Envoy Extraordinary

Phanocles was groping in a double darkness.

"What am I to say, Caesar? She is my sister. Her beauty has come up, as it were, overnight."

He paused, searching for words. They burst out of him.

"I do not understand you or any man. Why can they not let us be? Of what importance is the bedding of individuals? When there is such an ocean at our feet of eternal relationships to examine or confirm?"

They heard in the darkness a clucking sound from Phanocles' throat as though he were about to be sick. But when he spoke, the words were at once ordered and pointless.

"If you let a stone drop from your hand it will fall."

The Emperor's chair creaked.

"I hope we are following you."

"Each substance has affinities of an eternal and immutable nature with every other substance. A man who understands them-this lord here-"

"My grandson, the Lord Mamillius."

"Lord, do you know much of law?"

"I am a Roman."

Mamillius felt the wind of arms flung wide. He peered into the darkness of the loggia and made out a dark gesticulating shape.

"There then! You can move easily in the world of law. I can move in the world of substance and force because I credit the universe with at least a lawyer's intelligence. Just as you, who know the law, could have your way with me since I do not, so I can have my way with the universe."

"Confused," said the Emperor. "Illogical and extremely hubristic. Tell me, Phanocles. When you talk like this do people ever tell you you are mad?"

Phanocles' bewildered face swam forward in the gloom. He sensed the model and hoped to avoid it. Then there was something before his face-a sword blade that glistened dully. He backed clumsily away.

The Emperor repeated the words as though he had not said them before.

"-tell you you are mad?"

"Yes, Caesar. That is why I-severed my connection with the library."

"I understand."

"Am I mad?"

"Let us hear further."

"The universe is a machine."

Mamillius stirred.

"Are you a magician?"

"There is no magic."

"Your sister is a living proof and epitome of magic."

Phanocles turned, tormented, to the Emperor.

"That is how they all talk, Caesar. Poetry, magic, religion--"

The Emperor chuckled.

"Be careful, Greek. You are talking to the Pontifex Maximus."

Phanocles darted the shadow of a finger at his face.

"Does Caesar believe in the things that the Pontifex Maximus has to do?"

"I prefer not to answer that question."

"Lord Mamillius. Do you believe in your very heart that there is an unreasonable and unpredictable force of poetry outside your rolls of paper?"

"Then she is beyond Nature's legislation.

"That may well be. Is there any poetry in your universe?"

"How dull your life must be!"

"Dull?"

He took a half-step towards the Emperor, remembered the sword and stopped in time.

"My life is passed in a condition of ravished astonishment."

The Emperor answered him patiently.

"Then a mere Emperor can do nothing for you. Diogenes was no happier than you in his tub. All I can do is to stand out of the sun."

"Yet I am destitute. Without your help I must starve. With it I can change the universe."

"Will you improve it?"

"He is mad, Caesar."

"Let him be, Mamillius. Phanocles, in my experience, changes are almost always for the worse. Yet I entertain you for my-for your sister's sake. Be brief. What do you want?"

There had been obstruction. The ship, not his sister, was the tenth wonder; he could not understand men, but with this ship the Emperor would be more famous than Alexander. Mamillius had ceased to listen and was muttering to himself, and beating time with his finger.

The Emperor said nothing as Phanocles rambled on, did nothing, but allowed a little cold air to form round him in the darkness and extend outwards. At last for all the man's insensitivity he faltered to a stop.

Mamillius spoke.

"The speechless eloquence of beauty-"

"I have heard that before somewhere," said the Emperor thoughtfully. "Bion, I think, or is it Meleager?"

Phanocles cried out.

"Caesar!"

"Ah, yes. Your model. What do you want?"

"Let a light be brought."

One of the women returned with the ritual solemnity to the loggia.

"What is your model called?"

"She has no name."

"A ship without a name? Find one, Mamillius."

"I do not care for her. Amphitrite."

Mamillius yawned elaborately.

"I think, Grandfather, with your permission--"

The Emperor beamed up at him. "Ensure that our guests are comfortable."

Mamillius moved with a rush towards the curtain. "Mamillius!"

"Caesar?"

"I am sorry that you are so bored."

Mamillius paused.

"Bored? Yes. I am. Sleep well, Grandfather."

Mamillius strolled through the curtains with an air of leisurely indifference.

They heard how his steps quickened immediately he was out of sight. The Emperor laughed and looked down at the boat.

"She is unseaworthy, flat-bottomed, with little sheer and bows like a corn-barge. What are the ornaments? Have they a religious significance?"

"Hardly, Caesar."

"So you want to, play boats with me? If I were not charmed with your innocence I should be displeased at your presumption."