Three for a Letter

Chapter Twenty-two

The red-faced shoemaker blustered on while Anatolius patiently made notes on a wax tablet.

“Castor is one of my finest customers, barring the emperor. Half the patricians in the empire wear my boots, you know. Quality recognizes quality, that’s what I always say. However, Castor has not come by recently. Yet how can I be surprised? My boots will outlast the Hippodrome. Yes,” Kalus lamented, “I am putting myself out of business with the quality of my wares.”

Anatolius scratched through the name Kalus in the list on his tablet. Speaking of boots, he thought sourly, even though he had nearly worn out his own spending the entire day tramping around Constantinople visiting the merchants listed in Castor’s account books, all he had ascertained was that the missing man had not recently conducted business with any of them.

Kalus led his visitor out of his office and back along the hallway to his wares. From unseen workshops behind them came the muted sounds of hammering. The heavy smell of leather, mingled with the acrid odor of the urine in which it was tanned, enveloped the establishment.

“He’s very particular about what he orders, is Castor,” Kalus went on importantly. “His sandal thongs must be the correct length and always dyed black. There again, he is a man of discerning taste. Like all of my customers.” He glanced down at Anatolius’ footwear and frowned. Although he said nothing, it was obvious he did not find it admirable.

The lowering sun spilled its deep red light into the shop and across its display of elegant boots and sandals. Kalus rearranged several pairs to show them to better advantage.

Anatolius politely thanked the boot-maker for sparing time to talk to him.

“Aren’t you Senator Aurelius’ son?” the other asked. “A fine man, if I may say so. It was my father who set my feet on the road to success. He was the wisest man I ever knew, sir. An army marches on its feet, that’s what he told me when I was a young man. The wisest words ever spoken, don’t you think? Armies will always need their feet well shod and I am proud to say that Justinian has placed his army’s feet in my hands. Imagine that, in my hands, yet at the same time those very feet are in Italy! The streets of Ravenna will be happier under sturdy military footwear than beneath the crude sandals of barbarians, I’m certain. I ask you, where would Belisarius be without my boots?”

Anatolius indicated agreement with every word spoken by Kalus and managed finally to escape.

He strolled down the street, emerging into the Forum Bovis. As he crossed the open space’s busy expanse he recalled that he had shared a cup of wine with more than one young lady while sitting near the great bronze head of a bull at its center. While a cup of wine would be very pleasant right now, there was one more call to make on John’s behalf and he must not linger.

The last business belonged, so its plaque declared, to the scribe Scipio, whose emporium was discovered after traversing a narrow street that was not exactly a dim, dangerous alleyway but neither was it a broad, colonnaded avenue. The familiar odor of ink and parchment that met Anatolius as he stepped inside its shady interior felt welcoming after the long, hot day.

Scipio was a small man with a shaved head. His white tunic was a palimpsest of ancient and more recent ink splatters. As the scribe rose from his desk to greet his visitor, Anatolius noticed the right side of his nose was as black as a Nubian’s. Disregarding the fact that a scribe always kept his hands clean, the thought came to him that the man must be left-handed, habitually rubbing his nose with his free hand while he copied. He wondered if his flash of insight was anything like those that John experienced while he was unraveling some knotty puzzle or other.

“Can I help you, sir? Is there a particular work you’re looking for or have you something you wish to be copied?” Scipio’s gaze moved toward the tablet Anatolius carried.

Anatolius replied that he wished to ask a few questions if Scipio would be kind enough to answer them.

“We are able to copy out ten pages for a semissis,” the scribe answered quickly, anticipating the question usually put by his visitors. “A third of that is just for the parchment. Alas, the price for it just keeps increasing. Eventually it will ruin me, sir.”

Anatolius made the same inquiry as he’d been fruitlessly making all day. The answer he received was little different from all the rest.

“Though I expect we’ll hear from him shortly,” the scribe added, “since we’ve almost finished the copy of the Enneads that he commissioned.”

Anatolius looked around. The shop’s few shelves held no more than seven or eight codices along with a few scrolls. He was inspired to ask another question. “Did Castor usually commission works or did he generally purchase items from your stock?”

“Both. In addition, he often calls upon us to produce copies of his own works.”

Anatolius asked about the nature of these works.

“Philosophy, science, religion. Every imaginable subject. Castor is man of great erudition.”

“Do you have any of these works on hand?”

“Not at present. However, I suspect he will be bringing more work soon since it has been some weeks since I last saw him.”

“He is a very good customer, it seems.”

“If only all my clients were like Castor! You’d be amazed at the number of students we chase away, not to mention common men of law and the like. They handle my excellent wares with no intent to buy. Nor even the means to buy them, if they were honest, not even if they had a whole year’s salary concealed about their pitiful persons. They could scarcely afford the parchment we write on, let alone the writing itself. However, I see you know something of our profession and I suspect you’re equally economical with your parchment.”

Following Scipio’s gaze, Anatolius realized there was a trace of ink on his forefinger, a remnant of recent labors. “You’re very observant, Scipio,” he said with a smile. “However, my master doesn’t find it necessary to scrimp on the purchase of parchment.”

Understanding dawned on Scipio’s lined face. “Or to cut back on building churches and forums or conquering foreign lands?”

“Quite so.” Any of the countless administrative clerks serving at the palace probably would have impressed Scipio by the fact they labored there but Anatolius did not inform the man how closely he worked with the emperor. Instead, he gave him the same instructions he had given the other merchants he had visited, which was to send an immediate message to the captain of excubitors at the palace should they receive any communication from Castor.

He had turned away to step out into the shadows lengthening along the street when inspiration struck him. “How long would it take you to copy out some poetry for me? I’d also like decorative borders with a motif suggesting the past glories of Italy, and leather covers.”

“Ah, sir, I could see immediately that you are a man of refined taste,” Scipio beamed. “But I’m afraid that it might be a little while as we’re still overwhelmed with business generated by the emperor’s codification of the laws. Every provincial town seems to think it ought to have a copy even though half of them don’t even have a man of law who can read Latin. It’s my opinion that they just sit whoever is hearing petitions on a bench in front of those volumes to lend some credence to his rulings. Not, however, that we’re complaining about the amount of work.”

Anatolius thanked Scipio, saying he would visit again to consult him about the copying and then slowly made his way through the deepening twilight back toward the Mese.

Around him men laughed and jostled, grimy workers returning home from their long labors in the sun, important persons conversing with their companions as they strode through the bustle, ignoring the beggars that sat at every corner and haunted every colonnade. The street sounds beat around his head, a ceaseless babble of noise that was beginning to give him a headache.

His thoughts turned toward his uncle’s estate where it would be quiet and cool and there would be good food and wine as the night crept in over the sea to lay its kindly fingers across the garden. Yes, it would be wonderful to stroll there with Calyce. She would certainly enjoy his poems, he thought as he walked quickly along. Of course, it was true that he could copy them out himself, but he hardly had the time right now.

He realized his journey would cause him to pass not far from the house where Balbinus and Lucretia lived. Yes, he chided himself, he’d been foolish to imagine some ember might smolder beneath the ashes of time. His acknowledgement of the truth was bitter-sweet, but then again perhaps it hadn’t really been an ember glowing in the darkness of memory waiting to be fanned into a blaze, but rather just a warm thought like a ray of sunlight, insubstantial and impossible to capture-or recapture. Strange were the whims of Fortuna, he mused, as he turned a corner and began to move briskly down a street leading directly into the Mese. If his affair with Lucretia had not been so ill-fated, he, not Balbinus, might well have married her and then he would never have found his true love, Calyce.

All the same, it would certainly be most helpful to John’s investigation to visit the senator’s house again and inquire of Balbinus if he had now heard anything from his missing nephew.

Indeed, he told himself, it was increasingly obvious that Castor was not just away on business but was missing. Just like Barnabas.

He turned to retrace his steps and saw a familiar figure moving quickly along on the opposite side of the street. The sight brought a sinking feeling to his stomach.

It was Balbinus returning home. To his wife. To Lucretia.

Anatolius wiped his suddenly watering eyes and looked again.

No, he had been mistaken. The pedestrian was someone he did not know. Strangely, the thought made him happier.

***

Later-he could not have said how much time had passed but darkness had long since fallen-Anatolius found himself unexpectedly approaching the barracks across from John’s house. He had been lost in thought. Thoughts of Calyce, of Lucretia, of events he wished he could change. He had no recollection of his walk down the crowded Mese nor of entering the palace grounds. His feet had followed the familiar route as automatically as one of his uncle’s odd mechanical devices went through its movements. He was fortunate he hadn’t been run over by a cart.

Lamplight shone brightly through the diamond-shaped panes of John’s second story window, the window of the study in which the Lord Chamberlain was usually to be found when he was at home. It was puzzling, since at present John was supposed to be some stadia away.

Anatolius crossed the cobbled square, acknowledging the greeting of the excubitor guarding the barracks. On reaching John’s door he raised his fist to rap sharply, the action reminding him of Hypatia’s distress about her recent strange visitor.

Perhaps, he mused, that was why his feet had carried him here at this late hour. Perhaps they had more commonsense than his head.

He pounded on the door for a long while before it was opened. Hypatia greeted him warmly enough although she looked haggard. The flaring torches in the entrance hall and atrium, more torches than seemed necessary in a house currently occupied by a single servant, accentuated the shadowed hollows around her eyes. He had barely stepped inside before she had the door securely bolted.

She invited him to the kitchen and, as he began to follow up her upstairs, he glanced into the atrium. A dark shape, some small creature, was scuttling across the raised edge of the impluvium.

No, he realized. It was only the clay scorpion he had seen during his last visit, brought to a semblance of life by the flickering reflection of torchlight in the water. Or perhaps it was not the same scorpion, for there was another guarding the top of the stairway and yet another set on the floor beside the kitchen door.

“Have demons besieged you again, Hypatia? I see you have placed your guardians everywhere.”

The young woman’s offended expression told him that he would not be able to dispel her fears by making light of them.

He apologized. “I suppose this big house must seem rather frightening when it’s empty,” he went on. “It wouldn’t echo so much if John would just get a few more furnishings.”

He sat down at the kitchen table. Seeing the jug set on it, he hinted that while an unannounced visitor such as himself would hardly expect to be offered his host’s favorite wine, on the other hand he would not be averse to sampling another vintage.

“You mean you don’t wish to have a cup of the master’s Egyptian wine, sir?” Hypatia said. “Then this will suit you very well. It was a gift from some ambassador or other and the master directed Peter and myself to feel free to drink it. I think that you’ll find it less raw than the sort that the Lord Chamberlain prefers.”

Anatolius took a sip of the wine she poured for him and nodded approval. “Perhaps John likes the type of wine he does because of someone with whom he once shared it. I’m only guessing, of course,” he added hastily, realizing that he shouldn’t be chattering about the Lord Chamberlain’s personal life with a servant. Normally it would never have occurred to him to say such a thing, but somehow in John’s household this sort of conversation seemed quite natural.

John’s relations with his servants were, he reflected, extremely irregular but that was his own business, insofar as anything at Justinian’s court could be said to remain one’s personal business.

“Tell me what has happened, Hypatia. Have you had another night-time visitor?”

Hypatia nodded. “Last night. It was at the same hour as when it last appeared, only this time I didn’t dare answer its summons.” Her distress was obvious in the increasingly halting way she spoke.

“Immediately I get home I’ll send one of my servants around to keep you company,” Anatolius offered. “You really shouldn’t be here alone, even if there is a barracks full of armed men just across the way. And if I may say so, if Peter comes back and finds any of your friends standing about,” he said in an attempt to lighten her mood and with a nod toward the clay scorpion that still sat on the shelf, “he won’t be at all pleased to see them.”

At Anatolius’ suggestion Hypatia had taken the opportunity to pour a cup of wine for herself. It had brought some color back to her face. “I notice you keep wiping your eyes, sir. Are you unwell? I would be more than happy to make up a potion for you.”

Anatolius looked thoughtful. “Strangely enough, it seems that the longer I’m in the city the better I feel. Perhaps I should stay here myself tonight. I don’t like to see you so upset.”

He was recalling when he had initially met Hypatia. She had been a slave belonging to the Lady Anna, but the first time he had seen her he had not realized the fact. Not that a difference in social position was any bar to love. After all, Lady Anna had married a former tonsor. Yes, it was true, he thought, noting anew Hypatia’s golden skin and large, dark eyes and finding himself wondering that if John were not as he was, might he…

Anatolius’ impertinent speculations were abruptly interrupted by a loud banging on the door.

“It’s probably just a message for the Lord Chamberlain, Hypatia. I shall attend to it.” He got up and went down to the entrance hall.

It was not the authoritative, insistent pounding of someone whose duties commonly included rousting citizens out of their beds in the middle of the night. It was more frenzied than powerful.

Anatolius drew the knife he carried, the small blade that was an accessory worn by every prudent man who walked the streets of the city. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Hypatia had come to the top of the stairs. He waved her back.

The loud knocking continued. Blade at the ready, he slid back the bolt.

Silence fell.

He felt his heart racing. He did not believe in demons, but, on the other hand, it was rare indeed that good news came calling at such an hour and in such a manner. He cracked open the door and peered out.

The demon standing in front of the door looked back at him.

Or rather the woman, for he now saw by the lamplight seeping out into the darkness that the night caller was both human and demon. One half of her face was that of a woman while the other was a scarred mass akin to a melted candle.

“I am Pulcheria, your honor, and I wish to speak to the Lord Chamberlain.” As the woman addressed him she pulled a veil over the ruined portion of her features.

***

Before long Pulcheria was sitting in the kitchen providing Anatolius and Hypatia with details of what, according to her, had been a long and close working relationship with the Lord Chamberlain. Anatolius originally supposed she was exaggerating, but after close questioning it was obvious that she was sufficiently informed about John and his investigation of Barnabas to prove she was at least telling the essential truth about the commission she said had been given her.

“But how did you get into the palace grounds unseen?” Anatolius asked with great interest when Pulcheria had finished her explanation for her unexpected appearance at John’s door.

“Do you not think that I was a guest here often enough before my unfortunate accident?” the woman replied with half a smile. “Besides, there are always ways into any place you wish to name, however secure they seem. Even the palace itself, as you see-or indeed as any rat could tell you.”

Seated in the warm, bright kitchen, with her elaborate wrappings of colorful scraps of cloth and hair festooned with ribbons, she did not resemble any rodent Anatolius had ever seen. She was more like a peacock, or perhaps a pile of colored rags discarded by a dyer.

“So it was you who’s been terrifying me?” Hypatia asked, apparently uncertain even now that the disfigured woman was only that and nothing more.

Pulcheria admitted she had come calling before. “I regret I could not visit at a more civilized hour,” she concluded.

“I peeked out the window of the master’s study and all I could see was…well…I thought…”

Pulcheria gave her frozen half-smile. There was no need for further explanation.

Anatolius held his tablet over the embers remaining in the brazier, obliterating all traces of his notes on Castor’s business associates. Then the man whose occupation was transcribing the words of the emperor turned his skill instead to taking notes on the detailed ramblings of a beggar and street prostitute.

“So the great mime was born in the countryside not far from Zeno’s estate?” Anatolius interrupted her, amazed at the woman’s flow of information. “How could you have found all this out in such a short time?”

“I may no longer have my looks, sir, but I do have a way with people!”

Hypatia, Anatolius noticed, was sitting staring somewhat dreamily at the ceiling, another cup of wine in her hand. She looked pleasantly flushed, relieved of her fears now that her demon was inside and happily chatting with them.

“I haven’t told you all that I have to tell,” Pulcheria was saying. “I also heard it rumored that he has bedded more than one noble lady for whom he had performed. Or, to put it more correctly, they have bedded him. It seems he’s very popular with the ladies.”

“People working in the theater can be terribly attractive,” put in Hypatia, her words slightly slurred.

Anatolius finished writing. He had almost filled his tablet despite the brevity of his notes and the tiny size of his script. “I’m sure the Lord Chamberlain will be most grateful for your efforts on his behalf, Pulcheria,” he said, finally laying it aside.

The woman’s garish rags rustled as she leaned forward confidentially. “There’s one last piece of information for you to convey to him, sir. Barnabas is a great lover of literature and he has a large collection of scrolls and codices.”

“An expensive interest indeed, even for a performer as well paid as he.” Anatolius recalled his recent conversation with Scipio.

“Too expensive even for Barnabas, it seems,” came Pulcheria’s reply. “For I also hear that he has a habit of visiting the libraries of those aristocrats who hire him to entertain at their homes. Not just visiting them, you understand, but returning when their owners are not present to help himself to one or two choice items. I don’t necessarily mean his patrons’ wives, either,” she added with a coarse laugh.

Anatolius observed that, aside from the matter of the wives, he did not think that Barnabas would continue to receive invitations to perform in aristocratic homes if he was suspected of stealing from their libraries.

“He’s remarkably agile,” Pulcheria observed. “It’s child’s play for him to climb through a second floor window in the middle of the night. So he’s never observed and most of his wealthy patrons don’t realize things are missing. If they do, they may well suppose they’ve been pilfered by one of their drunken guests. After all, why should a mere mime, even as one as brilliant as Barnabas, be suspected of aspiring to such culture? No doubt they would find the very idea laughable.”

Anatolius saw Pulcheria away into the night after rewarding her more handsomely than he would normally have been inclined, but knowing how generous John could be for information.

As he went back upstairs he realized he would have to return to his uncle’s estate with the dawn to convey to John what he had just discovered.

Could the visitor to Castor’s library who had left the mud on its immaculate tiles that so outraged Briarus have been Barnabas? Even if it were, he could not see how it could be linked with the deaths on his uncle’s estate. Still, if there were some connection, John would make it fairly quickly. Doubtless this other unexpected and useful information he had uncovered would be instrumental in aiding John to deduce why Barnabas at least had vanished. Perhaps they would now be able to run the fugitive mime to ground.