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

“Bring her out, bring her a bittle out,” Vergil heard the captain Polycarpu directing. They were standing down a coast, and he had not even heard the landfall called, not never so much as asked the ritual What shore? what coast of people? Had that much time passed as he droused over the Periplus ? “Bring her a bittle out,” the captain had said; sure enough the barco swung a small ways out away from shore.

“Which side is the current coming down?” Current coming down ? That meant a river.

“Starboard, Carp.”

“Then swing her in, making up the larboard side.”

The helmsman gave a slight grunt, gave Vergil a slight glance, as one should say, After all my years on the water do ye tell me so ?

But the shore was, mere, a shore, a dry brown shore as like so many, here and there a small structure with a flat roof, and on yonder hill, of course, there stood a building, inevitably a tower: it was — ah the god — how dull, and Vergil’s eyes fled back to the book, over which he had pored and droused. Of a sudden in the book, a new page, not as usual the mutter of what many springs of water and where, of rocks and reefs, exports, imports: no. At this point, it was clear, the nameless compiler, or, likelier, recompiler, had set himself to copy something quite different, and the calligraphy, the “hand,” grew still and formal. Was this some lines from a Fasti, and if so, which one? Hmm, to see, to see. Somehow, already, skipping ahead and scanning words later even before actually reading carefully the beginning, the principio; somehow he had the feeling that this new entry, if that was quite the word, constituted some sort of a montjoy, that cairn of stones erected to mark the site of a victory in battle.

Hercules , the Roman form of Melcarth , called the Tyrian Hercules, from the Punic Melec-Cartha , King of the City; but sometimes reverenced by the Gauls and Anglians and other Nortishmen as “King Arthur.” Melcarth was ever the chief deity of Tyre (Tur, Turret, Tower) and also of that City rich in Purple her chief African colony, Carthage (from Cartha Gedasha = New City). Some say thus: King Cartha, famous for his deeds of valor, metaphorically termed labors , erected twain columns at the western end of the Midland Sea; beyond which bounds he did no deeds, gestes, jousts. Others say they be named Gibber’s Altar and the Mountain of Atlas: but this is mere legendry. The facts are that twain columns were erected in the Temples of Melcarth at Tyre and later at Carthage by that great architect Hiram. (Note the progression Hiram, Hercul es, Melcarth. The H/M and R/L shifts are according to the Laws of Letters as laid down by the Phoenicians or Punes, who invented letters. Is the procession noted?). The true significance of the twain columns is not surely wotted, though some have feigned wit of it, pointing at the double phallus of the Divine Priapus at Pompeii and elsewhere and saying that this signifies the Duplication of Felicity: o pópoi and peh upon them. The true significations of the Columns of Atlas, also miscalled the Pillars (or Gates) of Hercules or Melcarth, eek betermed Hiram’s Fingers, remain therefore one of the Higher Mysteries. Only this much is of a surety known: that their true names hight Jachin and Boaz. Melcarth bathed there. Bathes there still? So The Matter sayeth. And more, The Matter sayeth not.

Slightly dazed by all this (and perhaps, so, too, the scribe or recompiler, for he seemed to turn with an air of relief to: In Hirnon, the next place of haven and selling and lading are at all times and seasons to be found never less than an hundred holy harlots; and seafarers and men or merchantry always pause to do their devoirs to this Fane of the Genetrix …) But although at some occasions this would of course be of intense interest to Vergil, his appetites thereto seemed for now anulled. Why had all this happened? How, out of the bitter jaws of almost certain death, had he and all folk of this ship and perhap even the very ship itself, escaped with their lives and even their integuments intact? To whom did he owe a debt greater than any thanks? To any king or soldane or senate? to no ships of battle, certes. To whom or what, then?

An old ox-thrall.

Back he was in Tingitayne.

“ ‘King of Carthage,’ nonsense, my good citizen,” said the Proconsul, “there is no ‘King of Carthage.’ What the Viceconsul meant to say is that the fellow calls himself ‘King of Carthage.’ Name is Hemdibal, got it in my books, and I don’t care what he calls himself. What he is, he is a pirate. What those fellows with him are, they are also pirates. Got ships, have they? How many ships did you see? — saw one , just as I thought. Don’t know very much, but a man doesn’t get to be Consul Romanus (which I needn’t remind you I was, before I drew the name of this stinking, fly-blown pest-hole out of the urn according to the ways of our Fathers, as wise today as they were the day they were inst graven on the Iron Tablets), man doesn’t get to be Co-consul of Rome without knowing the difference between the singular and the plural. Don’t talk to me of grammar,” Vergil had not so much as mentioned the subject, “- urn, — us, -a, — i, -o, — a, -um, — us; tollo, tollere, sustuli, sublatum, don’t you see. Rego, regere, rexi, rectum . Singular and plural, indeed.” And he glared at Vergil with pale blue eyes set in a wine-dark face.

And Vergil, stifling any inclinations which he may have had about possibly extrapolating comments along the lines of rexi, rectum, realized full well that a man didn’t often get to be Co-Consul (the Emperor being invariably the other Co- ) without being a jacanapes, a dullard, or a fool; the Emperor — whoever he might be — few emperors would ever wish to select anyone else to bear the conjoint consulate who was not all three. And, just to take no chances, the Emperor always saw to it that all the lots provided for the drawing from the urn at the end of his colleague’s term bore the name of whichever stinking, fly-blown pest-hole ( distant, too) it had been decided to afflict with the retiring consul (the Imperial Member of the Roman Consulate never retired, of course). It was hoped that this experience would cure whatever Patrician from any further interest in the realm of politics for which his noble blood and subsequent unpopularity entitled him.

That such a holder of the Fool’s License was deemed, for one thing, incapable of contemplating a plot against the Crown Imperial, and, for another, incapable of succeeding in one: goes without saying.

Agrippa Pretorius: always an exception. Lupus was Emperor then (Arms: a wolf sejant on a field of dead men’s bones: so twas said) and, it seemed, Lupus could not do without Agrippa Pretorius … for long. In those odd grey eyes like some cold and shoreless sea whose depths could be neither plumbed nor fathomed, there lay, it seemed, an utter lack of any desire for glory soever. Lupus still feared him? Perhaps. Lupus had only to say to Chief of Guards, “Bring me the head of the Consul Pretorius”? aye … but Lupus, who, be he what else he might be, was nothing like a fool, knew that if he were to do so, it would then be far likelier that Chief of Guards would bring the Consul Pretorius the head of the Emperor Lupus. But it seemed the Emperor needed him. So every now and then Pretorius would be summoned from the farm where he reared his bulls and planted pears and willows, to be made Consul once again. Only thus was Lupus sure to be free of the Marmosets, the thronging little pettymen and functioners who buzzed round the Imperial eyes like a cloud of gnats; afterwards, of course, Pretorius would draw the lot for a fine rich province from the urn. Another tale.