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

Cappadoce had its beauty too, outside the black walls of its black-stone-builded city; despite however black a heart ruled thereover, Cappadoce had its beauty too: the “diligent” almond trees blossoming early each year, every tree a froth of pink as the first of flowering trees each year: hence: diligent; the gardens of fragrant quincunxes of quince trees; the twain oranges, the bitter and the sweet; and the twain so sweetly-smelling citron fruit, one small as plums though ovoid and the other large as melons; lemons with blossoms white as lace: and the scented apricockes. Some call this vast and fruiting orchard, Mannello or Marmeland. One does not know why. The Matter sayeth not.*

But the King of Cappadoce (for example) ate and drank with the most exquisite grace and care and (for example) even had his table-drinks filtered — Body of Bacchus! thankful am I never to have been inside his private tent at the marge of his black-stone-city, to see with what manner he ate and drank therein; it pleased Nemesis, the deity of destiny, that no devoir ever took me to Cappadoce while that one had his scrawny scut upon its throne; the thought made shiver me. It might make shiver me more to hear his Cappadocian (Cephtiu, Caphtor, Cappaductiya, Cappadocia, Cappadoce: are the scholars content?) Majesty in his tones softer than the combings of the wool-vine, smoother and soother than silken or samite. “Sup, a pray you, Ser Traveler, of the special wine in this special cup which I have had prepared for you: old rich wine as needs no spring water and softened still soother with Attic honey and true galbanum and I shall sip of it afore you, my ser.” See him sip a sup and see him swallow and see the traveler relax and skim swiftly his forefinger over his sweaty brow. Would the Doge of Naples stoop to the poisoned drop sweetened in opobalsamum, ho ho! the poisoned one would cry aloud a glotted cry and expire then and there as one who had swallowed hippomane in his hippocrass, and kicking, kicking the embroidered covers off the table in his death’s agony — the horse-mania is not the gentlest ailment — The Doge of Naples would not stoop to that. If vexed he would perhaps seize ahold of you and bruise your weazand with one hairy hand or crack every one of your ribs with his hug of the bear or he might fell you with a fall of a fist and break the bridge of your nose with a cry of, Just a taste, now be careful! but if the Doge would ever use a drop or two (pretend him capable of an attempt at subtlety) from the wee black bottle, every one in the Dining Chamber would know of it; but He of Cappadoce, ah!

Cappadoce and other States of western Little Asia, glimpse there a scene at random: does alum glitter on that goat-strewn hill? would it not taint the soil? much cared goats about tainted soil, if a prickle of grass broke the ground a goat would eat it: Alum of Little Asia, keep in mind: alum ? … well … hill slick and pale as a woman’s pap….

Children or folk of low degree, think they not, Kings are served first: “‘Rank has its privileges’?” but those who have had meat at a royal or ducal court know that tis not so: for one, despite the privilege of rank, one who holds a crown or coronet is held free of greed, though privilege may so entitle him, first to eat; it is high fine style to forego the privilege and let others be served before; also, though a thousand precautions are taken that no venom finds its way into the king’s dish, suppose some does ? A thousand times better that someone else eat it first. A rare table is a royal one, and gazelle (or as it might be) is a fine dish, small, tender, rare in more ways than one: see a large platter of roast gazelle appear, a few men so like the king that might they be his uncles raise their eyes and look upon it with anticipation; before which one of the kinsman of the noble stirrup does the dish pause first? (I was not there, this I but heard). See, too, the king himself lift up his royal head, speak no word, make no gesture, guided merely by this look alone the servant places the platter before Himself. Who then takes but a morsel, out of ceremony, and lets the roast pass on. Eh? So?

No.

There the gazelle, that so seldom-found dish, so richly dressed and savory, there it is set and there it stays, stays settled; and the king (He of Cappadoce, I mean) eats of it, head, haunch, harslet, he crunches the brown crisp crackled skin and sucks the dainty pettitoes and the richly yielding marrow-bones. Now and then a kinsman steals a look, but that is all he is suffered to steal. Others may enjoy the smell. Only the king enjoys the meat. He leaves perhaps a drop or two of sauce, a spot or so of grease. Only a spot or so. Gazelle is too good to be greasy.

Not even the greatly-welcomed foreign guest has gotten so much as a drachm or scruple of the costly sauce, though in all other things the foreign guest (not I, you may be assured) is greatly honored. Not for a moment does the king so much as allude to the gazelle, in fact — what gazelle? the gazelle, running more swiftly even than Time, a creature living nine times the lifespan of a corby, the corby itself living nine times the lifespan of a man (so sayeth that great physician Chiron the Centaur): a gazelle: the King had consumed it in a quarter of an hour — in fact … what gazelle? And scarcely for a moment does the king fail to praise the foreign guest who has travelled hither, a most learned alchymist and natural philosopher, one who has studied the chameleon and the crocodile and knows the uses of the alembic as another man might know the uses of … well, any commonplace thing. A comb. An oil scraper in the baths.

Nor would the Cappadocian King in the length of a single meal, the entire durance of it, even once leave the table pleading (or leaving assumed) a corporal necessity during which absence let a still-fearful guest suspect the King took an antidote against a slow-acting venom: no. Far from it. See him by dulcet gesture as one who takes for granted a thing for which indulgence will be allowed; a movement of the brows and an exquisitely molded moue of the mouth, receive back the same cup before it could be quite emptied and hold the same so his favored small son might sip from it and then and not before then with lovely gratitude send the cup back and by and by, not that one would see, but one would hear the Cappadocian King and his dandelled son relieve their bladders into a traditionally golden basin held by some thrall on bended knees.

Meanwhile the Queen, wearing a robe of horrible richness, was sitting in the Queen’s place, and the King sometimes spoke to her, as protocol — not to say good manners — required. Good manners were required. Perhaps not more. She made no slightest answer nor regarded him her lord at all nor changed her face, but continued eating; the King never seemed actually to have asked her a question and hence never required an answer. The general meal may have been heavy with such items as a roast brawn with a candied quince atween its white tushes, and a broiled mutton with gilded horns (the gazelle did not count; in fact — what gazelle ?), but portions of these did not appear on the Queen’s silver plate (the King’s were of gold); perhaps she found them too heavy. Principally on her plate appeared small birds: francolins, peredrix, the delicate ortolan, dove-squabs farced with grated chestnuts and pistuquim and chopped figs or jujubes; and very neatly indeed she broke their tiny bones or pulled them from their softened spines and sockets. She ate steadily, she partook copious amounts of the rich, sweet flawns with a jeweled spoon, and of pasties and of other pastries; but she had gained no flesh, the flesh had melted away from beneath her sallow skin a long time ago, and the skin hung or rested loosely, loosely, upon the skull in flaps and folds. She was very much older than the King, it was evident, and could hardly have been the Mother of the young child a sitting in his lap. But whom the King married and by marriage made his Queen and who was the Mother of his children were of clean different things. The several men at the table who so greatly resembled the King spoke (seldom) to the King, but spoke him as to one’s Father, which was curious indeed, and (seldom) to the Queen, and as to one’s Mother, which was most curious: some appeared anxious and haggard, and some resigned … and haggard: but as for age and appearance they might have been his older brothers. Or, as I have said, his uncles. Very curious.