The Scarlet Fig: Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series (38 page)

… Was it not now clear? It was not … well … did the stranger from a far-off land not see how merciful a thing it was that
both
twins did not always suffer the curse? and, above all things, wasn’t it a most majestic way for one brother to show his love for the other and go away and take all the woe and affliction unto himself? for, sure, twasn’t always that was the way of it; sometimes each refused and the curse took both of them; among very common folk they usually tossed a coin to decide the matter; in far-off times (so one heard, but one heard it often), the child’s father decided: let him decide howas he might, hadn’t the father life and death over his own childer? but that wasn’t the way it was done nowaday.

“How
is
it done nowaday?” for Vergil could think of no way that such a thing should be done.
Could
be done. So, … therefore: he asked.

“Nowaday … nowaday?” The man was almost maddingly slow. “Ah, my sire, nowaday. When the brother decide. Whichever one decide. When he conceive to himself in his own mind. And he thinks and he saith unto his own heart, ‘Let me be the one to go and do it, an I shall spare my brother, whom I love, even he.’ Then he go off whatever the time of night or day, go he off unto the Temple of the Dioscuri, of them twain Castor and Pollux, whom Jove hath blessed and set them as stars in the starry sky, and yet of a wonder sometime they come down to yearth again, or, exactly, down to sea; and folk at sea may observe them and several have report it to me, that Castor and Pollux do be seen at play about the mast and spar of a sailing vessel as blazing lights —”

Cried Vergil, “The corposants!”

“The corposants. As some call them. And whichever twin o’ this twain hath first decided, off he go to the Temple of the Dioscuri, the twin sons of Zeus under his other name of Dios; well, and he pray his prayer and he take off his knife-belt and his knife and he place knife and belt atween them twain statues. And so it be so, my sire and me ser …”

Vergil was silent. By and by the cooper, Bodmi the barrel-maker ended the silence. “Them couple pair kags shall be ready this day week and one. In ane octave they shall be ready. Aye,” he said, almost without a pause, “a tragical thing for a man to be the father of man-twins,” and all the while his hands worked on and on, nor had they ever ceased to do so whilst Vergil watched. And when the splints, the staves, had all been shaved, then must they be bent, and then must the rigid hoops engirdle them.

Nemesis.

There was no other way.

Very much later that same day, Vergil was speaking with a local elder man of much repute, called Sapient Longinus; that is to say, he himself was having little to say, for he had wanted to talk about twins, not alone of the lad Rustus, but of all well-known twins: of Castor and of Pollux; of the Cabiri Sancti, Axierus and Axiocersus; of Neleus and Peleus exposed at birth to die yet lived to be Co-Kings of Jolcos; Laogonus and Dardanus alike slain by Achilles beside the reedy river of the Trojan shore; and Valdebron and Heldobran in Aspamia; but Longinus was a Master of Leechcraft, and on this he had much to say Perhaps a few people ever sought him out for conversational purposes, and either for this cause or from this effect, Longinus talked long and much. “And as for the yearb called snapdragon or mandragon,” said Longinus, “the yearb y-called snapdragon, Ser Vergil, when you take your plant called snapdragon and moileth it in a mortar or other vessel made from unbeaten gold, nay, what am I a-saying? ah hah hum, in your vessel of un
fired
gold, as your
Theophrast
beareth witness, your yearb, ah ah …”

“— called Snapdragon,” Vergil thought he must interrupt or go mad.

Longinus looked at him benignly. “Jest so, Ser Vergil, your —”

“Doctor Longinus …?”

“Ser Vergil …?”

The drawn-out ululations of a passing pedlar of dried fish caused a pause; then: “Doctor Longinus … have you ever heard … you have perhaps heard … if there are twin brothers … is it so, Messer Doctor Longinus, that unless one of them lays down his knife and knife-belt between the statues of Castor and Pollux, both of such man-twins must contract leprosy …?”

Longinus gazed at him without dismay. He tugged at the tuft of long white hair growing from his right ear. “No,” he said.

“ ‘
No
’? Then no such dire and baneful usage obtains in this land?”

“No, no, Ser Doctor Vergil. Certain not.”

“But … then …” Was the whole story some mad illusion and delusion —

Longinus pulled at the tuft of long white hair growing from his left ear. “Unless, of course,” he said, “they be both born under the sign of the Gemini. In which case, certainly.” And he looked at Vergil with an untroubled look.

Heads down and muffled against the sun and sand; heads down, all day long, a day in no wise different from all other days without any detail save the incessant repetitions of caravan life … with, now that he came to consider it: somewhat less sand, somewhat less gravel, even; only the dust which moved languidly about the animal’s feet as they made their way, step after every step over the land of stone: suddenly from the caravaneers some sound scarcely articulate enough to be called a murmur, some movements too slight even for gestures: a brief inclination of their heads (muffled, their heads, as their voices; they spoke but seldom with their mouths, reluctant to open them and admit heat, sand, dry air, and dust), they moved themselves a bittle in their saddles … even the bells of the beasts sounded, for a moment, a sound just a slight mite different from the usual discordant clatter. Those bells were never meant to be musical; were one to ask another man of the caffile
why
did their beasts wear bells, be sure they would have answered, To give notice of where the beasts
were:
did they wander, unsaddled and unbridled and unladen, out of sight: into some declivity, perhaps, not easily visible in this land of stone.

This land of stone! stone white, stone black, stone grey; very rarely now and then some well of water, some tree, some blades of grass. And might not one of the less cheerful philosophers … likely more nor only one … liken this to a long slow journey through life itself?

He put away from him such thoughts. Mayhap the chief purpose of the bells was to break the limitless monotony of the moments, hours, and days. Even if the men did not say so, and even if they did not recognize that it was so …

And, of course, to warn away the daemons. And the jinn.

Notoriously, they hated the sounds of bells. One did not know why.

His head having raised of its own motion (he had hardly even begun to form the thought, I shall now raise my head to see what this may be); his head being raised, then, he moved his eyes along the near and middle distance: nothing. He peered, he scouted, then, across the long horizon line: something. There, faraway (
faraway far!
who used to say that? Huldah!), faraway something, as it were the peak of a mountain though he knew of no mountain, peak or col, hereabout or thereabout; and there was a something about it which impressed his vision without informing it. Whatsoever … the … the
place
… must be the reason of … of what?

He had ceased often to ask questions of Beninally or of Caniacus, for Caniacus had the way of answering low in his husky voice, “I know it not;” and Benninaly (recommended by both Caniacus and the elderly Maur who represented
Rome
in that inland town — Volubilia Caesariensis, it was termed by Roman fiat: the people called
Volb
— as the best of the caravaneers then about or likely to be about), Benninaly had his own way with questions … usually … he did not answer them.

However. Caniacus was just then not just there; there was a two or a three of the Masked Men in the caffile, and he preferred much to ride with them, exchanging soft syllables … or, likelier: subtle gestures … of their own kenning only. So.

“What place is that, Benninaly?”

A silence.

A surprise.

An answer. “That is the rough place;” rather it seemed a name by the way spoken rather than merely a description. So …

“What is ‘The Rough Place’, Benninaly?”

“We take to the left by the next great rock” was in no way an obvious answer to his question, but he knew that the man Benninaly would not take bother and make effort to speak, who was commonly silent (not that by now they were not all commonly silent and had been so for the endurance of many days), if it were not a thing of some importance, and the hump or peak rising somewhat to the left of the center of the horizon — probably the reason for their taking the next turn left by the great rock — was abound to be connected in some way with The Rough Place.

And neither did Vergil plague his companions with other questions, as, they might be so: “Do we go presently thither?” or, “Do we go past there?” or “Is it, then, a landmark?” And certainly he never, did silence follow the spare questions which he did ask, rankle with such sharp and nudging words, such as, “I asked you a question, do you not desire to answer it?” or, even worse, “Why do you not desire to answer?” Courtesy forevented, and for that matter, so did common sense; for he rather thought that a man or woman of such a cast of mind and behavior was not destined by Fate to live long enough to transverse the desert. And he desired to live that long.

And longer.

Vergil would save his further questions, if he had further questions, for night-tide round the small fire: and if he were to feel too tired to ask them, it was likely that the other would feel too tired to be asked.

If the answer were important, he would be bound to find it out.

“The
Rough
Place!” As though these journies o’er the land of stone could be smooth!

The order of the caravan. First came the leaders of the caffile, mounted on the best of horses, then came the merchants riding on the best of mules (
best
in either case referring to capacity for the journey and not for sleek of looks), and then came the sumpter-mules and the shabby pack-horses fated never to plod across another desert but to be sold for slaughter by the knacker’s men; horse-flesh was not bad (the Northishfolk had a disdain again the eating of horses’ flesh but then Northishfolk worshipped horses, or so it was said; however the Hyperboreans — who lived very far north indeed: beyond the very upwell of the North Wind — sacrificed asses to Apollo … did they then farce them into sausages, like the Alpenese?) Thereafter came the camels (there were no cameleopards) and if there were women in the caravan they rode the camels upon a sort of platform enclosed in a small tent; and if there were no women, then let the camels carry less and if a horse foundered, then might the camels carry what the horse had been carrying (be sure, many a silent squabble with signs and gestures, depending on
whose
horse — or
whose
camel; but there was precedent and custom in such matters, and the dispute never came to blows: furthermore, who had excess energy for blows?). After that came the soldiers of the rear-guard, mounted as they might be mounted, for each was hired along with his mount. And after them, the folk afoot, too poor to have or to hire any beast, thankful just for the safety of the caravan and knowing that it would never stop nor stay for any illness or weariness of theirs.