by Mary Reed
“The tesserae must have been scattered all over the street by the explosion?”
“That’s right. Just as I was about to despair I noticed a glint on the pavement. Around my feet and stretching out on all sides constellations winked, reflecting light from the burning shops. I plucked up a dark red cube of glass. Then three blue cubes. A curling line of green led to a handful of yellow. I scrambled around gathering what I could from the grimy stones. I managed to find a pitifully small portion of what I had brought. No matter, the servants urged me on.”
The events Figulus had described struck John as lucky rather than miraculous but he did not say so. “Did you reach the palace without further incident?”
“Yes. Except there was an angry crowd outside the palace walls. Blues and Greens joined in thunderous imprecations against Justinian, interspersed with chants of ‘Victory, Victory.’ As I struggled to force my way forward, I heard shouts which sent a shiver through me. ‘Glykos! The tax collector! Death to Glykos!’”
The doomed tax collector had arranged for Figulus to be admitted to the palace grounds. He was waiting in his study—John’s study—staring out the window across the square below, Figulus said. John wondered if he had been watching for excubitors to emerge from the barracks opposite, waiting for the men who would escort him to his execution.
“If Glykos had not had the windows shut against the smoke, he might have heard the crowd crying for his head,” Figulus said. “He held a cup of wine. The watery light of dawn had driven the pagan gods from the peaceful country scene on the wall behind him.”
“And what was it he wanted you to do?” John asked. He had never noticed anything in the mosaic that had given the impression of being an afterthought or a repair.
Figulus, who had been speaking quietly, lowered his voice even further. “The foul man insisted I add a portrait of his daughter to the mosaic. I was horrified. You are familiar with the nature of the work. What man would place his daughter in a scene of such surpassing evil?”
John offered sympathy.
“Yet what could I do?” Figulus replied. “I am merely an artisan. Who am I to judge the whims of my employers? While I chipped away the corner of the mosaic and applied the setting bed, Glykos had the girl summoned. She was wide-eyed and silent. A grave little girl. I believe she was too young to know exactly what was about to befall her father but old enough to feel something was wrong. Now here is the strange thing. I had never attempted a likeness. How could I capture hers? And in a few brief winter hours, in a cold room that smelled of fear and ashes?”
Figulus lifted a hand and regarded his long, calloused fingers. “It wasn’t my doing. These fingers were commanded by another power. What’s more, the few tesserae I salvaged from the street were almost exactly enough, and the colors matched the girl’s flesh and hair and the colors of her garment. How could that have happened without the Lord’s intervention?”
John made no reply. He did not believe things happened because of the intervention of the Christians’ god.
The mosaic maker seemed not to notice the Lord Chamberlain’s silence. He made the sign of his religion and continued. “I secretly took one action to protect her innocence. I made certain she was looking straight out into the world, so that she would never catch a glimpse of the behavior of the pagan deities in her sky.”
Why had Glykos wanted such a portrait? Given his reputation, he may have thought that thrusting a mosaic daughter into the care of blasphemous deities would taunt the god of the Christian emperor who was about to betray him. John asked Figulus whether the tax collector had revealed the reason for his request.
Figulus shook his head. “I have often wondered. Was it the result of a terrible upheaval of the humors? Perhaps at the very end, despite his wealth and power, Glykos realized his daughter was his true treasure. Being a worldly, grasping man, he expressed his love for her, as he did for material things, by asserting his ownership. By attaching her image to his wall. He was not altogether a villain. He paid me liberally in gold coins before I left.”
John looked around the workshop. Figulus’ older sons were still laboring assiduously with their tesserae. The infants had curled up and gone to sleep under the table like a couple of cats. Perhaps for a man who led a comfortable life it was easy and desirable to think the best of evil men.
“Everything you’ve told me has been interesting, Figulus. I know Glykos was beheaded and his body cast into the sea. As for his family…his daughter…I don’t even know the girl’s name. Did you learn that?”
“Agnes, Lord Chamberlain. That’s what Glykos called her. I heard afterward that she and her mother were thrown out onto the street with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. It would have been more merciful to execute them both.”
Chapter Eleven
“Being thrown on the streets isn’t necessarily a death sentence,” Anatolius pointed out. “Agnes probably turned to prostitution. If so, we were correct about the meaning of that tattoo on her body.”
“I suspect Figulus would consider a woman’s employment by Madam Isis or one of her colleagues to be worse than a death sentence,” John replied.
He had arranged to meet with Anatolius at the Baths of Zeuxippos. They sat on curved benches beside the central fountain, under the gaze of the tight-lipped, bronze Demosthenes. The splash of falling water, amplified by the cavernous space, masked the echoing slap of sandals on tiles and the conversations of those passing by.
“I was careful not to make direct inquiries about the situation,” John continued. “So far as Michri and Figulus are concerned I wished to commission repairs. I don’t want word of these investigations reaching the wrong ears.”
“Particularly since we don’t know whose head sports the wrong ears. If nothing else, Cornelia will be pleased.”
“It will please me, too. I’d prefer Cornelia didn’t venture out alone.”
“I’m glad I don’t have a family to worry about,” Anatolius observed. “Besides, if I did I might not be able to trot around to half the brothels in the city on your behalf. Not that I’ve had any luck tracking down that tattoo yet. I can continue to look, but now that we know the model for your mosaic belonged to court, it might be easier to check in those circles.”
“Isis will keep an eye out for us too, now you’ve alerted her to the search.”
“John, I was wondering…about Zoe…do you intend to call her by her real name now that you know it?”
“The girl in my mosaic has always been Zoe to me.”
“I’ve often wondered how—”
“Anatolius! Lord Chamberlain! An attendant tells me you wanted to speak to me?” A short, muscular man approached. His black, cropped hair glistened wetly. His lumpy features might have belonged to a beggar, but not his green, pearl-embroidered robes.
Anatolius rose to greet his friend. “Francio! The Lord Chamberlain was asking about a courtier I had never met and I thought of you. After all, you know everyone at court, including those who have fallen from favor!”
Francio tapped the side of his nose, which had been horribly squashed in an accident—what sort varied with its owner’s mood and his listener’s credulity. “Let us keep that under the rose, Anatolius. But you flatter me even so. I don’t know about everyone. Only those of importance. I don’t have any gossip about the palace guards and servants and such, unless the servants are sleeping with someone important. Why, I could tell you…but perhaps I’d better not.”
John mentioned the departed tax collector.
“Glykos? I seem to recall some mention of the name. You say this fellow died about ten years ago? I was only a youngster at the time.”
“What about his family? I have reason to believe the mother and daughter remained in the city,” John said.
Francio shook his head. “It’s possible. Those who are banished from court might as well have sailed away across the seas.”
John knew that many who fell in
to disfavor fled for their own safety. The lucky ones—landed aristocratics who were allowed to retain any of their holdings—retired to what remained of their country estates, or to the estates of relatives. But most at the palace owed their wealth and privilege to their positions and any palace official, even one as powerful as the Lord Chamberlain, held office at the whim of the emperor. With a few words, Justinian could turn a rich man into a beggar. Even the sentatorial class was not immune to having all they possessed confiscated.
Francio had screwed his face up in thought. “I do see some former courtiers at the Bathos of Zeuxippos from time to time,” he said. “Anyone can get in for a copper coin or two. I suppose it’s a way for them to enjoy the sort of surroundings they left behind, as well as an opportunity to talk to old friends.”
“Or at least those who will still acknowledge acquaintanceship,” Anatolius put in.
“Perhaps one of these fallen courtiers would know something that would assist me?” John said.
“Indeed. And now that I think of it, I know exactly the man. His name’s Menander. He was a silentiary. He fell from favor a long time ago so he’s well connected to those who are no longer well connected. He knows everyone who used to be someone. What’s more Fortuna has favored you, because I saw him right here not an hour ago.”
“Where can we find him now?” John asked.
“He told me he was going to attend a poetry reading. He expected there would be plenty of wine, and his hearing isn’t that good anyway. You know the poet, I believe. Crinagoras.”
John suppressed a grimace. “Yes, he’s a friend of Anatolius. Every time he visits my house the walls ring for days afterward.”
Francio chuckled. “He does enjoy hearing his own verse. When I saw him this morning he was declaiming samples, to entice passersby to commission a work or two. His performances are always comical, even if it’s not his aim. Last time he surpassed himself, because he recited at the very foot of Demosthenes there and mumbled even more than usual.”
Anatolius remarked it was not surprising the orator’s bronze brows were furrowed and his lips tight. “I suppose we’d better go and seek whatever lecture hall Crinagoras is using,” he went on. “He’s bound to chide me for abandoning my muse for the law.”
“Crinagoras is going to entertain at my next banquet,” Francio said. “I hope his presence won’t stop you from attending. I’ll be serving Arcadian dishes. Just simple country fare. Very unusual for my gatherings. John, you’ll particularly enjoy the smoked cheese.”
“Is the cheese by any chance produced on one of those farms your family owns?”
Francio frowned. “It could be, I suppose. I deal with city merchants. I don’t know who supplies them.”
“Francio is not a man of business,” put in Anatolius.
“Certainly not,” Francio agreed. “Particularly when the business would keep me out in the hills someplace. Why would I abandon the court to live amongst sheep and geese? Besides, the family is keen on horses. I remember when I was a child…well…” His voice trailed off as his hand moved for an instant to the side of his crushed nose.
“Is this man Menander from a landed family?” John asked.
“Not that I know of. He is, or was, a self-made man, which is to say a man made by the emperor. At some time he was of some value to Justinian. Only he and the emperor can say why. So he was granted a postion, income, a luxurious residence. Then he ceased to be of value and it was all taken away.”
As he talked, Francio led John and Anatolius along a corridor where busts of emperors and philosophers on pedestals almost outnumbered the patrons. Doorways opened onto meeting rooms, libraries, and exercise areas. The only sign of the facilities themselves was a breath of humid air from an intersecting hallway leading further into the complex.
They found Crinagoras in a semicircular lecture area with a raised platform facing several benches. The benches were empty except for a long haired boy nibbling at a small wedge of cheese.
“Your audience is late in arriving?” Francio remarked.
“Oh, no,” came the reply. “Indeed, there was an excellent turn out. My reading’s finished. I’ve been writing shorter poems, to match my humble subject matter. No epics for onions!”
The poet was dressed in the voluminous old fashioned toga he always wore for his performances. John thought he looked pudgier than when he had last seen him. The ruddy features, framed by sandy curls, looked even softer and more child-like than John recalled, as if the man were aging backward.
Crinagoras gestured toward a table covered with empty earthenware dishes and jugs. “It all went exceedingly, wonderfully well, Anatolius. I provided just precisely the right amount of bucolic refreshment. Yes! The wine and cheese lasted exactly as long as the audience did.”
“Was Menander here?” Francio asked. “We’re looking for him.”
“Menander?”
“A big old fellow. White hair. Gaunt. Stooped. Looks like the Olympian Zeus after a year in the emperor’s dungeons.”
Crinagoras frowned, setting his double chins in motion. “Well, let’s see…I can’t remember. I become caught up in the verse. I find myself transported into realms of imagination far removed from our tawdry, everyday surroundings. The audience might as well not be there.”
“Menander was here,” the boy on the bench piped up. He looked thirteen or fourteen. “I can tell you where he lives, if it’s worth something to you.”
Francio scowled at the youth. “And how would you know Menander?”
The boy shoved the remains of the cheese into his mouth before speaking around the bulge in his cheek. “I’ve had to help him home when he’s drunk often enough.”
Chapter Twelve
Home, to Menander, was a tenement behind the Church of the Mother of God. Francio remembered some urgent business and took his leave of John and Anatolius as soon as it became apparent that Crinagoras insisted on accompanying them.
The church and tenement were not far from the workshops of the artisans John had visited that morning. The rain had stopped and the lowering sun turned puddles and wet roofs red.
As the trio made their way through the russet light, the poet declaimed at Homeric length. “I need to stride the streets and fill my lungs with the same air as the simple folk.”
He gesticulated so wildly his toga flapped and billowed like a sail. “Yes, those of us who make our living by our wits have yet much to learn from those humble souls who have nothing more than their stained and work-worn hands between themselves and an empty stomach.”
He skirted the filthy, bare feet of a man sitting in a doorway, ignoring an outstretched, skeletal hand.
“Uncharitable bastards!” The croaking cry of the beggar followed them down the street. “May you rot!”
John swiveled on his boot heel and glared back. One look at the Lord Chamberlain’s expression and the beggar found an urgent reason to leap up and scuttle away.
Anatolius gave John an inquiring glance.
“Perhaps I’m not in a charitable mood,” John told him. “Besides, you’re always telling me I shouldn’t be filling every palm I see on the street.”
Crinagoras looked pained. “I’m not so sure that I can find inspiration in a beggar. Certainly not from such a foul and insulting beggar. A ragged child, perhaps. For even the homeliest subject can become poetic in the hands of a master. Consider if you will Virgil’s encomium to his salad. I intend to recite it at Francio’s banquet since plain fare is the menu.”
He paused and picked his way around dung lying in their path. “I have improved Virgil’s work just a little,” he went on, “in order that his archaic verse may fall more sweetly on today’s ears. After that I shall recite one or two of my latest creations about life in the city, as it was before the plague arrived. These are darker times.”
“And this is the dark alley down which we go, according to the boy at the reading.” Anatolius plunged between
two buildings leaning confidentially toward each other.
Crinagoras stopped and moaned. “Oh, but really, Anatolius, it will ruin my poor boots!”
The morning’s rains had turned the passage into a swamp. Straw and half-decayed vegetable leaves littered the black surface of water broken by scattered islands of even less appealing ordure.
“Never mind your boots,” Anatolius told him. “You can write a verse or two acclaiming their heroism.”
“What an excellent idea! My friend, though entombed in the cold sepulcher of the law, your poetic soul still blazes like an eternal flame.”
Crinagoras hitched up his long toga and tiptoed forward. He uttered a faint squeal as the water rose to his ankles. He took another cautious step and then flailed one hand at a swarm of huge green flies that had suddenly decided his face was more appetizing than an unidentifiable lump next to a wall.
The hem of the toga flopped into the mire. He grabbed at it. Slipped. Started to fall forward.
John’s hand shot out, grasped Crinagoras’ arm, and pulled him upright.
The grim smile he gave the poet was more appalling than the glare he’d directed at the beggar. “If I’m distracted any further by your eloquence, Crinagoras, I might not be able to catch you next time.”
***
The wood-framed tenement where Menander lived sagged toward the stolid brick back of the Church of the Mother of God as if in search of support. The entrance hall beyond the open doorway was unlit and its close air smelled of boiled onions.
In the dimness, the trio passed a woman seated at the bottom of the steep stairs. As they stepped around her, she raised her hand as if to beg, but instead drew a line on the plaster wall with a stub of charcoal.
The boy who claimed to have helped Menander home had given precise and accurate directions. At John’s insistent knock, Menander threw open the splintered door of his third floor room.