“But,” Lucretia went on, determined, it seemed, to drain the pool of bitterness festering within her, “I do believe that aid is coming from an unexpected quarter, John. For soon the holy man, if he is indeed a holy man, will also be taking his last journey.”
“I don’t believe that he’s in danger from Justinian mounting another attack,” John assured her. “If Michael is caught he will surely die, but it will be in a far subtler way than by being put to the sword.”
“As far as Michael is concerned,” Hypatia put in, “I have a suspicion that Justinian cannot bribe him as he can the Persians, if you’ll excuse my saying so, Darius.”
Darius grunted agreement from the doorway. “I only wish Khosrow would pass some of Justinian’s tribute money along to my family. Then they could live like, well, like Khosrow!”
Lucretia spoke again. “Justinian will not need to purchase peace. As I said, Michael is not long for this world. He displays the marks of shackles. He’s a fraud, I’m convinced of that, but while he is now free of his chains, yet those chains still bind him, and securely at that, to an imminent death.”
“Now you sound as mysterious as a prophecy from the oracle at Delphi,” John said. “With Peter’s assistance, I’ve learned some surprising things about Michael and his followers and you’re certainly correct to suspect the intentions of some of his acolytes at least. But nothing we discovered suggests that Michael will die in the immediate future.”
“Then I will interpret my prophecy, as you call it,” Lucretia replied grimly. “Michael’s leg is mortifying. I saw the creeping lines of poison radiating away from those disgusting shackle sores myself, like the rays of some dark sun. He won’t be seeing too many more sunrises, that’s certain.”
Hypatia poured a pungent mixture from one of her pots into a clay bowl and vigorously stirred the liquid with a wooden spatula. “Isn’t his leg being treated? Honey, that’s the stuff for preventing infection and healing sores. At least that’s what we use in Egypt, but you have to be quick with its application if it’s needed. I’ll wager they sent you away with honey on your ankles when you acquired that tattoo, Isis?”
Isis stretched out her leg and pulled her garment up far enough to reveal her tattoo. “They did indeed and, as you can see, it took beautifully.” Neither the darkly outlined vertical rectangle with a pinched waist and flared base nor the horizontal bars across the top of the tattoo were blurred.
“But that shape, Isis!” exclaimed Lucretia. She bent down to study it more closely and then straightened. “That strange arrangement of dark lines…it almost reminds me of what I saw on Michael’s ankle, half obscured by his terrible sores.”
“Perhaps deliberately obscured,” John put in. His thoughts leapt like the flames in the brazier.
Isis shook her head in disgust, an expression that rarely crossed that worldly madam’s face.
“I have been away from Alexandria a long time,” she declared, “but surely my penitent sisters have not sunk to such depths as to permit men to enter the order? To think they would stoop to defile it for the sake of a few more coins from clients whose filthy tastes cannot otherwise be satisfied. It is enough to make me ashamed of my profession!”
Felix was propped up on his pallet, staring dolefully at the plaster wall, when John entered the small room next to Peter’s. Felix looked, John thought, like a caged bear, too large for the cramped space in which he was confined.
“John! Thank Mithra! The emperor has come to his senses and pardoned you?”
“No, he hasn’t.” There being no chair, John hunkered down on the floor beside the bed.
A look of horror crossed Felix’ bearded face. “If you are not pardoned, then even being here puts you under sentence of death, you know that well enough.”
“We are all under sentence of death. Some of us have a better idea of when it might be carried out. Right now I need your assistance.”
“Anything, of course,” Felix growled. His mouth tightened in pain. “Although I fear my offer does not amount to much in my present state.”
John replied that it was not Felix’s skill at arms that he needed just then. “What I am going to do is catch a very subtle murderer,” he continued.
“Do you mean whoever murdered Aurelius or Philo?”
“Yes, not to mention a few other people. The stylites, for example. There was nothing supernatural about their deaths, Felix. They were murdered and fire was the weapon used.”
Felix’s expression turned thunderous. “And fire was used against my men at the shrine. Some kind of incendiary device, do you think? I didn’t actually see what happened. I was inside the building by then, bleeding half to death on the floor. But my men swore there was fire from the sky.”
“That’s what they would have half expected, since people have been talking about nothing else for days,” John pointed out.
Felix muttered he should have guessed the truth of it even in his wounded state, since he had heard tales of the empire’s enemies using such weapons on eastern battlefields. Yet he had hesitated to believe those stories. How could fire be harnessed?
John smiled thinly. “Well, Felix, consider. What if you took a divided clay pot and filled one half of it with an inflammable concoction of elements that burns when wet, and the other half with water? Then having sealed it well, when that pot is thrown…”
“…it smashes,” Felix said triumphantly, “and the elements mix and burst into flame!” He frowned. “But clay pots sink, John. What about this fire on the water Hypatia keeps chattering on about?”
John admitted he did not know how that particular conflagration had been accomplished. However, since it had roared out from the mouth of the Bosporos and the shrine stood beside that very waterway he could certainly hazard a guess as to who was responsible.
“I suspect,” he went on, “this or perhaps another inflammable mixture that water cannot extinguish was involved. Imagine a large amount of this substance, something that floats on water, poured into the Bosporos so that its current carries the inferno down to the city. A rare and terrible weapon indeed. Michael is most certainly involved, Felix. There’s no doubt in my mind about that.”
Felix winced as he shifted uneasily. “Strangely, when you think about it, Michael’s trumpeted his guilt in the matter all along, hasn’t he? But since he hasn’t set foot in Constantinople since he arrived, who’s his accomplice?”
“I believe I know,” John replied, “and I intend to prove it and certain other related matters to Justinian, thus freeing Anatolius and ensuring that justice is served.”
Felix twisted around on the pallet, an effort that drained the color from his face. “This is all very well, John, but surely no one knows better than you that justice is seldom on speaking terms with the truth. And as far as Anatolius goes, I fear that the emperor is more concerned right now in dealing with Michael and defusing the threat posed by him and his rabble, inside and outside the city. What’s worse, by the noise I can hear even up here, your exile did little to calm the mood in the streets.”
John smiled. “I am not so certain that Justinian did not send me away in part for my own safety. Theodora has, as you know, long harbored a deep hatred toward me and during such unsettled times… well, let’s just say that certain very useful opportunities might have very well have presented themselves to her.”
“You think the emperor cannot control the actions of his own wife?”
It was a question John did not have to answer.
“So you are willing to wager that Justinian is not so badly disposed toward you as it would seem on the face of it?” Felix went on. “Well, John, I’ve done more than my fair share of gaming but I’ve never yet gambled with my life.”
“Of course you have, Felix, every time you went into battle! But more than that, I’ve discovered something that will immediately discredit Michael in the eyes of his followers and render him powerless to further threaten the emperor.”