His mind, stopped short, like the passage of a dog on a chain, was caught off-balance; soon enough it recovered. Where was the oddly knowing fellow who —? He was nowhere to be seen, was where? What was to be seen were the Civic Orator and assistant-boy, the small crowd that had collected, and on every face a meaning that Vergil required no divination to grasp. The small crowd, sensing it was time, set up a rusty growl of “Boons! Boons! Boons!” such as he had heard before, but now and here they were accompanied by no pretenses, no mention of Lord, “great,” or otherwise: nothing. A demand it was, no more. So Vergil slipped a piece of silver swiftly into one of the Orator’s hands (who, doubtless desiring to have both hands free, had already slipped his scroll into the presently free hand of his boy, who was now unable to scratch at all), and into the other a handful of birdies. Orator, with a few feints indicating in which direction he intended the distribution to be thrown, the crowd gathered thither — the Orator threw and, with a nod and a word of thanks, got him thence at no slow crawl. The crowd uglied each other as they sprawled and grappled for the small coins, and the few who muttered anything to Vergil muttered nothing kind. Had he given more, more they had demanded; had he given much, they had rabbled him for all.
He mounted the mare. The sight of him on horseback seemed to end the matter for the crowd, which at once ceased to be a crowd at all. “And I had to kick one away,” said Iohan, “for that he’d growed some extra little hands and was groping by the saddlebags, and a other I believe Prima woulda trod upon, but fall away so fast he did.”
Vergil nodded. He had been about to say something, some while back. No. He had said it. What was it? He knew only when he heard himself saying it again.
“We must find an inn.”
And, whilst the boy was in the stable attending to the mare, there in the taproom, someone else was found. “Ah,” said Vergil softly. “So here you are.”
“Yes, Master Vergil. The wine is better here.”
The wine is better here. Of what did this at once remind him, other than that the wine had been the common wine of poor folk’s daily diet?. . Where last (and first) they’d sipped. . for remind him of something else at once, most certainly it did. As though a pole were thrust into a murky pool and touched some. . something. . which had by the mere touch been shifted; little would one’s sense of what it might be be conveyed through the gross medium of the pole; and yet. . and yet. . The wine is better here. That is, better than there. What was there about the wine there which. . No. Here or there. The wine. Warmed in a crude hot-water bath, over a small charcoal brazier. Bath. Bath. A voice in his ear said, Wash.
Wash! the voice had said.
But there was no one at his ear.
There had been no one at his ear.
Here.
Or there.
So it had not happened. So it was yet to happen.
As Iohan would have put it: Therefore — one could only wait for it to happen.
“The wine is better here,” the man said, but said it with no hint that it was much better, here. “It would have to be. There, one may at least now and then stroll a few paces and look at the Bay. No matter how wretched one’s life, how hard one’s work, there, surely one may steal a moment now and then and see the Bay. Here one may only drink.” He drank. “And work.”
Vergil felt no need to wonder which the man did most.
An inn, almost by definition, is mostly for the convenience of travelers, which is to say. . usually. . people from elsewhere. Avernians, having doubtless their own taverns and wineshops, evidently did not much patronize this particular inn; and although the man sitting across the table spoke with distinct traces of the thick local accent, he did not in any other way resemble the mass of local people whom Vergil had seen about in the streets, or, for that matter, elsewhere. Perhaps the man had read this in his mind or perhaps Vergil’s thoughts had been as clearly written on his face as by a style upon wax. Or even perhaps all this had happened to the man before, and he was thus able to anticipate questions unasked simply because they had been asked so often before that he knew they would be asked again. And when.
“There is little old blood in Averno,” he said; “but to the extent there is, I am of it. My father thought me puny, and yet I lived.” Saying this, he shrugged. “More than one warlock or practitioner of divination in its various forms has offered to discern how long I shall continue to, but I have declined. I have been afraid. Of what?” He shrugged. “Of being perhaps told that my life will be long. To live in Averno, old? Horrible!” He shuddered, and he shook his head.
“Old people seem rather scarce here,” Vergil murmured.
“Children are scarcer. Well! But we are very rich. And rich men may buy that which is beautiful even if they themselves are ugly, and among that which is beautiful which such men sometimes buy are beautiful women. They do not particularly buy beautiful men, even those some who favor men for partners in that act which has been called love. No, slaves fetched here are fetched for brawn. Endurance. Do you know what the foreman in any workplace here is called? Not the overseer or the manager or the captain, as in other places. No, he is called the Big Slave, even if he is not particular big or even if he is not a slave. Usually, though, he is both. Sometimes he is ugly, sometimes not, this is of no importance, it is important that he have a broad back and large arms and know well the work and be indefatigable in carrying it out. Well, it fairly frequently happens that such a man is freed by his master and adopted by his master (who, recall, will usually be childless). Though now and then one knows of a master, magnate or not, who has bothered both to take a wife and maintain her elsewhere. So he will have had his children there, if he has children, and sometimes they come back when they are grown, and — ”
There was an interruption. Men drinking and talking at another table raised their voices. “Cadmus is king!” said one.
“King of fools …”
“King. He is king.”
“King of mud.”
“King of mud or king of gold: king.”
“King of shit — ”
I have heard those words before; where? —
Before Vergil could recollect where, the first man, half-rising, struck the other down. And down he stayed. In a moment the talk and babble resumed, no one paying the matter any further attention. If the fallen one was living or dead, dead drunk, or only stunned, Vergil did not observe, as he had fallen into the shadows cast by the small and flickering lamps.
“ — and take up the trade, whichever trade it be. And sometimes they put it into the hands of the Big Slave. And sometimes, of course, they find it simpler to sell the works. And who buys it, generally? Another Big Slave, past or present. White or Black. So most of the magnates who govern this colony of hell have themselves been slaves. And of those who have spent a generation, at least, toiling at the stinking forge or the stinking dye-pots or the stinking tan-vats, one need not, must not, expect a great measure of delicacy. You will take this into account when you make your calls.”
Vergil said, “I have already made one call. One whom you mentioned — the only one whom you mentioned, the dyer Haddadius — says he has no need for such things wherein lie my skills.”
Two tables over someone, by his looks an Avernian, grunted and spread his legs and lifted his tunic and made water on the floor. No one gave it any notice. No one attempted to remedy the matter by emptying bucket or jug.