The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction (13 page)

I didn’t have a chance to reply. There was a scrabbling noise outside our hiding place.

I went over and looked into the dimness, but saw nothing.

I was turning away, chiding myself for my nervousness, when there was another scuffling sound and a figure appeared out of the gloom.

At first I thought it was a feathered demon or a giant bird. Then I saw it was a man, waving his arms wildly, flapping the tattered garment he wore.

A beggar.

He shouted in a voice as ragged as his clothes. “Ye who gaze upon the great face of the Lord, repent! Repent! Repent!”

Arabia screamed.

The ragged man turned and scuttled away towards the cistern.

I went after him. He must have seen the icon, not to mention Arabia and me.

He scrambled over the fallen columns and I followed him into the darkness beyond.

I could hear his feet slapping across the stones better than I could see him. More than once I heard him fall. I shouldn’t have been able to catch him otherwise, since he was surprisingly nimble. It was like trying to catch a desperate beast.

The man kept crying out to the Lord. Down here, the Lord was the only one likely to hear. I didn’t want him to get back above ground where he could tell his tale to anyone who would listen.

I began to gain on him. I managed a burst of speed born of desperation, and my cold-numbed fingers brushed a fluttering scrap of cloth. I leapt forward and dragged him down.

He was stronger than I expected, and more agile. Claw-like nails tore at my neck. A sharp knee caught me in the stomach. Teeth sank into my shoulder. It felt as if I was being attacked by a pack of feral dogs.

I tried to get up and he slammed me backwards. My head hit the ground and lights flared behind my eyes.

Then there was a loud thud and the beggar grunted. I couldn’t feel him flailing at me any longer.

There were more thuds. I blinked. We were surrounded by the orange glow of the lamp Arabia held in one hand. In the other she gripped a bloody half brick.

I pushed myself up.

The beggar lay crumpled face down.

His skull had been caved in.

My chest burned from exertion and I hurt everywhere. If Arabia had arrived too late it would have been me lying there.

She’d saved my life.

I couldn’t take my gaze off the corpse. She’d hit the man again and again. Bloody shards of bone jutted through the matted hair.

Arabia started to sob. “I was so frightened, Victor. So frightened for you.” She threw the brick away. Her narrow shoulders shook.

I put my arm around her. “We’ll go back now. I’ll hide his body later.”

By the time we were back at our hole in the wall we were both shivering uncontrollably.

“Your clothes are ruined,” Arabia said. “I’ll bring you new ones.”

“Steal them from Florentius, you mean! That’s where you’ve been finding the food you bring me, isn’t it? I noticed his household seal on the plate.”

“We’re not stealing. It’s an advance payment.”

“Then again, what’s theft compared to murder?”

“We were only defending ourselves. We had to kill him.”

We? I hadn’t killed the beggar. But, on the other hand, there was Philokalas. I didn’t correct Arabia. We thought alike. “No,” I said, we’re not guilty of murder or theft, or greed or coveting another man’s possessions either, since all we want from Florentius is enough to keep us safe. And as for worshipping graven images, that’s a matter of opinion anyway.”

Arabia laughed. She gave me an appraising look. “You’re forgetting lust,” she said. “And I’m afraid that’s a sin you can’t deny.”

10

Arabia left, returned with food and the clothes she’d promised, and departed again. I set the clean clothing – plain garments of the type servants wear – to one side, for my meeting with Florentius next day. Then I sat down and tried to avoid the gaze of the icon.

Sometimes, when I painted an image, I had the uncanny sensation that the saint in heaven was also right in front of me, under my brush. At such times I felt I was painting a hole in the world and an otherworldly presence was stepping through.

Yet paints were paints. Pigments, wine, water, egg. There wasn’t anything else. Just raw materials and artistic technique.

I tried to keep my gaze on the floor. The crushed head of the rat still poked out from behind the icon. I got up and pushed it out of sight.

What time was it? The middle of the night? Probably earlier. It seemed as if I’d been sitting alone, in the cold, with my thoughts, forever.

Possibly Florentius would have me arrested when I showed up at the Golden Milestone.

I could feel the icon looking down at me. I looked up into those cold, bottomless eyes.

The girl is nothing more than a miserable sinner, the icon seemed to say. Not in words, but in my own thoughts. I swear it spoke to me in my thoughts, stirring them into a resolve I could not have reached on my own.

She is no better than yourself, the thing counselled. A killer. If Florentius betrays you, pretend your intent all along has been to turn over to the authorities a treacherous servant named Arabia who unwisely led you to the hidden icon which you wanted returned to the emperor for proper disposal.

“But Arabia saved my life,” I whispered.

By killing a man, brutally, the icon countered. She was no innocent.

But would Christ offer such advice? Why not? He had administered to men’s human needs when he walked the earth. He had fed the starving. Wasn’t I starving?

There are things that need to be done, the icon told me.

I walked back into the cistern and slung the body of the beggar over my shoulder. I’d had no reason to cross the cistern before but now I followed a line of pillars into the darkness, staggering under the dead man’s reeking weight, balancing my lamp in one hand, until I came to what remained of a concrete wall that had exploded inward, scattering massive chunks of masonry over a collection of chariots beyond.

I must be underneath the Hippodrome. There were ranks of chariots, all in good repair, except where portions of the ceiling had fallen on them. How long had they sat here? When had there last been a chariot race in Constantinople?

When I was done with the beggar I went back for Philokalas.

What was left of him wasn’t as heavy as the beggar, but I was shaking with revulsion by the time I’d shoved most of his bones under a chariot. A few had fallen out of his robes and rattled on to the floor of the cistern. I’d left them there. In the unlikely event the bodies were found, the natural impression would be the men had taken shelter during the earthquake and picked the wrong place.

Technically I was a murderer but I didn’t feel like one. It had been an accident. Taking my usual route early one morning, I’d seen Philokalas scuttle under the iron hound, and followed out of curiosity.

True, thieves were known to hide stolen goods in the abandoned depths of the city and it may have occurred to me that, if I discovered an illicit collection, who could fault a starving icon-painter from taking sustenance from a criminal’s hands?

Honestly, I had formed no particular plan as I slunk behind him, through the archway at the bottom of the rubble slope.

I saw the gigantic icon at the same time Philokalas saw me.

If only he had not been so hot-tempered! How else was I supposed to respond when he drew his dagger?

I used a piece of jagged brick, the same as Arabia. Luckily I had thought to pick one up as I followed him, just in case.

I didn’t hit him as many times as Arabia had hit the beggar.

The one crunching blow sickened me so much I dropped the brick and if I hadn’t hit Philokalas in exactly the right place – purely by chance – he’d still be alive.

As soon as I had examined the icon I recognized it but couldn’t work out how to use the knowledge to my advantage.

Now, standing beside the chariot that concealed the dead men, I wasn’t anxious to hurry back into the icon’s stern presence.

Why not explore?

Beyond the storage room lay an area which had been shaken by the last earthquake, or possibly previous tremors, until it resembled a natural cavern strewn with jagged boulders and stones. It might have been a basement or several basements. Dark passageways led off in different directions.

What drew my attention was the stone stairway leading upwards.

The stairs must have traversed more than one floor, but the floors were gone. I climbed to the top and peeped out through a small space between enormous double doors.

Scattered torches illuminated an otherwise dark courtyard. A grist-mill of the sort powered by a donkey sat in the middle. What I could distinguish of the surroundings told me nothing, although the little I could see of it showed that the building rising behind the courtyard looked uncommonly large. Twisting uncomfortably and craning my neck to see upwards I had a shock.

Over the roof the sun was rising.

How had I managed to misjudge time so badly? How could it be dawn already? I wouldn’t be there to meet Arabia when she arrived! I wouldn’t be on time for my appointment with Florentius!

Understanding arrived a step behind panic.

The orange glow was not the rising sun but the flames of a thousand lamps. I wasn’t far from the Great Church with its lighted dome. I might be looking into the rear courtyard of the Patriarch’s residence for that matter. At any rate, if I was close to the Great Church, I was close to Florentius. Here was the answer to how he might transport the icon.

A donkey brayed in the night as a dark figure moved across the courtyard.

I ducked away and started back down.

That was when the stairway tried to shake me off.

11

One instant my foot was coming down on the next step, then I’d lost my balance and was stepping into space. I flung my arms out in time to regain my balance and managed to keep hold of the lamp even as it splashed hot oil across my hand.

It was another earthquake. As frequent as they are, my surprise at their onset has never lessened, neither did my horror at the unnatural spectacle of solid earth rippling and walls bulging.

The stairway remained intact. So did I. I reached the bottom and stumbled over the heaving floor and into the chariot room. Clouds of dirt, dust, and plaster whorled out at me.

Half-blinded, coughing and choking, I staggered through the chariots, barging into wheels, tripping over yokes. The shaking made the chariots rattle and creak. I could have been threading my way through a cacophonous, ghostly race.

Finally, I was back at the cistern. As I started across the vibrating abyss there was a hollow boom. Then another. And another. If the ceiling came crashing down would I even know it or would the world just instantly end?

Suddenly a section of a column, several arm-breadths in diameter, rolled out of the Stygian depths. It roared towards me with terrifying speed. I threw myself out of the way and two rotating, leering satyr heads almost took my nose off.

My lamp hissed and guttered. I’d spilled most of the oil. I started to run.

The floor shook underfoot and I feared at any instant I would step into a freshly opened chasm.

By the time I arrived back at my starting point, the shaking was over.

Luckily the alcove had survived.

Arabia arrived some time later. I described my explorations, leaving out the part about moving corpses, and went on to formulate a more or less clear plan.

“Presuming Florentius can use that courtyard safely, you can meet him at the stairway and lead him through the chariot room and the cistern,” I told her. “If Florentius violates the arrangement – if he brings armed men, for example, or if you sense danger – take him somewhere else. Tell him the icon is hidden above-ground, show him down an alley, and bolt.”

The arrangement also had the advantage of keeping Arabia and myself apart which, I calculated, might make it easier for me to disown her if the need arose.

“Of course, Florentius will need to bring our payment in person,” she said. “He won’t cause trouble since he’ll be in the middle of it. And he knows if he’s caught with an illicit icon, Leo is unlikely to believe any excuses he might have.”

“And we take the money and run.”

Her huge eyes flashed. “Not run. Ride, Victor. We’ll be rich. We’ll buy the first horses we see! Then we’ll be off to Greece or maybe Italy. Anywhere we want. In a couple of days this dreary city will be nothing but a nightmare.”

“I hope so.” I couldn’t help thinking there was only one way that it can turn out right, and endless ways it could go wrong. And if it turned out right … what about Arabia? “Do you really want to risk your life for a few coins?”

She took hold of my arm and I smelled her perfume and felt her heat. “Not just coins, Victor. Gold coins. Lovely solidi with the emperor’s face on them. Imagine what fine things they’ll buy. Farms and jewels and silks.”

“Silks won’t do you any good if Leo has us hunted down.”

Arabia’s reddened lips curved into a scimitar of a smile. “Silk makes a better winding sheet than linen.”

Well, I thought, if that’s how she feels about it, nobody can blame me for what I might need to do.

12

There wasn’t time for sleep before my meeting with Florentius, but I didn’t need any. I just wanted to get it over with and away from the city.

I crept out from under the iron hound, making certain there was nobody around except the resident stylite, and trotted off to my appointment.

I was halfway there when someone called my name.

“Victor! Stop!”

My first impulse was to flee, but could I elude a company of armed guards? I hesitated and turned to face my fate.

My former landlady waddled in my direction. “Victor, why haven’t you been home?”

“You locked me out.”

Macedonia snorted and waved her hand. “And why did I lock you out? I thought you’d want your paints badly enough to find a few folles for a poor old woman. I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just business.”

“I’m giving up painting icons,” I said.