Five for Silver

Chapter Eighteen

“Yes, Lord Chamberlain, children can sometimes be troublesome.” Archdeacon Palamos looked sorrowful as, with a wave of a pudgy hand, he directed an urchin approaching with a jug of oil toward a flickering lamp suspended from an ornate silver stand.

“He’s one of our young orphans,” he went on with a fond smile. “Alas, there are so many in Constantinople these days that I fall into despair thinking of them being left all alone to fend for themselves.”

John offered a compliment on the ecclesiastical care given freely to the sick and helpless. “I shall endeavor not to detain you too long from your good works. Speaking of which, I hope this will be of some assistance.” He proffered a suitable amount.

“Most kind, Lord Chamberlain.” The man’s bow was impeded by his ample stomach, noticeable despite his voluminous robe.

There was an unnatural pallor to Palamos’ face. He looked perfectly at home among the bones and scraps of desiccated cloth and flesh that had at one time or another been mistaken for part of a departed holy man. As he’d approached John, moving through isolated pools of lamplight, he’d resembled a phantom.

“You were inquiring about Nereus’ will. It’s so sad that such a good friend has departed and died, worse than that, vexed to his soul by that troublesome son of his. Even so, he still remembered the unfortunate with his generous gift to the church.”

John had recognized Palamos. He had met him briefly years before, but the recollection was not mutual. Much had changed since then and the lighting in the crypt of the church was extremely poor. “Nereus left a legacy to the church?”

“He did.” Palamos peered first into a large box filled with irregular bundles tied with cords and then examined several dusty baskets whose contents John could not make out. Crates lined the walls, vying for space with more baskets and bundles. The air was thick with a sharp incense composed of dust and mold.

“And the son?”

“The legacy to the church reduced the estate to a small plot of poor land to the west of the city, holding the ruins of the house where Nereus was born. He stated he was leaving it to Triton because that was all he himself had inherited, so that his son could have the benefit of making a fortune by his own labors. Just between us, Lord Chamberlain, I believe the young man was fortunate to get even that.”

“I understand Triton had been involved with an unsuitable woman?”

“Unsuitable is hardly a strong enough word. An actress, a friend of bear trainers! We all know the way such women earn a few nomismata extra, don’t we? Every night I pray my dear parentless boys will escape the fleshly fish hooks dangled by such low women. They drag such innocents down, straight into the clutches of the demons of lust, and then it is eternal agony and for what, I ask you, for what?”

“Could you describe who was there when Nereus made his will?”

“Nereus was frantic, poor man. There was a great deal of confusion and difficulty finding the required number of witnesses.” Palamos gazed up at the shadowy ceiling, recalling recent events. “I had gone to offer him spiritual comfort, having heard he had been taken ill. He asked me to assemble witnesses. I discovered his house steward, whom he had specifically requested, was himself too sick to attend. However, his assistant, Cador, a man from Bretania and well trusted by his master, was able to take his place.”

Palamos knitted his brows and glanced up again as if invoking heavenly aid for his memory.

“It was dreadful, Lord Chamberlain, seeing my dear friend sinking so fast.” A vague smile flickered across his face. “Dear me, that could almost be the sort of jest a callous person would make, given Nereus’ shipping interests. To return to your question. Also present were a couple of men I did not know, these being a cart driver and that obscene simpleton who has been running about the city lately holding himself out as being a holy fool. Can you imagine the dreadful anguish of being on your deathbed with a pair like that standing next to it?”

An outraged tone crept into Palamos’ voice. “Do you know, this so-called holy fool started telling what he considered humorous anecdotes, despite my pleas to respect the situation. Why, the more I protested, the more lewd they became!”

He paused and looked around the gloomy surroundings. “I should not be saying this within the hearing of young ears. Children will creep down here to play, no matter how often I warn them not to do so. The other day I caught two of them testing the sanctity of Flavian against that of Gorgonius, or so they claimed. To me it looked more like a sword fight. Well, as much as you could recreate one when your weapons are a bit of thigh bone and a mummified forearm.”

John remarked that the incident sounded even more blasphemous than joking lewdly beside a deathbed.

“I would certainly agree, except the relics kept down here are those whose authenticity has been doubted even though their donors were perfectly sincere in their belief they were indeed what they purported to be.”

John asked him why such dubious items remained in the church.

“An arm or a thigh bone once belonged to some poor soul even if he wasn’t a saint or a martyr, Lord Chamberlain, and therefore should rest on sacred ground. Then too, we may at times be mistaken. For example, the Patriarch recently ruled our finger of St. Luke is authentic after all and ordered it put on display because of Luke’s connection with the healing arts. Heaven only knows where we stored it, though.” He poked forlornly at another bundle.

“About this holy fool…?”

“If you must insist on hearing the sordid details, Lord Chamberlain, after that the disgusting fellow began to sing a filthy song about the empress and a number of ecclesiastical dignitaries! I will say he seemed to have a fair grasp of the church hierarchy. Then, and I shudder to relate this, he actually seized my elbows and pulled me around Nereus’ room in a horrible sort of dance until I managed to shake him off. Dreadful, just dreadful. I practically fainted between dizziness and the sheer horror of his blasphemous behavior.”

John expressed sympathy.

Palamos shook his head. “And then this unspeakable fool finished his performance by leaping up on Nereus’ bed and bouncing up and down! I thought we were in the presence of Satan himself. Yet what can you expect when time is of the essence and you are forced to drag rascals in off the street?”

“Certainly you could anticipate they would not be models of courtiers’ behavior,” John observed. “Are you certain the man you mention is the one claiming to be a holy fool?”

“Definitely, Lord Chamberlain. He invaded this very church not long ago and tried to make off with our fragment of the Column of Flagellation.”

John mentioned he had seen several boys and two men pursuing the would-be thief. “They did not catch him?”

“No. However, I’m glad to say we haven’t seen him since.”

“What about the cart driver?”

“I regret I cannot tell you who he is. Light!”

John heard running footsteps and another urchin emerged from the shadowy stairway to hand a clay lamp to Palamos.

“Have you seen the finger of St. Luke?” Palamos asked the boy.

The boy reddened. “Oh no, sir. I haven’t touched it and neither has anyone else.” He nervously licked his lips. “What good would an old dried-up finger be in a fight anyway? It would probably break soon as you poked anyone with it. If anyone did, I mean. But nobody broke it because we didn’t have it, you see.”

“Yes, I think I do see.” Palamos shooed the boy away and led John to a table standing in a corner. In the lamplight, beneath thick cobwebs, glinted what might have been the eyes of malignant spiders. Drawing closer John saw several jeweled reliquaries.

“They hold several pieces of the leg bone of John the Baptist,” Palamos explained. “From their size and number it would seem he was twice the height of an ordinary person. Very convenient for river baptisms, wouldn’t you say? I’m certain he would forgive me for saying that.” He gently brushed cobwebs from the reliquaries.

John described the witnesses he had already identified: Crinagoras, Gregory, and Cador. “With yourself and the holy fool and a cart driver that makes six. Do you know who the seventh was?”

“Aristotle of Athens,” Palamos replied immediately. “He tried to pawn off some questionable relics on me whenever I happened to meet him at Nereus’ house. He presents himself as a dealer in antiquities and oracles.”

Palamos coughed. Was he choking on the cobwebs he’d stirred up or the thought of the dealer of antiquities?

“Did Nereus transact very much business with this Aristotle?”

Palamos nodded. “I regret to say it of a good friend who is now gone, but Nereus exhibited a certain gullibility at times.”

“Where is Aristotle’s establishment?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you. I never ventured there myself. His regular discovery of ancient oracles struck me as highly suspicious. In fact, on one occasion I questioned him most closely about it. And do you know what he said, Lord Chamberlain? He claimed he was born on the fifth day of the fifth month and as Virgil observed, when gamblers wager, Fortuna favors uneven numbers! Thus, he said, he trusted to Fortuna that the antiquities and oracles he bought and sold were as represented and since he has not been prosecuted so far, obviously that proved his wares were genuine.”

“It’s extraordinary how many are placing their trust in Fortuna these days. Her name seems to be on everyone’s lips.”

“True enough. We should rather be praying to the Lord, but there are those, I am sorry to say, who are reluctant to trust one whom they believe responsible for the pestilence. In fact, many say we have brought the plague on ourselves.”

“Do you know the lawyer Prudentius?”

Palamos had picked up a small, exceedingly ugly reliquary which resembled, no doubt quite by accident, a jeweled toad. He looked up from it in surprise. “I do know Prudentius. Very well, in fact. Another pious man full of charity. He was another orphan like the boy you just saw and again like him brought up in the church. Now he not only donates regularly to our charities, he also takes outcasts and dear children into his own home. As you see, Prudentius’ kindly nature and actions prove that charity begets charity. If you’re thinking about the will, though, Nereus formed his own opinions about that.”

John asked what he meant.

“Recently Nereus mentioned to me he’d consulted the law on the matter. I think he meant he had been leafing through that set of the Institutes he obtained a while ago. He consulted them as often as he did those oracles in his garden. Well, as far as the latter goes, superstition isn’t a sin, but what sense he could have made of something as confusing as the Institutes, I can’t say. One needs suitable training to disentangle the entrails of the law.”

He tugged at the tiny door of the reliquary. “You haven’t told me why all this interests you, Lord Chamberlain, not that I have any right to ask. It isn’t about his generous gift to us, is it?”

John assured him that no one was thinking about confiscating the church’s legacy and then briefly explained Gregory’s fate.

Palamos looked distressed. “Gregory was another of our benefactors. And he’s been murdered, you say? I didn’t know him too well, although I’ve occasionally seen him here. He’d come in now and then and just stand silently for a time, contemplating our relics of John Chrysostom. I did not think it unusual to see him at Nereus’ house. People who worship at the same church tend to get to know one another, conduct business together, and so forth. Have you spoken to his widow?”

“There was no one at his house when I called.”

“I believe her sister lives nearby. She may be staying with her.”

Palamos finally managed to pry open the reliquary and extracted from it a finger with a cracked and blackened nail. As he held it up, it appeared to be pointing at John.

Palamos smiled. “The finger of St. Luke!”

***

Angelina, Gregory’s widow, was spinning wool in a sunny room at the back of her sister’s house, a short walk from her own home. A small, plump woman perched on a stool, she reminded John of a dove. A dove whose feathers were, however, a blue and dark as the waters of the Sea of Marmara under the glare of the midday sun. In one hand she held a clump of wool. A weighted spindle dangled from the other.

She greeted John with a timid smile, indicated he should take a seat, and continued working. “My sister’s husband has been taking care of such matters that need to be taken care of, I am thankful to say. The news was a terrible shock. A man from the palace administrative offices came to tell me. It all seems a terrible dream.”

John offered condolences.

“Thank you. As you see, I am keeping myself busy. Not crying in lamentation or any such extravagance. A nasty pagan practice, excellency. They might well tear their hair at the mouth of Hades, but why should we when our loved ones are standing at the gate of heaven?”

The widow’s cheeks were rosy without the aid of makeup, her skin unlined, her hair, pulled away from her face, dark brown. It struck John that Gregory must have taken a much younger bride, until he noticed the joints of the hands that tugged at the wool and twirled the spindle were swollen and knobby with age.

“Not that the journey there is easy unless one is a saint,” Angelina continued. “My poor husband must be braving the toll-houses at this very instant, arguing over his baggage with demon tariff collectors.” A brief smile illuminated her face. “He always said he’d be well prepared to deal with them, having been a customs official himself.”

John remarked that such a position would certainly be of great assistance in the circumstances.

“He was a good man, excellency. A good husband. I never wanted for anything. If he is facing some satanic judge right now, he surely has a score of angels defending him.”

Not to mention angelic messengers seeking justice on his behalf, John thought. “I would say Gregory is not carrying the sort of baggage that would interest demons.”

Did a wistful look cross the round face before him? “None of us are without sin, I fear,” Angelina said.

The room had whitewashed walls lined with chests and baskets of wool. A shaft of light from the open window fell across the dark floor tiles, touching the stool where Gregory’s widow worked. John told her, without elaboration, he was investigating her husband’s death.

She accepted the statement without question. It would not be unusual for the palace or the City Prefect to take an interest in the murder of a high-ranking customs official.

“I understand your husband was once a military man. How did he come to be a customs official?”

“John Chrysostom got him the post,” was the surprising answer.

“But he died almost a century and a half ago!”

“My husband had a great and abiding interest in him, excellency. When he served in Isauria he would visit every church he saw to ask if it owned any copies of the man’s writings. Whatever he found, he committed to memory as best he could. Thus eventually he carried in his head a library no ordinary soldier could possibly have afforded.”

John realized that the young Gregory had probably shared this knowledge with his friend Peter. “How did he become interested in John Chrysostom?”

“It was because John was exiled to that part of the world near the end of his life. He was part of the history of the mountains, if you wish. The beauty and power of his writing impressed Gregory.” Although the old hands continued to work the wool and spindle, a quaver crept into her voice. “Gregory chose a phrase from them for his tomb inscription long ago.”

“Since he was a Christian as well as formerly a military man, might I venture to guess it questions the supposed victory of the grave?”

The spindle stopped for an instant. Then she plucked hastily at the thread, smoothing out an errant thickening. “Why, yes, excellency. You are also a man of the church?”

“I am often at the Great Church.” John did not explain that, as Lord Chamberlain, it was part of his duties to arrange and oversee the emperor’s ceremonial entrances into the church, and that further, it was extremely wise for him to attend its services, despite holding other religious convictions.

Angelina forced a smile. “But I was telling you how Gregory obtained his post, wasn’t I?”

She lifted the spindle and pushed down the multiplying coils of thread. “It was in Isauria that he took a spear in the arm.”

There was the slightest hesitation in her words. The ancient wound she had mentioned might well have reminded her of the more recent and fatal wounding.

“He couldn’t remain in the army,” she continued. “He always said it was a sign sent by heaven. In any event, he came back and took a clerical job at the customs house. As it happened, one of the higher officials there was also a student of John Chrysostom’s writings. He learned that Gregory shared his interest and when they began discussing matters of religion he soon recognized my husband’s intelligence and talents.”

Her hands continued like separate creatures, going about their own business. “He was blessed to be given a path leading so sure-footedly from a soldier’s life in the wilderness to great wealth here in the capital,” she went on. “I know Gregory wouldn’t like to hear me complain it ended as it did. That would be ungrateful and unreasonable, he would argue.”

“Did your husband discuss his work much with you, Angelina?”

John was not surprised when she told him he had not. Was there any connection between Gregory’s post and his death? Was his death related to Nereus’ oral will? Tariff collectors were so much disliked that it was not surprising that the church, seeking to remind the faithful of future accountability, had populated the soul’s road to heaven with demonic customs officials.

John asked whether anyone with whom Gregory had recently transacted business might hold some resentment against him.

“No, excellency. He felt he was simply taking wealth on behalf of our Christian emperor from those who had more than enough. He personally donated a great deal of his own wealth for charitable purposes, particularly to the Church of the Holy Apostles.”

“Did he receive any unusual visitors during the past few weeks?”

The spindle was full. Angelina placed it in the basket set beside her stool and brought her gnarled hands together in her lap, folding them together as if in prayer. “As I indicated, I did not know much about my husband’s business. Indeed, you exhibit considerable knowledge of him.”

“Peter related a few things about your late husband to me,” John explained.

“Peter?”

“Gregory’s old army friend.”

“I’ve never heard Gregory mention him.”

“Peter is the man Gregory met every week or so to talk about theology and-”

John was unable to finish because Angelina sprang off her stool, a dove taking awkward flight.

“Bless you, excellency!” She burst into tears. “You were sent from heaven. Now I see it all! Sent from heaven!”

She looked up at the whitewashed ceiling. “Gregory, forgive me!” she cried, and then addressed John. “All these years when Gregory was going off to his meetings with this Peter you’ve just mentioned, and never saying why or who he was visiting, oh, Lord forgive me, I supposed he had been seeing another woman.”