The lamp in the little room was running low on oil. Its dying flickers made dello Bosco seem somehow bigger, as if he were gathering strength from Magister Stephen’s distress. Every time he hurried a question now, he leaned forward, hands on his knees, waiting for the Englishman’s stumbling replies like a hound that has scented blood.
He handled Magister Stephen’s next question, on the difference between the English and Continental systems for showing cadency, with such a dazzling display of erudition that the Englishman, desperate as he was, wanted to jot down notes. But there was no time for that. Stretching lazily, dello Bosco said, “I grow weary of the game, I fear. So, then, a last one for you: tell me what arms the devil bears.”
“What? Only the devil knows that!” Magister Stephen blurted.
At that moment the lamp went out, yet the chamber was not dark, for Niccolo dello Bosco’s eyes still glowed red, like burning coals. When he spoke again, his voice was deeper, richer, and altogether without Italian accent. “I see that you do not know, in any case, which is a great pity for you. Nor is it wise to bet with strangers-but then, I told you you were a fool.”
Dello Bosco chuckled. “And now to settle up the wager. What was that you said? ‘Damn me to hell if you do, sir’? Well, that can be arranged.” He strode forward and laid hold of Magister Stephen. His grip had claws.
Dello Bosco had not mentioned the Mountain by the Dark Wood outside Firenze, or the Gateway there, or the writing above it. “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate,” Magister Stephen read as he was dragged through. Even in such straits he was observant, and cried, “No wonder you said you knew Vergil well!”
“Indeed. After all, he lives with me.”
Then the lesser demons took control of their new charge from their master. To show their service, they bore his arms: Gules, a fess or between three frogs proper. Magister Stephen found that very funny-but not for long.
PILLAR OF CLOUD, PILLAR OF FIRE
I’ve written seven stories that feature the exploits of Basil Argyros, a fourteenth-century Byzantine official in a world where Muhammad was monk rather than prophet (see also “Departures” and “Islands in the Sea” in this volume). Six of those stories appear together in the collection Agent of Byzantium (New York: Congdon amp; Weed, 1987). This is the seventh. Chronologically, it fits between the second and third chapters of Agent of Byzantium. Like the others in the series, however, it is intended to stand by itself as well.
Basil Argyros’ shadow was only a small black puddle on the deck timbers under his feet. The sun stood almost at the zenith, higher in the sky than he had ever known it. He used the palm of his hand to shield his eyes from its fierce glare as he peered southward past the ship’s bowsprit. The blue waters of the Middle Sea stretched unbroken before him.
He turned to a sailor hurrying past. “Did the captain not say we’d likely spot land today?”
The sailor, a lean, sun-toasted man who wore only loincloth and sandals, gave a wry chuckle. “Likely’s not certain, sir, and today’s not done.” His Greek had a strong, hissing Egyptian accent. He was heading home.
Argyros wanted to ask another question, but the fellow had not paused to wait for it. He had work to keep him busy; aboard ship, passengers had little better to do than stand around, talk, and gamble-Argyros was up a couple of gold nomismata for the trip. Even so, he had been bored more often than not.
He remembered a time when he would have relished the chance to spend a week or so just thinking. Those were the days before his wife and infant son had died in the smallpox epidemic at Constantinople two years ago. Now when his mind was idle, it kept drifting back to them. He peered south again, hoping the pretense of purpose would hold memory at bay. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Today it didn’t, not very well.
Still, getting away from the imperial capital helped give distance to his sorrow. That was why he had volunteered to go to Alexandria. His fellow magistrianoi looked at him as if they thought he was mad. Likely they did. Anything that had to do with Egypt meant trouble.
Right now, though, Argyros relished trouble, the more, the better. A troubled present would keep him too occupied to think back to his anguished past. He could-
A shout from the port rail snapped him out of his reverie. “The pharos!” cried a passenger, obviously another man with time on his hands. “I see the stub of the pharos!” His arm stabbed out.
Argyros hurried to join him, looking in the direction he was pointing. Sure enough, he saw a white tower thrusting itself up past the smooth sea horizon. The magistrianos shook his head in chagrin. “I would have spied it before if I’d looked southeast instead of due south,” he said.
The man beside him laughed. “This must be your first trip across the open ocean, if you think we can sail straight to where we’re going. I count us lucky to have come so close. We won’t have to put in at some village to ask where we are, and risk being pirated.”
“If the pharos were fully rebuilt, its beacon fire and the smoke from it could be spied a day’s sail away,” Argyros said. “ ‘And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night.’ ‘‘
He and the other man both crossed themselves at the Biblical quotation. So did the sailor with whom Argyros had spoken before. He said, “Sirs, captains have been petitioning emperors to get the pharos rebuilt since the earthquake knocked it down a lifetime ago. They’re only now getting around to it.” He spat over the rail to show what he thought of the workings of the Roman Empire’s bureaucracy.
Argyros, who was part of that bureaucracy, understood and sympathized with the sailor’s feelings. Magistrianoi-secret investigators, agents, sometimes spies-could not grow hidebound, not if they wanted to live to grow old. But officials with lawbooks had governed the empire from Constantinople for almost a thousand years. No wonder they often moved slow as flowing pitch. The wonder, sometimes, was that they moved at all.
The man who had first seen the pharos said, “Seems to me the blasted Egyptians are more to blame for all the delays than his Majesty Nikephoros.” He turned to Argyros for support. “Don’t you think so, sir?”
“I know little of such things,” the magistrianos said mildly. He shifted to Latin, a tongue still used in the empire’s western provinces but hardly ever heard in Egypt. “Do you understand this speech?”
“A little. Why?” the passenger asked. The sailor, not following, shook his head.
“Because I can use it to remind you it might not be wise to revile Egyptians when the crew of this ship is nothing else but.”
The man blinked, then gave a startled nod. If the sailor had been offended, he got no chance to do anything about it. Just then, the captain shouted for him to help shift the lines to the foresail as the ship swung toward Alexandria. “As well we’re west of the city” Argyros observed. “The run into the merchantmen’s harbor will be easier than if we had to sail around the island of Pharos.”
“So it will.” The other passenger nodded. Then he paused, took a long look at the magistrianos. “For someone who says he knows little of Alexandria, you’re well informed.”
Argyros shrugged, annoyed with himself for slipping. It might not matter now, but could prove disastrous if he did it at the wrong time. He did know more of Alexandria than he had let on-he knew as much as anyone could who had never come there before. Research seemed a more profitable way to spend his time than mourning.
He even knew why the pharos was being restored so slowly despite Nikephoros’ interest in having it shine once more. That was why he had come. Knowing what to do about the problem was something else again. No one in Alexandria seemed to. That, too, was why he’d been sent.