I would have been out of the city before nightfall if a guard hadn’t been left beside the iron hound. No one notices stylites, but a guard wouldn’t miss seeing one of those holy men sliding down a rope off his pillar.
Before dark the watchman was relieved by two more who set up torches along the colonnade. Perhaps they hoped I would return to try to hide myself in the underground maze.
I was in a bad spot. Sooner or later somebody was going to check the pillar. But at least I had time to think and I’d always survived by my wits.
Admittedly I’d made a few errors in judgement the past couple of days. It was obvious now but could I have known then that Arabia was waiting for me that morning near the hound?
In retrospect I was able to piece the story together. Arabia and Philokalas had been working together. Arabia had seen me at Florentius’s house and knew I could help her and Philokalas sell the icon, something they couldn’t do themselves — one being a servant, the other a lowly labourer.
She probably met Philokalas when both worked at the Patriarch’s residence. Philokalas must have come upon the hidden image while in the course of repair-work in the Patriarch’s cellars following the earthquake. In fact, the earthquake might well have revealed the icon’s hiding place.
Had Arabia and Philokalas carted it together to the underground hiding place where I found it, and she pretended to see it for the first time? She could have let Philokalas into the Patriarch’s house at night; the only way to get the icon down underground was through the door I had been so happy to find. Or had Philokalas’s other accomplices helped him move it? Were there others? Perhaps the men following me had been all my imagination and the fellow who asked Macedonia about Philokalas was simply a worried friend to whom he had unwisely let drop a word or two about an icon-painter he was seeking?
At any rate, once Philokalas vanished, Arabia began looking for the useful icon-painter herself. And now she’d double-crossed me. Not only was she running off with my share of Florentius’s payment, she also had whatever the rival collector had paid her.
How could she? It didn’t seem fair. I would never have killed her. Even if I’d had the chance. I swear I wouldn’t have killed her.
There had to be a rival collector, the way I saw it. Despite what they said, the guards and the man who had killed Florentius weren’t sent by the Patriarch — who was well known to be violently opposed to icons. That was why Leo made him Patriarch. He wouldn’t be concerned if the image were damaged when transported, as his supposed men had carelessly indicated he would.
Not everyone would have noticed that little slip, but I did.
It could only mean those men were sent by someone else who had heard about the icon’s survival or been informed about it by Arabia. Doubtless she’d managed to get the collector’s name from Florentius, who’d evidently been taking advantage of her by his own admission.
I was exhausted, but there wasn’t enough room on the pillar’s platform to lie down, so I leaned against its railing and looked out over the city. The glowing dome of the Great Church seemed to throw orange sparks along the streets and into windows and on ships in the harbour. I could almost feel the gaze of monstrous eyes staring down out of the black vault of the heavens, but there was nothing to see up there except the glittering cold points of stars, and ragged wraiths of cloud fleeing before a rising wind.
People say Hades is underground, but I found it up there in cold loneliness.
And it was the iron hound who guarded the entrance to the path I took that led me there.
I wouldn’t have killed Arabia. When I wasn’t looking up I looked down at the piece of brick beside my feet, the unused symbol of my mercy.
At dawn I began to cry out for Patriarch Anastasius.
People pay no attention to stylites, but then most stylites don’t demand to see the Patriarch and shout about stolen icons.
I’m not certain what I expected. After days down there in the dark with a gigantic demon staring at me, and then a frigid night atop a pillar too close to that big being in the sky, I was probably not in my right mind. But I could not be certain I was not still being sought in order to silence me forever.
The one result of my plea I didn’t expect was for Patriarch Anastasius himself to appear.
Yes, possibly it was a vision. The other day I saw Satan perched like a huge bat on Justinian’s statue atop the column in the Augustaion. I’m fairly certain that was a vision. And I’ve seen other things as well. You get a new perspective from one of these stylite’s columns.
But whether the visitation was real or not — and what difference does it make to someone in my position? — a regal-looking man, swathed in layers of heavily embroidered robes, entered the square accompanied by a company of retainers, most carrying lances.
The Patriarch climbed up stairs concealed inside my pillar — a feature I wished I had known about when fleeing — and emerged on the narrow, windswept platform.
He was not an old man. He wore a beard, cut in the manner of the icon with whom I had recently grown acquainted. His eyes were not as large as the image’s, but they were almost as deep and his mouth was as cruel.
“Excellency,” I began, having no idea how you addressed a Patriarch. “A traitor rescued the Chalke Christ you wished destroyed, another found it, and yet another traitor — ”
He put up a hand. “We can speak freely here since nobody will hear us except, perhaps, heaven. I was informed that the watchman I ordered stationed on this pillar was behaving oddly. Since he had already been relieved of his duty once my icon was retrieved, I was curious.”
“Watchman? Your icon? What happened to the stylite?”
He smiled but did not answer all my questions. “Have you noticed there’s a good view of that scabby dog from up here? And there’s no other way into that part of the labyrinth apart from through a door in a certain courtyard.”
“But you ordered the icon burned!”
“What choice did I have? The holy image had been taken down and brought to stay overnight in my residence. Then when the splintered remains were brought out to be set on fire, the pile of bits of painted boards was so large that nobody realized part of it was missing.”
“And you concealed the upper portion? But why?”
“We must always think of the future, in this world as in the one to which we will go in due course. The next emperor may have different notions and wish icons to be restored. You see I speak frankly. If I realized the earthquake had fractured the wall of the vault in which that upper panel was hidden, I wouldn’t have allowed the workman down there. He stole it. Carted it off and hid it.”
“Those were your men who came for the icon? It was you who paid Arabia?”
“My former servant, you mean? The girl who went to work for Florentius? A lovely girl. I’ve come to know her quite well. A pity about Florentius. He was found murdered in an alley not far from here. Such is the state of the city, no doubt the villains responsible will never be apprehended.”
The Patriarch looked away and scanned the panorama around us. “I’ve often wondered what you holy men could see from here. It’s magnificent.”
“But I’m not a holy man!”
“I disagree. I believe you are. Look, your hands are blue with cold. Suffering sharpens faith. The more tenuous our connection to our pitiful fleshly husks, the closer we are to heaven. You are blessed, my friend. It is difficult to feel the holy presence while wrapped in fine robes and surrounded by luxury.” He gave a sorrowful shake of his head and smiled faintly. “Yet can those of us who choose to serve him refuse the harsh sacrifices as we are asked to make?”
He fixed me in his demon’s gaze. “You know too much to ever descend from this pillar. I shall allow you to stay here and glory in the presence of the Lord. I will arrange to have acolytes, armed for your protection, stationed below day and night.”
It took an instant for me to understand the horror of my situation. “No, excellency,” I cried. “Why not kill me? Why leave me here?”
“Because,” the patriarch said as he turned to go down the stairs, “it pleases me.”
