Ten for Dying

Chapter Fifty

Following Isis’ pronouncement of doom Felix fled blindly out into the streets.

Leprosy! Already it had been neglected for…how long had it been since he’d noticed the spots on his face and hands?

He was sure he had washed himself sufficiently after his encounter with the leprous beggar in the alleyway but obviously he hadn’t. Now the filthy disease was eating away at him. He was rotting like a corpse. That’s what happened to lepers, wasn’t it? He would end his days a pariah, alive but as good as dead.

What did he care if he was apprehended wandering about? Before it came to that he’d give himself up to Justinian. Better an axe or a noose end his suffering quickly. The imperial torturers wouldn’t dare to work on a leper, would they?

He prayed to Mithra and several other gods he had learned about during his days in Constantinople, including-at the sight of a feral cat crossing his path-the Egyptian deity Bast.

“Please let this be a nightmare,” he prayed. “Let me wake up!”

Every god answered his prayer. And every answer was the same. No.

Then he found himself in front of a church.

From the open doors came the sweet smell of incense.

He entered and walked through diffused shafts of light falling through the tall windows.

Tears ran down his cheeks and into his beard. The incense must be irritating them.

He pulled his cross out and pressed it to his lips, as he had seen Christians do, and fell to his knees and prayed to Anastasia’s god.

His head cleared. The miasma of unreality which had surrounded him began to evaporate. He was aware of other worshipers kneeling and murmuring on either side of him and suddenly he flushed with humiliation.

What was he doing? A military man on his knees, blubbering?

He felt a hand on his shoulder.

He tensed, turned, expecting to see one of Narse’s guards. Instead an elderly priest looked down at him.

“You are in distress, my son.”

Felix nodded.

“What troubles you? I will add my prayers to your own.”

Felix displayed the back of a spotted hand. “You shouldn’t touch me. I am unclean.”

The priest scowled and then smiled benignly. “Those are not the marks of a leper.”

“But I was told-”

“I have ministered to enough poor souls in my lifetime to know a leper when I see one.”

Felix stood up, still clutching his cross. It felt hot in his big fist.

“Do not look so astonished,” the priest told him. “I have not healed you. Thank the Lord that you do not have leprosy.”

Felix went out into the sunlight. How long had he been roaming the city out of his wits with horror? He was lucky Narse’s men hadn’t found him.

Yes, lucky. Thanks be to Fortuna.

***

Felix sat in the shadows in the back of a dingy and dimly lit tavern nursing a single cup of wine, deciding where to go next. He examined the spots on his hand. Was it true that he didn’t have leprosy? It would be the first thing that had gone right in the past week.

He had conflicting diagnoses from a former prostitute and a priest. Who should he believe? Doubtless the priest had seen more prostitutes than Isis. In the stories Anastasia insisted he read, Jesus had forever been healing lepers.

Could Isis have been correct? Might the Christian god have healed Felix there in the church?

No, the blotches looked no different than they had when Isis had become hysterical over them.

It seemed out of character. But so was her conversion to Christianity. Well, she was getting old. Felix was getting old. He reached inside his tunic and pulled out the cross, intending to tear it off and toss it away. Then he remembered Anastasia had given it to him and refrained.

Things had been simpler when he was young. They had been better. He would gladly give up his high position to be Emperor Justin’s bodyguard again.

Justin, now there was a man. He walked through the gates of Constantinople with dirt under his fingernails, a peasant farmer, and he died an emperor.

Over the years it had passed through Felix’s mind that, if circumstances allowed, he might follow in Justin’s path. But he was loyal to Justinian-weak and unwarlike as the current emperor was-and time went by so quickly. Anastasia had made him feel like a youth again. She had rekindled what he had thought were the dead embers of his ambitions.

Purposefully?

She had denied any desire to use Felix but why else would Theodora’s sister have entangled herself with him?

What bothered him most was how she had kept her relationship to the late empress a secret. No matter her excuses, could he really trust her, knowing she had deceived him from the start?

He wished he could, but at the palace wishful thinking could get you killed.

In his dark corner Felix tensed as he saw a large youth sporting the hairstyle of a Blue enter the tavern. After a moment or two, when the youth gave no indication he was there for anything but a drink, Felix relaxed. He had to fear every Blue he saw, and every guard and member of the urban watch, not to mention whoever Narses and Porphyrius, and perhaps others besides, had hired to work incognito.

Maybe he had even to fear donkeys, if Anastasia was right and his donkey might betray him.

He remembered her coming into the bath, telling him about Antonina’s servant, who saw demons and had thrown himself over the sea wall. He had wondered vaguely at the time if the man could have had some connection with the demons who had stolen the holy shroud. And if Antonina could have had some interest in relics.

Anastasia knew her. Might Anastasia also have some interest in relics?

But Anastasia could hardly be working with Antonina. Clearly Anastasia hoped that Germanus would supplant Antonina’s Belisarius as Justinian’s chief general. She was counting on Felix being given a command by Germanus.

And maybe counting on him being placed a step away from the throne.

Or so he imagined.

But then again, Anastasia, as Antonina’s friend, might have agreed to spy on Felix in hopes of discovering what Germanus was planning.

More than one strand of this sticky web in which Felix found himself struggling led back to Antonina. He needed to talk to her. But how could he? Especially considering their past history, brief as that history had been.

He took another sip of his wine. The blemishes on the back of his hand which had so frightened him caught his attention.

Ah. There was his answer.