Over a table hung a rose, and deep within that table’s surface a man stood beneath an arch, outlined by light, though else was dim: a figure brutal, strong, and coarse, watching the approach of a runner, of one running in a race, watching with a steady eye. This former’s broad, blunt face had something of the look of an experienced gladiator, but there was in it no element of that caution akin to fear. And in his huge hands (huger, yet, his arms! his shoulders!) a hammer, huge. Who? What?
“Borbo is his name. A butcher is what he is. With his hammer he stuns the oxen. And when they stumble, then he plunges in the knife.”
And then Vergil heard the voice — another and a different voice, not the voice that had just spoken — this voice never came from that butcher beneath the arch (where, the arch?); it was toneless and dry and — he now realized, a trifle tired — it was as though some clerk was reading something, one who reads a document read sundry times before, yet need be read once more, before the signet is affixed. . one Vergil, a wizard, sorcerer, nigromant and necromant. From him the protection of the Laws and the Magnates of the Very Rich City is withdrawn, and he is proclaimed Outlaw. He may be duped, drugged, drawn, stabbed, strangled, stoned; he may be poniarded, poisoned, bludgeoned, thrust through, or cast down. It be licit that he be burned or bled or hamstrung or hanged….
The arch, beneath which the butcher stood: where?
The arch of the Great Gate, whence, it had been thought Vergil and his servant would emerge upon their leaving the Very Rich City. . was where. They had been hurried, huddled, headed thither; and thither they would certainly have gone, had it not been for the sudden madness of the mare. It was a minor madness, but it was enough to have saved their lives; thus:
The scene of he and his servant having been hastened forth by sundry magnates to his, Vergil’s, and his, Iohan’s, doom and death — this, which one moment ago he had imagined had happened — this had indeed not happened. But it had been intended to have happened. The decree of outlawry had covered many contingencies, but it had not covered the contingency of a runaway horse. Idly, Vergil looked at his palm, thinking, I must give her some handfuls of best white barley. His hand was empty. His mouth, fallen silent, was empty, too; he fumbled for his cup, his cup was also empty; his cup, his mouth were equal dry.
To Casca: “Is there among these damnable documents one which proclaims my own outlawry?”
From Casca: “You may look. But does it matter. Averno shall not come to us, for all its documents. We shall go to Averno. Despite them.”
Again that echo in his ear, his damnable, his echo-trapping ear.
I do not go to Rome.
Ah, no? But it may be that Rome shall come to you.
To Casca: “Can we do nothing, then, but wait?”
From Casca: “We can do nothing, then, but wait.”
And, whilst they waited?
The magnates had, almost casually, proclaimed a State of Siege, as was, of course, their entire and proper right in law, and needed no pretensions that sapping operations were underway round about (and under) the walls, the black walls; it was, if one cared to call it so, a legal fiction: and the precise distinctions between a State of Siege and a State of War were no doubt of immense interest to the jurisconsults and their students in Apollo’s Court. But here, as for the most part, it was a distinction without a difference. This had entitled the magnates to close shut the three known openings of the Very Rich City: the Great Gate, the Dung Gate, and the Water Gate, and to set booms across its canal, to station guards (read “troops”) all round about the place. And so on.
Being no jurisconsults themselves, however, they had also ripped up the roads a good way through and into the mountains — roads? mere and narrow paths! At least some of the rocks ripped from the roads had been poised behind basketries and fences and heavy nets above the narrow passes, ready to be loosed at a word. At a word? Nay, at a gesture. A signal, be it weft or whistle. And loosed, of course, would be: though not as planned. So Averno had arranged to stay secret and secure, untroubled (the magnates, untroubled) during the few, very few days needed to carry out plans; after which -
But no city, not Averno with its three gates in its black walls (did the “bright tappetties” still hang there? wondered Vergil), not a city with twelve gates, nor even Thebes with its proverbial hundred, or be it Babylon the Great or be it even Rome — no city can ever entirely secure itself from anyone’s getting in. Or getting out. There is always a sewer or a tunnel, remembered by one or two. There is. . somewhere. . always some forgotten drain, some archaic watercourse, a century, centuries, dried (or, perhaps, not entirely dried). Some crack, some cranny, a fissure through the riven caverns neath the earth, ones where no fires burned, on no map known to anyone, but nevertheless known: to someone. Somewhere an underground passage and somewhere a slanting shaft, dug, past times, in time of war by who knows? Oscans, Umbrians, Etruscans, Greeks, Romans, Carthagines, Saracens; what matter?. . long ago stopped up. . and long ago rediscovered. . by whom? who knows? what matter?. . and tunneled through again. Where there are customs and excises, there are smugglers. And so on. So on.
Thus: Wherever there is a barrier to getting in, someone, given time, will find a way through or past the barrier. And whenever there is a ban on getting out, someone will know a way to slip past the ban.
And some will start to do so at the first intimation of such a ban, some for one reason and some for another, and some will need no other reason than this one: Where things have become bad, things will become worse, and why wait?
Ten people, at least ten, had scrambled, tunneled, squeezed, waded, swum, dug their way out of Averno during its brief State of Siege; ten, at least, of whom the Imperial Authorities (and so, Vergil) had got knowledge. Some had escaped one by one, others at most two by two. They had not all escaped at one same time. Semel and simul? No. Full information of what had happened in Averno, then, was lacking. But the intent of the magnates as expressed in their documents (eventually every one of them read, and in detail: detail adding unto detail, fitting mosaiclike into the picture), the deeds of the magnates, as revealed by those ten who were questioned (Cadmus? No. Poppaea? No. Armin? No.) — and it was, in this case, just that: questioned. Himself the August Caesar had issued a blanket pardon. Not all, despite this, perhaps told all which they could have told.
The purpose of all this Avernian concealment must have been alone to prevent any interference; the deeds once done (surely the magnates thought), the trials, condemnations, executions of sentences, the “fines” and escheatments, the — in fact — bribes to be paid — and, actually, paid! — why, what else would the Authorities Imperial do but shrug? And pocket the plunder. To bring the matter a step closer in conjecture, suppose, just suppose that some whisper, let alone some shout, had indeed brought the legion out from its barracks not far from Naples; could the legion have gotten there in time, there, to Averno? Despite time, despite obstructions in the way? Supposing the legion to have mustered beneath the black walls, who would dare keep the great gates still barred and a-bolt? Not the magnates of the Very Rich City, to be sure.
To be sure that not a single pebble would have been let drop from a single crag upon the soldiers of the Empery (no such supposition need obtain in regard to others, either striving to get in or to get out). And here came the cunning of Averno into play: Well could one imagine the mock alarm with which (later. . safely later) they would have replied to any demand for explanation, sure though they expected none. “What? The roads blocked? The pass ambuscaded? The path walled up? But. . and but …” See the eyes roll, the brows furrow, the hands deplore. . “But no!
“Merely that road, path, and pass, was under repair!” And the canal, should it be asked — the canal was about to be repaired as well. . drained and cleaned. . The work of repair had begun before proclamation of the State of Siege! The workmen of course called back before the blockade could be cleared away. Regret! Immense regret! And next: “Perceive, however, the tangible evidence of this regret: The Very Rich City had of its own will levied upon itself a fine! So and so many purses, many, many purses, of gold. Be pleased to count. And. . hah, the merest formalities!. . a receipt prepared. A seal, a stencil, a monograph — anything! Merely as a form …”
Averno dealt much in form, in forms, and invariably the forms were crude. Yet by means of such crude forms, Averno had grown rich.
Had grown very rich.
Sometime during the time whilst they were waiting for reply from either direction, Vergil became aware of noise within the tiny fort, went without the room to see. There was, had been, a wooden watch-tower, and, attached to this, a mast of sorts was going up: higher up. “Of sorts,” it had been made of several spars now being put together with bolts and bars. There was indeed no crow’s nest, but there was a cross-spar; and, the work of joining the parts being completed, some one of the soldiery was now being hoisted up to this. The decurion, on the instant of Vergil’s appearance, vanished; the men, though ceasing not their labor, gave the newcomer glances not the most welcoming, though it could not be said that they were hostile glances. Almost at once one of them said to the others, “He be himself a mage — hoist away!” Whatever was going on was going on without official sanction, and, for all he could see, though entirely tangible, from what he had just then heard, contained or was intended to contain, some measure of something intangible. Exactly next, the man going up, espying Vergil and having heard no doubt the comment, said, looking down, “Ser Mage, it is that I holds the rank of Raven in the Mysteries, and this gives me clear and far of seeing. — Steady on, there! Bring me up!”
The Mysteries. Of course! No military encampment however small but would have its lodge or coven devoted to the Mysteries of Mithras! Almost without thinking, Vergil raised his hands, clubbed them as though imitating paws, and gave one low and single sound: low, single, but extremely deep. The soldiers’ heads gave as it were one single nod at once. What ranks within the Mysteries the others might hold it was necessary now neither to inquire nor to display. The one slowly going hoist aloft was Raven. Vergil was Lion. Enough.
Clutching fast the cross-spar, the man peered round about. Then he ceased to move his head, looked steadily toward Averno. Then he gave a cry, lurched. “Turno!” his mates called. “Turno, what see thee?”
“I be giddy; bring me down!”
Someone murmured, near to Vergil, “Bring him down, then; slowly, steady, bring him down, so.”
On the ground, as they undid his harness, the man, pale, staggered, fell into a comrade’s arms, was gently laid upon the ground. “Turno, what thee did see, soldier? Tell us, man.”
“I saw blood and fire and someone. . more than one. . transfixed by an arrow. . I be giddy, bring me down. Bring me down, mates.” There was a brief convulsion. Turno became incontinent. There was a call for warm water, clean rags, a clean tunic. And, while one man went to get these, at once the others began to dismantle the jury-rigged mast. The soldiery was seldom idle.
One of them, the youngest it would seem, asked, as he grunted and tugged at the bolts, “If he did see ‘Verno indeed, how dids he see an one man and one arrow? For it be greatly far.” Someone, someone older, said something, low, to the lad, and the lad said nothing more.
But someone else had something more to say. “Raven. . raven. . I speak nothing of this here man and that there rank, but as merely of the bird, the raven-bird, it power of sight, it power — I say — be far, but I questions, be it clear? For this sight ‘tis due alone to the dread diet of the raven: for the raven eateth naught but dead men eyes.”
Another: “Quiet, lest thee fright the lad; he will learn them thing soon enough. In the lodge, or out.”
To Turno, he having been swiftly, gently, washed, and hastened into a clean tunic: “What else did thee see, man? Did thee see other soldier coming, mate?”
From Turno: “I be giddy. Bring me down.”
Casca crouched in his curule chair, listening to Vergil’s report of what had just happened. The Legate muttered something; as Vergil leaned toward him, cupping an ear, Casca, with an effort, cleared his throat, spoke again. “Seven kings select the Emperor,” he said. “Yet, if all eight were here now, it could not affect what might be happening, there.” He gestured in the general direction of the Very Rich City. Then, slowly, he straightened his slack back, began, slowly, waving aside a gesture of assistance, to rise.
“In general,” he said, “I consider the teachings of Zeno not adequate as a basic principle of rule. Still. . there is the fundamental Stoic saying: There are things which may be helped and there are things which may not be helped, and one must learn which are which. It is close in here, and it may be less close outside. Let us see.”
Scarcely had they moved outside and settled their seats when the soldiery, who had been working in the far end of the walled yard, gave one great wordless cry; Vergil at that moment thought it must be one of those shouts such as men, soldiers or not — workmen, for example — use when they bend themselves to a sudden effort. No. Casca clutched at the bosom of his garment, half-rose from his seat, fell back, and, with his quivering hand, pointed.
Vergil jerked his head around. There, behind, beyond the fortress wall, a huge. . something. . like a red-hot lance-head. . towered and trembled, high against the sky.
“Vesuvio!”
“No! Not — ”
The earth gave a shivering movement.
“Then what?”
The chairs, as though of their own motion, or as though moved by men invisible, began to slide. Even one slight second before this, Vergil had begun to shout his answer, was still shouting it even when the chairs were flung against the wall (wall which quivered but, marvelously, did not fall), even while the last elements of his cry were swallowed up by some other sound. As though every lion in every arena had roared at once. Fell silent. Roared again. Fell silent. Roared again. Fell silent.
In this last silence he heard the silent echo of his voice still crying answer within his mind.
Vesuvio?
Averno.