Аврам Дэвидсон - Peregrine - primus

“Ah,” said Sulla, softly. “You are a pagan. Or,” he went on, tactfully, and without pause, “you have been one.” He made no further reference to the gesture. Peregrine, who had tensed, relaxed. He realized that it had, after all, been about a pagan poet which Sulla’s lector had been reading; and not a Father of the Church, or a Martyr. Nor were there any evidences of Christianity visible—no ikons, no crosses. But, his host saying nothing, he said nothing himself.

“So Caesar sent you .... That was kind of him.”

“The kindness, sir, was to me.”

“No. Caesar knows of my continued interest in the world beyond the City’s walls, although 1 myself have not passed beyond those walls in some time .... For that matter, it has been some time since I have even passed beyond the walls of the Villa Sulla. Nevertheless. Yes. Generally speaking, I hold aloof from making much observance or taking much notice of changes in administration, they being generally for the worse, one Co-Heir of the Emperor succeeding another Co-Heir in rather rough and rapid fashion . . . Indeed, as one hears, one Emperor succeeds another nowadays. It is small wonder that the Emperors take little or no notice of the multitude of Conjoint Sebastocrators who supposedly stand ready to succeed them. I myself am not even precisely sure at present who it is that occupies the Throne in Ravenna—or, for that matter, Rome—or Byzantium. However, in this instance the change is certainly for the better, for Darlangius is not inherently vicious.”

Peregrine regarded this as one of the faintest and most qualified compliments which he had heard in a long time. Sulla passed easily enough from that subject to others, asking polite questions to which Peregrine for the most part answered equally easily; and, when he could not, the host changed the subject in such a manner as to avoid embarrassment to him. And so by and by he heard Sulla enquire, “And shall you, then, remain here? In Chiringirium?”

As Peregrine did not feel that he could give the truthful answer, which would have been phrased somewhat as, “Well, that depends on what I may or may not hear from your wife, who is really the one I came to see; so how about it?” He did the next best he could, and said that he was not certain, he thought that he would not stay, but he was not certain when he would go if he did go.

Sulla nodded. “Young men tend not to settle. They tend to be impetuous, of a sanguine humor is how, I believe, Science puts it. I hope that you will be my guest for dinner—” At this Peregrine’s heart gave a little leap “—not, of course, tonight,” Sulla swept on, smoothly, “for you will naturally have made other arrangements. But in a day or two I shall send you an invitation, in enough time for you to include it in your inevitably rather busy

schedule. I quite understand that you are not able to stay longer with us today, and, much though I should wish to, must not attempt to delay you.” As he was saying this, Sulla was rising, and, Peregrine not entirely knowing just how it was happening, saw nothing for it but to say farewell to his host, and to follow the silent servitor who was bowing before him.

They passed through two courts as they had entered and then, seeing gardeners spraying with wide gestures an area which lay ahead of them at some small distance, the servitor murmured an apology, and they turned and proceeded by a second route.

This took them through a part of the villa itself, and Peregrine observed that, richly-furnished though it was, it was not in any degree over-furnished. And then she was there, and when he turned, automatically, though not exactly knowing why, to his guide, he realized, suddenly, that no one else was there but they two.

Peregrine had thought that she might be big and blonde, only later realizing that he thought this only because his brother himself was big and blonde; or—he had thought—she might be dark and opulent; and this, he subsequently perceived, was only because he had discerned in himself, recently, such a taste. She was, however, dark and slight. Not even slender. Slight. No one would have said that she was beautiful, as no one would have said that she was ugly. And, certainly, plain, the gods knew, in no way began to describe her. She was, then, Clothilda, and she was herself.

“Have you news? —You are very much like him,” she said. Eagerness to hear gave way to a desire to put Peregrine at his ease, and, in a moment—no more—she had done so. He soon told her of the only two pieces of information he had found of Austin during his travels so far—that he had passed through a misty and mysterious mountain region, and, thence, had gone by a route which went “right over left, left over right”—and that, eventually thereafter, he had come to Chiringirium— “As have you,” she said. “And I am very glad.” Then, at once, it was easy for him to speak and they spoke together, intermingling words and information: how, Austin, as a small boy . . . how, Austin, a grown man, and here . . . what he was like then and now . . . what he was not like, now as then . ..

“But have you an idea where he went?” demanded Peregrine.

Her face lost its laughter-lines. “I do not know,” she said, low-voiced. “I do not know . . .”

“Perhaps you may know, though,” he persisted; “you may be knowing without knowing that you know . . . you know?” Despite herself, she did laugh at this. He explained, as best he could, that it may have been that his brother Austin could have mentioned some place which he would want to visit . . . would want to see . . . had, at least, expressed interest in . . . Or, conversely, had spoken of an area, a province, a country, a climate even—which he thought not well of, would never want to see. “Now. You do see what I mean, yes? So now, what think you, lady Clothilda?”

She nodded, seriously. She sighed, soft. Her slight fingers drummed upon the small table in front of her. “Peregrine, listen . . . Tonight I shall dedicate to thinking of this. I shall put aside other thoughts and I shall lie with my lamps lit and my tablets in one hand and my stylus in the other. And I shall think of Austin, only of Austin, and 1 shall bring him back, in my own thoughts— oh, not dreaming dreams of him, no—but striving to recall every word he said, and even the expression on his face when, perhaps, someone else said certain words. And each possibility as it occurs to me, I shall write it down. And I shall be in touch with you . . . Younger Brother . . .”

The same silent servitor seemed to materialize and to guide Peregrine out of the Villa Sulla, and Peregrine at first did not, could not, identify the squawk of surprise and of so much more than surprise as coming from that silent mouth: the same instant something like an enormous cobweb obscured his sight, fell in heavy folds upon his shoulders and his limbs, tripped his feet and tangled his hands ... He fell painfully, ropes jerked tightly, were gathered tautly. He floundered, was turned over, trussed like a calf for market. A figure stood in front of him as he was jerked to his feet.

With some half-formed notion of bravado, and more—a great deal more—than half-confused. Peregrine said, “Is that a reticularis which I see before me? If so, where is your trident?”

His words were ignored. For a long, long moment the figure looked at him in silence. The gold-flecked eyes burned into his own; there were no whites around them now, only red. Red, red flecks burned among the gold. The servitor, trussed, himself,

like a pigeon, gave one more squawk. Was kicked, swiftly, skillfully. Retched, dryly, fell, was silent. “That one,” said Sulla, “I shall certainly and presently crucify.

“So,” he said. “The sons of Sapodilla. Are there perhaps more of you? Was one not enough, and more than enough? Did you perhaps think that I had taken her to be my wife and kept her as such, staying here as I have done and as I thought guarding her for her sake, in order that the bastard sons of some brute hill chief might slip in again and again to tread her like a dunghill hen is trodden? O dunghill cocks” his voice stopped without breaking or even rising or falling. For some slow second he had clearly ceased to breathe. Then his breath came and it caught in his breast. He struggled, conquered. In the same level tone: “That one I shall certainly and presently crucify,” he said. “But as for you, though you were Caesar’s son and Born-in-the-Purple, yet I do swear that no such easy and rapid death should be yours.— Take!”