grassy space, where bushes clustered along the banks of a small stream. The coarse laughter of his companions followed them, growing louder as Lucretia struggled to escape his grip. He stopped and struck her again, a harder slap. She jerked away and darted around him. His companions’ bawdy shouts changed into jeering. Two of them stood to follow with obvious purpose.
But the man was fast on his feet. He caught Lucretia easily and turned triumphantly back toward his companions. “Stay where you are,” he shouted at the two men approaching. “Find your own prize. This one’s mine and I don’t need your help with it.” He then proceeded to describe in particularly foul detail exactly what he didn’t need their help with.
Lucretia screamed again, provoking another burst of laughter from the two excubitors, who nonetheless went back to their perch on the shrine’s steps.
The man threw Lucretia roughly down behind the bushes.
Before she could think, he was bending over her, his breath hot on her face. “Leave, woman! Go before you get hurt!”
She gazed up at him, dumbfounded. He knelt down beside her. “Don’t you understand? We didn’t kill any women or children. Our captain ordered the pilgrims to go. They were permitted to leave unharmed. The ones who stayed…”
“But I saw children dead on the grass, there were children…”
“In panicked flight people get hurt, children most of all. Most of the pilgrims fled, fortunately for them since our captain’s wounded and has lost a lot of blood. I doubt he can keep order now and not all of my comrades were pleased to see the women escape. A couple weren’t too happy to see the children get away either.” Deep disgust was displayed on his face and in his voice.
Lucretia sat up. The bushes shielded them from sight of the shrine. As the man had dragged her boastfully away she thought she had understood his intent perfectly, but this odd behavior confused her.
“But what you shouted you were going to do just now…why would you want to help me?” she asked suspiciously.
“It is not a Mithran’s way to force a woman. Now, leave.”
“But what about Michael? Is he dead?”
“He wasn’t with those we cornered inside the shrine,” was the reply. “But if he’s dead, at least he chose to stand and fight.”
“You’re lying! He escaped and you know it. I saw your men on the road. They were looking for him, weren’t they?”
The excubitor denied her accusation.
Lucretia grabbed his arm. “But I saw armed men coming in this direction,” she insisted.
Shouts came from the road as she spoke. Alarm washed over her companion’s face. He peered through the concealment of the thick bushes toward the road.
Lucretia looked over his shoulder.
An angry crowd was pouring down the hill. Among them she saw some of the simply dressed but well-armed men she had seen along the road.
The excubitor cursed. His companions at arms were already jumping up, reaching for their weapons. Even Lucretia, totally unskilled in military matters, immediately realized her rescuer’s concerns. This was a different situation altogether.
Before Lucretia could gather her thoughts she heard a familiar voice drifting across the open space.
Michael was standing on the brow of the hill. From where they crouched, she could not hear exactly what he was shouting.
It didn’t matter. He was alive!
More excubitors emerged from the shrine, moving quickly to take up their positions, shaking off their weariness. The scattered group of exhausted soldiers was again transforming itself into a fighting unit.
Several acolytes appeared in the portico of the shrine.
“I must rejoin my comrades immediately,” her companion said, unsheathing his sword.
Lucretia pointed out that they were outnumbered at least ten to one.
“But we are Justinian’s men and they are just a rabble,” he replied.
It was then that Michael raised his hands to the heavens.
A lightning bolt seemed to strike the foot of the shrine’s stairs, sending gouts of flame toward the cloudless sky. Two excubitors broke formation, slapping at the flames crackling along their arms.
A second bolt exploded against the side of the shrine.
Now the mob of pilgrims was running, surging across the open space, shrieking and waving weapons with most unholy intent as they trampled over dead and wounded alike in their haste to attack the excubitors.
Lucretia saw nothing more. After the man who had rescued her raced off to carry out his duty, she covered her ears and cowered down behind the sheltering bushes, trying to blot out the sound of hoarse oaths and screams and all the obscene sounds of a battle that was soon over.
When a terrible silence fell, she raised her head, weeping. She had come here seeking refuge and had found only hell instead.
Chapter Eighteen
John surfaced from the deep, dark waters of slumber, his hand moving to the blade at his belt. Something was wrong. He felt a rough surface against his cheek. Bricks. He was half seated, leaning against bricks. He was cold and his left arm, pinned between him and the wall, was numb. His thoughts winged briefly back to distant memories of military encampments, of waking on frozen ground in a cramped tent.
In an instant he realized he was not in an encampment. He was in Constantinople and had become a beggar, or as near to one as he could manage. And like many beggars, he had spent the night dozing out of doors.
He climbed stiffly to his feet in the hospitable doorway where he had found refuge. A few tatters of mist swirled low along the ground. A mangy black cat inspecting breakfast possibilities in rotting refuse piled nearby glanced at him with calm yellow eyes and then trotted away briskly on its three remaining legs.
John shook the numbness out of his arm. His heavy cloak was gone, discarded on the street after he’d left the palace grounds after his brief meeting with Felix in the mithraeum.
After hearing of Michael’s threats to set the Bosporos afire and subsequently learning from Felix about the imminent attack on the shrine, John had realized the situation was too urgent. There was no time to engage informants, let alone wait for them to do their work.
He would have to do the job himself.
So he had discarded his cloak, torn his tunic, rubbed dirt into his hair and on his face and hands. He hoped, by posing as a beggar himself, to gain the confidence of, and confidences from, those who were afraid to speak to the authorities.
As yet, however, his disguise had gained him nothing. The people nesting in corners and clustered around small fires in alleys were as wary of dirty strangers as they were of officials, although less frightened. After all, they were many and he was but one.
The morning was eerily quiet, with none of the usual noisy bustle of merchants opening their shops. No doubt their businesses would remain shuttered today. He wondered about Felix’s raid, muttering a brief prayer to Mithra that the burly captain was unharmed. Whatever had happened, it was obvious that word had not yet been carried back to the city. Otherwise it would not be so quiet.
As for Michael, John thought it more than likely he was dead. He doubted anyone at the palace would feel much sorrow at the ascetic eunuch’s demise. It was commonly bandied about that those deprived of the opportunity to be men had strong tendencies toward treachery. No doubt it was a result of the gross imbalance in their humors. John himself had too often been labeled such a creature.
Unfortunately, it had apparently not occurred to Theodora that martyrs were the worst sort of foes with which to have to grapple.
Pursued by that bleak thought, John set out toward the forum graced by the pillar occupied by the stylite
