For the other did no more than to cite some other singer, with “ ‘Seven cities claimed blind Homer, dead, Through which blind Homer, living, begged his bread.’ ”
His once not-quite-pupil looked up. What more the older man may have meant by this perhaps too often quoted line, he wondered. But did not wonder long, for, very, very near to him he saw some others; and he was not surely certain he had seen all of them before.
As, sometimes, the sky being clouded almost over, yet the moon is seen unclouded and in the midst of a wide circle where its light meets the clouds and superimposes upon them; just so, or almost so, in the midst of the clouds of steam there was an area quite clear of them. And in the midst of this stood sundry men, Armin amongst them; they bowed to Vergil. And he, naked as when the midwife washed him first in water and next in wine, bowed back.
Said one, “We would ask the Lord Vergil if he would be kind enough, of his own mere grace and favor, to shake out the robes he wore when he entered.”
Vergil, saying, “I am not ‘the Lord Vergil,’ ” complied.
Said another, “We thank the Noble Mage, and further tax his condescendence by requesting that he raise his arms and turn round, rather slowly.”
Vergil, saying, “I am not ‘the Noble Mage,’ ” complied.
Said another, “Although we have doubtless asked of the Duke Vergil more than may be forgiven, still, we do venture to ask one thing more: Has he with him, upon him, within him, or anywhere accompanying him at present, any amulet and talisman? Or any item of wax, parchment or papyrus, metal, bone, stone, ivory, or any other substance upon which any sign, sigil, or symbol may be or might have been inscribed?”
Vergil said, “I am not ‘the Duke Vergil,’ and the answer to your question is no. — “Duke, duke,” Mount Blanco holds the rank of duke, you might as well address your questions to the mountain as to me: better, I should think.”
They bowed, and, in unison, thanked him; then, as though his last comment had not been made, then yet another asked, “Would the magister, magus, dux et dominus employ those arts and talents which are known to him and not to us, and endeavor to discover and ascertain if there might not be here along with him such things of such nature, the presence of which he may either have forgotten, or — ”
Lips continued a moment more to move, but Vergil heard not what they said; he had gathered his forces within himself, deeply so, and then he sent them outward again, but slowly, and in a certain special way. Nothing. He drew them back, considered them, sent them forth again, again returned them. Again examined. Then relaxed. “Again, sers: no. And again I tell you: those titles which — But mind that not. I had thought I was merely entering a private baths. Am I about to enter a court upon some charge of lese-majeste against the Emperor, his crown and staff, that you should seek and search after items that might harm him or the judges or unfairly provide me with some advantage against the cause of justice?”
But this time it was Armin who answered. Saying, “It is not that they suspect you, against them. It is that they suspect others. Against you.”
And Vergil — somehow, somewhat, humbled — said, “I see. I see. I see.”
He turned to speak to these men. But the vapors had closed in. And next the vapors vanished. And the air grew cold. Another door had opened. And his strange companion said, “If you will take your things, let us enter the cooling chamber.”
“This bath, then, was not that I might be refreshed, but that I might be examined,” Vergil said.
No answer to this was made. And perhaps none was required.
And after the two had cooled them, they dressed and moved on; and, though ever the way seemed to grow more narrow, they came into a broader place.
There the same men sat before him, ranged in a crescent. He said, “I am listening.”
For a moment it seemed that everyone was listening. But there was no sound, save the distant drip and tinkle of water from the frigidarium. Then one of them spoke; one who sat on the farthest right.
“Doctor,” he began.
Vergil felt an impatience which he attempted to restrain. He felt some sense of having gone through these experiences of modest denial before, and in another place, but did not try to recollect when or where. “Enough of these titles, my men. I will accept a simple courteous ‘ser.’ And no more.”
“Ser.”
Again the silence. Again, from not very close by, the drip and drop. Was it indeed water? For one single second he thought it was a water-clock, drip-dripping away the hours of his life; for another second he thought it might be the blood of a bulclass="underline" They were deep down somewhere: Could the Taurobolium, the Mithraeum, be deeper?
“Ser.” A second man spoke, the second from the right. “Ser, you have come here to encompass the death of the king.”
Astonishment the most absolute swept over Vergil. And some chill fear. There came to him the account of how, every second year, the Archiflaman of Rybothe, distant even from the far-distant Pamirs, played at dice with someone chosen by lot to personate Death. The forfeit: the fate of Rybothe. And as the fate of Rybothe was far too important to be risked upon the cast of a die, the Archiflaman always played with loaded dice. “I ‘came here to — ’? What? I am on trial! What ‘king’? No, my men. Me sers, no, I assure you. What is this? It is quite false. No man’s death has — ”
Some faint savor of some other conference (if such this was) he had attended here. . but yet how different this tarrying silence (and these men gathered here) from the gross clamor of the magnates …!
Then: “Cadmus!” cried Vergil, the word bursting from his startled lips. “It is Cadmus whom you mean! No — ”
To say that their faces were calm was to understate. Their faces seemed fixed, frozen. Said the one seated third from right, “It is certainly Cadmus whom we mean. And we certainly see that you do not know. Then. . But …” He turned first one way, then the other, looked at his fellows. “How can we ask him? If he does not know?”
An endless moment passed. Then the fourth raised his eyes as though at something well above, then brought them down and, gazing straight at Vergil, said, “I do not know if my lord. . pardon. . my ser. . I do not know if he has seen the rose.”
Vergil’s eyes they were which now looked up, up. Sure enough, although the table that stood between him and them was such a small one it seemed pro forma, stilclass="underline" there was the form. A fifth fellow said, “My ser need not accept the constraint, the faith. The trust. He has but to say, and he will be taken, with all conceivable courtesy, to another place, whence he may find his way witherso he will. We ought,” he added, having briefly paused, “perhaps have pointed out the rose at the very first. But we have. . we have had. . much upon our minds.”
There it hung, though how it hung he could not clearly see, and how this freshly blooming rose (he thought, almost infinitely briefly, of the famous “twice-blooming roses of Paestum,” dismissed it: the bush bloomed twice, but not the rose) came even to be hanging here in this city where no flowers bloomed and no birds sang, he could not imagine. No: He could imagine, but it required some exercise of imagination. And it would have, must have, required some exercise of arts other than mere gardening. The rose hung over the table and they sat around the table and so they were sitting sub rosa, underneath the rose.