Lucretia, surreptitiously wiping her eyes, asked him what he meant.
“Didn’t you see? If this Michael has really been blessed with his saintly namesake’s healing powers, for that’s what folks around here are starting to say, why does he have half-healed sores around his ankle?”
Smiling at her startled expression, he nodded importantly. “Oh, yes, you just look. He’s coming back this way.”
Michael was moving down the aisle again, blessing the unfortunates crowding the narrow space. As he passed by Lucretia bowed her head. It was not her right to question, but, hating herself for it, she quickly glanced at the thin ankles visible beneath the hem of his robe.
It was just as the peasant had said. She suddenly felt soiled, as she had with Balbinus.
“You saw, didn’t you?” the peasant was asking her. “And by the look of them dark bits, his flesh is starting to mortify. A few days from now, his leg will be blowing up and he’ll be smelling like a dead cow left out in the sun.”
He leaned forward to confide in a whisper. “I’ll tell you what I think, lady. He’s an imposter. I’ve seen that sort of sore before. He’s been held in shackles and that very recently. But why is he out here and what does he really want?”
Lucretia had no answer, nor did she care to ponder the question. She struggled to her feet and staggered outdoors. She needed fresh air. She felt very ill.
Chapter Twenty-three
The rhythmic swaying of John’s mount as he rode up the Mese would have been almost soothing had it not been for his lingering vision of Anatolius’ bleak cell.
He wondered how long Anatolius’ stoicism would endure. Soldiers who had silently borne the most grievous battlefield wounds could be reduced to whimpering madness by extended periods of enforced hopelessness. It was something John had witnessed on several occasions. And more than once, out of mercy, he had counseled Justinian to sentence a miscreant to death rather than imprisonment. He prayed to Mithra he would not have to counsel such kindness on behalf of his friend.
His black thoughts about Anatolius’ confinement, circling like birds of ill omen, were not all that distinguished this second diplomatic mission to Michael from the first. John’s world had changed since then. Senator Aurelius, his companion on that first occasion, was dead. So was Philo. Felix was missing. Isis and Darius had been reduced to refugees, the madam’s girls were scattered, one had been horribly murdered. Even the reliable Peter was no longer his usual self, beset as he was by ill health.
The city seemed to reflect the ruins of John’s life. He and the handful of guards accompanying him rode through wide blackened swathes, where fire had claimed the ill built buildings which crowded closely behind the colonnaded main thoroughfare. As they passed along the way, the hooves of their horses stirred up clouds of ashes. The acrid dust burned eyes and nostrils. Everywhere the air brought the sharp taste of smoke to the back of the throat.
If he accomplished his mission, would Theodora look more kindly on his entreaties on behalf of Anatolius?
John urged his mount forward. It was not until the shouts of his guards broke through his dark musings that he realized he had, for some time, been racing madly down the Mese at a full gallop.
“Michael has agreed to an audience,” the acolyte announced.
Outside the shrine, John had observed the scattered remains of cooking fires, shattered pottery, a sandal lying abandoned on the churned earth, things that together with the remarkable abundance of stones around the shrine’s steps informed his trained eye of stealthy attack, a panicked rout, and a determined counter-attack. Mute confirmation was provided by the dried blood staining the ground here and there. The number of the mounds of fresh earth ranged beside the nearby stream bore witness to the cost. He would not have buried the dead beside an encampment’s water supply, he thought. Despite the Michaelites’ recent martial success, it was obvious that their leader had had no military training.
Now, as he followed his guide through the crowded building, John glanced around its packed interior, searching for a glimpse of Felix.
Michael had not chosen to meet him in front of the altar this time. Instead, the acolyte led him to a small room in the back of the shrine. “This is the master’s chamber,” he revealed, before announcing John.
The room resembled a cell, but unlike Anatolius’, it possessed an unlocked door and a tiny, square window overlooking the Bosporos.
Michael turned away from the view to face John. “I was sorry to hear of the death of your friend the senator,” he said before John had a chance to speak.
“Your miraculous cure was short-lived, I fear,” John observed tartly.
“It was not my cure, Lord Chamberlain. I am only an instrument for the heavenly physician.”
The shaven-headed eunuch appeared to John even thinner than at their first meeting. Perhaps it was the increased gauntness of the smooth, ascetic face, the tired stoop of the narrow shoulders.
John began to offer the empress’ felicitations but Michael interrupted the formal recitation. “She might have presented these greetings before she sent her excubitors.”
“The empress also wishes to express her sincere regrets regarding the undisciplined conduct of certain of the imperial excubitors,” John replied.
“They were, indeed, undisciplined,” the other agreed. “And now let us dispense with all these flowery ceremonial greetings and waste no more time. Can you tell me why I would wish to hear anything from one who sought to destroy me and my followers?”
John repeated the communication Theodora had ordered him to deliver. “Emperor Justinian has been cloistered, seeking to reconcile your theological views with those of the orthodox persuasion. He left the empress in charge.” He paused. Deception was not something he enjoyed but, like the sword, its use was sometimes necessary, if only in defense of one’s self and one’s friends. “I should not have to tell you,” he finally said, still repeating Theodora’s own words, “that the empress, as a woman, does not have the tight rein on the imperial military that…”
Michael raised his hand, again interrupting John. “Lord Chamberlain, let us speak freely. Do you really believe an empress cannot control those under her command? I most certainly do not. I notice you are extremely uncomfortable repeating this message from your gracious empress and I draw my own conclusions so far as that goes. But as for Justinian’s attempts at constructing a compromise…as has already been proved, we are not timid nor do we balk at the logical conclusions to be drawn from our beliefs. In short, if orthodoxy cannot encompass a Quaternity then there is no compromise to be found. It is as simple as that.”
Michael half turned to look out of the window again. The sun shimmering on the restless waters of the Bosporos threw a rectangle of bright light across the stone floor, swept bare of even a single stalk of straw from the lumpy pallet in the corner.
“The empress wishes you to understand,” John said, “that in such a large empire as this there is room for many differing shades of belief, although not necessarily within the confines of one city’s walls. She wishes me also to point out to you that the patriarchy of Alexandria is an exceedingly high office.”
Michael’s pale, sexless face was framed by a nimbus of sunlight. John wondered if this was how others saw the person they so lightly referred to as ‘John the eunuch,’ not as a man who had been grievously wounded but as a creature neither man nor woman and, thus, a being not quite human or natural. His stomach tightened at the thought.
“Can it be that Empress Theodora is offering me the patriarchate of Alexandria providing that I abandon my followers and slink away in the night? Is that even an office that is hers to award?”