by Mary Reed
The onlookers drew back, apparently disinclined to come to his aid.
The blond man pulled out a long blade.
Now John did move, and quickly. “In the name of Justinian, I order this ended!”
Three startled faces turned his way.
“And who might you be?” sneered the man with the blade.
“I know who it is!” came the helpful reply from the fool. “It’s the Lord Chamberlain!”
“He’s no more Lord Chamberlain than you are holy, you stupid, blaspheming bastard!”
The fool rolled on to his side and propped his chin in his dirty palm. “A fool I am, but not stupid. Look at his clothing.”
“It’s worth more than I make in a month,” growled the bearded man.
“No one’ll notice another naked corpse,” his companion suggested, lifting his blade.
John turned his head toward the stairs. “Guards!”
The blond grabbed his friend’s wrist. “Bodyguards! Now who’s the fool? You think he’d be out walking about alone?”
The murderous pair took flight up the shore, not pausing to look back in their panic. The rest of the crowd followed.
John turned his attention to the man he had rescued.
The fool’s face was sunburnt and creased with deep, innumerable furrows. His eyes were black and glittering, deep wells sunk in a parched desert.
With a shock, John realized he knew the man he had just saved.
Years before the fool had claimed to be a soothsayer.
***
“Ahaseurus?”
Thomas downed a gulp of wine and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Ahaseurus is the holy fool? I can’t say I’m surprised though, since going by what I’ve heard about his antics, he isn’t much of a holy fool. There was one in Antioch you could track through the streets by his spoor. That would have been very useful in your quest to find him, wouldn’t it?” He gave a hearty laugh. “But leaving that aside, the question is what’s Ahaseurus doing in Constantinople?”
“That’s what I hoped you’d be able to tell me,” John replied, pouring more wine into his cracked cup.
He had returned to a house occupied only by Peter. After a word or two with the elderly servant, John allowed himself to lie down and awoke late in the day to the fragrant smell of boiling chicken.
Evidently Hypatia had found a suitable fowl in the marketplace.
After the evening meal, when dusk cast a kindly veil over the city, Hypatia lit the lamps. As she and Europa chattered in the kitchen, John had invited Thomas into his study.
Thomas regarded the wall mosaic and pondered John’s question. “I have no notion why Ahaseurus would be in Constantinople posing as a holy fool. Why do you think I would?”
“Am I wrong to suspect you were associated with the rogue in some manner the last time he was here?”
Thomas ignored the question. “If he really was a soothsayer as he claimed, you’d think he’d have avoided Constantinople, because he’d know if he came here he’d be riding around in a cart hauling the dead or getting himself assaulted by murderous ne’er-do-wells.”
“He was fortunate today. Tomorrow he may not be so lucky.”
Thomas shook his head in admiration. “Dancing on the sea! What a sight it must have been and yet so simple to accomplish when you know how it’s done. Provided one had the agility. I’m sure Europa could have done it. Not that I would allow her to try. Still, why wasn’t the trick of it apparent at once?”
“During our conversation he claimed he is able to make people see only what he wants them to see, not to mention that he can also stop them seeing things he does not wish them to see.”
“An excellent skill to have, I’d say. Apart from gallivanting about the city getting up to no good and being rescued by Lord Chamberlains, what else is he doing? Is he still working as a soothsayer?”
“He mentioned he continues to practice the art, except instead of reading a chicken’s entrails, the chicken itself does the fortune telling. He claims he was recently consulted by the empress at the palace baths, no less.”
“He showed a chicken to Theodora in the baths and lived to tell the tale?” Thomas guffawed. “Mithra, but you have to admire the old rogue’s tale spinning! Did he happen to mention what the chicken supposedly revealed?”
“Apparently the empress asked it if she would die of the plague and the answer given was that she would not. However, Ahaseurus added that as an oracle the bird was not too reliable because people often don’t ask it the right question and it can only answer yes or no.”
“I suppose time will tell if Theodora outlives the plague.”
“Indeed. On the other hand, according to Ahaseurus, while Theodora definitely will not die of the plague, she also has no notion of just how close she is to the end of her life.”
“I wouldn’t like to be the chicken that told her that little tidbit, would you?” Thomas grunted. He stared at the mosaic figures animated by the flickering lamplight.
“Speaking of seeing things or not, John,” he went on, “that god up in the clouds and the woman with him…It must be the result of working at Isis’ establishment. It stirs up one’s, um, imagination.”
“You mean the flute-player? In daylight she’s properly clothed. However, the tesserae are set an angle, so they present a different picture by lamplight.”
“Very different! The little girl with the big eyes looks the same, which is to say just as disturbing.” Thomas took another gulp of wine. “Did you learn anything useful from Ahaseurus?”
John shook his head. “All he would say about Gregory’s death was that it was due to the hand of heaven.”
“It would be exceedingly difficult to bring heaven to justice, I fear. Did he happen to say where he’d been all these years?”
“To the ends of the earth. Much like you, Thomas.”
The two men sat in silence for a while, passing the wine jug back and forth. Darkness pressed conspiratorially against the room’s diamond-shaped windowpanes.
Laughter drifted along the hallway.
His daughter’s laughter.
John ran his finger along the crack in his wine cup. He thought of the woman with whom he had shared the original.
“I’ve noticed you haven’t been spending much time here, Thomas. I could almost suspect you were avoiding me.”
Thomas denied the suggestion.
“No matter. I wanted to question you concerning Cornelia, but not in front of Europa.”
“She’ll be here as soon as she—” Thomas stopped abruptly and uttered a ripe curse under his breath.
John kept his gaze level on Thomas’ broad, flushed face.
Inside he began to tremble.
“I should have told you right away, John, but, well, Europa, I mean, her mother…You’ve guessed, haven’t you?” Thomas fell silent, tugging unhappily at his mustache.
A chill settled over John. “Something has happened to Cornelia? Something Europa knows nothing about?”
Thomas nodded. “Forgive me, my friend. Cornelia charged me with bringing Europa safely to you, and she would never have left her mother’s side if she’d known.”
“Known what?”
“Just before we left, Cornelia promised Europa she’d send word if she were going to be delayed more than—”
John leapt to his feet.
Dark foreboding encased him in a clammy shroud. “The truth, Thomas! Has Cornelia gone to someone else? Or…Mithra! No! Not my Cornelia!”
Thomas bowed his head sorrowfully. “She didn’t want Europa to see. While Europa went to get her cloak so we could leave right away, she told me she had certain symptoms, but insisted I was not to reveal this to Europa or you on any account. Difficult though it was, I have done that. But by now Cornelia…”
He looked up, wiping streaming eyes, as a sudden draft made the lamp flicker.
The study door stood ajar.
<
br /> John had gone.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
In a cellar hidden at the end of a labyrinth of underground storerooms situated in a remote part of the palace grounds, flickering torchlight gave intermittent life to the sacred scene gracing the wall behind the altar of a mithraeum.
John looked up at it. The familiar depiction of Mithra, Lord of Light, slaying the sacred bull had always been a comfort in times of darkness, but now it merely served to remind him that death was everywhere and none were safe.
He bowed his head, wordlessly pleading again with his god for some revelation, some explanation, of why Cornelia had been taken while he was left behind. He felt numb, as if he had imbibed a poppy potion. Cornelia’s loss was a deep pain felt to the bone and yet seemed far away, shrouded in mist, and hidden from view.
Tears welled as he offered a despairing prayer to Mithra.
“Lord of Light, I have always served you faithfully. I ask no intervention for my sake, but for Cornelia’s, grant I will find her so I can perform the proper rites…” His petition trailed off incoherently.
Staring up at the bas relief he sought a sign, any sign, that his plea would be granted.
The carved figures remained obdurate, unchanged, and silent.
***
“I’m certain they were the travelers you seek. How could anyone forget a trio like that?”
The innkeeper, who introduced himself as Stephanos, stood a pace or two from the doorway of his hostelry, which is to say in the road itself. Very short and very broad of build, his hair, face, and clothing were the same gray as the dust-coated facade of his dilapidated building.
“They put on several performances in the courtyard. Quite comical, they were too, although I will say the red-haired fellow didn’t look very comfortable playing the part of the bull.”
“You have paid their fee?”
“Of course!”
“And the older woman who stayed behind?”
“She’s not here, excellency. Where she went, I cannot tell you.”
An ox-cart piled with household goods rumbled along the road. The hunched driver stared straight ahead over the fly-speckled back of his ox, not acknowledging the two men in front of the inn. As the cart passed John could see blackened swellings on the driver’s arms.
A fog of dust billowed from beneath the cart wheels. John tasted grit.
“I have a small bath-house,” Stephanos offered. “I’ll have my servant stable your horse, if you wish to stop to rest or refresh yourself.”
John shook his head. If he rested, he would never rise. Thanking Stephanos, he remounted and continued.
There wasn’t a muscle in his body that didn’t ache from the long ride. He could feel every rut in the road as clearly as if he had been trudging barefoot along it.
The realization came to him that he had not dared to rest in all the years since he had arrived in Constantinople. Part of him longed for death. Another part, the part who was a follower of Mithra, knew that every day he awoke he had dealt another defeat to the Persians who had captured and mutilated him, destroying the future he might have had.
By the time he had made his way from the mithraeum to the city docks his dark despair had turned to blinding rage. He had hardly noticed the deep waters beneath the prow of the boat he engaged to take him to the Asian shore.
Once on the road he stopped at every inn along the way, in case Cornelia had tried to complete her journey to Constantinople, but found herself unable to proceed.
Proprietors cowered under interrogation from the fiery-eyed palace official.
None had seen her.
Now his anger had drained away. He was no longer certain why he had undertaken the journey.
Had he expected a miracle?
How could he have hoped to find her? Cornelia knew John, knew he would come after her if he discovered the true situation. Of course she wouldn’t have stayed at the inn where Thomas and Europa had left her. If she had wanted John to see her die she would have come to Constantinople with them.
Days had passed. By now Cornelia would be dead.
Perhaps John should not be questioning innkeepers, but rather whoever buried those victims who had no families to do so.
He came to a roadside column, most likely the one once occupied by the stylite after whom Stephanos had named his inn. The perch was not very impressive. Made of eroded granite, it was twice John’s height. Only a few rusted stubs around the edge of its platform remained of what had once been an iron railing.
There was no reason to go on, he realized. What chance did he have of finding Cornelia?
He was needed at his house.
He had better return as soon as he could.
As he coaxed his horse around, a flash of red caught his eye.
A short, bushy pomegranate, lancet leaves interspersed with scarlet blooms, was growing just behind the deserted column.
John’s chest tightened.
He did not know plants. Not even the ones in his own garden. He only recognized it as a pomegranate because he and Cornelia had spent an afternoon in the shade of one such, lying in the grass sampling its fruit, talking about a life that would never be.
John climbed down from his mount.
In the shadow of the column where a Christian holy man had once stood, John opened his wineskin and poured an offering around the tree sacred to the goddess Cornelia had worshipped. He offered a prayer for Cornelia, thanked Mithra for the opportunity to do so, and rode back toward Constantinople.
***
With his gaze turned homeward, John’s thoughts again centered on Peter and his murdered friend. Considering the puzzle helped push aside the dark cloud of John’s bereavement for a little while.
What had Peter’s angel said? “Gregory. Murder. Justice.”
He would never find Cornelia now, but perhaps he could still find the justice Peter desired.
Reviewing the events of the past few days and his attempts to form a coherent pattern from disparate scraps of information, John recalled his brief conversation with the bear trainers near the Hippodrome, and his subsequent musings about mythological beings.
Neptune’s horses.
The thought persisted and grew stronger.
There was something important, a pointer to the solution, involving Neptune’s horses.
Very well then, examine the conundrum logically, he thought.
Neptune was the god of the sea.
Nereus was named after a sea god.
Triton the same.
The sea.
A connection with the sea.
A link with horses.
Neptune’s horses, beautiful animals with flowing, golden manes and gleaming bronze hooves, pulling the god’s chariot over the surface of the sea.
Yet the thoughts passing rapidly through his mind made no sense, didn’t immediately suggest anything that would lead to a leap of deduction, launch him into the darkness with the certainty that his boots would find a firm surface on which to land.
If he could but apply the whip to his flagging imagination, he would have the solution in his grasp. He knew that to be the case as certainly as he knew his own name.
But the only thing that he could think of right now was that there was, in fact, one witness to Nereus’ will with whom John had not spoken.
The servant Cador.
It was true that Anatolius had conducted an interview with Cador, and in doing so had discovered that Prudentius was Nereus’ lawyer.
Was it possible Cador had other useful information?
John decided he would add a few more hours to his journey and visit Nereus’ country estate on his way back to the city.
***
By the time John arrived at the departed shipper’s estate, the lowering sun cast a pale yellow light across the landscape, lending it the appearance of an ancient mosaic sorely in need of cleaning.
From Anatolius’ des
cription John recognized the muscular man shifting crates in front of the villa.
“Cador?” John proceeded to introduce himself and explain the purpose of his visit. He had to speak loudly to make himself heard over the noise of hammering coming from inside the building. “If we could perhaps talk in private, somewhere quieter?”
“We can step into the kitchen garden if you wish, sir,” Cador replied with a keen look at his visitor.
He led John around behind the house. “We’re crating up the master’s belongings. The estate and its contents are to be sold and the money donated to the church.”
The kitchen garden was yellowed from lack of watering. Cador strode to its far end, where a bull grazed in a pen.
As they approached, the animal greeted them with a loud bellow.
Cador looked admiringly at the animal. “He is a handsome specimen, isn’t he?”
“He certainly is, Cador.”
During his ride to Nereus’ estate, John had gone over the questions he intended to ask Cador, attempting without success to identify some stone he’d not already turned over during his interrogations of the other witnesses. No new line of inquiry had occurred to him.
He therefore concluded he would have to ask his usual questions about the will and its witnesses and hope Fortuna might finally favor him. He sighed and gazed at Apis. “Have any arrangements been made for the bull?”
Cador did not reply, continuing to stare at Apis with a smile on his lips.
John repeated his question.
Still the man did not respond.
John took a step backward and spoke the other’s name authoritatively, demanding an immediate answer.
There was no response.
John placed his hand on Cador’s shoulder. The man turned and looked expectantly into John’s face.
“You are cannot hear, can you?” John said.
***
Darkness fell as John questioned Cador further.
No new revelations were forthcoming. Sylvanus brought wine out to them and departed after greeting John and directing a few fond words at his bovine charge.
“I’m sorry I have nothing useful to tell you, sir. Most people don’t realize I cannot hear because I can follow their words by their lip movements. If they happen to notice me apparently rudely staring at them, a few get aggravated until they grasp why I must do it. On the other hand, some people will get angry no matter what you do.”
