“Indeed yes, sir,” the merchant replied, paying no attention to Magister Stephen’s scrutiny. “I am Niccolo dello Bosco-of the woods, you would say. When I am at home, you see, I am to be found in the forest outside Firenze. It is a truly lovely town, Firenze. Do you know it?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Magister Stephen said. He was thinking that it was not unfortunate at all. He had been to Milan once, to watch a tourney and came away with a low opinion of Italian manners and cookery. That, however, was neither here nor there. “And your arms, sir, if I may ask?”
“But of course. A proud shield, you will agree: Gules a fess or between three frogs proper.”
Magister Stephen whipped out quill and ink and a small sketchbook. Rather than carrying a variety of colors around for rough sketches, he used different hatchings to show the tinctures: vertical stripes for the red ground of the shield, with dots for the broad gold horizontal band crossing the center of the escutcheon. His frogs were lumpy-looking creatures. He glanced up at dello Bosco, who was watching him in fascination. “Why ‘three frogs proper’?” he asked. “Why not simply ‘vert’?”
“They are to be shown as spotted.”
“Ah.” Magister Stephen made the necessary correction. “Most interesting, Master dello Bosco. In England I know of but one family whose arms bear the frog or rather the toad: that of Botreaux, whose arms are Argent, three toads erect sable.”
The Italian smiled. “From batracien, no doubt. A pleasant pun, yes?”
“Hmm?” Magister Stephen owned a remorselessly literal mind. “Why, so it is.” His chuckle was a little forced.
The approaching jingle of harness and clop of heavy hooves in the street told of another party of knights on its way to the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh. Anxious to see their arms, Magister Stephen tossed a coin down on the tabletop and waited impatiently for his change. He pocketed the sixth of a copper and hurried out of the tavern.
To his annoyance, he was familiar with all but one of the newcomers’ shields. He was just finishing his sketch of that one when dello Bosco appeared at his elbow and nudged him. “There’s something you won’t find often,” the Italian said, nodding toward one of the stalls across the road. “A trader who can’t give his stock away.”
“Oh, yes, him.” Magister Stephen had noticed the bushy-bearded merchant in a caftan the day before. He was a Greek from Thessalonike, come to the castle of Thunder-ton-tronckh with a cartload of fermented fish sauce. To northern noses, though, the stuff smelled long dead. Now the Greek was reduced to smearing it on heels of bread and offering them as free samples to people on the street, most of whom took one good whiff and fled.
“Timeo Danaos et donas ferentis,” dello Bosco laughed, watching yet another passerby beat a hasty retreat from the stall.
“You know Vergil well,” Magister Stephen said.
“Yes, very well,” dello Bosco agreed, and Magister Stephen sniffed at the ready vanity of an Italian.
Another party of knights came clattering up the road toward the castle. “It seems our day for surprises,” dello Bosco said, pointing at one horseman’s arms. “Or have you seen pantheons before?”
Magister Stephen did not answer; he was drawing furiously. He knew of the pantheon from his study of heraldic lore, but he had not seen the mythical beast actually depicted on a shield. It had the head of a doe, a body that might have come from the same creature, a fox’s tail, and cloven hooves. It was shown in its proper colors: the hooves sable, body gules powdered with golden stars.
“Quite unusual,” Magister Stephen said at last, tucking his sketchbook back inside his tunic. Then he turned to dello Bosco, who had been waiting for him to finish. “Sir, you astonish me. Not one in a thousand would have recognized a pantheon at sight.”
The merchant drew himself up stiffly; even so, the crown of his head was below the level of Magister Stephen’s chin. “I am not one in a thousand-I am myself. And being armigerous, is it not proper for me to know heraldry?”
“Oh, certainly. Only-”
Dello Bosco might have been reading his thoughts, for he divined the exact reason for the hesitation. “You think I am stupid for because I am not noble born, eh? Why do I not thrash you for this?“ He was hopping up and down in fury, his cheeks crimson beneath their Mediterranean swarthiness.
Magister Stephen cocked a massive fist. “I promise you, you would regret the attempt.”
“Do I care a fig for your promises, you larded tun?”
“Have a care with your saucy tongue, knave, or I will be the one to thrash you.”
“Not only fat but a fool. In my little finger I know more of heraldry than is in all your empty head.”
Magister Stephen’s rage ripped free.”Damn me to hell if you do, sir!” he roared loudly enough to make heads turn half a block away.
“Big-talking pile of suet. Go home to mama; I do not waste my time on you.” Dello Bosco gave a theatrical Italian gesture of contempt, spun on his heel, and began to stalk away.
Magister Stephen seized him by the shoulder and hauled him back. White around the lips, the Englishman grated, “Dare to prove your boasts, little man, or I will kill you on the spot. Contest with me, and we shall see which of us can put a question the other cannot answer.”
“What stake will you put up for this, ah, contest of yours?” dello Bosco said, wriggling free of the other’s grip.
Magister Stephen laughed harshly. “Ask what you will if you win. You shall not. As for me, all I intend is flinging you into a dung heap to serve you as you deserve for insolence to your betters.”
“Wind, wind, wind,” dello Bosco jeered. “As challenged, I shall ask first. Is it agreed?”
“Ask away. The last question counts for all, not the first.”
“Very well, then. Tell me, if you will, the difference between a mermaid and a melusine.”
“You have a fondness for monsters, it seems,” Magister Stephen remarked. “No doubt it suits your character. To your answer: these German heralds have a fondness for melusines, and draw them with two tails to the mermaid’s one.” Dello Bosco shrugged and spread his hands. Magister Stephen said, “My turn now. Why is the bar sinister termed a mark of bastardy?”
“Because all English speak French as poorly as you,” his opponent retorted. “Barre is French for ‘bend,’ and the bend sinister does show illegitimacy. Any child knows that bars, like the fess run straight across the shield, and so cannot be called dexter or sinister.” Magister Stephen did his best to hide his chagrin.
They threw questions there at each other in the street, and gave back answers as swiftly. Magister Stephen’s wrath soon faded, to be replaced by the spirit of competition. All his wit focused on finding challenges for dello Bosco and on meeting the Italian’s. Some of those left him sweating. Wherever he had learned his heraldry, dello Bosco was a master.
Magister Stephen looked up, amazed, to realize it was twilight. “A pause for a roast capon and a bottle of wine?” he suggested. “Then to my chamber and we’ll have this out to the end.”
“Still the belly first, is it?” dello Bosco said, but he followed the Englishman back into the inn from which they had come several hours before.
Refreshed, Magister Stephen climbed the stairs to the cubicles over the taproom. He carried a burning taper in one hand and a fresh bottle in the other. After lighting a lamp, he stretched out his straw palliasse and waved dello Bosco to the rickety footstool that was the little rented room’s only other furniture.
“My turn, is it not?” Magister Stephen asked. At the Italian’s nod, he said, “Give me the one British coat of arms that has no charge upon the shield.”
“A plague on you and all the British with you,” dello Bosco said. He screwed up his mobile face in thought, and sat a long time silent. Just as a grinning Magister Stephen was about to rise, he said, “I have it, I think. Did not John of Brittany-the earl of Richmond, that is-bear simply ‘ermine’?”
“Damnation!” Magi
ster Stephen exploded, and dello Bosco slumped in relief.
Then he came back with a sticker of his own: “What beast is it that has both three bodies and three ears?”
Magister Stephen winced. He frantically began reviewing the monsters of blazonry. The lion tricorporate had but one head, with the usual number of ears. The chimaera had-no, it had three heads and only one body. The hydra was drawn in various ways, with seven heads, or three, but again a single body.
“Having trouble?” dello Bosco asked. In the lamplight his eyes were enormous; they seemed almost a deep crimson rather than black, something that Magister Stephen had not noticed, and that only added to his unease.
The hot, eager gaze made him want to run like a rabbit-like a rabbit! He let out a great chortle of joy. “The cony trijunct on the arms of Harry Well!” he exclaimed. “The bodies are disposed in the dexter and sinister chief points and in base, each joined to the others by a single ear around the less point.”
Dello Bosco sighed and relaxed once more. Still shuddering at his narrow escape, Magister Stephen cudgeled his brain for the fitting revenge. Suddenly he smiled. “Tell me the formal name of the steps to be depicted under the Cross Calvary.”
But dello Bosco answered at once: “Grieces.” He came back with a complicated point of blazonry.
Magister Stephen made him repeat it, then waded through. “Two and three, Or a cross gules,” he finished, panting a bit.
“Had you blazoned the first and fourth ‘a barry of six’ instead of ‘azure, three bars or,’ I would have had you,” dello Bosco said.
“Yes, I know.” Yet even though Magister Stephen had given the correct response, the feel of the contest changed. He was rattled, and asked the first thing that popped into his head; dello Bosco answered easily. Then he asked a question so convoluted as to make the one before elementary by comparison.
Magister Stephen barely survived it, and took a long pull at the wine jar when he had finished. Again, his opponent brushed aside his answering sally; again, he came back with a question of hideous difficulty. The cycle repeated several times; at every query Magister Stephen’s answers came more slowly and with less certainty. Dello Bosco never faltered.
The lamp in the little room was running low on oil. Its dying flickers made dello Bosco seem somehow bigger, as if he were gathering strength from Magister Stephen’s distress. Every time he hurried a question now, he leaned forward, hands on his knees, waiting for the Englishman’s stumbling replies like a hound that has scented blood.
He handled Magister Stephen’s next question, on the difference between the English and Continental systems for showing cadency, with such a dazzling display of erudition that the Englishman, desperate as he was, wanted to jot down notes. But there was no time for that. Stretching lazily, dello Bosco said, “I grow weary of the game, I fear. So, then, a last one for you: tell me what arms the devil bears.”
“What? Only the devil knows that!” Magister Stephen blurted.
At that moment the lamp went out, yet the chamber was not dark, for Niccolo dello Bosco’s eyes still glowed red, like burning coals. When he spoke again, his voice was deeper, richer, and altogether without Italian accent. “I see that you do not know, in any case, which is a great pity for you. Nor is it wise to bet with strangers-but then, I told you you were a fool.”
Dello Bosco chuckled. “And now to settle up the wager. What was that you said? ‘Damn me to hell if you do, sir’? Well, that can be arranged.” He strode forward and laid hold of Magister Stephen. His grip had claws.
Dello Bosco had not mentioned the Mountain by the Dark Wood outside Firenze, or the Gateway there, or the writing above it. “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate,” Magister Stephen read as he was dragged through. Even in such straits he was observant, and cried, “No wonder you said you knew Vergil well!”
“Indeed. After all, he lives with me.”
Then the lesser demons took control of their new charge from their master. To show their service, they bore his arms: Gules, a fess or between three frogs proper. Magister Stephen found that very funny-but not for long.
PILLAR OF CLOUD, PILLAR OF FIRE
I’ve written seven stories that feature the exploits of Basil Argyros, a fourteenth-century Byzantine official in a world where Muhammad was monk rather than prophet (see also “Departures” and “Islands in the Sea” in this volume). Six of those stories appear together in the collection Agent of Byzantium (New York: Congdon amp; Weed, 1987). This is the seventh. Chronologically, it fits between the second and third chapters of Agent of Byzantium. Like the others in the series, however, it is intended to stand by itself as well.
Basil Argyros’ shadow was only a small black puddle on the deck timbers under his feet. The sun stood almost at the zenith, higher in the sky than he had ever known it. He used the palm of his hand to shield his eyes from its fierce glare as he peered southward past the ship’s bowsprit. The blue waters of the Middle Sea stretched unbroken before him.
He turned to a sailor hurrying past. “Did the captain not say we’d likely spot land today?”
The sailor, a lean, sun-toasted man who wore only loincloth and sandals, gave a wry chuckle. “Likely’s not certain, sir, and today’s not done.” His Greek had a strong, hissing Egyptian accent. He was heading home.
Argyros wanted to ask another question, but the fellow had not paused to wait for it. He had work to keep him busy; aboard ship, passengers had little better to do than stand around, talk, and gamble-Argyros was up a couple of gold nomismata for the trip. Even so, he had been bored more often than not.
He remembered a time when he would have relished the chance to spend a week or so just thinking. Those were the days before his wife and infant son had died in the smallpox epidemic at Constantinople two years ago. Now when his mind was idle, it kept drifting back to them. He peered south again, hoping the pretense of purpose would hold memory at bay. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Today it didn’t, not very well.
Still, getting away from the imperial capital helped give distance to his sorrow. That was why he had volunteered to go to Alexandria. His fellow magistrianoi looked at him as if they thought he was mad. Likely they did. Anything that had to do with Egypt meant trouble.
Right now, though, Argyros relished trouble, the more, the better. A troubled present would keep him too occupied to think back to his anguished past. He could-
A shout from the port rail snapped him out of his reverie. “The pharos!” cried a passenger, obviously another man with time on his hands. “I see the stub of the pharos!” His arm stabbed out.
Argyros hurried to join him, looking in the direction he was pointing. Sure enough, he saw a white tower thrusting itself up past the smooth sea horizon. The magistrianos shook his head in chagrin. “I would have spied it before if I’d looked southeast instead of due south,” he said.
The man beside him laughed. “This must be your first trip across the open ocean, if you think we can sail straight to where we’re going. I count us lucky to have come so close. We won’t have to put in at some village to ask where we are, and risk being pirated.”
“If the pharos were fully rebuilt, its beacon fire and the smoke from it could be spied a day’s sail away,” Argyros said. “ ‘And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night.’ ‘‘
He and the other man both crossed themselves at the Biblical quotation. So did the sailor with whom Argyros had spoken before. He said, “Sirs, captains have been petitioning emperors to get the pharos rebuilt since the earthquake knocked it down a lifetime ago. They’re only now getting around to it.” He spat over the rail to show what he thought of the workings of the Roman Empire’s bureaucracy.
Argyros, who was part of that bureaucracy, understood and sympathized with the sailor’s feelings. Magistrianoi-secret investigators, agents, sometimes spies-could not grow hidebound, not if they
wanted to live to grow old. But officials with lawbooks had governed the empire from Constantinople for almost a thousand years. No wonder they often moved slow as flowing pitch. The wonder, sometimes, was that they moved at all.
The man who had first seen the pharos said, “Seems to me the blasted Egyptians are more to blame for all the delays than his Majesty Nikephoros.” He turned to Argyros for support. “Don’t you think so, sir?”
“I know little of such things,” the magistrianos said mildly. He shifted to Latin, a tongue still used in the empire’s western provinces but hardly ever heard in Egypt. “Do you understand this speech?”
“A little. Why?” the passenger asked. The sailor, not following, shook his head.
“Because I can use it to remind you it might not be wise to revile Egyptians when the crew of this ship is nothing else but.”
The man blinked, then gave a startled nod. If the sailor had been offended, he got no chance to do anything about it. Just then, the captain shouted for him to help shift the lines to the foresail as the ship swung toward Alexandria. “As well we’re west of the city” Argyros observed. “The run into the merchantmen’s harbor will be easier than if we had to sail around the island of Pharos.”
“So it will.” The other passenger nodded. Then he paused, took a long look at the magistrianos. “For someone who says he knows little of Alexandria, you’re well informed.”
Argyros shrugged, annoyed with himself for slipping. It might not matter now, but could prove disastrous if he did it at the wrong time. He did know more of Alexandria than he had let on-he knew as much as anyone could who had never come there before. Research seemed a more profitable way to spend his time than mourning.
He even knew why the pharos was being restored so slowly despite Nikephoros’ interest in having it shine once more. That was why he had come. Knowing what to do about the problem was something else again. No one in Alexandria seemed to. That, too, was why he’d been sent.
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