Red Mauretayne had neither chiefs nor kings.
It had, however, a wealth of rocks.
And it was Vergil’s devoir to cross it all until coming to Tripolitayne, thence by any northard way to Leptismayna at the end of the Terrapetra, and thence take water to Italy … to any of the Three Italies over which the Emperor was ex officio King. Vergil would have wished to continue on into Ægypt, if only to see those great pyramidal structures which the enslaved Children of the Isræls had builded for King Pharoah, so long and long ago: Treasure Cities, they were called, because of the wealths which the Ægyptim rulers had stored therein: and indeed, each one with its many policies or out-buildings, might rightly be called a city, entire of itself: rather like those palaces in Frankland, each so large as to be counted as an urbs, and had its own mayor.
This Terrapetra, then, was widely-known to be the same length as the entirety of all three parts of Italy; almost he might quail at the prospect: and yet he did not. Some men, in Quint’s phrase, suffered from the itch to write; Vergil, he now acknowledged, suffered from an itch to wander. Suffered from? It was indeed not a suffering, not even a sufferance; it was a joy, as joyful as any experienced in the elaboratory, waiting in an expectation of even greater joy for the joyful release and relief. Even in a land of stone might not many new and strange and quitely unexpected happenings occur?
Such a thing happened even sooner than could have been anticipated.
For, whilst yet the habitations of the sons of men and women, of the blowers of fire, were still thin upon the ground, the four of them had made a usual stop in a fairly secluded spot just a bit off the path; it was an indentation in a ridge of rock, protecting them from the gaze of strangers (peaceful, true, the habitants had seemed: but there be times when even public men would be a while in secret: even kings must live by nature; Vergil’s own Father had a saying for such occasions, did a small boy ask, “where are you going?” hear his sire say, simple, “Where th’ Emp’ror goes on foot” … even Himself the August Caesar did not go everywhere in the carriage of state.) And each had sought a niche or cleft of his own, when hear arise a scream of terror from Amulo and Sylvestro of, The basilisk! The basilisk! whilst, heads hastily covered with their cloaks, they made quick, clumsily, to leap each upon his horse, and flee away (for the first time on this journey) at full gallop. Caniacus alone did not move to do so; almost wedged in his own niche in the stoney clift, he needs could not. Merely he, too, covered his eyes, that they might not meet those of the deadly thing which now crept up along towards him, hissing with its spittley tongue and rattling with its dull red and dull black scales, whipping its thicky blunt tail so as to make a sound … all this, chiefly to affright the intended victim to ope his eyes: then would the basilisk fix him with his pop-eyes and all-penetrating gaze and lo! what once had been a living man of blood and flesh were now a man-like figure, all of stone!
Terrapetra!
Vergil, it had not seen; he, remembering the wise old saw of the Second Emperor, festina lente, slowly hasten, with lentorous stealth picked up a large flat rock (not knowing, even, what he might encover underneath: the creature’s whelp? an alacrand, or scorpio, an asp?), and moving with deliberate haste on tipty-toes, dashed it flat down upon the monster and at once jumped upon the rock and trad with all his might and e’en daunced upon it. “It is safe to look now,” then said he.
Caniacus uncovered his eyes, saw the ugly taloned claws and stumpty tail give their last quiver. Bracing himself with hands prest flat upon the rocky walls of the clift, he rose him up, he stepped forward, he with one sweeping geste removed his mask! his face was pale, unblemished but was pale, he embraced Vergil with both his arms, and pressing close to him, kissed him on the mouth. A second’s work it was, he stepped the half-pace back, drew down his mask, and went forward into the open and gat upon his horse. A light-bodied steed it was, with slender and smooth legs; quite some different from the heavier, shag-footed horses of Europe. Vergil followed suit.
The path was almost wide enough now to be called a road, there were cart-tracks upon it, and so, somehow, they were riding side by side. Vergil turned his head: no one else. Ahead, too, all was empty. Caniacus, reading his movements and perhaps his mind, said, “We shall not see them again. That’s well.” Pressing with a swift and slight movement some fingers against the thin slit in his mask, he leaned a bit to one side, and spat. His voice somedel bit husky; Vergil had not heard him say so many words the whole journey long, so far. Wondered (Vergil), was his voice by nature husky? was it some emotion of the moment? and, for that matter, was his skin naturally pale? was it so by absence of the sun alone? was it pale because his natal color had fled from fear of the basilisk? One might think very much of these matters, but to what end? to what end?
There was a certain sort of person, he or she (more often she, but perhaps not very much more), who, not content to ask a question which was no concern of their’s to ask, would, getting no answer, ask it yet again. Again. Himself, he thought the red-hot bridle and the red-hot bit not too harsh for the mouth of such a one.
Himself, he would not even ask once.
Coming to a rise in the road: before them lay a small city, with a castellated wall. Pointing to it with the light stick with which he only sometimes lightly touched his horse, “The journey,” said Caniacus, “begins here.” Only here? thought Vergil. Up to here, then, he thought, was nil.
Vergil had paused to answer a townsman’s light comment about the clemency of the weather, and took advantage of having the man’s ear to ask the way to the yard of Bodmi the cooper. “Bodmi the cooper,” the man repeated, had begun to gesture with mouth open to say more, had stopped with the next word unsaid, and slightly enclined his head to a young man who had slowed his step. “Bodmi the cooper?” the young man repeated the words, this was (Vergil noted) the third repetition of the name in almost as many seconds. Well, three was, according to the mathematicians, an especially auspicious number: containing, or consisting of, as it did, the first odd plus the first even number.
“Please to come with me, me ser,” and with that the fellow started off, but still he gazed at Vergil, as one perhaps slightly hopeful of a question being answered which had, however, not been asked. This look almost at once faded away. The stripling was well set-up, and dark-eyed with emphatic dark brows and clear skin; however he did not return Vergil’s polite smile. There had been something abstracted, so it seemed, in his expression; almost intent upon waiting for something, expectant the expression as (the phrase came again to Vergil) that of an athlete waiting under the echoing portico for the sound of the trumpet. But, in a moment, seeing that Vergil was indeed coming along with him, the lad turned his face full forward. The trumpet had not sounded. There did not seem to be anything about Vergil in particular which was displeasing to him, and he had, after all, volunteered to be his guide, so there was likely nothing bothersome about his destination either. Of what had the youngling’s look reminded him? Memory for once was instantly obliged to reply: it was the look of a prisoner, who, hearing the sounds of footfall, turns his head, for one brief moment looks through the bars with well-controlled hope on him who walks along, free; and with that short glimpse sees that the one who walks has no message of freedom for him, and — still controlled — turns away his face, and looks at him no more.