Well, I thought, if that’s how she feels about it, nobody can blame me for what I might need to do.
There wasn’t time for sleep before my meeting with Florentius, but I didn’t need any. I just wanted to get it over with and away from the city.
I crept out from under the iron hound, making certain there was nobody around except the resident stylite, and trotted off to my appointment.
I was halfway there when someone called my name.
“Victor! Stop!”
My first impulse was to flee, but could I elude a company of armed guards? I hesitated and turned to face my fate.
My former landlady waddled in my direction. “Victor, why haven’t you been home?”
“You locked me out.”
Macedonia snorted and waved her hand. “And why did I lock you out? I thought you’d want your paints badly enough to find a few folles for a poor old woman. I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just business.”
“I’m giving up painting icons,” I said.
“Giving up painting? But why? Such a talent! Such a service to the Lord! How do you intend to pay what you owe me if you give up painting?”
“He doesn’t need me to paint icons. He can put any icons he wants anywhere, including on top of the dome of the Great Church or next to the moon.”
“And why would he do that for such a wicked race? He’s kept busy punishing us now that devil Leo has taken over. The butcher told me there’s plague in the Copper Market.”
“And there was another earthquake a few hours ago. Not much of one this time, fortunately.”
Macedonia shook her head. “No, that was Athena stamping her foot again. The old gods liked shaking the ground. They used to frighten the farmers that way. Heaven prefers a good pestilence in the city. And where are you staying now? If you are paying rent to someone else, you’d be better off paying me. I’ll give you a month before I go to the magistrate.”
I kept peering this way and that, to see if we were being watched. I didn’t like standing in one place. “I’m in a hurry,” I said. “I have to meet someone.”
“That man who was asking about you this morning?”
“A man was asking about me this morning?”
“He was asking about a painter of icons. I denied there was any such person under my roof, which was quite true at the time. He didn’t believe me and insisted I show him your room.”
“Did he know my name?”
“No, but he described you. Do you owe him money too?”
It must have been someone sent by Florentius, I thought. Did the fool think I had the Chalke icon hidden under my bed? All the same, it was disturbing. And why not ask for me by name?
“What did he look like?”
Macedonia pondered the question. “Nobody. A labourer. A big, broad-shouldered man, like the one who showed up looking for you a few weeks ago. Philokalas, wasn’t it? The man this morning asked about him. Had he been to see me? Do you suppose he was a friend of the first man?”
So, I thought. Probably the man who had called on Macedonia was not from Florentius but rather a friend of Philokalas. “I can’t imagine who it was,” I said.
What a shock that had been when I discovered that Philokalas had been looking for me an hour before I killed him. I’d returned from defending myself and Macedonia had told me that a man, meeting the description of the fellow who had attacked me with the dagger, had just been to her door. A man named Philokalas. At least that was the name he’d given her, which was the only reason I knew his name. I’d never seen the man in my life.
He had never seen me either because, when I surprised him during his visit to me with the icon, he didn’t show any recognition.
To be honest, I hadn’t given him time, on account of the dagger.
I soon realized that his friends — his accomplices — knew he had come for me, for whatever reason. They’d been following me ever since.
Or so I imagined.
Macedonia must have seen the worry in my face. “Don’t worry. I showed him the room belonging to the leather worker on the top floor. Not an icon to be seen, and he certainly looked!”
I didn’t want that final, unfinished icon. I could practically feel its eyeless gaze, piercing the wall of my former room, groping down streets and through squares, probing under colonnades, trying to find me. “You can have the icon I left, Macedonia. Or perhaps it would be best to burn it.”
“I already did,” she said with a sniff. “It was cold last night, not to mention safer for everyone if someone else comes sniffing about. Now remember what I said about extending you some extra credit.”
I thanked her and took my leave. She looked put out that I wouldn’t tell her where I was living, but what was I supposed to say?
After we parted I continued, more nervous than ever, to my meeting with Florentius. He was waiting just inside one of the Milestone’s four arches. As I drew nearer I saw he was pretending to study inscriptions on the marble, as if he cared what the distance was from where he stood to Thessalonika or Antioch or Alexandria.
I called out a greeting.
Three armed guards emerged from the shadows and moved towards me.
They continued past, laughing to each other, arguing about which tavern to patronize.
“You look pale, my friend,” Florentius said. “Are you cold? Had you been here when they burnt the great icon you could have warmed yourself. Look, you can still see where the heat scorched the stone. How the flames must have raged!”
“Did you see the burning?”
“No. After all, it would not have been seemly for me to be observed here. And there was violence. Some of the mob joined our saviour in the flames, or so I have heard. I can’t imagine it.”
The way his eyes sparkled it looked to me as if he were trying hard to imagine the scene. We got down to business, looking over our shoulders all the time.
“Yes, I know where you mean,” he said when I described the courtyard with the door to the stairway leading underground. “It’s been empty some time with just a watchman living there. A few coins will ensure he looks the other way.”
I lingered after he’d gone so we would not be seen walking together.
Everything was arranged.
My gaze wandered across the Golden Milestone. Over the centuries, one emperor after another had mounted his own garish ornaments on the monument.
I found myself studying a group of three statues. Women. They blazed in the sunlight. While some might dream of having gold stitching in their hems and gold medallions pinned to their stolas, these three far exceeded such dreams for they were, themselves, entirely gilded.
From where I stood I could read the inscription on their plinth. They represented Sophia, the wife of Emperor Justin II, Justin’s niece Helena, and his daughter, Arabia.
The name was surely a sign.
I was confident by the next evening, Arabia and I would be in very different circumstances.
I was not mistaken.
Arabia brought the final meal I would consume in our underground hiding place. I ate smoked mackerel and described my meeting. She took the news that arrangements were in place as a matter of course but didn’t linger. She had to be up early to be on hand to guide Florentius.
“Then we shall have a long day ahead, putting the city behind us,” she said, leaning forward to give me a last kiss.
When she was gone, I began on the biscuits she’d brought. As I chewed, I noticed reddish flakes on the half-eaten portion in my hand. I brought it up to my eyes. The flakes were paint which had blistered off the icon.
