The Scarlet Fig: Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series (31 page)

The secret of the
Castor and Pollux
… its real purpose was no longer a secret, then. In Rome, debarred by the depredations of the Sea Huns from an easy trade with Tyre, the immemorial source of purple dye in the east; and by the clandestine but none the less effectual blockade by Carthage of its own special sources in the Trans-Herculean west; in Rome, the price of purple, so essential for the best class of clothing dye, had gone nowhere but up. Just as the high price of Indian pepper had had as its result a trade in the pseudo-pepper (called
grains of paradise
) from Farther Africa — it was by no means the equal of the Indoo or proper pepper, but did well enough as an adulterant thereof — much better than poppy seed, for instance — so there had grown a pressing need for a sort of pseudo-purple (since the unsatisfactory surrogate provided by Averno was in any case no longer currentlyavailable) … a dye-stuff which would stain a robe well enough for it to pass for purple by, anyway, lamp or torch-light. With, anyway, that is, at least a little of the pure purple admixed. Many stratagems were tried, perhaps the best of which was to unravel a robe or a length of cloth estained with pure purple and use the thread so obtained as warp and the impure purple for the woof (or vice versa, if one follows). There was, as with all such tricks, the unwillingness of such a garment to stay fast-colored. But not everyone who wished a purple robe wished to use it often. The secret, or true purpose of the
Castor and Pollux
, therefore, was to lade aboard a cargo of a paste made from the flowers of the orchil plant, which paste, made quick with lime, oyster-lime or marble-lime (some said with one, some said with both) and water, was declared by anyway some dyers to produce a shade of violet which, mixed subtly … so they hoped … with purple to pass as
pourpre
, the
res
itself … by lamplight.

And so it might. For some. And for those absolutely exacting in the matter, and who wished to display their exacting exactitude in the sunlight: why, they might always obtain their desire for enormous, some said for extortionate, prices. And while the mysterious power of
Carthage
, so oft destroyed, might be growing rich and yet richer by their self-declared monopole of
pourpre
or
porphyro;
this mysterious authority called
Carthage,
wherever
Carthage
now was, was well-aware of the existence of a trade in orchil-flower, a “purple” both counterfeit and contraband. And so Carthage had declared an utter ban on alien ships in the western-most waters during and largely before and largely after, the season in which the orchil plant was in flower.

Which left not very much season at all.

The Carthage-men would have termed even so small a craft as
Castor and Pollux
, which had been seeking in the Atlantis islands for a plant-dye substitute for the genuine sea-purple made from a certain shellfish — they would have called the little ship an
interloper,
perhaps in an even fiercer justification for discountenancing such a venture, they might have called the craft a
pirate.
For any infringement of any monopole of Carthage the Carthagans regarded not only as a crime against themselves, but as a crime against Nature and against all moral laws soever.

Had not Nature, as exemplified by Juno, preferred Carthage — the “New City” in terms of the old cities of the Levant, but (so twas claimed) an Old City … anyway older … in terms of Rome?
queen Dido’s heirs had long offered on the Altar of Juno when King Romulus still played with the nurse-wolf’s paps …

Argument, Vergil well-knew, was useless.

Ishtar of Tarshish
*
! Twas vain!

Talking over this matter with the Captain Polycarpu not so long after coming aboard, the small ship having left the Land of Lotus-Eaters well behind, idly Vergil asked, “Well, Messer Capitan, and have you ever heard of one Hemdibal, a Pune, who calls himself or is sometimes called —”

“Josaias, King of Carthage? Aye, that. Heard too much more nor we like. Crawls up and down the lands and seas, that one, like some gret sarpint-snake. Ben’t no place safe fro him.
Or
his.” He was a moment silent. Then he shuddered. The notion came to Vergil, not the first coming nor the second, that he might better have taken his passage on some other craft … and, as always, that calm, cool voice, which took not much notice of, were the
Dioscuri
hatched from one egg or two, said voice had asked him, like a goodlier version of that daemon which the habitants of Araby Felicitous say sits upon the shoulder and whispers in the ear:
What
“other craft”? it asked. Lotophagea lay on no shipping lane such as connected, say, Ostia and Napoly: which, had it been a lane on land, so frequent usage must have graved grooves into the way.

Thinking best to change the matter, yet, like every man aboard, never once leaving off gazing roundabout the sea for any sign of any ship; Vergil said, “Your sails and shrouds seem much the worse for their wear, Ser Capitan.”

“Stone me with stones if we all don’t know that well! If we hadn’t espeared your smokes, which, by their well-known signal advised of us that a castaway did habit there and twas no mere smoke as they wittold eaterds and drinkards of that Scarlet Fig kape a-burning to toast their foolish feet, we’d perhap be by now at Isle Mazequa, which it lie as due west of Mauretayne as a man may rightly rackon: a renewing of sails and shrouds and sheets and lines alike …”

Vergil murmured something apologete and exculpatory, but Polycarpu waved it away. “Twas meant to be, depend upon it, Ser, if you was to castivate my nativity upon un a they ephermeris, you’d find it so designate.” Vergil expressed his thanks, regretting that, alas, he had no ephemeris along with him. And if Polycarpu
had
known his natal day, let alone the hour of naissance, (instead of, say, twas the hour our old ewe-crone Mima drapped her last lamb, I heard me grandam say … two days and a full week after that gret storm o wind that bruck the fishing fleet a fierce: the year? Plauto was consul then … or was it Glauto? Marcu was empery … I b’lieve) — why: that would have been a greater marvel than any marvel yet descried by any caster of nativities and drawer of horoscopes since Nabucodonosorus, famed for his herbal diet, had first devised that cleanly and exactive science.

It was a day and half a day before the welcome cry of, “
A land I spy! I spy a land!
” As was only customary and polite, Vergil had responded with, “
What shore? What coast of people?
”

The answer came, “Isle Mazequa, as any fool might ken … what shore or coast wast expecting of? Candia, Gret Asia More? or Felick Arabia?” But an older seaman gave the lad a kick and a cuff, explaining, as he turned to Vergil, “ ‘A stripling, a mat, and an oliver tree/ The more ye beat ‘em, the better they be.’ ”

The landfall on that small and rather barren island was late in the day, and so worn were the ropes and cables that they made the tiny harbor under oars, the winds being a bit gusty, so that the captain was fearful and fretful of any strain at all. Hasten round the port-town as they might, they found nothing in the way of already-made sail, or ready-to-use leathern shrouds or cable-ropes. They found a good deal of such as this:

“You are Catus the hide-flenser?”

“For sure I be, and for to sarve ye.”

“Then who is Joquimo the tanner?”

“Hm, well, I am Joquimo the tanner, Catus the hide-flenser he was my lawful brother, these seis months his foot is no more on arth, but I has compacted with his widdy to overtake his trade for sure I can flense an hide ever as good as he could, a peace upon his bones; how may I sarve ye?”

Not the least good, any show of impatience.

“Have you got some good lengths of well-braided leathern shrouds to stay the mast of my little craft as you may see rides at mooring there.”

See Joquimo, a.k.a. the Estate of Catus, peer a careful look to port, at once then say, “I has, Messer; that I has. A-made of jerauph’s hide, be called cameleopard by the general, fit to —”

Polycarpu, the least use or not, burst forth, “Neither sight nor smell has this lone rock of yours ever had of any jerauph
or
cameleopard! Asides: plain old pizzle-bull his hide be good enow for me; have you —”

“Indeed, indeed, my Messer Capitan sweet; the toughest hide of a plain old pizzle-bull as ever croppit grass or hunched a cow: it be flensed and scraped and cut and tanned and braided and hangit two weeks with weights to stretch it fair, and wants but ane more week for to —”

Which Polycarpu interpreted at its full worth, that is, that the man had nothing of the sort; mayhap he had an old ass’s hide in the stinking tannin-vat, and, given an advance of money and enough time, would endeavor to make treaty with the local butcher to haggle the god knew how long with any farmer who chanced to have a worn-out ox or bull he’d maybe sell; and at every chance Joquimo would swear upon his goodwife’s withered vulva that he simply
must
have another advance of money or the whole schema would go to waste: for thus it almost ever was in any small civitas: and the months might well (or ill) pass before any set of braided-leathers would the stranger get. And as for getting any of his money back for any reason beneath the ever-conq’ring and undying sun: such a thing had never been known in the history of the world and of the wheeling, glittering stars.

Visits to the man who made leathern buckets and bottles were just as bootless, and, speaking of boots, so was the trip to the isle’s sole and only cordwainer.

Whilst these useless trips and tours continued, gradually one became aware of a work-worn and decent-looking man following at a distance in their train. The distance gradually grew less and less, at length when he and Polycarpu were side-by-side the latter gave the stranger at last a long look which he took as chance to speak. “I am the rope-weaver of this place,” said he. “Mine is the rope-walk, and —”

“’
Rope
-weaver’! Have you got a new —”

The man shook his dusty head. “Nothing new, ser. I work to order only, and the orders come few, and it takes me time; first I must find the grass.” And he stopped. Waited.

What he
did
have to offer was soon described. A while ago he had prepared some rope on order for a shipman whose vessel plied between the island and the main of Mauretayne, payment to be made at the semi-annual settling of all debts, according to the custom. “He come home about that time,” said the rope-maker. “Before he ever unladed a jar or bale, he come to the wine-shop … for he never dranked at sea … and sate him down, he did. And then he died: no more years, he had. Nor had he heirs, howesoe’er remote. His boat was sold, and the cargo, and his wee house, and such. His debits were paid. And I? I got me back my ropes. I am not a one,” he concluded, simply, “to dun the dead.”

The ropes were not new, nor were they especially good. But they were better than the ones the Sard ship had.

And so they were good enough.

A larger sail was also offered, and that they took, too. Nor did the crew refrain from grumbling when Polycarpu roused them up at a time when the stars still blazed; “For,” said he, “It belikes me not to wastrel hours, and I feel not safe ontil we be in familiar waters; to work, there! To work!” The mast was stepped down, the old and fraying leather shrouds removed and cast aside for the cordwainer to fetch when he liked and cut them up and boil them down to add to his store of pigs’ pizzles and asses’ hooves and suchlike rubble, to make him glue. The “new” shrouds were but barely fitted in with the re-stepped mast, when a hue ran through the small throng gathered to watch the free show and to offer all their unsolicit advice: that a ship had been seen in the far distance by the watcher on the hill.

“What ship? Of what sort, a ship?” a hundred throats cried out the question. The answer, between gasps (the watcher’s boy had run the way): “A Carthage ship! A Pune! A ship of Carthage! Carthage! Pune!”

XI

Sea-Scene; or, Vergil and the Ox-Thrall

Swiftly they passed a rock off-shore (mentioned in
The Periplus of the Coasts of Mauretayne
) which stood into the water above the reaches of the common waves: there crouched a row of harpy-birds, eaters of men; anent whom opinions differ: do they attack, destroy, devour living men? or do they make their meals of dead-men’s-meat alone, as though it were mere sulliage or carrion? They crouched with their folded wings hunched high, their faces glaring out below: so that they looked like so many men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders. Fearful thought! and fearful sight!

They glowered and somewhat hoist first one foot, then atother, and their wings did twitch a bit: but nay more move they made. Vergil gave them but a glance. Overhead, high, high: the griffins gyred and circled.

In haste, afore they in haste put out to sea, finding after frantic search and enquiry, an aged copy of the
Oracles of Maro;
dice he easy gat. Tossed for the number of the page, tossed for the number of the line:
seven
came the first,
fourteen
came the second. Duplication of felicity? In anguished haste he turned the pages of the coverless codex, pages sullied and filthy with food and wine and with the drippings of the oily lamp; and withal what found he? This:
much-loved of Juno, antient Carthage, stained with purple and heavy with gold.
Thence,
thence
it was, that too-much-quoted gravid line? He had never thought of the
Maro
much; now he was moved to curse it: moved to … did not … And then the cry was, All aboard or left ahind, you magus there, move your narrow marrow-bones!

He moved.

The discus, Vergil could not throw; no race-horse would suffer to bear his untrained weight; and nor could he, limbs oiled and dusted with powder of alabaster, of mica, and of yellow marblestone, neither wrestle nor run the course, but he had one gift which they who waited beneath the echoing portico for the sound of the trumpet had not: he could think two clean different thoughts at once. The boat’s cracked boom sang a sort of woeful keening croon within the hollow; he thought of how he must now swiftly work with his fingers; and he thought as well of the 10th and 12th lines of— not of the
Maro!
not! — of the vIIth book of
Concerning Things Seen in the Summer
, the provenance of which is all unknow (some say that the Cumæan Sybil idly threw it in for boot when she finally sold her own prophetic, vatic book of leaves to Tarquin King, the Proud: this is mere legend),
videlixet
: