by Mary Reed
Thomas smiled benignly.
“Would you escort me again now, Thomas? I’m meeting Anatolius.”
“I think not,” Europa said severely. “Thomas’ services are needed here.”
Crinagoras stepped into the kitchen. “We haven’t agreed on a fee for today’s work yet, but now that I see you two lovely ladies, let me offer some thoughts, fresh from the oven of my inspiration. I’ve been summoned to entertain Theodora at the Blachernae, I may add.” Crinagoras set his soft hand on Thomas’ shoulder. “How much is that worth, my friend? To be entertained like an empress?”
Thomas had no opportunity to answer since Crinagoras began to declaim, waving his hands around after the fashion of an intoxicated mime.
“For you, dear friends, I wish only happiness and the joy of never knowing the suffering experienced by me, sad Crinagoras, parted forever from the maiden Eudoxia by duplicitous death. May the ship of your happiness rise on the ocean of my tears, may you climb toward endless joy up the tower of earth excavated from the pit of my despair. May—”
“Cease at once!” Thomas commanded.
Crinagoras broke off, his face expressing confusion and incipient hurt.
“You must write it all down, lest it be lost forever,” Thomas continued.
Crinagoras beamed. “Of course, Thomas. How stupid of me not to think of it. I shall write it out for you to savor at your leisure as many times as you please. You will have it by sunset tomorrow. And now I must depart.”
As he scuttled off downstairs Thomas pulled at his ginger mustache and smiled with satisfaction.
Europa broke into a broad smile as Hypatia gave him a questioning look.
“I never learned to read,” he told Hypatia with a grin.
Chapter Twenty
Anatolius waited for Lucretia in the atrium of Senator Balbinus’ house. Time seemed to have stopped, as frozen as a water clock left outside on a winter’s day.
Perhaps he had arrived at a time of crisis? At this very instant Balbinus might be struggling for another breath, one that would never come.
He listened, but could not hear even a muffled sound of a commotion.
Perhaps Lucretia simply did not want to see him?
He reminded himself of Crinagoras’ advice. It couldn’t have been given more than an hour ago, yet it felt like days.
“Follow your heart, my friend,” the other had said. “Where would we be if Cupid were cowardly? Think, Anatolius. If you don’t comfort her now, how will you ever be able to approach her afterwards?”
Crinagoras had reached up and tapped the mosaic on the inn wall. “You must emulate these brave charioteers. The first to the turn wins. In romantic matters, propriety must sometimes be left behind in the dust.”
Anatolius’ feelings about another visit to Balbinus’ house were ambiguous, but the statement had persuaded him. Now, however, he had begun to have second thoughts.
Anatolius’ mouth tasted sour. Did he smell of wine? He hadn’t drunk much. Why then did he feel dizzy?
“Now, off you go.” Crinagoras had practically pushed him out of the tavern door. “Fair Lucretia has not forgotten you. Didn’t you tell me not long ago that when Senator Balbinus’ party passed by you in the Augustaion after they left the Great Church, Lucretia looked back over her shoulder at you? Didn’t your gaze nearly meet hers?”
Anatolius’ grip tightened on the small scroll he held. The parchment felt damp.
No, he decided, this visit really was not proper.
He turned to leave.
“Anatolius.”
Lucretia stepped into the atrium.
The sight of her stopped his breath.
Glossy ringlets, tamed by a mother of pearl comb, surrounded her pale, patrician face. She wore a simple robe of white linen, decorated around the collar with pale blue gemstones unwittingly echoing the purplish smudges under her tired eyes.
She must be exhausted from attending Balbinus night and day, Anatolius thought.
She invited him into a reception room he had never glimpsed. Dazzling bright, with walls of snowy marble, and white alabaster urns in its corners. A couch and two pine wood chairs were inlaid with cream-colored ivory. As he sat down opposite Lucretia he thought she might have been one of Peter’s angels, and this the antechamber to the old servant’s heaven.
“Why are you here again, Anatolius?” Her voice was low and breathy, as always.
“I wanted to offer any assistance I could render. Because…because…well, you remember…”
“My husband is dying. How exactly do you propose to assist me in the matter?”
Anatolius began to feel ill. “I’m sorry, Lucretia, I realize this visit may seem presumptuous.”
“It most certainly is presumptuous.”
“I will leave.” He stood.
“Wait, Anatolius. I know you have a kind heart and came to see me with the best of intentions. I appreciate your sympathy.”
“Everyone at the palace is saddened by his illness, Lucretia. I…I am saddened.”
A faint, ironic smile flickered on her lips. “If you have come to commiserate with me on my husband’s death, I fear you are somewhat premature.”
Anatolius reddened. “He’ll be well soon, Lucretia. It’s just, I mean, if the worst happens…if there should be any legal difficulties…the Lord Chamberlain has the emperor’s ear and as you know he is a good friend of mine. So I thought if I reassured you…well, you would have assistance if it was needed in that, um, remote possibility it would help ease the burden…” He floundered to a halt, having forgotten the carefully constructed speech he had rehearsed.
What a sorry excuse it sounded when spoken aloud.
How could he have taken that fool Crinagoras’ advice?
“I see you’ve thought very hard about how you might help me, Anatolius. Thank you.”
He glanced down at the sodden little scroll in his hand. How near she was. He could not recall when last she had been so close. How could he remind her of waking together in moonlight, of worshiping Venus in warm summer-leafed groves, of intimate hours lit by a flickering oil lamp?
He tried to recollect all he had intended to say. The words had fled in abject shame. He felt as if he was a soldier who had girded for battle, only to be struck down in the enemy’s first wave of arrows.
“I’ve been a fool, Lucretia.” He felt even more foolish for having said it.
“Who isn’t at some time or other?”
“Do you ever think of me?”
“Of course. However, I am Senator Balbinus’ wife and have been for some time.”
Anatolius set the scroll on the couch beside her. “Something I wrote for you, Lucretia, as I used to do in the old days.”
Lucretia looked down at the gift, her face inscrutable. She did not pick it up.
Neither did she push it away.
Anatolius found courage to speak. “Let me believe there is hope, Lucretia.”
She did not raise her head. “Believe it if it pleases you, Anatolius.”
“Lucretia, if you had not married Balbinus, you would have married me. We both know it.”
Lucretia finally looked up at him. “No, Anatolius. I would not have married you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The bellow of a bull greeted John as he turned down a familiar street leading off the Strategion. It was almost as if Nereus’ oracular bovine were foretelling his visit. Was it a good omen from Mithra?
Sylvanus stood outside his late master’s house securing a basket full of frantically clucking chickens to a donkey cart.
“You’ve arrived just in time, Lord Chamberlain. I’m about to embark on a new adventure, since I’m off to the master’s country estate with my charges. I was lucky enough to be able to purchase this cart this morning. Its owner demanded an exorbitant price, but I won’t stay here another night!”
A cloud of feathers wafted out of the basket as Sylv
anus struggled to tie it to the side of the cart.
Recalling their previous conversation, John asked what would drive a confirmed city dweller into the countryside sooner than would be necessary.
A puzzled look crossed the rustic servant’s face. “You haven’t come to investigate the incident last night when someone broke into the house?”
The bull bellowed again. Sylvanus swiveled his head toward the open house door. “Apis!” he shouted. “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you!” Turning back to John, he invited him inside.
Nereus’ house was a shambles. Fragments of terracotta and marble, the remains of lamps and statuary, littered the atrium. John stepped over a pale arm. The marble lump in one shadowy corner might have been a head.
“It’s an outrage, sir!” Sylvanus fumed. “As if we hadn’t enough to weep over! Yet heaven heaps even more misery upon us.”
John glanced into Nereus’ office. Whoever had broken into the house had taken the trouble to damage its wall mosaic. Glass tesserae sparkled here and there among the ripped codexes and scrolls carpeting the tiled floor.
“Theft and breaking into houses are becoming the city’s main occupations,” lamented Sylvanus, “and fine pickings for the dishonest too, what with so many homes unoccupied. I can almost sympathize with those who break into a house they think empty, looking for something to steal and sell so they can feed their families, but wanton destruction…”
“What was taken, Sylvanus?”
“I can’t be sure, sir. You’d have to ask the house servants.”
The garden had also been vandalized and shrubs uprooted and tossed into the fish pool.
“They left the oracular chickens and fish,” Sylvanus pointed out. “I would have thought to a hungry thief both would have prophesied a very hearty dinner.”
“You were absent when these intruders broke in?”
“In a manner of speaking. I regret to say I over-imbibed last night and did not realize that strangers were in the house until I saw the destruction this morning.”
Bacchus, John thought, had become almost as popular these days as Fortuna.
“You heard nothing at all?”
Sylvanus, looking ashamed, shook his head and then, unexpectedly, beamed as he picked up a metal plate which had been half hidden under a low bush. “Here’s another of the master’s Dodona oracles. Bent, as you see, but I’m sure it can be put right. That makes three I’ve managed to find. I wonder where the other one is?” He looked around vaguely.
“You’re fortunate you weren’t murdered,” John observed.
“I keep my door locked at night. It’s always a wise precaution.” Sylvanus strode over to Apis and grabbed the pitchfork lying by the pen. “If I’d heard the villains at work you can be certain I wouldn’t have cowered in my room.”
He sank the pitchfork vehemently into the sparse pile of hay and tossed some to the bull. “It might have been demons who did this all by magick, sir. The streets are full of demons these days, looking for victims. Let them strike you once and before you know it the plague is carrying you off.”
It occurred to John demons would have found Nereus’ garden of pagan oracles a very pleasant place, rather than one to destroy.
Apis chewed contentedly. Sylvanus rubbed the sleeve of his rough woolen tunic over the plate he had just recovered.
John thought it more than likely the stealthy night visitors had been seeking something specific. Could it have been Nereus’ last written will?
But the oral will had immediately superseded it, he reminded himself.
“I returned to question you about the man called Aristotle of Athens. I understand your master conducted business with him and thought you might know where I could find him.”
“Yes, sir, I do,” the other replied. “In fact, I visited him only a few days ago regarding a statue of the oracle of Hermes the master had purchased. But then, I’ve told you about that already, haven’t I? There was some difficulty in making delivery arrangements. Now he will never see that amazing statue and neither, sir, will I.”
Taking a key from the pouch at his belt, Sylvanus opened the gate of Apis’ enclosure. “I noticed you admiring the beast. You can come into his pen. He sounds very fierce, but really he’s quite tame.”
Accepting the invitation, John patted the bull’s flank as Sylvanus knelt to unlock the creature’s shackle.
The click of the lock snapping open drew John’s gaze down and then he knelt to examine the bull’s restraining chain. “Do you see that, Sylvanus?”
“See what, sir?”
John pointed out a bright, shallow notch in one of the chain’s tarnished links. “Someone made a valiant effort to cut this.”
“The bastards!” Sylvanus sprang to his feet and stroked the placidly chewing bull’s muzzle. “Don’t worry, Apis. No one’s going to steal you, and soon you’ll be frisking about in country fields.”
Sylvanus inclined his head toward John and added in a whisper, “He’d feed a whole family for who knows how long.”
John remarked it was possible. “Before you leave, I wish to look at Nereus’ room.”
The room, overlooking the street, showed the same vandalism as the rest of the house. The water clock had been overturned again, and the sheets of papyrus scattered on the floor were sodden, already starting to smell of mold. There had been a cross on the wall. Now it lay on the floor. The bed had been turned over. So too had a heavy writing desk, a few bulky chairs, and a pair of oversized tables.
One wall was covered with a bright fresco depicting a frozen sea populated by numerous vessels swarming with fantastical baboon sailors setting course to far-off lands where buildings sporting spires, domes, and towers could be seen set amid woods and rolling meadows. Closer to home strings of camels brought boxes and bales from the docks toward a house depicted in the lower right-hand corner. It was obviously Nereus’ house, and three well-dressed figures, presumably those of Nereus, his late wife, and Triton, stood beside it.
John wondered, if Nereus were still alive, whether he would have ordered his servants to move one of the larger pieces of furniture in front of that portion of the fresco now that Triton had fallen from paternal favor.
It was not a large room. John had a difficult time imagining seven witnesses crammed into it, standing alongside the dying man’s bedside as servants rushed in and out. Where had the holy fool found space to dance with the archdeacon?
A number of codexes in a wall niche sat undisturbed. John pulled one out. It was part of Nereus’ set of Justinian’s Institutes. His legal oracle. He checked the niche quickly. Nereus had not concealed his last written will there.
John wasn’t certain why he had wanted to visit the room. Did Nereus’ shade linger? While the departed shipper made his way past heavenly tollhouses or up the heavenly ladder, or by whatever route one imagined led to the afterlife, did he still remain connected tenuously to a world he had not quite left, like a newborn clinging to its mother? Perhaps Nereus was even now discussing shipping affairs with Gregory, both detained by the same recalcitrant demon.
The break-in was as mysterious as the other circumstances surrounding Gregory’s murder. Had it merely been vandals? Or thieves? Someone seeking Nereus’ will or something else? As he went back downstairs a thought occurred to John.
“Sylvanus, a word of warning.”
The oracle keeper was leading Apis across the atrium. He paused and the bull stopped immediately, perfectly obedient. “An oracle keeper never ignores words of warning or he’d soon be out of a job, sir. What is it?”
“It’s possible that whoever broke in last night intended to harm you, or possibly somebody else they expected to find here.”
“All the more reason to be off for the country as fast as I can, then.”
***
John accepted Sylvanus’ offer of a ride.
He sat uncomfortably beside the oracle keeper as they lurched away from Nere
us’ now barred and shuttered house, shifting his lean flanks continually in a fruitless effort to be marginally comfortable.
The chickens in the basket squawked indignantly and water sloshed out of the amphorae holding the oracular fish as the donkey struggled up a steep incline to the Mese and then dawdled along the thoroughfare to the Capitolium, where one branch pointed north, the direction the cart would have to journey in order to get to Nereus’ estate, and the other south.
Thanking Mithra and Fortuna both that Aristotle’s establishment lay to the south, John climbed down from the cart in front of a looming marble structure that might have been a temple to Zeus, except for the huge crosses adorning the facade. The overladen cart crawled away, the tethered Apis ambling placidly along behind.
John set off at a brisk pace.
Soon he had passed down the Mese and through the Forum Bovis with its huge bull’s head. Aristotle had set up business on the seaward side of the Mese, not far from Constantine’s wall, in an area of small workshops and private warehouses.
John soon spotted a building that displayed a sign bearing the inscription Oracles, Antiquities, Bricks.
The edifice in which Aristotle conducted his trade sat at the end of a narrow road next to a patch of scrubby land. Whatever use it might once have had, the open area was now dotted with heaped mounds bearing silent witness to the continued decimation of the city’s population.
However, even proximity to the sad place could not account for the overwhelming, acrid odor that permeated the air.
The pungent smell was immediately identifiable, although a quick glance around did not reveal its source.
John knocked at Aristotle’s door.
Another door, he thought wearily. Perhaps he should petition Janus, god of thresholds and of beginnings and endings, for aid in his search.
The door swung open to reveal a man hefting a wooden cudgel. He was short and broad shouldered and wore a soiled leather apron over a grubby work tunic. He warily eyed his unexpected visitor.
