Argyros grinned a carnivore grin. “How content will they be with no pay for no work?”
“I don’t follow,” Dekanos said.
“Suppose an edict were to go out in the Augustal prefect’s name, suspending all construction in stone in Alexandria for, say, the next three months? Don’t you think the stonecutters would start to get a trifle hungry by then? Hungry enough, even, to think about going back to work on the pharos?”
Dekanos’ eyes went wide. “They might. They just might. And since they weren’t party to the agreements with the other guilds, we wouldn’t even have to pay them extra.”
The magistrianos had thought about that, too, in the third of an hour it had taken him to get to the prefect’s palace. He would enjoy revenge for Miysis’ insolence. Still, he said, “No, I think not. The contrast between those who do work on the pharos and have extra silver to jingle in their pouches and those who do not and have none-”
“A distinct point,” Dekanos said. “Very well, let it be as you say. Some wealthy men will scream when their houses stand a while half-built-”
“The Emperor of the Romans is screaming now because his pharos has stood too long half-built.”
“A distinct point,” Dekanos repeated. He shouted for scribes.
Not even a journeyman carpenter was working at Khesphmois’ shop when Argyros pushed his way through the curtain of beads. Only a servant lounged in the open courtyard. As far as the magistrianos could see, the fellow’s main job was to make sure no one came in and made off with the partly made or partly repaired furniture there.
The servant scrambled to his feet when Argyros came in. He bowed and said something in Coptic. The magistrianos spread his hands. “What you want?” the servant asked in broken Greek.
“Is your master at home?” Argyros asked, speaking slowly and clearly-and also loudly. “I wish to pay my respects to him.”
“Him not here,” the servant said after Argyros had repeated himself a couple of times. “Him, everyone at-how you say? — pharos. Work there all time. You want, you come sabbath day after prayers. Maybe here then.”
“I won’t be here then,” Argyros said. “My ship sails for Constantinople day after tomorrow.”
He saw the servant had not understood him and, sighing, began casting about in his mind for simpler words. He was just starting over when he heard a familiar voice from the living quarters behind the shop: “Is that you, Basil Argyros of Constantinople?”
“Yes, Zois, it is.”
She came out a moment later. “It’s good to see you again. Would you care for some wine and fruit?” Nodding, the magistrianos stepped toward her. The servant started to come, too. Zois stopped him with a couple of sentences of crackling Coptic. To Argyros, she explained, “I told Nekhebu that Khesphmois wants him out here keeping an eye on the furniture, not inside keeping an eye on me. I can take care of myself; the furniture can’t.”
“I’m sure you can, my lady.” Argyros let her lead him into the chamber where they had talked before.
This time she brought out the wine and dates herself. “Lukra had her brat last week, and she’s still down with a touch of fever,” she said. “I expect she will get over it.” Her voice was enigmatic; Argyros could not tell whether she wanted the serving girl to recover.
He said, “I came to thank Khesphmois for all he did to help end the anakhoresis. Since I’m lucky enough to see you, let me thank you also for helping to turn him in that direction. I’m grateful.”
She sipped her wine, nibbled daintily on a candied date, the pink tip of her tongue flicking out for a moment as it toyed with the fruit. “Did I hear you say you were leaving Alexandria day after tomorrow?”
“Yes. It’s time for me to go. The pharos is a-building again, and so I have no need to stay any longer.”
“Ah,” she said, which might have meant anything or nothing. After a pause that stretched, she went on, “In that case, you can thank me properly.”
“Properly?” Somehow, Argyros thought, Zois’ eyes suddenly seemed twice as large as they had just before. She leaned back in her chair. He admired the fine curve of her neck. Then he was kneeling beside that chair, bending to kiss the smooth, warm flesh of her throat. Even if he was wrong, said the calculating part of him that never quite slept, Khesphmois had already returned to the pharos.
But he was not wrong. Zois’ breath sighed out; her hands clasped the back of his head. “The bedroom?” Argyros whispered sometime later.
“No. Lukra’s chamber is next to it, and she might overhear.” For all her sighs, Zois still seemed very much in control of herself. “We will have to manage here.”
The room had neither couch nor, of course, bed, but not all postures required them. Manage they did, with Zois on her knees and using her chair to support the upper part of her body. She was almost as exciting as Argyros had imagined; in this imperfect world, he thought before all thought fled, one could hardly hope for more.
She gasped with him at the end, but he was still coming back to himself when she turned to look over her shoulder at him and say, “Pull up your breeches.” As he did so, she swiftly repaired her own dishevelment. Then she waved him back to his own chair, remarking, “Khesphmois must not know what we’ve done, I do, which is what matters.”
“So you were only using me to pay back Khesphmois?” he asked, more than a trifle nettled. Here he had thought he was desired for his sake, but instead found himself merely an instrument to Zois. This, he realized uncomfortably, had to be how a seduced woman felt.
Zois’ reply reinforced his discomfort. “We all use one another, do we not?” She softened that a moment later, adding with a smile, “I will say I enjoyed this use more than some-more than most, even.”
Something, that, but not enough. How many was most?
Argyros did not want to know. He got to his feet. “I’d best head back to my lodging,” he said. “I still have some packing to do.”
“For a ship that sails in two days?” Zois’ smile was knowing. “Go, then, if you think you must. As I said, though, I did enjoy it. And I will give Khesphmois your thanks. I’d not be so rude as to forget that.”
“I’m so glad,” Argyros muttered. Zois giggled at his ostentatiously held aplomb, which only made him cling to it more tightly. The bow he gave her was as punctilious as if he’d offered it to the Master of Offices’ wife. She giggled again. He left, hastily.
On the way back to his room-he really had no better place to go-he reflected on the changes he had made since coming to Alexandria. From celibate to fornicator to adulterer, all in the space of a few weeks, he thought, filled with self-reproach. Then he remembered that he would eagerly have become an adulterer before, had he thought Zois willing. Now he knew just how willing she was, and found something other than delight in the knowledge.
Yet he also knew how sweet her body was, and the whore’s as well. Having fallen from celibacy, he doubted he would ever be able to return to it. As well, then, that he had not let grief drive him into a monastery. His instinct there had been right: he was much too involved with the things of this world to renounce it for the next until he drew his last breath. Best to acknowledge that fully, and live with the consequences as best he could.
Thinking that, he let himself take some pride in his success here. One day, before too many more years had passed, Alexandria’s beacon would shine again, saving countless sailors as time went by. Had he not come to help set things right, that might have been long delayed or accomplished only through bloodshed. And preventing such strife might earn him credit in heaven to set in the balance against the weight of his sins.
He could hope, anyway.
“Argyros! Wait!”
The magistrianos set his duffel on the planking of the dock, turned to find out who was shouting at him. He was surprised to see Mouamet Dekanos hurrying up the quay toward him. “I thought you’d be just as glad to have me go far away,” he said as the Alexandrian bureaucrat came near.