Five for Silver: A John, the Lord Chamberlain Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

understand,” John replied. “Although I would have imagined a tomb builder would be overwhelmed by work in the midst of so much death.”
    “The dead don’t purchase tombs, excellency. My customers are dying before they can make appropriate preparations. Constructing a proper tomb can take years. It’s not just hacking a few stones about, as some in the profession are wont to do.”
    “You’ve had business dealings with Gregory?”
    “Not exactly, but I can tell you where to find him. You can’t miss his house. Continue up the Mese from here and it’s the house just before the obelisk the candlemaker erected in front of his emporium.”
    “You don’t know Gregory personally?”
    “No. He is, however, said to be a good Christian.” Paraskeve’s tone was abrupt.
    John asked why people had formed this opinion.
    “For one thing, he petitioned Justinian to renovate the Church of the Holy Apostles.” Paraskeve didn’t seem inclined to add a second thing.
    “Emperor Constantine built that church to be his tomb, didn’t he?”
    Paraskeve’s cherubic face brightened suddenly. “That’s right. There’s a fine example of forethought, excellency. It’s one reason I set up my workshop as close as I could to the church.”
    John inspected a carved piece of black-veined marble leaning against a pile of sandstone blocks. As he bent to examine the partially completed inscription, heat from the sun-warmed stone touched his face. He read the half finished verse aloud. “‘Do not believe you have twice five thousand years; death is close at hand, thus while—”
    “—you breathe, while there is time, live in a fitting fashion,’ Marcus Aurelius,” Paraskeve finished the verse.
    “You are quite a philosopher, I see.”
    “Not at all, excellency, but when you’re in the business of constructing tombs you just can’t avoid Marcus Aurelius. I think I must’ve engraved every word of his miserable Meditations at some time or other.”
    “You don’t agree with his thoughts?”
    “I’m an optimist! Tomorrow I might die, but as long as I know that it means I’m still alive, doesn’t it? How could an emperor be so gloomy? Especially considering just about everyone’s going to die without ever being emperor. I encourage my customers to choose contemporary verses, if verse they must have. Something specially composed. Not that I can afford to engage a decent epigrammist the way things are right now.”
    “So you think we should contemplate our deaths to the extent of commissioning our tombs?”
    “Please, excellency! Clients who commission tombs, well, their deaths are the last things on their minds. No, not at all. I’ll give you an example. Years ago a basket-maker came to me. At the time he was practically a youth. He had his tomb constructed in a secluded corner of a cemetery just outside the city wall. Was he contemplating his mortality? Hardly! He wanted to impress a young woman whose hand he sought. It worked too! A man of sufficient substance to finance such a project at such a young age and so responsible and practical as shown by the very act…well, excellency, women like men who have their tombs already built. Now he tells me he and his wife take a basket of food out there on sunny days and enjoy the country air.”
    John remarked that tomb construction sounded like a very interesting profession, but before he could turn the conversation back to Gregory, Paraskeve, seemingly happy to have someone to talk to for a time, had embarked on another story.
    “So the bootmaker’s tomb is no more than a hand’s-breadth from the Via Egnatia, practically in sight of the city. Naturally it gets as dusty as the boots he sells,” Paraskeve concluded. “Ah, but consider this! It’s also readily seen by every footsore pilgrim. What a fine advertisement for his goods. Idle boasts read much better as epitaphs!”
    John agreed there was some truth in the statement.
    “Then there was a certain senator,” the