Avram Davidson - Vergil in Averno

— two of the proctors swiftly seized him, one from each side -

— if Lustus was still screaming or if what rang in Vergil’s ears was an echo, Vergil did not know; he knew that Lustus was no longer in front of him -

“In with them. Draw.” Said Putto, the obscenely fat.

Vergil without hesitation obeyed. The things did not feel, really, pleasant, but nothing seemed about to bite or burn or writhe; sweating, not looking, Vergil passed along. By and by they stood, the students, in front of the elaboratory tables. “Set ‘em down. Down.” Another voice, but no strange one; whence? Not moving his head and only slightly rolling up his eyes, Vergil got a glimpse of Calimicho, the gaunt, the gray, the grim, looking down from a gallery; it was not that Vergil would have sworn there had been no gallery there a moment before, he would have sworn — although he saw it — that no gallery was there now.

But that was not the lesson.

“Look at ‘em.” All looked. Before each was a fungus from the two bags. Two. Slightly cool, one; slightly warm, one; slightly moist. . or dry. . here or there upon it. . them…. Having not been forbidden to do so, swiftly Vergil raked his eyes from left to right; mostly all the students were doing the same. No two fungi, he was sure, were quite alike. What — “Looked at ‘em? You’ve studied Theophrastus, you’ve studied Dioscorides, Hippocrates, Galen, you’ve talked with the simples-women and you’ve walked with the witches of the woods. You may — when I give you leave — look some more, you may poke and pare and peer and smell and taste. Don’t touch! . . yet …” He held between thumb and forefinger the smallest of sandglasses, such as the frugal housewife uses to time the boiling of a pigeon’s egg. “When you’ve made up your mind. If it’s medicine, throw it before you, off the table. If it’s poison, throw it well behind you. If it is neither, but just fit for the pot, leave it where it is. Prepare.” He turned the tiny glass, set it down on the railing (who failed to hear that tiny click?). “Now.”

Seldom had Vergil passed oh-so-short a moment, yet ah such a busied one before there came that second slight click: “Stop.” The last word was not emphasized, but no hand moved more.

“That one which now remains in front of you. Pick it up. Eat.”

Later he heard that same Northishman, he whose father was an earl, ask, “Ser Proctor, was it needful that those who erred did die?”

Said the proctor, “Their clients will not die.”

Even as the vision of what this intimated share of richnesses might secure for him was fading quite away, Vergil heard himself reply, “I have no doubt, Magnate, that the Very Rich City will deal with me generously. In wares and merchandise, I myself do not deal.”

Boso’s brows, like unpruned shrubbery, came together, paused, parted. “Wise one, we shall meet again. Aysh. Aysh. ” Fire. Fire.

G. Rufus Rano was, clearly, nervous. He had a singular lack of any personal charm, but his clear and evident nervousness was almost sufficient to make that overlooked. He began to say things, stopped with the things unsaid. He looked at Vergil, from Vergil he looked away, and from looking away, again he turned and looked at Vergil. The most complete thing he said was what might have been a suggestion that the two of them should meet in Rano’s warehouse; on the other hand, it might have been an apology that they could not meet there, or a ban on their meeting there at all. Now and then, as his eyes fled here and there, and his wide mouth stumbled on this word and that, he looked sometimes at his wife, as though perhaps for help; perhaps, for something not the least to do with help; she, in any event, sat silently spinning her wool. The silence became at last infectious, and feeling that perhaps it might become permanent, the visitor suggested that he would, if welcome, return another time.

Disappointment, irresolution, relief mingled. Relief won. Rano arose, Vergil arose, the matron remained as she was. “Again. Again. Master. Yes.”

It had not been precisely a fruitful meeting, but it had been a long one, and by the time that Vergil arrived at the house of the last-named on the list in the Ganymede tablets, Magnate Brosa Brosa (and a mental note not to confuse same with Magnate Boso), he found Magnate Brosa Brosa at dinner. Or perhaps it was not precisely dinner, but there were precisely about it anyway some of the niceties of the rest of the world. Vergil was at once gestured to a place, and at once there was placed before him an excellent soup of cock and veal with leeks and small dried plums, followed by lampreys cooked in blood and wine, followed by songbirds in grape leaves, followed by Magnate Brosa Brosa giving several absolutely enormous eructations. And there was another simulated skeleton, which Vergil was, however, not asked to make dance, which followed finger bowls scented far more strongly than was elsewhere considered in good taste.

But few places elsewhere had to contend with the airs, the sweet breezes of Averno.

Once again the butler was signaled, and once again Vergil was handed a coin. . followed by a new robe. . G. Rufus Rano’s butler (if that was indeed the troll’s title) had issued him two new robes, but no coin…. This coin was of gold.

“Come see us early tomorrow morning,” said Brosa Brosa, “and we will show you some sights. And we will talk some more.” Considering that this was all the talking they had done, it would clearly not take much more talk to talk some more.

Vergil returned to his inn, ordered (and paid for) other and larger rooms on the upper floor of the annex off the colonnade, saw to it that Iohan had been taken care of. Asked, by and by, “What is all that sound all this late and where is it all coming from?”

Answer: It was coming from the forum.

And that was the third time that Vergil was to see the mad king dance.

In the morning they did indeed show him some sights, videlicet the torture chambers. And after that they did talk some more.

As they passed through part of the city Vergil observed in daylight, with the eyes, that which had in the obscurity of the nights commanded the attention of the nose alone — namely the shallow canal that went from the Portus Julius, adjacent to the coast, to the equally shallow canal basin of Averno. Black walls, black mules, black dogs, black hearts — had he heard this? read this? conjured it, as a summing up, himself? To which, whichever, he now added, black canal.

It stank, and it stank not alone from the sea-sludge that traveled sluggishly along it in the slight eddies caused by the passage of the mule-drawn boats (black boats!), nor from, as well, the sulfurous emanations inseparable from Averno and all its fumes; it stank in addition with a distinctive and horrible feculence caused by its being the repository of all the night-buckets of the city and all the watery runoff of the rotting matter of its leather- and dye-works. The Midland Sea had scarcely any tides of its own, and this canal had none at all to scour it clean. Vergil, considering, wondered if the canal were to be dredged — not merely cleaner, but deeper — as the Emperor Julius had caused to be dredged the port that bore his name — just a bit deeper, even, and at just a slight slope. . provided with a sluice at one point and a sluiceway at another and a lock at the end…. But probably the Avernians would see no reason to bother. In Manjay, near far Cathay, the lands of the so-called Thinae or Sinim, whence came silk-substance combed from floss deposited on trees by (so, incredibly, it was reported) worms, it was also the practice to dump the outscouring of canals onto compost heaps; thence to gardens. But in Averno there were no gardens. In Averno grew nothing green. . save slime.