On impulse, Peter sat down on John’s chair. His heart raced, although there was no reason he should not rest his old bones. Certainly his master would not object. He forced his gaze toward the mosaic, to see what John would see. He found himself looking into the dark eyes of a young girl. Eyes of glass that appeared to stare back at him. That would in an instant, blink. He was certain of it.
Peter jumped up and was out of the room droning a familiar hymn as he hurried down the hall.
He had not looked at the mosaic again because he knew the girl’s expression had changed, and that was a vision he did not dare to look upon.
***
John veered off the wide, torch-lit Mese into the darker streets and alleys that snaked up to the palace walls, twisting and turning as if looking for a way in, but being continually forced back on themselves. A fitful wind snapped his cloak and whipped drops of rain into his face.
From his swift, purposeful stride, his unhesitating turns into obscure byways, an observer would have supposed the Lord Chamberlain was hurrying to some important destination. In fact, John’s movements were unplanned, his speed merely a reflection of the frantic pace of his thoughts. Although his mercenary days were long past, when some knotty problem arose to snare him in its serpent’s coils there always came a time when John’s body insisted on action. Since he was no longer soldiering and since battling with a blade would not in any case pierce the demons of the mind, at such times he invariably walked, hoping his feet would carry him to a solution.
Noticing a tradesman, an idea occurred to him. The vendor was on his knees in front of a cramped niche, mending the rickety wooden table on which he displayed his wares during the day. The man, a ragged, furtive creature, looked up, startled, at the sound of John’s approach.
“Do you have any fruit? Vegetables?” John asked.
The shopkeeper eyed John’s expensive garments and boots warily and scrambled to his feet. The lamp by which he had been working projected John’s shadow, supernaturally large, against the blank wall of the tenement on the other side of the narrow street. “None that one of your position would find suitable, great one.”
“Anything you have would be acceptable. I shall also need a basket.”
The man’s gaze darted back and forth in the lamplight, his mind alert for a trap. “I could sell you a basket, but the fruit’s sat in the heat all day.”
“I assure you it will be satisfactory.” A coin flashed in the dim light.
“The fruit out here’s probably spoiled, like I said, but I might be able to find some that’d be edible.”
“I don’t need anything fit for the emperor’s table.” John turned his hand slightly so light caught the coin again. The shopkeeper’s eyes gleamed as brightly as the currency.
Rummaging noisily through the baskets and boxes in his niche, the fellow sounded relieved as he replied. “Well, then, I can certainly provide something that will suit you. Nothing here would be fit for the emperor.”
John traded the nominal weight of the coin for the considerably heavier basket of fruit and continued on toward the square at the end of the street. The wind howling through narrow spaces between the buildings on each side pushed at his back as if attempting to thrust him bodily out into the open. When it stopped abruptly, he heard raindrops splattering against the overhanging balconies which almost met above him. Suddenly their staccato beat was engulfed in a formless roar as the storm arrived in all its fury.
Under the balconies it had been relatively sheltered, but when John stepped out into the square he was soaked as immediately as if he had plunged fully dressed into a pool at the baths. He paused, wiping water out of his eyes.
At the other side of the square, a column rose into the night to a height just above the two-story buildings all around. John hurried forward.
Reaching the column, he leaned his head back, hand protecting his eyes, trying to look upward through the rain. A lightning flash illuminated a low railing there and a motionless figure.
“I am here to pay you a visit, my friend,” John called up. “I have brought some fruit. I mean you no harm.”
The figure, which might have been a statue since it did not move, refused to reply. Another flash of lightning illuminated a wooden ladder. John reached up to grasp a greasy rung. Thunder shook the column as John began to haul himself upwards.
It was a relatively short journey, but not an easy one. The ladder was slippery, the rising wind yanked at his water-sodden cloak, and the downpour beat on his shoulders.
Truth to Mithra, John thought, he was not afraid of Zeus’ thunderbolts. It was not that the Lord Chamberlain had more courage, or was more foolhardy, than most. He firmly believed that the Lord of Light he followed would not allow him to perish at the hands of a weaker god.
When he reached the top John remained leaning on the ladder, clinging with one hand to the iron railing that ringed the column’s tiny platform. He had no wish to step out onto it. There was, he judged, not enough room for him and the stylite unless the man were to move to one side, and John suspected that the stylite’s legs had, long since, become locked in their habitual position. It was well known that these Christian ascetics often lived atop their columns for years or decades, never descending to the earth or taking shelter, whatever the season or the weather.
In some strange way this self torture was supposed to glorify their mysterious god.
“There is fruit in this basket,” he informed the stylite, carefully setting it down near what intermittent lightning flashes revealed to be sticks of legs. Mithra, how the man stank.
“The Lord in His wisdom announces thunder with the lightning bolt,” intoned the holy man in a surprisingly firm voice, without looking at John. “Bless you, my son,” he added.
“I have a question.”
The stylite nodded, ropy-veined neck moving, while from his shoulders down his body remained motionless. The matted hair hanging past his shoulders and the beard dangling nearly to his waist were dripping in the deluge. “The fire,” he muttered. “God’s house is consumed. The evils of mankind will be turned to ashes.”
John looked past the stylite toward where Justinian’s new church was rising. It was certainly a different sort of tribute to God than the one offered up by this holy man. Was the stylite remembering the fire which had destroyed the old Church of the Holy Wisdom?
“There was a man, a friend of mine, murdered not far from here,” John said. From his precarious vantage point John looked out over the city. Here and there a few smoldering torches not yet doused by the torrent shone dimly, like spent charcoal in the bottom of a brazier. Crosses rose starkly from the roofs of many houses. Some crosses were wooden, others more elaborate, alerting both God and men to the faith of those who slept beneath them.
“There,” John pointed, trying to direct the stylite’s gaze. “In that alley. That is where it happened. Did you chance to see anything?”
The holy man chuckled softly. For a terrible instant, a lightning bolt linked the city to the heavens. It was followed by a wave of thunder. John could feel its vibration. Some building close by had surely been struck.
The stylite began to laugh. “Can that be the finger of God seeking out a sinner?”
John felt a sudden wave of anger. “You must have seen something from up here! You have nothing to do but look down into the streets. Consider my question. I’m seeking one who is guilty of murder.”
The stylite laughed again. “No man is guilty but one who sets down his cross.”
John began to ask the stylite about the guilt of a man who would plunge a dagger into another’s ribs but stopped himself. There was no point. The stylite was obviously mad.