The travelers sat well back from the hives, giving Apollo plenty of room to lean against the loudly buzzing stack of cylinders he had piled at the front of their conveyance.
The beekeeper batted indolently at the occasional escaping insect. “I’ll find most of them waiting for their friends when we arrive in Mehenopolis,” he observed. “Melios has a well planted garden, and there’s little else to suit my beauties’ dainty appetites around here.”
It was true. The dunes began a short distance from the river settlement. There was no sign of road or track. However, the rock outcropping marking the location of Mehenopolis rose from the horizon, like Constantinople rising from the sea, and served to point their way.
John noticed Porphyrios insisted on sitting as far from the front of the cart as possible. From his nervous backward glances it was apparent the charioteer had not positioned himself there to leave more room for his fellow passengers, as he claimed. John thought there was something sad but faintly comical about such a large and powerful man being so afraid of tiny bees.
The cart driver, the same ancient who had ferried them to shore, sang to himself about his love waiting for him on the opposite side of the river. It seemed to be the only song he knew. Again and again he sang of braving treacherous waters to reach her. A hundred times, his love gave him the strength to evade reptilian jaws.
“I wish just once that would end differently,” Cornelia finally remarked to John. “Couldn’t his strength fail him? Then the poor crocodiles could have a good meal, and we’d all have some peace.”
“Even the squeak of these cart wheels, if they were without that voice accompanying them, would sound nearly as sweet as a work by Romanos Melodos,” agreed Thorikos.
“I suspect the lover on the other side of the river could use a rest as well,” the charioteer commented with a grin.
Thorikos chuckled, despite previous complaints about the damage the jolting of the cart might be doing to his aging bones, not to mention that the glare of the sun hurt his eyes and was giving him a headache.
It was nearly sunset by the time the cart drew near to their destination. The first sign of approaching civilization was a weathered man with straw-like hair sitting on a crude wooden sled. A donkey tethered to a nearby palm tree chewed contentedly at a tuft of brown weeds.
“Greetings, good pilgrims!” the man called out. “Please help an unfortunate who was lamed falling from a scaffold while helping to repair a holy place.”
Thorikos tossed a coin over the side of the cart. “Clever fellow,” he said. “I’ll wager he’s stationed himself out here to relieve pilgrims’ purses before the beggars in Mehenopolis get the chance.”
Beyond the tree shading donkey and beggar, the desert sloped into a shallow bowl filled with greenery. A thick growth of palms formed a dark, dusty sea which lapped at the base of the outcropping. Silver threads marked drainage ditches criss-crossing the area. Mud brick huts could be glimpsed here and there as the travelers rode further toward Mehenopolis, and before long a high wall came into view.
“That’s Melios’ estate, where my buzzing friends and I stay every year,” Apollo said. “The pilgrims stay in the tent camp at the foot of the Rock of the Snake. The rock is where the maze is situated.”
Declining help on the grounds his bees did not care for unfamiliar people to handle their homes, he and the cart driver began unloading the hives, piling them by the estate gate.
Peter leaned over the side of the cart. “The maze?” he asked with interest.
“That’s something else pilgrims come to see as well as the oracle I was telling you about,” Apollo replied, wiping his brow.
Thorikos broke in. “That’s why I’ve traveled so far myself, Peter. I heard fascinating stories about this maze, and the oracle sounds most curious and well worth a visit too.”
The fast sinking sun, although wrapping Mehenopolis in a purplish twilight, still imparted a golden-red tint to the upper part of the outcropping and the low, crumbling wall that encircled its flat top. A semi-ruined building with a high, dark doorway facing east was just visible through a wide gap in the wall.
“That’s the building you enter to get into the maze,” Apollo informed his fellow travelers.
A maze, John thought. How appropriate. He had begun to feel he was already deep inside a labyrinth, without a torch to light his way out.
However, now that he had at last reached his destination, he could at least get to work.
Chapter Sixteen
“Please sit down, Batzas.”
Anatolius remained standing in front of the window of John’s study. His visitor, a younger man with the broad, unmarked face of an overgrown boy, placed himself on the nearest stool. “Did you bring the documents I requested?”
Batzas’ hands tightened on his bundle of papers. “Yes, sir, but-”
“I hear you’re doing well with your temporary new responsibilities. Justinian has not yet named my successor?”
“The emperor is hoping you will reconsider and return.”
“I don’t think I shall. I’ll put in a good word for you. The work you’ve done for me has always been excellent.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Now to business. You composed the letter of introduction given to the Lord Chamberlain, I believe?”
Batzas confirmed this had been the case. Like every first-time visitor to John’s study, Batzas kept glancing uneasily to the girl in the wall mosaic. Anatolius was surprised John did not bring people there to be interrogated, considering the assistance Zoe’s discomfiting gaze would give him.
“Sir, I have those old drafts you were working on, but Justinian ordered the one for the Lord Chamberlain’s introduction be destroyed.”
“That is the usual procedure.”
“I was thinking, on the way over, pardon me, sir, but I can’t reveal anything-”
“I wouldn’t expect it, Batzas. As secretary to the emperor you must cultivate discretion as diligently as a gardener tends her herbs. If anyone had approached me with suspicious inquiries about imperial correspondence, I would have reported the fact to Justinian immediately.”
“That’s exactly what I would do in the same circumstances.”
“You are an astute young man. However, you are also aware that the emperor intensely dislikes being disturbed with trivial matters?”
“Understandably.”
“You’ll appreciate then why I asked you to bring me all the documents I left in my office. As I mentioned then, although I am no longer his official secretary, Justinian has ordered me to draft further correspondence regarding the Lord Chamberlain. There is a detail that has unfortunately escaped me. Naturally, I don’t want to impose on the emperor.”
He took the bundle Batzas had brought and rifled through it. “What miserable luck! I was certain I’d made a note of it.”
“Of what, sir?”
“The Lord Chamberlain’s destination.”
Batzas stiffened. “Sir, I am not permitted-”
“It’s just that I can’t recall how the place was spelled. Those Egyptian names are always so difficult, and I was hoping you could recall the spelling.”
“Oh. Well, if that’s all it is. I can probably remember it.” Batzas looked at the ceiling for a brief time, resembling a schoolboy who was being quizzed. “It’s M-e-h-e-n-o-p-o-l-i-s.”
Anatolius accompanied the young clerk to the door. It irked him to serve as a doorkeeper, but it was quicker than calling for Hypatia, who for once was spending the day there rather than in the hospice. He wondered if she was still at work in the garden.
How could a Lord Chamberlain employ only two servants? There were clerks at the palace who employed more.
As he saw Batzas out, a small brown bird flew into the atrium. They were always getting into his own house too, probably because they nested under the peristyle. He’d even seen them come straight down through the compluvium to bathe in the atrium’s impluvium.