Two for Joy (22 page)

Looking uncomfortable, he stared at the floor as he continued. “I don’t fear the blade, but what of this fiery magick? It claimed the stylites and Isis’ girl as well, and that within Aurelius’ house as my men and I stood guard. So if you would…?”

This night was bristling with as many surprises as a crafty wild boar, John thought. Felix had achieved the Mithraic rank of Lion, just two below that which he himself held, and had never made such a request before. Perhaps his unease about the task he had been ordered to undertake was more profound even than he had indicated.

“But of course,” John said, “if that is what you wish.”

Felix donned his helmet and they took the few steps necessary to stand reverently before the altar. The big, bear-like man bowed his head as John addressed the torch-lit image of their god.

“Mithra, Lord of Light,” John began, “Slayer of the Great Bull, I approach to humbly petition thy blessing upon thy servant Felix, who will soon march forth to soldier.”

Torchlight wavered across Felix’s bearded face, as he glanced briefly up.

“Grant that his eye be keen, his judgment sound and his sword arm strong.” John paused. It did not seem appropriate to be offering a prayer of such a militant nature, given the unarmed pilgrims Felix and his men would be facing. Inspiration touched him.

“Keep him in the shelter of thy starry cloak,” John continued, “and give him wisdom in directing the engagement, that it be conducted in a way that is honorable to thee, his lord. But if it must be that he climb the seven-runged ladder and leave this world, grant this, that he depart with grace and that his memory be considered worthy and fitting for one who faithfully followed thee.”

Turning, John laid his hands on the captain’s bowed head. “And now with this blessing, go forth and soldier, Felix, captain of the excubitors and adept of the rank of Lion.”

“And may Lord Mithra guard me on the field of battle,” the captain replied in the traditional response.

John lingered for a few moments after Felix left the mithraeum. It was growing late. There was no question now of engaging an informant or one of Felix’ spies. If there was anything useful to be learnt, John would have to discover it for himself.

Chapter Sixteen

Philo had spent a lifetime studying philosophy.
He had read countless dialogs and listened
to endless discourses. But he had never received such a pointed and sorry lesson in human nature as he received while standing near an apple seller’s stall not far from Isis’ house.

The succession of well-dressed men he observed slinking down the side alley leading to the brothel’s back door spoke more eloquently of the baseness of human nature than the most imaginative and perverse theologian ever could.

“Another apple?” The old woman, nigh as wizened as the dried fruit she was hawking, glanced down at the coins on Philo’s palm. “I don’t mind taking your trade, but if I may say so, you’d find it cheaper, not to say much better for your humors, to summon up your courage and just give a quick rap on the door. Darius will let you in as quick as a wink. Do you think anyone takes any notice of the traffic in and out of that house? All sorts of people go there at all hours. It’s like the procession of beasts to Noah’s ark. Except, of course, all the beasts going into that house are male.”

Philo flushed. It had been humiliating finding his way to the establishment but at least he had only needed to ask a couple of people before he was able to obtain directions. Evidently the house he sought was one of the best known in Constantinople.

“I assure you, I have never entered such a place nor do I intend to,” he said. Even as he protested, he wondered why he should care what an apple seller might think of him. But his statement was true enough and so he had been extremely offended when John had more or less accused him of patronizing such a place. Mulling it over later, though, he could not help wondering who might have been mistaken for him. John had mentioned the man always called on market days. So, this being market day, Philo had chosen to lie, or rather stand about, in wait to see if he could find out.

His encounter with Hektor still weighed heavily on his mind, but as always, notwithstanding John’s warnings, his curiosity was stronger than his caution. Besides, he did not think he would find Hektor frequenting such a house. At least, he sincerely hoped not.

He pressed a coin into the fruit seller’s palm and took another apple.

“Perhaps you’ve loitered here so long because you want to talk to me?” the woman suggested with a lewd cackle. “Don’t be shy, deary. We’re both of an age, you know. Why should youngsters have all of love’s delight, that’s what I always say.”

A man selling lumps of stringy meat of indeterminate origin from a stall a few paces away overheard her badinage and bellowed an obscene suggestion in their direction, illustrating his words with graphic gestures.

Far from being outraged, the apple seller yelled back an even lewder reply.

Philo drew away a few paces. How many hours had he been standing here, watching that house? The fruit he had consumed was beginning to make him feel queasy. How could he have been reduced to this? How could his years at the Academy have fled so quickly?

He could remember his leave-taking so clearly. His few belongings, with those of his friends, were packed and loaded on the cart ready to take them all to Piraeus as soon their escort arrived to accompany them to the docks and so into exile.

It had been a morning of bright sunshine. He had left the others waiting at the Academy gate and walked back through the well planted grounds. These cloistered gardens and beautiful groves had been his world. He knew the winding pattern of the flagstone paths as well as he knew his own soul. The sudden warmth of the sunlight into which he emerged from the stand of murmuring, gloomy firs beside the gymnasium he had felt many times before.

But he would not feel it again.

The gymnasium was empty. The students had gone as soon as Justinian’s edict was handed down. All that remained of their boisterous activities was a mildewed leather ball lying in one corner of the exercise area.

He left the deserted building and walked slowly to the far end of the Academy grounds, realizing that this walk, one he had taken so many times before, would be the last. Ever since Justinian had ordered the Academy closed Philo had been aware of many such last things. Thus, in the midst of a discourse on Plotinus he had thought, “This is the last time I will lecture students about beauty.” As students trickled away to their homes he had told himself; “I will never again meet a new student fresh from Athens.”

And all the time, although he told himself he was preparing for his departure, still he clung to enumerating the last week, the last day, the last hour.

Now the time to leave had finally come. He stood in the ancient, weed-overgrown burial ground just beyond the back wall of the grounds. Concealed in a stately palm tree, a bird trilled sweetly. Doubtless it would sing the next morning as well, and the following week, and the month after that, but, Philo thought, he would not be there to hear it.

He had often come to this quiet place in the mornings. He liked to contemplate the grave markers, some simple slabs, others in the shape of amphorae, weathered beyond recognition. On a few, patches of lichen clung to half-eroded inscriptions—perhaps because moisture gathered there—allowing a meaningless letter or two to be made out. The graves might have been a thousand years old. Philo had thought himself as likely to leave the familiar precincts of the Academy as were the crumbling bones lying under the mossy earth.

Loud voices interrupted his thoughts. Two men, young and intoxicated enough not to care about being observed leaving through Isis’ front door, staggered loudly past.

Tears stung Philo’s eyes. He could he possibly live in this terrible city. He blinked the tears away, angry at himself. He was too old for self pity. His past was gone. It had no more substance than a dream. Crossing the Aegean the day after he had left the Academy forever, the life he had lost had been etched in his memory. It had remained so for his first year at Khosrow’s court, and during his second. But though time healed wounds, it also wore away memory. The only thing about his past life that seemed real now, Philo reflected bitterly, was his leaving of it.

It was at that point he finally sighted his prey emerging from Isis’ front door. His sorrow was replaced by a mixture of shock and relief that what he had dared hope might be was actually, incredibly, true.

Himation flapping, Philo ran after the man now walking briskly away.

“Diomedes!” he called out. “Wait! Wait, old friend!”

***

Peter fretted. It was late and John hadn’t returned. His concern was not borne of self-interest, for as a freed man and an excellent cook, he could be certain of obtaining a good post should he ever find himself unemployed. Cooks, after all, were everywhere more in demand than philosophers. Occasionally he had wondered what it would be like to work for a less ascetic employer, especially when John regaled him with tales of the exotic dishes he had sampled at the tables of some of the wealthier inhabitants of the city. It was true that his master’s simple tastes rarely presented a challenge to culinary skills but inevitably loyalty, and perhaps more than a pinch of distaste for such ostentatious fare, kept Peter in John’s employ.

And John, he admitted to himself, was kind enough even if his theology was both mistaken and dangerous. Sooner or later it would bring grief upon his master, as if he had not already suffered enough. Unless, of course, he eventually saw the error of his beliefs, as Peter fervently prayed he would. The possibility that his master’s beliefs would also visit fury upon his own head he dismissed. He was elderly now, but John still had many years left in him. And yet…and yet it sometimes seemed to Peter that John almost willfully sought out situations where he would have to place himself in danger.

However, Peter thought, with these Michaelites stirring the city into a turmoil as fiery as his kitchen brazier, there was no telling what might happen. And whereas John habitually carried a blade about his person, as did all sensible men including himself, there had definitely been an increase in violence in Constantinople over the past few days. Not to mention the undeniable fact that two or three thugs working together could out-stab even the nimblest person, especially if they thought it would gain them a few nomismata. Since there was anonymity in a multitude, it was unlikely ruffians like that would ever be caught. Yes, it was a dangerous time to be abroad alone.

What concerned him most was that John invariably sent a messenger if he expected to be delayed an hour or two beyond the time of the evening meal. Now it was nearly dusk and no word had arrived. This unusual event, coupled with occasional bursts of that angry, distant growling that told of the rising appetite of a mob working themselves up to committing who knows what crimes, suggested to Peter that it was quite likely that John had fallen afoul of some anonymous cut throat.

Shuffling about his duties while straining his ears for the sound of John’s familiar rap on the door, Peter offered a quiet prayer for his master’s safe arrival home. Having thus left the matter in heavenly hands, he began chopping onions. Their pungent odor made tears flow down his walnut-brown and similarly wrinkled face.

***

The beggar knew it was time to seek shelter for the night. Already the tide of darkness had filled the byways with shadows.

During the warmer months he preferred to claim a sheltered corner where he could doze in solitude without fear of being robbed or assaulted. But the increasing chill in the night air reminded him that he would soon be needing better protection from the elements. Unfortunately, in such refuges as were available to him others would also be gathering, many of them untrustworthy, violent or even deranged, and all of them filthy and vermin infested.

He intended to avoid such accommodations for as long as the weather and his fraying garments would allow. In the life snatched away from him, now all but forgotten, the beggar had been a private and fastidious man.

He set off for his night quarters, a cozy niche under-neath a huge yew tree that grew near the aqueduct through the burial grounds between the city’s walls. The decently buried dead were quiet companions and since few ventured into their settlement after dark, it was one of the safest places in Constantinople.

Yes, he thought, as he stepped out smartly for his destination, after the tumult of the day he would appreciate the serenity waiting there. Having observed the enormous crowd flooding the Mese that afternoon he had sensed the city was ready to explode into rioting. It had happened before. The prospect filled him with a mixture of eagerness and dread. Once bricks and fire opened the houses and shops of the wealthy to such as himself, he might again taste a peach he had not found half eaten in a gutter. Perhaps he could find sandals whose soles were unbroken or a warm tunic for the winter. Those were excellent possibilities to consider. But there would also be human packs roaming uncontrolled, more vicious than starving dogs. That was something he did not like to contemplate. He had lost his workshop and his former life to just such a riot. Fortunately, he had not been married nor had a daughter or he might well have lost even more.

He shuddered and turned his thoughts firmly to the refuge he had chosen. It was some distance away, at least by the route he was planning to take. He intended to avoid certain streets likely to be frequented by Blues or Greens and give a wide berth to particular alleys he knew to be deadly.

As he passed swiftly along his way, he stayed close to the shuttered shops edging the streets, wary as a cat of open spaces where he was away from a wall to have at his back if the need arose.

He came to a wide avenue lit by the wall-mounted torches that merchants kept burning outside their places of business at night. A dark shape on the cobbles ahead caught his attention. Was it some unconscious intoxicated person? A corpse? If it were, it was too small to be human, he decided. A dead animal perhaps? There were enough of those to be found in the streets.