at my neck. A sharp knee caught me in the stomach. Teeth sank into my shoulder. It felt as if I was being attacked by a pack of feral dogs.
I tried to get up and he slammed me backwards. My head hit the ground and lights flared behind my eyes.
Then there was a loud thud and the beggar grunted. I couldn’t feel him flailing at me any longer.
There were more thuds. I blinked. We were surrounded by the orange glow of the lamp Arabia held in one hand. In the other she gripped a bloody half brick.
I pushed myself up.
The beggar lay crumpled face down.
His skull had been caved in.
My chest burned from exertion and I hurt everywhere. If Arabia had arrived too late it would have been me lying there.
She’d saved my life.
I couldn’t take my gaze off the corpse. She’d hit the man again and again. Bloody shards of bone jutted through the matted hair.
Arabia started to sob. “I was so frightened, Victor. So frightened for you.” She threw the brick away. Her narrow shoulders shook.
I put my arm around her. “We’ll go back now. I’ll hide his body later.”
By the time we were back at our hole in the wall we were both shivering uncontrollably.
“Your clothes are ruined,” Arabia said. “I’ll bring you new ones.”
“Steal them from Florentius, you mean! That’s where you’ve been finding the food you bring me, isn’t it? I noticed his household seal on the plate.”
“We’re not stealing. It’s an advance payment.”
“Then again, what’s theft compared to murder?”
“We were only defending ourselves. We had to kill him.”
We? I hadn’t killed the beggar. But, on the other hand, there was Philokalas. I didn’t correct Arabia. We thought alike. “No,” I said, we’re not guilty of murder or theft, or greed or coveting another man’s possessions either, since all we want from Florentius is enough to keep us safe. And as for worshipping graven images, that’s a matter of opinion anyway.”
Arabia laughed. She gave me an appraising look. “You’re forgetting lust,” she said. “And I’m afraid that’s a sin you can’t deny.”
10
Arabia left, returned with food and the clothes she’d promised, and departed again. I set the clean clothing – plain garments of the type servants wear – to one side, for my meeting with Florentius next day. Then I sat down and tried to avoid the gaze of the icon.
Sometimes, when I painted an image, I had the uncanny sensation that the saint in heaven was also right in front of me, under my brush. At such times I felt I was painting a hole in the world and an otherworldly presence was stepping through.
Yet paints were paints. Pigments, wine, water, egg. There wasn’t anything else. Just raw materials and artistic technique.
I tried to keep my gaze on the floor. The crushed head of the rat still poked out from behind the icon. I got up and pushed it out of sight.
What time was it? The middle of the night? Probably earlier. It seemed as if I’d been sitting alone, in the cold, with my thoughts, forever.
Possibly Florentius would have me arrested when I showed up at the Golden Milestone.
I could feel the icon looking down at me. I looked up into those cold, bottomless eyes.
The girl is nothing more than a miserable sinner, the icon seemed to say. Not in words, but in my own thoughts. I swear it spoke to me in my thoughts, stirring them into a resolve I could not have reached on my own.
She is no better than yourself, the thing counselled. A killer. If Florentius betrays you, pretend your intent all along has been to turn over to the authorities a treacherous servant named Arabia who unwisely led you to the hidden icon which you wanted returned to the emperor for proper disposal.
“But Arabia saved my life,” I whispered.
By killing a man, brutally, the icon countered. She was no innocent.
But would Christ offer such advice? Why not? He had administered to men’s human needs when he walked the earth. He had fed the starving. Wasn’t I starving?
There are things that need to be done, the icon told me.
I walked back into the cistern and slung the body of the beggar over my shoulder. I’d had no reason to cross the cistern before but now I followed a line of pillars into the darkness, staggering under the dead man’s reeking weight, balancing my lamp in one hand, until I came to what remained of a concrete wall that had