Seven for a Secret (18 page)

Chapter Thirty-Four

The rasp of a bolt being drawn back and the creak of the front door opening carried up the stairs and into the kitchen where John and Cornelia had just sat down to a breakfast of bread, cheese, and hard boiled eggs.

“It must be Anatolius. I wasn’t expecting him this early, not after we were out so late last night. I kept dreaming about that black glass wall.” John took another bite of bread and stood up.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you going out for a walk,” Cornelia remarked, getting to her feet. Her eyebrows knitted in concern. “I hope it’s not about that girl.”

“Agnes wanted to talk to me, Cornelia, and now she’s dead. Probably because of what she wanted to tell me.”

Cornelia sighed. “Be careful. The Goddess has watched over you so far but…”

“We’re going to speak with Procopius. Nothing dangerous about that. We won’t be leaving the palace grounds.”

“They can be dangerous too.”

“So I’ve been told.” John picked up a sliver of cheese and chewed it as he went downstairs to the atrium.

Peter had closed the door.

He was alone.

“Who was that, Peter?”

“I can’t say, master. It took me a little while to get here and when I looked out there was no one there. Only this.” He held out a rolled bit of papyrus no longer than John’s finger.

“You didn’t see anyone in the square? No one near the excubitor barracks?”

“No, master.”

Whoever had left the papyrus must have raced away to vanish before Peter got to the door. On the other hand, Peter was slowing down.

John took the papyrus and unrolled it.

The message had been penned in Latin:

“At the second hour, two conspirators will meet beside the Milion.”

The Milion sat at the edge of the Augustaion. From the Mese, John could see the four pillars, connected by arches and surmounted by a pyramidical roof. Pedestrians hurried past on their way to the Great Church, Samsun’s Hospice, the law courts, the Baths of Zeuxippos, and the palace.

No one lingered near the Milion.

John walked slowly to the monument. There was no one inside either.

The morning light, slanting in through the archways, illuminated inscriptions on the pillars stating the distances from the capital to the important cities of the empire.

John pretended to study them.

When he first lived in Constantinople as a slave he had searched for places he had lived—Athens, where he briefly attended Plato’s Academy, Bretania, one of the places he had served as a mercenary, Alexandria in which he met Cornelia. There had been no city in the border region where the Persians had captured and emasculated him before selling him into slavery.

The distances, vast as they were, did not begin to describe the gulf which lay between John and those places. No journey, however long, could return him to the man he had been.

He waited. No one stopped near the monument. He was certain the second hour had passed. Perhaps he had arrived too late.

The light dimmed as a figure stepped through an archway.

A burly man with a bushy beard and familiar face.

“John!” said Felix. “What are you doing here?”

“I might ask the same of you.”

The excubitor captain tugged his beard and glanced around. “I…um…”

John produced the bit of rolled papyrus. “This was left at my door a short while ago. It said two conspirators would be meeting at the Milion.”

“I received a similar note,” Felix admitted.

He compared his papyrus to John’s. The wording was the same and the handwriting appeared to be identical.

“For all we know our informer may have alerted half the palace,” John said. “The emperor himself is liable to come strolling along within the hour.”

“There doesn’t seem to be anyone here but us, John. The villains might have been frightened off. Maybe we should wait over the way and see if anyone appears.”

John followed Felix to the other side of the Augustaion. They climbed the tier of steps surrounding the base of the towering column there.

Sunlight glanced blindingly off the column’s copper sheathing. There was no stylite atop the pillar but rather an equestrian statue of Justinian.

The emperor’s bronze steed had one foot raised, as if about to gallop off toward the east. A few people sat on the steps, as if upon theater seats, to gaze down on the drama of the city.

From where John and Felix stood, the Milion and all approaches to it were clearly visible.

“I’m surprised you didn’t bring armed excubitors with you, Felix,” John observed.

His companion grunted with disgust. “I thought it was a jest by someone who has an odd sense of humor.”

John raised his gaze to the mounted Justinian. “If a couple of conspirators wanted to meet, they might find it amusing to do so right under the gaze of the emperor himself.”

“They’d be perfectly safe with the emperor staring off into the east,” Felix replied. “It strikes me he’d best stop keeping an eye on the Persians when the real dangers to his rule are right here in the city.”

Crowds surged back and forth through the open space before them. No one paused at the Milion. City dwellers took the monumental milestone for granted. They knew they lived at the center of the civilized world. The distances to its other parts were irrelevant.

After a while, the pair decided to leave.

Felix suggested visiting a tavern close by and they repaired to it, taking their seats at a table in the back part of the room. From there they could see into the street.

The tavern was plain, most of its patrons dressed in a manner showing them to be workmen. Its plaster walls were black with smoke stains and its wine cups not of the cleanest.

Perhaps the proprietor felt no need to make an effort to entice patrons, being located so close to the busy Augustaion.

“Do you think there’s someone laughing at our folly right now, Felix?”

The excubitor scowled over the chipped rim of his cup. “No doubt about it, John. If you really wanted two villains caught would you send the Lord Chamberlain and the Captain of the Excubitors? No, you’d alert the city authorities.”

John took a sip of wine to which far too much water had been added. “Yet we both came to the Milion, didn’t we? A little more than a week ago I was approached by a woman in a square in the Copper Market. She wanted to meet me the next morning. It was suggested to me that the arrangement was a jest by some fool at court. The next time I saw her she was dead. Murdered.”

“It’s the woman who called herself Zoe you’re talking about?”

John looked away from the door. “Yes. Her real name was Agnes. How did you know?”

“Anatolius mentioned it to me, although he didn’t go into details.”

“I’m glad to hear he has gained some discretion, although not nearly enough.”

“You say she’s been murdered?”

“Yes. Furthermore, I’ve come to believe that the woman had something to tell me, something someone else didn’t want me to know.”

“Why didn’t she tell you right away instead of making an appointment?”

“Perhaps she feared she was being watched.”

“Why didn’t you come to me? I’d have assigned a few of my excubitors to help. That is if I could find any to spare. The emperor has my excubitors serving as personal bodyguards for every minor dignitary that shows up in he capital. They’re nothing more than ornaments. Still, I would have found someone to assist you.”

“I thought it was a private matter and should remain so. I had the impression there was some connection to me personally.”

“Because she knew the name you gave the mosaic girl? I’d have thought you would have confided in me after I’d rescued you from the street. The attacker must have intended to kill you. Was there any connection to Menander?”

“News travels fast,” John remarked.

Felix ran a big hand through his beard and laughed. “When a corpse is found in the Lord Chamberlain’s residence the whole palace is agog over the sensation within the hour.”

John nodded and resumed his observation of the tavern door.

The tavern itself had almost emptied while they sat there. A man with a basket full of vegetables came in and gulped down a cup of wine while standing at the counter. A servant taking time to have a drink on the way back from market, John thought.

“I tried to question Menander shortly before he was killed,” John went on. “It’s no wonder we received anonymous notes. Our informant—if he was genuine—must value his life. As I said, I had thought this matter was a private affair, to do with me personally. I am beginning to suspect there’s a lot more going on.”

“You might deign to allow me to be of assistance then?”

“I can certainly use it, Felix.”

John recounted events since his meeting with Agnes and the results of his inquiries. He spoke in low tones and kept a watch on the street.

Felix nodded and scowled and emptied his cup twice. Finally he growled, “This rumor about Theodora’s lost son replacing Justinian is absurd. Granted, she hasn’t managed to give Justinian an heir, but that doesn’t mean anyone would accept the claim of one of her blood rather than the emperor’s. For every man who hates Justinian there are ten more who hate Theodora. Admittedly the populace would be glad to be rid of the imperial couple, but I don’t think they’d want to replace them with her evil spawn.”

“You’re thinking of the tales about the empress enjoying congress with demons?”

“Who can say what she was up to in Egypt, when she wasn’t sharing the stage with hungry geese?” Felix grinned. “Besides, what claim to the throne could an illegitimate son of the empress possess?”

“Power proves its own legitimacy. Theodora is powerful. More than a few consider her to be a true co-ruler. Were Justinian to be removed Theodora would doubtless claim to be his appointed successor, and not without justification. To placate her enemies, she could offer to stand aside in favor of her son, and thereafter rule through him.”

“That sounds far fetched,” Felix observed.

“It would sound convincing if backed up by enough swords and there were enough weak-willed men who would wish to remain in favor with Theodora.”

Two middle-aged men entered the tavern. They surveyed its cramped space and selected the table furthest from where John and Felix were sitting.

After they were served they leaned toward each other to talk. Both wore fine garments and unhappy expressions.

“I’ll have our jug refilled,” John told Felix. He moved quickly and quietly. He had passed the table where the two sat almost before they noticed.

John returned with the wine. “I have just learned Senator Corvinus will soon be involved in an exceptionally unpleasant divorce.”

Felix smiled. “From the law courts, are they? Lawyers often look as guilty as criminals. You should put that nonsense about Theodora’s son out of your mind.”

“Admittedly, it would take a lot of swords to make an argument in such a son’s favor. But what if the son himself believes he is destined to rule? Whereas the truth of the matter is more likely that certain parties only want to prove his existence in order to rid themselves of the imperial couple, and after that, well…”

Felix asked him what he meant.

“You recall the general opposition to Justinian marrying an actress? His uncle Justin, even though he ruled at the time, wouldn’t pass the law that allowed it until his empress died.”

“Eudoxia did hate Theodora, it was common knowledge, but I’m certain if Justin had thought it best for the empire he would have passed the law sooner.”

“That may be,” John said, aware of his friend’s admiration for the emperor who had risen from the same position Felix now held. “But what if her enemies had proved she was mother to an illegitimate child? Would the church have accepted the marriage? Could Justinian have ruled and commanded the loyalty of the army and aristocracy, while in a marriage to a former actress, condemned by the Patriarch?”

“It might have been difficult.” Felix stared into his cup.

“The city is overflowing with people who have grievances against the imperial couple. Luckily for the emperor they all have different grievances. Should they agree to come together over a shared outrage and rise up together…well…consider the sort of trivial events that spark riots.”

Felix set his cup down on the table so hard the lawyers looked up. “We could come up with a hundred possibilities, John, and every one as likely or unlikely as the next.”

“There is no way to predict exactly what might happen, but if an illegitimate son of Theodora’s does exist, he poses a danger to the emperor. Besides, if I find him, I may also discover who killed Agnes and Menander.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

John and Anatolius intercepted Procopius halfway across the nave of the Great Church.

“I see my friend’s informant was right,” John said. “He indicated we could find you here.”

Anatolius had been waiting for John when he returned home following his discussion with Felix. He had inquired at the palace as to where Procopius might be found.

“I just finished speaking to a deacon,” Procopius replied. “I was interested in hearing his comments about the effect this wonderful structure has on worshippers. How else to describe the Great Church except by its effect?”

He waved the wax tablet he carried at their surroundings. His garments were as pristine as when John and Anatolius had recently seen him, and his hair as neatly arranged. John imagined that no matter where he came upon the man nor what time of day, Procopius would be just as perfectly garbed and coiffured.

“You’re researching for that work about Justinian’s buildings?” Anatolius asked.

“Yes, but I intend to finish my history of the wars first. Relating historical events is an easy task compared to describing such magnificence.”

“It would take a poet,” John agreed. “A skilled poet.”

Although John had attended innumerable ceremonial functions there in his capacity as Lord Chamberlain, the church never failed to surprise him whenever he visited. Its complexity was such that it could not be fully absorbed, let alone recalled in every detail. To enter the soaring space for the fiftieth time was to enter for the first.

Columned aisles and galleries rose up into a bewildering assortment of intersections, in the center of which the impossibly huge central dome floated like a golden sky. Light flooded in through countless windows, reflecting at every conceivable angle from gilt and marble, precious metals and glass, until the air shimmered with a glow which seemed to emanate from the walls themselves.

“I am only a thin-voiced scribbler,” Procopius said. “My desire is to describe what the emperor has wrought as simply as possible. The weight of the slightest verbal encrustation would bring my whole structure tumbling down.”

“And what did the deacon have to tell you?” asked Anatolius.

“Why, that we can easily imagine the Lord in this place, can we not? There are those who say we are no more than fleeting ideas in His eternal mind, and here, in the golden light from which every shadow has been banished, we might be at the very center of that mind. Do you know, it is said there are pagans who choose to worship in places made to resemble caves? I speak of Mithrans, who worship a sun god in such sad subterranean environs. What sort of man would worship in a cave who could commune with God here instead?”

Anatolius sneezed. The sound echoed around the vast space. “My apologies. It’s the effect of the incense.”

Procopius scratched a note on his wax tablet.

“I have been told you are a repository of rumors, despite spending most of your time off on campaigns with Belisarius,” John said.

“When I am in the city I make it my business to learn as much as I can. I have many works yet to be written. Who can say what may turn out to be useful? Did you know the wife of Senator Maximus is having an illicit affair with a minor functionary from the tax assessor’s office? The Senator came upon the two in his own residence, if you will believe it.”

“I have no trouble believing it. That’s the second such infidelity I’ve heard about today,” John said.

Anatolius looked thoughtful. “Perhaps I should abandon untangling matters relating to estates and concentrate on domestic disputes.”

“It depends on whose side you prefer to take,” Procopius said. “These days faithless women run straight to the empress and cry they’ve been slandered. They start countersuits. The husbands don’t even get a trial. It’s well known the empress sees to that. The unfortunate men are fined, whipped, and sent to prison. When they are allowed to finally trudge home their wives are often found entertaining lovers in the garden or the marital bed.”

He paused and smiled. “Or so it is claimed. All preposterous. These statements are merely the vicious lies of malcontents jealous of Theodora’s goodness and beauty. I studied at the law school in Berytus, you know. I am glad I do not pursue the profession any longer. I find writing to be more rewarding by far.” He regarded Anatolius. “Perhaps you should consider writing rather than law, young man.”

“You appear to spend a lot of time talking with malcontents,” John put in. “I hear you recently interviewed Menander again.”

“Poor Menander. Very sad news. I’m sure he still had many interesting stories. There was one he began to tell me, about a garden in the palace quarters occupied by the empress. A concealed garden, no windows overlooking it.”

Procopius licked his lips and pitched his voice lower. “This garden contained a number of large carved stone phalli, and Theodora was in the habit of taking moonlight strolls in it. But was Menander your house guest, Lord Chamberlain? What was he doing in your bath?”

“Don’t you know, Procopius? You seem well informed on most matters.”

“I only know the tales Menander related, which naturally never involved him personally. He was a careful man. He stored up anecdotes as well as treasures. He enjoyed showing them off in the same fashion. A prelate’s nasty predilections here. A pious lady’s dark little secret there.”

“And perhaps an illegitimate son of the empress?”

Procopius’ broad forehead furrowed. His gaze met John’s. His eyes were dark. They did not seem to catch the surrounding effulgence. “That? A cheap bauble, not worth bothering about.”

“Did Menander repeat the tale to you?”

“I have heard about this alleged son but you will appreciate I cannot divulge my source. If someone were to take this libelous information seriously the fact that someone possessed it might be, shall we say, misinterpreted.”

John thought a man might find he could divulge his sources quite easily when questioned in the emperor’s dungeons. It was, however, a reasonable excuse for concealing information.

“I am being honest with you when I say I know little about Menander,” Procopius continued. “He was an excellent source of gossip. He spent years living in the Copper Market among others who had once enjoyed the comforts of the court. Every sordid tale they are afraid to whisper while at the palace they are happy to bellow forth once they have been disgraced. They thereby prove they were indeed unworthy of our esteemed ruler’s loyalty. By their own vile tongues they demonstrate the emperor is not a petty and vindictive tyrant, casting them out on the flimsiest of pretexts. He is merely prescient. They are fortunate to be still alive.”

“Would you say any of them might be inclined to do more than just talk?” John asked.

“As I have already indicated, it was nothing but talk. There is no doubt that Justinian has set too many enemies loose. He forgives his opponents too readily, as everyone knows. An admirable trait for a Christian, but one that’s dangerous for an emperor. Yet the scoundrels have so far not risen against him. Thanks, perhaps, to the protective hand of God.”

Anatolius sniffed. Faint vapors snaked through the glowing air, eddies in a haze of incense and lamp smoke. John felt his eyes beginning to burn.

Procopius went on. “I form no opinion on matters for which I have no evidence, such as what we are discussing. Your legal friend will agree with me that is the best policy, Lord Chamberlain.”

“Indeed. Now, tell me about a matter for which you have no evidence. The matter of Theodora’s illegitimate son.”

“If you insist, I will tell you the story although it pains me to repeat such slanderous tales about our dear empress.” The sparkle in Procopius’ eyes gave the lie to his pious words. “While Theodora still lived in Egypt and performed on the stage, she accidentally became pregnant by one of the many men with whom she is said to have dallied. She realized her misfortune too late on this occasion and her efforts to abort the child failed.”

He leered at John. “I find it incredible that a woman of such reputation should either have failed to notice her condition, or that she did not possess the artifice to rid herself of what must have been a frequent inconvenience. Yet that is what some evil persons would have us believe about our devout empress.”

“I do understand that you do not approve of this story, Procopius, or believe in its veracity. Continue.”

“Thank you, Lord Chamberlain. I would not want to be thought disloyal. It transpired she was forced to bear the child. She was beside herself with rage and exasperation. How could she care for an infant and maintain her accustomed activities? Wantonness and lust left no room in her for motherly love. Even common whores, I am told, shed tears over their abortions and plead that the children they do bear not be sold as slaves. The father suspected, no doubt rightly, she would do away with his son before too long. So he took the baby and sailed to a far-off land. John was the name he gave to the boy.”

“The commonest of names,” John observed. “Is anything known of the father of this mythical child?”

“Nothing, except that the boy was supposedly told about his mother when the father was on his death bed. The boy was around fourteen by then. Theodora, as we all know, had repented her sinful life and made her way from the brothels and stages of Alexandria to the bed of the emperor in Constantinople as his devout and charitable wife and benefactor of the city.”

Procopius sighed. “It’s said the boy set sail for Constantinople as soon as he’d buried his father. Wouldn’t you, if you suddenly discovered you were the son of the empress?”

“Not knowing Theodora as I do,” John stated.

“Surely you do not give any credence to those who would have us believe she is now less than a Christian paragon, Lord Chamberlain?”

“No more than you do.”

Procopius may have smiled. It was hard to tell. “To finish the story,” he continued, “the young John presented himself to the empress’s chamberlain. When informed of the child’s presence, Theodora was stricken by fear. What if Justinian found out about the lad? Many had opposed his marriage to a former actress in the first place, and an illegitimate son would be fresh proof of her immorality. Gossip is one thing and easily ignored, but a young man in the flesh is another matter entirely. He’d also present a political liability, and then there’d be Justinian’s reaction when he discovered what had been concealed from him.”

“If he did not already know,” John replied. “The same sort of problems would arise if he were to reappear today.”

“Indeed. However, despite the rumors there is no chance of that happening. Theodora summoned this John to an audience. If the poor child expected some show of motherly affection he was sadly disappointed. The empress put him in the charge of a servant, a fellow employed for his loyalty, discretion, and brutality. The boy was never seen again. No one knows by what means he was removed from this world. No decent person would want to know.”

John’s lips tightened. “You are wrong, Procopius. I want to know. I am beginning to believe this tale is partly true, that Theodora’s son was removed from the palace, but not from the world.”