Avram Davidson - Vergil in Averno

“I confess I miss the views of the Bay,” Vergil said, by and by. “The Isle of Goats. . and others. The gardens. . I confess I have a passion for islands, gardens, trees — I see you wonder at that.”

Armin said, “Not in particular, no. Merely I wonder that anyone should have a passion for anything.”

Vergil raised his eyebrows. “But that dance you danced. . surely, a passion?”

Armin shook his head. “Ah no. Merely a sudden lust.” Equally sudden now, his tired eyes changed. “You wonder. Such excitement for a madman. But you can’t know how different his madness and gaiety is from the madness which is daily life in Averno.” His gesture took in the scene that had just passed. “Day after day: heat, fire, sound, stench, coarseness, cruelty, picking pennies with one’s teeth from dung heaps; no gardens, not a tree, not a blade of grass — the fumes would kill them off — all but those painted, and painted badly, on some walls. . and them the stinking airs, the sweet breezes soon discolor, and mostly no one bothers to paint them fresh.

“Life in Averno — a contradiction in terms! This is a hell, death is our daily fare, we moil in the muck for money, and try to forget it by gorging instead of seemly dining, and sousing instead of decent drinking! One speaks with respect, with awe, of the Senate and the People of Rome, but never, ever, of the Magnates and the People of Averno! Ha, ‘the people of Averno’ —!” And suddenly, he wept, and his weeping spilled over on his cheeks.

Vergil murmured, moved, “Ah, ‘the tearfulness of things …’ ”

Armin, checking his tears with his sleeve, asked, “What?”

“Oh, only a phrase from somewhere. I forget. No — I don’t. From the Oracles of Maro.”

With a laugh still half a sob, Armin said, “You have seen their wives, the magnates’ — is that not tearful enough?”

Victory over pride? Victory over arrogance. The Nine Muses the matrons of Averno, as he had seen them, certainly were not. Need they have been? He thought for some tactful comment, but even as he sought, he found one question had now formed itself: “Only one, I did notice, spun. The classical duty of a Roman matron.” Vergil did not look at his visitor, he poured him drink, wondered about his own work here, and how he would next get on with it. His visitor spoke.

Spoke in a tone that indicated he wished his emotions, immediately past, to be not spoken of. “Ah, that was Rano’s wife. The Matron Poppaea. Of her some stories are told.”

Vergil said merely, flatly, “Ah.”

“Some stories are told that Rano for a while maintained her in another city, some say Potuoli, some say Naples, others say it was in a villa in the country. Some say he had reason to doubt her fidelity. It is said that he had no other reason to doubt except his own ugliness, however. It is said otherwise. And also, it is said, that, as he sent her there to live, so he brought her here to die….”

“Many things, in short, ‘it is said.’ ”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Putuoli made me, Averno unmade me. He who — ”

“It has not unmade her. Anyway, not yet. What? ‘Potuoli — ’? Another citation from those Oracles? I don’t know them well.”

“No. Another source. Not cited; rather, paraphrased. So — ”

But Armin would not wait on So. He got up. “Master Vergil, as I was one of the means of bringing you here, I hope that neither you nor I will regret it. I am not always clear in speech; forgive me. Neither am I always clear in mind. May I bid you civilly good night? And feel as free as ever to call on you again? Whenever …”

“Whenever. Yes. Certainly. I share that hope. Are there lights still?”

Armin, brushing his face again with his sleeve, brushing his scant beard, murmured that there were lights enough. A formal word or two more, and he had gone.

At once upon the man’s departure, Vergil’s boy appeared, rather as though he had but been waiting. Master looked at him, looked him over quickly. Well fed enough, well clad and well clean enough he seemed. Well content he did not seem. “Iohan. Time enough to bid you, too, good night. I’ll have some hard work for you, soon enough. Therefore don’t wear yourself down with trivial things in the meanwhile. Avoid provocation, fights, and all the like.”

The lad’s look seemed troubled, but not markedly so; he expressed his assent, made an attempt to begin an accounting for some small sum allotted him for some small purpose, was waved aside in this until another time, made his brief respectful bow; then, too, was gone.

That night the king could not sleep? E’en king, e’en queen…. But this night would Master, Adept, Astrologue, and all the rest of all of it, sleep. He could have done it by arcane means with full ease enough; suddenly he did not wish to. He took a small flask from his kit, subjected its stopple to a few sundry twists that an observer would have found too complex to follow. . and would have been meant to. . dropped scarce a scruple, by no means a dram, into the remnants of his cup of drink; downed it in two drafts; swift he sought his bed; let the lamp smolder to a dull-red smoky coal. The room contracted, the bed enlengthened, he felt his body change, expand, felt his spirit leave it but leave it by but a span of a hand; and hover there, content. He felt content, he did not feel asleep; he knew that he slept, he heard the cocks crow, bade them be still, knew there were no cocks in Averno, dwindled, faded, ebbed.

Felt himself at rest. At rest.

Something beat. His pulse? The anvils, hammers, fulling-mallets and the ceaseless pulse of here? Not any matter.

Sleep.

He slept.

The Matron Poppaea Rano was sapling-thin, and she sat with wool and distaff and spun and spun, and — as Vergil had observed before — she spun rather badly. It was certainly not the coarse wool commonly worked in Averno, and he wondered why she alone should be working expensive fleece and yarn when she worked it so ill. But it was a subject for wonder, the whole thing: First a message had been brought to him inviting him to call once more at the house of Magnate Rano; next, another message had directed him to go instead to the magnate’s warehouse. And whilst he was in the broad street and inquiring more precisely the way, crying, “Ser! Ser! Master!” there came running Iohan.

“He’ve changed his mind again, Master,” said the boy. “Wants you to go to his house, after all. I’m not sure, do he mean to join you there, or what, and this old besom, she won’t say aught to me.”

The old woman was indeed as lean and rugged as a rustic broom, and she said no more to master than she had to man, merely she indicated by an inclination of her head the direction intended; then she walked off. Vergil gave a half-rueful shrug, told Iohan to get him back to their inn in case yet another change of plan on the part of Rano might be forthcoming; then he followed after the old she. Who did not indeed lead him to the main rooms via the kitchen, but she gave some shrill call as she — as they — came in, and, before they had gone more than the length of another anteroom (the ill-fitting tiles, their mortar not replaced for. . for who could say how long, going click-click beneath their feet), a squat and ugly servant of no particular sex brought her a bag of what was soon revealed to be beans, and a few pans; this house-thrall then returned. . wherever. And the “old besom” by and by simply sat herself down, squatting on her withered haunches, and began to sift through the dried beans, handful by half-a-handful, separating pebbles and clumpets of earth, a task he had times past seen the women of his own family doing so often — and, more than merely sometimes, he had helped, he felt he could here and now fall to and do it once again. And do it quite as well.