One for Sorrow

Chapter Forty-eight

John made his way to the harbor where the body had been discovered. The sun was setting as he crossed the great square called the Strategion. Merchants were packing their carts in preparation for departure.

The high sea wall cast its shadow out past the end of the docks, over the nearby ships. With a pang, John noticed one of them was the Anubis.

But he had left Europa safely at home and Cornelia had gone to see members of her troupe.

As he reached the steep covered stairs, he barely registered the four men gathered around a dark heap below.

Would the soothsayer’s corpse speak as the entrails of the old man’s chickens had-or as he claimed they had? Would his body offer a clue to the identity of Leukos’ real murderer?

Or was it some other poor unfortunate who had fallen or leapt to his death? Emerging from the stairwell John found himself facing the Anubis. He heart gave a lurch.

He loped over to where three of the urban watch stood.

And forced his gaze to the body sprawled on the stones.

It was not Ahasuerus.

The figure was smaller. The pallid face, although marred by crabs, was one he had known for years.

It was Xiphias.

John worked to steady his breathing. The dock felt as if it was turning under his feet. One of the men was saying something about gold candlesticks.

“…had them tied to his belt. Meant to drown himself. Expensive weights.”

John grunted an acknowledgment.

“There are no wounds. He must have thrown himself in,” the prefect’s man said.

“Or someone else helped,” one of the others put in.

“Someone else would have used stones and kept the candlesticks.”

Something prodded at John’s memory. “Where’s your colleague?” he asked.

“There are only the three of us.”

“I saw someone else.”

“Oh, a passerby, that’s all. Looking for excitement. Wouldn’t find death so thrilling if he had to see it every day.”

“Where did he go?”

The man pointed down the docks. In the distance John could make out a dark shape. He started to run.

A line of warehouses sat along the seawall. John kept in the deepest shadows in front of the stolid, brick structures. He ran lightly and almost silently, steadily closing distance on the man ahead who strode along unaware of the pursuit.

John had nearly caught up with him when a dog exploded out of a dark doorway, snarling and snapping as it lunged at him. John knocked the beast away, sacrificing part of a sleeve.

The other man looked back over his shoulder and then broke into a run. His legs were less tired than John’s but he was bulkier and slower. There was nowhere to hide with the sea on one side and the warehouses on the other. Ahead, however, loomed a dark break between buildings which, John knew, led to another stairway.

They were well beyond the wide space of the Strategion. If his prey made it up the stairs he would vanish like magick into a confusion of streets, alleys, and tenements.

John forced his legs to keep moving. His chest was on fire and there was a coppery taste in his mouth.

His quarry turned into the gap and John reached him as he started up the stairs. John lunged, caught hold of fabric, and yanked the man backwards.

The heavy body fell, tried to scramble up, but John kept the fellow’s tunic in a vice-like grip. Then John’s dagger was pointed at the man’s throat.

“I’m tired of running into you constantly, my friend. It’s time for you to explain your business here, unless you want to take the secret to the grave with you.”

***

The tavern was what one would expect to find near the docks, a dismal cave crowded with Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Goths spewing oaths in a babble of accents and languages. The place smelled as if recently vacated by a family of bears.

John gulped wine.

Thomas’ gaze wavered from John’s face to the filthy floor. “I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Lord Chamberlain, although I suppose I could argue that my duty to my king is greater than my duty to the truth.”

“So you have been following me?”

“No, not you. The old soothsayer. I thought it would be him on the dock. Well, I should have made better inquiries. I met the messenger as I left your house, you see, and he told me that a body had been found.”

“You weren’t simply interested in Ahasuerus, you were actually following him?”

“Yes, I chased him to Constantinople after nearly catching him in Antioch.”

“Explain.”

Thomas smiled weakly. “As I told you, I’m an emissary from the court of Arthur, High King of Bretania.”

“That was the truth?”

“Yes. And my quest for the Grail, that too is the truth. The king, and the kingdom itself, they are both in need of the Grail’s healing power.”

“Continue,” John said, tiredly.

“I set off last year. Superstition pointed me to the east. I started searching in Jerusalem. From there certain stories directed me to Antioch. It was in the Kerateion, the Jewish quarter near the southern gate, that I heard of the soothsayer known as Ahasuerus. You are aware of the story of the crucified god, Jesus?”

John pointed out that he did, after all, serve in a Christian court.

“Of course, as do I. Well, as you know, Jesus was forced to drag the instrument of his death through the streets to his execution.”

“That is so. A barbaric thing. Romans do not crucify criminals any longer. Not even pagans such as ourselves.”

Thomas shook his head sorrowfully. “A terrible spectacle that must have been. Yet there were those who, seeing it, laughed and mocked him. One in particular urged him to hurry, following the condemned man through those dusty streets, shouting at him to make more haste toward his death. At last Jesus could tolerate this brutality no longer, for even though he was the son of God, he was also a man.”

“Much blood has been spilled over that question,” John remarked.

Thomas smiled ruefully. “I forgot even the laborers here are theologians. And so Jesus finally spoke. This was one who had performed miracles, raised the dead. Now he struck out with a terrible curse. The torments of flesh scourged and beaten had driven even him to despair.”

John nodded wordlessly.

Thomas continued. “Thus it was that he foretold that the man who had so mocked him must wander the earth until the end of the world. And then he staggered on to his terrible death. And as for the man. His name was Ahasuerus.”

The flame in the lamp on the round table where the men sat leapt and sizzled, guttering in a draft.

“That was five centuries ago, Thomas. Surely you don’t believe the soothsayer Ahasuerus is the man you just mentioned?”

“I do. And what is more, if the stories I’ve heard are true, he is the keeper of the Grail. That also was part of his fate.”

“Well, by all reports, the soothsayer has drowned.”

“You believe that?”

“The patriarch does.”

Thomas took a deep draft of wine, then shook his head. “He cannot drown, John. He is doomed to live until the end of the world. But is he now beyond my reach, along with this precious Grail? Yes, that, alas, is certainly possible.”

“You say you followed him to Constantinople?”

“Yes. As I said, I almost caught him in Antioch. He had done readings there, and become well-known. I learned of his whereabouts from a barber who regularly trimmed the beard of a night watchman. This watchman reported he had seen the man I sought pass through the city gates before dawn that very morning, sitting in the back of a rag seller’s cart. On this chance information, I purchased a horse and set off, expecting to catch up by nightfall. But just outside Antioch the road passes through a swampy region along the river. I don’t believe that road could have been constructed by Romans, the stones were so badly laid, but I whipped the horse on, Mithra forgive me.”

He stared sorrowfully into his cup for a time before resuming. “The poor beast caught a hoof in a hole and its leg snapped like a dry stick. I was thrown and ended up in the river. Nearly drowned, I did, and broke my own leg besides. I recuperated for weeks in a nearby hostel, nursed with lepers and dying flagellants and others of a religious nature. As you see, I still have a limp.”

“How were you able to follow his trail here after all that time?”

“I was informed that the rag seller whose cart he had ridden off on was actually smuggling silks. The head of the hostel was a customer. He told me the rag seller had gone to Constantinople. Again, I took a chance, hoping that I would find the soothsayer had come here too.”

The two men fell silent. The racket in the tavern washed over them. Sailors from every corner of the empire were quarreling and trading boasts, but were any telling a tale as wild as Thomas’ account?

“A fantastic story, Thomas. It has the sound of some poet’s concoction.”

“I wouldn’t know. I am not a learned man.”

“Which is not to say you lack imagination. What do you know of this Grail?”

“It is the most powerful of all relics.”

“Here in Constantinople we have several fragments of that very cross that Jesus dragged through the streets, the pillar to which he was tied while scourged, and his crown of thorns, to name but a few. Not to mention several heads of John the Baptist. We also set great store in the Virgin’s girdle. These holy relics are said to protect Constantinople. I would prefer to face a Persian with a sword rather than a relic but then, as you know, I am not a Christian. And neither are you. So why seek this Grail? Could you not serve your king in other ways?”

“The world has seen many religions and many miracles. What one person might attribute to one god, another might credit to some different deity. It is all a mystery to us mortals. But if the edge of my sword draws blood when the need arises, does it matter what forge it came from?”

“True enough. What does this Grail look like?”

Thomas admitted he was not certain.

“That complicates the finding of it, then.”

“Oh, there are many tales. Some say it is a cup, others insist it takes the form of a plate. Still others believe it is a magickal stone.”

“A stone?”

“Yes. It isn’t the form that’s important. Jesus manifested himself in human flesh, after all.”

John took Leukos’ pouch from his belt. He had been carrying it since the reading of the will at the Quaestor’s office that morning. Opening it, he pushed aside the piece of linen, and drew from amidst the necklace and coins, the green stone.

“Could it look like this? It belonged to Leukos.”

Thomas’ eyes widened.

“The soothsayer was in the habit of giving them to all of his clients,” John explained. “But they can’t all be Grails. Anatolius has one, too. May I remind you there was also a monk who reportedly sold fifteen hands of Saint Prokopios?”

“Yes, you’re right, they couldn’t all be what I seek, but don’t you think it shows…?”

The knight’s hand twitched and John wondered if he was thinking of reaching for the stone. Thomas watched intently as it was returned to the pouch.

Thomas looked distressed. “Berta’s pendant had a stone just like that. It was the talisman she tried to use on my leg. If someone mistook it for the Grail, could that be why she was murdered, and her grave violated?”

“Is there anyone else searching for this Grail? Tell me, were you at Isis’ house the night Berta died?”

“You accuse me? A fellow Mithran?”

“Are you a Mithran, or is that a ruse to make me trust you? Who told you about the mithraeum?”

“A man at the inn dropped a hint about another man who mentioned off-hand someone else…we gave the appropriate signs…you understand how it works.”

John nodded. “I shall return home now, Thomas. I trust I will not run into you again this evening.”