Avram Davidson - Vergil in Averno

Oft was I wearied when I worked at thee …. In a way, now, now being a fragment of oft, Vergil was weary. Weary, in one way, was far too weak a word. But in another way he felt as though a burden as great as any borne by mule or serf had been rolled from off his back and shoulders. It was the day’s end in more than one sense. There was, rising now, moon enough to light them: against the horizon, the moon loomed large. Some remnants of day lingered to the side. Overhead, the stars.

• • •

They had passed the night in rude comfort enough at a clean-enough inn. At the early morning there was a cup of hot wine and a bowl of chestnut-meal well cooked. Thin mists swirled through the trees, they were up high, and on a strange road, but this did not bother: It was a road that would lead them back to the small port that was — still and again — home.

Where it led them before then, however, was to a small military post with a crow’s-eye view of the surrounding country. A hare could not have come along within miles, in daylight without being observed, let alone armed men. It need have been no surprise that they themselves, then, were, so to speak, expected; the surprise was by whom they were expected.

“It be a lictor,” said Iohan, in a dismal voice. Wiggled his back, and rubbed the nape of his neck.

“It is not only a lictor,” Vergil said, by no means joyful himself; “it is the lictor. Ah, well. — Ser Lictor! Greetings!” He had hardly expected to meet him here, on the berm of a rural road, still holding his officially bundled rods and ax. There was, however, no pomander box, nor was one needed so near the sweet-smelling woods — expected by Vergil not, the lictor seemed surely to be expecting Vergil; why?

Soon answered. “Saw you coming down below at the bend of the road there,” he said. There was no grimness in his manner, neither was it quite the same as it had been at their last meeting. Almost automatically he now drew himself up. “Master Vergil, a Citizen of Rome, I greet you in the name of the Senate and the People of Rome. His Honor the Legate Imperial is within, and …” And here formalities concluded. The man was more puzzled than anything else. Iohan, ceasing to fear for his back or his neck, slipped from where he had been holding the mare’s head and clasped his hands for Vergil’s more easy dismounting, then at once returned. Once again the animal looked back, rolled her eyes; then she bent to crop a clump of grass. None of her antic moods seemed now upon her.

“Well, Lictor, what is it? What brings you here, with his Honor back in Averno?”

A shake of the head. “Oh, he’s not, my ser. He’s within. And he’s seemingly had a shock of some sort. I do want you to see him, as I’m sure he’ll be wanting to see you, but first let me tell you what’s this about. . so far as I know what it’s about. Seems that the Excise stopped some fellow ambling along on a mule and stopped him to ask for a declaration. Well, he — so they tell me, I wasn’t there — puffed and huffed, said he was a courier on official business from the Very Rich City to his Excellence” — Vergil rapidly ran titles and authorities through his mind: His Excellence, that would be the Viceroy of the South, with office at, or, rather, right outside of, Naples, whose Doge was notoriously prickly about any possible rival in power — ”and he needn’t show nor even have nor make a declaration. Which in its way is of course true. However, for one thing: why, if bound from Averno to Naples, why be on this road? Hardly the most direct one. For another, if a courier, why going so slow?”

He looked at Vergil, as if expecting, or half-expecting, him to answer on behalf of the alleged courier. Vergil not doing so, on went the lictor with his account. The unsatisfactory answer had given the excise men reason to make the fellow dismount, his baggage had been examined, they had indeed contained dispatches, but, although asked to wait till the matter were taken up with the soldiery, the courier had not done so. “Tried to cut across country, from this bend in the road to the other, foolish to think he could have gotten away with it, a mule can do it, yes; suppose he saw no bloody great cavalry horses, thought himself safe, but these wiry little hill-horses — ponies, almost — which the soldiery have got here can go most anywhere a mule can go, and go it faster. Shorten the tale: they locked him up for the night, then, having been informed that his Honor was stopped here — and also on route to see his Excellence — why, they brought all his burthen here, too. And his Honor, by authority so vested in him and his honored office by Imperial Sign and Seal, opened it. Which is what seems to have given him this shock. Please to come along, Ser Vergil.”

Shock. It would not need too great a degree of bad news to constitute a shock for Casca, considering what low state of health and spirit the Legate Imperial had been in when last seen. Not many steps brought them across the invariable moat (dry now, but sharply staked: one never knew) and into the guard-post proper, nor thence into a small room, evidently the decurion’s. The decurion was there, looking as like to every other decurion as to conjecture vision of there being somewhere, a mold to make them. And, there, too, was Casca. It was not certain to Vergil that Casca recognized exactly who this newcomer was, but the lictor having gotten as far as “You Honor, one Master Vergil, a Citizen of Rome, whom — ” when Casca broke in upon the reintroduction. Vergil had heard the older man’s voice as they had approached, wondered at its flat and high-pitched tone, but the tone turned as Casca now spoke to him.

“… yes, it’s true, it’s true, it’s true, I did fear that there might be some slackening in the reigns of state if I left at the usual time to make my usual report, but though half I hesitated to leave, more than half I felt I needed to discuss it all with the Viceroy, so leave I did at the usual time, and now I am confused about the time, and so you are here to help me.” The rambling words, part-explanation, part-appeal, stopped. Abruptly. Almost at once Casca said, “Help me, then. I say you must help.” He turned his ruined face to the decurion. Who turned his own face to Vergil.

The decurion was inclined to be brusque. “Don’t dally and stand about, citizen,” he said. “You are required to assist the Imperial Officer — to assist any Imperial Officer when called upon.”

“Decurion,” said Vergil. “I am more than mere willing. I am indeed eager. But his Honor has yet to say, though he’s asked my help, what help is it he asks of me. Ser Legate,” he addressed the man who sat, sick-faced, crouched and quivering, before him in the guardroom, “what is it, ser, which — ”

Casca said, “I am perplexed. I am confused. Badly, very badly confused. What is the date?” Vergil answered, now being able to answer a given question, though little he saw why it should be a matter of either confusion or perplexity: They were not, after all, some foraging party lost in woods for weeks. He named the month, named the number of the day, declared the relation to the ides and calends, he named the Consuls-in-Office, the Imperial reign-year, and the number of the indiction, that fifteen-year tax-cycle being just about to turn. There was a small smell of small wine and of old leather in the small room. . doubtless the leather was that of the decurion’s harness. There was also a small smell of the decurion as well.

“… confused …” said Casca. “I wish that you would not confuse me, master. . whatever your name is. Now tell me. Tell me ever so simply. The date. What the date?”

This time and before Vergil could answer, the decurion, a classically rugged-looking old legionary, face as leathery as harness, and with callouses under his chin from the helmet-straps of years; this time the decurion gestured Vergil, not to speech but silence, said, halfway between Attention and At Ease, “Ser. Beg to report. Eleventh day of September. Ser.”