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

XIV The Soldier in the Desert

For a long while the horror of the Rough Place stayed with them all, and all were silent, from Benninaly the capitane of the caravan to the mangiest camels which might have been excused for braying out of mere relief that their loads had been lightened, and that the men had not been obliged to tap the stinking water stored in the humps. The land of stone appeared as stoney as ever: but now and then and always just in time they came either to an oasis or a deep, deep well, whither men descended great depths, never the water being near the surface. It beseemed that all the waters of Afric had sunk beneath that stoney carapace: thank the god that evidently another such below the water kept it from sinking quite away into sands subterranean. By and by the taste of that frightful and accursed place ebbed off, it would be wrong to say that they became all cheerful; but one might say that although the weather remained fearful hot by day and frightful cold by night, merely they endured it with a calm endurance.

Yet one day, Vergil, having fallen a bit behind and to aside, was all at once joined by Caniacus and two other of his masked confraternitude. Idly Vergil asked, in the old manner of Italic boatsmen as they raised another, “What thing?”

Quite a thing indeed, they indicated with a many gestures. But only Caniacus spoke, saying, “ ‘The Nephew of the Cockatrisk’, we call it.” And as to, what was it, and why did they call it so, why there followed only sundry shrugs. Also, more gesticulations. Something, it was clear, was presently to be a-seen; and a great wonder it was. By and by Vergil saw what appeared to be an odd-shaped stone, like so many odd-shaped stones in this stony land. As the Masked Men got them down from their beasts, why, so did he. They had begun to shovel at the sands with their hands, and to scoop it up and throw it aside; indeed, they had not quite finished their tasks when he came along, holding his horse’s bridle with his right hand as if he were any page or quire leading his knight’s destrier. And almost he thought he saw just that: a knight upon a destrier, covered with that eternal dust which covered all things, here. The image was one of the best things of the sort that he had ever seen: a statue of a mounted man-at-arms imperial, in exquisite detail: even the rings of the mail upon the man’s baldric seemed to have been chiseled with an eye to an expectation of an inspection far keener than Vergil’s. He asked the men just now clearing way the clinging crowding sands from the horses hooves, “How came that statue here?”

Had it been done to mark a battle? A cairn of stones would have done as well, besides he had hearn never tale nor story of any great battle in the Terrapetra: and in any case would not the victor have sooner arranged for his own (or an Imperial) likeness to have been brought thither from some town where flourished the arts lapidary, or — likelier — arranged for the sculptor to have crossed the desert to carve the monument (he looked for inscription: none could he see: indeed, there was no base nor pedestal … unless they lay under the sands)… “How came that statue here?” asked Vergil.

“Ah, that is the very Nephew of the Cockatrisk, you see. How came he here? Why as to that I do not know, but see you how once he encountered that deadly look, that evil eye” here the men all made apotropaic gestures; it being dry to spit “and in a twinkle it petterfied him into stone —”

Just so; every statue found in desolate places and cities which no longer man inhabiteth, though once populous and green trees grown about, each such image was said by the Masked Men to have been once creatures quick with life, but turned to stone by the cockatrisk or the basilisk (their memories did not go as far back, evidently, to Medusa, her hair full of snakes … evidently some primitive ascription rich with awe, by perhaps the first of the peoples of the Sea Between the Lands ever to have seen the otherwise inexplicable tightly-coiled hair of “dusky Nemon’s swarthy race;” whom the later and wiser would call “the pious and fleecey-haired Æthiopians”). Well … then … “How long has he been here, then?”

Sighs, hums, more shrugs, more gesticulations. “‘How long’? Ah … how long shine the stars by which we navigate this stony sea? … Ah … ‘How long?’ Why my sire he often y-spoke of’t to me, ensaying, ‘Turn to the right a half-turn as you hold your arm out straight to catch the shadow when the Seven Sisters rise, and thence past the Nephew of the Cockatrisk will bring you to sweet pastures inlands …’ Ah … ‘how long?’ Why my grandsire a-spoke of it before my infant ears, ‘how long,’…. And my grandsire hoary —” and this, Vergil had learned, meant the great-grandfather. To attempt to accompt years by such tales was a task most futile … and … eh …?

“They do say, me ser sage, that if one touch this with a wand of wood from the saelic, hælic willow tree, such as grows by the Grave of Proserpini abaft the River Ocean, such a one shall have great portendance.”

Great Portendance. Ho. So. “And have you tried it, any?”

Of course he could not see their faces, but their eyes told him no, they had not, even before Caniacus asked, “And how should we wanderers of the desert and the stony land have gotten such a thing as wand of willow?” Awaiting no answer, at once (one could see the eyes widen, see, almost, the sudden thought, swift as the thunderquarrel but quite saunse blast), “Have you?” Title, civil pretence nought. Just: “Have you?”

The answer of course, though Vergil spoke no word, could, by his motions, be but yes. There was more sand in that place than dust, in color ranged from ox-red to saffron-yellow and every shade in between; they felt no wind as Vergil took out his old soft doe-skin budget from the saddle bag, yet the sands began to move and slide: and from this slide and drift and movement came a sound, faint as whispers, the sound of a music. What it may have seemed to the Masked Men, he did not know; but something, it must have meant, for they covered their ears (their ears were of course covered in cloth: they pressed their hands over the already covered ears; they seemed distressed, they hissed: he heard them): to him it was the music of the wind in the willow-trees of that misty Grove Persephone. And forth he drew the three small sticks, each no longer than his hand, each concave at one end and convex at the other and he fitted them together, and he stood there with, in his hand, the willow-wand of the Order of Sages and Mages. And he touched the stone horse of the soldier all of stone.

Perhaps it was not necessary to say the words, might the touch suffice, but he had begun to say them anyway: “Rex Rhabdon, from the glare of the basilisk and the venom of the cockatrisk, sweet messenger Mercury; King of the Canny Rod, deliver us …” A moment still the horse and his rider stood as motionless as they had motionless stood for ages. Then the horse whinnied, he moved his hooves a-slaunt upon the sands; some grains of them fell off …

The music of the sands had stopped, the Masked Men took away their hands, the soldier upon the horse slightly moved the targe upon his arm, slightly shifted it as if so to gain a better grip; brought forth from his side the sword. And gave the full salute. And then, dust falling from lips:

“Vergilius Marius Mago, Citizen of Rome?” (“Soldier: Yes.”)

“Himself the August Caesar no longer desires that you come to August Rome forthwith or at all. Instead you are strictly inhibited to enter Yellow Rome or come within the Third Mile Post in any direction, for the balance of the term of this Indiction: and herein fail not to obey. Rome has spoken. The matter is ended.” Again he gave Vergil the full salute, kneed his horse, turned, and cantered forth at easy pace towards — as far as Vergil could see or calculate — absolutely nowhere at all.

As far as Vergil knew. Perhaps the Masked Men knew … a something … for one by one they took up each a handful of sand, a moment held it, then cast it slightly in the direction of the man-at-arms.

Who in one moment more went quite out of sight.

From the sands a-covering the rocky surface underneath, there came, of course, no sound more.

They rejoined the caffile, the Masked Men falling behind to whisper or gesture what they might. None other gave indication that they had seen anything — though seen they must have. Vergil, having taken apart the willow-wand and replaced it carefully, felt now some wonder that no one else seemed to wonder. Perhaps they had seen so many wonders … and it occurred to him, simply, they did not care. Eventually, to those who move across the land of stone in their yearly movements, not in carrying cargo but in search of pasture, they would certainly care when a long-time landmark had disappeared: but doubtless, one way or another, they would adjust. They had managed before that stony figure had appeared and, someday and somehow, they would manage again.

How long had the soldier stood there, turned to stone? … ages … generations … How else could he have endured? In a way that he could not know, it was necessary that he had endured. But how could a man who in the regular course of things would long ago have died and turned to dust have received a message from someone not yet to be born, for another man not yet to be born? Vergil did not and could not know. He recalled, however, having heard of someone who long ago had said, History is but a cycle; as the cycles of years, so are the cycles of the times; and when I harp of burning Troy I do not know if I sing of things past or if I prophecy of things yet to come …

He was now, so to speak, unsummoned to Yellow Rome? He was on the contrary, forbidden to approach thither for … for how many years remained of the current Indiction, that fifteen-year term of appraisal and valuation of all lands taxable throughout the Empery? Forgotten: he would yet recall. It was said that Soldan Moyses, King of Thule, remembered everything which had ever happened since Deucalion’s Flood; sea-birds brought him tidings, it was said, which they had been told by other birds yet. A thing remarkable indeed, yet in no wise beyond belief; for one had observed, many times, and many times more, congregations of birds, of many sorts of birds, sitting on stones and rocks and twigs and trees, doing nought as far as one could see and hear save conversing to one another in great gabbles and babbles and in songs of sounds. What more likely than that they were exchanging news of tidings near and far? — and always, at the end of these conventicles, hear the birds chaunt … chaunt … something … and group by group, see fly away in all directions. Vergil was not Soldan Moyses, King of Thule, but in regard to which year of which Indiction this was — ah! it must be the First Indiction, for Lupus, that wolf, had not yet been the Elected Emperor for a term of fifteen years, the term of an Indiction, though his term of rule as an Emperor, of course, was the same as the term of the lepers’ term in that Rough Place: for life.

For a moment, dallying upon his mount, vaguely Vergil thought of taking in his hands the willow rod again: then he recollected that he had unpicked it and packed it away.

Gently he pressed his knees to the steed’s side, and was soon enough in his accustomed place aside Benninaly, capitaine of the caffila, who paid him as usual, no mind at all. Vergil was heading, at a steady pace, whither all in the file were heading. For a moment he forgot quite where was that. The bare and lifeless sands lay all about.

Great Portendance … yes … but portendance of what?

Vergil felt perplexed.