Three for a Letter

Chapter Twenty-three

Wheezing and cursing, Barnabas inched toward the island’s craggy summit, hauling a large goat through the darkness. His toe was caught by a root, or perhaps the entrance hole to the burrow of a small animal. It hardly mattered what it happened to be this time. He fell heavily again and the cloven hoof of his caprid charge clipped his shoulder painfully.

He struggled from beneath the musty-smelling beast, uttering further imprecations as he gripped its damp body and felt one of the legs wobble. He tugged at it and a clump of goat hair came off in his hand. Finally he managed to shoulder the goat once more and continued to struggle toward the high meadow where a number of the herd glimmered in the pale moonlight.

The dwarf was strong and agile. For years-and to the delight of numerous audiences-he had performed amazing acrobatic feats, leapt and tumbled, brandished stuffed phalluses of exceptional size and weight, and dazzled onlookers with his agility, but he had never before been called upon to haul an entire herd of stuffed goats up and down dark crags.

Reaching the meadow, he thankfully set his burden down and surveyed the heavens. At least he had managed to get the albino goats assembled at one of the highest spots in good time. Having reasoned that he might be more easily spotted moving the lighter-colored beasts about as dawn came on, he had taken to relocating them first when they needed to be taken to higher elevations. There the grass grew less readily and offered less concealment than it did further down the slopes.

He turned away from the motionless animals and trudged back down the steep track.

***

Dawn found Barnabas coaxing life from the remains of a wood fire, heartily huffing and puffing on them until glowing sparks formed a necklace of red that eventually burst into flames. The task made him look paler than usual since it coated him with gray flakes of ash, giving him the appearance of a demon. Fortunately the man lying on a pallet close to the hearth was not particularly concerned with outward appearances.

“Now we’ll have some warmth to chase the fog out of our bones,” Barnabas said, poking twigs into the burgeoning fire to feed its quickening life. “Then I shall get breakfast.”

“And about time too,” remarked Pythion from his bed. “And that reminds me, Barnabas. While it’s true I’ve been known to curse my monotonous diet now and then, I must say I find the increasing presence of wrinkled turnips and shriveled radishes on my plate becoming rather tedious. Perhaps if you kept trying you might catch a fish or two and we could cook them?”

The man had somewhat the appearance of a wrinkled and shriveled vegetable himself, albeit exceedingly sun-browned, with the unruly hair and beard of a desert hermit and the rope-like muscles of a dock worker.

“It’s not easy catching fish,” Barnabas protested, omitting to mention he had not even attempted the task. “Especially when you have to be so quick to get them. I am constantly exhausted from moving those disgusting goats up and down the slopes.”

“I know how difficult that can be,” his companion agreed, “but you have to keep moving them around. It’s my livelihood, you know! At least you don’t have to worry about placing them in any particular pattern. Wherever the animals are standing, the person who interprets their message will always find something suitably vague, or vaguely suitable, to declare to anyone foolish enough to consult them.”

Barnabas looked up from the fire. “It will be your skin as well, Pythion, if the villagers ever find out about the goats,” he pointed out. “So it’s just as well I got here when I did, what with your broken foot. Where would you be now without my help, eh, that’s what I want to know?”

“And how did I break my foot? Scrambling down to the beach to see who my unexpected visitor might be!”

“You mean to say your goats didn’t warn you I was about to arrive?”

The other only grumbled a bit more and then grudgingly expressed gratitude for the mime’s assistance. “Now I know what’s going on over there,” he went on, “I realize this sudden stream of people consulting the goats is because Theodora’s visiting Zeno’s estate. Whoever would have thought that the empress would appear in these parts? Well, you can be certain that more than one of those high-ranking officials travelling with her is less interested in learning his fortune, under the guise of entertainment of course, than of taking advantage of a good excuse to get out of range of Theodora’s presence for a while.” Accepting a piece of bread he dunked it into his cup of wine and continued. “But you’ll be able to stay long enough to see me back on my feet, Barnabas?”

“Yes, and even a little beyond that in case of unforeseen difficulties.”

Barnabas had not mentioned the reason for his arrival on the island and had no intention of doing so. The keeper of the goats had enough to worry about, he told himself. Winter was coming on and there was a very poor crop to show for all the man’s summer laboring in the small vegetable patch next to his hut, without his having to worry about possible repercussions if it were discovered he was harboring a fugitive, no matter how unwittingly.

Thinking about vegetables as he chewed on a stale bread crust, Barnabas considered a more pressing problem. With two of them to feed, the stunted cabbages, beets and leeks would quite possibly all be gone before spring came again. He wondered if it was his fate to starve to death on an island. Yet even that might be preferable to what could-no, most certainly would-happen to him if he were caught. The thought that he was at least still free, if not performing at the palace or sleeping in his own bed, brought a better flavor to his humble breakfast.

Hopefully, he thought, when their small stock of food was consumed the villagers would be generous in what they brought when they came to the island, provided of course that conditions continued to allow them to make the journey.

Then at the right time, and if Fortuna continued to smile on him, he would be gone. To Africa, perhaps, or off to Greece. He recalled wistfully his small room in Constantinople. Doubtless Brontes would enjoy using it but could he be trusted to take care of it?

Gnawing on his crust, he mulled over his plans concerning what he would do as soon as it was safe to slip away from the island. By the look of recent activity on shore, it appeared this might be further in the future than he had originally anticipated when, in a panic to find a hiding place, he had stolen a boat and rowed with all speed to his temporary sanctuary. However, he had not expected his continued personal safety to involve creeping up and down steep inclines and rocky paths carrying stuffed goats half the night and hiding in a small hut for most of the daylight hours. At least, he congratulated himself, he had had the wit to push the boat back out into the sea so that the current would carry it away. Even if it traveled only a little way down the coast before beaching, doubtless its owner would retrieve it thankfully enough, not to mention making certain that he pulled it further up the beach than before. No, he was safe from discovery as long as he kept out of sight.

He chuckled at the recollection of the revelation he had received upon assisting the injured goatkeeper into his hut.

“This is a terrible disaster,” the man had cried, pulling off his boot and wincing as his painfully swollen foot was jarred by the action.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say so,” Barnabas had offered with callous cheerfulness. “I’ve broken more than one bone in my, er, everyday job and they heal quickly enough if you’re fortunate and avoid physicians. You know what Martial said of Diaulus? He remarked that the man had been a doctor and then became an undertaker but even so he was doing the same job as he had when he was a medical man.”

As he spoke he had hoped that the goatkeeper would not ask to be rowed to shore for medical attention and, it seemed, the gods had answered his prayer. For as it transpired returning to the mainland was the last thing that Pythion desired, as he immediately declared to Barnabas.

“Since you’re here, I am supposing that you’ll not mind staying for a few days?” he had said hopefully as he bathed the injured foot in not too clean water from a bucket in the corner.

Barnabas confirmed that he would be happy to do so.

“Then in that case,” Pythion had continued in a stern voice, “I must remind you that this is a sacred island and therefore I shall expect appropriate behavior.”

Barnabas, wondering if word of his stage act involving the enormous phalluses had somehow reached even this remote island, promised solemnly that he would ensure that he did not offend either his host’s hospitality or the goats in any way whatsoever.

“You must swear absolute secrecy about anything you learn here,” the goatkeeper had gone on urgently.

“Of course,” Barnabas had replied, giving his oath while wondering if the man was afraid that he intended to learn the secrets of fortune-telling by goat and then set up a rival oracle in a more frequently traveled spot.

But, he reminded himself as he poured out more vinegary wine and filled their breakfast plates with radishes, it had turned out that Pythion had more to hide than Barnabas since the famous goat oracle was nothing more than a fraud perpetrated upon a gullible public.

Thus it was that Barnabas was now temporarily carrying out the injured man’s role of moving stuffed goats here and there around the island, giving the animals the appearance of life by occasionally venturing out to push them along the stony ground while crawling through what for most people would be knee-high shrubbery.

“Thinking about them goats again, aren’t you?” Pythion asked. “It may seem a bit underhanded, but you know what they say-you can’t fool an honest Christian. It’s all just entertainment, officially speaking, so obviously it’s only pagans we’re misleading. How they’re dealt with in this transitory world is the least of their concerns.”

Barnabas grinned. “If she found out about your efforts, Theodora would be just as likely to ask Justinian to appoint you to a court post than have you executed. She’s always been one to admire a rogue, especially one who’s successful, and you’ve been managed to fool everyone for years.”

“Of necessity, may I remind you?” Pythion parried. “The herd died off during that drought a few years ago. According to tradition, the albino ones are more important than the black ones but they were the first to die.”

“Interesting, that.”

“Yes, but I had just arrived on the island and so I knew that the villagers were terribly impressed that the goats over here were flourishing while over there many of their animals, and even some people, were dying. The goatkeeper at the time was a man of great intellect-not to mention someone who didn’t wish to see a very old custom die with the animals, or so he said to me.”

Pythion stopped to give an admiring shake of the head at the previous goatkeeper’s wily intelligence. “So,” he went on, “as I told you, he very cleverly stuffed the animals’ skins so that there would always be goats on the island and, more importantly, he would still have the job of keeper of the goats. After all, nobody said anything about them having to be live goats, did they?”

“You would make a good man of law, Pythion. He must have really feasted on all that goat meat, though. I wonder how he prepared it?” Barnabas mused, thinking wistfully of all the palace banquets where, after entertaining, he had partaken of many dainty and exotic dishes that seemed now the stuff of dreams.

“Not well enough,” was the reply. “He died not long after I arrived. It was something he ate, apparently.”

Barnabas looked up sharply. “You didn’t mention that before. I thought you said he died of old age?”

“What I said was that he was very old when he died and that was true enough. I suppose I forgot to mention that it happened not long after over-indulging in goat stew. Who knows, perhaps the hot weather tainted it. I advised him to cure most of the meat and even made a smoking frame for him. But he was a hasty man, so I suppose you could say his manner hastened his own death. Still, the only stews I have eaten since then have been made out of rabbits.”

Barnabas pondered his companion’s words. It had not occurred to him before to ask what had originally brought Pythion to the rocky island, whether he too might have been fleeing from a pitiless pursuit. He knew Fortuna could be sometimes be crueler than a cat with a field mouse. Had he then managed to escape Theodora only to find himself on a small island with a herd of stuffed goats, an inadequate food supply, and a murderer?