by Mary Reed
John glanced around. The abruptness of Eudaemon’s departure had taken him by surprise. He walked over to the desk and studied the codices scattered across its marble top. City regulations and imperial proclamations. An account book lay against a partially opened scroll displaying what appeared to be classical poetry.
Eudaemon did not return.
John had intended to ask the prefect for an escort back to the palace. He waited for what felt like a long time, then decided further waiting was not a good idea. He stepped into the corridor. As soon as he did he could hear raised voices and smell smoke.
He started toward the vestibule.
A figure leapt from a doorway and slammed John into the wall. He had an impression of a blue cloak, an unnaturally high forehead where the hair had been shaved away in front, yellow teeth in a snarling mouth. Then something smashed into his side. He fell sideways and slid down the wall.
Another Blue, holding a splintered length of wood, loomed over him. Others emerged from the room opposite. Clouds of smoke followed. One of the men held a torch.
John tried to blink back the dark fog swirling at the edges of his vision.
“Who’s that?” asked the man with the torch.
“He came out of the prefect’s office,” someone answered.
The Blue standing over John raised his irregular club. “It’s time you’re introduced to justice.”
Before John could react, the club dropped from the assailant’s hands and clattered onto the floor. A gurgling shriek came out of the Blue’s mouth, followed by a gush of scarlet.
The man’s companions turned and fled.
Felix pulled his sword out of the man’s back. It took several hard tugs, while the Blue convulsed like a speared fish and blood bubbled from between his lips. The burly excubitor kicked the body away and leaned over to help John to his feet. “I appreciated your saving me from my own folly in the gardens last night. I didn’t expect to repay the favor so soon.”
John stood up. Aside from a pain in his shoulder where he’d hit the wall, he seemed to be uninjured. “I thought you intended to go straight from the kathisma back to my house?”
“I did. But I thought I’d scout out the situation in the streets first. I didn’t like what I saw. People were pouring straight out of the Hippodrome and down the Mese. The factions weren’t fighting each other, either. They were setting fire to shops. I knew you were coming here to talk to the prefect.”
“I’m glad you came after me, my friend.” Belatedly John pulled from his robes the short blade he always kept concealed there.
Felix looked at the weapon dubiously. “Now we have to get back to the palace,” he said. “We’d better get moving. As soon as the rioters realize the prefect’s men are all battling at the prison this part of the building will be swarming.”
“Unless it burns down first,” John remarked as they ran into a roiling mist. He pushed part of his cloak over his mouth. The acrid fog burned his throat.
A confusion of shadows surged through the haze in the vestibule. No one challenged John and Felix. In the chaos they appeared to be just two more rioters.
They emerged onto the portico and stopped abruptly. The view of the Mese was partly obscured by a macabre curtain, a line of hanged men dangling from the front of the portico. Some inventive person had managed to loop ropes over the ornamental work and decorative statuary above.
John pushed one of the dead men aside to reach the steps leading to the street. The boot that swung round and nudged him in the back as he ducked past was military footwear. The guards had ended up being hung, not the prisoners.
He scanned the row of dead-eyed men. He did not see Eudaemon’s bovine form.
Felix bent over a body crumpled on the steps. He straightened up and held out a short spear. “John, take this. I don’t see any swords. At least it’s a better weapon than that little onion chopper of yours.”
John grasped the spear. He hoped it would serve him better than it had served its previous owner. He faced the street.
The palace wasn’t far away, not much more than the length of the Hippodrome, less than a single circuit of the racetrack. But a clamorous multitude blocked the way, clogging the thoroughfare and the colonnaded walkways on either side. Smoke poured out from beneath the colonnades.
He and Felix went down the stairs. An unarmed man in a cuirass stood at the bottom, gazing around vacantly. Half his face was blackened. John couldn’t tell whether it was soot or if the flesh had been burned off.
“You’re one of the urban watch, aren’t you?” Felix barked. “What’s going on?”
“We were sent on patrol.” The man rasped. “When I got back…the prisoners were gone…and….” He looked toward the line of hanged men and looked away.
“What’s it like elsewhere in the city?” John demanded.
“Just like it is here. The Blues and Greens are fighting together. I saw three churches on fire. They hung our patrol leader from the neck of the bronze bull in the Forum Bovis. I must report to the Urban Prefect.”
The man started to mount the low stairs and staggered.
“Forget that. Save yourself,” John told him.
The man gaped at John, one white eye staring unblinkingly out of the blackened ruins of his face.
“You are relieved of your duties by order of the emperor’s chamberlain,” John went on.
The man tottered away.
Felix grunted. “If only you could relieve the two of us—”
A deafening roar cut short his words. Pieces of masonry and glass rattled across the pavement around them. Glancing back at the Praetorium, John saw that a section of the wall had collapsed inward. Flames licked out of a jagged gap. Figures flooded from the main entranceway to the building. Some were on fire. Many ran straight into the dangling corpses. One unfortunate dislodged a dead man and became entangled in the rope. The two rolled down the steps in a gruesome embrace.
John stepped aside to avoid being knocked over. He glanced down the crowded, chaotic street in front of them again. “I’d prefer not to fight my way along the Mese,” he said. “I know a better way.”
He broke into a run, leading Felix to what was little more than a crevice between the walls of the Praetorium and a neighboring church. He squeezed through the gap. He might have entered an inferno. The heat was unbearable. He touched the rough bricks and yanked his hand away as if from a glowing brazier.
“Careful,” he yelled to Felix. “There’s fire behind the wall.”
Felix cursed. “Are you trying to cook us?”
John squirmed forward as fast as possible. The burning building might collapse completely at any moment. Sweat poured down his face, blurred his vision. The heat radiating from the wall felt intense enough to blister his skin.
The crevasse between the buildings narrowed further. John forced his way sideways and stuck.
No, it was only his cloak caught on a nail.
He yanked the fabric loose, kept moving.
Then he was in an alleyway that ran behind the Mese. There was nothing here but the backs of buildings. No inviting targets for arson or looting.
Felix emerged, grunting and cursing.
The two men ran.
Here and there the alley turned to accommodate a larger building. Mostly they passed behind shops. More than a few were ablaze. Although the shops presented marble facades to the Mese, by imperial decree, the structures themselves were wood.
In one place the exotic scents of a perfumer’s mingled with the smell of burning. In another, they skirted rivulets of wax from a candle shop. A fine rain of ash continually fell from the sky, greying John’s dark, cropped hair and his short blue cloak and Felix’s beard.
Suddenly fire blocked their way. Flames leapt into the alley as if from the open door of a furnace. The air was alive with a deep, almost palpable rumble. The thick clouds of smoke accompanying the flames made it impossible to judge the extent o
f the inferno.
Without pausing, John flung himself into the flames.
Almost instantly he found himself in a semi-circular plaza where the Mese’s roofed colonnade curved inward. Felix was beside him, brushing sparks from his beard. John slapped out a glowing patch on his sleeve.
An obelisk, the height of two men, bore carving identifying the place as a sculptor’s workshop. Emperors and gods and goddesses, surrounded them—the artist’s wares, mostly copies of classical works.
On any normal day wealthy patrons would be strolling around, making their selections. Today a man had been hung up by his foot from the raised arm of a bronze Julius Caesar. The man had been set alight, a still living torch. He screamed as a several ruffians prodded him with lances. Concentrated on their amusement, the victim’s tormentors did not notice the two new arrivals.
John raised his own short spear.
Felix put his hand on John’s shoulder. “No,” he said in a whisper. “It’s impossible. There are only two of us. The poor man is beyond saving anyway. If those thugs spot us we won’t be able to save ourselves. I have an idea.”
They were standing next to a marble depiction of a stern, bearded old man on a throne, a much reduced copy of the mighty Olympian Zeus.
Felix stepped up on Zeus’ foot, pulled himself into the pagan god’s lap, then onto his shoulder. From there he was able to climb to the back of the throne, grab the edge of the colonnade’s tiled roof, and haul himself up.
John followed. He could see they had nearly reached the Chalke. The roof on which they stood led straight toward it, an elevated walkway. They soon would be back inside the palace walls.
Evening had fallen. The lurid glows of raging fires could be seen in all directions. Their yellowish red glare twinkled through the darkness of a city where decent people cowered behind locked doors and shuttered windows. Underneath the frantic screams of the burning man, John could hear a low, rhythmic roar like the beating of waves. The crackling of countless fires, perhaps, mixed with the shouted rage of thousands of rioters.
Movement caught his eye. Was the huge cross on the nearby roof toppling over?
No. There was a hunched figure perched on an arm of the cross, gesturing wildly, a silhouette against distant fires, ragged and demoniac.
“A fire fit to warm the demon emperor’s haunches!” cried the figure. Then it dropped and scuttled away.
The two men watched the strange creature vanish into the night. Then Felix started along the colonnade roof in the direction of the palace. John went after him.
Now he could pick words out from the roar of the city. The same words repeated again and again.
“Nika! Nika! Victory! Victory!”
Chapter Sixteen
From a distance the four figures gathered in the latticed pavilion in the middle of the dark palace gardens suggested conspirators meeting to plot harm to the empire. On the contrary, the meeting had been arranged by Justinian in a location where the discussion could not be overheard except by the chubby, gilded Eros perched on the edge of the pavilion roof.
Felix considered it an unnecessary precaution. Weren’t the private meeting rooms and reception areas deep within the Daphne Palace secure enough? Justinian had been unnerved by the growing anarchy outside the palace walls. He was starting to sense enemies lurking around every corner and he was a man given to whims.
This particular whim was chilling Felix to the bone. He stood in the arched doorway to the summer retreat and shivered. Captain Gallio had spotted him as soon as he and John had reached the safety of the Chalke after their flight from the burning Praetorium.
“You’ve been out in the streets,” Gallio said. “Good. The emperor wants a report on conditions.”
Felix wondered why Gallio hadn’t sent patrols out. Perhaps the patrols had been sent but had not returned.
He was still sweating as he described the chaos to the emperor. He supposed he smelled of smoke but by now there was no place in the city that didn’t smell of it. Justinian made no comment. Nor did he order Felix to return to his post at John’s house. So Felix waited. The sweat had long since dried. Now he was cold and uncomfortably aware of the Eros squatting just above his head and glittering in the torchlight.
Justinian paced back and forth across the circular space, staring at the pavilion’s tessellated flooring, while Narses and Belisarius looked on. The three men made an odd picture, the common-looking man who was nevertheless emperor, the handsome Belisarius, the dwarfish Narses.
Felix switched his gaze back and forth between the emperor and the general. Of the two he was more interested in Belisarius. How young he was for a general! Despite his youth he seemed unperturbed by the crisis. His sharp, patrician features betrayed no anxiety. Felix wondered if he should trim his own unruly beard. The closely clipped black beard Belisarius wore gave him a more disciplined look. More suited to a military man. The great general had offered a curt nod in his direction after Felix concluded reporting. Felix took the gesture as a compliment but pleasure died when he saw the dark expression that briefly flowered on Narses’ face.
Had he said something he should not? The thought was cut short when Justinian turned on his heel and addressed Belisarius. “What do you know about the situation in the city?”
“The city is passing beyond mere restlessness. It is much as the excubitor said. The Blues and Greens have been torching buildings together.”
“Anger may cause disputants to move in the same direction when they are in a mob,” Justinian remarked.
“Very true, Caesar. Yet early this morning, before the races, a more telling incident occurred. A Green tried to rob a senator in front of the Church of the Holy Apostles. Four men passing by—laborers for the most part—set about the Green. He would have been beaten to death had not four Blues suddenly appeared and rescued him. They also stabbed the senator, but he will live.”
Justinian’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. “Blues coming to the aid of the Greens. Shall we now see fiery stars falling through the air and hear of unnatural births? How do you interpret these strange events?”
“Considering the chants in the Hippodrome it appears that the factions have truly joined together.”
“And not with any good intentions,” the emperor muttered.
Narses coughed in a meaningful fashion and Justinian glanced at him.
The treasurer took it as permission to speak. “If that is the case and the hordes cooperated in storming the palace, Hypatius or Pompeius might find themselves wearing the purple. They are after all the nephews of Emperor Anastasius. I am told there are those who still whisper in dark corners of their desire to place one or the other on the throne. There is always ingratitude.”
Justinian smiled ruefully. “Whoever is not in power always has supporters who consider him a better wager. The weak and traitorous can be easily persuaded they have the right to rule. I would not be surprised if the brothers worked to that end.”
“And perhaps, being in an excellent position to do so, they are engaged in spying as well?” Narses suggested.
“He’s right,” Belisarius put in. “As long as they remain within the palace as your guests they are better able to see what unfolds. Even though you have wisely put the pair under guard, we all know that servants, and even guards and courtiers, hear more than they should, and most have loose tongues.”
“And it is not unlikely they have contacts within the palace,” added Narses. “People who are working for them. Reporting to them.”
“But if they were not inside the palace they might be inciting the malcontents,” Justinian said. “Besides, we cannot risk an accident to Anastasius’ relatives. That is why they and the girl have been invited to live on the grounds for the present.”
“I should think an accident would not be the worst event that could befall the empire,” Narses told him.
Felix heard Justinian’s voice grow uncharacteristically sharp. “Do y
ou then believe it would be wisest to execute Hypatius and Pompeius immediately, thus ensuring neither of them will wear the purple? I will not hear of such a thing. I have promised them my protection.”
“I only meant that if the Lord saw fit to intervene in his own mysterious fashion, we could not complain,” Narses said quickly, his reedy voice rising a pitch.
“Caesar, if I may…?” Belisarius interrupted.
“Speak.”
“From a soldier’s point of view and as a matter of strategy the pair mentioned may well prove useful at some point. If the factions unite to attempt to put one or the other on the throne, given they are already in your power, showing mercy toward them may curb the mob’s temper.”
“Excellent advice,” Justinian replied after a lengthy pause.
“We all agree, then,” Narses said. “But if I might sound a note of caution…I am uneasy about their reluctant host.” He glanced at Felix as if to make certain he was listening.
“Do you not trust my chamberlain John?”
“Are you sure you can count on the loyalty of the Greek eunuch? While I do not endorse the calumny that paints all such as treacherous creatures, for I have served faithfully and—”
Justinian raised his hand, ordering Narses to be silent. “You are telling me that while I can trust the eunuch I know, the eunuch I don’t know is a different matter? However, I believe I know John well enough to trust him.”
Felix noted that Belisarius could not suppress the flicker of a smile. Nor could he miss the look of fury directed by Narses at the young general.
A flutter of purple glimpsed through the lattice work caught his attention a heartbeat before the three other men turned their heads.
“You are dismissed,” Justinian said as Theodora appeared.
The empress addressed Belisarius. “A word with you.”
Felix and Narses bowed and retreated. Narses pushed past Felix and headed off into the gardens at a rapid pace. Felix took a last glimpse back in the direction of Belisarius. When he heard what Theodora was saying he suddenly forgot he was cold. His face flushed.
