Vergil in Averno: Book Two of the Vergil Magus Series (29 page)

It was to be. It was as good as done. Of course they twain younglings must suit each other. But, bend the twig, the tree inclines. Had he, Vergil, for whom never marriage had been arranged, left, such matters, all, to his own heart and head and pounding blood — had he had e’er such luck as would make him wish to urge such courses on another?

“Aurelio, there dwells with me, and you know where, a young man, as of now merely my body-servant and my horse-boy. But I know his nature to be good, and — ”

The master barber beckoned to Aurelio, who gestured him a gesture, as he slowly rose. “I take your meaning, ser. And, so soon as both we’ve done, let us arrange a further meeting. And let us talk of this.”

Hardly had he sat him on the barber stool, Aurelio, when the first journeyman barber beckoned to Vergil. Seemingly the man knew him by sight, else his first words proclaimed a liberty taken; “Ah, master, they have trimmed you ill: and, sure, it’s been a few days, some, since you were last shaved at all.” He sharped his knife, mixed the soft soap in the bowl, prepared the hot cloth. “Master Aurelio,” the man said, stooping, in his confident, almost overconfident, barber’s voice, “has got no more keen of sight, good man though he be; but truly, messer, from a bit away, just a bit, ser, it
do
look as though master wears a neat gray cap. Yet I’d ha’ sworn the master’s hair was black — ”

“Oh, damn it, barber, man, it
is
black!”

Across the journeyman’s smooth face, a trifle plump, passed a look of well-acted professional demur, as when one tells a glover that the gloves are tight. He said no word, merely with the gentlest of pressures urged Vergil forward to gaze into a basin, still, of water: as it might be one which someone like Gunsedilla had prepared to use to gaze at the reflection of the sun or of the moon. Vergil looked. He saw his features in the calm, reflective water. He saw himself flinch as he observed his sunken eyes, his hollow cheeks, how gaunt and grim his face, how pinched his mouth.
All this shall pass,
he thought,
with rest, and —

He saw his beard, pitch-black; he saw his hair. His hair was gray.

• • •

Returning, reflective, to his house, beginning now to muse upon the future, and how he must, for all the tragic days just gone, he should need get money in his purse; when there came upon him, running as full-tilt, who but Iohan. Who gasped, “Master! Master! Money! Money! Money!”

Startled, more than so, by this vocal repetition of his private thought, and thinking as perhaps the rent is sudden demanded in advance, said Vergil as much to soothe the lad as reassure himself, “Why, Iohan, I have not lately counted them, but there are coins enough inside my purse — ” He made a move toward it. But Iohan, shaking his head till his brown curls shook, gestured with his right hand toward his left. The left held a small leathern case which Vergil had not seen before, and its straps the young man had wound tight around that hand, doubtless for safekeeping.

“Master,” Iohan said, between panting breaths, “whenas I had tooken care of brushing out your robes and hanging of them up, so then I ‘gins to unpack your chests and portmantles, ser; then of a sudden I takes to shaking, ser, then I needs must piss, so I step out to the gallery over the back-stable yard, though keeps I ever the outer door in view (having barred the inner).” And on he babbled: concluding, “And it be for sure upon my life, my master, ser, as ne’er I seen this case before.” He swung its heavy weight by his left hand. “ — But there it lay, when I return and lifts the ruddy robe as whosoever give thee . . . back there …” He did not mention the city’s name; indeed, he never did again mention it. — ”And there lay this case!” Was he sure he had not packed it? He was sure. Was and could he be sure that no one might have slipped it in the larger carry-case
… back there …?
He could not be sure. Would he say he was so certain he could swear against he drown in water it had it been impossible for someone, somehow, to have stolen, swift, into his master’s room, here,
here,
and slipped it — swift! — beneath “the ruddy robe” — ?

His lips trembled. “I was taken sudden sick, bethinking me of — I could not swear. Indeed, ser . . . I thought I heard . . . perhaps saw . . . but nothing I can clearly speak of. Ser, I do not know!” He seemed he would, another question more, break into tears.

Two shops down, the shop of Cosimo the goldsmith and moneychanger. Who took the case up in practiced, knowing hands, opened it, aloud counted out, stopped at ten, the total tally, the purses sealed and sealed. “Ah, this is Rano’s gold,” he said, a slight glance at the seals sufficing. He spoke softly, for goldsmiths seldom speak up loud. “Rano got him sundry golds outside, before — ” He stopped short. Goldsmiths are not often wont to speak of one man’s business to another. Cosimo counted on his checkered cloth. “Has Messer Vergil Mage perhaps heard of some newfangled system of numeration come forth, some say, from Araby? — some say, from farther yet? No matter. None.” The gold was counted, the purses sealed again, a receipt was passed across the checkered cloth, a look exchanged; Vergil and his servant left the shop.

To Iohan, he said, “Half of this is mine.”

The fellow stared at him. “Ser
… all
of it is yours.”

“Half of it is mine. I shall take a house, somewhere. Buy books. More books.
Many
books. Set up an elaboratory. Perhaps I shall engage a boat and take some rest on the Isle of Goats.” He gestured. There it still stood . . . did not stand . . . floated on the miraculous blue waters of the Parthenopean Bay.

“But half of it is yours. You will — as yet — take no house, buy no books, set up no elaboratory, engage no boat. If indeed you think to take some rest, it will be best, I think, that you take it apart from me for a while . . . for we shall part, I must tell you, Iohan….”

“Master, I doesn’t want to leave you — ”

“ — for a while, and it will be some great long while — ”

“Master, hasn’t I been faithful?”

“With a part of your half this” — he showed the receipt — ”I propose to pay for your indentures as an apprentice in the arts of fire and metal, for you still find them to be canny things. Which indeed they are. And, when you have finished your apprenticeship, part of this shall pay your journeyman’s fee. Part of it shall be your bridegroom’s portion, if you are minded then to marry. And, when you shall have finished your master-piece, and become passed as a master into the guild, part of it shall be to set you up in work.”

Iohan nodded, slowly, slowly, as all this was said. His face remained sober as before. When Vergil finished, he said, “And then, master, may I work for you? —
with
you? In that elaboratory?”

Vergil said, “There is time enough to think of that. So. Well. And what might you want
now?”

There was no hesitation. “Ser, I has one brother, older than me, he works with horses, just as I did, but back in our village. He fed me several year from his own share of the bad bread. Every day at one hour past the hour of noon, the carrier leaves from here for there, and I knows the carrier well, from old. If I might have one silver piece of money, ser — but one? only one? to send my brother?”

Vergil opened his purse. Removed one coin, handed it over . . . paused, with it still in his hand. “Iohan, I see that when all rents and such are paid, there still remains enough in my purse so that — you need not hasten, the evening hour is a good ways off — there are certainly more than four groats in the purse. Meet me at home, whenever you have done. And we shall visit the baths.”

He slipped the coin into Iohan’s palm. Who said, at once, “Therefore.” And was gone.

Vergil wandered off more slowly. He wished the baths were open sooner, but here in this small place the drums did not beat that signal till the sun was setting. He needed the hot and healing waters. He would wait. He might look out for a bookshop, as he slowly walked. He had . . . after all, and it was an immense, an immensely terrible
all
. . . he had his fee. Who had paid it? Had Rano caused it to be slipped into the baggage, back . . . back
there?
Had someone else? Had someone done that,
here?
Was it possible that somehow, somehow, someone, some certain one, had spun herself a net, and such a net or web as spiders weave, sometimes a mere wisp of web, and somehow, sailed off upon it? Pausing here? Suppose Poppaea to have escaped, clearly she had not wished to tarry here with him; whither would she wander? Far, no doubt; no doubt so very, very far. Past the great Isle Taprobane, set in the center of the Indoo Sea. As far, perhaps, as Tambralinga and the Golden Chersonese, where honey dripped from the reed called succharum.

And, perhaps, farther.

Perhaps, though no Roman knew what lands lay farther; still, perhaps farther.

Such thoughts bemused him as he walked the street, the crowded street. Still the people spoke of what had happened . . .
there.
He heard one gossip-voice, as thus he slowly moved himself along, trying to think of other things, heard one gossip-voice saying, loudly, almost in a scolding tone, “Nay, but this is what
I
heard, I heard it true, that there went some great magus-man into that city and he did them wondrous works, and they would not pay him, nay, a stiver not: whereat he cursed the city. ‘You be curst!’ saith he, and by his magery did turn it all to ash, to ash — did we not see that gray, gray ash? I heard it true — ”

A greater weariness came upon him, then, than even before. Some other voice next whispered loud,
“Look! There he go!”

A moment a silence. One moment. And another voice declared, “Ah, and see! Black o’hair he left, and now his head is turned as ashen-gray!”

He did not turn aside, but he could not avoid the faces that looked at him as he walked, of those who moved away, to give him way as he walked. Was there horror in their faces? Abhorrence? Terror? Fright? Not one shadow of any that. He might his whole life hence deny the tale. Always there would be some, many, who would believe it all. And what did they show, as they looked at him, believing it? Awe. None else. And then —

Along the street, riding the longest-legged mule ever Vergil had seen, own legs tucked under him, stooped over, and yet still visibly and preternaturally tall:
who?
Vergil did not wish to know, there were other things he wished to know. Should he, for once there being gold in his account, should he seek for home and wife? Bethink him of sons and daughters, family, heirs? And if not this very day — no, be certain not this
very
day — to commence upon such a matter, why, ah, what was the woman’s name — she in her shoddy purple gown, who lived all but next door to him in his rented rooms? He need not even know her name, nor she, his; she likely, she of a certainty, had troubles, too. But whatever his or hers might be, for some hour or so they might forget somewhat their troubles in each other’s arms. — Upon the mule!
Who?
The eunuch, Rano’s eunuch. Who saw Vergil stop and stare. And halted then his mule, and gave a grave salute.

“But how did you escape?” cried Vergil.

“ ‘Escape’?” That unforgettable voice, high and rich as a rich-voiced woman’s, yet strong as a man’s, said, “I did not escape. I was not there. I had, indeed, already left. I have been here since before.”

Still Vergil stared. Then: “Rano sent you off? He gave you leave to go? So — ”

But no.

“ ‘Sent me,’
my Wizard dear?
‘Gave me leave to go’?
Ah, Master Vergil, Sage and Seer, it is little you had learned in Sevilla about such things. I
went.
‘Frog,’ I said, ‘I am going Outside. I shall take such and such a sum with me to do some business; so hand me hither to my hand the seals for such.’ And so, of course, he did.”

There was little reason Vergil had to doubt. A strange relation, that between Magnate Rano and his eunuch. Stranger was it, though, than that between Magnate Rano and his matron? No. Question now beginning to form in Vergil’s mind was now answered before being asked, answered there in the long street along the shore of the blue and great and tideless sea, under the sparkling sun and in the clear and brilliant air. “What shall I do? I shall do thus: A house I have engaged, and a warehouse, too. Goods I have purchased, and equipment, too. All is done as by law required. It is registered, I registered it, in Rano’s name. And I sealed the same with Rano’s seal. Is Rano dead? I know naught. What says the law? The law is not a man, and in this instance the law says naught. Till such time as Rano is declared to be dead, after which, his estate is approbed and settled, why, my Wizard dear, till then, by lawful proxy,
I
am Rano!
I
set the terms! The books of account are all
mine
to keep!
No
one stands between me and the way
I
want things done!
I
hold the rule and draw the lines across the sheets and pages of the records as
I
want them drawn and
when
I want them drawn. If not, I leave them clear and open. The buying is all mine and the selling is all mine, ‘tis
I
allow credit and allot times and terms. Or, as the case may be, disallow.
I
write the figures and I choose the type of figures to be written and it is
I
who determine the methods of calculation and of numeration.

“Everything is in the most perfect and efficient order and will so continue. When a time comes that it is said to me, ‘Rano is legally extinct and all which is his demises to kinsmen thrice-removed,’ or, ‘escheats to the Crown Imperial’ — or what or which — ‘so, therefore, Eunuch, stand by and accompt for every drachma, ducat, oboi, groat, stiver, silver, and gold,’ it shall be done. It shall be done.” The man seemed perfectly confident, perfectly content; more, the man seemed happy, too! As happy be defined, or definable: those not-quite-human-eyes….

Still Vergil stared. Then he moved his hand some slight gesture to where some semblance of dark cloud, shaped roughly as an upright finger, tainted, still, the otherwise serene sky. “Are you not in any way sorry for him?” he asked.