Mary Reed - One for Sorrow

John’s gaze fell upon Zoe. He began to ask her opinion but stopped himself. What sort of man was it who could talk to a mosaic girl more easily than to his own daughter? Who understood glass but not flesh and blood? But then glass could not grow and change and a mosaic girl could not speak, although it sometimes seemed she did. John averted his eyes.

Wasn’t the Inn of the Centaurs the cynosure of it all? When he confronted Gregorius at the home of the deceased bear trainer’s family he immediately recalled how he had first seen the young man, soaking wet after an immersion in the fountain. The charioteer was staying at the inn, as was Thomas. The soothsayer had been living there. Leukos had visited the soothsayer at the inn.

Gregorius’ mission to the bear trainer’s family had been innocent enough, which was not say that he did not supplement his racing earnings with a little smuggling as he traveled around.

Xiphias may have been involved in some sort of illicit trade as well. Was he so terrified by John’s investigations that he had killed himself?

Or was it apparently killed himself?

And had Thomas and Xiphias spoken or not? Thomas admitted he was pursuing Ahasuerus for a relic he believed was in the soothsayer’s possession. Why then had he spoken with the Keeper of the Plate? Did he suspect Ahasuerus had already disposed of the Grail to Leukos, that it was in the palace, and Xiphias might be bribed to help it disappear?

And what about Berta? She had entertained Thomas and the soothsayer in different ways. Had those chance meetings entangled her in the same web in which Leukos had become entangled?

What web was that?

The sky looked threatening. It seemed that the spring rains would never stop. Dark clouds loomed low, and there was that eerie hush that signaled yet another storm would be upon the city within the hour. Gusts of heralding winds swirled about the house. Several large seabirds strutted on the cobbles below, shrilly squawking. Their ghastly cries suggested the screeching of the Harpies tormenting their prey. John shuddered.

Zoe stared at him with eyes blacker than night.

John examined the facts he had gathered, each one akin to a glistening bit of glass. He shuffled them around. He could almost see the pattern. Place this piece next to that and then this other over here and soon they would form a lifelike picture. As lifelike as Zoe and then, like Zoe, they would speak to him and whisper the name of Leukos’ murderer.

John poured wine and pondered. Without realizing it, he dozed.

A figure in a dripping hooded cloak stood before him. An emaciated hand pushed back the hood to reveal the time-worn face of Ahasuerus.

“I thought you had embarked on your journey across the Styx,” John heard himself say.

The old man chuckled hoarsely. “That is a journey that I will not take for a long time. However, I am off on another sort of journey. Did you ever hear that the mantis warns travelers of danger, pointing the way to go to avoid it? Well, I’ve been hiding. For a while I was over there in the stables debating whether to stay.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the barracks. “When I awoke today what did I see but a mantis. It was pointing toward the sea. Even a soothsayer need not cast pebbles to know that it was urging me to depart.”

“You look exhausted. Should I ask Peter to bring something?”

“Thank you, but I am not hungry. Tell me, Lord Chamberlain, where do you think I have been?”

“As I told you, I feared you were dead.”

A gust of wind rattled at the window, underlining the old man’s words. “I will tell you where I have been. I was summoned from the inn to see Patriarch Epiphanios. I cast the pebbles for him. Later, as I stood on the docks intending to take ship, something struck me squarely in the shoulder blades and I fell into the water. And, Lord Chamberlain, I cannot swim.”

In the grip of nightmare John felt as if it were he who had plunged into the water.

“But as I told you, it is not time for me to take that journey into darkness. I survived. I hid. Now I have come on this rainy night to cast the pebbles for you.”

***

John awoke in the gray light before dawn. The memory of his dream returned slowly. On the floor of the study several glistening patches of moisture marked where the wind had blown rain through cracks around the window frame.

In the enclosed garden of the patriarchal palace pale morning light cast time’s faint shadow across the face of a sundial.

Nearby, Patriarch Epiphanios bent over, examining a flower bed. At John’s approach, he straightened up with obvious difficulty. He looked frailer than he at their last meeting.

“The dial reveals the hour, the flowers reveal the season,” the patriarch commented. His skin showed the translucence of old age, as if the body were giving up its corporeal qualities. “What do you wish to speak to me about, Lord Chamberlain?”

“I don’t know that this is the place.”

“A delicate subject? Don’t worry. We will not be overheard here. I prefer to be out in the garden today. The walls of my rooms feel much too close.”

“Leukos, the Keeper of the Plate, was your frequent visitor.”

“That is so.”

Sorrow in the patriarch’s expression confirmed what John had suspected. “Leukos was your son.”

The patriarch smiled faintly. “Very few know that. How did you?”

“He was seen visiting at odd hours, using your private entrance. I was always been puzzled by his lack of a family, or any hint of family history. Most people will mention their relatives even if they are far away or long deceased. And when I spoke to you in the Great Church you seemed inordinately interested in his funeral.”

Patriarch Epiphanios shook his head. “How is it that God should choose a man to serve him in the highest capacity, and yet allow such a servant to remain enslaved by the same appetites as bedevil any man?”

“You may wish to keep this.” John held out the silver necklace he had found in Leukos’ pouch. The patriarch took it in a shaking hand, and brought it closer to his tired eyes to examine the entwined fish.

“Thank you, Lord Chamberlain. I gave it to Leukos as a keepsake. It was his mother’s. She is dead. She was married.”

“You took good care of your son, even if you could not acknowledge him publicly. It was you who asked the emperor to stop me from investigating further?”

“I was afraid you would discover the truth.”

“I would not have sought to use the knowledge against you. My only interest was in seeing my friend-your son-avenged.”

“He is avenged. The soothsayer is dead.”

“Ahasuerus wasn’t the murderer. The murderer is still free.”

“But the soothsayer stabbed Leukos. His dagger was in Leukos when you found him, wasn’t it? As I told you before, two matching daggers were found in the satchel he left behind when he threw himself into the sea.”

“You also told me that your guards had gone to the inn to arrest Ahasuerus for the murder and brought him to the guard house at your residence even before those daggers were found.”

The patriarch put a trembling hand to his forehead. “Did I? Yes, of course. Pardon an old man’s faulty memory. My guards had received information pointing to Ahasuerus. The daggers confirmed what they were told.”

“I regret I find your story hard to believe.”

The patriarch’s lips tightened and his hand moved to his side, fingers whitening as they pressed into his ribs. He made no sound. Then the spasm had passed-or else, John thought, he had given himself enough time to formulate a response.

Epiphanios gave a dry, bitter laugh. “Trying to hide anything from you is like trying to hide it from heaven. Look there. Do you know what I had planted?” He indicated the plot he had been examining when John arrived.