Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [47]
Iola let out a long sigh after the old man had left. 'I wish he could stay here, with us, always,’ she said.
Ì should like that also, but Papavasilliou has his own roads to travel,' replied Georgiadis The little exchange confirmed what Vicki had already suspected. Georgiadis was a kindly, sensible man whom it was easy to trust.
A few moments after the old man had departed, there was yet another knock on the door, this one louder and more insistent. Vicki sighed, expecting someone else ready to view her. 'Why don't you just poke me with a stick and see if I squeal?' she muttered.
'Tax collector. A rare and dubious honour,' said Georgiadis as he opened the door to a tall and serious-looking man who had to stoop to get through the door frame.
'Good evening, shopkeeper,' said the new arrival. `Thank you for allowing me into your home.'
Georgiadis gave his visitor a look of utter contempt which indicated to Vicki that, if he had the slightest excuse to do so, he would have thrown the tall man bodily into the streets and kicked him while he was down. Then Georgiadis indicated towards Vicki. `There she is, tax collector. Another mouth to feed. I should have known that within hours of her arrival, you would be knocking upon my door for your share of her.' He crossed the room to the wall opposite Vicki and withdrew from a hole in the rock a small wooden box that rattled as he opened it. Removing a handful of coins, Georgiadis threw them onto the stone floor at the tax collector's feet. 'Your tribute, Luke Panathaikos. Count it all. Employed by the Romans and mistrusted by everyone else, not least your own people.'
This was something that Vicki had not heard before in the voice of Georgiadis - a weary yet bitter hatred of the man standing before him. The tax collector bent to the floor and retrieved the coins from the dusty cobbles, pocketing them after first counting them, slowly, from one hand to another.
'Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's,' he said when he had finished. ‘That is The Law, shopkeeper. You know this. And you know what fate shall befall you, or anyone, who fails to abide wholly by it. You have given me too much.' He held out his hand with a single copper coin in it.
'A penny for your thoughts, tax collector. You may keep the change,' said Georgiadis dryly
'Get out,' continued Evangeline. 'And take your Roman law with you, parasite.'
The tax collector did so, without another word, and Georgiadis slammed the door after him, turning to his wife and shaking with anger. 'I might have known that such a horse-leech as that man would not be long in claiming his flesh of our flesh.'
'This would probably be a bad time for me to say something, right?' asked Vicki, about to make an equally unkind observation about the recently departed tax collector.
Three heads turned in her direction. Iola seemed astonished that Vicki had spoken at such a moment. She shook her head and found something interesting on the floor to look at.
You are correct,' said Georgiadis through gritted teeth. 'It assuredly would.'
Vicki nodded silently, rolled over and pretended to go to sleep in her corner while she felt the stares behind her back.
Chapter Sixteen
True Faith and Brotherhood
Take heed lest any man deceive you:
For many shall come in my name
Mark 13:5-6
As Ian Chesterton walked the corridors of the Villa Praefectus lost in his own thoughts and memories, a woman's voice cut through the mind-fog. Startled, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of his Hillman Imp on the North Circular Road, Ian snapped to attention and sought out the direction from which her voice had come.
`What would a rabbit be doing on the North Circular Road? Come to that, what would I be doing on the North Circular Road?' Ian asked out loud. It brought a curious expression to the face of Antonia Vinicius.
Ì know not of that which you speak,' she replied, genuinely puzzled.
‘The question was rhetorical,' Ian mumbled and turned to resume his lonely circumnavigation of the villa.
But he wasn't getting away that easily.
`You are