Mary Reed: Two for Joy

So the showy entourage made its way through the bustle of the circular Forum of Constantine, past the rotunda of the senate house and the towering column surmounted not by some ragged stylite but a gleaming statue of the city’s founder, and through the much smaller but still busy Forum Tauri beyond which the Mese forked. Here they turned not south, towards the Golden Gate and the Via Egnatia which would have taken them, after weeks of hard and dangerous travel, to the ancient capital Rome itself, but toward the west.

Only when they were beyond the inner city’s wall and away from the crowds did John speak. “Do you wish to stop and rest for a time?” he asked Aurelius.

“I would rather continue and have the journey over with that much sooner.” Although the senator spoke without taking his gaze from the flat stones of the roadway in front of them John could see the pallor of his face. Recalling Justinian’s comment about sending the senator to the shrine for a cure, he couldn’t help remembering Philo’s reference to the emperor’s cruel concept of mercy.

“Have you consulted Gaius about this ailment?” he asked, concerned.

“Unfortunately, yes. He had me taking a vile concoction of naphtha which, I have heard, can kill as easily as cure. But since it failed to render either service to me, he has demanded I fast for three days. If the stone has not passed by then, he intends to play the surgeon.”

They were riding through one of the cemeteries that dominated the area between the inner and outer walls of the city. Modest burial mounds and grave markers were scattered around and between sheltering cypress trees. Aurelius waved his hand at the tranquil scene, adding in an undertone, “If worse comes to worse, I’d as soon rest here in three days’ time than lie under that drunkard’s knife. The pain has been so desperate that I have actually contemplated visiting my country estate and sacrificing to Salus. On the other hand, now there’s the matter of this shrine we’re visiting. Many have dreamt cures for their ailments there, or so I have heard.”

John remained silent.

Aurelius continued thoughtfully, as much to himself as to his companion. “Consider the well-known case of Aquilinus. He was starving to death after a fever because he was unable to keep nourishment in him. When his physician could do nothing, he went to St Michael’s shrine, carried there, so they say, by one of his servants. And what happened but at the shrine Aquilinus dreamt he would be cured by dipping his foot into some strange sludge of wine and pepper and honey. Oh, his physician was doubtless much put out and, I am willing to wager, called it a cure flying in the face of medical knowledge and probably much worse. But since the man was half dead anyway, he determined he would do as he dreamt and did so and indeed was cured.”

John pointed out sympathetically that as far as treating illness was concerned, sometimes in battling them it was necessary to face the knife.

Aurelius laughed harshly. “You preach to me in the same manner in which I lecture my son! What you say is true enough, John. But a warrior does not have his legs trussed up over his head while the physician standing behind him-how may I put this delicately-coaxes the cursed stone along in a fashion that would make even a powdered court page blush. I could endure the knife that follows without flinching, but not the indignity that precedes it.”

“We can’t always choose what we must endure. Indignity, at least, can be survived.”

The senator realized that his words had been ill chosen and his expression grew even more stricken. He apologized.

“You don’t have to excuse yourself for reminding me of what I have endured, Aurelius,” John replied. “But although you might choose to leave us prematurely for your own reasons, think of Anatolius. He is certainly a man of many talents, but…”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Aurelius muttered, sparing John the impossible task of finding some tactful phrase to describe Anatolius’ dangerous blend of impetuosity and impracticality. “I’m sure he has informed you about his new prospects?”

“He went on at greater length about the banquet, but he did mention you are planning to launch him upon a legal career.”

Aurelius winced, perhaps from the jolt of his horse stepping down harder than hitherto. “You sound almost as enthusiastic as my son about the prospect, John.”

“It’s a good plan, though. Anatolius tends to drift with his fancies and those ponderous legal phrases may serve to anchor him. However, he still needs occasional guidance.”

Aurelius shook his head wearily. “Not guidance, John. Let us be honest. He still needs to be protected from himself.”

The senator fell silent and few words were exchanged during the remainder of the tedious journey. Both men knew that just as they had been ordered to observe Michael and report back to Justinian, so one or more of their escorts would be under orders to observe the emissaries.

Having passed beyond the high mortar and stone walls built to protect Constantinople on its only side exposed to land attack, the mounted party proceeded northward around the end of the Golden Horn and then back east along that narrow drowned valley. The way was lined with small settlements alternating with fields and villas set amid country estates. The city they had left was visible across glassy water bristling with ship masts. Tenements and churches clung to the side of a long ridge whose highest points formed six of the seven hills of Constantine’s new Rome.

Their journey was more rapid than John anticipated. Other riders, pedestrians and the drivers of carts and wagons, realizing at a glance that the company was about imperial business, readily vacated the narrow road at their approach. Although such highways were a boon to trade their real purpose was military, having been built wide enough to accommodate the passage of a single war chariot.

Only when they turned north in the direction of the Euxine Sea were the travelers forced to slow their pace as the road grew increasingly congested with people on foot, predominantly peasants and laborers by their simple tunics. As they neared the shrine, more than one slave-borne litter and even a covered carriage could be seen, swept along in the human tide flooding the road.

“This crowd reminds me of the day before a celebration,” observed Aurelius, before leaning down to address a sturdy farmer leading a donkey burdened with baskets of fruit. “Shouldn’t you be going in the other direction, to the market?”

The farmer looked up fearfully. “I would on any other day, excellency, but today I am taking an offering to Michael, to ask for his blessing upon me and my family.”

“Justinian will not be pleased to learn how quickly the man’s fame is spreading,” John remarked.

The senator made no reply. His eyelids had narrowed to slits and his lips, drawn tight for hours now, looked nearly bloodless as his horse, made restive by the crowd, snorted and pawed at the ground, jolting its rider painfully.

The guards, who earlier had been talking and laughing in a relaxed manner, became as restive as the horses. They shouted warnings, shaking spears to underline them.

“Take care,” John admonished the nearer of their guards. It would not take much to touch off a disturbance. A carelessly handled weapon drawing blood, for example.

They finally saw St Michael’s shrine after cresting a long hill. A rectangular marble building with a flight of steps leading steeply up to its columned portico, the shrine sat at the far edge of a grassy open space where the ground dipped away from the road before dropping abruptly to the Bosporos. The building was indistinguishable from hundreds of other small temples, Christian and pagan alike, to be found in all parts of the empire, but it was here that the sluggish river of humanity spilled off the narrow road into a wide lake swirling around the shrine.