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place?” John asked with interest.
    “Well, it came about because my neighbor Castor has a most remarkable library. More than a hundred volumes, if you can imagine that, and not just your usual works by Homer and John Chryso-stom either! Anyhow, it was in his library that I came across a copy of Hero of Alexandria’s Pneumatics. It’s filled with diagrams and instructions for the construction of any number of truly amazing inventions.”
    “Hero never mentioned this Pneumatics. He called himself the inventor of the whale.”
    “That’s true enough. The ancient inventor did not describe a whale as such but rather useful bits and pieces that we incorporated into it, duplicating the parts as closely as possible. I can tell you, it wasn’t easy when we first began. A pressurized container exploded, not once but twice. Hero had been carefully following a special instruction in his namesake’s treatise. However, Castor must have been studying the work, thought he had a better idea, and amended the text! Not surprisingly, the original inventor had known better.” Zeno had begun to gesticulate enthusiastically, his eyes glittering with excitement, but as they emerged from the olive grove between his gardens and the grassy headlands of the shore, his voice trailed off.
    “I’m such a fool,” he said sadly. “A prattling old fool! A child has died and here I am, rambling on about such things! Gadaric should be playing dodge ball out here, not lying dead under my roof. I acquitted myself quite well when we played it, you know. I’m nimble considering my age although there again I do present a larger target than either of the children.”
    The gentle breeze ruffling the rough grass on the headland they were crossing carried the faint smell of smoke from the workshops.
    John asked if the children had displayed particular interest in Hero’s inventions.
    “Of course they did!” Zeno replied sorrowfully. “I must say in a way I blame myself since I allowed them to watch Hero and his assistants at work. The children were fascinated by it all. They’re frighteningly intelligent children, monsters of precocity, John. I suppose it comes from being raised in isolation and tutored endlessly almost from birth.”
    Zeno moved suddenly, like a startled bird, his baggy orange dalmatic billowing out and his hair flying. A dull thump and the leather ball lying in the grass arced up into the sky, propelled by his boot.
    John decided Zeno’s estate was not a good place to ponder puzzles. Not that this particular puzzle seemed very difficult. The only missing piece was Barnabas and if he was not here, then where else could he have gone but Constantinople?
    It was time to return home.

Chapter Four
    John sat in the study of his house on the grounds of the Great Palace, sipping a cup of the vinegary Egyptian wine he had favored since the long-ago days when he had lived in Alexandria.
    It was late afternoon, when men hastened to their homes and evening meals while those who had neither began to drift into neglected corners of the city seeking the company of their impoverished fellows and perhaps a stale scrap of bread found in the gutter or stolen while the baker’s attention was elsewhere.
    The rusty light of the dying sun laying a bloody hand across Constantinople spilled in through the window and across a wall mosaic depicting a placid rural scene not unlike those through which John had ridden on his return from Zeno’s estate.
    John had discarded his travel-soiled garments for a simple white tunic. Lost in thought as he stared at the mosaic, he could have been mistaken for a well-to-do, albeit rather ascetic, merchant pondering about the day’s takings or possibly formulating plans for a family celebration.
    “It seems that recent events on Zeno’s estate are sadly much more harrowing than what’s happening in your landscape, Zoe,” John said quietly as he set his cracked clay cup aside.
    The almond-shaped eyes of the mosaic