The Book of the Beast (15 page)

Presently she started to croon, to sway like a serpent. He thought of the sybils, inhaling volcanic vapours, prophesying, reading riddles. He did not want this to occur. He did not want any of this. He decided, sourly, if she was prone to this, he would not come here again. It was a shame, but he might have known there would be a flaw.

She stopped crooning and swaying.

The smoke was thick in his nostrils, his mouth seemed coated by it. Through the pillar she abruptly said, “You have never had any luck, centurion. Should you relish some?”

It was so unlike her way of speaking to him. Even the timbre of her voice was higher and slightly shrill.

He said, “Don’t be impertinent. I don’t come to you for this. I respect your gods, but my business is my own.”

“I spoke of luck. Is it not true? All you hanker for you miss. Your days with the legions left you here.

Your promotion you did not have. Your wife is barren and not fair. If you go to hunt, you kill nothing. If you dice, you take the Dog.”

“You’ve been asking questions about me,” he said. He added, measured, “You bitch, don’t forget who I am. Rome is the power here. Insult me, you insult Rome.”

“Rome is far off. You are not Rome. You are a man who stinks of his disappointments. All your days are marked with blots. I say again, should you wish to change it?”

He swore at her. (How different from the rest, this ultimate dialogue they had managed!) His mind said clearly, She speaks only the fact. Whether she has gossiped or is wise, she does not lie. I am who she says. Change it? Yes, I could wish that.

Just then the smoke in the bear’s skull flattened in a most striking way, as if some vortex sucked it down.

He could see her directly now, before him. Her face was white, her eyes like pebbles. This did not seem to be Lililla. Something had taken possession of her for sure. Some god. Some thing.

“If,” she said, or the god said, through her, “yů accept what is offered to you, reach into the skull.

Remove what is there.”

Vusca found it hard to look away from her. He made himself do so, looked at the fuming skull instead.

The smoke was almost laid now. It clotted in the cavities of the skull-eyes, foamed at the rim. Still he could not see past it, into the hollow case.

“If you accept,” the woman repeated, “reach in. Remove what is there. It will be yours.”

Suddenly, like a boy who is dared, he could not put it off. He thrust his hand, or as much of it as he could, into the baked smoke. And felt something on the hot crusts of the gums. He brought it out. It was warm, glassy, black with the smoke as his hand now was. He brought forward a piece of his damp cloak and rubbed, and the mauve rain-light of sky and hills was shining there on his palm.

It was a small oblong of amethyst, an amulet, presumably, for it was incised with the figure of some protective deity—Vusca scrutinised this, uncertain of its form.

Lililla said, “You have taken it now.”

“Yes, I’ve taken it. But it’s precious, this stone.”

“You gave me gifts, lord,” she said. “I render to you a gift.” It was the other Lililla, the perfect harlot. He looked, and saw she had returned, and was kneeling there beyond the table, with blood behind her skin and sight in her eyes. Even the wig and the costume looked only garish now. It was the smiling face of mere being. “The amulet is from Aegyptus,” she said, “the wine-stone.”

“That is Thor, then,” he said, “cut into the surface.”

The image had a man’s body, a bird’s head. Thot, the Mercurius of the Aegyptians, was bird-headed.

Lililla did not reply. She went away as Vusca sat there staring at the jewel, turning it in his hand. That she should give him something of high price seemed odd. Perhaps her gods truly had made her.

The stone was no longer hot. It had assumed the temperature of his palm. It seemed made of his own flesh, only harder, and more smooth.

The woman came back with her hair loose and her silks, carrying the lewd silver cup.

Vusca stood.

“No,” he said.

She stood in her turn, looking at him. She continued only to smile and only to be.

“I’ve left the money on the table,” he said. “This jewel’s worth more.” He said, to test her, “Do you want it back after all?” And made a movement, as if to hand it to her.

At that she gave ground. She stepped off three or four steps, quickly. The smile stayed. She shook her head, smiling.

“No, lord. My omens told me. Yours.”

“I never heard of a woman of your sort,” he said, “giving the client a payment.”

If she had fallen on him with all her most cunning caresses and amazing tricks, he could not have had her, not then. She had spoilt all that.

As for the jewel, probably it was some stained crystal. If it would be lucky—well, he was due a little luck.

It was dry dark outside. Dogs were baying a rising moon.

He walked down to the north wall, had a drink with the sentry captain at the river gate. Below, the water spread to catch the moonlight, and on the other side were the thatched huts of the native Par Disans.

Rome was far away. Perhaps this very hour, she was burning again, broken. They would be the last to know.

A day later Dianus, meeting him by the quartermaster’s cubicle, informed Retullus Vusca the lily whore had decamped. She and all her trappings had vanished away in a night. The house was empty. Hopefuls, who went in to rummage, found nothing worthwhile. Someone said the Lupa at the
She-Wolf had
paid her off.

On his hard bed in the officers’ block, Vusca asleep was walking through a long narrow corridor whose ceiling almost brushed his head. The walls were whitewashed, but took no light until the way opened into a courtyard. In the dream, Vusca glanced about ironically, responding as he tended to, to foreign things.

The walls of the court, like the corridor, were whitewashed and painted over, with lions and chariots. The other end of the court gave on a flight of white steps going down to dark water under a tight drum-skin of heat-drained sky. Palms grew against the steps, and in the water pale cupped lilies and purple-coloured lotuses.

An overblown altar stood in the court near the water-steps and a man was making an offering there. He was naked but for a kilt of dressed skins. His body glimmered like metal from sweat or from oil; his hair and beard were curled. The incense steamed on the altar, it had an overpowering smell, almost kitcheny, like something cooked or fried, like offal, and like musky sweet things, too.

The altar was carved with creatures that had male bodies, wings, the heads of lions, rams, birds.

Sun hammered out the river. The man’s flesh and hair shone. The streamer of incense rose.

Nothing else happened.

When Vusca woke, the trumpets were sounding the third watch. Here, it was night. Known, every angle and shadow of the cell, its two chests, the lamp, the chair which had once been uncle’s at the villa, the weapons on the wall and the bearskin he had bought from Barbarus one bitter winter. Beyond the door, left open, the mathematical Roman yard, with a ray of light playing down from the torch on the Praetorium wall.

Vusca heard the trumpets out. Then turning on his side, returned into sleep, and did not dream again.

On the evening of the Wall Walk, the Commander elected to lead the squadron. Formerly, there had been a manned sentry-post for every half mile of town wall. In the lax climate that now prevailed, only ten posts were kept up, besides the south, west and river gates.

Every month, at the Calends Moon, one of the ranking centurions took the Walk, a tour of the entire wall, which lasted upwards of four hours. The Fort mason was supposed to accompany the presiding centurion, but normally contented himself with a question or two the following day. Otherwise, the Walker was supported by his adjutant and a block of ten of his men who would have been happier in the Fort. For the Pilum Commander, he seldom if ever took the Walk, as he seldom bothered now with the Night Inspection, delegating this also to his Centurion Secundo or whatever officer was most handy.

Vusca had overseen Nights more times than he could count, and the Wall Walk nearly as often. He learned that he was not to escape on this occasion either. The Old Man wanted both the mason and Vusca for escort, with ten Velites (who as usual would fret and feel insulted, since for the Walk even the cavalry went on foot. In the old days a skirmisher division would never had been put on such a duty. But then).

Dianus spoke scathingly of the Commander. “What’s stirred him up? Afraid the Emperor’s watching from afar?”

Vusca shrugged. He despised the Pilum Commander, who liked wine too much and spoke Greek like a pimp and Latin like the fishmongers’ descendant he was. Long ago, Vusca had partly hated the man. Yet even in those days Vusca served him impeccably. A soldier must honour the command, if not the dross which might fill it. One did not tarnish one’s own vow because of a fool, a stroke of rotten luck. Nor did one, like Dianus, yap about his faults. It was part of the great pretence that every commander be sufficient.

They started out just after
gates
. There was still a flush of light in the west, mauvish (like that other night).

It was autumn weather now, and the remainder of the sky swagged low with cloud. They would probably get a wetting before the Walk was done, which made it stranger still their comfort-loving Pilum had decided on it.

He strutted ahead, like a barrel on legs, in that dress armour of his with the inlay of silver, iron cap plumed with its white coxcomb, and the Tyrian cloak swaggering, full of wind. He was jovial too, and cracked the odd joke with the mason. Centurion Velitis Vusca kept the proper number of paces to the rear, his Velites marching with a dull clink and clash behind him. At the manned posts, the Commander received the salute with theatrical earnestness. He spoke to the handful of sentries, encouraging them in the wind and light spat of rain that was beginning, as if enormous enemy battalions lay below on the garnering night. A couple of times, he called Vusca up. The second time it was: “That man to be disciplined. Sloppy. Probably drunk.” Vusca accepted the criticism on the man’s behalf. His name was Quintus. He had bad teeth and sometimes dosed himself with poppy. It was irregular but understandable.

And was the drug more distracting than constant pain? The Commander, of course, knew nothing of any of this.

They got down to the river gate inside the first hour, the tour had gone briskly thus far.

The Pilum paused for a drink with the sentry captain, complained about Quintus, had another cup against the dank evening.

Out on the wall again, behind the Commander’s cocksure, rolling advance, Vusca heard one of his men mutter, “He thinks he’s going to his Triumph.”

Vusca, for once, saw fit to be deaf.

In the second hour, marching over against the north-west hills, the rain began to come from Jupiter’s slingers. It lashed the right cheek, whistled into the right car, blinkered the right eye. They tramped on, shimmering iron men with seaweed cloaks. That clown, with his damned plumes, carved through the rain, wine-insured against the weather.

They reached the west gate. This time Vusca was invited to join the drinking. He touched the flagon with his lips.

The core of the storm came when they were on the western stretch, with the rain striking their backs.

For some reason, Vusca thought of a minor engagement in hill country, all of thirteen years ago. The downpour had started in the hour before battle, slanting on the ranks, and up had gone the shields, to make a tortoise against the rain. He was reminded of the sound of it now, a barrage like nails, hitting those hundred or so crossed lightnings, torches, the Medusa faces and snake hair washed and slapped.

They had fought in the rain too, skidding and sinking in the mud, while the sky flickered with levin-bolts.

They won, that went without saying. When the tempest lessened, the barbarians lay everywhere, while the rain gently cleansed their wounds. His infantry shield remained with him to this day. It had a hole through one of the Medusa eyes where someone had almost finished his unpromising career.

A white crack suddenly wrecked the sky. Everything leapt out stark and dead, a place with no dimensions, colours or shadows. Lightning was here, too.

Then came the boom and shock of heavenly ballistas.

One of the Velites shook himself as he marched, with a rattle. Water down the neck.

Not alone in that, thought Vusca. He watched the Commander rolling on ahead, impervious it seemed.

Even the mason had dropped back. The next manned sentry-post was visible, ten minutes away, and below, the town, wild on this side, bothies and brothels, though along the slope the ruined circus stood up like a raised scar.

Vusca turned his head and saw, across the streaming night, the dim glows of the easterly town, the spark of Dis Light on the Light Tower. He felt together a dismal sense of futility and a raw pride. He had come to care for it, this outcast place. Perhaps, when Rome was only a pile of rubble, Par Dis in exile might survive.

More rain went down his neck like a cold lesson.
Remember you are mortal
.

So much for the whore’s amulet. Even now, like a dolt, he had it in a pouch round his neck. It surely failed to keep him dry.

And then the world blew up.

There was just a dot of white and then a drench like fire. As he flew, turning, falling, he thought, quite distinctly, he had known something like it before, but he did not know where or when—an earthquake maybe, or a nightmare.

He landed hard, bruised on the metal of his armour. He lay and thought about this, and then he found a heap of armoured men tumbling over him like clanking puppies.

He pulled himself out and to his knees, and saw the mason running in a circle screaming. He was naked, and his body smoked.

“By the bowels of the Bull,” said Vusca, standing up.

He seemed to be lightheaded. Drunk after .all? He fought the urge to laugh. He lifted his hands. They were scalded. He put up these scalded hands, and touched his singed hair and brows.