One for Sorrow (18 page)
While one friend continued to seek vengeance for Leukos’ death, two sought to make sense of Berta’s. Felix and Thomas arrived separately at Isis’ private rooms to offer their condolences but their expressions of sorrow soon turned to anger.
“Berta might have been popular, Isis, as you say, but what about the misbegotten bastard who strangled her?” Felix tossed down another mouthful of wine.
Isis studied the two callers seated opposite. The big, bearded men were alike so many ways they might have been a peculiar pair of brothers. The one was shaggy and dark, the other red haired. Felix was bulkier, built like a great bear. Thomas had the broad shoulders of the gladiators depicted in ancient sculptures. Tears streamed down Felix’s face and his mouth trembled. Thomas’ expression was rigid, his cold gaze a contrast to his fiery hair.
“We’ve never had such a thing happen before,” Isis said. “And what I can’t understand is who it could have been. So far as I know, only our regular guests were here.” Her dark eyes were somber. “Is no one to be trusted these days? I do believe I shall have some wine myself. Thomas?”
The knight shook his head. Felix banged down his goblet. Isis scowled. In her house, displays of anger led to a swift and oft-times undignified exit aided by the brawny Darius. Murder was—or had been—unthinkable. For the first time in the years since she had arrived from Alexandria alone and afraid, she felt unsafe.
Shuddering, she poured more wine.
“She had a fine funeral, my Berta,” Felix said. “I am paying for it myself.” Despite the wine he had imbibed, his words were carefully formed and clearly spoken, but shaped by that terrible frozen grief of the newly and suddenly bereaved.
Isis dabbed at her eyes. “Poor Berta. Only a few days ago, dancing at the palace, and now the only people she will be dancing for are the dead, and that after her heart is balanced on the scales against the feather of truth.”
“I spit upon your feathers!” Felix snarled.
Thomas, who had been largely silent since arriving to find the morose Felix with Isis, inquired about the feather, less from real interest than to calm a situation which might turn ugly.
“Oh, yes,” Isis replied, “yes, when we die, our hearts are weighed against the feather of truth. It is an ostrich feather, such as is worn by our goddess Maat. She represents truth and justice, you know. If the scales of judgment balance evenly, then the departed are judged worthy. If not, they are destroyed.”
Felix rose ponderously from the couch. “That may well be, Isis. But Mithra will surely aid me, and a veritable tribunal of judges of the dead, a whole milling herd of ostriches, none of these things will hide the truth of it, for I shall find out who did this thing, and I shall….” He paused, wiping tears from his face. “Let me repeat this, as Mithra is my lord, I shall personally ensure that justice is meted out. I shall take great pleasure in squeezing the miserable dregs of life out of the bastard who took my Berta away from me. But slowly, very slowly, you understand? I want his agony to be long, and when he dies, the only prayer over his body will be mine, that Mithra will continue his agony in the next life for all of eternity.” His words were the more terrible for being spoken in a gently conversational tone of voice. “And now, I must go.”
Neither Thomas nor Isis spoke for a while after the bereaved man staggered out. Finally, Thomas broke the heavy silence by wondering if Felix would ever find the man he sought.
“I wouldn’t lay a wager on it. Felix has made a lot of bad wagers.”
“Perhaps Felix would like a memento of Berta,” mused Thomas. “Didn’t she have some jewelry? I recollect some barbaric bracelets. I would be happy to deliver them to him if you would trust me.”
“That’s kind of you, Thomas. As it happens, I already gave him some of her small pieces as remembrances. If I didn’t know that my girls’ all have hiding places for their valuables I would never have found them.”
Thomas nodded. “Excellent, excellent. She was very fond of green, wasn’t she?” He sounded wistful.
Isis stared at him with surprise. She heard genuine emotion in his voice. “You were fond of her?”
He blushed. “Yes.”
Isis knew that men could quickly form attachments if they met a girl at the right time. It was the source of no small amount of trouble in her business. “You only saw Berta once, as I recall?”
“That’s true but she had something about her…I think she took a liking to me too, although I wouldn’t say so to Felix. She was fascinated by my travels.”
Isis did not point out that being fascinated by clients was part of Berta’s job. What an innocent the man was. But then what could you expect of someone from the far edge of the empire? “I’ve done some traveling myself, Thomas. Have you been to Alexandria? That’s where I’m from.”
“There are few places I have not been.”
“The Lord Chamberlain lived there for a while.” A soft smile briefly illuminated her plump face. “You know, he is a good man. He has suffered much, and yet remains kind.”
“No higher praise can any man, or woman for that matter, have bestowed upon them. I would be proud to have that said of me.”
“I think, Thomas, that your heart is true and you need not fear the weighing of it when the time comes. What a strange and terrible city this is! I shall be glad to return home eventually. I daresay you feel the same way? Do you think it will be a long time before you return home?”
He shrugged. “It’s been too long since I’ve walked under the gray skies of Bretania, yet I can’t say when I’ll feel its kindly rain on my face again.”
“You are quite the poet, Thomas!”
“All men wax poetical about that which they love.”
“And there is no doubt that Felix loved Berta.” Isis, having drunk too much, had put aside her goblet and was peeling an apple. “If only we knew who murdered her. Here is an apple for knowledge, as the Christians say. Perhaps it will work for you.”
Thomas chewed the proffered fruit thoughtfully. “In the northern part of Bretania where I was born, apple-cores are called gowks. Yet you could put apples in huge piles and ask a man from the south to find the gowks, and he would look forever. They would be there, in plain view right in front of him, yet hidden, so he would not find them. Well, not unless he asked someone from the north, I suppose!”
“It seems that the moral of your tale is that with good will and many eyes the hidden cannot remain so forever.” In her current state of inebriation it struck Isis as a profound insight.
Thomas nodded solemnly. “Let us hope so, for I fear Felix is going to be a dangerous man until he exacts his revenge for Berta.”
It was not wise to seek out the emperor in his private residence in the middle of the night.
The thought flashed through John’s mind as a shadowy figure bulled into him.
As the shock of the assault faded he realized there could be no connection with his intended visit. He was crossing the gardens and had not even reached the Octagon. The emperor’s eyes seemed to be everywhere and his reach had no limits, yet he was not omniscient.
“…what about her? What about her?” his attacker roared. “They killed her too!” The words were slurred by wine.
Hands fastened claw-like on John, intent on dragging him to the ground.
As John staggered backwards, his attacker began to emit gasping, inarticulate noises. John recognized first that the man was sobbing, and second, that it was his friend Felix.
“Captain!”
The man’s grip loosened. “Berta,” he mumbled as his legs buckled and he fell forward. John helped him to a nearby bench.
“In your condition it’s fortunate you ran into me rather than one of your own men or some administrative troublemaker.”
“Berta’s dead.”
“I know, Felix.”
“But you’ve been looking for Leukos’ murderer. And even though the old soothsayer’s dead, the bastard, you’re still looking.”
“Who told you that? Anatolius? Have you waylaid him tonight also?”
The burly captain let his head drop against John’s shoulder and continued to sob. John hoped his friend was intoxicated enough so as not to remember much in the morning. Of those three things that relieve men of their senses and dignity—wine, religion, and women—wine, John thought, offers the least recompense.
Intoxicated or not, Felix was right. Berta was dead too. John must not forget there were two murders to avenge.
“Best get you home. Can you stand?”
Felix grunted and clambered unsteadily to his feet.
John steered him deeper into the garden. Who at court hadn’t taken too much wine on some occasion or other? Yet there was no misstep so slight that it would not be noted and used at an opportune time.
Distracted by his efforts to keep Felix upright, John left the path. Felix lurched into shrubbery, dragging John with him.
There was a muffled oath, movement in the dark, a transitory gleam of naked flesh, rounded, a knee, or breast.
“Zeus take you!” came a hoarse male voice. “Find your own spot, you two!”
Summoning all his strength John pulled Felix back to the path. Muted giggles, faint as a memory, pursued him out of the thicket. The night closed in like dark water.
When he had dragged Felix back to the captain’s house, he tried to prop Felix up with his back to the wall but his friend’s legs were so wobbly he slid down until he was sitting.
John rapped at the house door to alert a servant to their arrival.
It swung open.
Had Felix been drinking before leaving the house and forgotten to secure the door? Had his servants failed to notice? It seemed unlikely.
John slipped the captain’s sword from its scabbard.
He stepped quietly into the house. From somewhere, perhaps the colonnade surrounding the garden, enough torchlight filtered in to reveal the rough outline of the holding basin in the center of the atrium. John took a few steps toward the gray rectangle of a doorway just visible across it.
Felix’s sword was far heavier than any John would have chosen. He paused, listening. A cricket trilled nearby.
Did he hear breathing? He had the distinct sense the darkness enclosed something more solid than the cricket’s repetitive song.
He heard movement behind him and when he turned he could see a dim patch of light on the tiles, escaping from a partially covered lantern, giving enough illumination to avoid stumbling but not reaching beyond its owner’s feet.
“Home at last, captain?” The voice was muffled. John could discern no more than the outline of the speaker. Felix’s visitor must not have been able to distinguish so much as that to mistake John for Felix.
“I hope Fortuna has treated you more kindly tonight than it did when last we spoke,” the voice continued. “Although I’m not sure it is Fortuna’s fault if you insist on backing the Greens every time she gives victory to the Blues or if you will call four fingers when she ordains five. Don’t worry. I have been authorized to offer you the usual arrangement. But we must know by tomorrow at the second hour. By the way, you should have wagered against your marriage. I put ten nomismata against it and made a killing!”
The words must have been loud enough to reach outside and penetrate Felix’s befuddled haze.
“No! I’ll take no more of your dirty money!” Felix’s slurred shout echoed around the atrium. Somehow he had got to his feet and his form filled the doorway. “Tell your master to find someone else!”
The captain lurched forward, lost his precarious balance, and fell.
In the instant John’s attention was drawn away from the intruder the man flung the covered lantern.
It came at him like a fireball.
John knocked it aside with his sword. By the time he had blinked away the effect of sparks and flame, Felix’ visitor had vanished.
John was deep in thought as, having handed over his dagger to the doorkeeper, he made his way through one guarded doorway after another on his way into the heart of Justinian’s private quarters. Passing near the emperor’s residence on his way home from Felix’s house he had impulsively decided to try to persuade Justinian to allow him to continue his investigation of Leukos’ death. He knew Justinian worked in solitary late into the night and under such circumstances was often more agreeable to suggestions. A familiar visitor at all hours, his demand to speak to the emperor on urgent business admitted him.
As he walked, he kept turning the episode at Felix’s house over, as if his memory of the vague, dark shape of the intruder might on yet reveal a detail he had missed.
Could it have been Gregorius? The man mentioned racing and playing micatio. However, Felix had surely gambled at micatio with any number of others. John could not say whether the voice was familiar. He had only spoken to Gregorius briefly and in the atrium the words had a sepulchral ring.
A door opened, sending a wave of heat and musky perfume into the brightly lit hallway and revealing a purple-hung room beyond.
A petite woman dressed in layers of silk stepped between the excubitors flanking its entrance.
“Lord Chamberlain.”
“Highness,” John responded, a dark curse at his ill fortune in meeting her tonight of all nights trembling on his lips as he knelt before the woman as protocol demanded.
“You are late seeking your master tonight,” Theodora observed, extending her shoe to be kissed as she always demanded. No, John saw, she was barefoot. Her toenails were painted gold. “But then imperial affairs brook no delays. What is your business?”
“I wish to consult him on the matter of the Keeper of the Plate, Highness,” John replied. It was dangerous enough to speak the truth to Theodora, let alone lie to her.
She gestured him to stand. “You have been instructed to end that investigation.” Her words had an knife-like edge. “Do you intend to refuse a direct order from the emperor? I advise you to think carefully before proceeding on a course you will come to regret.”
John remained silent. He did intend to continue his investigation even if he couldn’t persuade Justinian to allow it.
The empress’ eyes with their unnaturally large pupils might have been drawing the thoughts from his mind. “You don’t believe that wretched soothsayer committed the murder?”
“I do not.”
“Despite the evidence?”
“The distinctive daggers he was carrying? I do not see it as certain proof that he thrust one into Leukos.”
“Do you suppose the old man was not capable? He was. Oh, he certainly was.” Theodora smiled. “He told my fortune privately, using a chicken. Oh, yes. He knew how to use those blades of his.”
“A man isn’t a domestic fowl, Highness.”
“To an empress they are.” Theodora giggled. “The soothsayer must have come straight to my banquet with Leukos’ blood still on his hands. How delicious to contemplate.”
John felt a chill run down his back, even as his face prickled with the heat issuing from the doorway, heat that was no doubt the result of several braziers yet seemed to radiate from the empress herself. Through the doorway he could see a haze of incense.
“Can we be certain the soothsayer is the murderer when the torturers never had a chance to question him?”
Theodora’s kohl-outlined eyes narrowed. “There is that. I do regret he was able to escape into the sea. I would have had him tell my fortune with his own entrails.”
John noticed the men flanking the doorway stood frozen like statuary, while their gaze flickered to the empress’ bare feet and over her voluminous but near transparent silks. Their faces had turned pale, but yet they could not draw their gaze away.
John offered a silent prayer to Mithra.
Did Theodora’s scarlet lips quirk into a fleeting smile? Had she sensed his entreaty to a pagan god?
“Highness, consider this. The soothsayer could well have had an accomplice who will go unpunished if the investigation ends.”
“No wonder the emperor finds you persuasive, Lord Chamberlain. Much too persuasive in my opinion. Yet if you find the supposed accomplice will you fillet him yourself, for my pleasure?”
Her musk was suddenly choking. “Highness.” He forced out a rasping reply. “I am not skilled enough to offer you the pleasure the torturers can.”
“I disagree. You and the torturers together might offer me exquisite entertainment one day. Particularly if you flaunt your emperor’s commands.”
If John continued his efforts to avenge Leukos he would be risking not only death but a terrible death once word of his efforts reached Justinian, as they surely would sooner or later. John was, nevertheless, determined to persevere so, he realized, those efforts had better be successful.
Theodora leaned forward, as if to speak confidentially. “You may be willing to risk your own life, Lord Chamberlain, knowing that the emperor is a merciful man and may not see fit to have your ears and tongue removed. However, I am told you no longer live alone. If you suffer, you will not suffer alone.”
John’s stomach lurched. He could have broken her delicate white neck with its golden chains in an instant, before the guards could react. It would almost have been worth his own death. But then, others would die as well.
He struggled to keep his face impassive, seeing from the amusement that played over Theodora’s features that he was not entirely successful. “I shall keep your advice in mind when I speak to the emperor.”
“You will not be speaking to the emperor. He is not in his study. It is not theology with which he is wrestling tonight, Lord Chamberlain.”
She smiled at him, stepped back into the hot, smoky room, and shut the door.