Nine for the Devil (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-one

A flash of white hurtled from the open doorway straight at John’s face. He put his hand up just in time and the object smacked against his palm. His fingers curled over a smooth surface. When he opened his hand he saw he was holding an unbroken egg.

He went into the inn wedged between the towering walls of the Hippodrome and the looming fortresslike Baths of Zeuxippos. The scale of the world changed as he stepped out of the darkness into a brightly lit room where smoke hung against a low ceiling.

Laughter greeted him.

It was Felix and Gaius, sitting at a table near the entrance.

“You’ve still got a fighter’s reflexes, John,” Felix called out.

John made himself smile in greeting and sat on a stool next to the two. He seldom stopped for a cup of wine so near to the palace. He preferred places where he was less likely to run into, or be observed by, members of the imperial court. That usually didn’t apply to friends, but John would have preferred this evening to have a quick, solitary drink before hurrying home to find out what news there was, if any. The more troubled he was, the less John wanted company.

The place was unpleasantly noisy. At the counter the bald proprietor was arguing with a short man dressed in the mud-spattered garments of a laborer.

“You fool!” the proprietor yelled, waving a ladle. “I shall outlive the lot of you put together!”

The man he addressed ignored this prophecy, leaned forward, plucked another egg from a basin on the counter, and sent it winging out the door.

John looked at the egg he had caught.

“Hard-boiled,” Felix explained with a grin.

Gaius leaned forward to be heard more easily against the background noise and breathed into John’s face. The physician smelled as if his insides were fermenting, almost as nauseating as Artabanes. Obviously he had not stopped drinking since John had visited his surgery in the early afternoon. “You see,” Gaius said, “the fellow who owns this excellent inn is known as Alba. He has strange humors at times and will only eat white food. Hence his nickname. His real name is…is…do you know what is it, Felix?”

“Nobody knows,” Felix replied. “But his name is white and so is his diet.”

“Not healthy,” Gaius lamented. He shook his head sorrowfully. His words were thick.

“And tedious,” Felix agreed. “A man can’t exist by eating only white food. The very thought of carrots and parsnips and eggs and fish must choke the throat after a few years. Look at what’s it done to Alba. Every last hair on his scalp has fled in disgust.”

Another egg flew out the doorway.

The proprietor stepped around his counter, grasped the egg-thrower by the neck, and propelled him into the street, helped along with a boot in the laborer’s ample rear. Patrons raucously praised the entertainment. Wiping his hands on his grubby tunic, the proprietor came over to the trio. “Wine for you, sirs?” he addressed John and Felix. “Gaius, I know you’ll have more.”

John nodded. After spending dawn to dusk listening to aristocrats describe their enemies as potential murderers, he needed a drink. He presented the egg to the proprietor, who took it and began polishing the shell on his tunic as he walked back to the counter for wine.

“Alba’s a patient of mine,” Gaius told John. “We trade services. I get free wine, he gets free treatment. Now there’s a good deal for me, wouldn’t you say? I’ve been trying to persuade him to eat other foods, but he insists that good health and balanced humors are only obtainable by dining on white dishes.”

“With white food on them,” Felix put in.

“You see that bowl of black olives on the counter?” Gaius said. “I brought them myself this morning. I’m hoping he’ll be tempted to try one. If Felix leaves any for him, that is.”

“Dangerous to tamper with a man’s favorites,” Felix observed. “Especially food. So I thought I’d remove temptation.” Suddenly Felix’s voice sounded much too loud.

It was because the room had grown quiet.

An excubitor, clad in a leather cuirass and carrying a lance, filled the doorway. A curl of fiery red hair stuck out beneath his helmet.

Felix jumped to his feet, strode over to the excubitor, and exchanged a few words before returning to the table.

“I have to go. Justinian wants to see me. Immediately.”

John gave him a questioning look.

“No idea what it’s about. Except it’s urgent.”

“Maybe he’s had a sudden whim to have somebody executed,” Gaius mumbled.

As soon as Felix vanished with the messenger the room exploded into an uproar as every drinker offered his conjecture about what new disaster the red-haired excubitor’s visit might foretell. A couple of customers got up and departed, muttering about trouble being on the way.

“I haven’t seen much of Felix lately” John said to Gaius. “Justinian is keeping him busy. The emperor’s afraid Theodora’s death might give someone an opportunity to do away with him too.”

“Theodora, there was a woman!” The speaker was the proprietor, who had arrived at their table with a wine jug and cup for John. “Oh, I could tell many a tale about her. I knew her when she was a young woman, still working in the theater. Many’s the time she’s dropped in for a cup of wine after performances.”

“And borrowed the upstairs room for another sort of performance!” a patron sitting nearby declared.

The proprietor winked at John and set the jug down. He had peeled the egg and began to munch on it. “She has a couple of sisters,” he said between bites. “Both made good marriages with Theodora’s assistance. In those days they were not as well-dressed—”

“Undressed, you mean,” the patron interrupted.

The comment unlocked a torrent of reminiscences about the late empress, many of which involved Theodora’s famous act in which geese pecked grain from her private parts.

It seemed that most of the male population of Constantinople of a suitable age had had some acquaintance of the empress in her youth. In fact, to judge from the ages of the storytellers, she had debauched more than a few babies in their cradles.

“I’m amazed the palace cooks dare offer roast goose for imperial meals,” Alba remarked. “Though I suppose nobody would be so stupid as to snigger or mention grain shipments from Egypt during an imperial banquet.”

“Not within Theodora’s hearing,” John told him. “At the far end of the table, that’s another story.”

Alba went away chuckling. The next time he regaled his patrons with stories about Theodora he would no doubt tell them he had it on good authority, from a high official, that the empress was derided right under her nose by lascivious court wits.

“Speaking of roast fowl,” said Gaius. “Theodora’s cook has vanished. Everyone thinks he’s been executed, but there’s no reason to suspect him. The kitchen has more guards watching it than the Persian frontier. Not even Croesus could pay anyone enough to attempt to poison either of the imperial couple, given there’s not enough gold in the world to buy an easy death once you’re in the hands of the torturers. And in these cases, the servants are first to be taken underground.”

Gaius hid his face in his cup again.

John knew from experience there was no point arguing with the physician about his drinking. The best he could do would be to persuade him to leave and escort him safely back to the palace, luckily only a stone’s throw from the inn, but a long and perilous journey for a man alone and in Gaius’ present state.

Alba’s customers had begun trading stories about Theodora, and one man was describing for Alba’s particular attention what he had heard from a servant he knew. “A parsnip, he said it was. At a private party years ago. He could hardly forget it, though fortunately for him Theodora had forgotten him. Since I heard about her act I’ve refused to eat parsnips.”

“All the more for me, then, and better health as a result. But still the woman had courage.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It wasn’t a very large parsnip.”

“Forget the parsnip! I’m talking about the riots.” Alba finished peeling the shell from another egg and carefully excavated the yolk. “Everyone knows Justinian was all for fleeing but she insisted on staying.”

“A pity,” someone at the back of the room remarked. “But there again, what if someone like the Cappadocian had taken power after they fled? Eggs and taxes would cost five times what they do now for a start!”

Alba gulped down the last piece of egg before replying. “Yes, a nasty piece of work, the Cappadocian. Give him half a chance and he’ll take all you’ve got and your daughter and wife as well.”

“Not even half a chance!” said the man at the back of the room. “He’d squeeze us for taxes as if we were grapes in a wine press and keep most for himself. As for the women, he’s been known to boast making free with them is part of his job. Keeps the populace cowed, so it’s easier to collect what’s owed. You have to admit Theodora getting rid of him to that Egyptian monastery was about the only good deed she did.”

John was reminded of the demonic tollgate keepers with whom Theodora would be required to negotiate, using the coin of good deeds to ascend while fending off attacks meant to tumble her to a dark fate.

“Well, what about that refuge she set up for former whores?” Alba asked.

“Left all the more business for her!” came the near simultaneous reply from three men.

“A toast to Theodora!” one cried, waving his wine cup and baptizing his companions. “May Theodora be kept warm by lusty demons for eternity! And may Alba’s parsnip never freeze!”

Gaius reached for his cup, missed and knocked it over. Luckily there was only a drop of wine left in it. His face was flushed. His bulbous nose glowed like the dome of the Great Church.

“It’s time to go,”John told him, getting to his feet.

“No, I…I don’t want to leave…”

“I’ll accompany you, Gaius.”

Gaius put his reddened face in his hands. “I confess I’m afraid, John. Especially in the early hours of the day. You’ve heard that saying about Theodora some wit put about a year or so back? The one that says meet her at dawn, you’ll have reason to mourn? It’s hard to keep your mind on the job when all the time you’re expecting a tap on the shoulder.”

“You’ve served the emperor and empress for years, Gaius. Justinian trusts you without question. Otherwise he wouldn’t have appointed you to treat Theodora.”

“He’d be all the angrier if he thought I’d betrayed his trust. It would be the torturers for certain and not simply a kindly blade or a noose.” Gaius sniffled. “I wish I had stayed at Samsun’s Hospice. Things were so much easier. I treated the poor, who thanked their Lord they were being treated at all. I was doing some good in this benighted city and I had plenty of time to earn a bit by treating a few wealthy clients who appreciated my services. I should never have been enticed to change my practice, to work for the imperial couple.”

“When the imperial couple requests one’s services it is hard to refuse. Besides which, you did your best for the empress.”

“It’s true. Yes. But if Justinian believes Theodora was poisoned…if he suspected the cook of poisoning her…I…I was in a far better position to poison her than the cook. I explained to him that I was administering the smallest effective doses. There was never a bottle large enough to hold a harmful does in the sickroom. I made sure of it. But what if I made a mistake or Justinian thinks I did? I’m always listening for the knock on my door. When that excubitor arrived looking for Felix my first thought—” He began to blubber.

“Never mind,” John told him, taking him by the elbow. “No one is going to come knocking at your door tonight. Justinian should be getting over his shock by now and coming to his senses.”

Should be, John thought as he helped Gaius stagger out into the growing darkness, but probably hasn’t.

Chapter Twenty-two

John sat at the kitchen table while Hypatia ladled the stew she had kept simmering onto his plate. He had discarded his cloak and changed into a clean linen tunic. The hour was very late.

Hypatia carried the pot back to the brazier and set it down with a crash. “I’m not surprised Gaius threw up on you, master. He’d been drinking when he arrived to see Peter judging from the smell of him, and it was only the middle of the day. How can he treat patients if he’s drunk all the time?”

“You say Peter’s no better?”

Hypatia’s lips tightened for a moment. “No. He’s wandering in his mind. He’s under the impression he came down here and prepared dinner.”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t try. I won’t need you again tonight, Hypatia. I’m going to try to get some sleep.”

She went down the hall, climbed the stairs to Peter’s room, and cracked the door open quietly. His window let in the faint glow the city gave off even in the depths of the night, barely enough to show the rise and fall of the sheet covering the sleeping form in the bed.

Did she dare ask the Lord Chamberlain to find a more reliable physician?

She was a servant. It wasn’t her place to suggest any such thing. Besides, Gaius was John’s friend. But should she let Peter die just because she was a servant?

She went back downstairs. The house was large and felt empty. Why did the Lord Chamberlain choose to live this way?

No wonder Peter seemed glad to have her company.

Hypatia stepped out into the dark garden, into the smell of foliage and damp earth. Night insects chirped, hidden in the black leaves. She took a narrow flagstone path in the direction of the burbling that filled the quiet space. Some light-footed creature rustled away through the bushes.

Hypatia lowered herself on the bench by an eroded fountain. She could make out faint reflections in the gently bubbling water. In the square of night overhead a few stars blinked in the humid air.

In even such a tiny patch of nature she found respite from the brutal world of humankind. No matter what miseries men visited upon each other the insects would continue to chirp and the wild creatures would go on their nightly forays.

The Lord Chamberlain had been distressed by the lack of news from Cornelia. Hypatia could see it plainly in his face, which was unusual. He normally masked his emotions.

He had said he intended to sleep but Hypatia knew he would sit up drinking wine in his study and talking to the mosaic girl on the wall.

He would be better off if he stopped talking to bits of colored glass, came downstairs, and listened to the sounds of his garden. Cornelia had probably told him as much. It was good she was living here now. The Lord Chamberlain was not as solitary as he had been when Hypatia had first worked for him. People shouldn’t be alone.

A breeze, chilled by the darkness, made Hypatia blink. She had been dozing off on the bench, lulled by the fountain’s music.

She pushed herself to her feet, walked wearily back inside, guided by a single torch beneath the peristyle, and tiptoed up the stairs and down the hallway.

As she’d expected, a line of lamplight showed under the closed door of John’s study. She knew Peter had sometimes stood outside the door long enough to hear John muttering to himself, or rather, as he imagined, to Zoe, the mosaic girl. She hurried past, preferring not to hear, and climbed the stairs to the servants’ quarters.

Her room was next to Peter’s. She lay down on her pallet, then realized she should check on him before she slept.

She must have been more exhausted than she imagined. The next thing she knew she was waking to a sharp banging noise.

Had a crate fallen off a cart passing by outside?

Shouts.

From downstairs.

More banging. Knocking.

Someone at the house door.

She leapt up and scrambled down the stairs, still half asleep.

John’s study was dark.

She heard footsteps, more voices.

By the time she reached the atrium there was only silence inside.

From outside came the rattle of wheels and the clatter of hooves on cobbles. The sound was coming through the front door, standing open.

A carriage vanished around the corner of the excubitors’ barracks across the square.

She slammed the door, and went up the stairs two at a time.

The kitchen was just as empty. So was the study and John’s room.

“Master,” she called. “Lord Chamberlain.”

There was no reply.