One for Sorrow (11 page)
More than a century had passed since Emperor Theodosius had banished all gods but the Christians’ heavenly father. Gods, however, are not so easily killed off as political foes and a few pagans, among them worshippers of Mithra, still held to their beliefs even at Justinian’s court. However, since Mithra’s ever shrinking army was now so outnumbered the mithraeum was safely hidden from prying official eyes at the back of the network of underground imperial storerooms.
So Anatolius descended through the tunnels beneath the palace grounds as he made his way to the ceremony at which he would ascend another rung of his religion’s ladder. As elaborately wrought bronze doors gave way to simpler doors of polished wood and finally to crude stone arches, the emperor’s secretary felt himself slipping free of the bonds of palace life. The cuirass he wore concealed beneath his brocaded cloak no longer bowed his shoulders with its unfamiliar weight, and he had almost convinced himself he might come to prefer the uncomplicated blade of the sword to the subtler reed kalamos that he was accustomed to wielding in his official duties.
He was late. However, he was expected to be late. The others, perhaps fifty in number and all that the mithraeum could hold, were waiting for him. He heard the faint murmur of their voices as he turned the last corner of the final damp, stone-floored, and poorly lit subterranean corridor.
Two of Felix’s excubitors were stationed at a nondescript wooden door. Anatolius handed his cloak to one of the guards. Suddenly, he felt awkward, a fraud, a soft thing in the cuirass he had borrowed from Felix.
The other guard rapped on the door and swung it open, allowing Anatolius to enter another world. Stone steps led down to a nave flanked by pillars, around and between which fantastic figures moved. Strange creatures with the heads of birds and beasts. The assembly was masked.
The mithraeum fell silent. Anatolius could hear the hiss and pop of the torches which threw distorted shadows onto the rough hewn walls and the embedded pottery shards that turned the ceiling into the simulation of a cave’s roof.
At the far end of the mithraeum a sacred flame on the altar cast light over a bas-relief mounted on the back wall. It showed the powerful and familiar image of Mithra clothed in a tunic and Phrygian cap. He was in the act of slaying the Great Bull, dagger raised to administer the fatal wound.
Anatolius marched up the nave toward the white-robed priest who waited beside the altar. He could feel the buckles of the overly large cuirass digging into him with each step. He had wanted to savor this ceremony, to burn every detail into his memory. But, as often happened when he tried to grasp time, it slid away faster than usual. Before he realized it, he was at the altar and the Father was extending a sword from which hung a narrow gold circlet, offering it to Anatolius.
Following the ancient rite, Anatolius raised one hand and pushed the sword away. A thread of blood ran down his palm.
“Only my god will be my crown,” he declared firmly.
The Father poured water over Anatolius’ head, sealing his entrance into the new degree. Now a hymn to Mithra rose to mingle with the smoke.
Mithra, Lord of Light,
May this new Soldier be worthy of Thee;
Mithra, Lord of Battle,
Give him strength and loyalty;
Mithra, Lord of Heaven,
Guide our feet upon the Ladder;
Lord of all, we worship Thee.
Anatolius turned to face the masked celebrants. He knew he had friends present. John, for one. But he saw only ravens, lions, a Persian: all Mithraic ranks.
The emperor’s secretary was not a man who thought often of religion, but as he awaited the second stage of the ceremony, the taurobolium, Anatolius felt himself being drawn toward belief. Turning, he faced the image of Mithra. It seemed to move in the wavering light. The god had grasped the bull by its nostrils and was pulling back its massive head for the fatal cut. Anatolius’ nostrils flared, burning in the acrid miasma of the cavernous room. A scorpion was shown at the bull’s genitals. It symbolized evil, seeking to destroy life at its very source. But the ears of grain which sprang from the doomed bull’s tail foretold the victory of good over evil.
Yes, clearly, man inhabited a world where the only constant was the endless struggle between good and evil. At this instant Anatolius knew without doubt that this was true, realized it in a way he had, somehow, not grasped before. The scene blurred as his eyes filled. It was the smoke—or perhaps it was the water the Father had poured over him.
Even then, caught up as he was in this delirious conviction, Anatolius could not help seeing astride the bull not the god Mithra, but a young bull-leaper. The tortured screech of rusty iron on stone shocked this blasphemous image from his mind. He recognized Felix by the beard spilling from under his mask as the captain slid aside the massive grate set in the floor in front of the altar.
A pair of acolytes helped Anatolius disrobe. The heavy cuirass was lifted over his head and his tunic followed. Cold drafts he had not noticed earlier played over his skin.
In the floor, where the grate had been, yawned an oblong of blackness, a pit like a grave. He stepped forward, placing a bare foot into its dark maw, feeling for the narrow steps he had been told he would find there. Colder air rose around his calves and thighs as he stepped firmly down into the waiting pit.
At the bottom, his feet found icy water. The pit was deeper than a man’s height. He looked up as the iron grate slid back into place.
Anatolius could not see the bull being led into the mithraeum through a side door, but he could hear the beat of its hooves and the grunts of its handlers and then a resounding crash announced that the bull had been thrown on its side atop the grate.
Looking up past the great shadow on the grate Anatolius caught a glimpse of the white-robed Father, gleaming dagger in his hand. The dagger flashed downward, like the fiery star Anatolius had seen as a child, blazing over the Sea of Marmara.
The bull screamed and Anatolius was bathed in the fire of its sacred blood.
He heard the words of the Father. “Accept this sacrifice to your glory, and accept your humble follower Anatolius to serve Thee in the degree of Soldier.”
Then strong hands grasped him and pulled him up out of the pit.
He found himself smiling.
***
Standing beside a pillar, John smiled as well. He had ascended to the degree of Runner of the Sun, one rank below that of Father. He recalled his own mixed feelings when he had undergone the rite: elation, joy, pride, and perhaps a dash of terror. It had reminded him of the last hour before battle in the days when he had been a soldier both by occupation and by Mithraic degree. How long ago it seemed. It had been another world, another time.
But for now he rejoiced with the others as the scarlet-bedaubed Anatolius, the new Soldier, was pulled from the pit. Bright red rivulets ran down the young man’s body and legs, pooling at his feet. A wide, almost insane, bloody grin had transformed Anatolius’ gentle face into one which would have given even a hardened battle veteran pause.
Perhaps Anatolius had found the warrior in himself at last.
“It is always moving, isn’t it?” came a voice at John’s side. “Whether here or in Bretania.”
He turned and found himself facing Thomas, who had pulled aside his mask. Before John could reply, Thomas walked away.
John was about to follow him when Felix blocked his path. “It’s good to see Anatolius advance,” Felix boomed. “Maybe the poet will make a soldier yet!”
“Anatolius will be a better Soldier than some might imagine.” John looked over the excubitor captain’s broad shoulder. Thomas had vanished into the crowd of worshippers.
“He had a keen eye just now. Blood will bring it out.” Felix lowered his voice. “John, I’m going around to Isis’ house, and I’d like you to accompany me. I’m buying Berta.”
Berta? She was the little blonde at Isis’ establishment, John recalled. The girl in whom Thomas had taken an interest. “You should take a lawyer, Felix.”
Felix shook his shaggy head vehemently. “Men who fight with words, they’re worse than poets.”
“Isis drives a hard bargain and I hear Berta is quite popular….”
“It’s been arranged. I want you to look at the contract. If it’s ever questioned I am sure the word of the Lord Chamberlain will weigh more than the opinion of any lawyer.”
“You don’t have to worry about Isis trying to cheat you.”
“No? I haven’t mentioned her price.”
“You can find a servant at a better price elsewhere.”
Felix looked flustered. “I’m not looking for a servant, John. I intend to marry Berta. We’re both from Germania.”
Berta smoothed the last of the kohl into her eyebrows, pursed the full lips she had reddened with wine dregs—the customers enjoyed that—and evaluated her efforts in her hand mirror. Yes, it was a passable job even if the chalk on her cheeks was a little uneven. She was almost ready for the first of the night’s visitors.
She glanced at the small urn sitting unobtrusively in the corner. It was a water clock. She smiled when she recollected that according to Madam it had once graced a Roman court of law, ensuring that representatives for both sides were given an equal but reasonable length of time for their orations. At least Berta, unlike lawyers, could guarantee her clients satisfaction by the time the water ran out.
Berta plaited her hair, thinking how much she enjoyed her life in the city. Perhaps after all her father had been correct when he had told her, as she clung sobbing to him before he left her at Madam’s house, that she would enjoy her new life.
Her thoughts turned to the raggedly dressed woman she had met in the market place. The woman was a fool to turn down the chance to save herself and her husband by working at such a fine house as Madam’s.
The whole world passed through Madam’s house. The men she met had been everywhere. Such tales they told. And the gifts they brought. Cosmetics, perfumes. Wonderful jewelry, as beautiful as anything worn by all those fine ladies she had entertained the other night.
Remembering, she reached into the inconspicuous tear in her mattress and pulled out the pendant the old man at the palace had given her. Its fine gold chain flashed enticingly in the orange lamplight. Dimmer points of light flickered within its flecked central stone like stars on a winter’s night.
She smiled as she recalled the palace celebration, how she’d danced, so gracefully, across the table. The handsome young men had all desired her—and the not so handsome old men as well. She liked being desired. It had given her an easier life than having to toil in rocky fields, or chase goats up and down the hillside, or clean out the pens of the swine, just as her father had said. Not but what she still sometimes dealt with swine.
But, as she had recently realized, the career he had chosen for her was a short one. Applying liberal dabs of perfume to her wrists, she weighed the recent offers she had received from some of her regular clients. One or two were rich men. But not young men. Still, a rich lady such as she would soon become could still enjoy her slim, young men as well as her husband, or so the other girls at Madam’s house had told her.
She put the bauble back into its hiding place. A determined look crossed her face. When the time came, she would be the one to choose her husband, not Madam.
She glanced around. All was in order. Soon she would be free of this place, she resolved, arranging cushions. But she would not make a hasty decision. It was too important. She certainly would not leave to live with Felix, even though he’d been cajoling her to marry him for weeks. She had been as plain with him about that as she could be without actually discouraging him from returning. He was too old for her.
Yes, when she married, she intended to marry into a noble family. And a wealthy one. Then she would live in a fine house in the city, and spend the hottest summer days at a beautiful villa in the countryside. Her houses would have marble floors and colorful wall mosaics and statues. There would be well tended gardens, with shady trees and flowers and many pools. She would spend her days being waited on hand and foot, with nothing to do but wear lovely clothes and jewelry. Yes, she decided, I shall wear emeralds every day. And all the rich ladies at the palace who think they are better than me will want to come to the wonderful dinners I shall give. They’ll envy me, because of my youth and my beauty.
She smiled to herself. I will never have to entertain men again, well, not unless I want to, and then they’ll be young men, muscular, smooth faced, clean. Yet still, she found herself thinking again about Felix. The big bearded captain made her smile. He was nice enough. Nicer than the fat man who had been around too often recently. Perhaps the one who called himself a knight would return. He had certainly lived up to the promise of his fiery red hair. A barbarian, to be sure. Not as cultured or, by the look of his clothes, as rich as some of her other clients, yet there was something very attractive about him
Footsteps in the hallway interrupted her musings. There was a soft knock at her door.
She filled the water clock in the corner from a jug. The liquid, less than an hour’s worth, began to drip steadily from the spout in the bottom of the urn into the holding bowl.
“Come in, my dear,” she said softly, opening the door.
***
Isis tied up the parchment scroll and affixed a wax seal. The bill of sale having been completed, she asked to speak to Felix in private. “I must take the part of Berta’s mother. The legal necessities are over but there are other things I expect of the husbands of my girls.”
John left the room. He found Darius sitting on a bench in the entrance hall. When John sat next to him, he felt dwarfed.
“Tell me, Darius, have you remembered hearing anything unusual or strange the night Leukos was found in the alley?”
“More than the usual odd noises, you mean?” Darius smiled at his feeble jest. He looked tired. “To tell you the truth, John, with Madam torturing that infernal organ night and day you can’t hear a thing. We had a party of charioteers last night. Rowdy bunch. I had to subdue a couple of them after they made disparaging remarks about my appearance. But no, as I told Madam, I heard nothing unusual.”
“And you’re sure you didn’t see Leukos here before he was found dead in the alley?”
“I’m certain. I would have—” Darius’ reply was interrupted by a shriek from upstairs. He leapt up, an erupting volcano. “Someone’s hurting one of the girls!”
He pounded for the stairs but had barely set sandal to step when a terrified, half-dressed girl flung herself downstairs into his arms. She clung to him, sobbing.
“There now, Helena.” His voice was surprisingly tender. “Show him to me and I’ll…. “
“No,” wailed the girl louder. “It’s not me. It’s Berta!”
When John reached the second floor cubicle that reeked of perfume, he saw Berta reclining languidly on her bed, her short tunic hiked up teasingly. Half leaning against the wall, she stared wide eyed, as if surprised by the girls who crowded around her doorway, whimpering and exclaiming over the discovery.
Berta could no longer be anyone’s wife.
She was dead.
John pushed through the girls in the doorway. He could see the mark of a powerful hand on Berta’s slim neck.
“Strangled,” he muttered to Darius.
Darius began to snarl a string of oaths, biting them back as Isis arrived from downstairs.
“Who would do this to one of my girls?” the madam wailed.
The room contained little, John thought as he glanced around. Little except perhaps the dreams any young girl might spin. There was a bed, its coverings rumpled. Berta had been a slight girl, obviously unable to put up much of a struggle against her attacker. On a table nearby, the wine and sweetmeats awaiting visitors were undisturbed beside a few pots of makeup and a jar of perfume. The water clock in the corner, John noted, was still nearly full. Had she filled it in anticipation of a client?
“Felix! Stay back!” Darius warned a newcomer.
The excubitor captain pushed past to stoop over the girl’s body. He was silent but tears streamed down his bearded face. He was familiar with the death of fighting men on the field of battle, but this was a much more terrible scene to contemplate.
“Mithra,” he entreated his god softly, “so you send a stealthy murderer to my lover? I wonder, would the Christian’s god be so cruel?”
“Zurvan!” Darius swore with belated caution. “Who’s guarding the front door?”
John heard him pound away, but did not follow.
There was something unnatural in Felix’s strangely calm tone, as if his lips were forming words of their own volition while his brain ignored their content.
Then he howled. It was a wolf’s howl, a battle cry, a sound of pain and fury. The girls clustered in the doorway began to scream. Some fled hysterically down the hall to their rooms.
Felix stopped, turned away from the bed, and left the room in grim-faced silence, having paused just long enough to adjust Berta’s displaced tunic to cover her decently.