The Scarlet Fig: Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series (26 page)

But of the soothing Scarlet Fig, ate they never, not.

Folk thought that satyrs were funny. It was common and frequent at festivals for some to be got up as satyrs — the horns all wrong and the ears all wrong — mincing along or conveyed along in wagon, wearing protrusive artifacts fashioned of wood and leather; and folk would laugh, for folk thought that satyrs were funny. But they were not funny. Word could not convey their sometime brutal malignity.

There were no happy satyrs.

Often he had seen them eating samphire, raw, on crag-faces where, he might have, moments earlier, have made his oath, even the chamois and the rock-tibbu dared not adventure; once, in such a place, just, he had seen them copulating, fast and bloody and fierce. Twice he had encountered a set of them mumbling off the splintered ground handfulls of windfalls of some small stone-fruit which lay in ragged heaps smelling as sour as an unwashed rustic wine-press; two simply moved away as even sheep would move away; old Teter remained squatting and munching; and one had stamped off, making
that noise
deep in his chest; and one, before leaving, had looked at him — for a swift flash of time like a glint off a shard of glass — had looked into his face, and spat the small fruit-stone at his, the man’s chest. Perhaps — ah no! the
first
time the satyr had spet the stone on the man’s back; it was the
second
time that one spat it almost in his face, but hit his chest: the spittle had left a stain, a smear. Samphire and stone-fruit often had he seen them eat … harsh eryngion carobs, often; pod and all … and the fleshy leaves of some thick succulent, and stalks of giant fennel and mallows in the marsh, he had seen them eat.

He had seen them crushing between their inhuman teeth the seeds and stalks of the common asphodella: a lily, edible, but just quite barely.

One need be very well-fed indeed to admire a mead of golden asphodel indeed from an æsthetic viewpoint alone, and from as far away as possible. It damned well
stank
, for one thing. Its seeds were hard to gather and hard to grind, for another. Hard-handed, hard-hearted masters would feed the mealy mush of asphodella to their slaves; wild men and satyrs would crunch it and munch it, seeds, stalks, and all. It was, in short, well-suited to feed the common ghosts in hell, whilst the shades of kings and queens and heroes dined off golden apples in The Islands of the Blessed; far,
far
beyond the twain Pillars of Melcarth or Hercul or Atlas (take your pick), nigh unto the inhumanely wide and wild waters of the great dark grey and green Atlantis Sea, there where Melcarth bathed. So The Matter sayeth. And more, The Matter sayeth not.

Asphodel the man knew, samphire, small stone-fruit he knew, eryngion and carobs, succulents and fennel and mallows of the marsh he knew: and he knew the satyrs ate them for their meat.

What else did the satyrs eat?

What else.

Once, abruptly and terrifyingly, he had turned a corner of some natural buttress below the cliffs, and there squatted a band or sept of them: all stained with blood, they were eating … well, one of them was eating … the still-green content of a goat-kid’s maw. And the rest of them were eating the goat-kid. There was of course, no fire.

After that, he made him careful where he walked. And in what mind and manner. By now he was quite sure that the insolence of the satyrs towards him was daily growing; they must not have been used to the near-presence of a man so much, and it hostiled them. By now he was sure in particular of one such sullen satyr in particular, a shaggy, scarred bull-buck with half-coil horns turning sharply aside which did not quite match; and he was sure, too, of the thick, thick nails upon the creature’s so-odd hands or paws (though in no manner odd for a satyr) thick, thick spotted yellow-brown nails they were, like … in a way … the nails upon the toes of some rough country man of the human folk. And he was sure, too, of the bull-buck’s member: in full view, one could hardly call it his privy member: set, like those of all bull-buck satyrs, at a prominent angle forward and upward; this phallus, then, though not in full truth ithyphallic (those of the younger bucks, dark-glans half-slid forward had half-protruding from the hoodskin more like those of some men, like so many men, like so many acorns: and it seemed to him, to this man, that he himself for long had felt assured that this was why the oak was most sacred of sacral trees, in that it sembled, this generative part of this tree, this acorn, that same part of man himself) — and, he felt, this man, that he felt, this man, he felt he knew his name was Vergil (Vergilius M., carved thin and deep into the small wooden spoon still in the pouch he still had been able to keep with him), and this feeling was a now fairly new one, for, living among the satyrs, almost, and living much upon their own wild fresh food (he had not eaten any flesh-meat-food): and no more upon the sweet and yielding fruit and its liquid juices used of the island men and women, he felt, too, that his mind was clearer now than foretime.

Clearer now than foretime, but not at all by all means clear, “foretime” itself was not clear; uncertainties and fears swirled about him in more ways than that now. So much more often, rocks fell upon him: stones, then, they had not gotten to rocks; stones clinked and clicked and clattered, rather like the clattering and clicking of the satyr hooves. Stones bouncing off the hills and clifts and clephts upon him, not hurled (it seemed), merely they had been scruffed and kicked down upon him; not by an accident had their compact turds —
good
that they were compact! — had their dungins been thrown … not yet … could the satyrs
throw
things, actually? one did not know … of much other was he uncertain, also fearful, and it was the uncertain nature of his fears, and the fearfulness of his uncertainties which lunged and rippled in his mind and heart.

— dungballs like some small dark-brown fruits; idly the thought, as he now and then saw them smoking and could feel, from very near, their natural heat, hot from the hotter heats of the natural bodies that produced them; idly the thought that one might dry them and use them for fuel … or, saunce drying, heap them and husband their heats: level them: and thus they would supply a heat which, if not fiercely hot, would be steady hot, keeping a closed container very warm and a steady rate of warmth … something one could not say of other heats, perhaps not even under the steadiest of attendance and attention. Nor remembered why he’d thought this (
alchemy! occymy!
such
odd
words!), nor what, further it meant or even could mean either … it hardly mattered … the mists still swirled somewhat in his head, hardly did it even matter that the bull-buck satyr with the rather crooked horns had, very clearly — if anything
was
clear — determined to kill him.

Near the great Pillars, someone (Hercules, Mercules, Herodotus, Helcarth, Melcarth: who were
they
? who
were
they?) had said, there lived the people called … called … the words now thick-a-mist in Vergil’s mind … ah! called
Atlanteans
; who were said to eat no sentient things and … and what? The rude winds rule the mists, the old heath-hags say. As anyone may say, may see, but … The notion that by eating one’s like, however distantly like —
The Atlanteans eat no living thing and never dream
— there!

Where?

— that eating, awake, one’s like, like by reason of life, might cause a semblance of life to appear during sleep, this was a thought he thought might be interesting to examine; but so swiftly as the thought had come, even so swiftly had it gone.

And there was the crook-horn much-scarred satyr, the brazen bull-buck (was he hateful of the man because the man had merely looked upon the nymph and smelled of her in her season and her heat?), high upon a ledge, quite easily they leaped from ledge to ledge, his eyes ruddled and his swarty-beardy face set between a rictus and a scowl, his shag hip pressed straining against a boulder, and now the man did not feel that he himself could move, and yet he saw the boulder move.

There were rumors that there were islands in the west where great dogs roamed, and the shipskipper had said that the people of this island were of the far-off Guaramanty folk: the Guaramanties were famous for their dogs, anyone might cite you the story of King Cyril of Guaramantia, made captive and captive carried away by the Berbari; one thousand of his own trained dogs-of-war, cuffed and caressed by his own hands, fed from his own fingers with bread warmed even briefly in his own oxters that they might know his own-most scent, wearing his own scarlet harness; one thousand of them, so men said, had traced and tracked him down across the leagues and leagues of desert, full of dead men’s cities where the dead had turned to stone and yet still stood, oddly, upon pedestals, men and women made into marble — had tracked him along at first by night and then at first in early dawn and then in level daylight, then they gat them close to earth and crawled upon their bellies like the lizards so that none saw them and then at length in moonless night had in full force attacked and roaring in their rage had the Guaramanty war-dogs girt their own king’s captors round about and then attacked and tore their royal master’s captors into mere offals, so soon to be bloated and fly-blown: all but himself the Emir of Berbary who scorned not to squat and crouch between King Cyril’s legs like any petty-dog: whence he half-arose and at Cyril’s command unloosed his bounds: and then King Cyril allowed his dogs one half-day’s feasting upon the dead, after which he took the scarlet harness off the body of Sargo, his single dog which died (died of joy, some said, to lick his Royal Master’s hands) and fastened it upon the trembling body of the Emir and marched him back with his nape in a leash which Cyril held himself. The list of that one’s ransom would fill many a thick great codex and the last item on that lengthy list was
all and every woman in the Emirs house held
: which and whom he gat. He scorned to sink his poise on any single one of them, merely he kept them ever at turning the querns to grind the meal from which was baked the very bread which fed his, King Cyril’s thousand dogs of war: anyone might cite you this story

Often.

If, now, as the boulder trembled and the boulder moved and Vergil, illaday, could not move; if all the dogs alleged to roam what western island and if all the dogs of all the Guaramanties and if all the hounds of all Molossia (where sang all the singing cauldrons of high Dodona’s oakenshaws with all their vatic voices) and if every dog of every dead had been summoned by the power of every Gunta: there could not have risen such a hellish clamor as rose then amidst the crags. All color fled the face of half-maddened Alcinoüs, his dirty-fleecy legs trembled and he be-pissed himself: then he turned and fled. All the satyrs fled, save only old Teter, who was too old to flee: he crawled up to Vergil, his half-human face torn with terror, and Vergil, recalling the old tale of a sudden gained power to move and moved the old creature tween his own legs, to assure him that he be safe. Shapes of darkness lurched and shambled swiftly through the meads and marshes and up among the crags. No single satyr, not the biggest bull-buck, even, made
that noise
in his chest; but quite another sort of noises they were making: dost ever hear the hare scream out when the weasel pounce upon him? suppose the hare the size of buck or bull, then conjecture hearing
how
that sounds … and by how many made.

“I now remember who am I,” the man cried out. “I am Vergil Marius Mago! Let this doing now be done!”

And he sank and set himself upon his knees and he clasped old uncomprehending Teter round the old thing’s neck and he held him and he wept.

In a lagoon near where the islanders some times took their rest (ha!, were they not always at rest?), or tended to their single fire (although how they remembered always to feed it, he could not imagine), odd birds waded and, seemingly, fed: for they quite often bent down their heads with the peculiar beaks and dipped them in the waters, surely not to drink, for the waters were not fresh. Their heads were not alone of them peculiar; their legs so long and thin the birds gave the impression of walking on stilts. And their plumage was entirely pink, much resembling a certain confection of marchipane, the specialty of a certain shop which sold sweetmeats, half-way upon the
hill back
there in Naples. Somehow he thought that the name of these birds was
Flemingo
, though why such a bird, very clearly a creature of the warm south, should be called after the natives of Flaunders, in the cool north, indeed he could not say. Now and then the island-folk, Guaramanties or Guaramanchies or however they called themselves, would sing all of them together, and beat time with sticks upon some naturally-hollowed logs: then all the wild, gaunt, pink birds would dance in time to the music: twas a rare fine sight, indeed. Flemingoes.