Tom Harper: The mosaic of shadows

‘Vassos!’ I called, trying to pull back the curtain through the bars. ‘Vassos?’

‘No,’ said a voice within. ‘No Vassos. No Vassos.’

‘Where is he?’ I let the curtain go and stepped back from the window. There was a silence, but my retreat was rewarded when strong arms drew open the curtain to reveal a heavily painted face glaring out at me. Her dress was a fragmented patchwork of different cloths, none bearing the least relation to the other, and tied like a girdle under her breasts so that they thrust forward toward me. There were red calluses around her mouth, and a scratch on one cheek. Her eyes were hard as glass.

‘No Vassos,’ she repeated emphatically. ‘Vassos work. Work.’

‘Tomorrow?’

She lifted her shoulders, deepening the cleft between her breasts yet further. ‘Tomorrow? Tomorrow.’

‘I will come tomorrow.’

Whether she understood me or not, the conversation was finished; the curtain shut and the house fell silent.

I spent the afternoon sitting in the courtyard of a minor noble, watching his fountain and playing with his cat. Every hour his steward would emerge to assure me I would be received imminently, but that lie soon tired. I preferred the honesty of the slum dwellers. I had chosen to start at the bottom of Krysaphios’ list, hoping that there I might merit at least a dubious welcome, but that proved a false hope, and as it was a fasting day I could not even prevail on the steward for a drink. At last, with the shadows lengthening, I left for the palace. Krysaphios was undisguisedly unimpressed with my day’s work; so too, when I arrived home, were my daughters.

‘You’re always home after dark now, Father,’ Helena accused me. ‘And late for supper.’

‘“The dutiful daughter greets her father with the food of her hands,”’ I quoted, smiling.

‘The dutiful wife ,’ corrected Helena sharply. ‘The daughter might well be in bed when her father chooses to appear.’

I settled into my chair, and took a spoonful of the stew she had prepared. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said humbly. ‘The stew is delicious.’ It was — she had her mother’s gift with food. ‘But my paymasters at the palace keep me working hard, and they pay me enough that one day I will not have to work so hard. Then we can have supper on time.’

‘Is the palace beautiful, Papa?’ asked Zoe, slurping her food like a soldier. ‘Is it filled with fountains and light?’

‘It is. Fountains and light and gold and laughter,’ I said, and described as best I could the few corners I had seen. It needed little embellishment to make Zoe’s eyes go wide with wonder.

‘I thought the kingdom of God was for the poor.’ Helena had been staring down at her plate while I spoke, saying nothing, but now she lifted her head contemptuously. ‘I thought the Lord God would pull down the mighty from their thrones, and scatter the proud in the evil of their hearts. How can you work for such a tyrant, who glories in the trappings of sin?’

‘I can work for him because his life is as valuable as any other man’s.’ We had argued this the previous night. ‘And because in my lifetime he is the only ruler who has not brought us to the brink of ruin. He may feast in golden halls and drink from scented cups, but he keeps the borders secure and his armies far from the city. To my mind, that is enough.’

Though I believed what I said, I could understand the contempt in Helena’s eyes, for I could hear my words sounding as hollow to her as they would have to me at that age. I remembered the monks who raised me preaching poverty and humility as they grew fat on the orchards I tended, and the way I burned at the injustice of it. Was I now grown into just another apologist for the orthodox?

Clearly Helena thought so; she rose from the table with a crashing of plates and chairs, and marched stiffly out of the room.

Zoe watched her go. ‘She wants a husband,’ she said, with the blithe indifference of a twelve-year-old. ‘That’s why she’s angry.’

‘I know,’ I said wearily. ‘And I will do something soon.’ I speared a piece of vegetable onto my knife. ‘But she should guard her tongue concerning the Emperor. He has many ears, many spies.’

And I, I thought as I lay in bed that night, was one of them.

It was close to midday by the time I found Vassos’ house again; I had spent the morning making some arrangements, then discovered that his neighbours were less obliging with their directions when the supplicant came accompanied by four monstrously armed soldiers. With that in mind, I approached the sturdy door alone.

This time there was no need to knock. The lone gypsy who had been outside before was now augmented by a triad of youths with bruised, insolent faces; they loitered below the windows and stared at me through lazy eyes.

‘I’m here to see Vassos,’ I said, as pleasantly as I could.

‘Vassos busy.’ It was the boy nearest me who spoke. He must have been in a dozen knife-fights at least, judging by the scars, but it was the pimples which truly disfigured him. He wore a green tunic clasped with a leather belt, and as he spoke one hand drifted ominously behind his back.

‘Vassos is not too busy to see me .’ A gold nomisma appeared between my fingers, almost as if by accident, but when the youth leaned forward to stare closer it vanished. I opened my empty palm to him with a disingenuous shrug.

‘Vassos will see me,’ I repeated.

‘Vassos see you.’

The boy stretched out an arm and banged three times on the door; it swung inwards silently. With a mock bow and a sneer, he signalled me to enter.

As I came into the dim room I saw that the boy had not been making idle excuses for Vassos: he had indeed been busy, and seemed only just to have concluded the business, for he was wrapping a cloth about his bloated waist and wiping sweat from his black-haired chest. Next to him a woman was pulling a dress up over her breasts, showing not the least concern for modesty. On the couch behind them a second girl lay stretched out on her belly, shamelessly naked and glowing with a sheen of perspiration. For a moment I allowed myself to admire her openly, thinking to persuade Vassos of my complicity; besides, it was years since I had felt that pleasure, and I had the God-given desires of any man. Then I noticed the red lines scratched down the curve of her back, the slender width of her hips and the smooth skin on the flesh below her shoulder: she could not be much older — if at all — than Helena, I realised. Sickened, I looked away.

‘Not to your taste, eh?’ Vassos misread my look. ‘Don’t worry, I have more. What do you prefer? Peasant girls from the provinces who fuck like mules? Dusky Arabians from the court of the Sultan, versed in the seven hundred ways of pleasuring a man. Golden-haired virgins from Macedonia? If you’re feeling patriotic, I even have a Norman wench, on whom you can revenge the treachery of their race. Though it will cost you extra if I cannot use her again.’

I stared at this ogre standing half-naked before me. Long, thick hair fell over his brutish shoulders, framing a face whose flattened nose and heavy cheekbones seemed more suited to a bull than a man. He wore a thick, golden chain around his neck, and rolled it between fat fingers as he spoke. It was with great restraint that I did not hit him immediately.

‘I’m not after girls,’ I said shortly. ‘I seek. .’

‘Boys?’ Vassos’ fat lips contorted into a leer. ‘I can do boys for you, my friend, if you enjoy Corinthian pleasures. Sometimes indeed I savour it myself — I must understand the tastes of my clients, you know. But it will take a little time — the boys are kept elsewhere.’