Two for Joy (35 page)

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.

Chapter Twenty-eight

It was yet another dawn arrival. John and Peter
had entered the city lounging casually in the back
of a farmer’s cart. If anyone had been assigned to watch against the exiled Lord Chamberlain’s return, he must have been asleep at his post for the two men were soon slipping unmolested across the cobbled square between the barracks and John’s house.

Although the house might not have been watched from outside it was certainly well guarded within. Darius, sworn to protect Isis’ door wherever that door might be, answered John’s summoning rap promptly.

“By Zurvan’s beard! What are you doing back here? And Peter, why are you wearing such fine clothes?” Darius shut and barred the door after quickly scanning the empty square. “What a night this has been, Lord Chamberlain,” he went on. “I was afraid your knock meant another sobbing woman seeking sanctuary!”

John gave him a questioning look. “You’ve been visited by sobbing women?”

“Well, only one, but that’s enough for me,” was the reply. “But more importantly, won’t Justinian have your head removed if he learns you’re back?”

“Perhaps not, after he’s heard all we have learned,” John said, hurrying up the stairs.

As he entered the kitchen he immediately recognized the woman whose pale patrician face was surrounded by greasy black ringlets.

“Lucretia! I am honored,” he said.

She sat sobbing quietly, ignoring Isis, who was pouring wine out for her. Peter hobbled in and although he said nothing John could read his servant’s horrified expression perfectly. His master’s wine being freely imbibed by two women, neither of them a relative, and the sun was barely risen. The scandal of it, the wagging tongues! Thank heavens nobody outside the house would hear of it.

“Master,” Peter said loudly, valiantly grabbing the wine jug and his master’s honor from Isis’ grasp, “perhaps some refreshment?”