Five for Silver

Chapter Twenty-One

The bellow of a bull greeted John as he turned down a familiar street leading off the Strategion. It was almost as if Nereus’ oracular bovine were foretelling his visit. Was it a good omen from Mithra?

Sylvanus stood outside his late master’s house securing a basket full of frantically clucking chickens to a donkey cart.

“You’ve arrived just in time, Lord Chamberlain. I’m about to embark on a new adventure, since I’m off to the master’s country estate with my charges. I was lucky enough to be able to purchase this cart this morning. Its owner demanded an exorbitant price, but I won’t stay here another night!”

A cloud of feathers wafted out of the basket as Sylvanus struggled to tie it to the side of the cart.

Recalling their previous conversation, John asked what would drive a confirmed city dweller into the countryside sooner than would be necessary.

A puzzled look crossed the rustic servant’s face. “You haven’t come to investigate the incident last night when someone broke into the house?”

The bull bellowed again. Sylvanus swiveled his head toward the open house door. “Apis!” he shouted. “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you!” Turning back to John, he invited him inside.

Nereus’ house was a shambles. Fragments of terracotta and marble, the remains of lamps and statuary, littered the atrium. John stepped over a pale arm. The marble lump in one shadowy corner might have been a head.

“It’s an outrage, sir!” Sylvanus fumed. “As if we hadn’t enough to weep over! Yet heaven heaps even more misery upon us.”

John glanced into Nereus’ office. Whoever had broken into the house had taken the trouble to damage its wall mosaic. Glass tesserae sparkled here and there among the ripped codexes and scrolls carpeting the tiled floor.

“Theft and breaking into houses are becoming the city’s main occupations,” lamented Sylvanus, “and fine pickings for the dishonest too, what with so many homes unoccupied. I can almost sympathize with those who break into a house they think empty, looking for something to steal and sell so they can feed their families, but wanton destruction…”

“What was taken, Sylvanus?”

“I can’t be sure, sir. You’d have to ask the house servants.”

The garden had also been vandalized and shrubs uprooted and tossed into the fish pool.

“They left the oracular chickens and fish,” Sylvanus pointed out. “I would have thought to a hungry thief both would have prophesied a very hearty dinner.”

“You were absent when these intruders broke in?”

“In a manner of speaking. I regret to say I over-imbibed last night and did not realize that strangers were in the house until I saw the destruction this morning.”

Bacchus, John thought, had become almost as popular these days as Fortuna.

“You heard nothing at all?”

Sylvanus, looking ashamed, shook his head and then, unexpectedly, beamed as he picked up a metal plate which had been half hidden under a low bush. “Here’s another of the master’s Dodona oracles. Bent, as you see, but I’m sure it can be put right. That makes three I’ve managed to find. I wonder where the other one is?” He looked around vaguely.

“You’re fortunate you weren’t murdered,” John observed.

“I keep my door locked at night. It’s always a wise precaution.” Sylvanus strode over to Apis and grabbed the pitchfork lying by the pen. “If I’d heard the villains at work you can be certain I wouldn’t have cowered in my room.”

He sank the pitchfork vehemently into the sparse pile of hay and tossed some to the bull. “It might have been demons who did this all by magick, sir. The streets are full of demons these days, looking for victims. Let them strike you once and before you know it the plague is carrying you off.”

It occurred to John demons would have found Nereus’ garden of pagan oracles a very pleasant place, rather than one to destroy.

Apis chewed contentedly. Sylvanus rubbed the sleeve of his rough woolen tunic over the plate he had just recovered.

John thought it more than likely the stealthy night visitors had been seeking something specific. Could it have been Nereus’ last written will?

But the oral will had immediately superseded it, he reminded himself.

“I returned to question you about the man called Aristotle of Athens. I understand your master conducted business with him and thought you might know where I could find him.”

“Yes, sir, I do,” the other replied. “In fact, I visited him only a few days ago regarding a statue of the oracle of Hermes the master had purchased. But then, I’ve told you about that already, haven’t I? There was some difficulty in making delivery arrangements. Now he will never see that amazing statue and neither, sir, will I.”

Taking a key from the pouch at his belt, Sylvanus opened the gate of Apis’ enclosure. “I noticed you admiring the beast. You can come into his pen. He sounds very fierce, but really he’s quite tame.”

Accepting the invitation, John patted the bull’s flank as Sylvanus knelt to unlock the creature’s shackle.

The click of the lock snapping open drew John’s gaze down and then he knelt to examine the bull’s restraining chain. “Do you see that, Sylvanus?”

“See what, sir?”

John pointed out a bright, shallow notch in one of the chain’s tarnished links. “Someone made a valiant effort to cut this.”

“The bastards!” Sylvanus sprang to his feet and stroked the placidly chewing bull’s muzzle. “Don’t worry, Apis. No one’s going to steal you, and soon you’ll be frisking about in country fields.”

Sylvanus inclined his head toward John and added in a whisper, “He’d feed a whole family for who knows how long.”

John remarked it was possible. “Before you leave, I wish to look at Nereus’ room.”

The room, overlooking the street, showed the same vandalism as the rest of the house. The water clock had been overturned again, and the sheets of papyrus scattered on the floor were sodden, already starting to smell of mold. There had been a cross on the wall. Now it lay on the floor. The bed had been turned over. So too had a heavy writing desk, a few bulky chairs, and a pair of oversized tables.

One wall was covered with a bright fresco depicting a frozen sea populated by numerous vessels swarming with fantastical baboon sailors setting course to far-off lands where buildings sporting spires, domes, and towers could be seen set amid woods and rolling meadows. Closer to home strings of camels brought boxes and bales from the docks toward a house depicted in the lower right-hand corner. It was obviously Nereus’ house, and three well-dressed figures, presumably those of Nereus, his late wife, and Triton, stood beside it.

John wondered, if Nereus were still alive, whether he would have ordered his servants to move one of the larger pieces of furniture in front of that portion of the fresco now that Triton had fallen from paternal favor.

It was not a large room. John had a difficult time imagining seven witnesses crammed into it, standing alongside the dying man’s bedside as servants rushed in and out. Where had the holy fool found space to dance with the archdeacon?

A number of codexes in a wall niche sat undisturbed. John pulled one out. It was part of Nereus’ set of Justinian’s Institutes. His legal oracle. He checked the niche quickly. Nereus had not concealed his last written will there.

John wasn’t certain why he had wanted to visit the room. Did Nereus’ shade linger? While the departed shipper made his way past heavenly tollhouses or up the heavenly ladder, or by whatever route one imagined led to the afterlife, did he still remain connected tenuously to a world he had not quite left, like a newborn clinging to its mother? Perhaps Nereus was even now discussing shipping affairs with Gregory, both detained by the same recalcitrant demon.

The break-in was as mysterious as the other circumstances surrounding Gregory’s murder. Had it merely been vandals? Or thieves? Someone seeking Nereus’ will or something else? As he went back downstairs a thought occurred to John.

“Sylvanus, a word of warning.”

The oracle keeper was leading Apis across the atrium. He paused and the bull stopped immediately, perfectly obedient. “An oracle keeper never ignores words of warning or he’d soon be out of a job, sir. What is it?”

“It’s possible that whoever broke in last night intended to harm you, or possibly somebody else they expected to find here.”

“All the more reason to be off for the country as fast as I can, then.”

***

John accepted Sylvanus’ offer of a ride.

He sat uncomfortably beside the oracle keeper as they lurched away from Nereus’ now barred and shuttered house, shifting his lean flanks continually in a fruitless effort to be marginally comfortable.

The chickens in the basket squawked indignantly and water sloshed out of the amphorae holding the oracular fish as the donkey struggled up a steep incline to the Mese and then dawdled along the thoroughfare to the Capitolium, where one branch pointed north, the direction the cart would have to journey in order to get to Nereus’ estate, and the other south.

Thanking Mithra and Fortuna both that Aristotle’s establishment lay to the south, John climbed down from the cart in front of a looming marble structure that might have been a temple to Zeus, except for the huge crosses adorning the facade. The overladen cart crawled away, the tethered Apis ambling placidly along behind.

John set off at a brisk pace.

Soon he had passed down the Mese and through the Forum Bovis with its huge bull’s head. Aristotle had set up business on the seaward side of the Mese, not far from Constantine’s wall, in an area of small workshops and private warehouses.

John soon spotted a building that displayed a sign bearing the inscription Oracles, Antiquities, Bricks.

The edifice in which Aristotle conducted his trade sat at the end of a narrow road next to a patch of scrubby land. Whatever use it might once have had, the open area was now dotted with heaped mounds bearing silent witness to the continued decimation of the city’s population.

However, even proximity to the sad place could not account for the overwhelming, acrid odor that permeated the air.

The pungent smell was immediately identifiable, although a quick glance around did not reveal its source.

John knocked at Aristotle’s door.

Another door, he thought wearily. Perhaps he should petition Janus, god of thresholds and of beginnings and endings, for aid in his search.

The door swung open to reveal a man hefting a wooden cudgel. He was short and broad shouldered and wore a soiled leather apron over a grubby work tunic. He warily eyed his unexpected visitor.

With the door open, the source of the overpowering smell of urine was apparent.

It emanated from inside the building.

Doing his best to ignore the odor, John stated his interest in talking to the seller of antiquities.

“Aristotle’s not here. Haven’t seen him since this morning.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“No.”

John curbed his irritation. “You are a member of his household and know when he is expected to return?”

“No, I’m not.” The short man spoke in an aggrieved tone. “I’m Anthemius. I’m a brickmaker by profession. Aristotle and I merely share these premises. Rentals in the city are outrageous, not to mention since this cursed plague arrived there hasn’t much call for bricks. Yet there seems to be plenty of money for antiquities and oracles. Aristotle brings back huge sums every day. I don’t know how he does it.”

Evidently Anthemius had been waiting for an opportunity to air his grievances. He scarcely paused for breath as he rattled them off.

“All day long I’m attending the door and it’s always Aristotle whose services are being sought. Nobody seems to have any use for a brickmaker any more. However, as I told you, Aristotle’s not here right now. Would you care to step in to take some refreshment and wait a while? I could show you some of my handiwork. You might well find it of interest. I do excellent work, sir, if I say it myself.”

Declining wine, John followed the man inside. The atrium had been turned into a storage space and held piles of stacked bricks. In the inner garden patches of weeds alternated with areas of hard-packed earth.

John noted the source of the smell. A concrete-lined pit almost filled with urine. A tethered donkey grazed contentedly nearby. Several long mounds of earth, some of them overgrown, testified this house too had seen losses.

Anthemius intercepted his glance. “You get used to the smell, sir. Aristotle keeps talking about going into the leather business, but so far he hasn’t done much about it except collect one of what you might call the necessaries.”

John commented on the pitiful mounds.

Anthemius scratched his head. “Sad, isn’t it? Most of them were there when I arrived a few months back. Don’t know who they are, since Aristotle never spoke of his family. They’re all gone now. The last one was buried right after I arrived. It was a bit of a surprise to me since there was nobody in the house but us, or so I thought. Then, in the early hours one morning, something woke me up and I looked out of my window and what do you think I saw?”

John indicated he could not guess.

“Aristotle was burying the last member of his family. Well, I couldn’t see too well because it was so dark, but the departed was either wrapped in white or stark naked, but either way, it was tragic, sir, tragic. I didn’t like to observe such a private matter, so I closed the shutters as soon as I realized it wasn’t one of those stealthy nocturnal visitors who come to steal whatever they can run off with.”

“Doubtless if it was your cudgel would soon have persuaded them otherwise.”

Anthemius lifted the cudgel and tapped it lightly in the palm of his free hand. “Indeed it would and in fact it has done so on occasion.”

“You’ve had to fight off intruders recently?”

“Just a few rambunctious children, actually,” Anthemius admitted.

“No one has attempted to break into this house?”

“No. I’d know if anyone had tried to get in. I’m here most of the time right now, with so little call for my bricks. And that reminds me, sir, I was going to show you samples of my work.”

He led his visitor across the malodorous garden and through a passage that emerged at the back of the house. A rambling, ramshackle shed occupied one corner of a patch of land surrounded by high stone walls.

“That shed’s my workshop,” Anthemius explained. “My kiln’s been cold for some time, since as I said business is extremely scanty. I do have some very nice samples to show and I can easily produce more if needed. I’m very proud to put my mark on my work, I am, and that’s the truth, sir.”

Anthemius pointed out sights of interest. Bricks were stacked neatly in straw-separated rows. Their sizes ranged from those that could be held in the hand to others that looked as if they would take a couple of strong men to lift. Some were triangular, while others were decorated or molded specimens.

“I tell my patrons if they need only the common sort of inexpensive bricks to hide behind a marble facade, they can go elsewhere. My work is of the highest quality. In fact, I would venture to say that if the pharaohs had been able to use my bricks for their pyramids, those odd constructions would be in perfect condition today.”

Anthemius tapped his cudgel gently on a pair of bricks sitting atop the nearest pile. Larger than average, they displayed a bas relief showing a woman between two beings which were obviously goddesses.

“None of my patrons has ever guessed what these are, sir,” the brickmaker continued with a sly grin. “They’re Egyptian birth bricks. In the old days the ladies squatted on them to give birth. Sounds most uncomfortable, doesn’t it? These of course are replicas and I always make that plain when I show them. There’s not much call for them these days, of course, except perhaps as conversational pieces. I enjoy making them. They are much more creative than your typical brick, don’t you think?”

John agreed. The brick’s bas relief was certainly well executed.

“I give the ones damaged in the firing to Aristotle. He likes to give them as gifts to prospective patrons. They always catch their interest, he says.”

John wondered whether the seller of antiquities might be less punctilious than the brickmaker in declaring the recent origin of the birth bricks, especially since damaged bricks would look a lot older than they actually were.

“I see we have a visitor, Anthemius! I trust you’ve been keeping him entertained.” A big man with a mournful face and the bearing of an aristocrat strode into the brickyard. His dark robe was decorated with elaborate, multi-colored embroidery. A mantle studded with glass beads completed the guise of a courtier.

“Aristotle, this gentleman wishes to see you.”

The seller of antiquities made a low bow. “Welcome, excellency. How may I assist? I can see you are a man of the world and therefore not too likely to be interested in oracles, but I can also offer a very fine collection of ancient statues and artifacts, including a few that would cause a lady to blush!”

John introduced himself, wondering why Aristotle had formed the impression he was a man who would be interested in artifacts that would make ladies blush. “I regret that I cannot take advantage of your generous offer, Aristotle. In fact, I am here to ask you a few questions.”

Aristotle colored angrily. “Has somebody been complaining to the authorities again about my donkey keeping them awake? Or the smell? Why shouldn’t I keep a donkey, excellency? They have worse in the palace menagerie! It’s a fine thing when an honest man cannot even try to make a living without some dainty-nosed insomniac causing trouble!”

“Is it about the donkey, sir?” Anthemius looked chagrined. “You didn’t say it was about the donkey.”

Before John could reply, Aristotle spoke again. “I intend to eventually go into selling fine leather goods. It will be a much steadier trade, at least when times are better. Meantime, my donkey will soon earn its living by hauling my larger antique pieces to clients. That’s a problem that’s caused some difficulties lately. I’m waiting to purchase a cart at a reasonable cost, so the beast is currently enjoying a holiday.”

John assured Aristotle he had no questions concerning the donkey.

“I’m pleased to hear it, excellency. Do you know, this lack of suitable transport is costing me money right now? You’d think carters would be glad to have something that never breathed to haul about, rather than someone that once lived. Less offensive to the nostrils, for a start. However, with all the work they have right now, they charge such outrageous prices when heavy lifting is involved that it’s impossible to afford very much help. Some of my larger statues, now, I’ll gladly part with them for half of what they’re worth, if you’d provide your own transport.” He paused hopefully, then sighed at John’s obvious disinterest. “If it’s not about the donkey, what did you wish to question me about?”

“It concerns a will you recently witnessed.”

“Nereus’ will, you mean? He was one of my best patrons. A man of remarkable perspicacity. It was all most upsetting. It would have made an angel weep to see his departing, for little dignity and a lot of chaos saw him out of this world.”

Aristotle frowned at the brickmaker, who was shamelessly eavesdropping. “His was only a small bedroom and for some reason he was fond of large pieces of furniture, so there wasn’t much space to begin with, even before we were assembled. Servants were coming in and out constantly for one reason or another and his oracular bull was bellowing as if it knew the master of the establishment was about to start climbing the ladder to heaven.”

John observed he could understand how distressing the situation must have been.

“Thank you, excellency. It was a terrible shock to find Nereus in such a dreadful state when I arrived that afternoon. Although, strange to say, the oracular head I had been asked to bring for his perusal seemed to grow exceedingly warm the nearer I got to his house.”

John questioned Aristotle further.

“No, I never met the wayward son,” he replied. “Even if I had, I doubt he would’ve been interested in my oracles. He was a man who never looked to the future, going by what I’ve heard about his behavior.”

“Of the other witnesses, I understand Archdeacon Palamos is an acquaintance of yours?”

Aristotle looked outraged. “I hope you pay no heed to anything he says about me, excellency. There are some, and I include certain churchmen among their number, who pretend to doubt the authenticity of my wares. However, that is because they’re merely trying to strike a better bargain.”

A stray breeze carried the scent of donkey urine more strongly into the brickyard.

Mithra! John thought. It was obvious that he was no further forward in unraveling the puzzle. He wondered if Cornelia had arrived, or if Peter was any worse. For all John knew, Peter might have died while John futilely tramped the streets. He realized his hand had strayed underneath the line of his jaw, where the swellings started.

Nothing.

An hour or two from now, he might not be so lucky.

“Even so, I will admit,” Aristotle was saying, “I’d agree Palamos had reason to complain about the holy fool dancing with him while Nereus lay dying.”

John forced his thoughts back to the matter at hand. “I understand this holy fool was there only because he happened to pass by when time was of the essence, and also that the driver of the cart he was riding in was another witness. Do you-”

“Byzos,” Aristotle answered immediately. “He agreed to carry out some work for me at a reasonable rate. He’s not one of your city dwellers, always willing to take more money the less work they do. He’s from somewhere out in the country where they deal with you in a fair fashion, or so he keeps telling me. I paid him for a ride back here after leaving Nereus’ house. I didn’t want to have to drag that oracular head the length of the Mese again.”

John nodded tiredly. At least he had discovered the identity of another witness. “Can you tell me where I might find this Byzos?”

“Indeed I can. He’s lodging with Scipio the bookseller. His emporium is not far from the-”

John stopped Aristotle in mid-sentence. “I know the place.”