The Scarlet Fig: Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series (28 page)

Having attended to the matter of food (it would remind him by savory smell when it was ready, he was not one of your hour-glass or water-clock cooks), he prepared to sit him down — and suddenly bethought himself that he had a guest; “Is the sage, Vergil, interested in the mathematics?” he asked.

“It would be a further favor,” the sage Vergil began, but one word attended the ear of the Master Philosopher.

“ ‘A favor’ yes. A favor. One may ask a favor? ah?. By the boon and bounty of the learned Doge …” (many had called Tauro many things, referring to his habits, his parents, his coarseness, and his size:
no
one before, under the Consulate of Heaven, had, surely, ever called him
learned
!)

“… Doge, I now have enough for parchment, pens, ink, pounce … one thing Doge’s boon and bounty cannot bring me … If I might come to the house of the sage Vergil and copy but one passage out of the great book
Almagest …
?”

“Come whenso you will and copy what you please. I shall advise them at the door and inform them in the library. Might the hour of noon be to the Master Philosopher’s convenience? The light —”

It would
not
. “At the hour of — at the hour mentioned, according to my own calculation mathmatical, the most-favorable spirits would not be in the ascendant …”

So, thought Vergil; even Fortunatus feared the hour of noon, when, since men cast no shadows, one could not tell real men from false: the Demon, the Dukos, the Simulacre and the Sand-Jack shed no shade. Well, so be it. The sage Vergil, with a murmur and a gesture, made the Master Fortunatus free of whatso hour ever he might desire. The sage Vergil wore a civil face, yet, beneath the civil face, did he not smile a bittle? Beneath the civil face, he did smile … a bittle.

Making nought of his host’s thanks, swift he pressed him that he had a favor of his own to ask: see the philosopher startle in surprise. “Can the Master tell me ought of, how shall I call it, hath it yet a name? device and art whereby to depict things a-dwindle in the distance, yet all in proper ratio?”

Fortunatus understood instantly; “Proportion, this we call proportion and perspective, what would see perspectively?”

A bit amazed as, it seemed, being instantly understood. Vergil said, “Whatever you please … a man beyond houses, a house in between trees yet a farther away from them somewhat … a doorway in a building on a pier and beyond it the end of a pier and moored thereto a boat … whatever —”

Before Vergil had finished the words, Fortunatus had quickly taken up a much-used piece of papyrus (a more than-once-palimpsest it seemed), turned it over to its back on which the lineaments of whatever had been there were now but so many — or so few — grey ghosts, slapped it flat on the table and gave it another slap as it were he feared it would flee, else; took up a
very
small piece of charcoal, drew a single stroke with it, evidently discovered, suddenly, that it was blunt — as any boy too small to be trusted yet in breeches might have told him at a glance — gave it a sudden snap, as a hungry dog might give a morsel; and commenced, swiftly, almost savagely, to draw lines.

“Your ichnography is not enough,” Fortunatus breathed; stroke, stroke; “Your divisional construction is not enough;” stroke, stroke:
did
the strokes, what was the word?
converge
—? “Your
sud
ivisional construction is not enough,” stroke, stroke, stroke. “Observe, you Vergil —” (no mention of
sage
now:
You Vergil.
Well and good, he might not
be
“sage,” but he was, was he not?
you Vergil.
It was somehow a great comfort, much more than mere adjectives of flattery) … stroke … stroke “Observe, observe, observe! What
is
I say, essential, is your point of convergence; your vanishing point is essential …”

There on the old and soiled apyrus, amidst the strokes and lines, or
upon
the strokes and lines: suddenly there had appeared a doorway, beyond the doorway a mole or pier, perceptibly a distance, though no large distance, away; at the edge of the dock was, in scarce time at all, ‘a boat and all her apparell’ moored fore and aft, scratch, scratch, stroke, stroke. The wide gates of a harbor …

“It is
not
a fantasma!” exclaimed Fortunatus. Suddenly Vergil could smell the garlic, could he not smell, also, basil among the small pots of plants? it was some while yet before a seasoned cook would add the basil to the cook-pot — “Not a
fantasma,
at all, as say those fools, maledictions fall upon them! It is a truth, a philosophic
truth
, I say:
the circle
can
be squared!
” He was panting now, as a man panteth upon a woman. “Gold projected out of dross, indeed! As well project dross out of gold!” One could hear, among the thick and heavy breath of passion, the hard sound of grinding teeth. In a second or a score of seconds, doorway, dock, ship, harbor, horizon were obliterated: and so was all knowledge of the presence of one
You Vergil
… or of anyone else alone. With an impatient gesture and an abrupt sigh, the old papyrus was swept onto the floor; Fortunatus swilled a half a mouthful of water, spewed it into his palms, rubbed his fingers clean of charcoal, rubbed them dry upon his robe.

Below and all around lay poverty, guarded by riches: Fortunatus cared not at all of either. Now with a bliss-filled sigh he drew an almost perfectly clean sheet of parchment from underneath an almost perfectly clean dust-sheet; and from another place he took up his compass and his protractor and his rule. Now everything in the world fell away from him as though uncreated. He and the pure forms, the
Pure Forms
, were quite alone, and might love one another to their endlessly full contentment: the Pure Forms: the line, the triangle, the rectangle, the circle and the square. Beauty bare. Beauty bare.

Vergil on tip-toe made his way from the room, paused only for a single backward glance before he turned and made his way down the crannied wall to the ground where the torchbearer awaited, open mouthed and silent and alone.

Silent as well, Vergil gestured to the man, and they set off together through the torch-pierced dark. One thing above all did wonder him, You Vergil, as they went.

He heard, in the otherwise silence, the chafing of the cicadas in the distant trees and fields, and the small but ceaseless lisping of the pitch in the burning torch.

Why, as though intent, did the flamingoe peer over Fortunatus’ shoulder as he drew upon his parchment?

One did not know. One Vergil did not know.

He felt that he must get him to the beach, and seek the comfort of the island-men: faint comfort though it was. On the way thither he saw the gleam of water through the trees; it was not the sea, it was a pool. He thought he might sink into it and refresh his body and be cool and clarify his mind. Trees and shrubs and scented flowers circled round. The man, without much taking thought, sank to his knees and cupped his hands to take up water and to drink. But before thrusting in his close-paired palms upturned, he paused and looked down. As in a dream he gazed and saw a face a-looing up at him.

It was not his face.

Neither was it the face of someone just behind him, for, as he quickly turned, there was no one behind him. As he moved his upper body around and looked again down, he saw that, reflected in the pool was a woman’s face, she seemed somedel troubled and concerned, and he knew that he had seen that face and that look before. And it came to him the word Huldah. He knew he knew it but he knew not how. Huldah meant the genet and the weasel, it also meant the cat,
biss,
one called it, familiarly. And yet. The Region called Huldah, what did
that
mean? No answer came, save that in a moment he was on his feet, walking swift away. He had not been swift but a little while ago. He had been as one who walks in a dream. For some reason he thought of the local nymphs, and of the brute impetuous beings who so lusted after them. Not only the satyrs lusted after nymphs; Priapus the son of Aphrodite, he: Protector of Goats, the randy creatures; Priapus “the Ever-Erect,” had lusted after the nymph called Lotis: had she appreciate the honor? no, not she, and when awakened by the braying of an ass (perhaps jealous of his ithyphallic rival), the nymph Lotis changed at once into a lotus-tree: a fact well-known. Whence had she the puissance? some guardian genie, doubtless. Some guardian genie doubtless it was which had substituted another’s face for that of his own, for to dream of seeing one’s own reflection in a dream was the best-known omen of one’s own impending death.

The sea, the sea.

Faintly forming at first; forming, faintly in his mind, the image of a man running quickly, rapidly, ever so swiftly, man running, feet raised high with each step, arm raised high of the man, something in the hand of the arm raised high of the man; it had seemed (and how could this be?) that the man was skimming ever so swiftly over the surface of a languid sea: to one side of the man, a low-lying bank of cloud: quite quite dark, the cloud, and the cloud quite low. This vision was oft repeated, did that mean it was merely some vision oft repeated, or did it mean that what was seen in this vision, this image, this vision of the day, was it of something which he had often seen? Who was
he
? Who was “
Who
”? The he himself of whom he now knew more (his mind less clouded), some certainty there (here), of this than before. He was
You Vergil
now, he was
a certain man, hight Vergil, a thaumaturge, a philosophe and necromaunt;
that was certainly certain,
a certain man, hight Vergil,
that was a line from a document, rectangulate in shape, and he would now, right now, putting of it off no longer, turn to that said document and read of it: and then he would know more about
You Vergil
. He turned, there was no document, there were people round about and hemming him in, they were crowding round about him close, this would not do.

Love is a much-reflective surface,
who had said that? why?

He shook his head to dislodge this alien and interruptive thought, this would not do, a crowd and throng were hemming him in.
Abrech!
he called, this certain man, hight Vergil.
Abrech!
For he knew that the
Abrech
meant
Clear the way
, it meant
Make clear the way
, but he did not know in what language it meant this, certainly not his own, nor how he came to know it.

Out at sea, a cloud.

In his head, a cloud.

They did not clear the way, they were not flouting him, they did not know the word or its usage at all, a way was not made clear for him, they hemmed him in all round about, their light bodies pressing, and all their fingers pointing, pointing to the man at sea, out at sea, that arm of sea between this land and another land (between this island and another island?), man running oh so swiftly coming nearer, nearer, fastly, even desperately running he skimmed along the sea. In the upraised hand of the upraised arm of this man (coming closer, ever closer, this man) was something like a mace, or a, or a — all about him now, this certain man hight
You Vergil
, as they stood upon the beach, the tawny-sandy beach —
Fire!
they shouted, they shouted
Fire!
and though he knew but nothing of it, he found himself shouting
Fire!
There was no document, rectangulate or any other shape. What had made him believe that there was or even could be a document? This was no place of document, although it may have been mentioned in the Homer and the Homer was a document, was sometimes many documents for sure. King Alexander Magnus, it was well-known, had had such a document of Homer, some said of occamy, some of geography, which was written on the inner skin of a dragon and was three hundred feet long, or so some said: but as to that, if so one said, no one was saying it here,
where was here
, many other things were missing here. He looked for her, he saw her face all wet with tears; tears (it seemed) ran down her cheeks, but no: it was not tears, even from her wet-sleeked hair the water ran; the tears were his, not hers. Then the … something … o sod and straw and staff! he knew the word, but like the butter in an ill-charmed churn it would not separate, it would not rise … the Something, or the memory of something, did its work once more. No document, no her, no tears; he was standing on a familiar beach and he was shouting Fire! one amongst many shouting and crying the same cry and shout.

From the tip of whatever it was (rhabdon, vergis, bacculum; wand, staff, rod, mace?) held by the swiftly running man, and he ran as though the lionel, the lioness, the pard, were all snarling at his ham-strings (no, twas thicker than any rod, wand, staff … mace? what mace?), from the thing’s tip there came a shimmer and then a line of smoke, came now a gust of flame, was he at the Games of Olympia in hollow, sacred, Elis? nay, he was not. The running man fell upon the tawny beach, the torch — not suffered to reach the ground — swift plucked up and borne away, and the low-lying cloud, clouds, they rolled away over the waters on which the running man had trod, everyone retreating from the low-lain beach to a stand above the mark of highest water; the clouds rolled rolling upon the path o’er which the man had run, racing for his life; rolled with a low thunder and a noise as though in a distance; the sound of an armed camp in the early night. The bearer of the torch had not alone been running to deliver the fire (the fire, one assumed, had at last, or, likelier, once again, through neglect gone out, and it had been needful to go at great hazard to kindle it again … at what hazard! … how
unlike
these dreamy slothful folk, or any one of them, to make such effort!), he had been running for his very life as well. That path upon the surface of the sea was a spit or causeway so low-lying that even as it lay exposed, a skin of water thin as any membrane covered it over as it lay connecting the lesser island with another island — or else with the main, the muckle land — whatever, and wherever it might lie, might he now not lie upon a couch and unroll a map rectangulate to show him where it lay; a map perhaps drawn from mapless Homer, blind Homer; blind perhaps from looking long and long into the athenor, the alchemist’s furnace, his talk of
black
ships, what was that but a metaphor for The Work, the projection from base to noble, all blackened in the fires of occymy? Blind, yet also he the true Father of Geography: little gat he for his Fatherhood, for did not