Mary Reed: One for Sorrow

“Is that what they say?”

Thomas rose. “I fear I am intruding, Lord Chamberlain. If you see fit to supply me with an introduction, I am staying at the Inn of the Centaurs.”

John remembered Anatolius mentioning the inn during the afternoon at the Hippodrome. It was where he and Leukos were supposed to meet the soothsayer.

As John turned away from the window to reply, Thomas said suddenly, “One for sorrow. Unfortunately, the prediction has already come true.”

John looked back outside in the direction of his visitor’s gaze. A large dark bird had landed on the roof of the barracks and sat there alone.

“You’re referring to the raven. I haven’t thought of that old rhyme since I left Bretania.”

“You’re familiar with my land?”

“I was there as a young man.” John didn’t add that he been a mercenary. For all he knew he might have been fighting for Thomas’ enemies.

“Then you know that to see a raven, a single raven, is to foretell sorrow. But for the fortunate one who sees two, this means joy. Three is for a girl, four for a boy, and so on.”

“In the part of the country where I lived the old wise women used to say three was for a letter.”

The raven rose silently and soared away. John watched it diminish to a speck and vanish into the cloudless sky above the countless crosses that the pious had raised on the rooftops of tenements and mansions alike.

A fortune-telling bird, and the symbol of a Mithran rank at that, yet perfectly at home in the capital of a Christian Empire. It made John think of how eager Leukos had been, devout though he was, to visit a soothsayer. What had the soothsayer foretold?

He pushed the thoughts aside. They were the result of a sleepless night. He needed to force himself to think clearly.

He wrote an introduction to the patriarch and gave it to Thomas. If the man was telling the truth it was what Leukos had wished. If he was lying….well, John did not believe in Christian relics. Let Epiphanios deal with his fellow believer.

After Thomas left, John sat brooding, staring at the fantastically detailed mosaic and the little girl Zoe. She had listened to their conversation so solemnly and silently.

“What do you think then?” John asked her. “Is this Thomas trustworthy? Is there a connection between Thomas’ visit and Leukos’ death? Yes, yes, you are right, Zoe. It is my task to find that out.”

Leukos could never reveal what had been prophesied to him, but Anatolius, who still lived, had also arranged to see the soothsayer. John hoped that his young friend might reveal something about the man he and Leukos had both visited, but Anatolius did not arrive at the Baths of Zeuxippos at his usual hour so John decided to follow the footsteps of his colleagues to the Inn of the Centaurs.

The innkeeper and his wife directed John to the courtyard where the soothsayer was dozing on a bench. As John crossed the bare space the hot blade of the sun lay against the back of his neck. The bench and fountain beside it were shaded by a fig tree.

If he had a choice he would have been at the Hippodrome asking about the bull-leaping troupe, but his duty to Leukos gave him no choice.

As John drew close with the silent tread that came naturally to him, the old man opened his eyes-large eyes, bright and shrewd, under bushy brows. The eyes of a man who had seen a lot and lamented over much of what he had observed. John realized the other had not been asleep, but resting watchfully. Despite the heat, robes the color of age-yellowed bones were drawn closely around the old man’s bird-like body.

“I greet you, sir.” The soothsayer’s voice was surprisingly resonant for one so slight.

John sat down next him. He noticed a striped cat perched on the edge of the fountain basin, engrossed in trying to catch ripples with its paw. To John, the cat seemed to be leaning alarmingly close to the water.

The old man smiled. “I should not worry about the cat. Unlike humans, they have many lives.”

“Cats don’t like water,” replied John. “And some say even humans have lives after this one.”

“Perhaps.” A smile flashed whitely in the earth-brown face. “But tell me, what is your business here? I doubt you have deserted your duties at this time of day to have your fortune told, not a man of your rank.”

“I see the fine weave of my garments gives me away. But you are correct. A man makes his own fortunes. I am here to ask you about the past, not the future.”

There was a burst of shouting from the inn. The portly innkeeper John had spoken to on arriving at the inn emerged, half-supporting a man who was red-faced and cursing.

“With the celebrations, some of Master Kaloethes’ customers have been making too familiar an acquaintance with the wine jug,” observed the soothsayer.

This particular troublesome customer was, by appearance, a charioteer, dressed for the races in his short sleeveless tunic, his crossed leather belts askew. Not that he was in any condition to stand in a chariot, let alone race. His legs kept giving way.

With a grunted apology to the two men sitting on the bench, the innkeeper steered the inebriate to the fountain and, taking a firm grip on one of the unfortunate man’s leather belts, dunked the charioteer’s head several times in the water.

The cat ran off, its tail arched in terror.

Tepid water splashed the back of John’s hand. He shuddered. To him it felt as frigid as the roiling waters of a swollen northern stream. He quickly wiped his hand on his tunic.

The innkeeper shoved the half-drowned charioteer through the archway leading to the street and trod heavily back to where John and the soothsayer were seated. “We pride ourselves on keeping a high class establishment. We would be most honored if you would sample our fine wines after you have completed your business.”

When Kaloethes had vanished inside, John turned his attention back to the soothsayer.

“Before you ask,” the old man said with a smile. “My name is Ahasuerus. My family was originally of Antioch, but I left ages ago.”

“Were you driven from your home by the great earthquake?”

“No, my lord, although I appreciate your concern. I am, in fact, the last of my line. Since I left, I have traveled many roads, casting augurs, offering advice. Yet for all my wanderings, this is the first time I have seen Constantinople. It is certainly a city of splendor.”

The man’s weathered face might have been a wrinkled map of the countless roads that had brought him to Constantinople.

John inquired what had brought him to the city.

The old man shrugged. “One day I had a feeling that this was where I should be. And so I journeyed here.”

John eyed the cat, which had returned and was dabbing a paw at water spilt around the fountain basin, examining it with interest. “I am told you are a soothsayer,” he stated. “Do you find trade brisk?”

“I do. Rich and poor alike want to know their futures. The poor wish to learn whether they will ever possess anything, the rich wish to learn whether they are in danger of losing what they have.”

Even in the shade of the fig tree it was hot. The fig was Mithra’s sacred tree. The thought reminded him that as a pagan he had not been considering the soothsayer from the same perspective as most of the city’s population.

“Don’t Christians condemn fortune tellers?”

Ahasuerus chuckled. “Good Christians do not come to me for anything beyond entertainment. The ladies of the palace consult me for amusement. I have been invited to many gatherings to amuse the ladies.”

“They are amused by the reading of chicken entrails?” John asked, recalling Anatolius’ description of the soothsayer’s methods.