The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

Eyes of the Icon MARY REED and ERIC MAYER

My first mistake was eating the Lord’s eyes.

I didn’t mean to. I woke up hungry, freezing, and cursing Emperor Leo.

“Damn you, excellency, for banning religious imagery and destroying my livelihood. Damn you for pulling down the Christ over the Bronze Gates. Why didn’t you just throw Victor the icon-painter into the bonfire as well?”

As if the emperor even knew I existed. But me carrying on like this made me forget my troubles, until the pensioned soldier in the apartment below started banging his broom handle against my floorboards. If only he and his colleagues had wielded their spears as enthusiastically against the Persians. Maybe the empire wouldn’t be in such a sorry state.

When I opened the shutters to dump my pot of night soil I had a look around the alley below. A brawny fellow dressed in a labourer’s leather trousers slouched by. For some reason I had the impression he might have just started in motion at the creak of the shutters. I tossed the slop as far as I could but the man was already out of range.

I started cursing again.

They were watching, I was sure.

I could feel their gaze all the time.

Whoever they were.

Or was it just the painted saviour propped up against the wall on his pine board, staring at me?

I went to the table where my dry pigments were laid out in ceramic containers. I was determined to get to work, even though I wasn’t sure where I could sell an icon these days. There was a rime of ice around the bowl into which I’d cracked open my last remaining egg the night before.

I picked the bowl up, intending to separate the yolk from the white. The faint odour of food woke a demon who twisted my guts and forced my hand upwards. Before I could help myself I was lowering the bowl from my lips.

Over the rim I saw the Lord glaring at me. His eyes were formless gouges. I hadn’t finished them. I hadn’t yet refined the lines around the irises, or painted in the pupils.

As the egg went down in one painful gulp, I remembered a colleague who had slipped off the scaffold high up under the vault of the atrium at a mansion we were decorating. When I got to him he was face down on the floor, surrounded by green tile fish. The blue tile ocean had not lessened the impact of his fall. I pulled his shoulder. He flopped over like a half empty sack of wheat and stared at me.

Both his eyeballs had burst. Blood-flecked matter oozed out from the eye sockets and ran sluggishly down the crushed cheeks.

The cold, congealed egg stuck in my throat; it felt as if it had the consistency of that ooze. I should have used the egg to moisten black pigment for the icon’s eyes. Now I couldn’t give the icon eyes. I had swallowed his eyes.

I gagged. Nothing came up.

I was still hungry, and thirsty too.

And the Lord wasn’t likely to give much assistance to someone who’d just eaten his eyes.

“The fact of the matter, Flaccus, is that I don’t have so much as a copper follis to my name.”

Flaccus sat placidly sipping his wine on the other side of the tavern table. He didn’t offer to buy me a cup. “I’m lugging bricks myself, Victor. Plenty of work in that line.”

Easy for him to say. He was a big, broad bull of a man, unlike myself.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I replied. “The earthquake left plenty of rubble. Cheap construction material.”

“Leo’s a frugal sort.”

“Imagine, a frugal emperor. What’s the empire come to? What would Justinian the Great say if he could see us here, two hundred years in his future, his glorious Constantinople half deserted and in ruins? No work for artists like ourselves. Unless you happen to know someone who — ”

Flaccus shook his head. “I haven’t found a buyer for months. I had a few patrons commission work under the table, until Leo ordered the Chalke Gate Christ replaced by that hideous cross. Now everyone’s frightened.”

“No doubt the idea of Patriarch Anastasius. Does anyone take this nonsense seriously? This idea that veneration of images amounts to idolatry?”

Flaccus shrugged. “Whatever God in heaven might think about seeing his son depicted in egg tempera, here on earth it’s the emperor’s opinion that counts.”

He started in on his bread and cheese. I looked away, over his wide shoulder, but the mosaic on the wall tormented me with a plate piled high with fruit.

If Flaccus with his enormous ego and artistic pretences was resigned to hauling bricks, perhaps it was time for me to finally put my plan into action. Except I didn’t exactly have a plan. And, even if I did, I needed an accomplice. Or, rather, a partner. Not Flaccus, certainly. He’d just turn me in for the reward. So would everyone else I knew. What could you expect from men who made a living painting martyrs for wealthy aristocrats? Men like me?

His stool squeaked as Flaccus stood. “Good seeing you, Victor. Remember what I said — bricks. I’d be happy to put in a word for you.” He belched and left.

A couple of young men in good but threadbare cloaks entered the tavern. They might have been clerks from the palace. Shouldn’t they have been at work by now? Did they have a shifty look about them or was that just my imagination? I got up hastily and went back out into the cold.

What did I need a partner for anyway? If I could sell the thing, the buyer could do the donkey-work.

But the idea of working alone scared me. That was it, if I was honest about it.

Or possibly it was just an excuse to do nothing.

I kept looking behind me for the fellows who were posing as clerks but didn’t see them. Which didn’t mean they weren’t trailing me.

I couldn’t put a plan in motion while I was under surveillance, could I?

A winter wind off the Sea of Marmara groaned under colon-nades. No one who had anywhere better to go was out on the streets.

When I got back to my room, as hungry and thirsty as when I’d left, but colder, I found I’d been locked out.

My landlady answered her door at the first knock. “Don’t try to apologize,” she croaked before I could speak. “This time you have to leave. I’m a charitable woman, young man, but I need to eat too.” Her face was as brown and wrinkled as her robes.

“But I’m sure to have the rent soon, Macedonia. I’ve almost finished a new icon. All I need is a buyer.” I had begun to shiver. I didn’t want to go back out into the wind.

Macedonia only frowned, deepening the creases in her face.

“I’ll give you the icon,” I told her. “It’s worth far more than a month’s rent. Or will be, once this all passes.”

“Another icon? My back room already looks like the Great Church did before that devil Leo got started. This folly won’t pass until the emperor does.”

“In dark times those of the true faith find comfort in the glow of sacred images,” I argued.

“Especially an admirable pious woman such as myself. Isn’t that what you always tell me? I’m surprised you don’t gild your paintings with your tongue!”

“This new image is a fine portrait of the saviour. But if you’d prefer, say, John the Baptist, I can easily change — ”

“I already have a room full of saints. Every morning and every evening I pray to Saint Paul and Saint Stephen and all the rest: ‘Please let my lodger the painter of icons pay his rent, Amen.’ And look what it’s got me.”

“Maybe the Lord means for you to have this new image, rather than a few paltry coins?”

Macedonia laughed. She sounded like a starving gull. “And you think I shouldn’t question the will of the Lord? Do you know what I heard about that earthquake a few weeks ago? The ground started shaking at the exact moment the workmen put their hands on that statue up by the amphitheatre — the one everyone says is Empress Theodora.” She lowered her voice, as if we might be overheard. “Really, it’s some pagan goddess. Athena, probably. Been there forever. She likes looking out over the sea. Didn’t like the City Prefect trying to move her; the fellow who repaired the crack she put in my kitchen wall told me. That’s what a thousand-year-old goddess can do. Your painted saints can’t even find my rent.”

As I left the apartment building a figure leapt up from the doorway and lurched off out of sight.

Only a beggar, I told myself, to judge from the man’s rags. I could feel my heart leaping against my ribs. Why should I be startled at a beggar who’d taken shelter? If I was going to start being alarmed by beggars, I’d be jumping out of my skin every time I turned a corner.

I was gutless was what it amounted to. If I had any courage I would have acted by now. Then again, if I had any courage, would I be making my living by lurking in my room painting saints on boards?

I had always thought of myself as a Christian. I even went to church sometimes. And where had it got me — or any of the thousands of other good Christians trapped in the rotted carcass of the empire?

It started to rain. Black clouds rubbed their bellies against the countless crosses bristling from Constantinople’s rooftops — a view of Calvary multiplied a thousand times.

And here I am imagining I’m being crucified, I chided myself. Macedonia was right. Icons wouldn’t put a roof over my head or food on my plate, or even supply me with a plate.

Not the icons I painted, at any rate.

Now that I didn’t even have a room to shelter in, maybe the time had come to take the chance I’d been holding in reserve for weeks. What choice did I have?

I cut through a square I crossed almost every day — a deserted place surrounded by boarded-up shops — and went towards a sculpture that stood under one corner of the square’s colonnade.

For once, the stylite who lived atop the granite column rising above the two-storey brick buildings was silent. Probably he was too cold to cry out to humanity or heaven, or both. If it got much colder, with the rain coming down, he’d be covered in a glimmering sheen of ice, like the gold leaf I put on my images.

Living in the city, you learn to ignore holy men the same way you ignore stray dogs, gulls, and beggars. Not to mention I was busy looking over my shoulder in case those clerks — or whoever they were — had followed me from the tavern.

Which is why as I ducked under the colonnade I ran smack into the girl. She would’ve ended up on her backside but she grabbed two handfuls of my cloak and clung to me, radiating warmth and exotic perfume.

“Sorry,” I said, disconcerted. “I was thinking.” As if I couldn’t watch where I was going and think at the same time.

The girl smiled faintly. There was just a touch of red on her slightly parted lips. Beneath a sodden blue wool cloak she wore a stola of faded green silk. Not a whore. A servant wearing household hand-me-downs who’d stolen a couple of dabs of her mistress’s make-up and perfume.

Her triangular little face was nothing special except for the enormous brown eyes. They were outsized, their gaze piercing.

An icon’s eyes.

I’d seen her before. How could I forget a face like that? But where? It came back to me. At Florentius’s house. Yes, the last time I’d futilely tried to sell him one of my icons.

I kept the knowledge to myself.

The wind picked up, blowing rain under the colonnade.

The girl glanced around. Her gaze slid over the metal sculpture in front of the spot where we had collided.

“What is that thing?” she asked. “It’s horrible.”

“It’s a hound. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told.” The larger-than-life image, made of iron and covered with rusty mange, didn’t look like much of anything. Its shoulder was roughly the height of my shoulder. It wasn’t doing anything, just standing there looking out into the square towards the stylite’s column.

The girl frowned. “Was it stuck in this out of the way spot to keep anyone from having to look at it?”

“Not very handsome, is it? They say it was once part of a group with a hare and a statue — said to be of Pan — but the last person who knew why it’s here or what it represents probably died decades ago.”

The girl wrinkled her nose. “What an eyesore. Someone ought to remove it.”

“Might not be a good idea. You can never tell how these old statues are going to react.” I didn’t mention Macedonia’s tale about Athena and the earthquake.

It was making me nervous, the way she kept examining the hound. Was it that interesting? “Look,” I said, “Let’s find somewhere dry. I know a place.”

I started to walk away, expecting her to follow. Instead I heard a clatter. When I whirled around the girl wasn’t in sight. I saw a board lying underneath the hound. The board I’d used to cover a gap in the wall.

I scrambled under the statue and through the gap, ripping the sleeve of my tunic on a sharp-edged broken brick.

She was already at the bottom of the rubble incline leading down from the gap, on the floor of what had been a shop that had collapsed, so that watery light and rain poured in.

She pointed to an archway in the far wall. “We can stay dry in there,” she called up to me.

“No, wait!” I yelled. I slid frantically down the rubble, hoping to stop her.

Too late. By the time I’d reached the archway she had vanished through it.

After hundreds of years of fires and earthquakes, not to mention emperors intent on remaking the city in their own images, Constantinople sits atop a labyrinth of abandoned foundations, sub-basements, tunnels, and cisterns, many linked together over the centuries as a result of incessant construction and reconstruction. There are entrances to this vast underworld hidden all over the city — some man-made, but mostly being the result of accidents, fires, earthquakes, decay.

You never know where one of those entrances might lead. Until you’ve been through it.

I’d been through this one.

Which is why I sprinted across the dusty sub-basement trying to catch the girl. I knew she would spot the place where the bricks had fallen out of a wall, leaving a cave-like entrance above a waist-high pile of debris. As I reached her side she was stepping up on to the pile of shattered bricks and craning her neck to see into the cave.

She shrieked.

We were looking into an alcove or possibly the gap between the inner and outer walls of an ancient, buried building. The monstrous thing that had made her scream loomed over us, twice my height. There was no doubt it saw us. It was staring straight at us.

A gigantic face of Christ.

“This is the image from over the Chalke Gate!” I said.

“But Leo had it taken down! They burned it in front of the Golden Milestone, by the Augustaion!”

The vast open square of the Augustaion — from the Milestone all the way back to the Great Church — had been packed with gawkers. I’d gone there after hearing rumours about Leo’s planned desecration, but hadn’t been able to get near enough to see anything of the icon’s destruction.

“This is only the icon’s face,” I pointed out. “Maybe what they burned for the crowd was the body.”

The girl shivered and pulled her wet cloak tighter. I couldn’t blame her. A black, pointed beard framed the icon’s gaunt visage. The lips were not merely closed, as tradition required, but drawn in a taut, angry line. The eyes were merciless. This was clearly the Christ who, like an emperor, had come with a sword.

Which was why Christ and the emperor had succeeded while most of us fail.

Could I be merciless?

I’d protected my treasure once.

That had been different. I’d simply reacted in anger and fear. I hadn’t had time to ponder what I was doing.

“You can’t be sure it’s the real icon,” the girl was saying.

“No, this is definitely the Chalke Christ. I’ve seen it hundreds of times, whenever I passed the palace gate. Look at the way the shadows round the eyes are formed, and the highlights in the irises. Very distinctive. See how the pupils aren’t quite as close to the upper eyelids as would usually be the case? That was to give the impression he was looking down from above the gate, meeting the gaze of anyone approaching.”

“How would you notice all that?” She asked, gazing at me with her huge brown eyes.

“I paint icons for a living. At least I used to. Now most of my patrons are afraid to do business with me. My name’s Victor, by the way.”

“Arabia,” she said absently, her mind obviously not on introductions. “It’s very strange. My employer, Florentius, collects icons.”

“Florentius! You mean the wine merchant with the house near the Great Church?”

“That’s right.”

“Why, I’ve done work for him! You must have seen my painting of Saint Laurentius?”

“Oh, hardly. I’ve only been there a short time. I mostly scrub floors. He keeps the icons locked out of sight. Thinks nobody knows about them, but servants gossip. That’s how I know about his collection. This one must be worth a fortune!”

“All it’s worth right now is the head of anyone unfortunate enough to be caught with it. Possessing any image is a crime, let alone the most famous one in the empire. In fact, we probably shouldn’t stay here.”

I turned as if I intended to go back the way we had come but Arabia remained planted in front of the icon. “We can’t leave it here, Victor. Can’t you see, it isn’t just chance that we found it. It’s a miracle. We can’t turn our backs on a miracle.”

It sounded funny for her to say that. But why not? I knew nothing about Arabia. Just because a woman steals a dab of her mistress’s lip colour doesn’t mean she has no religious beliefs.

“There’s nothing either of us can do with it. At least nothing I can think of,” I lied.

“Florentius is already hiding icons. Why not one more?”

“He would probably turn us over to the authorities as soon as we approached him. Even if he didn’t, we’d be putting ourselves in danger for the rest of our lives. The emperor would be bound to hear about the icon sooner or later and — ”

Arabia screwed her face up in thought. “Of course we couldn’t stay in the city. Florentius would give us enough to leave, to buy a farm, maybe. Just enough for us to get going again. It wouldn’t be much for a man of his wealth.”

It was the sort of plan I’d been thinking about, in a general way, for some time. Maybe Arabia could be of some assistance; the partner I needed. If I dared to trust a partner.

“Have you ever held a solidus?” she asked me. Her eyes glittered.

“Not often.” My transactions rarely involved silver, let alone gold.

“I did, once. Florentius dropped it. He let me hold it. It was heavy. There was a picture of Emperor Leo on the front. He has the same narrow face and the same pointed beard as that icon. There was a cross behind his shoulder. It was such a lovely coin. Do you know what I did? I couldn’t help myself. I kissed the emperor.”

The icon’s gaze bored into me. I felt a gnawing pain in my stomach. I’d almost forgotten I had eaten nothing that morning, except the egg. Land was cheap in the countryside. A few solidi would buy a farm. There would be plenty of eggs on a farm.

If I could force myself to go through with it.

“We’ll need to wait for a few days,” I said. “Florentius will have to make some preparations. He’ll have to be careful. He can’t just send a couple of servants to drag the icon along the street.”

I didn’t mention my fear that I was being followed. If I was, when I failed to return to my rooms tonight, they’d start looking for me.

I’d need to deal with Florentius at some point. A servant girl couldn’t approach her wealthy employer and ask him to buy an illicit icon, let alone vouch for its authenticity. I could do both. Florentius knew and trusted me, to the extent any aristocrat knows and trusts the artisans he hires. But I’d need to be patient, give my pursuers time to shift their search to another part of the city.

Who was I fooling? I needed time to get my courage up.

At any rate, I told myself, it would be safer for Arabia to be out and about than me. She might prove very useful in that way. And, if anything went wrong and I had to stay in hiding for an extended period, she’d be able to keep me supplied with food.

I explained some of what I had in mind and sent her off. She returned with a wine skin and a sack.

“Praise be to God for what he provides,” she said. I’m not sure whether she was being ironic, or where exactly the Lord had left the provisions. It appeared to be the army barracks in what used to be the Baths of Zeuxippos, judging from the hard biscuits underneath the clay lamp, the iron striker and flint, and the jar of lamp oil.

I had a biscuit halfway to my mouth when Arabia leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the lips. Then she was gone, leaving behind a wraith of her perfume.

And a thought that persisted in thrusting itself forward.

Something that really needed attention.

I lit the lamp. The rats scrabbling nearby quietened down and the painted icon opposite where I sat resumed staring at me. I returned its gaze. Had I been a more religious person I would have taken some comfort in the holy presence. The Lord was here with me. Even though he was everywhere at once, yet, like the saints, he was even more strongly where his icons or relics were — or so they said.

But on the other hand how forgiving was he?

He didn’t look very forgiving at all. The flickering lamplight animated the giant features. At times the taut lips appeared ready to snarl, and at other times about to quirk into a sardonic smile.

The face was so large that, had the mouth opened, it could have snapped my head off with one bite. A rat peeped out from around the corner of the panel. I found a bit of brick and flicked it at the rodent, which scuttled away. The movement had made barely a sound but immediately I heard a noise coming from outside my little niche.

No. It had to be my imagination.

I sat and listened, feeling my muscles tighten until my legs began to cramp. I had to know. I crawled out of my hole, lamp in hand, took several steps forward, and listened.

Nothing.

I went a few paces further, then quickly on into the cavernous space beyond, a dry and abandoned cistern. Darkness swallowed the feeble lamplight. Several toppled columns, piled together, partly blocked the way in.

From a distance came the loud sound of cascading water. It was raining again and getting in somewhere. That must have been the sound I thought I had heard.

All the same, I checked behind the columns.

Philokalas was still there.

Or rather the tunic full of bones and scraps of rotted flesh that had once been Philokalas. The rats and whatever else lived down here had devoured most of him, which made the stench less than it might otherwise have been.

Still, I knew I should move him. It would be better if Arabia didn’t stumble across the body. I bent down but my stomach lurched at the thought of touching the thing. I hadn’t eaten much for days, and the biscuits weren’t sitting well.

I returned to my hiding place. Now I could almost swear the icon was smiling benignly at me, as if to say, “Don’t worry about Philokalas. You acted without thinking. You’re only human.” Or maybe it was just smiling to itself. Finding the whole thing funny.

I dozed.

After being awakened countless times by phantom footsteps, I finally woke to Arabia gently nuzzling my neck.

She had whiskers.

I came fully awake, flailing at a rat.

By the time I had my wits about me, my assailant was gone. In the dim lamplight I noticed the biscuit sack had moved. I started to pull it back towards me and rats boiled out and streamed behind the holy image.

The rest of the night I stayed alert.

So far, things had gone reasonably well. But I brooded over all the things that might go wrong.

Then I thought about the gnawed bones that used to be a labourer named Philokalas.

After which I thought about Arabia who had showed quick intelligence and a certain amount of cunning.

More to the point, if things went wrong I could deny everything. After all, she was only a servant and I was an artist, a craftsman well-known to Florentius. That was another good reason for me to work with her.

When Arabia arrived the next morning she wore a blue embroidered cloak and a yellow stola. She’d pinched a deeper shade of lip colouring and had pulled her glossy hair into neat coils at the sides of her head. She looked more like a lady than a servant.

“What are you looking at?” she asked, as if she didn’t know. Her eyes shone. The eyes are where life shines out. In my icons I tried to capture that in paint with bright lines and detailing. That was part of what I had left unfinished on the eyeless Christ back in my room. Yet I’d never managed to hint at eyes like Arabia’s.

“I’m glad to see you,” I told her. “It’s a relief, after having that thing glowering at me all night.” I nodded towards the icon.

She had brought a basket with her. This time the Lord had provided bread and cheese. I ate and described my restless night and some of the conclusions I’d drawn before the unseen dawn arrived overhead. Farming was fine, but the empire stretched a long way and so did the grasp of the emperor. Besides, what were the chances Florentius would agree to buy the icon rather than report us immediately to the authorities?

I just wanted to plan for all eventualities but she took it the wrong way. Her face darkened. “Don’t lose courage before we’ve even started. It’s lack of sleep, that’s all.”

“The rats never stop running,” I complained, around a mouthful of bread. “They come out from behind that thing.”

She went over and stood beside the giant image. “We’re not going to be stopped by rats.” She put a finger to her lips and then dropped a piece of cheese near the icon. “They love cheese even better than biscuits,” she whispered.

She didn’t move for a long time. She had all the patience in the world.

Finally a beady-eyed head poked out from behind the panel. The neck extended slightly, the nose twitched towards the cheese. Arabia brought the heel of a yellow shoe down sharply. I heard the rodent’s skull pop.

“There,” she said. “See how easily that’s dealt with? Now we’ll deal with something else.”

She shrugged off her heavy cloak, tossed it on to the floor, and began to loosen her stola.

The bottom of a wine cup isn’t the only place men find courage to overcome doubts. After Arabia helped me overcome mine, she straightened her hair, stood, and quickly pulled the stola back over her head. The flickering lamplight flung the trembling shadow of her body up over the holy visage.

“When we have our farm, we won’t have to rush,” I said. “We’ll be able to lie together all morning if we want.”

She slapped the dust off her cloak. “How did you come to paint icons, Victor? Are you a religious man?”

“I’m a Christian. Who isn’t? But I can’t say I’m particularly religious. My family were killed by a pestilence when I was a child. My mother died screaming in agony.”

“I wouldn’t think you’d be inspired to paint icons.”

“I wasn’t inspired. It came about because I was apprenticed to an artisan’s workshop. I used to paint frescoes too. Frescoes have to be done in warmer weather, so the plaster and paint set right. I realized that in the summer, when most painters are decorating frescoes in churches and mansions, an icon-painter could find plenty of commissions. I’ve always been practical.”

“Is my lip colour smudged?” She leaned forward into the lamplight so I could see.

“Not a bit. You have a beautiful mouth. And what about you? How long have you worked for Florentius?”

“Not long.”

“You’ve always done the same thing?”

“Been a rich man’s servant, you mean?”

“You don’t like being employed by Florentius? He strikes me as a man of decency. He’s always shown me respect in our business dealings.”

She laughed. “You really think a rich man like Florentius respects people like us?”

“He’s told me he admires my skills.”

“Unless you’re rich you’re just a thing to be used. Did Florentius offer to lend you any money to tide you over?”

“Well — ”

“What about your other wealthy patrons? What would a month’s rent be to them? Or a year’s? Have they offered?”

“They haven’t,” I admitted. I hated seeing her angry. It worried me. It could ruin everything. “You aren’t from Constantinople, are you?” I said, to change the subject.

“No. I was born in the countryside. I thought it all very boring — dirt and pigs as far as you could see — so I ran away to the big city. Not a very interesting story.”

“Until now!”

“Yes, until now. The best stories are the ones we make up for ourselves. You can’t trust others to make up your story for you. You’re never the hero of someone else’s story.”

She smoothed down her stola and patted her hair. “I’ll be back this evening,” she said. “You can tell me how it goes with Florentius. And then …” When she kissed me before leaving, I wondered whether she was thinking about kissing the emperor on the solidus.

I felt distracted. I attempted not to look at the red blot on the floor where the dead rat lay. I avoided the icon’s eyes. From those monstrous windows, was there some theological lesson to be gleaned, into the spirit above and the crushed verminous body below? Would Chrysostom, he of the golden tongue, have penned a Homily on a Dead Rat?

The thought reminded me I had things to do and had better get them done.

For a start, it was time to visit Florentius again.

After going through the archway and climbing the rubble slope up to my entrance to the underworld, I peered through a knothole in the board Arabia had replaced. It was not exactly the great bronze gate to the palace. The space under the iron dog was clear. I crawled out and scanned the square from between scabrous canine forelegs. There wasn’t a living creature in sight except for the stylite high up on his pillar, leaning against its rusted railing like a lifeless icon, and an emaciated cat sniffing the empty donation basket hanging to the ground from a rope attached to the stylite’s railing.

I scuttled away as fast as possible.

I had instructed Arabia to take similar care but could only trust she had taken heed of my warning.

Once out of the square I tried to tidy my clothing. I smoothed wrinkles and shook off dust and cobwebs, but I wasn’t really in any state to present myself to a wealthy patron.

I intended to cut across the Augustaion in front of the Great Church but I began to have the sensation I was being watched.

Possibly I still felt the gaze of those colossal eyes. It wasn’t the painted eyes that bothered me so much. It was what they represented. That ‘being’ up in the sky, seeing everything, all the time. Looking and looking, but never doing anything about what it saw.

A beggar sat slumped at the base of the towering column atop which the Emperor Justinian endlessly rode his chariot.

The beggar who had been sitting in Macedonia’s doorway.

No. Constantinople was filled with beggars and there was nothing to distinguish one pile of rags from another.

Nevertheless, I veered on to a side street just in case.

I went through an abandoned space where a mansion or church or an imperial building had once stood. Statuary — and pieces of statuary — stood and lay amidst brown weeds jutting through the crumbling pavement. My friends and I had come here when boys and played catch with the heads of ancient philosophers. Sometimes we convinced ourselves we saw demons darting in and out among the frozen figures. I had soon learned that there really are demons in the world, but all of them are human beings.

You just have to stay one step ahead.

When I got to my destination I was sure I had lost anyone who might have been following me. Glancing up and down the street, I noticed nothing suspicious. The large, luxurious house where I had delivered more than one icon showed passers-by only a plain brick front without windows at street level. Beyond its roof loomed the vast dome of the Great Church. When the interior of the dome was lit at night, it must illuminate the whole third storey of the house.

My patron agreed to talk to me. A few servants passed through the atrium while I waited, but I didn’t see Arabia.

Florentius was a heavy-set man with thick lips and a red nose. He looked more like a bacchant than a pious Christian. He led me through his office, where we met in the past, and along the peristyle, bordering what had been an ornamental inner garden in more prosperous times. Now the space was filled with pigsties. Several monstrous hogs — mounds of undulating flesh — drank from a basin, overlooked by a marble Aphrodite. Chickens scattered in front of us.

Florentius kicked a plump marble foot out of our path. “Cupid,” he told me. “He keeps turning up. Pieces of him, that is. Fell into a pigsty during the earthquake. Must have surprised the pig.”

As we passed under the peristyle and into the rear of the house, he frowned at several labourers busy with trowels and mortar in the hallway.

“Did you suffer much damage?” I asked.

“Enough to keep too many unwashed labourers tracking mud around. Don’t like having such people underfoot. At least a man knows his own servants; and labouring types can never be counted on. Worse than donkeys. The job’s only half finished and they vanish and need to be replaced. On the other hand, I’ve tripped over the brutes wrapped around my serving girls in the storeroom.”

“It must be vexing for a man like yourself.”

“Indeed. But I thank the Lord it wasn’t worse. I hear there are cracks in the foundation of the Great Church and the Patriarch lost most of the wine in his cellars.”

We came to a metal-banded wooden door which Florentius unlocked. “It’s a sin to keep my holy men hidden away back here. Every day I pray we will soon be rid of the beast who sits on the throne.”

Perhaps he felt safe expressing treasonous thoughts to an icon-painter.

After all, I was a criminal in the eyes of the law.

I had never seen his private bath. Doubtless he had kept it locked even before he used it to store illicit icons. The frescoes on the walls and domed ceiling of the tiny room depicted ancient gods embroiled in an Olympian orgy in garishly coloured detail.

“I bought this place from a bishop,” Florentius explained.

Icons were stacked in the dry bath. Several hung on the painted walls, including my depiction of Saint Laurentius being martyred on a red-hot grid.

Florentius noticed the direction of my gaze. “An exquisite work! The saint’s pain is palpable. How it pleases me! What can such a young man as yourself know about pain, to capture it so perfectly?” He stared fondly at the image.

Demonic figures, seen in twisted profile, prodded Laurentius’ bound, blackening flesh with tridents. I wondered what a man with as much wealth as Florentius could know about pain to appreciate it so much, but I only smiled modestly.

Florentius looked away from the icon and towards the artist. “What fools they are to claim we venerate the wood and paint itself. I venerate your skills. Your talents help me to understand how we must face suffering. How perfectly you capture the saint’s beatific demeanour! After my wife died last year I often looked to this painting for comfort, for a lesson in the way a Christian endures, secure in the knowledge that all is God’s will.” He wiped his glistening eyes. “And now, young man, for what reason have you come to see me?”

“I knew Florentius would agree,” Arabia put the plate of honey-cakes she’d brought on the dirt in front of the Chalke Christ. It made me think of a pagan offering.

“It took all my powers of persuasion,” I said.

“You have a golden tongue.”

“I must have. Florentius suspects Leo and the Patriarch know the icon was salvaged in some fashion and spirited away. Naturally they’re outraged.”

“If it was seen again, people would think it was a miracle, a sign the pair of them are the real heretics.”

“That’s about what Florentius told me. They’re having the city watched. Spies are everywhere. So he needs time to make arrangements. Or to change his mind.”

“He won’t change his mind,” Arabia replied.

“You think not? We’re to meet tomorrow at an early hour at the Golden Milestone to discuss the matter further.”

Arabia clapped her hands together like a child. “How very appropriate. Right where the icon was burnt. Or supposedly burnt. Sit down and try these sweets.”

Florentius probably hadn’t chosen the Golden Milestone for the symbolism but rather because people often lingered beneath it to talk. We would attract no attention, nor would either of us be able to resort to treachery in such a public spot.

All the same, I was uneasy about the arrangement. For one thing whoever was following me could conceal themselves in the crowds. I would need to be careful. I hunkered down and took one of the sticky cakes. It was very sweet indeed. I noticed the plate was silver.

“It was difficult to get away,” I said. “He kept talking.”

Arabia’s large brown eyes narrowed. “What did he want to talk about?”

“Religion. He wanted to know whether a painter could depict Christ as both divine and human at the same time. According to Emperor Leo and the Patriarch, that can’t be done in paint. Another good excuse for destroying icons! The icon will either depict Christ’s physical nature only — which is one sort of heresy — or show his physical and spiritual natures mixed, which is another sort.”

“That’s stupid.” Arabia stretched up on her toes to tap the gilded halo behind the giant head, then rapped her knuckles against the sharp tip of its nose. “There’s your spiritual and there’s your physical. It’s plain to anyone.”

“All the same, I hate to think of him telling the emperor about an icon-painter who — ”

“And Leo, of course, wanting to know who this icon-painter is!”

“Exactly.”

Arabia shook her head. “I wouldn’t worry.” She sat down on the floor, leaned against me, and began nibbling a cake.

“Florentius might see this as an opportunity to gain Leo’s goodwill, by turning us and the icon over to him,” I said. What I was thinking was that maybe I could arrange for Arabia alone to be turned over, if it came to it.

“Is that why you look so shifty? You’re expecting the emperor’s guards or the urban watch to barge in?”

“I didn’t realize I — ”

“Oh yes. I’ve noticed.” She smiled at me as she carefully licked honey off her fingers. Her pink tongue darted in and out and her moistened fingers glistened in the lamplight. “But remember Florentius doesn’t know where the icon is or where we are.”

“At some point, though, we’ll have to trust him. We can’t move the icon above-ground ourselves. If we cleared some of the bricks in front of that hole we might be able to squeeze it out of this place, since clearly whoever hid it here heaped those bricks up to help conceal the entrance. But it will never fit through that gap under the hound. Someone would have to make an opening somewhere in the outside wall, fast, and get the icon away faster, before the urban watch showed up to see what was causing the commotion.”

“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” Arabia leaned her head on my shoulder and I was enveloped in her warmth. “Have you painted many images of Christ?”

“A few. The last one is still back in my room. I’m afraid I left him eyeless.”

“He doesn’t need eyes, does he? If he wants to see without them, he could see with his hands or his nose.”

“There’s a lot of extra work to be done on eyes. But then you probably aren’t interested in egg tempera techniques.”

She didn’t dispute the statement so I shut up.

“Don’t worry so much,” she told me. “Everything is going to work out perfectly. It’s been preordained. Don’t you see? Our running into each other, taking shelter from the rain, finding the icon, both of us working for Florentius, who collects icons … it’s all too much to be a coincidence. We’re being guided by the hand of God. Have faith, Victor!”

I didn’t have a chance to reply. There was a scrabbling noise outside our hiding place.

I went over and looked into the dimness, but saw nothing.

I was turning away, chiding myself for my nervousness, when there was another scuffling sound and a figure appeared out of the gloom.

At first I thought it was a feathered demon or a giant bird. Then I saw it was a man, waving his arms wildly, flapping the tattered garment he wore.

A beggar.

He shouted in a voice as ragged as his clothes. “Ye who gaze upon the great face of the Lord, repent! Repent! Repent!”

Arabia screamed.

The ragged man turned and scuttled away towards the cistern.

I went after him. He must have seen the icon, not to mention Arabia and me.

He scrambled over the fallen columns and I followed him into the darkness beyond.

I could hear his feet slapping across the stones better than I could see him. More than once I heard him fall. I shouldn’t have been able to catch him otherwise, since he was surprisingly nimble. It was like trying to catch a desperate beast.

The man kept crying out to the Lord. Down here, the Lord was the only one likely to hear. I didn’t want him to get back above ground where he could tell his tale to anyone who would listen.

I began to gain on him. I managed a burst of speed born of desperation, and my cold-numbed fingers brushed a fluttering scrap of cloth. I leapt forward and dragged him down.

He was stronger than I expected, and more agile. Claw-like nails tore at my neck. A sharp knee caught me in the stomach. Teeth sank into my shoulder. It felt as if I was being attacked by a pack of feral dogs.

I tried to get up and he slammed me backwards. My head hit the ground and lights flared behind my eyes.

Then there was a loud thud and the beggar grunted. I couldn’t feel him flailing at me any longer.

There were more thuds. I blinked. We were surrounded by the orange glow of the lamp Arabia held in one hand. In the other she gripped a bloody half brick.

I pushed myself up.

The beggar lay crumpled face down.

His skull had been caved in.

My chest burned from exertion and I hurt everywhere. If Arabia had arrived too late it would have been me lying there.

She’d saved my life.

I couldn’t take my gaze off the corpse. She’d hit the man again and again. Bloody shards of bone jutted through the matted hair.

Arabia started to sob. “I was so frightened, Victor. So frightened for you.” She threw the brick away. Her narrow shoulders shook.

I put my arm around her. “We’ll go back now. I’ll hide his body later.”

By the time we were back at our hole in the wall we were both shivering uncontrollably.

“Your clothes are ruined,” Arabia said. “I’ll bring you new ones.”

“Steal them from Florentius, you mean! That’s where you’ve been finding the food you bring me, isn’t it? I noticed his household seal on the plate.”

“We’re not stealing. It’s an advance payment.”

“Then again, what’s theft compared to murder?”

“We were only defending ourselves. We had to kill him.”

We? I hadn’t killed the beggar. But, on the other hand, there was Philokalas. I didn’t correct Arabia. We thought alike. “No,” I said, we’re not guilty of murder or theft, or greed or coveting another man’s possessions either, since all we want from Florentius is enough to keep us safe. And as for worshipping graven images, that’s a matter of opinion anyway.”

Arabia laughed. She gave me an appraising look. “You’re forgetting lust,” she said. “And I’m afraid that’s a sin you can’t deny.”

Arabia left, returned with food and the clothes she’d promised, and departed again. I set the clean clothing — plain garments of the type servants wear — to one side, for my meeting with Florentius next day. Then I sat down and tried to avoid the gaze of the icon.

Sometimes, when I painted an image, I had the uncanny sensation that the saint in heaven was also right in front of me, under my brush. At such times I felt I was painting a hole in the world and an otherworldly presence was stepping through.

Yet paints were paints. Pigments, wine, water, egg. There wasn’t anything else. Just raw materials and artistic technique.

I tried to keep my gaze on the floor. The crushed head of the rat still poked out from behind the icon. I got up and pushed it out of sight.

What time was it? The middle of the night? Probably earlier. It seemed as if I’d been sitting alone, in the cold, with my thoughts, forever.

Possibly Florentius would have me arrested when I showed up at the Golden Milestone.

I could feel the icon looking down at me. I looked up into those cold, bottomless eyes.

The girl is nothing more than a miserable sinner, the icon seemed to say. Not in words, but in my own thoughts. I swear it spoke to me in my thoughts, stirring them into a resolve I could not have reached on my own.

She is no better than yourself, the thing counselled. A killer. If Florentius betrays you, pretend your intent all along has been to turn over to the authorities a treacherous servant named Arabia who unwisely led you to the hidden icon which you wanted returned to the emperor for proper disposal.

“But Arabia saved my life,” I whispered.

By killing a man, brutally, the icon countered. She was no innocent.

But would Christ offer such advice? Why not? He had administered to men’s human needs when he walked the earth. He had fed the starving. Wasn’t I starving?

There are things that need to be done, the icon told me.

I walked back into the cistern and slung the body of the beggar over my shoulder. I’d had no reason to cross the cistern before but now I followed a line of pillars into the darkness, staggering under the dead man’s reeking weight, balancing my lamp in one hand, until I came to what remained of a concrete wall that had exploded inward, scattering massive chunks of masonry over a collection of chariots beyond.

I must be underneath the Hippodrome. There were ranks of chariots, all in good repair, except where portions of the ceiling had fallen on them. How long had they sat here? When had there last been a chariot race in Constantinople?

When I was done with the beggar I went back for Philokalas.

What was left of him wasn’t as heavy as the beggar, but I was shaking with revulsion by the time I’d shoved most of his bones under a chariot. A few had fallen out of his robes and rattled on to the floor of the cistern. I’d left them there. In the unlikely event the bodies were found, the natural impression would be the men had taken shelter during the earthquake and picked the wrong place.

Technically I was a murderer but I didn’t feel like one. It had been an accident. Taking my usual route early one morning, I’d seen Philokalas scuttle under the iron hound, and followed out of curiosity.

True, thieves were known to hide stolen goods in the abandoned depths of the city and it may have occurred to me that, if I discovered an illicit collection, who could fault a starving icon-painter from taking sustenance from a criminal’s hands?

Honestly, I had formed no particular plan as I slunk behind him, through the archway at the bottom of the rubble slope.

I saw the gigantic icon at the same time Philokalas saw me.

If only he had not been so hot-tempered! How else was I supposed to respond when he drew his dagger?

I used a piece of jagged brick, the same as Arabia. Luckily I had thought to pick one up as I followed him, just in case.

I didn’t hit him as many times as Arabia had hit the beggar.

The one crunching blow sickened me so much I dropped the brick and if I hadn’t hit Philokalas in exactly the right place — purely by chance — he’d still be alive.

As soon as I had examined the icon I recognized it but couldn’t work out how to use the knowledge to my advantage.

Now, standing beside the chariot that concealed the dead men, I wasn’t anxious to hurry back into the icon’s stern presence.

Why not explore?

Beyond the storage room lay an area which had been shaken by the last earthquake, or possibly previous tremors, until it resembled a natural cavern strewn with jagged boulders and stones. It might have been a basement or several basements. Dark passageways led off in different directions.

What drew my attention was the stone stairway leading upwards.

The stairs must have traversed more than one floor, but the floors were gone. I climbed to the top and peeped out through a small space between enormous double doors.

Scattered torches illuminated an otherwise dark courtyard. A grist-mill of the sort powered by a donkey sat in the middle. What I could distinguish of the surroundings told me nothing, although the little I could see of it showed that the building rising behind the courtyard looked uncommonly large. Twisting uncomfortably and craning my neck to see upwards I had a shock.

Over the roof the sun was rising.

How had I managed to misjudge time so badly? How could it be dawn already? I wouldn’t be there to meet Arabia when she arrived! I wouldn’t be on time for my appointment with Florentius!

Understanding arrived a step behind panic.

The orange glow was not the rising sun but the flames of a thousand lamps. I wasn’t far from the Great Church with its lighted dome. I might be looking into the rear courtyard of the Patriarch’s residence for that matter. At any rate, if I was close to the Great Church, I was close to Florentius. Here was the answer to how he might transport the icon.

A donkey brayed in the night as a dark figure moved across the courtyard.

I ducked away and started back down.

That was when the stairway tried to shake me off.

One instant my foot was coming down on the next step, then I’d lost my balance and was stepping into space. I flung my arms out in time to regain my balance and managed to keep hold of the lamp even as it splashed hot oil across my hand.

It was another earthquake. As frequent as they are, my surprise at their onset has never lessened, neither did my horror at the unnatural spectacle of solid earth rippling and walls bulging.

The stairway remained intact. So did I. I reached the bottom and stumbled over the heaving floor and into the chariot room. Clouds of dirt, dust, and plaster whorled out at me.

Half-blinded, coughing and choking, I staggered through the chariots, barging into wheels, tripping over yokes. The shaking made the chariots rattle and creak. I could have been threading my way through a cacophonous, ghostly race.

Finally, I was back at the cistern. As I started across the vibrating abyss there was a hollow boom. Then another. And another. If the ceiling came crashing down would I even know it or would the world just instantly end?

Suddenly a section of a column, several arm-breadths in diameter, rolled out of the Stygian depths. It roared towards me with terrifying speed. I threw myself out of the way and two rotating, leering satyr heads almost took my nose off.

My lamp hissed and guttered. I’d spilled most of the oil. I started to run.

The floor shook underfoot and I feared at any instant I would step into a freshly opened chasm.

By the time I arrived back at my starting point, the shaking was over.

Luckily the alcove had survived.

Arabia arrived some time later. I described my explorations, leaving out the part about moving corpses, and went on to formulate a more or less clear plan.

“Presuming Florentius can use that courtyard safely, you can meet him at the stairway and lead him through the chariot room and the cistern,” I told her. “If Florentius violates the arrangement — if he brings armed men, for example, or if you sense danger — take him somewhere else. Tell him the icon is hidden above-ground, show him down an alley, and bolt.”

The arrangement also had the advantage of keeping Arabia and myself apart which, I calculated, might make it easier for me to disown her if the need arose.

“Of course, Florentius will need to bring our payment in person,” she said. “He won’t cause trouble since he’ll be in the middle of it. And he knows if he’s caught with an illicit icon, Leo is unlikely to believe any excuses he might have.”

“And we take the money and run.”

Her huge eyes flashed. “Not run. Ride, Victor. We’ll be rich. We’ll buy the first horses we see! Then we’ll be off to Greece or maybe Italy. Anywhere we want. In a couple of days this dreary city will be nothing but a nightmare.”

“I hope so.” I couldn’t help thinking there was only one way that it can turn out right, and endless ways it could go wrong. And if it turned out right … what about Arabia? “Do you really want to risk your life for a few coins?”

She took hold of my arm and I smelled her perfume and felt her heat. “Not just coins, Victor. Gold coins. Lovely solidi with the emperor’s face on them. Imagine what fine things they’ll buy. Farms and jewels and silks.”

“Silks won’t do you any good if Leo has us hunted down.”

Arabia’s reddened lips curved into a scimitar of a smile. “Silk makes a better winding sheet than linen.”

Well, I thought, if that’s how she feels about it, nobody can blame me for what I might need to do.

There wasn’t time for sleep before my meeting with Florentius, but I didn’t need any. I just wanted to get it over with and away from the city.

I crept out from under the iron hound, making certain there was nobody around except the resident stylite, and trotted off to my appointment.

I was halfway there when someone called my name.

“Victor! Stop!”

My first impulse was to flee, but could I elude a company of armed guards? I hesitated and turned to face my fate.

My former landlady waddled in my direction. “Victor, why haven’t you been home?”

“You locked me out.”

Macedonia snorted and waved her hand. “And why did I lock you out? I thought you’d want your paints badly enough to find a few folles for a poor old woman. I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just business.”

“I’m giving up painting icons,” I said.

“Giving up painting? But why? Such a talent! Such a service to the Lord! How do you intend to pay what you owe me if you give up painting?”

“He doesn’t need me to paint icons. He can put any icons he wants anywhere, including on top of the dome of the Great Church or next to the moon.”

“And why would he do that for such a wicked race? He’s kept busy punishing us now that devil Leo has taken over. The butcher told me there’s plague in the Copper Market.”

“And there was another earthquake a few hours ago. Not much of one this time, fortunately.”

Macedonia shook her head. “No, that was Athena stamping her foot again. The old gods liked shaking the ground. They used to frighten the farmers that way. Heaven prefers a good pestilence in the city. And where are you staying now? If you are paying rent to someone else, you’d be better off paying me. I’ll give you a month before I go to the magistrate.”

I kept peering this way and that, to see if we were being watched. I didn’t like standing in one place. “I’m in a hurry,” I said. “I have to meet someone.”

“That man who was asking about you this morning?”

“A man was asking about me this morning?”

“He was asking about a painter of icons. I denied there was any such person under my roof, which was quite true at the time. He didn’t believe me and insisted I show him your room.”

“Did he know my name?”

“No, but he described you. Do you owe him money too?”

It must have been someone sent by Florentius, I thought. Did the fool think I had the Chalke icon hidden under my bed? All the same, it was disturbing. And why not ask for me by name?

“What did he look like?”

Macedonia pondered the question. “Nobody. A labourer. A big, broad-shouldered man, like the one who showed up looking for you a few weeks ago. Philokalas, wasn’t it? The man this morning asked about him. Had he been to see me? Do you suppose he was a friend of the first man?”

So, I thought. Probably the man who had called on Macedonia was not from Florentius but rather a friend of Philokalas. “I can’t imagine who it was,” I said.

What a shock that had been when I discovered that Philokalas had been looking for me an hour before I killed him. I’d returned from defending myself and Macedonia had told me that a man, meeting the description of the fellow who had attacked me with the dagger, had just been to her door. A man named Philokalas. At least that was the name he’d given her, which was the only reason I knew his name. I’d never seen the man in my life.

He had never seen me either because, when I surprised him during his visit to me with the icon, he didn’t show any recognition.

To be honest, I hadn’t given him time, on account of the dagger.

I soon realized that his friends — his accomplices — knew he had come for me, for whatever reason. They’d been following me ever since.

Or so I imagined.

Macedonia must have seen the worry in my face. “Don’t worry. I showed him the room belonging to the leather worker on the top floor. Not an icon to be seen, and he certainly looked!”

I didn’t want that final, unfinished icon. I could practically feel its eyeless gaze, piercing the wall of my former room, groping down streets and through squares, probing under colonnades, trying to find me. “You can have the icon I left, Macedonia. Or perhaps it would be best to burn it.”

“I already did,” she said with a sniff. “It was cold last night, not to mention safer for everyone if someone else comes sniffing about. Now remember what I said about extending you some extra credit.”

I thanked her and took my leave. She looked put out that I wouldn’t tell her where I was living, but what was I supposed to say?

After we parted I continued, more nervous than ever, to my meeting with Florentius. He was waiting just inside one of the Milestone’s four arches. As I drew nearer I saw he was pretending to study inscriptions on the marble, as if he cared what the distance was from where he stood to Thessalonika or Antioch or Alexandria.

I called out a greeting.

Three armed guards emerged from the shadows and moved towards me.

They continued past, laughing to each other, arguing about which tavern to patronize.

“You look pale, my friend,” Florentius said. “Are you cold? Had you been here when they burnt the great icon you could have warmed yourself. Look, you can still see where the heat scorched the stone. How the flames must have raged!”

“Did you see the burning?”

“No. After all, it would not have been seemly for me to be observed here. And there was violence. Some of the mob joined our saviour in the flames, or so I have heard. I can’t imagine it.”

The way his eyes sparkled it looked to me as if he were trying hard to imagine the scene. We got down to business, looking over our shoulders all the time.

“Yes, I know where you mean,” he said when I described the courtyard with the door to the stairway leading underground. “It’s been empty some time with just a watchman living there. A few coins will ensure he looks the other way.”

I lingered after he’d gone so we would not be seen walking together.

Everything was arranged.

My gaze wandered across the Golden Milestone. Over the centuries, one emperor after another had mounted his own garish ornaments on the monument.

I found myself studying a group of three statues. Women. They blazed in the sunlight. While some might dream of having gold stitching in their hems and gold medallions pinned to their stolas, these three far exceeded such dreams for they were, themselves, entirely gilded.

From where I stood I could read the inscription on their plinth. They represented Sophia, the wife of Emperor Justin II, Justin’s niece Helena, and his daughter, Arabia.

The name was surely a sign.

I was confident by the next evening, Arabia and I would be in very different circumstances.

I was not mistaken.

Arabia brought the final meal I would consume in our underground hiding place. I ate smoked mackerel and described my meeting. She took the news that arrangements were in place as a matter of course but didn’t linger. She had to be up early to be on hand to guide Florentius.

“Then we shall have a long day ahead, putting the city behind us,” she said, leaning forward to give me a last kiss.

When she was gone, I began on the biscuits she’d brought. As I chewed, I noticed reddish flakes on the half-eaten portion in my hand. I brought it up to my eyes. The flakes were paint which had blistered off the icon.

I looked up into the monstrous face. Whereas before, the visage had been stern, now it seemed absolutely malevolent. It radiated hatred. The black pupils of the gigantic eyes were pits, opening on to some illimitable void.

The quibbling of theologians notwithstanding, it was clear Christ had walked the earth in recognizably human form, but the painted Christ before me was not human. Why hadn’t I noticed? The eyes weren’t human. They were out of proportion. All the features were the wrong size. The shape of the skull was unnatural. There was something very wrong with the mouth.

This was not Christ but something else.

Of course. It was the devil who had presided over the city for so many years. Was that surprising when you considered what went on in the alleyways and the mansions? The horror and depravity? Why would anyone think otherwise?

And wasn’t the distorted visage similar to those I painted? Did any of those supposed holy men look human? It had been Satan directing my hand, using it to fill the city with painted demons.

Demons who were human beings were already there — and I among them.

The darkness in the eyes stirred in the trembling lamplight. I thought I could see lights in the depths. The faint glow of an unimaginably distant conflagration.

There came into my head a soft sound like that made by a flame leaping from a bonfire.

The sound resolved into words. Why do you think of Satan or Christ? As if there is any difference. There is no good or evil. There is simply what is. Do you truly want to share your reward with the servant girl? Is she to be trusted any more than Philokalas?

Then I felt my hand close around a jagged chunk of brick, felt myself draw the deadly weapon into my robes.

“No,” I whispered. “I won’t. I can’t.”

But you can, the icon told me. Have courage.

I fell back and lay there, arguing in my mind with the icon, with myself, and after an eternity dropped into blessed unconsciousness.

Voices woke me.

I scrambled stiffly to my feet. I was aware of the weight of the brick I had concealed inside my tunic.

Was it already morning?

The voices came nearer.

“Here we are.” It was Arabia.

She appeared in the irregular entrance to our lair, smiling. Her impossibly brilliant eyes widened a little as if to tell me, “See, just as I promised, we’ve done it. It’s all right now.”

She carried a bulky leather satchel. Florentius was right behind her and I backed up to make room.

Florentius gasped and his florid face grew redder. He stared at the huge image. “Oh, magnificent! To be so close! Oh, wonder of wonders! The poor maimed thing. Ah, the pain he suffers! How can I ever reward you, my dear girl?”

“You already have.” Arabia hefted the satchel and shook it until the coins it contained jingled. “Should I have asked for more? I didn’t want to be greedy!”

“Do you want more? You shall have it!”

I was standing with my shoulder-blades almost pressed to the icon, but as far as Florentius was concerned I might as well not have been there.

“My men will haul this treasure up the stairs and out to the hand-cart,” he told Arabia.

Just then three big men squeezed into the already crowded space. I thought Florentius must be very cautious to arm his servants with swords. Also, it violated our understanding.

One of the newcomers glanced at me, then at Florentius. “You two heretical traitors are under arrest by order of the Patriarch.”

Florentius looked around in confusion as if he’d suddenly awakened in some strange place. “What? What is this?”

I probably looked as dazed as he did. “Arabia!” I cried. “Run!”

She didn’t move. She appeared inexplicably serene.

Florentius gaped at her. “Arabia? Is that what you call yourself when you’re not in my bed? Where did you get a name like that?”

Arabia laughed at him.

I hadn’t realized she could make such an ugly sound. It made me sick to hear it.

“You, marry a servant?” she sneered. “Do you think I’m a fool? And by the way, that lazy clod of a workman, Philokalas, who never finished patching your basement wall, the one who previously worked for the Patriarch? He won’t be coming back.”

She directed her horrible gaze at me. “You thought I didn’t find his body? Philokalas and I took turns coming down here to make certain the icon was safe, but I always used the door you were so proud of finding. He was careless. I warned him about going in under the hound, but he took no notice.”

Florentius’s face contorted with agony. “And to think you used to work at the Patriarch’s residence! He gave you his recommendation! What kinds of servants does he employ?”

I stood there unable to speak. I couldn’t believe … didn’t want to believe. I could have reached into my tunic, pulled out the brick, and killed her on the spot. But I didn’t.

The guard apparently in charge of the other two said, “Young woman, the Patriarch wishes to express his gratitude for helping to apprehend this godless pair. He hopes the small financial arrangement he has made for your earthly needs is suitable, and will be happy to continue to offer you spiritual guidance at the usual times.”

The woman I had known as Arabia departed without another glance in my direction. I expected a final word, but the performance had obviously ended.

Florentius babbled about the emperor and the Patriarch. I paid no attention. Neither did the armed men.

“This opening needs to be widened,” said the commander. “We don’t dare damage the icon. Make sure you keep clear of the broken bricks. We don’t want any scratches.”

“Ah,” Florentius sighed. “Will those monsters consign the Lord to the flames again? Let poor Florentius burn with him!”

“Out of the way,” grumbled one of the men. “We’ve got work to do.” He pushed Florentius, who stumbled towards the hole.

“He’s trying to escape,” the commander casually remarked, and ran Florentius through with his sword. “Make sure the other doesn’t get away.” He nodded in my direction.

A guard raised his blade and stepped towards me.

I threw myself to one side and yanked with all my strength at the edge of the heavy wooden panel. It toppled forward and crashed down on everyone else in the chamber. I scrambled up and across the back of the icon and was out of it before anyone could react.

Then I ran.

So you, big painted demon, you saved me in the end, I thought. For a while at least.

I didn’t have time to be angry at Arabia. Not then. Later there would be more than enough time.

As I burst out from beneath the iron hound, shouts echoed from underground.

I started across the deserted square. Even in my panic, I realized something was different.

What?

I looked up at the stylite’s pillar.

The stylite was gone.

But the rope dangling the basket used to send up food hung between the pillar’s railing and the ground.

The shouts behind me sounded louder.

I took hold of the rope and pulled myself up, hand over hand. Normally it would have been an impossible feat but my life was at stake.

By the time my pursuers clambered out into the square I was a distant figure in dishevelled clothes, head bent, half leaning against the railing.

The men rushed straight past the pillar.

Nobody notices stylites.

I would have been out of the city before nightfall if a guard hadn’t been left beside the iron hound. No one notices stylites, but a guard wouldn’t miss seeing one of those holy men sliding down a rope off his pillar.

Before dark the watchman was relieved by two more who set up torches along the colonnade. Perhaps they hoped I would return to try to hide myself in the underground maze.

I was in a bad spot. Sooner or later somebody was going to check the pillar. But at least I had time to think and I’d always survived by my wits.

Admittedly I’d made a few errors in judgement the past couple of days. It was obvious now but could I have known then that Arabia was waiting for me that morning near the hound?

In retrospect I was able to piece the story together. Arabia and Philokalas had been working together. Arabia had seen me at Florentius’s house and knew I could help her and Philokalas sell the icon, something they couldn’t do themselves — one being a servant, the other a lowly labourer.

She probably met Philokalas when both worked at the Patriarch’s residence. Philokalas must have come upon the hidden image while in the course of repair-work in the Patriarch’s cellars following the earthquake. In fact, the earthquake might well have revealed the icon’s hiding place.

Had Arabia and Philokalas carted it together to the underground hiding place where I found it, and she pretended to see it for the first time? She could have let Philokalas into the Patriarch’s house at night; the only way to get the icon down underground was through the door I had been so happy to find. Or had Philokalas’s other accomplices helped him move it? Were there others? Perhaps the men following me had been all my imagination and the fellow who asked Macedonia about Philokalas was simply a worried friend to whom he had unwisely let drop a word or two about an icon-painter he was seeking?

At any rate, once Philokalas vanished, Arabia began looking for the useful icon-painter herself. And now she’d double-crossed me. Not only was she running off with my share of Florentius’s payment, she also had whatever the rival collector had paid her.

How could she? It didn’t seem fair. I would never have killed her. Even if I’d had the chance. I swear I wouldn’t have killed her.

There had to be a rival collector, the way I saw it. Despite what they said, the guards and the man who had killed Florentius weren’t sent by the Patriarch — who was well known to be violently opposed to icons. That was why Leo made him Patriarch. He wouldn’t be concerned if the image were damaged when transported, as his supposed men had carelessly indicated he would.

Not everyone would have noticed that little slip, but I did.

It could only mean those men were sent by someone else who had heard about the icon’s survival or been informed about it by Arabia. Doubtless she’d managed to get the collector’s name from Florentius, who’d evidently been taking advantage of her by his own admission.

I was exhausted, but there wasn’t enough room on the pillar’s platform to lie down, so I leaned against its railing and looked out over the city. The glowing dome of the Great Church seemed to throw orange sparks along the streets and into windows and on ships in the harbour. I could almost feel the gaze of monstrous eyes staring down out of the black vault of the heavens, but there was nothing to see up there except the glittering cold points of stars, and ragged wraiths of cloud fleeing before a rising wind.

People say Hades is underground, but I found it up there in cold loneliness.

And it was the iron hound who guarded the entrance to the path I took that led me there.

I wouldn’t have killed Arabia. When I wasn’t looking up I looked down at the piece of brick beside my feet, the unused symbol of my mercy.

At dawn I began to cry out for Patriarch Anastasius.

People pay no attention to stylites, but then most stylites don’t demand to see the Patriarch and shout about stolen icons.

I’m not certain what I expected. After days down there in the dark with a gigantic demon staring at me, and then a frigid night atop a pillar too close to that big being in the sky, I was probably not in my right mind. But I could not be certain I was not still being sought in order to silence me forever.

The one result of my plea I didn’t expect was for Patriarch Anastasius himself to appear.

Yes, possibly it was a vision. The other day I saw Satan perched like a huge bat on Justinian’s statue atop the column in the Augustaion. I’m fairly certain that was a vision. And I’ve seen other things as well. You get a new perspective from one of these stylite’s columns.

But whether the visitation was real or not — and what difference does it make to someone in my position? — a regal-looking man, swathed in layers of heavily embroidered robes, entered the square accompanied by a company of retainers, most carrying lances.

The Patriarch climbed up stairs concealed inside my pillar — a feature I wished I had known about when fleeing — and emerged on the narrow, windswept platform.

He was not an old man. He wore a beard, cut in the manner of the icon with whom I had recently grown acquainted. His eyes were not as large as the image’s, but they were almost as deep and his mouth was as cruel.

“Excellency,” I began, having no idea how you addressed a Patriarch. “A traitor rescued the Chalke Christ you wished destroyed, another found it, and yet another traitor — ”

He put up a hand. “We can speak freely here since nobody will hear us except, perhaps, heaven. I was informed that the watchman I ordered stationed on this pillar was behaving oddly. Since he had already been relieved of his duty once my icon was retrieved, I was curious.”

“Watchman? Your icon? What happened to the stylite?”

He smiled but did not answer all my questions. “Have you noticed there’s a good view of that scabby dog from up here? And there’s no other way into that part of the labyrinth apart from through a door in a certain courtyard.”

“But you ordered the icon burned!”

“What choice did I have? The holy image had been taken down and brought to stay overnight in my residence. Then when the splintered remains were brought out to be set on fire, the pile of bits of painted boards was so large that nobody realized part of it was missing.”

“And you concealed the upper portion? But why?”

“We must always think of the future, in this world as in the one to which we will go in due course. The next emperor may have different notions and wish icons to be restored. You see I speak frankly. If I realized the earthquake had fractured the wall of the vault in which that upper panel was hidden, I wouldn’t have allowed the workman down there. He stole it. Carted it off and hid it.”

“Those were your men who came for the icon? It was you who paid Arabia?”

“My former servant, you mean? The girl who went to work for Florentius? A lovely girl. I’ve come to know her quite well. A pity about Florentius. He was found murdered in an alley not far from here. Such is the state of the city, no doubt the villains responsible will never be apprehended.”

The Patriarch looked away and scanned the panorama around us. “I’ve often wondered what you holy men could see from here. It’s magnificent.”

“But I’m not a holy man!”

“I disagree. I believe you are. Look, your hands are blue with cold. Suffering sharpens faith. The more tenuous our connection to our pitiful fleshly husks, the closer we are to heaven. You are blessed, my friend. It is difficult to feel the holy presence while wrapped in fine robes and surrounded by luxury.” He gave a sorrowful shake of his head and smiled faintly. “Yet can those of us who choose to serve him refuse the harsh sacrifices as we are asked to make?”

He fixed me in his demon’s gaze. “You know too much to ever descend from this pillar. I shall allow you to stay here and glory in the presence of the Lord. I will arrange to have acolytes, armed for your protection, stationed below day and night.”

It took an instant for me to understand the horror of my situation. “No, excellency,” I cried. “Why not kill me? Why leave me here?”

“Because,” the patriarch said as he turned to go down the stairs, “it pleases me.”

“Did you truly believe you would never see me again?”

Arabia smiled sweetly up at me. As usual, my armed guards retired out of earshot when she waved them away.

A warm dawn breeze ruffled her brightly coloured silks. All around, the ruins and vacant spaces of Constantinople were coming alive with the myriad greens of spring. I could almost smell her perfume.

“After the Patriarch left, I wondered,” I said. “I considered throwing myself to the ground, but a colleague of mine died in a fall, and, well …”

“A nasty death,” she agreed.

“Yes. I could never bring myself to do it though I would at least be lying down. Sometimes I long for a doorway to lie in and be out of the rain.”

Her lips formed a red pout. “Then you did doubt me.”

“Oh, yes, I did at times. The morning I woke up with ice in my hair, and the night the angels descended from the clouds and set the sea on fire. Those were the worst.”

“It’s a fine house, isn’t it?” she said. “Even if it isn’t a farmhouse.”

“Yes, though I can only see the corner of it, just past the Great Church and the Patriarch’s residence.”

“It’s very convenient to the Patriarch’s house, that’s true.”

I yanked on the rope and hauled the basket up. Arabia waved to me before pulling the curtain of her litter shut. Her attendants picked the chair up and trotted away across the square. But she would be back. She visits often.

She always brings me a big basket full of boiled eggs.

I wished I’d had a boiled egg that long ago morning. Maybe if I hadn’t eaten the eyes of the Lord, things would have turned out differently.