Three for a Letter (4 page)

Chapter Five

John gazed down over the sea wall. The docks below swarmed with gangs of sinewy men loading and unloading the ships that rose and fell on water so befouled with floating debris that it would have been impossible from a distance to tell where land gave way to sea except for the gentle undulation of the swells.

At night flaring torches lent a lurid glow to the proceedings and prudent merchants sent deputies to count crates and bales and amphorae. Away from the harbor, the widely spaced torches kept burning overnight in front of business premises seemed only to accentuate the darkness and sense of danger, especially if the wind, or human hands, dowsed their guttering flames.

Not that the latter might necessarily mean criminal intent, John thought, as he padded down the stone steps leading to the dock. He had to shade his eyes against the sudden blow of sunlight as he emerged from the dark tunnel of the stairway. Though it was true that a man could be waylaid and dragged into the stygian depths of an alley, never to see daylight again, other sorts of commerce were transacted along those dark and narrow ways, including a variety of fleshly trades. With the number of wayfarers arriving daily in Constantinople by road or sea, there was certainly plenty of money to be made by fair means or foul.

All in all, the harbors were easy places to move around unobserved. Having already visited the larger Theodosian Harbor, John had walked east to Harbor Sophia. He had to admit that even with imperial spies everywhere and armies of informers reporting to more than one palace official, it was all but impossible to discover where anyone who had left the city in haste would have gone. Yet he must leave no stone unturned in his search for Barnabas.

The mime, he reasoned, must have realized that given his distinctive looks he could not remain hidden for long, even in the multitude of twisting byways and human warrens that crowded the houses of the wealthy and the walls of the Great Palace itself—especially once it was known that a court official was making inquiries concerning his whereabouts. The natural and correct assumption would be that anyone with the right information would be rewarded, and richly so. A prudent man would therefore have left the city, and the quickest way to do that was by ship.

The toe of John’s boot stuck for a moment to the stones underfoot. An acridly sweet smell identified the sticky patch as wine from a smashed amphora, its odor mixed with the smell of the sea and the musk of the rotting vegetation being slapped hypnotically against the docks.

A burly man emerged from the arched doorway of a nearby latrine, speaking over his shoulder to someone inside. Whoever his listener was, the man had plenty to say about his antecedents and future prospects although at least he had the grace to leaven his obscene comments with a broad grin that revealed several broken teeth. An answering burst of coarse laughter and a string of Egyptian curses made John chuckle. Docks and the people who frequented them were the same everywhere, whether at Alexandria or Constantinople.

“And did you really marry the camel-driver’s daughter?” John asked the man as he passed by.

The man scratched his stubbly chin. If he was surprised to have been understood by the tall, lean Greek, he gave no indication.

“No, but she thinks that I did,” he replied with a grin. “You speak passable Egyptian, sir, although I can tell you’re not from Egypt. Since you don’t appear to be profitably employed right now, I would venture to offer you a job on my ship. However, it seems from your garments that it’s more likely you own one. Or possibly more than one?”

When John shook his head, an eager expression passed over the Egyptian’s face. “Then you must be a merchant, sir, perhaps seeking someone to carry your wares to Alexandria? That’s my ship over there, the Osiris. A good-sized vessel as you can see. Now I admit I’ve just played Noah for a prominent senator who’s taken a fancy to the animals of Africa, but that’s a longer story even than the one about the camel-driver’s daughter, and time’s getting short. The summer’s ending and I should be sailing south before the winds shift and my journey takes even longer than usual. So I am prepared to offer you an excellent bargain on my price for carriage of goods.”

John shook his head again. “My thanks, but unfortunately it’s not an offer of which I can take advantage.”

The man’s shoulders slumped with disappointment. “The Osiris has been well cleaned,” he said persuasively. ”It’s as spotless as the Augean stables after Hercules finished with them. Needless to say, the senator’s lion made almost as much of a mess as Hercules had to deal with, but not a trace of it remains, I assure you.”

“I don’t doubt that. However—”

“Sir, I’ve been sitting around here for three days now,” the other pressed on, “asking every merchant who sets boot to dock if I may be of service and few of them have so much as even acknowledged me. This is a very unfriendly city, for all its wonders and huge buildings and beautiful women. And that reminds me of another tale I could relate.” A jovial smile crossed his face. Evidently, thought John, the man’s moods shifted less predictably than the winds that moved his ship across the deep waters. “But tell me, surely half of what I’ve heard about the empress can’t be true?”

“That depends on what you’ve heard and which half of it you mean! But as to business. Although I can’t commission you to take goods to Egypt, I can certainly offer you an opportunity to earn a few coins if you’re interested?”

The man indicated great interest in the possibility.

“While you were looking for a cargo,” John asked, “did it present itself in the form of a dwarf seeking a swift passage away from Constantinople?”

The Egyptian captain scowled. “Are you jesting, sir? Not that I’ve ever been one to object to hearing a good story myself.”

John assured him that his question was quite serious.

The man continued to look dubious but replied readily enough. “A dwarf? No, I’ve not seen one and I would certainly remember such a thing. I could ask around the docks for you, if you’d like.”

“You would perhaps be better served searching for a client, my friend, but if you should happen to hear or see anything of him, send a message immediately to Felix, the captain of excubitors at the palace. You’ll be well rewarded. Here’s something on account.” A gold coin flashed in the sunlight as it changed hands.

The man thanked John, adding, “If this is really just a jest after all, it’s at your expense, sir, and a large expense at that, if you don’t mind me saying so!”

Climbing the steps away from the docks shortly thereafter John smiled to himself. He had no doubt that before nightfall every seaman and dockworker in the city would have heard about the dwarf who was worth a small fortune to somebody at the palace. In the unlikely event Barnabas had yet to take ship, his escape by that route would now be well nigh impossible.

As he reached the top of the stairway he noticed graffiti scratched into the stone of the archway leading to the street. No doubt the work of a bored mariner waiting for a companion, the simple drawing showed a beast with a fish tail and the snout of a rat, floating above several triangular waves. It reminded him immediately of Zeno’s deadly mechanical whale. As John walked briskly away from the docks, he wondered what the garrulous Egyptian captain with whom he had just been in conversation would think if he knew that his minor stroke of good fortune arose from the death of a child.

***

“Kill you? You’ll wish for death before I’m done with you, you pitiful excuse for a donkey!”

The shout echoing from inside the theater distracted John from reading the inscription near its entrance:

John looked away from the brass plaque and through the theater’s entrance, down the corridor leading to the seating and the stage beyond. He suspected that the goldsmith would not have been pleased to hear the profane uproar spilling out into the square. It was certainly not from a classical play if, in fact, it was dialogue from a play at all.

He strode down the corridor and soon found himself in the topmost tier of the building’s marble seating, the theater having been built into the side of one of Constantinople’s seven hills. An awning overhead shaded the seats, while the wide stage below, backed by a tall painted façade replete with windows, doorways and several niches occupied by statues, was bright with late morning sunlight.

The overheated scene unwinding onstage would not have disgraced a rustic celebration of the grape harvest, he thought as he walked down to the stage.

He could not identify the production being rehearsed. What manner of circumstances could possibly call for three men fitted with extremely long donkey ears to be engaged in violently pummeling each other with suspiciously realistic vigor? The trio were too engrossed to notice him until he had made his way through the orchestra and up onto the stage itself.

“Fools!” bellowed the shortest actor, a swarthy man with long dark hair, extracting himself from the fray. His voice was recognizable as the one John had just heard from outside.

“What’s this about?” the man shouted at him, turning and noticing their intruder. “More complaints about the noise, is it? We’re just rehearsing, can’t you see? There’s no problem here so you can go away.”

Despite his reassurance, the other two actors continued beating each other with their fists while yelling lurid curses at the top of their lungs.

“I would have thought you’ve rehearsed enough,” John observed mildly, “for it would be hard to imagine a more realistic depiction of a brawl.”

The short man grunted, “We’re perfectionists!” and then turned and directed at his companions a stream of curses which John judged to be less creative than those commonly uttered by laborers at the city’s wharves. The actor was a somewhat larger and more rotund version of Barnabas, short enough, no doubt, to attract ridicule but not so short as to qualify for description as a dwarf.

He turned back to John. “My name is Brontes,” he said in a more normal tone of voice. “I apologize for the abysmal ineptitude of my colleagues, who cannot follow even the simplest of directions.” He jabbed a long-nailed finger at John. “However, I don’t think I need to speak to you about the rigors of comedy since you appear to be a man of culture. A lover of Euripides, perhaps?”

“I fear I don’t have much interest in Euripides,” John admitted. “In my experience real tragedy has no eloquence at all.”

Brontes let out a booming laugh. “Well put! Your taste is execrable but at least you speak well!”

The two combative donkeys abruptly ceased fighting and now sat down, panting, their legs dangling over the edge of the stage. Brontes turned to harangue them again at the top of his voice.

“You are supposed to be acrobatic, not rusty-jointed,” he shouted. “Remember, you’re playing lascivious old crones disguised as beasts of burden. If only he was here, Barnabas would put you both to shame!”

“That’s not what you said the last time the two of you traded blows,” retorted one of the donkeys, embellishing his comment with a rude gesture.

Brontes gave a great despairing shrug.

“You see how it is,” he remarked to John. “The theatrical profession has been moribund so long that there are no great actors left. Polus, they say, could reduce audiences to tears of sympathy for his travails. This pair just induce tears of despair. To think that I once aspired to play Agamemnon. But then, where is the audience? With ours, the works, of Aeschylus are not popular, alas.”

John refrained from pointing out that such a short, rotund actor would have made an unlikely Agamemnon, no matter the audience involved.

Brontes shook his head sadly. The gesture, being scaled for the stage, made his hair swing back and forth. “Yes, Polus would rather have been whipped the length of the Mese than undertake to play an old crone, lascivious or otherwise.” He gave a snort of disgust.

“You remarked on Barnabas’ absence,” John said. “I was hoping to find him here as there’s an urgent matter we need to discuss.”

“I haven’t seen him for a few days now.” From the sour expression that passed over Brontes’ face, John judged this to be a sore point. “He had an engagement on a country estate belonging to some old madman, from what he said. Apparently it involved something to do with a huge whale and children. It all sounded very unlikely to me, I must say. We have the most advanced stage machinery in this theater. Even so we’d be hard-pressed to present our audience with a whale. Anyway, he hasn’t returned yet even though he’s supposed to take the main role in this play.”

John remarked that it seemed a lively enough presentation even without the presence of the famous mime.

Brontes’ expression brightened. “Are you from the palace, by any chance, sir? You might mention
A Stepmother and Three Donkeys
around the court if you are. I can assure you that it’s highly entertaining. The plot involves a young noblewoman who has taken a romantic fancy to her husband’s slave because of his beautiful poetry, but as it turns out, the slave is only pretending to be a eunuch.”

John changed the subject. “Do you have many visitors inquiring for Barnabas?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You seem unconcerned by my visit.”

One of the listening donkeys called out, “There’s always high-born folks coming around looking for Barnabas’ services. Mostly young ladies. They just can’t get enough of Barnabas.” Both actors sniggered loudly.

Brontes’ fists clenched and he directed a thunderous look over his shoulder, silencing the pair. “The fool exaggerates, but he’s right, Barnabas is much sought after—for his talents as a mime, I mean. He has so many private engagements that he can barely honor his contract with the theater although he’s managed to do so, despite his popularity. Or at least until now.”

“And you say he hasn’t returned?”

“No.” Brontes looked thoughtful and then grinned. He let out a bellowing laugh. “Perhaps he’s found a high-born lady who wants to be more than just a patron! Ha! Well, I’ve always liked his lodging. Perhaps he won’t be needing it any more and I can get the lease!”