Dio was nowhere to be seen.
At the far wall of the studio a dozen rectangular chunks of marble, all taller than a man, stood close together. Their grouping reminded John of the mysterious clusters of weather-eroded standing stones he’d seen in Bretania.
In front of them lay a chisel whose edge glistened moistly red.
A dark trickle curved from it into the marble grove. John followed its trail.
Spatters of blood had sprayed a tall marble slab set against the studio wall. A body sprawled at its foot, face upward.
Dio?
John realized he had no description.
Not that it would have assisted identification. Whoever had killed the man had applied the chisel to the victim’s face. The white patches glistening up through its scarlet ruin were not marble, but bone.
Voices sounded in the shop.
Had the sign-maker followed him?
He peered cautiously out from the cluster of marble monoliths.
Armed men entered the studio. Not excubitors. Sent by the Gourd, then. Had someone already found the body and alerted the authorities?
But if so, why hadn’t the sign-maker known Dio was dead? It was hardly the sort of thing whoever discovered the body would have kept secret.
Something else caused him to hesitate about revealing his presence. Perhaps it was a certain wariness in the way the men moved. A caution they would not have displayed if they were expecting to confront nothing more dangerous than a dead man.
Besides, he reasoned rapidly, why send so many men to look after one corpse?
“…tall and thin…a eunuch…” one of the men said.
It was John they sought. But why? The answer was as obvious as the murdered man at his feet. He was supposed to be caught at the scene.
Venturing another glance, John noted that two of the armed men were now blocking the door leading to the shop.
One of the others pointed toward his hiding place.
For an instant John considered surrendering himself. He was investigating a murder. Would it be so surprising that he might chance upon another victim?
Yet it was obvious that it had all been arranged. He was about to be wrongly accused. Or rather, first he would be murdered while supposedly resisting arrest. Then posthumously accused.
John made his decision.
Turning, he grasped the top of the slab against the studio wall and yanked himself upward.
Shouts rang out as he was spotted. By the time the first of the men reached the departed Dio, John had scrambled through the open window above the slab.
He found himself on the roof of a shed leaning against the back of the studio. Beyond rose a jumbled wilderness of buildings and tiled roofs.
He quickly crossed the shed, clambered onto the roof of the adjacent structure, and ran in the direction of the Domninus.
At the street, the tile roof came to an abrupt end. Here the buildings facing the Domninus were two stories tall, while the colonnade sheltering their shop entrances rose only to the height of a single story. Fortunately, the roof of the colonnade formed a serviceable route along and above the street. John lowered himself hastily onto it.
Looking down into the Domninus he saw several pursuers emerge from beneath the archway to the artisans’ enclave. From behind him came the sound of pounding boots and shouted commands to stop.
He began to run past the windows of the apartments that looked out over the colonnade roof.
Passersby gaped up at him from the street. He glanced back over his shoulder. Three men had reached the roof of the colonnade. More ran down the street, paralleling his flight. A few urchins joined the pursuit, screaming with excitement as they raced ahead of the armed men.
John was dimly aware of pale ovals of faces behind the windows he passed as the curious looked out to see the cause of the commotion.
He almost missed the movement of a warped shutter opening into his path. He dodged, just in time, stumbled, but managed to keep running.
Behind him there was a crash and a string of oaths, as the shutter slammed into his closest pursuer and sent the man sliding off the edge of the roof and into the street.
Ahead the narrow ravine of the Domninus and its colonnade ran into a forum. The uneven tiles made running difficult. The men racing along the thoroughfare were staying even with John. It was obvious that if he tried to scramble down into the forum his pursuers would be upon him in an instant.
The next window he arrived at was closed. John kicked it in and plunged through.
He caught a glimpse of a young woman standing beside a brazier. The toddler at her feet looked up at John with immense, solemn eyes. Then his mouth fell open and he looked at his mother in bewilderment.
In an instant John was out the door and leaping down the steep wooden stairs beyond.
Reaching the hallway he turned away from the street. A door at the other end opened into an alley.
Unfortunately the alley was not connected to the maze of narrow ways in which John had been hoping to evade his pursuers. Instead it led straight into the forum.
John sprinted for the opening. As he burst out into it armed men began to arrive from the Domninus.
It was still early. There were few people abroad and thus no crowds in which to lose himself.
A seller of produce arranging his wares on a stall looked up as John rushed past.
Something slapped John’s back. He didn’t turn. Another hit, this time on the back of his thigh. Then a green and white projectile hurtled over his head and smacked into the ground in front of him.
A bunch of leeks.
The civic-minded produce seller was doing his part to assist the authorities.
Looking for concealment John dodged into a public latrine, past a mendicant who had already taken up a post beside the carved dolphins decorating its entrance, and into the long room beyond.
A door in the far wall led to a room filled with buckets of sponges on sticks, supplied for the personal hygiene of patrons. From there, another door revealed a concrete-floored corridor slanted downward and then John emerged into the light.
He found himself gazing out over the waist-high parapet of the northern seawall.
He started across the cobbled space between the seawall and the back of the latrine. Even this small area boasted one or two beggars, who stared sullenly at him as he passed.
A granary abutting the seawall on the opposite side of the open area blocked further progress in that direction.
Several of John’s pursuers appeared, having made their way through the latrine, preventing any escape back along that path. The only other way out was a narrow opening between latrine and warehouse, but that led back to the forum.
John drew his sword.
He might be able to kill one or two, but he had no chance to against so many.
He leapt up onto the seawall.
Looking down, he did not see the roof of a warehouse so he could not put his faith in Mithra and leap as he had hoped. Only a sheer drop to the docks, much too far below. A jump would be fatal.
A stiff breeze brought with it a hint of seaspray.
John drew in a deep, painful breath, aware that he had come to a point where his remaining breaths could well be counted on his fingers.
His pursuers now moved forward warily, none of them wanting to be the first to feel the blade of a desperate, doomed man.
John was not afraid to die. If this were the death Mithra had chosen to grant him, he was thankful for it. It would be a soldier’s death.
He tensed himself, preparing to attack.
But, crept in the treacherous thought, what if their orders were not to kill? What if he were, instead, to be captured and transported to the imperial dungeons?