Avram Davidson - The Phoenix and the Mirror

Paphos.

The air lay scented and heavy over this lush, sub-tropical scene, scarcely did a breeze vex the waxy red blossoms of the pomegranates, and Vergil, observing a slight frown upon the Hun King’s open-mouthed countenance as he placed his grubby hand upon his chest, was suddenly made aware that he, too, seemed to experience a slight — just the slightest — difficulty in breathing. And wondered if it was really the grossness of the perfumed air…

There was a man on the jetty, surveying with a languid interest the newly come ship and people. Vergil addressed him in his best Cumaean Greek, asking where the port officials were, and if porters might be obtained to unload. The man answered in the slightly archaic dialect of the island, “Surely, lord, anon… tomorrow…”

“Why not today?”

“Today, good my lord? Today is an high festival.”

Everywhere were evident the signs of neglect occasioned by the de facto blockage of the Sea-Huns. A fig tree heavy with ripe purple fruit grew in the middle of a roadway, a flock of long-tailed sheep grazed upon the docks, a wagon had overturned and smashed its wheel and lay where it had fallen, and moss softened its sides with velvet green.

“Aye, today, gentles, today is the natal day of Our Wee Lord Ichthys, own son to Sea-Born ‘Ditissa, and folks have gone to feed the sacred spratlings in the Temple pools in his honor. Go you, too, get you bits of sweety-cake in the stalls, join the worship — ” He gestured toward the great Temple, looming over the dreamy town. His speech put Vergil in mind of old Dame Allegra, and made him reflect that he knew nothing of her origin.

The problem of porters and port officials was settled after a while and after a fashion by the arrival of one Basilianos, the Smyrniote director of Paphos’ far-famed Golden Hospital, that grand serail where pilgrims of rank resorted to be lodged in grace and comfort during the period of their devoirs. Secular visitors of sufficient wealth or status might of course be accommodated too — merchants, officials, young men on the grand tour, tax farmers, and so on. But the Golden Hospital, like everything else in Cyprus, felt severely the lack of traffic occasioned by the advent of the Sea-Huns over a generation before.

“Times were, Doctor and Captain,” Basilianos said, his litter borne between theirs by bearers who walked as languidly as lovers, “when the Golden Hospital had an hundred guests of an average or common night — perhaps twice that amount at festival times. But today? Today, sirs, guests do not average more than one or two a night, and they mostly from Chitium, Amacosa, and other Island towns. Guests from off-Island we rarely have of more than that number per month, save, of course, what time the Great Fleet comes. We keep the Golden Hospital in first-rate condition, of a surety, we don’t need to depend upon our guests for income, having our own ancient endowments. But,” he said with a sigh, and a wave of his hands, “it is hard not to be restive when I recall our old great days of glory.”

They left behind the streets and their present scanty supply of people, most of whom were of an uncommon comeliness, an uncommon languor, and a most curious cast of countenance which impressed the Magus rather uneasily, the more so that he was unable to interpret it. They were about to turn onto a lane which led through the greenest sward imaginable to a dark wood of golden-fruited trees amidst and partly above which something seemed to float and shimmer and glister in the sparkling sunlight. A howl of such intense rage, of such horror and grief, as made his nape go chill and stiff, arrested not only his attention but the bearers in their tracks, and stumbled them to a halt.

An old man with unclad arms all bone and suntanned skin over rope-thin muscle had raised his fists to the level of his ears and now howled forth again from in his great gray beard. “Wolves!” he cried, moan dying in his scrannel throat with visible shake and audible catch. “Wolves and men! Men and wolves! Wolves like men, lord! Lord! And men like wolves!”

The bearers had recovered themselves and now started forward once more, with muttered comments and shaken heads. Vergil turned to Basilianos, who said at once, “Do not, I pray, distress yourselves. Tis but that poor half-mad sectary, Angustus the Ephesian. I fear me for him and his little flock, their meeting-place is known to the Soldiery and cannot long remain unvexed by it.”

“Woe!” Angustus howled as they passed by. “Ah, sinful city and oh, Island of sin!” His voice died away behind them. “How beautiful! And how corrupt!” he was crying. Basilianos began to speak of the cool grove through which they had now begun to pass, telling of its origins, how it was of golden quince trees, descended from the very fruit which Hercules Lion-Slayer had obtained of the Daughters of the Hesperides, having killed their dragon sire in the beauteous and distant Garden. The voice of Angustus the Ephesian sank faintly into the scented air behind them, “Oh, men! Oh, wolves! Oh wolves like men! And men like wolves…”

And then they were out of the grove and then the lineaments of the great Golden Hospital itself burst upon their sight. “I have assigned to each of you a suite of rooms,” Basilianos said. “Baths are being drawn and the servants will take your sizes and supply you with clean clothes from our wardrobes. Food will be waiting for you in your chambers. Our porters will go presently to fetch your gear and baggage from the ship.”

“Our interview with the King of Cyprus?” Vergil asked.

“His Sacred Majesty the King of Paphos is, by the rota, the present High King of Cyprus. I will arrange an interview with the hallowed Crown.”

“When?”

“Anon, Dr. Vergil,” Basilianos said, urging him gently forward to the servant woman waiting to conduct him to his rooms. “Perhaps soon. Perhaps tomorrow.”

Copper? It had taken the host some little while to consider if he had ever heard of copper. To be sure, it was possibly the chief industry of Cyprus — but what had the director of the Golden Hospital to do with industry? Copper magnates, ah yes, copper magnates had stayed at his premises often, when the Great Fleet was in. So… copper? Ah yes. Copper. What did Dr. Vergil have in mind concerning copper? Dr. Vergil had in mind to obtain ore of copper? Indeed. Most interesting; one had not known that copper came from an ore. As to where copper might be obtained, Basilianos had no idea at all. One presumed that it was obtained at copper mines. And where were they?

Basilianos had no idea at all.

So, putting aside for the moment all thoughts of copper, as he had been obliged this while to put aside all thoughts of tin — and of the bird of gold and her message, and the two guardian falcon-eagles, and, indeed, the whole matter of the mirror and those royal ladies Cornelia and Laura — Vergil decided to join in worship at the great Temple of She Who Was Born of the Sea at Paphos. And immediately recollected that one of the signs and symbols of Aphrodite — and not one of the least — was a mirror.

“Do you not regret the waste of time, woman?” he asked, stiffly.

In the dimness of her cell-like chamber she shook her head, continued to pass her hands along his naked skin.

“After all,” he said, “I did warn you.” Her touch aroused no more trace of passion than if he were an infant, but, just as an infant might, he found it comforting. He began to relax. For the first time since the horrid scene with Cornelia, he thought it might be possible for him to obtain complete rest… despite everything.

“You are built like a greyhound,” she murmured. “Slender legs and hips, huge chest.… Warned me? Of what? Oh, of that. Greyhound, I didn’t need your warning. Do you think I’ve been priestess of Our Holy Mother Aphroditissa all this time and can’t recognize a man ensorcelled when I see him? Who is she? — the woman who has stolen that one of your souls? It has to be a woman. I can’t imagine a man doing that, even thinking of that. And if a man did think of it, he’d shudder away from it, his stones would crawl. Wouldn’t they, Greyhound?”