Three for a Letter

by Mary Reed

  Now that the procession was finally under way it formed a striking sight indeed, with its doomed straw man in his ox cart, women dancing lightly back and forth behind it, their flowing robes whipping in the rising breeze that presaged dawn. And following them were all the rest…dozens of villagers ambling along holding torches and laughing and talking, another cart carrying the stiffly moving automatons playing their shrill melody, the blazing wheel shooting sparks everywhere.

  But neither Sunilda nor Minthe was anywhere to be seen.

  Now the villagers began to sing, enthusiastically waving their torches. They sounded much more fervent than might be expected of rustic laborers attending an ancient festival officially regarded merely as entertainment as their voices rose with the smoke into the star-sprinkled sky.

  The straw man liveth once again

  He journeys to the sea

  And thus we offer him with praise,

  O, Harvest Lord, to Thee

  By his sacrifice we beg

  From Thy heavenly hand

  A goodly harvest from the sea

  And Thy blessing on the land

  Summer ends and die he must

  Die he must, as all who live

  Accept him now, O Harvest Lord,

  And all Thy bounty give

  Staying well back, John loped rapidly along the roadside, scanning the procession and various groups of villagers waiting to see it pass. Armed soldiers were everywhere. There did not seem any way in which Minthe and the girl could reach the headland undetected, nor any place they could hide.

  Then he was racing back past the empress’ litter, not caring whether she saw him or not, barely feeling the burning pain shooting across his knee.

  Several of Felix’s men had swords already in hand as he reached the cart carrying the reclining straw man and leapt aboard. Zeno, striding along beside it carrying a torch and singing enthusiastically, waved them away. He shouted a question which John ignored. Hero stared speechlessly from his seat by the driver.

  The procession kept moving. Perhaps the villagers mistook John’s precipitous arrival for a new part of the spectacle.

  As he clambered onto the cart, John saw the straw man’s painted features leering up at him from the battered leather ball of its head. He grabbed the front of the effigy’s bright orange dalmatic, ripped the fabric open and thrust his hand into its plump chest.

  He found only straw.

  He quickly punched here and there at the well-stuffed effigy. There was nothing but straw. Sunilda had not hidden herself inside it. For once his sudden surmise had been wrong. He had leapt in the wrong direction.

  A wave of shouting came down the road. Torches were being waved about even more enthusiastically. Hero, seemingly oblivious to John’s strange actions, pointed toward the dark mirror of the sea.

  Out there a gray phantom moved and a translucent pillar rose into the night.

  It was the whale Porphyrio, blowing water into the air. Beyond this ghostly vision an inky blotch was outlined against the sky: the goats’ island, crowned with jagged peaks etched in faint moonlight.

  John’s thoughts took another leap forward. He dropped from the swaying cart and began running back down the road, setting his teeth against the pain it caused him. The death of the boy Gadaric had been preceded by the spouting of a mechanical whale. The superstitious might predict that the real whale had just heralded another death.

  But though the superstitious might make such a claim, John had realized that if Sunilda indeed came to harm he would have only himself to blame.

  Hadn’t her letter been perfectly clear? Hadn’t she said she would throw herself into the sea from a point where nothing lay between herself and the rising sun? Why had he so foolishly gone with the procession accompanying the sacrificial straw man?

  There was something else that lay between the headland and the sun. The island inhabited by the goats. And now that it was almost certainly too late, he had to find some way to reach it before sunrise.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The two men dragged the tiny boat down to the beach. Although he had been prepared to take it out alone if necessary, John had found Paul lingering beside the shore road, idly watching the tail end of the procession as it passed brightly and loudly by.

  Paul was eager to assist with the launch but his aging body was reluctant. When they reached the water’s edge, he came to a halt, grimacing, his gnarled hands painfully grasping the small vessel’s gunwale. Lowering his head he muttered a brief prayer to his god. Or perhaps, John thought, it was addressed to the sea.

  He glanced up at the procession, now marked by a fiery line bobbing slowly along the headland. Here and there he could make out an indistinct figure enveloped in a nimbus of smoke. Looking seaward, he saw thickening pre-dawn fog was rolling in, forming a low, faintly luminous wall rising against the sky.

  The susurration of the sea against the beach whispered its eternal threat as he waded into the shallows.

  “No need to hesitate, excellency,” Paul said. “My little boat doesn’t look much but it’s a lot sounder than I am. I built it myself. It will carry us faithfully where you want to go.”

  John made no reply. It wasn’t the boat. There was no boat, or ship, however large and seaworthy, that could allay John’s fear of water, the terrible element that had taken the life of a comrade so many years before. John forced himself to take another step forward, concentrating on the task at hand in an attempt to shut out all thought of the hungry, deep stretch of water waiting.

  As they waded further into the shallows, he tried to imagine he was simply stepping into the pool at the baths, although he in fact avoided cold water even there. A pause to steady the craft and then they had clambered into it.

  Paul began rowing, working the oars as smoothly and mechanically as one of Hero’s automatons.

  Waves sloshed and gurgled against the sides of the little boat as they moved across the water surrounding them with an undulating floor of polished ebony marble. Tendrils of fog came slithering across its glassy surface to meet them. Before long the men were engulfed in a chilly blanket that seemed to draw a cold luminescence from the stars.

  “The island?”

  “It’s straight ahead,” Paul replied. “There’s a strong current towards it and we’re already in it. Can’t you tell?” His voice sounded strained.

  John shook his head, wishing he had insisted that he row rather than the older man. It was too late now to change places, so he was forced to sit rigidly, hand clenched on the gunwales, staring into the blank face of the drifting fog. His fear of deep water was drawing time out as the dead of winter draws out the hours of the night. But there was nothing he could do but endure the endless journey.

  A breeze was beginning to blow landward now, just strong enough to stir the fog into swirling, ghostly shapes without dispersing it. As it shifted, snatches of the faint, discordant music made by Zeno’s metallic players and the lusty singing of the villagers were carried to them from the headland.

  John muttered a prayer of thanks to Mithra that the festival was still in progress, had not yet been ended by the rising of the sun that might also end Sunilda’s life.

  The oars continued their regular dipping into the water. The boat groaned and creaked as if ready to burst apart. John was suddenly aware of his weight pressing down perilously on the thin wooden floor, all that lay between him and the waiting water. Visions of shadowy horrors moving through the blackness below filled his thoughts.

  The boat abruptly rolled sideways.

  “Only a swell,” Paul assured him quickly.

  Another sickening lurch. This time Paul offered no reassurance. John peered into the mist, straining his eyes to see something, anything.

  The small vessel shuddered and spun around, throwing John sideways. For a sickening instant his upper body hung over the edge of the boat before he could pull himself back to safety, scrabbling at the wet plank
s, one hand slipping into the water, so horribly close, that waited patiently for him.

  Something huge was moving out there in the fog, but rather than dissipating into swirling coils of mist it solidified into a half-seen massive shape that slid by them some way off.

  It was Porphyrio.

  Perhaps, John thought, the beast really had come to meet Sunilda.

  Swift on the heels of his thought the fog roiled around the gigantic shadow that could now be seen rising toward the unseen sky.

  There was an explosive slap in the rolling bank of whiteness and John glimpsed the beast’s powerful tail sliding back into the water as Paul said swiftly in a strangely calm voice, “The whale’s closer to land than I’ve ever seen it. When we capsize, try to cling to the hull, excellency.”

  John had seen elephants brought to Constantinople to entertain at the Hippodrome on several occasions. They would have been dwarfed by any part of the whale. The tail alone could have knocked one of those enormous animals off its feet.

  Yet again came the sound of rushing water. A huge wave slammed into the boat, accelerating it forward. Spray stung their faces. All around their small craft the dark water boiled. Paul grimly clung to the oars, his eyes tight shut and his face drained of color.

  Then their craft gave one last shudder and burst through the wall of fog. They were facing the dark bulk of the island. The gray light that precedes dawn revealed jagged rocks jutting from the surf on all sides. The boat’s momentum carried it toward the shore until it finally hit an underwater rock and capsized.

  The men fell into the cold water.

  John had no time to think before all the sounds of the world were replaced by a muffled roar. His mouth opened in an involuntary gasp and the sea choked him as he fell, rigid with horror, into its obscene embrace.

  Downward he floated, hair and clothing spreading out under the touch of the sea’s watery fingers. Trying desperately not to gasp for air, John kicked his legs, praying fervently that he would not die this terrible death. His arms flailed. He did not know whether he was moving upward toward life or deeper toward his death. The roaring in his ears sounded louder, a droning dirge. His lungs were burning. He felt as if they would surely burst.

  Over and over he slowly tumbled through the freezing, dark water in a seemingly endless fall towards oblivion.

  He knew that he could not hold his breath much longer.

  Perhaps he should let go and accept his fate as serenely as he could…

  A hand suddenly yanked painfully at his hair, pulling him back up into blessed air and the roar of the waves.

  It was Paul, who had somehow found the strength to bring John to safety.

  Half-blinded and gasping, the two men reached the island. Their sodden clothing dragging like lead weights, they crawled, shuddering with cold, beyond the eager reach of the waves and collapsed on the beach.

  Shingle crunched beside John’s head and he found himself staring at a boot.

  A child’s boot.

  Looking up, he realized that he had finally discovered the whereabouts of Barnabas, who had indeed crossed the waters, just as the goats had informed Zeno. But the mime had only fled as far as the island where the oracular animals resided.

  ***

  The rutted path to the island’s summit seemed full of holes waiting to trap the careless foot or loose stones eager to cause the unwary scrambler to slip and fall. John continued grimly on at the best pace he could manage between shock, cold and a throbbing knee but moved hardly fast enough to keep ahead of Paul. As John slogged upwards, for the first time since his flash of insight he wondered if, in fact, Sunilda and Minthe were not on the island.

  “I haven’t seen them,” commented Barnabas, who was leading the way, “but then small as this island is there are plenty of places to hide, and I have to stay inside most of the day anyhow.”

  John grunted, concentrating on finding his footing.

  “You’ll appreciate that I had no choice but to flee, Lord Chamberlain,” Barnabas went on, stepping smartly along. “I’d spied on Theodora and Castor. I don’t think she saw me but what if she had? After all, what’s the theft of a few scrolls compared to running off with one of the empress’ secrets?”

  Barnabas had quickly described the scene in Castor’s library as they huffed along, confirming what John had begun to suspect. Although Justinian habitually turned a blind eye, Theodora’s proclivities for amorous adventures were well known, not to say notorious, in Constantinople. Wandering Zeno’s garden unattended, as Zeno had mentioned she had lately been in the habit of doing, allowed her not only a breath or two of fresh air but also the opportunity to slip unobserved through the private door to Castor’s estate. Why else had the empress chosen an eccentric, elderly scholar to be host to the twins for the summer when any estate would have served as well and there were several closer to the city? Clearly it was because Zeno was Castor’s neighbor.

  And given Castor’s claim on the Italian throne, John had a suspicion that Theodora’s interest had not been entirely carnal.

  Hardly out of breath as he forged ahead, Barnabas continued with his rapid explanation. “I grew up in this area and knew that the villagers don’t dare set foot on the island. They’re a superstitious lot. I intended to hide here for a while and then take ship for foreign parts as soon as it was safe.”

  He then admitted to hiding in the mithraeum on the night of the banquet.

  “Unfortunately,” he continued, “even though it’s very well hidden, the search seemed to be getting too close for comfort. So I scaled the wall and hid on Castor’s estate for a while and then stole a boat and came over here. Been here ever since, hauling these wretched goats around.”

  They had come to a tiny, rugged field, hardly more than an indentation in the side of the peak. Its rough expanse was strewn with several of the stuffed animals. On the opposite side of the uncropped grass the rocky and crumbling cliff resumed, rising jaggedly above them. A bird called from somewhere in the straggly brush growing at its base.

  John’s throat clenched as he looked upward.

  “Don’t worry,” Barnabas assured him, “there’s a path up to the top. You’ll see it when you get closer. It’s extremely steep, though. Watch out for loose stones and….”

  “It’s too late,” Paul gasped breathlessly, pointing a shaking finger to the top of the cliff as he spied what John had already glimpsed.

  Two figures were nearing the top of the precipitous path, picking their way slowly as the smaller helped the other.

  Now, too, a blood-red line of incandescence was touching the summit.

  John’s leap of deduction from the darkness of doubt to the light of certainty had been correct, but had it come too late?

  He limped at as rapid a pace as he could manage across the open space populated by departed goats. He was bound to attempt the climb, although he saw with a sinking heart that the path was a series of switchbacks, an impossible distance to traverse quickly even on two good legs.

  Mithra aid me, he muttered, plunging up the stony track as quickly as he could. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see Barnabas about to overtake him, but the mime wasn’t even on the path. Instead he was running off towards the base of the cliff.

  The dwarf’s short legs gave him an awkward gait. Under other circumstances it might have been a comical sight. Now, with a child’s life at stake, his inexplicable action was horrifying.

  Then John understood as Barnabas carefully chose his spot and began working his way up the side of the rocky precipice. John would have said it was a nigh impossible feat, but Barnabas was somehow finding unseen hand-holds, his powerful arms and legs pulling and pushing him quickly upward as surely as they had propelled him through hundreds of the comical acrobatic stunts for which he was justly famous.

  John continued painfully on a journey that seemed to take an eternity. Each time the crumbling track began to point directly to the cliff top
it soon looped back on itself, forced away from its course by a sheer rock face or an impassable outcropping. He could have climbed Mithra’s seven-runged ladder faster, John thought grimly, as he fought his way up the hellish incline.

  As he finally emerged between two boulders marking the end of the path, a wash of sunlight stabbed out over the windswept rocks forming the flat peak of the island.

  And there, at the edge of a precipice overlooking the sea, stood Minthe, her torn garment testimony to a struggle. Her long silver hair streamed down her back.

  A small distance from her Barnabas crouched, holding Sunilda firmly in his arms.

  The girl looked over his shoulder at John with eyes that might have seen a hundred lives.

  “Lord Chamberlain,” she greeted him calmly. “I am very happy that you and Barnabas have arrived, for I am afraid that Minthe has betrayed me. Porphyrio has not appeared despite his promise. In fact, there’s nothing below this high place but jagged rocks. I conclude from this that Minthe intended to kill me and that she is not, after all, my friend.”

  Minthe made no reply.

  From the mainland came a rousing cheer. So unexpected and loud was the sustained sound that John’s gaze was drawn back toward it for an instant.

  Sunilda screamed shrilly.

  John whirled. The child was lying almost at the edge of the precipice with Barnabas’ hands clamped around one of her thin ankles.

  Minthe was gone.

  “She jumped,” shrieked Sunilda hysterically. “I didn’t want her to die. I tried to grab her.” Now she was sobbing. “Minthe, Minthe, come back! I didn’t mean what I said!”

  “She squirmed out of my arms,” Barnabas explained. “I only glanced away for a heartbeat…”

  John hurriedly pulled the bitterly sobbing Sunilda away from the drop, away from anything that might be visible below.

  As he turned back towards the path, he saw Paul standing silently between the boulders, staring at the girl with a strange expression on his face.