Nine for the Devil (15 page)
Hypatia peered toward Antonina’s house, into which Vesta had just vanished.
Why would Vesta be taking foxglove from the palace garden to Antonina? She would have to tell the Lord Chamberlain, when she saw him.
She tried to assure herself she would see him soon.
There was Peter to think about now, though.
She started back to the palace, hurrying, avoiding knots of idlers lounging against the walls of the Hippodrome and stepping carefully to avoid rotting straw and vegetable matter scattered along the way.
She passed by the Palace of Antiochus with its distinctive domed hexagonal entrance hall and turned onto the Mese. A one-legged beggar seated on a pile of rags near the intersection shook his walking stick at her. “Charity, lady, for the love of heaven,” he rasped.
Preoccupied with concern for Peter and having nothing to give anyway Hypatia barely noticed the man. She hurried past with a shake of her head. She hoped Peter would not panic when he realized she was gone. She hoped in particular that he would not try to get out of bed.
A footstep sounded behind her. Before she could swing around or shriek, a hand clamped over her mouth and she was dragged through an open doorway. It happened so quickly it was unlikely any passersby had noticed, even more unlikely that strangers would come to her aid.
“Charity, lady, for the love of heaven,” leered the beggar she had ignored. His tone sounded quite different and he was suddenly spry and two-legged.
Hypatia bit his hand. Her attacker yanked it away and as she started to scream smacked her face hard with his other hand. She fell to the ground, stunned. By the time she regained her senses the hand was clamped over her mouth again. The air smelled of ashes. From the little she could see in the dimness they were inside a fire gutted store.
The erstwhile cripple bent over her. “Maybe I should let you shout, lady. There’s plenty who would like to share in your charity! After all, what is one more man? Or a couple of men?” He tore a strip of cloth from the hem of her tunic, stuffed it roughly into her mouth, and rolled her onto her back.
Half choking, Hypatia stared up at him. How could she have allowed her attention to wander while out on the streets by herself? A child would have known better. If only she could go back to the point when she had watched Vesta emerge from Anatolius’ house. She should never have followed her. She would be home now, tending to Peter. She forced herself not to think of it. Whatever happened, she would not plead with her assailant.
“Not going to struggle?” The beggar sounded disappointed. “Perhaps a little encouragement…?” His hands closed around her neck.
Then, as if mad with rage, he screamed.
***
As John started down the Mese on his way home, he told himself he had lingered too long with Anatolius. Talking about current events over a cup of wine, Anatolius had seemed less wary, more himself. Even so, John sensed an unusual undercurrent. Was his old friend trying too hard to appear himself? Did he speak too lightly and at too much length? Did he smile too broadly? Or was it that John was exhausted and overly suspicious?
He would never have registered the familiar sight of a beggar emerging from the side of the Hippodrome and settling down in front of a row of vacant shops if Hypatia had not appeared almost immediately from the same direction.
He increased his pace to catch up with her. He saw the beggar hold out his hand as she passed where he squatted on his rags.
Then John saw the beggar leap to his feet, nimbly, despite the walking stick he’d displayed.
As the assailant dragged Hypatia into a fire-gutted shop, John sprinted toward them.
He heard Hypatia scream.
He increased his pace and dodged around two laborers on their way to work. A ragged woman jumped out of his path and stared incredulously after the tall, lean man racing as if pursued by demons.
Finally he burst into the burnt-out building. It took an instant for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. Then he saw the beggar kneeling over Hypatia, his hands around her neck.
John stepped forward before the beggar realized he was there and reaching around the man’s face dug his fingers into the eye sockets.
The attacked man shrieked. Twisted away. Elbowed John in the stomach. Though he must have been half blinded, he stumbled out onto the Mese and ran, weaving back and forth.
John didn’t bother to pursue him. He helped Hypatia to her feet instead.
“I’m all right, master,” She assured him, brushing ashes off her torn tunic. Her voice quavered.
It was sheer good fortune John had happened to be on hand to save her from assault. He did not like having to rely on fortune.
“I thought I would never see you again, master. I thought they had come to…” Her voice quavered.
“The emperor had a sudden urge to discuss theology,” John replied. Already the night had taken on the quality of half recalled nightmare, a confused jumble of horror and incongruity, in which the incongruities were somehow as terrifying as the obvious threats.
They walked slowly down the Mese. When Hypatia regained her composure she recounted her visit to Anatolius.
John listened with increasing concern and bemusement. That Vesta had gone directly from Anatolius’ house to the palace gardens and then to Antonina’s house suggested the possibility of connections, not only between Vesta and those she had visited, but between Antonina and Anatolius.
In addition, the man who attacked Hypatia had been unusually quick and strong for a beggar.
“Are you certain you weren’t observed by anyone at Antonina’s house?” John asked Hypatia.
“I didn’t see any guards posted outside,” she said.
That she hadn’t noticed any guards didn’t mean no one was watching. Or she could have been followed, even as she was following Vesta. Unaccompanied women were frequently assaulted in the streets. It struck John as strange Hypatia should just happen to be attacked after seeing Vesta visit Antonina. He thought of how Germanus had sent one of his guards to subtly threaten John after being questioned.
Yet he could see no way that Antonina could have ordered such an attack, so quickly, even if someone had spotted Hypatia lingering outside the house.
No, John decided, there had probably been no connection. He was trying so hard to find connections where there were none—to find a link between Theodora’s death and someone at court—that he was beginning to see them where nothing existed.
He left Hypatia at his house.
As much as he would have liked to visit Peter, and have a bite to eat and a rest, he had other business to attend to first.
Vesta greeted him at Joannina’s rooms in the womens’ quarters.
She must have left Antonina’s house shortly after Hypatia had turned around and headed back home.
“Lord Chamberlain! I shall fetch my mistress at once.”
“After I speak with you, Vesta. I am told you picked foxglove leaves from the palace gardens and took them to Antonina.”
The attendant looked at him like a frightened child. Again he noted the mousy brown hair, the overly long nose, the protrudent front teeth. John found it hard to imagine Anatolius carrying on an affair with this homely, half-formed adolescent despite the apparent evidence.
“It’s true that I delivered them to Lady Antonina. She uses foxglove in her herbal preparations.”
“What sort of preparations?”
“All kinds. It’s a common ingredient. It’s often used for love potions.” She blushed.
“Your mistress and her mother are estranged. She doesn’t approve of your mistress’ liaison with Anastasius.”
“Oh, excellency. It’s more than an affair. Empress Theodora intended them to marry and they will marry unless—”
“Unless Antonina prevents it. So how is it you are permitted to assist Antonina and go back and forth between the two households?”
“My mistress is trying to mend things between them.”
Not to mention using you to spy on Antonina, John thought.
Vesta bit her lip. “It’s been tiring. So many extra chores. And sometimes it’s been terrifying. I have to be out in the city at night, unattended. Because, you see, the ladies don’t want anyone to know they are availing themselves of Lady Antonina’s services.”
“Services such as love potions?”
“Yes. I suppose that might be it. Lady Antonina never reveals to me what the ladies have ordered.”
John, thinking of Hypatia’s recent observations, accepted the truth of this part at least of Vesta’s statements. “Did Antonina have you take anything to Theodora during her illness?”
Vesta looked distressed. “She gave me packages for the empress. I don’t know what was in them.”
“Did Theodora instruct you to ask Antonina for potions?”
Vesta shook her head. “No. I have delivered notes back and forth.”
“You have been kept busy, Vesta. And in addition to everything else, you continue to seek out legal advice at odd hours?”
Vesta flushed. “Yes.”
“Nothing else? You didn’t deliver potions or packages to Anatolius? Gray heads sometimes need them, although a girl your age might not realize that.”
Vesta’s face reddened further.
John looked around as he heard quiet footsteps.
Joannina appeared in the atrium. “You may go now, Vesta,” she said and then turning to John went on, “I take it you have established my lady-in-waiting has an acceptable reason to be visiting my mother?”
John smothered his irritation as Vesta hastened away.
“I heard part of your conversation, Lord Chamberlain,” Joannina said. “My mother did concoct potions and cosmetics for Theodora at one time or another. After she returned to Constantinople, I believe she resumed the practice. For a very short time. If mother wanted to poison the empress, she had opportunities. But she and Theodora were very close friends.”
Joannina was smiling, but her blue eyes looked as hard as glittering gems. “My mother and I have our differences, but, based on Vesta’s reports, my impression is lately mother’s main interest was persuading the empress to advise Justinian to send more aid to my father. Not in thwarting Theodora concerning my marriage.”
“Indeed,” John replied. He noted Joannina did not bother to protest that her mother was incapable of murder.
Joannina’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Now the empress is no longer able to insist Anastasius marries me, what will happen to us?”
Her air of confidence evaporated. She resembled the young girl she was. A girl who was afraid.
“Is Anastasius here?”
Joannina paused. “No. He’s gone out. Why? Why do you ask?”
“I wish to talk to him. He has an interest in the situation.”
“Yes, the same interest as mine, Lord Chamberlain. But bear in mind he surely wouldn’t have killed his own grandmother, even if she were opposed to us marrying. Her death was a double loss for him. I have no idea where he went and I can’t imagine what he could tell you that would be of any assistance.”
John took his leave. No one was telling him the entire truth. Of that he was certain. But to what extent they were lying, and about what, or what exactly they might not be telling him, he could not fathom.
He needed to take a different approach.
Anastasius left his carriage and guards waiting conspicuously outside Artabane’s house and stalked to its door, doing his best to project an air of menace.
A gray-haired servant looked him up and down, projecting an irritating lack of respect, let alone fear. “Your name?”
“Anastasius”
The servant looked unimpressed. “For whom are you calling?”
“Artabanes of course!”
“You are on the wrong side then, sir, please step this way.” The servant inexplicably gestured to the left of a line of black marble running down the middle of the atrium. Anastasius stamped through the door, stepping on the black marble.
“Please, sir.” The servant inclined his head and nodded at the offending foot. “That is enemy territory.”
The old man must be losing his wits, thought Anastasius. He moved his foot and followed the man along the left side of the black strip, into the garden, and down a path beside a knee-high hedge.
Artabanes was sharing a bench with a collection of wine jugs and cups. He pushed himself up from his seat, swaying and blinking.
“Anastasius wishes to speak with you,” announced the servant before bowing slightly and departing with a faint sniff of disdain.
During the short ride from the palace Anastasius had been stoking a blaze of anger. He had vowed to Joannina that he would take revenge on the man whose actions had thwarted their marriage, or else see to it that Artabanes atoned for it by aiding the young couple. However, as soon as he was out of sight of Joannina, the idea of confronting a powerful elder terrified him.
Truthfully, he feared confrontations. To face them he had to work himself into a blinding fury, but the sight of this skinny little man, badly shaven and utterly inebriated, quickly quenched the flames. Anastasius had envisioned himself shouting demands and threats. Now he could barely remember what he intended to say.
Artabanes peered foggily at him. “Anastasius? You are Theodora’s grandson, aren’t you? My commiserations. That is to say, on your grandmother. Your grandmother’s…uh…passing…”
“Yes…well…so…so, you deny everything then?” Anastasius recalled part of the speech he had planned, but it didn’t make as much sense as it had earlier when his imagined Artabanes played his role better.
Losing the fight to keep his balance, Artabanes took a staggering step backwards. His legs hit the bench and he sat down abruptly, knocking three empty cups into the bushes. “Please have a seat,” he said thickly.
Not only was the bench crowded with cups and jugs, but it also looked coated with what, at best, might be half-dried wine. “No, thank you! You deny everything, I take it?”
“Deny? What do I deny?”
Artabanes’ refusal to play his role began to get Anastasius angry again. “Murdering my grandmother!”
Artabanes stared at him with bloodshot eyes. He picked up a cup, noticed it was empty, tossed it away, picked up another, and slurped some wine. “What do you mean, I murdered your grandmother? Are you intoxicated, son?”
“You’re asking me whether I’m drunk?”
“Are you?”
The general was as mad as his servant, thought Anastasius.
“One as young as yourself should not become involved with Bacchus,” Artabanes went on. “However, since you have already been drinking, please have some wine.” He gestured toward a large blue glass jug.
“No, thank you.”
Artabanes narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps you are too young to—”
Anastasius grabbed the jug and picked up a wine glass that didn’t look too soiled. He poured himself a drink and gulped it down. He might as well have swallowed fire. No water had been added. Once he had managed to avoid choking, however, he had a second cup.
“Now,” said Artabanes. “What is this about my murdering your grandmother? If I was the sort to resort to murder I would have killed her before she forced me to occupy this wretched house with my so-called wife and married off my beloved to another man. It’s a little late now.”
“You wanted vengeance. People do want vengeance. As a matter of honor.”
“Let me guess, that is why you are here. To avenge your grandmother.”
Anastasius, who was finishing another cup of wine, made a conscious effort to stand up straight. “That is correct, sir.” The wine was helping him regain his resolve.
“A fine sentiment, son. It’s good to see a youngster with some spine. But alas, your anger at me is misplaced.”
“I don’t understand. Do you mean that after everything my grandmother did to you…well, not that I wished you’d killed her…”
“No, aside from how much I am sure you loved your grandmother, there is that matter of your marriage to…what is her name…Belisarius’ girl.”
“Joannina.”
“Yes. Joannina. That marriage is not likely to occur now, is it? Any more than my marriage to Praejecta did. Your grandmother was forever meddling, one way and another. Assisting you, thwarting me.” He paused and his gaunt features tightened as he looked down into his cup. “There is some deep ironic philosophical lesson in our situations, son, though I have no idea what it might be.”
Anastasius licked his lips. He felt warm inside from the wine and its fumes seemed to be rising into his head. He didn’t care for the way Artabanes kept calling him “son,” particularly since it had never been made clear to him by what lineage, exactly, Theodora considered him her grandson.
“Yes,” he finally said with some difficulty. “Our situations are exactly the same but just the opposite. But, you see, the irony is if they weren’t exactly the same they couldn’t be opposite, so they are more the same than they are different. If you see what I mean.”
Artabanes nodded gravely. “You are a born philosopher, son.”
“But look, sir. I’m glad you didn’t harm grandmother, but the emperor could have overruled her, couldn’t he?”
“In such an affair? Unlikely.”
“Yet he could have. But he is weak. He even allowed grandmother to tell him which general should have command in Italy. She never liked Germanus, the emperor’s own cousin, and he listened to her.”
“Everyone who has a grievance against the emperor imagines that Germanus would be an improvement.”
“Wouldn’t he be?”
“Why ask me?”
Anastasius was distracted by women’s voices. He looked over the low hedge toward the front of the garden and saw a well-dressed woman in her thirties accompanied by a companion who had the air of being an attendant. The woman had dark hair and tawny skin. Anastasius thought she must have been attractive in her youth. The two women came down the path on the other side of the hedge.
Artabanes went on speaking, giving no sign that he noticed them. “You aren’t going to ask me to ally myself with Germanus in a plot against the emperor, are you? Every young, ambitious hothead in the capital is talking like that. It’s all it is, talk. Do you hear what I’m saying, son? Don’t pay attention to them. That’s enemy territory. We take no notice of what goes on over there.”
“Your wife?”
Artabanes gave a grunt of disgust. “I have no wife.”
The women strolled past, hardly an arm’s breadth away, chattering on about certain flowers which were beginning to bloom. Anastasius and Artabanes might as well not have been there.
Anastasius drank more wine. He realized hitherto he had been adding too much water to his wine. It was much tastier undiluted. It wasn’t surprising Artabanes would possess a store of very good wine. He was, after all, a general.
“It would suit you if Germanus took over, wouldn’t it? He’d banish Belisarius and Antonina. Then you and…uh…whatever her name is…could get married as Theodora planned. Without you having to kill your intended’s mother. They don’t like their mothers being killed.”
Anastasius studied the receding backs of the women over the top of his cup. It was rather humorous. He had to keep blinking or else he saw four women. He wondered how Artabanes had seen his intentions so clearly. He had thought it rather subtle. A way to remove Antonina’s influence, but not in a manner that would turn Joannina against him.
Artabanes struggled to his feet and clapped a hand on Anastasius’ shoulder, in either a show of companionship or simply to support himself. Before Anastasius knew what was happening Artabanes was refilling his cup from the jug he held.
Anastasius had begun to feel dizzy. Joannina wouldn’t want him drinking so much. She’d be angry if he arrived home inebriated. Well, he told himself, how dare she? It wasn’t up to her to tell him how much to drink. He was a man, wasn’t he? What business was it of hers?
He poured more wine down his throat.
“It’s not that I couldn’t slay the tyrant,” Artabanes was saying. “I’ve slain tyrants in my time. Gontharis for one. Let me tell you about Gontharis. We were at a banquet. Gontharis was drinking. He was drunk. You, son, pretend you’re the tyrant.”
***
John was on the way to the administrative complex when he heard his name called.
He turned to see a young woman running in his direction. Her robes—much too heavy and lavish for exertion—were disordered and her hair flew in all directions. At first he mistook her for Vesta, then he realized it was the girl’s mistress, Joannina.
She stopped beside him, gasping, hand held up to her heaving chest. “Lord Chamberlain! Thank goodness I caught you!”
“Is there some trouble?”
“It’s Anastasius. He visited Artabanes and the general tried to poison him.”
Having seen the sorry shape Artabanes had been in the previous day John found it difficult to imagine him having the ability, let alone the presence of mind, to attempt poisoning a visitor. “What makes you think Anastasius was poisoned, Joannina?”
“He told me so, after his bodyguards carried him home.”
“Carried him home?”
“He couldn’t stand up. He was horribly ill.”
“Did he by any chance smell of wine?” John asked, recalling that wine was a poison very much present at Artabanes’ villa.
“That’s what the poison was concealed in, obviously,” said Joannina.
“Do you think Anastasius is in danger?”
“No, he’s recovering. He told me it was lucky he only had a sip of the poisoned wine. If he’d drunk a whole cup…” Her lips began to tremble and she broke off. “I don’t want to think about it. You must have Artabanes arrested immediately!”
“What were Anastasius’ bodyguards doing while Artabanes was poisoning his wine?”
“They were waiting outside with the carriage.”
“So he was able to walk out to the carriage?”
“No. They told me they heard shouting from inside the house. The sounds of fighting. So they raced in. What about Artabanes? Aren’t you going to have him arrested?”
Joannina’s voice had risen to a screech and passersby gave the pair curious looks.
“Did the bodyguards say anything more?”
“They told me they ran into the garden and saw Artabanes attacking Anastasius.”
“It seems odd. Why would he do that if he had poisoned him?”
“Because the man is demented. He was swinging a stick and shouting ‘You’re dead, Gontharis I stabbed you in the heart!’ Demented, obviously!”
John recalled Artabanes reenactment of his killing the Libyan tyrant Gontharis “I see,” he replied. “And Anastasius was unable to fight back?”
“Only because his own stick had broken. And then he fell down and his bodyguards had to carry him home. Artabanes will no doubt claim Anastasius attacked him. People were supposed to think he had killed Anastasius with a stick in self defense, to cover up the fact he’d poisoned him.”
John’s opinion was that such a plan was beyond Artabanes. He made polite noises about looking into the matter further. Joannina began to calm down. Did she truly believe Anastasius wasn’t simply inebriated? “Why did Anastasius go to see Artabanes in the first place?”
“He didn’t tell me, Lord Chamberlain. I didn’t know he had gone there until the bodyguards carried him in and put him on the couch.”
“You shouldn’t be away from Anastasius too long. Go home and take care of him. I don’t believe Artabanes is dangerous.”
He managed to send her away slightly mollified and continued on his way, quickening his pace to make up for lost time.