11
One instant my foot was coming down on the next step, then I’d lost my balance and was stepping into space. I flung my arms out in time to regain my balance and managed to keep hold of the lamp even as it splashed hot oil across my hand.
It was another earthquake. As frequent as they are, my surprise at their onset has never lessened, neither did my horror at the unnatural spectacle of solid earth rippling and walls bulging.
The stairway remained intact. So did I. I reached the bottom and stumbled over the heaving floor and into the chariot room. Clouds of dirt, dust, and plaster whorled out at me.
Half-blinded, coughing and choking, I staggered through the chariots, barging into wheels, tripping over yokes. The shaking made the chariots rattle and creak. I could have been threading my way through a cacophonous, ghostly race.
Finally, I was back at the cistern. As I started across the vibrating abyss there was a hollow boom. Then another. And another. If the ceiling came crashing down would I even know it or would the world just instantly end?
Suddenly a section of a column, several arm-breadths in diameter, rolled out of the Stygian depths. It roared towards me with terrifying speed. I threw myself out of the way and two rotating, leering satyr heads almost took my nose off.
My lamp hissed and guttered. I’d spilled most of the oil. I started to run.
The floor shook underfoot and I feared at any instant I would step into a freshly opened chasm.
By the time I arrived back at my starting point, the shaking was over.
Luckily the alcove had survived.
Arabia arrived some time later. I described my explorations, leaving out the part about moving corpses, and went on to formulate a more or less clear plan.
“Presuming Florentius can use that courtyard safely, you can meet him at the stairway and lead him through the chariot room and the cistern,” I told her. “If Florentius violates the arrangement – if he brings armed men, for example, or if you sense danger – take him somewhere else. Tell him the icon is hidden above-ground, show him down an alley, and bolt.”
The arrangement also had the advantage of keeping Arabia and myself apart which, I calculated, might make it easier for me to disown her if the need arose.
“Of course, Florentius will need to bring our payment in person,” she said. “He won’t cause trouble since he’ll be in the middle of it. And he knows if he’s caught with an illicit icon, Leo is unlikely to believe any excuses he might have.”
“And we take the money and run.”
Her huge eyes flashed. “Not run. Ride, Victor. We’ll be rich. We’ll buy the first horses we see! Then we’ll be off to Greece or maybe Italy. Anywhere we want. In a couple of days this dreary city will be nothing but a nightmare.”
“I hope so.” I couldn’t help thinking there was only one way that it can turn out right, and endless ways it could go wrong. And if it turned out right … what about Arabia? “Do you really want to risk your life for a few coins?”
She took hold of my arm and I smelled her perfume and felt her heat. “Not just coins, Victor. Gold coins. Lovely solidi with the emperor’s face on them. Imagine what fine things they’ll buy. Farms and jewels and silks.”
“Silks won’t do you any good if Leo has us hunted down.”
Arabia’s reddened lips curved into a scimitar of a smile. “Silk makes a better winding sheet than linen.”
Well, I thought, if that’s how she feels about it, nobody can blame me for what I might need to do.
12
There wasn’t time for sleep before my meeting with Florentius, but I didn’t need any. I just wanted to get it over with and away from the city.
I crept out from under the iron hound, making certain there was nobody around except the resident stylite, and trotted off to my appointment.
I was halfway there when someone called my name.
“Victor! Stop!”
My first impulse was to flee, but could I elude a company of armed guards? I hesitated and turned to face my fate.
My former landlady waddled in my direction. “Victor, why haven’t you been home?”
“You locked me out.”
Macedonia snorted and waved her hand. “And why did I lock you out? I thought you’d want your paints badly enough to find a few folles for a poor old woman. I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just business.”
“I’m giving up painting icons,” I said.
“Giving up painting? But why? Such a talent! Such a service to the Lord! How do you intend to pay what you owe me if you give up painting?”
“He doesn’t need me to paint icons. He can put any icons he wants anywhere, including on top of the dome of the Great Church or next to the moon.”
“And why would he do that for such a wicked race? He’s kept busy punishing us now that devil Leo has taken over. The butcher told me there’s plague in the Copper Market.”
“And there was another earthquake a few hours ago. Not much of one this time, fortunately.”
Macedonia shook her head. “No, that was Athena stamping her foot again. The old gods liked shaking the ground. They used to frighten the farmers that way. Heaven prefers a good pestilence in the city. And where are you staying now? If you are paying rent to someone else, you’d be better off paying me. I’ll give you a month before I go to the magistrate.”
I kept peering this way and that, to see if we were being watched. I didn’t like standing in one place. “I’m in a hurry,” I said. “I have to meet someone.”
“That man who was asking about you this morning?”
“A man was asking about me this morning?”
“He was asking about a painter of icons. I denied there was any such person under my roof, which was quite true at the time. He didn’t believe me and insisted I show him your room.”
“Did he know my name?”
“No, but he described you. Do you owe him money too?”
It must have been someone sent by Florentius, I thought. Did the fool think I had the Chalke icon hidden under my bed? All the same, it was disturbing. And why not ask for me by name?
“What did he look like?”
Macedonia pondered the question. “Nobody. A labourer. A big, broad-shouldered man, like the one who showed up looking for you a few weeks ago. Philokalas, wasn’t it? The man this morning asked about him. Had he been to see me? Do you suppose he was a friend of the first man?”
So, I thought. Probably the man who had called on Macedonia was not from Florentius but rather a friend of Philokalas. “I can’t imagine who it was,” I said.
What a shock that had been when I discovered that Philokalas had been looking for me an hour before I killed him. I’d returned from defending myself and Macedonia had told me that a man, meeting the description of the fellow who had attacked me with the dagger, had just been to her door. A man named Philokalas. At least that was the name he’d given her, which was the only reason I knew his name. I’d never seen the man in my life.
He had never seen me either because, when I surprised him during his visit to me with the icon, he didn’t show any recognition.
To be honest, I hadn’t given him time, on account of the dagger.
I soon realized that his friends – his accomplices – knew he had come for me, for whatever reason. They’d been following me ever since.
Or so I imagined.
Macedonia must have seen the worry in my face. “Don’t worry. I showed him the room belonging to the leather worker on the top floor. Not an icon to be seen, and he certainly looked!”
I didn’t want that final, unfinished icon. I could practically feel its eyeless gaze, piercing the wall of my former room, groping down streets and through squares, probing under colonnades, trying to find me. “You can have the icon I left, Macedonia. Or perhaps it would be best to burn it.”
“I already did,” she said with a sniff. “It was cold last night, not to mention safer for everyone if someone else comes sniffing about. Now remember what I said about extending you some extra credit.”
I thanked her and took my leave. She looked put out that I wouldn’t tell her where I was living, but what was I supposed to say?
After we parted I continued, more nervous than ever, to my meeting with Florentius. He was waiting just inside one of the Milestone’s four arches. As I drew nearer I saw he was pretending to study inscriptions on the marble, as if he cared what the distance was from where he stood to Thessalonika or Antioch or Alexandria.
I called out a greeting.
Three armed guards emerged from the shadows and moved towards me.
They continued past, laughing to each other, arguing about which tavern to patronize.
“You look pale, my friend,” Florentius said. “Are you cold? Had you been here when they burnt the great icon you could have warmed yourself. Look, you can still see where the heat scorched the stone. How the flames must have raged!”
“Did you see the burning?”
“No. After all, it would not have been seemly for me to be observed here. And there was violence. Some of the mob joined our saviour in the flames, or so I have heard. I can’t imagine it.”
The way his eyes sparkled it looked to me as if he were trying hard to imagine the scene. We got down to business, looking over our shoulders all the time.
“Yes, I know where you mean,” he said when I described the courtyard with the door to the stairway leading underground. “It’s been empty some time with just a watchman living there. A few coins will ensure he looks the other way.”
I lingered after he’d gone so we would not be seen walking together.
Everything was arranged.
My gaze wandered across the Golden Milestone. Over the centuries, one emperor after another had mounted his own garish ornaments on the monument.
I found myself studying a group of three statues. Women. They blazed in the sunlight. While some might dream of having gold stitching in their hems and gold medallions pinned to their stolas, these three far exceeded such dreams for they were, themselves, entirely gilded.
From where I stood I could read the inscription on their plinth. They represented Sophia, the wife of Emperor Justin II, Justin’s niece Helena, and his daughter, Arabia.
The name was surely a sign.
I was confident by the next evening, Arabia and I would be in very different circumstances.
I was not mistaken.
13
Arabia brought the final meal I would consume in our underground hiding place. I ate smoked mackerel and described my meeting. She took the news that arrangements were in place as a matter of course but didn’t linger. She had to be up early to be on hand to guide Florentius.
“Then we shall have a long day ahead, putting the city behind us,” she said, leaning forward to give me a last kiss.
When she was gone, I began on the biscuits she’d brought. As I chewed, I noticed reddish flakes on the half-eaten portion in my hand. I brought it up to my eyes. The flakes were paint which had blistered off the icon.
I looked up into the monstrous face. Whereas before, the visage had been stern, now it seemed absolutely malevolent. It radiated hatred. The black pupils of the gigantic eyes were pits, opening on to some illimitable void.
The quibbling of theologians notwithstanding, it was clear Christ had walked the earth in recognizably human form, but the painted Christ before me was not human. Why hadn’t I noticed? The eyes weren’t human. They were out of proportion. All the features were the wrong size. The shape of the skull was unnatural. There was something very wrong with the mouth.
This was not Christ but something else.
Of course. It was the devil who had presided over the city for so many years. Was that surprising when you considered what went on in the alleyways and the mansions? The horror and depravity? Why would anyone think otherwise?
And wasn’t the distorted visage similar to those I painted? Did any of those supposed holy men look human? It had been Satan directing my hand, using it to fill the city with painted demons.
Demons who were human beings were already there – and I among them.
The darkness in the eyes stirred in the trembling lamplight. I thought I could see lights in the depths. The faint glow of an unimaginably distant conflagration.
There came into my head a soft sound like that made by a flame leaping from a bonfire.
The sound resolved into words. Why do you think of Satan or Christ? As if there is any difference. There is no good or evil. There is simply what is. Do you truly want to share your reward with the servant girl? Is she to be trusted any more than Philokalas?
Then I felt my hand close around a jagged chunk of brick, felt myself draw the deadly weapon into my robes.
“No,” I whispered. “I won’t. I can’t.”
But you can, the icon told me. Have courage.
I fell back and lay there, arguing in my mind with the icon, with myself, and after an eternity dropped into blessed unconsciousness.
Voices woke me.
I scrambled stiffly to my feet. I was aware of the weight of the brick I had concealed inside my tunic.
Was it already morning?
The voices came nearer.
“Here we are.” It was Arabia.
She appeared in the irregular entrance to our lair, smiling. Her impossibly brilliant eyes widened a little as if to tell me, “See, just as I promised, we’ve done it. It’s all right now.”
She carried a bulky leather satchel. Florentius was right behind her and I backed up to make room.
Florentius gasped and his florid face grew redder. He stared at the huge image. “Oh, magnificent! To be so close! Oh, wonder of wonders! The poor maimed thing. Ah, the pain he suffers! How can I ever reward you, my dear girl?”
“You already have.” Arabia hefted the satchel and shook it until the coins it contained jingled. “Should I have asked for more? I didn’t want to be greedy!”
“Do you want more? You shall have it!”
I was standing with my shoulder-blades almost pressed to the icon, but as far as Florentius was concerned I might as well not have been there.
“My men will haul this treasure up the stairs and out to the hand-cart,” he told Arabia.
Just then three big men squeezed into the already crowded space. I thought Florentius must be very cautious to arm his servants with swords. Also, it violated our understanding.
One of the newcomers glanced at me, then at Florentius. “You two heretical traitors are under arrest by order of the Patriarch.”
Florentius looked around in confusion as if he’d suddenly awakened in some strange place. “What? What is this?”
I probably looked as dazed as he did. “Arabia!” I cried. “Run!”
She didn’t move. She appeared inexplicably serene.
Florentius gaped at her. “Arabia? Is that what you call yourself when you’re not in my bed? Where did you get a name like that?”
Arabia laughed at him.
I hadn’t realized she could make such an ugly sound. It made me sick to hear it.
“You, marry a servant?” she sneered. “Do you think I’m a fool? And by the way, that lazy clod of a workman, Philokalas, who never finished patching your basement wall, the one who previously worked for the Patriarch? He won’t be coming back.”
She directed her horrible gaze at me. “You thought I didn’t find his body? Philokalas and I took turns coming down here to make certain the icon was safe, but I always used the door you were so proud of finding. He was careless. I warned him about going in under the hound, but he took no notice.”
Florentius’s face contorted with agony. “And to think you used to work at the Patriarch’s residence! He gave you his recommendation! What kinds of servants does he employ?”
I stood there unable to speak. I couldn’t believe … didn’t want to believe. I could have reached into my tunic, pulled out the brick, and killed her on the spot. But I didn’t.
The guard apparently in charge of the other two said, “Young woman, the Patriarch wishes to express his gratitude for helping to apprehend this godless pair. He hopes the small financial arrangement he has made for your earthly needs is suitable, and will be happy to continue to offer you spiritual guidance at the usual times.”
The woman I had known as Arabia departed without another glance in my direction. I expected a final word, but the performance had obviously ended.
Florentius babbled about the emperor and the Patriarch. I paid no attention. Neither did the armed men.
“This opening needs to be widened,” said the commander. “We don’t dare damage the icon. Make sure you keep clear of the broken bricks. We don’t want any scratches.”
“Ah,” Florentius sighed. “Will those monsters consign the Lord to the flames again? Let poor Florentius burn with him!”
“Out of the way,” grumbled one of the men. “We’ve got work to do.” He pushed Florentius, who stumbled towards the hole.
“He’s trying to escape,” the commander casually remarked, and ran Florentius through with his sword. “Make sure the other doesn’t get away.” He nodded in my direction.
A guard raised his blade and stepped towards me.
I threw myself to one side and yanked with all my strength at the edge of the heavy wooden panel. It toppled forward and crashed down on everyone else in the chamber. I scrambled up and across the back of the icon and was out of it before anyone could react.
Then I ran.
So you, big painted demon, you saved me in the end, I thought. For a while at least.
I didn’t have time to be angry at Arabia. Not then. Later there would be more than enough time.
As I burst out from beneath the iron hound, shouts echoed from underground.
I started across the deserted square. Even in my panic, I realized something was different.
What?
I looked up at the stylite’s pillar.
The stylite was gone.
But the rope dangling the basket used to send up food hung between the pillar’s railing and the ground.
The shouts behind me sounded louder.
I took hold of the rope and pulled myself up, hand over hand. Normally it would have been an impossible feat but my life was at stake.
By the time my pursuers clambered out into the square I was a distant figure in dishevelled clothes, head bent, half leaning against the railing.
The men rushed straight past the pillar.
Nobody notices stylites.
14
I would have been out of the city before nightfall if a guard hadn’t been left beside the iron hound. No one notices stylites, but a guard wouldn’t miss seeing one of those holy men sliding down a rope off his pillar.
Before dark the watchman was relieved by two more who set up torches along the colonnade. Perhaps they hoped I would return to try to hide myself in the underground maze.
I was in a bad spot. Sooner or later somebody was going to check the pillar. But at least I had time to think and I’d always survived by my wits.
Admittedly I’d made a few errors in judgement the past couple of days. It was obvious now but could I have known then that Arabia was waiting for me that morning near the hound?
In retrospect I was able to piece the story together. Arabia and Philokalas had been working together. Arabia had seen me at Florentius’s house and knew I could help her and Philokalas sell the icon, something they couldn’t do themselves – one being a servant, the other a lowly labourer.
She probably met Philokalas when both worked at the Patriarch’s residence. Philokalas must have come upon the hidden image while in the course of repair-work in the Patriarch’s cellars following the earthquake. In fact, the earthquake might well have revealed the icon’s hiding place.
Had Arabia and Philokalas carted it together to the underground hiding place where I found it, and she pretended to see it for the first time? She could have let Philokalas into the Patriarch’s house at night; the only way to get the icon down underground was through the door I had been so happy to find. Or had Philokalas’s other accomplices helped him move it? Were there others? Perhaps the men following me had been all my imagination and the fellow who asked Macedonia about Philokalas was simply a worried friend to whom he had unwisely let drop a word or two about an icon-painter he was seeking?
At any rate, once Philokalas vanished, Arabia began looking for the useful icon-painter herself. And now she’d double-crossed me. Not only was she running off with my share of Florentius’s payment, she also had whatever the rival collector had paid her.
How could she? It didn’t seem fair. I would never have killed her. Even if I’d had the chance. I swear I wouldn’t have killed her.
There had to be a rival collector, the way I saw it. Despite what they said, the guards and the man who had killed Florentius weren’t sent by the Patriarch – who was well known to be violently opposed to icons. That was why Leo made him Patriarch. He wouldn’t be concerned if the image were damaged when transported, as his supposed men had carelessly indicated he would.
Not everyone would have noticed that little slip, but I did.
It could only mean those men were sent by someone else who had heard about the icon’s survival or been informed about it by Arabia. Doubtless she’d managed to get the collector’s name from Florentius, who’d evidently been taking advantage of her by his own admission.
I was exhausted, but there wasn’t enough room on the pillar’s platform to lie down, so I leaned against its railing and looked out over the city. The glowing dome of the Great Church seemed to throw orange sparks along the streets and into windows and on ships in the harbour. I could almost feel the gaze of monstrous eyes staring down out of the black vault of the heavens, but there was nothing to see up there except the glittering cold points of stars, and ragged wraiths of cloud fleeing before a rising wind.
People say Hades is underground, but I found it up there in cold loneliness.
And it was the iron hound who guarded the entrance to the path I took that led me there.
I wouldn’t have killed Arabia. When I wasn’t looking up I looked down at the piece of brick beside my feet, the unused symbol of my mercy.