He decided there was little more to learn from that line of inquiry. But there remained another question. “You told me Hippolytus visited when Haik was meeting with you,” he said.
“Hippolytus again? You think I have something to do with his death? Or with that botched hanging you told me about?”
John ignored the question. “Was anyone else present at that meeting?”
“No.”
“Did Hippolytus ever bring anyone else with him to the Hippodrome? A woman?”
“Women are not allowed at the races.”
“I’m not talking about the races. He may have brought a friend to meet you. There are racing fans who would rather touch your sleeve than dine with the emperor.”
Porphyrius smiled. “You flatter me. But no. I didn’t see Hippolytus very often. He never brought anyone to gawk at me or tug my sleeve. I appreciated his discretion. I did catch a glimpse of him across the stables one day, showing off Zephyrius to a callow looking fellow. When I mentioned it later he told me it was his younger brother. I invited him to bring the lad in to see me one day, but he never did.”
The charioteer bent down and ran a hand over the sand on the track. Then he stood, gave the track a few kicks with the heel of his boot, and shook his head. “The surface is too loose. Not surprising. Most of the workers who ought to be taking care of the track are nowhere to be found. Speaking of which, I can tell you where to find Hippolytus’ family. Your curiosity about him had me worried. I asked around, to make sure there wasn’t something he had neglected to tell me. I can’t be responsible for investigating the motivations and background of every would-be patron.”
He described to John a mansion located at the top of the ridge overlooking the northern harbors. “At least I’ve been told that’s where he lived,” he concluded. “No one seemed to know him well. Maybe you can learn what you want from his family.”
Porphyrius did not add that then John might also leave him alone, but his meaning was clear from his tone.
They were startled by a shout. The worker who had been kicked into the hole by Porphyrius yelled again and pointed up toward the spina. “Demons take you, Porphyrius! There’s that croaking harbinger of doom! He’s the one brought evil to the city, not these ridiculous scrawls on scraps of lead! They say he’s returned from the dead!”
With that the man threw down his spade, leapt out of the excavation and fled, swiftly followed by his fellow diggers.
John peered up at the confusion of monuments running down the length of the spina. There, in a golden bowl supported on a column formed by three entwined serpents, stood the same ragged, grotesque creature he had seen running across the roof tops. It scrambled over the side of the bowl, slid down the snake column, embraced one of the statues of Porphyrius which stood nearby and began singing an obscene song to its bronze visage.
“What’s that demon doing here?” roared Porphyrius.
John suddenly wanted to know that too. He pulled himself up onto the spina and sprinted toward the creature, dodging several marble emperors who obstructed his path.
The creature saw him, cackled, ducked beneath a replica of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, and was away. Cursing, John clambered over the top of the wolf.
John’s prey vanished behind a monstrous wild boar and reappeared swinging from its tusk. For an instant he hung from the tusk by one arm, let his head loll to one side, rolled his eyes back, and stuck his tongue out. Then laughing hysterically, he dropped and raced on.
The chase covered the length of the spina. John passed a brazen eagle with a snake in its claws and the monumental Hercules.
Though the demon gave the appearance of scuttling along like a monstrous crab, John couldn’t catch up. The creature was well ahead when it vanished behind the Egyptian obelisk at the end of the spina. In an instant it reappeared on the track.
John leaned wearily against a massive bronze leg, part of a monumental bull.
“Mithra!” He cursed softly as he watched the demon scramble across the track, feet sending up gouts of sand, before it reached the starting boxes and vaulted over a gate into the darkness beyond.
***
The ragged man skittered across the concrete, leaping, falling, sometimes upright, sometimes crawling on all fours. Shadows melted out of his path. The poor souls who inhabited this benighted place did not care to confront him.
At last he emerged into a cold wind. He could no longer hear the demon, could no longer smell the evil. The terrible creature had come swooping out of the sky and pursued him along the narrow precipice where the old gods stood, frozen forever in stone and gold. A feast for the eyes of idolaters.
But he had escaped with the Lord’s help.
He crouched down, hugging his knees to his chest, listening. He clutched the sacred shard of wood in his hand more tightly, felt hot pain as a splinter pierced his skin. Blood blossomed on his palm. He remembered the crosses reared up against the sky. He had been brought down from the cross.
To what purpose?
He turned the wood over, examining it. He knew what it was-a fragment of the True Cross. But the ribbon wrapped around it puzzled him.
His past was nothing but the fog of a dream, grasped at futilely as it slips away, unremembered.
He had traversed hell. Surely it was hell, where a man sat in a corner pulling his intestines away from a black dog. Where a child emerged from a fiery pit, face hanging in charred strips from a blackened skull in which eyes still glistened with life.
How long he had been in hell, he could not say. Forever perhaps.
And where was he now?
He scrambled around and stared upwards. A high, brick wall rose above his head.
Why did he feel he wanted to be here, in the freezing shadow of a wall?
He crept forward, keeping to the shadow. It wasn’t safe to stay long in one spot. The demons were always searching.
Even as he shivered at the thought of the demons, a cold hand grasped his.
No. Not a demon’s hand, after all, he realized. He felt the hard fingers of a statue.
Or, rather, a corpse.
The dead man’s arm extended from the alcove where the rest of his body lay crumpled in a heap of costly robes. What good was that gold thread now?
It was the new leather boots that caught the ragged man’s gaze.
Looking down at his own feet, he saw he had lost a sandal. When?
It didn’t matter. The Lord saw everything. The Lord provided.
The ragged man recognized the wall. He was outside the Great Palace. This was the place he had crossed hell to reach.
Because he had to speak to the emperor.
He remembered now. Because he could hardly meet the emperor while wearing a single filthy sandal. So the Lord had sent him this fine pair of boots.
Chapter Thirty-Two
John stood in front of the Hippodrome and surveyed the Mese while he caught his breath. There was no sign of the demon he had pursued across the spina. The creature might be right around a nearby corner, or halfway to the city walls. Even if the demon were still lurking around a corner, John would be unlikely to find it. Constantinople with its crooked alleys, slanting streets, and unexpected squares boasted as many corners as there were stars in the sky.
There wasn’t time to waste. In not too many hours, it would be a week since the two faction members were killed at Saint Laurentius. John felt he had barely begun his investigations. Who had he spoken to, after all? Only a handful of people had told him anything useful.