Avram Davidson - The Scarlet Fig - Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series

The winds blew slowly as before, there was no gust, the sails did not crack, did not luff, neither did there appear (as it might be) an eagle of the mountains with a white goose in its talons as it (the eagle) cried aloud its defiance to the world and air: but steadily as they concentrated all their gaze, those upon the ship saw gradually the gauzy curtains as though one by one drawn back. And the exotic queen — did she stand there before them? Was this indeed “ the Veil of Isis ”?

What stood there before them was a stretch of coast, like any stretch of coast. Nothing was different. In which case … why had all been so oddly veiled? … why veiled at all?

But suppose something was a little different. A sea bird, wide of wing, wheeled near the ship, then — with a cry — for whom, in that empty sky, to hear? — wheeled away. “Master Plauto,” said Vergil, “hold up your hand, so,” he demonstrated; “and look through the spaces between your fingers. And there, at about the fifth finger, do you think … what? … there is a creek mouthing into the sea?”

“I … do … think … so …” the master of the craft breathed, half intent only upon the accidents of the scene, and half in wonder of its incidents. Then he dropped all this as he might drop a garment, and uttered orders, curt and crisp. The helm turned. The oars were set into the tholes. The sail dropped down. The ship moved now upon its own motion. And Vergil, with a gesture, handed over the fire — just … now … a common fire … to the crewman in charge of such. And closed his old, soft, doe-skin budget. And strode up to the bow and looked.

There she disembogues …. Since, perhaps, the day the waters of Deucalion’s Flood drained off the face of earth, this quiet little river had loosed its waters into the slaunting bay, itself of no great eye-catching quality, and so shy, that river’s nymph, that scarce she revealed herself at all: why, therefor, that shielding white veil? One would see. Perhaps. Limpid, and, seemingly, pure, the creek did not even hint of any nearby settlement of the sons and daughters of Deucalion: and perhaps there was none. Even the sounds of the oars striking the waters were small, birds sang and, some of them, white and crimson, rose-red-and-green, were revealed in flight. More and more and thicker and thicker the trees grew, till some of the branches on one side (Plauto, be sure, his keen eyes had not failed to note the currents stealing down to the left, and so he had gestured that the ship keep the right) lightly struck the spars. The river slowly swerved, slowly the ship swerved with it, till, stealing round one more curve, entered upon yet another bay, large enough (thought Vergil) for all the ships of Tartis, plus all those of Rome as well, to ride at anchor; or to execute — all! all! — maneouvres there. A sound of mixed astonishment and delight rose from their throats, to see this hidden treasure; for, evidently, though Plauto … and perhaps all of them … had heard … of the region called Huldah, evidently they had not heard — or none of them had much believed — of this great hidden bay therein. And at the opposite end lay the cultivated lands, the fields of grazing cattle, the orchards neatly set out, the planted gardens, and the settlement of houses.

Houses … there was not much remarkable about most of them … even at this distance he perceived that the relation of thatched roofs to tiled had increased … it had been doing so as they began to pass out of the region of the flat-roofed buildings: clearly there was more than enough vegetation here to supply thatch, which meant that there was either more rain, or more irrigation. Even the existence of so large a river (though very large, compared to the Po, or even the Tiber, it was not) came as a surprise. And there, atop of a small hill — perhaps only distance made it small — was an entirely different structure. Details still were sparse. But instinctively he knew that this was a house. The house. The great house of Huldah. However unusual, however ignorant he was of who might live in it.

The house …

And behind, how far behind he had yet to learn, was, almost a low mountain, an escarpment, like some crouching half-familiar beast. A weasel. A genet. Or … a cat. And did not the word mean … was not any of the words … in what language? he knew, he knew —

Huldah.

“Shall we set ashore on the side?” asked Plauto, quietly. “Or … there seems to be … there is a mole — Eh?”

“There,” equally quietly: Vergil. “I shall walk up.” Implicit: to The House. “I apprehend no danger. I shall go alone.”

“Ser. Yes, my ser. There.”

A woman’s face was looking at him from out a parting in the scented bushes (“ The entire wilderness is one vast pharmacon ”; of what were these bushes making him think? what soothing draught had long ago his mother (scarcely remembered) made for him to drink, and for what childhood illness? what matter, some tisane, some herbal, fragrant, strong intinction; was he now ill? he felt not ill.). Outward and a bit upward her dark face with its ruddy traces looked at him; she was half-bent over a pair of dogs of the old Ægyptian race, tails a-curl, thick chests, thin loins, thin legs. She wore a close-fitted cap of rust-colored leather, edges coming down almost to her magic, mantic face; her age? neither old nor young: what a richness was in her half-slight half-smile! Silver armil, a silvern bracelet, a thin silver bangle on her thin dark wrist. She saw him, she knew him; though he felt he knew her, yet he knew he knew her not. She let her hands loosen at the dogs’ collars (of scarlet-dyed leather, they surely came from the Lands of the Catalands) and the dogs moved towards him saunce menace and they sniffed at his hands. All the whimsy and all the wit of all the world was in her look; pretty? she was not pretty , that infant charm and grace was not here, was not hers; neither was she handsome , that more adult comeliness: no. “ See, ” said she, said to her dogs; “See, Paulo, see Narcisso, Vergil is here. He is here.”

Her look was of another world and race; a queen to queens she’d mayhap been, in long-far-sunk Atlantis. “A sign to eat and drink, Marius, a sop,” she said, she made a slight movement and the bangles sang like good sound coins upon the counter. “A sop of poppy-cake in wine,” it was no question she meant no ill, he felt no fear. He felt that he could linger near her fay face and its faint dry smile, though flotillas foundered. And “the region called Agysimbai, where the monocorns assemble,” perhaps she was from there, or near? Her slightly sere cheek. He would stoop to kiss it …

“A broth of hens’ flesh and of hares’, for you are surely weary; say: what of those who num the honey-sweet and scarlet fig, are they well? or do they waste away from doing nought?” A slight smile, her bangles clinked … one kiss … he knew her not … one …

He had commenced to sense the outlines of a very rich country, very dry, very sere; very rich in hidden riches. Wealth between the wind-basted huge sand-smoothed boulders the size of houses, wealth of hidden streams of water surfacing for a measure here and there, and in such place were trees of bearing jujube fruit, in taste half-date, half-fig. Land of secret webs of ways to mines of moonstones and porphyry. Sounds faintly at first of music in the night, tambours, seekers, lutes plucked with silver plectrum; the great red-brown castle way about her, way dry and not quite sly about her. Dry and slow. In Ostia an eating-place of three or four or five tables kept by an old eunuch who called himself King Pouf. “How will my lord be served?” the hermaphrodites would murmur to the transvestites and they to the aunties. Oracles, jewelers, gemsters, silver snakes on the anklets, bodies writhing hard to drape about some other. Was it clear she was endowed and physically possessed of these scenes and seeings and of others, say the dim great red room in that blackstone city in Asia Minore?