire is famous conduct water through pipes to public fountains and even sometimes to private homes. I am certain, Magnates, that it is possible for the hot waters which bubble up here and there around us to be thus conveyed as well. It should certainly be possible, Magnates, by such methods to have a source of fire at any point desired, for one need only touch a burning brand or a glowing coal to the end of the pipe from which those airs would issue — and furthermore I have the means of making devices which will extinguish such fires when desired and without the use of wet hides or anything so cumbersome — thus it would never again be necessary, that immense labor of moving forges and bloomeries, workshops and dye-shops, boiling-vats and all the rest of it, for — ”
Again the babble, the tumult, the tumultuous talk broke out; this time he made no attempt to interrupt or draw away attention from their discordant discourse to his own (he thought) well-ordered address. He merely waited. He might as well not have been there. Presently he said, in that Greek whose roughness had been first smoothed in Athens and then polished at Cumae, “Put the maps down, then.” The words must have been heard over and through the rumble-rumble-mumble, for the chart marked Omega vanished from the wall, and only there remained within the bordering of Attic fretwork a spread-out light, which, no longer even slightly dimmed by having passed through membrane, gauze, and thin-scraped parchment or that odd new papyrus from behind the far Pamir, shone just that much more brightly as perhaps to quicken at least one pair of eyes, and at least one magnate’s thoughts, for from the mass of murmuring magnates there now sounded a voice that Vergil had heard before, and saying words that Vergil had also before heard.
“All right to go now, Wizard,” it said.
• • •
With this videlicet he had gone. The vessel through which, via its long neck, the sun rays had played, indeed he did not take; it was not his; but he had once again placed his hands round about the stoppered part and with his mouth up close had murmured words: The stopple came cleanly and clean out, a moment it dazzled (as perhaps it had dazzled long ago from amidst the golden fleece), then it was back again in his pouch. The blank wall now went dimmer, though — not yet — dim. None else noticed. Once again the silent servitor was by his side, showed him down the stone stairs and was showing him through the courtyard — the “garden” one could scarcely call it, no plants grew therein. “What is your name, then? You have done me well, up there. Whose man, are you, then? …” Meanwhile he reached into his purse for a coin.
Now for the first time he heard the fellow’s voice; soft it was, as — however unusual for this roughshod hole in hell — as befit a house-servitor’s . . . for surely one would find it hard to picture him shoveling slag or beating bronze, even . . . perhaps, (though he hoped not), plucking the clumps of stinking wool from the blue-putrefying sheep-fells before they were dipped to pickle in the tan-tubs; and the voice said (softly), “Master Mage, it is Magnate Torto’s freedman, Aymon Blandus [“Blandus, we must talk — ”], and here, ser master, is ser master’s horse.” Saying this, he so gently guided the hand in which Vergil held the coin over to the mucky palm of the hobgoblin doorkeeper that, almost, Vergil could have believed it had been his own intent to reward the latter, instead. The troll bowed and scraped, rolling his eyes, seemed undisposed to linger, and, bowing some more, backed and was gone, hiding behind the already opened gate. Up came Vergil’s boy, holding the mare.
“Have they taken care of you well, Iohan?”
“Yes, ser. Gave me some good thick wine and thick victuals, too. And offered me the kitchenmaid, but she was so stinking damnable dirty that almost I heaved the grub up; still, I says to meself, ser, ‘Food is food and I ben’t no dog to gobble up me own vomit.’ Therefore.”
Vergil nodded at this sound philosophy, was nuzzled by the mare, absently stroked her muzzle; began to turn his head, saying the while, “Now, Blandus, we must …” His words faded away.
As had Blandus.
Iohan joined palms and stooped for Vergil’s mounting, neither yielding nor grunting as his master went up into the saddle. In Thrace, it was said (Who had said it? Thrax. O Apollo! Thrax!), the horses were trained to kneel, as he had seen the camels kneel, afar off in Sevilla, for ease of riders’ mounting. But . . . But enough of “but.” Out they stepped. “Uncommon dark it be, master, even for this dim-pit, o’ the time o’day,” the boy observed.
And indeed it was. Even after leaving the extremely frustrating termination of the session behind, still Vergil felt strained; now and suddenly he knew why. He looked up. Brighter was the window of the great Magnates’ chamber than anywhere else in sight. He relaxed, dismissed control. Flung outward the fingers of his upraised arm.
“There!” exclaimed Iohan. “Speak of Phoebus, he may soon appear!”
The street was now not so dun and dim; from above, a sudden silence, then a sudden outcry. “Lights! Lamps! Torches!” Whatever they were up to, up there, they would have to be up to it in the dark for yet a small while. What were they up to, up there? Suddenly he felt too tired to care.
“The mare seems to require no further much attention,” said Vergil. “Just take her tackle off, wipe her just a bit with hay, and give her a little of grain . . . and then . . . and then . . . if we have four groats between us, shall we go to the baths?”
Iohan said, “Therefore.”
• • •
Vergil had been in warehouses before: many and many. Some were really open courtyards roofed over with reed mats. Some were larger than the great vast halls of some palaces, and, some of those, far more secure. Some were like temples, some had been temples, and in some instances — not always the same — the resemblances had been magnified by the presence for sale of sacred images of marble people or shrines of silver. There were splendrous things in the warehouses of silk merchants, and to walk through them was like walking through gardens in which all the flowers of the world and many flowers of worlds other than this one were in bloom, in blossom, all. And flowering at one and the same time, gardens of delight to the eyes . . . though to the eyes alone. Sundry times he had been led almost by the hand, at one actual time actually by both hands, someone holding his right hand and someone else his left, through warehouses of spiceries: No mere casual stroller could after all toss a bale of precious silk-weft over a shoulder or under an arm and hope to walk off with it; but it was not beyond a physical impossibility that someone might, particularly in such trading posts where things were stored in rooms like castlements and the thicky walls of which were made for defense and the windows mere slits for archers, it was not impossible in places by necessity dim-lighted for someone to reach out a hand here or steal forth a hand there and transfer a palmful of cardamoms into a pouch or slip mirobolans or cloves into a compartment of a tunic perhaps even prepared for such a purpose. In one such place he had been led through by either hand as though he’d been a child. The hands rested gently enough in his own, but there came a moment when, forgetful, he had begun to move a hand his own; instantly the other had drawn it back and down, ah so firmly! “My hosts, I would but take my pocket-cloth and touch my nose; ‘tis dusty here and I might sneeze….”
“Ah, dusty ‘tis in here, serreverence, and as you are our guest and guests are sacred, for the gods send guests, take no thought for the matter, and we shall do it for you.” And so, with the right hand of the custos on the right-hand side (for the left hand of this one held the right hand of Vergil), he had had his nose wiped for him….
… and had a strong persuasion that, had he need perform perhaps another and more urgent office, another’s hand or hands would do that for him as well….
It was odd how the flowering silk-weaves, so gorgeous to the sight, had conveyed nothing to the nose; whereas as in the bale-stores of all balms and spices, some open and some closed, though these rich-stored items were dull and dingy to the eyes — enough! what scents, what odors there came forth from them! And from the custos on his left a semicontinuous drone, as, “These be dried rose-peels, ‘petals’ they be called in common speech, and these be violets and sweet clover for weaving garlands for the Indoo-folk, and here is citron-skin and thander bales have cinnamon-rinds, as the Sarcens tell us is took from the nests of great birds which do build they nests of cinnamon-stalk, and this is zedoary of the best sort and its next is zedoary of the second sort and last is zedoary of the third sort as sells for mere silver, and in the aft row — ” And now for the first time the voice of this one ceased its automatic drone. “Drag him hence,” it said, “he swoons….”
Something odd and rough, and pungent beyond belief, was held before his face. They were outside. “Oft the visitors do swoon and faint,” said one, “for us, we be used to it. Does my serreverence be feeling some better now?” (Yet still they held his hands, yet still they held his hands! High the price of freedom. And high the price of spice.)
“Yes,” he’d said. And — ”But what is this you have here under my nose? Never such a commingling of scents have I — ”
And one looked wry and one looked solemn, and one then said, “It be a beard shorn from a goat in Spicy Araby, my ser . . . snuff it up, serreverence, ‘twill clear the nase and clear the brains a-well….”
“A beard shorn from a — ?” Astonishment as well as giddiness (was the weakness worse than the remedy?) held the question incomplete.
“From a goat in Spicy Araby, my ser. Foras though ‘tis death, my ser, serreverence — keep well in mind be-case ever you are there — ’tis death in Spicy Araby for an outsider, an interloper, a strange or foreigner, for to walk two paces off the stated roads in the regions where grow the precious frankincense and the rich myrrh trees. But though men may be kept off, who may wall the world against goats? The goats roam and the goats rut, and when they roam they browse upon they shrubs of frankincense and myrrh, and the gum it stick upon their beard. So the season come when the gum don’t run from tree nor shrub, and if it run not it be not gathered, then have the Arab-folk (who be first cousin to the Sarcen-folk) time and season to herd up them he-goats and they play the barber upon them and shear they beards and same send hence by the merchant ships.”
Vergil murmured that ‘twas more than merely myrrh and frankincense he smelled, and, feeling better, looked up to catch the wry smile from one. “And when the buck-goats do rut, serreverence, saving your presence, they piss upon their long-beards — ah, yes! For the she-goats seemingly like that fragrance even more than t’others. — But by and by, as even now and then, we boil the beards down and strain them off and make sic use of the residual as we know how and none other may have our leave to know. And when this is done, we do sell the mere hairs to such as weave cloth for tents; and now I see my serreverence be better, and for his pleasure.” While still speaking they led him off to a room apart, where others gave him refreshment:
And where, at last, he was suffered to use his own hands to take it.
And that warehouse was not in Averno.
• • •
But in the warehouse of Rano —
In the warehouse of Rano (whither at long and at last the magnate had summoned him) it was neither frankincense nor myrrh which lay thick as smudge clouds round about. There was the inevitable, ineffable stench of the Very Rich City itself. The top-broken amphora urinals were perched all about, lest a single drop of the substance (so useful in dying, tanning, and fulling) should go to waste if someone in haste be tempted to use the floor…. It would have been merely the thought of the waste and not the thought of there being anything foul about the use of the floor that would bring instant and loud complaint…. But the very profusion of these conveniences had resulted in many of them being far from full, though full enough to allow their rotting contents to taint the air. If “air” was indeed the right word for what one was obliged to breathe. The beards of the goats of Spicy Araby were fragrant in comparison.
It was fairly dim in the warehouses of Rano as Vergil wandered his way through. No one bothered to hold his hands here, though now and then some fellow informed enough to know that Vergil was no mere common visitor and purchaser and barely informed enough to know (or guess . . . or even suspect) him for a mage . . . Perhaps, it was not impossible, such a one had heard reports, had had Vergil pointed out to him here or there . . . would now and then make the sign of the fig or of the horns with the fingers of his own hands, confusing cause, precaution, and effect, Vergil thought. They thought him a nigromancer, some of them, surely; not at all aware the difference — ah, that immense, that infinite difference! — for a nigromancer must use his powers, and must use them almost constantly, being either employing the dark forces or being used by the dark forces or else always in a struggle with them; knowing no more peace for long than Thrax (poor Thrax!) without his shadow; but surely no such subtle thoughts entered the minds of any here, dim for the most part. It was but that, seeing him and so imagining that something about him was otherwise, automatically they feared him. Thus, the fingers they employed to feed their mouths and pick their noses and, commonly, for fouler uses yet, they now employed to ward off possible power to which they applied the same sad word: Caca. Bad. Hence, thus, the thumb thrust between the index and the middle fingers. Fig. Summoning the power of the potent pudenda, another place that had, always, fire pent in it. Or, folding back the two middle fingers and holding them down with
the folded thumb, thrusting out the index and the little fingers: Horns (the name of that sign). The upthrust weapon of the bull, the upthrust phallus of the man, each strong to gore, to bore, sometimes in either case to draw blood: power. Sometimes those who made these signs (or other signs; he did not always know these others, for those who labored in Averno as well as those who bought and sold the products of that labor so often came, had come, from far and far away) made them covertly, either fearing his resentment or thinking his awareness of what they were doing might dilute its effect. A few times it was done defiantly; not often. It was done sometimes as artlessly as an animal lifts ears or tail. Or leg.
Vergil did not admit to noticing. Always, he walked on.
On one side as he walked he saw all manner of iron-work stacked.
On one side as he walked he saw, not all manner of dyed goods, for the delicate stuff was not worked in Averno, but much. Strong sunlight would not affect the iron, but would certainly do no good to the cheap cloth and its equally cheap colors. Here a “Sarcen” muttered as he turned over iron bangles and iron knife- and hatchet-blanks certainly destined for some lone sandbank where the immemorial mute- or dumb- or silent-trade still flourished: Equally the buyers and the sellers had to trust each other, for equally the sellers and the buyers feared each other. Merchandise was set out on a mat and signals made by smoke or drum (why, as he thought of this, did some other drumbeats come full-sudden and full-strong into his mind: and which?), or both; then see the merchants retire to their ships offshore, and well offshore, well out of spear- and arrow-range. Presently the autochthons would come forth from their forest . . . desert . . . bog . . . examine the ware, then set down beside it what they thought its worth in what they themselves had to barter: grains of gold; pearls, perhaps; tortoiseshell. An elephant’s tooth. Then come again the merchants and they assess the proffered goods. If they are content, they take and depart. If not, they return awhile to their ship, and another while they wait, then once return more. Sometimes more has been placed beside the trade goods. Sometimes not.