Avram Davidson - Vergil in Averno

Question there had come. But answer there came none.

Some odd, odd sound seemed echoing, buzzing: He thought of the scene in his room that night. Thought absurd. As though she whose voice echoed as though from a thousand caverns forth could be confined in a bottle, like a fly! And yet, and so: suppose! Had it been so, it had been a sacrilege, or had it, would it? Had he not saved the fly’s life? A mental note he made, though sterner than as though graven on marble with iron, to take the bottle far from the spidery corner, and release whatever buzzed within…. And if so it were the Sibyl, what message? When no words spoken?

Some speak. Some spin.

Some weave.

“Iohan! I’m damned glad to see you — ”

“And I, you, Master. For — ”

“That small bell you gave me? May have saved my — ”

“Master, what I’m thinking, it’s that it’s best we consider getting back. Away from — ”

And, as often when two talk more or less at the same time, they two more or less at the same time fell silent. After a moment the boy gave a slight bow, a slight gesture. Vergil said, “If you mean it is for me to talk first, you being man and I master, then what I wish to say is that I give you leave to finish what it was which you were saying.”

Iohan nodded, swallowed, made a broader gesture. “Ser, such types has been roaming roundabout here, and such talk I hear talked by them I hasn’t asked to say so much as Salve, and it’s give me firm impression, ser, as there are them here who as you might say mean to speed the parting guest.”

Vergil grunted. “Meaning us?”

“Therefore.”

Vergil sighed. “There is so much I’ve observed of very recently myself as to make me feel I needn’t ask you to say more right now. There’s a great deal of unfinished business, but it may be that our own part in it may be finishable from elsewhere. ‘Pay, pack, proceed’ — eh?”

“Ser?”

“Traditional military order. . of some sort. Matters not finished here? Let them send after me to discuss that. More advice wanted? Let them disburse for the advice they’ve had, then ask me for more. Do you observe, my lad, what it is which I am about to do?”

He had his money in his hand, his account tablets in the other. For a second only Iohan stared, and rubbed his brown curls. Then: “Ah! You be about to pay, ser. Then I’m about to pack, ser. And then — ”

“ — then we may proceed, ser.”

Settling accounts with the lodgings-master took longer than Vergil liked, but an attempt to speed matters would have had no better result than the presentation of further demands, most of them and likely all of them for sure mythical — and then as well he wished to give no appearance of nervousness. Some accounts he paid in full with no question, some he questioned but paid in full, some he simply refused with an impassive no. And as at last the keeper of the house made some particularly preposterous demand for sundry quintals of the best barley, Vergil said, “The best barley has never even been smelled in your stables. Take the money and snap your talley-sticks in two.”

“ ‘Take the money.’ I’ll take the futtering money, sure, yes — and I’ll take the horse too, until — ”

“The horse is rented and her rent is up; if you’d like a lawsuit with her livery stableman — but perhaps you’d like me to report all this to the magnates instead?”

The man looked him full in the face and gave one silent snarl. Then, with a sullen shrug, he snapped his talley-sticks and tossed them away. Then he swept the money off the counting-board, and whither it went, Vergil cared not. The mare was saddled, the saddlebags full; he mounted. Only a step into the street and he struck his forehead. “The fly!” he said, sharply. Half-turned.

But Iohan was equal sharp. “That great fly in that great bottle, ser?”

“Yes! I must — ”

“Ser, I’ve opened it and let out. The bottle, ser, be packed. The fly — who knows. Surely Master didn’t want it? I can’t certain recollect you ordered me to do what I done, but I be almost sure of it.”

Vergil had no recollection of ordering it at all, but, it being exactly as he would have wished to have ordered, he gave his head a brisk shake. Then: “Where is the beast going?” he demanded. “Why are you leading her this way? This is not the way to the Great Gate at all; what ails you, boy?”

“Confusion ails me, ser, for it’s not me as is leading she, but it’s as she’s got her own notions, and so far,” as the mare picked up her hooves and increased her pace, “it’s all as I be able to do is hold on to her. What? Give you the reins? Aye — ”

But tug as he would, gentle her as he would, attempt to guide her as he might, the mare swerved not from her own course. “This is absurd. It is in fact so absurd that I shall let her go as she pleases. . just to see where she pleases.”

And where she pleased was to lead along the broad lane which, as every evidence of sight and smell indicated, led to the Dung Gate. To the great jollification of loungers, loiterers, and guards. The chief duty guard was vastly diverted to see the fine horse anticking and prancing through the filthy puddles despite the evident desire of her master and his man to control her. Like cleave to like, the duty guard observed. Expel nature with a pitchfork, sure she do still return, he said, chuckling, absently fiddling with his filthy book and filthier pen. Then some notion occurred to him that checked his grinning and hurrawing for a moment. “Say, by duty I bennot suppose to leave yous gann out by thic gate,” he brayed, some sudden definition of “duty” coming to his mind.

Iohan twisted his head. “The cursed trot’s a vehicle with dung inside, ben’t she?” he demanded, and trying, seemingly, to hold on to the bridle for dear life, else be tossed into the muck and steaming mud. At this the guard and lay-company laughed loud, Vergil reached for the book, had it in hand, crusty pen hasty dipped in ink which never saw India, scribbled his scrawl, tossed a coin, tossed the book, more curvetting, hoots, jeers: They were outside the walls. The chief duty guard howled that they were not to come back by the same way. “Nor by Here we shan’t!” muttered Iohan. The mare wrangled till the gate was gone from sight. Then she of a sudden settled into a perfectly steady pace.

“Hop up, Iohan, quick! She may get bored with good behavior!” The mare was no great heavy animal, but neither one she bore on her back now was of great weight. . as weight be gauged in pounds. And — sure enough! — no sooner was Iohan fixed in his place, than she was off again; she ran, she ran, she ran at a swift but holdable pace. . that is, one at which she held herself. Her mounts were content with holding on to her.

And then she cantered, and then she let herself into a quick but certainly a restful walk. And as she did she turned her head and rolled her eyes. Aside the road was an obelisk on which words and signs were carved. “What be that’n, ser, please?”

Vergil squinted to read the half-obscured words. “Ah, yes. Oh, so. That is the Proscription Stone. Anyone banished, exiled, or proscribed from the limits of the municipium the Very Rich City of Averno, let him take heed: These are the limits thereof, further he may not go, pains of death await him…. More or less that is what it says. And what say you?”

“ ‘Exiled from — ’ Well, ser. You say such, such I must believe it say. Leave them proscribe me, ser. No fear, my Here, I’ll violate them boundaries. — Ser, ser! Ben’t the air cleaner?”

The very cleanly winds, which must indeed have felt themselves proscribed from entering the municipal limits of the Very Rich City, most certainly had blown the air here clean. The path was not the one which they had taken, coming in; what of it; nothing of it. Sooner or later it would reach a road. Meanwhile they were gone from Averno, passed clean out of its unclean jurisdictions, as the path turned (sure enough! very soon they came upon a paved way: Imperial stones it was the mare’s hooves now trod; there was safety in the very sound and thought), though they could not see the city itself, yet that corner of the evening sky was fouled and smudged and seemed darklier than night: though now and then a flame, flames shot up.