Ten for Dying (John the Lord Chamberlain Mysteries) (10 page)

Chapter Nineteen

“You can’t be serious, Felix! A collection of thugs…smugglers…threatening the captain of the excubitors?” Anastasia used her knife to spear the last olive on her plate and raised it to her lips. “I should hope you’d have them arrested on the spot.”

“It’s more complicated than that. I’ve already explained the situation.” Felix didn’t like the irritation he heard in his voice. He had never spoken harshly to Anastasia. But Mithra! Was the woman really so slow to grasp the implications or just pretending? “Quite apart from my debts and all the problems those entail, there’s also the small matter that Justinian has ordered me to investigate a theft in which I am involved.”

“Not knowingly.”

“Convince the emperor of that.”

“The only link to you is the dead courier, but what could there possibly be about a naked corpse abandoned in the street that would connect it with you?”

“I can’t think of anything, true, but I can’t keep myself from wondering if there’s something I’ve overlooked.”

Anastasia’s face clouded. “Wait! What about your donkey and cart?”

“It was just a work cart. I didn’t have my name emblazoned on the side. It was probably gone by the time the sun rose anyway, scavenged for parts and firewood.”

“And the poor donkey?”

“Would I bother marking a donkey as if it were the imperial plate? If he belonged to Theodora he probably would have worn jeweled earrings.”

Anastasia set her fork down noisily. “Don’t be stupid. Theodora wouldn’t have done something that foolish, despite the tall tales people tell about her.”

“Ah, well, you would know better than me. You’re from the palace.”

“And what if the donkey comes back?”

Felix started to bark out his reply but caught himself, closed his eyes for a moment, and only then spoke. “Donkeys are not trained to return home. Although it would be a fine thing, wouldn’t it, to find him braying at the gate like an avenging Fury?”

“You’ve been a swine ever since you got back,” Anastasia pouted.

“I can’t imagine why! I keep waiting for something to happen, or not happen.”

“That makes no sense, Felix!”

“It does. The best thing that can happen is nothing at all. But nothing happening isn’t very reassuring. It doesn’t put an end to worrying, doesn’t insure something might not happen.”

Nikomachos appeared in the dining room and began to clear the remains of the midday meal, slowly, methodically, and clumsily.

“Get on with it, will you?” Felix snapped.

Anastasia clucked, scolding. “If you insist on employing one-armed servants what do you expect?”

“Normally he has only one person to wait on!”

Nikomachos stacked the empty plates, his expression bored, the frozen face on a coin.

“It’s all very exciting, isn’t it?” Anastasia said. “Your investigation, I mean.”

“You seem remarkably unconcerned, but then it isn’t your neck in the noose, is it?”

“Oh, you are such a grumpy bear today. I’m concerned, but it’s an adventure, can’t you see that?”

An adventure compared to the pampered life at court she was used to living, Felix thought. An adventure compared to searching for an earring her mistress had lost. He managed to keep his tongue quiet. Why should Anastasia be concerned, anyway? She did not know Felix well, despite their intimacy, and she wasn’t involved in the robbery.

“Look how easily you relieved us of our unwelcome visitor,” Anastasia pointed out.

“You call it easy, but it wasn’t you roaming the streets in the rain.”

A silver knife clattered against a plate as Nikomachos continued collecting the remains of their meal. Was he eavesdropping? He was always eavesdropping, wasn’t he? “Finish your task,” Felix ordered.

The servant managed to look hurt and contemptuous at the same time. With one hand, he lifted the perfectly arranged pile of platters, cutlery balanced on the top plate, and strode off.

Turning his glare away from Nikomachos’ ramrod straight back, Felix was startled to see Anastasia dabbing away tears.

“Did I upset you?” he asked. “I’m sorry I snapped. I shouldn’t be worrying you with my problems. I’ll think of a solution.”

Anastasia snuffled mournfully. “I was just thinking about the poor donkey. Whatever will happen to him, left out on the streets all alone with nothing to eat?”

A short time and many barbed words later Felix found himself stalking along the Mese in a foul humor, wondering why he had left his own house. It was his house, wasn’t it? Not Anastasia’s.

He had listened to all he could bear about his lack of common human feelings for donkeys. Probably he should not have said he didn’t give a fig if starving beggars were roasting the animal on a spit, although it was true. However, it was she who had said a beast like him should have some compassion for its own flesh and blood.

How had she survived service at court with such a poisonous tongue?

She made him furious and all the more because he was afraid she might not cool down by bedtime.

By the time his own fury had begun to subside, Felix realized he was halfway to the Church of the Holy Apostles. It occurred to him he should ask around in the vicinity of the church, in case anyone had noticed anything the night of the robbery.

How exactly should he go about it?

He couldn’t very well ask did you happen to see two demons the other night? Or an ape? Perhaps a large number of frogs?

Obviously he would need to be circumspect.

He marched along the crowded colonnade without pause, past shops full of lamps, olive oil, fabrics. Puddles lingered in the street. A fierce afternoon sun turned the humid air into a noxious soup smelling of the dung of cart animals, exotic spices and fragrances, overripe fruit, and the sour reek of sweating humanity.

The long walk and heat had made him thirsty. He found himself in front of a tavern. Perhaps a drink before he got started?

Chapter Twenty

Felix sat in the corner of a reeking tavern somewhere near the Aqueduct of Valens as best he could recall. Or had that been the last place he’d been in, or the one before? He watched patrons staggering and reeling past his table, up and down the stairs to the lavatory. He lifted his wine cup. Hesitated, stricken with guilt.

Before he met Anastasia he had been drinking too much. Half the imperial court knew about it. Half the court always knew everyone’s personal business. He had promised her he would give up Bacchus for her, as she put it. He was uncomfortably aware he had broken the promise.

“Well,” he muttered, “you deserve it. You drove me to it.” He took a long gulp of wine, punishing her for being unreasonable. It was her fault.

Besides, taverns were the only places where he might find witnesses willing to talk. Or so he had surmised after futilely questioning close-mouthed shopkeepers and wary beggars. Late-drinking tavern patrons would also have been the most likely to witness suspicious happenings in the night.

He emptied his cup and wiped his beard. “There. Are you happy now? See what you’ve done to me!”

An old man at a nearby table was eying him curiously. Felix took it as an invitation. He got up, his sword clanking against the side of the table, and clumped over to where the man was seated.

“Imperial business,” Felix said. “There have been reports of strange happenings. Demons and apes.” He went on to elaborate, having long since abandoned his efforts to remain circumspect.

The fellow had studied the bottom of his empty cup and after Felix paid to have it refilled he sipped reflectively and noisily. “Apes and demons you say? Now that you mention it I did see a pair of demons meeting that description the other night, being chased by an ape. Unless it was a hairy demon with a tail.”

Felix eyed the man hopefully.

“Yes,” he continued, “I remember it now. Seeing Theodora’s shade flapping round and round the dome of the Great Church afterward put them demons and apes right out of my head.”

***

“Should have grilled the old devil like Saint Lawrence,” Felix muttered as he reeled away from the tavern, recalling what palace wits liked to say about a courtier, another Lawrence, notorious for his taciturnity. Then again in Constantinople it was wise to cultivate not only silence but also selective blindness, especially when a man from the palace came calling, asking awkward questions.

It was as well he was the questioner and not the questioned. He wasn’t certain how he might stand up to interrogation by certain persons employed by Justinian to obtain answers with the aid of extremely unpleasant instruments. Well, at present he could barely stand up, torturers or not, he admitted to himself as he veered into a pillar of the colonnade. Still, he truly hoped he never made the acquaintance of those inquisitive men.

He had sent plenty of malefactors to be introduced to them. How could he have avoided it? That’s the way things were done.

He navigated a courtyard and passed through an archway into a street. A sign on the archway identified the establishment he had just visited as the Inn of the Centaurs, not merely a tavern. Had he come in this way?

In the back of his mind he understood it was unwise to be drinking, given his uneasiness and sense of approaching disaster. When he drank he was carried aloft on the wings of the grape, as John’s friend Anatolius had written in one of his execrable poems. Once up there Felix’s problems always looked tiny and insignificant. Unfortunately the grape inevitably let go and he plummeted into the stygian pit of infinite despair.

Another snippet from one of Anatolius’ poems?

Felix guessed he was about ready for the fall. Why else would he be worrying about the imperial torturers?

Anastasia would torture him if he returned in this state. Would she still be at his house? Did he dare return? Shadows were beginning to creep in from the west as night drew on.

Somehow or other he had made his way to the Hippodrome.

He ducked into one of the alcoves decorating the wall of the race course and relieved himself noisily behind an obscure philosopher.

Unfortunately the act reminded him of the body he had left behind another statue. Surely he couldn’t be connected with it? But how long until he was able to be absolutely certain? Would he ever be assured he was safe?

He emerged, rearranging his garment. The nearby dome of the Great Church glowed in gathering darkness. Theodora’s shade flying around indeed!

He realized he had stepped out into the midst of a group of young men, immediately identifiable by their partly shaved heads, braids of long hair worn in the Hunnish style, and rich, if barbaric, billowing garments with close-fitting sleeves.

Followers of the Blue chariot racing team.

“Why, it’s Captain Felix.” Their leader, a tall man with a scarred face, smiled in jovial fashion. He was standing much too close to Felix, blocking his path.

“Stand aside! I’m engaged in important imperial work!” Felix could hear his words were slurred.

“By the smell, you’ve been assigned to test the purity of wine,” chimed in another of the group.

Felix pivoted, unsteady on his feet, to address the new speaker and before he could bark out a word, his arms were pinioned from behind, a hand clamped over his mouth, and he was dragged toward an archway leading into the Hippodrome.

There were a few people in the street who could not have helped seeing what was happening. They hurried on, faces averted. A knot of beggars settling down for the night inside the Hippodrome entranceway shouted encouragement to the Blues as they dragged Felix past.

Felix had no hope of escape. After all the wine he’d consumed he was barely able to stay on his feet, let alone put up a fight. The young men carted him as helpless as a baby through dark, deserted corridors.

What did they want?

Was it robbery? Then why address him by name?

Chilling gusts of fear began to clear wine mists from his head.

He bit the fingers covering his mouth. The hand jerked away reflexively but before Felix could yell for help one of his captors delivered a blow to the back of his skull.

A torch seemed to explode into sparks behind his eyes

The next thing he knew he was on his back staring up into the night. Above him, silhouetted against a dome of sky faintly illuminated by the city’s innumerable lamps and torches, loomed a gigantic serpent, reared up as if to strike.

He cried out and tried to roll over and unsuccessfully push himself to his feet.

Coarse sand stuck to his palms.

Strong hands yanked him upright. A bolt of pain shot through his shoulder. His head throbbed and an ocean-like roar filled his ears. He blinked, bewildered. Row after row of seats glimmered in the gray light.

They were in the Hippodrome. His assailants had carted him out to the wall of the spina in the middle of the race track. The serpent was one of three huge, intertwined snakes which had once supported the sacred bowl at the Delphic Oracle before being carried off to Constantinople.

“Do you want to know your future, captain?” came a voice. “That prophesy is not very mysterious, is it?”

Felix saw what the man meant. From the serpent head jutting out over the track dangled a rope with a noose at the end.

Felix looked around, trying to control an overwhelming sensation of dizziness. “Who is in charge?” he demanded, trying to keep his voice steady. “Everyone knows Justinian supports the Blues, but if you believe the rumor that he exempts your faction from the law you are mistaken. When he finds out—” Someone shoved him from behind. He hit the ground face down, lifted his head, spitting sand, and took a boot to the ribs.

Idle class though the Blues were—for only the well-to-do could afford the extravagant clothing they preferred and the idleness in which they had earned their foul reputation—they hunted in packs like jackals, and once a group had their prey at a disadvantage, they dared any violence up to and including murder. They feared nothing, knowing Justinian was of the same racing persuasion.

The toe of a boot stung his shoulder. He averted his face, trying to protect himself as blow after blow descended. At some point he lost consciousness and returned to the world sputtering after a bucket of water was emptied over his head.

He started to turn to see his tormentors. A powerful hand forced his head down, grinding his face in the sand. Then it yanked his head up by the hair, pulling it back until he feared his neck would crack.

He could see the rope hanging, the hungry open maw of the noose waiting expectantly.

“What happened to the courier?” came a hoarse whisper.

“Courier?” Felix felt blood trickling from his forehead.

His interrogator pulled his head further back. “When you are hanging by your neck and gasping for the next breath which you will never draw, you’ll wish you could talk. So you had better do so now. As you well know, I am asking about the man sent to your house who has not been seen since. More importantly, for men are many and riches few, what have you done with the relic?”

“Relic?”

“I see you are intent on trying to out-echo Echo,” The whisperer’s tone became more impatient. “The relic I am talking about is the relic you have been expecting. Since I have no objection to plain speech, I mean the holy mother’s shroud.”

The voice was dry and raspy. The voice of a man much older than the young thugs who had attacked Felix. And despite being muted it hinted at a sonorous quality, almost familiar. Felix tried to turn again and again was prevented from doing so by the hand on the back of his head. He decided to throw the knucklebones at a venture. “I admit I saw the courier but I don’t know where he is now. As for the shroud, he may have had it once but he didn’t when he came to me.”

“Why would he arrive empty-handed?”

“That’s exactly why I’ve been trying to find the scoundrel, to question him.”

“Don’t try to be clever, captain. We know he had it and we know he came to your house. I’ve had you followed all day, hoping you might lead us to the relic, but time grows short. Wherever you’ve hidden the shroud you’d best retrieve it quickly because it will be called for a day hence. We will find you, wherever you are, and you’d better have it in your possession when we do. I intend to take charge of the matter personally. Let’s hope you recover quickly enough not to need further reminders of what you are required to do!”

With that, at a word to the group of men clustered nearby, the boots resumed their work until the dark heavens swooped down upon Felix again.