The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

by Ashley, Mike;

  “Arabia,” she said absently, her mind obviously not on introductions. “It’s very strange. My employer, Florentius, collects icons.”

  “Florentius! You mean the wine merchant with the house near the Great Church?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why, I’ve done work for him! You must have seen my painting of Saint Laurentius?”

  “Oh, hardly. I’ve only been there a short time. I mostly scrub floors. He keeps the icons locked out of sight. Thinks nobody knows about them, but servants gossip. That’s how I know about his collection. This one must be worth a fortune!”

  “All it’s worth right now is the head of anyone unfortunate enough to be caught with it. Possessing any image is a crime, let alone the most famous one in the empire. In fact, we probably shouldn’t stay here.”

  I turned as if I intended to go back the way we had come but Arabia remained planted in front of the icon. “We can’t leave it here, Victor. Can’t you see, it isn’t just chance that we found it. It’s a miracle. We can’t turn our backs on a miracle.”

  It sounded funny for her to say that. But why not? I knew nothing about Arabia. Just because a woman steals a dab of her mistress’s lip colour doesn’t mean she has no religious beliefs.

  “There’s nothing either of us can do with it. At least nothing I can think of,” I lied.

  “Florentius is already hiding icons. Why not one more?”

  “He would probably turn us over to the authorities as soon as we approached him. Even if he didn’t, we’d be putting ourselves in danger for the rest of our lives. The emperor would be bound to hear about the icon sooner or later and—”

  Arabia screwed her face up in thought. “Of course we couldn’t stay in the city. Florentius would give us enough to leave, to buy a farm, maybe. Just enough for us to get going again. It wouldn’t be much for a man of his wealth.”

  It was the sort of plan I’d been thinking about, in a general way, for some time. Maybe Arabia could be of some assistance; the partner I needed. If I dared to trust a partner.

  “Have you ever held a solidus?” she asked me. Her eyes glittered.

  “Not often.” My transactions rarely involved silver, let alone gold.

  “I did, once. Florentius dropped it. He let me hold it. It was heavy. There was a picture of Emperor Leo on the front. He has the same narrow face and the same pointed beard as that icon. There was a cross behind his shoulder. It was such a lovely coin. Do you know what I did? I couldn’t help myself. I kissed the emperor.”

  The icon’s gaze bored into me. I felt a gnawing pain in my stomach. I’d almost forgotten I had eaten nothing that morning, except the egg. Land was cheap in the countryside. A few solidi would buy a farm. There would be plenty of eggs on a farm.

  If I could force myself to go through with it.

  6

  “We’ll need to wait for a few days,” I said. “Florentius will have to make some preparations. He’ll have to be careful. He can’t just send a couple of servants to drag the icon along the street.”

  I didn’t mention my fear that I was being followed. If I was, when I failed to return to my rooms tonight, they’d start looking for me.

  I’d need to deal with Florentius at some point. A servant girl couldn’t approach her wealthy employer and ask him to buy an illicit icon, let alone vouch for its authenticity. I could do both. Florentius knew and trusted me, to the extent any aristocrat knows and trusts the artisans he hires. But I’d need to be patient, give my pursuers time to shift their search to another part of the city.

  Who was I fooling? I needed time to get my courage up.

  At any rate, I told myself, it would be safer for Arabia to be out and about than me. She might prove very useful in that way. And, if anything went wrong and I had to stay in hiding for an extended period, she’d be able to keep me supplied with food.

  I explained some of what I had in mind and sent her off. She returned with a wine skin and a sack.

  “Praise be to God for what he provides,” she said. I’m not sure whether she was being ironic, or where exactly the Lord had left the provisions. It appeared to be the army barracks in what used to be the Baths of Zeuxippos, judging from the hard biscuits underneath the clay lamp, the iron striker and flint, and the jar of lamp oil.

  I had a biscuit halfway to my mouth when Arabia leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the lips. Then she was gone, leaving behind a wraith of her perfume.

  And a thought that persisted in thrusting itself forward.

  Something that really needed attention.

  I lit the lamp. The rats scrabbling nearby quietened down and the painted icon opposite where I sat resumed staring at me. I returned its gaze. Had I been a more religious person I would have taken some comfort in the holy presence. The Lord was here with me. Even though he was everywhere at once, yet, like the saints, he was even more strongly where his icons or relics were – or so they said.

  But on the other hand how forgiving was he?

  He didn’t look very forgiving at all. The flickering lamplight animated the giant features. At times the taut lips appeared ready to snarl, and at other times about to quirk into a sardonic smile.

  The face was so large that, had the mouth opened, it could have snapped my head off with one bite. A rat peeped out from around the corner of the panel. I found a bit of brick and flicked it at the rodent, which scuttled away. The movement had made barely a sound but immediately I heard a noise coming from outside my little niche.

  No. It had to be my imagination.

  I sat and listened, feeling my muscles tighten until my legs began to cramp. I had to know. I crawled out of my hole, lamp in hand, took several steps forward, and listened.

  Nothing.

  I went a few paces further, then quickly on into the cavernous space beyond, a dry and abandoned cistern. Darkness swallowed the feeble lamplight. Several toppled columns, piled together, partly blocked the way in.

  From a distance came the loud sound of cascading water. It was raining again and getting in somewhere. That must have been the sound I thought I had heard.

  All the same, I checked behind the columns.

  Philokalas was still there.

  Or rather the tunic full of bones and scraps of rotted flesh that had once been Philokalas. The rats and whatever else lived down here had devoured most of him, which made the stench less than it might otherwise have been.

  Still, I knew I should move him. It would be better if Arabia didn’t stumble across the body. I bent down but my stomach lurched at the thought of touching the thing. I hadn’t eaten much for days, and the biscuits weren’t sitting well.

  I returned to my hiding place. Now I could almost swear the icon was smiling benignly at me, as if to say, “Don’t worry about Philokalas. You acted without thinking. You’re only human.” Or maybe it was just smiling to itself. Finding the whole thing funny.

  I dozed.

  After being awakened countless times by phantom footsteps, I finally woke to Arabia gently nuzzling my neck.

  She had whiskers.

  I came fully awake, flailing at a rat.

  By the time I had my wits about me, my assailant was gone. In the dim lamplight I noticed the biscuit sack had moved. I started to pull it back towards me and rats boiled out and streamed behind the holy image.

  The rest of the night I stayed alert.

  So far, things had gone reasonably well. But I brooded over all the things that might go wrong.

  Then I thought about the gnawed bones that used to be a labourer named Philokalas.

  After which I thought about Arabia who had showed quick intelligence and a certain amount of cunning.

  More to the point, if things went wrong I could deny everything. After all, she was only a servant and I was an artist, a craftsman well-known to Florentius. That was another good reason for me to work with her.

  When Arabia arrived the next morning she wore a blue embroidered cloak and a yellow stola. She�
�d pinched a deeper shade of lip colouring and had pulled her glossy hair into neat coils at the sides of her head. She looked more like a lady than a servant.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked, as if she didn’t know. Her eyes shone. The eyes are where life shines out. In my icons I tried to capture that in paint with bright lines and detailing. That was part of what I had left unfinished on the eyeless Christ back in my room. Yet I’d never managed to hint at eyes like Arabia’s.

  “I’m glad to see you,” I told her. “It’s a relief, after having that thing glowering at me all night.” I nodded towards the icon.

  She had brought a basket with her. This time the Lord had provided bread and cheese. I ate and described my restless night and some of the conclusions I’d drawn before the unseen dawn arrived overhead. Farming was fine, but the empire stretched a long way and so did the grasp of the emperor. Besides, what were the chances Florentius would agree to buy the icon rather than report us immediately to the authorities?

  I just wanted to plan for all eventualities but she took it the wrong way. Her face darkened. “Don’t lose courage before we’ve even started. It’s lack of sleep, that’s all.”

  “The rats never stop running,” I complained, around a mouthful of bread. “They come out from behind that thing.”

  She went over and stood beside the giant image. “We’re not going to be stopped by rats.” She put a finger to her lips and then dropped a piece of cheese near the icon. “They love cheese even better than biscuits,” she whispered.

  She didn’t move for a long time. She had all the patience in the world.

  Finally a beady-eyed head poked out from behind the panel. The neck extended slightly, the nose twitched towards the cheese. Arabia brought the heel of a yellow shoe down sharply. I heard the rodent’s skull pop.

  “There,” she said. “See how easily that’s dealt with? Now we’ll deal with something else.”

  She shrugged off her heavy cloak, tossed it on to the floor, and began to loosen her stola.

  7

  The bottom of a wine cup isn’t the only place men find courage to overcome doubts. After Arabia helped me overcome mine, she straightened her hair, stood, and quickly pulled the stola back over her head. The flickering lamplight flung the trembling shadow of her body up over the holy visage.

  “When we have our farm, we won’t have to rush,” I said. “We’ll be able to lie together all morning if we want.”

  She slapped the dust off her cloak. “How did you come to paint icons, Victor? Are you a religious man?”

  “I’m a Christian. Who isn’t? But I can’t say I’m particularly religious. My family were killed by a pestilence when I was a child. My mother died screaming in agony.”

  “I wouldn’t think you’d be inspired to paint icons.”

  “I wasn’t inspired. It came about because I was apprenticed to an artisan’s workshop. I used to paint frescoes too. Frescoes have to be done in warmer weather, so the plaster and paint set right. I realized that in the summer, when most painters are decorating frescoes in churches and mansions, an icon-painter could find plenty of commissions. I’ve always been practical.”

  “Is my lip colour smudged?” She leaned forward into the lamplight so I could see.

  “Not a bit. You have a beautiful mouth. And what about you? How long have you worked for Florentius?”

  “Not long.”

  “You’ve always done the same thing?”

  “Been a rich man’s servant, you mean?”

  “You don’t like being employed by Florentius? He strikes me as a man of decency. He’s always shown me respect in our business dealings.”

  She laughed. “You really think a rich man like Florentius respects people like us?”

  “He’s told me he admires my skills.”

  “Unless you’re rich you’re just a thing to be used. Did Florentius offer to lend you any money to tide you over?”

  “Well—”

  “What about your other wealthy patrons? What would a month’s rent be to them? Or a year’s? Have they offered?”

  “They haven’t,” I admitted. I hated seeing her angry. It worried me. It could ruin everything. “You aren’t from Constantinople, are you?” I said, to change the subject.

  “No. I was born in the countryside. I thought it all very boring – dirt and pigs as far as you could see – so I ran away to the big city. Not a very interesting story.”

  “Until now!”

  “Yes, until now. The best stories are the ones we make up for ourselves. You can’t trust others to make up your story for you. You’re never the hero of someone else’s story.”

  She smoothed down her stola and patted her hair. “I’ll be back this evening,” she said. “You can tell me how it goes with Florentius. And then …” When she kissed me before leaving, I wondered whether she was thinking about kissing the emperor on the solidus.

  8

  I felt distracted. I attempted not to look at the red blot on the floor where the dead rat lay. I avoided the icon’s eyes. From those monstrous windows, was there some theological lesson to be gleaned, into the spirit above and the crushed verminous body below? Would Chrysostom, he of the golden tongue, have penned a Homily on a Dead Rat?

  The thought reminded me I had things to do and had better get them done.

  For a start, it was time to visit Florentius again.

  After going through the archway and climbing the rubble slope up to my entrance to the underworld, I peered through a knothole in the board Arabia had replaced. It was not exactly the great bronze gate to the palace. The space under the iron dog was clear. I crawled out and scanned the square from between scabrous canine forelegs. There wasn’t a living creature in sight except for the stylite high up on his pillar, leaning against its rusted railing like a lifeless icon, and an emaciated cat sniffing the empty donation basket hanging to the ground from a rope attached to the stylite’s railing.

  I scuttled away as fast as possible.

  I had instructed Arabia to take similar care but could only trust she had taken heed of my warning.

  Once out of the square I tried to tidy my clothing. I smoothed wrinkles and shook off dust and cobwebs, but I wasn’t really in any state to present myself to a wealthy patron.

  I intended to cut across the Augustaion in front of the Great Church but I began to have the sensation I was being watched.

  Possibly I still felt the gaze of those colossal eyes. It wasn’t the painted eyes that bothered me so much. It was what they represented. That ‘being’ up in the sky, seeing everything, all the time. Looking and looking, but never doing anything about what it saw.

  A beggar sat slumped at the base of the towering column atop which the Emperor Justinian endlessly rode his chariot.

  The beggar who had been sitting in Macedonia’s doorway.

  No. Constantinople was filled with beggars and there was nothing to distinguish one pile of rags from another.

  Nevertheless, I veered on to a side street just in case.

  I went through an abandoned space where a mansion or church or an imperial building had once stood. Statuary – and pieces of statuary – stood and lay amidst brown weeds jutting through the crumbling pavement. My friends and I had come here when boys and played catch with the heads of ancient philosophers. Sometimes we convinced ourselves we saw demons darting in and out among the frozen figures. I had soon learned that there really are demons in the world, but all of them are human beings.

  You just have to stay one step ahead.

  When I got to my destination I was sure I had lost anyone who might have been following me. Glancing up and down the street, I noticed nothing suspicious. The large, luxurious house where I had delivered more than one icon showed passers-by only a plain brick front without windows at street level. Beyond its roof loomed the vast dome of the Great Church. When the interior of the dome was lit at night, it must illuminate the whole third storey of the house.

  My patr
on agreed to talk to me. A few servants passed through the atrium while I waited, but I didn’t see Arabia.

  Florentius was a heavy-set man with thick lips and a red nose. He looked more like a bacchant than a pious Christian. He led me through his office, where we met in the past, and along the peristyle, bordering what had been an ornamental inner garden in more prosperous times. Now the space was filled with pigsties. Several monstrous hogs – mounds of undulating flesh – drank from a basin, overlooked by a marble Aphrodite. Chickens scattered in front of us.

  Florentius kicked a plump marble foot out of our path. “Cupid,” he told me. “He keeps turning up. Pieces of him, that is. Fell into a pigsty during the earthquake. Must have surprised the pig.”

  As we passed under the peristyle and into the rear of the house, he frowned at several labourers busy with trowels and mortar in the hallway.

  “Did you suffer much damage?” I asked.

  “Enough to keep too many unwashed labourers tracking mud around. Don’t like having such people underfoot. At least a man knows his own servants; and labouring types can never be counted on. Worse than donkeys. The job’s only half finished and they vanish and need to be replaced. On the other hand, I’ve tripped over the brutes wrapped around my serving girls in the storeroom.”

  “It must be vexing for a man like yourself.”

  “Indeed. But I thank the Lord it wasn’t worse. I hear there are cracks in the foundation of the Great Church and the Patriarch lost most of the wine in his cellars.”

  We came to a metal-banded wooden door which Florentius unlocked. “It’s a sin to keep my holy men hidden away back here. Every day I pray we will soon be rid of the beast who sits on the throne.”

  Perhaps he felt safe expressing treasonous thoughts to an icon-painter.

  After all, I was a criminal in the eyes of the law.

  I had never seen his private bath. Doubtless he had kept it locked even before he used it to store illicit icons. The frescoes on the walls and domed ceiling of the tiny room depicted ancient gods embroiled in an Olympian orgy in garishly coloured detail.