Two for Joy

Chapter Twenty-seven

Dressed in elegant clothing, Peter stood on the grassy space in front of the shrine of St.

Michael, speaking with a similarly well-dressed pilgrim.

“Sarcerdus Rufus?” the man said, in response to Peter’s inquiry. “His wealth is exceeded only by his piety. He followed Michael from a distant land. In fact, it’s well known that Michael began his preaching on Sarcerdus’ very doorstep.”

Peter nodded thoughtfully and forced himself to stand upright, burdened as he felt by the unaccustomed weight of his embroidered robe.

The past hours had resembled a strange dream. First, he had fled Constantinople with his master. Then they had inexplicably disembarked from the ship taking them to safety and walked south alongside the Bosporos, back to the shrine. And finally John had insisted his servant pose as a wealthy pilgrim. At least this latter strangeness explained John’s sudden and final puzzling instruction to add a fine garment in the small bundle of clothing carried with them when they left the city.

As his master had explained it, since he had been to the shrine in his official capacity on two very public recent visits, it was entirely possible that he might be recognized if he tried to question pilgrims or acolytes himself. And it was necessary that they find out as much as possible about Michael-especially about his origins.

Peter had ventured the opinion that everyone in Constantinople knew about Michael. After all, everyone in the city had talked about nobody else for days.

“Perhaps we only think we know about him and his followers,” John had remarked, going on to tell Peter about Philo’s cryptic message.

The servant was appalled. Why would his master risk his life because of some nonsensical letter? It was just as likely to have been some odd game the man had been playing, like the one with the board and carved pieces.

But Peter, always dutiful, had done his best, not that it had taken much craft to learn about Sarcerdus Rufus.

Peter, or rather the pilgrim he was supposed to be, had traveled a long way to pay his respects? Well, hadn’t he heard Sarcerdus Rufus had traveled even further? Was Peter prepared to pour a stream of silver out for Michael’s charitable works? Praiseworthy indeed, but everyone knew Sarcerdus Rufus had pledged a river of gold.

As to where this paragon of far traveling and generous virtue was to be found, Sarcerdus Rufus was staying with the acolytes and a number of pilgrims at a nearby villa.

Unfortunately, John now insisted Peter must interview Sarcerdus Rufus. Fortunately, the villa was not far down the road.

The villa’s gate was guarded by a group of burly men who, Peter thought, did not look much like acolytes. The man who stepped forward to block his path had certainly not received the scar bisecting his face from poring over scripture.

The man studied Peter, a well-dressed elderly man looking very fatigued. His tall, stooped attendant-his servant, Peter explained upon requesting admittance-stood a pace or two behind, intently studying the stony ground.

“You aren’t likely to be granted an audience with Michael very soon,” the guard warned Peter.

“Indeed that is not surprising, but I was advised I should bring my offering here for safekeeping,” he replied. “Perhaps I might entrust a small portion of it to you immediately?”

“We do have procedures, of course,” acknowledged the guard as his hand, missing two fingers, rose toward the glint of the follis Peter offered. No doubt everyone knew that Sarcerdus Rufus had given a larger bribe, but to Peter’s relief the guard didn’t mention this fact and simply stood aside.

“You are welcome here, good sirs,” he said, waving them into the villa grounds.

Stepping through the arched gateway, Peter found himself surprised by the expanse of the gardens surrounding the dwelling. Even a cursory glance around revealed a guest house, stables, and outbuildings, all solidly built of cream colored stone and roofed with red tiles and set amidst decorative groves and fountains.

The Michaelite presence was obvious from numerous groups of people conversing as they strolled around. As Peter and John drifted among them, they passed by a fountain with a basin a woman was using to wash clothing. A ragged tunic hung drying over the shoulders of the fountain’s verdigrised statue of Neptune. Rivulets of water flowed in endless streams from the conch shells held by the god’s attendants.

Here and there children played outside small tents pitched beside decorative ponds. It was a peaceful scene.

The third pilgrim they consulted nodded enthusiastically and gestured toward a small building amid a stand of oak trees.

“He’ll be at the baths,” he said. “You can’t mistake him.”

When he entered the building’s caldarium Peter saw what the pilgrim had meant. Sitting in lonely majesty in the pool, Sarcerdus Rufus was the leanest man Peter had ever seen. His appearance was not improved by a head that had been shaved in the style favored by the pilgrims. His body was as hairless as a cod fish. He looked, Peter thought, like a skeleton, an animated saint’s relic.

Peter greeted the man and then trotted out the story he and John had concocted. He could sense his master standing silently behind him. It was discomfiting to be taking his place, playing his role in life. The whole venture was madness, he told himself.

“Of course, I’m always glad to tell my tale to a fellow pilgrim. Please feel free to join me. And perhaps your servant could bring refreshments?” Peter was startled by the booming voice that echoed like thunder around the marble chamber. How could an emaciated husk produce such an enormous noise?

Peter turned toward John, unsure whether he would be able to feign ordering him to carry out such a task, but his master was already slinking off in a most embarrassingly cringing manner. John was a much better actor than he could ever be, Peter thought.

In short time, Peter had stripped and lowered himself gingerly into the small pool. He was happy enough to bathe. Hesitantly he asked concerning the stories he had heard about the man sitting opposite him.

“Yes, yes, they are all true.” Sarcerdus nodded vigorously and leaned forward, causing hot water to slop in waves against Peter’s chest. “I journeyed here from very far off, from beyond the eastern end of the Euxine Sea. Months it took, and it’ll take months to soak off the dust of the journey.” He rubbed a finger along the bridge of his nose, which was as prominent as that of a shriveled Egyptian mummy. “But such is the lot of the pilgrim. Now, what business did you say you were in, Peter?”

“I provisioned the emperor’s armies.” And so he had, he thought, reminding himself of the years he had spent as a camp cook.

“Ah, of course, of course. Then you will be quite a wealthy man?”

“I fear I cannot match Sarcerdus Rufus in that regard, by all I have heard,” Peter replied truthfully enough.

The other man laughed much too loudly. “Nor do you need to, my friend, unless you are among those who feel any price is justified if it guarantees deliverance from the evil place!”

“But surely a devout person like yourself need not fear such a destination?” Peter did not have to mimic surprise.

“I wasn’t thinking of going there, but rather of deliverance from it. It may shock you to hear that, in fact, I have spent most of my life amidst the very fires of Hell.”

Peter expressed astonishment.

Sarcerdus smiled with delight at the prospect of telling his story once again. “Have you ever journeyed beyond Lazica, into the border regions?” he began. “A rhetorical question, I suppose, for few do. It’s an area always in upheaval and it’s such a long trip from anywhere civilized that the traveler can’t be certain whether he’ll arrive at his destination to find it an outpost of the empire or a recently annexed part of Persia.”

He splashed some of the seething water onto his face and rubbed vigorously at his nose.

“Now, I’m a Roman myself,” he went on. “My ancestors were captured by Shapur along with Emperor Valerian. I’m quite certain I am related to the latter, by the way, but that’s another story. Anyhow, my family settled out there. Our neighbors were happy enough to let us practice our own religion and we were even happier to make a few nomismata off them.”

Peter nodded wordlessly, trying to give the impression of being a man of the world and thus fully conversant with such situations.

“At any rate, since you haven’t been to those parts,” Sarcerdus Rufus went on, “I shall describe the area. I wish you could see it! There are places there where fire has burned endlessly throughout all of human memory. Mountains that smolder and give off a sulfurous stench like the pits of Hell. You would not dare set foot on them for the blistering heat, Peter, even if you had been brave enough to venture past the lakes of burning pitch boiling and bubbling at their feet.”

It was certainly easy to imagine such a place, sitting half submerged in the bath’s steaming cauldron. Peter wondered if someone had stoked the hypocaust too high.

“You can see the fires towering at night from many parasangs away,” his companion was saying. “You could read scripture by their infernal glow, provided you could keep it from bursting into flames first. I tell you, Peter, this place is so renowned that men go there to study its terrible qualities. Why, there are not only several sorts of pitch that burn but the very stones themselves are ablaze.”

“And Michael first began his ministry there, I hear?” put in Peter, who guessed the storyteller could spin out his tour of the nether regions for a long time if he was allowed to do so.

“Yes, indeed. It was on my land that he first gained prominence, and it was there also that I nearly forfeited my soul.”

Peter observed that he could scarcely believe such a thing.

“Why do you think I am here? To make amends, of course! To earn forgiveness!” Sarcerdus’ voice grew louder. Grape-like drops of sweat trembled, broke and rolled down the thin inclines of his face. “For when he first appeared, I ordered my servants to drive him away!” He slapped at the water as if it had offended him, sending more waves crashing around Peter.

“No! Impossible!” the latter exclaimed.

“But it was so, for I was blind, my friend. To be fair now, what did you think yourself, when you first heard rumors of his teachings, at the senate house perhaps or during one of the emperor’s banquets?”

“Well…”

“Exactly my point, Peter. But then you listened to his words and finally understood what he was saying.”

“That is true enough. I understood.”

“I was one who did not listen at first.” Sarcerdus ran a thin hand over the bald dome of his head as he stared up into the swirling steam gathering in the rafters above them.

“I own a great deal of land, Peter,” he went on. “There’s nothing I don’t grow or raise. Wheat, fruit, goats, cattle, but most of all I favor vineyards. One morning some time ago, one of my servants came riding up to the house to sound the alarm. ‘Master,’ he told me, ‘You must come at once, for we are being invaded.’”

“How terrible!”

“Oh, it isn’t unusual to be invaded where I lived. Sometimes it’s Persians, the next time it will be Romans and, if I recall aright, this particular time it was due to be Persians since there had been a Roman tax collector around the previous year, that being the usual way we know who is pretending to be in charge of the area. Aside from seeing who has the most soldiers out on the roads, of course. So I said to my man, ‘Get the wagon and I will take a tribute.’ As a man of the world, you’ll understand that’s what we call a bribe. They stop these minor skirmishes from escalating into invasions causing real damage. But he said, ‘No. It’s not that kind of invasion.’ I was intrigued, as anyone would be.”

He paused for a moment and Peter, genuinely entranced by the man’s story despite its length, urged him to complete the telling of it.

“As it happened, I had guests at the time,” Sarcerdus Rufus obligingly continued. “After my wife died, I enjoyed offering travelers hospitality for it made my house seem less lonely. I reveled in tales of far off places and was eager to have my ears filled with exotic stories. These particular guests had journeyed out to see the fires. Nothing unusual in that, for as I told you, the area is famous for it. They repaid my hospitality with some fine codices for my library, by the way. Codices are priceless, as I’m sure you’ll agree.”

Peter confirmed that he did. “And were your guests as curious as I about these invaders who were not invading?” he asked, trying valiantly to keep Sarcerdus to the point of his story.

“Indeed they were. So we all rode out to my finest vineyard. Did I mention that I breed the finest horses in the region?”

Peter had no chance to reply as Sarcerdus charged ahead. “Anyway, this vineyard sits on a hillside and for as long as anyone can recall there’s been a ruined temple there. It was built next to a fissure where a flame always burns, which is why I myself am of the opinion the building originally honored Zoroaster or some such fire deity. It looks picturesque enough and the only problem it causes is its attraction to amorous couples. That’s understandable enough, though, what with the spectacular view and the shelter it affords, especially on cold nights.”

“We were all young once,” Peter said with a wry smile.

“Indeed we were, indeed we were. But to get back to what I was saying, I could tell you much about Zorastrianism and many other such things besides. You might be surprised at my knowledge of pagan sects, but I was steeped in evil, Peter. I warmed my hands at those infernal fires. I immersed myself in the words of demons and alchemists and pagan writers. I shudder to think of it now.”

“This would be about the time when Michael arrived?” Peter interrupted, wiping sweat from his face. His sparse gray hair clung to his head like honey to a spoon and he had a sinking suspicion that Sarcerdus was about to embark on another rambling digression.

“What? Oh, yes, you have guessed it! There he was, standing beside the temple and addressing a small band of followers and, although he was offering the truth as I later came to realize, all I could see at the time were my trampled grapevines.”

Sarcerdus shook his head as if he couldn’t believe his own folly.

“But I did notice the flame that had issued ceaselessly from the rock for all those years flickered out while he spoke,” Sarcerdus said, “just as he was telling his followers that it was by fire that he would be known. And a wonder it was, too, because as he preached, the fire resumed burning of its own accord. I saw that with my own eyes!”

“So what did you do?” Peter prompted, hoping to hear the end of this remarkable account before he was cooked to the bone.

“I didn’t want to wait for the authorities to act since it would take too long and so, and I am ashamed to tell you this, I armed my workers and they drove Michael and his followers away. They were easily dispersed. He didn’t have as many as he has now, you see.”

“Yet today here you are, a follower yourself.”

“A wonder, is it not? And how it came about was this way. The following year stories began to drift back to me about a remarkable holy man who was moving west, driving the godless back like sand before the desert winds. I have business contacts in every corner of the empire, did I mention that? Well, I suddenly realized that the stories I was hearing spoke of the very man I had driven from my land.”

Peter murmured some commonplace words of comfort.

“Ah,” Sarcerdus said cheerfully, “but when you stop to think of it, Michael would not be about to enter Constantinople in triumph had I not forced him to flee my vineyard and take his message west. I was very humbled when I realized that I had served to set his feet on the journey.”

“There has never been one so humble as Sarcerdus Rufus, as so many have said,” Peter pointed out.

Sarcerdus laughed heartily, raising another tempest in the pool. It was the stormiest bath Peter had ever sat in, except for one occasion when he had arranged a tryst in a similar private bath behind his then owner’s house. But that had been a long time ago. Just the day before he had been sold into what became his military career, in fact.

“I thank you for relating your story so graciously,” he said, beginning to get to his feet. He lurched sideways. Both legs had fallen asleep. Sarcerdus reached over and grabbed Peter’s arm, steadying and detaining him at the same time.

“But don’t run off just yet, Peter,” he said persuasively. “I have not even begun to illuminate for you the stygian depths of the unrepeatable sins from which Michael has saved me.”

After Peter’s lengthy immersion in steaming water, the warm sunlight felt chilly against his puckered skin as he sat next to John on a stone bench beside a tree-lined path looping behind the villa.

“If someone had poured honey or a good sauce into that bath water I’d be ready for the platter,” he complained, shivering.

He had recounted his conversation to John and now his master’s careful questioning was growing as wearisome as Sarcerdus’ convoluted digressions.

“He would insist on telling me all about numerous of his guests, master. He must really have hungered for civilization out there, however blasphemous its trappings. I gather that most of his visitors thanked him for his hospitality with valuable gifts. Which guests in particular is it you’re asking about? The demon-worshipping traders from India, was it?”

“I mean the men who were visiting when Michael was driven away, Peter. I would like to know more about them, if you can recollect anything else.”

“The ones who had come to gape at Satan’s fires, as my wealthy friend might put it? He didn’t really say too much about them, except that despite his story rambling all over the landscape I got the impression they left shortly after Michael departed. They hadn’t stayed long. Sarcerdus mentioned that he was upset at the time. He’d been enjoying the conversations they had been having and he thinks that business with Michael frightened them away. Or perhaps it had been their turn to get a word into the discourse with him and they could not? Or possibly I’m thinking of the travelers from Arabia who…”

John raised a warning hand at the sound of approaching voices. Two pilgrims deep in animated discussion went by without sparing a glance at the pair sitting on the bench.

“Shaving the head and talking must be the basic sacraments of this new faith,” Peter remarked when they had passed. “But truly, master, I have told you everything I know, and then repeated the same knowledge to you three more times and in different ways.”

John nodded. “I believe you have, Peter. You did very well. Thank you.”

“Very well? I had to say a few things I will be asking forgiveness for tonight! But what did I learn? You already knew Michael came from east of Lazica.”

“I’m interested in the eternal fires out there, Peter. Those men who came to study them, the guests who traveled to that far place to see them. Did he happen to say where they had come from?”

Peter shook his head. “So far as I can see, master, we have learned only that Michael is exactly as he says,” he went on. “So I fear you have risked your life for nothing because of a senseless message composed by Philo, and who can say for what reason now that he is dead?”

“I am not so certain that Philo led me astray, Peter.” A new question occurred to John. “Do you have any idea when he composed that letter? Did you notice him at work on it?”

Peter had not.

John looked thoughtful. “I wonder if it could have been written while I was away those two days, pursuing my investigations?”

“To be honest, I did not seek him out when he was not intruding into my kitchen.”

“Did he go anywhere during that time?”

“He was always in and out of the house. Seeking possible employment, he said.”

“Nothing else?”

“Well, he claimed once to be on the way to the imperial library. I didn’t believe him, but when he came back he was spouting facts in a positive flood, trying to convince me I had not seen with my own eyes the divine fire in the sky.”

Peter paused, feeling lightheaded. He suspected he was beginning to ramble somewhat.

John asked him if he recalled anything else Philo had said at the time.

“Not much. He kept talking about elements. And there was also something he attributed to some historian, Livy, was it?”

John urged Peter to continue.

“The other thing I recall is that according to Philo, this historian described sacred lamps that apparently miraculously burst into flame when they got wet. In fact they were just a sham, a trick. I was offended because I took it as a sly way to say my religious beliefs are founded on a similar delusion.”

Peter rubbed his face. Strangely, the bench seemed to be moving, or perhaps it was the garden, beginning to rotate around the bench. “I don’t recall any more, master, and I fear that I really must lie down and rest now.”

John patted his servant’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Peter, I should not have pressed you so.”

But Peter was unable to reply. A dark fog gathered at the edge of his vision and suddenly he was falling forward into a pit as deep and black as Sarcerdus Rufus’ former sins.