Six for Gold

Chapter Eighteen

From somewhere above Francio’s dining room came a booming oath followed by the heavy thump of running feet. Alarmed, Anatolius looked up into the painted vines on the ceiling. A few flecks of paint floated down like tiny leaves.

“That’s just Thomas chasing the intruder.” Francio plucked another poppy cake from the silver platter on the table. “Don’t get excited. The enemy is smaller than a mouse. It’s black-haired and moves fast. It got in from the garden. How it arrived in the garden in the first place I can’t say.”

He brushed away crumbs which had become trapped in the elaborate tracery of stitching that decorated the front of his robe. “I’m certain Thomas can handle such an adversary, especially considering how deftly he’s dealt with all the pirates and thieves and murderous mercenaries who’ve had the misfortune to cross his path.”

“He’s still entertaining you with his farfetched stories, I gather?”

“Indeed he is. He’s as well traveled as Odysseus. I must admit, however, since our small visitor has been racing about for a day or two and he still hasn’t caught it, I’m not surprised the Holy Grail slipped through his fingers.”

Anatolius grunted. “And what happens if Thomas catches the little intruder? Don’t tell me it’s bound for the cooking pot?”

Francio wrinkled his nose. “What? Dine on something resembling a stunted rat’s cousin? Come now, my friend, what do you take me for? And yet, you have a point. Perhaps I should sample just the tiniest morsel, cooked to perfection with a delicious sauce, just to say I’d dined upon it, hmmm?”

“Why don’t you keep a list of your culinary triumphs? You can engage an artist to add the poor creatures to the fresco on your dining room wall.”

“What a splendid idea! Your creative genius is wasted on the law, Anatolius.”

“I haven’t had much time to waste on the law or anything else the past couple of weeks.”

Francio started to pick up another poppy cake, then put it down. “I can see from the cloud that just passed over your face you’re about to broach this murderous business again. Before you ask, no, Thomas hasn’t left the premises since he arrived nor has he remembered anything useful to you. Nothing suspicious has happened either.”

“I see. Well, I’m also here for another reason. I’m looking for information. Do you happen to know the former court page Hektor?”

Francio puckered his lips as if he’d bitten into a bad olive. “Yes, I know that odious little monster!”

Anatolius described Hektor’s visit to John’s house.

“Since Hektor’s regrettable accident-I say regrettable since it didn’t kill him-he at least now looks exactly what he is,” he went on. “Since he can’t make a living from his pretty face any longer, he’s making one from his and others’ souls.”

“You may well be right, Anatolius. I’ve heard he’s been shuttling back and forth between the Patriarch and those heretics Theodora has lodging in the Hormisdas. It seems Hektor is trying to help find some common theological ground between them. What a task!”

“What does Hektor know about theology? He was a court page. You might as well take religious advice from one of Madame Isis’ girls. It’s absurd!”

Francio chuckled. “You’re a fine one to begrudge a man the right to change his profession! However, as I told you, I am well informed, and I gather the idea is he brings a fresh eye to the situation, one that’s untainted by years of blind faith. What’s more, he’s a man who was specially chosen by the Lord for the task, as evidenced by his miraculous salvation!”

“I wouldn’t call it a miracle. He was mistaken for dead, but, unfortunately, wasn’t.”

“If Theodora thinks it was a miracle, so do the rest of us. I understand she’s given him a corner to live in at the Hormisdas, and-”

There was a crash, as if furniture had been knocked over at the far end of the house.

“It sounds as if Thomas may be doing more damage to your house than your strange intruder,” Anatolius observed. “How do you find out all this interesting information?”

“It’s quite simple. I’m fascinated by whatever it is people have to tell me. Genuine interest can loosen tongues better than wine.”

“An interesting theory! Do you know anything about Senator Symacchus?”

“Symacchus? You are more knowledgeable than you pretend, Anatolius.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re going to ask about his employing Hektor, are you not?”

Anatolius shook his head. “I had no idea he had.”

“Oh? Admittedly it was a few years ago. Hektor did some reading for the senator. They didn’t get along, needless to say, Symacchus being a devout man and Hektor being…well…what he was then and now claims not to be.”

“Was there any communication between them more recently?”

“I shouldn’t think so. Did you know the senator has been employed for a long time by Justinian to lecture Theodora’s tame heretics on orthodoxy?”

“Strange, that a man like Symacchus would have engaged Hektor,” mused Anatolius.

“Not really. Symacchus liked to employ court pages who’d become too old for their particular line of work. It was one of his charitable gestures.”

“Yes, that’s right. That’s what his latest reader told me. But Hektor…?”

Francio pondered for a time. “The senator’s only vice, if you’d call it that, was a weakness for classical literature. Especially Homer. He named all his servants after characters in the Iliad. How could he have resisted employing a boy whose name really was Hektor? Unfortunately, once you get to know our Hektor you realize how richly he deserves to be dragged around the walls of the city.”

Anatolius let his gaze wander to the ceiling. The sounds of the pursuit upstairs had receded. Achilles had been the senator’s servant and Diomedes his reader. He should have made the literary connection immediately, he chided himself.

“The senator’s reader told me Symacchus was connected with the Apion family through his late wife.”

“Yes, he was. He made quite a show of the connection. He always seemed to have some guest or other from Egypt lodging in his house, even after his wife died.”

There was an outburst of frenzied squeaks from overhead, followed by quick footsteps, first directly above and then on the stairs. A tiny black shape rolled across the dining room and out into the garden as if it ran on wheels rather than legs.

A panting Thomas appeared in the doorway. “That cursed creature’s possessed by demons,” he gasped. “I’ll pursue it to the ends of the earth if I have to, but I’ll get it before too long, you’ll see.” He leaned against the door frame as he wheezed and gulped down air.

“You’d better sit down and catch your breath,” Anatolius told him. “You’re going to need it. I’ve learned from no less a person than that vile Hektor that an assassin has been sent after John. You’re going to Egypt to warn him.”