Avram Davidson - Vergil in Averno

Well. He had no book to check with now but he needed none. He followed the proper turnings. He did not run. He felt, by and by, safe enough to turn his back.

But by that time he was out of the maze. Maze, labyrinth, web. Whatever Thrax had been designated to cast over him, Vergil was now beyond such casting. He was out of the web.

As for what he was now in, why, that, though perhaps safer, was certainly something else indeed.

• • •

If he had indeed been, this last time, time just past, indeed been in Averno, he was not certain. . in a way he thought he could not have been; though if not there, where? — this he could not say. But he was, of a sudden, in Averno now, and in such a quarter of it where even the populace itself, to say nothing of strangers, was always in danger — a glance told him that — immediately it was not violent, but certainly it was criminous, and stinking of evil and rot. What was there here in this low quarter to occupy the sullen folk who filled and swarmed in it? Why, here lay the thieves’ kitchens and the thieves’ markets and the thieves’ dens. Be sure (Vergil thought) that more than not the stolen items had been stolen from the strangers who came to the Very Rich City, whether they were themselves very rich or not, to trade. Or from their servants. Here, too, were the lairs of the poorest prostitutes, though it was too early for all but one or two of them to be stirring about for custom. . if cupping a pair of sagging, withered dugs and leering from a window, as some wretched she was even now doing, could be called “stirring” — the one look at her face which he could not avoid convinced him that she was either imbecile or mad. “Syra!” she called out, crack-voiced. “Syra! Gypa! Hey!”

And then as well in the winding ways he saw often man or woman squeezing lengths of goats’ guts in wash-buckets and basins full of liquids too murk and miry to term the process “cleaning”; and as often, and often right next to this, perhaps parted only by some chopping block, were pots of rank and rancid oil where shorter chunks of this delicacy were trying and frying, yielding smells as evil as the looks he had from those who flung their heads upward, their jaws outward, a gesture ugly in intent as aspect; the very offer to sell, an insult: “Sarsa! Hot tripa, cheap enough f’you!”

Who in the names of all the gods of hell would want to buy any of the rubbish displayed. . knives with broken blades, unmatched spurs and scraps of furs, wax-caustic portraits on boards cracked along the middle, shirts ripped down the back and stained with stains not only those of mud. . and who mad enough to be tempted by hints of “Better stuff inside, boss”? Hints which, not taken, transformed themselves into filthy gestures, hoots of “Nabba! Nabba! Bugger-die!”

Surely they did not any of them, with their Syra! Gypa! Sarsa! Nabba! imply that any of them particularly thought this stranger Vergil was a Syrian, an Egyptian, a Saracen, a Neapolitan; merely cant words for outsiders, were these. And, for parting gift, the sneak-slung stone.

Vergil trod his way. Not that he was certain what it was. But there was a slight but quite discernible slant to the lane, and he believed that this, could he keep to it, would bring him eventually to the canal, whence he might surely find a way he knew, one back to a safer section of this city where little, indeed, perhaps nothing, was quite safe.

As no man’s or woman’s eye may trace the lightning whence it cometh, whither it goeth, but that the pattern of it once flashed remains before the eyes, slowly changing and slowly fading, so Vergil retained something of certain looks flashed upon him, certain glances flashed past him by sudden lifting-up of low-cast-down gazes, of certain words he not-quite heard and certain gestures near covert — he knew that there were here in these outcast wards some who meant to seize or slay him. . perhaps one first and then the other. . and he perceived the humor of the close-packed populace toward him beginning to grow worse. Some scuffle between a two or three of them of a sudden breaking out and attention drawn away from him, Vergil slipped between half-hovels into an alley scarcely wide enough for dogs to couple in; the space-way led to a rubbly courtyard with broken walls, and there on the slimy ground he saw a part of his salvation. He seized up a cloak of rags so foul and fetid that not even a common beggar would have touched it save to thrust it aside with a stick; might, nonetheless, someone — anyone — lay claim to it? if only to make trouble? He, recalling the adage festina lente, made haste to remove his own robe slowly, and left it alongside of where the other had lain crumpled. A mute trade of sorts? So be it. Who knew who even now peered at him from this worse-than-jungle? — he got him into the thousand-times-worse-than-merely-wretched garb and made to muffle his face in its filthy folds. Some silent words spoke to him; under his under-tunic, invisible, still he had his purse, from it now he took the small rough-cast bell which Iohan had given him. He did not mean to summon a servant now — yes! he did! his servant was the fear his bell would summon by its sound; this, too, would serve him.

And best it serve him well.

Peering through the harsh and clotted cloth, he set his feet to walk without stumbling (though a slight stumble now and then he could not avoid: but it fit well one in his disguise, for he had bethought him suddenly to tear loose one jagged strip and wrap it, bandage-wise, about his left foot: some further detail to add to his mask) through the narrow places and the wider: see felon throng draw swiftly and not even sullenly apart! as he made his way, ringing; and save for that, in silence — scarcely he dared breathe through the ichorous clouts. If he opened his mouth to say so much as the word Unclean, he must have died…. In fear and unashamed to show it, they fell away and let him pass: not that a single one among them there pitied him nor would shrink to end his life with a well-thrown stone, but only that his body must then be needs moved: and none would dare move to move it.

And calling to mind another fell occasion, he wondered which was worse sound? The hoarse, harsh murmur of the hippotaynes hunting, coming in their companies from the reeds, or the slow, sad clamor of the leper’s bell?

Averno.

The canal at last having been reached, and seeing not far from its slippery barm the slop-shop of some seemingly respectable — for Averno, anyway, respectable — trader in used garments, with no ado he stripped off filthy robe and false bandage, threw both into the canal; replaced his bell, now silent, in his purse and from the purse drew what he considered a coin sufficiently worth to require no haggling; tossed it in front of the slop-seller. Who, as though it were an everyday matter to be doing business with a haggard man clad in underwear, quick-picked first one robe, hefted and considered it, tossed it down and selected another: threw it easily up and over. Vergil slipped into it, shook himself like a dog, once, twice, let the garment fall into place; it seemed clean. It was a trifle too large, what did such a thing matter. He observed the trader draw the coin close with his great toe. A look not quite incurious passed between them. Value given for value. No one need know everything about anything. A distant strand, a filthy city; deeds, not words.

Walking along now almost at ease, words to say came to Vergil’s mind. His mind immediately reminded him that these were not words for him to say, but words that to him had been said. Sissie summoned thee. And cruel Erichtho. To refer to the Cumaean Sibyl as “Sissie,” unless she was indeed a sister, this spoke either immense familiarity. . or immense contempt; this last was impossible. It was unthinkable. Had the Sibyl a brother or brothers? A sister or sisters? Could the Sibyl of Lybya, the Sibyl of Sicily (this last, had he not been told had spoken to Cadmus?), be, indeed, sisters to she of Cumae? As for Erichtho. The name of this sorcerer was scarcely spoken even in “the woods,” and, even there, never but in whisper. (Oak trees by midnight. Fire, meal, salt. Diana. Moonglow Selene. Cat and hare — The Apulian fellow had known anyway some of that. He had not, though, known Thrax. . and the gods knew through what night-tangle Thrax’s shadow now slipped. . or on what errands.) Vergil strained for such scraps as he had heard. . or, if not heard, then, somehow, however, had known without hearing. . of Erichtho: some dim recollection or adumbration of a great battle…. Had there been a great battle involving, somehow, that name? Was there yet to be one? — And if him, Vergil, involving, how?