Athanasius had been here several times before, mostly to launch various performances and sign off on the merchandise from the sleazy local idolmaker Supremus. He had also consulted on the design of the grand new library that had been proposed for the city by Julius Celsus Polemaenus, a local Greek who had become quite rich in Rome. The current library to which he was headed was small and only a single story. By financing a three-story edifice, Celsus was angling to win the governorship of Asia from Domitian in the near future. Athanasius had always considered the Celsus family sellouts for so easily embracing Rome and its religion and yet using their Greek heritage to win commercial and political advantage in their home province.
As he walked from the harbor up past the city’s great bathhouses, Athanasius realized he couldn’t fight the temptation to stop by the city’s other great attraction—its 44,000-seat amphitheater, the largest in the world—if only to see if his Oedipus Sex comedy was still playing. So he marched up Marble Street to find out, passing the library on the way—and spotting a wine shop and tavern across from the entrance that he would be sure to return to after dropping off the letter.
Up at the theater, there was a crowd milling about, as the stage served the public as a forum by day if there were no performances or rehearsals underway.
A bad omen for him, he thought.
He stopped a stranger who was walking away from a conversation to ask, “Anything playing tonight? I saw no signs at the entrance.”
“Nothing right now. Rome canceled Oedipus Sex along with its playwright Athanasius of Athens. It’s too bad. I really liked the Greek rascal.”
“So did I,” Athanasius replied, and turned away.
So word of my demise has reached Ephesus, he thought. Perhaps that was a good thing. The general population wouldn’t be apt to recognize him if they didn’t expect to see him, even if the Romans were looking for him. The mind was funny that way with the eyes. He would need that luck now at the library.
• • •
Retracing his steps down Marble Way, Athanasius approached the city library with caution. It was a small but deep single-story building squashed between two larger ones. It had seen better days, and Athanasius assumed few denarii were going toward its upkeep what with the grand new library being planned, complete with a two-tiered façade and three levels of niches. He walked up three short steps and passed between the pair of Ionic columns flanking the entrance.
Inside was a large rectangular hall that faced east toward the morning sun. There were windows just below the vaulted ceiling to allow natural light, along with the central square oculus in the flat ceiling. The central apse was framed by a large arch at the far wall, and inside the apse stood a statue of Athena, the goddess of truth. Along the other three sides were rectangular recesses that held shelves for the nearly 4,000 scrolls.
He was greeted by one of two unarmed guards who watched for theft from patrons on the way out and was directed toward the main marble counter by the statue of Athena.
Like other libraries around the empire, Athanasius knew that this one existed for the benefit of students and traveling Romans. As such they tended to house collections of local documents of interest. So his request to see the memoir of Mucianus and his travels throughout Asia shouldn’t raise any eyebrows.
He glanced around at various patrons as he walked toward the counter, curious to know if one of them was the man who would pick up his letter the moment he had returned the volume he was about to check out. Whoever it was would say a lot about Timothy and his selection of associates. If what Cleo said was true, then the spy would have to be somebody high enough in the church. John or Timothy would know his identity, no doubt. Athanasius had no clue, and yet he was about to reveal himself to this agent, and this made him most uncomfortable. For in so doing, he might be revealing himself to spies from Rome or the Dei or both, if they were watching John’s men.
At the counter was a civilized, older librarian whom Athanasius vaguely recognized. He prayed to Jupiter and Jesus both that the patrician didn’t recognize him, and thanked the gods that he hardly ever spent time in libraries while supervising his performances abroad.
“And how can I help you, sir?” the senior librarian asked in a professional but almost too loud voice that spoke volumes about the gravitas that the library sought to project about itself.
“I’m traveling through Anatolia and was told I should check out a memoir by a former governor if I want to do some sightseeing. It’s a travelogue by Gaius Mucius Mucianus.”
“Ah, yes. Miracles in Asia Minor. If you believe in that sort of thing.”
Athanasius said nothing about the editorial comment. “You have it then?”
“But, of course,” the librarian said, taking a small leather strip from his counter. “It’s in a private shelf in back only because we need to reserve as much space as possible on the public stacks for more popular works. Someday, when the new library goes up, we’ll have room to hold 12,000 scrolls. Even then we’d fit into the smallest corner of the Temple of Artemis. Excuse me.”
He disappeared for a moment, and Athanasius looked around, catching in just the twinkling of an eye the stare of a man at a table, who quickly buried himself back again in his scroll. Athanasius pretended not to notice.
Friend or foe? he wondered, and the librarian returned without the leather strip nor any volumes.
“Is there a problem?” Athanasius asked.
“Not at all,” the librarian said. “One of our staff is setting them out for you at that table over there. There are a good 12 volumes, you know.”
Athanasius looked over at the corner of the room nearest the statue of Athena, where a scrawny young man dropped each volume like a heavy brick, only drawing even more attention than Athanasius had already.
“Twelve volumes, you say?” Athanasius asked. John had said there were only eleven, Athanasius recalled. He supposed it didn’t matter, as he was only to concern himself with volume eight. “I might have to come back tomorrow and possibly the day after just to get through half of them.”
“That’s usually the case, sir,” the librarian said with a knowing look. “Please sit down and make yourself comfortable. Take all the time you need.”
“Certainly,” said Athanasius, and made his way over to the table in back by Athena, aware of curious glances. He sat down and cracked open the first volume.
The scrawny librarian worked silently nearby, rearranging stacks of scrolls and books. Every now and then he glanced over as Athanasius picked up one volume and then another, making notes on his own tablet like a traveler would to mark highlights for his journey. The volumes were arranged geographically, with sections inside further broken down to cities within the provinces that Mucianus detailed, each with a story of some miraculous spring, fish, fruit or even rock that was unnaturally large or boasted healing properties or some such.
When he came to the seventh volume, he actually picked up the eighth volume, looking through it like he did the others. This one had a section in back on Cappadocia and its underground cities. Interesting, he thought, and surreptitiously slipped his letter into the section and closed the volume.
He made quick work of two more volumes before leaving them all on the table and returning to the librarian at the counter.