Two for Joy

Chapter Twenty-nine

Had he not been exhausted from his journey Peter might have recognized the furious pounding as announcing not only visitors but also grave trouble.

As soon as the elderly servant slid back the bolt, the house door was kicked wide open, sending him staggering. An elbow to the chest knocked him down. Excubitors flooded in. The hall was suddenly filled with the slap of boots on tile, the smell of leather and oiled iron.

Half-dazed on the floor, Peter grabbed reflexively for the nearest ankle. There was a hoarse yell and a man fell heavily beside him. His victim’s sword clattered and slid away across the floor. Then Peter was being dragged to his feet, his arms twisted up behind his back. He was groggily aware of a blade moving toward his throat.

“Stop at once!”

The blade paused. Helmeted heads turned toward the unexpected sight of a stout middle-aged woman, standing at the base of the stairs, shaking the errant sword she’d just retrieved from the floor.

“Are these the orders Justinian is giving his excubitors now,” Isis continued in a withering tone, “to slaughter old men in their homes?”

A tall man with the feral look of a hawk stepped out of the ranks to face Isis. “The servant will be spared this time, lady. However, if there is any further interference you will have to seek compensation for his loss in the courts.”

Peter was shoved aside.

“And what does this unseemly invasion of a private house signify, captain?” Isis demanded.

“We are here to arrest John, former Lord Chamberlain to the Emperor Justinian.”

“Have you not heard? He is gone. Exiled.”

“We have information that he has come back to the city in direct defiance of the emperor’s orders,” the captain replied curtly. “Now, stand aside or…”

A hoarse roar interrupted the order. “You will leave this house immediately!”

“Captain?” The man looked away from Isis to Felix, who stood, swaying, at the top of the stairs. For an instant the excubitor looked as confused as he had been upon seeing the armed madam. But only for an instant.

“My apologies, captain,” he said quickly, “but these men are under my command and like you I am under the command of the Master of the Offices. Our orders are to arrest the Lord Chamberlain, believed to be in this house.”

“Some of you won’t live to see him arrested,” Isis promised grimly, raising the sword she was clutching in both hands. Its weight caused her arms to tremble with the effort.

“Don’t be foolish, Isis,” Felix admonished her. “You couldn’t manage to inflict a scratch on any of these men, even by accident.” He turned his attention back to the matter at hand. “Carry out your orders, then. But be certain you do so without damage to the house.”

The search was swiftly concluded, despite the size of the building. The servants’ quarters on the third floor, the second floor’s bedrooms, kitchen and study and the first floor storerooms, unused dining room and offices, even the garden they surrounded, yielded no-one else apart from an irate Hypatia.

“It seems your informant was incorrect,” Felix remarked sharply at the conclusion of the search. He had remained leaning on the wall at the top of the stairs, unable to step down any further. Peter had sat down on the bottom step, temporarily as incapable of climbing up as Felix was of walking down. The two of them were, Felix thought with grim amusement, pitiful excuses for fighting men.

“It seems the Lord Chamberlain has escaped this time, but the authorities are aware of his return and the streets are being searched,” the younger captain remarked before he and his men left. “He will not get very far.”

Some distance away, another armed detachment had almost reached its destination, although not swiftly enough for Hektor.

“Hurry up,” he urged them shrilly, “or he’ll escape. You hobble along like old women!”

Varus, who commanded this group of excubitors, glanced down at the boy loping along beside him, taking two quick steps for every stride taken by the marching soldiers. The man’s eyes narrowed. “You may be a favorite of the Master of the Offices, child, but you do not give me orders!”

“And who was it told the Master of the Offices that the Lord Chamberlain would be found at the senate house?” the boy sneered back.

Passersby stopped to gape, perhaps wondering what poor unfortunate was about to be struck down by the emperor’s lightning. Clearly these were men intent on extremely urgent imperial business, notwithstanding the garishly clothed creature flapping along beside them like some strange, exotic bird.

“What makes you think the Lord Chamberlain would be foolish enough to allow himself to be seen there?” Varus asked in return, intrigued despite himself.

“I caught him there once, plotting with that treacherous Senator Balbinus.” Hektor’s red-painted lips formed a knowing smile. “Who else can the eunuch go to for help now that he’s a hunted man? I watch and I listen. I know things. He’ll be there.”

They emerged into the Forum Constantine. The throng already gathered there drifted out of their path. The power of the emperor was something the general populace preferred to appreciate from a distance.

Despite his protestations at their slow pace, Hektor was beginning to grow breathless keeping up. His flushed face prickled uncomfortably under its layer of chalk. A few men stood by the door to the senate house, but he did not recognize John or Balbinus. Perhaps that was just as well, he thought. Yes, they could be confronted inside and then arrested in full view of all the senators. How humiliating that would be! And as for what would befall the pair once they were imprisoned…

Hektor was so engrossed contemplating this pleasing prospect that he almost overlooked the figure emerging from the senate house.

Lucretia? Senator Balbinus’ wife?

He had no time to speculate on why the woman would have come here. He’d spotted John.

Hektor yanked at Varus’ arm. “There he is, skulking by the colonnade, look, will you? The one next to the senate house!”

Varus ordered his company to halt and his hard gaze raked the spot Hektor indicated.

“Are you blind?” the boy shrieked. “He’s slouched down behind that group of Blues, trying to hide! You fool, now you’ve let him see you! He’s getting away!”

Varus pulled his arm roughly from Hektor’s grasp and shouted an order. The excubitors broke into a run. Slow or not, they crossed the expanse of the forum faster than Hektor. By the time the boy ducked into the columned arcade they were already half way down it, gaining rapidly on the fugitive.

Many of the merchants whose shops lined the back wall stepped outside to stare after the chase. Hektor had to fight his way through them. Even as he fell further behind he could see that the excubitors had nearly caught up with their quarry. But as that jubilant thought crossed Hektor’s mind, the prey suddenly darted to one side, as if to seek refuge in one of the shops. Instead, an amphora smashed on the colonnade’s marble floor, closely followed by the leading excubitor who crashed down, cursing, sliding in a pool of olive oil that was almost instantly suffused with a light rose tint. His bared sword had slashed open his leg.

And the Lord Chamberlain had vanished.

Hektor was first to understand.

A second row of shops sat directly above the first.

Hektor turned and ran back. Reaching the foot of the steep, wide stairway that allowed access to the upper row of businesses, he raced up, panting, his lungs burning. Echoing shouts from below announced that the excubitors had also discerned their quarry’s intent to escape by taking one of the staircases to the second story and doubling back above them.

As Hektor reached the top of the stairway, the hunted figure burst into view and turned, as if to run down the steps. Hektor leapt forward, unbalancing his prey and dragging it down to its knees.

He would kill the eunuch himself!

The sharp pain of wrenched muscles exploded in his shoulder as his intended victim jerked away from his grasp.

Hektor tore a bejeweled dagger from his belt and swung it wildly, shrieking curses. The blade met brief resistance and then penetrated deeply, sinking into yielding flesh as sweetly as cutting open an aromatic melon on a warm summer night.

Hands fastened about the boy’s throat. He tried to roll away from their grasp, dimly aware of fast approaching footsteps and shouting. Suddenly, shockingly, he was staring into a face.

A demon’s face!

A dead, milky orb glared at him from a pool of melted flesh.

Terror gave Hektor enough strength to break the grasp of the hands on his throat.

Then he was cowering against the stairway wall as an excubitor helped the demon to its feet.

It wasn’t a demon, Hektor realized, just some miserable beggar woman with one side of her face burnt away. He wished desperately that he had managed to kill her, but although she was weeping and clutching her bleeding shoulder she did not seem to be too badly hurt.

Before Varus could say anything, Hektor scrambled up and demanded of the woman what she was doing wearing the Lord Chamberlain’s cloak.

“Good sirs, I came by it honestly,” the woman protested, pulling her head covering back over the disfigured half of her face. “It was lent to me by a friend. He found it lying in the street.”

“Lying might indeed be the right word,” Varus replied curtly, “but I don’t care if it was stolen or not, since we’re not here to do the Prefect’s job. Go and get a poultice put on that wound.”

The woman wordlessly vanished down the steps.

Varus picked up Hektor’s dagger. The decorative weapon looked absurdly small in his big callused hand. He held it out to the boy, laughing.

“I suggest you get yourself a man’s weapon, child! And a new pair of eyes at the same time. That poor woman was nowhere near the Lord Chamberlain’s height.”

Hektor was realizing that Varus did not seem too perturbed at having caught a beggar rather than the fugitive eunuch. Further, it belatedly occurred to him that excubitor captains did not usually heed court pages’ advice. And when had Varus realized that the person wearing John’s cloak was too short? In his excitement, Hektor had missed that particular entirely. It would all require further rumination, but first he must guard against personally suffering repercussions from their lack of success in catching the man the excubitors had been ordered to apprehend.

“And I suggest you continue to seek the fugitive you were sent to arrest,” the boy snapped, snatching back his dagger and wiping it clean on his tunic, “for I promise you that if the eunuch escapes I will make certain that the Master of the Offices knows exactly who was responsible for letting him go free.”

John thanked Mithra that the company of excubitors had been directed with uncharacteristic confusion, for otherwise he would have departed from the senate house straight into captivity. Instead, taking advantage of the situation, he and his party had been able to slip unnoticed out of the forum through its nearest archway.

The journey to Saint Michael’s shrine had been less eventful but still hardly pleasant. John had apprised Lucretia of the necessity of speed and discretion in carrying out his plan and having agreed to assist, she did her part by going to the senate house to summon Balbinus out to join them. However, the couple had exchanged only the coldest and briefest of words upon meeting again, and during their ride had contrived to keep several mounted excubitors between them at all times-excubitors that did not arrest anyone but rather escorted them to the shrine, fully aware that following their captain exposed them to the severest punishments that Justinian could devise.

The only communication between the estranged man and wife had occurred after they had left the city and were riding along the shore of the Golden Horn. Balbinus had urged his mount forward in order to remark to John, loudly and pointedly, “You can see from the way my wife rides that she has committed to memory the wisdom of Xenophon on horsemanship. I of course am a villain of the worst sort imaginable, but a villain whose stables and library she would be happy to have at her disposal again, no doubt.”

Lucretia had immediately pointed out from the other side of John and just as loudly, “Speaking of which, let none of us forget that the first rule of horsemanship is never to approach the horse in anger.”

As he and his three companions crowded into Michael’s austere room, John noted afresh the occupant’s gaunt features, the eyes set like dark pools in a pale, serene face.

“Lord Chamberlain, welcome,” Michael said. “I have been wondering whether I would see you again. Can it be that you bring an invitation from the emperor? Is he ready to discuss certain matters in good faith?”

John ignored the question. “I have brought with me Senator Balbinus and his wife. I believe you will recognize her,” he said.

Michael’s gaze moved from Balbinus to Lucretia and paused there. “You are making a terrible mistake.” The words were spoken softly. Lucretia blushed and looked silently at the floor.

Balbinus glared at Michael, as if trying to ascertain what type of person this was whose hypnotic preaching had almost robbed him of his wife.

Darius shifted uneasily beside John. He had protested the Lord Chamberlain’s decision to bring only two excubitors into the shrine, unarmed at that, and even then to post them outside the small room.

“When we last met you immediately expressed your regrets at the death of Senator Aurelius,” John began without preamble. “I am wondering how you had come by this knowledge so quickly, being some distance from Constantinople.”

Michael shrugged. “I am visited every day by pilgrims from the city.”

“That may be so, but I believe word of Aurelius’ death arrived on the lips of one of your bloody-handed accomplices when he reported that your orders had been carried out.”

“Accomplices? My orders? What do you mean by this?” Michael’s gaze met John’s without wavering.

“It is my opinion that the person who murdered the senator is responsible for other deaths and, further, that all were carried out in your name,” John replied bluntly.

Michael looked grim. “So, Lord Chamberlain, it seems that you are not here to represent the emperor after all, for he would hardly send an emissary to accuse me of such evil deeds. Needless to say, I do not order murder to be committed.” He addressed Balbinus. “Then, senator, will you at least reveal the true purpose for this visit?”

“I agreed to be present as a witness,” Balbinus told him, “and only then because my wife urgently requested it. I do not know what it is I am to witness.”

John spoke again. Despite the rage in his eyes, he spoke in his normal level tone, rendering his words the more shocking.

“Then let me speak plainly,” he said. “It was you, Michael, who ordered the murder of those unfortunate stylites as well as the death of the girl Adula. Those first deaths you predicted in a letter to Justinian. The death of the girl, in the house of a wealthy citizen, you prophesied in a sermon you gave here on the very evening the deed was committed.”

“Is this true, Lucretia?” growled Balbinus.

She flushed with anger. “Why do you question me? I was not here on that particular evening!”

Michael shook his head wearily. “Does a prophet command the events he foretells? Of course not! Likewise, I but sounded the warning. It was the hand of God that smote those deluded stylites and a woman corrupted by the foulest of sins.” He traced the ritualistic sign that Peter often made but, John noticed, used all four fingers of his right hand to do so.

“I do not believe it was the hand of any deity,” John replied, noting by Darius’ expression and the rigid setting of his shoulders that he did not care for Michael’s characterization of Adula. “It was the very human hands of your accomplices, who soaked certain clothing in a mixture ignited by water. A heavy rain, for instance.”

“Is not a human hand animated by the Lord’s will His hand?” Michael asked, apparently heedless of the implied confession in the words.

“He must be very careless in the details then,” John said. “Your letter predicted four deaths, but only three stylites died. Joseph was spared, but that was only because the inflammable tunic placed in his offering basket was stolen by a beggar. And so it was he who burnt to death in an alley a stone’s throw away when drenched by the same storm that immolated the others. Was that beggar’s thieving hand also carrying out heavenly will?”

Michael abandoned the religious debate. “I repeat I am not a murderer, Lord Chamberlain. I am a healer. You yourself saw that I cured Senator Aurelius.”

“A coincidence, nothing more. You ordered him murdered also. Nor we should overlook another victim, a harmless old philosopher.”

A shadow seemed to pass across Michael’s pale features. “A philosopher?”

“A former tutor of mine, not one of those exiled philosophers whom you met in the east. They were traveling around, studying incendiary weapons, weren’t they, looking for a tool to take revenge on the emperor who had so badly wronged them.” John pressed the attack. “And is it not true that when they heard you preaching and more importantly saw the followers you were attracting they recognized in you another weapon just as powerful as fire, one that could be harnessed to it to wreak even more havoc?”

Balbinus, glancing from one to the other, looked astonished.

“I see by your expression you do not deny that part of it at least,” John went on. “That’s why Aurelius died, isn’t it? He taught at the Academy years ago and they were afraid he recognized them when we visited the shrine. Afraid their plan might be revealed before it could come to fruition.”

“We senators strongly counseled Justinian against letting those men return,” Balbinus broke in hotly. “He called them toothless old thinkers, as harmless as doves.”

“You are implying that I have been used, Lord Chamberlain?” Michael said sharply.

Balbinus gave a bitter laugh. “Isn’t it obvious? Of course you were. The philosophers were creating an opportunity for invasion. Who knows, perhaps they were even being paid to do so. What a sweet revenge that would have been!”

“The moment Justinian’s grip was loosened sufficiently Khosrow’s army would have been at the gates,” agreed John.

“I have never raised my hand against any man.” Michael’s spoke in little more than a whisper. “You accuse me of murder, yet I have never approached the walls of your accursed capital.”

“But at least one of your philosophers has been to the city every market day, visiting a house such as you say you intend to shutter,” John pointed out. “And I am willing to wager that while in Constantinople he also gathered information from Khosrow’s spies as well as dispensing further instructions to them, just as others had done throughout the years. Nor should we overlook the fact that such visits would afford the perfect opportunity to place fatal robes in offering baskets.”

“How could any of this possibly not have occurred to you?” Balbinus asked in an amazed tone.

“I am a simple person,” Michael replied, sounding suddenly tired.

Lucretia finally broke the ensuing silence. “John, these accomplices, these spies, whom do you suspect?”

He had no chance to answer.

With a sweeping blow of his huge arm, Darius leapt away from John’s side, knocking Balbinus out of his way. The senator shouted outraged protests, his dignity compromised more than his person injured.

The pair of unarmed excubitors on guard outside stepped uncertainly into the doorway. They had not expected a threat to come from this side.

“There’s no point attempting to flee,” John’s voice was tinged with sadness.

Darius paused for a moment to speak quickly in his native tongue. “I had to do it, John. It was for my family. Tell Isis I’m sorry.” Then he whirled around and bolted out of the room, knocking the unarmed guards aside.

John followed him into the nave as Balbinus lumbered behind, shouting “Stop him!”

But the sea of startled pilgrims had parted to allow passage for Darius, whose wild-eyed charge as he escaped through them resembled the bull to which he had so often been compared.

From behind him, John heard a woman’s screams.

Crouched in a dark corner of the cellar, heart hammering an anguished tattoo, Darius rummaged through the chest of clothing. From the nave above he could hear the excubitor captain shouting orders to his men to seek the Persian outside, his voice rising above the screams and cries of pain from roughly handled patients and pilgrims being shoved aside.

Would Michael’s followers manage to delay the pursuit long enough to allow him to make his escape? They owed him that much, at least, Darius thought wildly.

At last his hand found the unnaturally stiff fabric it sought. He yanked the garment out and threw it over his broad shoulders.

He had already left the waking world. Now as he burst out of the cellar, he moved through a dream landscape where white-robed acolytes fell away from him like wisps of mist.

The grassy field outside the shrine was the dry, sandy earth of his native Persia. The sounds that trailed him were not the shouts of imperial pursuit but the wailing lamentations of his poor family, the family he had failed, whom Khosrow would surely now order put to death, if he had not already done so.

Wavy hair streaming behind him, robe flapping, Darius ran madly along the embankment where the field sloped down to the dark waters of the Bosporos. As he fled he wept.

A momentary vision of Adula passed through his thoughts. What choice had he had? If only it had been one of the other girls who had worn the fateful robe he’d been given along with orders he had tried to refuse but, reminded of his family, could not…And all the years of spying, the deaths for which he was responsible, the lies he had choked on even as he told them, his terrible betrayal of Isis’ trust, in the end it had all been for nothing!

Breath laboring, he glanced back over his shoulder. The excubitors were gaining on him.

He stopped. He was a soldier as much as they. A soldier did not run away. His hands moved to discard the robe he wore. Then he remembered the justice Justinian meted out to spies unfortunate enough to be captured alive.

Turning his bearded face to the sky, Darius shrieked the terrible curse of a man about to die, calling down the gods’ vengeance upon Khosrow, demanding it for the innocent blood he had been forced to shed and his dear, lost family.

Then, screaming his wife’s name, he leapt into the embrace of the waiting Bosporos, into an unbearable explosion of heat that burned away the world.