One for Sorrow (10 page)
Leukos’ coffin was borne up the Mese on a donkey cart. The small procession accompanying him on his last journey followed on foot, winding through the crowded streets until finally turning past the Wall of Constantine into an area in the shadow of an aqueduct. Here the landscape was dotted with unkempt patches of cultivation, cemeteries, and several of the cisterns that kept the city supplied with water.
It was hot. The cemetery in which Leukos was to be interred smelled of spring vegetation and freshly turned earth. Birds sang unheedingly as Anatolius gracefully delivered the oration. John disliked public speaking, and avoided it wherever possible.
As John listened to his friend’s artful phrases he remembered the times he had accompanied Leukos around the city. They had never traveled to its outskirts. Generally they had visited workshops, to keep abreast of the efforts of Constantinople’s artisans so that they would know where to turn should Justinian suddenly demand regalia for an office-holder or Theodora evince a desire for a new diadem.
Now Leukos was gone, all his knowledge of the minutest details of every sort of imperial goods vanished. A man is more perishable than a silver chalice or a pair of golden earrings.
John looked at Euphemia across the dirt mounded above Leukos. She stood, head bowed, holding her processional lamp. In the sunlight she looked less pale, less fearful.
“Did I render him due honor, do you think?” Anatolius wondered, as they left. “He was, after all, a Christian. I’m not sure I understand their beliefs.”
“I don’t think they do either. Or at least they seem unable to agree on what it is they believe if you must listen to what Justinian has to say about the various controversies.”
“You should try transcribing his attempts to bring about theological unity, John.”
They lingered, enjoying the sun and the birdsong amid the plaster covered vaults of the graveyard.
Anatolius bent to pick a delicate yellow flower.
“Europa would enjoy a bunch of these.” He stopped short, frowning. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be thinking of such things here.”
“Don’t apologize. Europa and her mother have been in my thoughts too.”
“We take all our joys within sight of death, don’t we?”
“A poetical way to put it but true enough.”
Anatolius let petals fall. “I wonder what flower that is?”
“Leukos could have told you.”
“Leukos? I thought the Keeper of the Plate was an expert on man-made treasures.”
“He was that but he used to name for me all the exotic blooms Justinian has imported for the palace gardens. We often discussed delicate business in the gardens, safely away from prying ears.”
Anatolius wondered where Leukos could have come by such knowledge. John shook his head.
“He never said.”
“Reticent, for a friend.”
“No more than myself.”
“I wouldn’t call you reticent. You’ve told me all about your past.”
“You think so?”
They had come to one of the towering arches of the aqueduct. The shade beneath was almost chilly. “I know my friendship with Leukos puzzles you, Anatolius. Remember, when I arrived in this city I was a slave as well as a eunuch. Leukos was the first to treat me with respect.”
“I can see you would be grateful.”
John let his gaze wander out of the shadow aqueduct and into the dazzling sunlight beyond. There was a period of his life into which his memory rarely ventured, years when he was no longer what he had been but had not yet become what he would be. He had managed to forget most of that time.
“Did you know Leukos was a student of the Christian philosopher Augustine?”
“An ascetic sort, wasn’t he? The keeper of the emperor’s treasures would seem an unlikely disciple.”
“I take it Augustine was no more ascetic than a strictly observant Mithran. Leukos used to compare the philosophies.”
“Perhaps he hoped to convert you.”
“Indeed, he often told me how Augustine had come to his faith later in life.”
“But is knowing a man’s philosophy the same as knowing the man?”
“It depends upon the man, does it not?”
Something black moved in the weeds amidst the plaster-coated vault roofs. A single raven, thought John.
One for sorrow.
Then the black shape leapt up on a fresh mound and John saw that it was a large mangy cat with a sore on its belly. It made him think of Euphemia’s horror of city mice. Which was worse, the vermin or the hunter?
“Five!”
“Six!”
Felix swore across the table at the young charioteer who had opened his fist to display four fingers. Added to the two gnarled fingers raised by Felix, that made six. The other man’s quick hand closed over the last few coins on the table.
“You’re too quick for an old soldier, Gregorius. I don’t know if it’s your eye or your tongue,” Felix grumbled.
“It’s strategy.”Gregorius dropped the coins into his pouch.
“Another try?”
Gregorius shook his head. “Don’t worry, Felix. I’ll win the money back for you at my next race if you place your wager on me. But I must be off. I still have that appointment to keep.”
“Very well.” Felix affixed his official seal to the parchment the young man had come to his office to request. “If anyone stops you, show them this. It’s a pass.”
“I can read, you know.”
“You’d be surprised how many can’t.”
A third voice broke into the conversation. “Ironic, isn’t it? Some possess the keys to the palace, but not to knowledge. Which do you think would be preferable?”
It was Anatolius, accompanied by John.
“Lord Chamberlain,” Gregorius muttered. “I’m on my way to an urgent appointment, otherwise….” He slid around the two visitors and was out the doorway and off down the hall before John had a chance to speak.
“John!” greeted Felix. “And Anatolius. Since you ask, I’d say anyone who has keys either to knowledge or to the palace can’t complain, since few have access to either. Anyway, a sword always knows more than a pen when you come down to it.”
“Very sensible viewpoint,” Anatolius put in blandly.
“Do you know that young charioteer who just left, Felix?” John asked.
“Gregorius? Not very well. Only that he races for the Blues.”
“Needless to say you keep track of all the charioteers,” Anatolius said.
“If you mean I follow the racing, who doesn’t? Except, perhaps, for poets?” Felix pushed his seat back and walked round the table to stand in front of the room’s one window, which gave a narrow view of a courtyard and dry fountain. On the fountain there perched a single raven.
“What can I do for you, John? Is it official or…” his gaze moved in the direction of Anatolius “…about the matter of the ceremony?”
John raised a tanned hand to halt Felix. “No, I expect we’ll see you there later. Nothing has changed. We’ve come back from Leukos’ funeral. Since your office is on our way I stopped to ask about someone you may have seen the day before Leukos’ death.”
“Who is that?”
“A traveler called Thomas.”
“Yes, I did see the man that morning. He came looking for a pass to see Leukos.”
“You granted him access?”
“Well, yes.”
“And what did you make of Thomas?”
“Seemed genuine enough. He had a soldier’s bearing. Honest and straightforward.”
“The sort you’d trust to play at micatio in the dark?” suggested Anatolius.
Felix scowled, unhappy to be reminded of his very recent losses at that game.
“With my luck, I might as well play it in the dark,” he muttered. “Here, John. Give it a try.” He offered a closed fist. “Ready? On three.”
John shook his own fist twice, then held up three slender fingers.
His softly spoken “Four” was almost drowned by Felix’s booming “Six!” But Felix had raised only his first finger, which made him lose yet again.
“Once is mostly luck,” John soothed the soldier’s ruffled pride. “The strategy only applies if you play long enough. Show me your right hand, Felix.”
Mystified, Felix displayed his gnarled hand. The fingers were strong and stubby. A livid scar ran along the knuckles and the third finger was hump-backed as the result of an old injury.
“I’ll wager you have a little less movement in that third finger, my friend?” John remarked.
“Nothing to complain about.”
“But if you can’t straighten it quite as readily as the others, you see, you might just be inclined, without thinking, to show one or two fingers more often than three or four.”
Felix considered the suggestion. “I never thought of that.”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn some of your opponents had come to the same conclusion. It tips the odds in their favor, does it not?”
“Now don’t race off to test this theory,” cautioned Anatolius. “At least not until you’ve been paid! Besides, you know you should be saving up to see that little blonde at Isis’ place again, shouldn’t you?”
“Berta?”
“The same. One can’t help hearing tales.”
“You mean you can’t help hearing tales,” sneered Felix. “And, as a matter of fact, I haven’t caught a glimpse of her since that affair at the palace the night of the celebrations.”
“You were invited to the empress’ gathering?” John was surprised Felix hadn’t mentioned it to him before.
“Of course not! I meant I was there in my official capacity. And I thank Mithra that it was only in my official capacity, because I can tell you that I didn’t like what I saw. Especially the way they had Berta done up, and wriggling about on the table. Everyone was pawing her. She ended up in the lap of some filthy old man who plied her with…well, I don’t know what it was, but she was enjoying it. I had to remain at my post, of course, and lucky for him, the dirty old bastard!”
“We all have to do what’s expected of us, despite our personal feelings,” sympathized John. “You must have seen the sun up?”
“It was a long night. At least Berta stayed where I could keep an eye on her, unlike some of the other girls.”
“Let me know if you hear anything, will you? I rely on your discretion.”
“Of course.” Felix flexed his big hand. He noticed, again, the deformed finger John had brought to his attention. “You might be right,” he said, changing the subject. “Perhaps that’s why I always lose the game.”
John wished he could see the cause of Leukos’ death as easily.
The sight of a raven feasting on a discarded fish head in the street delighted Berta.
“Look, Darius.” She tugged at the sleeve of the Persian’s tunic, pulling his attention away from the fish vendor’s stall. “Isn’t he wonderful? His wings are all shiny, just like a new coin. We had lots of ravens in the country when I was growing up. They used to call from the pines at sunrise.”
“You can’t get better fish than this!” interrupted the vendor. “Buy my freshly landed fish, and feast better than Justinian!”
“They look old to me,” Darius told him.
The raven took wing, apparently disturbed by a scrap of a woman who seemed to be scanning the ground for something lost. Berta watched as the bird rose above the crosses on the rooftops with a few beats of its powerful wings, fish head clutched securely in its talons.
Then she looked back at the vendor waving away the droning flies settling on his wares. “Fresh as country ladies, these fish are!” he protested. “Cheap at half the price.”
Shoppers near his stall had begun to move away.
“You, girl!” the vendor barked, addressing the thin, raggedly dressed woman. “How’d you like a free fish or two? You won’t find the likes of these fine wares laying about on the cobbles.”
“Sir?” The ragged woman sounded bewildered at her sudden good fortune. She was clutching some soiled crusts of bread.
“Yes, you,” the man said gruffly. “Being as there’s some think my fish is no good, I’d prefer to give it away to some poor soul who deserved it than offend their dainty nostrils. Here, take this.”
To the watching Berta’s amazement, the vendor handed the woman one of his larger fish, waving away her tearful gratitude. She was even more amazed when, seemingly impressed by the generous gesture, several hitherto reluctant customers suddenly decided to buy his wares, pressing coins into the kind vendor’s grasp.
Darius put his big hand on Berta’s shoulder, urging her to follow. As she started to turn away she heard the vendor’s low growling, “You!” He spoke to the ragged woman. The last satisfied customer had moved well away out of earshot. “I’ll have that back or the urban watch will hear about it!” the vendor threatened.
Berta looked on in distress as the woman surrendered the fish. Weeping as she walked away aimlessly, she bumped into Berta.
Berta directed language at the vendor which was as ripe as his fish.
The man laughed. “So now I should be taking advice from a little whore? You’ve no right to talk! I’ll come over tonight and see if you’ll accept some of these coins I’ve earned!”
“Don’t mind him, lady. How can there be such coarse people in a Christian city?” The woman’s voice shook. Her clothing made a stark contrast to Berta’s fine green tunic. “A lady like you shouldn’t be walking about in this part of the city, even if you have brought your servant.” She put her hands up to her face and began to sob.
Berta put her arm around the woman’s shoulder, feeling how thin she was. “You can’t let bastards like that see you weep. It just makes them all the happier. Why are you scavenging for food anyway? Don’t you have a friend, a lover?”
“I have a husband, lady.”
“But where is he? Doesn’t he work?”
“Of course he works! He works very hard, only a few days ago he was injured and now –- well –- I have prayed to our Lord day and night, yet they say my Sabas might not live.”
“Sabas? That is your husband’s name? And what’s yours?”
“Maera.”
“I am Berta. And so, Maera, you have no money and now you must beg? I can find you work.”
“Work? For you, lady?”
“Well, actually I am not exactly a lady,” Berta admitted, somewhat reluctantly, “At least not the sort you seem to mean. And this work, it would be the same sort that I do.”
“I am not afraid of any work the Lord might send, however hard it is.”
Berta giggled, her spirits restored by the prospect of helping the woman. “Oh, it isn’t really hard work at all. And you get to meet some really nice people, people from the palace even. Some of the tales they tell would make a monkey laugh.”
“This work you speak of, what exactly is it?”
Berta detected the note of caution in the woman’s voice. “It’s very respectable, despite what some people say. Nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve been assured as much by men who work for the emperor himself.”
Maera looked at her in sudden horror. “The man was telling the truth, wasn’t he? You work in one of those houses!”
“I work at Madam’s, yes, just as I have since I came to the city. And a good life it’s been, too.”
“But have you no family?”
Berta paused. Hadn’t she asked this poor woman the same question? “The girls I work with are my family,” she finally said. “I know that it seems unthinkable right now but I could introduce you to Madam, and perhaps she would offer you work.”
Maera shrugged off the comforting hand on her shoulder. “Never! I would as soon be dead!”
“We all say that but in the end we would rather live. It’s not so bad, really. An occasional rough visitor, of course, but we have nothing to worry about. There are guards, we are safe. It’s not like being on the street, at the mercy of any passerby. Why don’t you at least come along with me and meet Madam, see what you think when you have spoken to her? She’s a real lady. You’d be a pretty thing with a little makeup. You’d do well, I’m sure.”
Maera shook her head vehemently and stepped away.
“And what of your husband? My family was starving too, but my father was able to buy oxen with the money he got for me and—“
“Oxen? Your father sold his child for oxen?”
“Well, you can always make more children but you can’t make an ox, just like Madam says.”
Maera whirled around and began walking away.
Berta darted after her. “Think about it, my friend. We come to the market often, Darius and I. You can find us here most mornings if you change your mind. At least take these.” She pressed a few coins into a reluctant hand. “It will get you through a day or two.”
“No, I can’t.”
“You must, for Sabas’ sake.”
Maera trembled but her fingers closed over the coins.
***
Maera stood and watched Darius and Berta move off along the row of stalls. The coins clutched in her hand burned like glowing embers.
The fish vendor, who had been looking on with great interest, called over to her. “Buy my fish, lady? Good for your husband, especially if he is not well. Why, I’ll even toss in an extra couple of small ones, just as a thank you for your help.”
Maera glared at him. Though without words to express what she felt, her expression was eloquent enough. It seemed to sting the vendor more than Berta’s coarse diatribe.
“Yes, well, my fine lady, it won’t be too long before you’re serving yourself up at some house or other,” he jeered, “and then we’ll see how fine you stay. I’ll be looking for you, and then you’ll be singing a different sort of tune. Now take your miserable face away before you scare my customers off.”
Gathering her dignity about her, Maera walked slowly away past stalls offering vegetables, barrels of olives, piping hot loaves, poultry of all sorts. With the coins in her hand, on this one morning she could buy whatever she and Sabas wanted. Then she thought of how they had been earned. Were they a gift from the Lord, or a temptation sent by Satan?
“Oh, God,” she prayed as she picked her way across the refuse-strewn cobbles, “show us a way to get out of this terrible place, where nobody cares for anything but money and people have no shame about selling themselves to strangers.” She did not add, “and where whores have more charity than their betters,” although, when she thought it, she supposed God must have heard that part anyway.
She was still aware of the weight of the coins in her hand as she passed the last stall in the market and noticed a beggar sitting hunched over at the mouth of an alleyway. At least that was how she characterized the emaciated, ill-clothed man, though he was no thinner or more ragged than she was herself.
She stopped in front of him and his bony hand moved slightly, automatically opening in supplication.
“I could never accept these if I had got them the way they were earned,” Maera said, as much to herself as to the beggar, “but I came by them honestly and so do you.” She stooped slightly to place a coin or two into his leathery hand.
Without looking up, the man rasped something. It could have been thanks or a curse.
Maera walked away, lighter in spirit, thanking her inscrutable God for giving her the opportunity to help another unfortunate.
