John was fully aware of the dangers of allowing himself to be caught up in the treacherous currents of any mob. He quickly retreated back down the street and plunged into a narrow passageway. As he moved swiftly along parallel to the Mese, his progress was shadowed by the grumbling unrest of the crowd and the occasional bang of a window slamming shut or a mother’s call, summoning her child hastily indoors.
As a mercenary in Bretania he had often followed the course of an unseen stream through the thickets and brush of dense forest in the same manner, staying just within earshot of its rushing waters. In those days his objective had been to creep up stealthily on some streamside encampment. Today he wanted to reach the Chalke as soon as possible, and without hindrance.
The small forum into which he finally emerged was eerily deserted. Everything was closed and shuttered, as if it were the dead of night rather than a bright morning. The only sign of life was a skeletal mongrel dog nosing around unperturbed in a pile of offal in the gutter, a canine feast doubtless discarded by some nearby butcher.
Suddenly the muffled roar of the unseen mob swelled into an explosion of sound, as if a Hippodrome crowd were saluting some favorite charioteer of the Greens or Blues who had just emerged from its great bronze gates to parade around the huge arena.
John crossed the deserted space quickly as the roar subsided into silence, then rose again, hanging malignantly on the air. Clearly the mob was responding to someone addressing them.
Just as he plunged into a final dark passageway that debouched into the Mese, a group of grim-faced excubitors came racing down the narrow alley toward him, swords drawn. John recognized one of them, a dark, stocky fellow who regularly guarded the entrance to the excubitor barracks across from his house.
The excubitor stopped in his tracks, his face transformed by surprise, as his comrades in arms ran past John.
“Lord Chamberlain! What are you doing here?” He drew a quick breath. “I wouldn’t get any closer to that than you are now!” He pointed his sword back. “We’re off to help secure the Great Church, just in case somebody decides to burn it down again.” He turned to follow his companions but the touch of John’s hand on his shoulder detained him.
“What’s the situation on the Mese?”
“Well, Lord Chamberlain, a so-called ambassador from Michael managed to slip into the city undetected.”
“That would be easy enough for one man, but it sounds as if this ambassador has developed an extremely large following rather quickly.”
The excubitor shrugged. “Right now the mob will follow anyone claiming to speak for Michael. In fact, it’s escorted him right to the gates of the palace. He claims to have a message to deliver to Justinian.”
John commented that it was unfortunate that the emperor was not receiving anyone.
“His message wasn’t really intended for Justinian,” the other noted shrewdly. “The brazen little bastard is doubtless happy enough to be able to stand in front of the Chalke and read it to them that escorted him there.”
“What did he say?”
“I was at the edge of the crowd, so I didn’t catch all the details, but as near as I could tell he said that Michael had grown weary with waiting for Justinian’s answer regarding certain matters of what he called mutual interest.” The excubitor paused to look, frowning, past John. His companions had vanished.
“And what else?” John prompted. “I shall ensure that you do not suffer from being delayed by my questions.”
“Thank you, Lord Chamberlain. As I was saying, then, I was at some distance and the shouting got rather loud, as usually happens in these situations, so I may not have heard all the man’s words correctly. But if what he said is true, we are going to have a lot more than a relatively good-natured mob to cope with tomorrow. He proclaimed that if Michael’s demands were not met by tomorrow night, his god will set the waters of the Bosporos aflame. Impossible of course, but tell them that…” He gave a quick nod in the direction he’d come from. As if in response, the crowd roared again even louder than before.
The dog John had seen rooting in the gutter trotted quickly past the entrance to the passageway, holding a large bloody scrap of flesh in its teeth. Had John been a superstitious man, he would have regarded that as a very ominous omen.
“If you heard correctly,” John said thoughtfully, “then it would appear that our time is growing very short indeed.”
Striding through the austere warren of imperial administrative offices, John found himself noticing the water clocks set in niches and corners to regulate the labors of those not content to depend on the sun. The level of water in the receiving bowls made it abundantly clear that it had taken him far too long to make his way through the boisterous crowd swirling about outside the Chalke.
Felix was not in his office when John finally reached it. It seemed he had been called away to a meeting with the empress. But when John made his way to the Hormisdas, she had gone and so had Felix.
“The excubitor captain was here,” confirmed the silentiary still on guard outside Theodora’s now empty audience hall. “He left in a hurry, looking very grim. I’d guess there was some military action afoot, though it’d only be a guess, since my hearing isn’t what it once was-and of course I wouldn’t be eavesdropping at any rate. We guards are nothing if not discreet.”
John thanked the man for his garrulous discretion with a coin. He knew immediately where he would find Felix.
Once by tradition but now of necessity, the mithraeum was concealed in the bowels of an imperial storehouse in a less traveled part of the palace grounds. A casual visitor who might by accident penetrate far through the maze of winding passages to arrive at the stout door allowing entry into the holy place would have been intercepted by the guards stationed there, their constant presence easily explained by the valuable goods stored in similar stone cellars under the rambling building. Politely escorted back to the upper level, such visitors would doubtless be just as happy to see sunlight. Who knew how many had entered and never emerged back in the days when enemies of the state or those who had fallen from the emperor’s favor had been imprisoned in those underground rooms?
But the guards stepped aside, knowing John was a fellow adept. Closing the stout door behind him, John quickly walked down the flight of steps into the shadowed mithraeum. Tonight there would be no celebration, no ceremonial meal, no ritual to mark a follower’s joyous advancement another degree up the seven-runged ladder, drawing ever closer to Lord Mithra. Tonight there was only a lone man, his bushy haired head bowed, seated on a stone bench.
John sat down next to him.
“Well, John,” Felix said, evincing no surprise at the Lord Chamberlain’s arrival, “I’m shortly off to visit the Michaelites.”
“And not with peaceful intent it seems, for I see you are girded for battle,” John replied with a nod at the helmet set on the stone flagged floor.
The two men were silent for a time, gazing at the marble bas relief behind the altar. Light from the torches bracketing it glanced off the deeply carved details of the familiar scene-the Phrygian cap Lord Mithra wore, the sharp edge of his raised blade, the powerful shoulders and curled tail of the huge bull he was about to sacrifice to bring forth life.
It was a scene which never failed to move John to the core of his being.
The low cave-like ceiling of the narrow mithraeum was painted with gleaming stars, but its walls were beyond the reach of the torches’ pool of light. Thus it ever was. Moreover, it seemed to John that deeper shadows, more evil than those held at bay by torchlight or by the sacred fires kindled on the altar when ceremonies were to be held, were pressing in around them, inky doubles of the dark chaos engulfing the city above them.
Felix frowned fiercely.
“You’re worried about something more than an engagement of arms, Felix,” John observed. “Perhaps you have come to ask Lord Mithra for guidance? If so, I would be happy to leave.”
The big captain nodded. “You’re right, John, but in fact it’s something I would like to discuss with you.”
John listened closely as Felix continued. “I’m on the horns of a dilemma as sharp as those of the Great Bull,”
