“Well?” His wife persisted shrilly. “I expect that swindler of a tax collector will be back with his hand out again today.”
“People have been celebrating. They’ve spent a lot. They don’t have much left.” The innkeeper wiped away the sweat on his forehead with his meaty hand. New beads popped out immediately. His sack, which had not lightened during his rounds, was exceedingly heavy, stuffed with everything from saints’ bones to kitchen utensils.
“So? You spoke to a lot of people?”
“People are tired after the celebrations. They have headaches, bellyaches. Give me some wine.”
She ignored his request. “They were interested in your wares, though?”
“No,” he snapped, wearily sitting down to engulf a stool beside the kitchen’s open window.
“You fool, you missed your chance!”
“People say a lot of things, but when it comes to parting with good money, that’s a different matter.”
“I hope those ruffians you pay to help out have better luck selling to the gullible, otherwise you can have the pleasure of talking to the tax collector.”
Kaloethes picked up one of the polishing rags his wife had been using and wiped his forehead. “Sometimes I wish I’d never got mixed up with that bunch. Who knows what they’re up to? Look, this collector’s new to this quarter, isn’t he? Do you think he’d accept a gift?”
“He might. On the other hand, he might tell the prefect.”
The ensuing silence was filled by the sound of the water that dripped steadily from a spot near the middle of the ceiling.
“The place is falling to ruin,” wailed Mistress Kaloethes. “And now we have guests who don’t pay. I don’t know what you expect me to do.”
“Keep fewer silks in your chest, for a start.”
Mistress Kaloethes’ porcine eyes glared. “Those are necessary. If you aspire to deal with the better classes you must dress to their standards.”
“It’s all very well to aspire to standards but I still say we should keep a few girls upstairs. There’s always a market for the natural pleasures.”
“I wouldn’t call what some of them get up to natural! I’d never stoop to that kind of business anyway.”
“Naturally I wouldn’t expect it of you personally.”
“I should think not! I left the theater a long time ago. And besides, how do you think you’d compete with the Whore of Babylon next door?”
“She isn’t next door.”
“Well, she’s near enough so I can hear that dreadful contraption of hers moaning whenever I set foot in the courtyard.”
“I’ve been exploring possibilities with some of her girls.”
“Exploring possibilities? A nice phrase to use to your wife. You ought to plead in the courts of law. I suppose you think I don’t know you’ve been over there?”
“As I just told you, I’ve been talking to several of the girls about moving here.”
“How dare you insult me by even considering bringing those disgusting whores to live under our roof! You’ll ruin what little reputation I have left, you bastard!”
Mistress Kaloethes grabbed a plate and her husband raised his hands to fend off flying tableware.
Chapter Thirty-two
The gold and silver tableware being arranged under John’s supervision on the main table in the Hall of the Nineteen Couches was worth the price of any number of inns equal to the Kaloethes’ establishment, which explained why a small army of guards was posted inside and outside the elongated, two-story high building where the most important imperial banquets were held. John only wished he could explain why Justinian had ordered him to oversee a task his assistants could carry out by themselves when John had more pressing matters to pursue.
He was contemplating the placement of a gold platter big enough to hold an entire pig, a platter Leukos had once confided had cost the imperial treasury 1,440 nomismata, when a series of piercing screams echoed through the long room.
Most high officials would have looked around for their personal bodyguards, but John, still ingrained with the habits of his military days, ran immediately toward the commotion.
Near the entrance two guards were struggling to hold a skinny child who was thrashing around like an eel.
John demanded an explanation.
“This little slave seems to think he has an audience with the Lord Chamberlain,” replied one the guards.
“He’s done well to get inside the hall. Sometimes initiative is rewarded. Let the boy go.”
The guards released the boy, who seemed suddenly overcome by awe.
“S-S-Sir…I…I…”
“What is your name, boy?”
“B-B-Beppolenus, sir.”
His tunic was bloody and there were bruises and blood on his face.
“Who beat you?” John glared at the guards, who muttered their innocence.
The boy wiped his face and rubbed his hand on his tunic, leaving red streaks. “X–Xiphias, sir.”
“You’ve come to tell me your master beats you?”
“No, sir. I’m to say…I’m here to tell you….the visitor you asked Xiphias about. He did come to speak with the Keeper of the Plate. Xiphias was lying. And…and the man spoke to Xiphias.”
“Indeed?”
Tears welled up and the boy wiped his eyes, smearing blood across his face. “Xiphias doesn’t know I’m here.”
“From your appearance I see he still clings to his old habits,” John said. “I shall accompany you back.”
As the boy turned to go, his swollen lips formed a smile of satisfaction.
***
John could not be certain Beppolenus was telling the truth. On their way to the workshop he couldn’t extract any coherent details from the boy. On the other hand, John knew from his own experience that Xiphias was a violent liar.
There was the time Xiphias, in one of his daily rages, smacked John across the face with a candlestick. Then Xiphias hauled him in front of Leukos, blood gushing from John’s nose, and claimed John had hurt himself when he and another young man had decided to engage in a sword fight with candlesticks.
The accusation that the twenty-five year-old John would have stooped to such childish stupidity hurt more than his smashed nose. It was particularly ridiculous because John, a man who had fought as a mercenary, could have easily killed any of the palace-raised apprentices had he decided to attack one.
John felt long-smoldering fury over that and other incidents as he strode into the Keeper of the Plate’s office. Perhaps it was time for Xiphias to suffer for his misdeeds. John prided himself on being a fair man, and he had not taken revenge on Xiphias now that he had power to do so. However, lying to the Lord Chamberlain, who was investigating a murder….that was a serious offense.
However, Xiphias was not there.
“He ran away like a scared dog,” one of the older apprentices told John, not trying to conceal his smirk of satisfaction. “As soon as Beppolenus went to tell you, right after Xiphias finished beating him.”
“This is true, Beppolenus?”
Beppolenus chewed his lip nervously. “Well, yes, sir. It was time. I mean, I was too scared before but after he hurt me I got angry.”
Leukos and John had from time to time talked about Xiphias and so it was that John knew the man, a bachelor, lived in rooms on the edge of the Copper Quarter. The neighborhood took its name from the metal-working establishments clustered there and John had grown familiar with it during his apprenticeship, when he had often visited workshops to deliver orders from the palace.
Xiphias’ building was a four-story structure of smoke blackened brick. John was greeted in the vestibule by a withered woman, dressed in soot colored robes, who gave the impression of having been smoked herself.
“Xiphias?” she wheezed. “You must have come for the rest of his things. I hope you brought a cart.”
“Is Xiphias here?”
“If he was here, you wouldn’t be moving his things, would you?” She looked at John through clouded eyes that apparently could not discern that he was not dressed like a laborer.