Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

He didn’t look very forgiving at all. The flickering lamplight animated the giant features. At times the taut lips appeared ready to snarl, and at other times about to quirk into a sardonic smile.

The face was so large that, had the mouth opened, it could have snapped my head off with one bite. A rat peeped out from around the corner of the panel. I found a bit of brick and flicked it at the rodent, which scuttled away. The movement had made barely a sound but immediately I heard a noise coming from outside my little niche.

No. It had to be my imagination.

I sat and listened, feeling my muscles tighten until my legs began to cramp. I had to know. I crawled out of my hole, lamp in hand, took several steps forward, and listened.

Nothing.

I went a few paces further, then quickly on into the cavernous space beyond, a dry and abandoned cistern. Darkness swallowed the feeble lamplight. Several toppled columns, piled together, partly blocked the way in.

From a distance came the loud sound of cascading water. It was raining again and getting in somewhere. That must have been the sound I thought I had heard.

All the same, I checked behind the columns.

Philokalas was still there.

Or rather the tunic full of bones and scraps of rotted flesh that had once been Philokalas. The rats and whatever else lived down here had devoured most of him, which made the stench less than it might otherwise have been.

Still, I knew I should move him. It would be better if Arabia didn’t stumble across the body. I bent down but my stomach lurched at the thought of touching the thing. I hadn’t eaten much for days, and the biscuits weren’t sitting well.

I returned to my hiding place. Now I could almost swear the icon was smiling benignly at me, as if to say, “Don’t worry about Philokalas. You acted without thinking. You’re only human.” Or maybe it was just smiling to itself. Finding the whole thing funny.

I dozed.

After being awakened countless times by phantom footsteps, I finally woke to Arabia gently nuzzling my neck.

She had whiskers.

I came fully awake, flailing at a rat.

By the time I had my wits about me, my assailant was gone. In the dim lamplight I noticed the biscuit sack had moved. I started to pull it back towards me and rats boiled out and streamed behind the holy image.

The rest of the night I stayed alert.

So far, things had gone reasonably well. But I brooded over all the things that might go wrong.

Then I thought about the gnawed bones that used to be a labourer named Philokalas.

After which I thought about Arabia who had showed quick intelligence and a certain amount of cunning.

More to the point, if things went wrong I could deny everything. After all, she was only a servant and I was an artist, a craftsman well-known to Florentius. That was another good reason for me to work with her.

When Arabia arrived the next morning she wore a blue embroidered cloak and a yellow stola. She’d pinched a deeper shade of lip colouring and had pulled her glossy hair into neat coils at the sides of her head. She looked more like a lady than a servant.

“What are you looking at?” she asked, as if she didn’t know. Her eyes shone. The eyes are where life shines out. In my icons I tried to capture that in paint with bright lines and detailing. That was part of what I had left unfinished on the eyeless Christ back in my room. Yet I’d never managed to hint at eyes like Arabia’s.

“I’m glad to see you,” I told her. “It’s a relief, after having that thing glowering at me all night.” I nodded towards the icon.

She had brought a basket with her. This time the Lord had provided bread and cheese. I ate and described my restless night and some of the conclusions I’d drawn before the unseen dawn arrived overhead. Farming was fine, but the empire stretched a long way and so did the grasp of the emperor. Besides, what were the chances Florentius would agree to buy the icon rather than report us immediately to the authorities?

I just wanted to plan for all eventualities but she took it the wrong way. Her face darkened. “Don’t lose courage before we’ve even started. It’s lack of sleep, that’s all.”

“The rats never stop running,” I complained, around a mouthful of bread. “They come out from behind that thing.”

She went over and stood beside the giant image. “We’re not going to be stopped by rats.” She put a finger to her lips and then dropped a piece of cheese near the icon. “They love cheese even better than biscuits,” she whispered.

She didn’t move for a long time. She had all the patience in the world.

Finally a beady-eyed head poked out from behind the panel. The neck extended slightly, the nose twitched towards the cheese. Arabia brought the heel of a yellow shoe down sharply. I heard the rodent’s skull pop.

“There,” she said. “See how easily that’s dealt with? Now we’ll deal with something else.”

She shrugged off her heavy cloak, tossed it on to the floor, and began to loosen her stola.

The bottom of a wine cup isn’t the only place men find courage to overcome doubts. After Arabia helped me overcome mine, she straightened her hair, stood, and quickly pulled the stola back over her head. The flickering lamplight flung the trembling shadow of her body up over the holy visage.

“When we have our farm, we won’t have to rush,” I said. “We’ll be able to lie together all morning if we want.”

She slapped the dust off her cloak. “How did you come to paint icons, Victor? Are you a religious man?”

“I’m a Christian. Who isn’t? But I can’t say I’m particularly religious. My family were killed by a pestilence when I was a child. My mother died screaming in agony.”

“I wouldn’t think you’d be inspired to paint icons.”

“I wasn’t inspired. It came about because I was apprenticed to an artisan’s workshop. I used to paint frescoes too. Frescoes have to be done in warmer weather, so the plaster and paint set right. I realized that in the summer, when most painters are decorating frescoes in churches and mansions, an icon-painter could find plenty of commissions. I’ve always been practical.”

“Is my lip colour smudged?” She leaned forward into the lamplight so I could see.

“Not a bit. You have a beautiful mouth. And what about you? How long have you worked for Florentius?”

“Not long.”

“You’ve always done the same thing?”

“Been a rich man’s servant, you mean?”

“You don’t like being employed by Florentius? He strikes me as a man of decency. He’s always shown me respect in our business dealings.”

She laughed. “You really think a rich man like Florentius respects people like us?”

“He’s told me he admires my skills.”

“Unless you’re rich you’re just a thing to be used. Did Florentius offer to lend you any money to tide you over?”

“Well — ”

“What about your other wealthy patrons? What would a month’s rent be to them? Or a year’s? Have they offered?”

“They haven’t,” I admitted. I hated seeing her angry. It worried me. It could ruin everything. “You aren’t from Constantinople, are you?” I said, to change the subject.

“No. I was born in the countryside. I thought it all very boring — dirt and pigs as far as you could see — so I ran away to the big city. Not a very interesting story.”

“Until now!”

“Yes, until now. The best stories are the ones we make up for ourselves. You can’t trust others to make up your story for you. You’re never the hero of someone else’s story.”

She smoothed down her stola and patted her hair. “I’ll be back this evening,” she said. “You can tell me how it goes with Florentius. And then …” When she kissed me before leaving, I wondered whether she was thinking about kissing the emperor on the solidus.