They were in the Hippodrome. His assailants had carted him out to the wall of the spina in the middle of the race track. The serpent was one of three huge, intertwined snakes which had once supported the sacred bowl at the Delphic Oracle before being carried off to Constantinople.
“Do you want to know your future, captain?” came a voice. “That prophesy is not very mysterious, is it?”
Felix saw what the man meant. From the serpent head jutting out over the track dangled a rope with a noose at the end.
Felix looked around, trying to control an overwhelming sensation of dizziness. “Who is in charge?” he demanded, trying to keep his voice steady. “Everyone knows Justinian supports the Blues, but if you believe the rumor that he exempts your faction from the law you are mistaken. When he finds out-” Someone shoved him from behind. He hit the ground face down, lifted his head, spitting sand, and took a boot to the ribs.
Idle class though the Blues were-for only the well-to-do could afford the extravagant clothing they preferred and the idleness in which they had earned their foul reputation-they hunted in packs like jackals, and once a group had their prey at a disadvantage, they dared any violence up to and including murder. They feared nothing, knowing Justinian was of the same racing persuasion.
The toe of a boot stung his shoulder. He averted his face, trying to protect himself as blow after blow descended. At some point he lost consciousness and returned to the world sputtering after a bucket of water was emptied over his head.
He started to turn to see his tormentors. A powerful hand forced his head down, grinding his face in the sand. Then it yanked his head up by the hair, pulling it back until he feared his neck would crack.
He could see the rope hanging, the hungry open maw of the noose waiting expectantly.
“What happened to the courier?” came a hoarse whisper.
“Courier?” Felix felt blood trickling from his forehead.
His interrogator pulled his head further back. “When you are hanging by your neck and gasping for the next breath which you will never draw, you’ll wish you could talk. So you had better do so now. As you well know, I am asking about the man sent to your house who has not been seen since. More importantly, for men are many and riches few, what have you done with the relic?”
“Relic?”
“I see you are intent on trying to out-echo Echo,” The whisperer’s tone became more impatient. “The relic I am talking about is the relic you have been expecting. Since I have no objection to plain speech, I mean the holy mother’s shroud.”
The voice was dry and raspy. The voice of a man much older than the young thugs who had attacked Felix. And despite being muted it hinted at a sonorous quality, almost familiar. Felix tried to turn again and again was prevented from doing so by the hand on the back of his head. He decided to throw the knucklebones at a venture. “I admit I saw the courier but I don’t know where he is now. As for the shroud, he may have had it once but he didn’t when he came to me.”
“Why would he arrive empty-handed?”
“That’s exactly why I’ve been trying to find the scoundrel, to question him.”
“Don’t try to be clever, captain. We know he had it and we know he came to your house. I’ve had you followed all day, hoping you might lead us to the relic, but time grows short. Wherever you’ve hidden the shroud you’d best retrieve it quickly because it will be called for a day hence. We will find you, wherever you are, and you’d better have it in your possession when we do. I intend to take charge of the matter personally. Let’s hope you recover quickly enough not to need further reminders of what you are required to do!”
With that, at a word to the group of men clustered nearby, the boots resumed their work until the dark heavens swooped down upon Felix again.
Chapter Twenty-one
Dedi pressed back against the shadowed wall of the Hippodrome as a gang of Blues erupted from an archway, cursing and laughing.
“So much for that!” one grunted.
“A rope necklace solves a lot of problems,” laughed another.
Dedi had halted abruptly just beyond the light from the torch beside the entrance. His attention shifted instantly from his own quarry to fear that he might spotted by the Blues and become a quarry himself.
Not that he would escape them for long.
Fortunately one of the beggars who clustered around the archway at night extended a grubby palm. Either he was blind or his humors were deranged, Dedi thought. Nobody begged from a Blue.
A Blue kicked the beggar’s legs out from under him. The pack moved in and the man was reduced to a bloody heap in scarcely less time than it took them to cross the street singing a ribald song after they’d finished.
Suddenly there was a figure bending over the moaning beggar. It had appeared from nowhere, as if precipitated out of the thick, rank night air by the evil Dedi just witnessed. The figure straightened up and with a thrill of horror Dedi recognized the face of the hellish being for which he had been keeping a watch, the thing that had taken the form of Antonina’s servant Tychon.
When the thing set off at a rapid pace parallel to the Hippodrome, it had two shadows. One its own, the other Dedi.
Its destination proved to be Baths of Zeuxippos. Why not? A creature mimicking a human would mimic human habits, Dedi reasoned as he stayed close on its heels. The creature paid the small fee to enter the baths and disappeared into the echoing portico.
Dedi, delayed at the entrance, finally located his quarry again near a fountain in the vast atrium. It was talking to two men seated on a curved bench. Dedi pretended to study the inscription on the base of a nearby statue of Demosthenes. From what he could overhear, the men were discussing palace scandals and whether the Green team had a chance of beating the Blues in the next round of chariot races.
“If the Blue charioteers are as savage on the track as their partisans are on the streets, the Greens don’t stand a chance,” the thing passing as Tychon said, and went on to describe what the Blues had done to the beggar. “He had a few coins on him. Enough to pay my way in here and buy me a drink.”
The bronze orator looked on, tight-lipped, as if expressing disapproval of the artless conversation.
At last the demon set off again. Turning down one corridor after another, he came to a cold pool, deserted at this time of night.
Dedi lurked beside its entrance. Venturing a peek around the corner of the doorway he saw the thing begin to strip off its clothing. He held his breath. Perhaps it hadn’t bothered to retain a semblance of humanity beneath its garments, nor would it bother to do so with no one, so it seemed, around.
Dedi braced himself for some vision of horror, hooves, a scaly tail.
There was only a pair of buttocks, paler than twin moons.
The cunning creature padded off to the pool. Dedi saw the thing dangle its legs into the water, which did not sizzle and boil at the touch of the infernal flesh as Dedi half expected.
Moving quickly Dedi crept into the changing room, pushed aside the tunic left crumpled on a bench, grabbed the woven belt underneath, and slipped silently away.
Unseen.
He hoped.
DAY FOUR
Chapter Twenty-two
John stood in the prow of the Leviathan staring into the fog. He could not make out the shore or even the waves rolling the deck under his sodden boots. Toward the stern crew members moved in and out of the mist, dissolving and materializing like phantoms, accompanied by the murmur of the unseen waves, the groaning of timbers, the creak of wet ropes, and occasionally a muffled, disembodied voice.