“This gate was made some time ago when Theophilus still lived near you?”
“That’s right, sir. Before he sold the farm.”
“Did you see him after he went away?”
Petrus’ expression turned as black as his apron. “Once. At the monastery. I was returning some cooking utensils I had repaired and Theophilus was there. He told me he had been doing odd jobs for the abbot. I asked him if he was being paid to carry them out and reminded him of his debt and he just laughed. Well, you know what they say, sir. Small debts make debtors, large ones make enemies.”
“I understand how you must have felt,” John told him. “Let me ask about another matter. The work being done at the temple. How did it come about?”
“Oh that, sir? It was begun by order of the previous owner. The foundations need shoring up before what remains of the building collapses, so I’ve been told.”
“It seems odd to spend money on such a task, considering how the rest of the estate has been neglected.”
“I gather the ruin is of interest as a monument to former beliefs. Apparently the former owner was interested in antiquities and after all, who can fathom the reasons for the fancies of rich men? They swim in a different sea from the poor, as they say.”
Senator Vinius interested in antiquities? So far as John knew, the late senator hadn’t taken an interest in anything older than race horses and nubile prostitutes. Then again, perhaps the gossips underestimated the range of his tastes.
John finished his wine, stood, and placed the cup on the bench.
Petrus rose also, somewhat unsteadily since he had drunk most of the contents of the jug. “Dusk is creeping in. May I respectfully suggest, sir, given recent events it may be folly on your part to be wandering around in the dark?”
“You are of the opinion I am not safe here?”
“You may not be, sir. Theophilus wasn’t.”
Chapter Sixteen
John sat in the temple, contemplating the broad silver finger the moon had laid across the sea.
Strange to contemplate the earthly road that had led him from Megara as far as Bretania and Egypt, to Persia and Constantinople, and then back again to his starting point.
Unfortunately, the silver road did not point to any solution to his difficulty in grasping the thread that would ultimately lead to useful information. He sensed those on the estate he had interviewed were concealing knowledge. But how could he be surprised? They would be anxious about being punished for their blatant robbery of the absent former owner more than assisting him with anything they might know of Theophilus, even though to do so might serve to soften whatever justice was to be meted out. Meantime he was little further along in his investigation.
He saw very little likelihood of gaining any help from anyone in Megara, even assuming they had knowledge of an event that had happened away from the city.
He listened to the ratcheting of insects, the occasional distant barking of a dog, and tried to get his thoughts to march in order. It had been less difficult in Constantinople, where at this time of night he would be sitting in his study, sharing his cogitations with the girl in the wall mosaic and drinking what his friends termed his “foul Egyptian wine.”
He thought back to his conversation with Cornelia before she fell asleep and, restless, he had come to the temple to attempt to think of a plan of campaign.
“I am so sorry we came here of all places. If I had known-” she had said wistfully.
“It was inevitable,” he had replied. “After ordering the books for all my estates examined, this was the one place Justinian would not expect to be able to sell for a high price. And given it was Theophilus who sold the family farm, he must have inherited it from my mother. So with both of them dead, that closes another avenue to possible enlightenment to me.”
There was certainly light, and to spare, out here. The cold clear moonlight washed a landscape sculpted of marble. Trees and bushes might have been monuments to the dying year.
His thoughts wandered back to his mother. Was there anyone left on her side of the family whom he could consult?
It was unlikely, what with the passage of time, and given she was her parents’ only child. She had belonged to the curial class, one formed from respectable, well-to-do townspeople. Not that it had been as comfortable as it seemed, for over the years the class accumulated too many responsibilities for civic works, administration, and tax collection, though admittedly, Justinian had sought to lift the burden from them with officials such as the City Defender.
John’s tutor, Antigenes, had once informed his students that, in the old days, if a person was of this class, they had a choice of fattening their finances in various ways-not spoken about too loudly-or trying to carry out their duties honestly, resulting in financial ruin.
John’s grandfather had been of the latter sort.
Cornelia had asked him why, in that case, anyone in that position would act in an honest fashion.
“Integrity. Pride,” John had answered. “The position ran in families for generations. It was a great Roman tradition. My mother used to tell me how my grandfather wore a formal toga when performing his civic duties. Unfortunately, pride and integrity won’t pay for the necessities of life. My father might only have owned a small farm but his income was better than that of my mother’s family. She had insisted I had tutors, saying my father would have approved. I was hardly more than an infant when he died.”
And then she had remarried and Theophilus had taken his father’s place and John’s world changed into one much darker. For his stepfather mistreated everyone. In John’s opinion someone was bound to kill Theophilus in due course. Had not he himself threatened to carry out the act often enough?
Was there anyone in Megara who remembered hearing of those threats? If so, it was certain the City Defender would know all about them by now.
But if not, who remained in the city who would recall those long ago days and perhaps shed light on at least the beginnings of a road leading to the culprit?
Chapter Seventeen
John was returning to Megara.
He had dressed in a plain blue garment whose only decoration was a thin gold stripe at the hem, one chosen to indicate the more formal nature of the calls he intended to make when he arrived at his destination.
Provided, that was, he could locate Leonidas and Alexis, two friends from his schooldays.
Mithra had granted his earlier prayer for guidance.
As John sat contemplating the sea the night before, he had suddenly recalled them as possible sources of information about what had happened to his family after he left the area.
A thin smile quirked his lips as he remembered Antigenes, the severe old stoic who conducted classes the three had attended and was wont to wax particularly sarcastic in several languages at their tortoise-like progress in their studies.
Alexis was the son of a church official and by far the most blasphemous boy of John’s acquaintance, which was to say very blasphemous indeed. Leonidas’ father worked in the offices of the tax collector. Thinking on it as he approached Megara it occurred to John that he and his two friends could be described as representing the base supporting local society: religion, administration, and agriculture.
Compared with the capital, Megara was small, though still large enough that John did not to expect to accidentally run into two men he had not seen in almost forty years, particularly Antigenes, who had been old when he taught the boys. However, since John knew the location of his house and had no notion where Leonidas and Alexis might have gone, he decided to begin his search in the narrow street leading from the thoroughfare called Straight, not far from the town walls.