The Scarlet Fig: Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series (2 page)

When one mentions the size of a goat-kid one refers to the centaurs, for the satyrs were man-sized, and very near each creature was someone (invariably a shill) mentioning confidentially the name of the thaumaturge who’d made it, in some such words as, “That ‘un’s the work of that same Septimus as keeps his crib atween Apollo’s Court and the Steps of Woe.” — why would anyone
want
a confected satyr or centaur? perhaps one of those newly-rich who kept a baby oliphaunt in his atrium might want one, and for the same reason: show.

Thieves were there in the vulgus; as they could not steal the golden spikes from the ridge-poles of the temples and the other public buildings, they cut the thongs of purses with their knives so much sharper than mere razors; sellers of snacks were there, for many a man had neither cook nor kitchen to dress a meal of victuals, and if he turned aside into a cheap eating-place he might miss something: but whether a rabbleman stewed hog-palates in vinegar or cut the thongs of purses or did, as was the right of citizens, nothing at all, something there had now changed and perhaps everything had changed. But the hangman wished to behave as though nothing had happened. The lictor, whose attention was now besought by many cries and movements, strode on, eyes down, and in fact by now he had gotten away ahead of the procession. The hangman pressed on. A bit the woman’s sunshade slipped and a bit the veil, revealing to Vergil a face of such extraordinary loveliness and purity that his breath was stopped.

The word coming up from the populus now was
pardon
: the hangman would not stop for it; why should he? He received the deadman’s clothes as a perquisite even if they were rags (and they were not always rags) they had their value and their price as ingredients of the Black Rite; he got to receive everything which was, or at the time of imprisonment had been, on the body of the dead-man-to-be; and he also received his fee for making the liveman’s body dead by pushing it off the ladder at the gibbet and at once leaping onto his shoulders and jumping up and down on them — thus assuring that the caitiff’s neck must break if it had not already broken by the drop. Of these benefits the hangman would receive none at all in case of
pardon
, so why should he stop for it? and lastly, it would deprive him of all the pleasure of the death scene: the hangman, howl the mob as it would, would not stop. And who might stop him?

(The lictor, fasces bundled into his arms, was by now very far ahead, stooped, aloof, deep in thought: of what, who could say, perhaps
that time there was, ere Roma’s woes began
… perhaps not.)

Who else? Himself, the August Caesar? where was
he
? not
here.
From what other place, then, did the musty multitude seem to think that help might arrive. The woman in the wagonette commenced to rise, in a slow and flowing motion like an hieratical dancer: though, perhaps actually not: only … somehow … it seemed so. The brute would not see her. Vergil caught her eye, and, again, that ambiguous impression, that impression deep yet perhaps false. Had he caught her eye at all? Erect, like a statue of the golden age, she seemed.

The lictor, perhaps grown somewhat aware of the hideous shriek and hum from that mass of men — here and there some women: not trulls alone: vendors of fragrant citrons, of pickled samphire for relish, of sieves and baskets in many sizes, fishwives going down to the river to renew supplies of mullet and sardines and dogfish with double-lobed livers; others — the lictor turned: at once saw all. Quint, keenly enjoying everything, was telling Vergil nothing; scarcely he raised a thin and hairy hand to brush the ever-deliquescent ointment from his bleary eyes — his physicians were generally agreed twas from an excess of some humor, but they never yet agreed on which humor, though there were not many, but prescribed this salve or that; they might as well, Vergil thought, have told him to graze grass like an ox … whoever saw a blear-eyes ox? And,
Ow!
shouted the throng, and
Yow!
shouted the throng. “
Pardon! Pardon!
” it howled. And, ever and again, “
Up-tails, all!
” and “
A louse for the hangman!
”

The hangman may or may not have gotten a louse (close-pressed in that stinking swarm, it would have been no surprise if he had) but what he very quickly got was the lictor at his side; and the lictor said to him, more in astonishment than anger, “where are you going, turd of a toad? Don’t you
see
the high-born Virgin lady?
Stop!
— Or I’ll let the populus have you, and may they eat your arse sans salt.”

The Vestal meanwhile remained standing in her wagon all but motionless, the very image of aristocratic calm and grace. Silence took a while. When things were almost silent, the felon seemed to emerge from his daze. One could almost read — no, one
could
read — the play of thoughts coursing over across his sword-slashed and much-confused face. Where
was
he? What was
hap
pening? Why had they
stop
ped? Why was everything
quiet?
Answer: they were arrived and halted at the killing place; any minute now he might have a small and ill-tasting coin thrust into his mouth and feel nothing beneath his feet, and a sharp brief pain in his neck. With a sound like the lowing of a yearling ox he spread his hobbled legs, and pissed.

The swarm went wild with laughter. Only the lictor’s leather and legal face, the vestal’s marmoreal countenance, did not change, for all that her little maid, hand hiding mouth, seemed to whisper in her ear. At length silence was again achieved, and in that silence — though the punks and pogues still rolled their painted eyes and smirked at potential clients — the Vestal rose completely to attention, put out her white arm and hand and in a lovely ringing tone declared, “I pardon that man.” No one word more. And sat down. It had been a completely legal formula, sans emotion. “I divorce you; herewith your dower-fund.” “Slave, thou art henceforth free.” “Bear witness: I sell this horse-stud to Lucas for six solids.”
I pardon that man.
Not one word more. And sat down.

The crowd went wild again. A soldier in a swift second slashed the bonds about the elbows; another slightly stooped and severed those around the ankles, For a second more the thug gaped. Then he started to run at a stumbling trot. Many hands caught at him: he fought against them. Many cries of, “Not yet, man!”

“Not yet!
Thank
the holy lady! Go and kiss the Virgin’s foot! Thank her for your life!”

But one might as well have spoken to a pig escaped from the shambles;
loose
, was he? Then he meant to stay loose. And this meant to flee. For a full minute (so Vergil guessed) the absurd scene continued, the pardoned man butting furiously against the arms and bodies which would have had him first do his duty by giving thanks for that pardon; the crowd all of one mind now (the whores most of all: could it have been they fancied a slight upon that one quality which they universally lacked, and lacked, one might say, almost by definition?), the crowd’s sense of amour propre was seriously offended; while the lictor covered his grim face with his free hand and gazed through his spread and ringless features as though he could not believe his eyes — And then herself the Vestal: something which might have been a mere flicker of rueful amusement passed over her fine face and was in an instant gone (more than Caesar’s wife must a Vestal Virgin be above suspicion, she must be above suspicion even of vulgar emotion). She raised her hand at an angle to her wrist, slightly pushed it away from her; the other hand fluttered the colored leathers on the mule’s neck. The crowd released the fool felon and laughed to hear his running feet; at once made way for the Vestal’s wee carriage, and saluted her with the utmost respect. Did the little maid murmur something, something, anything, with well-practiced and almost motionless lips? did the sea-silk sunshade dip for a second a fraction of an inch in a particular direction? this was not certain.

A mule was not a horse, all horses were hysterical more or less, the most placid old cob was likely to behave like a northish bear-shirt if — if, whatever; this could differ from cob to cob — horse to horse. But mules were mysterious creatures, that this one was a small mule did not make its potential mystery any less small; probably it had been bred for the sevice it now performed out of a pony-mare by one of the jack-donkeys of the northern lands, lighter in build and in size than the asses of the south, and brought to Rome or its countryside for just this purpose. And in view of what was about to happen it was necessary to consider also the probable history of the street-bed. Quint might know just when the street had last been paved, Vergil not. But in some short moment he envisioned the scene — a man engaged in ramming the gravel turning aside for a moment to go piss or to get a drink of water, another workman not waiting for his return or not even considering the matter of had the gravel been rammed sufficiently — and it had not — the second workman perhaps, then, mechanically setting down the pave-stone; the first workman returning and, likely even without so much as a shrug, picking up his implement and moving a few feet to commence the work of ramming a bit further on. And then the passing of the years, the rains, many years of rains, the not-fully-packed gravel shifting, moving; then perhaps the fall of a heavier stone from an improperly-laden wagon passing by in the torchlight: the paving stone sustaining a crack not observed in the night, more years passing, the incessant traffic at last splitting the pave-stone. Somehow the inspectors had missed it … or, their reports ignored … the night traffic cared nothing for any bad spot which their heavy wagons could lurch across … had, anyway, the drivers and teamsters, no time to spend on complaints: into the city by nightfall, in-cargo laded off, out-cargo laded on, out of the city by nightrise: so.

A horse, had it felt a sunken spot behind it …
if
it felt it … would either have strained forward or strained backward. An ass would have stopped. And stayed. Time to put something under the wheel. But the mule, even the small, supposedly sophisticated mule, reacted entirely differently. The mule was, after all, the Symbol of Unbridled Lust — though why this should be so when the mule was sterile, was hard to say; the mule (this particular one) had somehow missed the sunken spot. Now it somehow backed up a trifle. Now it felt it.
The wheel not right! The wheel sinking!
The entire universe of a sudden gone awry! The mule at once went insane: the mule screamed, rolled back its eyes, laid down its ears, made as if to stand on its hind legs — on its forelegs — to lie down and roll over — it was at once evident that there was nothing the mule might not do.

In a second the little slave girl had jumped out of the car to safety, held up her wrists, thin as carrots, at an absolutely useless angle for the Vestal to lean upon. The crowd gave a great groan. It was no slight thing to witness the fall of a Vestal Virgin. Should she be killed, for a space of time at least there would be only
five
“sisters” to hold safe the hearths of Rome … who knew what might happen during such an interregnum. Many in the crowd believed that seeing such a sight obliged one to fast; many even believed that whoso saw such would — must! — within the year surely die. From the crowd a great groan. Many rushed forward … Vergil amongst them … some seized the mule … some seized the car … some seized hold of their knives, such as each man wore at his belt, or was no man: to cut reins, traces … one man alone seized the Vestal by the arm … by the upper and the lower arm … It lasted a second. The mule was suddenly calm and collected: panic? what panic? The car was suddenly steady and safe. The knives were all suddenly back in their belts, absit omen lest any delator or informer should occasion to ask,
How didst thou come to bare thy knife unto the high-born Virgin Lady?
a man might well be well-dead before an explanation were forthcoming. A man might receive a most pressing intimation to slip the short sword between any twain ribs he preferred, thus to prevent his family from attainder and his property from escheatal. Might. Might not. A man might receive a silver pottle or an ember-scuttle enchased with gold, as reward. Might. Might not.

It was all so very suddenly done. So very suddenly her arm was free from Vergil’s steadying hands. In a second’s time; less than it took a drop of water to fall from the clock — And in that second, while a flame of fire seemed to run up both his hands and arms and through his heart and thence into his manly parts (Touched a Vestal! Touched the Virgin’s naked arm!); in that second their eyes chanced to meet. Certain it was (this time) that for another fraction of a second the Vestal’s eyes really met Vergil’s eyes — then they were gone — then she was gone herself — and three thoughts like three bolts of lightning, so swift that before one fades away the other flashes, passed across his mind.