Up The Line

53.

Metaxas, who had not spoken for fifteen minutes, said finally, “If those of you who are going are ready to go, I’ll get a chariot to take you into town.”

Kolettis shook his head. “We haven’t allotted eras yet. But it’ll take only a minute.”

There was a buzzing consultation over the chart. It was decided that Kolettis would cover 700-725, Plastiras 1150-1175, and I would inspect 725-745. Pappas had brought a plague suit with him and was going to make a survey of the plague years 745-747, just in case Sauerabend had looped into that proscribed period by accident.

I was surprised that they trusted me to make a time-jump all by myself, considering what they obviously thought of me. But I suppose they figured I couldn’t get into any worse trouble. Off we went to town in one of Metaxas’ chariots. Each of us carried a small but remark-ably accurate portrait of Conrad Sauerabend, painted on a varnished wooden plaque by a contemporary Byzantine artist hired by Metaxas. The artist had worked from a holophoto; I wonder what he’d made of that.

When we reached Constantinople proper, we split up and, one by one, timed off to the eras we were supposed to search. I materialized up the line in 725 and realized the little joke that had been played on me.

This was the begi

And in such an era I was supposed to walk around town holding a little painting of Conrad Sauerabend, asking people, “Have you seen this man anywhere?”

My painting wasn’t exactly an icon. Nobody who looked at it was likely to mistake Sauerabend for a saint. Even so, it caused a lot of trouble for me.

“Have you seen this man anywhere?” I asked, and took out the painting.

In the marketplace.

In the bathhouses.

On the steps of Haghia Sophia.

Outside the Great Palace.

“Have you seen this man anywhere?”

In the Hippodrome during a polo match.

At the a

In front of the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus.

“I’m looking for this man whose portrait I have here.”

Half the time, I didn’t even manage to get the painting fully into the open. They’d see a man pulling an icon from his tunic, and they’d run away, screaming, “Iconodule dog! Worshipper of images!”

“But this isn’t — I’m only looking for — you mustn’t mistake this painting for — won’t you come back?”

I got pushed and shoved and expectorated upon. I got bullied by imperial guards and glowered at by iconoclastic priests. Several times I was invited to attend underground ceremonies of secret iconodules.

I didn’t get much information about Conrad Sauerabend.

Still, despite all the difficulties, there were always some people who looked at the painting. None of them had seen Sauerabend, although a few “thought” they had noticed someone resembling the man in the picture. I wasted two days tracking one of the supposed resemblers, and found no resemblance at all.

I kept on, jumping from year to year. I lurked at the fringes of tourist groups, thinking that Sauerabend might prefer to stick close to people of his own era.

Nothing. No clue.

Finally, footsore and discouraged, I hopped back down to 1105. At Metaxas’ place I found only Pappas, who looked even more weary and bedraggled than I did.

“It’s useless,” I said. “We aren’t going to find him. It’s like looking for — looking for—”

“A needle in a timestack,” Pappas said helpfully.

54.

I had earned a little rest before I returned to that long night in 1204 and sent my alter ego here to continue the search. I bathed, slept, banged a garlicky slavegirl two or three times, and brooded. Kolettis returned: no luck. Plastiras came back: no luck. They went down the line to resume their Courier jobs. Gompers, Herschel, and Melamed, donating time from their current layoffs, appeared and immediately set out on the quest for Sauerabend. The more Couriers who volunteered to help me in my time of need, the worse I felt.

I decided to console myself in Pulcheria’s arms.

I mean, as long as I happened to be in the right era, and as long as Jud B had neglected to stop in to see her, it seemed only proper. We had had some sort of date. Just about the last thing Pulcheria had said to me after that night of nights was, “We’ll meet again two days hence, yes? I’ll arrange everything.”

How long ago had that been?

At least two weeks on the 1105 now-time basis, I figured. Maybe three.

She was supposed to have sent a message to me at Metaxas’, telling me where and how we could have our second meeting. In my concern with Sauerabend I had forgotten about that. Now I raced all around the villa, asking Metaxas’ butlers and his major domo if any messages had arrived from town for me.

“No,” they said. “No messages.”

“Think carefully. I’m expecting an important message from the Ducas palace. From Pulcheria Ducas.”

“From whom?”

“Pulcheria Ducas.”

“No messages, sir.”

I clothed myself in my finest finery and clipclopped into Constantinople. Did I dare present myself at the Ducas place uninvited? I did dare. My country-bumpkin cover identity would justify my possible breach of etiquette.

At the gate of the Ducas palace I rang for the servants, and an old groom came out, the one who had shown me to the chamber that night where Pulcheria had given herself to me. I smiled in a friendly way; the groom peered blankly back. Forgotten me, I thought.

I said, “My compliments to Lord Leo and Lady Pulcheria, and would you kindly tell them that George Markezinis of Epirus is here to call upon them?”

“To Lord Leo and Lady—” the groom repeated.

“Pulcheria,” I said. “They know me. I’m cousin to Themistoklis Metaxas, and—” I hesitated, feeling even more foolish than usual at giving my pedigree to a groom. “Get me the major-domo,” I snapped.

The groom scuttled within.

After a long delay, an imperious-looking individual in the Byzantine equivalent of livery emerged and surveyed me.

“Yes?”

“My compliments to Lord Leo and Lady Pulcheria, and would you kindly tell them—”

“Lady who? ”

“Lady Pulcheria, wife to Leo Ducas. I am George Markezinis of Epirus, cousin to Themistoklis Metaxas, who only several weeks ago attended the party given by—”

“The wife to Leo Ducas,” said the major-domo frostily, “is named Euprepia.”

“Euprepia?”

“Euprepia Ducas, the lady of this household. Man, what do you want here? If you come drunken in the middle of the day to trouble Lord Leo, I—”

“Wait,” I said. “Euprepia?Not Pulcheria?” A golden bezant flickered into my hand and fluttered swiftly across to the waiting palm of the major-domo. “I’m not drunk, and this is important. When did Leo marry this — this Euprepia?”

“Four years ago.”

“Four — years — ago. No, that’s impossible. Five years ago he married Pulcheria, who—”

“You must be mistaken. The Lord Leo has been married only once, to Euprepia Macrembolitissa, the mother of his son Basil and of his daughter Zoe.”