And still he, slowly, slowly, turned.
There was no one there.
From another corner came a laugh.
It was not a laughter bursting forth, neither was it some evil scorn. Merely. . what it was. And so, with immense effort, now, here in this empty place of filth and rubble between other places of rubble and filth in the form of buildings crumbling into further filth, and yet more rubble, and further rubble; once again he began that difficult and painful turning. Was it some curse, sudden or slow? The weight of all the world lay upon him; still he turned.
And then he saw him. Him. Not them. A figure filthy even for this rat’s nest of filth, robed in rags ragged even for this ragged quarter. The face was so besmeared, the mask had even a sort of sheen or gloss upon it, and this cracked as the laughter lines responded to the chuckle. If this may find some folly at which to smile and sport, why may I not as well? he thought. And the thought welled up and out into a sound more like a snort of someone clearing a throat than into any sane man’s laugh.
And Vergil’s slow turning ceased. And he looked full into the face of someone he had certainly seen before. And so in that second he recognized him. Said the outcast clad in outcast clouts, “It is your turn now to say it. And why say it not?” And, as Vergil, amazed, stood silent, the creature said it. “Wash.”
• • •
“O Apollo! Beadle! What brings you. . here. . so low?”
As he had cried the word Beadle the one who sat before him in the muck formed by rain and dust and grime did not precisely spit but his dry lips opened along some thin, thin line of slime, and a sound he made, perhaps a word, “Peh!” And again chuckled. His face seemed to gleam with glee at the fools and follies of all mankind, the sons and daughters of Deucalion’s stones; and no more than stones, sticks: or things worse than useless. What upheavals in the schemes of things spun and woven, cut, by the Sister Fates — what wars, riots, what commotions, conspiracies, tyrannies, scandals, plots or ship-wrack, barratries of masters or of mates, decretals of exile, times toiling perhaps in quarries or in mines, what collapses outward or inward — what had brought him here?
Said the beadle, “I am here that you be here. I saw it clear when first I saw you. . there. Inescapable decrees, inscrutable, inexorable: and such, such piss-worth words. Had my pipe not droned you had not danced. Had I not fifed for you.” The lips now closed.
Vergil murmured. . something. He could not a half second later have repeated what he said, presumably it was a question. From behind he heard one of the voices of a moment before; it said, “Sissie summoned thee. And cruel Erichtho.” Again Vergil murmured. And now the other voice: “She our sister who asked either one favor too many or one too few.” And there sounded in that narrow space a far-distant echo of that voice among all voices, of she who had become but voice alone. As sounding from a thousand caverns.
Or from within a bottle, stoppered, closed.
“ ‘Wheels within wheels.’ ”
“What?”
“Some Hebrew seer. . or was it ‘a wheel within a wheel …’? Of no import.”
“Is that a sieve?”
“Is that a question for the Pythonissa at Delphi? Quaere. What sort of sieve? Responsum. Not the sort in which the suspected Vestal Virgin carries water for to prove her chastity….” The fellow took a handful of dirt, and, though the gods of hell knew there was dirt aplenty there, he had seemed just a bit selective, for his hand had hesitated, then moved on, before in a moment more dipping to scoop. The handful was sifted, dropped upon a heap in which dirty chicken feathers, bits of broken shells, twigs, and wisps and clots and pot-shards lay mingled. From out of nowhere the scarecrow figure produced three reeds, thrust them in between the fingers of Vergil’s right hand: “Close eyes,” said he. Vergil did, felt himself being turned around withershins once and twice and thrice (in his ears again, sight being sundered, the thum-thump-thum of the eternal anvils wearing out the hammers which beat beat beat) — “Bend a bit. Ah. Enough. Thrust your paw down. Open.”
Vergil had but felt the reeds encounter the slightly resistant surface when the word Open came. Did this mean open hands or open eyes? — He opened both. The once-beadle of the Second Secret School in Sevilla was scanning the imprints, the three shallow piercings of the dirt atop the rubble-tip. There was no smile upon his face, no scowl, either; face expressionless as when he had held that middling office so far away, lower than the proctors, higher than the porters. “Fire, wind, and water,” he said; the same slight sound as his cracked lips parted.
“What?”
“Water, wind, and fire. No demand here in the web for the sovereign science of astrology, they none of them know when they were born. But dirt! the gods save us! how they know dirt! Geomancy, the doctrine of dirt! Ah, what fees it fetch me here!”
Was the mummy-ragtatter japing again. “What do you do with the fees? Hoard them in a pot? — No, forgive me, I — ”
“Wind, fire, and water. Thrice have I said so, once for each vatic hole. Follow.” The man moved off stiff-legged, lurching yet spry, the stinking winds seemed to bear some distinctive taint from him in addition. Follow? Why not? “ ‘Hoard them in a pot’? Ha-ha. In a pot, yes. Hoard? No. Hast ever heard of the fifth essence, the quintessential, of wine? of the art of estillation? of a pot-still? No. Not likely. Follow.”
Things had changed. The weight, immense, was off Vergil’s chest and off his shoulders. Joy? Certain not. Things were merely as before. . as far as his own inner self was, that was. But. . somehow, other. . things had changed. The lines were different. There was no longer, as he followed the figure (he had seen corpses exhumed that looked better), the nightmare figure which had once indeed extruded a nightmare as a snake extrudes its tongues, and done it simply (simply!) as a test; this sticklike stalking horror teetered along down lanes which had some semblance to geometry, from which the general scramble of the unclean canals district could not have been farther removed. Were they still in Averno? Had the way been gathered up, were they somewhere else? If so: where?
“Ser Beadle — ” (“Peh!”) “Elder one, what mean you, ‘here in the — ’ ”
They scrambled along angles strange and yet not without logic. He had not known and never would have suspected such a place as this in Averno. . or, for that matter, anywhere else. . and yet. . and yet. . was there not something familiar here? It nagged at his mind, but with no clamorous nagging.
Suddenly they were somewhere else. Somewhere inside. Somewhere inside of something which was itself inside of something. Very suddenly this had happened. It was clean underfoot. It was neither dim-dank-dark nor bright-dry-light. Then they came to a wall and in the wall, not flush with the floor nor reaching to the ceiling, was a door; the door was made of bronze and the bronze was devoid of ornament and its surface was polished. It seemed to catch even the once-beadle by surprise, for he stopped short. He looked and peered. Squinted. A slight sound broke through his cracked lips. He said, but this time low and quiet, “Wash.”
And this time he seemed to speak, indeed, to himself alone.
The door opened, they entered, the door closed. There was a source of light high up, the air was cloudy — no. The air was steamy. They were in a small bath. Vergil was as suddenly glad there was space for them to bathe apart; and sluiced and soaped and sluiced and scraped and sank into his own small pool without lifting his eyes to watch the other. But in his mind he saw the filth coming off under the strigil like some roll of. . no simile was supplied. But of a sudden, seeing the fresh clothing (he had not noticed it before) neat-folded in their recesses, and thinking shame to himself for (perhaps) having felt too much shame. . and too little sympathy. . for his former superior, in the man’s decay; so, abruptly, Vergil said, “Well does Homer speak well of the pleasures of the warm bath and the clean garment — ” And then he could have bitten his tongue.