Elements 03 - Monsters of the Earth (12 page)

“I’m not a magician,” Varus muttered with a grimace.

The servants who had retreated from the loggia were still more or less within hearing, but there was little chance that any of them were listening to the master and his friend. A high-level literary discussion was possibly the most boring subject on earth to most people. Certainly to most of the servants who catered to a nobleman’s grooming.

“All I’m telling you is what this Lucinus told me,” Corylus said. “But I’ve seen you send demons back to the fires they sprang from. That may not make you a magician, but you’re certainly someone I’d want to have close by if I thought I might be facing demons again.”

Varus’ laugh was wistful rather than bitter, but it sounded as though it might turn bitter very easily. He said, “I don’t know what I am. Other than that—”

He met Corylus’ eyes.

“—I’m not a poet.” He pursed his lips in thought, then said, “What do you think, Publius?”

“I think that Lucinus looks as though he’s about fifty, but Vergil died fifty years ago,” Corylus said, marshaling the facts as he—as both of them—had been taught to do by Pandareus. “He should be older, even if he was quite young when he became his uncle’s apprentice. Apart from that, though—”

He touched the palimpsest.

“—such evidence as we have suggests that he’s telling the truth. This is precisely the sort of draft that Vergil might have made. There can’t be many other people who would have had access to scrap papyrus of such quality.”

“No,” agreed Varus with the same wan smile as before. “I burned all my manuscripts. I didn’t want to inflict my verse even on dead mullets.”

His face sharpened suddenly to that of the most learned pupil in the class of Pandareus of Athens. “We know that there is some danger approaching the Republic, since I have prophesied as much.”

He smiled; Corylus smiled back. They both remembered just how accurate Varus’ previous quotations from the
Sibylline Books
had been.

“It therefore follows that Lucinus’ warning is trustworthy. That doesn’t prove that he, or that he and I together, can overcome the danger, but there seems very little reason not to discuss the matter with him. Given that the alternative is that we allow the world to be destroyed without making an effort to avoid that result.”

A servant standing near the arch to the loggia cleared his throat loudly. Corylus placed a hand on his friend’s arm, then nodded toward the entrance.

Saxa diffidently stepped onto the loggia but hesitated there. He wore his toga and was otherwise groomed for dinner.

“Ah, Master Corylus!” he said, blinking. “Ah, you’re very welcome. In fact, would you care to join us for dinner? I’m sure that Quintus Macsturnas would be glad to add a place for a man of your accomplishments. Ah, and I’m sure that Balbinus can find you a toga.”

Could Balbinus find a toga with the two narrow stripes of a knight?
Corylus wondered. But given Saxa’s wealth, it was just possible that he could. Indeed, it was possible that the chief steward had sent out for suitable dinner clothing as soon as the unexpected visitor arrived with such a flurry.

“No thank you, Your Lordship,” Corylus said, bowing. “I’ll be dining tonight with my father. I don’t see him very often since I’ve been studying under Master Pandareus and, well, we have a lot to catch up on.”

On an impulse, he offered that palimpsest to Saxa. “Your son and I were discussing a variant reading of the first book of the
Aeneid,
Your Lordship. Or rather, Lord Varus was explaining the variation to me.”

“Really?” Saxa said with delight. He bent to look at the document but did not touch it. “Really, this is marvelous! Are you sure that you can’t—”

He brought himself up short. “But what am I doing?” he said in horror. “Trying to corrupt a son who is carrying out his filial duty according to the traditions of the people of Carce! Pray forgive me. Ah! Unless your father would perhaps care to join us also?”

“He’ll be flattered at the invitation,” Corylus said. “But not tonight, I fear. I’ll be going off now.”

He wasn’t wholly certain that Cispius
would
be flattered. He treated all members of the nobility with the deference due their rank, but he had served under too many noble incompetents to be impressed simply because a man was a senator.

On the other hand, Alphenus Saxa had proved himself unexpectedly worthy of respect during the past difficult months. Courage was a virtue that made up for most things in the mind of a soldier. Varus’ father had in his dithering way proved himself as brave as Horatius holding the Tiber Bridge.

“Well, I understand that, of course,” Saxa said, which, from his puzzled tone, was unlikely. “I’ll be in the office until, ah.…”

“Master Corylus?” Varus said. “I want to discuss one more aspect of that text, if you will. And Father, I’ll join you downstairs in just a moment. All I need to do is put my toga on.”

As Saxa turned, Corylus said in an undertone, “I’ll pick you up in a cart at dawn if that’s all right. I think just the two of us and a driver who knows the way. I won’t tell Father much, but he can find me the cart and a driver who knows where this Lucinus lives on the Nola Road.”

“Yes, that seems right,” Varus said. “We don’t want to make a production of this, at least not until we know more.”

Corylus quirked a grin at his friend. “Lucinus didn’t say I should come,” he said. “But I intend to come anyway.”

“If you didn’t,
I
would ask you to come,” Varus said with a similar grin. “And if it’s appropriate, thank your father for his help.”

“Yes,” said Corylus. “We’re going to need his help while we’re here.”

“We’re going to need it,” Varus said, “and it appears that the world will need it.”

They clasped arms. Corylus turned to go out, still holding the palimpsest. Four servants held a toga ready to wrap around His Lordship Gaius Alphenus Varus.

Behind Corylus, Varus mused, barely audibly, “I only hope that all we have and the world has will be enough.”

*   *   *

“
W
ELCOME, VERY WELCOME,
Lord Saxa!” Macsturnas cried as he met Varus and his father in the entrance hall. “And you, Lord Varus. Until your messenger arrived, I feared that the press of business had detained you and you wouldn’t be able to join us after all.”

“I was responsible for the delay, my lord,” Varus said, following his father and their host through the house as servants bowed or ducked out of the way—or both. “My friend Corylus arrived with what purports to be the draft of a portion of the
Aeneid.
I’ve summoned our teacher Pandareus of Athens here to the Bay to examine it.”

That was a minor falsehood: Alphena had summoned Pandareus, and the purpose of the consultation was only tangentially literary.
Though if Pandareus knew of an example of Vergil’s handwriting that they could use for comparison—by the Holy Wisdom, if I have really touched a document written by Vergil himself!

“The
Aeneid,
you say,” Macsturnas said. “Would that be a poem, then?”

Saxa missed a step and stared at their host in horror. Varus caught him by the arm.

Before he could say something that might be taken as insulting—or even be meant as insulting, though Saxa was a truly gentle man—Varus laughed as cheerfully as he could manage and said, “That’s right, Your Lordship. I’m such a bookworm that I forget that not everybody shares my tastes.”

They entered the garden. A summer dining room was set in one of the back corners. Three men were already reclining on the U of masonry benches built out from the walls. The fourth side was open to allow servers to reach the table in the middle. One guest, placed on the left bench, wore a senatorial toga; the man on the cross bench was also in a toga, though his had the twin stripes of a knight.

On the right-hand bench was Paris. If the Etruscan priest had been invited to dinner with two senators besides the host, his connection with the aedile was unexpectedly close. Paris watched without expression, but there was certainly no affection in his eyes when they rested on Varus.

Varus was feeling rather pleased with himself, though he knew a true philosopher should be above pride. Still, if one didn’t take some notice of good behavior, one would be unable to duplicate it.

He had prevented his father from launching into what would at best have been a lecture on Vergil and his importance to world literature. That would have been desperately boring to their host and presumably to the other guests of a man who had to guess even that the
Aeneid
was a poem.

Varus had grown from the recent crises. He would always have known that Saxa was making a mistake, but in past years Varus would merely have cringed in silent embarrassment. Being around Corylus—and Hedia and Alphena!—had shown him how to act in the fashion he knew was correct.

The guests had plates in front of them, still holding the remains of dormice in honey, though the serving platter had been removed from the small central table.
They must have started the first course before our messenger arrived,
Varus realized.

“Our colleague, Trebonius Haltus,” Macsturnas said, indicating the other senator. “He has a home in Baiae also. And my brother-in-law, Collinus Afer. And of course Paris, whom you’ve met.”

The walls behind the benches were painted with scenes of wild bulls running and leaping. The bulls were blue, though, causing Varus to wonder if they were religious art.

He had been daydreaming during the exchange of pleasantries. He realized this when he heard his father say, “And my son Varus greets you also, gentlemen.”

His skin suddenly hot—
am I blushing?
—Varus bowed to the company, which certainly wasn’t called for. “Your pardon, sirs,” he said. “I was lost in a literary problem.”

That was a very useful excuse. There were advantages to having everybody think you’re a cloth-headed intellectual. Which wasn’t far from the truth, he supposed.

“Lord Varus,” the aedile said, “would you take the head of the right bench, above Master Paris? Paris said he was looking forward to meeting you. I suppose you intellectuals will have a lot to discuss that would go right over the heads of us simple folk.”

There were chuckles from others, Saxa included. Paris didn’t crack a smile.

“And Gaius Saxa,” Macsturnas continued, “please honor me by taking the couch to my left. Indeed, your presence honors the whole gathering.”

Varus and his father settled themselves onto the indicated couches. Paris looked over his shoulder at Varus. With two instead of three on each cushion, they weren’t so close that avoiding contact during the meal would be next to impossible, but they were certainly close.

The Etruscan priest said, “I was told that you would identify the specimens from Africa, Lord Varus. If you did so, I failed to hear you.”

The tone was flat, not sneering, but the question was a sneer nonetheless.

Varus looked at the fellow. Close up, Paris was older than he had seemed in the crowd in the compound. Even granting the natural querulousness of the old, and perhaps a poor old man’s equally natural resentment of a rich youth, it took a great deal of philosophical resignation not to respond more sharply than would be polite to the host’s hanger-on.

Varus smiled at the thought. His expression, probably misunderstood, turned out to be the perfect response: Paris went tremblingly white with fury.
Score one for philosophical resignation.…

Servants brought in finger bowls with rose water and linen napkins for the guests who had eaten the first course. As they did, little girls in pastel tunics—meant to impersonate Hebe, the cupbearer of the gods, Varus supposed; in other settings, Hebe was the Goddess of Youth—poured wine to the guests.

Varus tasted his cup cautiously, because he hadn’t been present when the host decided the dilution. He guessed it was two measures of water to each measure of wine, which was moderate if not ascetic.

Paris
was
being ascetic, drinking from a clear glass tumbler to emphasize that it contained only water. The plate in front of him held nut meats, slices of peeled apples and peaches, and a wedge of bread without even a bowl of olive oil to dip it in.

“My bout of sunstroke at Master Veturius’ compound prevented me from stating the little I know about the lizardmen,” Varus said in a cool tone. “I will hope to learn more in good time, but for now all I can say is…”

He let his voice trail off as servants brought in a richly carved bronze platter—true Corinthian Bronze, Varus suspected—cast with six hollows in which nestled what seemed to be miniature hares, skinned but otherwise complete. Varus took one and nibbled carefully, finding it to be a paste of hare meat cooked on a skeleton of rye bread and stuffed with a rich pork sauce. He caught the juice in his napkin before it dribbled onto his toga.

When he looked up, he saw that his father and the aedile were both staring intently at him, waiting for the answer. Their attention had drawn that of Macsturnas’ two friends as well, making Varus the center of all eyes. That was a regular thing when it was his turn to declaim in class, but he wasn’t used to it happening at formal dinner parties.

I’m not used to formal dinner parties.

Varus revised the answer he had been about to give. “Honored sirs,” he said, nodding to bring the other guests formally into the discussion. “I’m only familiar with one written account which might have bearing, that of Herodotus. In discussing the tribes of Africa, he says that in ancient times the Garamantes battled serpents and finally drove them deep into the desert. It’s at least possible that this is a garbled memory of lizardmen like those Master Veturius brought back from the depths of the continent.”

“Ah!” said Macsturnas. “Very interesting. Will you contact this Herodotus, then, young man?”

Varus managed not to blurt, “No, because Herodotus has been dead for five hundred years.”
Though perhaps the Sibyl could put me in touch with him.
He said instead, “The historian himself is deceased. I intend to search libraries and discuss the subject with scholars who are more learned than I, however.”