by Eric Mayer
Armed guards intercepted him at the entrance to the church. Inside, a building project looked to be well underway. Marble blocks were being pried from the floor and workers were tearing down a wall in one of the side aisles. The sounds of hammering elsewhere rang hollowly in the nave. The guards led him around the work area to the sacristy.
Basilio sat at a table polishing a badly dented silver chalice. Other than faded frescoes, the room was austere. Over the door hung a wooden cross, and a few damaged sacred vessels, whose exact purposes were a mystery to John, occupied largely bare shelves. An open chest revealed threadbare vestments. The garments Basilio wore were of better quality.
The aged man looked up from his work. “The Lord Chamberlain, I believe. We weren’t properly introduced at our first meeting.”
Basilio invited John to sit. He took the indicated stool, the only other seat in the room apart from Basilio’s chair which lacked its cushion. He wasn’t certain how one was supposed to greet a man who imagined himself to be the pope, and was happy Basilio didn’t appear determined to stand on ceremony.
“Young girls are not reliable,” Basilio said, screwing his face up in displeasure, accentuating its deep wrinkles. “It’s part of their flighty nature. And Veneria has taken flight.”
John raised his eyebrows.
“I see you are puzzled. Veneria is a young woman who took care of chores like this but now she has gone off and left the Holy Father to polish his own chalice. Still, even those of us in high positions must remain humble and the Lord gives me strength to do whatever work is necessary. Now, what is your business here? Has Diogenes agreed to lend me some of his men, as I requested?”
“No. I am unaccompanied.”
“Pity. Next time a stranger comes crawling out of my cistern perhaps I will not send him to the general.”
John remembered too well his shock at emerging from dark tunnels only to find himself surrounded by water. “A cistern is an odd place for an entrance to the catacombs.”
“A secret entrance,” Basilio replied. “My church holds many secrets. It was built on the site of a pagan temple and at some point, while the original structure was still in use, its worshipers must have created that entrance. I knew where it would be found, although I can barely see.” Basilio squinted at his reflection in the gilded interior of the chalice, narrowed his eyes, and lowered his face until his nose was almost inside the bowl. “Age robs us of the ability to see the physical world even as our vision of the spiritual grows keener.”
The equally poor-sighted Archdeacon Leon might have voiced a similar sentiment, John thought. The elderly men held opposing religious beliefs but their contrary gods visited the same physical sufferings on them. John hoped he would not be subjected to a sermon. He muttered a vague assent and Basilio continued.
“Just by keeping my ears open I learned amazing things while I was a beggar on the steps of this church, a church my father had helped to keep in repair. I thought the Lord was punishing us when my family fell upon hard times, but not at all. For you see, beggars are invisible and even priests careless in their conversations, thinking because we are destitute, we are also deaf. So I overheard matters the church—or those who falsely call themselves the church—have hidden for centuries. Truths, if you will.”
“I am also looking for the truth,” John put in. “I am seeking information about one of your former employees. Hunulf.”
Basilio frowned in thought.
“A big German, I am told,” John offered.
“Oh, yes. A bit taller than you and much broader. He’s the one Veneria ran away with.”
“You are certain? The man I’m talking about served with Diogenes.”
“He’s the one. The garrison is infested with Germans.”
“And he is involved with this young woman, Veneria?”
“I am sure about it. I once found them in this very room pretending to examine the frescoes, hoping I would not notice their disarranged clothing.”
John examined the paintings. The largest depicted the life of the church’s titular saint, a military man who converted to Christianity, was martyred by beheading and, according to legend, picked up his head and walked away. A second, clumsily done, showed the judgment of Solomon. Set in the reception hall of Solomon’s palace, it struck an anachronistic note in that Solomon was clothed in a billowing toga. A statue of Thanatos with a raven perched on his shoulder sat on a gilded column near Solomon’s throne. The god was pointing out a not-quite rectangular window toward what the painter had rendered as a structure with only three sides.
John noted the raven, the lowest Mithran rank. Another sign from his god, right here in the temple of the Christians’ god?
“I see you are admiring them,” Basilio was saying. “Beautiful, are they not? As for Hunulf. He was one of our guards but left some time ago to work for a notorious woman called Clementia. Even after that, he still continued to pay Veneria visits. I couldn’t help notice her wearing expensive baubles, quite inappropriate for scrubbing floors. They had to be gifts from Hunulf. I hate to speculate how he got them.”
“Hunulf visited her here?”
“More than once I saw him skulking about outside, waiting for her to finish her work. That they could not meet at her home seems to me to show her family did not approve of their liaison. I made it plain a number of times this was also my opinion, for I felt responsibility for her as a straying lamb, not to mention we cannot countenance sinning in a woman connected, however tenuously, with the church without some effort at reform.”
“Indeed. You say Hunulf went to work for the woman Clementia?”
“So Veneria confided in me just before she suddenly left. She said she was afraid Hunulf would desert her for this other woman. It is possible her decision was strongly influenced by that fear. The young can be headstrong. So now, until I find a replacement for her, I do my own polishing.” He gave a dry chuckle.
Basilio made his way toward a dusty-leafed beech behind the church where another old man sat in the shade removing dirt from a pile of carrots. The man’s fingers were as twisted and knobby as the carrots. He worked slowly.
“Don’t rise, Martyrus,” Basilio called as he approached. “I want to talk to you.”
“As you wish.”
The two ancients made a strange contrast. Basilio’s skin sagged with wrinkles as if it had grown too big for the skull beneath, while Martyrus’ skin was desiccated, cracked parchment drawn tight over the bone.
Basilio lowered himself awkwardly onto the marble bench, wincing as he did, picked up a carrot, and brushed off clinging soil. “My bones are aching today.”
It was the result of too many years sitting in open doorways and in front of public buildings in all weather, importuning passersby for coins or a scrap of bread. He knew the steps of Saint Minias Church better than any man alive, knew the hours when the cold winds were likely to blow across them, and the daily procession of the sun and shadows which had governed his own movements.
During his years as a beggar, he had prayed and pondered deeply, and the Lord had inspired him. Now he lived inside the church, but he could still feel his past in his joints.
“I have some willow extract left,” Martyrus said. “I won’t be able to replenish the supply when it is gone. As long as the Goths surround us, I can’t get to the trees by the river. I shouldn’t have dug up my medicinal herbs to plant vegetables.”
“We may need the vegetables,” Basilio replied. “I had a visitor,” he added. “The Lord Chamberlain. He asked me about Hunulf.”
His companion gave him a glance. His eyes were clear and as black as two newly polished stones. They might have been inserted into the old face just yesterday. “Hunulf was a trouble-maker, if ever I saw one!”
“I cannot say I am unhappy he has gone. He was always creeping around in a suspicious manner, not to mention Veneria
told me he is a man of violent humors. At the same time, even though he is gone, he is still causing trouble, given I would prefer not to talk to a man asking difficult questions about people who go away and don’t return. I was afraid my visitor was accusing me of having a hand in their disappearances.”
Martyrus nodded. “You told him Veneria had vanished?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps the pair have just run away together.”
“Just so long as they don’t come back here. I didn’t like being questioned by the Lord Chamberlain.”
They worked in silence until Martyrus remarked, “Contributions to the church have dropped off the past few weeks.”
“Should I hold more services?”
“I don’t think that would help. The faithful have only so much to give.”
“Do we still have enough to pay the guards? That’s the important thing. If we aren’t able to keep hold of the church…”
“The people are preoccupied with the Goths. They rightfully fear an assault is coming. Even if that fails, the siege will continue.”
“It is difficult to distract even the faithful from such worldly concerns.”
“We need something to rekindle their enthusiasm. Faith is like a fire, it burns down and has to be prodded once in a while.”
“Yes. I will think about it. It may be an opportunity—”
He was interrupted by a distraught man who raced around the corner of the church. He stopped, gasping for breath, in front of the two ancients. “We’ve seen that shade wandering the catacombs again! My men dropped their tools and ran!”
Basilio climbed to his feet with a grunt and patted the visitor on his shoulder. “My son, you are mistaken. Tell your men to have faith in the Lord. The blessed departed do not wander about. They are all at rest. But you should not be. You have work to do. Get back to it.”
This did not placate the workman. “It is the work of the devil or demons!”
“Would the Lord allow demons to play and terrify the righteous beneath His holy church? Now gather together your men and reassure them. There is much work yet to be done.”
The man went off reluctantly. Basilio sat again and continued cleaning carrots. “Demons do not worry me,” he went on. “This Lord Chamberlain does. I didn’t like it when he emerged from the catacombs and I like it even less now that he is asking pointed questions. Do you think he was really lost down there?”
“The workmen might just be imagining this spirit. It may be nothing more than shadows.”
Basilio gave a snort. “Ugh! A worm!” He shook the worm off his hand, stood up, and stamped on it.
At least that problem was quickly solved.
Chapter Nine
Leaving the Church of Saint Minias, John wondered whether the vanished servant Veneria had actually run away with Hunulf or simply gone back to her parents’ home. He would need to visit the family. The glint of the lowering sun on the Tiber caught his eye. He made his way through a weedy maze of toppled pillars, the remains of a porticoed street, until he came to the riverbank. The brownish waters gave off the stench of the effluvia dumped into it, although not as strong as it must have been when the city still thrived.
Two men were dragging something through the shallow water. By the time John arrived, they had wrapped what looked like a body in a canvas sheet. One of the men, short, broad-shouldered, and completely bald, stamped mud off his boots and greeted John warily.
“Yes, it’s a corpse,” the bald man confirmed in reply to John’s query.
“A man,” added his companion, a nondescript fellow with a scraggly beard. “Big, a soldier, going by the way he’s dressed. Too bad for us. Men don’t wear jewelry.”
“Quiet, you fool,” snapped his colleague.
“We work for the authorities,” the other put in. “Can’t leave corpses lying around.”
“Few enough of them now,” his companion complained. “Not like during the siege when bodies blocked the streets. Plenty of jewelry back then.”
John’s gaze fell on the large belt buckle in the speaker’s hand.
“The authorities do not compensate us well. They expect us to tax those who use our services. This one owes us more than this belt buckle, given how much trouble he was to haul in.”
John wasn’t worrying about whether the men were looting bodies. At the words “big soldier,” he couldn’t help thinking of Hunulf or Felix. He stared down at the bulk hidden beneath the sheet and for one sickening instant was sure he recognized his friend from the outline of his build alone.
“I wish to take a look at the face.”
The two others exchanged questioning looks.
“You don’t want to, for I can tell you are a man of some refinement.”
“I’m a man who has been on battlefields. Uncover the face.”
As John bent down to see, his heart seemed to leap into his throat.
The face was fat and beardless. Not Felix.
No, not fat, John corrected himself, exhaling in relief as he straightened up. Just bloated from being long in the water. As far as he could make out, the face was that of an older man so he was not Hunulf either.
The scavengers lifted the corpse into a handcart. Faint moans and sighs issued from the body as gasses escaped.
“Where are you taking this man?”
“During the last siege they set up a mortuary in the Baths of Decius,” answered the bald man. “They haven’t been used for their original purpose in years.”
“I shall come with you. I am searching for someone.”
Both men nodded and smiled.
The bald man rubbed his sunburned scalp. “Oh, I see. That’s reasonable. Well, I mean, there are some who just like to look at the dead.”
“And some want us to uncover the women,” added his companion.
They set off across the forum and climbed the Aventine Hill. The streets were deserted except for a couple of stray dogs who sniffed the air and followed them hopefully. The baths were a complex of ponderous buildings. Entering the main building, they walked down a wide hall, leaving muddy bootprints and cart tracks on the elaborate mosaic floor. They were observed by painted marble statues so ancient that the colors were mostly worn off, as if they’d just been in the baths for a good scrubbing. Halfway down the hall they turned through an archway presided over by an infant Hercules carved from basalt.
The main bathing pool, long since dry, had been turned into a mortuary. Cadavers in various states of putrefaction were laid out on the tiles, some wrapped better than others. The bald man and his bearded companion carried their burden down the steps into the pool, turned it over to the attendant, and left.
The attendant’s large white beard made him resemble a weary Greek philosopher. “Can I be of assistance, sir?”
“I am looking for a man who is missing.”
“Very well. But I must accompany you. Everybody who comes here says he is looking for someone but most are really looking for what they can find on the bodies.”
“I am surprised there is anything of value left on them by the time they arrive here,” John remarked, thinking about the men who had pulled the body from the river.
“It can happen. Some time back there was a young woman with an expensive necklace. It had slipped down into her tunica, which is how her family identified her. If not for the necklace…well, she had been in the water for quite a while.”
A thick haze filled the pool where water had once been, smoke from bowls of burning, scented oil placed amidst the neat rows of bodies. Still the heavy stink of death was overwhelming. The air was filled with the buzzing of flies.
“Are you looking for an adult?”
“Yes.”
The attendant walked briskly past a row of smallish bundles, bent, and pulled a sheet away from a face John, thankfully, failed to recognize.
Some of the corpses stared sightlessly up at the smoke through opaque eyes. Others’ faces were little more than scraps of flesh hanging to the skull. Each time the attendant pulled a sheet aside, John’s stomach lurched and his heart raced. Flies rose in a cloud, their fat bodies hitting John’s face, before settling back down in a swarm over the features John was attempting to identify.
“You should have seen the crowds we had here during the last siege, sir.”
Up and down the rows they went. To John’s growing relief, all were strangers. Why had he imagined he’d find Felix here? No one had seen him for a few days. That was all. And yet, as he’d walked to the makeshift mortuary, he had become convinced that his friend’s body would be lying there. The mind had the bad habit of fixing upon the worst possible outcomes.
John silently thanked Mithra as they approached the final corpse. The attendant lifted the cover.
The first thing John saw was the huge, bushy beard. Then he noticed the bear-like body.
He suppressed a gasp. The face was largely gone. White bone showed through the red ruin of the flesh.
“Is this who you are looking for?” the attendant asked.
John squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again, steadying himself. “No. It can’t be. The man I am looking for hasn’t been missing long enough for his corpse to have decayed to such an extent.”