by Mary Reed
“How fascinating!” This interesting morsel of knowledge distracted Zeno from his annoyance. “You wield the scroll as well as the sword, then?”
“I’ve read a bit of history,” Felix admitted. “One can always learn from the great generals.” His emphatic statement was accompanied by a sideways scowl at John.
“But what reason could Hero possibly have had to kill Gadaric?” Anatolius put in. He sniffed. “It’s the wretched smoke in here,” he added apologetically.
“None whatsoever so far as I can see. The twins loved Hero,” Zeno replied, “and he was very fond of them. He and Bertrada occasionally took them to the beach, for example, and sometimes he made toys for them. There was a jackal that ran about on little wheels. It was so funny to watch that I insisted he make one for my own collection. And he seemed to enjoy it when the children visited the workshop.”
“But even if he did kill Gadaric, why would he hide the hand in Briarus’ lodge?” Anatolius continued. “Then again, if Briarus was the culprit, how did he obtain the hand? Did he know Hero? And if it was Briarus, why would he hide the weapon in his own home? Also, if—”
John interrupted his friend. “All puzzling questions indeed, Anatolius, but I fear you’ve missed the most significant question. Where is Castor? After all, if Briarus is indeed guilty of murder then his master’s unexplained absence suddenly becomes considerably more sinister, wouldn’t you say?”
Zeno looked stricken. “Briarus’s dictatorial style of estate management might have been modeled after Sulla’s methods, but I am absolutely certain that he would never kill his master,” he declared emphatically.
John did not care to argue with Zeno, who after all had spent most of his life on his estate, away from the court in Constantinople, and so had not been in a position to observe how remarkably often “never” seemed to come around.
“It’s now even more urgent that we find Castor,” he said instead. “I’ve thought of an excellent place to begin. Castor’s account books will reveal the merchants with whom he habitually dealt. Anatolius, I fear you must be back in Constantinople, knocking on their doors and asking questions before night falls again.”
Anatolius looked horrified. “But John, I’ve just arrived! I can’t leave again so quickly. You’re aware of the circumstances. My future romantic happiness hangs in the balance,” he concluded pitifully.
“Duty must always come before affairs of the heart.”
Anatolius’ mission was soon arranged. A quick visit to Castor’s estate to scan the account books, then on to Constantinople to interview those with whom the vanished man had done business. He sputtered protests and then fell into grief-stricken silence.
Only when he and Zeno had left the workshop did Felix speak. “Do you really suppose Castor might be absent on business, or did you just want Anatolius away on horseback before that young woman gets her claws properly hooked into him?”
John thought it a strange question coming from Felix, who seemed to be the quarry of another young woman. He refrained from mentioning it. There had been enough friction between him and his friend.
“I admit, it’s a good opportunity to put him beyond Calyce’s reach,” he said, “but I still hope we’ll discover Castor has gone off on business. I’ve been told he’s often away for long periods. Quite possibly he may just have left without telling anyone.”
“Not even his estate manager?” Felix shook his head. “In the old days, I would be betting on a more sinister explanation.”
“It’s true Briarus hasn’t been very helpful. I shall have to insist he be more forthcoming.” John turned his attention back to the heavy prosthesis he held in his thin, sun-browned hand. He frowned and pulled another strap, causing the artificial thumb to move.
“I think you’ve missed something,” Felix commented. “If I could look at that?”
He took the device carefully but rather than testing the hand’s leather straps like John, the big German gripped the extension that served as its forearm.
“While you were operating the fingers just now, did you happen to notice the hand’s hinged at the wrist?” he asked as he squeezed the prosthesis as if operating pincers. It was a slight pressure but the fingers curled together with a loud snap.
The excubitor captain looked at the clenched metal fist with a military man’s admiration. “Yes, anyone could commit mayhem with this. Indeed, if that long-ago general had been fitted with an iron hand such as this, he wouldn’t have needed a sword.”
***
Poppaea woke late in the afternoon.
It was an abrupt and strange sort of awakening. The sick girl simply opened her eyes, sat up and began to babble gibberish like an oracle. At least that was how Bertrada, watching at the bedside, had frantically described it when she located John.
Familiar by now with Bertrada’s tendency to paint events in overly vivid colors, John was surprised, when he arrived at Poppaea’s room, to find the child’s condition very much as depicted.
“Ah, here is someone very high at the court,” Poppaea was saying as he entered the room. “How very good of you to visit.”
John wondered that the girl recognized him. Then he realized that although her eyes were open they were not focussed on him or anyone in the room.
She rambled on, talking about a picnic, banquets, the garden. Her gaze darted back and forth as she turned her head back and forth as if addressing first this person and then another, but her blank stare never rested on John or Bertrada beside him, or on the only other person present, her mother, who stood trembling at the bedside.
Livia’s round face was almost as colorless as her daughter’s. “Where is she speaking from? Who is she speaking to? I fear Poppaea has left us, Lord Chamberlain. That’s not my child speaking.”
“Calyce has gone to get another potion from Minthe but we’ve said nothing about it,” Bertrada whispered to John. “No doubt Godomar will be in here spouting prayers soon. He seems to think the girl is possessed.”
“Your daughter is just delirious,” John tried to reassure the distraught mother.
“Demons prey on those who are weak.”
“Don’t pay so much heed to what Godomar says,” Bertrada told her impatiently. “Poppaea’s been ill but now she’s awake, she’s going to get better. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
John addressed Poppaea by name. She made no acknowledgment of it but continued to talk to her invisible audience.
“…it was a fine picnic,” she murmured. “Won’t you try some of these? But they are so sweet… look…the queen is approaching…”
Sunilda had appeared in the doorway. “Poppaea,” she exclaimed. “I’m happy to see that Porphyrio has cured you.”
Poppaea looked away from an empty spot in the air and directly at her playmate. “Sunilda, welcome! Yes, the whale has indeed taken care of everything and now we are having a grand celebration, as you can see.” She lifted her hand and gestured weakly around the room.
Sunilda smiled. “It is a very grand celebration indeed, Poppaea,” she agreed.
***
Godomar made the sign of his religion as he entered Poppaea’s bedroom. It seemed to him that his moving hand was met with some slight, inexplicable resistance, as if the very air were ready to impede his mission, while the ecclesiastical stole draped ceremoniously over his shoulders and crossed over his chest felt as heavy as a wooden yoke.
“The Lord Chamberlain just departed with Bertrada,” Livia informed him. “He tried to question Poppaea but the demon within her insisted on answering him with the most terrible blasphemies.”
“Oh, Livia, she was just telling us about the party and Porphyrio,” Sunilda said sharply. The girl was standing by the head of her friend’s bed. “And now as you can see all that talking’s tired her out.”
She brushed a fine strand of hair away from Poppaea’s closed eyelids. Delicate veins, like fine blue stitchery, were visible in the gi
rl’s linen-white skin.
Godomar stepped resolutely forward, convinced that he was in the presence of something evil. Yet was it any wonder, surrounded as they were by mechanical mockeries of the human form, not to mention constant talk of fortune-telling goats and pagan festivals?
“Please move aside, Sunilda,” he said sternly. “I have come to abjure the fiend that has taken up residence in Poppaea.”
Sunilda remained where she was and glowered at him.
“Please, Sunilda, Godomar must perform this ceremony.” Livia timidly laid her hand on Sunilda’s shoulder as she spoke.
The girl jerked away and glared. “I will not be touched in such a fashion by a mere servant! If I were queen such impudence would be worth your head!”
Livia burst into tears.
Godomar sidled up as close to Poppaea’s bed as he could manage. Sunilda made him uneasy. Who would put such awful words on the lips of a little girl? Or perhaps he should more accurately ask what would do so?
He bent over and laid his hand on Poppaea’s forehead. It felt as hot as if imbued with the fires of Hell. While Sunilda stood rigidly nearby, staring at him with what struck him as equally burning hatred, he murmured his adjuration, concluding more hastily than he had intended, “Leave this innocent one, in the name of He who suffered and died for all our sins.”
“Poppaea is only sick,” Sunilda remarked pointedly.
“I am doing what is necessary,” Godomar replied softly.
“You are doing it for yourself,” the girl replied.
Looking at her, Godomar had a sudden thought. “But as to you, Sunilda….”
Livia let out a ragged sob. “No! Not her as well!”
“It would be a wise precaution,” Godomar argued. “She is after all descended from a line of heretics and such flesh, although blameless itself, may yet be prone to demonic infection. One cannot be too careful.”
He took a swift step forward. As his fingertips reached the top her head, Sunilda gave a piercing shriek, grabbed his stole and yanked it with more strength than Godomar would have imagined it possible for an eight-year-old to possess.
He lurched forward and fell to the floor.
As she walked calmly from the room, Sunilda paused in the doorway to glance back at him.
“When I am queen, you will not be returning to Italy with me, Godomar. And while everyone seems to think I’m in danger, I can assure you, there are many here in much greater danger.”
Chapter Nineteen
Since Poppaea’s poisoning, Zeno’s household had eaten almost as simply as peasants. Meals were plain, free of the possibility of camouflaging deliberately tainted food with spice or sauces, and all were prepared under the watchful eye of some person of undoubted trustworthiness, usually one of Theodora’s ladies-in-waiting.
The breakfast of wheat cakes and wine well suited the Lord Chamberlain’s taste, for his culinary preferences had never risen to match his high position at court. When they had finished their frugal meal, John and Felix retired to Zeno’s study to discuss their two prisoners. Codices and scrolls were piled untidily on the desk. The room carried a hint of the dusty smell of desiccated papyrus.
“At least I’ve breakfasted as if I’m at home.” John spoke first, breaking the uncomfortable silence they had maintained since their meal. “If only court ceremonial wasn’t always accompanied by such rich repasts.” He was thinking of the endless banquets he had not only to plan as part of his official duties, but also to attend. The recollection reminded him of those strange festivities in Poppaea’s room that had apparently been visible only to her and to Sunilda.
His half-jocular comment, however, did not seem to thaw the frost in his friend’s demeanor.
Felix sat heavily down on a low bronze stool behind Zeno’s desk, almost vanishing behind a mountain of half unrolled scrolls. “A crust of bread and some watered vinegar can be a veritable feast when you’re out on campaign,” he complained, “but if I have to be nothing more than a child’s bodyguard I’d just as soon eat better than that. Besides, you can poison a cup or a jug or a plate of food wherever it might be sitting. You don’t need to skulk about in the kitchen to do it.”
John agreed his statement was certainly true.
“We were wasting our time looking for Barnabas, just as I said,” Felix continued. “He’s long since run away. Did you suppose he might have contrived to be carted back into the villa concealed at the bottom of a basket of loaves? Or disguised as a large duckling? Not that anything that happens in this house would surprise me, I must say. But we’ve already got the two bastards responsible in custody, thank Mithra, so perhaps now my men and I can take them and return to the city.”
“Not until they tell us what we need to know,” John said quietly.
“Leave that to Justinian’s torturers!”
John pushed the scene in Poppaea’s room out of his mind. Turning his gaze to the study walls, where painted philosophers strolled along paths that appeared so realistic he might have walked down them directly into Zeno’s untidy garden, he said, “I’m not certain it would be wise to take Briarus and Hero to Constantinople yet, Felix. We both know what fate awaits them in Justinian’s dungeons.”
Felix grumbled an unintelligible reply and yawned mightily.
“You need more rest, Felix,” John said. “I’m beginning to wonder if your obvious exhaustion springs from something other than staying up all night patrolling over-zealously.”
The captain muttered a ripe curse and hastily changed the subject. “You’ve already talked to the prisoners more than once, John. Of course they’ll both claim to know nothing about murders or poisons, but surely you can’t believe that Briarus knows nothing of his master’s whereabouts? What’s to be gained by keeping them locked up here? Once they’re gone, Zeno will stop asking me about Hero and complaining about his wretched automatons not being ready for the festival every time I see him.”
“I don’t intend to question them further right now,” John replied. “I want to give them another day in isolation to give them ample opportunity to contemplate what fate awaits them in Constantinople. By tomorrow morning, they’ll doubtless be happy to reveal everything they know.”
“You’re too kind-hearted, John,” Felix said without a trace of irony in his tone.
John allowed his gaze to wander the walls along the shaded paths as he contemplated the arrangements needed to transport the unlikely accomplices safely to the palace grounds.
A light step sounded in the corridor and he turned to see Bertrada peering around the ivy tendrils painted on the doorframe.
“Lord Chamberlain,” the nursemaid whispered. “I’m happy I found you alone. I have a terrible confession to make. It’s very embarrassing. Something I wouldn’t want certain parties to hear.”
Scrolls toppled off the desk and rattled to the tiles as Felix was suddenly on his feet and in full view. “It isn’t necessary to be afraid, Bertrada.”
The girl gave a tiny squeak of shock, and turned away to flee back down the corridor.
“Please,” John told her, “come in, Bertrada. As the captain says, you have nothing to fear.”
She bit her lip as she took a reluctant step into the room, glanced at Felix and then averted her eyes. “Lord Chamberlain, if I could speak with you alone…” she began hesitantly.
“If it is anything that concerns the safety of the household, then Felix will have to hear it,” John said quietly.
Bertrada, who had been looking at the floor, pushed her hair back and looked up at John. “It’s about Hero, Lord Chamberlain. He’s innocent, I swear it.”
“You have some proof of this?” John thought it was doubtful. “And if you do, why have you suddenly decided to come forward now?”
Bertrada looked toward Felix again, then quickly away. “Well, it was seeing him brought into the villa under guard, with half of the household gawking at him, just like Briarus. I thought surely som
eone would soon realize it was all a terrible mistake and he would be freed, but he’s still locked up.”
“I see,” John said. “And why do you insist that Hero was not responsible for Gadaric’s murder?”
The girl’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s shameful to admit, Lord Chamberlain, but I was with Hero at the time.”
She stole a swift look at Felix. He said nothing but simply walked to the study door, moving as slowly as a condemned criminal going to his death.
As he passed by Bertrada she caught at his sleeve and looked at him silently.
John was struck by the incongruity. Felix, a big scarred veteran with a few streaks of white in his beard, Bertrada a young girl. It could almost have been a parting between father and daughter.
“Felix, don’t be angry,” Bertrada begged. “That’s all over now, I swear it. Please…”
The excubitor captain shrugged her small hand off his arm and vanished down the corridor.
“I will order Hero released immediately, but he must not leave the estate,” John finally said. “You were right to tell us, Bertrada, and I realize to do so has cost you greatly.”
***
Briarus yanked harder at the ornamental hanging. One of the nails attaching it to the wall popped loose and skittered across the tile floor but no sound came from the corridor. Evidently the excubitor had heard nothing or, more likely, his patrolling had taken him to the other end of the long hallway running the length of this wing of the villa.
Briarus smiled grimly. His temporary lodging was nothing more than a windowless room that had been decorated with a few wall hangings of little artistic merit in order to hastily convert it into a bedroom for one of Zeno’s numerous summer guests. The dense, leafy vegetation depicted on the fabric was crudely sewn, neither natural in appearance nor pleasingly ornamental. Castor would never have allowed it to be hung in his house, Briarus thought, but much could be forgiven for the unpleasing decoration had provided him with a weapon.
