Now I couldn’t give the icon eyes. I had swallowed his eyes.
I gagged. Nothing came up.
I was still hungry, and thirsty too.
And the Lord wasn’t likely to give much assistance to someone who’d just eaten his eyes.
2
“The fact of the matter, Flaccus, is that I don’t have so much as a copper follis to my name.”
Flaccus sat placidly sipping his wine on the other side of the tavern table. He didn’t offer to buy me a cup. “I’m lugging bricks myself, Victor. Plenty of work in that line.”
Easy for him to say. He was a big, broad bull of a man, unlike myself.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I replied. “The earthquake left plenty of rubble. Cheap construction material.”
“Leo’s a frugal sort.”
“Imagine, a frugal emperor. What’s the empire come to? What would Justinian the Great say if he could see us here, two hundred years in his future, his glorious Constantinople half deserted and in ruins? No work for artists like ourselves. Unless you happen to know someone who—”
Flaccus shook his head. “I haven’t found a buyer for months. I had a few patrons commission work under the table, until Leo ordered the Chalke Gate Christ replaced by that hideous cross. Now everyone’s frightened.”
“No doubt the idea of Patriarch Anastasius. Does anyone take this nonsense seriously? This idea that veneration of images amounts to idolatry?”
Flaccus shrugged. “Whatever God in heaven might think about seeing his son depicted in egg tempera, here on earth it’s the emperor’s opinion that counts.”
He started in on his bread and cheese. I looked away, over his wide shoulder, but the mosaic on the wall tormented me with a plate piled high with fruit.
If Flaccus with his enormous ego and artistic pretences was resigned to hauling bricks, perhaps it was time for me to finally put my plan into action. Except I didn’t exactly have a plan. And, even if I did, I needed an accomplice. Or, rather, a partner. Not Flaccus, certainly. He’d just turn me in for the reward. So would everyone else I knew. What could you expect from men who made a living painting martyrs for wealthy aristocrats? Men like me?
His stool squeaked as Flaccus stood. “Good seeing you, Victor. Remember what I said – bricks. I’d be happy to put in a word for you.” He belched and left.
A couple of young men in good but threadbare cloaks entered the tavern. They might have been clerks from the palace. Shouldn’t they have been at work by now? Did they have a shifty look about them or was that just my imagination? I got up hastily and went back out into the cold.
What did I need a partner for anyway? If I could sell the thing, the buyer could do the donkey-work.
But the idea of working alone scared me. That was it, if I was honest about it.
Or possibly it was just an excuse to do nothing.
I kept looking behind me for the fellows who were posing as clerks but didn’t see them. Which didn’t mean they weren’t trailing me.
I couldn’t put a plan in motion while I was under surveillance, could I?
3
A winter wind off the Sea of Marmara groaned under colon-nades. No one who had anywhere better to go was out on the streets.
When I got back to my room, as hungry and thirsty as when I’d left, but colder, I found I’d been locked out.
My landlady answered her door at the first knock. “Don’t try to apologize,” she croaked before I could speak. “This time you have to leave. I’m a charitable woman, young man, but I need to eat too.” Her face was as brown and wrinkled as her robes.
“But I’m sure to have the rent soon, Macedonia. I’ve almost finished a new icon. All I need is a buyer.” I had begun to shiver. I didn’t want to go back out into the wind.
Macedonia only frowned, deepening the creases in her face.
“I’ll give you the icon,” I told her. “It’s worth far more than a month’s rent. Or will be, once this all passes.”
“Another icon? My back room already looks like the Great Church did before that devil Leo got started. This folly won’t pass until the emperor does.”
“In dark times those of the true faith find comfort in the glow of sacred images,” I argued.
“Especially an admirable pious woman such as myself. Isn’t that what you always tell me? I’m surprised you don’t gild your paintings with your tongue!”
“This new image is a fine portrait of the saviour. But