“But like Michael and unlike poor Aurelius, you are a eunuch. I expect you and Michael have the measure of each other.”
Chapter Twelve
Unlike Justinian, Anatolius finally agreed to speak to John. He would not, however, emerge from the study in which his father had died.
As John entered the room, Anatolius raised his head. His drawn face and red-rimmed eyes formed a sad contrast to the uncaring riot of cheerful godlings going about their merry business on the painted walls.
John sat down and the two friends looked at each other in silence for a long time.
Finally Anatolius spoke. “Well, then, is it not ironic that Fortuna would grant my father’s wish in such a strange fashion?”
His voice sounded lifeless, the result, thought John, of that freezing numbness that the kindly gods send to the bereaved for the first few days after a death, lest the too heavy burden of grief snap mind and spirit under its inescapable oppression.
There was nothing he felt he could say to help Anatolius cope with his loss. He could only listen to him and in that way permit his friend to give rein to his feelings. Public displays of these were not considered manly, it was true, but Anatolius, newly orphaned, had not yet learnt the emotional control which circumstances and years at court had thrust upon John.
“Just a day or so ago,” Anatolius went on, tears pooling in his bloodshot eyes, “I sat in that very chair you’re in, John, listening to my father talk about respectability and how he wished I would become more responsible, before I brought danger upon him and others.” He buried his wan face in his hands. “And I brought his death here,” he said, his voice muffled. “Now he is gone and I have gained all the respectability and responsibility he could have wished, because now I am the head of the household. If only I wasn’t! If only he were still alive!”
John felt moisture seeping into his own eyes in sympathy with the grief-stricken man before him, who was now valiantly trying to swipe tears discreetly away with his knuckles.
“Yes, Anatolius,” he replied quietly. “It is a fact that, by virtue of his being your father, he was always part of your world. And now he is gone, and that world is changed forever. It can never be the same. I think that now you are bitterly regretting all your hasty words to him, your disrespect. Wishing, too, that you had told him you loved him more often than you did.”
Anatolius looked at his friend in a wondering fashion.
John nodded. “That is exactly how I felt when my father died,” he said, “although I would never speak of it outside this room. Although it’s hard to believe now, time will smooth out the jagged edges of the pain in your heart, just as it has since your mother died.”
“There is not a day passes that I do not think of her, John,” Anatolius admitted, “although I rarely talk about her.”
“That is the way of it,” John nodded. “We speak little of the departed, even though our memories of them are our only comfort once they are gone. And as to your father, he was a good man and I know you will conduct yourself well when the time comes for the funeral rites. I’d be happy to assist you with those, if you wish.”
“Thank you,” Anatolius said listlessly, leaning his chin on his hand and staring down at the inlaid skull peering up at him from the desk top.
“But,” John went on, “one thing, Anatolius. You must not blame yourself for his death. A senator, indeed any man, always has enemies of whom he is not aware. It is part of life. Nothing that you did could possibly have caused his death.”
Anatolius looked up, a flash of anger in his tired eyes. “But I did, John. He gave me free hand with the banquet. I sent out the invitations. Therefore I must take the blame.”
John sighed, realizing it was too soon for him to attempt to persuade his friend that his reasoning was faulty.
“And the odd thing is,” Anatolius continued, hunching his shoulders and wrapping his arms around himself as if he was cold, despite the warmth of the room, “I was very careful not to invite persons whose presence might embarrass or distress my father. Senator Balbinus, for example. There’d been bad blood between them for some time. And there were one or two others, but you see, there must have been one that I somehow overlooked, the bastard who ate and drank and laughed with us and then murdered…” His voice trailed away and he looked down in dumb misery.
“Your father has been ferried over the Styx earlier than any of us could have foreseen,” John said, “but can you not try to think how happy he was about your appointment to the quaestor’s office? Many men must live beyond their time of happiness and die looking back on their lives with regret and bitterness. He was proud of you and although perhaps he rarely said so, he loved you. He has left you an honorable name and an excellent example of civic duty.”
“And surely Lord Mithra smiles on him for that alone,” Anatolius murmured.
John nodded. It seemed that their conversation was helping Anatolius somewhat, so he cast about for further topics. Inspiration struck him. “Anatolius, here is an odd coincidence. From what Philo has been telling me, if I had attended the Academy a few years later than I did, your father might well have been one of my tutors.”
Anatolius looked surprised. “That’s an odd thought indeed. He used to talk occasionally about his days at the Academy, but after a while, you know how it is, the stories all become over familiar and you don’t listen too closely. Of course, he left the Academy years before Justinian ordered it closed. Yet despite what Justinian claims, I never formed the impression that theology was much discussed there, pagan or otherwise. I know my father lectured on the nature of justice, for one thing, and he did once attempt to explain the mathematical proof for the existence of the aether, or some such theory. I was not much interested, I am sorry to say.”
“I wasn’t either,” John admitted. “I was hasty of nature, I fear, wishing to learn but not wanting to take the time necessary to acquire knowledge. That was why I left. Had Clotho spun my life differently, no doubt I would have trodden an entirely different path to the one that brought me eventually to Constantinople.”
“You would have been happier, John. Yet I can’t imagine you being an inattentive student.”
Anatolius got up and began pacing from the desk to the door and back again. John thought it was an encouraging sign that the younger man was restless. Upon arrival, John had questioned Simon and learnt that Anatolius, having ordered his father’s body prepared for burial, had locked himself into the study on the night of the banquet and remained there ever since, drinking only water and refusing food.
Anatolius stopped his pacing and looked at John. There was a strange expression in his eyes. “I believe,” he announced, “that the dead can speak to us from Hades.”
John wondered if the other had become light-headed from lack of nourishment.
“And,” Anatolius continued serenely, “that the method by which they communicate with the living is through dreams. So I have slept here, in the last place my father saw before he left this world, hoping that he would appear in my dreams and tell me who murdered him.”
John asked if he had received any such visitation.
“No, my father did not come back,” Anatolius frowned. “But my mother did. Yet I cannot remember exactly what she said, however hard I try.” He looked stricken at his admission. “It seems to me that she bade me to open my eyes, to be ever vigilant and guard my back against the blade, just as my father said to me in this very room not so long ago. I asked her if she could name his murderer and suddenly she was gone.”
“Then it was but a dream,” John said gently. “And we must labor in this world to find the culprit.” He stood and laid his thin hand on Anatolius’ arm. For an instant he recalled his recent audience with Theodora and her order that he devote himself solely to investigating the deaths of the stylites. He pushed the unpleasant recollection aside.
“I give you my solemn oath, Anatolius, as a Runner of the Sun, as a fellow initiate of Lord Mithra, that I will help you find the man responsible for your father’s death and ensure that he pays the price for it.”
Following his discussion with Anatolius, John made his way home through unusually congested streets, his thoughts restlessly circling the mystery of Senator Aurelius’ death. He was so preoccupied that he had pounded at
