The then-Emperor ordered five minutes of official mourning.
After that, no one sent messages overtly to the Nine Roses of Rome, who were left, unvexed, to continue, at intervals, and covertly, their apotropaic activities against The Death of Rome. Leaving to sound and resound in Vergil’s min the meaningless and yet, somehow, fearsome syllables, Attilla Totilla Bobadilla … and, like an echo of a drum-beat, the final syllables: ilia … ilia …
“This fire which Cumus is said to kindle,” began Quint, interrupting his friend’s echoes.
“Not ‘said to,’” Vergil corrected. “He does. I have seen him do it. Twice. Once at the extinguishing and re-lighting of the lamps in the adyt of the Temple of the Magna Mater. And once, when that great storm of the Consulate of Peppin blew out the torches in the Oratory of Orpheus; that was rare music, and the Head sang so —”
“Rarely, I am sure,” said Quint in his best languid manner. “But I wanted to ask you about the fire …?”
Vergil considered a moment or two. “The Sages of Sidon,” he said at last, “are of two schools in the matter. One, called the school of Odishu, holds that there are twenty-three different and distinct sorts of fire, which they distinguish by substance, by essence, and by fluouressence. These I found very hard … not impossible, but very hard. The other, called the School of Shelemon, holds — as do I — that these distinctions are over-subtle; and maintains that there are but seven. The third lowest is that brought about by striking the hand upon the thigh … which hand, and which thigh, does not matter, according to Shelemon: but it matters very much according to Odishu, who rates them as, respectively, second and third lowest so that we cannot admit the fire of Cumus to be of very high order. It would not serve you to light cedar-wood, for instance.” The sacred fire of Vesta, for instance, was of cedar-wood, and that of Haddad, specifically of cedar of Lebanon.
Fire produced by Cumus, Vergil explained, consisted of scattered sparks, of a pale blue-green color, not unlike that of certain fungus shining in the woods at night. These were caught in a sort of punk, which, blown upon and made to smolder, were transferred to a wad of tow; and thence to the pith of papyrus reed, and at that point you had a fire which would serve for most purposes.
Quint said that he thought the same effect could be had by rubbing two dowagers together. “Or the same number of rather elderly catamites.” Vergil laughed, but on that subject said no more, and began to discuss why the question was not yet solved, if the blood of dragons was hot or cold; and from there he passed to a rather nice point in Theophrastus on Plants, in which both illustration and text was precise and clear, but precisely and clearly differed from each other. Quint, although it was not his subject, offered several reasonable suggestions, and did not revert to the previous subject. It was one of Quint’s great values as a friend that he did not push. It was one of Vergil’s drawbacks that he could not endure those who did.
By that time … about the time of the five-minutes court mourning for (Ph)latulus — white truffles might not be served, nor might readings from any author save those named Pseudo-anything go uninterrupted, and everyone was forbidden to belch or break wind without paying a forfeit of the price of a palmful of pine-nuts … by that time Junius was Emperor; and Junius loved Vergil very much.
The mystery, however, remained.
Appendix III
In the Region Called Azania
from The Notebook of Vergil Magus
In the Region called Azania, seawards from the Region calle Agysimba (confuse it never with the Region called Abbysinia), Agysymba, where the monoceroids assemble to vote — one random of rhinoes to go slowly to the fertile valley called Of The Niger, a second random of rhinoes be off towards the teemy foothills of the Mountains of the Moon (where grow the gigant aloes, worth more than e’en those of Socotra, could they be but had more than once in an indiction): and so on, decreed by vote — further the rhinoid assembly did vote to ostracize and exile and to hold as Rogues (here a slight earthquake shook my house) a certain old he, a certain old she, and another certain old he; at each vote they struck the earth once. Say you, “They have no names,” say you? Not as you nor I, but they have every which one an odor, a smell, a certain scent so sharp that even those Landlopers who pass to and fro and dwell among their midst and sometimes hazard to ride upon their scaley backs to the squall discomfort of the traitor-birds: say they, such Landlopers, the smelch of them rhino be distinguishable clearly one from tother. let sic and such a stenk never come a-nigh us, did they vote as they assembled. As for foreign affairs, they did ban passage and grazage and accession for waterquells to ane rogue oliphaunt with one tattered ear and a shivered tush. But as for barring him from all the rivers and streams of water, the assembly considered (as always) that all rivers and streams of water were of such a nature that it be not for any band of beasts (even such a noble band of beasts as that of the council of the nose-horned) to consider it might ban accession: but that all might drink therefrom … even … and as alway the monoceroids went slowly on this … even the stinking crotty: Old Crotty Crackbone. Even he. And then each pachyderm struck the ground — once — twice — thrice — with a right fore-hoof, and with no more say or scene went each group its own separate way, eventually to part into singles. And on hearing this enormous three-fold thud … thud … thud … the oliphaunts, wise in wisdom, murmured, That was well. And sent word the way west. But the vasty hippotayne in the rushes of the reedy rivers and the shady coverts of the fen murmured, That was not well: for the hippotayne liketh not to concede equal, and when such concession is forced from him by the thrice-quivering earth, he groweth grom indeed and opes his massy mouth and roars. And the Landlopers, when they hear this, hasten thither with much calves of oxen and with great wastes of fruit in hope that they might find hippotayne still grom and obtain from him some counsel and some charm to fall upon the oliphaunt and slay him for the treasure of his mouth (dean no. 22–23).
Appendix IV
The Great Globe
from the so called fragments of Vergil in the Cabe
The Mage Vergil was walking through the Great Piazza in Naples with a few friends — Clemens the alchemist for one, Ser Minnimus Rufus the dwarf Knight for another: afoot for once and not upon his favored pony-cob; others — and hangers-on. The main sight in the Piazza was the Great Hand holding the Great Globe. Was it the remains of an immense imperial figure? whose? was it a hapax legomenon in stone, there having been no statue? a lusus natura? It was an absolute belief in Naples that the Globe was hollow and had room inside for ample: thus a tale, that Once at midnight the Equestrian N.N. had galloped thither, followed slowly by a gathering throng; had beat upon the enormous orb. Moments later the throng did find a dew-heel of a scabbard and the buckle off a helm, heard confused noises of within; nought more, ever. Save, now, the fixed faith: Room for a mounted man in armor. Vergil wondered: might a chiromaunt trace the lines of the huge Hand and thus discover — what? Clemens scoffed. The lines were incomplete … the palm held the Globe … the lines of the Globe were themselves incomplete, thus…. Vergil demurred. Where the Globe rested, there the Globe was blank, saunce regard as where it rested. Ser Minnimus was not so sure. Concealed from sight must be the outline of all land between the Peninsula of the Britains and the great Island of Zipangu. Said Vergil — “But there is no land between the Peninsula of the Britains and the great Island of Zipangu,” said Vergil. Yet again. For the smallest (by very far, the smallest: “I have had rings which weigh more than this one does,” a quip from Quint: he did not make it to the small Knight’s face) Knight in all the Empery of Rome did not seem altogether satisfied. “But what,” he asked, “of the birds? Of the great flight of the birds in the Consulate of Calpurnius Otto? — eh, dan Vergil.”