Seven for a Secret (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

“Lord Chamberlain! I am honored to have a second visit so soon!”

Opilio stood on a stool, draping a garland of links over the doorway to his shop. Glancing down, he must have taken note of John’s stern expression because the smile on his ruddy face faded.

“There’s nothing wrong with the sausages, is there? Were they not to your liking?”

“I haven’t tried them.” John’s tone was curt. “You will provide me with more information since you appear to have neglected to tell me everything you knew.”

The stout sausage maker climbed down, nearly lost his balance, and reached a hand out to steady himself against the wall.

“I’ve been doing my best to recall the smallest detail that might be of use,” he protested. “But I fear my poor brain is as empty—”

“—as one of your casings,” John cut in. “Just as it was a few hours ago.”

“That’s it, alas.”

“I find it hard to believe you would recall your niece associating with actors and actresses but her spending time with malcontents plotting against the emperor would entirely escape your mind.”

The color drained from Opilio’s face. “Plotting against…no…no…of course not. She’s a common little prostitute, that’s true enough, or at least she was when last I saw her. But a prostitute…that’s one thing…to plot against the emperor…that’s another thing entirely…”

“Indeed. After all, it is not treasonous to harbor a prostitute under one’s roof.”

“Treason?” Opilio looked stricken. “Why would anyone suspect me of treason? There’s no one in Constantinople more loyal to Justinian than I am. Why, I would kiss the ground our glorious emperor walks upon. I mean, if I ever found myself anywhere near such ground. Not that I would try put myself in the vicinity of the emperor.”

John was silent.

“I…I…but…Agnes…I turned her out!” Opilio stuttered. “If I’d known she was plotting against the emperor, I wouldn’t have turned her out, I would have turned her over to the Prefect immediately, even though she was my niece.”

John remained silent.

“I wouldn’t harbor a traitor if she were my own dear mother, excellency,” Opilio continued, near to tears. “In fact, I would hunt her down and strangle her with my own hands.”

“Justinian would be gratified to hear that.”

“And I’m not ashamed to say it. What is a relative’s blood as compared to the wellbeing of the empire? We are all mortal. The empire lives forever.”

The sausage maker stood to attention, with all the gravity of a silentiary at the entrance to Justinian’s reception hall, albeit a short, bent, bow-legged silentiary in a tunic streaked by bits of offal.

Was he truly worried about being charged with treason, or was he afraid the high official who was displeased might put an end to his business dealings with the palace?

“You understand if there is anything you are not telling me this time, you will regret it. Do you know a man by the name of Troilus? He sells curiosities.”

“The name isn’t familiar.”

“He is acquainted with your niece.”

“Agnes knows far too many men!”

“Then she never brought him to your home when she lived with you? It is possible he went by another name.”

“I did not allow Agnes to carry on her filthy business in my home, excellency. None of her acquaintances—men or women—were welcome, because they were all of the same sort.”

“Then you did not know Agnes had a taste for purple and that she comported with plotters?”

“As I’ve already told you, excellency, I know nothing of that. I can believe Agnes might have a taste for purple but as for seeking to bring down the emperor…” Opilio shook his head. “She’s a foolish girl. All she cared about when she lived here were baubles and vanities. I doubt she’s changed. On the other hand, a woman in her profession does not necessarily know the plans of those she entertains.”

“Are you sure of that?”

Opilio clasped his hands together as if on the verge of wringing them or praying. “I must be honest, talk about plots is often in the air, like smoke from the foundries,” he replied. “Every week there’s talk of such things, yet what is it? Just talk. That’s why I said nothing. After a while one doesn’t even take note of it. If any of these plans were serious, no one would be prattling about them in public, would they?”

He paused and contemplated the linked sausages framing his door. “Yes, excellency, you can depend upon it. It’s all just idle talk. I suppose those who once basked in the presence of the emperor must find it boring to live in this quarter. That’s why they hold all these meetings, at out of the way places, to liven their drab existences up a bit.”

“Exactly what out of the way places are you referring to? Don’t lie to me, Opilio. I am anxious to attend one of these meetings.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

A handful of men had clustered near the base of a porphyry column in the far corner of the spacious court between the Baths of Arcadius and the water. Morning sun spilled a silver wash across the court’s polished stone. John and Anatolius observed the men from a distance.

“A peculiar place to congregate if you’re planning to depose the emperor,” remarked Anatolius with a grin. “Or perhaps they don’t realize they’re conspiring at Theodora’s feet? I can’t say I see much resemblance.”

John admitted that the painted statue, which he knew was meant to represent the empress, did not much resemble her. “She may well have looked like that in her youth,” he concluded.

“If she had been the Christian’s Mother of God in her youth rather than a prostitute.”

John agreed that the empress had never worn such a beatific expression during any of his encounters with her, but then Theodora had long hated him. Why it was he had never discovered, although he suspected it was in part due to his high position at court, allowing him constant access to and possible influence upon Justinian.

Her statue gazed away from the city, as if it was looking away from the sinful world in the direction of the convent she had established on the other side of the water. John doubted she would be one of those powerful personages who in due course would retire to a life of contemplation.

“Remember, Anatolius, we only have Opilio’s word that he overheard Agnes saying this was a favorite meeting spot for her disaffected friends.”

At this hour there was no one else at the seaside court aside from solitary strollers. The sun had been rising as John and Anatolius made their way down a steep street that ran out of the Copper Market and ended at the Strategion, not far from the court in the northeastern corner of the city. Agnes seemed to have had a predilection for the hours before crowds flooded streets and squares.

John could appreciate that.

“Isn’t that Menander?” Anatolius pointed out the broad shouldered old man conversing in the middle of the group. In the sunlight the man’s white hair formed a nimbus above his craggy features. “Very suspicious, don’t you think? He certainly carries a grievance.”

“They could be discussing anything. The fine weather. The excellent statuary. The mosaic girl in my study.”

“Yes…well…I’m sorry about Crinagoras’ indiscretion.”

“I am not concerned with common gossip but, as you said, since Crinagoras wrote a verse referring to Zoe anybody in the city could know it as a result. I had hoped if I could find out how Agnes learned the name it might give me an idea of what and with whom she was involved and why she was murdered.”

“I’m sure Crinagoras would be apologetic if he realized what he’d done,” Anatolius offered.

“I’d appreciate your not bringing him to my house again. Everything he sees or hears is liable to be spread far and wide in bad verse. I particularly do not care for people eavesdropping on my conversations.”

“You must be fair, John. As I explained, Peter said you were in the garden. I left Crinagoras beside the door to go and look. When you and Cornelia walked into the atrium arguing about a woman—someone called Zoe—he could hardly fail to notice.”

“So he imagined Cornelia and I were arguing about Zoe? A most welcome sort of visitor!”

“I told him it wasn’t what he thought.”

“And explained who Zoe was?”

“Well…yes…I suppose I shouldn’t have. But what was I supposed to say? That she was a real woman you and Cornelia were arguing over? Crinagoras means well, John. I’ve known him since he was a boy and it’s true he now spends time communing with his muse…”

“But I talk to a wall mosaic. Is that what you mean?” John’s lips tightened. “Cornelia was distressed at my muttering to the wall, as she said in Crinagoras’ hearing. It is my way of clarifying my thoughts. People will murmur as they read. It keeps one’s thoughts from racing away out of control.”

Anatolius looked at his feet.

“When I was a boy I memorized Homer by reciting to myself while I walked,” John went on. “However, I’m not likely to write a poem titled Crinagoras Bores His Muse. As I said, I do not wish to have him in my house. It’s not just my own privacy I have to worry about now, as you know.”

Anatolius said he understood. “When I confronted Crinagoras about it, he assured me that he had raced over to Francio’s with the verse. Flew as if he had Mercury’s wings on his feet is how he put it. The ink dried as he ran. He swore he had only the copy that Francio made him burn. He never recited the poem to anyone else. In fact, he never had time to memorize it. His poems write themselves, or perhaps his muse does. He tried to explain it all to me.”

“I do appreciate you looking into the matter, Anatolius. It narrows my field of inquiry.” John kept his gaze on the men standing at the base of Theodora’s statue.

The group was still in conversation. A stiff breeze carried laughter and an occasional word wrapped in the smell of the sea to the two watchers.

“I believe I can wander close enough to get some sense of what they’re discussing,” Anatolius said. “Best if you stayed here, John. If they see the Lord Chamberlain coming they’ll scatter like gulls.”

John watched his friend cross the dazzle of the square. The younger man passed in and out of the long shadows cast by the statues and decorative columns that jutted up, a sparse forest of stone and metal.

If Agnes had become involved with plotters, or moved among them, she might have intended to give John a warning. That would have been reason enough for her murder.

Ever since he had begun looking into her death John had moved through an eerie calm. He had encountered no hint of danger, no sign of an adversary.

Those who could best conceal their intentions were the most dangerous.

A shout drew his attention.

A man standing at a distance from the group had called out to a small ship which glided by nearly on a level with the court. The creak of the rigging was audible.

John squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. The image of sunlight flashing on the dark sea swells lingered. When he opened them again he thought he could make out the woods on the opposite shore and what may have been meadowland. It reminded him of the bucolic scene on the wall of his study.

He had sat alone with a jug of wine late into the night. Peter had been wise enough not to pause by the doorway. Cornelia had given him over to his humors.

He stared at Zoe and tried to see Agnes in the glass visage. Not the grotesque face of the drowned woman or the living face he had glimpsed in the square. Was there truly a resemblance? Could the mosaic maker have captured a likeness in tesserae?

How could the solemn little girl have grown up to be an actress or a prostitute?

Not that John considered Zoe a child. Her dark eyes had seen too much.

She had the form of a child. What was she really?

Would he know, if he discovered who Agnes was and what had happened to her?

Did he want to know Agnes?

“John!”

Anatolius approached, trailed closely by a man John recalled seeing at more than one official function at the palace.

Procopius was of average height and build, remarkable only for his immaculate dress and grooming. Above a high forehead, his perfectly trimmed hair lay as unmoved by the sea breeze as the hair on a sculpted bust. The stripe along the hem of his unwrinkled robe and at the ends of his sleeves—not too wide, not quite purple—matched the purplish stone in the silver clasp that pinned his cloak at the shoulder.

“Lord Chamberlain. I am deeply honored. I have explained to your companion that I am not seeking the emperor’s head.”

Procopius may have been smiling. It was hard to say. He had the impossibly smooth skin of a girl. His dark gaze fixed on John with the glittering eyes of a snake.

“I spoke to Menander,” Anatolius put in. “He told me that some friends like to meet here to take the air. It’s a reasonable distance from the palace. A sensible spot for those who are still in Justinian’s good graces and might prefer not to be seen with old acquaintances who have fallen out of favor.”

“And are you one of these old friends, Procopius, or were you asking Menander for more scandalous tales about Justinian?”

“I was questioning Menander, Lord Chamberlain, as you so astutely observe. And what a wealth of tales these people have. What glorious grievances. Indeed, if one could pay an architect with grievances there would rise halfway to heaven a temple dedicated to the condemnation of our noble emperor that would put the Great Church to shame. Alas, you cannot buy pretty churches with grievances. You can’t even eat grievances, though you can live by them. And just as well because grievances are all they have left, thanks to the evil emperor’s rapacity and vile treachery. He has robbed each and every one of them. These are their words, not mine. But then I do not have to explain that to a man of such perspicacity as yourself.”

“How do they suppose they’ve been robbed?” John asked.

“Why, let me see, every way under the sun, and many ways known only to the dark. False accusations are a specialty.” Procopius began to tick off the ways on perfectly manicured finger. “He has accused some of polytheism, others of heresy. One is accused of being an Arian. See there, gathered at Theodora’s feet, you have pederasts and defilers of nuns. Some of those men spoke treasonously or sided with the Greens. And one poor fellow arrived at the law courts to discover his dear father had named Justinian as his sole heir and done so in handwriting more like a court scribe’s that of the departed.”

“Justinian never assigned me such a task when I was his secretary,” Anatolius said. “I knew all the scribes. I’d have heard about anything like that.”

“Certainly such villainy would never have got past you. It’s all sheer fantasy. The flowers of bitterness taken root in idleness. But how very fascinating these tales are!”

John thought Procopius sounded a bit too interested in such slanders and said as much.

“I can see how it might puzzle you, Lord Chamberlain. In fact, I am composing an encomium to our matchless ruler. But consider, one cannot look into the sun.” He raised his hand slightly to gesture at the bright orb which had risen well above the sea. “To gaze at such glory is to be blinded. Even its reflection on the water hurts the eyes. But you can look at the shadows it casts. A great man’s enemies are his shadows and in their grievances against him you can see his virtues.”

“I have no doubt the words you eventually compose will please the emperor, Procopius. Have you heard of any restiveness which might be taken seriously?”

“Every angry word I hear is taken seriously by the broken man who utters it. But, no, I have not encountered a single person who contemplates attacking the emperor with anything other than false bravado and threats whispered in secret. Indeed I believe this court is a popular meeting place due to the public latrines located so conveniently behind the baths. The moment these brave souls announce their opposition to the emperor, they need to rush off to relieve themselves.”

“If you haven’t heard of plots, have you heard anything about a woman named Agnes, or Troilus, a dealer in antiquities?”

Procopius pursed his lips and appeared to consider the question. “The names don’t sound familiar, but I hear so many names. I may have written something down. You might want to visit me when I have had a chance to consult my notes. I am sure that as Lord Chamberlain you have many interesting stories to tell.”

“The stories I might be inclined to tell are probably not the ones you are interested in hearing. Still, I would appreciate the opportunity to speak with you again.”

Anatolius wanted to question Procopius about the architectural book he was reportedly writing.

John excused himself and walked in the direction of the sea. He stopped well short of the edge of the courtyard from where it was only a step down to the dark waves. The sea appeared to slope upward in the distance. John had the uncomfortable impression that the water might come rushing down at any moment.

On further consideration, he wondered what could be gained from speaking further with Procopius. It was Troilus he needed to question. The antiquities dealer had arrived at his shop with a large sack the very night Agnes was murdered. He had known Agnes. He could have stolen the dye that had been used on the body from Jabesh’s establishment, so near to his own.

Had Troilus fled? It seemed possible. Though he had no reason to think so given his single visit to the closed shop.

Knowing the identity of the murderer would not tell him all he wanted to know about Agnes.

About Zoe.

Or would it?

He thought again of the strange calm which enveloped his investigations. A deceptive calm. A calm like that of the sea gently lapping the stones, yet much too close.

He needed to know more. Not merely for his own curiosity, or even to avenge Agnes. Knowledge of some plot would explain her death. Anyone who sought to topple the emperor had already wagered his life on a desperate bet.

He would not stop at one killing.