by Mary Reed
“We know of at least one other person close to the work. The man who chiseled it. And remember, Theodora mentioned that Hypatius was only one of a number of patrons who paid for it. That didn’t seem to have any bearing on the murder before. No doubt Archdeacon Palamos would know the names of the others.”
***
Palamos was still at his temporary post in the Great Church. A boy, indistinguishable from the child they had watched lighting lamps during their previous visit with the archdeacon, ran to fetch the man.
Felix strolled around the base of the marble Christ, shaking his head. “No, this is not to my taste at all. When I first arrived in Constantinople, it made me uncomfortable, having the eyes of this man upon me everywhere. Hanging on every wall, looming over me as I came and went from the palace.”
Palamos emerged into the vestibule. A fond pat from his pudgy hand sent the boy who had found him back to work.
Felix watched the child race away. “You’ve got more urchins in here than there are on the street.”
“The church is a safer place for them. We try to employ as many as possible. It brings tears to my eyes to see all the beautiful little boys living off scraps, shivering in rags, freezing to death in corners.”
Felix stated their business.
Palamos’ pallid features tightened into a frown. “There were two other patrons who, unlike Hypatius, wished to remain anonymous. Please don’t misunderstand. I am not faulting Hypatius for proclaiming his generosity. There are those who take undue pride in humility. But you can understand my difficulty.”
Felix produced a handful of coins. “Perhaps there are boys here who need new shoes?”
Palamos accepted the donation without hesitation. “How gratifying to see a military man concerned with things other than killing! I suppose I can tell you, in the strictest confidence, that one of the other patrons was Fortunatus. Another great philanthropist. He recently gave all his wealth to the church and retired to the monastery next door.”
“And the second?” John inquired. “A pious widow named Dominica.” Palamos noticed the surprise on John’s face. “You’re acquainted with Dominica?”
“She is an acquaintance of an employer.” Palamos told them where Dominica lived. “If you’re still interested in why so many oppose Theodora, ask Dominica. She can certainly tell you tales. I’ve heard a few myself. Did you know that Theodora’s old actress friends, common whores the lot of them, are welcome at the Hormisdas at any hour? She arranges abortions for them. It’s something upon which she is an authority, having had considerable experience of them herself. If Justinian expects a successor out of that one, he will be sadly disappointed. She’s as worn out as a crone.”
Palamos stopped abruptly and glanced around. “I should not be talking about such things with small ears around. The Lord willing, our boys will avoid these filthy entanglements. That would be a blessing indeed.”
Felix gave a curt nod and thanked Palamos. Outside, he growled to John, “I think Palamos is much too fond of his boys. Where should we go now? There’s the monastery, practically in front of us. I suppose we should speak to this Fortunatus first.”
“If you don’t mind, let’s seek out Dominica. I find walking a useful aid in the contemplation of problems.”
Felix said nothing, but accompanied John across the Augustaion. He came to a halt suddenly, jerked his head around and scanned the square. John followed his gaze, but saw only the usual array of citizens hurrying to shops or churches or homes.
Felix resumed walking. “I keep feeling eyes on my back.”
“After being ambushed I’m not—”
“No. I’m not imagining things. Someone’s watching us, following us.”
As if to confirm his words, as the two men turned to enter the Mese, a young man in a bright red cloak, hardly suitable for street wear, came running toward them. Felix’s hand went to his sword and then dropped away when he saw the youngster’s heavily powdered and painted face. It was one of the pages who served as palace decorations, or in other capacities required by members of the court.
“They said you’d probably be lurking around here,” gasped the page, thoroughly out of breath from his burst of exertion.
“You were almost right,” John remarked to his companion. “Someone was looking for us.”
The page looked from John to Felix. “What a pair! A soldier and a eunuch! You, excubitor. The emperor wants to see you. Immediately. Follow me.”
“If Justin orders it, I shall attend,” replied Felix. “However, I can find my own way to the palace.” The black glare he directed at the page sent the youngster off at a trot.
“Trouble?” John wondered.
“We’ll see. I’d go back to the palace if I were you, John. I’m certain we were being followed.” “I don’t want to delay visiting these patrons,” John replied reluctantly.
“Be careful then. At least I now know you can handle yourself in a fight!”
John watched as Felix turned back toward the palace, and then resumed walking. Now he felt as if someone were watching him. He cursed Felix for putting the idea into his head.
Chapter Twenty-Six
John’s unease dogged him, abating only as he neared Dominica’s house. His shadower, if there indeed was one, remained as invisible as John’s fears.
The approach to the house he sought might have been just another narrow way cutting between brick boxes, apartment buildings which housed many of the administrative ant-like army that marched into palace offices every morning only to march back out each afternoon, the problems of the empire still largely unconquered.
The mansion was an eccentric affair, a two-story hexagonal structure with a series of porches. Hardly in keeping with the practical, unimaginative personality Anna had described. On the other hand, it had almost certainly been built by Dominica’s deceased husband.
John was halfway across the courtyard when a shout sounded from behind.
“You! Stop!”
He whirled. Several men rushed at him, brandishing weapons.
Dominica’s guards.
“I am here to see your mistress,” he called out hastily, fumbling for the Gourd’s letter of introduction. Further conversation was halted by the arrival of a curtained litter borne by six sturdy servants outfitted in matching red and yellow tunics. The litter was painted red and fitted with yellow curtains. Doubtless it had been accompanied by the guards who had just challenged him.
At a muffled command from within, the bearers set the litter down gently a few paces away. One of the guards snatched the letter from John’s hand and pushed it between the curtains.
John ruefully watched the official talisman vanish inside. He wondered if the Gourd’s magick charms were more efficacious than his seal. So far, the letter of introduction, while having the power to make aristocratic lips move, could not compel them to reveal anything useful.
As he waited, he studied the garishly painted carvings on the litter. Rows of crosses ran around the top, and a large cross was affixed to the front of the litter, tilted forward, pointing the way like the prow of a ship. Upon each yellow curtain had been painted an image of Christ and beneath it a short Biblical verse in Greek.
Before John could finish reading them, there was another murmur from within the litter and the guard drew its curtain partly open.
John stooped to see into the interior. Even in the suffused golden light seeping through the curtains, the widowed Dominica was a woman of stern visage. No makeup softened her wrinkles and her gray hair had been pulled back into a tightly coiled bun.
She gave John a keen look. “If the Prefect wants me to answer your questions, I will have to do so.”
“If you would be so kind,” John responded with a bow.
The interior of the litter was half-filled with blankets and pillows. Its front wall bore a shelf holding a trio of miniature busts of aristocratic mien. John recalled hearing that Dominica ha
d survived three husbands.
“Are you going to question me or just stand there gaping? Senator Opimius told me about your grilling his colleague Aurelius. I think he rather enjoyed the spectacle. I never thought that I would be next on the skewer, especially since Opimius tells me you have been dismissed from tutoring his daughter.”
“A regrettable matter, but I assure you—”
“I don’t take reassurance from slaves. Lady Anna also spoke to me about you. In fact, she has spoken entirely over much about you. She should keep her attention on the aristocratic suitors she insists on driving off. All this talk about her being too plain for anyone to want to marry is nonsense. There are plenty of men who prefer intelligence to beauty, and even more are attracted to wealth. After all, you can rent beauty very cheaply. No, that is just her excuse. What does she think she will do when her father’s gone without someone to look after her? She’s an intelligent young woman, certainly, but not at all worldly. To go about accompanied by only one slave! Such madness!”
“You have not encountered any problems moving around the city?”
“Problems?”
“You have not been approached?”
“What do you mean? Attacked?”
“Yes. Or followed?”
“Certainly not! Besides, as you see, I am well guarded when I venture abroad. However, I don’t believe you sought me out to inquire about my safety. Get on with it!”
John proceeded. Dominica had little to say about Hypatius, although her tone of voice indicated disdain for the departed pillar of the community. She had even less to impart about any connections existing between the dead man and the several names John mentioned, including Trenico’s.
“They may have had business dealings, I don’t know. My steward takes care of the details,” she concluded. “Naturally I look over the account books now and then. When my husband was alive, that was his task. Even so, it is not a bad plan for women to inform themselves about their husbands’ business affairs, if not about the other sort.” A wintry smile lightened her face briefly.
Then she made the sign of her religion. “Lord forgive me,” she murmured. “I have been blessed with fine and faithful husbands, left the most wealthy of women. I do my best to honor their memory and order my life as they would have done.”
“Indeed,” John said. “I had hoped that perhaps you could cast some light on this matter, particularly given your interest in the Christ adorning the Great Church.”
“Co-sponsoring it, you mean? I merely sent a certain sum to Hypatius. Many have said that the work is impious or that it is intended to celebrate the talent of the artist, not the glory of the subject. Yet our talents are granted us by the Lord. If He had not meant for Dio to display his talent, He would not have blessed him with it. If people want to complain about impiety they should be bitterly complaining about this planned marriage of Justinian’s.”
John observed that he had heard numerous comments.
“And impious it is! I am not referring to Theodora’s past, you understand. What I meant is that while Justinian is, thankfully, orthodox in his beliefs, Theodora is a monophysite. How can there possibly be any harmony in such a marriage? More importantly, it bodes ill for both sets of believers. Theodora has such influence with Justinian that their union will doubtless lead to monophysites flooding the church. Justinian can refuse her nothing. It’s well known at court. Most unnatural, I do believe, for is it not the woman’s place to serve the man?”
“Is it wise to speak out publicly against Theodora?”
Dominica sniffed disdainfully. “Do you mean is it wise for me, or for people generally? Some of my acquaintances are already afraid of Theodora. She has a long memory and recalls every slight she’s received at the hands of the aristocracy. No doubt in due course it will suit her on occasion to remember slights she has fabricated. I should however like to see her try to implicate a pious widow such as myself in plotting against the empire, or any such nonsense!”
John, thinking that Dominica would be a worthy foe for many, even Theodora, smiled politely.
“You find me comical, then?”
John said he did not.
The widow looked up at him from her nest of pillows. “You think I don’t know everything I say to you will go straight to your master? You’re nothing but a wax tablet on which I write words for your masters to read. They are much more likely to dispose of their tablet than to harm me.”
“That is probably so.”
“You’ve realized why Hypatius visited the sculpture in the church so often, haven’t you?”
John looked nonplussed and Dominica laughed. “Have you learned nothing about him? After it was installed, he spent part of every day at the church. He liked to watch people admiring his donation, you see. He would often engage them in conversation about its merits. Yes, he was a man who did a great deal of good and he liked to take his reward for it in this world. I certainly hope the Patriarch decides to permit the Christ to remain there. Whatever turns the minds of common folk toward heaven is commendable.”
John murmured agreement.
“There are those who find the admonitions on the curtains of my litter in poor taste,” Dominica went on. “But I guarantee they’re the only spiritual works many in the street will ever read. Provided they can read, that is.”
Dominica paused. John thought she’d decided her wax tablet had been filled until she leaned forward and spoke again.
“Pay attention to what I have told you, particularly about Lady Anna. Consider what a wax tablet looks like when it has been tossed into the fire.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Felicitations.” The white-haired Fortunatus scarcely glanced at the now dog-eared letter of introduction presented to him.
He waved his visitor to a stool beside a long table arrayed with an impressive selection of sacred artifacts. “As you see, even one as old as I can still carry out good works, in this case polishing the monastery’s silver. Yes,” he ran on without giving John time to respond, “we must keep the silver polished and our animals penned and the floor swept clean and all in order in our corner so that chaos, not to mention the Persians, does not engulf us.”
The workshop beneath the monastery had once been a cistern and could still serve the purpose were the city to come under siege, as had happened in the past. Three rows of columns with scavenged capitals displaying a hodgepodge of styles supported a vaulted ceiling. There were other tables scattered around the huge space, which smelled of torch smoke and freshly cut wood.
Lowering himself onto the stool John found himself almost at eye level with the dark stain around the nearest column. He thought uncomfortably that a hundred years ago he would have been up to his nose in water.
He leaned forward and carefully picked up a burnished chalice, turning it this way and that to examine the bands of engraved Greek lettering around its lip and foot. His labors in the office of the Keeper of the Plate had given him some knowledge of the quality of silver. This was a particularly fine specimen. Wondering who had presented it to the monastery, he set it carefully down and broached the matter on which he had come to question the man.
Fortunatus waved the paten he was polishing at John as if shooing away a horse fly. “This is one of several beautiful pieces given to the monastery by the widow Dominica. Do you see the scene engraved upon it?”
John expressed puzzlement.
“I fear, my friend, you are not attending.” The man who had once been a very wealthy merchant now wore shapeless robes of rough, unbleached wool. His hands and face matched his clothing, almost without color, while his nose and cheeks and even his brows had begun to droop like a melting candle. His eyes, John noted, were the sharp blue of shadows on snow.
“Look,” Fortunatus went on, “is this fine work not decorated with the raising of Lazarus?”
“Yes, but what—”
“Consider this. If you had been Lazarus, dead
for four days but then called back from that dark journey, would you really wish to return? After all, who knows what you might find when you arrived home. Your children running screaming at the sight of your shroud and who knows what old friend of your wife being entertained in your bed?”
John found himself debating whether the man had reached that age where he had begun wandering in places unseen by others that were nonetheless real to him.
“I have no wife,” he said carefully, “and am still alive so you will have to explain your point further, I fear.” He couldn’t help recalling the reception when he himself had arisen Lazarus-like from Justin’s dungeon.
The old man began to work his polishing cloth more vigorously. “Not one for parables? I will be plainer. When a man is dead is it fruitful to dig him up again by going about asking impertinent questions? Especially someone as respected as Hypatius?”
“Is he respected in this particular religious community?”
“Certainly. He was exceedingly generous. Ostentatiously generous, to be honest. Before I retired and entered this foundation, I knew him as a businessman first and foremost, one with whom I often crossed swords. Usually he got the better of me.”
“Could it have been financial wounds from those battles which brought you to this place?”
“No single wound, my friend. I never wanted to be a rich man. Accumulating wealth is an unpleasant task and retaining it is even worse. Yet what choice does one have? Either a man is rich or he has a foot in the gutter. It doesn’t take long after that to tumble head first into it. So I did what was necessary. You might say wealth was the cross I had to bear.”
Fortunatus sighed again. “And the worst of it was the lying. Look at this old face. White as a shade’s, and why? Because the sun never touched it through the mask I had to wear all my life. Smiling and lying to all the other masks with whom I dealt.”
