But as for Averno, there were no witnesses — certes, none who ever did come forward — to tell of her very last hours. The testimony of those who had fled early, of those who had seen the preparations, the testimony of the intentions of the magnates as writ in hard black ink, and such testimony as that provided by the soldier of Raven rank (was it clear-seeing, clairvoyance of something then going on though past possible sight by normal vision? Was it prophecy? Was it. . whate’er it was) — these, bit by bit, and word by word, built up a certain scene.
There were no witnesses to tell of the last hours of Averno, of who had gone first to the slaughter, who second. . and who last. Cadmus, no doubt, they had saved till last. It would have been their way, the way of the magnates to have done so. As to how others had gone to death, the ways no doubt must have been various: some screaming and flailing, some praying, some cursing, some in Stoic acceptance and in Stoic silence. And Cadmus? What had his Sibyl said? Cadmus was a mart, therefore Cadmus was mortal. Which is but to say that water wets and fire burns. If they had not bound his feet, and who knows if they had or had not, Cadmus had doubtless gone dancing; if they had not gagged his mouth, and who knew if they had not or had, Cadmus had likely gone singing. This perhaps mattered not much (though much, perhaps, it had mattered to Cadmus). One thing mattered much. . to Vergil. Mostly Cadmus had been mad, sometimes he had been sane. Vergil, knowing that he would never know, Vergil hoped with all his heart that Cadmus had not, then, been sane.
I see Cadmus, transfixed by an arrow: thus the vatic message. Vergil, a hundred years (so it seemed) after, was to ask himself, How had he kenned this soothsaying, at the time that first he heard it? Beneath the rose. . Images of possible meaning had flashed across his mind like bolts of lightning, new one succeeding before old one had left off; as (1) literally: an archer shall let loose an arrow from a bow and it shall pierce Cadmus’s body — (2) metaphorically: arrows are symbolic of many things, as one speaks of the arrow of Eros, perhaps Cadmus in love — (3) allegorically: mayhap some stroke of state or fate shall bring his “reign” to sudden end —
But the vision might have been a Sibylline saying or a Delphic oracle for all that any tincture or impression of the truth had entered Vergil’s mind. How had one such story gone? the Emperor Marius sent the customary rich gifts to Delphi, asking, When shall I die? And the Pythonessa, sitting cross-legged in her shallow, fireless caldron on its tripod, had drooled and babbled and then, head jerking upright, clearly cried, Beware the sixty-third year! The sixty-third year, beware! Scarcely had Marius, then in the full flush of his maturity, finished chuckling — half-scornful, half-elated — when he had, in his royal tent, fallen, dozing, then sleeping; see him awaken to find himself alone and the tent alone, legions having, one after the other, in the night silently struck their own tents and vanished. To the one faithful servant who remained, Marius cried out asking whither had his armies fled, and why? The servant, loyal indeed but neither perceptive nor sharp, groping after any crumb of comfort, answering: They have gone to join General Sulla, who has proclaimed rebellion; but, sure your Imperial Highness need not fear that Sulla: he is old, he is old, he is sixty-two years old!
But at that moment (nor when as it were the echo of that moment had recurred when the Raven soldier called from aloft) had no tincture of impression been distilled into Vergil’s mind that the arrow might or could be an enormous drill intended to be lifted by immense engines akin to those that worked a catapult, and then dropped: a gigant pile driver driving the arrow into the surface and beneath the surface of that area beneath which (Vergil had revealed; he, Vergil, had revealed!) lurked and burned the “father-fire”; that this immense javelin, colossian dart, intended to pierce the Averninan earth’s integument and free the pent-up flames therein beneath: not for any fleeting second had Vergil conceived this herculean steel could exist, let alone that it would enclose as, partly, in a cage, the body of the mad misfortunate entitled or mistitled King. Horrid vision. Dreadful thought. Arms and legs protruding as the enormous drill went up. . and up. . up. . to pause some dreadful moment as the engine-workers slipped their stops and let it fall — ah, that fall! Like that of Icarus!
Transfixed! Oh, fatal word. . and weak.
And to what end? For one, that the gigant drill should pierce new openings whence might flower the flames which alone constituted the gardens of Averno. (No real thought, ever, had been given to Vergil’s plan that the hot vapors might be piped like water to wherever needed, there to be lit like lamps, to fire forges wherever forges be set up; no real thought given, ever, to his notion that the hot upquellings of boiling water be conveyed as common cold waters were conveyed via common aqueducts whither it would be convenient to receive and use them.) The only new thoughts in the minds — the common mind, one might say — of the magnatery was that new holes be pierced for new fires to be used in the same old ways. Thus: one end, one purpose. First.
Second, for another (some rhetor, silent as in a mime-show, accounting on his fingers the points to be made, in classic mode, appeared in Vergil’s mind; whilst the most of the mind writhed in torment, this silent figure mimed and mowed, and moved its fingers as calmly and even as though the slightest bit bored to be demonstrating once again, Thus, Citizens and Conscript Fathers, we will recapitulate the reasons why study of the arts philosophical as well as martial be beneficial for the state: firstly. . secondly …). Second, that the good gods of hell be pleased to accept this plan and that it be hecatombs as should please them: not as Vergil — ignorant as a maiden before whom oblique talk is made of maidenheads — had assumed meant hecatombs of oxen; and Vergil had approved, thinking only that it could not hurt and the slaves would for more than once in an annum or in a lustrum have flesh-meat-roast to eat: nothing such like: It had been hecatombs of human sacrifices the hobgob magnates had meant; nothing else? Nothing more than Cadmus? Many more than Cadmus. Hecatombs. Plural. How many hundreds were to die, one after another, pierced, shattered, as the gret drill came down time after time to pierce the places within the rough ovoid that Vergil’s diligence had calculated and reported upon, that neat reticulated grid he had draw, Sisyphean, almost, time after time, upon his maps?
For this? Only for this?
In effect: yes.
Only for this.
Thirdly, magnates and master workmen of the Very Rich City of Averno, as such sacrifice, essential and profitable as we ourselves know it to be, be full illicit and damnably forbidden by the Empire’s Laws, and as it must be somehow excused and as it were “written off” on the accompt-books in which be listed all which pertains to the relations of the Very Rich City with the Very Rich Empire; therefore …
(Iohan’s therefore! And the lad knew as much, which is to say as little as, on this, his master….)
Fourthly, ah, what a good and slyly clever way to wipe clean the lists, wipe them free of many and many a score of aged sick and weak slaves and serfs and thralls whose fumbling labor does not earn their keep in moldy millet, spoiled spelt, and bad barley, with now and then some sop of broth boiled of rotten bones; as well, magnates, as well, as well! magnates, of all such whom we have known to be disaffected of our stern and meritorious rule, and all whom we suspect of interloping, too. We shall not only offer them like slaughtered oxen to the good gods of hell, Demogorgon and his devil-hosts, but we shall denounce them as criminals justly put to death for having committed sedition, treason, rebellion, lese-majeste, conspiracy against Emperor and Empery by reason that they had nominated, selected, elected, coronated, approbated, and cooperated with aforesaid Cadmus, a subject daring to hold a title royal and without royal Imperial assent….
Fifthly, may it please the Emperor, his Crown and Staff, the Senate, and the People of Rome to forgive the Very Rich City in its corporate entity, inasmuch as said Very Rich City has not alone escheated, confiscated, seized the estates of the rebels (on another list named by names), and does herewith assign, return, and pay unto the Treasury Imperial the proper halves and fourths and fifths and tenths, but also that the said Very Rich City does contritely fine itself for having taken even so short a time to contain and put down said rebellion; and said fines, richly appropriate to the Very Rich City, are also herewith produced and paid; may it please -
It must have been that final moment, the very final beat of the beat beat beat of the everlasting pulse-beats of that Very Rich and very damnable city; it must have been that final moment when the final drill was dropped, and much they must have sharpened it and likely more than once; it must have been but seconds after that final drill was dropped, weighted well, perhaps weighted more than the other times it had fallen, that Demogorgon, the chieftain of the good gods of hell, had shown at last the responsum to all the offerings, the (oft-repeated, often heard, never comprehended phrase!) hecatombs! hecatombs! Witnesses from below, there were none; witness from above, afar, more than a few.
The wily magnates had falsified the dates on their documents in more ways than one; there had been no time for any troops, legions, to reach the black gates in the black walls; even the three men with Casca’s message had had scarce time to make scarce way through the rugged roadways, when -
The concussion of the drill’s last drop had been faintly felt, yet that far away; first felt, then heard; then one immense lance of flame and fire was seen shooting skyward; then -
Had the walling mountains round about Averno not stood where they had been standing since before forever, what would have remained of all that part of the land? As it was, the mountains flung back what had been flung against them. Those who had seen the first flash and flush of flame from afar atop the hills had not seen the second, the force of the first explosion had flung them backward (as it had flung Vergil and Casca down from their chairs and against the walls and onto the floor), off their feet. Some had had the sense to lie where they had fallen. It was said that fragments of the torn and tortured earth had fallen as far away as Rome; certainly some had fallen into the Parthenopean Bay, great Bay of Naples, between the mainland and the Isle of Goats, hissing as they sank. How fortunate for Naples and all its suburbs and exurbs that these lapides had, as it were, overshot those cities. And all other cities.
Tremors continued for a while. Presently, as Casca — bruised a bit in body, but, oddly, seemingly much more his old and pre-Avernian self in spirit — and Vergil, and the Viceroy himself, climbed the now again-firm mountains. And dared look down.
Where Averno had stood (stood? say, rather, squatted), nothing stood now. No fragment of its black walls remained to view. Down the bed of the canal, propelled by a fierce and scouring flood, still rolled one great torrent of boiling mud, though slackening as they watched, and poured into the sea, hissing as it poured; and yet a second, smaller sea of it remained. . remained forever: Lake Averno, it came to be called, a lake of not-quite-lava, a vast bog of bubbling muck, a surrounding swamp of seething earth and slime and stinking gas, with here and there and there and now and then a spurt or jet of flame. And bubbles, like bubbles of black blood.
What “the good gods of hell” had given, and given to make the Very Rich City very rich, they had, it seemed, given ever grudgingly. And now they had claimed it all and taken back again.
They. And “Sissie and cruel Erichtho.”
“The revenues of the South will never recover,” the Viceroy had said, bleakly. Doubtless never. As for the Viceroy’s own revenues, the following year for the first time he was to decline his exemption from the pro-consular lots. Into the urn with the other names had his own name gone, as (he having been of course at least once a consul) go it otherwise must have gone long before. He had (it was said) not even bothered to see of which province he had drawn the governance — grain-great Sicily, Aspania deep with silver, Chaldea the Far with its femminate men and bearded women, or distant, misty Picti-Land — but had merely handed the summons to his secretary with the single word, “Prepare.”
Admirable.
No doubt.
But that was for the next year, and that was for the Viceroy. As for Vergil, and for now, what? For as for Averno: nothing.
Iohan had stood with them, so pale and drawn that Vergil would have been shocked, had not the greater, the unspeakably greater shock been spread out before them in what they had not yet learned to speak of as “Lake Averno.” Casca was long silent (Vergil, totally silent, though his mind screamed several names, and over and over again); then Casca said, “It is just as well that I find I do not remember the name of whatever philosopher it was who said that the truest happiness possible for a man was to stand safely on a cliff in a storm and, watching a ship being sunk beneath the cliff, thank his guardian genius he was not aboard. I. . somehow. . I do not feel such happiness. Or any happiness at all.” And at this Iohan had given a shuddering sob, then turned away his face and covered it with one hand.
On their way back to the small port city that was now, once again, home, Iohan — save for the few short questions and replies required by the performance of his usual work — had said nothing. It was not until (with no cry at all of thalassa!) they once again espied the sea that Iohan, having once looked back at the thin smudge of smoke which alone now marked upon the sky, murmured something else. It being too low for his master to hear, his master, after an abstracted moment, turned his face and raised his brows. “They did be canny things, them arts of fire and metal,” the boy said. Then, an instant later, in a dogged tone different from the tone of puzzled memory, remarked, “They do be canny things. . them arts of fire and metal.”
“Yes,” said Vergil. And, “We are nigh safe home.”
The mare now turned again her head and gave him that characteristic, almost arch, look. He stroked her muzzle. “Thou good beast. . served me well, well, well…. I cannot keep thee, though.” She flung her head, still looking at him. Then it seemed as though, even whilst they regarded one another, that something dulled and dimmed in her eye, her head turned round and down, and she ambled on the road. And thus reminded of the essential and essentially unexisting details of quotidian life, Vergil said, “Iohan, when we are to my lodging-place, tend the mare as best you can. . and. . ah! yes! see that you give her a double handful of the best white barley….” Iohan nodded, nodded; unchanged, that wan, drawn look; and why “changed,” should one expect it to be? Solely that a horse might eat, and eat, however scantly, well? “ — and then. . Iohan. . I intend presently to speak you, about your. . our. . arrangements. . employment. . and then — Iohan — the mare must go back, of course, to Fulgence — so bring her back. Tell him to prepare his account. I shall. . presently …”He moved his hand. What need of words. The boy nodded, nodded. They did not, man and master, look each other in the face. There was no need.
— Later, Vergil sat, blank, exhausted, in the sole chair in his rented room, the confused memory of the return from Averno unreeling before his eyes as though some tapestry or painted cloth upon two great spools. Charge: one penny for the Commander of the Legions (one shrug had he given at the sight of the site where once Averno had crouched). The Commander of the Legions. . what time the Viceroy of the South had said something close to the Commander’s ear, gesturing the while to Vergil; what had the Commander of the Legions said? — Nothing. What had he given Vergil? For that matter, what he owed Vergil? Nothing. He had given one shrug and he had given Vergil two decades of troops — they must return that way anyway — two decades of troops to company Vergil, his mare, his man, as they returned — lagging, lagging — aware of a total absence of joy. Suppose Sisyphus to have been acquitted his need of forever toiling up his hill in Hell, would he have made the last journey in joy? Or would mere fatigue have extinguished all other emotion, as a torch extinguished in a sconce? The troops were useful, very useful, the troops kept apart the hordes they met upon the roads. Hordes, hordes, some mere seekers after curiosity. “Master, Master, what happened?” — Some, so many some as to exhaust all pity. “Master, hast ‘ee heard of such a one? my son? my daughter? my sister’s son? Master, master, has thee heard?” He had not heard. And those who asked him naught, and told him naught, but did their best to avoid the soldiery, men of grom glance with many an unsaddled horse and mule and many an empty sack and cask and box, for who knows what they had hoped to find, for the tugging out and for the picking up? Nor did they dare purse lips to phrase the words their faces and their glances saith well enough: salvage. . plunder. . loot …
Later, then, Vergil sitting, blank, exhausted, in his chair in rented rooms, now and then some thought coming straying to his wasted mind, as Cadmus was made king in order that the king must die, there being no greater sacrifice than the sacrifice of a king, or. . many times, uselessly uselessly: Whence came Cadmus, and what his early tale?. . there came again Iohan, all but dead with trudging and fatigue and latent, latent shock, saying:
“Master, Fulgence gives you full quittance for the steed, and he says, says Fulgence, ‘There is no accompt, all is paid; if you are well, it is well, and he is well …’ ”
Some long while silence buzzed in Vergil’s ear. Then he arose. “Iohan, youth is your blessing and youth shall be your cure, so lie you down and rest; I shall be some small while gone.” And down he went the ladder to the level ground, and began to walk the streets, no destination in his mind, no purpose, no explanation, only some thought of the few coins still in his purse: how he would divide them with the boy, and then — But there was, really, no “… and then …” — Whom should he meet?
A woman, certainly not young, surely not yet old: the favored house-servant of the Matron Gunsedilla; what was the she’s name? He knew it not; she knew him well. Up she flung her arms, and “Ah! Master Vergil! the gods be praised for having brought you safe again, grains and incense and drops of the best wine I will be offering them, for glad I am to see you — ”
“Woman — ”
“You will sure and soon come visit, ser? An old servant and a faithful one, I has my privileges, ser, I must tell you straight, matron has missed you, master. ‘Missed you,’ what do I say? Matron has languished, master. Since you gone away, ser, to tell the truth, and it’s a funny thing of me, master, ser, that I must tell the truth, let them as like it not, lick — but let me mind me mouth, ser mage and master ser. Since you gone away, matron, she keeped to her room, she keeped to her room the untire time, master, and hardly scarce she eat a thing. To tell the truth, master.”
Last of all which he would hear: the tale of the Matron Gunsedilla. Her image came into his mind, he thrust it away, he confused it, he did not confuse, he was perhaps going mad, why should he not go mad, the image of the Matron Gunsedilla did not come clear into his mind at all, it was imposed upon, it lay beneath, the image of the mare….
Prima, was that the mare’s name? It made no difference. The way the matron turned her head and rolled her eyes, the way the mare rolled her eyes as she turned her head, the recollection that Matron Gunsedilla had studied magic: how —!
As though he read it on some fresh-writ scroll, clearly it now came to him: how she, being aware of the plot to bring him to Averno, but being unable to prevent it, in order to see him safe thither and safe there and safe thence, she had not only, somehow, caused the stallion, Hermus, to be ill, but she had, by the same and by whichever art, call it metamorphosis or — no, not quite shape-shifting — call it by whatever name, she had inhabited the body of the mare. Until that last moment when he had thanked the mare.
This, she, Gunsedilla, had done for him; this was the way her seemingly mad dash had saved him, had saved Iohan; could she, have anyone, have done more for him? Why had she done it? The reasons obvious, though the means complex. What could he now, henceforth, do for her? The answers obvious, though the question complex. Walking the narrow and the broader streets, he thought of all of this, and long he thought of all of this. At length he concluded that he, if he would not do more, could certainly not do less, than he had done before.
He would continue, not often, but as often as before, stop by of an afternoon, and discuss aubenry, envoutement, white magic so called, and this and that and that and this. He would continue, as often as before, if not often, to come now and then of an evening to attend at the readings from Homer. And, however much, however often, he might feel at least a bit impatient, however much he might wish to ignore, when those very slightly protuberant eyes would roll his way, and ask their invariable and inevitable question, he would not ignore it, nevermore could he ignore it; he would reply, as always and as before:
“Yes, madame. Indeed, Matron. It was very well done, madame.
“Indeed …”
As before.
Aurelio.
Had his, Vergil’s, feet carried him this far? To the new house he had builded for the freedman Aurelio? And such different, cleanlier, more worthy task, than that which came his way next! No. Aurelio was not sitting in his new house, Aurelio was but sitting on the barber’s bench, awaiting his turn to be trimmed and shaved. Aurelio rose and bowed and gave a cheerly friendly smile, gesturing Vergil should sit beside him; Vergil did. Vergil saw no signs in the goodly old man’s face of any toil or torment or of sorrow. Aurelio was perhaps, probably, not even aware that Vergil had left. So be it.
“Aurelio …”