“And?”

  “You. He told us to get rid of you. He promised more money when we returned.”

  Wiliarit put his arm around Amalina. She leaned onto his shoulder.

  “Describe this man,” Argolicus continued.

  “He was a slave, like that little devil there.” He pointed to Nikolaos. “Well dressed. A clean tunic. Medium tall. Brown hair. Ordinary house slave.”

  “Who sent him?”

  “He… he didn’t say.”

  “And, where were you? How did he know how to find you?

  “We’re always outside the bishop’s palace. You know how it is. No steady work. But sometimes we get jobs.”

  ”Like this one?”

  “Well, not exactly like this one. Usually, it’s, you know, someone who owes the bishop. We go to collect.” He nodded toward the other two thugs.

  “Have you ever done something like this before?”

  The thug looked down, then glanced at the other two.

  “Well… not all three of us.”

  “What do you mean not all three? Just you?”

  “I’m the biggest. I…”

  “I see.” Argolicus felt he was close to a revelation. “Recently? Recently anything like this?”

  The thug looked out at the forest trees, over at Wiliarit’s paint box, down at his feet. He mumbled, “Just one.”

  “Here, in this meadow?”

  “How did you…? You couldn’t…”

  “Here. In this meadow?”

  “Y,.. Y,.. Yes. Just one man. A poor one. I did what I was asked.”

  “Which was?”

  “Bring back his bag. Hurt him.” The big thug shifted on the ground.

  “And you did? You hurt him and took back the bag.”

  The thug shifted his eyes and said, “Yes. Hurt him. Then grabbed the bag and ran.”

  “You did more than hurt him.”

  The thug nodded his head and looked away at the trees again. “I heard. I didn’t mean… It just happened.”

  “I want to understand,” Argolicus said. “You were not told to kill him?”

  “He didn’t use the word. No. But, he…” The thug searched for a word.

  “He implied. He meant that hurting could be killing.”

  “Yes, yes. You understand. I mean, I hardly ever get instructions to kill. But people, some people, know I can rough people up. And, what was that word?”

  “Imply.”

  “Yes, sometimes the instructions imply.”

  A breeze rustled in the trees. The grass and flowers nodded in the meadow. Everyone was silent, waiting for Argolicus to decide. Argolicus felt like hitting the man. But he checked himself because the man was just a thug, and not a smart one. He needed to know who had hired the thug.

  “This man, the man who gave you the instructions. Tell me more about him. Anything you remember. Anything at all.”

  The man shook his head. “He was just a slave. I told you.”

  “He had good shoes,” the thug in front of Amalina said, eyeing her dagger.

  “Good shoes? What do you mean?” Argolicus asked, turning toward the man. He didn’t know what this meant, but maybe it was something.

  “They weren’t fancy, no embroidery, but they were good shoes. New leather. Supple. No blisters for that man.” The thug looked at his feet out in front of him. “See these? Stiff. Even though they’re worn, they are stiff. But that slave is taken care of. I can tell you that. I used to work leather before these hard times. Those shoes were good shoes.”

  “Anything else?”

  The three men looked at each other.

  The big thug shrugged his shoulders. “He was from here. I guess that just adds to his being ordinary. You know how slaves come from all over the world? Well, this one had no accent. He looked like us... well, except for being better dressed. I mean, he was just an ordinary man but from Bruttium. He was easy to understand.”

  Argolicus was getting bits and pieces but nothing that distinguished the man who had paid the thugs. “Alright, let’s get you to the pro-magistrate. Nikolaos, lead the way.”

  Amalina loosened the ties around the thugs’ feet to hobble them. Wiliarit got the men to stand up one by one. Argolicus gathered the thugs’ clubs and wrapped them in what was left of Amalina’s shawl, so it served as a large bag. Then they all headed through the woods toward home. The sun was getting low in the sky. The trees cast dark shadows, and Argolicus was glad Nikolaos knew the way.

  At the villa, they gathered the men in the courtyard until the pro-magistrate arrived. A kitchen slave came out with soup for everyone. Another slave set up torch lights around the courtyard against the gathering evening. They waited in silence.

  As the shock of the attack wore off, and they were all safe at home with the thugs apprehended, Argolicus felt the pains of the attack and muscle soreness from fighting. The knuckles on both hands ached. A dull pain burned his left shoulder, and his ribs ached. But, what bothered him was his frustration at finding the person who had instigated the attack and, now that he knew, Lucas’ murder. They had apprehended the thugs, but he didn’t know the person with the intent. The men in front of him were merely living instruments, like the clubs they had wielded.

  He glanced at Wiliarit, who had a red welt on his cheek. Amalina’s pale cheeks seemed to highlight the lines around her mouth and eyes. Nikolaos, standing by the practice swords they’d used this morning, was rubbing his arm. The practice swords. Without that constant practice, Argolicus would have been unprepared for the attack. The king’s law forbade Romans from carrying arms. Only The People could carry arms. He’d been fortunate to have his mother and Wiliarit with him... and prepared. More than fortunate that Nikolaos made him practice. Suddenly, he had a sense of how they could have ended up left in the meadow like Lucas.

  He heard horses approaching and men’s voices. The pro-magistrate and his deputies appeared in the courtyard. They rounded up the three thugs. As they led them away, the big thug turned around. “He had a missing tooth… on the bottom.”

  PAINTING A NEW PICTURE

  The figures on the frescos seemed to move in the flickering lamplight in the triclinium. Reclining on the dining bench relaxed Argolicus’ sore muscles, and the food on the table smelled delicious.

  “I was ravenous,” Wiliarit said, dipping a spoon into the herbed lentil soup. They spoke in Their Language since it was only the three of them. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a fight.” He rubbed at a cut over his eye.

  Argolicus laughed. “I haven’t had a real fight since boyhood. This was different. They planned to harm us. I don’t think killing was out of the question. As the man said, it was implied.” His raw knuckles stretched in pain as he lifted his spoon.

  “But why?” Amalina asked, signaling for the next dish. “Was helping Maria worth killing? That family. Bartholomaeus is not a nice man. Killing us wouldn’t accomplish anything. He has his daughter back.” Argolicus looked at the rough patch on her cheek that would soon be a large scab. The wrinkles that radiated from the corners of her eyes, always associated with smiles, indicated that age was not a barrier to courage.

  “I don’t know,” Argolicus said. “I’ve sent a message to him that Lucas’ killer is apprehended and with the promagistrate in town. He will have to resolve it in his own way. But for us, it doesn’t solve the problem. If someone wants us out of the way, they can hire different thugs. We haven’t found the real murderer. The one who had Lucas killed. The one who sent thugs after us.” He tried shifting away from the aches again without success.

  “Ah, tuna,” Wiliarit said, as the fish in lovage and mint sauce arrived on the table. He put down his spoon and waited as the kitchen slave put a steaming piece of fish on a plate. “Do you think it’s personal, against us, or some provincial rebellion against The People?” He tucked into the tuna with vigorous bites.

  “In some ways it doesn’t matter,” Argolicus said. “A threat is a threat. And Mother is right. Why? I suspect it has something to do with Lucas. But what? What we do know is that Lucas is dead, the icon is missing, and we were attacked.” He shifted on the couch trying to get comfortable, but the aches just shifted with his movement.

  “That poor girl,” Amalina said, taking a larger than usual portion of fish. "When is her wedding? She can’t get away from all that fast enough.”

  “You were the one that talked to her. I thought you knew. Isn’t it in a few weeks?” Argolicus felt his obligation pressing in. He might never keep his promise to Maria.

  Amalina nodded her head. “It can’t be soon enough.”

  “We will stay away from that family,” Argolicus said. “I’ll keep looking for who wanted Lucas dead because they threatened us, too. But, unless we determine that a family member hired those thugs, we stay away.” A bitterness rose in his throat. How old allegiances had come back to strike him and his family.

  Amalina and Wiliarit nodded.

  “Where is Nikolaos?”

  “Now that dinner has been prepared, he’s busy in the kitchen, cooking up remedies for us,” Amalina replied, her cheek stretching with the stiff red patch.

  “Ugh,” Wiliarit said. “I hope we don’t have to drink some vile concoction from his herb garden.”

  “Those vile concoctions work,” Argolicus said in defense of his tutor. “He knows plants. Isn’t that why you are here?”

  “Yes, yes.” Wiliarit conceded. “But still…”

  “Do you want to wait to have the fruit?” Amalina asked with complete deadpan, summoning years of sibling communication.

  “No, no. Fruit next,” Wiliarit said. “We can drink honeyed wine after any of Nikolaos’ potions.”

  After dinner, Nikolaos gathered them all on the benches in the peristylum. The night was warm for late March. Slaves lit up the area with torches.

  Nikolaos had prepared poultices for wounds and, yes, a tangy, but not bitter, herbal tisane for them all. In the quiet moments, while his patients were under his care, he pulled out a book and began reading. "Nature is pliable, obedient. And the logos that governs it has no reason to do evil. It knows no evil, does none, and causes harm to nothing. It dictates all beginnings and all endings.” He paused, glanced at all the visible wounds, and continued. "Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter.”

  “I could do the right thing now, rest,” Wiliarit said, interrupting the reading and speaking in Latin for the benefit of Nikolaos. “But what burns my mind is who hired those thugs.” He touched the poultice over his wound. “They did this, but their intent was worse.”

  Argolicus nodded raising his soaking knuckles with the cup to sip the tisane. Not as vile as expected.

  "Think of them all,” Argolicus said. "Bartholomaeus, Braga, Mattheus, Marcus, why would they really care about the icon? What upset them all was his new belief. The way he countered the traditions and hierarchies of the Church by supporting a belief system that had to do with personal decisions. Lucas was a defiant departure from tradition.” Somehow, sitting on the bench made his aches feel better. The dining couch. He wondered about sleep in bed. Would it be as uncomfortable as reclining to eat?

  “I agree,” Amalina said, taking a sip of tisane and making a face. “Nikolaos, what is this?”

  “Surely, it’s time for some honeyed wine,” Wiliarit said, taking a gulp of tisane to make it disappear.

  “Have you finished your drink?” Nikolaos asked, looking up from the book. His instruction from Marcus Aurelius was not keeping anyone’s attention. He closed the book.

  Everyone nodded yes.

  Wiliarit tipped up his cup for one last sip. Then he set the cup down. “It wasn’t as awful as I’d expected.”

  Nikolaos ignored him and continued, “Each of them has enough money to hire a thug, even a band of thugs, to do their dirty work. Since we know the same thugs were used against Lucas and against us, we only need to find the one person behind them.”

  “Well, that goes without saying,” Argolicus replied, feeling irritable with his aching body and scored knuckles. “But, I will not give up.”

  Wiliarit said, “I think I know. Well, I have a strong suspicion.”

  They all looked at him expectantly. A servant brought out a tray with cups and a pitcher of honeyed wine.

  “Ah, inspiration,” Wiliarit said, reaching for a cup.

  “Don’t make us wait, Uncle. Tell us your idea.”

  “It’s like the sketches I’ve been doing. You have a subject, in this case, all the people who might have wished Lucas harm, but when you start the next sketch, you see a detail that had escaped your notice before…”

  “Stop,” Amalina said in her older sister voice. “Skip the theoretical analogy and get to your idea.”

  “Let me put it less artistically,” Wiliarit continued without missing a beat. “Solving a puzzle, like who killed Lucas, isn’t so much about finding tidbits of clues that can point in any direction. It’s about knowing what to look for. And, you may scoff,“ he looked at Amalina, ”but it’s like painting a new picture of the same subject.”

  Argolicus, determined to quell a decades-old sibling squabble, said, “Paint the picture.”

  “We’ve been focused on Church traditions and how Lucas antagonized everyone with his newfound faith. But we’ve overlooked something equally strong, the hierarchy inside the Church. Instead of looking at which Church or Church leader holds the correct belief, we can look at the structure inside the Church. I work with this structure when I make books for prelates.”

  “I don’t understand,” Nikolaos said as he peeked under Amalina’s poultice to check her wound.

  “We’ve been basing our thoughts on the outside traditions, but we need to look at the inside traditions. You can’t imagine how complicated it is in Constantinople. Rome is nothing. And, here, for Squillace, the structure is the same.”

  Argolicus could see his mother was about to reprimand Wiliarit again. He spoke before she could. “Explain. I’m not sure I understand either.”

  “Unlike a priest, loyal to the Church, the deacon’s obligation is to the bishop. If the bishop orders something, the deacon performs. Braga could express a wish or even mumble a discontent, and a zealous deacon eager for advancement who heard him could carry out an act unknown to the bishop. Braga need not be involved personally. The deacon might mention later an act he had done in order to curry favor and gain personal prestige with the bishop. This is the picture. While priests are bound to the Church, deacons are bound by oath to serve the bishop. Theoretically, they carry out the benevolence of the bishop through daily actions. They perform administrative duties, like a merchant’s clerks. And if the bishop expresses a desire, they make it happen in the everyday world.”

  “So, the man with the missing tooth came from a deacon, not the bishop?” Amalina asked, sipping at her cup of wine.

  “The bishop, but through a deacon. The man with the missing tooth never spoke to the bishop. He received an order and carried it out. All this could happen without the bishop’s knowledge. Of course, this is a speculative thought.”

  Nikolaos approached Wiliarit to check his wound, but the monk waved him away. The monk took a long sip of wine.

  “That’s an interesting theory, but why couldn’t he come from someone in Bartholomaeus’ family? I don’t see how we’ve narrowed it down to the bishop or a deacon,” Amalina said, determine to poke a hole in her brother’s elaborate analogy.

  Nikolaos fussed with Argolicus knuckles, patting the poultice around the edges. Argolicus winced. They still went in circles around Lucas’ murder.

  "So, let’s start with the Bishop. We can’t go to Bartholomaeus’ house. Truthfully, I don’t want to see him again. Uncle, can you make one last visit before you leave for Constantinople?”

  Wiliarit nodded, then took a gulp of honeyed wine.

  PALACE ORDER

  Wiliarit took time out from sketching plants to paint a representation of Ignatius of Antioch sailing on a boat to Rome writing letters to his flock.

  “Usually, he’s represented with the lions grinding his bones, but Braga doesn’t seem like a man who wants to think about martyrdom.”

  “It’s ready?” Argolicus asked. “And you have an appointment?”

  “Yes, this afternoon.”

  “Thank you for doing this, Uncle. We have no idea if this will reveal anything at all.”

  “You gave your word to Maria. Plus, I know you. You don’t give up.” He put his large arm around Argolicus’ shoulder.

  * * *

  This time there was no visit to the treasures. Braga met them in the sparse salutorium. Seated on his bishop’s chair, he listened to Wiliarit as he displayed his painting of Ignatius. Wiliarit handed the vellum sheet with the image to the bishop.

  “So, the book would have the letters of Ignatius written in a fine script with illustrations, much like this one. You can control the price in accordance with how many illustrations you want added to the letters.”

  Braga squinted at the sheet, his stubby ringed fingers handling the sheet with care. With his other hand, he motioned to several deacons standing at the side of the big empty room. “You have read this Ignatius?”

  The answers came back in mumbles. “No.” "I don’t read, Father.” “No, but it would be a worthy addition.”

  A young deacon came into the room, brown robes hanging over a thin frame. “Your visitor.” He announced.

  Braga frowned, his snub nose wrinkling. “He is early. But bring him in.”

  The deacon returned, followed by Bartholomaeus. He swept in with his silks flowing. Frowned at Argolicus and Wiliarit, went to the bishop, fell on his knee, and kissed the bishop’s ring snuggled among the jeweled fingers.

  The bishop said, “Let me finish here. I’m considering adding a book to the collection.” He held out the vellum sheet to Bartholomaeus.

  “For your library?” Bartholomaeus asked. “What will it be? Who is this?” He pointed to the figure on the boat.

  While the bishop told Bartholomaeus about the early Church fathers and Ignatius in particular, Argolicus looked at the deacons arranged around the room. Was Wiliarit right? Could the murderous plotter be one of them? They all looked just as committed as Wiliarit did in his monk’s robes. If it was one of the deacons, how would he discover which one? Had he set himself up for a fool’s errand? And, now, Bartholomaeus was here. There was bound to be trouble.

 

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