Two for Joy

Chapter Eighteen

John surfaced from the deep, dark waters of slumber, his hand moving to the blade at his belt. Something was wrong. He felt a rough surface against his cheek. Bricks. He was half seated, leaning against bricks. He was cold and his left arm, pinned between him and the wall, was numb. His thoughts winged briefly back to distant memories of military encampments, of waking on frozen ground in a cramped tent.

In an instant he realized he was not in an encampment. He was in Constantinople and had become a beggar, or as near to one as he could manage. And like many beggars, he had spent the night dozing out of doors.

He climbed stiffly to his feet in the hospitable doorway where he had found refuge. A few tatters of mist swirled low along the ground. A mangy black cat inspecting breakfast possibilities in rotting refuse piled nearby glanced at him with calm yellow eyes and then trotted away briskly on its three remaining legs.

John shook the numbness out of his arm. His heavy cloak was gone, discarded on the street after he’d left the palace grounds after his brief meeting with Felix in the mithraeum.

After hearing of Michael’s threats to set the Bosporos afire and subsequently learning from Felix about the imminent attack on the shrine, John had realized the situation was too urgent. There was no time to engage informants, let alone wait for them to do their work.

He would have to do the job himself.

So he had discarded his cloak, torn his tunic, rubbed dirt into his hair and on his face and hands. He hoped, by posing as a beggar himself, to gain the confidence of, and confidences from, those who were afraid to speak to the authorities.

As yet, however, his disguise had gained him nothing. The people nesting in corners and clustered around small fires in alleys were as wary of dirty strangers as they were of officials, although less frightened. After all, they were many and he was but one.

The morning was eerily quiet, with none of the usual noisy bustle of merchants opening their shops. No doubt their businesses would remain shuttered today. He wondered about Felix’s raid, muttering a brief prayer to Mithra that the burly captain was unharmed. Whatever had happened, it was obvious that word had not yet been carried back to the city. Otherwise it would not be so quiet.

As for Michael, John thought it more than likely he was dead. He doubted anyone at the palace would feel much sorrow at the ascetic eunuch’s demise. It was commonly bandied about that those deprived of the opportunity to be men had strong tendencies toward treachery. No doubt it was a result of the gross imbalance in their humors. John himself had too often been labeled such a creature.

Unfortunately, it had apparently not occurred to Theodora that martyrs were the worst sort of foes with which to have to grapple.

Pursued by that bleak thought, John set out toward the forum graced by the pillar occupied by the stylite Joseph.

John spent the morning and early afternoon loitering at the edge of the forum in which Joseph’s pillar stood, observing the stylite and the intermittent stream of pilgrims arriving to pay their respects and place offerings in the baskets there.

In mid morning, a vendor set up his brazier and the tempting smell of cooking fish made John’s stomach grumble with hunger. But a beggar, of course, did not have the wherewithal to purchase cooked fish.

Occasionally Joseph would embark on a garbled homily. These half-heard addresses seemed to bear no relation to the number of listeners gathered, if any. But then, John reminded himself, the man was blind.

Regretfully concluding that his vigil had produced nothing of value, John was contemplating going home when a figure loitering in the shadows of the nearby colonnade suddenly emerged into the sunlight. John turned quickly, catching the movement out of the corner of his eye.

“Greetings, excellency. It’s so kind of you to visit us,” it rasped hoarsely.

A demon, without a face, just as Justinian was rumored to be. That was John’s immediate impression as it stepped toward him. Then he realized he was looking not at some supernatural being but a horribly disfigured woman.

“How may we accommodate you, excellency?”

One side of her face had melted and puddled into a formless mass like a candle left too long alight. Her cheek and temple were a reddened ruin in which sat a useless, opaque eye. But tilting her head to look at John with her good eye the speaker revealed that the other half of her face had the delicate features of an attractive woman not yet middle-aged.

“I think you mistake me for someone else,” John replied.

She laughed, setting into motion myriad scraps of brightly colored ribbon tied in her matted black hair. Her laughter was as grating as her voice.

“Not at all,” she said. “It’s obvious to a person with one eye you’re from a wealthy household!” Her filthy but dainty finger pointed at the gold embroidery on the wrist of John’s tunic. “That is very fine workmanship. I’m familiar with fine garments, although you would not think so to look at me now.”

She stepped forward another pace, spreading her thin arms slightly to show off her clothing, a gaudy assemblage of layers of draped and knotted tatters that might have passed for some exotic costume from a less civilized country.

“And how is your master, excellency?” she smiled. “Is he in good health or did you crack open his head before running off with his valuables?”

“I chanced upon these clothes at the baths,” John said, grasping her implication. Perhaps he had not been discovered after all.

“What? And left your rags in their place so that here is a beggar dressed as an aristocrat while an aristocrat skulks home in rags?” Again the hoarse laugh, although whether because she thought John’s explanation comical or extremely unlikely it was difficult to say.

“No doubt you have heard stranger tales,” John replied.

The woman tilted her head, regarding him pointedly. “My name’s Pulcheria, my friend. You’re fortunate that the Prefect is too occupied with other matters to be hunting down runaway slaves right now.”

John said that he supposed he had Michael to thank for that.

“And what sort of employment do you plan to follow now that you are free?” Pulcheria asked him.

John admitted he had not given it much thought.

Pulcheria nodded wisely. “You won’t last long here, I’m afraid. I’ve been watching you. This is all a mystery to you, isn’t it?”

John shrugged uneasily, unaware that he had been observed.

“Oh, I’ve seen the way you’ve been peering about,” she went on. “I may not know who you are, but I do know you aren’t telling the truth. In my line of work my clients lie to me as a matter of course. After a while you get a sense for it.”

“I assure you…”

“Don’t think you can fool a whore! I see you doubt me? Oh, I was pretty enough once, until a customer threw a lamp full of burning oil in my face. As if it was my fault he was too drunk to take what he’d paid for.” She sighed heavily. “But then, it’s always the innocent that suffer.”

John agreed with the sentiment, adding that he was sorry to hear her sad tale.

“Are you?” Her tone was doubtful. “And have you also suffered, my soft-hearted friend?”

“Not all of us are ready to blurt out our lives to the first stranger we meet, Pulcheria,” he said. “But I will admit, as you so rightly say, that this new life is a mystery to me. I fear I may have won myself only the freedom to starve to death, if I don’t freeze first.”

“And here I thought to earn myself a crust from such a fine-looking gentleman. Perhaps, I thought to myself, perhaps he stole the master’s purse as well as his clothes. That’s what I’d hoped.” Her face brightened. “However, if you’re interested, I can turn my poor face away or present myself from whatever angle appeals to you the most. Whatever you choose will be nothing new to me.”

“I regret I am not able to take advantage of your offer,” John replied gently.

The human side of Pulcheria’s face frowned. “If your purse is truly empty then I must find myself another lover, it seems. Still, I like to think of myself as a kind person, so before I do I’ll tell you a few things you need to know. They might allow you to live long enough to earn a nummus or two and then you will remember Pulcheria kindly and perhaps pay me a visit. I am usually to be found here. Now, pay attention.”

She pointed toward the fish seller who had unknowingly tormented John with the enticing smell of grilling fish.

“Now there’s a mean bastard,” the woman advised. “Packs up all his scraps and takes them away with him every night. Nothing tossed away that we could eat, no, not even the gulls can get so much as a fish head from him. No chance of stealing one, either. He watches those miserable fish of his like a patriarch admiring an actress. We call him the Guardian of the Fish.”

John listened intently as she went on to praise the charitable character of a fruit seller whose stall was a few paces beyond the parsimonious seller of Neptune’s bounty.

“That man now, he’ll occasionally drop a fig or an apricot or some such and he never bothers to pick them up. Doesn’t seem to mind if anyone else does, either, you can just go over there and get them as bold as you please. A good man.”

John allowed himself to be led around her world. It was one that revolved around the stylite’s pillar. Joseph was the sun and rain from which all those living near or in the forum gained their sustenance-not only the beggars but also the shopkeepers and artisans whose shops edged the open space. Although their establishments were shuttered today they had prospered thanks to pilgrims’ purchases augmenting those of their city-dwelling customers.

“And as for me, travelers have the same needs as anyone else,” Pulcheria concluded, “especially after their long, lonely journeys.”

Having completed their tour, they were now sitting in the shady portico of what had originally been a civic building that was now, she said, reduced to functioning as a warehouse for an importer of wool. From her colorful motley of garments, she produced a scrap of sacking that unrolled to reveal a few shriveled bits of unidentifiable dried fruit. They shared the simple repast, John accepting her generosity gratefully. The three-legged cat he had seen earlier suddenly reappeared. It disdainfully rejected the scrap of mummified fruit Pulcheria offered but accepted a pat on its scabby head before limping rapidly away about its business.

“We call it Tripod,” Pulcheria said with a fond smile. “And there’s our Angel.” She pointed to a shaggy-headed boy darting across the forum to the pillar.

At first glance John thought the boy was about to attack the pilgrims gathered there but then saw that it was a flute rather than a stick the lad was brandishing.

“This tune was composed by Emperor Justinian himself,” the boy announced in a piercing voice. He commenced blowing out a melody that to some may have sounded akin to the noises made by a cat being strangled but also bore some faint resemblance to the melancholy dirge Peter often hummed as he went about his work.

John listened uneasily to the boy’s playing, his discomfort partially brought about by the raucous squealing of the instrument but stemming as much from the realization that the last time he had heard a flute, it had been at Senator Aurelius’ banquet and violent death had soon followed.

A man leaving the forum stopped to speak as he drew level with them.

“Good people, it is truly a wonder to find oneself in a city of such holiness that even unwashed urchins in the streets praise heaven with hymns written by the emperor.”

After he had departed, Pulcheria observed it was a pity he had not acknowledged such an amazing event by tossing the boy a coin before he went on his way.

This reminded the woman that certain beggars took advantage of pilgrims’ generosity. For example, there was the man called the Captain, an ancient with only one leg who spent his days perched in a wall niche next to the entrance of the workshop of a seller of leather goods. His cozy alcove had doubtless once held a mute marble likeness of some notable or other but its newest occupant declaimed long-winded accounts of his military service in the Arabian desert to any passersby he could persuade to listen. His concluding remarks always stressed that it was out there in the barbaric wilderness that he had lost his leg, thus leading to his current struggle to support a large family on a small pension. His audience was inevitably generous in their contributions towards defraying the ex-soldier’s expenses.

John was about to comment on the man’s sacrifice for the empire when Pulcheria revealed that in fact the Captain had never set foot in Arabia but rather had lost his leg as the result of a knife wound that mortified.

“He was lucky he didn’t lose his life,” she sniffed, “and luckier still he didn’t discover from bitter experience that if he’d had the girl he was fighting over she would have given him a very nasty gift he wouldn’t want to take home with him. He’s the happiest of her suitors, the one who lost the argument. Of course, he will never admit that. It’s a gripping tale he spins, though. He does well enough for sitting around all day doing nothing.”

John said he admired the Captain’s ingenuity.

“That’s right, excellency, you do have to have a good story,” Pulcheria replied.

Pulling a piece of the tattered material swathing her body over the unburned side of her face, she turned the milky orb of her injured eye toward John and continued his instruction.

“But it has to be something different,” she said. “Every other beggar these days claims to be a widow or an orphan or some worker crippled in a terrible accident and thrown out on the street with his wife about to produce a child, to boot.” She paused, coughed throatily and then gave a piteous moan before saying in a wheedling tone, “Oh, master, spare a copper for a poor blind lady who never did nobody no harm.”

John admitted she certainly gave a convincing performance.

“It would be easy living, don’t you think?” she said, rearranging her tatters. “But I prefer to give something in return for payment.”

“Beggars do provide pilgrims a chance to demonstrate their charity, do they not?” John observed thoughtfully.

“Are you considering taking up begging, then? Or will you follow a lower occupation?”

John, puzzled, asked her what she had in mind.

“Thieving,” Pulcheria informed him matter of factly, but only after some prompting would she elaborate. Of those thieves with whom she admitted personal acquaintance most stole from merchants who were thought well able to afford it, while one or two concentrated on pilgrims. “At least thieving does require skill,” she conceded. “But a fine man like yourself, you can do better.”

“You say there are those who prey on pilgrims?”

Pulcheria had been keeping her good side toward John but now she turned her full face toward him. Her sightless eye stared without expression as her good one narrowed suspiciously. “Even thieves have a right to make a living. You aren’t here to bring harm to us, are you?”

“No,” John reassured her. “On that you have my word.”

“I believe you, even though I know you’re lying about something. Still, since you ask, yes, there are some. Remember, many of these travel-begrimed folk are wealthy men despite the humble guise they adopt for their journeys. And wisely so, I would say. Now, mind, I’ve never actually seen anyone robbed at knifepoint hereabouts, although I’m sure it happens in less pleasant parts of the city. But even so, since pilgrims aren’t likely to stay in Constantinople very long, the Prefect tends not to take much interest in catching those that rob them. Not but what there’s a few innkeepers we could mention that do the same-but they do it with a smile and a flourish and an overcooked meal they sell at twice what it’s worth. After all, what do travelers know of a strange city?”

“If thieves aren’t caught, they’d probably do quite well, wouldn’t they?” John remarked.

The woman cackled hoarsely, apparently amused at the idea of this lean stranger as an apprentice thief. “Some might. You’re a bit too conspicuous, though. You don’t blend in with the crowd, excellency. But then, I must say, I do like a tall man.” She put her hand on his arm, her multicolored wrappings brushing the sleeve of his torn tunic.

John ignored the familiarity. “Do you have any more advice for me, Pulcheria? For I fear I must leave soon.”

The pretty half of her mouth formed a pout. The effect was quite horrible. “Well, if you’d been here a few days ago you could have asked the Basket Man. He knew how to steal when people were distracted, he could whip the pouch right off your belt while you were listening to Joseph, so he could. You need a lot of people around you if you’re up to no good, that’s what he’d tell you. He was always quite honest about thieving.”

John asked how the man had received such a curious nickname.

“The Basket Man? He was one of them that used to steal from the offerings always being sent up to the Crow.”

“The Crow?”

Pulcheria gestured up at the stylite’s column. “That squawking bird of ill omen perched up there. But he didn’t actually steal from Joseph. He stole from those leeches who call themselves acolytes. Keep your eye open, like I do, and you’ll soon see that most of the offerings the faithful put in the basket for Joseph never reach him. To be fair, the Crow couldn’t keep the smallest portion of all the gifts he gets. It would take a miracle to find room for them all up there and miracles, as you’ve doubtless already gathered, are not in common supply around here.”

“You said this Basket Man used to steal. He’s stopped?”

“Oh, yes. Forever.”

Pulcheria’s expression was grim. John realized she must have been very fond of the rogue.

“He died, excellency,” she continued. “Died in a horrible way. He never liked cold. It got into his bones, he’d say. He got hold of this lamp, and we won’t inquire too closely how he did. Not that a little lamp flame is going to keep you warm in a windy alley on a freezing night, it was more the idea of warmth, you know? Something to warm his hands at or to see what he was eating if he’d managed to get a scrap of food from somewhere. Well, he dozed off, knocked the lamp over or something like that. Who knows? Anyhow, he set fire to himself.” She wiped her tear-filled eyes quickly with the back of her hand.

John was thinking of the body Philo had discovered. Could it have been the man of whom Pulcheria was speaking? It was worth asking. “He died near here?”

Pulcheria nodded. “Only a few days ago. Such a shame, it was. He’d just got a nice warm tunic as well. Why, he thought that heaven had smiled on him at last.”

“A tunic stolen from Joseph’s basket?”

The woman rushed to the dead man’s defense. “The Crow doesn’t need any more. He gets enough given to him in a week to wear a different tunic every day and three on feast days. Hang around here long enough and you’ll realize that quick enough.”

Apparently Joseph was one of those rare stylites who did not wear clothing until it rotted and fell off him, John thought. “Your friend, did he die on the night those stylites burned to death?”

Pulcheria scowled. “Those stylites were struck down by the hand of God, everybody knows that. You aren’t saying that he died just for stealing, are you? He was just trying to survive as best he could, like all of us.”

Glancing sideways at her, John saw the opaque orb of her blind eye welling with fresh tears that flowed down the reddened, melted flesh that had once been a rounded cheek, matching the shiny tracks meandering from the lowered eyelid of her good eye.

It was already after dark as Hypatia, carrying a heavy basket, made her way through the excited crowds lining the high sea wall along Constantinople’s northern shore. According to the wild rumor swirling in the streets, this was where Michael’s promised fire would consume the waters.

The Egyptian gardener often shopped here, having found that the daily market in front of the Baths of Actaeon was unusually well stocked with those herbs she could not grow but needed for cooking or for preparing potions for Gaius. And she enjoyed the view, a spectacular panorama sweeping from near the tip of the seven-hilled peninsula on which Constantine had built his capital to the junction of the Bosporos and the Golden Horn.

Her tawny, dark-eyed face with its frame of black hair attracted bold stares from men passing by. Of course, no respectable Roman woman would be seen in the streets unaccompanied during the day, let alone at night, but the young woman cared little for the customs of a city that was foreign to her. Now, however, she almost regretted succumbing to her curiosity. Perhaps she would have been wiser to go home after her customary haggling with various sellers of this and that. Instead she had lingered until after night fell, curious to see if the event the hawkers of herbs and vendors of vegetables and chickens were all talking about would actually come to pass, if the water really would be set afire.

She shifted her grip on the basket. Two large cabbages, several shiny green apples and small bundles of herbs made it heavier than usual, but she felt some satisfaction in having completed her marketing by beating the herb seller down to a more acceptable price for the fennel she’d purchased for Gaius, who lately seemed to be treating a higher than usual number of patients suffering from gastric disturbances.

She found the men’s appraising looks less disturbing than the scraps of conversation overheard as she strolled around the crowded market. The beggars limping through the throng, the gossips sitting on the worn stone steps of the baths or clustered along the sea wall, all had their opinions and did not hesitate to voice them.

Yes, surely the cowardly villains who had ambushed those peaceful pilgrims would also be smitten down, a purveyor of onions was informing his customer as Hypatia passed by. And punishment would not stop at boiling away the waters was the considered opinion of his neighbor, shouted across a fine array of ducks whose limp feet dangled pathetically over the end of his rickety wooden table. It would consume the entire city and everyone in it, chimed in the maker of lamps, who went on at some length, claiming himself to be more an expert on fire by virtue of his trade than sellers of ducks or onions.

A dandy sporting the long hair of a Blue, his finely worked leather belt displaying a conspicuous blade, padded past Hypatia, addressing his equally fashionable companion loudly. “If those treacherous demons in the Great Palace are still alive when the sun rises tomorrow,” he declared, “we shall just have to see to the matter ourselves.”

His companion gave a laugh that was more of a snarl as he roughly pushed aside a beggar who had had the temerity to appeal to their charity. The elegant pair swaggered away, laughing.

The man’s mention of the palace reminded Hypatia of the question John had recently posed to her. Would she wish to come to live at his house to assist her old friend Peter? On a temporary basis, of course. But then, she wondered, could a Lord Chamberlain’s offer be regarded as anything other than an order?

She did not want to leave her work among the fragrant groves, the lush flower beds and shaded walkways of the imperial gardens, but winter was almost upon them and then there would be less work for her to do anyway. And if her stay was to be only until Peter regained his usual health, then she would doubtless be back at her accustomed job before it was time to begin the spring plantings.

But there was also the question of the potions she had agreed to supply to Gaius. Peter would not appreciate such concoctions bubbling in his kitchen, that she knew. Not to mention his detestation of anyone else being present while he cooked. If she accepted the temporary job, she would need all her diplomacy and tact. Still, Peter was not well and they had been friends for quite some time.

Someone bumped roughly against her.

The man was saying “Pardon, lady,” even as his hand was slipping, like that of a stealthy lover, along her belt. Hypatia sank her fingernails into his wrist.

“I’m not stupid enough to carry my purse at my waist,” she snapped, infuriated at his gall. “Shall we go and find the Prefect to discuss the matter?”

The young man pulled his hand away. He had the straw blonde hair and pale skin of one from the northern part of the empire. “I should think he’d have better things to do right now,” he said quickly. “A beautiful woman like you shouldn’t be out on the street by yourself, you know. It isn’t safe.” He rubbed his wounded wrist, looking at her reproachfully.

“And I suppose you were seeking payment in advance for acting as my bodyguard?”

“I didn’t intend to rob you,” the man denied half-heartedly. “But as for being your bodyguard-well, I wouldn’t require even half a nummus to accompany a lady such as yourself. Though I might accept an apple, for the temporary rental of my blade just in case it’s needed.”

Hypatia laughed and handed him an apple. “You are hired, then. What is your name, in case I have to scream for help?”

The man looked down at the fruit in his hand. “My parents, as good Christians, gave me a good Christian name,” he said, hesitantly. “It’s Michael.”

Hypatia managed to keep a straight face. “Well then, I shall feel very safe indeed with you guarding me. Now, help me find a good place to look over the sea,” she said. “If the world is indeed going to end I want a good view of its departure.”

Her new companion did not seem particularly adept at clearing her way, but the stares she attracted, with a man at her side, did not linger as long. When they reached the sea wall she leaned against it, admiring the view afresh. It looked very different from the one she had seen so often in daylight.

The breeze blowing gently on her face carried a hint of coolness and the sharp smell of the sea. Below, dozens of torches burned along the docks. Their twins on the ships riding at anchor were doubled in the black mirror of the water. Further away, the scattered lights marking other ships floated star-like in a dark void. A cluster to the northwest, glittering like the empress’ jeweled mantle, marked inhabited areas lying peaceful and unknowing across the Golden Horn.

“It’s like looking downwards into the night sky on a cold desert night,” Hypatia remarked appreciatively. “Yet the god Ra himself never glimpses such a sight.”

Her companion took a quick bite from his apple. “I would have thought that a god could see whatever he liked,” he observed, chewing the crisp flesh of the fruit.

“True enough, but you see, each night Ra is guiding the sun’s barque through the underworld. So he does not see the stars.”

“I wonder if these are the last stars I will see, if this apple will be the last I ever taste?” It was obvious from his tone that he did not believe there would be anything worth seeing, at least of a supernatural nature, no matter how long they lingered at the sea wall. “But there again, water doesn’t burn, so we should be quite safe.” He took another crunching bite of his apple.

Hypatia leaned further out over the wall, enjoying the freshening breeze. As they both fell silent, she became aware of the press of the crowd behind them, the acrid tang of fear in the air, their tense voices.

Her companion finished his apple and tossed the core over the sea wall.

The fiery hand of God descended to the waters.

There was a brilliant flash that hurt their eyes, followed by a line of crackling, leaping flames, snaking out of the mouth of the Bosporos and into the Golden Horn. A spitting, fizzling roar, the sound of a jug of water thrown onto a hot brazier, accompanied it but so loud that it echoed back off the dome of heaven.

The fire leapt greedily upwards, taller than the height of two men. Ships floating at anchor and the cluttered docks at which they rode were suddenly alive with running figures starkly illuminated by the advancing wall of flames.

The roar of the approaching conflagration formed a terrible duet with the screams from the crowd and the men below.

Heat slapped Hypatia’s face. She blinked, her eyes dazzled. Steam gouted from the water, swirling in wild, hellish shapes as if a demon army were pouring up out of the underworld. Ships caught fire as the inferno spread its deadly tendrils along the shoreline. A sail burst into flames, ripped loose from its blazing mast and came spinning upward, a wayward spark in the maelstrom.

A choking cloud of thick smoke rolled into their faces, mercifully obscuring the carnage below, but the screaming could still be heard.

A man pushed by them and climbed onto the sea wall.

“Look,” he screamed. “It’s coming for us. It’s coming for us!”

He flung himself over the edge, his thin wail trailing away as he disappeared into the fiery hell below.

Behind them the crowd was running, screaming, pushing to get away. Belatedly aware of her dangerous position, Hypatia struggled to move back from the sea wall before she fell or was pushed over it. A heavyset man knocked her sideways as he fled. She went down to her knees, dropping her basket. Another man kicked her back down as she struggled to get up, shouting obscenities at her. She screamed, afraid she would be trampled in the general panic.

A muscular hand latched firmly onto one wrist and she was pulled upright, sobbing.

“When you get home tonight, lady,” her blonde bodyguard informed her, shouting to be heard above the noise of the panicked crowd, “tell your family that your life was saved at the cost of but one apple. I think they’ll agree that a better bargain could not be found in the entire city.”