Free Two for Joy by Mary Reed, Eric Mayer Page A

leading steeply up to its columned portico, the shrine sat at the far edge of a grassy open space where the ground dipped away from the road before dropping abruptly to the Bosporos. The building was indistinguishable from hundreds of other small temples, Christian and pagan alike, to be found in all parts of the empire, but it was here that the sluggish river of humanity spilled off the narrow road into a wide lake swirling around the shrine.
    The company rode to the foot of the shrine’s steps, forcing a path through the massed pilgrims. The murmur of the crowd gradually rose higher as it took note of the imperial party. When several excubitors had taken up posts at the shrine’s doorway beside a pile of baskets, sacks and amphorae that had accumulated there, John quickly dismounted as Aurelius struggled off his horse, grimacing in pain.
    “Well, John,” the senator muttered, “I hope you know the proper ceremonial greetings when meeting some holy vagabond fresh off the road from who knows where, because this is something quite beyond my own experience.”
    A fresh breeze had been scouring the shrine with the sharp smell of the sea, but as it subsided momentarily John detected from within the building another odor, a disturbing blend of sweet perfume and the acrid smell of the sick. He had just noted it when a ruggedly-built man almost as tall as himself emerged from the shrine.
    The man’s size and the hard lines of his face suggested a military background, but he appeared unarmed and wore a long white robe. He offered no hint of a formal greeting nor did he make any effort to hide his disdain as he looked down the steps at the emperor’s emissaries.
    “I see Justinian has declined the opportunity to meet personally with the master. However, there is yet time enough for that. You may follow me,” he instructed.
    If John had intended to reply he would have had no opportunity because the acolyte, as he supposed the man to be, immediately vanished back into the building. Aurelius gave a grunt of displeasure. Their visit was not beginning well.
    Inside the shrine, a long nave ran between two aisles accessible through archways. The shadowy aisles and their niches were filled with figures, some reclining on stone benches along the walls, others lying on straw pallets on the floor. A harsh cough echoed, then another. The rasp of labored breathing and low, monotonous moaning echoed around the stone walls. The smell of illness was overpowering.
    “These poor creatures are seeking the aid of Saint Michael, the heavenly physician,” noted the big acolyte. “And so by faith they shall be healed.”
    Dimly seen figures moved around, attending to the sick. A knot of acolytes, going by the fact that their robes were identical to that worn by their guide, stood conversing in the center of the nave. As he went by them, John noted the eastern eyes of a Persian, an Egyptian’s hawk nose and wavy hair, a man in a himation who could have been Philo’s brother, not to mention two men who looked to be of sturdy peasant stock, possibly farmers temporarily absent from their land. Michael’s theology appeared to appeal to a dangerously heterogeneous group, it seemed.
    John was weighing how he could best reveal this unfortunate discovery to Justinian as they reached the end of the nave, where a plain marble altar stood before a slitted window in the back wall. A dusty beam of sunlight lanced through the lazy coils arising from two perfumed candles, the only items adorning the altar.
    The swirling smoke stung John’s eyes. He blinked away tears and suddenly there was a figure standing in front of him.
    Michael was not the begrimed, weather-beaten desert hermit John had half-expected. He was a slight man of elegant appearance, dressed in an immaculate white robe. His head was shaven, his face gaunt but smooth. Sunken eyes flashed in the candlelight like water at the bottom of a well as he inclined his head in silent greeting.
    Why did