Free Seven for a Secret by Mary Reed, Eric Mayer

Francio said. “I hope his presence won’t stop you from attending. I’ll be serving Arcadian dishes. Just simple country fare. Very unusual for my gatherings. John, you’ll particularly enjoy the smoked cheese.”
    “Is the cheese by any chance produced on one of those farms your family owns?”
    Francio frowned. “It could be, I suppose. I deal with city merchants. I don’t know who supplies them.”
    “Francio is not a man of business,” put in Anatolius.
    “Certainly not,” Francio agreed. “Particularly when the business would keep me out in the hills someplace. Why would I abandon the court to live amongst sheep and geese? Besides, the family is keen on horses. I remember when I was a child…well…” His voice trailed off as his hand moved for an instant to the side of his crushed nose.
    “Is this man Menander from a landed family?” John asked.
    “Not that I know of. He is, or was, a self-made man, which is to say a man made by the emperor. At some time he was of some value to Justinian. Only he and the emperor can say why. So he was granted a postion, income, a luxurious residence. Then he ceased to be of value and it was all taken away.”
    As he talked, Francio led John and Anatolius along a corridor where busts of emperors and philosophers on pedestals almost outnumbered the patrons. Doorways opened onto meeting rooms, libraries, and exercise areas. The only sign of the facilities themselves was a breath of humid air from an intersecting hallway leading further into the complex.
    They found Crinagoras in a semicircular lecture area with a raised platform facing several benches. The benches were empty except for a long haired boy nibbling at a small wedge of cheese.
    “Your audience is late in arriving?” Francio remarked.
    “Oh, no,” came the reply. “Indeed, there was an excellent turn out. My reading’s finished. I’ve been writing shorter poems, to match my humble subject matter. No epics for onions!”
    The poet was dressed in the voluminous old fashioned toga he always wore for his performances. John thought he looked pudgier than when he had last seen him. The ruddy features, framed by sandy curls, looked even softer and more child-like than John recalled, as if the man were aging backward.
    Crinagoras gestured toward a table covered with empty earthenware dishes and jugs. “It all went exceedingly, wonderfully well, Anatolius. I provided just precisely the right amount of bucolic refreshment. Yes! The wine and cheese lasted exactly as long as the audience did.”
    “Was Menander here?” Francio asked. “We’re looking for him.”
    “Menander?”
    “A big old fellow. White hair. Gaunt. Stooped. Looks like the Olympian Zeus after a year in the emperor’s dungeons.”
    Crinagoras frowned, setting his double chins in motion. “Well, let’s see…I can’t remember. I become caught up in the verse. I find myself transported into realms of imagination far removed from our tawdry, everyday surroundings. The audience might as well not be there.”
    “Menander was here,” the boy on the bench piped up. He looked thirteen or fourteen. “I can tell you where he lives, if it’s worth something to you.”
    Francio scowled at the youth. “And how would you know Menander?”
    The boy shoved the remains of the cheese into his mouth before speaking around the bulge in his cheek. “I’ve had to help him home when he’s drunk often enough.”

Chapter Twelve
    Home, to Menander, was a tenement behind the Church of the Mother of God. Francio remembered some urgent business and took his leave of John and Anatolius as soon as it became apparent that Crinagoras insisted on accompanying them.
    The church and tenement were not far from the workshops of the artisans John had visited that morning. The rain had stopped and the lowering sun turned puddles and wet roofs red.
    As the trio made their way through the russet light, the poet declaimed at Homeric length. “I need to stride the streets