Seven for a Secret

Chapter Forty

The boy had fled into the Copper Market and vanished into thin air.

It was as if he was a demon, according to the guards who had pursued him. Or so said Theodoulos, who had not himself witnessed the pursuit or disappearance.

John had not been able to locate and question the guards concerned. Perhaps they had been executed, just as the dwarf had said. John did not trust Theodoulos.

The Copper Market was not an enormous quarter, but its streets and alleyways seemed without end. John had lost track of how many thoroughfares he had hiked up and down, wide streets and narrow, straight and twisted, a few boasting colonnades, most without.

He had spoken to shopkeepers, servants on their way to market, beggars, laborers going to and from their jobs, and prostitutes, not to mention several members of the Blue faction swaggering around in search of a reason to start a fight.

No one recalled seeing a boy pursued through the streets by guards from the palace. Was it surprising? It had been at least ten years ago. In that time riots, fires, and the recent plague would have buried such a trivial incident deep beneath more dramatic and horrific memories.

Still, it was not every day a boy vanished into thin air.

“What did you say? Palace guards?” The wizened man in the candle shop turned his head toward John, as if straining to hear the question. “Yes, I remember that, sir. I looked out and saw soldiers. There was a big man with a beard. Someone was lying in the street. Couldn’t make him out too well. He wore dark robes. He was probably some dandy from the court who came looking for trouble and got more than he bargained for.”

John thanked the shopkeeper and returned to the street. What the man had recalled was the aftermath of the attack on John.

Somewhere in the labyrinth of shops, tenements, and foundries there was someone who would have reason to recall a minor event from years ago. Perhaps the boy had knocked over a servant on his way home from the market and scattered a perfectly good basketful of vegetables onto the street and the guards chasing the lad had trampled most of them before he could retrieve them from the cobbles.

Unless the servant could somehow replace the goods, he would remember such an incident.

Especially if he was employed at the palace, where discipline could be harsh.

That was grasping at phantoms, John realized. The chances of him finding such a witness were almost non existent.

He had come to the entrance to the courtyard where the theatrical troupe was located. He had already passed the spot once. Troilus was too young to have maintained his establishment at the time of the chase. What was now used as a theater would have been a brothel. Should he interview the dye maker Jabesh? Perhaps not. Those John was seeking in the crowded, cramped city-plotters against the emperor and Agnes’ murderer, or murderers, one and the same or not-could not be far away.

Unless they had fled Constantinople.

Word might have already reached them, since he had spent all morning and half the afternoon trudging around the area repeating the same questions. By tomorrow morning rumors would begin to spread and people would be convinced a boy had been seen fleeing soldiers from the palace. So and so had heard it from a most reliable source.

The tale of the fleeing boy might well replace the inevitable gossip about a tall stranger who had been seen again and again in the Copper Market.

John walked on until he found himself at the square where he had met Agnes, the center of the entire affair.

Rising up over the rooftops at one end of the square was the granite column of the stylite.

Who had lived up there for how long? The stylite would have been able to see not only the square, but the surrounding streets and alleys as well.

He had this same thought days ago. Then he had wanted to question the holy man-Lazarus, his acolyte had called him-to establish whether he had noticed anything on the morning Agnes had been killed.

The acolyte had said Lazarus would not speak of worldly things and at the time John had not considered it worthwhile to press the matter.

Now he would not be deterred.

Let Lazarus speak for himself-or not.

John craned his neck to look upward.

He could make out the stylite’s motionless, bowed head through the window of his ramshackle shelter. How did he pass the time? Did he meditate on the evils of the world? Pray silently?

A life so constrained, such rigid self control, was not unknown. John had seen a stylite glistening in the morning sun on a bitter day, the man’s emaciated body covered with a sheen of ice from the driving rain of the previous night.

A lifetime of bodily suffering was a transitory inconvenience compared to the eternal glory such men anticipated.

The door in the back of the column swung open when John pushed. Lazarus and his acolyte put more faith in their god than in locks. He ducked under the low lintel and started up a stairway resembling a stone ladder. Light filtered in from above. There were two landings, both almost blocked by wicker baskets. John did not pause to examine their contents. When he reached the second landing he could see the open trapdoor leading out to the platform atop the column.

Cautiously, he poked his head into the open air and looked around.

There was something wrong.

What?

John sniffed.

That was it.

There was no smell.

He had been on top of the stylite column more than once in the past. He knew that to glorify their god such solitaries dwelt for years amidst the decaying refuse from their scant meals, dead vermin, and their own filth. When the breezes were in a particular direction, standing downwind from such a pillar was enough to take away the appetite.

Yet here there was no odor at all. The air smelled fresher than it did in the square below.

John pulled himself up onto the platform. It was wider than most. There was room for a man to lie down, but not much more.

Constantinople stretched out around him. He could see the dome of the Great Church, the Hippodrome, and the palace grounds. Sunlight struck sparks off the water on three sides.

A man perched up here would have been able to see a great deal.

On the other hand, the acolyte had insisted Lazarus would never talk about what went on below him.

John turned carefully to face the shelter. It was hardly more than a few weathered planks. The door which made up the front was shut.

“Lazarus,” John called out. “I am sorry to intrude on you. The matter is urgent.”

He was not surprised that there was no reply.

“I am seeking to bring a murderer to justice,” John went on. “I am hoping you will be able to help me.”

John grasped the edge of the ill-fitting door and gave it a tug.

It opened a crack and he peered into the enclosed space.

Lazarus lay rigidly, at an awkward angle, head against the back wall and feet against the door.

John opened the door wider.

The holy man slid out onto the platform feet first.

His head hit the platform with a clank and came off.

His arms remained bent at the elbows, fingertips pressed together just under his chin in an attitude of prayer. His face, sitting beside his shoulder, appeared frozen in an expression of eternal beatitude.

Sunlight glinted off the smooth, bronze features.

Lazarus the stylite was an automaton.