Read Online The Scarlet Fig: Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series by Avram Davidson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Avram Davidson
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bit earlier had addressed the food-wife as
Abundiata
and remarked that it didn’t take much to make them angry, there in Corsica — even this one was taking no care to restrain his swollen face from laughing, face split so wide that Vergil could plainly see the chewed dough to which he had reduced his food lying thick upon the tongue and teeth. “O crown and staff! look at his
face!
” A phrase from the
Natura
of that learned admiral came to him,
that honey wine made with poisonous honey is, after maturing, quite harmless, and that there is nothing better than this honey, mixed with costum, for improving the skin of women, or, mixed with aloes, for the treatment of bruises * .
It tasted as though it had already been mixed with aloes; he felt as though he had already been bruised.
“Oh, holy Hercules, how he don’t like it!”
“Mercury,
rex rhabdon
, he can’t take the bitter boxwood with the sweet!”
And the queæn Abundiata shrieked, half-helpless with laughter, “The
water
was too bitter for him! — how the
honey
, then, foreign fine-taster?”
A sick rage rose up in him like bile, such gross abuse of the laws of hospitality would scarcely have been expected of a Barbar-pack abusing a prisoner of war, rage seemed fair to undo him, he clutched the knife at his belt: still they hooted, and still they jeered: a small boy, who by the mere fact his nose was clean showed he was of good family, peered up into Vergil’s face to seek out the show of shame and pain; finding, laughed aloud with great delight; the knife meant nothing to them, probably even the gossoon had a sharp tickler of his own, and could pierce the femoral artery whilst a grown man lunged —
— and laugh while he pierced it —
No, the knife meant nothing to them, but something else did. A sound of fierce barking and loud baying in an instant drove off the pack of starveling dogs, eaters of dung (if the swine did not beat them to it), that had snarled and snapped even though they knew nothing of what was going on, save that they might with license snarl and snap, turned ragged tails and scabby rumps and fled, squealing as though they’d been kicked by heavy boots: they had not. Women leaped on tables, men rapidly threw their cloaks round their left arms and wrapped them against sharp teeth, the while drawing their own knives with their right ones; all, all looked swiftly round to check where the huge sounds might be (saw them not). And even then they did not understand. It did not take much to make them angry. But it took much to make them grasp … well … not
very
much, after all.
In a second or so and without transition the dogs’ menacing howls and barks sounded from the thick, thick branches of an over-hanging tree. And then one word came from every straining mouth: “
Gunta! Gunta!
”
The sneering child be-pissed himself, fell over his own feet, set up a shrill scream of sharpest fear: no one moved to help him. The food-wife cast her headcloth over her face and howling in terror, turned to flee.
Pure desire for power was not enough; many men greatly desired power, and not a few women: witness Flora, the famous
Regma
, who had reigned for decades via those to whom (in the words of that irascible Israelite, Samuelides) she was royally related “through blood and bed”: before finally it was assumed that she held all in her own right — still she signed herself proudly:
Daughter, Mother, Regent, Wife, and Queen.
But
Regma
was not
Gunta.
Thank the god; enough was sufficient. Pure desire for power was not enough, and malignancy was not enough, envy and the willingness to suffer great sacrifice was not enough. Learning was not alone enough: the Druids learned as much and the scant handful who composed the Order of Sages and Mages, holding, each a willow wand as rod and sceptre, had learned far more. Of one willing to be a
Gunta
, that he was of Greek speech went without saying (of course it need not be his sole or native speech), for
Abundiata
and remarked that it didn’t take much to make them angry, there in Corsica — even this one was taking no care to restrain his swollen face from laughing, face split so wide that Vergil could plainly see the chewed dough to which he had reduced his food lying thick upon the tongue and teeth. “O crown and staff! look at his
face!
” A phrase from the
Natura
of that learned admiral came to him,
that honey wine made with poisonous honey is, after maturing, quite harmless, and that there is nothing better than this honey, mixed with costum, for improving the skin of women, or, mixed with aloes, for the treatment of bruises * .
It tasted as though it had already been mixed with aloes; he felt as though he had already been bruised.
“Oh, holy Hercules, how he don’t like it!”
“Mercury,
rex rhabdon
, he can’t take the bitter boxwood with the sweet!”
And the queæn Abundiata shrieked, half-helpless with laughter, “The
water
was too bitter for him! — how the
honey
, then, foreign fine-taster?”
A sick rage rose up in him like bile, such gross abuse of the laws of hospitality would scarcely have been expected of a Barbar-pack abusing a prisoner of war, rage seemed fair to undo him, he clutched the knife at his belt: still they hooted, and still they jeered: a small boy, who by the mere fact his nose was clean showed he was of good family, peered up into Vergil’s face to seek out the show of shame and pain; finding, laughed aloud with great delight; the knife meant nothing to them, probably even the gossoon had a sharp tickler of his own, and could pierce the femoral artery whilst a grown man lunged —
— and laugh while he pierced it —
No, the knife meant nothing to them, but something else did. A sound of fierce barking and loud baying in an instant drove off the pack of starveling dogs, eaters of dung (if the swine did not beat them to it), that had snarled and snapped even though they knew nothing of what was going on, save that they might with license snarl and snap, turned ragged tails and scabby rumps and fled, squealing as though they’d been kicked by heavy boots: they had not. Women leaped on tables, men rapidly threw their cloaks round their left arms and wrapped them against sharp teeth, the while drawing their own knives with their right ones; all, all looked swiftly round to check where the huge sounds might be (saw them not). And even then they did not understand. It did not take much to make them angry. But it took much to make them grasp … well … not
very
much, after all.
In a second or so and without transition the dogs’ menacing howls and barks sounded from the thick, thick branches of an over-hanging tree. And then one word came from every straining mouth: “
Gunta! Gunta!
”
The sneering child be-pissed himself, fell over his own feet, set up a shrill scream of sharpest fear: no one moved to help him. The food-wife cast her headcloth over her face and howling in terror, turned to flee.
Pure desire for power was not enough; many men greatly desired power, and not a few women: witness Flora, the famous
Regma
, who had reigned for decades via those to whom (in the words of that irascible Israelite, Samuelides) she was royally related “through blood and bed”: before finally it was assumed that she held all in her own right — still she signed herself proudly:
Daughter, Mother, Regent, Wife, and Queen.
But
Regma
was not
Gunta.
Thank the god; enough was sufficient. Pure desire for power was not enough, and malignancy was not enough, envy and the willingness to suffer great sacrifice was not enough. Learning was not alone enough: the Druids learned as much and the scant handful who composed the Order of Sages and Mages, holding, each a willow wand as rod and sceptre, had learned far more. Of one willing to be a
Gunta
, that he was of Greek speech went without saying (of course it need not be his sole or native speech), for
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