Cautiously, he poked his head into the open air and looked around.
There was something wrong.
What?
John sniffed.
That was it.
There was no smell.
He had been on top of the stylite column more than once in the past. He knew that to glorify their god such solitaries dwelt for years amidst the decaying refuse from their scant meals, dead vermin, and their own filth. When the breezes were in a particular direction, standing downwind from such a pillar was enough to take away the appetite.
Yet here there was no odor at all. The air smelled fresher than it did in the square below.
John pulled himself up onto the platform. It was wider than most. There was room for a man to lie down, but not much more.
Constantinople stretched out around him. He could see the dome of the Great Church, the Hippodrome, and the palace grounds. Sunlight struck sparks off the water on three sides.
A man perched up here would have been able to see a great deal.
On the other hand, the acolyte had insisted Lazarus would never talk about what went on below him.
John turned carefully to face the shelter. It was hardly more than a few weathered planks. The door which made up the front was shut.
“Lazarus,” John called out. “I am sorry to intrude on you. The matter is urgent.”
He was not surprised that there was no reply.
“I am seeking to bring a murderer to justice,” John went on. “I am hoping you will be able to help me.”
John grasped the edge of the ill-fitting door and gave it a tug.
It opened a crack and he peered into the enclosed space.
Lazarus lay rigidly, at an awkward angle, head against the back wall and feet against the door.
John opened the door wider.
The holy man slid out onto the platform feet first.
His head hit the platform with a clank and came off.
His arms remained bent at the elbows, fingertips pressed together just under his chin in an attitude of prayer. His face, sitting beside his shoulder, appeared frozen in an expression of eternal beatitude.
Sunlight glinted off the smooth, bronze features.
Lazarus the stylite was an automaton.
Chapter Forty-One
A sound caused John to look up from the automaton lying at his feet.
He was not alone atop the stylite column.
A man emerged from the trapdoor leading to the stairs.
John recognized the acolyte who had advised him that Lazarus would not speak of anything but heaven.
“You are the man who claimed to be from the emperor,” the acolyte said in the same raspy tone John recalled from their brief conversation in the square.
“You deceived me,” John stated, indicating the metal figure. “Explain.”
“I told you Lazarus would tell you nothing. That was the truth. Yet you still sought to violate a holy man’s solitude.”
“You indicated Lazarus was not concerned with what the emperor might order done to him,” John replied. “I can see you were perfectly truthful about that as well. But can you say the same of yourself?”
The acolyte blanched. “I am not Lazarus. Flesh is weak.”
John glanced down at the metal figure. The joints which would enable arms, legs, and mouth to move were cunningly wrought.
He had recently seen a similar mechanism among Troilus’ antiquities and curiosities.
Like Troilus’ automaton, this one wore armor. It was odd attire for a holy man, but it would not be noticeable from the square.
“Lazarus here was not one given to human weaknesses,” John remarked. “What is your name?”
“I gave up my name when I came to serve Lazarus.”
The garment the acolyte wore was too large for him. The skin of his hands appeared weathered when they emerged from his overly long sleeves.
“Your name?” John ordered.
“In my former life it was Stephen,” the other admitted.
A swirling breeze carried the smell of fresh bread from a bakery hidden in the welter of buildings laid out below them. The shadow of the column sliced across the square. John could see the tops of pedestrians’ heads as they hurried by without looking up.
Few paid attention to stylites apart from their followers and the occasional pilgrim. Those men perched atop pillars were always there, part of the city landscape, like the statuary lining the streets.
John half expected the other to rush at him suddenly. There was little space between them on the small platform. The iron railing was low and insecure and the ground was a long way down.
It would be an easy matter to arrange an accident.
“Where was this automaton obtained?” John asked.
“I can’t say,” came the reply. “I found it up here.”
John gave him a stony stare.
“No, it’s the truth,” the acolyte protested. “It’s been many years since then. I’m not sure how many. My days are all the same. One morning when I came up here, Lazarus was gone. This metal creature had taken his place. Perhaps it was a miracle?”
“You don’t really think so.” It was not a question.
Stephen bent his head. “No.”
“Now explain to me how you came to be spending your time shifting an automaton around on top of a pillar. I observed Lazarus outside his shelter, or so I thought. I assume that was your intent?”
“Yes. I moved him in and out of the shelter and stood him in different places. People don’t look very hard at stylites.”
“But someone might eventually notice if the pillar remained unoccupied?”
“Yes,” the other acknowledged. “And also the pilgrims would have been disappointed.”
“Not to mention you would have been without employment,” John pointed out.
“I can’t deny it. Yet it seemed to me the Lord must have left the automaton here for a reason. In that way, it was a miracle. If God had simply wanted to call Lazarus to his reward, I would have found the top of the column empty. As his acolyte I felt it was my duty to continue his good works.”
The fact that a holy man might appear to remain motionless for much of the day would not be at all unusual, John realized. The mortification of the body that many of them practiced included standing in one position for hours. He suspected they endured their harsh existence by remaining in a self-induced stupor much of the time. “How did you come to hold your position, Stephen?”
“Through the grace of God. When I was a boy I found myself living in the streets. I don’t know why. I don’t even remember my parents. One day I stole a leg of lamb. As I raced off, delighted by my cleverness, a huge black dog came loping after me.”
The acolyte looked down into the square. “It was Satan in the shape of a dog. I should have given the beast what it wanted, but the lamb tempted me. I was hungry, I’d been eating what I could find in the gutters, dead fish that had washed ashore, that sort of thing. So I ran, foolish child that I was. You can’t run from Satan. That monstrous dog savaged me. I should have died, but that was not the Lord’s plan. The man who served Lazarus at the time found me bleeding in an alley. He’d grown feeble with age and needed a helper. After I healed I assisted him.”
“And you eventually took his place?”
Stephen nodded. “He died a year or so after he rescued me. I had learned my duties by then. They’re simple enough. I arrange the offering baskets in front of the column in the morning and keep beggars away from them. Lazarus shared edibles with me and I bought more with the coins left by pious pilgrims.”
“And now you do not need to share the offerings,” John observed.
“There are far fewer than there used to be. Scarcely enough for me to keep body and soul together. Fewer pilgrims visit these days and they are usually older. Whatever fame Lazarus had in his native land, a fame which at one time drew people to this city, has faded away. Those who witnessed his works and were inspired by his teachings, before he journeyed here and mounted this column so as to give his earthly husk over to God, are gone. Even their children are gray and bent, as are most of those who heard him preach from where we stand.”