Joseph.
John spent the morning and early afternoon loitering at the edge of the forum in which Joseph’s pillar stood, observing the stylite and the intermittent stream of pilgrims arriving to pay their respects and place offerings in the baskets there.
In mid morning, a vendor set up his brazier and the tempting smell of cooking fish made John’s stomach grumble with hunger. But a beggar, of course, did not have the wherewithal to purchase cooked fish.
Occasionally Joseph would embark on a garbled homily. These half-heard addresses seemed to bear no relation to the number of listeners gathered, if any. But then, John reminded himself, the man was blind.
Regretfully concluding that his vigil had produced nothing of value, John was contemplating going home when a figure loitering in the shadows of the nearby colonnade suddenly emerged into the sunlight. John turned quickly, catching the movement out of the corner of his eye.
“Greetings, excellency. It’s so kind of you to visit us,” it rasped hoarsely.
A demon, without a face, just as Justinian was rumored to be. That was John’s immediate impression as it stepped toward him. Then he realized he was looking not at some supernatural being but a horribly disfigured woman.
“How may we accommodate you, excellency?”
One side of her face had melted and puddled into a formless mass like a candle left too long alight. Her cheek and temple were a reddened ruin in which sat a useless, opaque eye. But tilting her head to look at John with her good eye the speaker revealed that the other half of her face had the delicate features of an attractive woman not yet middle-aged.
“I think you mistake me for someone else,” John replied.
She laughed, setting into motion myriad scraps of brightly colored ribbon tied in her matted black hair. Her laughter was as grating as her voice.
“Not at all,” she said. “It’s obvious to a person with one eye you’re from a wealthy household!” Her filthy but dainty finger pointed at the gold embroidery on the wrist of John’s tunic. “That is very fine workmanship. I’m familiar with fine garments, although you would not think so to look at me now.”
She stepped forward another pace, spreading her thin arms slightly to show off her clothing, a gaudy assemblage of layers of draped and knotted tatters that might have passed for some exotic costume from a less civilized country.
“And how is your master, excellency?” she smiled. “Is he in good health or did you crack open his head before running off with his valuables?”
“I chanced upon these clothes at the baths,” John said, grasping her implication. Perhaps he had not been discovered after all.
“What? And left your rags in their place so that here is a beggar dressed as an aristocrat while an aristocrat skulks home in rags?” Again the hoarse laugh, although whether because she thought John’s explanation comical or extremely unlikely it was difficult to say.
“No doubt you have heard stranger tales,” John replied.
The woman tilted her head, regarding him pointedly. “My name’s Pulcheria, my friend. You’re fortunate that the Prefect is too occupied with other matters to be hunting down runaway slaves right now.”
John said that he supposed he had Michael to thank for that.
“And what sort of employment do you plan to follow now that you are free?” Pulcheria asked him.
John admitted he had not given it much thought.
Pulcheria nodded wisely. “You won’t last long here, I’m afraid. I’ve been watching you. This is all a mystery to you, isn’t it?”
John shrugged uneasily, unaware that he had been observed.
“Oh, I’ve seen the way you’ve been peering about,” she went on. “I may not know who you are, but I do know you aren’t telling the truth. In my line of work my clients lie to me as a matter of course. After a while you get a sense for it.”
“I assure you…”
“Don’t think you can fool a whore! I see you doubt me? Oh, I was pretty enough once, until a customer threw a lamp full of burning oil in my face. As if it was my fault he was too drunk to take what he’d paid for.” She sighed heavily. “But then, it’s always the innocent that suffer.”
John agreed with the sentiment, adding that he was sorry to hear her sad tale.
“Are you?” Her tone was doubtful. “And have you also suffered, my soft-hearted friend?”
“Not all of us are ready to blurt out our lives to the first stranger we meet, Pulcheria,” he said. “But I will admit, as you so rightly say, that this new life is a mystery to me. I fear I may have won myself only the freedom to starve to death, if I don’t freeze first.”
“And here I thought to earn myself a crust from such a fine-looking gentleman. Perhaps, I thought to myself, perhaps he stole the master’s purse as well as his clothes. That’s what I’d hoped.” Her face brightened. “However, if you’re interested, I can turn my poor face away or present myself from whatever angle appeals to you the most. Whatever you choose will be nothing new to me.”
“I regret I am not able to take advantage of your offer,” John replied gently.
The human side of Pulcheria’s face frowned. “If your purse is truly empty then I must find myself another lover, it seems. Still, I like to think of myself as a kind person, so before I do I’ll tell you a few things you need to know. They might allow you to live long enough to earn a nummus or two and then you will remember Pulcheria kindly and perhaps pay me a visit. I am usually to be found here. Now, pay attention.”
She pointed toward the fish seller who had unknowingly tormented John with the enticing smell of grilling fish.
“Now there’s a mean bastard,” the woman advised. “Packs up all his scraps and takes them away with him every night. Nothing tossed away that we could eat, no, not even the gulls can get so much as a fish head from him. No chance of stealing one, either. He watches those miserable fish of his like a patriarch admiring an actress. We call him the Guardian of the Fish.”
John listened intently as she went on to praise the charitable character of a fruit seller whose stall was a few paces beyond the parsimonious seller of Neptune’s bounty.
“That man now, he’ll occasionally drop a fig or an apricot or some such and he never bothers to pick them up. Doesn’t seem to mind if anyone else does, either, you can just go over there and get them as bold as you please. A good man.”
John allowed himself to be led around her world. It was one that revolved around the stylite’s pillar. Joseph was the sun and rain from which all those living near or in the forum gained their sustenance-not only the beggars but also the shopkeepers and artisans whose shops edged the open space. Although their establishments were shuttered today they had prospered thanks to pilgrims’ purchases augmenting those of their city-dwelling customers.
“And as for me, travelers have the same needs as anyone else,” Pulcheria concluded, “especially after their long, lonely journeys.”
Having completed their tour, they were now sitting in the shady portico of what had originally been a civic building that was now, she said, reduced to functioning as a warehouse for an importer of wool. From her colorful motley of garments, she produced a scrap of sacking that unrolled to reveal a few shriveled bits of unidentifiable dried fruit. They shared the simple repast, John accepting her generosity gratefully. The three-legged cat he had seen earlier suddenly reappeared. It disdainfully rejected the scrap of mummified fruit Pulcheria offered but accepted a pat on its scabby head before limping rapidly away about its business.
“We call it Tripod,” Pulcheria said with a fond smile. “And there’s our Angel.” She pointed to a shaggy-headed boy darting across the forum to the pillar.
At first glance John thought the boy was about to attack the pilgrims gathered there but then saw that it was a flute rather than a stick the lad was brandishing.
“This tune was composed by Emperor Justinian himself,” the boy announced in a piercing voice. He commenced blowing out a melody that to some may have sounded akin to the noises made by a cat being strangled but also bore some faint resemblance to the melancholy dirge Peter often hummed as he went about his work.
John listened uneasily to the boy’s playing, his discomfort partially brought about by the raucous squealing of
