Agrippa Pretorius: always an exception. Lupus was Emperor then (Arms: a wolf sejant on a field of dead men’s bones: so twas said) and, it seemed, Lupus could not do without Agrippa Pretorius … for long. In those odd grey eyes like some cold and shoreless sea whose depths could be neither plumbed nor fathomed, there lay, it seemed, an utter lack of any desire for glory soever. Lupus still feared him? Perhaps. Lupus had only to say to Chief of Guards, “Bring me the head of the Consul Pretorius”? aye … but Lupus, who, be he what else he might be, was nothing like a fool, knew that if he were to do so, it would then be far likelier that Chief of Guards would bring the Consul Pretorius the head of the Emperor Lupus. But it seemed the Emperor needed him. So every now and then Pretorius would be summoned from the farm where he reared his bulls and planted pears and willows, to be made Consul once again. Only thus was Lupus sure to be free of the Marmosets, the thronging little pettymen and functioners who buzzed round the Imperial eyes like a cloud of gnats; afterwards, of course, Pretorius would draw the lot for a fine rich province from the urn. Another tale.
Although it was so hot that the flies, being too tired even to fly, hung limply in clusters from cobwebs whose webbers were too hot to pursue them, the Proconsul was wearing the same woolen tabard and trews which he was sure to have worn at any occasion back in Yellow Rome where the formalities did not require a toga. He was sweating heavily, too. He was a rather heavy man, too, despite the tradition that all Patricians were imperially slim. Yet he rose to his feet quickly enough when the Viceroy entered the pale-blue-plastered room — perhaps — perhaps? certainly not because he recognized in the Viceroy his superior (a mere Member of the Equestrian Order, a mere knight? as his superior? pah …) and certainly not because the Viceroy was saying “I greet Your Upperness, that whom no one has a nicer or more discriminating palate when it comes to date-wine, and the Excise is rather perplexed if the five tuns which have just come in are to be classed as Highest Duty, or —”
“Date-wine? Sickly sweety stuff, fit to buy as treats for whores; Excise! not my department of course … but sometimes the Highest Duty stuff is after all not half-bad, and one wouldn’t want the Fisc to be cheated …”
His words died away into a mumble as he followed the exciseman with quill, ink-pottle, and roll of papyrus. The Viceroy dropped his official politeness as though it had been a rather sweaty towel, and he at the edge of the pool in the Cooling-Room at the bath.
“Of course I have been listening,” he said, and waited just a moment as Vergil automatically looked round for any tell-tale hole-in-the-wall; then, remembering to mind his manners, looked only at an imaginary spot between the Viceroy’s eyes: not that he expected any fascination to be exercized, his spirit paralyzed and subdued like the coney’s quailing before the serpent’s weaving head and fascinating eye — never had he known any Roman official who had this art — but it was well to keep in practice.
“Of course I have been listening,” said the Viceroy, “not only at the wall just now, and a damned fool I’d be if I didn’t: much do I learn that way —”
“Including Your Lordship’s learning the case endings for the neuter gender as well as the declension of two invaluable if irregular verbs. One supposes that a man could learn Latin that way, if one did not already know it and had a lifetime to listen.”
Kept his face quite straight. Officials often enjoyed a joke about other officials, but sometimes thought they were being leered at; in which event they might not enjoy it.
“You are pleased to play with me, Mage, and to enjoy yourself and almost to laugh. But I have also been listening down at the moles and jetties and my people have been listening for me: and you will not enjoy hearing what I have heard; come in, you!”
And the You who came in was a man whom Vergil had seen before on his first, brief stay in Tingitayne, although this time he was without the company of his twain serjeants-at-mace; his name …? his name was …
“Festus!” he exclaimed. Festus … the skipper of the “justice-boat”? Should he mention what he had seen of the fugitives the man had then asked about, seen of them that awesome night of the oliphaunts in “the Region called Huldah?” No. He would not. He would only —
“Have you located the right hand of the Colossus of Rhodes yet, Festus?”
The skipper, as was traditional, scratched his head. “A marvel that you remember my name, me ser. Ah, what? Well, no, but we’ve a report as to they say it’s been located in Neapoly, but changed unto marble … Ah! I perceives as me ser has heard this heself!”
“But … the great Marble Hand has been in Naples as long as I can remember.”[14]
“And the right hand o’ th’ Colossus of Rhodes has been missing, long as I can —”
The Viceroy cleared his throat, and Festus instantly fell silent and stood to attention. “Those memories can wait upon some other occasion. To settle and set aside: You were marooned in Lotophagea?” Vergil nodded. “Marooning, except for reasons the most extreme, has been forbidden by The Law of the Sea since the Rescript of the Divinely Favored Julius I. I shall make complaint on your behalf, Ser Doctor Vergil, to the Admiralty Court; as to next —”
Vergil, aware that perhaps he should remain silent, could not help hazard the suggestion that it might be best be made by himself, in person. “Best it might be, but you shan’t have time. As to next —”
Though vastly astonnied, Vergil said nothing; fixed his attention on the opposite wall, where, who knows how long ago, some plaisterer, not content with having applied the plaister with his own bare hands, as witness the not totally unpleasing swirls which a common harling or screeding-tool would not supply, had briefly placed his hand flat upon the wet surface: and Vergil observed that the man’s index finger lacked the first joint; this quick glance had sufficed to keep his face quite blank; and, as really he did not wish his mind staying blank as well, switched his attention from the wall to the Viceroy’s face. Which was not alone stern, but aseemed a good bit haggard.
As had he not observed on their first meeting.
“As to next, the talk around the water-butts along the fore shore is that you, Doctor Vergil, by some arts magical into which I shall make no enquiry, Festus informing me that he knows of a surety that you do have the doctorate, license being implied …” He had been speaking indeed very fluently, then slowed down, then stopped. Remained a bare second silent. Then resumed again: not indeed slowly, but slower.
“The fact, I understand, is that certainly the ship pursuing you was greatly disabled, though, one hears, not foundered nor sunk. And I must suppose it to have been a ship of Carthage, whatever that may mean. Did you perceive aboard of it any person you know by sight or —”
“The Pune whom I observed on a ship, the Zenos, passing between Naples and Lerica, and later ashore in Corsica; and yet again in your Lordship’s office. I knew him as Hemdibal; you told me he is also called Josaias.”
“King of Carthage,” they finished, simultaneously.
“Yes … Well, Ser, or rather Doctor, I have heard that this same man had evidently recognized you. And has sworn to pursue and to burn you or drown you, posting over every sea …”
“Such a report, if true, has reached here very quickly —”