Vergil in Averno

The old man nodded. Perhaps his blue eyes were not quite so clear. Age, with hast’ning steps — “Yes, sir, it has been done. It has been done, it has been registered, she be my daughter now as long I’ve planned, and we lives in that good house together with two good servants. And, by and by — ”

“You spoke of chosing a groom-to-be for her, from the prentices of the better trades, Aurelio.”

“I did, ser. And, ser, I shall. Fact: I’d begun already. None as I’ve found, as yet. But there be time, ser. There be time.”

Something there was in Vergil’s mind, something more than family chitter and chatter in a barber’s shop. What. Anon it came to him. “Aurelio. What think you of the arts of fire and metal?”

A serious and considering look upon the old man’s face. But not a puzzled one. “Why, ser, why, master, as for them, I’ve naught but great respect for them. It be no gewgaw, gimcrack trade, covering gingerbread with gold leaf or dipping marchpanes in honey. It be’s a manly and a steady thing, as must last forever. Ah, Messer Vergil, they be clever, canny things, them arts of fire and metal.”

It was to be. It was as good as done. Of course they twain younglings must suit each other. But, bend the twig, the tree inclines. Had he, Vergil, for whom never marriage had been arranged, left, such matters, all, to his own heart and head and pounding blood — had he had e’er such luck as would make him wish to urge such courses on another?

“Aurelio, there dwells with me, and you know where, a young man, as of now merely my body-servant and my horse-boy. But I know his nature to be good, and — ”

The master barber beckoned to Aurelio, who gestured him a gesture, as he slowly rose. “I take your meaning, ser. And, so soon as both we’ve done, let us arrange a further meeting. And let us talk of this.”

Hardly had he sat him on the barber stool, Aurelio, when the first journeyman barber beckoned to Vergil. Seemingly the man knew him by sight, else his first words proclaimed a liberty taken; “Ah, master, they have trimmed you ill: and, sure, it’s been a few days, some, since you were last shaved at all.” He sharped his knife, mixed the soft soap in the bowl, prepared the hot cloth. “Master Aurelio,” the man said, stooping, in his confident, almost overconfident, barber’s voice, “has got no more keen of sight, good man though he be; but truly, messer, from a bit away, just a bit, ser, it do look as though master wears a neat gray cap. Yet I’d ha’ sworn the master’s hair was black — ”

“Oh, damn it, barber, man, it is black!”

Across the journeyman’s smooth face, a trifle plump, passed a look of well-acted professional demur, as when one tells a glover that the gloves are tight. He said no word, merely with the gentlest of pressures urged Vergil forward to gaze into a basin, still, of water: as it might be one which someone like Gunsedilla had prepared to use to gaze at the reflection of the sun or of the moon. Vergil looked. He saw his features in the calm, reflective water. He saw himself flinch as he observed his sunken eyes, his hollow cheeks, how gaunt and grim his face, how pinched his mouth. All this shall pass, he thought, with rest, and —

He saw his beard, pitch-black; he saw his hair. His hair was gray.

Returning, reflective, to his house, beginning now to muse upon the future, and how he must, for all the tragic days just gone, he should need get money in his purse; when there came upon him, running as full-tilt, who but Iohan. Who gasped, “Master! Master! Money! Money! Money!”

Startled, more than so, by this vocal repetition of his private thought, and thinking as perhaps the rent is sudden demanded in advance, said Vergil as much to soothe the lad as reassure himself, “Why, Iohan, I have not lately counted them, but there are coins enough inside my purse — ” He made a move toward it. But Iohan, shaking his head till his brown curls shook, gestured with his right hand toward his left. The left held a small leathern case which Vergil had not seen before, and its straps the young man had wound tight around that hand, doubtless for safekeeping.

“Master,” Iohan said, between panting breaths, “whenas I had tooken care of brushing out your robes and hanging of them up, so then I ‘gins to unpack your chests and portmantles, ser; then of a sudden I takes to shaking, ser, then I needs must piss, so I step out to the gallery over the back-stable yard, though keeps I ever the outer door in view (having barred the inner).” And on he babbled: concluding, “And it be for sure upon my life, my master, ser, as ne’er I seen this case before.” He swung its heavy weight by his left hand. “ — But there it lay, when I return and lifts the ruddy robe as whosoever give thee. . back there …” He did not mention the city’s name; indeed, he never did again mention it. — ”And there lay this case!” Was he sure he had not packed it? He was sure. Was and could he be sure that no one might have slipped it in the larger carry-case … back there …? He could not be sure. Would he say he was so certain he could swear against he drown in water it had it been impossible for someone, somehow, to have stolen, swift, into his master’s room, here, here, and slipped it — swift! — beneath “the ruddy robe” —?

His lips trembled. “I was taken sudden sick, bethinking me of — I could not swear. Indeed, ser. . I thought I heard. . perhaps saw. . but nothing I can clearly speak of. Ser, I do not know!” He seemed he would, another question more, break into tears.

Two shops down, the shop of Cosimo the goldsmith and moneychanger. Who took the case up in practiced, knowing hands, opened it, aloud counted out, stopped at ten, the total tally, the purses sealed and sealed. “Ah, this is Rano’s gold,” he said, a slight glance at the seals sufficing. He spoke softly, for goldsmiths seldom speak up loud. “Rano got him sundry golds outside, before — ” He stopped short. Goldsmiths are not often wont to speak of one man’s business to another. Cosimo counted on his checkered cloth. “Has Messer Vergil Mage perhaps heard of some newfangled system of numeration come forth, some say, from Araby? — some say, from farther yet? No matter. None.” The gold was counted, the purses sealed again, a receipt was passed across the checkered cloth, a look exchanged; Vergil and his servant left the shop.

To Iohan, he said, “Half of this is mine.”

The fellow stared at him. “Ser … all of it is yours.”

“Half of it is mine. I shall take a house, somewhere. Buy books. More books. Many books. Set up an elaboratory. Perhaps I shall engage a boat and take some rest on the Isle of Goats.” He gestured. There it still stood. . did not stand. . floated on the miraculous blue waters of the Parthenopean Bay.

“But half of it is yours. You will — as yet — take no house, buy no books, set up no elaboratory, engage no boat. If indeed you think to take some rest, it will be best, I think, that you take it apart from me for a while. . for we shall part, I must tell you, Iohan….”

“Master, I doesn’t want to leave you — ”

“ — for a while, and it will be some great long while — ”

“Master, hasn’t I been faithful?”

“With a part of your half this” — he showed the receipt — ”I propose to pay for your indentures as an apprentice in the arts of fire and metal, for you still find them to be canny things. Which indeed they are. And, when you have finished your apprenticeship, part of this shall pay your journeyman’s fee. Part of it shall be your bridegroom’s portion, if you are minded then to marry. And, when you shall have finished your master-piece, and become passed as a master into the guild, part of it shall be to set you up in work.”

Iohan nodded, slowly, slowly, as all this was said. His face remained sober as before. When Vergil finished, he said, “And then, master, may I work for you? — with you? In that elaboratory?”

Vergil said, “There is time enough to think of that. So. Well. And what might you want now?”

There was no hesitation. “Ser, I has one brother, older than me, he works with horses, just as I did, but back in our village. He fed me several year from his own share of the bad bread. Every day at one hour past the hour of noon, the carrier leaves from here for there, and I knows the carrier well, from old. If I might have one silver piece of money, ser — but one? only one? to send my brother?”

Vergil opened his purse. Removed one coin, handed it over. . paused, with it still in his hand. “Iohan, I see that when all rents and such are paid, there still remains enough in my purse so that — you need not hasten, the evening hour is a good ways off — there are certainly more than four groats in the purse. Meet me at home, whenever you have done. And we shall visit the baths.”

He slipped the coin into Iohan’s palm. Who said, at once, “Therefore.” And was gone.

Vergil wandered off more slowly. He wished the baths were open sooner, but here in this small place the drums did not beat that signal till the sun was setting. He needed the hot and healing waters. He would wait. He