Avram Davidson - Vergil in Averno

“Have they taken care of you well, Iohan?”

“Yes, ser. Gave me some good thick wine and thick victuals, too. And offered me the kitchenmaid, but she was so stinking damnable dirty that almost I heaved the grub up; still, I says to meself, ser, ‘Food is food and I ben’t no dog to gobble up me own vomit.’ Therefore.”

Vergil nodded at this sound philosophy, was nuzzled by the mare, absently stroked her muzzle; began to turn his head, saying the while, “Now, Blandus, we must …” His words faded away.

As had Blandus.

Iohan joined palms and stooped for Vergil’s mounting, neither yielding nor grunting as his master went up into the saddle. In Thrace, it was said (Who had said it? Thrax. O Apollo! Thrax!), the horses were trained to kneel, as he had seen the camels kneel, afar off in Sevilla, for ease of riders’ mounting. But. . But enough of “but.” Out they stepped. “Uncommon dark it be, master, even for this dim-pit, o’ the time o’day,” the boy observed.

And indeed it was. Even after leaving the extremely frustrating termination of the session behind, still Vergil felt strained; now and suddenly he knew why. He looked up. Brighter was the window of the great Magnates’ chamber than anywhere else in sight. He relaxed, dismissed control. Flung outward the fingers of his upraised arm.

“There!” exclaimed Iohan. “Speak of Phoebus, he may soon appear!”

The street was now not so dun and dim; from above, a sudden silence, then a sudden outcry. “Lights! Lamps! Torches!” Whatever they were up to, up there, they would have to be up to it in the dark for yet a small while. What were they up to, up there? Suddenly he felt too tired to care.

“The mare seems to require no further much attention,” said Vergil. “Just take her tackle off, wipe her just a bit with hay, and give her a little of grain. . and then. . and then. . if we have four groats between us, shall we go to the baths?”

Iohan said, “Therefore.”

In the warehouse of Rano.

Vergil had been in warehouses before: many and many. Some were really open courtyards roofed over with reed mats. Some were larger than the great vast halls of some palaces, and, some of those, far more secure. Some were like temples, some had been temples, and in some instances — not always the same — the resemblances had been magnified by the presence for sale of sacred images of marble people or shrines of silver. There were splendrous things in the warehouses of silk merchants, and to walk through them was like walking through gardens in which all the flowers of the world and many flowers of worlds other than this one were in bloom, in blossom, all. And flowering at one and the same time, gardens of delight to the eyes. . though to the eyes alone. Sundry times he had been led almost by the hand, at one actual time actually by both hands, someone holding his right hand and someone else his left, through warehouses of spiceries: No mere casual stroller could after all toss a bale of precious silk-weft over a shoulder or under an arm and hope to walk off with it; but it was not beyond a physical impossibility that someone might, particularly in such trading posts where things were stored in rooms like castlements and the thicky walls of which were made for defense and the windows mere slits for archers, it was not impossible in places by necessity dim-lighted for someone to reach out a hand here or steal forth a hand there and transfer a palmful of cardamoms into a pouch or slip mirobolans or cloves into a compartment of a tunic perhaps even prepared for such a purpose. In one such place he had been led through by either hand as though he’d been a child. The hands rested gently enough in his own, but there came a moment when, forgetful, he had begun to move a hand his own; instantly the other had drawn it back and down, ah so firmly! “My hosts, I would but take my pocket-cloth and touch my nose; ‘tis dusty here and I might sneeze….”

“Ah, dusty ‘tis in here, serreverence, and as you are our guest and guests are sacred, for the gods send guests, take no thought for the matter, and we shall do it for you.” And so, with the right hand of the custos on the right-hand side (for the left hand of this one held the right hand of Vergil), he had had his nose wiped for him….

… and had a strong persuasion that, had he need perform perhaps another and more urgent office, another’s hand or hands would do that for him as well….

It was odd how the flowering silk-weaves, so gorgeous to the sight, had conveyed nothing to the nose; whereas as in the bale-stores of all balms and spices, some open and some closed, though these rich-stored items were dull and dingy to the eyes — enough! what scents, what odors there came forth from them! And from the custos on his left a semicontinuous drone, as, “These be dried rose-peels, ‘petals’ they be called in common speech, and these be violets and sweet clover for weaving garlands for the Indoo-folk, and here is citron-skin and thander bales have cinnamon-rinds, as the Sarcens tell us is took from the nests of great birds which do build they nests of cinnamon-stalk, and this is zedoary of the best sort and its next is zedoary of the second sort and last is zedoary of the third sort as sells for mere silver, and in the aft row — ” And now for the first time the voice of this one ceased its automatic drone. “Drag him hence,” it said, “he swoons….”

Something odd and rough, and pungent beyond belief, was held before his face. They were outside. “Oft the visitors do swoon and faint,” said one, “for us, we be used to it. Does my serreverence be feeling some better now?” (Yet still they held his hands, yet still they held his hands! High the price of freedom. And high the price of spice.)

“Yes,” he’d said. And — ”But what is this you have here under my nose? Never such a commingling of scents have I — ”

And one looked wry and one looked solemn, and one then said, “It be a beard shorn from a goat in Spicy Araby, my ser. . snuff it up, serreverence, ‘twill clear the nase and clear the brains a-well….”

“A beard shorn from a —?” Astonishment as well as giddiness (was the weakness worse than the remedy?) held the question incomplete.

“From a goat in Spicy Araby, my ser. Foras though ‘tis death, my ser, serreverence — keep well in mind be-case ever you are there — ’tis death in Spicy Araby for an outsider, an interloper, a strange or foreigner, for to walk two paces off the stated roads in the regions where grow the precious frankincense and the rich myrrh trees. But though men may be kept off, who may wall the world against goats? The goats roam and the goats rut, and when they roam they browse upon they shrubs of frankincense and myrrh, and the gum it stick upon their beard. So the season come when the gum don’t run from tree nor shrub, and if it run not it be not gathered, then have the Arab-folk (who be first cousin to the Sarcen-folk) time and season to herd up them he-goats and they play the barber upon them and shear they beards and same send hence by the merchant ships.”

Vergil murmured that ‘twas more than merely myrrh and frankincense he smelled, and, feeling better, looked up to catch the wry smile from one. “And when the buck-goats do rut, serreverence, saving your presence, they piss upon their long-beards — ah, yes! For the she-goats seemingly like that fragrance even more than t’others. — But by and by, as even now and then, we boil the beards down and strain them off and make sic use of the residual as we know how and none other may have our leave to know. And when this is done, we do sell the mere hairs to such as weave cloth for tents; and now I see my serreverence be better, and for his pleasure.” While still speaking they led him off to a room apart, where others gave him refreshment: