Four for a Boy (20 page)

John, as all the adepts present, recalled the salty-sweet taste of honey and blood when he, too, had undergone the ordeal of initiation.

“Take off the blindfold!” the Father ordered.

Blinking rapidly, Petros looked around when the blindfold was removed. After a quick glance down at his shoulder, he looked up at the Father, who now displayed the bloodied sword to him.

“This was the instrument of your death,” the Father said, “and now you cast off your old life—” a quick, dexterous slice of the sword removed entrails and rope from the new Raven’s hands “— along with these, the entanglements of the old life. You are now reborn to serve Lord Mithra in the rank of Raven.”

The new Mithran stood and was embraced by the Father. A cheer rang out as Petros was formally presented to the assembly, who now began to sing exultantly, praise rising to mingle with the smell of smoke in a heady mixture that intoxicated without wine.

John raised his voice with the rest, joyous to be able to worship his god in proper fashion for the first time in several years.

Petros was handed a tunic and, having clothed himself and wiped blood from his chin, seated himself near the altar as the Lions distributed jugs of wine and platters of bread.

A short while later, Felix, passing a wine jug to John, asked, “So you were a military man?”

“For a short time,” John admitted, “I was a mercenary.”

“Explains your prowess with the blade, for a start,” Felix said, around a mouthful of bread. “Not to mention how you handled that business with the boy. I was in the army myself before I joined the excubitors. Everyone in my company was a Mithran. That’s how I came to be an adept.” He stopped and looked at John expectantly.

“And you, John,” he asked, when his companion said nothing, “how did you find Lord Mithra?”

“It was another man who found Mithra, really.” John looked into his wine. He could not make out the bottom of his cup through the dark liquid.

“A friend of mine, a fellow mercenary, was a Mithran,” he went on. “He spoke to me about it. I was initiated. Then he died. Drowned in a swollen stream. That was in Bretania.”

John took a gulp of wine. He did not like to talk about the past and the person he had been. “There was some comfort,” he continued, “in our belief that we go on to another life after this one ends, but I really began to think about Mithra only after the young mercenary that I was had also died.”

“You have found some comfort then?”

“Comfort? Every morning, because I open my eyes again, I believe Lord Mithra has ordered me to continue living, and so I do. But as to you, Felix. Have you been long at court?”

“Not that long,” Felix replied. “It’s still a bit strange, to say the least. After years spent campaigning, guarding an emperor is quite different from chasing barbarians along the frontier. For one thing, here enemies are not hiding behind trees or in thickly wooded gullies. In Constantinople you’re far more likely to see them out in broad daylight, walking in procession and covered in silks and jewels.”

John, thinking of Theodora, agreed.

“It’s all too subtle for a simple man like me,” Felix continued. “Intrigues and plots and poisons and loyalties shifting every time the wind changes. Just think, John, in their own way, half the city wear masks of one sort or another. For most, including lowly folk like us, there are enemies everywhere.”

“Especially for a slave?” John asked.

“Especially for a slave that someone in a position of power decides knows too much or asks too many awkward questions.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

John slipped away from the Great Palace just after dawn as a bronze sun climbed through the forest of crosses covering the rooftops of the city. He left long before he was scheduled to meet Felix to discuss their next step, for he guessed that the excubitor would not approve of his desire to warn Anna of the danger in which her father was placing himself—and her.

Ironically, now that they shared the bond of Mithran brotherhood it appeared less likely than ever that John and Felix would be able to cooperate effectively. When John had related his conversations with Dominica and Fortunatus, Felix had immediately dismissed John’s theory about the work of art’s connection to Hypatius’ murder.

“As you just admitted, John,” Felix had said, “neither Dominica nor Fortunatus has suffered for their involvement. So now you have investigated the matter and that’s the end of it.”

“Neither has been attacked, but we still have had three deaths.”

“Three unrelated deaths of people from totally different classes,” Felix pointed out.

“But linked by their involvement with the project,” John persisted.

“Consider, John,” Felix had replied. “How many people can you contrive to connect to that wretched statue? Let’s see, there’s the carter who transported it. What about the owner of the ship that carried the marble here, or the ship’s captain? What of all those brawny fellows on Proconnesus who hauled the marble to the ship or cut it out of the earth, for that matter. What of the men of law who drew up the agreement to buy the marble? We mustn’t overlook all the ecclesiastical officials who approved its placement in the Great Church! Would they include Palamos? The Patriarch? For that matter, what about—”

John had held up his hand. “Enough. I see your point. You think it is just coincidence.”

“Exactly. This conspiracy against Justinian, though, now there’s something concrete, if not marble. We must venture down that avenue.”

John had all but reached the same conclusion. From what Fortunatus had told him about Opimius it appeared, even to John, that the murder could have political ramifications, just as Justinian feared. He was still not prepared to accept that it had been politically motivated, or did not have something to do with the sculpture. The connection between the dead and the Christ figure continued to tug at his mind. He should at least speak to Dio.

Whoever the murderer might be, Senator Opimius’ intrigues had definitely placed his daughter in danger, he thought. A cloud of gulls rose noisily from the almost deserted street, leaving a few feathers drifting in his path. No, Felix would not have accompanied him to Opimius’ house. He doubtless would have said it was both reckless and foolish and ordered him to abandon the notion.

By the time John arrived at his destination he had concluded that Felix would have been right. After all, what would Anna be able to do if she were alerted to the danger? If she took any action at all it might be one that was rash. And a visit from him would not remain a secret from Opimius for very long.

Anna’s safety lay in finding the murderer. Her father was not the villain, of that John was certain.

From the street Opimius’ mansion gave no hint of the luxury within or of the spacious garden lying behind. The building appeared nothing more than a nondescript box masked by a heavy, metal-banded street door. A few narrow windows interrupted its second story.

Was there movement behind one of those windows?

John suddenly feared that Lady Anna might see him and run out to meet him.

He ducked down the alley beside the house.

If Opimius noticed him lurking around he’d almost certainly send for the Gourd’s men. Stamping down the narrow way John muttered a rich variety of curses, mostly called down on the thick head of Opimius. As he emerged into the next street he realized that he had been declaring his opinion of the senator to the world. It was fortunate that here at least there seemed to be only a few seabirds to hear his tirade.

Perhaps, on reflection, Felix’s odd suggestion that if he must curse in public he should do so in Egyptian was a better one that he had originally thought. Yes, John decided, he should certainly practice doing so. Given his opinions of everyone from Justin downward it would turn out to be more sparing to delicate ears, not to mention saving his neck from the murderous caress of a sharp axe.

He considered returning to the palace. Felix had made it plain he wanted to continue their original line of investigation. While John had to admit it seemed the most sensible course at present, nevertheless he could not shake the strong feeling that the three deaths were connected.

This indecision was unusual for him. His mind was in a turmoil and at a time when it was most important he should think clearly. He willed himself to reason things out.

What should he do next? As it happened he was as close to the address Fortunatus had given him for the sculptor’s studio as he was to the palace. That decided it, then. He should visit Dio.

***

The sculptor’s residence nestled within an enclave behind the Domninus, north of where that colonnaded thoroughfare intersected the Mese, in an area populated by bakers, metal workers, and artisans.

An archway leading from the Domninus admitted John to a courtyard around which stood tiny shops selling glassware, jewelry, dyed goods and furniture. The sound of hammering, the thud of mallet on chisel, and the smell of sawdust, all gave evidence of workshops behind the shop fronts. Blankets, draped to air at open windows punctuating the upper story of the enclosure, disclosed the presence of residences.

John noticed several premises displaying marble pieces at their doors, but his eye was drawn to one emporium. Over its entrance loomed a huge, carved lintel. The doorway itself was surrounded by small squares and rectangles of marble, wood, metals, painted plaster, and mosaic chips, each repeating in miniature form the single word chiseled deeply into the lintel: Signs.

Curiously, however, the sign-maker’s sign did not announce his name to prospective clients.

The proprietor, a red-faced man, appeared in the doorway and smiled expectantly as John approached.

“Good morning, sir,” he said jovially. “What can I do to help you? Do you seek a sign for your business premises? A plaque announcing your name and profession?”

John wondered what he would do with a bronze plaque engraved with “John, Slave.” Perhaps, he thought ruefully, he could wear it around his neck.

“Let me guess what you will want emblazoned on your sign.” The man turned his head to one side and squinted hard at John. “I can always tell the professions of my clients. Tall fellow, aren’t you? Little trace of calluses on your hands, I see. By your looks Greek perhaps? And you have the bearing of an aristocrat, sir. Definitely from the palace.”

The maker of signs bobbed his head enthusiastically. “Yet there is something hardened in your features,” he went on. “Military almost. And…hmmmm…there’s that look…” The man straightened his head and chuckled. “Well, sir, I give up. All I can think to classify you as is a philosopher!”

“I regret to say I’m not here to buy a sign,” John replied politely, “but rather seeking a sculptor named Dio.”

The red-faced man looked disappointed. “Dio? Naturally. He has all the luck!” He pointed across the courtyard to one of the larger shops.

“He has all the luck, you say?”

“One big commission after another. Why, customers pour in over there and the way they’re dressed, you’d think his door was the entrance to the emperor’s reception hall. He’s barely more than a youth. Granted, he has some talent.”

John thanked the man. “By the way,” he added, “you are quite correct about me, at least if you count as a philosopher someone who studied for a time at Plato’s Academy.”

The man brightened. “There it is. I do have a knack for reading people, sir. Very helpful in my trade, as you might surmise.”

John strode over to Dio’s shop. He guessed the sign-maker would soon be regaling everyone in earshot with how he’d identified a philosopher from the palace. Doubtless the tale of such a person visiting his emporium would be worth more to him as publicity for his wares than whatever he might have earned from a commission for a sign.

The sculptor’s shop was deserted except for a few bits of carved marble populating a table. They were chiefly smaller versions of the sculpture in the Great Church but there was also a woman’s head, startlingly realistic and thus none too flattering, depicting as it did every wrinkle and several prominent moles. A rejected commission perhaps?

John walked through the shop and into the studio behind.

The space was larger than he’d anticipated, two stories in height, with a packed dirt floor. Worktables covered with tools and partly shaped chunks of marble and granite lined unfinished masonry walls. Light poured down from tall, narrow windows.

Dio was nowhere to be seen.

At the far wall of the studio a dozen rectangular chunks of marble, all taller than a man, stood close together. Their grouping reminded John of the mysterious clusters of weather-eroded standing stones he’d seen in Bretania.

In front of them lay a chisel whose edge glistened moistly red.

A dark trickle curved from it into the marble grove. John followed its trail.

Spatters of blood had sprayed a tall marble slab set against the studio wall. A body sprawled at its foot, face upward.

Dio?

John realized he had no description.

Not that it would have assisted identification. Whoever had killed the man had applied the chisel to the victim’s face. The white patches glistening up through its scarlet ruin were not marble, but bone.

Voices sounded in the shop.

Had the sign-maker followed him?

He peered cautiously out from the cluster of marble monoliths.

Armed men entered the studio. Not excubitors. Sent by the Gourd, then. Had someone already found the body and alerted the authorities?

But if so, why hadn’t the sign-maker known Dio was dead? It was hardly the sort of thing whoever discovered the body would have kept secret.

Something else caused him to hesitate about revealing his presence. Perhaps it was a certain wariness in the way the men moved. A caution they would not have displayed if they were expecting to confront nothing more dangerous than a dead man.

Besides, he reasoned rapidly, why send so many men to look after one corpse?

“…tall and thin…a eunuch…” one of the men said.

It was John they sought. But why? The answer was as obvious as the murdered man at his feet. He was supposed to be caught at the scene.

Venturing another glance, John noted that two of the armed men were now blocking the door leading to the shop.

One of the others pointed toward his hiding place.

For an instant John considered surrendering himself. He was investigating a murder. Would it be so surprising that he might chance upon another victim?

Yet it was obvious that it had all been arranged. He was about to be wrongly accused. Or rather, first he would be murdered while supposedly resisting arrest. Then posthumously accused.

John made his decision.

Turning, he grasped the top of the slab against the studio wall and yanked himself upward.

Shouts rang out as he was spotted. By the time the first of the men reached the departed Dio, John had scrambled through the open window above the slab.

He found himself on the roof of a shed leaning against the back of the studio. Beyond rose a jumbled wilderness of buildings and tiled roofs.

He quickly crossed the shed, clambered onto the roof of the adjacent structure, and ran in the direction of the Domninus.

At the street, the tile roof came to an abrupt end. Here the buildings facing the Domninus were two stories tall, while the colonnade sheltering their shop entrances rose only to the height of a single story. Fortunately, the roof of the colonnade formed a serviceable route along and above the street. John lowered himself hastily onto it.

Looking down into the Domninus he saw several pursuers emerge from beneath the archway to the artisans’ enclave. From behind him came the sound of pounding boots and shouted commands to stop.

He began to run past the windows of the apartments that looked out over the colonnade roof.

Passersby gaped up at him from the street. He glanced back over his shoulder. Three men had reached the roof of the colonnade. More ran down the street, paralleling his flight. A few urchins joined the pursuit, screaming with excitement as they raced ahead of the armed men.

John was dimly aware of pale ovals of faces behind the windows he passed as the curious looked out to see the cause of the commotion.

He almost missed the movement of a warped shutter opening into his path. He dodged, just in time, stumbled, but managed to keep running.

Behind him there was a crash and a string of oaths, as the shutter slammed into his closest pursuer and sent the man sliding off the edge of the roof and into the street.

Ahead the narrow ravine of the Domninus and its colonnade ran into a forum. The uneven tiles made running difficult. The men racing along the thoroughfare were staying even with John. It was obvious that if he tried to scramble down into the forum his pursuers would be upon him in an instant.

The next window he arrived at was closed. John kicked it in and plunged through.

He caught a glimpse of a young woman standing beside a brazier. The toddler at her feet looked up at John with immense, solemn eyes. Then his mouth fell open and he looked at his mother in bewilderment.

In an instant John was out the door and leaping down the steep wooden stairs beyond.

Reaching the hallway he turned away from the street. A door at the other end opened into an alley.

Unfortunately the alley was not connected to the maze of narrow ways in which John had been hoping to evade his pursuers. Instead it led straight into the forum.

John sprinted for the opening. As he burst out into it armed men began to arrive from the Domninus.

It was still early. There were few people abroad and thus no crowds in which to lose himself.