Аврам Дэвидсон - Peregrine - primus

He took another and a closer look at Peregrine, and something seemed genuinely to trouble him. “In fact,” he said, “to someone who hadn’t observed Austin closely, and day after day, as I did, someone of a narrow and shallow and suspicious mind . . . the idea might occur that you are Austin . . . with your hair dyed, say ... in hopes of avoiding the sentence of outlawry which,” he sighed, “I very much regret'to say was pronounced against him shortly after his absence was discovered when the soldiers called at the house of a lady of high birth to whom a certain person in high office is known also to favor. — He got away safe, in other words.”

The senator went on to say, in more words, that just such a narrow, shallow, and suspicious mind was possessed by the Prefect of the Port, one Bruton, “Who used to be the Public Torturer, till he gave the profession a bad name: and now patrols the port with a sharp eye and a hungry look. Me, he ignores. Who,

after all, would proclaim in the Senate the virtues of National Wet Dream Week, or whatever babblement it may be, if not for me? But you, my boy . . He shook his head. “You must skip the town altogether. Skulk through the old river bed and meet your friends’ vessel, that you mention, below the City.

“But, I beg of you, don’t hazard the docks.”

Peregrine nodded thoughtfully.

“That’s what I’ll have to do, then, I guess. And . . . well . . . since it seems as if I may well have to miss this city, where my brother passed so much time, so much of it pleasantly, won’t you at least tell me all about it? We can discuss it over lunch. It’s only ships’ stores, you know, beef and bread and wine and all from the barrels; and I marked the place where I’d put it with a strip of cloth—there it is!”

Senator P. Cato Decimus Brutus Darlangius Philipus G. sank onto a hummock in the shade of a drupe tree with a small sound to which the word “grunt” could not be applied, unless, of course, with great measure of terminological exactitude. “No apologies for simple sailor fare is needed,” he said. “Et ego in Arcadia, and so on. A corned beef sandwich! And is that celery tonic? No, it is wine. Ah well, mustn’t grumble, Pour it carefully, my boy.” He sipped, softly smacked his lips. Then he smiled.

“It’s only a small domestic falernia,” he said. “But I think we’ll be amused at its naive presumption.”

And, after another moment, “Tell you all about the City, eh? Very well.”

An hour passed pleasantly, with Senator Darlangius Philipus discoursing on the City, and now and then illustrating a point with a quickly sketched diagram, and Peregrine, chin propped on fists, watching and listening. “Pity you hadn’t brought along more of this good, small wine,” said the senator. “However, we must husband our resources, and then, you say, there is more aboard. The Pus and Thistle, I mean the Thrush and Whistle, has a wine not unlike this one—a little wine-shop right behind the Church of Saint Stephanos, commonly called Smokey Steve’s; whether the arch-priest has something to hide, or whether he’s merely a latent pyromaniac, compensating, I don’t know, but he certainly shovels on the incense, great billowing clouds of it at every mass, from nave to narthex.

“After the Senate closes for the day—and one of the very few

compensations of being its president, as I happen to be this term, is that it a session shows signs of being unduly prolonged, I can close it with a rap of my ivory gavel—say, if I have an appointment to discuss ecclesiastical architecture with a pious matron, with emphasis on the Perpendicular Style, of course—and if not, because my throat sometimes grows quite dry from eloquence, 1 drop by Smokey Steve’s to catch the late morning mass, where, of course, the incense only makes it dryer, and the arch-priest snatches the chalice away as though wine were going out of style; fortunately, as I have just explained, the Thrush and Whistle is right nearby. And so one can take a little wine for one’s stomach sake, and for one’s often infirmities: and to pick up the latest rumor going around—”

He rolled a mouthful of the domestic Dalmatia from tongue to palate, and gave a faint and grateful sigh.

“And speaking of rumor,” he said, “you’ve probably heard something as you’ve come down stream, of this great rebel fleet upstream?”

Peregrine lifted his chin. “ What great rebel fleet upstream?”

Senator D. allowed a gentle eructation to pass his lips with only the faintest expression of surprise; when it was followed by another, he at once converted it into a benediction, “Cum spiritus tuum,” he murmured. “There. I might have known it was all nothing but scuttlebutt. Well, according to the stories, there have been all kinds of unrest in the Up Country. Heresy riots in one place, galleys sunk in another, a caesar overturned in a third. You know the sort of thing. Accompanied by talk of omens. Three-headed poontangs born in one place, strange lights seen in another, mummified martyrs move their heads and groan. I take it all with many a grain of salt. Heard it all before, over and over. But it tends to make Black Pete nervous, you know. And when Caesar says it’s hot, the Senate sweats.”

He turned the wine-jar over and caught the sole remaining drop on the tip of a finger, and tasted it. Then he slowly and with grave dignity rose to his feet in stages. “I fear that your friends must by this time be feeling concerned about you,” he said. “It would be the grossest selfishness on my part to oblige you to return unescorted through strange terrain and countryside.”

And, Peregrine, after checking the sun, suggesting that some fast walking might be in order, in order to catch up with the ves

sel, Senator P. Cato Decimus Darlangius Philipus G. expressed a pious hope that he might be mistaken.

And he was.

t t t t

Philoxena was aboard and hysterical, and continuously attempted to pull handfuls of her hair out by the roots, or to leap over the side of the boat, or to beat her head against the deck; and she had already torn bloody marks upon the sides of her face with her fingernails. Her body, however, bore other brutal marks and wounds whose position was such that they could not have been self-inflicted. The other women, loudly wailing, now hovered over her tenderly, and now seized and restrained her when the wildness of her grief grew fiercer.

“What’s happened?” cried Peregrine. And immediately asked a second question, knowing that one answer had to do for both. “Where is Claud?”

Philoxena at once ceased her attempts to inflict more damage upon herself, looked up at him, and burst out weeping.

“Give the poor girl a cup of wine,” suggested Senator Darlangius. “In fact, give her two.” And emphasized the exceedingly warm-hearted nature of his suggestion by resting one hand on the posterior of the Matron Eudoxia, and the other in her bosom: then withdrew them, so as not to impede her carrying out his recommendation. Wine was brought—two cups of it — and Philoxena was induced to accept one of them. She sipped, sobbed, hiccoughed, and finally, setting down her cup, began to tell her story.

Claud had been captured.

“By the Huns?” exclaimed Peregrine, about to curse the excessive zeal which had brought about two useless captures in one short space of time. But it was not so, for Claud had been captured by soldiers, while he and Philoxena had been amiably talking about horses to a small farmer in the hills above the river. He was a stranger, he had no papers; obviously he was a spy the soldiers said probably a spy for the rebel forces which had already executed so much dramatic action along the upper river. There was a movement to execute then and there the sentence of