Mary Reed - Seven for a Secret

“It was a dangerous time,” John replied.

“It seemed to us that the gates of hell had opened. We were convinced the emperor must have died or fled, for otherwise he would have delivered us from the savages roaming the streets. For three days it went on. Then, before dawn, there came a terrible pounding at the door. My wife begged me not to open it, even when the frantic cries from outside told us who our callers were. But what else could I do? Glykos had sent two servants for me. He was not satisfied with the mosaic!”

“I am surprised the tax collector was concerned about a wall mosaic under the circumstances.”

“He had lost his wits, Lord Chamberlain.” Figulus shook his head. “Why, the servants he had sent were boys. They shook so badly they could hardly hold their spears. I remember looking back over my shoulder before we turned the corner. My wife was still standing in the doorway. I could barely see her though the swirling smoke that filled the street. I was certain I would never see her again.”

“You managed to get through to the palace without harm?”

“Only by the grace of God. Armed men appeared out of the smoke and pounded past us. Some carried swords, others brandished short lengths of boards bristling with nails, or carried the hammers used by metalsmiths. They paid us no heed. Once I glimpsed a fierce melee down a side street. It was when we reached the Mese that the miracle occurred.”

“Miracle?”

“Yes. A miracle. You can only understand the mosaic if you know about the miracle. My escorts and I had stepped through an archway and saw a torrent of flame rushing between the colonnades toward us, like water pouring though an aqueduct. As I leapt out into the street, the flames reached a lamp oil shop.

“I came to my senses on my knees, halfway across the Mese. I couldn’t remember being propelled through the air or landing. The explosion had littered the cobbles with shattered bricks. I have thought about it often, and have come to believe the extreme heat made the oil boil and the pressure building up in the sealed amphorae caused them to explode. I started to stand up and couldn’t. The edge of my cloak was caught beneath a column which had toppled over. The Lord had spared me being crushed. I gave silent thanks.”

“You suppose you were spared so you could finish the mosaic?” John asked. “Now, what was it that Glykos wanted done?”

“I will explain, Lord Chamberlain. But first I must describe the miracle. It wasn’t merely that I was allowed to live. You see, I had been carrying a quantity of tesserae in a wicker basket. As I got back to my feet I realized I no longer held the basket. It lay some distance away. Empty. And I knew there were none at the tax collector’s house for, supposing I was finished, I had taken the unused tesserae away with me.”

“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.”