And in such an era I was supposed to walk around town holding a little painting of Conrad Sauerabend, asking people, “Have you seen this man anywhere?”
My painting wasn’t exactly an icon. Nobody who looked at it was likely to mistake Sauerabend for a saint. Even so, it caused a lot of trouble for me.
“Have you seen this man anywhere?” I asked, and took out the painting.
In the marketplace.
In the bathhouses.
On the steps of Haghia Sophia.
Outside the Great Palace.
“Have you seen this man anywhere?”
In the Hippodrome during a polo match.
At the annual distribution of free bread and fish to the poor on May 11, celebrating the anniversary of the founding of the city.
In front of the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus.
“I’m looking for this man whose portrait I have here.”
Half the time, I didn’t even manage to get the painting fully into the open. They’d see a man pulling an icon from his tunic, and they’d run away, screaming, “Iconodule dog! Worshipper of images!”
“But this isn’t — I’m only looking for — you mustn’t mistake this painting for — won’t you come back?”
I got pushed and shoved and expectorated upon. I got bullied by imperial guards and glowered at by iconoclastic priests. Several times I was invited to attend underground ceremonies of secret iconodules.
I didn’t get much information about Conrad Sauerabend.
Still, despite all the difficulties, there were always some people who looked at the painting. None of them had seen Sauerabend, although a few “thought” they had noticed someone resembling the man in the picture. I wasted two days tracking one of the supposed resemblers, and found no resemblance at all.
I kept on, jumping from year to year. I lurked at the fringes of tourist groups, thinking that Sauerabend might prefer to stick close to people of his own era.
Nothing. No clue.
Finally, footsore and discouraged, I hopped back down to 1105. At Metaxas’ place I found only Pappas, who looked even more weary and bedraggled than I did.
“It’s useless,” I said. “We aren’t going to find him. It’s like looking for — looking for—”
“A needle in a timestack,” Pappas said helpfully.
54.
I had earned a little rest before I returned to that long night in 1204 and sent my alter ego here to continue the search. I bathed, slept, banged a garlicky slavegirl two or three times, and brooded. Kolettis returned: no luck. Plastiras came back: no luck. They went down the line to resume their Courier jobs. Gompers, Herschel, and Melamed, donating time from their current layoffs, appeared and immediately set out on the quest for Sauerabend. The more Couriers who volunteered to help me in my time of need, the worse I felt.
I decided to console myself in Pulcheria’s arms.
I mean, as long as I happened to be in the right era, and as long as Jud B had neglected to stop in to see her, it seemed only proper. We had had some sort of date. Just about the last thing Pulcheria had said to me after that night of nights was, “We’ll meet again two days hence, yes? I’ll arrange everything.”
How long ago had that been?
At least two weeks on the 1105 now-time basis, I figured. Maybe three.
She was supposed to have sent a message to me at Metaxas’, telling me where and how we could have our second meeting. In my concern with Sauerabend I had forgotten about that. Now I raced all around the villa, asking Metaxas’ butlers and his major domo if any messages had arrived from town for me.
“No,” they said. “No messages.”
“Think carefully. I’m expecting an important message from the Ducas palace. From Pulcheria Ducas.”
“From whom?”
“Pulcheria Ducas.”
“No messages, sir.”
I clothed myself in my finest finery and clipclopped into Constantinople. Did I dare present myself at the Ducas place uninvited? I did dare. My country-bumpkin cover identity would justify my possible breach of etiquette.
At the gate of the Ducas palace I rang for the servants, and an old groom came out, the one who had shown me to the chamber that night where Pulcheria had given herself to me. I smiled in a friendly way; the groom peered blankly back. Forgotten me, I thought.
I said, “My compliments to Lord Leo and Lady Pulcheria, and would you kindly tell them that George Markezinis of Epirus is here to call upon them?”
“To Lord Leo and Lady—” the groom repeated.
“Pulcheria,” I said. “They know me. I’m cousin to Themistoklis Metaxas, and—” I hesitated, feeling even more foolish than usual at giving my pedigree to a groom. “Get me the major-domo,” I snapped.
The groom scuttled within.
After a long delay, an imperious-looking individual in the Byzantine equivalent of livery emerged and surveyed me.
“Yes?”
“My compliments to Lord Leo and Lady Pulcheria, and would you kindly tell them—”
“Lady who? ”
“Lady Pulcheria, wife to Leo Ducas. I am George Markezinis of Epirus, cousin to Themistoklis Metaxas, who only several weeks ago attended the party given by—”
“The wife to Leo Ducas,” said the major-domo frostily, “is named Euprepia.”
“Euprepia?”
“Euprepia Ducas, the lady of this household. Man, what do you want here? If you come drunken in the middle of the day to trouble Lord Leo, I—”
“Wait,” I said. “Euprepia?Not Pulcheria?” A golden bezant flickered into my hand and fluttered swiftly across to the waiting palm of the major-domo. “I’m not drunk, and this is important. When did Leo marry this — this Euprepia?”
“Four years ago.”
“Four — years — ago. No, that’s impossible. Five years ago he married Pulcheria, who—”
“You must be mistaken. The Lord Leo has been married only once, to Euprepia Macrembolitissa, the mother of his son Basil and of his daughter Zoe.”
The hand came forth. I dropped another bezant into it.
Dizzily I murmured, “His eldest son is Nicetas, who isn’t even born yet, and he isn’t supposed to have a son named Basil at all, and — my God, are you playing a game with me?”
“I swear before Christ Pantocrator that I have said no word but the truth,” declared the major-domo resonantly.
Tapping my pouch of bezants, I said, desperate now, “Would it be possible for me to have an audience with the Lady Euprepia?”
“Perhaps so, yes. But she is not here. For three months now she has rested at the Ducas palace on the coast at Trebizond, where she awaits her next child.”
“Three months. Then there was no party here a few weeks ago?”
“No, sir.”
“The Emperor Alexius wasn’t here? Nor Themistoklis Metaxas? Nor George Markezinis of Epirus? Nor—”
“None of those, sir. Can I help you further?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, and went staggering from the gate of the Ducas palace like unto one who has been smitten by the wrath of the gods.
55.
Dismally I wandered in a southeasterly way along the Golden Horn until I came to the maze of shops, marketplaces, and taverns near the place where there would one day be the Galata Bridge, and where today there is still a maze of shops, marketplaces, and taverns. Through those narrow, interweaving, chaotic streets I marched like a zombie, having no destination. I saw not, neither did I think; I just put one foot ahead of the other one and kept going until, early in the afternoon, kismet once more seized me by the privates.
I stumbled randomly into a tavern, a two-story structure of unpainted boards. A few merchants were downing their midday wine. I dropped down heavily at a warped and wobbly table in an unoccupied corner of the room and sat staring at the wall, thinking about Leo Ducas’ pregnant wife Euprepia.