Avram Davidson - Vergil in Averno

“Woman — ”

“You will sure and soon come visit, ser? An old servant and a faithful one, I has my privileges, ser, I must tell you straight, matron has missed you, master. ‘Missed you,’ what do I say? Matron has languished, master. Since you gone away, ser, to tell the truth, and it’s a funny thing of me, master, ser, that I must tell the truth, let them as like it not, lick — but let me mind me mouth, ser mage and master ser. Since you gone away, matron, she keeped to her room, she keeped to her room the untire time, master, and hardly scarce she eat a thing. To tell the truth, master.”

Last of all which he would hear: the tale of the Matron Gunsedilla. Her image came into his mind, he thrust it away, he confused it, he did not confuse, he was perhaps going mad, why should he not go mad, the image of the Matron Gunsedilla did not come clear into his mind at all, it was imposed upon, it lay beneath, the image of the mare….

Prima, was that the mare’s name? It made no difference. The way the matron turned her head and rolled her eyes, the way the mare rolled her eyes as she turned her head, the recollection that Matron Gunsedilla had studied magic: how —!

As though he read it on some fresh-writ scroll, clearly it now came to him: how she, being aware of the plot to bring him to Averno, but being unable to prevent it, in order to see him safe thither and safe there and safe thence, she had not only, somehow, caused the stallion, Hermus, to be ill, but she had, by the same and by whichever art, call it metamorphosis or — no, not quite shape-shifting — call it by whatever name, she had inhabited the body of the mare. Until that last moment when he had thanked the mare.

This, she, Gunsedilla, had done for him; this was the way her seemingly mad dash had saved him, had saved Iohan; could she, have anyone, have done more for him? Why had she done it? The reasons obvious, though the means complex. What could he now, henceforth, do for her? The answers obvious, though the question complex. Walking the narrow and the broader streets, he thought of all of this, and long he thought of all of this. At length he concluded that he, if he would not do more, could certainly not do less, than he had done before.

He would continue, not often, but as often as before, stop by of an afternoon, and discuss aubenry, envoutement, white magic so called, and this and that and that and this. He would continue, as often as before, if not often, to come now and then of an evening to attend at the readings from Homer. And, however much, however often, he might feel at least a bit impatient, however much he might wish to ignore, when those very slightly protuberant eyes would roll his way, and ask their invariable and inevitable question, he would not ignore it, nevermore could he ignore it; he would reply, as always and as before:

“Yes, madame. Indeed, Matron. It was very well done, madame.

“Indeed …”

As before.

Aurelio.

Had his, Vergil’s, feet carried him this far? To the new house he had builded for the freedman Aurelio? And such different, cleanlier, more worthy task, than that which came his way next! No. Aurelio was not sitting in his new house, Aurelio was but sitting on the barber’s bench, awaiting his turn to be trimmed and shaved. Aurelio rose and bowed and gave a cheerly friendly smile, gesturing Vergil should sit beside him; Vergil did. Vergil saw no signs in the goodly old man’s face of any toil or torment or of sorrow. Aurelio was perhaps, probably, not even aware that Vergil had left. So be it.

“Aurelio …”

“Ser. I hope I see you well, me ser.”

“Aurelio — ”

“Your new gray cap befits you well, me ser.”

What babble was this? For so soon the words were said, Vergil, though well he knew he wore no cap, brushed hand over head: no cap. Again:

“Aurelio. As to your adopted daughter.”

The old man nodded. Perhaps his blue eyes were not quite so clear. Age, with hast’ning steps — “Yes, sir, it has been done. It has been done, it has been registered, she be my daughter now as long I’ve planned, and we lives in that good house together with two good servants. And, by and by — ”

“You spoke of chosing a groom-to-be for her, from the prentices of the better trades, Aurelio.”

“I did, ser. And, ser, I shall. Fact: I’d begun already. None as I’ve found, as yet. But there be time, ser. There be time.”

Something there was in Vergil’s mind, something more than family chitter and chatter in a barber’s shop. What. Anon it came to him. “Aurelio. What think you of the arts of fire and metal?”

A serious and considering look upon the old man’s face. But not a puzzled one. “Why, ser, why, master, as for them, I’ve naught but great respect for them. It be no gewgaw, gimcrack trade, covering gingerbread with gold leaf or dipping marchpanes in honey. It be’s a manly and a steady thing, as must last forever. Ah, Messer Vergil, they be clever, canny things, them arts of fire and metal.”

It was to be. It was as good as done. Of course they twain younglings must suit each other. But, bend the twig, the tree inclines. Had he, Vergil, for whom never marriage had been arranged, left, such matters, all, to his own heart and head and pounding blood — had he had e’er such luck as would make him wish to urge such courses on another?

“Aurelio, there dwells with me, and you know where, a young man, as of now merely my body-servant and my horse-boy. But I know his nature to be good, and — ”

The master barber beckoned to Aurelio, who gestured him a gesture, as he slowly rose. “I take your meaning, ser. And, so soon as both we’ve done, let us arrange a further meeting. And let us talk of this.”

Hardly had he sat him on the barber stool, Aurelio, when the first journeyman barber beckoned to Vergil. Seemingly the man knew him by sight, else his first words proclaimed a liberty taken; “Ah, master, they have trimmed you ill: and, sure, it’s been a few days, some, since you were last shaved at all.” He sharped his knife, mixed the soft soap in the bowl, prepared the hot cloth. “Master Aurelio,” the man said, stooping, in his confident, almost overconfident, barber’s voice, “has got no more keen of sight, good man though he be; but truly, messer, from a bit away, just a bit, ser, it do look as though master wears a neat gray cap. Yet I’d ha’ sworn the master’s hair was black — ”

“Oh, damn it, barber, man, it is black!”

Across the journeyman’s smooth face, a trifle plump, passed a look of well-acted professional demur, as when one tells a glover that the gloves are tight. He said no word, merely with the gentlest of pressures urged Vergil forward to gaze into a basin, still, of water: as it might be one which someone like Gunsedilla had prepared to use to gaze at the reflection of the sun or of the moon. Vergil looked. He saw his features in the calm, reflective water. He saw himself flinch as he observed his sunken eyes, his hollow cheeks, how gaunt and grim his face, how pinched his mouth. All this shall pass, he thought, with rest, and —

He saw his beard, pitch-black; he saw his hair. His hair was gray.

Returning, reflective, to his house, beginning now to muse upon the future, and how he must, for all the tragic days just gone, he should need get money in his purse; when there came upon him, running as full-tilt, who but Iohan. Who gasped, “Master! Master! Money! Money! Money!”

Startled, more than so, by this vocal repetition of his private thought, and thinking as perhaps the rent is sudden demanded in advance, said Vergil as much to soothe the lad as reassure himself, “Why, Iohan, I have not lately counted them, but there are coins enough inside my purse — ” He made a move toward it. But Iohan, shaking his head till his brown curls shook, gestured with his right hand toward his left. The left held a small leathern case which Vergil had not seen before, and its straps the young man had wound tight around that hand, doubtless for safekeeping.