One for Sorrow (4 page)
Leukos could never reveal what had been prophesied to him, but Anatolius, who still lived, had also arranged to see the soothsayer. John hoped that his young friend might reveal something about the man he and Leukos had both visited, but Anatolius did not arrive at the Baths of Zeuxippos at his usual hour so John decided to follow the footsteps of his colleagues to the Inn of the Centaurs.
The innkeeper and his wife directed John to the courtyard where the soothsayer was dozing on a bench. As John crossed the bare space the hot blade of the sun lay against the back of his neck. The bench and fountain beside it were shaded by a fig tree.
If he had a choice he would have been at the Hippodrome asking about the bull-leaping troupe, but his duty to Leukos gave him no choice.
As John drew close with the silent tread that came naturally to him, the old man opened his eyes—large eyes, bright and shrewd, under bushy brows. The eyes of a man who had seen a lot and lamented over much of what he had observed. John realized the other had not been asleep, but resting watchfully. Despite the heat, robes the color of age-yellowed bones were drawn closely around the old man’s bird-like body.
“I greet you, sir.” The soothsayer’s voice was surprisingly resonant for one so slight.
John sat down next him. He noticed a striped cat perched on the edge of the fountain basin, engrossed in trying to catch ripples with its paw. To John, the cat seemed to be leaning alarmingly close to the water.
The old man smiled. “I should not worry about the cat. Unlike humans, they have many lives.”
“Cats don’t like water,” replied John. “And some say even humans have lives after this one.”
“Perhaps.” A smile flashed whitely in the earth-brown face. “But tell me, what is your business here? I doubt you have deserted your duties at this time of day to have your fortune told, not a man of your rank.”
“I see the fine weave of my garments gives me away. But you are correct. A man makes his own fortunes. I am here to ask you about the past, not the future.”
There was a burst of shouting from the inn. The portly innkeeper John had spoken to on arriving at the inn emerged, half-supporting a man who was red-faced and cursing.
“With the celebrations, some of Master Kaloethes’ customers have been making too familiar an acquaintance with the wine jug,” observed the soothsayer.
This particular troublesome customer was, by appearance, a charioteer, dressed for the races in his short sleeveless tunic, his crossed leather belts askew. Not that he was in any condition to stand in a chariot, let alone race. His legs kept giving way.
With a grunted apology to the two men sitting on the bench, the innkeeper steered the inebriate to the fountain and, taking a firm grip on one of the unfortunate man’s leather belts, dunked the charioteer’s head several times in the water.
The cat ran off, its tail arched in terror.
Tepid water splashed the back of John’s hand. He shuddered. To him it felt as frigid as the roiling waters of a swollen northern stream. He quickly wiped his hand on his tunic.
The innkeeper shoved the half-drowned charioteer through the archway leading to the street and trod heavily back to where John and the soothsayer were seated. “We pride ourselves on keeping a high class establishment. We would be most honored if you would sample our fine wines after you have completed your business.”
When Kaloethes had vanished inside, John turned his attention back to the soothsayer.
“Before you ask,” the old man said with a smile. “My name is Ahasuerus. My family was originally of Antioch, but I left ages ago.”
“Were you driven from your home by the great earthquake?”
“No, my lord, although I appreciate your concern. I am, in fact, the last of my line. Since I left, I have traveled many roads, casting augurs, offering advice. Yet for all my wanderings, this is the first time I have seen Constantinople. It is certainly a city of splendor.”
The man’s weathered face might have been a wrinkled map of the countless roads that had brought him to Constantinople.
John inquired what had brought him to the city.
The old man shrugged. “One day I had a feeling that this was where I should be. And so I journeyed here.”
John eyed the cat, which had returned and was dabbing a paw at water spilt around the fountain basin, examining it with interest. “I am told you are a soothsayer,” he stated. “Do you find trade brisk?”
“I do. Rich and poor alike want to know their futures. The poor wish to learn whether they will ever possess anything, the rich wish to learn whether they are in danger of losing what they have.”
Even in the shade of the fig tree it was hot. The fig was Mithra’s sacred tree. The thought reminded him that as a pagan he had not been considering the soothsayer from the same perspective as most of the city’s population.
“Don’t Christians condemn fortune tellers?”
Ahasuerus chuckled. “Good Christians do not come to me for anything beyond entertainment. The ladies of the palace consult me for amusement. I have been invited to many gatherings to amuse the ladies.”
“They are amused by the reading of chicken entrails?” John asked, recalling Anatolius’ description of the soothsayer’s methods.
“For the ladies, I read currents in a bowl of water or wine, or cast pebbles. One lady gave me gems to cast, to impress her guests. Recently, however, a woman not only insisted on a traditional reading in private, but provided a chicken.”
“Have you been visited here by many from the court?”
“Certainly. They don’t always trust me with their names, let alone their positions, but I can always tell. Their clothes and their manner give them away.”
“Do you recall a large man, pale, completely bald?”
Ahasuerus reflected for a few seconds. “I cast pebbles for such a man yesterday. He had concerns about his health. I was able to reassure him that he would be in good health all his life. Also, if I remember rightly, that he might come into sudden wealth.”
Ahasuerus’ prophecy had been true insofar as Leukos had been in perfect health until someone slid a knife into him. As for wealth, given the brevity of his life following the reading of his fortune, any riches Leukos might have gained had to have appeared very suddenly.
“Was there also another man to see you yesterday? Young, dark haired, handsome?”
Ahasuerus smiled. “I saw many young dandies from the court yesterday. To me they all look young and handsome.”
“Anatolius is his name.”
“I never inquire about names and as I said, few offer them.”
John wondered if Ahasuerus was being evasive or if Anatolius had not appeared.
“I can tell there is something else engaging your mind,” the soothsayer said. “There is something, or someone, you seek.”
John got up from the bench. He wasn’t about to be drawn into the old man’s game. “Who isn’t seeking something or someone? Thank you for your time, Ahasuerus.”
He went out into the clamor of the street. He knew now that Leukos had kept his appointment with the soothsayer. Whether that had any bearing on his death was something he could not say.
Sticking his head out the kitchen window to summon Ahasuerus to his meal, Kaloethes had been chagrined to see the obviously high-born visitor leaving. He had hoped to finally sell a bottle of the wine his wife insisted they stock expressly for such visitors. The wine had cost a fortune because it had supposedly been snatched from under the noses of the Goths who were battling Justinian’s armies up and down the Italian peninsula.
Unfortunately, the only people from the palace who ever took an interest in the Inn of the Centaurs were tax collectors and building inspectors.
At least the visitor had not appeared to be on official business. He had questioned Kaloethes and his wife only briefly about the soothsayer and his customers. They claimed to know nothing. Then Mistress Kaloethes had gone off to the market, leaving her husband to deal with the cooking.
Now, having filled his guest’s plate, Kaloethes lowered his exhausted bulk onto the wooden bench next to the soothsayer to await Mistress Kaloethes’ return. He watched the old man worry a chicken bone as if he were a starved cat.
It occurred to Kaloethes that the inn had in fact had visitors from the palace recently, but unfortunately only to have fortunes told, not to drink expensive wine. “If you wanted, you could tell your clients a thing or two that would make them need a bottle of wine right away and never mind the cost. We could split the proceeds.”
The soothsayer dropped the cleanly stripped bone onto his plate. “I prefer to have satisfied customers. As it is, the authorities frown on such gifts as mine.”
Kaloethes made a rude noise. “So, if you have gifts, what’s my future? A place at the palace, do you suppose?”
“It is what your wife desires, is it not?”
“Takes no fortune teller to see that. But will it happen? Is there ever going to be an end to this incessant labor?”
“Sometimes knowing your past is to know your future.” The soothsayer finished his bread and studied his plate mournfully.
“Look at you! You clean your plate like an obedient child. I remember my mother insisted I do the same. And what did it make me? Not big and healthy, just fat. The butt of jokes. Now, what about this future of mine?”
The soothsayer said he would need his fortune-telling tools in order to cast augurs. “The pebbles are quicker but a chicken is more certain and more detailed.”
“You’ve got part of a chicken there.” Kaloethes nudged the fleshless chicken bone with a pudgy finger. “What can you tell me?”
“It takes back-breaking labor to build a church, but at the end it is filled with song.”
Kaloethes stared at the old man’s leathery face, trying to fathom what was meant. “I can see where a fool with spare coins might pay you well, you old fraud,” he finally admitted with admiration. “Are you sure you can’t bring yourself to see a fine bottle of wine in a man’s future, or many visits to the Inn of the Centaurs?”
“I would betray my gift if I agreed to do that. If you’ll excuse me, I must resume my meditations.”
The innkeeper persisted. “How about this? You could serve your clients some of our fine wines. It would make them more comfortable, not to say credulous. I’ll give you a break on the price.”
The soothsayer bent down to his plate and passed his hand over the chicken bone, then shook his head and said solemnly “I regret that I must inform you that such a plan is not in my future, Master Kaloethes.”
“Go back and nap in the shade then. If you have more high flown admirers should I wake you or advise them to come back when you’re done meditating? Who was that tall fellow anyway? Let me guess, from the severe look of him, an assistant to a bishop.”
“He didn’t say who he was. A wealthy and powerful man—”
“If that’s the best you can do then you can call me the Oracle at Delphi. Anyone can see that.”
“You will find it difficult to cater to such people when you so obviously envy them, Master Kaloethes.”
“What I hate is how they always act so clever and self-assured, those men. If only you were half so clever as I, they seem to say without actually saying it, you would not be toiling away your pitiful existence. Ha! What do they know? I’ll wager your caller from the palace was born to his rank.”
Ahasuerus offered no opinion and returned to the courtyard and the shade of the fig tree.
Kaloethes muttered savagely to himself. “The only shade I’ll see is when the wife’s looming over me with some complaint. Where’s the slim young thing I courted, the girl who told me I was going places?”
He picked up the soothsayer’s plate and tossed the chicken-bone out the window to where the striped cat waited. “You’ll be disappointed when you see how bare that bone is. Well, life is full of disappointments.”
He looked down at the plate. Silver. From their own private table setting. His wife must have taken it out to impress the soothsayer, or more likely his important visitors. The woman’s pretensions were intolerable.
But so was her nagging tongue. He had to find a way to appease her. What was that the soothsayer had said about it all ending in song? Not likely.
Leaving the Inn of the Centaurs, John stepped into a narrow sun-scorched street that was unusually deserted. Many of those who would normally have been hurrying along the street were likely lying in bed battling the Furies in their heads.
John couldn’t help noticing once again the large brass plaque beside the inn’s brick archway. The polished sign promised much more than the bare, dusty courtyard and run-down building beyond.
The elaborately engraved beast depicted below the inn’s name, half man, half horse, brought to John’s mind a vision of the bull-leaper, feet planted so surely on the bull’s back that she might have been part of the animal. He stopped, tempted to turn in the direction of the Hippodrome where he could inquire about the whereabouts of the troupe that had performed there.
Instead, as always, he forced his feet to move in the direction where his duty lay, in this instance toward the establishment of Madam Isis. She would have had time by now to question her employees about what they had seen during the afternoon and evening of the day Leukos had died. After that, he would return to the palace and seek out Anatolius. Whether he had kept his appointment with Ahasuerus was probably irrelevant, but John knew that it was not always possible to judge in advance what facts might be important to the solution of a problem.
He had walked only a short distance when he heard raised voices and saw Thomas. The self-styled knight might well have been on his way back to the inn where he was staying. Now he was talking loudly to the charioteer who had been dunked in the fountain.
The charioteer sat on a bench beside a statue of a stern, bearded old man in the classical Greek style. John guessed he had picked the seat because of the sunlight slanting under the colonnade onto it rather than to meditate on philosophy. The charioteer’s long hair still hung damply around his face.
As Thomas’ tirade continued, the charioteer stood, swaying slightly. A short man although muscular, he made a rude gesture and wobbled away. Thomas looked after him in obvious consternation, his face as red as his hair and beard.
John had not made out anything Thomas had said, beyond cursing, if in fact he had said anything else. As John approached, Thomas spotted him. He looked startled.
“Lord Chamberlain! I was just scolding Gregorius,” he explained, without John having asked. “He and the rest of the charioteers kept me awake all night. The inn was in a ferment. The noise went on almost to dawn.”
“Was there a reason for the excitement?”
“Aside from the general festivities? Apparently a lot of money has been changing hands this past week and no small fortune is riding on the racing today. Some of the Hippodrome performers are staying there and they tend to be very loud as well.”
“Are there any bull-leapers staying there?”
Thomas looked puzzled.
“A youthful looking woman, slim, with dark hair and eyes?”
“The inn’s a rough kind of place. The only woman I’ve seen there, aside from the innkeeper’s wife, was a young lady who…well….”
“Who what?”
Felix looked away from John and toward the sculpted philosopher they stood beside. “She’s trained chickens to peck grain from her naked body.”
John smiled at the big redhead’s apparent discomfiture. “That wouldn’t be the woman I’m looking for.”
“I could hardly believe my eyes, Lord Chamberlain.”
“You haven’t lived in Constantinople long enough, Thomas.”
“I’m not used to this city yet. Would you mind if I came along with you for a while? You could educate me about the ways of Constantinople.”
Thomas resembled a big, bewildered, ginger-whiskered child. Was he really so naive or was it a pretense?
“I doubt you will find my destination very edifying, but accompany me if you wish.” John continued along the colonnade, Thomas at his side. “Have you visited the patriarch yet?”
“That’s where I was coming from. He refused to see me. I was told he was ill, but it looked to me as if other callers were being admitted.”
“I’m surprised my introduction wasn’t sufficient.”
“I suppose there was nothing untoward in it?”
“You didn’t read it? You are indeed an honest man, Thomas.”
Thomas regarded the ground. “Lord Chamberlain, if there is one thing I guard above all else, it is my dignity. Still, I suppose I should be honest with you. I am unable to read or write. They are not skills I have much use for.”
John wasn’t surprised. “I shall speak with the patriarch personally and see what can be arranged.”
“How can a man bear to live here?” Thomas suddenly burst out. “If I have to bend my knee to one more pasty-faced clerk looking down his nose at me, even though he’s barely up to my shoulder….If he were a ruffian blocking the road, I’d clear my path easily enough!”
“You need to learn city ways,” John told him. “Take this delicious fish, for instance.” He had come to a halt in front of a slovenly fellow tending a brazier. For the price of a copper coin the cook handed John and Thomas each a skewer holding blackened chunks of fish. The cook looked as charred and greasy as his wares.
Thomas eyed the fish warily but John took a hearty bite.
“It’s good soldier’s fare,” John remarked, wiping a spot of grease from the corner of his lips as he strolled away.
Thomas nibbled at his fish and smiled. “Excellent! But this is the last place I would have expected to find you dining, Lord Chamberlain. A man in your position must get used to eating at the emperor’s table.”
“Only at official banquets. Besides, Justinian doesn’t eat meat. But you can thank him for this fish.”
Thomas cocked an eyebrow. “How can that be?”
“In order to protect the monopoly of the merchants, Justinian has forbidden fishermen from selling their catch themselves. However, the sale of cooked fish is not prohibited. The fish vendor was a fisherman. You can’t find fresher cooked fish than in the street, not even at the palace.”
John tossed his empty skewer into the gutter and Thomas’ soon followed.
“I am beginning to understand your city. Even what goes on in the streets depends on the emperor. Nothing happens that cannot be traced back to the palace.”
John offered his companion a thin-lipped smile. “That might not be strictly true, but for those of us who live here, it is a wise attitude to maintain.”
He stopped in a small square. From an open doorway came a tinkling of bells, the sound of lyre and pipe, and the scent of exotic perfume. “We’ve reached our destination, Thomas.”