Seven for a Secret

Chapter Fourteen

The cavernous ward in Samsun’s Hospice was chilly, the noisome air warmed by nothing but feverish bodies on close packed cots. Alba sat at the bedside of a shriveled creature whose sex could not be determined from a distance, alternately spooning nourishment between its withered lips and wiping the patient’s chin and cheeks with a cloth.

Alba’s back was to John. Her plain black linen tunic spread out on the straw around her stool, the long sleeves half covering her bone-white hands.

John waited for her to finish. He was in no hurry. He had set Anatolius the task of escorting Crinagoras home and of informing Cornelia that he would be late.

Alba spoke softly in the cultured tones of the court as she moved the spoon from bowl to mouth. That the utterly unresponsive person she addressed was capable of hearing had to be taken on faith.

The room echoed with a din of voices. Conversation mingled with the unintelligible sounds of suffering. John had learned to pick words out of the clamor at an imperial banquet or during races at the Hippodrome. He listened as Alba recounted the tale of a holy woman who had seen a glowing veil descend from a church ceiling. The veil swooped, circled, and then flew away like a white bird. The listener’s brimming eyes glistened.

After a long time, Alba rose and turned. She wore the veil which covered her head and shoulders fastened at the neck in the manner of a cenobite. Framed by black, her colorless face shone like the moon on the dark water of the sea.

“Lord Chamberlain,” she said. “Thank you for waiting. I know a place where we can talk.”

***

Alba lit a clay lamp and set it back down on the table beside an array of mortars and pestles, scales, and metallic instruments with uses John hesitated to guess. The flaring light revealed wooden shelves bowed under the weight of jars, jugs, and bottles filled with unguents and potions. Several crosses had been propped up on the shelves amid the medical supplies. There was no wall space for them.

Alba made no effort to sit on the stool in the corner. She remained standing in front of the lamp. Shadows obscured her pale face. John could not make out her age.

“I grew up at the court, Lord Chamberlain. I can feel when someone is gazing at my back. I remember you as a young man, when you worked for the Keeper of the Plate. I have only heard about your remarkable career since then. You haven’t changed much.”

A ghost of a smile formed on John’s lips. “Some might say otherwise.”

“The collector of rents told you I was here, didn’t she?”

John nodded. “You do not sound very pleased I have found you, Alba.”

“She is forever sending unfortunate souls to me, Lord Chamberlain. She implies that I can cure them. I suspect she collects a fee for her services.”

“Can you heal?”

“Only the Lord can heal the sick, as any Christian could tell you. I try to offer comfort. But you aren’t here to be healed or comforted.”

“No. However, I do hope you can help me. Are you acquainted with Menander?”

She nodded. “He is a neighbor. He also used to be at court.”

“Do you speak to him often?”

“I used to. Our families were banished a few months apart and we both came to live in the same building, which is how I made his acquaintance.”

“I’ve just come from his room. He lives in a remarkable fashion.”

“He refuses to accept the blessing the Lord has bestowed upon him.” Her tone was even, but John detected a sudden coldness.

“What blessing do you mean? The treasure trove he was able to take with him?”

“Hardly, Lord Chamberlain. I mean the banishment itself. It was a blessing, since it is more difficult for a rich man to attain heaven.”

Alba paused. “Yes, a blessing, for the Lord saw fit to clear away the obstacles along Menander’s path to eternal life. He cannot see that. He is blinded by the gold piled up around him. What value has gold, except that assigned to it by men? Yet its glare obscures the light of the Holy Word as surely as the lights of this man-made city hide the blazing celestial fires overhead. I can tell you understand. You must be a man of religion. And yet, you are a rich man.”

John did not deny it. He wondered what Alba would think of his spartan furnishings and lack of slaves. His simple tastes reflected his own nature. “Do you know anything about Menander?”

“We both received the same blessing. Now I care for the church, attend services, and offer my assistance to the poorest of the poor. He chose another path. I argued with him and prayed for his soul. That was a long time ago. I still pray for his soul.”

“And what path, exactly, did Menander choose?”

“The same that most at the palace tread. Menander was always a man who indulged his passions. I believe he gambles and who can say what other vices he has acquired. He frequents the theater.”

“He told you this?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve encountered him on the street from time to time. He’s often arriving home as I leave to go about my work, and insists on describing to me what he has seen. Things no Christian woman should even hear about. He has begun to revel in wickedness. When I protest, he tells me it is all make believe, visions if you like. Well, I’ve had visions myself, of saints and angels, and I am prepared to state that saints and angels do not appear on the stage in Constantinople!”

She paused for a moment, staring at John in a fixed fashion. “Lord Chamberlain, do you ever have visions?”

“Never, Alba. I obtain my knowledge of things by my senses and by questioning. Which is why I have sought you out. You doubtless recall the house in which I live?”

John felt her penetrating stare drop away. “Glykos the tax collector lived there,” she said.

“Did you know the family?”

“Only in passing. Comita was his wife’s name. I heard they had a daughter. She was born after I began my new life.”

“Did you see them after Glykos was executed?”

“Not very often. I had my own sorrows and we are always selfish about them, are we not? But I have occasionally run into Comita at the market. She looked very ill the last time we met. That was some years ago. She was trying to coax a farmer to part with a bunch of dried out beets for less than he was asking. He refused. You would have thought they were monstrous gems. Charity is often farther away from home than barbarous lands, I fear. I paid his asking price and we talked a little while. Comita told me she and her daughter were living with her late husband’s brother, a man called Opilio. A sausage maker. Forgive me, if I have said too much,” she murmured. “Why should someone from the palace express an interest after all these years? Has Justinian perhaps decided on a pardon?”

“No, Alba.”

He felt her stare on him again. “Are you certain you have not had visions, Lord Chamberlain?”

“I assure you I have not.”

“Visions are not always of saints and angels. Did you know I scrub the floors of the church? When I first knelt on the freezing tiles to begin the bitter labor to which I had been reduced-for so I considered it at the time-my knees were still smooth and unbruised and my hands uncalloused. The sun had not yet risen high enough to light the windows. Alone, in the dark, I pictured my friends at the palace, asleep at that hour in their soft, warm beds, as I should have been. I could have washed the floor with my tears…

“Then, I heard a voice. A whisper. By the time I realized I was hearing it, there was only the memory. What I remembered it said was this. ‘Rejoice for all is the Lord’s will…’

“I jumped up. My first thought was one of the workers who fill the lamps was mocking me. I saw shadows, the gray windows, the dim shapes of pillars…

“Then I noticed a faint gleam on the wall near where I had been working. A ray of lamplight slanted across a small icon of Elisabeth the Wonderworker. Oh, I did not know her at the time, but I made inquiries, as you can imagine…

“She was born of wealthy parents. When they died she gave away all her possessions and traveled to Constantinople to take up a monastic life and minister to the poor and the sick. How fortunate I was. Elisabeth had to choose to give up worldly things herself. My choice was made for me. It was Elisabeth who had spoken to me.”

Alba had turned slightly. Now the light illuminated her features in a soft mist. She was no youth, but her face appeared as unlined as that of a child.

“Perhaps, Alba, you were speaking to yourself?” John said in a gentle voice.

“No, Lord Chamberlain. It was Elisabeth. And how fitting it was. For at the end of her life, an icon of a saint on a church gate spoke and instructed her to prepare for her journey to heaven…

“For years I have looked to Elisabeth’s icon in the Church of the Mother of God and waited for her to speak again. I look forward to that day, because I believe the mosaic icon will speak when it is time for me to ascend to take my own place in heaven.”

She paused for a heartbeat. Her gaze did not waver from him. “Do you think me foolish, Lord Chamberlain, to expect a mosaic to talk? No, I can sense you do not.”