by Mary Reed
John smiled. “No, I confess I do not. Did I act rashly? Remind me.”
***
All the way back home John tried to recall the incident Isis had described. How could he forget emptying a jug of scorpions into someone’s bed?
It struck him he had a vague recollection of Isis and himself creeping around dark alleys collecting the scorpions. Then again, hadn’t she told him that story at length during earlier visits? Didn’t the alleys he recalled have the perfumed scent of Isis’ private rooms?
Though he could have employed a carriage or a litter or taken a horse from the imperial stables, John usually preferred to walk. Constantinople was not large. He had often been advised that it wasn’t safe to traverse the streets without a bodyguard, but having fought from one end of the empire to the other there was nothing in Constantinople that frightened him. Besides, he thought best while on his feet. Walking also gave him the chance to observe the mood of the city. One did not overhear conversations while clattering along in a carriage.
What he observed during this walk was not especially enlightening. The city invariably grew tense when change loomed. People spoke more loudly. They argued. They debated what might happen—was the empire doomed or was it worse than that? The factions did not seem to be out in force, the so-called Greens and Blues, supporters of competing chariot teams, gaudily dressed young men whose increased presence in the street signaled violence to come the way flocks of gulls in the squares announced storms approaching from the sea. That was good news.
The news at home was not so good.
John saw tears in Hypatia’s eyes when she opened the door. Was it Peter? Or had there been bad news from Cornelia?
“Gaius has been here,” Hypatia said. “He told me Peter isn’t doing well. The fall was a blow to his system. He said falls are the beginning of the end for many elderly people.”
John felt a rush of relief. For an instant he had steeled himself to hear that he had lost his grandchild or his daughter. Immediately the relief was replaced by guilt, for Peter was also a family member.
Hypatia wiped at her eyes. “He seemed fairly well this morning. We were talking about old times. He was threatening to chop onions in bed. Then he dozed off and slept a long time. He didn’t respond when I tried to wake him. I was ready to go and get Gaius when he arrived to see how Peter was.”
“When was Gaius here?” John asked her.
“He just left.”
“I’ll see if I can catch him. Try not to worry about Peter. What’s true for many isn’t necessarily true for a tough old boot like him.”
As the door shut behind him and he hurried across the square, John wished he believed his own reassuring words.
Chapter Thirteen
Vesta, lady-in-waiting to Joannina, plopped down on the bed next to Kuria, former lady-in-waiting to Theodora. “Who do you think I saw just now rushing toward the administrative building? The Lord Chamberlain! I made sure he’d gone by before coming inside. If he was coming to see me again, I didn’t want to be found. He makes me nervous. It’s almost like talking to the emperor.”
“They say he has bags and bags of gold even though he lives like a holy hermit,” Kuria replied.
The two young women sat in Kuria’s room, a few doors down the hall from Vesta’s, deep in the interior of the empress’ portion of the palace. The residences allotted to attendants of the most powerful members of the court were luxurious. Without moving from her perch on the end of the bed, Kuria could have touched more silk, silver, gold, perfume, jewelry, and fine glassware than most people in Constantinople would ever possess in their lifetimes.
“The Lord Chamberlain’s not only rich, he’s awfully tall, like Anastasius,” Vesta mused. “I might find him attractive if he were twenty years younger.”
“And actually a man.”
“Oh, don’t be mean!” Vesta giggled. “Anastasius called him a eunuch to his face, can you imagine? I was leaving and overheard.”
“If Anastasius doesn’t control his tongue he might end up missing an even more important part of his anatomy than the Lord Chamberlain. The part that sits on top of his neck.”
The two friends looked strikingly different, Kuria, exceedingly short, had a small pointy face, referred to by the unkind sons of aristocrats as rat-like, while the tall, gangly Vesta possessed features those same spoiled young men mocked as horsey. Kuria wore a stola of dark green to compliment her auburn hair. Vesta was dressed in a garment of the same light blue favored by her mistress Joannina.
“No one is going to harm the empress’ grandson!” Vesta said firmly. Suddenly she wrinkled her nose. “Do you know the Lord Chamberlain lives with a woman. Despite him being the way he is. Isn’t that the most disgusting thing? And what’s the point?”
Kuria gave her a sly look. “What a little innocent you are. There are other things….”
Vesta turned red. “I’m not all that innocent, Kuria. But I’m glad I don’t know everything you had to learn.”
Kuria’s gaze flickered around her sumptuous living quarters, as if she were taking inventory. “It’s just as well I learned some skills when I came to this city. I expect I’ll be back on the streets before long.”
Vesta leaned over and clutched her friend’s arm. “Oh, surely you won’t go back to the streets?”
“What else? No one but the empress would have a former whore for a lady-in-waiting. Don’t fret about me. I’ll get along. It was so terrible, when Theodora died. I adored her. I couldn’t think straight. I’m afraid I made a spectacle of myself in front of the Lord Chamberlain. Now I’ve calmed down. I’ll think of something.”
“You’re so brave. I wish I were as brave as you.”
“Whatever happens, it won’t be that bad. It was a lot worse growing up on the farm. And almost as bad after father sold me to be a city whore.”
“How could a man sell his own daughter?”
“Easily, when he’s paid enough to buy a donkey.”
“How dreadful it must have been.”
“Coming to the city wasn’t so bad. Father beat me all the time and barely fed me. My first owner in the city beat me too, but he fed me. After a while I escaped and found a new place. Isis fed me and never beat me.”
Vesta squeezed Kuria’s arm more tightly. “Oh, but I shall miss you if they make you leave the palace. Look, I’ll tell father to take you in. We have a huge house. There’s plenty of room.”
“I’m sure he’d be pleased to have someone like me under his roof.”
“He wouldn’t know. Father doesn’t know about anything except the Praetorian Prefecture or care about anything else.”
“Didn’t you tell me he’s some sort of official there?”
“Yes. Quite important, I suppose, but he wouldn’t be connected with the court exactly, except for my service to Joannina. That suits his sense of self-importance. Can you imagine, he’s writing a history of the Prefecture. As if it matters. He used to read parts of it to me, all about its regalia, buildings, organization.”
“I’d rather be beaten!”
“Listening to him you’d think Romulus and Remus suckled at the teat of some boring old bureaucrat with an account book. He faults Constantine for abandoning Rome.”
“There’s nothing in Rome these days but Goths and ruins.” Kuria laughed. “You’ve convinced me I would never want to stay at your father’s house even if he’d have me.”
Vesta drew away from her friend, a look of distress crossed her long face. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Anyway, never mind what I’m going to do with myself. What about you? Do you think Antonina is going to let that pair of doves you’re looking after continue billing and cooing now that Theodora’s gone?”
“The marriage is already scheduled.”
“Do you think Antoni
na cares? It’s just as well. You don’t want to be a lady-in-waiting forever.”
“What do you mean, Kuria? I love working for Joannina.”
“Yes, but you really want to find a husband at court, don’t you? Isn’t that what all ladies-in-waiting want? Well, we’ve talked about it often enough, haven’t we? Not that those of us who are former whores are likely to snag anyone.”
“Those of us who are homely aren’t likely to find anyone either. Not with all the gorgeous aristocratic women looking for their own men.”
“Well, you’re not exactly ugly, Vesta. You can make up for homeliness…” Kuria dropped her voice to a whisper. “…in other ways.”
“Not if you are innocent.” Vesta bit her lip. “Maybe you could teach me what you know. I mean, what it is men like.”
Kuria chuckled. “Men aren’t particular. It’s not like cooking. It doesn’t take much skill.”
“That can’t be true. You said you learned some skills, that they taught you something when you came to the city.”
“Mostly we know how to avoid getting pregnant and what draught to take when we got pregnant despite our precautions.”
“You’ve been pregnant?”
“More than once.”
“How awful! My poor friend. Just thinking about it…and all the men…different men all the time…” Vesta flushed.
Kuria looked wistful. Her eyes lost their focus, as if they were fixed on something far outside her room in the palace. “There were special men sometimes. They gave me gifts. They told me secrets they wouldn’t share with their wives. It wasn’t all bad.”
She jumped up from the bed, opened a chest at its foot, and rummaged through silks and enameled boxes. She pulled out a rolled sheet of parchment and handed it to Vesta. “Read this.”
Vesta unrolled the parchment and her gaze moved across the handwriting.
When she finished the color had drained from her fact, her hands shook, and her features were suffused by a look of utter horror.
Chapter Fourteen
John did not catch up with Gaius but finally tracked him down to his surgery in the administrative complex.
The physician was professionally noncommittal when questioned about the outlook for Peter. The shock of the injury had unbalanced Peter’s humors, he said, a serious matter in a septuagenarian. He hoped his concoctions would help restore the balance. The bones had not torn through the skin, so there was less chance of infection. That was a positive aspect to the accident.
The surgery was an airy, whitewashed room brightened by light from windows facing on a wide lawn which ran up to a porticoed structure, another wing of the building where John and Gaius sat. Numerous shelves supported lidded pots alongside jars and bottles containing potions or powdered ingredients. A long bench set under the row of windows held trays of bronze or steel scalpels, probes, bone drills, spathomeles used for mixing and spreading medicinal preparations, hooks, forceps of various sizes, a collection presenting a mute demonstration of the range of treatments a palace physician might be called upon to perform at any time.
They also reminded John of certain instruments to be found in the torture chambers beneath the palace.
Gaius looked as if he had been invited to a chat in those subterranean chambers when John began questioning him further about Theodora. The physician groaned, shook his head sadly, and ran a hand over his perspiration-beaded scalp. “Her death is making a lot of us ill. I have a suitable medication.”
He lumbered over to a shelf lined with large jars full of reddish liquid, which turned out to be wine. He poured some into two smaller jars, seated himself, and pushed John’s inelegant drinking vessel across the table where they sat. “Administer this as needed. It’s a good home remedy for wondering what the empire will come to now that Theodora is dead.”
John took a swallow. It set the back of his throat on fire. He coughed.
“My patients need it to be strong, considering some of the procedures I must perform,” Gaius explained. “You didn’t think I’d keep my office stocked with anything that had no medical purpose, did you?”
John regarded his jar dolefully. “I hope you keep a remedy for this remedy on hand. And to think my taste in wine has been criticized…”
The round table where they sat in a corner of the room could have come from a tavern. It was a table Gaius no doubt felt comfortable using when he talked with his patients, before instructing them to move to the long marble-topped slab in the center of the room. More often than not Gaius would have visited his aristocratic clients at their homes. His surgery was where palace workers who were taken ill or injured would be brought. It was also where those of loftier birth came, surreptitiously, to speak of matters too delicate to be broached at home.
“I know it’s being whispered Antonina poisoned Theodora because she will not stop the marriage of that unfortunate young couple,” Gaius observed. “Not to mention Antonina’s notorious for her potions and practice of magick. After all, what is an old friendship worth compared to getting the result you want? But as I keep telling you, the empress wasted away. It’s as simple as that. As you said, if she had been a beggar or a grocer’s wife no one would think twice about it. Sad to say, it happens all the time. And, yes, even to empresses. Besides, she was already as good as dead. The disease had poisoned her more horribly than any deadly herb.”
“Don’t people recover from it, Gaius?”
“Not in my experience.”
“Justinian has had two miraculous recoveries, and one was from the plague.”
“This was different.”
John nodded. “But even supposing Theodora was bound to die soon, I understand Joannina and Anastasius are to be wed before July is over. They’ve already been betrothed for what? Six months?”
Gaius gave a snort. “What Theodora called betrothed, you mean.”
“What I am pointing out is even though Theodora’s death was certain and imminent, Antonina would have had good reason to speed its arrival. The same might be true of others.”
“Except there was no sign of poisoning,” Gaius retorted. “As I have already told you.”
“Would any signs have been noticeable given the ravaged state she was in?”
“Possibly not. You might have a point there.”
“Did Theodora take any medications aside from those you gave her?”
“Not in my presence, but I’m sure she did. There was always a jumble of bottles and jars at her bedside. Cosmetics, lotions, ointments, and who knows what else. I tried to keep an eye out to ensure there was nothing harmful, but she didn’t appreciate my examining her things and she was the empress. I warned Justinian to watch that she wasn’t taking too much or this and that I had not prescribed.”
John leaned back in his straight-backed wooden chair and sipped Gaius’ therapeutic wine carefully. “Tell me this, then. Is there any poison that would mimic the disease Theodora had?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Or cause it?”
“I’ve never heard of one.”
“Or make it worse? Something that might not exactly poison but add to the fire that was already consuming her body? Or that might weaken her ability to heal? That might muddle the humors?”
Gaius laughed. “John, you pose questions Galen or Hippocrates himself couldn’t answer. This disease she had is little understood. Nothing helps. It has been called the crab. Malignant tumors start to grow under the skin. The swollen blood vessels around the tumor resemble a crab’s claws. It devours the body just as crabs scour the flesh of corpses on the sea floor. But these crabs gnaw from within, like demons. And they keep growing, fattening on the flesh and organs of the victim. You know what I’ve heard? That this monstrous disease was the true child of her union with the King of the Demons.”
“If people
can believe that Justinian is the King of the Demons I suppose they can believe anything.”
Gaius rose, lumbered to his medicine shelf, and refilled his jar. When he sat down again John saw Gaius’ hands were shaking. “You can’t imagine the torture, John. There were times she would scream until her voice gave out. Dying men on the battlefield roar in agony but their lives bleed away quickly. This disease goes on and on.” He took a long drink, swallowed hard. “You question me about poisons, but supposing an enemy wanted to poison her? How could it have been done?”
“You know better than I do, Gaius. The method of administering poison might point to the murderer. What methods might you suggest?”
“There are only so many ways poison could be administered, and I can’t see any of them applying in this case. Some methods I’ve heard about are simply ludicrous and wouldn’t work. My favorite is smearing one side of a knife with poison so the meat cut by the contaminated edge is fatal but not that touched by the other side. If that was possible we’d all use our personal blades to cut our meat, but then what if the entire dish was poisoned? Even so, Theodora did not partake of solid food in the last week, not even mashed fruit and she was very fond of that.”
John recalled the fruit Vesta had brought to the sickroom. But the two ladies-in-waiting had eaten it, and they showed no signs of poisoning. Still, it was a possibility. “Could a slow-acting poison be introduced into fruit?”
“There are ways,” Gaius admitted. “A tiny hole in an apple can reveal either the presence of a worm, careless handling, or the presence of poison. I’ve heard of melons being put in a poison bath so they absorb the noxious substance, but that sounds highly improbable to me. And poisoned weapons are all very well but would be impossible to get into that sickroom, what with the guards and attendants and Justinian there all the time. He hardly left her side.”
“Do the imperial couple take antidotes regularly?”
“You’re thinking of mithridatum, aren’t you? Oh yes, that complicated concoction is an imperial tradition, ever since the formula was brought back to Rome. Fifty-four different ingredients, some in minuscule quantities.”
