Mary Reed - Eight for Eternity

She walked away. John saw her hand go to her face. He followed and when she stopped and turned she was blinking glistening eyes. She had come to the carved horse with the cross on its stone blanket. She ran her hand over the equine back. “I used to dream about racing at the Hippodrome when I was a child,” she said. “Mother came into my room one night and found me on the floor, tangled up in blankets. She wanted to know what happened. She heard me fall out of bed. I told her it was just a nightmare I couldn’t remember. Actually my chariot had tipped over and I had to cut myself loose from the reins. It didn’t stop me from dreaming again. Usually I crossed the finish line first. How I wished to be a charioteer!”

“You may not think so highly of them after that incident in the Augustaion.”

“I shouldn’t have been there by myself. Charioteers are used to taking what they want. It’s their nature. I can never be a charioteer. Can you imagine, Chamberlain, what it is like, to know that you are barred from ever being what you wish to be, no matter how diligent your efforts?”

“Perhaps I do. But people are never free to do anything they wish. Not even the emperor.”

“Antonina does whatever she wants. She takes what she wants.”

“You may not know her as well as you think, Julianna.” John shivered. The night wind was rising. “It’s time I took you to her. On the way you might think of something you haven’t told me. Whenever you do-if you want Hippolytus to be avenged-tell me.”

They left the garden and went through the atrium out into the dark grounds of the palace. John wondered if Julianna appreciated that she might never see her father or mother again. He thought she did not understand the seriousness of the situation. At her age one never does. At least she did not appear to be in despair over the death of her friend.

They were out of sight of the house when Julianna suddenly stopped and spoke. “There’s one thing you should know.”

“Yes?”

“About Hippolytus. He’s nothing like father says. He’s not a ruffian.”

“I see.”

“You do believe me?”

“I do.”

She hurried on and said nothing more.

As they approached the Daphne Palace several figures emerged from the darkness and came racing in their direction. The men brandished spears.

“What’s happening?” John demanded.

“Intruder!” one of the guards yelled, hardly slowing down.

A knot of people had gathered in front of the building. They talked excitedly. One pointed in the direction of the ornate portico, the entrance to the kathisma. Lights from the imperial complex flickered across the massive rampart of the Hippodrome which loomed over the much lower palace walls.

Antonina was suddenly beside Julianna. Her face was flushed. “You’ve arrived just in time for all the excitement.”

“I hear there’s an intruder,” John said.

Antonina regarded John without curiosity. He was a familiar figure at the court. “Some claim the rioters are infiltrating the palace grounds,” she told him. “Others claim it’s a phantom. An inhuman creature. It was seen leaping along the top of the walls. And someone else said they saw it on the roof of a house.”

“On a house? Near the stables perhaps?” John glanced down at Julianna. Her expression was opaque. “Just someone’s imagination, I’m sure.”

“I hope you’re right. Everyone’s terrified.”

John left Julianna in Antonina’s charge and walked slowly back to his house, pausing now and then to look up at the distant stars, so far removed from the turmoil below. How strange people could be. The city was going up in flames. The angry multitudes were plotting to storm the palace. Yet they were terrified of a phantom.

As he crossed his dimly lit atrium his attention was caught by a flash of color beneath one of the benches against the wall. He bent down and pulled out a slipper.

The yellow slipper Pompeius had lost what seemed like an eternity ago.

January 18, 532

As Justinian moved slowly through the ashen morning light slanting into the imperial box in the Hippodrome, John remarked to Felix that the emperor resembled a shade more than he did a living man.

Felix grunted. “What’s put that in your mind is the uproar over that phantom in the gardens last night.”

“You may be right. That and the demons who pursued me through my dreams.”

From where they stood near the door to the kathisma there was no denying the pallor in the emperor’s face and the white silk robes falling from his bent shoulders accentuated the deathly effect. He was bare-headed, the imperial diadem left at his residence. He meant to approach his subjects as a humble supplicant. Yet, when he stepped up onto the rostrum at the front of the box, John saw a flash of blood red, the color of the boots reserved to the emperor, concealed from the view of the masses.

The mob had taken over the stadium. A murmuring sea of humanity filled the racetrack and such tiers of wooden benches as remained, much of the seating having been consumed by fire during the fighting. They had congregated here to vent their anger, to spread rumors and plot mayhem, to await the orders of anyone brave enough to give them, or simply to sleep because they did not care to go home or because their homes had been destroyed. A few were even now sitting up or climbing groggily to their feet, startled to be awakened by the emperor.

“Romans, hear me.” Justinian’s voice sounded thin and tired, nothing like the resounding tones of his herald. It barely carried back to John and Felix. Eventually several in assembled masses below noticed the man addressing them, then a few recognized the emperor and as word spread so did silence until the only sounds were the sharp calls of gulls gliding overhead.

“I have come to confess to you my errors,” Justinian continued. “I confess that I have been blind to the evil doers within my own house. Just as demons will assume a human shape to deceive, so did my advisors, the treacherous Tribonian, Eudaemon and the Cappadocian, pretend to a humanity they had no right to claim.”

“You’re a demon too,” came a shout. “You’re all demons!”

“The demons walk among us!” cried another. “I’ve seen one myself!”

Justinian picked up the codex that lay on the marble stand in front of him. He held it above his head. “What I say, I swear by the holy gospels.”

The jeweled covers had fallen open. John wondered if the emperor had chosen the page, a verse meaningful to him, or of particular power? He could only see that the text was written in gold on purple-dyed vellum.

The throng quieted and Justinian set the gospel down again. “Even as I labored for the good of the empire and its citizens, my advisors betrayed me,” he said. “I confess further that when you brought their villainy to my attention, I at first refused to believe.”

John’s gaze wandered from the emperor. He looked upwards. From the ceiling the painted images of four renowned charioteers stared down-Julian, Faustinus, Constantine, the son of Faustinus, and Porphyrius. Even as Justinian attempted to salvage his emperorship, the great charioteer was lurking nearby.

“Then last night,” Justinian was saying, “I gazed from my window and prayed to the Lord-He who I represent on this earth. And the Lord appeared to me in a vision. In the dark pit of the burnt Augustaion, where the Great Church once stood, there suddenly arose a fabulous edifice. A new church, glowing as if made of light, surmounted by a vast dome to rival the very dome of the heavens. And the voice of the Lord thundered from the dome. He instructed me to exile the traitors, confess my errors, and begin anew.”