Two for Joy (30 page)

Anatolius pondered the question briefly before replying. “As a fellow adept of Lord Mithra, you have my solemn oath that I did not murder Philo. He must have been the victim of some cut-throat or other. After all, some will kill for the sport of it, some get caught up in hysteria and others kill from blood lust. There are stranger people about even than that, those who kill for pleasure. You did well to warn him of the dangers of going out alone. It’s a pity he paid such a terrible price for failing to heed your advice.”

Anatolius paused. “It’s too easy to stumble over something people don’t want trumpeted abroad,” he said. “There’s plenty of people with secrets that don’t particularly interest us, but they’ll kill to guard them. After all, how can they be certain that some inquisitive old man is not an imperial spy? There’s enough of them around.”

John said that unfortunately that was certainly so.

“I can tell you something I thought it prudent not to reveal when I was arrested, though,” Anatolius replied, “and it’s this. Although I did not find the man I was seeking, I did see Philo just before dawn this morning. He was standing outside the Chalke in very close conversation with a foreign looking fellow. I am wagering that’s the man the Prefect should be looking for. The question is, will anyone believe me when I say I saw this man?”

John asked Anatolius why he had not tried to persuade Philo to go back home immediately.

“I would have, except, well, that was when a gang of Blues set about some Greens that were unlucky enough to be outnumbered. I got caught in the brawl and by the time I extricated myself, Philo and the other man had vanished.”

“No doubt this was when you were bloodied?”

“Oh, that. Yes. Well, I fell and hit my head on the cobbles. It split my scalp open and I bled like a skewered ox. In fact, I lost consciousness.”

John observed that it did not sound too convincing a tale.

“True. I can hardly remember all of what happened myself,” Anatolius admitted. “But how long will I have to be here? Perhaps if you tell Theodora what I’ve just told you, she might relent?”

“It would do no good.”

Anatolius mumbled something complimentary about John having a gift for reasoned argument.

“Yes, so Philo used to tell me,” was the reply. “But he inevitably added that what I had was the potential for it if only I would apply myself more diligently….Alas that I did not, for at my recent audience with Theodora my powers of persuasion gained me nothing except orders to another audience with Michael. I am to be off to the shrine with the sunrise tomorrow, there to deliver a message I would normally term a capitulation except on this occasion Theodora is obviously hoping to gain time to lay further plans. As soon as I get back I will again attempt to see Justinian on your behalf.”

Anatolius could not control the quaver in his voice. “There’s no justice, John! There is no reason at all for me to be kept here!”

“Justice is the first casualty of war and that’s the point we’re rapidly approaching. Fortunately for you, your guards are fellow adepts, so for now at least you can expect reasonable treatment. The one outside told me that a few excubitors have deserted. Most of them have remained steady and so the palace is safe for now, but what will happen once they’re outnumbered by a mob baying for blood, anybody’s blood?”

“So perhaps it will indeed all end in fire and bloodshed,” Anatolius muttered. “And as for me, it appears I am fated to remain hidden away here until the accusations against me are finally heard. If they are ever heard.”

After John left Anatolius lay down. He could faintly hear the steady beating of waves, as if the sound of the sea was communicating with him through the earth upon which the building sat.

Then he realized it was the beating of his heart that was thrumming in his ears. He tried to pretend that the cold floor was just another of the many beds he had known. Uninvited, old lovers arrived to whisper to him. He forced them from his thoughts. But there was one more insistent than the rest. Anatolius was not able to convince her to depart. Lucretia seemed to kneel beside him, intent on comforting him, but his vision of her brought only further torment to this terrible place.

Chapter Twenty-two

Lucretia wiped her forehead ineffectually with the
back of a grimy hand. She was exhausted. The
quiet shrine where she had hoped to find refuge was now a crowded hospital, its fetid air filled with the sounds of pain and hope, prayers and curses. She could barely pick her way through the crush of the sick still hoping to dream cures and the wounded who had so recently fought on the field of battle outside the building.

Michael’s acolytes had changed residence to a nearby villa in order to make more room for the patients. Michael himself, however, had remained at the shrine and so as Lucretia went about her work, she occasionally glimpsed him moving silently among the afflicted, bending to bestow a blessing or to gently touch a palsied limb or a horribly twisted face.

Lucretia had no blessings to bestow, only her labor. She spent her time washing and feeding, sweeping and carrying. Sweat glued her hair to her aching head and her tunic was stained and splotched. Her knees ached from kneeling beside straw pallets and her back had begun to twinge in sympathy, a protest against unaccustomed lifting.

Suppressing a sigh, she stooped to examine a cluster of sufferers. Her glance swept across them, past a man leaning against the wall but unnaturally still and over a younger man sprawled at his side, his ragged breath slowing gasp by gasp. They were beyond help now. But between them and another unconscious man huddled under a cloak lay a woman whose lips moved feebly. Lucretia set her basin of water down and knelt. She gently began to sponge the feverish face.

“We’ve been here two nights already and she’s dying.”

Lucretia looked up, startled by the growling voice. The speaker, a peasant by his callused hands and coarsely woven garment, was hunkered down in the shadows. His long face and straggling hair gave him a feral look.

“I’m afraid my woman isn’t long for this world unless she dreams a cure more quickly,” he went on.

Lucretia nodded and resumed her ministrations.

He launched on a narrative of how they came to be there. “We expected we’d have to make a sacrifice. That was the custom in Oropos in the old days. They say those who wanted a cure went there and made an offering of gold or silver to the sacred spring. Then they had to sacrifice a ram and sleep in its skin. We thought it might be the same here. We couldn’t have afforded that.” His voice was harsh but as he spoke he gently stroked the semiconscious woman’s hand. “We were desperate. Somehow she found the strength to walk here. They said they didn’t need gold and silver. She had only to pray and when she slept a cure would be revealed.”

The woman seemed less restless now. Had she fallen into a refreshing sleep or begun her journey along the poppy-edged road leading to the bank where the dark ferryman waited to row the dead over the river Styx?

Why had that pagan image come into her head, Lucretia wondered. It was something the poetic Anatolius might have said. This was a Christian shrine but still she could sense the inexorable undercurrent of ancient belief that everywhere seemed to run just below the surface of life. Why would these Christian peasants have expected a cure to require the sacrifice of a brute beast? Why did they hope for the sort of dreams ancient healers had dealt in?

“Tell me,” she asked the man, “have you heard of anyone being healed here?”

The peasant nodded his head. “Oh, yes, indeed. Only a day or so before we arrived, so I was told, there was a man who had suffered some terrible accident or other. I don’t know any of the details, but anyhow after only one night here he arose from his pallet and declared to all that would listen that he had dreamed of a certain cure for his condition.”

Lucretia inquired about the prescription.

The man barked out a laugh. “That he should marry a rich woman and live thereafter in idle luxury! Those who have wealth need never fear illness or getting old, for what they cannot do for themselves, their servants will do on their behalf.”

Lucretia was about to rebuke the man for his harsh words but his unpleasant smile had been replaced by a look of grief that immediately stayed her tongue. She averted her gaze. Was this how her servants had felt? Surely not.

The sick woman gave a weak cry and flung out her arm, knocking over Lucretia’s basin. The man leaned closer, holding her hands between his grubby palms until she lay still again.

“I’ll get more water,” Lucretia told him, beginning to rise. But he stopped her.

“Let me get it, lady,” he offered.

Before she could protest he had scooped up the basin and slipped away. As she turned her attention back to the woman she saw that the man lying next to her patient had regained consciousness and was staring at her.

“Lucretia?”

She looked at him in alarm. The broad, bearded face, marred with bruises, was hauntingly familiar.

“Lucretia, what are you doing here? Does Anatolius know?”

“Anatolius? That was a long time ago…”

Felix blinked and let out a ragged sigh. “Of course, you’re married now. Senator Balbinus.” He tried to lift his hand but the effort was too much. The clotted blood clinging around the broad gash above his left ear told its own story.

“It’s Felix, isn’t it? Anatolius’ friend?”

“Yes. But what are you doing here? Were you here during the attack?”

Lucretia admitted that she had been present.

“But what was your husband thinking of, to put you into such danger?”

Lucretia bit her lip. “I…I’m not living with Balbinus any more.”

Felix closed his eyes and Lucretia thought he had drifted into unconsciousness. But then he was looking up at her again.

“You ran away,” he stated, “to join a holy order! Mithra! The bastard beats you?”

Lucretia denied it. “No. Never. What makes you think that?”

“The bruises on your face, for a start. And for what other reason does a wife leave her husband?”

Lucretia did not have the heart to tell the captain that one of his own men was responsible for the condition of her face, although the blows had been struck in order to save her from worse.

“I am not a thing to be bought and sold,” was all she said. It barely expressed the desperate revulsion she felt at her arranged marriage. Not that Felix looked to be in any condition to grasp a fuller explanation, even if she had been inclined to give one.

Felix muttered almost too quietly for her to catch his words. “When I am back on my feet, I’ll tell Anatolius. He’ll make sure that Balbinus pays, senator or not.”

His voice trailed off as his eyes closed again.

“Felix?”

There was no answer but at least he was breathing.

Her attention was engaged by a sudden clamor in the aisle. She heard voices raised tremulously, beseechingly, as the peasant reappeared. He was accompanied by Michael.

She had seen him only from a distance, not daring to approach closer. He was slight of build and not much taller than herself. Strange to think that such powerful words could issue from the mouth of such a man.

“My woman is dying,” the peasant was saying. “You must heal her. We walked a long way. You owe it to her.”

Michael bent and touched the sick woman’s flushed forehead. Ignoring the peasant’s passionate stream of pleas and entreaties, Michael next passed his hands over face of the dying man next to Felix. Then he moved on to the excubitor captain, gently touching the head wound.

“You must understand,” Michael said, “that mercy must extend even to those who attack the innocent.”

And now he addressed Lucretia directly. “A new handmaiden, I see, come to serve the lowliest. You will surely be rewarded, my sister.”

Lucretia looked up into his dark, compassionate eyes, huge under the bald head. How could she doubt him?

“Holy one,” she faltered, “the only reward that I ask is your blessing.”

Michael laid his hand upon her head. “That you have. But your soul is troubled. May you gain peace of mind at least, if you do not find whatever you believe you are seeking here.”

The peasant was kneeling also, asking Michael’s blessing for himself and the woman he loved. Michael granted his request and moved away.

Her companion quickly looked down at the sick woman.

“Doesn’t look that much different, does she?” he said harshly, a hint of yellowing teeth showing again. “If you ask me, she looks worse. Perhaps nothing can bring her back to me now. Not that I’m all that surprised,” he concluded.

Lucretia, surreptitiously wiping her eyes, asked him what he meant.

“Didn’t you see? If this Michael has really been blessed with his saintly namesake’s healing powers, for that’s what folks around here are starting to say, why does he have half-healed sores around his ankle?”

Smiling at her startled expression, he nodded importantly. “Oh, yes, you just look. He’s coming back this way.”

Michael was moving down the aisle again, blessing the unfortunates crowding the narrow space. As he passed by Lucretia bowed her head. It was not her right to question, but, hating herself for it, she quickly glanced at the thin ankles visible beneath the hem of his robe.

It was just as the peasant had said. She suddenly felt soiled, as she had with Balbinus.

“You saw, didn’t you?” the peasant was asking her. “And by the look of them dark bits, his flesh is starting to mortify. A few days from now, his leg will be blowing up and he’ll be smelling like a dead cow left out in the sun.”

He leaned forward to confide in a whisper. “I’ll tell you what I think, lady. He’s an imposter. I’ve seen that sort of sore before. He’s been held in shackles and that very recently. But why is he out here and what does he really want?”

Lucretia had no answer, nor did she care to ponder the question. She struggled to her feet and staggered outdoors. She needed fresh air. She felt very ill.

Chapter Twenty-three

The rhythmic swaying of John’s mount as he
rode up the Mese would have been almost
soothing had it not been for his lingering vision of Anatolius’ bleak cell.