Mary Reed: Seven for a Secret

A bunch of purple grapes stared at Anatolius over his companion’s broad shoulder. He blinked and the face in the grapes went away. He could imagine a few more cups of wine and they might start speaking to him.

What if John insisted on pursuing the ridiculous matter further? Besides, Felix was bound to find out when the prankster began bragging-if indeed that’s all it was.

Anatolius leaned forward and whispered, although they were alone in the tavern except for the proprietor. “Felix, I rely upon you to treat this as confidential, but who do you think John met the other day?”

“What do you mean? Some envoy perhaps? A Persian? A Goth?”

“No! I’m not talking about his job. It was Zoe from the mosaic in his study!”

“That’s impossible!”

Anatolius nodded. “That’s what I told him. And when we went to meet her again as arranged, she didn’t appear.”

Felix scratched his bearded chin. “John should consult a physician for a concoction to correct his humors. They must be unbalanced if he’s starting to imagine things. What do you make of it? If John’s in danger I should-”

“It’s nothing but a prank. I’m certain of it.” Anatolius immediately wished he’d said nothing. Mithra! He had as a bad a weakness for talking as Felix did for wine.

He recalled how he’d seen John last, waiting alone. He could imagine his reaction if a contingent of armed excubitors dispatched by Felix came rushing into the square.

“Forget I said anything, Felix. I can assure you, John’s in no danger at all.”

John stepped away from the stylite’s column to make room for a group of pilgrims.

The middle-aged men with peeling, sunburnt faces, their homely garments stiff with the dirt of a journey from the countryside, stared up toward the motionless holy man and put their fingertips to his granite pillar.

The sunlight felt hot. The finger-like shadow of the column fell across the square as if marking the hour. More passersby were in evidence. One or two beggars had stationed themselves near the pillar in order to take advantage of pious charity. The smell of fresh bread mingled with the acrid smoke that had begun to burn the back of John’s throat, evidence of a bakery hidden amidst the forges and furnaces whose increasing clamor announced the beginning of a new day of labor.

The enticing odor reminded John that he had not eaten that morning. It was simply a fact to be noted. He was not a man who was driven by appetites.

Again he surveyed the square.

Perhaps Anatolius was right and Zoe was not going to appear.

The long watch was not difficult for John. During his years as a mercenary he had passed countless nights in Bretania, on guard in the chilly darkness at what had once been the edge of the empire. The nights had seemed countless at the time, but they were not, for now they were gone.

John’s muscles remembered how to remain still but ready to respond immediately if attacked. He retained the trick of letting his mind doze while his eyes and ears remained alert.

He saw a woman, dressed in brocaded robes, step out of the canopied chair which her four Nubian slaves had set down in front of a goldsmith’s workshop. A small army of retainers and guards accompanied her.

Not far off he heard an elderly man, who might have passed for Peter, haggling with a tired merchant over a bundle of limp greens.

“They weren’t wilted when you started arguing about the price!” the merchant declared.

A hollow-eyed, dirty boy lingered nearby. Was he waiting for his opportunity to snatch one of the apples the disgruntled customer had already dismissed as worm-eaten?

No.

In fact, he was staring at John.

Steadily. Brazenly.

When he noticed John looking back, he turned and bolted.

John went after him.

Metal flashed in the sunlight as the guards posted at the door of the goldsmith’s establishment drew their weapons. John was already past them, running out of the square and down a straight street without colonnades.

After an initial burst of speed, the boy slowed. As a young man John had been a runner. He knew how to pace himself and he made a point of regularly visiting the gymnasium at the Baths of Zeuxippos. Nevertheless, the boy was younger. As soon as John began to make up ground, his prey managed to pull away. John thought he could wear the boy down if they ran long enough and he kept his quarry in sight.

Laborers on their way to work and shoppers carrying baskets stepped aside in alarm. Later they would regale their friends and families with the incongruous spectacle of a tall man in fine robes in pursuit of a grubby street urchin, and not a few of the theories advanced to explain the spectacle would be of a lewd, not to say obscene, nature.

The boy veered sideways into an alley.

John followed.

It was possible he was being led into an ambush. He did not think so. There was no doubt the pursuit had attracted attention, which assassins would wish to avoid.

The alley turned at sharp angles, threading its narrow path first one way and then another, its course defined by the surrounding buildings.

John leapt over a pile of rotting cabbages, his boots sinking into a semi-liquescent puddle surrounding the remains of some farmer’s unsold wares, not yet found by the hungry. He slipped, righted himself. His shoulder slammed into a brick wall an arm’s length to his right.

For a heartbeat he had taken his gaze from the boy, who had vanished.

Impossibly, because John was at the entrance of a cul-de-sac.

A perfect spot to be waylaid, if attackers closed off its one entrance.

Except there was no place for potential assassins to hide-or for the boy to have gone. The buildings closing in the airless space were devoid of doors or windows. The wall John had briefly touched was hot. He guessed there was a furnace of some sort on the other side. Later in the day, the narrow passage would be stifling.

Ahead, three long steps led up to what must have once been a portico. Pale circles on the platform at the top of the flight revealed where columns had stood. The wide door to the building it originally graced had been partly boarded over and secured with a heavy rusted chain. It had obviously not been opened for some time.

However, a corner of the board had been cut out and the metal strapping bent aside, creating a gap large enough for a boy, or a man as lean as John, to crawl through.

He ran up the steps and knelt by the opening. It appeared to have been gnawed by giant rats but was, no doubt, the work of beggars seeking shelter. Constantinople was too small for its populace. No space was allowed to go unused. Any place where rent was free attracted the homeless who scratched out a living, and often died, in dark corners and on the city streets.

A cool draught emanated from the building. John thought he could hear the fading sound of footsteps.

Then the boy was not lying in wait for him.

Others might be.

It would be folly for him to go in there.

He stilled his breathing and listened.

There was no sound.

He was certain no one was on the other side of the door. He had no sense of any other presence.

He took a handful of nummi from his coin pouch and flung them through the gap. The copper coins rang noisily against stone.

From within, there was no reaction. No intake of breath, no muffled sound of a weapon shifted, automatically, defensively. No scuffling for the coins.

John pulled his short blade from his belt, took a breath, and squeezed through the hole. A protruding nail ripped his robe from shoulder to waist, tearing a scrap of flesh with it.

He scrambled to his feet.

It was not entirely dark. Shafts of light, filtering through fissures in the derelict building above, criss-crossed a cavernous space interspersed with soaring columns. He was at the top of a flight of steps, matching in width those outside, but descending more steeply into darkness.