by Mary Reed
“And don’t tell me I’m bad-tempered, John, “ she said. “I know that. But haven’t we got enough to worry about with Europa refusing a court physician and wanting me to attend her out on Zeno’s estate?”
John was sitting in bed. He picked up the clay lamp to extinguish it as Cornelia turned to take a last look through the open window. The nearby dome of the Great Church, light pouring through hundreds of apertures, radiated an orange dawn into the night sky above cross-bedecked rooftops. Cornelia pulled her linen tunica over her head, and laid it on the chest at the foot of the bed. Only then did the lamplight go out.
She plumped down on the bed so hard it creaked. A muscle in her back joined the bed’s protest. The twinge of pain made her curse again. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“Strange. Watching you, I was thinking you’re still the same beautiful young girl I first met. And you still have the same temper. Surely you’ve attended women before?”
“When I traveled with the bull-leaping troupe. But it’s different when it’s your own flesh and blood.”
“I’m glad you’ll be there. After all, it is our first grandchild.”
Despite the open window the summer night was stifling. She could hear voices drifting from the city. Patrons leaving an inn, tenement residents sitting outdoors late to escape the heat. From further off came the faint barking of a dog. The sounds emphasized the immensity of the world outside and the comfort of their own room. She pulled John down onto the cotton stuffed mattress and pressed herself against his back. Even though he was as damp as she from the humid air, his skin felt cool, as it always did. He never wore fragrances as did most of the aristocrats at court.
Cornelia would miss the feel of him when she tried to sleep at the estate south of the city. “And then there’s Peter,” she said, shifting with practiced precision to match her contours to his. “I suggested he might like an assistant to help run the household while I was gone. He was outraged. Said he was still capable of serving his master. Most emphatic that he didn’t want help.”
“He’s proud, Cornelia. I’ve hinted at a pension more than once but he was quite firm in refusing it. He’s a free man and can leave at any time. Even if he is in his seventies, we must allow him his dignity.”
Cornelia sighed. “‘And you won’t dismiss him.”
John agreed. “I would like him to retire but I won’t force him. It’s not as if we give elaborate banquets. He can still manage his tasks and he’s been a good servant always. All the same, I can’t help but worry. He limps badly when he thinks nobody can see it.”
“You might worry a little more about yourself,” Cornelia replied. “What about this assignment? How can you find a killer who doesn’t exist?”
“Justinian might know more than he is telling me.”
“Even if there was a murderer how would you find him? Most of the population of the city would have killed Theodora if they had the chance. And how many at court didn’t have reason to want her dead?”
“You could be right.”
Cornelia pressed herself more tightly against John’s back. Outside two cats fought raucously and briefly. A slight breeze struggled into the room, barely managing to stir the heavy air. “I’d look into her meddling in family affairs, her unwanted matchmaking. Let the imperial torturers go about their work. Let taxes be increased. Let religious arguments thunder back and forth. That’s expected. But once you interfere in love affairs, even an empress is treading on dangerous ground.”
“You say that because you are thinking of Europa and Thomas and their child. Our own family.”
“Perhaps.”
“That and listening to too much palace gossip.”
“No one at court can help listening to gossip, unless they’re deaf.” She tugged John’s sinewy arm until he rolled over to face her. She could see the faint light from the window glinting in his eyes. “Theodora has always put her own family first, and especially before Justinian’s. Look at the marriages she arranged for those sisters of hers, Comita and Anastasia. Their reputations are as bad as hers. Marrying former whores into reputable families is bound to cause resentment. Yet who dared say no to the empress?”
“Not many.”
“And not only that. What about those two youngsters she’s forced to live with one another? Belisarius and Antonina’s daughter Joannina and that wretched boy Anastasius. Joannina will have to marry him now to protect what honor she has left. Everyone knows the match was designed to shift Belisarius’ fortune to Theodora’s family.”
“Anastasius is Theodora’s grandson, it’s true.”
“Son of Theodora’s illegitimate daughter. The daughter’s well named. Theodora. Like mother, like daughter.”
“I don’t believe Justinian’s foremost general and his wife would murder the empress.”
“And there’s General Germanus too.” Cornelia plunged ahead, ignoring his remark. “Theodora tried to thwart his daughter’s marriage, even though it might be the last chance she’d ever have, considering her age. And why? Could it be because Germanus is Justinian’s cousin?”
John put his finger lightly to Cornelia’s lips. “I do know a little about what goes on at the palace.”
Cornelia pushed his finger away. “Not to mention yet another general Theodora wronged. Poor Artabanes! Forced to live with his estranged wife and watch Theodora marry off his lover to one of the empress’ wicked—”
She was forced to break off as John inclined his head and kissed her. “I will need to start my investigation after the funeral tomorrow. We can talk about this then, Britomartis.”
Cornelia smiled. “Do you think you can silence me like that?” Britomartis, the Cretan Lady of the Nets, was his pet name for her from long ago. Cornelia was a native of Crete and the first time John had seen her performing with a traveling troupe that recreated the ancient sport of bull-leaping the sight of her snared him as securely as fishermen catch Neptune’s creatures in their meshes. Or so he had said. Cornelia supposed there were a lot more women called little sparrow in private than Britomartis.
She returned his kiss. “Despite everything, you’ve never changed, John. You’re no different now that you’re a great man in the capital than you were as a poor young mercenary at the furthest reaches of the empire.”
She felt the muscles of his arm tighten under her fingertips and realized she had inadvertently reminded him of the wound he endured. He had not reached twenty-five when he blundered into Persian territory, was captured, castrated, and sold into slavery like a beast. Tears came to her eyes. For his sake, not hers. Men made too much of their masculinity.
“Oh, John, please don’t think of that.”
“I wish I could be more for you than…than an old man.”
“Old couples are the happiest, they say.” She took his face between her hands, hoping he couldn’t see the wet streaks on her cheeks. “Besides, we have been together. We have a daughter. Right now, on some battlefield, a young man who has never had those things is dying.”
“As always, you are right. Still—”
“Please don’t talk, John. Let’s forget the past and Justinian. You know how wakeful Britomartis has always been. Help her sleep now, as you always do.”
Chapter Three
Theodora’s funeral procession made its slow way down Constantinople’s main thoroughfare. The colonnades along both sides of the Mese were packed with watchers five and six deep. Most had glimpsed Emperor Justinian, if at all, only from a distance, when he attended events at the Hippodrome or appeared in public for church celebrations.
This afternoon they could almost touch him, if they had dared.
Clad in plain garments without decorative borders or gems, the mourning emperor walked immediately in front of the bier bearing Theodora’s coffin. Scarlet boots were his only touch of color. He
scuffled through dust and windblown debris as if he hardly had sufficient strength to lift his feet. His head, bereft of crown and bare, was held high but his expression remained blank.
As he passed the crowds a whispering followed him, a snakelike hiss John heard as he marched a few rows in front of the emperor in a line of court officials. He found himself between Justinian’s treasurer, the bald, dwarfish eunuch Narses whom John despised, and the obese Master of Offices, who puffed and wheezed ever more alarmingly as the procession climbed the hill atop which sat the Church of the Holy Apostles.
John felt hot and uncomfortable, burdened by the heavily embroidered robes he wore only when ceremony demanded. It was just as well a sullen sky pressed dark clouds down on the city as if to smother the five domes of the church. A rising wind flapped tunics and cloaks, with gusts carrying away the sound of the hymns sung by the choir trailing the coffin. The wind and lack of sunlight ameliorated the heat and humidity to a small extent.
He would have preferred to be back in bed with Cornelia. He had been forced to abandon that refuge long before dawn. Court officials and ecclesiastics had paid homage to Theodora during the early morning hours. The empress’ perfumed and anointed body had lain in the Triclinium, popularly known as the Hall of the Nineteen Couches, on the palace grounds. Any possible echoes of the imperial banquets usually held in the long, many-windowed building were muffled by deep purple drapery covering its walls and the bier on which her coffin rested, covered by a linen cloth of the same color, embroidered with scenes of the Resurrection. Despite Justinian’s suspicions of foul play, her death was not unexpected. Preparations for the funeral had been completed for weeks.
Justinian had also prepared for trouble. In case anyone might seek to use the disruption of life to his own advantage, the palace grounds were thick with armed men. When John arrived, his friend Felix, captain of the excubitors, a burly, bearded man, had been patrolling inside the Triclinium, moving from one guard post to another, conferring with those on duty.
Felix growled a greeting.
“I am sorry to hear about the deaths of your excubitors,” John said.
“Justinian had no reason to have those boys killed. It was all I could do to keep the rest from revolting.” Felix’s angry glare moved around the long room filled with elegantly dressed mourners and settled on the dead empress. “They’d rather throw her corpse on the street for the dogs than stand guard over it. The imperial whore reached up out of hell and murdered their colleagues, as far as they’re concerned. I can’t blame them. You can’t stop a disease with swords and spears. Or stop fate either.”
John wondered whether Felix blamed the emperor or the empress or both. Usually it amounted to the same thing, or had until now. “Nor can you bring fate to justice, which is what Justinian expects of me,” John replied.
“Yes, I’ve heard. May Mithra stand at your shoulder.”
“Have there been any disturbances?”
“None. Not here. I’ve spent half the night watching over an endless parade of Theodora’s pet monophysites. Those heretics are a wild eyed foreign crew and not all of them properly washed.” Felix sniffed disdainfully. “They seemed to be genuinely grieving. When Justinian comes to his senses he’ll turn them out of that den of theirs in the Hormisdas Palace. Then they’ll have something to grieve over.”
John noticed an attractive, fair-haired woman surrounded by attendants moving toward the bier. “I see Antonina is here.”
“She’ll be angry she didn’t get what she wanted,” Felix said. “Coming all the way from Italy in hopes that Theodora could convince Justinian to give Belisarius the reinforcements he needs to fight the Goths. She arrived too late.”
John saw that Felix’s gaze lingered on the woman. In the dim light, at a distance and dressed in robes glittering with jewels, she looked the same as she had over fifteen years ago. Back then, Felix was a lowly young excubitor and had confessed to John he had been lured to an unwise tryst with Antonina in this very hall. Did he recall that now? How could he not? Did he ever wonder if fate had smiled, whether it might be him instead of Belisarius leading Justinian’s troops in Italy?
John said, “Cornelia tells me that Antonina will be pleased since she can call off that marriage Theodora arranged between her daughter and Theodora’s grandson.”
“That’s a harsh judgment.” Felix spoke with surprising brusqueness. “Antonina was Theodora’s friend.”
There was a stir behind them as the choir took its place and the final detachment of excubitors stepped into line.
Felix glanced back. “A choir of former whores from her refuge singing hymns!”
“Some believe that the dead pay demons at the toll stations on the way to heaven with good works done here,” John observed in an undertone. “That refuge of hers will get her through at least one gate.”
“Perhaps,” Felix admitted in a begrudging tone. “But how will she get through the rest of the gates unless she knows the demons manning them personally?”
John took his leave. He had to be seen going through the motions of paying his respects to the woman who had hated him. Then the funeral procession to the Church of the Holy Apostles would not be long in leaving. Internment needed to be carried out quickly, particularly in summer heat. Although the rich and powerful could afford more perfumes and scented unguents than the poor, once their souls had departed their flesh decayed just as quickly.
Now the long line of mourners was approaching the church. Justinian, pale, stumbled along as if he were an automaton fast running down. The murmur of the crowd along the street mingled with the tramp of excubitors’ boots and the monotonous rise and fall of hymns. Clergy brandished censers whose fragrant incense evaporated ineffectively into the pervasive stench of the city. Servants of the imperial household, including several of Theodora’s female attendants, all weeping, followed the bier, as did more clergy carrying bright icons whose gold looked dull in the heavy light struggling from the dark heavens. Then came gaudily uniformed silentiaries and mounted scholarae in plumed helmets, minor officials, representatives from palace offices and the charitable endeavors in which Theodora had interested herself. It was a microcosm of both the dead woman’s life and imperial power and majesty.
Overhead glowering clouds sank lower and a greenish light began to spill down from breaks in the gray sky. Patriarch Menas waited at the church entrance. His long beard pulling his narrow face down into a sorrowful expression.
“Lord Chamberlain,” the patriarch murmured, nodding a greeting.
Was there a hint of irony in the look Menas gave to him?
Probably it was only John’s imagination. Menas, like John, had been no friend of Theodora’s. A dozen years earlier the new pope, Agapetus, had removed Theodora’s heretical ally Anthimus from the patriarchate and replaced him with the orthodox Menas.
Like John, Menas had survived despite Theodora’s enmity.
Even if Menas had not intended to convey to John the irony of them both paying their respects to an enemy, it was ironic that a woman who had ordered floggings and torture with less concern than she took over choosing jewelry would rest under the same roof sheltering relics of the apostles, martyrs, and saints, not to mention a portion of what was believed to be the column to which the Christian’s gentle god had been tied for a flogging before his slow, tortured death.
John would not have relished tracking down her murderer even if he believed she had truly been murdered. However, a follower of Mithra did his duty. For more than twenty years he had served Justinian. The emperor wanted him to find a murderer and John would do his best.
Was it possible that his duty to Justinian conflicted with his duty to Mithra? John did not think so. Yet there were those who claimed that both the emperor and empress were demons in human disguise. There was no doubt there was evil abroad in the world. A Mithran’s life was dedicat
ed to battling evil. Had John been serving the wrong side?
Yes, said the scarred and twisted visage of the demon peering at him from the fringe of the crowd.
No. Not a demon. Not a sign, he realized. It was his friend and informant, the beggar Pulcheria, she of the half-ruined face. Even the poorest of the poor had come to pay their respects to a woman who had lived in splendor.
Or had the beggars come to gloat that though they lived on the streets, they yet lived?
Chapter Four
“Just because Pulcheria is not a demon does not necessarily mean that your seeing her was not a sign,” said Anatolius.
“Spoken like a lawyer,” John replied.
John had spotted his long-time friend as he left the Church of the Holy Apostles. Anatolius was only in his midthirties but his curly hair, once black, had turned prematurely gray. It distressed him, John knew, but made his visage resemble even more strongly the classical Greek sculptures, bleached of color by time.
Now they sat in Anatolius’ study. The cupids Anatolius’ late mother had commissioned still cavorted on the walls. He had also retained his deceased father’s desk with a skull depicted in its tile top. He did not meet his legal clients here, but in his office.
The room was uncomfortably hot despite the screens to the garden being open. As always in the heat, John drank more wine than usual. Who didn’t? He kept adding more water until it was barely palatable, but between the heat and the wine and lack of sleep the past few days he felt as if there were a fog behind his eyes. It was an effort to speak.
Anatolius had listened to John’s account of recent events in thoughtful silence.
“I would take you spotting Pulcheria—thinking her a demon—as a sign, John. I know you don’t think that way, so consider this. A lawyer naturally gets to know what’s on people’s minds. Courtiers and senators and senators’ wives tell me things they’d never confess to a priest. Lately everyone is frightened. They’re all certain Justinian has gone mad. Theodora was his life. He has had to watch her slip away, helpless to save her despite all his power. He is not necessarily the man you knew and I would not trust him. Particularly in regards to this impossible commission he’s given you.”
