“It was early when they were brought here. The fog was still fairly heavy when the monks of Saint Conon appeared and demanded entry,” Leonardis went on. “As I understand it, they observed what happened, decided to rescue the pair, and then rowed them across the Golden Horn to this church. Christian charity is all very well but I have wondered…were they bribed to save these men or threatened that if they did not their monastery would be set ablaze?”
Yes, thought John, either or both were possible.
Leonardis laughed. “You from the palace are so familiar with such intrigues. How could the monks have known the ropes would break? And not once but twice. No, perhaps it is more simply explained, that those in the monastery saw the hand of the Lord in the incident and felt called upon to intervene. Remember, the monks had already seen others hung, dangling there, not to mention still others losing their heads. They must have felt the disgust we all feel when confronted with such dreadful reminders of mortality and human suffering.”
John wondered if the priest would take so long to say so little under the ministrations of the emperor’s torturers. “This church has no affiliation with the monastery?”
“No, but it possesses the privilege of sanctuary.” Leonardis stirred the coals violently again. “I wish they had not been brought here. Those who attend my church have had countless miseries heaped upon them by the factions to which these men belong. I cannot tell you how many of my flock, men and women both, have come to me wounded and sobbing about robberies, violence, vile acts perpetrated on the defenseless, yes, even murder. And guards were posted to keep those criminals safe! Where are they when these men and their like roam the streets?”
John realized the priest would have been more than happy to light fires under iron frames for any Blue or Green captured. “At the time of the escape you were here in the church?”
“Yes, yes, I was, but I only heard about it when somebody shouted they had gone and guards rushed in. Armed men in a holy space! It was an outrage! And they entered while I was leading a service. A very large service it was too. In times such as these many seek the comfort that only the teachings of the church can give.”
John thanked the priest and departed. The nave felt bitterly cold compared to the stifling room he had just left. The church was dimly lit and shadows were thick in the corners. The windows piercing the pale walls formed grey silhouettes giving no hint of what lay outside, but given the narrowness of the surrounding streets even on the brightest days the church must be dark without the aid of its hanging lamps.
The place seemed almost alive, menacing. The quiet space around him appeared ominous, the eyes of an icon hanging a few paces away seeming to examine John, in the fashion of the one he had seen earlier in the storeroom. This icon dismissed him with a sneer as one not of the faith.
John paused in the vestibule. He had recruited three lamp lighters he had found at work to bring the body of the Blue from the cistern but they had not returned yet. He supposed he would need to escort Sebastian back to the palace with him.
A cold wind was rising. Gusts swirled dust and straws through the half open door. He shivered. There was nothing else to be learnt here. He could see that many would believe that a supernatural hand had reached down into these surroundings to allow the missing men to escape without being seen.
If he worshipped the Christian god he might, perhaps, pray for guidance.
But he served another. And the emperor was not going to be pleased.
Chapter Three
A voice spoke from on high.
“These servants have failed us.”
John lay alongside Sebastian, face down in front of a number of courtiers and guards gathered in the imperial reception hall, his forehead pressed against a pattern of peacocks with their tails spread wide. The elaborate tiling was not as cold as the water in the cistern. It wasn’t his still damp clothes or the floor that made him shiver, but rather the measured words dropping onto his head.
The voice did not belong to the emperor. It was a woman’s voice, feminine only in the sense of being pitched higher than a man’s. It made John think of a knife being drawn across a whetstone.
Several advisors, clustered at the base of the platform supporting the double throne stirred uneasily, as if the breath of death had passed through them.
It had been known to happen.
From the corner of his eye John could see Narses, the emperor’s chamberlain and imperial treasurer, John’s superior at the palace. The slight, balding eunuch was eyeing John with ill-concealed rage.
“Caesar-” began Sebastian.
“Silence, you old fool, or we shall make certain you cannot talk again.” Empress Theodora’s voice was now chillingly sweet. “We shall deal with John shortly. But first….”
A pair of jeweled scarlet shoes entered the periphery of John’s limited vision and the musky perfume favored by Theodora announced her approaching presence. The empress had descended from the ivory throne and now stood close to the two men prostrated before Justinian.
A low chuckle escaped her as she tapped Sebastian’s back with the toe of her shoe. “You come here stinking of smoke and fear. Can we wonder at it? Both of you have failed. You say you know nothing beyond the ludicrous story you have just related. You expect us to believe that an unknown person bearing an imperial seal arrived at the church just after several other unknown persons had murdered the prisoners and dragged them out of the church without you or your guards noticing? You must be forgetting some of the details, old man. Perhaps the urgent persuasion of needles will help restore your memory. Take him away!”
Three guards stepped forward and dragged the unresisting Sebastian out of John’s line of sight. The scarlet shoes receded, and Theodora resumed her place next to Justinian.
“Approach!” the emperor demanded. “You may stand. Report.”
John did as he was ordered.
As always, the emperor’s face was a cipher. Apart from a slight tightening about his lips he appeared as if he were about to welcome an ambassador or perhaps watch a performance by palace musicians. It was the worst possible expression he could have worn. It meant he was angry and when Justinian was angry, Theodora was not pleased. And if Theodora was not pleased, inevitably blood flowed.
John glanced at the empress. A venomous smile curved her painted mouth into a ruby scimitar and her hooded, dark eyes were cold.
“Caesar.” He bowed toward Justinian. “As ordered, I went to the Church of Saint Laurentius to bring back the two men who escaped hanging. Sebastian has reported on what happened before I arrived. I subsequently located one of the missing men in the cistern of Aspar. The body of the other can doubtless be recovered. At that point I returned to the palace with commander Sebastian.”
“And where is the body you mention?”
“Outside, Caesar.”
Justinian glanced at Theodora. Was he pretending to consider her feelings for the benefit of those present? She nodded, as the emperor must have known she would.
“Bring it in!” he ordered a silentiary.
Theodora smiled from her perch as the dead Blue was dragged in by his rope of hair and deposited beside John.
“If only the dead could talk,” she remarked, “what interesting conversations we might have!”
Justinian glanced down at the sodden form. “More importantly, I can’t offer the masses in the Hippodrome a corpse. They are not likely to be placated by having their colleague returned to them in such a state. The body of the Green is of no more use to me than this one. It can stay in the cistern. Narses!”