‘Sophia,’ repeated my host, and again the dog barked twice.
A ludicrous notion entered my thoughts. ‘Sophia is your dog?’
Two quick barks were the apparent, improbable confirmation of this truth.
‘And Sophia will answer my questions?’ I wondered if perhaps there was more than wood on the fire whose smoke had filled my lungs. ‘And, naturally, she speaks Greek.’
This time there was only a single bark.
‘What does that mean? She does not speak Greek?’
Two barks.
I looked around for the door flap, which had unaccountably fallen shut. What would Krysaphios say if he knew I wasted my time and his gold conversing with performing animals?
I saw Elymas pat his bitch affectionately on the flank. ‘Not speak,’ he said brokenly. ‘Understand.’
I stared at him venomously. ‘She understands Greek?’
Two barks protested she did.
‘Tell me then, Sophia,’ I began, wondering how far I was willing to take this charade. ‘Can I find a mercenary for hire near here?’
Sophia looked at me disparagingly, then put her head between her feet and huffed through her nose.
‘What?’ I demanded, caught between impatience and the spell of this unlikely dream.
Elymas was wracked by a silent fit, rocking back and forth on his haunches. When it had subsided, he stuck a bone-thin finger into the sand before him and inscribed a circle, with a smaller circle, two eyes and a mouth within it.
Long experience of charlatans, as much as the clarity of his picture, gave me the answer. ‘You want money for speaking to your dog?’
A pained expression crossed his face; he shook his head vigorously, and pointed to the bitch.
‘Your dog wants money for me to speak to her?’
Sophia raised her jaw a fraction, just enough for a couple of weary barks. Internally abusing myself as an idiot, I drew an obol from my purse and tossed it into the sand in front of the dog.
She eyed it haughtily, then turned to lick her backside.
With the utmost reluctance, I added a second obol. Still she paid me no heed. A third obol followed, and then — swearing there would not be another — a silver keration.
Sophia turned back to me and gave two contented barks.
‘Now,’ I said heavily. ‘Can I find a mercenary near here?’
Two barks, though even a dog might have known that. I would demand far more for my coin.
‘Where can I find them?’
I earned scornful looks from dog and master. ‘Can I find them on the Selymbrian road?’
One bark.
‘Near the road?’
Two barks.
I paused, unable to think of any landmark which would help direct this line of questioning. ‘Are there many men who can help me?’
One bark.
‘Only one man?’
Two barks.
‘Is he a barbarian? A Frank?’
One bark.
‘A Roman? Like me?’
Two barks.
‘And this man will find me a mercenary?’
Two barks.
‘Does he have a name?’
Two barks.
Again I halted, as I came against the immutable fact that without a name or a location, this dog could tell me nothing. Nothing, in fact, that I did not already know or guess — and that, of course, was the nature of its trick. I had been a fool to convince myself that it could be otherwise, to succumb to the smoke and darkness and gnomic utterances of this false magician. I shuffled backwards, shooting the bitch a final, evil glare.
And in that second where we met each other’s gaze, I swear I saw the dog lift her head, open her mouth, and say quite distinctly: ‘Vassos.’
My jaw sagged in astonishment. ‘Vassos?’
Two dainty barks.
‘A man named Vassos?’ I repeated, edging forward. ‘The man I seek is named Vassos.’
And with two final barks, the dog turned her back on me and began chasing her tail.
I stumbled into daylight reeling from the strange encounter, my mind locked in a tussle of doubt and wonder. The woman with the pot had vanished, her fire now little more than embers; I breathed in deep lungfuls of cool air and hoped it would blow through my head also. During my uncommon career I had sought information from every rank of life, from city officials to notorious criminals, and often I had implored God for revelation; never, though, had I spoken with a dumb animal. What could I do but see how her story was resolved?
It soon emerged that she had done me a great service — more than many human informants have rendered me. Although I spoke no Frankish, nor Bulgarian nor Serbic nor any other of the immigrant languages of this place, the name ‘Vassos’ was like a charm: no sooner did I speak it to those I passed than comprehension lit up their faces and they gestured animatedly in one direction or another. I was led gradually westwards, through endless alleys of broken hovels towards the walls, until at length a gypsy loitering by a well pointed directly over my shoulder and said definitively: ‘Vassos.’
I turned to see a house, itself remarkable enough in those surroundings. It seemed far older and better constructed than anything else around it: it might once have been a farmhouse, when these were virgin fields, but it was decayed and charmless now. Whoever owned it, though, had money enough to put a stout oak door on the hinges, and iron bars across the crimson-curtained windows.
I rapped on the door, wondering what business I disturbed inside. There was no answer.
‘Vassos,’ said the gypsy across the street, watching me and laughing.
I hammered the door a second time. Still it did not move, but in the corner of my eye I noticed one of the curtains tremble. I ran to it, just in time to see a woman’s head vanish behind it.
‘Vassos!’ I called, trying to pull back the curtain through the bars. ‘Vassos?’
‘No,’ said a voice within. ‘No Vassos. No Vassos.’
‘Where is he?’ I let the curtain go and stepped back from the window. There was a silence, but my retreat was rewarded when strong arms drew open the curtain to reveal a heavily painted face glaring out at me. Her dress was a fragmented patchwork of different cloths, none bearing the least relation to the other, and tied like a girdle under her breasts so that they thrust forward toward me. There were red calluses around her mouth, and a scratch on one cheek. Her eyes were hard as glass.
‘No Vassos,’ she repeated emphatically. ‘Vassos work. Work.’
‘Tomorrow?’
She lifted her shoulders, deepening the cleft between her breasts yet further. ‘Tomorrow? Tomorrow.’
‘I will come tomorrow.’
Whether she understood me or not, the conversation was finished; the curtain shut and the house fell silent.
I spent the afternoon sitting in the courtyard of a minor noble, watching his fountain and playing with his cat. Every hour his steward would emerge to assure me I would be received imminently, but that lie soon tired. I preferred the honesty of the slum dwellers. I had chosen to start at the bottom of Krysaphios’ list, hoping that there I might merit at least a dubious welcome, but that proved a false hope, and as it was a fasting day I could not even prevail on the steward for a drink. At last, with the shadows lengthening, I left for the palace. Krysaphios was undisguisedly unimpressed with my day’s work; so too, when I arrived home, were my daughters.
‘You’re always home after dark now, Father,’ Helena accused me. ‘And late for supper.’
