by Mary Reed
John shook his head. Although he had hardly eaten all day, his empty stomach rebelled at the idea of the rich, sweet cakes which were normally favorites. He sat on the couch.
Isis wiped a few crumbs from her white linen robe. “Christ was a troublemaker. I never knew that. Patriarch Menas would not have liked him very much.”
“You think not?”
“Would the patriarch like me if I walked into the Great Church and started telling him he had got his religion all wrong? It seems to me he was just asking for trouble.”
“My understanding is that he was well aware of the danger and knew what was coming.”
“Have you made a study of it, John? After all, Justinian is always immersed in church controversies.”
“I take an interest in religions. They are too important to the empire to ignore. I’m not a theologian. Justinian looks elsewhere for advice on theology.”
Isis licked honey off her fingers. “A haughty sort, this Christ, or so I originally felt. Arrogant. Demanding. But a brave man and at times gentle. Reading the story for myself is giving me quite a different impression of him.”
John sighed. “Man? Or God? Or both?”
“What do you mean? Oh, I know. What do they call it, the Three Chapters argument? I haven’t got to the part yet where they explain all that.” She gave him a playful smile.
She was just bantering as always. He carefully broached the subject of Kuria.
“That wretched girl! Did I look fierce when you reminded me of her yesterday? I must learn forgiveness.”
“Do you recall any of those men you said were attracted to her? Officials, patricians?”
“I don’t know, John. So many girls and so many men. I tried not to notice the men, or remember them. And the girls…you’d think I would remember. Maybe it’s my age. I only recalled Kuria because she wounded one of my girls.”
It was understandable, John told himself. Though a visit to the brothel might have been a memorable experience for each individual, for Isis it was simply a business. Would a vendor remember who she’d sold a couple of melons to years earlier? And as for clients from the imperial court…most of the court had probably crept past the gilded Eros that once stood outside Isis’ hospitable door, if they hadn’t slunk in through the back door instead.
He wanted to believe Isis was not concealing anything from him as everyone else seemed to be doing.
“Why do you suppose you remembered her having aristocratic clients at all, Isis? Did something we talked about bring it to mind? Was it someone you might have associated with Theodora or Justinian? Or with me?”
“With you, John?”
“I deal with many people at court. I thought perhaps there might be a connection to be discovered. Talking to me might set a spark of memory flickering.”
Isis pursed her lips. “A friend of yours perhaps? That big bear Felix.”
John stiffened. “Felix was visiting Kuria?”
“He wanted to marry her.”
John leaned back into the cushions with a sigh of relief. “No, no, Isis. That was poor Berta many years ago. She was the girl who was murdered.”
Isis made the Christian sign. “Yes, you’re right, John. It must have been Berta I was thinking about. Poor child. It just seemed as if it was more recently your friend was in here doting over her…strange how muddled the past gets.”
“The more important events always stay close to us, Isis. The less important recede. Berta was involved with violence as Kuria was, although Berta was the victim. That might be why you mixed up the two.”
“Yes, probably.” Isis looked alarmed. “I wonder if my mind is going to fade away as I get old? I can’t afford that to happen. I’ve always taken care of myself.”
“We all become a little forgetful as we get older, Isis.”
Later, on his way home, John remembered his consoling words to Isis.
He had never forgotten anything. And there were so many things he wished he could forget.
Chapter Thirty-six
Hypatia met John as he came up the stairs. Except for bruising on her neck she showed no ill effects from her recent frightening encounter.
He asked if there had been word from Cornelia. “No.” She hesitated, then added, “If I may say so, it’s barely been three days. Babies don’t keep appointments, master. They arrive when they feel like it.”
John reflected again on what Isis had said about the past becoming muddled. It seemed to him as if Cornelia had departed a week before Theodora’s death, not two days afterwards.
“Hypatia, if you need to take the rest of the day off—”
“Oh, no, master. I’m fine. I have to keep an eye on Peter.”
“And how is Peter?” The puffiness around her dark eyes showed she had been crying.
“Worse. I managed to get some of the potion I made down him. It seems to have helped the pain but I think he’s drifting away. I’ve propped him up against a pillow so he could breath more easily. He’s been asking for you.”
John went up to the servant’s room slowly and with trepidation. Peter would never normally ask to see him. He would not consider it his place to make requests of his employer.
Peter was motionless, head slightly elevated, eyes shut. It would have been impossible to tell he was breathing except for the faint erratic, whistling that issued from his dry, slightly parted lips.
“Is that you, master?”
“Yes, Peter. Hypatia said you wished to see me.”
The old man’s eyes fluttered open. “I am sorry to trouble you, master.”
John pulled a stool to the side of the bed and sat down. He saw laid on the bedside table the coin from Derbe which Peter had found in Isauria during his military days, a lucky coin or so he claimed, because it came from a city visited by Saint Paul. Beside it, on a leather thong, lay the Egyptian amulet Hypatia had given him years before when she had worked for John. And then there was the wooden cross above the bed.
All equally ineffective.
“It’s no trouble, Peter. How are you feeling? Hypatia tells me she made a potion for you.”
“A lovely girl, master, even if hopeless at cooking.” Peter lapsed into silence. His creased face was gray, inert and heavy as if eternity had already begun to insinuate itself into his flesh.
From the open window came the clump of boots on cobbles. Excubitors were returning to the barracks. Or leaving. A gull screeched and others returned the shrill call.
John did not have words of comfort for his long-time companion. Christians were quick to assure the sick and bereaved they would pray for them. It came automatically, provided them with comfort. Not that John had ever known such prayers to alter fate. Was that surprising? Even the gods of Olympus had been subject to fate. Why not the Christians’ god?
John’s own Mithra was not a god who would look kindly on pleas that he alter the natural course of life. It was up to the Mithran to deal with life, whatever that might entail, to survive uncomplainingly, to serve.
Peter spoke at last. “Don’t trouble yourself over me, master. If my time has come, I’m ready. Only I’m sorry it has to be now, with your grandchild not yet arrived, and when Hypatia has just returned.” He fell silent for a heartbeat, his eyes turned toward the blank plaster of the ceiling. “Do you know,” he resumed. “I was dreaming just now of my mother. I was a very small child and she was telling me the story of Tobit. It is my favorite because it was the first story my mother told me. Tobit went to sleep by the side of the house and was blinded by bird droppings. That got my attention.”
“Yes, it would.”
“Tobit’s son—just a boy—goes on a long journey. His dog accompanies him. I liked that. And the angel Raphael is his guide, except he doesn’t know his companion is an angel until the end. They battle a gi
ant fish and drive away a demon. My mother didn’t tell me it was a demon of lust, though.”
“It is the kind of story a boy would like.”
“I became a Christian right away. It sounded exciting. I didn’t like the story about the crucifixion at all. I couldn’t help imagining how it would feel to have nails pounded through my hands. And the idea of a dead body rising and walking out of a cave—that kept me awake.”
“Your mother was wise to start with Tobit.”
John’s own faith—or at least his adherence to the strict, soldierly ethic of Mithraism—had come to him as an adult, following the drowning of his friend Julius, and had strengthened during his enslavement and castration by Persians.
When they had served together as mercenaries, he had resisted Julius’ efforts to teach him about Mithra. After John had suffered, the words of his dead companion returned to him, and he realized he had not truly heard them before. Thus had Julius spoken from the dead.
Mithraism was a religion of endurance and acceptance. If John had not run away from his philosophy studies to become a mercenary he might have become a stoic rather than a Mithran.
He studied Peter uneasily. He shared John’s stoicism and his tendency to keep his thoughts to himself—particularly his darker thoughts. It was unlike Peter to speak of such personal matters.
“Master, would you…would you open the chest at the foot of my bed? I can’t reach it. You’ll find a sandalwood box there.”
It sat in a corner of the chest, pushed down beside neatly folded garments. The box held a flat, terracotta flask no longer than John’s thumb. There were handles on each side of the tiny artifact. Engraved into its oval center was a simple picture of a man, with a camel on each side.
“It is the Saint Menas flask I brought back from Egypt,” Peter said. “It contains holy oil from the lamp that burns outside the saint’s tomb.”
John thought it ironic that the current patriarch, who did not strike him as a saint but rather just another of the powerful men who ruled the empire, should share his name with a holy man. “Do you want me to set it on the table beside your coin and amulet, or do you want to hold it?”
“If you would open it for me, please, master? There’s a bit of wax over the neck. If I had enough strength to lift my arms I would do it myself. They say Constantine’s daughter was cured by holy waters from beside the saint’s tomb. I have saved the flask for years. Now, I feel, it might be time to use it.”
John scraped off the wax and held the flask tentatively between thumb and forefinger. What did one do with holy oil?
“Could you place a drop on my forehead, master? I know I should not be asking you, but…”
“It’s little enough to ask, Peter.”
John turned his hand and a drop of oil ran out onto the tip of his finger. There was nothing mysterious about it. It was simply a drop of lamp oil. He dabbed a bit onto Peter’s parchment dry forehead.
“If you could draw another across that one…”
John did so, uncomfortably aware he was mimicking the sign of the Christians.
He put the flask down, propped it upright against the amulet in case oil remained inside.
Peter let his eyes close. His breath whistled in and out, more regularly now.
Had he gone to sleep?
John rose quietly and went out. He didn’t care to wait.
He was half afraid Peter would next be asking that he pray for him.
Chapter Thirty-seven
When he reached the bottom of the stairs leading down from the servant’s quarters, John paused. He was exhausted. After a day of investigations, followed by a largely sleepless night and then being dragged out to his interview with Justinian, he felt as if he were carrying the dome of the Great Church on his shoulders.
He went into his bedroom and lay down to take a brief rest before deciding what to do next.
He opened his eyes to total darkness.
It took him a little while for his eyes to adjust and grope for the lamp and striker on the bedside table. Hypatia must have closed the shutters to keep out the dust stirred up in the square by the constant comings and goings of the excubitors.
What time was it? He checked the clock in the corner. The water in the basin had sunk to the eighth hour of the night.
Dawn was four hours away, even if they were the shorter hours of summer, but now John was awake he decided to take a walk.
John was familiar enough with the layout of paths and gardens to make his way around the palace grounds by the vast dome of starlight. He usually untangled problems while he walked, but tonight, though he turned his thoughts toward the various matters bedeviling him, his peregrinations did not seem to help.
Perhaps he should seek assistance elsewhere.
He left the path and plunged into a sculpture garden where ghostly white figures depicting mythological figures stood in consecutive circles, as if poised to dance with each other. Pan blew his pipes opposite a stately Minerva, Zeus stared haughtily at that troublemaker Eros, the lame god Vulcan leered at Venus, at whose narrow feet a bold and exceedingly stupid lover had left a bunch of now fading roses.
John walked on, leaving behind ordered flower beds and groves. Passing by a chapel he was misted by wind-blown spray from the fountain set beside its entrance.
As he moved further away from the more cultivated areas he took a nearly invisible track between flowering shrubbery nearly twice his height. Beyond lay an artfully designed wild area planted for the delight of those who enjoyed less formal gardens.
John had long regarded the wild area as a useful place for those inclined to plot ill will, since it boasted numerous hiding spots and was well away from the more traveled parts of the grounds.
His footfalls deadened by moss, he soon approached the low buildings housing the imperial storerooms adjacent to the kitchens.
A guard nodded to him in recognition. Perhaps the man wondered what the Lord Chamberlain was doing prowling around the palace in the middle of the night, but it was not his place to ask.
John passed through a shadowy alcove which seemed to have been constructed of stacked amphorae, went through a side door, and entered the rear portion of the kitchens. Here and there unquenched embers in long braziers sent ghostly, shifting fingers of dim orange light up plaster walls and into the rafters. The light glittered off enormous copper pans hanging from the walls like shields. It sparkled on multi-colored glass bottles crowding shelves and tables, reflected dully from myriads of earthenware jars filled with everything from spices and olives to honey and nuts.
Someone coughed nearby.
John peered through the brick archways opening into the middle portion of the kitchens and saw the vague silhouette of a man moving past tables and braziers and storage shelves.
He had only a brief glimpse of the figure before it passed through a doorway and was gone.
It was enough. He recognized Justinian.
Rumor had it the emperor never slept. That he wandered the buildings and grounds of the palace at night, often without his head.
At least the emperor had not discarded his head this time.
It had been impossible to tell whether his face had relaxed into the demonic aspect certain people swore they had glimpsed as he passed by.
John knew for a fact that the emperor kept strange hours but then, tonight at least, so did John.
At the far end of the room a shadowy figure guarded an obscure door which looked as if it might conceal a cupboard. The man, dressed in laborer’s garments, issued a challenge, “How was he born?”
“From a rock,” John responded, referring to Mithra.
The man opened the door and stood aside. There was no formal gesture of acknowledgment to one of superior rank, for in Mithra all were equal and this entrance was one of two wa
ys to reach the hidden underground temple dedicated to John’s god.
John made his way through a network of subterranean corridors and chambers, his footsteps echoing on stone floors. Some doors stood open to reveal piles of amphorae containing wine, sacks of grain, barrels holding the pungent fish sauce known as garum, and similar comestibles stored against those occasions when one or another was late in arriving from various parts of the empire.
Penetrating to the deeper parts of the labyrinth John finally arrived at a stout wooden door.
Behind lay the mithraeum, the temple to Mithra, a long, narrow, pillared room lit by torches set in brackets on roughly dressed stone walls. Above, a ceiling encrusted with shards of pottery suggested a cave.
John descended a short flight of steps and bowed his head briefly to the altar at the far end of the room.
He held the high rank of Runner of the Sun. The honor of the post he offered to Mithra, being content to remain at that level since he could not devote the amount of time to religious matters that would be required if he rose higher, not least because in an officially Christian court Mithrans were proscribed and subject to harsh penalties if discovered.
That a temple, albeit a secret one, could be built on the very grounds of the palace was a testament to the courage and fellowship of the anonymous men who created it. He had heard its sacred statues and beautifully chiseled marble bas relief had been brought openly to the palace in large crates the cart drivers claimed held special items to decorate Theodora’s quarters and therefore had not been opened and inspected.
It was amusing to think Theodora, a supporter of monophysite heretics to the chagrin of the orthodox, had been an unwitting accomplice of pagans whose views even she would have disapproved.
Here, John hoped, he might find some inspiration in solving his task.
His gaze had, as always, been drawn to the sacred scene depicted in the bas relief behind the altar. The shifting shadows thrown by the fire burning on the altar animated its depiction of Mithra slaying the Great Bull.
As Lord of Light, Mithra was honored thrice daily by prayers offered by the Father, the priest in charge of the temple.
