“Tell your master he can preserve his bacon in a dark place. I’ve got no dill left. None.” The vegetable-seller leaned over a display of limp greens of other descriptions to deliver her emphatic message.
“I can pay-”
“You can see what I have to offer, you old fool. Can you see any dill? No! So no matter how much you say you can pay, I still can’t sell you something I haven’t got.”
Peter turned away, his face flushed with anger and frustration. A fine thing for a Lord Chamberlain to eat boiled bacon prepared with insufficient dill. What did that silly girl Hypatia know about cooking? Running out of dill, indeed! It was intolerable.
He’d been to the stall of every vegetable seller between the Great Church and the Golden Horn, or so it seemed. None offered so much as a stalk of dill. Other households had probably stocked up on herbs as a precaution against hunger while he’d been brooding over his poor friend.
He had failed his master.
It was true the Lord Chamberlain had ordered him to take time off from his duties, but now see how it had turned out? Why should he make matters worse by heeding his master’s order not to venture into the streets? Especially when there was no dill in the house.
“Old man! Are you all right?” The seller called after him as he walked away.
He ignored her. His heart thumped in his chest. If only it weren’t so hot. The sun seemed to beat all strength out of him. The colonnade he was walking toward kept moving sideways.
He stared out at the harbor. Across the Golden Horn, pillars of coiling black smoke rose into the bright air, reminding him of pillars holding up the ceilings over the flaming pits of Hell.
He knew of one last market he could try. He forced his heavy feet to keep moving, just as he had when he had been marching though the rocky passes in Isauria. When he had thought he could not lift his boots again, even though the sun had not even begun to slide down the slope of the blazing afternoon sky. Somehow he had taken another step, then another, until he lost count of the number of impossible steps he had taken. He and Gregory, he thought, reminding himself he was blessed he could still march through the city, however reluctant his aging legs might be.
Gregory could not.
He became aware the sun had stopped torturing him and looked up, expecting to see gathering clouds. Instead, he saw tenements leaning drunkenly over a street as narrow and winding as a dry stream bed.
An unfamiliar street.
He did not remember taking a wrong turn, but now he might as well have been in Antioch. Was it because the street was so silent? When had it become deserted? There had been people in the market he had just left, although not the usual jostling crowds. He had passed others going about on the first street he had turned down. Where had they all gone? To what sort of place had he found his way?
Peter forced himself onward. He felt dizzy. A low humming filled his head. He began to sing a favorite hymn, “Though Thou Didst Descend into the Tomb.” It failed to lift his spirits. The buzzing in his head increased. Then he turned a corner and found his way blocked by a pile of dead, overhung by a thick, swirling cloud of flies.
He hastily retraced his steps.
The dim way was no longer deserted.
A lone figure approached.
Peter could not make out its face.
Suddenly the figure broke into a loping run toward him.
Peter fled as best he could.
He veered into an alley, staggered briefly against a wall, stumbled onward.
It was not so much an alley as a narrow space between two buildings whose walls almost touched overhead, blotting out light. In near darkness he trod on as best he could. His chest felt on fire. He prayed for strength, but slowed and stopped.
He bent, gasping for breath.
There was no sound of pursuit.
Had he managed to elude the strange man?
Unfortunately, he had not.
A black figure floated silently toward him, seeming to draw nearer without actually traversing the filthy ground. Rather than growing more distinct as it approached, the figure grew blacker and more impenetrable, a vortex of darkness in which Peter perceived only shifting shapes he could not name.
It stopped in front of him.
With relief, Peter saw that it was just a man in a black cloak.
But where was his face?
Peter trembled. He felt a terrible cold emanating from the approaching figure. The cloak flapped like a raven’s wing and a tremendous blow to the side of his head sent Peter sprawling in the slops and debris littering the narrow space.
In an instant Peter knew, it was death come for him, as it had for Gregory.
He lay almost insensible as the dark shape leaned over him.
Another shadow appeared.
Demons, Peter thought in terror. Had he not been a good enough Christian? He waited for the claws, the razor-sharp teeth.
He awoke, propped up against a wall.
Someone crouched beside him.
He tried to turn his head to take a closer look. The pain in his neck brought tears to his eyes.
“You were attacked by a thief.” The voice was sibilant. “It is fortunate I happened to pass by just now. Although I have a way of happening to pass by at the right time. You will not die, Peter. Assure your master of that.”
Peter tried to respond, but could not.
His rescuer patted his shoulder. Peter glimpsed the face. A face across which countless years and endless roads had scrawled a palimpsest of wrinkles in which everything was written, but nothing could be read.
Then the strange man was gone.
Chapter Eleven
John followed a limping man carrying a sack down a short, narrow alley that opened unexpectedly into a dark courtyard. The place was not far from the Hippodrome, but sunk as it was between looming granite cliffs of surrounding warehouses, its cobbled space resembled a cavern. Several restless bears, growling and snuffling, were suitable inhabitants. John came to a halt, then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, thanked Mithra the beasts were locked inside iron cages.
Beyond the cages, a few shadowy figures-bear trainers, John supposed-sat hunkered down around a bonfire, roasting chunks of skewered meat. By the evidence of the scattered amphorae and the scurrilous songs they were singing, the men had been drinking steadily for some time.
The fellow whom John had shadowed stopped at the closest cage and emptied the contents of his sack through its bars.
“You haven’t finished all the wine, I hope,” he shouted to his companions. “It’s all right for you lot to sit around and drink and gorge since it’s not your turn to scavenge for our friends. Took me longer than I expected. Do you know how many rats it takes to feed even one bear?”
“Rats?” someone observed. “How dainty. You’ve been gathering little rats when the streets are piled with corpses.”
“Have some decency!”
“Besides, you don’t want them getting a taste for human flesh,” another trainer added.
“Well, the owner of the wine shop didn’t like the idea of a bear getting a taste of human flesh either, especially his. Samson hadn’t even got to the end of his chain and the owner was halfway down the Mese like a deacon with a demon on his backside, leaving all those amphorae untended.”
“You’ve told us all this before! Wait till the Prefect’s men are back on duty and start asking questions. You won’t be so clever then. ‘And what did you say the thief’s weapon was? A bear?’ How hard is it going to be for even that stupid bunch to point the finger?”
“Well,” grumbled the thief, “I notice you haven’t refused to drink the wine Samson got you.” He turned to the fellow with the sack of rats, who was now sitting by the bonfire. “Have some meat. It’s excellent.”
The rat catcher picked up a skewer, sniffed at the slab of meat it held, and spit into the flames. “Not dog again!”