“A strange place to find shelter from a slaughter,” observed Felix.
“Fortuna is said to have a cruel sense of humor.” John turned back to the door.
The continuing search for survivors was a terrible sight. Several men strolled around the forum, casually thrusting blades into motionless bodies. Others had begun to search the surrounding shops, vanishing into darkened cavities to emerge in one instance with a struggling figure which was soon stilled, but increasingly with shadowy handfuls of whatever goods had taken their fancy.
“It’s one thing for a soldier to take the reward he’s earned from honorably defeating an enemy, but only a thief robs his fellow citizens!” Felix averted his head and spit sideways in disgust.
“Ugh!”
It was a reflexive cry of distress.
John bent down and looked behind the pile of baskets sitting under the butcher’s scarred chopping table. A young boy crouched there, wiping his face. He looked up in terror but made no attempt to escape, frozen in fear like a rabbit. Felix dragged him out.
The boy couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve and small for his age at that. Nonetheless he was dressed as a Blue, with a splendid cloak and his hair shaved high in the front.
“Stole your father’s razor, didn’t you?” Felix gave the boy a rough shake. “Not for that beardless face but to shave your hair. You did a good job, boy. Too good. You look enough like a Blue to get your belly sliced open.”
The boy began to sob. “My tutor said I had to memorize Homer. I thought fighting would be more heroic! I was going to write verse about it. We weren’t hurting anybody. Don’t let them kill me!”
Felix muttered words that weren’t fit for the boy’s ears, not as a response to the lad’s confession, but rather because he had just seen several men working their way down the line of shops.
From what could already be seen and heard, their search was extremely thorough. Furniture was knocked over, crates smashed, sacks torn open and their contents tossed out into the forum.
“He looks enough like a Blue to get all our bellies sliced open if we’re caught hiding him,” John pointed out. “There’s only one solution. Give me your sword!”
Felix regarded John with a sneer. “What, is it anything to save your own skin?” The boy in his grip squirmed convulsively, but had the presence of mind not to begin yelling for help.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt him. Just don’t forget the lesson you learned tonight, young man. Life’s rarely poetic.”
From much too close by came the sound of shattering pottery.
“Give me your sword, Felix. Quickly!” John demanded again.
Felix hesitated for a heartbeat, then complied. John ducked behind the enormous hanging pig carcass and swiftly hacked at the opening made by the butcher to extract its offal.
Raised voices could be heard from a shop only an alcove or two away. Amphorae smashed on the ground, followed by raucous laughter.
Understanding dawned and Felix picked up the boy and thrust him inside the huge bloody carcass. “Don’t make a sound!” he cautioned.
Two men appeared at the shop’s doorway.
John kicked a stool savagely against a wall. “You ignorant fool! You’re stupider than a fish that’s been lying on the dock for days! We’re wasting our time! There’s no one in here!” he shouted at Felix.
The men outside were featureless shadows. Their heads moved in John’s direction. He was obviously not one they sought, not to mention ordering about a man immediately identifiable as an excubitor by his clothing.
The pair set to work to finish the search John had feigned beginning.
They looked under the chopping table, opened a chest and scattered its contents on the floor. Felix helped the searchers overturn a large vat filled with layers of salted meat.
Apparently satisfied, the two men turned to go. One paused suddenly. He looked up at the huge gutted pig hanging from its hook.
His companion let out a bark of laughter. “Forget taking that as well! You can’t hide it under your tunic!”
“That wasn’t what I was thinking.” The man raised his sword and took a step toward the carcass. His blade descended swiftly and in an instant a hefty slice of pig flesh was clutched in his fist.
“Dinner!” he announced, shoving it into his tunic. “And speaking of dinner, as a little thank you I’ll give the butcher’s customers some sauce for theirs…”
He urinated on the pig and then the pair left, laughing.
The dead swine swung wildly as the boy emerged, speckled in gore and scraps of offal. He was shaking. John removed his cloak, folded it, and draped it across the boy’s narrow shoulders.
Felix peered out. “They’re dragging bodies away now. We’ll be able to leave shortly. And where do you live, boy?”
Too busy wiping pig’s blood from his face, the would-be Blue didn’t answer.
“No point in setting you loose to get yourself killed now.” Felix smiled grimly. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you safely home.”
“I can get home by myself!” The boy darted forward.
Felix casually stuck out his foot, sending the lad sprawling.
“Let me go home!” the boy pleaded.
“Do you even have a proper home to go to? Maybe we should turn you over to the Prefect?” Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes and ran down his face, leaving meandering streaks on his dirty, blood-smeared cheeks.
“Anatolius,” he said. “That’s my name. But please don’t tell my father what I did!”
Felix snorted. “Afraid of the thrashing you deserve? And what will your mother say to see your curls sacrificed for such a stupid reason? They’ll realize what you’ve been up to as soon as they see your new hairstyle. Unless you propose to wear a wig for a while?”
Anatolius snuffled miserably, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
The trio made their way through the darkness.
The Prefect’s men had turned their attention elsewhere.
A small mound of bodies had been piled at the bottom of the street that ran into the Strategion. Theodotus’ guests, their ranks no doubt swelled by the curious, had been permitted to come closer and now stood not far off.
The unmistakable figure of Theodotus strode toward the pile of corpses. A rising murmur came from the onlookers as he kicked at the bodies. He raised his arms over his head and thundered to his audience or perhaps to the heavens.
“Let this be a lesson to the vermin who would terrorize our streets! They can expect no mercy!”
John took hold of Anatolius’ hand and tried to pull him away. The boy resisted. He stared back at the obelisk in the middle of the Strategion.
A man had been bound to its base. He was illuminated by a ring of lamps set on the ground around him.
Theodotus paced back and forth as he continued his diatribe.
John tugged at Anatolius’ hand.
“No, let him watch if he wants,” Felix said quietly. “Sometimes a lesson needs repeating.”
Theodotus’ voice boomed through the cold air. “That was their plot, to set fire to the oil warehouses.
The flames would spread quickly. By sunrise the city would be ashes with no one’s property spared. This is why I have eyes and ears everywhere. My own, those of my men, and many belonging to other, unseen, helpers. Before you think to harm this sacred seven-hilled city, remember, I have ways of knowing your thoughts almost before you form them.” The bound man squirmed as Theodotus grasped a large clay pot sitting beside the obelisk and hefted it up as easily as if it were a small cup.
“Your plan failed,” he told the man tied to the obelisk. “But since you were looking forward to a fire, I don’t want to disappoint.”
Upending the pot he doused the Blue with lamp oil. The man began to struggle frantically as the viscous liquid soaked into his clothing and trickled down, forming a puddle.
Theodotus stepped away and casually kicked one of the lamps illuminating the scene toward the obelisk. The lamp skittered on its side, rolling in a tiny wheel of flames to come to rest against the man’s oil-sodden cloak. A thin line of red snaked slowly along it and began climbing up the man’s chest.