One for Sorrow (6 page)
The next morning John approached the Baths of Zeuxippos with trepidation. Would Anatolius be absent again? And if so, what might that mean?
Scaffolding obscured the double tiers of enormous arched windows at the semicircular front of the building. The marble cave of the vestibule, empty of ornamentation, rang with the sounds of hammers and chisels wielded by laborers who outnumbered bathers. The baths had been burnt down by the mobs during the riots three years earlier, but several wings had reopened.
By the time John reached the private bath reserved for palace officials he had acquired a fine coating of plaster dust. He undressed in the outer room, shook off his clothes, and stepped into a cloud of steam billowing from an archway.
He was relieved to see Anatolius lounging against the wall of the oval basin, staring dreamily up into the foggy dome overhead.
“I was surprised you weren’t here yesterday.” John eased himself into the hot water. It took an effort of will. During his time in Bretania he had seen a comrade drown in a swollen stream. Bodies of water still terrified him.
“I was out with Bacchus all night after the official celebrations. I think in the end he beat me around the head with his staff and threw me down a flight of stairs. That’s what it felt like when I woke up yesterday afternoon. I didn’t emerge from the house all day.”
“Then you haven’t heard?”
“Heard what, John?”
“Leukos was murdered. Felix and I found him in the alley beside Isis’ place. He was stabbed.”
Wherever Anatolius had been dreaming when he gazed into the dome, it took him some time to travel from there to the alley where an acquaintance had died. Finally he muttered, “I…I don’t know what to say. It’s too horrible to be believed. I barely knew Leukos myself, but still…I’m sorry….”
John realized his friend’s lack of words evinced his shock better than any flowery phrases could have conveyed. He recounted quickly what he knew about Leukos’ death and his investigations of the previous day.
“No,” Anatolius replied in answer to John’s questions. “I didn’t run into him at the Inn of the Centaurs, or on the way there either. Is there any reason to think it was anything other than a robbery?”
“Nothing was taken from him so far as I could tell.”
“That is suspicious. And he appeared to be out of sorts at the Hippodrome.”
“So you noticed that as well? He seemed to have something on his mind. I thought it might have to do with his visit to the soothsayer.”
“And the question is whether the visit to the soothsayer had anything to do with his death?”
“One of the questions.”
Gritting his teeth slightly, John slid down until water lapped his chin. Most found the hot baths soporific and pleasant. John wished he could say the same.
“The prefect is sending me Leukos’ pouch after he’s examined its contents. He didn’t want to part with any evidence.”
Anatolius raised his eyebrows. “You persuaded him? He usually answers to no one but the emperor.”
“I told him that Leukos’ family would want its contents, whatever they might be, and that it would be unwise to anger the bereaved family of a high official.”
“I don’t know anything about Leukos’ family.”
“Neither do I. The pouch might offer some clues to what was on his mind, where he was going, apart from the Inn of the Centaurs.”
Anatolius pushed his dark, dripping hair away from his face. “Perhaps someone saw the attack.”
“It’s possible, but that person might be anywhere in the city. No one at Isis’ house saw anything.”
“Unless one of the urban watch happens by at the right time or a mob catches the fellow immediately and tears him to pieces, street crimes are never solved. And it could have been one of us killed in that alley. I passed by there myself.”
“Did you happen to spend any time at Isis’ last night?”
“No. I was preoccupied. Do you suspect Isis of being involved?”
John shook his head.
“But what if her livelihood were threatened?”
“I trust Isis. We’ve both known her for years. I am more suspicious of the soothsayer.”
“You said you spoke with him. What did he say when you told him Leukos had died so soon after his consultation with him?”
“I didn’t mention it.”
Anatolius looked surprised. “Didn’t you ask the soothsayer where he was when Leukos was killed?”
“That would be the prefect’s way. I wouldn’t expect a murderer to tell me the truth and I don’t have a small army to go about the city knocking on doors and verifying stories.”
“But you could have observed his reaction when you broke the news.”
“A man who can convince most of the imperial court he can divine their futures is too good an actor to be caught out that way. Yet the soothsayer troubles me. Only the gods know our futures.”
“That may be,” said Anatolius. “On the other hand the gods may communicate with us in whatever way they choose. Even through garrulous old wanderers.”
“It sounds as if you are more impressed with him than I am. Did you keep your appointment with him?”
Anatolius’ face brightened. “Yes, and I found him to be impressive.”
“What did he have to tell you?”
“He immediately augured I was in love.”
“A safe wager!”
“Perhaps, but he was quite accurate. He poured some colored pebbles out of a leather pouch and when he read them, he proclaimed I would be lucky in love.”
John laughed. “You aren’t still thinking of the bull-leaper? She’s much too old for you.”
“I’m sorry, John. It’s clear that even a man as wise as you can be misled by the memories of a pretty face. Last night, after my head stopped throbbing, I started a poem for her. I will be Pindar to her Aristomenes.”
“Aristomenes? The wrestler? The bull-leaper didn’t strike me as such. And as for Pindar, didn’t he remind us that man is merely the creature of a day, the dream of a shadow?”
“Well, if life is only a dream it is very pleasant one right now. According to the soothsayer.”
“And how do you know his happy prediction for you will turn out to be true?”
“When we were talking he told me some of the men from the bull-leaping troupe are staying at the Inn of the Centaurs. The rest of the performers are quartered on an Egyptian ship at the docks.”
John stood uneasily at the edge of the dock, dark eyes narrowed against the harsh light, looking down into the debris of the city sloshing at his feet. He felt his stomach tighten.
Anatolius, shading his eyes with his hand, was staring at the horizon where dark clouds lay in a sullen stripe across the sea. “There will be a bad storm soon.”
They made their way through the oppressive heat that lay over the raucous harbor, the lines of sweat-streaked slaves burdened with crates and sacks, the dark-sailed merchant ships sweetly redolent of old cargoes of spices rising and falling on the same sparkling swells as many-oared warships.
John should never have come here. He had only seen the woman from a distance, for an instant. In the dim solitude of his study it had seemed possible that he had found his old love again. In the brassy sunlight, it was obvious it had been nothing more than self delusion.
They identified the
Anubis
, the ship named by the soothsayer, by the protective Eye of Horus painted on its prow. It was as silent as the dead its eponymous jackal-headed god conducted to the underworld. A man dozed at the foot of its mast. The gangplank was not in place. Waves sloshed loudly at the bottom of the gap between dock and ship.
“Hey! Watchman! Visitors!” yelled Anatolius. The man continued dozing.
Leaning down, John picked a shard of pottery from the litter strewn about the dock and lobbed it at the boat. Its clatter did not awaken the sleeper, but brought forth from the ship’s bowels an angry boy. The Lord Chamberlain had seldom been announced in so undignified a manner.
He soon found himself standing in front of a low-lintelled door. If there were any sounds to be heard from inside, they were masked by the regular fretting of waves against the ship. He raised his hand to knock. His fist was shaking, and not from the proximity of the water.
He paused. Although he had done his best to concentrate on his search for Leukos’ murderer, the performer at the Hippodrome had been constantly at the back of his thoughts, drawing him into a past he could never regain. Now there lay between him and the reality of the present only this plank doorway.
“Go on,” urged Anatolius.
“Mithra, it’s worse than waiting for the cornu to sound the attack,” John muttered. He rapped briskly. Light footsteps sounded within. A woman opened the door.
There was a hint of gray in her dark hair. Close up she looked less slender than she had seemed at the Hippodrome, although she was apparently still agile enough to vault and leap over razor-sharp horns.
“Cornelia!”
She stepped forward, pulled him into the cabin, and dealt a stinging slap to his face.
“And they say Cretans are liars! By the goddess, you took long enough! And what do you want after all these years?”
John reached for her hand, half-expecting his fingers to pass through hers as through a mirage, and it was a shock when they were stopped short by the warm solidarity of her flesh.
“How did you know where we were, John? And what do you think you’re doing, coming here? And, now I think of it, what are you doing for a living these days?” Her features were white with fury except for an angry spot of red on each cheekbone.
“Still the same Cornelia, all questions and never a pause for breath so I can answer!” John wiped tears from his eyes with a quick swipe of his knuckles.
“The John I knew wouldn’t have cried.” Her voice cracked.
“The Cornelia I knew was gentler.”
She looked him over appraisingly. “You look strange in those fancy clothes. You must have done well for yourself.”
“I am not the John that you knew, Cornelia.”
There was pain beneath the anger in her eyes. “How I prayed to the goddess for word from you! But it never came. Why didn’t you at least tell me you were leaving?”
“I never intended to leave you. I accidentally crossed the border and ran into a band of Persians. I ended up…well, eventually I ended up in Constantinople.”
“And I stayed with the troupe. I keep expecting you might show up in every new place we visited.”
“When I saw you in the Hippodrome I thought how kind the years had been to you. You looked just as young as when we first met.”
Cornelia laughed quietly. “Your tongue is still as smooth as ever, I see. But in fact—”
Anatolius managed to squeeze into the cramped, dim cabin. “I owe you an apology, John. I could have sworn the bull-leaper was little more than a girl.”
John introduced him. “My friend Anatolius, secretary to Emperor Justinian.”
“Secretary to the emperor? That sounds like a high position.” Cornelia looked John up and down again. “And so, what is it you do, John?”
Anatolius broke the ensuing silence. “He is Lord Chamberlain to the emperor.”
Before Cornelia could say anything there appeared in the doorway a slim dark-haired girl. “Mother, who are the visitors?”
Shock washed over John in a cold tide. “You have a daughter?” As soon as the words were spoken he regretted them. There was no reason why Cornelia should not have taken a lover in the years since he had been forced to abandon her.
“She’s the one you saw bull-leaping. Her name is Europa. She looks a lot like me, doesn’t she? Though there are those who say she looks more like her father. Like you.”
The ship lurched as an unusually large swell pushed it toward the dock. Anguish washed over John. He closed his eyes, feeling lightheaded, as if he were about to topple into a chasm suddenly opening at his feet. It was not the vertigo which had so recently seized him at the dock, but rather an instinctive reaction to the sudden yawning of unfathomable depths as terrifying as those revealed when the split earth disgorged Hades, intent on abducting Persephone.
Struggling with his emotions, John realized he was not what he thought he was. Half of his being, his identity as a man, had been wrenched away from him and twisted around and then thrust back into his dazed grasp, all in the space of time it took for Cornelia to say two words. “Like you.”
Europa was his daughter.
Yet the thought which made him so lightheaded had also loosed a gray miasma of apprehension.
How would his child—he tasted the word—his child react to meeting the father she had never known?
The lengths one went to for women, thought Felix. He nervously ran his hand through his shaggy beard as he hesitated outside the entrance to Madam Isis’ establishment.
The square was deserted. The sun beating down had driven stray dogs into the shadows of doorways and colonnades. There was no sign of the mayhem he had been caught up in two days earlier. No one would have guessed a bear trainer and the Keeper of the Plate had both died here, within a few steps of each other.
“Come in out of the heat, Felix!” boomed a voice from Isis’ open doorway. “No reason to stand there shuffling your feet like a schoolboy.” Darius, the big Persian, grinned at him.
Felix shambled inside. “I see you’re still sporting dainty wings, Darius.”
Darius gave a snort, and reached behind his back to snap a finger against one of the wings. “If only these things worked I could fan myself with them. It might almost make up for feeling ridiculous.”
“Or you could simply fly away and find a more reasonable employer.”
“Sometimes I am tempted. Shall I tell Berta you’re here?”
“Not today. I’m here to see Isis.”
The doorkeeper led the way to Isis’ private quarters. The hallway vibrated with the lugubrious moaning of the organ.
“She’s been driving us mad trying to play that accursed instrument,” Darius muttered. “I’m surprised the urban watch hasn’t complained about the noise. If Justinian spent an evening here they’d be outlawed the next day from one end of the empire to the other.”
Before Felix could remark on the unlikelihood of the emperor passing the night in a brothel the groaning ceased and Isis answered Darius’ necessarily thunderous knocking.
She directed Felix to a chair and settled herself on the cushioned couch across from him. “My playing has been improving,” she said. “Perhaps Euterpe has smiled on me at last. What can I do for you, Felix?”
“I…well…commerce is not something I have a knack for and….”
“Have some wine.” She poured out a generous goblet full and handed it to him. He gratefully took several large gulps.
“So you are here on a business matter,” Isis prompted.
“Yes. It’s about Berta,”
Isis patted Felix’ knee with a plump hand. “You want to marry her.”
Felix simply stared. Isis laughed. “Many of my girls have loose tongues amongst ourselves. We all know about your intentions. We were beginning to think you’d never get around to asking.”
Felix reddened. “We won’t have to haggle?”
“No, no, no. I’ve already made a firm decision about Berta. I don’t want to part with her, but I’d be willing to sell her to you, Felix. Fifty nomismata.”
Felix choked down his mouthful of wine. “Fifty! I could buy a scribe for that!”
“Whatever would you do with a scribe? You’ll get more pleasure from Berta. Why, you’ve probably spent as much gambling on the races.”
“You aren’t selling her. You’re holding her for ransom.”
Isis waved a hand and her rings flashed. “What is such a small sum to the captain of the excubitors? You are a wealthy man. It costs more than fifty nomismata to keep a lady in silks!”
“Yes, I know. It isn’t the price, it’s the principle.”
“What does love have to do with principles? Is it true what they say? That you are having financial difficulties?”
Suddenly, despite her ample form and billowing silks, Isis did not look soft at all. Felix thought of a ripe plum. If you bit into it unwarily you’d break your teeth on the pit.
“There are endless expenses connected with property. It isn’t that I am short of money—”
“And gambling can be expensive too. The Hippodrome is enormous. All of Justinian’s gold could vanish into it.”
“You’ve been listening to the slanders being spread by my enemies!”
“If what is being said is untrue, the price I am asking should be a pittance. Besides, you don’t think I am concerned with the price, do you? I want the best for my girls. I don’t want to send Berta out into a disastrous situation.”
“I see. Very considerate of you.”
“You think you’re the only one interested in Berta? There may be a better choice waiting for her.”
Felix finished his wine and sat his goblet down on the table between them with a resounding thud.
“I am temporarily pinched, but I will get your price. Rest assured I will give her anything a lady could wish for.”
Isis smiled. “I’m glad to hear it, Felix. I’ll be happy to see Berta settled. I managed to save up enough to buy my freedom and go into business for myself. But Berta spends everything she earns before the coins are cooled. Where do you think most of that jewelry she wears comes from?”
“I’ve never asked her.” Felix admitted. He did not add that he didn’t want to know. “You’ll prepare the papers?”
“Certainly. Everything will be properly signed and sealed, and I shall settle the Curse of the 318 Fathers upon the document of sale, just to be safe.”