The Phoenix and the Mirror

CHAPTER SIX

THE PARCHMENT OF the invitation that arrived the next day was large enough to have represented the entire usable hide of a sausage bull, but although it could have contained the whole texts of the Sybil-line Books, the small amount of actual wordage occupied only a few widely separated lines. This was high courtesy indeed; Vergil had not realized he was held by the Dogical court to be worthy of such. Even Clemens, so fresh from the baths that drops of moisture still glistened here and there in the thickets of his curls, was impressed.

“The fact that they even invite me shows that they must really value you,” he said. “My last and only audience with the Doge probably established a record for brevity.”

“How so?”

“Why, he said, ‘Will you make me gold?’ and I said, ‘No,’ and he said, ‘Go,’ and so I went.… It is fortunate that the Fates have made him Doge. He leaves the business of government to his intellectual superiors among his servants, whereas, were he a teamster, he would manage to tie up traffic at least daily, you may be sure. Well. Hmm… hmm. A stag hunt. To what elaborate lengths the equestrian classes go in order to draw out the simple business of butchering venison. Ah well, it keeps their bowels open and their attentions occupied, and better King Log than King Stork. Anyway, we ought to have a good breakfast given us. I may even enjoy it.”

The hunt was being given by His Gracious Highness the Doge of Naples to honor the return of Dowager Queen Cornelia and the visitation of His High Excellency, Andrianus Agrippa, Imperial Viceroy of the South. The Master of the Hunt, come hither expressly for the purpose, was none other than the famed Count Phoebus, son of King Modus, and called the First Captain of the Chase. Obviously, for such a distinguished occasion, no worthy mounts were likely to be found in the livery stable on the Street of the Horse-Jewelers. Vergil’s perplexity on this point had evidently been anticipated, for, within an hour of the arrival of the invitation there was a great stir in the street and the brazen head announced the presence of “the Servants of the Doge.”

The swart-faced man in the forest-green jupon and tights introduced himself as the Sergeant of the Hunt, and, “This one’s His Highness’s chief groom, who we hope will help high Doctor Vergil and this other high doctor — Duty, mesire” — he doffed his cap to Clemens — “to pick out one of the horses here. But if so be none of ‘em suits, he will be happy to bring along another twelve or twenty, won’t he? Yes. And the compliments of Gracious high Doge. Likewise, also are saddles and other tackle and gear.” He kissed and smacked his lips to a passing wench.

Thus it was, quite early of a morning, that Vergil and Clemens found themselves at breakfast in a pavilion set up in the Deer Park near Mount Somma, on this side of Vesuvio. Lamps were still lit and charcoal braziers of the type called scalde-rini kept away the chill. Doge Tauro, that huge and hairy man, waved a vast paw at them, but his mouth and bristly black beard advertised not only the menu but his inability to talk. Cornelia smiled a dim, sweet smile, as at one not disliked, but only vaguely remembered, and sipped her hot wine. The gathered nobility and gentry looked at them with mingled respect and curiosity, but did not engage them in conversation. This was left to that suave and slender man, keen of eye and sharp of nose, Viceroy Andrianus, clever and competent link between the indifference of the Emperor and the incapacity of the Doge.

“Sages, your pleasure?” he inquired, “‘Where there is no bread, there is no philosophy.’ I suggest this delightful hot bread baked with orangewood, for a start. It is better than cake. We have cake, too. A glass of hot wine, Dr. Vergil? Or would you prefer the mulled ale with spices. Here is excellent honey. Try the toasted cheese, Dr. Clemens. It is from the Imperial farms. Let us divide this great grilled sausage between us — veal and suckling pig, what could be more tender. Nor will we ignore this dish of roasted pears with thick cream. As for — dear me” — he broke off into a lower, very slightly lower, tone — “I believe the Bull is about to bellow.”

The Doge was gesturing at them, his eyes wide with intent, his massy jaws masticating furiously, as he left his place at the table and stamped down to clap Vergil and Clemens upon the shoulders. By this time he had swallowed most of what was in his mouth. “Mustn’t waste time!” he directed, in a low roar. “Important things like hunt, all right. ‘Morrow — back to work. On” — he looked around, bent closer, said in a conspiratorial rumble — “on you know what! Eh? Me cousin’s daughter — the Lady Laura — three months ago — left Carsus — no sign of her. Mrrr… look!” He rummaged in the hairy thicket of his bosom, pulled out a thick gold chain, opened the locket to display an ivory miniature. “See what I mean? Haaa…”

Proudly he showed the face of a young girl of the age of entering womanhood, his manner almost proprietorial as he said, “Her grandfather was Doge, too.” When the miniature had been much admired, he snapped it shut and bellowed, “So see you make it — you know what — eh? — quick! Find out where she is! Go there meself! And as for them that I find there…” He made vast gestures of tearing apart, swaggered back to his seat to repeat the movements immediately over a plate of roasted pullets. And a curious, calm look passed between Cornelia and sly Agrippa.

Snatches of conversation reached Vergil’s ears as he sipped the hot, honeyed wine.

“Gire falcons and a falcon gentle… plump goats and sometimes good hens… best thing…”

“No hare?”

“Well… perhaps once a week, a hare.”

“Doge keeps good game. Mamma mine, if I’ve ever seen less than two inches of fat on the flanks of the poorest buck pulled down here.”

“Our Lady Venus, well, when Doge isn’t feeding or futtering, depend on it, he’s hunting.”

He caught the Viceroy’s eye. The official said, “If one could only get them to show as much interest in sound fiscal policies or adequate water supply.… There is another pavilion set up, Dr. Vergil, part way along the course, and unless your passion for the hunt is much greater than mine, you may wish to pause there. If so, then, with your permission, I should like to elaborate on the matter the Doge mentioned. But not till then. Meanwhile, sir, before the servants reach us with water, geminors, and napkins, to what may I help you for a savory? The larks seem good, and so do the smelts. Allow me, sage. Allow me.”

Cornelia looked at them and sipped again at her wine. This time she did not smile. Grave, serene, baffling, beautiful, she seemed now not to see him at all.

There was still dew sparkling on the grass as they came out into the freshness of the morning, but if the birds were sounding their love songs it was impossible to say. Huntsmen and horses and grooms moved about, none silently, and there were the greyhounds and the hounds de mota — running dogs and lyme-hounds — voicing, it seemed, their determination to earn the obol a day allowed for each one’s keep to the berners and fewterers. The Sergeant of the Hunt was there, the yeomen of horse and the yeomen of bow, the foresters and parkers, the chacechiens. The lyme-hounds strained their sleek black necks against the lymes or straps of horsehide, a fathom and a half long, but the white and brown brachets rested more patiently, confined by the berners in the couplets made of mare’s tails, three couples per relay.

These hunted by scent and hunted in voice, melodious and deep. Not so the great gray and gray-white alaunts, ferocious beasts used in war as well as hunting: they quested by sight alone, and they ran mute.

The merry confusion and tumult died away as the noted Captain of the Chase, Count Phoebus, stroked his thin mustache, came forward and began to examine the dogs one by one, bending his comely head of golden hair as he picked up each foot. “There may be someone here who knows less about all this than I do,” Clemens said, “but I can’t imagine who.”

This seemed to touch the Sergeant’s sympathy. “Now, perceive, mesires,” he said, “the beasts of venery, or beasts of the forests, if you prefer, they be five — are called silvestres tantum — the hart, the hind, the hare, the boar, the wolf. But not the buck, no, mesires. Because why? Because he’s entitled a beast of the field, is why. Now, the beasts of the forests, making their abode all the daytime in these great coverts, and have their secret places in the woods… yes. And in the nighttime coming out into the meadows and pastures and all the pleasant feeding places… a-hah. Mamma mine! And that’s why we says about a park, ‘What’s a park? Vert, venison, enclosure — that’s a park.’ Forest, now, or chase, perhaps having venison and it perhaps has vert, or peradventure the two both, but enclosure, no, Lord, indeed. Only your park has all three.”

And now Count Phoebus had concluded his inspection of the dogs, and summoned the lymerers to him, one standing a bit forth of the others to answer for all the traditional questions.

“Lymerer, did you yestere’en make your ringwalks?”

“Yes, mesire.”

“Did you find slot, trace, voyes, pies, or foil?”

“Found slot and trace, mesire.”

“Fresh slot, good track, heels and cleeves and toes, clear of mark?”

“Yes, mesire.”

“You made scan-talon and you hold him to be warrantable? — a hart of right age, and no hind, buck, or brocket?”

“Yes, mesire…”

Next the Count called the chief parker, and questioned him if he had checked and observed abatures where the stag had lain and pressed down the herbage, thus showing where it harbored and what size it was. The parker, answering in the casual and confident manner of an experienced and trusted servant, declared that he had. He had made blemishes to mark the spot, and blazoned the trees where the beast had frayed its horns. He had put the nets and blinks all in place to keep the stag from scaping the course when in full flight, and had seen to it, too, that sewels and sewings and other scarecerfs were hanged up to keep the stag from running down the hidey-lanes. And all the trystes and stablestands had been set up and yeomen of office stationed in them to blench the game if it turned.

Count Phoebus turned and addressed the lymers once more. “Have you found fewmets?” The stag’s clean stools were presented on leaves before him and he examined them, his face relaxing into a smile. “It promises a large and healthy stag, wouldn’t you say, lymerer?” (“I would, I would, mesire.”) “Then sound the stroke and divide the relays.”

The treble notes of the stroke sounded and quavered, the company began to mount, and the hounds were divided into the three relays — vauntchaseurs, middlers, and perfecters. And, to the sound of the horns, the company began to move unto the hunt.

Clad as were his mounted companions of the day in a loose green robe and a cap tied under the chin lest swift riding dislodge it, Vergil laid aside for the moment his curiosity concerning the Viceroy’s words, and sank gladly into the rich and ceremonial activity. For the quest as such he had no particular taste or relish, but it was something new and therefore something to be considered with interest. And, most of all, the labor and concern of it made his incessant sense of loss and woe almost forgotten.

“Lymerers,” Count Phoebus called from his cream-colored horse, “lay the dogs on the fue!”

“Ho may, ho may, hole, hole, hole!” cried lymerers and berners and fewterers. The dogs spread out, lymehounds and brachets straining and sniffing, alaunts peering — suddenly the hounds opened and cried challenge, belling and pulling. The chacechiens cheered.

A huntsman came running up, cried, “Trace and slot!” and threw himself down on the ground and measured. Then jumped up with a look of chagrin, holding up two fingers. A groan, and shouts of “Rascal!” and “Folly!” — a hart below the age of warrant — and the company moved on. Almost at once, however, the eyes of the alaunts caught what the noses of the hounds had missed, again the huntsman flung himself down to measure the newfound tracks… and this time scrambled to his feet, beaming, holding up four fingers.

“Four! Four! A warrant of four!”

The slot was four fingers breadth in width, one more than the three needed. “Unharbor and imprime!” cried the Captain of the Chase. The dogs pressed forward on the trail, the footmen and horsemen followed — there was a shout, a crash, and “the great, grass-fed stag,” his head crowned with wide-spread antlers, rose and reared from his harboring and bounded forward and away.

“There he goes! There he goes! Ecco, ecco!”

Two notes were sounded on the horn for the unharboring, three (by Doge, Count, and Sergeant, in turn) as the first relay of hounds was uncoupled, and four — by the Sergeant alone — as the hunt burst into full motion. First the stag, flying effortlessly with his head well up, down the velvet corridors of trees and turf, behind and well behind him the first relay of hounds, the brachets and alaunts; then the horsemen, Count Phoebus’ long golden hair whipped by the wind, Doge Tauro crouched upon his black stallion with his knees and elbows out, the Lady Cornelia as secure upon her side-saddle as if it were a seat in her garden (and as grave, as lovely, as indifferent); then lymerers, berners, hounds held, all others.

“Cerf! See cerf!”

“See staggart! See stag! See cerf!”

It had been observed that the stag was not sole, but was accompanied by two younger harts — staggarts or brockets. “Rascal, folly, and herd!” was the cry, and, “Emprime the esquires” — the lesser, attendant deer — ”Make the rascals void!” The esquires were separated and sent away, the great stag singled. The fewterers cried, “Hark back, hark back, so how, so how!” and the chacechiens cracked their supple charcions and began to whip at the few young hounds who had parted to follow the folly; either this or the sounding for this purpose of the trururu, trururu, truru-truru of the recheat upon the horn drew them back in line.

“Forward, sirs, forward!”

“Avaunt, avaunt!”

“Here how, friends, here how-suavely, my friends, suave, suave!”

“Ecco, ecco, ec-co-o-o!”

And again the trururu, trururu, truru-truru of the recheat, the belling of hounds, the thudding of hooves, wordless cries, the wind…

Yet, still, the great red-brown stag ran with his crown of horns up and back, ran so well and so well ahead that he had time for a moment to pause and turn and look, standing at gaze. Then suddenly he bounded off again and was lost to sight as he harbored again in the covert.

And the horn blew the questioning notes of the seeke.

Seeing the pavilion at the stable-stand off to the left, Vergil left the quest and rode cross-park to the place — the stabling station, as it was called — which twice required keepers to undo nets and move blinks to let him pass. Sooner or later the stag must go by the “station”; the course was so arranged. The hounds of the vaunt-relay waited there, and crossbowmen ready to be called if needed at the morte. Outside the sun was high by now, and hot; within the pavilion all was cool and dim and green herbs of fragrant scent were strewn upon the floor and the walls were green with fresh-cut boughs; there was fruit and cooling drinks and couches with silken cushions.

And there was Queen Cornelia and the Viceroy, too.

“Sensibly done, Lord Magus,” said he, breaking off some secret-seeming, sibilant discourse with the Queen and coming forward to greet him. “For my own part, if I had followed the hounds much longer I believe I would have begun to bay. Enough of that. It amuses the idiot aristocracy and keeps them too busy for intrigue, conspiracy, sedition, treason — in short, art — if one may so term it — substituting for nature and to the benefit of everyone. Except, of course, the stag. His fate, if I may quote that irascible Israelite, Samuelides, ‘is predetermined and exact.’ Let him run wheresoe’er he will, however swift, however slow, he cannot escape.”

Cornelia looked at Vergil, and, for the first time, her look seemed timorous. He spoke first. “It was not necessary,” he said. “Not in any way. I would have helped you anyway. I thought you knew that. I thought that, however small a portion of your heart I had, you would have known that much.”

She shook her head swiftly, swiftly. And in a voice so low he barely heard, she said, “My heart belongs to someone whom I dare not see… As to the rest of it, I didn’t know. I didn’t understand, no, not at all. I’m sorry. But I can’t undo it, things have to take their course now.”

“You saw me naked and afraid. How you must have despised me.”

Her eyes protested. Her lips denied. “I cherish your friendship and respect,” she said. “I hope I haven’t lost them forever. But I was powerless to prevent what happened.” Her gaze, her thoughts, wandered, she seemed to look upon strange seas and shores. “No man holds me long, save one. I would do anything for him… anything… except the one thing he wants…” Vergil’s mind asked, Tullio? And almost at once answered, No; asked, Who? but had no answer.

A dish clattered. Cornelia’s head snapped up. She looked at him directly. “I am sorry,” she said. “But the mirror must be made.”

The Viceroy had moved to a table farther away and there busied himself. He heaped a basic with choice fruit, filled a goblet with snow-cooled drink, brought them to Vergil, and drew up a seat opposite the small table. From the golden case in the bosom of his robe he took a small, jeweled knife and began to peel and quarter a pear.

“The ignorance, the obduracy, sage, of the provincial ruling class of the present time, is hard for the truly sophisticated mind to grasp. I wince to reflect how many scores of thousands of ducats go into the annual maintenance by this Doge of his hunting preserves, his parks, his forests, his warrens and chases. And yet when it comes to paying the very moderate costs levied for his share of the upkeep of the Imperial roads as they pass through his own realms, why — Jove defend me! — if I’ve ever heard such bellowings and bleatings!”

Vergil said, cautiously, “Roads, Your High Excellency, are the very veins and arteries of the Empire.”

Something flashed in the Viceroy’s eyes, and his face seemed about to open. Then it settled back into its accustomed lines again. And his voice, when he answered, was equally and noncommittably cautious. “Indeed, this is so. You can easily understand, then, Ser Doctor, how important it is to the peace and prosperity of the Empire and its allies and confederates — we can say of the whole Economium, the western civilized world — that our roads remain open.

“Of these the Great High Road is certainly not the least in importance. If so important a traveler as the Lady Laura, the sister of the confederate King of Carsus, cannot travel this road in safety, then who can? Brigandage cannot be tolerated. Somewhere on that road is a place which spells danger to all of us. The Emperor — yes, himself, the August Caesar — wants to know where. And he desires to know soon. Now, sir. We depend upon you, on your art and science, to find this out for us. We would not incite your just contempt with talk of bags of ducats, or the like. It is by no means certain that you lack anything which Caesar can supply. Still…”

He paused. He smiled. He shrugged. “It is by no means certain that you do not.” He passed him the plate of peeled fruit. Vergil took it, put one of the pieces in his mouth. It was cool and sweet and full of juice. The noises of the hunt, of the horn, came dimly to his ear, muted.

Presently he said, “Well, Viceroy, I should be a fool if I did not keep in mind what you say.”

The Viceroy, with a quick, short, expressive breath, dismissed the matter. “Let us see how goes the chase, then,” he said.

Below them and a long ways away, they saw the stag break covert. The horns blew the two long notes, two short, two long and one long, of the forlange as the stag — through the long grass and through the short, beneath the great trees and down the shady glens — trajoined as he crossed and recrossed to confuse the hounds; proffering at the reedy covert of the fens, refusing, then making for the open water, and there descending. The horn sounded the veline. The stag foiled downstream, vanished, doubled back upon the land again and menaced a man on foot. The horn sounded the jeopard, the stag bounded off and away, with the hounds now babbling, now bawling after him, and the grim, gray alaunts still pressing on in silence.

Behind him now the stag left “racks and entries” in the form of bruised branches he no longer took time to avoid, and of imbosh (flecks of foam). More, when now and then his slot was seen in softer soil, it was observed that it was wider spread, a sure sign of fatigue; and by and by, even in hard earth, the print of the oses, the dewclaws, showed that he was grown sarboted or footsore. Now the hounds picked up a good scent and were in full cry and good order, justifying the long, long horn call of the perfect. The stag at last came lurching by the pavilion, his coat now black with sweat, and then swerved aside from the hounds of the vauntlay, now at last loosed upon him.

“He embosses! See how he lurks and tapishes!” The horn sounded the tromp. The stag ran stiff and high. “How, how, ho there, ho!” And then at length the beast “burnished and cast his chaule” — head hung down, mouth blackened and dry, he set his back to a hedgeside and turned to face the dogs, sometimes striking out with feet, sometimes with antlers, sometimes just staring. The horn sounded the weep. “Bay, bay, he burnishes, at bay!” The Sergeant came from behind and cut the stag’s throat. “Ware haunch!” — the chacechiens whipped back the dogs, the horn blew the prise, the deer fell down and rose and fell and kicked and the berners dipped bread in his blood and tossed it to the younger dogs. The stag kicked once more and kicked no more. And the horn sounded the mort.

Somehow, Cornelia was on one side of Vergil and the Viceroy was on the other. “What I did,” she said, urgently, intently, “to you, I did because I was desperate. I never meant to hurt you, I was powerless to prevent doing what I did. But I swear it now, may I die as that deer died if I do not return what I took the instant I see the child’s face in the mirror.” Her eyes beseeched him.

The Doge seized the beast by its great crown of horns and turned it over onto its back. “Say, say!” he cried, grinning widely, “who’s to hold the forelegs and who’s to hold the pizzle and who’s to draw the knife to take say?”

As someone’s younger son carefully “took say” by opening the belly to see how deep the fat was, Vergil took a last look at the stag. He saw in it a symbol of himself and his own predicament. He could run. But he could not escape.