Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

All the same, I was uneasy about the arrangement. For one thing whoever was following me could conceal themselves in the crowds. I would need to be careful. I hunkered down and took one of the sticky cakes. It was very sweet indeed. I noticed the plate was silver.

“It was difficult to get away,” I said. “He kept talking.”

Arabia’s large brown eyes narrowed. “What did he want to talk about?”

“Religion. He wanted to know whether a painter could depict Christ as both divine and human at the same time. According to Emperor Leo and the Patriarch, that can’t be done in paint. Another good excuse for destroying icons! The icon will either depict Christ’s physical nature only — which is one sort of heresy — or show his physical and spiritual natures mixed, which is another sort.”

“That’s stupid.” Arabia stretched up on her toes to tap the gilded halo behind the giant head, then rapped her knuckles against the sharp tip of its nose. “There’s your spiritual and there’s your physical. It’s plain to anyone.”

“All the same, I hate to think of him telling the emperor about an icon-painter who — ”

“And Leo, of course, wanting to know who this icon-painter is!”

“Exactly.”

Arabia shook her head. “I wouldn’t worry.” She sat down on the floor, leaned against me, and began nibbling a cake.

“Florentius might see this as an opportunity to gain Leo’s goodwill, by turning us and the icon over to him,” I said. What I was thinking was that maybe I could arrange for Arabia alone to be turned over, if it came to it.

“Is that why you look so shifty? You’re expecting the emperor’s guards or the urban watch to barge in?”

“I didn’t realize I — ”

“Oh yes. I’ve noticed.” She smiled at me as she carefully licked honey off her fingers. Her pink tongue darted in and out and her moistened fingers glistened in the lamplight. “But remember Florentius doesn’t know where the icon is or where we are.”

“At some point, though, we’ll have to trust him. We can’t move the icon above-ground ourselves. If we cleared some of the bricks in front of that hole we might be able to squeeze it out of this place, since clearly whoever hid it here heaped those bricks up to help conceal the entrance. But it will never fit through that gap under the hound. Someone would have to make an opening somewhere in the outside wall, fast, and get the icon away faster, before the urban watch showed up to see what was causing the commotion.”

“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” Arabia leaned her head on my shoulder and I was enveloped in her warmth. “Have you painted many images of Christ?”

“A few. The last one is still back in my room. I’m afraid I left him eyeless.”

“He doesn’t need eyes, does he? If he wants to see without them, he could see with his hands or his nose.”

“There’s a lot of extra work to be done on eyes. But then you probably aren’t interested in egg tempera techniques.”

She didn’t dispute the statement so I shut up.

“Don’t worry so much,” she told me. “Everything is going to work out perfectly. It’s been preordained. Don’t you see? Our running into each other, taking shelter from the rain, finding the icon, both of us working for Florentius, who collects icons … it’s all too much to be a coincidence. We’re being guided by the hand of God. Have faith, Victor!”

I didn’t have a chance to reply. There was a scrabbling noise outside our hiding place.

I went over and looked into the dimness, but saw nothing.

I was turning away, chiding myself for my nervousness, when there was another scuffling sound and a figure appeared out of the gloom.

At first I thought it was a feathered demon or a giant bird. Then I saw it was a man, waving his arms wildly, flapping the tattered garment he wore.

A beggar.

He shouted in a voice as ragged as his clothes. “Ye who gaze upon the great face of the Lord, repent! Repent! Repent!”

Arabia screamed.

The ragged man turned and scuttled away towards the cistern.

I went after him. He must have seen the icon, not to mention Arabia and me.

He scrambled over the fallen columns and I followed him into the darkness beyond.

I could hear his feet slapping across the stones better than I could see him. More than once I heard him fall. I shouldn’t have been able to catch him otherwise, since he was surprisingly nimble. It was like trying to catch a desperate beast.

The man kept crying out to the Lord. Down here, the Lord was the only one likely to hear. I didn’t want him to get back above ground where he could tell his tale to anyone who would listen.

I began to gain on him. I managed a burst of speed born of desperation, and my cold-numbed fingers brushed a fluttering scrap of cloth. I leapt forward and dragged him down.

He was stronger than I expected, and more agile. Claw-like nails tore at my neck. A sharp knee caught me in the stomach. Teeth sank into my shoulder. It felt as if I was being attacked by a pack of feral dogs.

I tried to get up and he slammed me backwards. My head hit the ground and lights flared behind my eyes.

Then there was a loud thud and the beggar grunted. I couldn’t feel him flailing at me any longer.

There were more thuds. I blinked. We were surrounded by the orange glow of the lamp Arabia held in one hand. In the other she gripped a bloody half brick.

I pushed myself up.

The beggar lay crumpled face down.

His skull had been caved in.

My chest burned from exertion and I hurt everywhere. If Arabia had arrived too late it would have been me lying there.

She’d saved my life.

I couldn’t take my gaze off the corpse. She’d hit the man again and again. Bloody shards of bone jutted through the matted hair.

Arabia started to sob. “I was so frightened, Victor. So frightened for you.” She threw the brick away. Her narrow shoulders shook.

I put my arm around her. “We’ll go back now. I’ll hide his body later.”

By the time we were back at our hole in the wall we were both shivering uncontrollably.

“Your clothes are ruined,” Arabia said. “I’ll bring you new ones.”

“Steal them from Florentius, you mean! That’s where you’ve been finding the food you bring me, isn’t it? I noticed his household seal on the plate.”

“We’re not stealing. It’s an advance payment.”

“Then again, what’s theft compared to murder?”

“We were only defending ourselves. We had to kill him.”

We? I hadn’t killed the beggar. But, on the other hand, there was Philokalas. I didn’t correct Arabia. We thought alike. “No,” I said, we’re not guilty of murder or theft, or greed or coveting another man’s possessions either, since all we want from Florentius is enough to keep us safe. And as for worshipping graven images, that’s a matter of opinion anyway.”

Arabia laughed. She gave me an appraising look. “You’re forgetting lust,” she said. “And I’m afraid that’s a sin you can’t deny.”

Arabia left, returned with food and the clothes she’d promised, and departed again. I set the clean clothing — plain garments of the type servants wear — to one side, for my meeting with Florentius next day. Then I sat down and tried to avoid the gaze of the icon.

Sometimes, when I painted an image, I had the uncanny sensation that the saint in heaven was also right in front of me, under my brush. At such times I felt I was painting a hole in the world and an otherworldly presence was stepping through.

Yet paints were paints. Pigments, wine, water, egg. There wasn’t anything else. Just raw materials and artistic technique.