Vergil in Averno

The King of Averno, whoever he might really be, he so called, suddenly took hold of one of the posts that supported the roof of the taphouse and began to swing about it as he sang; he slipped, staggered, ceased not to sing, but the crown had been jarred from his head and fell, and Vergil caught it. In a moment it was taken from his hands, and, still singing and dancing, jinging and ringing, Cadmus went away. Leaving some thoughts ringing, at least, in Vergil’s mind. King. Well. They were indeed in the Very Great Empire of Rome, and an emperor is by definition a king over kings; indeed, the Greeks had yet not formed a word for “emperor” and called the supreme ruler, still, basil, king, prefaced and followed of course by very many appellations. There were, it went for granted, kings with the Empery; some by treaty of annexation (a politer name for surrender), some by Imperial creation; seven kings elected the Emperor himself. And there were, going to the other extreme and passing by such as titular kings who, whilst living within the Empire, bore the titles of kingdoms outside of it, and passing over such as (not often) bore the curious and singular title of King Without Country, the traveling tribes of tinkers who had their kings. In more than one place was here one and there one who was called King of the Woods and taught by night beneath the great oaks such things as were never taught by light beneath the colonnade of the stoa. And there was of course in almost every city and town and at least once a year one who was acclaimed and called the King of Fools at the Feast of Fools (or, alternately, at the Feast of Unreason, the King of Unreason; in one or two, the Mad Feast and the Mad King), when much license was allowed — slaves free from fixed task, students wearing proctors’ gowns, prentice-boys a-playing the master. . so on. If such feast, however named, was in season here, it might well be named the Mad Feast, for certainly if Cadmus was not mad; it was a most effective pretense, that.

The mood in the tavern, which had been lighter by far than before the Fool King’s coming, lapsed now again into the previous one of either raucous noise or sullen stupor. Gazing now into his own drink, Vergil said, “Those were not real jewels.”

“What, not? Assuredly they were real jewels. It is a real crown. He is a real king. He visited the Sicilian Sibyl and she told his fate. He was proclaimed and he was crowned.” So said the young Avernian. Vergil began to feel a slight bit in liquor. He gazed into his cup, and there he saw the face of Cadmus. The face of Cadmus was dark, but his eyes were light. . so light, in fact, that almost one might have thought him blind, which he was not. But Vergil had for one full moment, as Cadmus took swiftly back his crown, gazed into those eyes: and although the eyes were light, the eyes had no light in them. “But,” said Vergil, “surely he is mad.”

“Assuredly he is mad,” said the other. “A man may be mad and may be king.” He drank again.

And drank again.

Later. Lurching slightly, into each other, as they walked the stinking streets preceded by a surly link-bearer — for not every sullen alley was graced by street-torches in fixtures — provided by the tavern for a fee, which, however small, was yet not so small as the fee he himself would get; and who much preferred, and let this be well known, to have sat in his kennel tossing down the heel-taps which the tapster collected for him on the dog-lick-dog principle. “This is not the night of the night market,” said Vergil’s companion. “And, truly, it is not a very interesting night market, anyway. No wonderful things are sold there, though often one wonders, next day, how one could have bought them…. Stop!” He stopped Vergil easily enough, but the troll with the torch affected not to hear, and stumped on. “Stop, you turd!” — this, high-pitched in a sudden drunken rage — ”Shall I have you flogged, you sow-sucking son of a serf?”

The question, rhetorical or not, brought the link-man not merely to a halt, but, in a moment, brought him, slowly, back. He hadn’t heard master clearly. Them forges had fair foxed his ears this lustrum past. He hoped master wouldn’t — “Stop right there,” said master. “Don’t move, even if the fire burns your filthy fingers. Till I say so.” Then he turned to Vergil. Gestured. “Behind those doors there is the shop of our famous blind jeweler. Have you heard of our famous blind jeweler? Have not heard. I’ll tell. He comes from Agysimba or Golconda or some such damnably distant place with a-g in its name. And he can tell by smell what jewels are what. Which. Tomorrow, if you like, we will call upon him. Make him show. — But some say he tells by touch, really, and his talk of scent is but a play. Morrow?”

A thought struck Vergil like a soft, swift blow. “But let us pause a moment now and see this marvel. . if we may.”

The Avernian teetered back and forth as though either he had not heard, or was considering the matter. Suddenly started, said at once, “ ‘May.’ To be sure. If you wish it, it is not may but must.” So saying, he began to beat upon the door; at once to see the (momentarily) servile-stooping thrall commence to kick it and to hullow.

Vergil, in wine, and deeper in than he fully realized, burst forth of a sudden, “Am I to continue thus civil and elliptical and all but uninformed? You who first moved to move me here? Can you say nothing? Am I forever to go on creeping from door to door, like a beggar seeking boon and dole?”

At the exact moment his outburst ceased, one half of the upper half of the door (they were not notably trusting in Averno) was opened; there stood a man with a lamp in his hand and in the other he held a polished plate to magnify and reflect the light. “Come now, Messer Armin,” said this one, “is all this clamor and commotion needed? Will not morning — ”

Armin (at last! the man’s name! Vergil had had a sort of shyness in asking to begin with, and then the longer the time had passed without his being told it. . ah well: “Armin.” So.), if he did not at once become sober, at once became the image of sobriety. “We are honored by a learned visitor,” he began. Hardly had he begun when the man at the door, giving the learned and distinguished visitor one keen look, made a certain sign; Vergil returned it; the door at once was unbolted even whilst Armin went on saying, “… who wishes to see your famous uncle at his mysterious work …” Armin suddenly stopped, said quite soberly, “If he is at work now, that is. I wouldn’t wish to disturb — ”

Nephew, dark and wrapped in white, replied, “He is at work. Day or dark or dim, it is all the same to him. Come.” The door bolted behind them. A several few more doors were unlocked and locked before they came at last to a chamber, unlighted till they entered it, wherein an old, very old man, also wrapped in white, with sunken sightless eyes, sat upon a stool, fingers moving from one to another of a series of boxes…. The light and reflector coming a bit nearer, the contents of the boxes began to sparkle and to glow. Some rainbow had emptied itself.

Without much moving his head, the old man said, “These are none of them of quite first-chop quality.” An odd and singsong style of speech had he. Continually he moved his fingers to his nose. And while the nephew was saying “They were not paid for at first-chop prices, Uncle,” Vergil moved forward and placed his hands, open- palmed, before the blind man’s face. Who, ceasing the movements of his fingers a moment, murmured, “Beryls, emeralds, a star ruby large. . and. . three diamonds, small ones, I should say, though good, quite good….”

Armin, all eyes at the work of sorting the jewel-stones, and at the show of the sparkles themselves, seemed to have heard nor seen nothing of this brief scene. Visitor learned and distinguished, and nephew, exchanged glances. Nephew gestured a diadem round about his head. Visitor gestured yes. Nephew gestured silence. Visitor gestured assent.

After a moment more, visitor said, “I am quite convinced.”

Armin blinked, tugged his glance away and over. “You see. Wonderful. Well. Thank you, merchants, we would stay longer, save it is quite late.”

“How regrettable; still, I must yield,” the nephew murmured. In a few moments the doors and their lockings and unlockings lay behind them; and before, the street.

Often Vergil was to ponder, does a true king of fools wear a crown of true jewels? He could find not one reason to say yes; when he said no, upon the heels of that answer came yet another question, equally brief: why?

It was long and long till answer came to him.

Vergil paced up and down his private room, charts here and lists there. He had no need of globes, and had he, there were (back in his place in the port) only small ones. Automatically, as this thought recurred, came the dream. Someday I shall have one as large, quite as large, as that of Crates of Miletus. . if not larger! . . But this, as other dreams, went fading away. It was preposterous — was it not? Was it not absurd? — it was! It had been so simple, though he had not then considered it so simple: Aurelio had come to him and said, “Master Vergil, if so be your rules and practice don’t forbid you should work for a freedman, I should like to ask you, Master Vergil: Will you build me a house?”