Nine for the Devil (8 page)
Manuel, cook for Empress Theodora, locked the storeroom in which were secured victuals and spices for dishes destined for the imperial couple. He nodded a goodnight to the guard stationed at the iron-banded door and went out through the series of long basement vaults that served as the palace kitchens. A skeleton night staff moved through the red shadows cast by the scattered braziers in operation at this late hour. From some distant chamber came a monotonous echoing thump as a servant chopped vegetables—parsnips perhaps—for a soup to be simmered through the night. No, onions. Manuel could distinguish the smell of freshly chopped onion, recognizable even in an atmosphere redolent of banquets past. The sooty whitewashed walls exuded the odor of meats broiled over the years and expensive spices few tongues in this part of the world would ever taste.
The cook was swarthy complexioned or else the smoke through which he moved day after day had soaked into his pores. He was as emaciated as a man who never came within sight of a square meal. When asked how that could be, Manuel joked that in the constant heat from dozens of massive braziers, he continually sweated off the morsels he sampled.
He stopped to speak to Petrus, who took charge during the night. His second-in-command was covered in loose feathers from the chicken he was plucking. One of the slaves should have done the job but Petrus enjoyed plucking and gutting chickens.
“That new assistant hasn’t been back?” Manuel asked.
Petrus shook his head. “Just as well. He insisted he knew all about cooking. Always had his nose in one of the pots. I had to keep explaining that he hadn’t been hired to cook but to clean and haul supplies off the delivery carts.”
“He was good at that. I’d thought he was a bit old for hard physical labor, but you saw the size of him. A powerful fellow.”
Petrus blew drifting chicken feathers away from his mouth. “A hard man, I’d say. Not your typical help. I put him down for one of the Praetorian Prefect’s men.”
“My guess was he actually worked directly for Justinian. I was given to understand he could be trusted because he had worked for highly placed officials.”
“A spy?”
Both men knew that the emperor had the kitchens kept under constant surveillance. Some of the guards were known to the staff, others were not. Generally there was a man who reported to the Master of Offices and another employed by the Praetorian Prefect. They kept an eye on both the staff and each other. Usually the emperor had his own spy there to watch everything and everybody else. The watchers were constantly being replaced, making it difficult for them to discover each other and collude. It all made little difference to the functioning of the kitchens, considering the virtual army employed there.
“It isn’t a coincidence the man vanished the very day the empress died,” Manuel observed.
“No. No coincidence.” Petrus slapped the denuded chicken down on the table and picked up a knife. “I think we can safely say the emperor was disappointed in the poor man, whoever he worked for and…well…” Petrus stabbed his blade into the chicken and tore its belly and chest wide open.
“Justinian’s gone mad,” Manuel said. “He’s convinced the empress was poisoned, impossible as that is. He’s looking for someone to blame.”
“He must think this spy of his missed something important.”
“One of the dishwashers didn’t show up this morning either. Perhaps he was working for the Master of Offices. I’m sure we’ll eventually notice others are gone too.”
Petrus reached into the chicken carcass and pulled. A handful of guts came out with a slurping noise. “If Justinian knew who the poisoner was he would have him gutted like this chicken, but more slowly.”
“You can’t execute someone who doesn’t exist. So the watchers pay the price for not spotting someone who was never there. When I delivered the emperor’s breakfast I noticed the guards to Theodora’s sickroom have been replaced.”
Petrus was groping deep inside the dead chicken. Finally his hand emerged, fingers gripping the last, stringy bloody entrails. “At least he doesn’t suspect you, Manuel.”
The empress’ cook grimaced. “I pray he doesn’t.”
“Don’t worry. If Justinian suspected you, do you think you’d still be alive? I’ll wager you didn’t sleep much last night. Try to catch up on your rest. Come in late. I’ll take charge until you feel like coming in.” He started sweeping offal from the pile of gutted chickens off the table.
Manuel left to the moist sound of vital organs plopping into a bucket.
He nodded to the sentry at the door. A new man. Had the familiar sentry been reassigned? Or perhaps the question was had he been reassigned to a post in the land of the living or sent to the land of the dead?
He decided to return to his rooms via the brightly torch lit walkway that passed by the Triclinium rather than taking his usual shortcut through the dim gardens. There were so many guards about one might have thought the palace was under siege.
Perhaps it was time for him to retire. How many years had he served the empress? Ever since the previous cook had been—well, it was best to forget the incident of the fish. What would he do now? There were endless banquets to be prepared. Perhaps he might be ordered to take over the cooking for Justinian.
He hoped not. Cooking for the emperor, who was a vegetarian and austere in his tastes, would be like cooking for a peasant farmer. There were those who hated Theodora. Manuel could never understand why. There was no dish too exotic for her palate. She had been a joy to cook for until the last few weeks, when she had been unable to hold down anything but broth. Even so, had she not complimented him on his broth of partridge, venison, and crab?
Yes, he had accumulated enough wealth to retire in luxury. Perhaps he could move to the provinces, run an inn for well-to-do travelers who would be glad to have a good palace style meal during a long journey far from the amenities of the city.
He heard boots thudding along the marble walkway behind him.
Some emergency?
As the footsteps came up beside him they slowed to match his pace.
“Manuel, cook for Empress Theodora?” inquired a gravelly voice.
Two hulking guards, hands on the hilts of their sheathed swords, flanked him. A hollow space as vast as the inside of the Great Church seemed to open up inside Manuel’s chest. “Yes?” He wasn’t sure how he managed to get the word out.
“You are to accompany us. Orders from Emperor Justinian,” said one of the guards. He was practically a youngster. A curl of red hair fell from under his helmet and lay across his unlined forehead.
“What…what is this about?”
“We are here merely to carry out the emperor’s orders. Come with us.”
Manuel felt a hand on his shoulder. It was all he could do to control his bladder.
They led him down a narrow path into the gardens. Their feet crunched on gravel.
“Justinian desires to see me?”
The guards did not answer.
They passed through a gap in the shrubbery and the bright light illuminating the broad marble walkway and pouring out into the grounds beyond was abruptly blotted out.
Manuel’s heart pounded in fits and starts. “Am I…am I under arrest?”
The guards remained silent.
They halted at a patch of dark bare ground surrounded by bushes. Manuel could hear the ratcheting of summer insects in the dark foliage. The sharp odor of dill came to his nostrils. Oddly, as much as Theodora had favored esoteric spices, she had always loved dill.
He heard the whisper of a steel blade slipping from its sheath.
The guards said nothing.
The red-haired youngster slit Manuel like a chicken from belly to breast.
The sprawling two-story mansion of General Belisarius and his wife Antonina rubbed its polished granite walls up against the southern end of the Hippodrome. It wasn’t a salubrious location but then Belisarius wasn’t home very often. He was usually camped on some distant border though at present, to hear some tell it, he was on board a ship sailing up and down the Italian coast, shaking his fist at the Goths and waiting for Justinian to send swords and spears.
John guessed when races were in progress the cheers of the crowds must shake the house like thunder. Did the sound remind Antonina that despite her wealth and high position she had come from a family of charioteers? Theodora had accomplished a similar rise to greater power from even lower antecedents, being the daughter of a bear trainer. Perhaps this was the main strand in the bonds of friendship between the two women.
As he climbed the flight of white marble steps, John reflected that even when races were not in progress, Antonina would be reminded of her past by the pervasive smell emanating from the vast stables beneath the track, the same atmosphere in which she had grown up.
He had no desire to speak to Antonina or any reason to suspect her of harming her imperial friend, but her name was on everyone’s lips and therefore he considered it prudent to be able to tell Justinian he had questioned the woman. More than that, Gaius had wanted him to speak to her and he could hardly ignore his friend’s request even though he didn’t expect to discover anything that would make the physician less fearful for his own safety.
At the thud of a knocker shaped like a horse’s head the door opened and John was ushered in by a lugubrious servant who escorted him to a room on the far side of an atrium decorated with frescoes of heroic battles from mythology. It was a fitting flourish for the house of a successful general, even if its owner didn’t have much opportunity to admire it.
John stepped into the room to which he had been directed and found Theodora staring at him.
A chill prickled the back of his neck, then, in a heartbeat, he realized it was only a painted representation of the empress. She was flanked by attendants in garments almost as rich as her own, though none wore jewelry to rival hers and only she wore a crown. The fresco covered the entire back wall. The room was filled with fragrant lilies and roses in pots and vases.
Antonina reclined on a scarlet upholstered couch beneath a window opened to a garden. “It is a good likeness, is it not, Lord Chamberlain?”
“Indeed.”
Antonina’s eyes were as blue as a clear morning sky and her hair as pale as the moon in that sky. There were those who claimed she practiced magick and by that means not only controlled her husband but also the hand prints of time. John ascribed her youthful appearance to the lotions and other cosmetic preparations she prepared for herself and other ladies of the court.
If you approached closely enough her age would show, but once you got that close it would be too late.
John sat in an ornately carved but uncomfortable chair facing her, separated from her couch by a low table, acutely aware of Theodora’s menacing stare. “A few questions, Antonina,” he began. He suddenly realized the window behind her providing a glimpse of an exotic garden, was, like Antonina’s complexion, nothing more than cleverly applied paint.
“I know why you are here and will be happy to assist,” Antonina replied. “In fact, I can give you information you will find useful.” She remained in her reclining position, as if prepared to dine in the old Roman style. Her light blue silk robe were slightly rumpled, showing a trim ankle and smooth muscular calf. She smiled. “I do not have to tell you there are several persons with grievances who might not be amiss to helping our dear empress leave the world.”
She glanced at the fresco. “A faithful rendering of the beautiful mosaic in Ravenna, Lord Chamberlain. I was able to obtain the artist’s designs. They were costly but well worth the price. The imperial couple could hardly go to Ravenna so their portraits went instead and the mosaicists copied them. Unfortunately the empress looks ill, not that we can wonder at that.”
She sighed, theatrically John thought. “I intended it as a gesture of friendship to Theodora but it was completed too late. She will never see it now.”
John wondered if a reproduction of the companion Ravenna mosaic of Justinian and his courtiers graced another room and whether Belisarius would approve of these new decorations. Equally, they would serve as a reminder of his taking Ravenna from the Goths, as well as flattering the imperial couple.
As if reading his mind, Antonina said, “No doubt you have heard I was hoping to persuade the empress to intercede with Justinian in the matter of sending more troops and supplies to my husband. It is quite true. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived in Constantinople earlier this month, Theodora was so ill she refused to receive me. As an old friend, it was hurtful even though I believe she was trying to spare me the pain of seeing her as she had become.”
Or sparing herself being seen, John thought. “Very few were admitted to her room once she began her final decline,” he replied.
“Let us be frank, Lord Chamberlain. I am well aware you suspect me, given I have made it plain I wish to stop the proposed marriage between my daughter and Anastasius. However, since I was not able to visit Theodora, obviously I had no opportunity to do her harm. Then too, even you must agree preventing a marriage is hardly a good reason to arrange for an empress to be poisoned. Particularly since the empress was my closest friend.”
“You are of the opinion Theodora was murdered?”
Antonina pursed her lips. “That is Justinian’s opinion. Do any of us dare to entertain another?”
“Although you did not visit Theodora you must have sent her gifts. Cosmetics or perhaps something to ease her pain?”
Antonina gave John a frigid smile. “It is customary to send gifts to one’s friends. It is hardly a matter of official concern or anything I care to talk about in detail. I am sure my modest offerings were thoroughly examined, as gifts to the imperial couple always are. Since you are looking for the culprit have you considered the Cappadocian?”
“He is imprisoned in Egypt. As he has been for years, since you conspired with Theodora to have him removed from office.”
She glared at him. “He can still have eyes and ears and hands here in the capital.”
“They would require payment and Justinian was eventually persuaded to strip him of his wealth.”
Antonina gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “The Cappadocian’s wealth is like the root of a noxious weed. It goes too deep to be pulled up entirely. What I hear is he is free to return and resume his rape of the populace now that the empress is no longer here to protect us.”
“I doubt the Cappadocian will have his way with you, Antonina.”
She looked as if she was about to spit at him. As John knew, she hated the former Praetorian Prefect, usually derisively referred to as the Cappadocian or more simply as the tax collector.
“I would think you and General Belisarius would welcome the Cappadocian’s efficiency in raising revenues,” he went on. “Justinian would then have more funds to pursue the war in Italy.”
Antonina’s eyes sparkled with cold fire. “Let me educate you about how the Cappadocian assisted my husband’s soldiers. Bread for an army must be carefully twice baked so it does not spoil for a long time, during shipping, in storage in camp, during marches.”
“I am aware of that.”
“I forgot. You are from a humble background too.” Her expression softened momentarily. “At any rate,” she continued, “the method of baking requires extra firewood and extra wages for the bakers, money which otherwise could have been spent by the Cappadocian on luxuries and debauchery. This extravagance, as he saw it, offended him so he had uncooked dough delivered to the basement of the Baths of Achilles where fires continually burn to heat the water. He had the dough placed near this free source of heat until it appeared more or less cooked, then thrown into bags and shipped to Italy. Needless to say, the loaves started to rot before they arrived. My husband tells me you could smell them at the dock where the ship lay moored. Yet there was nothing else to eat. It was in the middle of a summer as hot as this one. Five hundred of my husband’s men died. He ordered the armies be furnished bread from the surrounding countryside. At our own expense, Lord Chamberlain.”
“It is good to know our soldiers have a champion like yourself.”
“You are sarcastic. Doubtless you think I only care about my husband’s fortunes.”
The cloying odor of the lilies and roses ranged about the room had begun to irritate John. He allowed his gaze to wander, avoiding Theodora and coming to rest in the painted garden outside the painted window behind Antonina’s couch. For the first time he noticed, half hidden amongst the elaborately painted leaves, a yellow bird caught in the jaws of a lion.
“I do not see the Cappadocian as a credible suspect,” John said.
“If you are looking for a better possibility, consider Justinian’s cousin General Germanus. If it weren’t for Theodora he would already have been accepted as heir to the throne. She did everything she could to cripple his career. Now he will thrive.”
“At your husband’s expense, Antonina. Aren’t you afraid he may supplant Belisarius both as Justinian’s foremost general and his eventual successor?”
John noticed Antonina’s fists clench and quickly relax again. “My husband has no designs on the throne. You remember that was the Cappadocian’s undoing. He mistakenly believed Belisarius to be a traitor.”
“Yes, and when he went to meet Belisarius you were there with officials from the palace.”
“He deserved it for thinking ill of Belisarius. My husband is an honorable man.”
“Honorable men are so rare at court, it is dangerous to assume honor in anyone.”
She glared at him again. John wondered if her approach to their conversation might be different were he more prone to fall to her artfully preserved charms.
“You are being unfair to me,” she said. “Germanus had more to gain by Theodora’s death than I did. Why do you insist on turning your suspicions toward me? I know how much you hated the empress. Do you hate her friends too? Which of your enemies will you choose to turn over to the emperor? Everyone is speculating and some are trembling. Am I to suffer for Theodora’s sins?”
Antonina got up, kissed her finger, and placed it tenderly against Theodora’s painted cheek. “My dear, dear empress. Even in death you are wronged.”
She faced John. “You’re frowning, Lord Chamberlain. Don’t you like my fresco? One of my servants doesn’t like it either. She’s a superstitious girl, the tedious and stupid sort who insist on finding omens in the shape of spilt wine or the movements of clouds. She will not enter this room for any reason, because she’s convinced my beautiful decoration foretold Theodora’s death. Were she not so clever at concocting dainty sweetmeats I would dismiss her.”
“It is not difficult to be wise after the event, and especially when the event is known to be inevitable a week or two before it occurs,” John pointed out.
Antonina gave a grim smile. “Superstitious nonsense, that’s all it is. I questioned the stupid child at some length. According to her the attendant shown lifting the curtain is unveiling the afterlife, the imminent departure for which is about to arrive for one of the women represented. Further, it seems the goblet Theodora holds represents an overflowing cup of blessings. The poor girl believes it foretold the blessing of the ending of her agony. There again, for others it may well be a warning we will drain the cup of sorrow. What do you think, Lord Chamberlain? Are there any clues to her murderer to be found in the fresco on the wall of this room?”
John stood. “As much information as you are likely to give me willingly.”
Or as much as anyone else at court will, he added to himself.
As he walked out of the mansion into the shadow of the Hippodrome, he wondered who would drain Theodora’s cup of sorrow. Not people like Antonina. People like Kuria, cast adrift from palace life with no prospects except returning to a life of selling herself to strangers.
The same people who always drank from imperial cups of sorrow.
If only the painted empress could lift the veil of mist that obscured his vision and reveal the solution he sought.