Mary Reed: Murder in Megara

John waited impatiently for his knock to be answered, trying to shut out the stylite’s ravings, staring at the angel who stared back at him, looking angry at being put to such demeaning work.

“Beware unholy shapes that haunt the darkness!” the stylite advised everyone within earshot. Sunlight flashed from a length of chain draped over one shoulder.

John wondered how a wealthy man like Halmus felt about a noisy pillar-sitter for a neighbor. Halmus’ rooms must ring with religious diatribes.

Despite the angel’s frown, he knocked again. Recalling the enmity encountered in the marketplace by Peter and Hypatia, he half expected a rock to fly at him. John had carefully dressed in a plain tunic, which would not call attention to its wearer, but no doubt many of the townspeople had heard about the tall, unnatural, ascetic-looking exile who had recently taken over the estate. Perhaps his appearance was not as grotesque as that of the devil they expected to see.

The angel flew backward suddenly as the door opened. Halmus’ servant, a severe-looking man, stared at him silently.

“I wish to speak to your master,” John said, adding, “if he is available” after a pause. He recalled he no longer held a post whereby he could demand entrance and be granted it without protest.

“The master is not available at this time, sir.” He pointed to the stylite. “As you can see, he is attending to his penance. The whole city knows that he was, and I say it as his devoted servant, sir, saved by the good words of the saintly Paul to our neighbors the Corinthians. The admonitions of the apostle diverted my master from following the path leading to the fiery pits of hell.”

He looked John up and down with suspicion as if he expected to see scorch marks on his clothing. His master was now addressing passersby with advice on avoiding certain colorfully detailed sins of the flesh.

“The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,” John replied, remembering a phrase he’d heard from Peter, or had it been Justinian? It appeared to allay the servant’s fears.

“Ah, I see you understand, sir. So you will appreciate that my master is atoning for the awful deeds of his youth.” He did not enlarge on what these transgressions had been. “Why, men come from miles around to hear him!”

“It must be difficult for your master to stand up there and still run his business concerns.”

“With the Lord all things are possible, sir. The penance you observe isn’t the half of it.” The servant grew confidential. “At times he becomes a hermit and retreats to a cave. Not in the mountains. He had one constructed in the garden. There he will sit alone for days taking bread and water, and little at that, meditating on his sins and praying for all in Megara.”

John observed Halmus was certainly a very pious man.

“His fame is far-flung!” The servant, becoming enthused, stepped out into the sunshine and peered up reverently at Halmus. “He does not boast, but everyone knows he’s friends with the bishop. Imagine that, sir, to count a bishop among your closest friends! Of course, he does conduct a great deal of business with the church and turns an excellent profit.”

“With the Lord all things are indeed possible,” John observed, thinking the servant rash in revealing details of his master’s affairs to a stranger. He asked when Halmus was expected to return to the house and was told it would be an hour or so, depending on how much penance he intended to do that day.

“Very well. I will visit again.”

“At times he speaks in tongues, sir, and it is a wondrous thing. Do you not wish to linger and benefit from my master’s teaching?”

“I shall not be far off, so I will be able to hear your master and mark his words.”

The servant offered a respectful bow.

The wealthy and well-fed stylite continued to loudly explore sins of the flesh with the relish of a patron describing the wall paintings in a brothel. “We must all struggle against the temptations offered by our devilish members,” he declared. “And some must struggle harder than others.”

“True enough,” John muttered, turning away and starting back across the square.

As he passed the column he looked up and for an instant Halmus’ gaze seemed to focus on him. Perhaps it had been an illusion or an accident, but as John crossed the marketplace the stylite’s diatribe turned once more to the evil that had come to dwell nearby.

***

How to pass time in a place like Megara? John considered the question as he ate the grilled fish he’d bought in the marketplace.

The emperors had done an excellent job of constructing baths, administrative buildings, a theater, a colonnaded main thoroughfare, everything required of a proper Roman municipality. He’d glimpsed all these trappings on his way to the square where he now stood. But while marble could be shipped in, it was not possible to supply a large, boisterous, and variegated population. The marketplace was crowded, but the surrounding streets were empty-compared with those of Constantinople-and John imagined the baths and theater would be sparsely attended. There was something missing, some feeling of excitement, a subtle, invigorating tension created by the presence of many people going about their lives in close proximity, as in the capital. By contrast Megara looked like a city but it had the soul of a small town.

John finished the fish and tossed the skewer aside. The vendor offered a different type of fish than the vendors near the docks in Constantinople.

Halmus continued to thunder doom from his airy perch. Could he really address the populace in that fashion for hours? John didn’t wish to return home before speaking with him about whatever estate business he conducted with Diocles and discussing future prospects. Provided of course that Halmus had any voice left.

Suddenly, he felt uneasy and exposed, standing in the middle of the open square. As if he were being watched. Yet he had noticed no signs that anyone had recognized him. There had been no sideways glances, no quick turnings of heads.

The square sat at the base of twin hills, each crowned by an acropolis. John decided to explore the nearest, the easternmost. He had barely set out, however, when the ruins of a monumental temple caught his eye. A few upright marble columns and crumbling walls sat incongruously amid streets of tottering wooden tenements. It appeared as if the temple had fallen from the sky and crushed whatever it landed on, largely disintegrated, and caved in, scattering broken columns and blocks.

As he climbed the steps to what remained of the entrance he saw the outline of a giant knee, covered in the folds of a crudely rendered robe. This then must be the unfinished statue of Zeus, Megara’s chief claim to fame. He wondered if Halmus, whose voice he could still faintly make out without being able to discern the words, ever demanded the destruction of this remnant of paganism. The part-time stylite was a full-time businessman and would doubtless appreciate the fact that Zeus brought a constant stream of visitors. And visitors spent money on lodgings, food, and other necessaries, not to mention temporary companionship.

That was the theory, but today the temple looked deserted except for a short, gap-toothed fellow squatting in a shadow near the entrance. He leapt to his feet and sidled up to John.

“Honored, sir, my name is Matthew and I can see you are interested in Megara’s most famous antiquity. Now, it happens I have the sad history of the great unfinished Zeus at my fingertips, having studied it for years. For a small consideration I would be happy, as the saying goes, to speak of things older than parchment, that you may appreciate this most wonderful artifact all the more when you view it.”