“It seems to me trouble was already waiting here in Megara for him.”
“He chose to be ambitious. He wanted wealth and power. He decided to take the risks. We didn’t travel that path, Leonidas. We’ve been content with our quiet life.”
Leonidas squeezed her hand, bent, and kissed her forehead lightly. “Please don’t worry. I won’t do anything to draw attention to myself. No harm will come to us, I promise.”
***
Peter completed chopping vegetables for the evening meal and left Hypatia in the kitchen hanging up bundles of herbs to dry. She was safe for the time being. Safe from arsonists and kidnappers and stone-throwing mobs. And safe from temptation. Perhaps.
He had thought the two of them could be happy with a simple life. But he had served the master long enough to have learned that the master’s life, and the lives of those around him, would never be simple.
As Peter entered the rooms he and Hypatia shared with two felines he would prefer to be elsewhere, he saw the large black cat sitting on a stool watching disdainfully as its smaller, mottled brown companion, batted something around the floor.
“No! No!” Peter shouted. “Wretched creatures!” First they brought fleas in, now it was larger vermin. He looked around for the broom to sweep it out.
The small cat knocked its prey against a table leg, leapt back, hissing, then crouched and crawled forward warily.
Not seeing the broom he sought, Peter used his foot to move the cat aside, gently for Hypatia’s sake, and leaned over, putting a hand on the table to steady himself. “What did you drag in, you nasty beast?”
It was the size and color of a large rat. Peter had to crouch down almost to the floor before he brought the thing into focus.
There were too many legs for a rat. And rats didn’t have long tails with stingers at the end.
It was the biggest scorpion he’d ever seen.
He tried to jump up and out of the way, but lost his balance. Twisting, grabbing at the table, he realized he was about to come right down on the poisonous horror.
His knee hit the curled tail.
It disintegrated under his weight, bits of mud skittering across the floor, sending both cats to flight.
It was only one of Hypatia’s protective charms. It had been some time since she’d made any. Peter had nearly forgotten about them.
He hobbled into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, noting another clay scorpion on the chest against the wall, directly below the simple wooden cross he had hung there.
The monk Stephen had suggested he and Hypatia pray together. That would be difficult. Long ago, Peter had tried to convince Hypatia she should convert to Christianity, to give up worshiping her Egyptian deities. He knew it was better not to attempt it again.
And what difference did it make what a person chose to call the God of All? Or whether, like the master and mistress and Hypatia, they called Him by different names? It was simply what a person was born into, like the language they spoke, and who would condemn anyone for having been born speaking Coptic rather than Greek?
Peter did not pride himself on being a theologian, but it struck him as simple enough. He read the scriptures and he could think and ponder such matters. He didn’t need anyone to explain such matters to him.
So whatever their problems, they would not pray together. Hypatia prayed to the gods of Egypt and constructed charms of clay. Peter prayed to the Lord and read verses from the psalms.
Peter’s prayers had one advantage. The cats couldn’t stalk them and frighten him half to death by doing so.
Chapter Thirty-three
John shrugged as he listened to the oaths Cornelia lavished on the heads of the City Defender and seller of fish.
They were an unwelcome contrast to the peaceful olive grove he had purposely sought out after his frustrating trip into Megara. He had never quite become used to the remarkable repertoire of curses Cornelia had learned during her years on the road.
“So it was all our own fault,” she concluded. “We forced those poor souls to attempt to burn down our home. I’m surprised Georgios didn’t fine us for releasing demons. And I thought Constantinople was corrupt.”
“Nowhere is free from corruption, no matter how small. In the meanest village you’ll find men every bit as corrupt as any at the emperor’s court, only fewer of them, with less wealth and power within their greedy reach.”
“And not dressed in silks,” Cornelia said.
John gave her a questioning look, then recalled he had said something similar to her before and probably more than once. “A sign of age. I’m repeating myself.”
“Perhaps it bears repeating. What kind of place have we come to?”
John had recounted his experiences at Corinth’s port during their walk to the grove. They took a long, circuitous stroll, purposefully avoiding the ruined temple. Their destination grew on the part of the estate that had once been his family’s farm.
The grove looked much as he remembered it, scattered clusters of gnarled trees. It was obvious they had not received much care.
John scowled in disapproval. “Harvest time is fast approaching and look at them! My father-my real father-kept these trees well pruned,”
He made his way across the small grove. There were larger olive groves elsewhere on the land he now owned, planted on a scale to serve an estate rather than a farming family. He stopped at an enormously wide-boled tree, a gnarled patriarch with branches twisting out above chest level.
“You see how there’s a natural nest up there? My father used to lift me up and I’d sit and watch during the harvest. It was a memorable day when I was able to climb up myself.”
Cornelia ran a hand along the bark. “Going by its size, it must be very old.”
“My friends and I convinced each other it was thousands of years old. There were broken branches at the top and Alexis claimed they’d been clipped off by Noah’s ark sailing over it.”
“But a grain of truth perhaps? After all, olive trees can live for centuries.”
“Several in the grove at Plato’s Academy were ancient too. Plato taught in their shade.”
Cornelia was silent but John could read her puzzled expression.
In truth he had been drawn here by the memory of the grove, which had surfaced suddenly for no apparent reason on his way back from the city. Had his unaccustomed feeling of helplessness during the City Defender’s ridiculous hearing reminded him of being a toddler, lifted up into the tree by strong hands? Later in his childhood, when he could reach the nest himself, it had been a secret place where he came to think and observe the world. He had not thought of the secret places of his boyhood for many years.
He had an urge to climb back into his old perch. He resisted. What a sight that would make!
“You were telling me you asked Leonidas to look into the tax records,” Cornelia prompted.
“Yes. I’m going to visit him tomorrow evening to see what he discovers, if anything.”
“Surely Anatolius investigated very carefully? I would have thought we could be certain there are no outstanding amounts to be paid.”
“I agree, but in addition I was hoping there might be something to assist me in finding my way out of the labyrinth we have been thrust into.”
“When you arrived back from Lechaion you told me you thought you’d located a thread there, before I persuaded you it wasn’t the time to discuss murder.”
“That’s right. And you were right. It was much too late to speak of murder.”
John felt he had lost an entire day. His further inquiries following his interview with Maritza and the informer with the knife had yielded no new possibilities for investigation. He had not reached home until well after dark, only to be greeted with the story of the attack on the house and the news that the City Defender had delayed the arsonist’s arraignment until that morning, to give John the chance to attend as the owner of the damaged property.