Like John, Isis had resided for some time in that bright city although they had never actually met there, a detail she always conveniently overlooked.
“I’ll visit you again very soon and devote a few hours to talking about the old days, I promise. But I have an audience with Justinian this afternoon, so I hope you won’t feel offended by my questions.”
Isis finished sampling her date before answering. “Of course not, John,” she finally said. “But you see I am certain that I cannot help you because I have long since barred dwarfs from my house. My rule is that if you can’t see over the head of the little Eros outside, you will not be admitted.”
John expressed his mystification at such a policy.
“You’ve lived in Egypt and so you know we consider the dwarf Bes to be a most benevolent god, for he guards against all manner of misfortunes. But what it all boils down to is a question of good business practice. Long ago I found that men of such small stature will fight my other patrons at the drop of an insult, whether one that’s real or merely perceived. They seem determined to prove that their lack of height doesn’t mean they are lesser men. For the same reason, they tax my girls more heavily than the emperor’s collectors, and they complain.”
John set down his goblet. The possibility that there was anything a Constantinople prostitute might find unnatural was one that had never occurred to him. He said so.
“You’re surprised? Let me tell you, the girls in my house never entertain men working in the theater. Especially mimes. There are no men more lascivious than mimes and if anyone spurns their advances, well…and Barnabas is a famous mime. Need I say more?”
“Well, Isis, at least I’ve learned something from my inquiries this morning even if it isn’t directly concerned with my current investigations.” John got up from the couch, relieved to be freed from its overly soft embrace. “All the same, it may be that one of your employees might hear something of Barnabas from a patron, in which case I would be very interested to learn of it.”
“If they should, I’ll send word to you immediately. One who murders a child deserves all that he gets, but first he must be caught and I’ll do whatever I can to assist you to do that.” Isis waved a soft, beringed hand emphatically to underline her words.
John parted with yet another coin. He and Isis were old friends, but business was business and their friendship never interfered with that.
***
As he left Isis’ establishment, John realized it would soon be time for his audience with Justinian. He would have to attend even though his search for Barnabas or information concerning his whereabouts had so far proved fruitless. He had not really expected to find his quarry in the crowded city but he had, he hoped, contrived to provide himself with several extra pairs of eyes to keep watch for the missing mime.
His walk back to the palace took him past the theater. He briefly considered stepping in again to have another word with Brontes. However, deciding against a second visit, he instead cut down a short alley nearby. Emerging into the sunlight of another nondescript square, he had to step quickly aside to avoid treading on a three-legged cat that suddenly scuttled across his path.
The cat loped with remarkable speed to the portico of a warehouse a few paces away. Sitting there was a woman he had hoped to find. He had encountered her in the course of a previous investigation when she had provided him with valuable information about life on the streets of the city.
“Pulcheria!” he greeted her.
The woman looked up, startled. There was no mistaking her. Her hair was decorated with colored scraps of ribbon, her clothes a wild, layered collection of garish tatters. More memorable yet, while one side of her face retained a hint of its youthful beauty, the other was a shapeless mass where the flesh had melted like a guttering candle, the result of burning lamp oil flung at her by an unhappy client. She fixed John with her one good eye as her mouth made half a smile.
“Do you remember me?” John asked.
She got to her feet in a flurry of multi-hued rags. “Who could forget such a tall, handsome fellow? And a man of mystery, no less! I see that you’re much better dressed than when we first met, excellency. Perhaps your fortune has changed for the better? Though I think it’s much more likely that it is now exactly as it was then.”
“I apologize if you feel that I misled you when we first met, my friend.”
“Friend? When was the last time you visited me? Come now, you’re here on business, plain and simple, and nothing more. Am I not right?”
It was true, John admitted. “Then tell me, you’re familiar with the theater in the next square?”
“Of course. When there’s a performance there’s not a street anywhere near it that can boast a single one of us working folks. We all go over there where we can easily find clients.”
“Do you have an acquaintance with any of the actors who work there?”
Pulcheria nodded, the bright ribbons in her black, matted hair fluttering.
John quickly described the man he was seeking.
“Barnabas, you mean?” Half of the woman’s face creased into a grin. “Sometimes on a summer day I hear what sounds like thunder, as if a great storm is approaching over the sea, yet there’s not a cloud in the sky. Then I realize that Barnabas must be performing and the thunder I think I hear is the laughter of his audience. I remember when I first came to live in this square, excellency. I was rendering service in that very alley and my client suddenly became incapable from laughter. I was mortified, fearing he would not pay me, but he told me not to mind, he was just recalling Barnabas. He’d seen his act with the phalluses not long before. And in fact he did pay me, despite lack of satisfaction.”
Her one good eye looked intently at John as she continued. “Of course, excellency, if I should hear anything that would assist you…”
John pressed two coins, rather than the single coin he had planned to give her, into her grubby hand, and said he would visit again soon. As he went back along the alley he found himself thinking that a man as famous and recognizable as Barnabas surely could not hide for very much longer.
***
“Look out!” the emperor cried.
A small round object flew in a rising arc past John’s face to explode in a shower of twigs through the canopy of one of the tall cedars edging the sea wall. It vanished into the heat haze shimmering over the Sea of Marmara.
John’s glance at the grassy playing field to his left revealed a horse being reined to a halt a short distance away. A polo stick was grasped in its rider’s hand.
“My apologies, Lord Chamberlain. I’ve only just learned this particular athletic activity and I’m not fully expert at controlling the direction of the ball.”
John recognized the rider. It was the boy Hektor, now grown perilously large for his duties as an ornamental court page. There were several mounted players on the field, on the far side of which two other pages and three girls stood giggling together in conspiratorial fashion. Hektor wheeled away to rejoin the game, giving John no opportunity to reply.
Justinian strolled up to John, clapped him on his shoulder and laughed.
“It’s a stroke of good fortune, so to speak, that that ball didn’t hit your head, Lord Chamberlain.” The emperor’s tone was almost jovial. “Yes, I’ve put some of the older pages to work entertaining the young ladies. Less paint on their faces and more perspiration, that’s what I’ve advised for those youths.”
John looked thoughtfully after the players. In the oppressive stillness the shouts of the players announced a new ball was in play. Beyond the far edge of the field, dusty landscaped grounds rose in terraces toward the stolid rectangular mass of the Daphne Palace. Several buildings, his house among them, could be seen scattered here and there amid groves of trees and flower gardens on the slopes above. Here by the sea wall the sultry air smelled of brine, trodden grass and the nearby stables, beyond which the cages of the imperial menagerie lay in quiet shadow. Only one of its cages was occupied and its resident, a large bear, was fast asleep, half buried in a bed of straw. John wished he could likewise lie down and rest but unfortunately for now that was not going to be possible.