heard. I can’t imagine it.”
The way his eyes sparkled it looked to me as if he were trying hard to imagine the scene. We got down to business, looking over our shoulders all the time.
“Yes, I know where you mean,” he said when I described the courtyard with the door to the stairway leading underground. “It’s been empty some time with just a watchman living there. A few coins will ensure he looks the other way.”
I lingered after he’d gone so we would not be seen walking together.
Everything was arranged.
My gaze wandered across the Golden Milestone. Over the centuries, one emperor after another had mounted his own garish ornaments on the monument.
I found myself studying a group of three statues. Women. They blazed in the sunlight. While some might dream of having gold stitching in their hems and gold medallions pinned to their stolas, these three far exceeded such dreams for they were, themselves, entirely gilded.
From where I stood I could read the inscription on their plinth. They represented Sophia, the wife of Emperor Justin II, Justin’s niece Helena, and his daughter, Arabia.
The name was surely a sign.
I was confident by the next evening, Arabia and I would be in very different circumstances.
I was not mistaken.
13
Arabia brought the final meal I would consume in our underground hiding place. I ate smoked mackerel and described my meeting. She took the news that arrangements were in place as a matter of course but didn’t linger. She had to be up early to be on hand to guide Florentius.
“Then we shall have a long day ahead, putting the city behind us,” she said, leaning forward to give me a last kiss.
When she was gone, I began on the biscuits she’d brought. As I chewed, I noticed reddish flakes on the half-eaten portion in my hand. I brought it up to my eyes. The flakes were paint which had blistered off the icon.
I looked up into the monstrous face. Whereas before, the visage had been stern, now it seemed absolutely malevolent. It radiated hatred. The black pupils of the gigantic eyes were pits, opening on to some illimitable void.
The quibbling of theologians notwithstanding, it was clear Christ had walked the earth in recognizably human form, but the painted Christ before me was not human. Why hadn’t I noticed? The eyes weren’t human. They were out of proportion. All the features were the wrong size. The shape of the skull was unnatural. There was something very wrong with the mouth.
This was not Christ but something else.
Of course. It was the devil who had presided over the city for so many years. Was that surprising when you considered what went on in the alleyways and the mansions? The horror and depravity? Why would anyone think otherwise?
And wasn’t the distorted visage similar to those I painted? Did any of those supposed holy men look human? It had been Satan directing my hand, using it to fill the city with painted demons.
Demons who were human beings were already there – and I among them.
The darkness in the eyes stirred in the trembling lamplight. I thought I could see lights in the depths. The faint glow of an unimaginably distant conflagration.
There came into my head a soft sound like that made by a flame leaping from a bonfire.
The sound resolved into words. Why do you think of Satan or Christ? As if there is any difference. There is no good or evil. There is simply what is. Do you truly want to share your reward with the servant girl? Is she to be trusted any more than Philokalas?
Then I felt my hand close around a jagged chunk of brick, felt myself draw the deadly weapon into my robes.
“No,” I whispered. “I won’t. I can’t.”
But you can, the icon told me. Have courage.
I fell back and lay there, arguing in my mind with the icon, with myself, and after an eternity dropped into blessed unconsciousness.
Voices woke me.
I scrambled stiffly to my feet. I was aware of the weight of the brick I had concealed inside my tunic.
Was it already morning?
The voices came nearer.
“Here we are.” It was Arabia.
She appeared in the irregular entrance to our lair, smiling. Her impossibly brilliant eyes widened a little as if to tell me, “See, just as I promised, we’ve done it. It’s all right now.”
She carried a bulky leather satchel. Florentius was right behind her and I backed up to make room.
Florentius gasped and his florid face grew redder. He stared at the huge