The Scarlet Fig: Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series (35 page)

Back he was in Tingitayne.

“ ‘King of Carthage,’ nonsense, my good citizen,” said the Proconsul, “there is no ‘King of Carthage.’ What the Viceconsul meant to say is that the fellow
calls
himself ‘King of Carthage.’ Name is Hemdibal, got it in my books, and
I
don’t care
what
he calls himself. What he is, he is a pirate. What those fellows with him are, they are also pirates. Got ships, have they? How many ships did you see? — saw
one
, just as I thought. Don’t know very much, but a man doesn’t get to be
Consul Romanus
(which I needn’t remind you I was, before I drew the name of this stinking, fly-blown pest-hole out of the urn according to the ways of our Fathers, as wise today as they were the day they were inst graven on the Iron Tablets), man doesn’t get to be Co-consul of Rome without knowing the difference between the singular and the plural. Don’t talk to
me
of grammar,” Vergil had not so much as mentioned the subject, “-
urn
,
-us, -a, -i, -o, -a, -um, -us; tollo, tollere, sustuli, sublatum,
don’t you see.
Rego, regere, rexi, rectum
. Singular and plural, indeed.” And he glared at Vergil with pale blue eyes set in a wine-dark face.

And Vergil, stifling any inclinations which he may have had about possibly extrapolating comments along the lines of
rexi, rectum,
realized full well that a man didn’t often get to be Co-Consul (the Emperor being invariably the other
Co-
) without being a jacanapes, a dullard, or a fool; the Emperor — whoever he might be — few emperors would ever wish to select anyone else to bear the conjoint consulate who was not all three. And, just to take no chances, the Emperor always saw to it that
all
the lots provided for the drawing from the urn at the end of his colleague’s term bore the name of whichever stinking, fly-blown pest-hole (
distant,
too) it had been decided to afflict with the retiring consul (the Imperial Member of the Roman Consulate never retired, of course). It was hoped that this experience would cure whatever Patrician from any further interest in the realm of politics for which his noble blood and subsequent unpopularity entitled him.

That such a holder of the Fool’s License was deemed, for one thing, incapable of contemplating a plot against the Crown Imperial, and, for another, incapable of succeeding in one: goes without saying.

Agrippa Pretorius: always an exception. Lupus was Emperor then (Arms: a wolf sejant on a field of dead men’s bones: so twas said) and, it seemed, Lupus could not do without Agrippa Pretorius … for long. In those odd grey eyes like some cold and shoreless sea whose depths could be neither plumbed nor fathomed, there lay, it seemed, an utter lack of any desire for glory soever. Lupus
still
feared him? Perhaps. Lupus had only to say to Chief of Guards, “Bring me the head of the Consul Pretorius”? aye … but Lupus, who, be he what else he might be, was nothing like a fool, knew that if he were to do so, it would then be far likelier that Chief of Guards would bring the Consul Pretorius the head of the Emperor Lupus. But it seemed the Emperor
needed
him. So every now and then Pretorius would be summoned from the farm where he reared his bulls and planted pears and willows, to be made Consul once again. Only thus was Lupus sure to be free of the Marmosets, the thronging little pettymen and functioners who buzzed round the Imperial eyes like a cloud of gnats; afterwards, of course, Pretorius would draw the lot for a fine rich province from the urn. Another tale.

Although it was so hot that the flies, being too tired even to fly, hung limply in clusters from cobwebs whose webbers were too hot to pursue them, the Proconsul was wearing the same woolen tabard and trews which he was sure to have worn at any occasion back in Yellow Rome where the formalities did not require a toga. He was sweating heavily, too. He was a rather heavy man, too, despite the tradition that all Patricians were imperially slim. Yet he rose to his feet quickly enough when the Viceroy entered the pale-blue-plastered room — perhaps —
perhaps
? certainly not because he recognized in the Viceroy his superior (a mere Member of the Equestrian Order, a mere
knight
? as his superior? pah …) and certainly not because the Viceroy was saying “I greet Your Upperness, that whom no one has a nicer or more discriminating palate when it comes to date-wine, and the Excise is rather perplexed if the five tuns which have just come in are to be classed as Highest Duty, or —”

“
Date
-wine? Sickly sweety stuff, fit to buy as treats for whores; Excise! not my department of course … but sometimes the Highest Duty stuff is after all not half-bad, and one wouldn’t want the Fisc to be cheated …”

His words died away into a mumble as he followed the exciseman with quill, ink-pottle, and roll of papyrus. The Viceroy dropped his official politeness as though it had been a rather sweaty towel, and he at the edge of the pool in the Cooling-Room at the bath.

“Of course I have been listening,” he said, and waited just a moment as Vergil automatically looked round for any tell-tale hole-in-the-wall; then, remembering to mind his manners, looked only at an imaginary spot between the Viceroy’s eyes: not that he expected any fascination to be exercized, his spirit paralyzed and subdued like the coney’s quailing before the serpent’s weaving head and fascinating eye — never had he known any Roman official who had this art — but it was well to keep in practice.

“Of course I have been listening,” said the Viceroy, “not only at the wall just now, and a damned fool I’d be if I didn’t: much do I learn that way —”

“Including Your Lordship’s learning the case endings for the neuter gender as well as the declension of two invaluable if irregular verbs. One supposes that a man
could
learn Latin that way, if one did not already know it and had a lifetime to listen.”

Kept his face quite straight. Officials often enjoyed a joke about other officials, but sometimes thought they were being leered at; in which event they might not enjoy it.

“You are pleased to play with me, Mage, and to enjoy yourself and almost to laugh. But I have also been listening down at the moles and jetties and my people have been listening for me: and you will not enjoy hearing what I have heard; come in,
you!
”

And the
You
who came in was a man whom Vergil had seen before on his first, brief stay in Tingitayne, although this time he was without the company of his twain serjeants-at-mace; his name …? his name was …

“Festus!” he exclaimed. Festus … the skipper of the “justice-boat”? Should he mention what he had seen of the fugitives the man had then asked about, seen of them that awesome night of the oliphaunts in “the Region called Huldah?” No. He would not. He would only —

“Have you located the right hand of the Colossus of Rhodes yet, Festus?”

The skipper, as was traditional, scratched his head. “A marvel that you remember my name, me ser. Ah, what? Well, no, but we’ve a
re
port as to they say it’s been located in Neapoly, but changed unto marble … Ah! I
per
ceives as me ser has heard this heself!”

“But … the great Marble Hand has been in Naples as long as I can remember.”
*

“And the right hand o’ th’ Colossus of Rhodes has been missing, long as I can —”

The Viceroy cleared his throat, and Festus instantly fell silent and stood to attention. “Those memories can wait upon some other occasion. To settle and set aside: You were marooned in Lotophagea?” Vergil nodded. “Marooning, except for reasons the most extreme, has been forbidden by The Law of the Sea since the Rescript of the Divinely Favored Julius I. I shall make complaint on your behalf, Ser Doctor Vergil, to the Admiralty Court; as to next —”

Vergil, aware that perhaps he should remain silent, could not help hazard the suggestion that it might be best be made by himself, in person. “Best it might be, but you shan’t have time.
As to next —
”

Though vastly astonnied, Vergil said nothing; fixed his attention on the opposite wall, where, who knows how long ago, some plaisterer, not content with having applied the plaister with his own bare hands, as witness the not totally unpleasing swirls which a common harling or screeding-tool would not supply, had briefly placed his hand flat upon the wet surface: and Vergil observed that the man’s index finger lacked the first joint; this quick glance had sufficed to keep his face quite blank; and, as really he did not wish his mind staying blank as well, switched his attention from the wall to the Viceroy’s face. Which was not alone stern, but aseemed a good bit haggard.

As had he not observed on their first meeting.

“As to next, the talk around the water-butts along the fore shore is that
you
, Doctor Vergil, by some arts magical into which I shall make no enquiry, Festus informing me that he knows of a surety that you do have the doctorate, license being implied …” He had been speaking indeed very fluently, then slowed down, then stopped. Remained a bare second silent. Then resumed again: not indeed slowly, but slower.

“The fact, I understand, is that certainly the ship pursuing you was greatly disabled, though, one hears, not foundered nor sunk. And I must suppose it to have been a ship of Carthage, whatever that may mean. Did you perceive aboard of it any person you know by sight or —”

“The Pune whom I observed on a ship, the
Zenos
, passing between Naples and Lerica, and later ashore in Corsica; and yet again in your Lordship’s office. I knew him as Hemdibal; you told me he is also called
Josaias.
”

“
King of Carthage
,” they finished, simultaneously.

“Yes … Well, Ser, or rather Doctor, I have heard that this same man had evidently recognized
you.
And has sworn to pursue and to burn you or drown you, posting over every sea …”

“Such a report, if true, has reached here very quickly —”

With a weary gesture, the Viceroy said he sometimes thought the very birds brought words; and Vergil bethought him of the harpy-birds: had they witnessed the scene at sea? were they perhaps grateful to those who provided carrion? if indeed it was carrion-flesh they ate? or were they eager to provoke combat to the death between any groups of men?
Fire burns, water drowns, Carthage hates Rome, Harpies are no friend to man …

“The same rumors say he aswore vengeance on, what’s his name, Polycarpu, his ship and crew.
Therefore.
I have told Polycarpu to take his ship up the coast where there are a few shipwrights and their ways and have his barco repainted, taking not even time to scrape or caulk or make repairs, to fit himself for sea in haste, with new masts and new shrouds and new sails bent on, and to make his way west with all speed. I’ve also told all men with beards to shave them and all men who have no beards to let them grow. Mayhaps these deceipts will bring them safe to Sardland; and further my advice to them is to avoid the western seas for long and long. Until this matter and this menace be cleared up.”

Here the man stopped and ordered by gesture that a tassy be filled for him out of a jug; he drank, he began again to speak.

While it was, of course, treason for a subject to assume a royal or imperial title, still, lawyers might have pretty sport and long make delay over such matters as:
was
Josaias indeed effectively assuming the title of a kingdom which no longer existed? “I can see the advocates there, prancing and preening in Apollo’s Court; knowing that no
Roman
judges will now accept that there is such a
res
as a Kingdom of Carthage … Ah, my Herc and my Merc, it’s all futile! Is there still a Roman fleet, swift to punish violations of the Pax Romana? There must still be, where is it now? — all round about the Italian boot, keeping guard against enemies out of the
east.
Against a rabble of scum and barbarous dogs in bumboats called Sea Huns! And what of the
west,
eh? what of the —”

Nothing but the need to swallow the spittle which filled his mouth made the Viceroy stop a moment, and in the silence while the muscles worked in the man’s face and throat, quietly, Vergil asked, “My Lord Ser, regardless of legal status, where
is Carthage
now?”

A helpless but eloquent gesture, such as the ruffian caitiff Junius had given at the funeral of one whose name differed from his own by a letter: murderer, assassin, blood fresh-washed from his hands; and then a cried,
What title had Casar to the Empery
? and for the matter of a title delivered Rome over to something worse than an Emperor: to war, to civil war, over to two-faced Janus, with red mouth straining and with teeth all bare … “It, or whatever place these Punic brutes use as base, it must be somewhere, must it not? Even pirates require a base, an armada however hostile can’t subsist on fish alone, can’t draw bread and oil and weaponry in with a net. Tartis …!”

Vergil leaned, the better to hear. Tartis from its ruined and ruinous city near Gades, next trade entrepot north of … of … of Gades! sands of time! yet
another
name for that pass between the seas: the Great Gates of Gades! … Tartis, that once-great league of kingly sea-traders, established not only before Rome and before Carthage and even before Tyre and Sidon and before the spread-out lands of Greece; Tartis was now like some great sea-orme, its head a-stricken off, yet its coils still twitched … some of them still had life, here and there a trading-post, there and here a castello. Tartis …

“Tartis reports, in that antique and oblique way of Tartis, ceremony interminable; come reports, if one may call them so, that black ships, not our small Midland Sea barco-boats daubed black: but ships of burthen as large as any ships of war, flying, shamelessly, bold as brothel-bawds, some banner we here know is the old Punic banner …” The man paused as though summoning strength to staunch his own rhetoric; went on, more slowly, slowly, on. “One hears that of late these ships do great trade in many far-apart marts: buying wheat which they have some way of boiling and drying out so it neither rots nor rusts nor moulders: buying iron, buying steel, buying old copper, copper, tin, buying timber, tar, and flax, buying leather, buying hide.” He had given name to just about all materiel of war. “I hear of such trade, much, but see no such cargo coming past my Tingitayne, to pause and pay the export-tax. With what do they pay? Why, they pay with purple, and I hear that sometimes they pay with gold, and tales incredible I hear: such as, they pay with silk —