Four for a Boy

by Mary Reed

  Theodora’s eyes glittered with delight. “I shall be interested to see that, Theodotus. The hand will certainly be maimed. Or do you intend to make it whole again?”

  “There will be no need to make it whole. Therein is the magick. Indeed, I intend to demonstrate my powers. Would I really cook a live dove? How could you think such a thing of me?”

  “Whose hand do you propose to use?” Theodora asked with an alacrity that made John wonder if she’d played magician’s assistant during her former career.

  Theodotus flexed his stubby fingers. “Whose hand? Why, it will be my own!”

  Suiting action to word, he plunged his bared arm wrist deep into the bubbling mixture.

  A high-pitched babble of alarm and shock surged around the room. More than one guest looked hastily away.

  John looked away also, but toward the window. His keen hearing had caught the sound of someone running across the garden.

  A collective gasp drew his attention back to Theodotus. The Prefect had withdrawn his arm from the boiling mix and was waving his apparently uninjured hand triumphantly. He formed a fist and hammered at the air.

  “This is the indestructible hand that reaches into the darkest alleys to choke the life from the murderous bastards who lurk there! Why do you think they whisper my name with such dread? They know my powers. They fear me. And rightly so!” He glared at his guests.

  Theodora jumped to her feet. “You have amazed me!” she said in excitement, her face flushed. “I would not have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes! You must visit Justinian when he has recovered and perform this amazing piece of magick for him.”

  John had no time to ponder what he had just seen because Felix was suddenly at his side.

  “Trouble,” the excubitor loudly announced without preamble. “A messenger’s just arrived. Says there’s a riot brewing.”

  Chapter Five

  The iron-banded door of the Prefect’s house crashed open. Torchlit smoke spilled into the street along with Theodotus and the noisy crowd of excited guests, accompanied by a number of confused and frightened servants.

  Theodotus and the messenger galloped off. Many of his guests followed in close pursuit although a few, more cautious, took their opportunity to depart in the opposite direction.

  Felix cursed. “The fools! They’ve drunk so much wine they probably think this is part of the entertainment. There’s nothing courtiers enjoy more than seeing blood spilled. Until a drop of it gets on their clothing. We’re supposed to be working for the Gourd. Remember? We’d better follow him and be quick about it.”

  Felix took off at a run. John followed.

  As he loped along, it occurred to John how easy it would be to slip away down an alley and make a dash for freedom. He had considered flight more than once. But the very idea was impossible. Educated and capable slaves of John’s sort were too valuable. The Keeper of the Plate would be as determined to recover John as a charioteer would be to retrieve a champion horse.

  John and Felix arrived at the crest of a steep street. Several of the Gourd’s men blocked further progress. Felix conferred quickly with one and then returned to John’s side without offering an explanation.

  John stared down the sloping, colonnaded street into the Strategion. Indistinct figures moved around the Egyptian obelisk where blunt finger pointed heavenward. More of the Gourd’s men, no doubt. Beyond the seawall where warehouses clustered like conspirators, a slight glow was cast upward by the lights of ships in the Prosphorion harbor. Away from the water, torches set outside shops embroidered the city with glittering lines of fire that did little to dispel its darkness.

  “What a beautiful night for a riot,” remarked the man who had appeared at John’s shoulder. It was Trenico.

  “Theodotus’ guests are going to be disappointed,” Felix told him. “I’ve learned that the Blues are already surrounded in that small forum off the Strategion.”

  “I heard they intended to set fire to the oil warehouses. Sheer lunacy, of course,” Trenico replied. “Who can say where the wind would take a conflagration like that?”

  The forum where the Blues had gathered could not be seen from where they stood, but above its location a faintly luminescent cloud of mist, like steam rising from penned cattle at a winter market, hung in the clear, cold sky.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if our host has more tricks up his peasant’s sleeves.” Trenico turned at the clatter of hooves and the creak of heavy wheels. A carriage ornamented with bronze and ivory and drawn by four horses rumbled through the throng. It stopped near their vantage point. Heavy curtains obscured its passenger. John noted the flash of jeweled rings on the delicate hand that parted the rich fabrics just enough for its occupant to peer out.

  Trenico chuckled. “Trust Theodora to want the best view possible! Now the Gourd has no choice but to come up with further entertainment.”

  “Take your seat then,” Felix growled. “We’re supposed to be actors in this performance.” He started down the street toward the Strategion.

  The wide square was nearly deserted.

  “It’s one thing to meet the enemy on a battlefield, but riots, well, you can’t depend on skill or strategy in those.” Felix might have been muttering to himself. He snapped at John, “We’d better make certain we’re seen to be here. Be careful, though. Don’t do anything you’re not given a direct order to do.”

  Felix trotted past the decorative obelisk and hailed a man he apparently knew, stationed with others near the archway leading to the adjacent forum. John looked through the pillared opening. He could see a crowd of Blues clustered in the space beyond. It struck him that they were milling about like bewildered market visitors rather than organizing themselves for arson and rioting.

  Theodotus burst into sight. He bellowed at his brawny companion, evidently one of his captains. John caught the barked words.

  “All the escape routes sealed off? Good! I gather their plan was to put the oil warehouses to the torch? A pretty scene that would be! The whole city’d be ablaze before dawn. Yes, I shall certainly have to make an example of them.”

  He lumbered past. From a distance John saw him gesture emphatically as he spoke to the leader of a large armed company that had just clattered into view.

  A look of incredulity crossed Felix’ face. “The Gourd’s called out half the army of the East to fight a handful of trouble makers!”

  There was no time for a reply.

  Several stones came flying out of the darkness. John glimpsed one tumbling down, half illuminated in torchlight.

  “They’re attacking!” someone shouted.

  Then orders were given and the Prefect’s men advanced swiftly under the archway, into the forum, and toward the Blues.

  “It’s started,” Felix observed grimly. “It wasn’t a Blue who tossed those stones, I’ll wager, but one of the Gourd’s men. It’s always best to have even a miserable excuse when you intend to murder the innocent.”

  Felix’s fingers dug into John’s arm. The excubitor’s shaggy hair brushed his face as he shouted into John’s ear, in order to be heard above the din now rending the air with the thunderous clatter of hoofs and nail-studded boot soles and echoing screams of terror and agony.

  “Come with me!” Felix ordered. “I’m not going to see you killed and be blamed for not protecting you. We’ll lie low in a shop until things quiet down. The Gourd doesn’t need my assistance in a slaughterhouse, anyway.” The disgust in his tone was withering.

  They quickly slipped into the small forum, where men were already dying, ducked under the nearest portico, and leapt into the first alcove of a shop. Peering from its shield of darkness, they could pick out little detail from the frenzy of shadows and struggling men. Already, here and there, dark shapes lay crumpled.

  A running figure erupted from the melee. From its dress and hairstyle it was obviously a Blue. Three men gave chase. The first to catch up with the fleeing man gr
abbed the victim’s long hair, yanked his head back, and cut his throat. The second completed the job by putting his sword into their victim’s back. The straggler had to content himself with kicking a corpse.

  The massacre was soon over. The tumult faded. Finally there was only an occasional high-pitched shriek as the wounded were dispatched to oblivion. The Gourd was nothing if not thorough, John acknowledged to himself.

  He stepped back from the doorway and was suddenly prodded on his shoulder from behind. He whirled, startled, as Felix stifled a bitter laugh.

  Then John saw the cause of his companion’s strange humor.

  What had nudged his back dangled from a iron hook in the ceiling. It was the skinned carcass of a monstrous pig, the biggest John had ever seen. They had taken refuge in a butcher’s shop. He pushed the corpse away. It swung ponderously to and fro from its hook.

  “A strange place to find shelter from a slaughter,” observed Felix.

  “Fortuna is said to have a cruel sense of humor.” John turned back to the door.

  The continuing search for survivors was a terrible sight. Several men strolled around the forum, casually thrusting blades into motionless bodies. Others had begun to search the surrounding shops, vanishing into darkened cavities to emerge in one instance with a struggling figure which was soon stilled, but increasingly with shadowy handfuls of whatever goods had taken their fancy.

  “It’s one thing for a soldier to take the reward he’s earned from honorably defeating an enemy, but only a thief robs his fellow citizens!” Felix averted his head and spit sideways in disgust.

  “Ugh!”

  It was a reflexive cry of distress.

  John bent down and looked behind the pile of baskets sitting under the butcher’s scarred chopping table. A young boy crouched there, wiping his face. He looked up in terror but made no attempt to escape, frozen in fear like a rabbit. Felix dragged him out.

  The boy couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve and small for his age at that. Nonetheless he was dressed as a Blue, with a splendid cloak and his hair shaved high in the front.

  “Stole your father’s razor, didn’t you?” Felix gave the boy a rough shake. “Not for that beardless face but to shave your hair. You did a good job, boy. Too good. You look enough like a Blue to get your belly sliced open.”

  The boy began to sob. “My tutor said I had to memorize Homer. I thought fighting would be more heroic! I was going to write verse about it. We weren’t hurting anybody. Don’t let them kill me!”

  Felix muttered words that weren’t fit for the boy’s ears, not as a response to the lad’s confession, but rather because he had just seen several men working their way down the line of shops.

  From what could already be seen and heard, their search was extremely thorough. Furniture was knocked over, crates smashed, sacks torn open and their contents tossed out into the forum.

  “He looks enough like a Blue to get all our bellies sliced open if we’re caught hiding him,” John pointed out. “There’s only one solution. Give me your sword!”

  Felix regarded John with a sneer. “What, is it anything to save your own skin?” The boy in his grip squirmed convulsively, but had the presence of mind not to begin yelling for help.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt him. Just don’t forget the lesson you learned tonight, young man. Life’s rarely poetic.”

  From much too close by came the sound of shattering pottery.

  “Give me your sword, Felix. Quickly!” John demanded again.

  Felix hesitated for a heartbeat, then complied. John ducked behind the enormous hanging pig carcass and swiftly hacked at the opening made by the butcher to extract its offal.

  Raised voices could be heard from a shop only an alcove or two away. Amphorae smashed on the ground, followed by raucous laughter.

  Understanding dawned and Felix picked up the boy and thrust him inside the huge bloody carcass. “Don’t make a sound!” he cautioned.

  Two men appeared at the shop’s doorway.

  John kicked a stool savagely against a wall. “You ignorant fool! You’re stupider than a fish that’s been lying on the dock for days! We’re wasting our time! There’s no one in here!” he shouted at Felix.

  The men outside were featureless shadows. Their heads moved in John’s direction. He was obviously not one they sought, not to mention ordering about a man immediately identifiable as an excubitor by his clothing.

  The pair set to work to finish the search John had feigned beginning.

  They looked under the chopping table, opened a chest and scattered its contents on the floor. Felix helped the searchers overturn a large vat filled with layers of salted meat.

  Apparently satisfied, the two men turned to go. One paused suddenly. He looked up at the huge gutted pig hanging from its hook.

  His companion let out a bark of laughter. “Forget taking that as well! You can’t hide it under your tunic!”

  “That wasn’t what I was thinking.” The man raised his sword and took a step toward the carcass. His blade descended swiftly and in an instant a hefty slice of pig flesh was clutched in his fist.

  “Dinner!” he announced, shoving it into his tunic. “And speaking of dinner, as a little thank you I’ll give the butcher’s customers some sauce for theirs…”

  He urinated on the pig and then the pair left, laughing.

  The dead swine swung wildly as the boy emerged, speckled in gore and scraps of offal. He was shaking. John removed his cloak, folded it, and draped it across the boy’s narrow shoulders.

  Felix peered out. “They’re dragging bodies away now. We’ll be able to leave shortly. And where do you live, boy?”

  Too busy wiping pig’s blood from his face, the would-be Blue didn’t answer.

  “No point in setting you loose to get yourself killed now.” Felix smiled grimly. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you safely home.”

  “I can get home by myself!” The boy darted forward.

  Felix casually stuck out his foot, sending the lad sprawling.

  “Let me go home!” the boy pleaded.

  “Do you even have a proper home to go to? Maybe we should turn you over to the Prefect?” Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes and ran down his face, leaving meandering streaks on his dirty, blood-smeared cheeks.

  “Anatolius,” he said. “That’s my name. But please don’t tell my father what I did!”

  Felix snorted. “Afraid of the thrashing you deserve? And what will your mother say to see your curls sacrificed for such a stupid reason? They’ll realize what you’ve been up to as soon as they see your new hairstyle. Unless you propose to wear a wig for a while?”

  Anatolius snuffled miserably, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

  The trio made their way through the darkness.

  The Prefect’s men had turned their attention elsewhere.

  A small mound of bodies had been piled at the bottom of the street that ran into the Strategion. Theodotus’ guests, their ranks no doubt swelled by the curious, had been permitted to come closer and now stood not far off.

  The unmistakable figure of Theodotus strode toward the pile of corpses. A rising murmur came from the onlookers as he kicked at the bodies. He raised his arms over his head and thundered to his audience or perhaps to the heavens.

  “Let this be a lesson to the vermin who would terrorize our streets! They can expect no mercy!”

  John took hold of Anatolius’ hand and tried to pull him away. The boy resisted. He stared back at the obelisk in the middle of the Strategion.

  A man had been bound to its base. He was illuminated by a ring of lamps set on the ground around him.

  Theodotus paced back and forth as he continued his diatribe.

  John tugged at Anatolius’ hand.

  “No, let him watch if he wants,” Felix said quietly. “Sometimes a lesson needs repeating.”

  Theodotus’ voice boomed through the cold air. “Tha
t was their plot, to set fire to the oil warehouses.

  The flames would spread quickly. By sunrise the city would be ashes with no one’s property spared. This is why I have eyes and ears everywhere. My own, those of my men, and many belonging to other, unseen, helpers. Before you think to harm this sacred seven-hilled city, remember, I have ways of knowing your thoughts almost before you form them.” The bound man squirmed as Theodotus grasped a large clay pot sitting beside the obelisk and hefted it up as easily as if it were a small cup.

  “Your plan failed,” he told the man tied to the obelisk. “But since you were looking forward to a fire, I don’t want to disappoint.”

  Upending the pot he doused the Blue with lamp oil. The man began to struggle frantically as the viscous liquid soaked into his clothing and trickled down, forming a puddle.

  Theodotus stepped away and casually kicked one of the lamps illuminating the scene toward the obelisk. The lamp skittered on its side, rolling in a tiny wheel of flames to come to rest against the man’s oil-sodden cloak. A thin line of red snaked slowly along it and began climbing up the man’s chest.

  Then the oil exploded into a ball of flame, inside which a dark figure writhed and screamed.

  His agonized cries were drowned out almost immediately by a roar of approval from the onlookers.

  ***

  Felix, John, and Anatolius had placed many streets between themselves and the Strategion before any of them spoke.

  It was Felix who finally broke the silence. “Do you really have a home, Anatolius, or are you just playing games and leading us all over the city?”

  Anatolius looked around the forum they were crossing. In its center a statue of an emperor, or some lesser, forgotten luminary, appeared to be wading in a fountain basin.

  “We’re almost there,” he replied.

  “I’ll wager a nummus your father’s a shopkeeper,” said Felix.

  Anatolius ignored him. He turned down what appeared at first glance to be an alley, but whose narrow way ended at an enormous gate set in a wall protecting a massive villa. Orange lamp light poured from a window.