To Iohan, he said, “Half of this is mine.”
The fellow stared at him. “Ser … all of it is yours.”
“Half of it is mine. I shall take a house, somewhere. Buy books. More books. Many books. Set up an elaboratory. Perhaps I shall engage a boat and take some rest on the Isle of Goats.” He gestured. There it still stood. . did not stand. . floated on the miraculous blue waters of the Parthenopean Bay.
“But half of it is yours. You will — as yet — take no house, buy no books, set up no elaboratory, engage no boat. If indeed you think to take some rest, it will be best, I think, that you take it apart from me for a while. . for we shall part, I must tell you, Iohan….”
“Master, I doesn’t want to leave you — ”
“ — for a while, and it will be some great long while — ”
“Master, hasn’t I been faithful?”
“With a part of your half this” — he showed the receipt — ”I propose to pay for your indentures as an apprentice in the arts of fire and metal, for you still find them to be canny things. Which indeed they are. And, when you have finished your apprenticeship, part of this shall pay your journeyman’s fee. Part of it shall be your bridegroom’s portion, if you are minded then to marry. And, when you shall have finished your master-piece, and become passed as a master into the guild, part of it shall be to set you up in work.”
Iohan nodded, slowly, slowly, as all this was said. His face remained sober as before. When Vergil finished, he said, “And then, master, may I work for you? — with you? In that elaboratory?”
Vergil said, “There is time enough to think of that. So. Well. And what might you want now?”
There was no hesitation. “Ser, I has one brother, older than me, he works with horses, just as I did, but back in our village. He fed me several year from his own share of the bad bread. Every day at one hour past the hour of noon, the carrier leaves from here for there, and I knows the carrier well, from old. If I might have one silver piece of money, ser — but one? only one? to send my brother?”
Vergil opened his purse. Removed one coin, handed it over. . paused, with it still in his hand. “Iohan, I see that when all rents and such are paid, there still remains enough in my purse so that — you need not hasten, the evening hour is a good ways off — there are certainly more than four groats in the purse. Meet me at home, whenever you have done. And we shall visit the baths.”
He slipped the coin into Iohan’s palm. Who said, at once, “Therefore.” And was gone.
Vergil wandered off more slowly. He wished the baths were open sooner, but here in this small place the drums did not beat that signal till the sun was setting. He needed the hot and healing waters. He would wait. He might look out for a bookshop, as he slowly walked. He had. . after all, and it was an immense, an immensely terrible all. . he had his fee. Who had paid it? Had Rano caused it to be slipped into the baggage, back. . back there? Had someone else? Had someone done that, here? Was it possible that somehow, somehow, someone, some certain one, had spun herself a net, and such a net or web as spiders weave, sometimes a mere wisp of web, and somehow, sailed off upon it? Pausing here? Suppose Poppaea to have escaped, clearly she had not wished to tarry here with him; whither would she wander? Far, no doubt; no doubt so very, very far. Past the great Isle Taprobane, set in the center of the Indoo Sea. As far, perhaps, as Tambralinga and the Golden Chersonese, where honey dripped from the reed called succharum.
And, perhaps, farther.
Perhaps, though no Roman knew what lands lay farther; still, perhaps farther.
Such thoughts bemused him as he walked the street, the crowded street. Still the people spoke of what had happened. . there. He heard one gossip-voice, as thus he slowly moved himself along, trying to think of other things, heard one gossip-voice saying, loudly, almost in a scolding tone, “Nay, but this is what I heard, I heard it true, that there went some great magus-man into that city and he did them wondrous works, and they would not pay him, nay, a stiver not: whereat he cursed the city. ‘You be curst!’ saith he, and by his magery did turn it all to ash, to ash — did we not see that gray, gray ash? I heard it true — ”
A greater weariness came upon him, then, than even before. Some other voice next whispered loud, “Look! There he go!”
A moment a silence. One moment. And another voice declared, “Ah, and see! Black o’hair he left, and now his head is turned as ashen-gray!”
He did not turn aside, but he could not avoid the faces that looked at him as he walked, of those who moved away, to give him way as he walked. Was there horror in their faces? Abhorrence? Terror? Fright? Not one shadow of any that. He might his whole life hence deny the tale. Always there would be some, many, who would believe it all. And what did they show, as they looked at him, believing it? Awe. None else. And then -
Along the street, riding the longest-legged mule ever Vergil had seen, own legs tucked under him, stooped over, and yet still visibly and preternaturally talclass="underline" who? Vergil did not wish to know, there were other things he wished to know. Should he, for once there being gold in his account, should he seek for home and wife? Bethink him of sons and daughters, family, heirs? And if not this very day — no, be certain not this very day — to commence upon such a matter, why, ah, what was the woman’s name — she in her shoddy purple gown, who lived all but next door to him in his rented rooms? He need not even know her name, nor she, his; she likely, she of a certainty, had troubles, too. But whatever his or hers might be, for some hour or so they might forget somewhat their troubles in each other’s arms. — Upon the mule! Who? The eunuch, Rano’s eunuch. Who saw Vergil stop and stare. And halted then his mule, and gave a grave salute.
“But how did you escape?” cried Vergil.
“ ‘Escape’?” That unforgettable voice, high and rich as a rich-voiced woman’s, yet strong as a man’s, said, “I did not escape. I was not there. I had, indeed, already left. I have been here since before.”
Still Vergil stared. Then: “Rano sent you off? He gave you leave to go? So — ”
But no.
“ ‘Sent me,’ my Wizard dear? ‘Gave me leave to go’? Ah, Master Vergil, Sage and Seer, it is little you had learned in Sevilla about such things. I went. ‘Frog,’ I said, ‘I am going Outside. I shall take such and such a sum with me to do some business; so hand me hither to my hand the seals for such.’ And so, of course, he did.”
There was little reason Vergil had to doubt. A strange relation, that between Magnate Rano and his eunuch. Stranger was it, though, than that between Magnate Rano and his matron? No. Question now beginning to form in Vergil’s mind was now answered before being asked, answered there in the long street along the shore of the blue and great and tideless sea, under the sparkling sun and in the clear and brilliant air. “What shall I do? I shall do thus: A house I have engaged, and a warehouse, too. Goods I have purchased, and equipment, too. All is done as by law required. It is registered, I registered it, in Rano’s name. And I sealed the same with Rano’s seal. Is Rano dead? I know naught. What says the law? The law is not a man, and in this instance the law says naught. Till such time as Rano is declared to be dead, after which, his estate is approbed and settled, why, my Wizard dear, till then, by lawful proxy, I am Rano! I set the terms! The books of account are all mine to keep! No one stands between me and the way I want things done! I hold the rule and draw the lines across the sheets and pages of the records as I want them drawn and when I want them drawn. If not, I leave them clear and open. The buying is all mine and the selling is all mine, ‘tis I allow credit and allot times and terms. Or, as the case may be, disallow. I write the figures and I choose the type of figures to be written and it is I who determine the methods of calculation and of numeration.