“Travellers’ tales.”
“I try to prove to you how vast and wonderful life is.”
“Do you suggest that I should go exploring?”
“You could not go by sea and it would take ten years by track or river if the Arimaspians would let you. Stay home and amuse an old man who grows lonely.”
“Thank you for allowing me to be your fool.”
“Boy,” said the Emperor strongly, “go and get mixed up in a good bloody battle.”
“I leave that sort of thing to your official heir. Posthumus is an insensitive bruiser. He can have all the battles he wants. Besides, a battle cheapens life and I find life cheap enough already.”
“Then the Father of his Country can do nothing for his own grandson.”
“I am tired of twiddling my fingers.”
The Emperor looked at him more closely than the remark seemed to warrant. “Have I been very foolish? Be careful, Mamillius. A condition of our unusual friendship is that you keep your fingers out of hot water. Go on twiddling them. I want you to have that long life even if in the end you die of boredom. Do not become ambitious.”
“I am not ambitious for power.’’
“Continue to convince Posthumus of that. Leave ruling to him. He likes it.”
Mamillius looked at the curtains, took a step forward and murmured to the Emperor.
“Yet you would prefer that I should inherit the purple fringe on your toga!”
The Emperor leaned forward and answered him urgently.
“If his agents heard you we should neither of us live a year. Never say such a thing again. It is an order.”
Mamillius returned to his pillar, while the Emperor took up another paper, held it in the sunset-glow and tossed it aside. For a time there was silence between them. The nightingale, assured of darkness and privacy, returned to the cypress and her song. The Emperor spoke softly at last.
“Go down the steps, cross the lawn that fills this coombe so neatly, pick your way past the lily-pond and enter the cliff-tunnel. After a hundred paces you will stand on the harbour quay——”
“I know the neighbourhood well enough.”
“You will not be able to see much by the time you get there; but say to yourself, ‘Here, shielded from the sea by the two quays are a hundred ships, a thousand houses, ten thousand people. And every one would give his ears to be the bastard but favourite grandson of the Emperor’.”
“Warehouses, taverns, brothels. Tar, oil, bilges, dung, sweat.”
“You dislike humanity.”
“And you?”
“I accept it.”
“I avoid it.”
“We must get Posthumus to allow you a governorship. Egypt?”
“Greece, if I must.”
“Booked, I am afraid,” said the Emperor regretfully. “There is even a waiting list.”
“Egypt, then.”
“A part of Egypt. If you go, Mamillius, it will be for your own sake. You would find nothing of me on your return but ashes and a monument or two. Be happy then, if only to cheer an ageing civil servant.”
“What has Egypt to make me happy? There is nothing new, even out of Africa.”
The Emperor unrolled another paper, glanced at it, smiled, then allowed himself to laugh.
“Here is something new for you. They are two of your prospective subjects. You had better see them.”
Listlessly Mamillius accepted the paper, stood with his back to the Emperor and held it up to the light. He let go the end and glanced over his shoulder, grinning, as the paper rolled itself up. He turned and they laughed in each other’s eyes. The Emperor laughed, enjoying himself, younger, delighted. Mamillius was suddenly younger, his laugh uncertain in pitch.
“He wants to play boats with Caesar.”
So they laughed together under the song of the nightingale. The Emperor was the first to compose himself to stillness. He nodded towards the curtains. Mamillius went towards them, pulled one aside and spoke in a coldly formal voice.
“The Emperor will see the petitioners Phanocles and Euphrosyne.”
Then he was back by the pillar and they were nodding and grinning at each other conspiratorially.
But Caesar could not be approached as though he were no more than a man. A fat secretary came through the curtains, sank on one knee and rested the tablets on the other. With a stamp and clank a soldier in full armour marched into the loggia. He came to attention behind the Emperor and a little to one side, rasped out a sword and flashed it upright. There were voices whispering behind the curtain and two slaves drew them back. Someone struck a staff on stone paving.
“The Emperor permits you to approach him.”
A man came through the curtain and a woman followed him carrying a burden. The slaves dropped the curtain and the man stood for a moment, perhaps dazzled by the sunset so that they had a moment or two to inspect him. He wore a light-coloured tunic and over that a long green cloak. His dark hair and beard were wild, ruffled either by the wind of his own approach or by some exterior insolence of weather that was not permitted to invade the Emperor’s seclusion. The cloak was threadbare, patched and dusty. No one had taken care of his hands and feet. His face was lumpy, haphazard and to be accepted as nothing more than the front of a head.
The woman who had followed him shrank aside to the shadowy corner that seemed her natural place. She was little but a pillar of drapery, for a veil was over her head and caught loosely across her face. She stood sideways to the men and bowed her head over the bundle she carried. The instep lifted the long robe so that it revealed a sandal and four inches of modelled foot. The soldier made no sign behind his sword: only his eyes swivelling sideways raked her, assessing, expertly removing the wrappings, judging with the intuitive skill of long practice, from the few hints she allowed him, the woman who lay beneath. He saw a hand half-hidden, the rounded shape of a knee beneath the fabric. His eyes returned to their divided stare on either side of the sword. His lips pursed and rounded. Breathed through at a more propitious time and place they would have whistled.
Suspecting this transaction, the Emperor glanced quickly behind him. The soldier’s eyes stared straight ahead. It was impossible to believe that they had ever moved or would ever move again. The Emperor glanced at Mamillius.
He was watching the woman sideways, his eyes, swivelling, raked her, removing the wrappings, judging with the intuitive and boundless optimism of youth the woman who lay beneath.
The Emperor leaned back happily. The man found his woman and took the bundle from her but could see nowhere to put it. He peered short-sightedly at the Emperor’s footstool. The Emperor crooked a finger at the secretary.
“Take a note.”
He watched Mamillius, kindly, triumphantly.
“Pyrrha’s Pebbles, Jehovah’s Spontaneous Creation, or the Red Clay of Thoth: but it has always appeared to me that some god found man on all fours, put a knee in the small of his back and jerked him upright. The sensualist relies on this. The wise man remembers it.”
But Mamillius was not listening.
The wild man made up his mind. He removed some sacking from the bundle, bent and placed a model ship on the pavement between the Emperor and Mamillius. She was about a yard long and unhandsome. The Emperor glanced from her to the man.
“You are Phanocles?”
“Phanocles, Caesar, the son of Myron, an Alexandrian.”
“Myron? You are librarian.”
“I was, Caesar—an assistant—until——”
He gestured with extraordinary violence towards the boat. The Emperor continued to look at him.
“And you want to play boats with Caesar?”
He was able to keep the amusement out of his face but it crept into his voice. Phanocles turned in desperation to Mamillius but he was still occupied and more frankly now. Suddenly Phanocles burst into a flood of speech.
“There was obstruction, Caesar, from top to bottom. I was wasting my time, they said, and I was d
abbling, in black magic, they said, and they laughed. I am a poor man and when the last of my father’s money—he left me a little you understand—not much—and I spent that—what are we to do, Caesar?”
The Emperor watched him, saying nothing. He could see that Phanocles had not been blinded by the sunset. The dregs of it were enough to show him that the man was short-sighted. The frustration of this gave him an air of bewilderment and anger as if some perpetual source of astonishment and outrage hung in the empty air a yard before his face.
“—and I knew if I could only reach Caesar——”
But there had been obstruction and more obstruction, mockery, incomprehension, anger, persecution.
“How much did it cost you to see me today?”
“Seven pieces of gold.”
“That seems reasonable. I am not in Rome.”
“It was all I had.”
“Mamillius. See that Phanocles does not lose by his visit. Mamillius!”
“Caesar.”
Shadows were creeping down from the roof of the loggia and welling out of the corners. The nightingale still sang from the tall cypress. The Emperor’s eyes went like the soldier’s to the veiled women then, unlike his, to Mamillius.
“And your sister?”
“Euphrosyne, Caesar, a free woman and a virgin.”
The Emperor allowed his palm to turn and his finger to crook until there lay on his lap the image of a beckoning hand. Drawn by that irresistible compulsion Euphrosyne moved noiselessly out of her corner and stood before him. The folds of her dress rearranged themselves, the veil fluttered over her mouth.
The Emperor glanced at Mamillius and said to himself:
“There is nothing new under the sun.”
He turned to Euphrosyne.
“Lady, let us see your face.”
Phanocles took a sudden step forward and found himself checked by the model.
He danced to save it from injury.
“Caesar——”
“You must accustom yourselves to our Western manners.”
He glanced down at the sandalled toes, the moulded knee, up at the unbelievable hands clutched so tightly into the fabric of her dress. He nodded gently and put out the hand with the amethyst on it in assurance.
“We intend no discourtesy, lady. Modesty is the proper ornament of virginity. But let us see your eyes at least so that we may know to whom we speak.”
Her head turned in the veil to her brother, but he was standing helplessly, hands clasped and mouth open. At last one hand drew down over her breast a little way and the veil came too so that it revealed the upper part of her face. She looked at the Emperor and then her head sank as though her whole body were a poppy stem and hardly strong enough for the weight.
The Emperor looked back at her eyes, smiling and frowning. He said nothing, but the unspoken news of his need had gone forth. The curtains parted and three women paced solemnly on to the loggia. Each seemed to carry a double handful of light in cupped hands so that faces were lit and the fingers a rose-coloured transparency. The Emperor, still watching Euphrosyne, began to arrange these nameless lamps with movements of a finger. One he beckoned to the right of her and forward, one behind her so that immediately the light ran and glittered in her hair. The third he moved in, close, close, bade the light rise till it was lifted by her face on the left side, so near that its warmth fluttered a curl by her ear.
The Emperor turned to Mamillius, who said nothing. There was a shocked look on his face as though he had been jerked out of a deep sleep. With a sudden motion Euphrosyne covered her face again and it was as though a fourth light had been extinguished. The soldier’s sword was shaking.
The Emperor leaned back in his chair and spoke to Phanocles.
“You bring the tenth wonder of the world with you.”
The sweat was running down Phanocles’ face. He looked at the model in bewildered relief.
“But I have not explained, Caesar——”
The Emperor waved his hand.
“Calm yourself. No harm is intended to you or your sister. Mamillius, they are our guests.”
Mamillius let out his breath and looked at the Emperor. His head began to turn from side to side restlessly as though he were trying to break loose from invisible strings. Yet the Emperor’s announcement had set another pattern in motion. The women ranged themselves to light the curtained doorway and the grave house dame came through it, willing to give of her plenteous store. She inclined her head to the Emperor, to Mamillius, to Euphrosyne, took her by the wrist and led her away. The curtains dropped together and the loggia was dark at last, the brightest lights were where the fishing boats danced by their nets. Mamillius came close to Phanocles and spoke to him in a voice that remembered how recently it had broken.
“What is her voice like? How does she speak?”
“She speaks very seldom, lord. I cannot remember the quality of her voice.”
“Men have built temples for objects of less beauty.”
“She is my sister!”
The Emperor stirred in his chair.
“If you are so poor, Phanocles, has it never occurred to you to make your fortune by a brilliant connection?”
Phanocles peered wildly round the loggia as though he were trapped.
“What woman would you have me marry, Caesar?”
Into the incredulous silence that followed his speech the nightingale spilled a rill of song. She had evoked the evening star that sparkled now in a patch of dense blue between the blacknesses of the junipers. Mamillius spoke in his rebroken voice.
“Has she an ambition, Phanocles?”
The Emperor laughed a little.
“A beautiful woman is her own ambition.”
“She is all the reasons in the world for poetry.”
“Corinthian is your style, Mamillius. However—continue.”
“She is of epic simplicity.”
“Your eternities of boredom will be sufficient for all twenty-four books.”
“Don’t laugh at me.”
“I am not laughing. You have made me very happy. Phanocles—how did you preserve this phœnix?”
Phanocles was groping in a double darkness.
“What am I to say, Caesar? She is my sister. Her beauty has come up, as it were, overnight.”
He paused, searching for words. They burst out of him.
“I do not understand you or any man. Why can they not let us be? Of what importance is the bedding of individuals? When there is such an ocean at our feet of eternal relationships to examine or confirm?”
They heard in the darkness a clucking sound from Phanocles’ throat as though he were about to be sick. But when he spoke, the words were at once ordered and pointless.
“If you let a stone drop from your hand it will fall.”
The Emperor’s chair creaked.
“I hope we are following you.”
“Each substance has affinities of an eternal and immutable nature with every other substance. A man who understands them—this lord here——”
“My grandson, the Lord Mamillius.”
“Lord, do you know much of law?”
“I am a Roman.”
Mamillius felt the wind of arms flung wide. He peered into the darkness of the loggia and made out a dark gesticulating shape.
“There then! You can move easily in the world of law. I can move in the world of substance and force because I credit the universe with at least a lawyer’s intelligence. Just as you, who know the law, could have your way with me since I do not, so I can have my way with the universe.”
“Confused,” said the Emperor. “Illogical and extremely hubristic. Tell me, Phanocles. When you talk like this do people ever tell you you are mad?”
Phanocles’ bewildered face swam forward in the gloom. He sensed the model and hoped to avoid it. Then there was something before his face—a sword blade that glistened dully. He backed clumsily away.
The Emperor repeated the words as though
he had not said them before.
“—tell you you are mad?”
“Yes, Caesar. That is why I—severed my connection with the library.”
“I understand.”
“Am I mad?”
“Let us hear further.”
“The universe is a machine.”
Mamillius stirred.
“Are you a magician?”
“There is no magic.”
“Your sister is a living proof and epitome of magic.”
“Then she is beyond Nature’s legislation.”
“That may well be. Is there any poetry in your universe?”
Phanocles turned, tormented, to the Emperor.
“That is how they all talk, Caesar. Poetry, magic, religion——”
The Emperor chuckled.
“Be careful, Greek. You are talking to the Pontifex Maximus.”
Phanocles darted the shadow of a finger at his face.
“Does Caesar believe in the things that the Pontifex Maximus has to do?”
“I prefer not to answer that question.”
“Lord Mamillius. Do you believe in your very heart that there is an unreasonable and unpredictable force of poetry outside your rolls of paper?”
“How dull your life must be!”
“Dull?”
He took a half-step towards the Emperor, remembered the sword and stopped in time.
“My life is passed in a condition of ravished astonishment.”
The Emperor answered him patiently.
“Then a mere Emperor can do nothing for you. Diogenes was no happier than you in his tub. All I can do is to stand out of the sun.”
“Yet I am destitute. Without your help I must starve. With it I can change the universe.”
“Will you improve it?”
“He is mad, Caesar.”
“Let him be, Mamillius. Phanocles, in my experience, changes are almost always for the worse. Yet I entertain you for my—for your sister’s sake. Be brief. What do you want?”
There had been obstruction. The ship, not his sister, was the tenth wonder; he could not understand men, but with this ship the Emperor would be more famous than Alexander. Mamillius had ceased to listen and was muttering to himself, and beating time with his finger.
The Emperor said nothing as Phanocles rambled on, did nothing, but allowed a little cold air to form round him in the darkness and extend outwards. At last for all the man’s insensitivity he faltered to a stop.
The Scorpion God: Three Short Novels Page 12