Mary Reed: Two for Joy

“But don’t run off just yet, Peter,” he said persuasively. “I have not even begun to illuminate for you the stygian depths of the unrepeatable sins from which Michael has saved me.”

After Peter’s lengthy immersion in steaming water, the warm sunlight felt chilly against his puckered skin as he sat next to John on a stone bench beside a tree-lined path looping behind the villa.

“If someone had poured honey or a good sauce into that bath water I’d be ready for the platter,” he complained, shivering.

He had recounted his conversation to John and now his master’s careful questioning was growing as wearisome as Sarcerdus’ convoluted digressions.

“He would insist on telling me all about numerous of his guests, master. He must really have hungered for civilization out there, however blasphemous its trappings. I gather that most of his visitors thanked him for his hospitality with valuable gifts. Which guests in particular is it you’re asking about? The demon-worshipping traders from India, was it?”

“I mean the men who were visiting when Michael was driven away, Peter. I would like to know more about them, if you can recollect anything else.”

“The ones who had come to gape at Satan’s fires, as my wealthy friend might put it? He didn’t really say too much about them, except that despite his story rambling all over the landscape I got the impression they left shortly after Michael departed. They hadn’t stayed long. Sarcerdus mentioned that he was upset at the time. He’d been enjoying the conversations they had been having and he thinks that business with Michael frightened them away. Or perhaps it had been their turn to get a word into the discourse with him and they could not? Or possibly I’m thinking of the travelers from Arabia who…”

John raised a warning hand at the sound of approaching voices. Two pilgrims deep in animated discussion went by without sparing a glance at the pair sitting on the bench.

“Shaving the head and talking must be the basic sacraments of this new faith,” Peter remarked when they had passed. “But truly, master, I have told you everything I know, and then repeated the same knowledge to you three more times and in different ways.”

John nodded. “I believe you have, Peter. You did very well. Thank you.”

“Very well? I had to say a few things I will be asking forgiveness for tonight! But what did I learn? You already knew Michael came from east of Lazica.”

“I’m interested in the eternal fires out there, Peter. Those men who came to study them, the guests who traveled to that far place to see them. Did he happen to say where they had come from?”

Peter shook his head. “So far as I can see, master, we have learned only that Michael is exactly as he says,” he went on. “So I fear you have risked your life for nothing because of a senseless message composed by Philo, and who can say for what reason now that he is dead?”

“I am not so certain that Philo led me astray, Peter.” A new question occurred to John. “Do you have any idea when he composed that letter? Did you notice him at work on it?”

Peter had not.

John looked thoughtful. “I wonder if it could have been written while I was away those two days, pursuing my investigations?”

“To be honest, I did not seek him out when he was not intruding into my kitchen.”

“Did he go anywhere during that time?”

“He was always in and out of the house. Seeking possible employment, he said.”

“Nothing else?”

“Well, he claimed once to be on the way to the imperial library. I didn’t believe him, but when he came back he was spouting facts in a positive flood, trying to convince me I had not seen with my own eyes the divine fire in the sky.”

Peter paused, feeling lightheaded. He suspected he was beginning to ramble somewhat.

John asked him if he recalled anything else Philo had said at the time.

“Not much. He kept talking about elements. And there was also something he attributed to some historian, Livy, was it?”

John urged Peter to continue.

“The other thing I recall is that according to Philo, this historian described sacred lamps that apparently miraculously burst into flame when they got wet. In fact they were just a sham, a trick. I was offended because I took it as a sly way to say my religious beliefs are founded on a similar delusion.”

Peter rubbed his face. Strangely, the bench seemed to be moving, or perhaps it was the garden, beginning to rotate around the bench. “I don’t recall any more, master, and I fear that I really must lie down and rest now.”

John patted his servant’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Peter, I should not have pressed you so.”

But Peter was unable to reply. A dark fog gathered at the edge of his vision and suddenly he was falling forward into a pit as deep and black as Sarcerdus Rufus’ former sins.

It was yet another dawn arrival. John and Peter had entered the city lounging casually in the back of a farmer’s cart. If anyone had been assigned to watch against the exiled Lord Chamberlain’s return, he must have been asleep at his post for the two men were soon slipping unmolested across the cobbled square between the barracks and John’s house.

Although the house might not have been watched from outside it was certainly well guarded within. Darius, sworn to protect Isis’ door wherever that door might be, answered John’s summoning rap promptly.

“By Zurvan’s beard! What are you doing back here? And Peter, why are you wearing such fine clothes?” Darius shut and barred the door after quickly scanning the empty square. “What a night this has been, Lord Chamberlain,” he went on. “I was afraid your knock meant another sobbing woman seeking sanctuary!”

John gave him a questioning look. “You’ve been visited by sobbing women?”

“Well, only one, but that’s enough for me,” was the reply. “But more importantly, won’t Justinian have your head removed if he learns you’re back?”

“Perhaps not, after he’s heard all we have learned,” John said, hurrying up the stairs.

As he entered the kitchen he immediately recognized the woman whose pale patrician face was surrounded by greasy black ringlets.

“Lucretia! I am honored,” he said.

She sat sobbing quietly, ignoring Isis, who was pouring wine out for her. Peter hobbled in and although he said nothing John could read his servant’s horrified expression perfectly. His master’s wine being freely imbibed by two women, neither of them a relative, and the sun was barely risen. The scandal of it, the wagging tongues! Thank heavens nobody outside the house would hear of it.

“Master,” Peter said loudly, valiantly grabbing the wine jug and his master’s honor from Isis’ grasp, “perhaps some refreshment?”

The spectacle of a sumptuously robed servant waiting upon a Lord Chamberlain who was supposed to have fled at least as far as Cappadocia by now reduced Lucretia’s weeping to sniffles. She rose and embraced John. He rested his face on the top of her head for a few heartbeats before gently disengaging her arms and turning away, seemingly unconcerned by the astounded expressions blooming on Isis’ and Peter’s faces.

“Peter, take some wine yourself,” John instructed, warming his hands at the cheerily glowing brazier. He looked over his shoulder, cutting off his servant’s protests. “To keep up your strength, as a soldier always should.”

Darius’ bulk loomed into the room. Seeing it crowded, he leaned against the door post, his muscular arms folded.

“How is Felix?” John asked Isis, who had recovered her equilibrium. After years in her profession, few things threw her off stride for long.