Looking even more surprised, Darius seated himself beside his employer. “Well, madam, since you ask I think some of our clients may hesitate to venture out at night if the streets become too unsafe.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that exactly,” Isis admitted. “After all, men regularly throw away their lives for what we offer here. No, what concerns me more is the possibility of too many of our Christian friends developing a sudden fear of their god, who I hear frowns on every form of pleasure.”
Darius remarked that unfortunately in that case he could not address the question since he was not a theologian.
Isis laughed. “Well, you are the only person in Constantinople who will admit that! Now, I realize the very idea sounds ludicrous but this very afternoon one of the girls informed me that her client leapt off her bed at a most inopportune moment crying out that he felt hot, that he was about to be consumed by the flames of sin inside him, or some nonsense of that sort. In my time, I’ve heard many things but I don’t recall ever hearing anything like that, not even in my wilder days.”
Darius shuffled his feet uncomfortably. Although he had been in Isis’ employ for many years, it had been even longer since she had actually practiced the profession that had brought her not a little wealth and some measure of fame in the capital. It was difficult for him to believe this imposing matron must have once been nothing more than a pretty little thing, like the foolish girls in his care. To him she seemed more like a mother.
Changing the subject, he reminded her that she had wished to consult him on a matter of urgency.
Isis had picked up her codex and was looking at its notations. “Oh, yes. Yes, I will need you to accompany me and a few of the girls to a banquet,” she informed him absently. “It’s to be held at the home of Senator Aurelius. That young rogue Anatolius has engaged me to present a classical entertainment.”
“I hesitate to say it, but if I may, I would strongly advise against attending,” Darius replied worriedly. “It really is not safe on the streets after dark.”
“If custom does in fact begin to drop significantly we may have to consider redecorating,” Isis muttered, apparently oblivious to Darius’ counsel. “We could adopt a new motif, get new costumes for the girls, offer something extra and different to lure more customers in. Now, what could that be?” She thoughtfully tapped at her small white teeth with her kalamos.
Darius began to repeat his warning, then stopped. He knew from experience that once Isis began reading her accounts nothing else could compete for her attention, not even classical entertainments or musical instruments. Not entirely a bad thing, he reminded himself, noting the largely unused hydra standing against one wall. He certainly did not care to hear again the cacophony of agony the merest touch of her fingers made groan from that instrument.
“What is so fascinating about those numbers, madam?” he asked, his chagrin at his employer’s ignoring his advice momentarily overcoming his tact.
Isis ran her finger down a column in her account book, mumbled a few numbers to herself, and bit the full lower lip reddened with wine-dregs whose lush pout had helped accumulate the wealth whose extent she was now calculating. Finally she smiled and looked up.
“Well, my friend, numbers have their own beauty. Then too, my account book always makes me think of my father.”
Darius could not conceal his look of surprise.
“He was a tax assessor in Alexandria,” Isis explained. “He taught me about numbers. They balance, like lines in well-constructed verse. As I say, they have their own beauty.”
“You would have made a fine tax assessor.” Darius was thinking about Isis’ shrewd evaluation of the girls so often brought to her doorway for sale by their destitute families.
“But that is not a woman’s job, is it?” Isis put her account book down and took a handful of dried figs from the silver bowl beside her. “My father was often away from home, valuing estates and villages and such like. I had an uncle who sometimes visited while he was gone. He’d bring me trinkets and tell me stories about his travels for as long as I cared to allow him to sit beside me with his hand on my knee.”
She paused to chew thoughtfully for a moment or two on a fig. “This uncle of mine,” she resumed, “had traveled all over the country and had even seen the high falls of the Nile. But the story that impressed me the most was about the Saraceni. Apparently they were nomads who didn’t enter into matrimony as we understand it, but rather hired women to act as their wives for whatever length of time it was agreed the marriage would last. Well, you may say, that’s not so very different from my business here. But it wasn’t quite the same, really, for the so- called wife brought a dowry with her. More importantly, she had the right to leave her husband after a certain time, if that was what she wished.”
“What sort of savages must these Saraceni be?” interrupted Darius.
Isis laughed. “Oh, that struck me as a much more civilized arrangement than the one my parents had. But I had an even better plan, Darius. By reducing the time agreed to and placing the burden of providing the dowry upon the man, I have done quite well. Of course, this uncle of mine, as I later learned, had only heard the tale at second hand and wouldn’t have known the Saraceni from his sandals.”
Isis finished her figs and licked her sticky fingers daintily. “And what of your family, Darius? Do you have one?”
“Indeed I do, madam, and by making my fortune in this rich city I have been able to be of some assistance to them by sending them what I can.”
“But just lately I heard it rumored that you are the son of a village lord.”
Darius’ face reddened. So that explained his employer’s unexpected reminiscences. She had hoped to draw him out.
He asked her where she had heard such a tale.
“From a lady friend of yours,” Isis replied lightly. Then, her voice hardening, she added, “who is another employee of mine.”
“Madam, I am sorry. I should…”
Isis raised an imperious hand. “Do not explain, Darius. We both know the only circumstances that could produce such ridiculous boasts. Adula will believe anything she is told, which is an attractive trait in our line of work. In my day, I had a great deal of difficulty appearing so credulous. But you are aware of my rule.”
Darius hung his head, feeling as if he were being scolded by his mother. “I know, madam. And I assure you, I have not breached your rules before now.”
“I know you haven’t, Darius, or at least not too often. The wares we offer here would hardly be worth the price they are sold for if they were so poor that a man such as yourself could live among them without ever falling prey to temptation.”
“Thank you, madam.”
“But remember, although such indulgence might seem to cost my business nothing, unlike a baker’s assistant stealing a loaf say, yet each transaction increases the likelihood of those complications which contribute to our expenses. And Gaius for one has been talking about raising his fees for necessary remedies.”
Darius assured her that he would be careful not to break her rules again.
“You will have to be, Darius, for I fear Adula is quite smitten with you,” Isis replied. “Now, as I said, I have been asked to provide refined entertainment at the senator’s banquet. I’ve already chosen several of my most talented girls. They will represent the Muses and each will declaim poetry. I wish you to arrange for extra guards to look after the doors since you will accompany us because, as you just pointed out, the streets are unsafe right now. And of course even senators and their esteemed colleagues can become bestial after imbibing too freely. Besides,” she added with an impish smile, “with a loincloth and a pair of gilded wings you’ll make a most striking Eros. Rather a subtle advertisement for our business here, wouldn’t you say?”
Chapter Four
As he entered the imperial reception hall with
Senator Aurelius the next morning, John’s quick eye noted that Justinian was wearing the scarlet boots that were his imperial prerogative. The boots formed an incongruous splash of color in the hall’s cavernous marble space, one that always made John think of an enormous sarcophagus.
