'By the beard of Saint Peter!' sighed the potter. 'These men are looking for their friend. They do not want your sandals.'
'I make very good sandals,' insisted the craftsman. 'And belts as well. You should come and see them.'
'Look here, my friend,' said another, 'there is no goldsmith by the name of Yordanus-or a ship owner, either. I have been selling for twenty-three years in this market and I know everyone. There is no one by that name.'
The market traders fell to arguing with one another over the particularities of the man's identity. Turning to us, Padraig said, 'I am thinking the wool merchant's wife was right. Perhaps we should try to find the house behind the hill."
Again, what should have been a simple task took on unimagined difficulties. No one we asked could tell us where this house might be. As one of our cheerful guides told us, 'The problem is not so much the house, as the hill. There are a great many hills in Cyprus, and most have houses.'
Roupen lost heart and was for returning to the harbour, hiring a boat, and leaving Famagusta behind forever. But, having come this far, and with the day already speeding from us, I was growing more determined than ever to find this Yordanus Hippolytus. Padraig agreed with me. 'If we do not find him today,' I promised Roupen, 'we will be on our way again tomorrow.' So, we tramped around the hills above the port, trying first one house and then another, and came at last to a fine old Roman villa surrounded by a crumbling wall.
In the road ahead I saw a woman carrying a jar in her arms. She turned aside and entered through a low door in the wall. It was hot and we were tired. Thinking merely to ask her for a drink-or at least for directions to a nearby well, I quickened my step and followed her through the doorway and immediately found myself standing in the shaded courtyard of a once-handsome villa. There were large, leafy plants in great earthenware pots around the perimeter of the yard, and a small, finely-formed fig tree growing in the centre beside a rock-rimmed pool. Instantly, the blazing heat of the day vanished, and I felt as if I had entered a haven of peace and calm.
Padraig and Roupen appeared in the doorway behind me, and stepped cautiously into the yard.
'So!' came a voice from the shadows, 'I was right. You were following me.'
I turned to see the woman watching us from behind one of the plants, the jar still in her arms.
'Your pardon, good lady,' I said quickly, hoping to reassure her. 'It was never my intention to alarm you.'
'It would take more than the sight of a ragged traveller to alarm me,' she replied, stepping boldly into the courtyard. Tall and willowy, with long dark hair, her simple blue mantle hung in fresh folds, except where she cradled the jar against the fullness of her breasts and the long curve of her hip. 'What do you want here?' she demanded. She spoke Latin, not Greek, but curiously accented, each word taking on a flattened quality.
'Please, we do not mean to intrude -'
'And yet you do intrude.' Her gaze was direct and unsettling.
'Again, I beg your pardon,' I replied, somewhat abashed. I had hardly spoken a dozen words and already I had apologized twice. I returned her gaze, almost daring her to interrupt again before I finished. 'We are looking for the house of a man called Yordanus.'
'Why?'
'We have business with him.'
'Liar!' she said. 'He does not know you.'
'My lady?'
'Be gone with you at once-before I call the servants to send you away.'
Remembering what the sandal maker had said about Yordanus having a daughter, I glanced at her feet and saw sandals the same shade of red as that which stained the merchant's hands. 'Then this is his house,' I concluded.
'Yes. But do not think you will see him. He sees no one.'
'We have come a very great distance,' I told her. 'All the way from Antioch. Commander Renaud de Bracineaux sent us.'
A cloud of suspicion passed over her face. She stared at me for a moment. 'And who is this Commander de Bracineaux?' she asked at last.
'I had been told he was a friend of Yordanus Hippolytus.'
'He is your friend?'
It was a simple question, but I hesitated. Glancing at Padraig, who merely gazed placidly ahead, I said, 'We know Commander de Bracineaux and respect him-but we are not close friends, no.'
This admission seemed to appease her. 'You can come in,' she said, quickly adding: 'Just one of you. I will ask if my father will receive you.'
'You go, Duncan,' Padraig said. As he and Roupen sat down in the shade, the woman led me across the yard and around the pool to a wide stone-paved walk leading to the entrance to the great house. She did not pause but pushed open the large wooden door, and stepped quickly in, motioning for me to follow.
We entered the cool darkness of a vestibule dressed in marble and tiles. The only light came from a small round window high above the door; it cast a circle of illumination on the blue-tinted tile of the far wall, against which stood a row of statues-some entire human forms, others head-and-shoulders only, and all of them carved in the most wonderful pale, milk-white stone. Although I know nothing of such things, they did appear to me to be very lifelike, which I took to indicate a distinct skill on the part of their maker. That a house should own one such carving was to me a sign of taste and refinement; that this house should boast statues by the rank meant its owner possessed the wealth of a kingdom.
'Wait in there,' instructed Yordanus' daughter, pointing to the chamber beyond, 'and I will see if my father is well enough to receive guests.'
She hurried away and I wandered into the next room-a vast chamber easily more than three times larger than Murdo's great hall back home, and crammed with an assortment of tables, chairs, rugs, cushions, and other costly chattel; ornate jars, ewers, bowls, and platters were stacked carelessly on the tables and floor, and numerous ceremonial spears and halberds with braided tassels and silk bindings stood against the walls.
What I had first taken for tiles on the floor, on closer inspection turned out to be squares of fine polished wood cunningly arranged to form intricate patterns of alternating colours. The two walls at either end of the hall were painted with figures on horseback riding to the hunt of two tusked beasts, accompanied by a pack of enormous hounds. The men in the painting carried spears and small round shields, their clothing loosely flowing and brightly coloured in the manner still favoured by the potentates of the East. The expansive ceiling was tinted the colour of the midday sky.
As I say, the greater portion of the room was given to an accumulation of objects of various kinds: rugs piled in a heap, and others rolled up and tied in bundles resembling cut timber logs; great jars and bowls of bronze and copper; ceremonial weapons -swords, spears, shields, and the like; and baskets of smaller objects -cups and chalices by the score, of horn and onyx and brass. I counted seven enormous banqueting tables, each large enough to seat twenty guests with comfort, and a dozen or more smaller boards; some of these were of gilded wood, and carved with precision. There were chairs, too, some as big as thrones; I saw one or two which the Jarl of Orkneyjar would have boasted to own.
So enthralled was I with the inspection of my surroundings, I failed to discern that I was being watched.
'Take anything,' said a dry, husky voice in formal, precise Latin. 'Take as much as you can carry, just leave us in peace.'