As he looked up and down the street with its fire-gutted shops and ruined colonnades, he reminded himself there were reasons for his lack of progress. It was dangerous and difficult to traverse the chaotic city, and harder yet to locate anyone. Many had fled, or were missing. It was impossible to say who, amongst them-people John did not even know-might have been able to lead him to the killers.
Then too, he had to deal with the Anastasius family. Justinian should never have asked him to host three troublesome aristocrats while undertaking a vital investigation. But he couldn’t say that to the emperor.
He considered the information Porphyrius had given him, the location of Hippolytus’ house. It wasn’t too far away. The charioteer thought the young aristocrat kept apartments in the family mansion. Perhaps the family would be able to tell John what their son had been involved in, and who his associates were.
The streets were relatively quiet. John cut through the Copper Market. The metal working shops which predominated there offered little to attract the wrath of the mob. He could still see the plumes of smoke to the north which he had noted on his way to the Hippodrome. At any time his way might be blocked by a wall of fire.
What he feared more was finding himself suddenly surrounded by fires, or in the path of a blaze driven by the gusty wind.
After awhile the streets ran steeply uphill. The wind hit him in the face, numbing his skin. He blinked, trying to drive away the sharp, icy pain just behind his eyes.
He paused to look behind him. From his elevated position he could see through a gap in the buildings all the way to the Augustaion. Samsun’s Hospice and the Church of Saint Irene were on fire. Whether they had been specially targeted or were victims of fires set elsewhere, it was impossible to say.
When the crest of the ridge he was climbing came into view he was greeted by another dismal sight. The riots had cut off John’s newest line of inquiry. The house where Hippolytus lived had been reduced to a fire-gutted shell.
The front of the house had toppled into the street. If there had been a courtyard it was buried in rubble. Parts of the colonnade along both sides of the street were crushed. However, a short distance away a couch with red upholstery sat on an undamaged portion for the colonnade roof. John wondered whether it had fallen there, incongruously, when the house collapsed or if someone had moved it there. For what reason? To have a good seat from which to view whatever had been taking place in the street?
Although the place was obviously deserted, John picked his way through the ruins. There wasn’t much to see. One interior wall, still standing, bore bright frescoes of chariot races. Water glinted from beneath a pile of bricks, marking the remains of a fountain. An enormous rat crawled from the bricks, and skittered away.
In one spot John’s gaze was caught by bits of charred parchment protruding from the ashes, waving in the wind like dead leaves on a winter tree. Scuffing with the toe of his boot turned up burnt scrolls and codices, little more than charcoal. He saw what he guessed, from what could still be seen of the elaborate binding, was a gospel. Had its teachings prepared the family for the senseless loss of both their home and their son?
The stables had also been destroyed. Whether the family had escaped, John could not say, but the overpowering stench behind the house told him that the horses had not. One breath sent him back rapidly through the ruins. He had just exhaled when a dark shape came hurtling off the top of a wall at him.
He caught a glimpse of its moving shadow first, from the corner of his eye, and spun out of the way. All he could think of was the demon. Had it followed him here?
Then he saw a large, black cat, stirring up a cloud of ash. The cat whirled and slashed with its claws, a blur of motion. There was a high pitched shriek. The cat’s prey, a rat, burst free.
The rat turned back toward the shelter of the ruined fountain from which John had seen it emerge earlier. It was not just any rat but a truly imperial-sized rat. But before it could reach safety a mottled brown and white shape darted from the rubble. The small cat clamped its jaws on the rat’s back. It looked hardly bigger than the rat. The captured rodent squealed and writhed but the small cat’s hold remained firm.
The much larger black cat trotted forward. The two cats looked at each other. Their differing colors made John think of the racing factions. Then the small cat ran off, carrying its huge, struggling meal away. The black cat followed.
Would they share the bounty or fight over it?
John didn’t wait to see. He picked his way back through the ruins.
Once on the street he paused. He had wasted another hour learning nothing.
From the top of the ridge he could see out over the northern harbors and across the waters of the Golden Horn. The molten orange globe of the sun hung in a coppery mist of smoke. John imagined he could almost see the disk moving as time raced past.
He feared that time was running out for his investigation and for the emperor and the empire itself. Already, in the half-light created by the haze, the panorama before him looked unreal, like an aged wall painting. The haze lent its coppery tint to everything, not just the water but the buildings and streets and the ships in the harbor.
Across the harbor lay the monastery of Saint Conon whose monks had rescued, temporarily, the two condemned faction members. Almost from the outset of his investigations, John had dismissed the idea that the monks might be involved in any plot. Yet the directions in which he had chosen to take his inquires had mostly turned out to be dead ends.
Rather than turning back to the palace, John began to walk down the hill toward the docks.
***
At the docks commerce had come to a halt. Crates, amphorae, and sacks lay neglected in haphazard piles in front of the warehouses at the base of the sea wall. The crowds ignored them. They had not come to loot but to escape. John could barely see the water for sailing vessels of every shape and size, from merchant ship to wooden planks.
Here and there those desperate to flee the burning city haggled with ship masters desperate to earn as much as they could while the opportunity lasted.
“How could I pay a fare like that?” John overheard one man shouting. “I’m a baker. Do I look like the emperor to you?”
Elsewhere he saw several husky men dressed in the plain tunics of laborers lashing together a collection of charred beams to make a raft.
John had little difficulty hiring a boat. When on the emperor’s business he went well prepared to offer bribes, though he rarely did so. The amount requested in this case amounted to a bribe.
Once he was out on the Golden Horn, John wished he had searched out a larger boat. The water looked perilously close to him where he sat. He didn’t dare stand. The boat’s owner, mindful of the coins to be made with each passage, rowed as if he were being chased by demons. As he toiled at the oars he stared at his passenger appraisingly.
“Take me as near as possible to Saint Conon’s monastery,” John instructed him.
“I’d never have guessed you for one to join a monastery, sir. I’ve already taken two there but they were such as had to haggle over my price. They said there was no use going further. No one could outrun the four horsemen.”
“I’ll be returning to the city shortly,” John said. “Wait for me. Don’t worry, I will compensate you.”
He didn’t bother displaying the imperial orders. In this case, Justinian’s money spoke loudly enough.
He came ashore on a stretch of waste ground littered with debris and the remains of chariots. The scaffolds hurriedly erected to execute the faction members were still standing. He gave them a wide berth. Shoddily constructed, they leaned into each other like drunken men in front of a tavern. The ropes had been removed.