Two for Joy jte-2

by Mary Reed

  The sun had just set. It had been a weary day and John’s mind was moving much too slowly to keep a proper guard on his words. Too late, he regretted mentioning the young prostitute’s remarks.

  “I was concerned about your safety, Philo, that’s all,” he explained tiredly. “How a man conducts such personal matters is entirely his own business.”

  Philo threw the slightly charred stick back on the pile. “As well it should be. And to change the subject entirely, that old scoundrel Peter is still lying abed.”

  John had already noted that the kitchen smelled merely of smoke. Only a ghostly trace remained of the welcoming fragrance of simmering meats and sauces that normally greeted him each evening.

  “You really must do something about him, John.” Philo sat down on the stool he’d pulled closer to the brazier and warmed his hands. “When he did not appear this afternoon, I eventually went up to see how he was feeling.”

  “He was still resting as I had instructed?”

  “Ah, so you had ordered him to stay abed? However, we did have some words.”

  “Peter is my servant, Philo, not yours. And, if may I remind you, a free man,” John pointed out shortly.

  “I meant it in the sense that we had some fascinating discourse, John. In fact, we had quite a long and most interesting conversation. He insisted on trying to explain to me how this god of his can possess distinct but inseparable natures. Nothing but convoluted word play in my opinion, but I do believe we might have gained a good orator there if he’d had some proper training as a young man.”

  After his tiring and tedious investigations John did not care to consider such a spectacle, so he contented himself with commenting that he was happy that the pair had found something in common.

  “Oh, he’s a veritable library of knowledge on religious heresies. Eutychianism, Manichaeism, Docetism… It’s quite remarkable how many ways they have found to slice up that deity of theirs. Yet sink a knife into some poor dumb beast to honor an older god and you are immediately called a blasphemer of the highest order!” Philo rubbed his hands together. John was not certain whether he was still trying to warm them or was simply enthused by the topic under discussion.

  “Anatolius has made similar comments but he is young and often careless in his speech,” John said. “I hope you are old enough to know better than voice such opinions too loudly.”

  “Do you think I’m that much of a fool with these Michaelites stirring trouble up for all of us with their odd ideas?”

  John shrugged. “I’m amazed that Justinian would think he can reconcile their beliefs with orthodoxy. Perhaps he sees some subtle shading we do not. But,” he continued wearily, rubbing his eyes, “it’s been a difficult day. I will be retiring early, I think.”

  He got up. As they had been talking the last embers of sunset had faded. The flickering orange light of the cheerful brazier danced across the room’s plain plaster walls.

  Philo also stood. “John,” he began hesitantly, “I have something to confess. I went out earlier. I followed you.” He quickly recounted his meeting with Hektor. “I’m ashamed to say it, but the child frightened me so much I came back immediately and sat in your garden to compose myself. It took some time, I fear.”

  John no longer felt tired. Hektor would not be spying for any good reason. Had the boy somehow discovered Theodora had ordered John to desist from investigating Senator Aurelius’ death and intended to foment trouble?

  “No need to feel ashamed, Philo,” he finally said. “You have good reason to beware of Hektor, and so do I.”

  “John, if I have put you in any danger…”

  “No. Not at all. In fact, it’s fortunate you followed me, because now I’m forewarned about Hektor’s sudden interest in my movements. But, please, don’t follow me again. You were a wonderful tutor, Philo. I owe my life to you. But take my counsel on this and stay inside in relative safety from now on.”

  Philo replied with uncharacteristic hesitancy. “One thing more. I…found that message Anatolius copied and left here on the day of the banquet.”

  He led John to the study and removed a piece of parchment from beneath the shatranj board.

  “An unfortunate place to lose it,” John remarked, “considering how unlikely it is that I’d ever touch that wretched game of yours.”

  Philo, looking sheepish, handed the document to him. “I thought Michael might have concealed some meaning within the text. I was trying to decipher it for you.”

  “Before you lost it?”

  John read the copy letter quickly. It contained the usual lengthy honorifics, followed by a demand for an audience. Then came the dire prophecies Justinian had described. John sighed. There seemed little to be learned from it. Had Anatolius placed himself in danger to no gain?

  “Of course,” Philo was saying, “Anatolius may have copied the words accurately but not their arrangement. These things can be very subtle indeed. Not everyone grasps this significant detail.”

  John’s attention was suddenly snagged by one of the sentences. He reread it, half aware of Philo droning on beside him, having realized that by seeking cryptic hidden clues the philosopher had seemingly overlooked the content of the message itself.

  “Philo, did you notice this?”

  The old man glanced at the letter.

  “It is this sentence,” John pointed, “‘And lo for each of these holy entities the heavenly fire shall claim a sinner, so that all the world shall rejoice in the might of the True Number.’…”

  “That must refer to some formula,” ventured Philo, eyes brightening at the prospect of a mathematical puzzle to solve.

  “No, Philo, I don’t think so. According to the second letter, these Michaelites worship a fourth holy entity, the human vessel, that they consider co-equal with the usual trinity. That makes four. So their so-called True Number must be the same. Thus this supposed heavenly fire was prophesied as taking four lives. But on that night only three died.”

  Philo understood immediately. “Could the girl at Aurelius’ house have been the fourth?”

  “Possibly. But possibly not, for I heard Michael predicted more fiery deaths in a sermon the same evening as Aurelius’ banquet.”

  “Then what can it mean?”

  John was about to reply when there was a thunderous knock on the house door. Going downstairs, he curled his fingers around the hilt of the dagger at his belt.

  Cracking the door open cautiously, he was surprised to see Darius looming outside.

  “Madam informed that you wanted to question me, so I thought I should attend at once.”

  John let him in and shut the door against the windy night.

  Philo had vanished when they entered the kitchen. Since he could not have avoided hearing Darius’ distinctive voice booming up from the entrance hall, perhaps he was not anxious to have one of Isis’ employees confirm his recently denied patronage of her establishment.

  “It’s a bitter night and I would have been happy to speak to you tomorrow,” John said, gesturing Darius to take a seat.

  It was obvious from his visitor’s red eyelids and blotched features that Darius had been weeping and was attempting, with little success, to suppress more sobs. “I was right next to her, Lord Chamberlain,” he said. “It was my job to guard madam and the girls and I could not even do that.”

  “You did all you could.” John looked pointedly at Darius’ enormous hands. They were covered in blisters from his efforts to extinguish the fire that had killed Adula. He hoped Gaius would not charge too steep a fee for the amount of unguent that would be needed for those burns. Better still, he thought, he would arrange for it to be given to Darius at no charge and pay the cost himself. “You will display the scars from your brave efforts for the rest of your life. And rest assured, we will find out who is responsible for her death.”

  “No. No, I fear not.” Darius’ eyes glistened. “It was surely the work of some dreadful and malign deity.”

  “I am certa
in that there was no such intervention involved, Darius. Now, reflect. You were closer to the girl than anyone else. Perhaps you saw something unusual, something strange, that might be helpful in discovering the villain responsible?”

  Darius shook his head. “I’ve spent hours thinking about it, over and over, trying to remember exactly how it was. But all I can remember is that one instant I was standing there and the next, there was a terrible scream. I looked at Adula and already she was being consumed by flames.”

  John went to the kitchen window. Its glass was opaque with condensation. He ran a finger around one of the small rectangular panes and the lights of the city leapt into view.

  “Everyone has said that, that the fire was suddenly just there. Yet it must have originated somewhere.”

  “I believe it came from within, John. Her eyes… they looked as if there was an inferno raging behind them. I can’t forget that…”

  “Perhaps you heard something?”

  “Well, there was madam’s flute, poetry being declaimed, people talking and laughing. Just the usual things you would expect to hear at a gathering such as that.”

  As Darius wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand, his sleeve slipped back to reveal oozing burns on his wrists. Most men with such wounded flesh, John reflected, would be crying from pain rather than with grief.

  “It is a strange world, Lord Chamberlain,” Darius went on. “Everyone knows that you and Senator Aurelius were sent on a diplomatic mission to Michael. And now the senator is gone. He is not the only one dead, either. If I was asked, I would tell the emperor that if he wants these deaths to stop he should make peace with Michael. No human hand can stop him.”

  Having secured the house after Darius’ departure, John retired. On the way to his bedroom, he paused for a moment at the doorway of his study. For once, his gaze was drawn not to the mosaic girl Zoe but to the pagan gods cavorting lustily in the heavens above the bucolic scene. As the flickering light from the lamp he carried gave lewd animation to the figures, he wondered afresh. Had that subtly shifting scene been specified in its owner’s original commission or was it a sly joke on the part of the artisan, directed at the despised tax collector who had owned the house until his head was sacrificed by Justinian in an attempt to placate an enraged populace?

  The old gods in the mosaic reminded John of Aurelius, a staunch pagan yet, he sensed, despite his jesting almost convinced he had been granted a miraculous cure by a man whose religion he did not follow. Darius likewise was no believer and certainly no coward, yet he was already frightened sufficiently to counsel immediate surrender. It was obvious that if Michael could so easily persuade the minds of men like those, it was equally certain that Justinian would not be able to control Constantinople’s largely Christian population for very much longer.

  John’s last glance around his study touched the shatranj board. A thin smile briefly illuminated John’s lean face. During his brief discussion with Darius, it had occurred to him that small though the scrap of parchment that had been hidden under it was, it was the only thing offering a shred of hope. Its message demonstrated that Michael was not as all-knowing as everyone appeared to believe.

  Chapter Fifteen

  By first light next day John was standing in the long shadow of a stylite’s pillar set at the center of a nondescript forum not far from the docks. Unlike three other columns in the city, this pillar was still occupied.

  As red-gold light crept over the surrounding rooftops, the stylite, a tall figure dressed in a long black tunic, addressed the knot of pilgrims who had already gathered, despite the early hour. A cool breeze carried the rank smell of decomposing fish around the spacious forum along with the elevated man’s ornate phrases. This morning he warned of divine retribution against imposters who mounted pillars and subsequently preached falsehoods to pious pilgrims.

  At John’s approach some of the faithful drifted away. He had dressed in a simple white tunic and thrown a dark woolen cloak over his shoulders, yet there was something in the quality of his clothing, perhaps the hint of silver thread along the hem of his cloak, that, coupled with his bearing, alerted even these simple travelers to at least some suspicion of his rank. And, John reflected ruefully, no matter how much senators and high court officials might boast of their efforts to better the lot of the general populace, those thronging the streets sensed their enemies as instinctively as a rabbit knows the fox. It was a pity that many ordinary folk apparently suspected anyone holding rank as inevitably harboring rancor directed against those lower on the social scale.

  John accosted one of the retreating pilgrims. “What is the name of the man up there?”

  “He is known as Joseph, master,” his informant answered without breaking stride, increasing his pace as he hurried away.

  A few of those who had lingered were talking in undertones, casting furtive looks in John’s direction. It was as if they assumed he was there with some official and thus doubtless regrettable purpose in mind rather than just passing through on his way elsewhere.

  Perhaps it was therefore not too surprising that the young man who had just removed a large empty basket from atop the pillar seemed to be in an extreme hurry to remove the heavy ladder he had just descended, which reached only as far as cast iron footholds embedded in the brickwork supporting Joseph’s perch. Acolytes would have to be nimble indeed to haul offerings up there, John thought as he stepped forward and offered assistance.

  “May I ask you a few questions?” he asked after the ladder had been laid safely down on the trampled earth at the pillar’s base.

  The acolyte glanced upwards before replying hesitantly in a low voice. “We are permitted to cooperate with worldly authorities.”

  John asked how many served the man Joseph.

  “Seven, master,” was the brief answer.

  “You have not lost any of your number recently?”

  “Lost? My brothers were all here earlier.” The acolyte was little more than a boy. Fresh nicks on his head showed he had recently shaved off all his hair but his chin was perfectly smooth, not yet in need of such ministrations.

  “Do you know anything of an unfortunate man who burned to death not far from here?”

  “What would I know about that?” The acolyte was puzzled rather than defensive.

  “Have any of those who frequent this forum lately been absent?”

  “I would not know, master. My eyes are turned ever toward heaven.” He picked up the empty basket. “I am sorry, but I must now go to market for we have not yet supped.”

  John looked up at the stylite. “Perhaps he may have observed something unusual?”

  The other shook his head. “Our most revered Joseph saw nothing, for it has pleased heaven to spare him the burden of having to look upon the sinfulness of this city or of the world. He is blind.”

  After the boy departed John focused his attention to pilgrims and increasing numbers of passersby. After an hour of fruitless questioning, he decided wryly that no-one crossed the forum who was not blind or deaf and as near to dumb as fear of authority would allow them to be without inviting arrest. He realized that he would have to employ someone less obviously associated with officialdom than himself if he was to learn anything useful. One of Felix’s paid informers, perhaps? Yes, he would broach the matter with the excubitor captain immediately.

  John turned his steps toward the palace. As he strode along, he became aware of a rising, sullen murmur. It might have been mistaken for storm-driven waves breaking against the sea walls but John recognized the sound immediately.

  One glance as he reached the street corner confirmed his conclusion.

  From his vantage point, he could see a torrent of humanity surging down the Mese, moving toward him in a flood wide enough to spill under the colonnades hemming the broad street. Hundreds of excited conversations punctuated with shouts and hoarse exhortations rose to affront the bright sky, mingling in an unintelligible roar growing ever louder.

  A grocer
who was swiftly closing up his shutters a few paces back from the corner called out to John.

  “I wouldn’t go any further if I was you, sir. It’s those accursed Michaelites. You should get home as soon as you can.” He stooped to lock the shutters into iron rings set near ground level in the wall of his shop. “They’ll keep looters out, but as for the rest…” He made the sign of his faith and hurried inside, thudding the shop door shut. Bolts grated home.

  John was fully aware of the dangers of allowing himself to be caught up in the treacherous currents of any mob. He quickly retreated back down the street and plunged into a narrow passageway. As he moved swiftly along parallel to the Mese, his progress was shadowed by the grumbling unrest of the crowd and the occasional bang of a window slamming shut or a mother’s call, summoning her child hastily indoors.

  As a mercenary in Bretania he had often followed the course of an unseen stream through the thickets and brush of dense forest in the same manner, staying just within earshot of its rushing waters. In those days his objective had been to creep up stealthily on some streamside encampment. Today he wanted to reach the Chalke as soon as possible, and without hindrance.

  The small forum into which he finally emerged was eerily deserted. Everything was closed and shuttered, as if it were the dead of night rather than a bright morning. The only sign of life was a skeletal mongrel dog nosing around unperturbed in a pile of offal in the gutter, a canine feast doubtless discarded by some nearby butcher.

  Suddenly the muffled roar of the unseen mob swelled into an explosion of sound, as if a Hippodrome crowd were saluting some favorite charioteer of the Greens or Blues who had just emerged from its great bronze gates to parade around the huge arena.

  John crossed the deserted space quickly as the roar subsided into silence, then rose again, hanging malignantly on the air. Clearly the mob was responding to someone addressing them.