Atheist!” as they pummeled him.
That night it was Arsakios who got no sleep. A throng of people ringed the monastery of Stoudios, where the Alexandrian delegation was staying. Their racket kept half the city up. It bothered Argyros not at all. He reveled in his first full night of sleep since the ecumenical council had begun. In the morning, the Augusteion was packed even tighter than it had been the day before. The magistrianos was glad he had dressed in his most resplendent robe; the fancy outfit made people press back to let him by as he made his way toward Hagia Sophia . . . except for one young woman who clasped his hand, saying, “Bless me, your reverence!”
“First time I’ve ever been mistaken for an archbishop,” he remarked to George Lakhanodrakon once he was inside the great church.
“I daresay,” the Master of Offices chuckled. “You’ve been a busy lad with the archetypes, haven’t you?
You used so much papyrus, you’ll make half the government grind to a halt.”
Privately, the magistrianos could think of worse things. All he said, though, was, “I thought the situation demanded it.”
“I suppose so.” Lakhanodrakon shook his head in wonder. “What a curious thing: little sheets of papyrus rallying a people to a cause.”
“Lots of little sheets of papyrus,” the magistrianos pointed out. “Daras showed how words could stir a town close to rebellion. I thought they might work as well for the Empire’s unity as against it, and on a larger scale than anything the Persians tried. With a new idea as powerful as the archetypes, discovering all the things they can do is as important as finding out about them in the first place.”
“That’s true.” Lakhanodrakon was not sure he liked the notion. Then, remembering an ancient precedent, he brightened. “Caesar did something of this sort, did he not, posting a daily bulletin of events in the Forum of Rome for the people to read?”
“Yes, I—” Argyros broke off when an altarboy came trotting up and asked which of the gentlemen was Basil Argyros. “I am,” the magistrianos said.
“Here, then, sir,” the altarboy said, handing him a note. “I he lady told me to give this to you.”
Lakhanodrakon raised an eyebrow. “The lady?”
Argyros was reading. “It’s not signed,” he said, but he had no trouble figuring out who the lady was. The note read: “If you care to, meet me this afternoon in front of the shop of Joshua Samuel’s son in the coppersmiths’ quarter. Come alone. Be sure that if you are not alone, you will not see me. By the supreme god of light Ormazd I swear I shall also be alone; may I be damned to Ahriman’s hell if I lie.”
“An old acquaintance,” he told the Master of Offices while he thought it over. He was certain he would not be able to ambush Mirrane; if she said she could escape a trap, she could. He knew her skill from Daras. What he did not know was how much trust to put in her oath. There was no stronger one a follower of Zoroaster—as most Persians were—could swear. But many so-called Christians would cheerfully invoke Father, Son, and Holy Spirit whenever it was to their advantage.
“I need to get away this afternoon,” he said, making his decision. Lakhanodrakon nodded, smirking; no doubt he thought Argyros had made an assignation. Recalling Mirrane’s other talents, the magistrianos half-wished it were so.
The district of the coppersmiths lay not far from the Augusteion, but it might have been a world away. Here, as nowhere else in the city, Argyros’s handbills earned only a passing glance. Most of the metalworkers were Jews; Christian doctrinal disputes concerned them only if likely to lead to persecution.
Questions led Argyros to the shop Mirrane had named. Passersby eyed his fine robes with curiosity. A crone limped past, her gray hair ragged, a wine-colored birthmark disfiguring one cheek. The magistrianos waited impatiently, wondering if Mirrane had lured him here so she could work some mischief elsewhere unimpeded.
“Have I changed so much then, Basil?”
He whirled at the unexpected sound of that smooth, familiar contralto. The crone was leaning against a wall, saucily grinning his way. The sparkling brown eyes might have belonged to the woman he had known, but—
She laughed, seeing his stricken expression. Three of her teeth were black. She tapped one of them with a grimy forefinger. “It all washes off, even this. I’ve not aged thirty years overnight, I assure you, for which the god of light be praised.”
“A good disguise,” he said, giving credit where it was due and hoping his relief did not show. Beauty was too rare in the world to be wasted. That, he thought, was why he had instinctively rejected iconoclasm, all theological considerations aside. But Mirrane was too dangerous to let even remembered beauty lull him. “What sort of murderous scheme do you have planned for today, since your last two went awry?”
“None, now, I’m sorry to say,” she smiled. “What would be the point? The council is already going the wrong way. Arsakios will squirm and fuss and fight through both the Old and New Testaments of your Bible, but he will lose the fight, whether or not he knows it; the Emperor and most of the church are against him. The only real hope was to raise the city mob against the icons, and that seems to have failed.
. . .Was it your idea, spreading those handbills far and wide?”
“Yes.”
Mirrane sighed. “I thought as much. Such a pity you escaped my monks and the knifeman. I thought you might have lost your wariness, once the first attack failed.”
“The second one almost did catch me napping,” he admitted. He explained how he had beaten the hired killer; Mirrane grimaced in chagrin. He said, “I’m sure you would have got free of any trap I set in Ctesiphon or Ecbatana; operating on home ground is always an advantage.”
It was odd, talking so with a professional from the other side. Argyros had worked many times against agents of the Persian Empire, and Mirrane against the Romans, but despite their masters’ agelong rivalry, their posts gave them more in common than either had with fellow citizens. Mirrane must have been thinking along the same lines. She said, “A shame we could not act together once, instead of against each other.”
He nodded, but said, “Not likely, I fear.”
“One never knows. The nomads on the northern plains are stirring, and they threaten the Roman Empire as much as Persia. Against them, we could share a common goal.”
“Maybe,” Argyros said for politeness’s sake, though he did not believe it. He changed the subject.
“What will you do now that you no longer need your liaison with Arsakios?”
“Him I’ll not be sorry to leave,” she said with a curl of her lip. “You were much more enjoyable, those couple of times in Daras.” She chuckled as the flush mounted under his swarthy skin. She returned to his question: “I suppose I’ll travel back to Persia, to see where the Grand Wazir will send me next: maybe into the Caucasus, to turn a client-king toward Ormazd and away from Christ.”
“I think not,” Argyros said, and leaped at her. The two of them were alone, he was certain. He was bigger, stronger, and quicker than Mirrane, and she was too great a threat to the Empire to let her leave Constantinople.
She made no move to flee. For an instant, in fact, she pressed herself against him as he seized her, and he felt the ripe body her old dirty clothes concealed. Her lips brushed his cheek; he heard her laugh softly in his ear.
Then she was fighting like a wildcat and crying, “Help! Help! This Christian seeks to ravish me!”
Men came boiling out of shops all along the street. They converged on the struggling couple, some brandishing makeshift bludgeons, others armed only with their fists. They tore Argyros away from Mirrane, shouting, “Leave her alone!” “You gentile dog, you think because you have money you can take any woman who pleases your” “See how you like this!”