Mary Reed - Three for a Letter

A tap at the study door disturbed John’s ruminations. Peter entered and set his lamp on John’s desk. The elderly servant averted his eyes from the glassy, hypnotic gaze of the mosaic girl as he replenished John’s wine from the jug on the table by the door. He asked if his master wished his evening meal brought to the study.

John nodded and resumed pacing up and down the room as Peter escaped down the corridor to the steamy kitchen.

***

“Some may laugh at the very idea,” pronounced Peter, “but I have heard that the village by Zeno’s estate is a hot bed of magick and superstition. In fact, the area’s famous, or perhaps I should say notorious, for the fortune-telling goats living on a local island.”

The young woman across the table from him, his assistant Hypatia, looked down at her dinner plate and tried without much success to stifle a laugh. “Oh, Peter, I’m sorry, really,” she giggled, “but fortune-telling goats! Really!”

“You may find it amusing, young lady, but the fact is that no matter what guise it’s presented under, it’s not wise to have commerce with such unholy things.” Peter’s spoon rattled rather too hard against his bowl. “I know Anatolius is a good friend to our master but I can’t help worrying about his uncle Zeno dabbling in all manner of strange knowledge. That’s not even to mention building automatons and other such strange devices for the entertainment of his guests.”

Hypatia looked thoughtful. “They sound fascinating. If they’re just for entertainment, surely there’s no harm in that?”

Peter’s eyes unexpectedly brimmed with tears. “Zeno’s infernal whale was built for entertaining his guests and it killed a little boy, leaving his sister alone. Don’t forget, Hypatia, that the master has a daughter of his own. No wonder he looked so distracted just now.”

The elderly servant mournfully wiped his eyes on his sleeve before mopping his bowl clean with a scrap of bread.

“At least the master’s back home now, Peter, and safely away from all the things you’ve been fretting about.” Hypatia was always kind.

“But for how long?” Peter stood and began to clear their dishes from the table. “As soon as anyone connected with the court dies, our master is immediately sent somewhere a Lord Chamberlain should never have to go. What dangerous quarter of Constantinople will he end up in this time?”

John gazed down over the sea wall. The docks below swarmed with gangs of sinewy men loading and unloading the ships that rose and fell on water so befouled with floating debris that it would have been impossible from a distance to tell where land gave way to sea except for the gentle undulation of the swells.

At night flaring torches lent a lurid glow to the proceedings and prudent merchants sent deputies to count crates and bales and amphorae. Away from the harbor, the widely spaced torches kept burning overnight in front of business premises seemed only to accentuate the darkness and sense of danger, especially if the wind, or human hands, dowsed their guttering flames.

Not that the latter might necessarily mean criminal intent, John thought, as he padded down the stone steps leading to the dock. He had to shade his eyes against the sudden blow of sunlight as he emerged from the dark tunnel of the stairway. Though it was true that a man could be waylaid and dragged into the stygian depths of an alley, never to see daylight again, other sorts of commerce were transacted along those dark and narrow ways, including a variety of fleshly trades. With the number of wayfarers arriving daily in Constantinople by road or sea, there was certainly plenty of money to be made by fair means or foul.

All in all, the harbors were easy places to move around unobserved. Having already visited the larger Theodosian Harbor, John had walked east to Harbor Sophia. He had to admit that even with imperial spies everywhere and armies of informers reporting to more than one palace official, it was all but impossible to discover where anyone who had left the city in haste would have gone. Yet he must leave no stone unturned in his search for Barnabas.

The mime, he reasoned, must have realized that given his distinctive looks he could not remain hidden for long, even in the multitude of twisting byways and human warrens that crowded the houses of the wealthy and the walls of the Great Palace itself-especially once it was known that a court official was making inquiries concerning his whereabouts. The natural and correct assumption would be that anyone with the right information would be rewarded, and richly so. A prudent man would therefore have left the city, and the quickest way to do that was by ship.

The toe of John’s boot stuck for a moment to the stones underfoot. An acridly sweet smell identified the sticky patch as wine from a smashed amphora, its odor mixed with the smell of the sea and the musk of the rotting vegetation being slapped hypnotically against the docks.

A burly man emerged from the arched doorway of a nearby latrine, speaking over his shoulder to someone inside. Whoever his listener was, the man had plenty to say about his antecedents and future prospects although at least he had the grace to leaven his obscene comments with a broad grin that revealed several broken teeth. An answering burst of coarse laughter and a string of Egyptian curses made John chuckle. Docks and the people who frequented them were the same everywhere, whether at Alexandria or Constantinople.

“And did you really marry the camel-driver’s daughter?” John asked the man as he passed by.

The man scratched his stubbly chin. If he was surprised to have been understood by the tall, lean Greek, he gave no indication.

“No, but she thinks that I did,” he replied with a grin. “You speak passable Egyptian, sir, although I can tell you’re not from Egypt. Since you don’t appear to be profitably employed right now, I would venture to offer you a job on my ship. However, it seems from your garments that it’s more likely you own one. Or possibly more than one?”

When John shook his head, an eager expression passed over the Egyptian’s face. “Then you must be a merchant, sir, perhaps seeking someone to carry your wares to Alexandria? That’s my ship over there, the Osiris. A good-sized vessel as you can see. Now I admit I’ve just played Noah for a prominent senator who’s taken a fancy to the animals of Africa, but that’s a longer story even than the one about the camel-driver’s daughter, and time’s getting short. The summer’s ending and I should be sailing south before the winds shift and my journey takes even longer than usual. So I am prepared to offer you an excellent bargain on my price for carriage of goods.”

John shook his head again. “My thanks, but unfortunately it’s not an offer of which I can take advantage.”

The man’s shoulders slumped with disappointment. “The Osiris has been well cleaned,” he said persuasively. ”It’s as spotless as the Augean stables after Hercules finished with them. Needless to say, the senator’s lion made almost as much of a mess as Hercules had to deal with, but not a trace of it remains, I assure you.”

“I don’t doubt that. However-”

“Sir, I’ve been sitting around here for three days now,” the other pressed on, “asking every merchant who sets boot to dock if I may be of service and few of them have so much as even acknowledged me. This is a very unfriendly city, for all its wonders and huge buildings and beautiful women. And that reminds me of another tale I could relate.” A jovial smile crossed his face. Evidently, thought John, the man’s moods shifted less predictably than the winds that moved his ship across the deep waters. “But tell me, surely half of what I’ve heard about the empress can’t be true?”