"I want some small pieces of glass, made specially—"
"Beads? Of course, gentlemen. Look." The glass manufacturer scooped up a handful of beads. "Look at the color! Emerald, turquoise, everything!" He picked up another bunch. "See here, the faces of the twelve apostles, one on each bead—"
"Not beads—"
"A beaker, then! Here is one. Look, it has the Holy Family in high relief—"
"Jesus!" yelled Padway. "Will you listen?"
When Andronicus let Padway explain what he wanted, the Neapolitan said: "Of course! Fine! I've seen ornaments shaped like that. I'll rough them out tonight, and have them ready day after tomorrow—"
"That won't quite do," said Padway. "These have to have an exactly spherical surface. You grind a concave against a convex with—what's your word for emery? The stuff you use in rough grinding? Some naxium to true them off . . ."
Padway and Fritharik went on to Naples and put up at the house of Thomasus' cousin, Antiochus the Shipper. Their welcome was less than cordial. It transpired that Antiochus was fanatically Orthodox. He loathed his cousin's Nestorianism. His pointed remarks about heretics made his guests so uncomfortable that they moved out on the third day. They took lodgings at an inn whose lack of sanitation distressed Padway's cleanly soul.
Each morning they rode out to Puteoli to see how the lenses were coming. Andronicus invariably tried to sell them a ton of glass junk.
When they left for Rome, Padway had a dozen lenses, half plano-convex and half plano-concave. He was skeptical about the possibility of making a telescope by holding a pair of lenses in fine with his eye and judging the distances. It worked, though.
The most practical combination proved to be a concave lens for the eyepiece with a convex one about thirty inches in front of it. The glass had bubbles, and the image was somewhat distorted. But Padway's telescope, crude as it was, would make a two-to-one difference in the number of signal towers required.
About then, the paper ran its first advertisement. Thomasus had had to turn the screw on one of his debtors to make him buy space. The ad read:
DO YOU WANT A GLAMOROUS FUNERAL?
Go to meet your Maker in style! With one of our funerals to look forward to, you will hardly mind dying! Don't imperil your chances of salvation with a bungled burial! Our experts have handled some of the noblest corpses in Rome. Arrangements made with the priesthood of any sect.
Special rates for heretics. Appropriately doleful music furnished at slight extra cost.
CHAPTER VI
Junianus, construction manager of the Roman Telegraph Co., panted into Padway's office. He said: "Work"—stopped to get his breath, and started again—"work on the third tower on the Naples line was stopped this morning by a squad of soldiers from the Rome garrison. I asked them what the devil was up, and they said they didn't know; they just had orders to stop construction. What, most excellent boss, are you going to do about it?"
So the Goths objected? That meant seeing their higher-ups.
Padway winced at the idea of getting involved any further in politics. He sighed. "I'll see Liuderis, I suppose."
The commander of the Rome garrison was a big, portly Goth with the bushiest white whiskers Padway had ever seen. His Latin was fair. But now and then he cocked a blue eye at the ceiling and moved his lips silently, as if praying; actually he was running through a declension or a conjugation for the right ending.
He said: "My good Martinus, there is a war on. You start erecting these . . . ah . . . mysterious towers without asking our permission. Some of your backers are patricians . . . ah . . . notorious for their pro-Greek sentiments. What are we to think? You should consider yourself lucky to have escaped arrest."
Padway protested: "I was hoping the army would find them useful for transmitting military information."
Liuderis shrugged. "I am merely a simple soldier doing my duty. I do not understand these . . . ah . . . devices. Perhaps they will work as you say. But I could not take the . . . ah . . . responsibility for permitting them."
"Then you won't withdraw your order?"
"No. If you want permission, you will have to see the king."
"But, my dear sir, I can't spare the time to go running up to Ravenna—"
Another shrug. "All one to me, my good Martinus. I know my duty."
Padway tried guile. "You certainly do, it seems. If I were the king, I couldn't ask for a more faithful soldier."
"You flatterer!" But Liuderis grinned, pleased. "I regret that I cannot grant your little request."
"What's the latest war news?"
Liuderis frowned. "Not very—But then I should be careful what I say. You are a more dangerous person than you look, I am sure."
"You can trust me. I'm pro-Gothic."
"Yes?" Liuderis was silent while the wheels turned. Then: "What is your religion?"
Padway was expecting that. "Congregationalist. That's the nearest thing to Arianism we have in my country."
"Ah, then perhaps you are as you say. The news is not good, what little there is. There is nobody in Bruttium but a small force under the king's son-in-law, Evermuth. And our good king—" He shrugged again, this time hopelessly.
"Now look here, most excellent Liuderis, won't you withdraw that order? I'll write Thiudahad at once asking his permission."
"No, my good Martinus, I cannot. You get the permission first. And you had better go in person, if you want action."
Thus it came about that Padway found himself, quite against his wishes, trotting an elderly saddle horse across the Apennines toward the Adriatic. Fritharik had been delighted at first to get any kind of a horse between his knees. Before they had gone very far his tone changed.
"Boss," he grumbled, "I'm not an educated man. But I know horseflesh. I always claimed that a, good horse was a good investment." He added darkly: "If we are attacked by brigands, we'll have no chance with those poor old wrecks. Not that I fear death, or brigands either. But it would be sad for a Vandal knight to end in a nameless grave in one of these lonely valleys. When I was a noble in Africa—"
"We aren't running a racing stable," snapped Padway. At Fritharik's hurt look he was sorry he had spoken sharply. "Never mind, old man, we'll be able to afford good horses some day. Only right now I feel as if I had a pantsful of ants."
Brazilian army ants, he added to himself. He had done almost no riding since his arrival in old Rome, and not a great deal in his former life. By the time they reached Spoleto he felt as if he could neither sit nor stand, but would have to spend the rest of his life in a sort of semi-squat, like a rheumatic chimpanzee.
They approached Ravenna at dusk on the fourth day. The City in the Mist sat dimly astride the thirty-mile causeway that divided the Adriatic from the vast marshy lagoons to the west. A faint sunbeam lighted the gilded church domes. The church bells bonged, and the frogs in the lagoons fell silent; then resumed their croaking. Padway thought that anyone who visited this strange city would always be haunted by the bong of the bells, the croak of the frogs, and the thin, merciless song of the mosquitoes.
Padway decided that the chief usher, like Poo-Bah, had been born sneering. "My good man," said this being, "I couldn't possibly give you an audience with our lord king for three weeks at least."
Three weeks! In that time half of Padway's assorted machines would have broken down, and his men would be running in useless circles trying to fix them. Menandrus, who was inclined to be reckless with money, especially other people's, would have run the paper into bankruptcy. This impasse required thought. Padway straightened his aching legs and started to leave.