Nine for the Devil (27 page)
“You may stand, Lord Chamberlain,” said the emperor. “We are all equal in the presence of death.”
John got to his feet.
Justinian gave a sardonic smile. His gaze fell to the jar in John’s hands. “You would make a poor thief. The shelves of the kitchens are lined with such jars. Once their contents are gone, they are worthless clay. Like our own flesh.”
Though the words were spoken lightly, John detected a tightening around the emperor’s eyes.
“Excellency, I wish to speak about Anatolius.”
Justinian gave no indication he had heard. He looked around the room. “The plasterers will arrive soon,” he said quietly. “This is the last opportunity I or anyone else will have to see this accursed place before it is sealed off forever. The dust of years will fall silently where my dear wife suffered and died, covering everything with a soft mantle of memory. A strange thing to contemplate, is it not?”
A strange time to engage in poetical ruminations was John’s opinion. “I must respectfully request Narses be instructed to allow Anatolius to leave the Great Church in safety. I have evidence Anatolius was not involved in the empress’ death.”
Justinian leveled an expressionless gaze on John. “Proceed.”
John recounted Kuria’s confession.
Justinian paced as he listened. Then he closed his eyes briefly. “Kuria. Yes. My dear Theodora’s favorite lady-in-waiting, one she trusted. She raised her up from a terrible life.”
“The empress could not have misjudged the girl’s character,” John suggested.
The emperor patted the frame of the bed. “I agree. But who then? Who was the culprit?” He paused. “That murderous drunkard Gaius. Of course! He killed himself, a sure admission of guilt. Perhaps he realized your long friendship would not protect him?”
“It is my belief his death was a mistake while he was intoxicated,” John replied.
“It was made plain to Gaius that retaining his head depended upon his remaining in a fit state to treat my wife.” Justinian glanced in the direction of the icon of the healing saints. “When he was elsewhere it was doubtless a different matter. On reflection, it seems obvious he made the last batch of Theodora’s painkilling medicine far too strong, fatally strong. Therefore I have decided her death was due to an overdose, brought about by the physician’s carelessness. Unfortunately the culprit is beyond justice.”
John shifted the jar he held from one hand to another. “Her death was then an accident, not murder?”
Justinian sighed and nodded. “It seems so, Lord Chamberlain.”
“Excellency,” said John, praying to Mithra his tongue would not tangle the words he had to say. “If I may give my opinion, I believe it was not an accidental overdose. Nor was it murder by an enemy’s hand.”
Justinian’s gaze had moved back to the icon. “Her agony was unimaginable, Lord Chamberlain. I saw it all, shared it all. I never left her side. I fed her personally as long as she could take nourishment, helped her drink her medicine. Toward the end she took nothing but painkilling potions. By then they had lost their effect. It was torture, Lord Chamberlain.”
“It is true, excellency, you attended the empress constantly. Of all those I have spoken to in the course of my investigations, no one spent as much time with her as you.”
The expression Justinian turned on John was so utterly devoid of emotion as to appear, under the circumstances, totally inhuman. “Explain yourself, Lord Chamberlain.”
John raised the jar slightly. “Olives. This jar contained olives. Who would eat olives in the presence of the empress, who could not even eat the fruit she was sent? Surely you would never have done so.”
“One of the attendants,” Justinian replied.
“They would not bring a jar of olives into the sickroom. This jar is from the kitchens. I know you are familiar with the kitchens. I saw you there one night not long ago.”
Justinian said nothing.
“Do you require me to be more specific?” John asked, asking Mithra to protect him.
Justinian’s face remained a rigid mask. “I have asked too much of you, Lord Chamberlain. I will summon you later when you are less tired. You may go.”
John remained where he was. He needed to finish this, now. He could not wait any longer to find Cornelia, no matter how much he might anger the emperor.
And he was about to anger him.
“Excellency, you had the most and the easiest access to the empress,” he said. “You also had the strongest motive for hastening her death. The motive of mercy. You just pointed out she was being tortured. As I said, her death was neither an accidental overdose nor murder by the hand of an enemy.”
There came to him an image of the wall painting at Antonina’s house, the copy of the Ravenna mosaic, the empress holding the chalice.
“A cup of sorrow for one may be a cup of blessing for another,” he added.
Justinian’s eyes blazed as if they opened onto the pits of hell. “I should have your throat cut and your body entombed in this room. Explain yourself before I order it.”
“Gaius kept increasing the amount of the empress’ painkilling medicine,” John replied. “Toward the end it ceased to help. There was no escape from her torture. The more painkiller the empress was given the more her pain increased. How could that be? Because after it became apparent it was not possible to relieve her agony, you were no longer giving her the proper amount.”
Justinian remained silent.
“Instead you were pouring part of it into this jar, one you’d taken from the kitchens. Gaius had been exceedingly careful not to bring a fatal dose into the room. Nobody could possibly know that you were saving the painkiller. You wanted to make certain you accumulated enough to relieve the empress of her suffering.”
The emperor stared at him, his face unreadable as a blank sheet of parchment. Though the room was hot, John felt enveloped with cold. He shuddered.
Mithra, I am about to be condemned to death. Guard my family, he prayed.
The emperor’s voice issued in a faint draught from all but motionless lips. “A pretty explanation indeed, Lord Chamberlain. Now explain why I would order you to find a murderer if the murderer were myself?”
Why? To hide his actions? Had he wanted John to present him with a scapegoat? Or because he had been deranged and had not, until now or some time after the act, admitted to himself he had taken his wife’s life? Had he wanted John to convince him that someone else had murdered Theodora?
“I did not say you were a murderer, excellency.”
“Then…?” Justinian pressed.
“I believe you did not want to see the empress’ torture prolonged,” John said, wishing Theodora had shown such mercy herself to those she had sent to the underground dungeons.”It was an act of mercy.”
Justinian forced his lips into a mockery of a smile. “You have been a valuable servant to me, Lord Chamberlain, but tonight you have brought an end to your time here.”
Hypatia sat with Peter—her husband Peter—all night. She had pulled a stool to the side of the bed and taken one of his still hands in her own. The physician told her Peter would not wake again when he went back to sleep, and Peter had fallen into a deep slumber before the clergyman who married them left.
Peter had mumbled the appropriate words. Had he truly known what was happening? At the same time he was taking his vows he seemed to think he was climbing the ladder to heaven.
He was half-sitting, propped up on the pillow. His hand was cool. She could hear him breathing faintly, with an occasional long pause between breaths. Hypatia waited every time, holding her own breath, until his breathing resumed.
She kept brushing his wispy hair back into place. His forehead felt as cool as his hand. In the soft glow from the sleeping city outside the open window he might have been any age.
What a strange marriage, ending before it began. Like a baby who died at birth, whose life consisted of a single cry and an inscription on a tombstone.
She had always felt a bond with Peter, as if they were family, without realizing it.
Was it foolish for her to marry an old man? She ran a finger over the back of his hand, feeling the fragile bones through the parchment skin. It was better they had married. The Lord Chamberlain should have married Cornelia long since. Did he suppose there would always be time?
The night passed. Outside the window dawn replaced the soft night glow of the city. Hypatia was gradually aware she could again discern Peter’s bedside table, the amulet she had given him, the lucky coin from Derbe, the pilgrim flask with the oil she had thought miraculous for a brief while. The cross on the wall came into sharper relief.
Her eyes burned and for an instant, as sunlight began to filter into the room, she was sure the increasing light formed a cross over the sleeping Peter. She blinked and it was gone.
No doubt it had been a transitory effect of sunlight and her own exhaustion.
Then the hand she held spasmed.
Suddenly it was clenched tightly around her hand, squeezing painfully.
Then the pressure released.
Peter opened his eyes and looked at her.
“Hypatia. I have just had the strangest dream.” His voice was strong. His eyes were clear.
How long Hypatia might have remained speechless she would not know because almost simultaneously with Peter’s awakening there came a pounding at the door. Up on the third floor the noise was barely discernible but it startled Hypatia like a thunderclap.
She rushed downstairs. She could hardly see for the tears of joy blinding her.
What wonderful news she would have for the Lord Chamberlain when she let him in. She had forgotten their argument.
Blinking back tears, stifling sobs, she fumbled with the bolt and finally threw the door open.
The caller was not the Lord Chamberlain.
***
It was later that morning before Hypatia learned what had happened to John.
He gave her a hurried summary of his meeting with Justinian as they stood in the atrium.
His first question upon entering the house had been about Peter.
“He’s sitting up and having something to eat, master. Complaining I undercooked the eggs.”
John had braced himself for bad news. “He sounds like his old self,” was all he could think to say.
“He’s entirely himself. He really has recovered. It’s a miracle. Isn’t it wonderful?” Hypatia smiled. “His god has decided to grant us some time together, or so Peter says. And how can I not believe him?”
For Peter’s sake John accepted Hypatia’s tearful apologies for her outburst and reinstated her in the household. Hypatia worshiped the gods of Egypt as John knew. He wondered if Peter would seek to convert her to his own religious views. “I am happy for both of you, Hypatia.”
He and Hypatia had exchanged their news in a rush. There was no time to waste. No time for John to visit Peter.
He put his hand on the door and looked around the atrium, wondering if he would see it again, half expecting it to dissolve like a dream. He was enveloped by a sense of unreality. If he were to reach out his hand it might pass through the scene as it would pass through the reflections in the water in his impluvium, or perhaps come up against a hard, cold, mosaic.
He had experienced this sensation after his mutilation by the Persians. Surely, he had thought, it must be a nightmare. The world could not have changed so much, so abruptly and inexorably. But he had never awakened, and gradually he had stopped waiting.
“I’m leaving immediately for Zeno’s estate to find out what has become of Cornelia,” John told Hypatia.
“That won’t be necessary,” said a familiar voice.
He turned, startled. Cornelia came down the stairs. Her clothing was mud-spattered.
“I arrived back not long ago,” she said. “All that rain delayed us right from the start of the trip. The roads were flooded. We got stuck in mud, then a bridge had been washed out. It was my fault, ordering the driver to try a side road. We ended up in a ditch with a broken axle and had to stay at an inn waiting for the carriage to be fixed. By the time we got to Zeno’s estate a messenger had already been sent asking when I would arrive. I turned right around and came back immediately.”
She put her arms around John.
“I may as well not have bothered to go,” she said. “I was no help at all. Our grandson was being born as I arrived. He is named John.”
“You really should have stayed,” John said, holding her tightly.
“Europa and Thomas and John are doing well. I knew you would worry and I didn’t want you to be distracted from your investigation, and given I could get here as quickly as another messenger, well…” She kissed his cheek.
Over Cornelia’s shoulder, John saw Hypatia looking uncertain if she was free to go, trying to remain unobtrusive.
Cornelia put her head on John’s shoulder. “Why does it all need to be so complicated?”
John gave a thin smile and put his arm around her shoulders. “It doesn’t have to be, not any more. We have always talked about living in Greece. You can start to pack, Cornelia. I am free to leave the city at last. The emperor has relieved me of my position.”
Early morning sunlight poured into John’s study, warming him as he stood looking out the window, waiting for Cornelia to finish packing.
Today they were leaving for Greece, to be followed in due course by Thomas, Europa, and the infant John.
Turning, John smiled at the mosaic girl Zoe.
“Yes, Zoe, Peter and Hypatia will be with us too. They at least are constants in a time of great change,” he informed her.
He resumed pacing back and forth across the empty room, as he had been doing off and on since Cornelia had banished him while she was making the final preparations for departure.
“It will go faster if you aren’t looking over my shoulder,” she’d told him.
The house was even more bare than it had been. So John had gone to his study, where there was no longer a chair, and looked out the window and paced and talked to Zoe.
“A time of great change,” he repeated. “Not just Theodora’s death, though Mithra knows how that will affect the empire. Felix is still talking of converting to Christianity. And Anatolius is convinced he was saved from death because he took sanctuary in the Great Church and says he is thinking along the same lines.”
He gazed at the mosaic girl with whom he had spoken so often. “Gaius is gone and Isis is running a refuge. The world is certainly changing, Zoe.”
He resumed pacing.
“And speaking of Gaius, it’s strange Peter would believe he saw him climbing the heavenly ladder before anyone knew he was dead. Then there’s Peter’s holy oil. Did it really heal him as he believes? Gaius once claimed fate was just another competitor of his. I should have liked to have heard Gaius’ thoughts when he learned Alba, who swore by white food, choked to death on the black olives Gaius presented him.”
He took another turn around the sunlit room and continued. “I was not paying as close attention as I should have to what I heard during my investigation, Zoe. I overlooked more than one nudge in the right direction. Pulcheria pointing out the same jar can contain wine or poison, for example, and Gaius mentioning the same plants can be used for good or ill, to kill or cure. Then there was Antonina’s servant, who believed the goblet Theodora held in her mistress’ wall painting foretold the blessing of the ending of her agony.”
He paced back to the window and looked out across the palace grounds. Seagulls wheeled and squawked over treetops and the familiar tramp of military boots announced the departure of a company of excubitors.
“I shall miss you, Zoe. We have shared many confidences over the years.”
“And now it’s time to say goodbye, John,” Cornelia said from the doorway. “Everything is packed and loaded.” She came to him and put her arms around him. “It will be a new life and a better one, John. You no longer serve Justinian. You are free.”
They left the study. The thud of the house door closing quivered upstairs through the hot air. Cloud shadows briefly dimmed the sunlight pouring across the mosaic girl’s face, seeming to animate her features and creating a brief, sad smile on her glass lips.