Six for Gold

by Mary Reed

  Reed boats of an ancient pattern bobbed here and there on the slow-moving water as fishermen cast their nets in the broiling heat, but most of the shipping was commercial. For a while they had journeyed behind a boat hauling a cargo of large blocks of sandstone, doubtless destined for an imperial monument, church, or other official edifice.

  At sunset the boat had tied up in the shallows. Like his master, Peter slept with a blade close to hand. He had been ashore only once since they left Alexandria, accompanying John to a small riverside market where they purchased several portions of smoked fish, a small sack of raisins, and a handful of shriveled figs to augment the meager fare provided on board.

  “Are you going to Mehenopolis too, Peter?” asked Apollo, pausing in his work. He was dressed like the laboring peasants Peter had seen everywhere on their journey, being clad in nothing more than a loincloth.

  “I stay there for a time every year,” the beekeeper continued. “See that smudge over on the horizon to the right? That’s the rock marking the oasis.”

  Peter peered in the direction indicated. “A rock? In the middle of the desert?”

  “There’s a lot of them. More importantly, there’s water there.”

  Peter asked if their destination was large.

  “It’s not a big settlement, but it’s popular with pilgrims.”

  “Pilgrims?”

  “Surely you’ve heard about the snake oracle? That’s why that outcropping I pointed out to you is called Tpetra Mphof. It means Rock of the Snake. I thought your master and mistress were on their way to see it, like Thorikos.”

  “No, the master is traveling for business reasons.”

  “I’m here on business too. As I told you, it’s one of the settlements I visit every year. I graze my bees there. The headman, Melios, is very fond of honey. I suppose he could hardly avoid that, with a name meaning sweet.” Apollo laughed. “Melios runs the settlement, or tries to at least. He’s the largest landowner there. Talk has come down the river he’s offended someone who wishes him ill, someone who’s using magick against him.”

  Peter gazed at his companion with astonishment. “It can’t be possible to harm anyone that way, can it?”

  “Then how else could it be his are the only sheep who have beheaded themselves?”

  There was a splash. Apollo pointed in the direction of the sound. “Did you see the size of that crocodile? They’re attracted by the prow of our boat. Remember what Porphyrios said about them, Peter! Be careful!”

  Keeping his distance from the dangerous side of the vessel, Peter left the beekeeper, who resumed his task. At the stern, John and Cornelia waited to disembark. The boat had approached as near to land as was prudent. Now several smaller craft bobbed toward them.

  “That looks most unsafe to me, master.” Peter eyed the low craft that arrived first, steered by a weathered ancient whose long white garment was soaked to the waist after he waded into the river to launch his vessel. “I should imagine a crocodile would have no trouble at all leaping into it. Or it might even capsize!”

  “Never mind, Peter,” Cornelia put in quickly. “Even if it does, we’re close enough to shore to be able to get safely to land.”

  Peter nodded absently, staring at a large dog standing on the bank, eagerly lapping up water.

  “You’re all disembarking here?” asked a booming voice.

  The charioteer was as enormous as his voice. The big, deeply lined face evidenced middle age, but the muscles in his arms resembled thick ropes. “I’ll wager you’re bound for Mehenopolis as well,” he went on. “You can’t get anywhere else from here, except further into the desert! It looks as if we’ll have quite a caravan!”

  ***

  In fact, the anticipated caravan turned out to consist of a single donkey cart.

  The travelers sat well back from the hives, giving Apollo plenty of room to lean against the loudly buzzing stack of cylinders he had piled at the front of their conveyance.

  The beekeeper batted indolently at the occasional escaping insect. “I’ll find most of them waiting for their friends when we arrive in Mehenopolis,” he observed. “Melios has a well planted garden, and there’s little else to suit my beauties’ dainty appetites around here.”

  It was true. The dunes began a short distance from the river settlement. There was no sign of road or track. However, the rock outcropping marking the location of Mehenopolis rose from the horizon, like Constantinople rising from the sea, and served to point their way.

  John noticed Porphyrios insisted on sitting as far from the front of the cart as possible. From his nervous backward glances it was apparent the charioteer had not positioned himself there to leave more room for his fellow passengers, as he claimed. John thought there was something sad but faintly comical about such a large and powerful man being so afraid of tiny bees.

  The cart driver, the same ancient who had ferried them to shore, sang to himself about his love waiting for him on the opposite side of the river. It seemed to be the only song he knew. Again and again he sang of braving treacherous waters to reach her. A hundred times, his love gave him the strength to evade reptilian jaws.

  “I wish just once that would end differently,” Cornelia finally remarked to John. “Couldn’t his strength fail him? Then the poor crocodiles could have a good meal, and we’d all have some peace.”

  “Even the squeak of these cart wheels, if they were without that voice accompanying them, would sound nearly as sweet as a work by Romanos Melodos,” agreed Thorikos.

  “I suspect the lover on the other side of the river could use a rest as well,” the charioteer commented with a grin.

  Thorikos chuckled, despite previous complaints about the damage the jolting of the cart might be doing to his aging bones, not to mention that the glare of the sun hurt his eyes and was giving him a headache.

  It was nearly sunset by the time the cart drew near to their destination. The first sign of approaching civilization was a weathered man with straw-like hair sitting on a crude wooden sled. A donkey tethered to a nearby palm tree chewed contentedly at a tuft of brown weeds.

  “Greetings, good pilgrims!” the man called out. “Please help an unfortunate who was lamed falling from a scaffold while helping to repair a holy place.”

  Thorikos tossed a coin over the side of the cart. “Clever fellow,” he said. “I’ll wager he’s stationed himself out here to relieve pilgrims’ purses before the beggars in Mehenopolis get the chance.”

  Beyond the tree shading donkey and beggar, the desert sloped into a shallow bowl filled with greenery. A thick growth of palms formed a dark, dusty sea which lapped at the base of the outcropping. Silver threads marked drainage ditches criss-crossing the area. Mud brick huts could be glimpsed here and there as the travelers rode further toward Mehenopolis, and before long a high wall came into view.

  “That’s Melios’ estate, where my buzzing friends and I stay every year,” Apollo said. “The pilgrims stay in the tent camp at the foot of the Rock of the Snake. The rock is where the maze is situated.”

  Declining help on the grounds his bees did not care for unfamiliar people to handle their homes, he and the cart driver began unloading the hives, piling them by the estate gate.

  Peter leaned over the side of the cart. “The maze?” he asked with interest.

  “That’s something else pilgrims come to see as well as the oracle I was telling you about,” Apollo replied, wiping his brow.

  Thorikos broke in. “That’s why I’ve traveled so far myself, Peter. I heard fascinating stories about this maze, and the oracle sounds most curious and well worth a visit too.”

  The fast sinking sun, although wrapping Mehenopolis in a purplish twilight, still imparted a golden-red tint to the upper part of the outcropping and the low, crumbling wall that encircled its flat top. A semi-ruined building with a high, dark doorway facing east was just visible through a wide gap in the wall.

  “That’s the bui
lding you enter to get into the maze,” Apollo informed his fellow travelers.

  A maze, John thought. How appropriate. He had begun to feel he was already deep inside a labyrinth, without a torch to light his way out.

  However, now that he had at last reached his destination, he could at least get to work.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Please sit down, Batzas.”

  Anatolius remained standing in front of the window of John’s study. His visitor, a younger man with the broad, unmarked face of an overgrown boy, placed himself on the nearest stool. “Did you bring the documents I requested?”

  Batzas’ hands tightened on his bundle of papers. “Yes, sir, but—”

  “I hear you’re doing well with your temporary new responsibilities. Justinian has not yet named my successor?”

  “The emperor is hoping you will reconsider and return.”

  “I don’t think I shall. I’ll put in a good word for you. The work you’ve done for me has always been excellent.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Now to business. You composed the letter of introduction given to the Lord Chamberlain, I believe?”

  Batzas confirmed this had been the case. Like every first-time visitor to John’s study, Batzas kept glancing uneasily to the girl in the wall mosaic. Anatolius was surprised John did not bring people there to be interrogated, considering the assistance Zoe’s discomfiting gaze would give him.

  “Sir, I have those old drafts you were working on, but Justinian ordered the one for the Lord Chamberlain’s introduction be destroyed.”

  “That is the usual procedure.”

  “I was thinking, on the way over, pardon me, sir, but I can’t reveal anything—”

  “I wouldn’t expect it, Batzas. As secretary to the emperor you must cultivate discretion as diligently as a gardener tends her herbs. If anyone had approached me with suspicious inquiries about imperial correspondence, I would have reported the fact to Justinian immediately.”

  “That’s exactly what I would do in the same circumstances.”

  “You are an astute young man. However, you are also aware that the emperor intensely dislikes being disturbed with trivial matters?”

  “Understandably.”

  “You’ll appreciate then why I asked you to bring me all the documents I left in my office. As I mentioned then, although I am no longer his official secretary, Justinian has ordered me to draft further correspondence regarding the Lord Chamberlain. There is a detail that has unfortunately escaped me. Naturally, I don’t want to impose on the emperor.”

  He took the bundle Batzas had brought and rifled through it. “What miserable luck! I was certain I’d made a note of it.”

  “Of what, sir?”

  “The Lord Chamberlain’s destination.”

  Batzas stiffened. “Sir, I am not permitted—”

  “It’s just that I can’t recall how the place was spelled. Those Egyptian names are always so difficult, and I was hoping you could recall the spelling.”

  “Oh. Well, if that’s all it is. I can probably remember it.” Batzas looked at the ceiling for a brief time, resembling a schoolboy who was being quizzed. “It’s M-e-h-e-n-o-p-o-l-i-s.”

  Anatolius accompanied the young clerk to the door. It irked him to serve as a doorkeeper, but it was quicker than calling for Hypatia, who for once was spending the day there rather than in the hospice. He wondered if she was still at work in the garden.

  How could a Lord Chamberlain employ only two servants? There were clerks at the palace who employed more.

  As he saw Batzas out, a small brown bird flew into the atrium. They were always getting into his own house too, probably because they nested under the peristyle. He’d even seen them come straight down through the compluvium to bathe in the atrium’s impluvium.

  He didn’t want the avian intruder to get upstairs, where there would be no escape and its panic would foul the floors. It was already perched halfway up the stairway, so Anatolius trotted forward, waving his hands. The bird took flight in a small explosion of pinfeathers, but fortunately fled into the garden.

  Anatolius followed. Looking up, he saw the bird dwindle and vanish into the deep blue rectangle of sky framed by the roof of the peristyle.

  Hypatia was working in one of the herb beds. Her hands were black with dirt and her tawny face, sheened with perspiration, glittered like polished marble.

  At his greeting, she brushed a strand of hair away from her forehead, carefully using the back of her hand. Nevertheless, the gesture left a streak of grime. “I’m almost finished here, sir, and as soon as I get cleaned up I’ll see what I can find for the evening meal.”

  “Don’t worry. You’re overworked, Hypatia. What have you been pruning?”

  “It’s fennel and dill, sir. The fennel’s got into the dill and if it’s left there it will weaken the stock. Dill needs the light in the center of the garden, so I’ve been digging up the fennel plants to move them further away.”

  “That sounds like an excellent solution.” He was trying to think of something else to say when she gathered her tools and went into the house.

  Anatolius strolled around the garden for a time and then returned upstairs.

  He decided to put away the will he’d been working on and go to see Thomas again.

  When he entered the study he saw someone bent over the desk, studying the documents scattered there.

  The figure straightened and turned, revealing a scarred ruin of a face whose skin resembled that of a fowl left on the spit too long.

  “Hektor!”

  “What are you doing, Anatolius, creeping around the Lord Chamberlain’s former residence? You startled me!”

  “I’m staying here in his absence.”

  “Indeed? And so it’s true this is your new line of business?” Hektor plucked a document up by a corner as if it were something distasteful. It was the will.

  Hektor let it drop. “You’ve gone from being Justinian’s secretary to sweating in the employ of bakers. Such a pity.”

  The former court page was dressed in spotless white garments decorated with embroidered squares depicting Christ on the cross and the risen Christ.

  Unfortunately there was no finery in the empire that would draw attention away from the disfigured face.

  “You have no right to be here, Hektor,” Anatolius snapped.

  “I expected the house to be abandoned after the Lord Chamberlain’s enforced departure, and the carelessly unlocked house door gave me no reason to think otherwise.”

  “It’s still occupied, as you see.”

  “You’re not doing a very good job, are you? What if I were a common criminal?”

  “Instead of an uncommon one? Well, if you haven’t come to scavenge whatever you can steal like some carrion-eater then why are you here?”

  “I intend to take possession immediately.” Hektor glanced around the room. His gaze lingered on the wall mosaic. “It’s a most desirable property and could be furnished attractively. The Lord Chamberlain’s notion of comfort is not mine.”

  Anatolius observed that John was a man of simple tastes.

  “Then he’ll be much happier in a hovel in Egypt.”

  Anatolius heard a step in the hallway and glimpsed Hypatia, who vanished in the direction of the kitchen.

  Had she been listening?

  “Leave, Hektor. You’re not welcome here.”

  “What’s the hurry? John won’t be coming back. Our dear empress was correct all along. He was a cunning villain and now he’s been unmasked. Yet who would have guessed he’d go so far as to murder a senator? Whatever could he have been trying to conceal?” Hektor made the Christian sign. “I shall pray for his soul, sinner that he is.”

  “Do I have to throw you out?” Anatolius grabbed Hektor’s arm.

  Hektor jerked away. “Beware, Anatolius. If I appeal to the emperor—”

  “You don’t appeal to any
one now, I’m afraid. Since I was the emperor’s secretary until recently, he knows me well, and I doubt he’d take much notice of whining complaints about me from a prancing fool like you.”

  “You mistake me for the person I once was, Anatolius. The terrible accident I suffered was a gift from heaven. The veils of sin were lifted from my eyes and I saw the vanity of earthly things. However, we must also be practical. Even those who serve the Lord must have a place to live.”

  “Why don’t you find a vacant pillar to crawl up and take up being a stylite instead of causing trouble for everyone?”

  Hektor glared. “Your friend John will not be needing this house again.”

  “He’ll be back before too long. How can you possibly doubt it?”

  “Being in the confidence of those who are highly placed, I’ve been entrusted with more than a few secrets,” the other replied.

  “You mean you’re a keyhole specialist.”

  Hektor raised his gaze to the ceiling. “Lord,” he muttered, “please help this deluded paga—”

  With a quick movement Anatolius struck Hektor square on the chest, sending him sprawling to the floor.

  “I’m impressed! Your prayer’s been answered already! I’ve neglected the gymnasium lately and needed help getting exercise. Shall we continue?”

  Hektor scrambled to his feet, fists clenched. “I’ll be back to take possession of this house when your protector is dead, Anatolius!”

  His voice was a low snarl. “Until then, I wouldn’t make myself too comfortable here if I were you,” he went on. “It won’t be long until the Lord Chamberlain is on his way to whatever part of hell is reserved for pagans. Indeed, he may be writhing in the flames right now if the assassin has already caught up to him!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Melios barely looked at John’s introduction. He broke the seal, unrolled the scroll, glanced down, and then up again. “You are John, Lord Chamberlain to Emperor Justinian? I am honored, excellency, deeply honored.”