by Eric Mayer
Clementia retreated to the garden and huddled on a bench. The tumult from the walls could be heard clearly. It sounded not unlike the crowd noises which sometimes drifted from the Circus Maximus or the Flavian Amphitheater. If the Goths fought their way into the city, the fate of a young woman found alone was not hard to imagine. Would she be safer if she took to the streets, looked for a hiding place?
Her guards could have at least warned her they were leaving. Perhaps they had no intention of returning even if the Goths were driven off. Maybe the army would find a way to pay them after this. Pay them better than Clementia could.
She got up and paced through the rosebushes. Her fear blinded her to both their beauty and the pain inflicted by their thorns.
Perhaps she should go to the walls. At least she would know what was happening, instead of having to wait while her heart raced faster and faster. Before long she’d be ready to race screaming into the street.
She could hear dogs howling all over the city. The noise from the walls rose and fell. Periodically there was a brief outburst from one direction or another. A melee? A breach in the wall? There was no way to interpret it all from the sheltered garden.
Staring up into the bright blue rectangle of sky overhead she saw wisps of smoke.
Something clattered on the tiles over the peristyle behind her. Alarmed, she whirled around, remembering the intruder who had exited over the roof.
A rooster peered down at her through beady, uncomprehending eyes.
She took a deep breath.
She’d been deserted. Her guards had run off. No one had come to her aid. Everyone in Rome who could be was at the walls. Who had that intruder been? What if he decided to take advantage of the situation and come back now?
General Diogenes pulled the sheet over Felix’s face. “Well, Lord Chamberlain, whatever trouble Felix was in he’s out of it now. Which means that your mission is concluded, though I fear unsuccessfully.”
The Goth assault had been repulsed, at least temporarily. The dead were being taken away, the wounded given attention.
“I wish to find out why he vanished.”
“What’s the point? In the end he died on the wall, as was his duty.”
John concealed his chagrin. Diogenes must have known from even a cursory glance that Felix had died days before the battle. For some reason it suited him to pretend otherwise. An excuse to get rid of John? To prevent further investigation? Or was the general really that blind?
“Go home,” Diogenes advised. “Like General Felix, you have fulfilled your duty.”
“It might be dangerous to find my way through the Goth lines right now. Totila may regroup and renew the assault.”
“Make your own decision. But with Felix dead, you can no longer claim any reason to be in Rome, official or otherwise. I will allow you to stay in Conon’s house for the time being.”
Diogenes walked away, passing by shrouded bodies lined up beneath the parapet. He paused and turned. “Don’t worry, Lord Chamberlain, we shall see your friend has a proper Christian burial.”
A burial proper according to the general’s beliefs, rather than Felix’s, John thought. Not that Diogenes knew that. No doubt the general was not unhappy to see the last of the emperor’s envoy.
John clenched his fists. “Mithra!” The sun was hot. Sweat trickled down his cheek, stung. Putting a hand to his face he felt a long, shallow cut where a blade must have grazed him during the fight. He had come that close to death without realizing it. The blow could have killed him and he would have found himself following Felix up to the stars before he knew what had happened.
“Sir! I’m glad I found you!” It was Cassius. He stood looking at John across Felix’s body.
John couldn’t control his anger. “You bastard! I left his remains in your hands. What were you thinking of bringing him here?”
Cassius glanced around nervously. He didn’t venture to cross to the other side of Felix’s corpse. “We meant to drop him over the wall, sir.”
“But it’s obvious he was killed days ago!”
“Yes, but Diogenes won’t be able to retrieve the dead from the base of the wall for quite a while, until he’s certain the Goths won’t return and by then—”
“You should have followed the original plan.”
“We thought his being killed in battle would arouse less suspicion. But before we could do as we intended, my companions were struck down by arrows and then some Goths managed to get over the walls.”
John felt his anger waning. Was Cassius right to have tried disposing the body amongst the battle dead or was John suddenly just too exhausted to maintain his anger?
“There’s nothing to be done about it,” John said. “Anyway, the general seems to want to think Felix was killed today. I’m going home to get some rest, in case the Goths return.”
The streets were quiet. The crowds that earlier had poured in a great wave toward the walls trickled back as lone individuals and small groups, some bearing the wounded. The sky darkened as if it were about to release a cleansing rain over the scene of battle but it was merely spreading a pall. No rain fell.
John was greeted at his doorway by Eutuchyus, who informed him that the woman Clementia was waiting in the atrium and wished to see him on a matter of urgency. The steward spat out the word “woman” as if he’d bitten into an apple with a worm in it. John went down the entrance hall, feeling wearier than he had a moment earlier. He was in no mood for visitors.
To his surprise, Clementia was dressed in drab clothing and wore neither cosmetics nor jewelry, a far cry from the elegant creature he’d met at the senator’s mansion. A sack lay by her feet, its dark rough material a contrast to the brilliant colors of the floor mosaic depicting a cornucopia of fruit.
She must have seen the question in John’s eyes. “I was afraid the Goths might breach the walls. I thought I would be safer, less conspicuous, dressed like this, if they found me in the street.”
She burst into tears and clutched his arm. “I was hoping Felix had returned, sir. That beastly steward only said he wasn’t here and tried to make me leave. I’m afraid someone is trying to kill me. Some ruffians tried to get into the house. One of them managed to reach the garden.”
“And your guards?” John asked, leading her to a marble bench.
“They drove the men off, but as I told you, I cannot afford to pay them much longer. They will leave soon. If they return at all. They deserted me to defend the walls. I was left alone. I have jewelry to sell. Not much. I think the guards might have made off with some.” She gestured at the sack “But there is not much demand for it now, given that anybody with money will buy food, so it will bring in very little.”
She glanced down at the cornucopia on the floor. Bunches of grapes spilled from it, purple as the emperor’s ink, strawberries whose scarlet outdid the feathers of a flamingo, and pears the delicate green of springtime grass. “A pity we cannot eat that fruit. In the old days my favorite fruit was cherries.”
The overcast skies outside sent scanty light through the compluvium, leaving the atrium sunk in a murky, subterranean gloom. John felt almost sorry for the poor creature huddled on the bench, despite his suspicions she had been Felix’s last in a long line of mistakes.
“You do not have the demeanor of a servant, Clementia. I noticed that when I visited you.”
“I admit I put on airs, sir.”
“You put on airs, but you wear them much too well. You are used to being a lady.”
He couldn’t help smiling at her discomfiture, but it was a kindly smile. She looked up at him and he saw the quick calculation going on behind the glistening eyes. Could she fool this tall stranger with the ascetic appearance?
“I must tell you that I am not the senator’s servant,” she finally said. “I am his daughter. I posed as a household worker to avoid being taken awa
y by the Goths with the rest of my family. Totila ordered us all into exile or captivity. Our servants, now scattered to the winds, kept my secret. Loyalty of that kind is rare, sir.”
“And you came here counting on Felix’s loyalty to you?”
“I did. My intention was to ask him for his protection. Your steward told me he has not returned, I now ask I be allowed to stay until he does. Oh, sir, be kind to a woman in distress.”
“Felix will not be returning. He is dead.”
Clementia hid her face in her hands and wept.
Chapter Fifteen
The next day the Mithran Felix was of necessity given a Christian burial in a patch of ground behind the house he had occupied while in Rome.
To John it seemed a final indignity. He had at least convinced Archdeacon Leon to forgo full rites in favor of a brief blessing. The prelate had been horrified at the suggestion.
John explained that those who died on the battlefield were given brief rites, if any. “It is often the case that men who die at war are buried in mass graves with no rites at all if circumstances do not permit the usual observances. Today Rome is a battlefield.”
“But think of his soul.”
John did not tell Leon that that was exactly what he was doing, thinking of a soul that did not want to offend its god. “Besides, he is only being buried inside the city temporarily. Later, I will see his remains are returned to Constantinople and properly interred with the ceremonies due to him.”
Leon reluctantly agreed. John had the impression he would have preferred to conduct a spectacular burial fit for a general, but that was out of the question anyway. In Constantinople John had witnessed funeral processions for great men involving more mourners than the entire current population of Rome.
Now it was noon and John stood with General Diogenes and Viteric at one side of the shallow grave, Leon in his vestments on the other. Arrayed behind the three men were such members of the garrison who could be spared, with the boy Julius and the rest of the household, including a pale and grim-faced Clementia, at the back. Most of the soldiers were Germans, there to honor Felix’s Germanic roots as well as his service. An occasional sob from Eutuchyus sounded theatrical to John, while Clementia remained rigid and silent.
John, outwardly attentive to Leon’s measured recital of a lengthy blessing, wordlessly asked Mithra to forgive this blasphemy.
Unmoved by Leon’s words, he remembered the man he had known. A man who would have been scornful of the Christian platitudes sounding over his grave. Felix might as well have emerged from the womb sword in hand, and as a military man he had served the empire well. He had also been one of John’s oldest and closest friends. A brief smile flickered over John’s face when he recollected that practically the first act he had carried out after regaining his freedom was to knock Felix down for his insults during the time John was still enslaved. He also recalled Felix explaining that he had originally come to serve at the palace because he could hardly refuse the emperor’s invitation and, besides, it had been a terrible spring in Thracia and he was tired of the mud.
Felix had helped John solve more than a few murders, but he would not be of assistance this time. At least not directly.
John couldn’t help thinking the key to the murder lay in Felix’s weaknesses. His military career had been affected by those weaknesses, chief among which were penchants for drinking and gambling. He was ambitious and had at last achieved his hope of being appointed a general instead of being what he had once described as a glorified doorkeeper. But he too often forgot the proverbial observation that wine and beautiful women were sweet poison and had engaged in numerous affairs, not least one with Empress Theodora’s sister.
Remembering that particular entanglement called to mind the anonymous love letter to Felix. Had he again fallen in with an unsuitable and dangerous woman? The letter had been written by a woman of education, of social position, one of a passionate nature. His gaze moved to plump and pretty Clementia, a senator’s daughter.
She had denied any romantic involvement with Felix. Then again, she had lied about being a senator’s servant. One of her guards, Gainus, did not recall seeing Felix at Clementia’s house, but a guard does not see everything. Besides, she could have easily visited Felix at his own residence. And Eutuchyus, if the steward could be believed, had told John that Clementia and Felix were having an affair.
It could be Felix’s murder had nothing to do with Rome. His careless past might have caught up to him. Could Justinian have had Felix killed because of the dalliance with the deceased Theodora’s sister? It was unlikely, but the thought reminded John of Justinian’s long reach. The emperor’s absolute rule over the lives and deaths of his subjects meant nobody, however distant from Constantinople, was safe from harm, including John himself. It would not be many days before Diogenes’ messenger returned from Constantinople with the information that John had come to Rome against the emperor’s order of exile. John’s investigation was likely to end with his own death.
John realized his mind was wandering. The whole tangle seemed hopeless of solution. If he could only find one thread to pull and begin to unravel the mystery. Trying to find that thread in Felix or any other man was a difficult task. We are all larger and more complicated than the most tangled skein of wool, he thought, bringing back his full attention to the closing stages of Felix’s committal.
When it was over, Leon fled almost immediately, offering John a few perfunctory words of consolation. The soldiers drifted away, as did the household, Eutuchyus snuffling loudly. Diogenes insincerely muttered the right phrases about being sorry at having lost a fine soldier.
“That’s two generals who have died when living here,” he went on. “I suppose people will take to calling this the House of the Two Generals.”
Left alone, John knelt beside Felix’s grave. The smell of earth filled his nostrils, not the rich loam of the countryside but the exhausted stony ground of a city more than a thousand years old. Earth that smelled more of death than life.
He repeated his long-ago oath to Felix to insure he had a proper Mithran funeral in due course. Meantime he would personally conduct a memorial service in the mithraeum that night. After a brief prayer that Felix had by now successfully navigated the seven-runged ladder to Mithra’s bright realm, John rose from his knees.
Turning to go back inside he saw that Clementia had remained behind at a distance, standing like a statue, as if frozen by grief, and he vowed again to take revenge on Felix’s murderer.
On the way back to his command post Diogenes questioned Viteric about John.
“I don’t trust the man. Did you notice that brief smile of his? It makes me very uneasy when one of the highest officials in the empire arrives, asks too many questions, and then smirks at a murdered general’s funeral. More and more I believe he was sent here by Justinian to act as a spy.”
“The Lord Chamberlain doesn’t strike me as the sort of man who smirks, sir. And is it likely the emperor would send a spy? Justinian knows the intolerable situation you’re dealing with, and so far you’ve prevented the Goths from overrunning the city again.”
“What the emperor should send is more troops and money. Do you suppose the emperor suspects me of being overly ambitious?”
“There is no reason for him to think so, sir,” Viteric replied.
“But what of it? Before Totila led the Goths they actually offered to make Belisarius king of Italy. He turned them down and still Justinian recalled him.”
“Justinian is a cautious man.”
“Yes, which is why I suspect the Lord Chamberlain is here to spy on me.”
“But surely there is nothing for him to discover that would implicate you in any wrongdoing? All I know is that the Lord Chamberlain acquitted himself well during the Goths’ offensive. His sword didn’t go thirsty. I’d gladly have him at my side on the battlefield.”
&
nbsp; “What does that have to do with him being a spy? A spy will fight for his life like any other man.”
The streets on the way to the Palantine Hill were emptier than usual, the populace recuperating from its efforts at the walls, resting in case the Goths should renew their attack. A mangy black dog slunk away as the two men approached.
“Well you might hide,” Diogenes told it. “If the Goths dig themselves in for a lengthy siege, you’ll soon find yourself in someone’s pot.”
Viteric shuddered.
Diogenes smiled at him. “You haven’t been stationed in Rome long enough to taste dog?”
“No, sir.”
“You’re lucky. A few veterans have enjoyed other sieges here. Go hungry long enough and one wishes the agonizing pains in the belly were from a sword stroke because at least they would end sooner.”
Viteric gulped before replying. “About the Lord Chamberlain, sir. As ordered, I try to remain close but he sometimes sends me away under various pretenses and I lose sight of him for a while.”
“I’m not surprised. Do your best. You need only to consider his length of service at the imperial court to realize he would be difficult to outwit. A dangerous man. I hope events will not ultimately cause me to address the need to defend my command here as well as directing the defense of the city.”
The dimly lit assembly in the mithraeum was a fever dream of grotesque visages now half-revealed by lamplight, now fading into obscurity as drafts shifted their flames back and forth.
Only a small group of Mithran worshipers had gathered on this night. Many were on extra guard duty in case the Goths should return during the hours of darkness. Even so, from where he stood in front of the altar, John could pick out initiates of three ranks by their parchment and linen ceremonial masks.
Here were Ravens wearing masks painted with feathers and equipped with jutting cruel beaks, and several Lions, faces hidden with magnificent creations faithfully reproducing the proud beast’s face, complete with flat noses and rounded ears, haloed by dark manes. A lone Persian was immediately identifiable by his mask featuring wavy beard and hair and high fluted hat. Ceremonial masks and artifacts were stored in a niche from which John had retrieved the mask for his own rank, Runner of the Sun. The bright golden face was surmounted by short spikes representing sun rays.
