Mary Reed - Five for Silver

“Triton was a troublesome tenant?”

“Named for a pagan god and had the morals of one.”

Something in the woman’s tone told John he would have to tread around the subject of Triton carefully. He asked to see Triton’s room.

Glykeria’s head inclined further to the side. “I see I misunderstood your intentions.”

Suddenly she grabbed a fold of John’s robe.

A toothless smile added another crease to the woman’s face. “I can feel from this fine cloth you can afford my rooms. For an instant I thought I’d have to direct you to a tenement. If you would wait…”

She banged the door shut and emerged not long afterwards grasping a bundle of keys.

“This way,” she said as she scuttled out. Despite her lack of sight, Glykeria crossed the paved courtyard without hesitation and vanished into an entranceway. John followed her to the top of a gloomy flight of stairs.

“I’m not proposing to become a tenant,” he said, wondering how she had formed the misconception. “I only wish to see where Triton lived. I’m curious, though. How did you initially suppose I couldn’t afford one of your rooms?”

“Excuse me, sir, but it was because you carry the smell of the most vulgar of wines.”

Glykeria led him to the second floor. If any lamps were provided in the windowless stairwell, they weren’t lit. The hallway was nearly as dark. Glykeria’s key grated in a lock, a battered plank door swung open, and they stepped into a room whose furnishings consisted entirely of dust.

“Spacious, as I’m sure you’ll agree. If you’d care to look out the window and direct your gaze between the building over the way and the warehouse next to it and then over the top of the distant granary, there’s a fine view of the sea, or so I’m told.”

John walked over to the window. Whoever had described the view to Glykeria possessed either eyes or a tongue that couldn’t be trusted.

“A most pleasant view,” she went on. “But then to me any view would be pleasant.” She emitted a brief cackle.

Ignoring his recent statement that he did not wish to take a room, she continued. “I must caution you, sir, there’s already been some interest in this fine place. Several well-spoken young men came by just yesterday. Come to think of it, that proves Triton must have been dead then. Unless it was this morning when I showed them the room. They looked around for the longest time. They wanted to meditate on the decision by themselves, so I left them. I suspect they were praying for advice. In the end, they did not take it. Perhaps it was heaven’s plan the room should still be here for you, sir. They gave me a nummus for my trouble. Very pious young men, they were.”

Not to mention strong, since the courteous thieves had apparently stolen everything in the room. Not that there had been much furniture to begin with, judging from the dust-free markings on the floorboards.

Glykeria secured Triton’s former lodgings behind them. Having taken several uncannily sure steps down the hallway, motioning John to follow, she rapped a staccato summons on a door at the far end.

After some time a muffled screech came from within. “I told you, my husband’s sick, you old crow. We’ll pay the rent as soon as he’s up and around and can get back to work.”

“I’ll have what’s due, or you’ll answer to the City Prefect!”

“Why not bring the Patriarch along with the Prefect while you’re at it?” came the shouted reply. “Or how about Justinian? I am sure the emperor is as anxious about your rent as you are! Go away and stop bothering a sick man!”

“I’ve got someone here prepared to take you away now,” Glykeria claimed. “If you don’t believe me, look out and see.”

The door opened briefly and shut again with a loud click. Not long afterwards the door opened a second time and several coins clattered onto the floor near Glykeria’s shoes. She bent nimbly, her fingers explored the boards, found the money, and scooped it up in an instant. “Thank you for your assistance, sir. I’ll be happy to give you a discount on that room.”

“Perhaps you might have waited until your tenant resumed working?” John suggested as they clattered back downstairs.

Glykeria snorted in derision. “The fellow won’t see sunrise tomorrow.”

“What makes you think so?”

They were halfway across the courtyard. Glykeria stopped and turning toward John tapped her nose. “I can smell it, sir. Take the clerk on the second floor. He’s afraid it’s the plague, but he’ll be back to his accounts next week. He just ate something that had spoilt, that’s all. However, the potter next door to him will be clay before he touches his wheel again.”

“How do you know this, Glykeria?” He almost expected to hear that she kept an oracle in her kitchen.

“I smell it on them.”

“Ah, I understand.” It was becoming obvious that Glykeria’s blindness was less an impediment to her than her mental faculties. Which perhaps explained how she had transformed John so quickly from one of Tritons’ creditors to prospective tenant.

She must have sensed the doubt in his tone. ”Let me prove it, sir.” She wrinkled her nose and sniffed. “What a strange thing. You have been to a farm recently. A gentleman like you in the midst of the capital, I agree it seems unlikely and yet it is unmistakable. Let me advise you, bulls can be dangerous beasts.”

John remarked that she had an amazing gift.

“Gift? You call this a gift? Can you imagine what it is like to live by one’s nose since the plague arrived? Be glad you don’t possess my sensitivities, sir. Now, about the matter of Triton’s old room…”

John explained yet again that he did not intend to rent anything. He pressed a coin into her hand, stifling her vague murmurs of disappointment. “For your help, Glykeria. Is there anything else you can tell me about Triton before I go?”

“I didn’t know him as well as some, I admit. However, I make my daily rounds, to collect rents, to clean, to make certain all is in order. I noticed things from time to time. He imbibed heavily, for a start. He was often sick from too much wine.”

Her face crinkled with displeasure at the recollection. “His father visited once. They argued. Such blasphemous language. I’ve rarely heard the like! It’s no wonder Triton died horribly. Many of my tenants have left this life since the plague arrived and it’s always a dreadful death, but his was the most terrible of all. I could hear him at the end, bellowing with pain, even down here in the courtyard. Heaven is just, sir, if not always kind.”

She tilted her head toward the courtyard which they had just left, as if the paving stones still vibrated with echoes of Triton’s last agonies.

John asked what Triton and Nereus had argued about.

“A woman, of course. What else? She insisted on calling herself Sappho. She thought I didn’t notice, but I always knew when she sneaked in and out of the building. She smelled of cheap wine, expensive perfume, and garlic. A very stupid and low girl.”

Glykeria leaned forward confidentially. “One day she brought in a piece of fox-fur one of the furriers over the way had discarded. I had a tenant who sewed, and I allowed her to conduct business in her room for a small weekly consideration. Apparently Sappho imagined she would look quite the aristocrat, with this nasty scrap of fur sewn along the bottom of her tunic. Still, the job provided my tenant a extra nummus or two, so she could pay her rent on time for a change, until the plague claimed her.”

She pursed her lips. “My tenant described the woman to me in great detail. Sappho always wore saffron-colored garments, of a most indecent style I may add, and boasted endlessly about how she would one day wear golden silk. Well, to cut a long story short, she eventually moved in, but when she left him she took the nasty thing with her. I mean the fox-trimmed tunic, not Triton.”