Murder in Megara

Chapter Seventeen

John was returning to Megara.

He had dressed in a plain blue garment whose only decoration was a thin gold stripe at the hem, one chosen to indicate the more formal nature of the calls he intended to make when he arrived at his destination.

Provided, that was, he could locate Leonidas and Alexis, two friends from his schooldays.

Mithra had granted his earlier prayer for guidance.

As John sat contemplating the sea the night before, he had suddenly recalled them as possible sources of information about what had happened to his family after he left the area.

A thin smile quirked his lips as he remembered Antigenes, the severe old stoic who conducted classes the three had attended and was wont to wax particularly sarcastic in several languages at their tortoise-like progress in their studies.

Alexis was the son of a church official and by far the most blasphemous boy of John’s acquaintance, which was to say very blasphemous indeed. Leonidas’ father worked in the offices of the tax collector. Thinking on it as he approached Megara it occurred to John that he and his two friends could be described as representing the base supporting local society: religion, administration, and agriculture.

Compared with the capital, Megara was small, though still large enough that John did not to expect to accidentally run into two men he had not seen in almost forty years, particularly Antigenes, who had been old when he taught the boys. However, since John knew the location of his house and had no notion where Leonidas and Alexis might have gone, he decided to begin his search in the narrow street leading from the thoroughfare called Straight, not far from the town walls.

Were Antigenes still alive he would no doubt fail to bat an eyelid when John told him he had risen to the rank of Lord Chamberlain, but rather content himself with observing in lugubrious fashion that he was not at all surprised that John held the position no longer, given the wretched state of his Latin.

Whether or not Antigenes was still residing in Megara berating his flesh-and-blood inferiors or was hectoring the shades in Hades, the house where his classes had assembled was gone, leaving a vacant site filled with charred timbers and blackened stones overgrown by weeds and vines.

John stood and stared at the gap where the house had been, trying to reconcile his lively memories with the empty desolation that remained.

He recalled a verse Antigenes was fond of quoting to the effect a man’s days were as grass and he flourishes like a flower, but the wind passes over him, and he is gone and his place no longer knows him.

Those old Israelites were the first stoics, the teacher had invariably assured his pupils, none of whom had any real inkling of what the composer of the psalm was writing about, and who would have been surprised to realize then that someday the ancient words would make altogether too much sense to them.

So, John thought, it seems I must continue searching those places the wind has passed over and seek the past that is gone.

The next place to look, from a logical point of view, would be the house, situated not far away, where Alexis had lived with his parents. He was unlikely to have remained there but his parents might be alive, or perhaps other relatives now residing there would know where Alexis had gone. Since his father had been a church administrator, John could inquire about the family at the church but he preferred to avoid officialdom if at all possible.

Unlike their old tutor’s home, Alexis’ brick house still stood along the narrow dirt street running parallel to the city wall. During John’s boyhood, large gardens reaching to the wall behind two- and three-story houses attested to the prosperity of the owners. John saw the change as soon as he came to the head of the street. Many of the houses were shells, invaded by tangles of what had been ornamental trees, now unpruned and rampant. Most of the rest of the buildings were in disrepair. A few skinny-ribbed dogs slunk in the shadows and such pedestrians as were in evidence matched the dogs.

Justinian had expended huge sums in rebuilding the center of the city, but despite a grand new theater, forums, monuments, and administrative complexes, Megara, like many provincial towns, remained underpopulated and had begun decaying around its edges.

A sickly sweet perfume emanated from the open door of Alexis’ old home. John entered. A fountain featuring a chubby cupid still stood in the atrium, its presence more appropriate now that the house was, obviously, a brothel. A girl clothed in what appeared to be a scarlet shadow leapt from one the couches arranged against the walls and trotted coltishly over to him, reaching him at the same time as a stout middle-aged woman in thick makeup who emerged from a nearby room.

“I am so pleased to be visited by a gentleman of such refinement,” the latter smiled, giving a bow. “I can tell by your manner that you are not the sort of ruffian with whom we are normally burdened, sir. What is your desire?”

“I wished to see the fountain again,” John said with perfect truth. “A friend and I once tried to raise frogs in it.”

The madam’s visage continued to smile indulgently, as if to say we see numerous men with deranged humors here, and as far as we are concerned their money is as good as the next man’s. “A fine aristocrat such as yourself may desire something out of the ordinary. As it happens, little Theodora here is newly arrived with us. A virgin I have been saving especially for just such a one as you, excellency.”

“Hmmmmm,” said Theodora, looking John up and down, which for her, being very short, was a long way up. “Mmmmm. I imagine you would be different than one of them smelly old dock workers.”

“Very much different,” John agreed. “However, having seen the old fountain I will be off. First, however,” he addressed the madam, “could you tell me who owned this house before you?”

She frowned and gave him a suspicious look. “Are you a tax collector?”

“No. I am simply looking for an old acquaintance.”

“So you say. All the former owners I know about ran the same kind of establishment as I do.”

“You don’t want me then?” Theodora put in.

“Apparently not,” sniffed her disappointed employer. “You are very much different from a dock worker, you claim. You flatter yourself, excellency.”

“I am just speaking the truth,” John told her before exiting hastily.

***

The observer waited in the dark doorway of a half-collapsed house until the tall, lean man in the dark tunic emerged from the brothel. The former Lord Chamberlain looked up and down the street before walking off briskly. The observer waited a short time, then slipped out of his hiding place and followed, keeping close to the house fronts and occasionally sliding into doorways, alert to every movement of the man he was following.

John was approached twice, before he reached the end of the street. A prostitute he sent away with nothing more than a withering glare, but dropped a coin into the dirty hand of a grubby beggar. The coin flashed in the sunlight.

When the observer reached the beggar the man rose hopefully from his nest of rags, hand outstretched. The observer showed him the point of his blade. That also caught the sunlight.

John turned down a wider, colonnaded thoroughfare. Here it was easier to follow him since there were more passersby coming and going from the various emporiums. The observer closed the distance between himself and his quarry, not wanting to lose him in the crowd.

John stopped abruptly to look over a silversmith’s display. The observer found himself beside a table piled with cloth. He picked up a bundle of bright green linen and watched John examine bowls and spoons.

Surely the fool hadn’t come into Megara to buy such items?

“Ah, sir, a fine choice for your good lady.” The beaming merchant almost obscured his view of the silversmith’s display. “This just arrived. These bright colors are what all the ladies at the emperor’s court are wearing this year. They look like flocks of pretty birds, sir, in their cheerful plumage. Pretty birds in the jungle, as some would say of the imperial court. Why, here in Megara-”

“Yes, yes. I’m just looking.”

A big cart pulled by two oxen lumbered down the street. As it passed the silversmith’s premises John turned to cross to the matching colonnade on the opposite side. As he did so he vanished behind the cart.

The observer threw down the linen. By the time he’d trotted to where he could see around the creeping cart, his quarry had vanished.

***

John moved quickly through an unobtrusive archway beneath the colonnade, hoping it didn’t lead to a private residence. Fortuna was with him. He found himself in a courtyard surrounded by workshops. He cut down an alley beside a building occupied by dyers, then turned off into what was little more than a cleft in the wall behind a bakery. He could feel the heat of the ovens radiating through the masonry at his shoulder.

During his years in the capital John had developed an ability to feel a hostile gaze on his back. He could not say how it warned him and thought perhaps his eyes and ears were taking in information that did not register in his thoughts except as a sensation of danger.

Cornelia would like the silver earrings he had just purchased.

His plan was to mingle with the crowd in front of the semi-ruined temple that housed the unfinished statue of Zeus, enter the building, slip out of the back, and from there proceed to the house where Leonidas once lived. He was careful not to appear in a hurry, to pause and gawk as an ordinary traveler might at the towering columns that remained standing.

He had one boot on the lowest step to the temple entrance when he sensed someone nearby.

He whirled, hand going to the blade in his belt.

A gap-toothed man smiled up at him.

It was Matthew, the self-styled guide. “I am so glad you have returned, sir. My lecture was sadly interrupted. Shall I resume?”