The Scarlet Fig: Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series (32 page)

That accompt must wait another occasion.

And Babylone was far away.

By some traditional estimate it was the green seas which were the most dangerous. But the sea today was grey, and much it liked him not.

Babylone was as far away as Agamemnon’s purple cloak, but Carthage (wherever Carthage was, nowadays) was not so far. And Carthage still claimed and Carthage still kept, the secret of the purple-yielding sea-shell which had made Carthage rich.

Ships, not indeed ships of war which this Carthage would scarcely dare attack … as yet … as yet … so-called “free” ships, free from the brazen yoke which Juno’s City would impose, might sail ever so far (not of course to the western source of the precious shell, so far kept full-secret) and never so far for dyes like that of the orchil-plant, to supply a mock-purple dye — not so good: but good enough:
cheap
… better than Averno’s, if not that cheap … besides, as Vergil had good reason for to know, Averno was no more; that “Very Rich City” was now sunk deep deep below the fuming, stinking lake which bore its name … yet ever the swift ships of “the New City” sailed ever so far to intercept. The monopole of Purple she claimed by the favor of Juno as of by natural right. She called this
The Compact
, and she and her ships enforced this by the cold grey iron and by the pitiless bronze. Byzantinople protected her own vessels with the so-called Greek Fire, but this was in her own home waters and in the Black Sea where neither Carthage nor the Sea Huns anyway had any desire to venture; but Rome, it would seem, once the master of all the Midland Sea and of wide sweeps of its adjacent waters, was now barely the mistress of the wide middle of it. For there was no sign of any Roman fleet nor even ship where he was now, in the western most waters of the wide though not unbounded Inner Sea.

SQPR, indeed!

The winds blew, the spray flew — penny poetry all to the side, it was certainly not, political issue to the side, not one of the best days to be at sea; and the larger vessel was assuredly gaining on the smaller … not because it was larger, because it carried more sail. Its men would not try archery, although the ships were likely within shot, for the winds made the use of either arrows or cross-bolts altogether too chancy and wasteful: and although Carthage would chance, Carthage hated waste. The Punes would wait till they were near enow to grapple; and then, the small ship as it were entrapt in iron claws, hanging helpless in the large one’s grip: then they would board. The large ship acting as an immense sea-drag upon the lesser, then the Punes would board. If
death
were their decision, then: sword, spear, daggar, harb, club: it made no difference, superior numbers would tell, and tell in short time.

Vergil, peering through the spray, felt a sudden great shock: he was of an instant certain that he saw, among the hateful faces at the pursuer’s rail, the especially hateful countenance of Hemdibal.

Alias,
Josaias, King of Carthage!

“In short time?” In perhaps less than one run of the smallest sandglass.

Did Josaias of a sudden, stop and peer and shade his eyes? Did Josaias, darkly-rosey face instantly red with furious blood, recognize him, too? It was too late for Vergil to shield his face, else he might have done so: though of what use? there was no hiding here.

And the man whom he was now sure
was
Josaias, shook his fist; turned, and —

“
Juno!
” the Carthagans cried, shouted. “
Juno! Juno!
”

… much-loved by Juno, antient Carthage
… how did it go? what did it matter?

So near were the ships one to tother, that Vergil might well clearly see the mast and flaxen sails of the pursuer straining on their leather lines, the braided leather shroud-ropes which held fast the masts and controlled the sails … the sails and masts of the pursuing ship, that is. That was it. His smaller ship might have hoped to out-run the chaser; the larger ship meant a larger surface to drag against the sea, and even its larger sails might not have sufficed to come within grappling distance … except that the smaller craft had dared to hoist only its own smaller sail: even before the hostile vessel had come charging out of the mist — had there been but a small patch of it, a wind strong enough to fill the sail would have been strong enough to blow the mist away: but it lay thick and lowering and heavy upon the whole face of the sea — there had not been time then, and there surely was not time now, to lower said smaller sail and then bend on the larger; even if they wished to risk (and a risk it certainly would have been, and a deadly risk, too) the braided ropes of rushes: papyrus and iris: which were all they had now (their old leathers worn out and cast away — such had been their haste to leave Isle Mazequa) to hold mast and sail in check. In haste from the report of a Carthagan ship in the cold current between the Columns of Atlas
*
(Pillars of Hercules, some called them: Melcarth’s Fingers), today’s wind would soon have frayed and snapped the rushy ropes, which were not new, but merely newer.

By all the laws of Rome and of the sea and by several treaties, the western part of the Inland, the Mediterranean Sea, was Imperial Roman water: Carthage no longer had the right to have a ship of such a size there; besides, Carthage had been destroyed, and its very site sowed with salt … hadn’t it? But, City destroyed or not, sown with salt or not, set up, secretly, somewhere new or not, this
was
a
Carthage
ship upon the salt, salt sea. And that was the kernel in the nut; the best way that Carthage could hope keep secret and occulted the presence of its larger ships in these waters, or in the circumfluent waters of the grey great green Atlantic, was by the most relentless pursuit of any other ships which they might encounter, or by which they might be espied. Smaller Carthagan ships might turn aside, larger ones dared not but pursue such Roman craft which had espied them: they
must
capture and destroy them and their people. This was a large ship of Carthage, and if it caught them, it meant their death. The Punes would not even tarry to torture, if any
Rumani
survived the flight they would be drowned instanta.

And Vergil, who had begged this passage out of Lotophagea aboard of the small “free” ship in search of purple-plant … there was no purple-plant on the Lotus Coast, but there was water; also moonstone and tourmaline … Vergil had neither caul nor umbil-cord with him (such are sold in that so-small shop tucked away aneath the Steps of Lamentation in Rome, where traitors’ heads are shown: sometimes the bodies, if not too badly battered for display, propped sitting upright, with their heads upon their laps) as save from drowning either in the circumambient fluid of the womb or in rivers or in the Inland Seas and the vast stream of Ocean … assuming that he lived long enough to leap overboard, that is. Leander had often swum the Hellespont, but no one had ever swum between the Gates of Hercules, never the Bath of Melcarth.

The hostile vessel’s master, mates, and crew had not paused to take up their oars and set them in the tholes and could not take the time now; they had been proceeding under sail, purely, and under sail they must continue. But Vergil’s smaller craft
had
had its oars out, helped by the skimpy small sail, and at their oars the men continued to strain.

Oft was I wearied when I worked with thee:
oft carven on a ship’s oar.

Indeed.

As Vergil watched the half-naked rowers, thinking that the best he could would be to stay out of the way, he observed the men at the oars … or several of them: there were not many at the most, and the captain and the helmsman did not row … he observed some of the men, tunics girded up above the waist, pissing and skiting as they plied and strained. Probably much of this was the effect of fright or sheer terror and not a coincidentally simultaneous working of their bowels and bladders; and because such a situation was always possible, and had been ere
Ajax burned the Argive ships,
only to be himself
spitted on the spikey rock
, the rowers always rowed either naked or naked from the hips down. It was not a pleasant sight, and certainly not a pleasant thought: his own thoughts began to turn from it and away from the present: avoidance: but why were his thoughts now turned to a far away and long ago scene in a smokey hut on a distant island in the far-off Sea of Greece? An old man was dying in the hut … had been dying, ignored by almost all … there; and from his own scant store Vergil knowing well that “Against death there grows no simple,” had for no simple sought: some drops of a soothing medicament he had found, one of those which diminished sorrow and alleviated pain: a few turbid drops … ah, but like the rivers called Hermus and Tagus, was it not turbid with gold? … drops of the potent fluid talequale of poppy. The old man had been an ox-thrall: a thrall came with every ten yoke of oxen: such was the custom which had almost the force of law … perhaps
was
law … what
was
law?
Utmost antiquity is the first principle of the law.
Or so the lawyers said; he himself had been a lawyer. Briefly. Very briefly; and had never held a brief since, although, just for the form of it he paid his … how many ducats a year? … forgotten. The old man himself was certainly himself an antiquity, with his tangled white brows and gnarled hands, and feet like the roots of a much-suffering tree: what winds had beat upon him? and what rains? scorched by how many brutal suns? stumbled bruised, upon what number of brutal stones? Mere rhetoric to ask. A lifetime he had toiled with the oxen-kind.

The sounds and sights of the present … the blustering of the present wind, the scraping … creaking … knocking … of the oars, the shouted threats (of his own men there came little sound, of an inner knowledge they knew better than to waste their breath), the splashings of the spume and spray — all had dimmed off along with the sights.

There was not much vision in the island hut, some light from the part-open door a-splay on its worn and broken leather hinges and some broken slats and patches of it through the broken walls, from a few quick embers in the fire where the bitter roots of an ancient olive tree smouldered with a bitter reek. The man muttered broken words Vergil did not ask him to repeat, why bother, what did it matter, the old ox-thrall had but a few breaths left. Vergil gave him the drops in the simple small wooden spoon which, seemingly, he had always carried; but, feeling that he should
say something,
for the mastery of the balance demanded it, said, ambiguously — even in the face of duty-bound death we children of the bloody womb (squalling from the inst of birth) must bumble and mumble — said, “I am doing what I can for you.” A soft grunt from the dying serf, breath not so labored now, a slight sound as the cracked lips slightly smacked upon the small liquid thick, breath not as labored now, a long moment came and went; then the old ox-thrall’s voice, much less unclear and troubled now, quite coherent and clear, saying (a trifle husky, though: what else?), “And I shall do what I can for the Messer Doctor, my Ser, my thanks …”. Another breath, another pause. “I shall give thee what I can. It may have some vally some day, once, Tis a good strong curse —”

“A curse!” Odd-favored gift indeed!

“Aye, a good ‘un, tis, which I had of my good gaffer on the gret Isle Negroponty. A very good strong curse upon the red oxen, me ser. As it work only on
red
oxen, no one know why, Nature have gret sport with we, may’ap she provide other good curse and strong on white, black, brindle, spotted …” Well, red oxen
were
a bit favored, thought to be a somewhat heartier, so:
blood-oxen
, they were called.

A sudden shift of tone apprised Vergil that the curse-chant had begun: it was no hard task to listen. Nor to remember.

The old slave’s breath wavered, waited, halted, resumed. Chanted:

The old man’s voice moved back to the level of simple talk. He said, “This strong, good curse, as I got of my
good
gaffer, back there in the gret Isle of Negroponty — a shame he perished of the painful flux — so I used it to get me revenge on more nor one cruel master, and they knew it not. Aa-heh!” — even as his death hovered impatiently, still he found breath for one moment’s sound of triumph and contempt: welladay! was he not entitled? And yet, on the old voice ran, heedless, now, of the lowing of the cattle and the other like sounds, of the heedless voices of the peons hastening by on the farm. “And all you needs to work it with is a scarp of red ox-hide, a —” His breath rattled, a look of slight surprise came onto his face, and then impatient death closed his eyes. A line of ichor oozed from the still-open mouth. Suddenly his nostrils, thatched with clotted hairs, seemed grown very wide. And his nose very sharp.