by Mary Reed
“Oh yes, like nothing I have ever heard before. The man’s sheep, although guarded and locked in a barn, are beheading themselves.”
Chapter Three
Suicidal sheep?
No sooner had Justinian imparted this information than he ordered John escorted from the reception hall.
The party marched briskly away. Their route took them through one of the buildings housing the palace administrative offices, a warren of whitewashed walls punctuated by the dark doorways of empty rooms. From the entrance to one cubbyhole, where a lamp burned at a desk piled high with parchment, a pallid clerk peered out at them with the huge eyes of a startled nocturnal creature.
As the company turned a corner and exited into a small, tree-girded garden, John heard giggles. The sound turned to shrieks as three gaudily costumed court pages, who clearly had no business there, threw twigs and abuse at the excubitors and then raced away into the shrubbery.
The first red light of dawn illuminated the colonnade under which they walked. The harsh complaints of seagulls and a swelling chorus of birds greeted another day. Mist steamed off the dark vegetation.
John thought of his family. They would be informed he had murdered a man and would have to live with unanswered questions until he returned. There was no helping it. No one could be told the truth. Justinian was not the only person with spies everywhere, or torturers to elicit information from the unwilling.
As the party descended a series of stone stairways leading to the palace’s private harbor, Felix ran up.
“John, I want to speak with you! I was detained. I fear there is bad news. Theodora sent for me. She’s relieved me of the funds Justinian meant to be given to you for your journey.”
“I see.”
“It was a delicate situation, John. The empress said Justinian was being too kind, sending you into exile with a bag of coins. He would surely think better of it, were he asked to reconsider.”
“She was right. He would have changed his mind,” John replied as they arrived at the dock. A squat merchant ship bobbed on the swells of the harbor.
“The Minotaur,” Felix remarked as they boarded. “There’s more to this than it appears, isn’t there? I realized that when you traced that seven on the granary floor. There are seven degrees in our religion and you were trying to reassure me. And how often does a man sent into exile be given funds as he departs?”
“I didn’t murder the senator, Felix. I swear it as your brother in Mithra.”
“You cannot tell me anything more?”
“I fear not.”
“Mithra guard you always, John.” Then Felix clattered off the ship.
***
John shivered in the brisk breeze and looked up past the sea wall into the city. An hour or two had passed since Felix and his excubitors had departed. The sun had risen, and now the dome of the Great Church stood out against an azure sky.
He turned at the sound of light footsteps.
A slim, deeply tanned woman whose dark hair held more than a hint of gray approached. She had the delicate, perfectly sculpted features of a patrician except for her lips, which were too thin for classical notions of beauty. They were now drawn into a determined line.
“Cornelia! Why are you here?”
“Felix came to the house not long ago and told us what little he knew,” she replied. “Don’t think I’m letting you go away on your own!”
“You must return home immediately.” Though the words formed automatically he struggled to speak them.
Cornelia smiled, her expression halfway between laughter and tears. “I fear you will have to get used to not giving orders, Lord Chamberlain.”
The deck planks creaked and for the first time John noticed Peter. The old servant appeared to be limping. “Don’t worry, master. I haven’t been hurt. It’s just that…well…”
He placed the satchel he carried on the deck, bent unsteadily, and pulled off his footwear.
He held them out to John. “There was only time to pack one little bag and your favorite boots wouldn’t fit in it. Though my sandals did so I have them. Captain Felix said you were being sent away in nothing but a tunic.” His tone was outraged. He bent again to rub his feet. “Your boots aren’t the right size for me, master, but I shall soon lose my limp.”
Cornelia laid her hand on John’s arm. “Before we left, I sent Europa to tell Anatolius. I’m certain between them, Thomas and Anatolius can take care of everything.”
The ship moved under their feet. Timbers groaned.
Peter gave his satchel a few pats and then sat down stiffly on his make-shift cushion. “I’ve never been to Egypt, master. I hear it is a fascinating land.”
A thought occurred to John. “How did you persuade the ship’s captain to allow you aboard?”
The servant’s wrinkled face assumed an innocent expression, but before he could reply Cornelia provided the answer.
“Peter insisted on paying for our passage with his savings.”
“It seemed a good use for them,” the old man smiled.
“I am very grateful, Peter,” John said, and turned toward the bow. Wheeling gulls squalled. The noise reminded John of the shrieking court pages he had seen earlier. Thinking of them, he recalled a page now grown. Hektor.
Why should he think of Hektor? Perhaps because he was Theodora’s creature. Like the empress, he would have delighted in seeing John suffer, particularly since not so long before he had been badly disfigured in an accident.
Hektor’s once pretty face was now a demon’s visage, akin to the one John had glimpsed in Justinian’s reception hall.
“Mithra! Hektor was there!” John stopped himself from blurting out the rest of his thought—that his household had been left unguarded.
Chapter Four
Anatolius never heard the footsteps on the stairs.
He was concentrating on his task. One after another, he removed parchments from a reed basket on the kitchen table and dropped them into the brazier flames. He prodded the fire with an iron poker. A few half-burnt scraps spiraled upwards along with the sparks.
When a hand reached over his shoulder to catch one of the smoldering remnants, he turned in surprise.
“Francio!”
“I’ve been all over the palace looking for you. I was about to try the dungeons. I thought the emperor must’ve had you locked up. Then I heard you were at the Lord Chamberlain’s house.”
The visitor was short and muscular, with lumpy features, a narrow forehead, and cropped black hair. As usual he was perfectly turned out. This morning, he appeared in robes of variegated greens embroidered in pearls, and over all a short, yellow cloak decorated with a portrait of Dionysius.
He looked like a slave who’d stolen his master’s clothes.
Anatolius, by contrast, was slim, his classical features framed by dark ringlets. He scowled at his aristocratic friend. “Where did you hear I was here?”
“You know me, my ear’s always to the ground or the floor tiles. Nothing goes on at the palace that I don’t know about.”
Francio tapped the side of his nose with a stubby finger. The habitual gesture drew attention to the organ’s flattened state. Anatolius had been given to understand it had been broken by a horse, but had noticed the explanations offered depended on the credulity of each listener. “What do you think you’re up to, Anatolius?”
“I’m cleaning out my palace office.”
Francio peered at the singed document in his hand. “Beauty More Stealthy,” he read. “How could you possibly destroy your poems?”
“It’s only ink and parchment, Francio.”
“But it’s about a woman!”
“She’s gone.”
“So you burn your memories of her?”
“My memory of her is part of me. I don’t need poetry to remember.” He snatched what was left of the poem from Francio’s hand, crumpled it, and thrust it back into the brazier.
/> Finding the bundle of old poems had upset his humors more than he realized.
“Is the rumor true? Are you bent on becoming one of those lawyers?”
Anatolius grabbed more poems from the basket and consigned them to the fire.
“In times like these, writing poetry is frivolous.”
“Homer might disagree, but what of your duties as Justinian’s secretary? There’s nothing frivolous about writing proclamations for the emperor. What will he say to the Armenian ambassador without you?”
“Obviously I’ll still be at Justinian’s disposal, not that he needs me. Remember, I was given the position because I’m a senator’s son.”
“Most of us at court are senators’ sons, but we’re not all as talented as you.”
Anatolius took the basket and upended it over the brazier.
Francio flicked ashes from his garment. “A lawyer! I give your new occupation a month, and that’s being generous!”
“What did you want to see me about, Francio?”
“I intended to ask you to dinner. I’ve planned a fine menu.”
“With the plague still raging? I wouldn’t have thought there was enough food left in the city to make a decent meal!”
“The shelves of the city may be empty, Anatolius, but nature’s larder is still full. Yesterday it was venison. Tonight, we shall feast on pheasant.”
“You’ve hired someone to poach in the emperor’s preserves?”
“What do I know about hunting? For all I know the deer might have come out of the Marmara, and the delectable crane I had the night before could have been snared wandering the docks or crossing the Forum Bovis. I don’t ask those who supply my needs.”
“You’re still trying to eat every creature mentioned in the Natural History?”
Francio wrinkled his forehead and tapped his ruined nose. “An excellent notion. I’ll have to consider that after my current project. At present, I’m recreating Trimalchio’s feast. You know the one. A wild boar stuffed with live thrushes, and wearing a liberty cap. A nice touch! I must not forget the liberty cap. First, however, I must obtain a wild boar.”
“Isn’t that somewhat ambitious?”
“Do you think so? If Justinian can reconquer Italy, I can manage to recreate a mere banquet. In connection with which, I am having some difficulty finding tooth powder.” He coughed and waved floating ashes away. “I believe I’ll return home and try my hand at composing verse. With all the smoke and ashes in here, I must have inhaled quite a bit of your genius by now!”
“You’re welcome to try. Poetry never did me any good. Nor anyone else.”
Anatolius glanced into the cooking pot set beside the brazier. The pot was filled with a mixture of honey and poppy seeds, now ruined by the flecks of ash that covered its glistening surface, not to mention rapidly gathering flies. Evidently it was one of Peter’s confections, removed hurriedly from the heat and abandoned.
“Come to dine anyway,” Francio replied. “I imagine you’ve worked up quite an appetite burning your past. But why skulk in here using the Lord Chamberlain’s brazier? Isn’t yours up to the task?”
“I thought it would be prudent to stay here in case someone has designs on John’s house. I wouldn’t be surprised, given the circumstances.”
“What circumstances are these? Has something happened to the Lord Chamberlain? Not the plague?”
Anatolius offered his visitor a glum smile. “No. No, John is well. Or as well as possible, considering he’s on his way to Egypt.”
Chapter Five
John leaned carefully against the rail in the stern of the Minotaur. He did not look down into the swirling water. The sight of such depths made him uneasy.
Instead, he stared over the undulating and treacherous surface back toward Constantinople. Already the shapes of individual buildings heaped on its peninsula were becoming obscured by distance. Only the dome of the Great Church and the customs house rising from its tiny island at the mouth of the Bosporos were still recognizable.
He had come to consult Peter, who looked worriedly away from the birds swooping in the ship’s wake. “I hope the morning meal was acceptable, master. Bread was all I could obtain. Plain fare to be sure, but nourishing enough. There’s many in Constantinople would be glad of it right now.”
John thought his servant looked tired. Peter’s hands, gripping the rail, appeared more gnarled than they had while stirring the pots on the kitchen brazier. How old was Peter? John realized with some surprise that he did not know either Peter’s age or where he had been born.
“It was perfectly acceptable, Peter, thank you. Now I wish to ask you a few questions. Did Thomas return to the house before you and Cornelia departed?”
“No, but we didn’t expect him back yet, since he’s working at night for Madam Isis.” Peter’s lips puckered around the name “Isis” as if it were an unripe olive. As a devout Christian, he did not approve of prostitutes, or even of those, such as Thomas, who served as doorkeepers for such establishments.
John’s opinion of Thomas was darker still.
Peter made the sign of his religion and continued. “Forgive me, master, for speaking ill of your daughter’s husband, but consider the job he holds. It’s not a proper profession for a member of the Lord Chamberlain’s family.”
John didn’t point out that Isis was a good friend of his, as Peter well knew. However rigid Peter’s morality, he always found a loophole for the behavior of his employer. If John had been a Christian expecting to face the judgement of a demon tribunal on the ladder to heaven, he would have wanted Peter there to serve as his defender.
“You haven’t noticed anything odd lately, Peter? Thomas didn’t bring anything unusual into the house or perhaps mention unfamiliar names?”
“I try not to take notice of the personal affairs of those I serve, master.”
“A commendable trait, Peter, but if you should remember anything out of the ordinary, let me know immediately.”
“I will pray to remember anything useful I may have overlooked. It would be helpful if I knew what it was you suspected Thomas—”
John’s sharp look cut him off. “Now, tell me what happened when Captain Felix arrived.”
Peter frowned, adding another layer of wrinkles to the abundant creases in his brown face. “It was not long after dawn, and I’d risen to prepare the morning meal. There was a knocking at the house door that would have awakened the dead. At the time I didn’t realize you weren’t at home.” He cast a reproachful glance at John.
“Well, as you now know, I had been unavoidably detained on imperial business.”
“That’s not how Captain Felix put it, master.”
“What did he say?”
“Most of his comments I would prefer not to repeat. Captain Felix has an inventive turn of phrase when he’s angry, and I say that as an old army cook. Anyhow, just as I was going downstairs to attend to the door, the mistress appeared. She looked very worried and said you had been gone all night.”
There was no need to elaborate on what unexpected absences could mean at the palace. The gilded corridors at the center of the empire were more dangerous than the most squalid of the city’s alleyways.
Peter continued his account. “Captain Felix almost knocked me down when he burst into the house. He was furious. He told us you’d been exiled for murdering a senator, and that you’d been caught red-handed with the body.”
John was silent. He could feel the deck shifting with the swell, but kept his gaze fixed on the receding city. No doubt the murderer of Senator Symacchus was still there, as well as those who might be able to reveal the murderer’s identity.
“Not that any of us believed the accusation, master,” Peter went on. “I don’t think the captain did either. He told us if we were fast enough we could catch this ship. The mistress instructed Europa to seek Anatolius’ help, and then we left.”
John was silent.
Peter frowned. “It is my opinion that if certain people knew Captain Felix had alerted us to your departure and the name of the ship taking you away, he would be in, well, a very difficult position.”
“That would certainly be so.”
Peter’s eyelids narrowed in their nest of wrinkles. “Master, I suddenly remembered something! But now I’m sorry I did.”
“What is it?”
“The pot I was using to cook honey and poppy seeds. I forgot to cover it before I left.”
***
Cornelia was in a difficult humor. John had tried to question her about Thomas, but she could not enlighten him.
“If I were you, John, I’d have already read that letter of introduction.”
John looked down at the document tucked in his belt. Addressed to one Melios, headman of Mehenopolis, the scroll was tightly tied by a linen ribbon with the gold seal of the emperor clamped over the knot. He had been waiting to explain his mission, uncertain what, or how much, to reveal. “Perhaps so, but you know quite well it is my duty to deliver it intact.”
Cornelia perched on the rail of the Minotaur, her bare feet dangling above the deck. Just seeing her precarious position made John uneasy. A short length of rope was tied around her wrist and he wished she’d used it to tether herself to the ship.
“I would give a great deal to know what it says,” Cornelia replied. “Particularly since if Theodora had had her wish, you’d be carrion by now.”
“Even so, bearers of imperial letters with broken seals are seldom received in a friendly manner.”
Cornelia scowled. “It might be best if we don’t arrive at our destination at all. For all you know, that letter instructs the man Melios to have you killed on the spot. You have to admit it would be perfectly in keeping with Justinian’s notion of a jest, sending you half way across the world to meet your end in some Egyptian backwater!”
There were creases around Cornelia’s eyes now, but the fire that flared up in them was as hot as it had been years before, when John first knew her. “Yet if Egypt holds the end, remember it also saw the beginning!” he said.
