Five for Silver

Chapter Twenty-Four

The deserted street drowsing under a light breeze only added to John’s sense of unease. It had the aspect of a brightly lit stage, awaiting the arrival of a company of actors to begin playing out dramas of life and death to an unseen audience. Perhaps a Greek tragedy, or a Roman comedy purchased from Scipio’s stock.

The door and windows of the bookseller’s emporium stood wide open, as if to entice passersby to enter by foot or for that matter by wing. Here, the blank eyes of the windows seemed to announce, is a place where you can journey far away without leaving your own home, go to lands beyond the seas, hear again the great philosophers and poets declaiming honeyed words and calls to war, learn from mistakes of the past.

Mistakes of the past, John thought. Yes, we could all cite our own examples, and as for lands beyond the seas…but no, he must keep his attention focused on his investigation.

He stepped briskly into Scipio’s shop and was surprised to find it filled not only with books but also with flowers. The floral perfume was overpowering.

The short, shaven-headed proprietor bustled forward. A welcoming smile crinkled his face. His quick glance at John’s garments was followed by a self-congratulatory greeting introducing himself as Scipio, proprietor of this excellent and well patronized establishment.

“Would you care to peruse some of my latest imported works, excellency? Or perhaps you had something specific in mind? Or could it be…” the man lowered his voice, sounding almost furtive, “…you are interested in, er, lodgings?”

It was the same question Triton’s blind landlady had asked him a short while ago. John wondered when he had begun to look like a man in need of a roof over his head. Unless Scipio was hinting that his rooms contained what might be called lodgers in the same sense as those ladies housed at Isis’ establishment, and for the same purpose?

“Thank you, no,” John replied. “Although in fact I am here about a man I’ve been told is lodging with you. His name is Byzos.”

Scipio looked surprised. “You have heard about Byzos already?” He hurried to a table and picked up a thin codex. “I have only this single copy of his work thus far and, under the circumstances, it is sure to become a collector’s item. However, I can give you a good price.”

“I believe you’re speaking about a different Byzos. The man I’m seeking is a cart driver.”

“That’s right. First a farmer, then a cart driver, then a writer.”

“Indeed?”

“It was as I said,” Scipio confirmed. “When we talked it struck me he seemed to have a very poetic nature for a farmer, so I wrote down whatever he said. Literature is mostly aristocrats writing for other aristocrats, when you come down to it, but this is something different. The Rustic Versifier is my title.”

He opened the codex and scanned its contents. “How about this small sample, excellency? ‘Country dirt, city dirt. Heaven and hell.’ Profound in its rural way, isn’t it? But perhaps that was too glib. Here is another, only too appropriate to the current situation. ‘The carter calls. Ravens fly up, living ashes from a burning pyre.’”

“Byzos made these observations in conversation with you?”

“More or less. Definitely a born poet.” Scipio riffled through the codex. “Here’s another. ‘Poor fair one. Died with the honeysuckle and only sixteen.’ Be a good epitaph, wouldn’t it, if epitaphs can be said to be good, that is.”

“I’m certain the collection will be of great literary interest at court, Scipio, but my business with Byzos is much more mundane. Could you take me to his room?”

“Very well. This way, if you please.”

Scipio tucked the codex under his arm and led John up a flight of stairs, along a corridor, and then up another stairway to the top story. The higher they climbed, the more nervous the man appeared to become. As so often happened in John’s experience, this led to a torrent of commentary, much of it apparently intended to distance the speaker from any wrongdoing his guest might have committed.

“Byzos hasn’t been staying with me for long, excellency. Ordinarily he could not have afforded my rental, but he came to the city to make his fortune by transporting the dead, and of course in that line of work there is much to be done and a great deal of money to be made…”

They paused on a draughty landing. Scipio looked at John, as if to gauge his reaction to the insights he was providing. “He was a farmer with a large family and too many mouths to feed, trying to grow enough to eat on land blessed with an abundance of rocks and poor soil. There’s more silver to be found in a cartload of corpses than a cartload of cucumbers, he told me more than once.” He tapped the codex. “That’s in here too.”

“Indeed,” John observed, glancing along the hallway and wondering which of the open doors-Mithra, more doors! — led to the absent cart driver’s room.

Scipio did not seem in any hurry to unburden himself of that particular piece of information. “Now you’d think he’d have been afraid to ply such a trade, excellency, would you not? Certainly I would have been, but no, not he. There was a very good reason, for he confided to me when he first took a room that he considered himself protected by a holy relic. Many are buying them, I hear, and in fact I have been considering adding them to my stock to generate a little more income.”

John observed that the plague had ruined many businesses, except perhaps for those who sold wine.

Scipio added emphatically, “Oh yes. excellency. However, I’ve contrived to weather the storm by a most clever notion! It was inspired by a chat I had with Byzos one evening. His room is just down here, by the way.”

He led John toward the far end of the hallway. “You see,” he continued, “he realized that serving the dead and the bereaved are the most lucrative businesses in the city these days. Then it struck me like a bolt from heaven! Nobody wants to see their dear ones hauled away to leaking ships and sent with hundreds of others out into the harbor to be burnt, or thrown into the sea, or some awful pit. I realized I could offer a service that was sorely needed. In short, the departed stay here as guests until arrangements for proper rites can be made.”

Scipio halted and gestured toward an open doorway.

The floor of the room was covered with small stacks of books interspersed with neat rows of the dead.

It was now obvious why Scipio had filled his emporium with flowers and left all the windows open.

“I’ve always had the occasional lodger to help make ends meet. All these rooms I have, I didn’t need them all for storage. Books don’t take up that much space, do they? Mind you, I would not have the gossips say I don’t practice charity,” Scipio prattled on. “I charge vastly reduced prices for the use of my facilities, particularly shared accommodations such as you see here. Still, I do not lose by it since I am able to house many of the departed in each room. Each has his own floor space. I do not stack my guests, excellency. I am very severe about that. After all, even if you were dead, you wouldn’t want a stranger lying on you, would you?”

Glancing over the recumbent figures, John wondered that Scipio could be so matter of fact about his latest venture, since no matter how many silent guests he accepted, it could scarcely be possible to become inured to the tragedies they represented. Something deep in one’s being wanted to turn away in sorrow.

“I should mention that I only accept the departed of refinement,” Scipio was saying. “This guarantees their families don’t have to worry about them lodging in the same room as a common beggar. Oh no, instead they sleep with Homer and Plato. Why, even as their earthly remains linger here among the words of those wonderful writers, they are probably conversing with those very men in…well…in whatever after-life they share. It would make for a good way to introduce oneself, wouldn’t it? ‘Aren’t you the renowned orator Demosthenes? My name’s Byzos. You don’t know me, but right now my lifeless head is pillowed upon a collection of your speeches…’”

“Are you telling me Byzos is dead?”

Scipio scowled. “Certainly. Why do you think this work of his is a collector’s item? He’s the one in the far corner. He died last night.”