“I think it is well that you didn’t read any more of it,” said Faustus, “or you might have disappeared right before our noses.”
“Not without employing the beetle dung and the owl’s eye and the rest,” bar-Heap observed. “Nor is that dawn’s first light coming down that shaft, even if you would pretend that this is Apollo’s temple.”
“‘IO IO O PHRIXRIZO EOA,’” Menandros read, and giggled in pleasure, and rolled the scroll and put it in his purse.
It did not appear likely to Faustus that the Greek was a believer in this nonsense, as his earlier eagerness to visit this marketplace had led him to suspect. Yet he was an enthusiastic buyer. Doubtless he was merely looking for quaint souvenirs to bring back to his Emperor in Constantinopolis—entertaining examples of modern-day Roman gullibility. For Menandros must surely have noticed by this time an important truth about this room, which was that nearly all the sorcerers and their salesmen were citizens of the Eastern half of the Empire, which had a reputation for magic going back to the distant days of the Pharaohs and the kings of Babylon, while the customers—and there were plenty of them—all were Romans of the West. Surely spells of this sort would be widely available in the other Empire. This stuff would be nothing new to Easterners. It was an oily place, the Eastern Empire. All the mercantile skills had been invented there. The East’s roots went deep down into antiquity, into a time long before Roma itself ever was, and one needed to keep a wary eye out in any dealings with its citizens.
So Menandros was just trying to collect evidence of Roman silliness, yes. Using bar-Heap to beat the prices down for him, he went from booth to booth, gathering up the merchandise. He acquired instructions for fashioning a ring of power that would permit one to get whatever one asks from anybody, or to calm the anger of masters and kings. He bought a charm to induce wakefulness, and another to bring on sleep. He got a lengthy scroll that offered a whole catalog of mighty mysteries, and gleefully read from it to them: “‘You will see the doors thrown open, and seven virgins coming from deep within, dressed in linen garments, and with the faces of asps. They are called the Fates of Heaven and wield golden wands. When you see them, greet them in this manner—’” He found a spell that necromancers could use to keep skulls from speaking out of turn while their owners were using them in the casting of spells; he found one that would summon the Headless One who had created earth and heaven, the mighty Osoronnophris, and conjure Him to expel demons from a sufferer’s body; he found one that would bring back lost or stolen property; he went back to the first booth and bought the infallible love potion, for a fraction of the original asking price; and, finally, picked up one that would cause one’s fellow drinkers at a drinking party to think that they had grown the snouts of apes.
At last, well satisfied with his purchases, Menandros said he was willing to move on. At the far end of the hall, beyond the territory of the peddlers of spells, they paused at the domain of the soothsayers and augurs. “For a copper or two,” Faustus told the Greek, “they will look at the palm of your hand, or the pattern of lines on your forehead, and tell you your future. For a higher price they will examine the entrails of chickens or the liver of a sheep, and tell you your true future. Or even the future of the Empire itself.”
Menandros looked astonished. “The future of the Empire? Common diviners in a public marketplace offer prophecies of a sort like that? I’d think only the Imperial augurs would deal in such news, and only for the Emperor’s ear.”
“The Imperial augurs provide more reliable information, I suppose,” said Faustus. “But this is Roma, where everything is for sale to anyone.” He looked down the row and saw the one who had claimed new knowledge of the Sibylline prophecies and foretold the imminent end of the Empire—an old man, unmistakably Roman, not a Greek or any other kind of foreigner, with faded blue eyes and a lengthy, wispy white beard. “Over there is one of the most audacious of our seers, for instance,” Faustus said, pointing. “For a fee he will tell you that our time of Empire is nearly over, that a year is coming soon when the seven planets will meet at Capricorn and the entire universe will be consumed by fire.”
“The great ekpyrosis,” Menandros said. “We have the same prophecy. What does he base his calculations on, I wonder?”
“What does it matter?” cried Maximilianus, in a burst of sudden unconcealed rage. “It is all foolishness!”
“Perhaps so,” Faustus said gently. And, to Menandros, whose curiosity about the old man and his apocalyptic predictions still was apparent: “It has something to do with the old tale of King Romulus and the twelve eagles that passed overhead on the day he and his brother Remus fought over the proper location for the city of Roma.”
“They were twelve vultures, I thought,” said bar-Heap.
Faustus shook his head. “No. Eagles, they were. And the prophecy of the Sibyl is that Roma will endure for twelve Great Years of a hundred years each, one for each of Romulus’s eagles, and one century more beyond that. This is the year 1282 since the founding. So we have eighteen years left, says the long-bearded one over there.”
“This is all atrocious foolishness,” said Maximilianus again, his eyes blazing.
“May we speak with this man a moment, even so?” Menandros asked.
The Caesar most plainly did not want to go near him. But his guest’s mild request could hardly be refused. Faustus saw Maximilianus struggling with his anger as they walked toward the soothsayer’s booth, and with some effort putting it aside. “Here is a visitor to our city,” said Maximilianus to the old man in a clenched voice, “who wants to hear what you’ve to say concerning the impending fiery end of Roma. Name your price and tell him your fables.”
But the soothsayer shrank back, trembling in fear. “No, Caesar. I pray you, let me be!”
“You recognize me, do you?”
“Who would not recognize the Emperor’s son? Especially one whose profession it is to pierce all veils.”
“You’ve pierced mine, certainly. But why do I frighten you so? I mean you no harm. Come, man, my friend here is a Greek from Justinianus’s court, full of questions for you about the terrible doom that shortly will be heading our way. Speak your piece, will you?” Maximilianus pulled out his purse and drew a shining gold piece from it. “A fine newly minted aureus, is that enough to unseal your lips? Two? Three?”
It was a fortune. But the man seemed paralyzed with terror. He moved back in his booth, shivering, now, almost on the verge of collapse. The blood had drained from his face and his pale blue eyes were bulging and rigid. It was asking too much of him, Faustus supposed, to be compelled to speak of the approaching destruction of the world to the Emperor’s actual son.
“Enough,” Faustus murmured. “You’ll scare the poor creature to death, Maximilianus.”
But the Caesar was bubbling with fury. “No! Here’s gold for him! Let him speak! Let him speak!”
“Caesar, I will speak to you, if you like,” said a high-pitched, sharp-edged voice from behind them. “And will tell you such things as are sure to please your ears.”
It was another soothsayer, a ratty little squint-faced man in a tattered yellow tunic, who now made so bold as to pluck at the edge of Maximilianus’s toga. He had cast an augury for Maximilianus just now upon seeing the Caesar’s entry into the marketplace, he said, and would not even ask a fee for it. No, not so much as two coppers for the news he had to impart. Not even one.
“Not interested,” Maximilianus said brusquely, and turned away.
But the little diviner would not accept the rebuff. With frantic squirrelly energy he ran around Maximilianus’s side to face him again and said, with the reckless daring of the utterly insignificant confronting the extremely grand, “I threw the bones, Caesar, and they showed me your future. It is a glorious one. You will be one of Roma’s greatest heroes! Men will sing your praises for centuries to come.”