Two for Joy

Chapter Fifteen

By first light next day John was standing in the long shadow of a stylite’s pillar set at the center of a nondescript forum not far from the docks. Unlike three other columns in the city, this pillar was still occupied.

As red-gold light crept over the surrounding rooftops, the stylite, a tall figure dressed in a long black tunic, addressed the knot of pilgrims who had already gathered, despite the early hour. A cool breeze carried the rank smell of decomposing fish around the spacious forum along with the elevated man’s ornate phrases. This morning he warned of divine retribution against imposters who mounted pillars and subsequently preached falsehoods to pious pilgrims.

At John’s approach some of the faithful drifted away. He had dressed in a simple white tunic and thrown a dark woolen cloak over his shoulders, yet there was something in the quality of his clothing, perhaps the hint of silver thread along the hem of his cloak, that, coupled with his bearing, alerted even these simple travelers to at least some suspicion of his rank. And, John reflected ruefully, no matter how much senators and high court officials might boast of their efforts to better the lot of the general populace, those thronging the streets sensed their enemies as instinctively as a rabbit knows the fox. It was a pity that many ordinary folk apparently suspected anyone holding rank as inevitably harboring rancor directed against those lower on the social scale.

John accosted one of the retreating pilgrims. “What is the name of the man up there?”

“He is known as Joseph, master,” his informant answered without breaking stride, increasing his pace as he hurried away.

A few of those who had lingered were talking in undertones, casting furtive looks in John’s direction. It was as if they assumed he was there with some official and thus doubtless regrettable purpose in mind rather than just passing through on his way elsewhere.

Perhaps it was therefore not too surprising that the young man who had just removed a large empty basket from atop the pillar seemed to be in an extreme hurry to remove the heavy ladder he had just descended, which reached only as far as cast iron footholds embedded in the brickwork supporting Joseph’s perch. Acolytes would have to be nimble indeed to haul offerings up there, John thought as he stepped forward and offered assistance.

“May I ask you a few questions?” he asked after the ladder had been laid safely down on the trampled earth at the pillar’s base.

The acolyte glanced upwards before replying hesitantly in a low voice. “We are permitted to cooperate with worldly authorities.”

John asked how many served the man Joseph.

“Seven, master,” was the brief answer.

“You have not lost any of your number recently?”

“Lost? My brothers were all here earlier.” The acolyte was little more than a boy. Fresh nicks on his head showed he had recently shaved off all his hair but his chin was perfectly smooth, not yet in need of such ministrations.

“Do you know anything of an unfortunate man who burned to death not far from here?”

“What would I know about that?” The acolyte was puzzled rather than defensive.

“Have any of those who frequent this forum lately been absent?”

“I would not know, master. My eyes are turned ever toward heaven.” He picked up the empty basket. “I am sorry, but I must now go to market for we have not yet supped.”

John looked up at the stylite. “Perhaps he may have observed something unusual?”

The other shook his head. “Our most revered Joseph saw nothing, for it has pleased heaven to spare him the burden of having to look upon the sinfulness of this city or of the world. He is blind.”

After the boy departed John focused his attention to pilgrims and increasing numbers of passersby. After an hour of fruitless questioning, he decided wryly that no-one crossed the forum who was not blind or deaf and as near to dumb as fear of authority would allow them to be without inviting arrest. He realized that he would have to employ someone less obviously associated with officialdom than himself if he was to learn anything useful. One of Felix’s paid informers, perhaps? Yes, he would broach the matter with the excubitor captain immediately.

John turned his steps toward the palace. As he strode along, he became aware of a rising, sullen murmur. It might have been mistaken for storm-driven waves breaking against the sea walls but John recognized the sound immediately.

One glance as he reached the street corner confirmed his conclusion.

From his vantage point, he could see a torrent of humanity surging down the Mese, moving toward him in a flood wide enough to spill under the colonnades hemming the broad street. Hundreds of excited conversations punctuated with shouts and hoarse exhortations rose to affront the bright sky, mingling in an unintelligible roar growing ever louder.

A grocer who was swiftly closing up his shutters a few paces back from the corner called out to John.

“I wouldn’t go any further if I was you, sir. It’s those accursed Michaelites. You should get home as soon as you can.” He stooped to lock the shutters into iron rings set near ground level in the wall of his shop. “They’ll keep looters out, but as for the rest…” He made the sign of his faith and hurried inside, thudding the shop door shut. Bolts grated home.

John was fully aware of the dangers of allowing himself to be caught up in the treacherous currents of any mob. He quickly retreated back down the street and plunged into a narrow passageway. As he moved swiftly along parallel to the Mese, his progress was shadowed by the grumbling unrest of the crowd and the occasional bang of a window slamming shut or a mother’s call, summoning her child hastily indoors.

As a mercenary in Bretania he had often followed the course of an unseen stream through the thickets and brush of dense forest in the same manner, staying just within earshot of its rushing waters. In those days his objective had been to creep up stealthily on some streamside encampment. Today he wanted to reach the Chalke as soon as possible, and without hindrance.

The small forum into which he finally emerged was eerily deserted. Everything was closed and shuttered, as if it were the dead of night rather than a bright morning. The only sign of life was a skeletal mongrel dog nosing around unperturbed in a pile of offal in the gutter, a canine feast doubtless discarded by some nearby butcher.

Suddenly the muffled roar of the unseen mob swelled into an explosion of sound, as if a Hippodrome crowd were saluting some favorite charioteer of the Greens or Blues who had just emerged from its great bronze gates to parade around the huge arena.

John crossed the deserted space quickly as the roar subsided into silence, then rose again, hanging malignantly on the air. Clearly the mob was responding to someone addressing them.

Just as he plunged into a final dark passageway that debouched into the Mese, a group of grim-faced excubitors came racing down the narrow alley toward him, swords drawn. John recognized one of them, a dark, stocky fellow who regularly guarded the entrance to the excubitor barracks across from his house.

The excubitor stopped in his tracks, his face transformed by surprise, as his comrades in arms ran past John.

“Lord Chamberlain! What are you doing here?” He drew a quick breath. “I wouldn’t get any closer to that than you are now!” He pointed his sword back. “We’re off to help secure the Great Church, just in case somebody decides to burn it down again.” He turned to follow his companions but the touch of John’s hand on his shoulder detained him.

“What’s the situation on the Mese?”

“Well, Lord Chamberlain, a so-called ambassador from Michael managed to slip into the city undetected.”

“That would be easy enough for one man, but it sounds as if this ambassador has developed an extremely large following rather quickly.”

The excubitor shrugged. “Right now the mob will follow anyone claiming to speak for Michael. In fact, it’s escorted him right to the gates of the palace. He claims to have a message to deliver to Justinian.”

John commented that it was unfortunate that the emperor was not receiving anyone.

“His message wasn’t really intended for Justinian,” the other noted shrewdly. “The brazen little bastard is doubtless happy enough to be able to stand in front of the Chalke and read it to them that escorted him there.”

“What did he say?”

“I was at the edge of the crowd, so I didn’t catch all the details, but as near as I could tell he said that Michael had grown weary with waiting for Justinian’s answer regarding certain matters of what he called mutual interest.” The excubitor paused to look, frowning, past John. His companions had vanished.

“And what else?” John prompted. “I shall ensure that you do not suffer from being delayed by my questions.”

“Thank you, Lord Chamberlain. As I was saying, then, I was at some distance and the shouting got rather loud, as usually happens in these situations, so I may not have heard all the man’s words correctly. But if what he said is true, we are going to have a lot more than a relatively good-natured mob to cope with tomorrow. He proclaimed that if Michael’s demands were not met by tomorrow night, his god will set the waters of the Bosporos aflame. Impossible of course, but tell them that…” He gave a quick nod in the direction he’d come from. As if in response, the crowd roared again even louder than before.

The dog John had seen rooting in the gutter trotted quickly past the entrance to the passageway, holding a large bloody scrap of flesh in its teeth. Had John been a superstitious man, he would have regarded that as a very ominous omen.

“If you heard correctly,” John said thoughtfully, “then it would appear that our time is growing very short indeed.”

Striding through the austere warren of imperial administrative offices, John found himself noticing the water clocks set in niches and corners to regulate the labors of those not content to depend on the sun. The level of water in the receiving bowls made it abundantly clear that it had taken him far too long to make his way through the boisterous crowd swirling about outside the Chalke.

Felix was not in his office when John finally reached it. It seemed he had been called away to a meeting with the empress. But when John made his way to the Hormisdas, she had gone and so had Felix.

“The excubitor captain was here,” confirmed the silentiary still on guard outside Theodora’s now empty audience hall. “He left in a hurry, looking very grim. I’d guess there was some military action afoot, though it’d only be a guess, since my hearing isn’t what it once was-and of course I wouldn’t be eavesdropping at any rate. We guards are nothing if not discreet.”

John thanked the man for his garrulous discretion with a coin. He knew immediately where he would find Felix.

Once by tradition but now of necessity, the mithraeum was concealed in the bowels of an imperial storehouse in a less traveled part of the palace grounds. A casual visitor who might by accident penetrate far through the maze of winding passages to arrive at the stout door allowing entry into the holy place would have been intercepted by the guards stationed there, their constant presence easily explained by the valuable goods stored in similar stone cellars under the rambling building. Politely escorted back to the upper level, such visitors would doubtless be just as happy to see sunlight. Who knew how many had entered and never emerged back in the days when enemies of the state or those who had fallen from the emperor’s favor had been imprisoned in those underground rooms?

But the guards stepped aside, knowing John was a fellow adept. Closing the stout door behind him, John quickly walked down the flight of steps into the shadowed mithraeum. Tonight there would be no celebration, no ceremonial meal, no ritual to mark a follower’s joyous advancement another degree up the seven-runged ladder, drawing ever closer to Lord Mithra. Tonight there was only a lone man, his bushy haired head bowed, seated on a stone bench.

John sat down next to him.

“Well, John,” Felix said, evincing no surprise at the Lord Chamberlain’s arrival, “I’m shortly off to visit the Michaelites.”

“And not with peaceful intent it seems, for I see you are girded for battle,” John replied with a nod at the helmet set on the stone flagged floor.

The two men were silent for a time, gazing at the marble bas relief behind the altar. Light from the torches bracketing it glanced off the deeply carved details of the familiar scene-the Phrygian cap Lord Mithra wore, the sharp edge of his raised blade, the powerful shoulders and curled tail of the huge bull he was about to sacrifice to bring forth life.

It was a scene which never failed to move John to the core of his being.

The low cave-like ceiling of the narrow mithraeum was painted with gleaming stars, but its walls were beyond the reach of the torches’ pool of light. Thus it ever was. Moreover, it seemed to John that deeper shadows, more evil than those held at bay by torchlight or by the sacred fires kindled on the altar when ceremonies were to be held, were pressing in around them, inky doubles of the dark chaos engulfing the city above them.

Felix frowned fiercely.

“You’re worried about something more than an engagement of arms, Felix,” John observed. “Perhaps you have come to ask Lord Mithra for guidance? If so, I would be happy to leave.”

The big captain nodded. “You’re right, John, but in fact it’s something I would like to discuss with you.”

John listened closely as Felix continued. “I’m on the horns of a dilemma as sharp as those of the Great Bull,” he said. “I am a soldier, it’s my duty to follow orders, whether it be to fall upon the enemy and dispatch him or guard some soft and simpering ambassador from whatever evil he thinks he will encounter while going about his business at court.”

He paused, folding his arms on his brawny chest. “I have just been ordered by the empress to ride with my men to the shrine where the Michaelites are gathered. And when we arrive there, we are to dispose of Michael immediately along with such of his followers as may seek to prevent us carrying out our orders.”

“You have been ordered to kill him?”

Felix nodded. “You would think that Theodora must realize that to murder the man will inflame passions to such a degree that riots will break out as soon as news reaches the city. All of Justinian’s generals would have refused, I imagine, mutinous although it would be. But my men and I, barracked within the palace grounds, well, we can hardly fail to do the empress’ bidding, because generals would certainly not balk at putting down a rebellion by mere excubitors!”

“She must have made her decision immediately she knew of Michael’s threat to set the Bosporos on fire.”

Seeing Felix’ look of disbelief John related what he had learned not long before.

Felix uttered a string of lurid curses. “She never mentioned that, but why would she? I armed myself, gave my orders and then came straight here to reflect for a few moments. You barely caught me, John. I must leave shortly to finalize arrangements.”

“Perhaps Theodora is convinced that such a supernatural occurrence as Michael has promised will set off riots anyway and would rather they occurred without him to direct them?”

Felix nodded unhappily. “Excellent strategy to remove their leader, but the very notion of killing an unarmed man disturbs me greatly.” He frowned. “I can’t believe Justinian would order this rash action.”

John considered the matter briefly. “That’s probably so, Felix. There are women at the shrine, women and children both. I saw them myself when I was there with Aurelius. There is going to be a blood bath of the innocent if there’s any resistance and both of us know perfectly well that there will be.”

“Oh, Theodora realizes that all right. When I received my orders, she remarked that baptism in blood might be just what the heretics needed. The bitch is as hard as one of those horse hoof breastplates the Sauromatae wore. But,” Felix continued, “I’m glad you arrived, as I had intended to leave a message with Peter when I go to meet my men at the barracks. If you were not at home, I mean. It’s this. If I should fall in the field, John, I would like you to attend to the rites. With no family…”

“I understand,” John assured him, “and you have my oath on it.”

Felix thanked him. “And there’s one thing more, John,” he went on hesitantly. “I ask you to give me your blessing as a Runner of the Sun and therefore a more senior adept than me.”

Looking uncomfortable, he stared at the floor as he continued. “I don’t fear the blade, but what of this fiery magick? It claimed the stylites and Isis’ girl as well, and that within Aurelius’ house as my men and I stood guard. So if you would…?”

This night was bristling with as many surprises as a crafty wild boar, John thought. Felix had achieved the Mithraic rank of Lion, just two below that which he himself held, and had never made such a request before. Perhaps his unease about the task he had been ordered to undertake was more profound even than he had indicated.

“But of course,” John said, “if that is what you wish.”

Felix donned his helmet and they took the few steps necessary to stand reverently before the altar. The big, bear-like man bowed his head as John addressed the torch-lit image of their god.

“Mithra, Lord of Light,” John began, “Slayer of the Great Bull, I approach to humbly petition thy blessing upon thy servant Felix, who will soon march forth to soldier.”

Torchlight wavered across Felix’s bearded face, as he glanced briefly up.

“Grant that his eye be keen, his judgment sound and his sword arm strong.” John paused. It did not seem appropriate to be offering a prayer of such a militant nature, given the unarmed pilgrims Felix and his men would be facing. Inspiration touched him.

“Keep him in the shelter of thy starry cloak,” John continued, “and give him wisdom in directing the engagement, that it be conducted in a way that is honorable to thee, his lord. But if it must be that he climb the seven-runged ladder and leave this world, grant this, that he depart with grace and that his memory be considered worthy and fitting for one who faithfully followed thee.”

Turning, John laid his hands on the captain’s bowed head. “And now with this blessing, go forth and soldier, Felix, captain of the excubitors and adept of the rank of Lion.”

“And may Lord Mithra guard me on the field of battle,” the captain replied in the traditional response.

John lingered for a few moments after Felix left the mithraeum. It was growing late. There was no question now of engaging an informant or one of Felix’ spies. If there was anything useful to be learnt, John would have to discover it for himself.