Four for a Boy Page 14

  Tryphon regarded him shrewdly. “Ah, now we come to the point of your visit. You think it is possible he may have been murdered over money matters? That’s the cause of many murders, I would imagine, but it’s less likely grounds among businessmen.”

  The landowner gazed out over the restless water. Fixing his stare on a distant sail he went on, choosing his words with care. “Hypatius was known for his piety and charitable works. I can’t see that those who benefited from his generous purse would wish to see him dead. Occasionally one heard rumors of less than honorable business transactions. Lately there’s been some talk of his mistreatment of his servants. I think it’s safe to put all that down to disgruntled rivals and the usual whinings of lazy menials. After all, if you cannot attack a man for his success you can always drop a few poisonous words about his private life, even if you know nothing about it.”

  “Especially if you know nothing about it,” Felix observed.

  “Successful and wealthy men always attract envy. Envy breeds anger. Angry men speak without thought and usually, so I have noticed, live to regret it.”

  “We understand that Hypatius was a close associate of Senator Opimius,” put in John.

  “Opimius?” Tryphon pursed his lips in thought and looked away from the water. The squat shape of the merchant ship he had been watching could now barely be discerned. Doubtless the vessel was laden with marble slabs or amphorae of wine or oil, but from their vantage point it looked like a toy a child had dropped from the seawall, only to cry over its loss.

  “I am not acquainted personally with the senator,” Tryphon said. “Only with his reputation. Nothing more than that.”

  ***

  As John and Felix walked slowly down the cobbled street on which Tryphon’s villa perched, Felix looked thoughtful.

  “I noticed that Tryphon might admire wine from Trenico’s vineyard, but he didn’t offer us anything from his own stock,” he grumbled. “We might have found inspiration in a cup of wine. What do you make of it all?”

  John shrugged. “It appears that the civic-minded public benefactor Hypatius was not quite what he appeared to be. But we’d begun to suspect that, given the business with his will, for example.”

  Before he could say more, a pair of splendidly dressed, long-haired young men emerged from an emporium at the foot of the street. There was nothing uncommon about that or even threatening under the circumstances. What caught John’s attention was the enormous size of one of them.

  Then he noted the oddly crushed nose.

  It could only be the man he had seen running from the Great Church after Hypatius’ murder.

  John did not have the opportunity to discover whether the Blue would have been as quick to recognize him as being the man whom he had raced past a few days earlier because as soon as

  Felix caught sight of them he bellowed, “Halt! By order of the Prefect!”

  The two took to their heels. The smaller scuttled into the narrow passageway behind the establishment they had just left. The other, the big one, cut swiftly across the street and disappeared under an archway leading to a stairway down to the docks.

  Felix and John raced downhill and plunged through the archway behind him.

  The sound of their fleeing prey’s boots hitting worn stone steps echoed back, briefly mirrored by the sound of their own thudding feet. They burst from the stairway’s darkness into momentarily dazzling sunlight.

  The Blue had vanished along with the sound of his boots, but only for an instant. John spotted his large frame, jutting above the crowd of milling laborers on the docks. He sprinted after him.

  Those who saw the three running men stepped quickly back out of the way, leaving a clear path along the docks. John found himself in a footrace for the first time since he had been a callow youth attending Plato’s Academy.

  His prey ran with enormous, loping strides, but was heavily built and obviously not a practiced runner. John fixed his gaze on his quarry’s long tail of flapping hair. He began to draw nearer to the broad back, close enough to make out the geometric pattern stitched on the cloak.

  Now he could hear the man’s wheezing, labored breathing.

  John gauged the distance and then lunged out.

  And slammed into an unwary pedestrian. He caught a glimpse of a pudgy fellow whose hair resembled an untidy nest. Then he was looking at the sky before smashing down on one side and spinning, sliding across an icy puddle, to crash shoulder first into a brick wall.

  In an instant Felix was looking down at him, gasping, his broad face blazing red. “If I owned you I’d have those wings on your heels clipped,” he blurted out.

  John scrambled up. “Where did he go?”

  Felix pointed to the brick building’s wide door, beside which was a chiseled inscription announcing it to be the warehouse of Viator, importer of fine marbles and stones.

  A swift glance into the gloomy interior revealed the broad back of a large man who seemed intent on examining the contents of a crate. His cloak, however, was brown and undecorated.

  “How could he have changed clothes so quickly?” Felix muttered.

  The man turned at the sound. “You! Loiterers! I can hear you whispering! Do I have to summon the Prefect’s men and have you arrested or are you leaving now?”

  He was not young but middle-aged. Clearly, he was not the man John and Felix had pursued.

  ***

  “The notion that my son murdered Hypatius is so outlandish that were I not a law-abiding citizen I would knock you both immediately into the sea for even suggesting it!”

  Viator looked perfectly capable of carrying out his threat. He was of such cyclopean size as to make apparent at a glance that he was the fleeing Blue’s father. In addition to his bulk, he shared with his offspring the same sort of crushed and crooked nose, evidently an accident of birth rather than the result of fighting.

  The marble importer led John and Felix through his warehouse. There was no sign of his son, Victor by name. He could easily have been hiding among the wilderness of marble blocks and huge pieces of stone piled in orderly rows in the dimness. Or perhaps he had slipped out a side door to the docks, from there to disappear into the city.

  As they passed along corridors formed by the orderly ranks of stone, the importer reached out ham-like hands to touch here orange-veined yellow marble, there a slab of purple and white, just as a fond father might absentmindedly pat the heads of his children.

  “Yes, gentlemen,” Viator went on, “I can assure you that the very idea is absurd, despite your eyewitness account.” His gaze rested briefly on John. “Oh, Victor’s been known to get into mischief now and then, but he’s just a high-spirited lad. So are most of the Blues.”

  Felix observed gruffly he would differ with that characterization, based on the Blues who had crossed his path.

  Viator bridled. “If you’re talking about the riots, there’s many a citizen who says that Quaestor Proclus is behind all this strife in the streets. Ask around, and you’ll soon see I’m telling the truth.”

  John, thinking that few citizens would admit to any such thought when questioned by men under the feared Gourd’s command, asked the importer why Proclus would foment strife.

  “Why? Because the manufacture of scapegoats is a profitable business. Especially if the profit someone seeks is the furtherance of his own ambition.”

  Viator caressed a marble slab displaying striking striations of white and pale green. “I tend my business and leave others to tend theirs. You see this piece of marble? It’s for the tomb of a wealthy merchant whose fortune was made in vegetables. He was once a grocer’s assistant, and before that he sold onions in the street. As you can see, the pattern in this slab resembles an onion. I rather anticipate that the tomb itself will be domed, again like an onion. As with myself, the merchant began humbly and rose through love of his wares. In his case, onions, in my case, stone and marble. There are those who wake up every day and chec
k their account books. I prefer to visit my warehouse and admire the beauty it contains.” The importer of marble warmed to his theme.

  “Yes,” he went on, “I began as a common laborer in the building trade. After two or three years, the owner of the business gave me permission to take away unused concrete at the end of the day. After that, I worked for him during daylight hours and then at night I became an itinerant mender of concrete. I went around the city with an old bucket containing whatever had been left over. Naturally, I had to be persuasive, but it’s surprising how often a steward or a tenement owner needs a small repair to a crack in a wall or a crumbling step.”

  Felix, interested in the tale despite himself, asked how Viator had moved into the marble business.

  The importer smiled. “It happened that a shipment of marble intended for a job on which I was working for the business owner I mentioned was rejected as unfit for the purpose. Not the shade specified, or some such defect. Seizing my chance, I bought the marble and so began the rise to my present position. However, I was only able to purchase it because I had money earned by hauling those buckets of concrete about the city for years. There’s a lesson in that for us all, as I have often pointed out my son.”

  “Speaking of jobs and marble, new emperors always love to refurbish the capital,” observed Felix. “You must be looking forward to Justinian being crowned. It could well mean a lot of extra trade for you.”

  “Not at all,” Viator said. “I wish Justin a long life. He’s a man with dirt under his fingernails. Just the sort of man I admire, in fact. He too has humble origins. Besides which, I don’t need any more business right now.”

  Felix expressed admiration for Viator’s success.

  The big man nodded happily. “Have you walked on the new flooring in the Baths of Zeuxippos? My marble was under your feet! I’m certain you’ve wagered on the races at the Hippodrome at some time or another. When you did, your backsides enjoyed new benches made from stone I imported. Or perhaps you’ve lingered in the shade of the new portico in the Forum Bovis? Its columns were born from marble shipped from this very warehouse.”

  “You’re all over the city, it seems,” Felix replied. “Rather like the Gourd himself.”

  Having complied with Felix’s request to show them around his warehouse, Viator started back through the maze of artificial cliffs. At the front entrance, John’s gaze fell on the open crate Viator had been examining when they arrived. The marble it held was black.

  “Imported all the way from Greece,” Viator explained. “It was ordered by a man of some influence. Let’s say he’s a senator who shall remain anonymous. It is intended for a private purpose. Some say he intends to build a shrine to a blasphemous deity whose name a Christian would not dare to whisper. As it happens, I know better. It’s for a statue of the Nubian slave he keeps as a concubine.”

  “A fascinating trade indeed,” replied Felix. “However, more to the point, where did your son go after he rushed in here?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, I cannot tell you. He knows he is not to bother me when I’m busy and he could see that I had just opened this crate.”

  “Do you have any idea why he would have been at the Great Church?”

  “Apart from worshipping there, you mean? Well, he said he wanted to see this work of art everyone’s talking about.”

  “Interested in such things, is he?”

  Viator puffed out his substantial chest. “No, not at all, but he was very proud that I was responsible for bringing in the material used for it. It was another special order. The purest white marble from Proconnesus, and I don’t mind telling you it was an expensive affair. Naturally, I gave a little bit of a discount. It’s very good for business to be connected with such a project. Word gets around, you know.”

  The importer continued at some length about the merits of the sculpture and the material from which it was made before John and Felix managed to escape.

  Felix shook his head in consternation as he and John retraced their steps along the docks. “To listen to that man’s boasting, you’d think he’d cut the marble from the quarry with his own hands, swum back to Constantinople with it tied on his back, and then chiseled the thing personally.”

  “It’s not a bad thing to take pride in one’s work,” said John. “Although it strikes me that the longer he talked, the further away his son was able to get. I feel sorry for the father, but a murderer is a murderer. If it wasn’t Victor who actually struck down Hypatius, he was certainly in the company of the culprit. I almost hate to say so, but now we should inform the Gourd we know the identity of the man I saw running from the Great Church.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I’ve had men executed for such incompetence!”

  The City Prefect stamped back and forth in the corridor outside his office, too angry to stand still. His misshapen forehead was coated with droplets of sweat, the poisonous distillation of his rage.

  “You’re telling me that you saw a man you personally identified as one of those murdering bastards and you allowed him to escape?” He came to a halt in front of Felix and stabbed a blunt finger at the excubitor’s chest. “Why didn’t the pair of you arrest him on the spot?”

  “With respect, Prefect,” Felix answered in even tones, “we have not been given authority to arrest anyone. We could only have interrogated him.”

  “A good excuse. You prize pair weren’t about to pursue a fellow the size you describe. Or was it a case of bribery?” When the Gourd’s big head swiveled toward John, the terrible asymmetry of his skull was obvious. Someone who didn’t know better might have said the man had suffered a horrific injury, one sure to prove fatal.

  The Prefect wiped his dripping forehead with a rough shirtsleeve. “We’re not senators or courtiers. We don’t have time to lounge about and debate philosophy while the city burns. Take as many men as you need and arrest father and son immediately. We’ll have the truth out of them before the sun rises again.”

  ***

  It was nearly dark by the time they had gathered the required force and tramped back to Viator’s warehouse.

  “We’re lucky we escaped with our heads,” growled Felix. He was still clearly angry.

  “Our heads are currently protected by both the emperor and Justinian,” John pointed out.

  “What makes you think that would stop the Gourd? I knew I was in for trouble as soon as I found out I’d been yoked to a eunuch. When you’re in a fight you want a man to protect your back.”

  “If you hadn’t been so stupid as to shout at the Blue and warn him off we would’ve had hold of him before he even noticed us!”

  “Why didn’t you grab his cloak when you had the chance? Afraid to grapple with him, I suppose. We’ll be lucky to come out of this alive.” Now Felix sounded mournful.

  “If we don’t cooperate better we certainly won’t.”

  Felix grunted. He had realized the truth of what John said and had also noticed the smirks on the faces of those men near enough to overhear their heated argument.

  A search of Viator’s warehouse revealed it was deserted.

  “Not even a rat,” said Felix in disgust. “But that’s not surprising. If I were a rat I wouldn’t take up residence in this pile of rocks with all the granaries I could wish to live in so close to hand.”

  A score of the Gourd’s men had been clattering up and down the narrow lanes between the stacked marble and stone shouting to one another for some time before an old man with a lantern in one hand and a staff in the other limped through the main doorway. His pointed chin reminded John of a rat, after Felix’s mention of that verminous creature.

  “What are you doing here, grandfather?” Felix asked brusquely.

  The man blinked and his features twitched. He shuffled a step forward, leaning heavily on his staff. “I am the night watchman, sir. I’ve just come on duty.”

  “You?” Felix said.

  “I am the only watchman Via
tor needs in the warehouse,” the old man said in an unperturbed but loud voice that led John to deduce he was probably half deaf as well as lame. “No thief is going to grab one of these pretty blocks of marble and run off with it under his cloak.”

  “What if they show up with a cart?” Felix asked.

  “There’s another man on watch for carts all night long. His perch is just in front of Viator’s house. Since the master’s dwelling overlooks this very warehouse, the master is able to keep half an eye on things himself most of the time as well. As you can see, everything is perfectly secure.”

  ***

  They climbed the stairs down which they had chased Victor that afternoon, turned, and made their way along a stretch of street paralleling the seawall. Viator’s house was easy to pick out, even before they read the plaque beside its door. The boxlike structure was festooned with a variety of marble decorations. Columns, lintels, cornices, decorative panels, and bas-reliefs jostled each other on its bricks walls. The building resembled a warehouse in the middle of a magickal transformation into a temple or vice versa.

  “No one’s home,” Felix concluded after pounding at the door for some time. “Not that I expected it. After our visit they probably found urgent business in the country.”

  “Or another country.”

  A flagstoned space boasting a fountain and several benches sat between Viator’s house and the seawall. The man who supposedly used this vantage point to keep a watch on the warehouse, whose tiled roof John could glimpse below, was nowhere in sight.

  “The servants must have been told to make themselves scarce,” Felix remarked. “I suppose we’ll have to knock the door down, to be certain.”

  “Perhaps one of the neighbors observed something,” John suggested. “In particular the fellow who’s been almost falling out his window ever since we got here.”

  He pointed at the stolid and unadorned house next to Viator’s. At the gesture a shadowed outline visible in the illuminated window ducked out of sight.