“They were gifts from his guests. Everyone who took advantage of the senator’s hospitality presented him with a token of their appreciation. I don’t suppose these crude little things cost much.” His tone conveyed his opinion of the generosity of the senator’s guests.
“What is their purpose?”
“Miracles, sir. Each of these flasks is filled with oil from a lamp in a martyr’s tomb, or water from a spring near the spot where a miracle occurred. It’s said these mementos possess holy powers from being in close proximity to such holy sites.”
Anatolius examined the collection. Several flasks bore the same inscription and scene as the first. One or two were incised with simple crosses, while another featured both a cross and a broad, wavy line. It was a crude but effective attempt to render the sea and so doubtless most appealing to pious mariners, he thought.
“Did Senator Symacchus ever mention Bishop Crispin?”
“No, sir, not to me, but perhaps his bequest will serve to lessen the bishop’s disappointment that the master failed to obtain the Egyptian relic he had promised him.”
“And you know this because…?”
Diomedes reddened. “Achilles told me, sir. One of the senator’s guests, a fellow called Melios, talked about it constantly and Achilles overheard. He was always gossiping about the master’s business. I warned him more than once it would lead to trouble, but he took no notice.”
“Indeed. Tell me, were you in the senator’s employment when the former page Hektor worked here?”
“No, sir. Hektor was a reader, like myself. Servants who’ve been here longer than I recall him well.”
Anatolius did not reply. His gaze wandered over the contents of the room. From a shallow basket he plucked one of a number of enameled metal crosses.
“I’ll take this with me as well, Diomedes. I’ll notify the Quaestor’s office I have it. The bishop’s legacy only mentions pilgrim flasks, but I am certain he will appreciate this small item too.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Cornelia persuaded John to take a walk after sunset brought a welcome coolness to the air.
Behind them the buildings on the estate subsided into dark shapes dotted with stray will-o’-the-wisps of lamplight. Starlight glimmered on irrigation ditches. A sickle moon rode hungrily low on the horizon.
After a lengthy silence, Cornelia laid her hand on John’s arm. “My thoughts often turn to those we left behind in Constantinople.”
John looked down at her. “I understand how you feel, Cornelia. I think of them often too.”
“And when my thoughts aren’t in Constantinople, they’re here, but in the past. Being together again, in this land, feels almost as it did then.”
John’s hand rested for an instant on hers. “Tell me, why did you never marry?”
The question took Cornelia by surprise. “I never thought of marrying. When you didn’t return, I kept hoping…”
“I was an impetuous young man. I could have decided I didn’t want to be tied down.”
“You might have decided to leave me, John, but you would have told me so. You would never have crept away in the night.”
John nodded. “Even so, many years passed before we met again.”
“It didn’t seem so long, especially with a daughter to raise. So I waited for your return, and meantime kept hoping I might see you in the audience in some dusty town square.” She laughed softly. “I never realized you had risen to such high office, that it would be necessary for the troupe to perform in the Hippodrome in order to find you again.”
“If I had thought our lives could be the way they were before, I’d have sought you out, no matter where you were. I would have been content to remain with you, no matter how small or dusty the village. But, of course, it cannot be that way.”
“Why did you suppose it cannot be, John?”
Before John could answer, light flared in the sky.
“Look!” Cornelia pointed to a fiery ball that soared above Mehenopolis’ thick canopy and mounted swiftly past the sickle moon into the heavens above the Rock of the Snake.
Suddenly the air was filled an unearthly screeching, as if someone had cracked open the door to the Christian hell to allow the sound of souls screaming in endless agony to emerge.
Shouts echoed from the direction of the estate.
John and Cornelia ran toward it.
Above, the fireball wheeled and looped, throwing off showers of sparks. Long shadows spun wildly over the path and gardens along their way.
Then the flying thing fell like a burning rock.
The terrible screeching ended abruptly.
Red light danced in the open space in front of Melios’ barn. The stack of straw was ablaze. Men ran up, shouting and gesticulating, shaking their fists at the now empty sky. A child toddled past unattended, sucking its thumb and whimpering.
“It’s Hecate come to kill everyone!” an indistinct figure cried. “Only Dedi can save us!”
“No, it’s an angel sent to punish us for listening to Dedi, that blaspheming bastard!” another shadow answered.
Words were exchanged that Cornelia couldn’t make out. Then, deciding to reinforce his theological position, one of the debaters shoved the other, whose quick refutation consisted of a fist to his opponent’s jaw. Several onlookers stepped forward to join the incipient fray.
Cornelia noticed the tall, stooped figure of the old cleric, Zebulon. He strode toward the melee and without hesitation grabbed one of the fighters by the shoulder.
“Stop it! Do you think heaven would reveal itself with a cheap display such as this? If the Lord wanted to deliver a message He’d do more than send an angel to set fire to a pile of straw.”
The fighters looked abashed. Grumbling darkly, they turned away from each other.
Zebulon glanced around, shook his head, saw the unattended toddler, and contented himself with taking the child’s hand. “Come along, little one. We’ll find your mother.”
Cornelia and John made their way through the crowd toward the fire.
Sheep bleated frantically and servants cursed as they ran back and forth between the pond and the blaze, throwing ineffectual buckets of water at the conflagration.
Melios stood a short distance off, clasping and unclasping his hands. His milky eye shone like that of a wild animal.
“You need a bucket line,” John told him.
The headman stared as if he’d been struck dumb.
“Organize a bucket line before you lose your barn!” John said.
“Have you seen Apollo?” The headman’s gaze darted to the air, then side to side, as if he expected another flaming apparition to come flying at him any instant. “His bees don’t like smoke. I don’t want swarms of angry insects everywhere.”
John proceeded to organize the frantic servants himself. Some he grabbed by their arms and he yelled and gestured at others, cursing profusely.
“I’m surprised to hear the Lord Chamberlain has the regrettable vocabulary of a dock worker,” said a voice at Cornelia’s shoulder.
Zebulon had returned.
“He’s in the habit of cursing in Coptic because so few in Constantinople understand it,” Cornelia explained. “I suppose he’s forgotten here he’s using the native tongue.”
“And using it extremely colorfully, if deplorably, though I will say most effectively.”
Already the men had formed a chain and begun to pass brimming buckets of water along it in rapid succession.
“The flying demon will make a good subject for a homily,” Zebulon remarked, “although I had been thinking I could base a meditation on a more prosaic horror recently visited upon us.”
He inclined his head in the direction of Melios’ house, toward which a burly figure strode.
“I mean of course the tax assessor,” he went on. “No doubt Scrofa is worried assessable property might go up in flames. However, I notice he doesn’t seem anxious to help prevent any losses.”