by Paul Doherty
Claudia decided to wander the palace. She felt physically tired, but her mind teemed like a beehive. She found herself near the peristyle garden and asked the guard where the cellar was. He gave her directions. Claudia first went to the kitchens, where she borrowed a lantern horn from a sleepy-eyed cook, who lit the oil lamp inside, secured the small door and handed it to her.
‘Don’t walk too fast,’ he warned. ‘Let the wick burn fiercely for a while.’
Claudia sat outside on a bench and watched the flame in the lantern horn strengthen before picking it up and finding her way to the cellar. The door was now unguarded, off the latch. She went carefully down the steps. The door at the bottom was flung open and Claudia went inside. She walked slowly, tapping the ground with her sandalled foot. The floor was of hard baked brick; the lime-washed walls had some cracks and crevices, the occasional gap, but there was no opening or any sign of another entrance. The ceiling too looked firm and secure, ribbed by heavy beams, the plaster in between hard and even.
Satisfied, Claudia approached the great circle of sand and sat down on one of the stools, staring up at the chain. She noticed how the links were well moulded and the hook at the end long and sharply curved. She closed her eyes. How could the robbery have happened? Gaius had been sleeping in the garden. The door to the chamber was held secure by two different locks and guarded by the Empress’s own mercenaries. Timothaeus and Burrus had unlocked it. The steward had explained to her how he checked the cellar three times a day to make sure that all was well, although, he confessed, he also wished to venerate such a holy relic. Claudia opened her eyes and glanced over her shoulder at the door.
‘So you came in here, Timothaeus,’ she murmured, ‘reached the edge of the circle, stared at the chain, and noticed the sword was gone?’
Claudia could understand Timothaeus’s shock; no wonder he’d fainted! The disappearance of the sword, not to mention the Empress’s wrath, would unnerve the strongest man. She stared down at the sand sprinkled with gold dust; now it had been disturbed by those who had come to search the cellar afterwards.
‘Claudia! Claudia!’
She turned round and gaped in horror. A figure shrouded in a cloak stood in the doorway. Claudia, hand trembling, lifted up the lantern. ‘Who is it?’ she called. The figure remained still.
Claudia rose, carrying the lantern before her. She was halfway across the chamber when she realised that whoever it was had not only hidden their body under a heavy cloak but also their face under a hideous mask of a satyr. Claudia’s mouth turned dry. She almost dropped the lantern as the figure moved quickly, coming into the chamber, slamming the door shut. Claudia moved back.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded. She tried to recall the voice, but it could have been anyone’s. In the light of the lantern the satyr mask looked malevolent. She noticed the long stabbing dagger this grotesque now carried. She kept moving back, desperately trying to recall if she had seen anything in the cellar she could use to protect herself. Her leg hit one of the stools, and she picked this up and moved back into the circle of sand. She’d made a mistake! The sand was very soft and deep and her feet immediately sank, the sand coming up to her ankles, impeding her retreat. The figure walked slowly forward, carefully, measuring each step. Claudia lunged forward, trying to extricate herself from the sand. She flung the stool at her attacker. It narrowly missed. She picked up another stool. Retreating round the circle of sand, she began to scream and yell, throwing one stool after another, trying to discourage this nightmare figure, so silent, so menacing.
At last, desperate, Claudia threw the lantern. It crashed at the feet of her assailant, and the flame burst out and, by mere chance, caught the edge of the grotesque’s cloak. Claudia, almost hysterical with fear, gabbled a prayer as the flame caught the dry cloth, and her opponent quickly retreated, taking off the cloak. The cellar door was flung open and the assailant fled. Claudia immediately ran after, through the half-open door, but there was no sign, nothing but a dirty cloak lying on the steps. She picked this up. The cloak was threadbare, soiled and smelt rank. The flames had died, leaving a charred, frayed edge lit by the occasional spark. Claudia stamped on these and returned to the cellar, picking her way carefully through the fallen stools. The lantern was smashed, the flame extinguished. Claudia cursed her own foolishness. She shouldn’t have come here in the first place; perhaps it had been even more stupid to return. She ran to the door, slamming it behind her, and raced up the steps.
The small passageway beyond was empty, with no trace of her attacker. Claudia went into the peristyle garden and, for a while, sat on a bench, gulping in the fresh night air. She stared at the guard standing some distance away in the shadows, wondering if he had seen anything. She shrugged to herself. If he had, he would have come over.
Claudia washed her hands in the pool and made her way back to her chamber. Inside she found everything neat and tidy; a slave had lit the lamp on the table opposite her bed. She was too tired to wash and change, and she was about to blow out the lamp when she noticed the small purple chalice crudely painted on the wall above the lantern. She drew back. She didn’t extinguish the lamp, but climbed into bed staring at the drawing. She let her mind drift on all that had happened today, faces, scenes and words, and all the time she glared at that crude drawing as if confronting an enemy, refusing to give way. She was still staring when her eyes grew heavy and she fell into a deep sleep.
Claudia woke early the next morning, roused by the sunlight and noise from the villa pouring through the unshuttered window above her narrow bed. She punched the flock-filled mattress and lay back, one hand beneath her cheek, recalling the terrors of the previous night and contemplating that hideous little picture above the oil lamp shelf. Eventually she got out of bed and examined it more carefully, tracing the outline with her fingernail. The paint was hard, a purple dye used by women to henna their nails, but when she pressed it, a crack appeared. Claudia was tempted to scrape it off but changed her mind. ‘No,’ she whispered, ‘you can stay there, a reminder to me, a goad to spur me on. I shall find who you are and deal with you.’
She sat on the edge of the bed, reflecting how the mysterious painter, whoever he was, had intended to taunt and frighten her. She remembered that gruesome figure in the cellar, masked, armed and advancing so slowly towards her. ‘That’s it,’ she whispered, ‘you weren’t trying to kill me, but terrify me!’ She glared at the painting of the purple chalice. ‘And you are trying to do the same now.’ The confrontation in the cellar had been frightening but perhaps not deadly. She had watched gladiators train and fight; true killers came as swiftly as panthers or they struck from afar with arrow, slingshot, javelin or throwing knife. Last night’s spectacle was intended to terrify Helena’s little mouse, to drive her off, make her scurry for safety.
Claudia stood up. Well, they would see. Nevertheless, although she summoned up her courage, she felt her stomach grumble with fear. ‘This time was to frighten me,’ she murmured, ‘but next time . . . ?’
She grabbed her napkin and small leather toilet bag from the panniers slung on the peg on the door, then left her quarters and walked quickly to the luxuriantly furnished latrines, built near the kitchens so as to use the water flushed from there to keep them clean. She sat on a marble bench and stared at the mosaic on the floor, a beautiful scene depicting silver dolphins leaping about a golden sea. Timothaeus came in. He was much the worse for drink and squatted opposite looking dolefully into the middle distance.
‘It’s my stomach, you see,’ he moaned. ‘I drink too much wine and eat the rich food of the court.’
Claudia tried to engage him in conversation, but the steward shook his head and muttered about the anger of the Augusta. Claudia concluded he had been the recipient of her tart tongue.
After she had washed and left the latrines and bathhouse, Claudia returned to her own chamber, finished her dressing and decided to eat. She had to cross a small garden, nothing more than a lawn ringed with box hedge
s and shaded by laurel leaves. The Empress Helena, in an exquisite white linen robe, a purple mantle about her shoulders, was standing on a gold-fringed stool, gesturing with one hand, a cane in the other. Before her on the grass knelt Burrus and the entire German mercenary corps; they crouched heads down, hands to their faces, sobbing like children as Helena berated them.
‘You are nothing but the scum of Germany,’ she rasped, ‘the filthy moss from your own dark forest, yet I have taken you and treated you like my children. I have clasped you to my heart and showered you with love and affection.’ She paused to allow her words to sink in. She must have glimpsed Claudia, who stood fascinated beneath a tree, but she did not turn or acknowledge her presence. ‘Have I not lavished upon you tasty food, comfortable quarters, as well as my protection and patronage? Have I not put up with your filthy ways and drunken singing?’ She climbed down from the stool and walked amongst the warriors, giving each of them a rap on their shoulders with her cane. Now and again she’d pause to ruffle their hair or pat someone gently on the cheek.
Her diatribe had the desired effect. Burrus, thought Claudia, would make a fine actor. He threw his hands up in the air in a gesture any Greek dramatist would envy and began to tear the gold bracelets from his wrist and the thick silver chain from about his neck. Grasping these in his hands, he rose and walked towards Helena, tears streaming down his face, then threw himself at the Empress’s feet.
‘You’ve all been naughty boys,’ Helena continued, digging her cane into Burrus’s back, ‘and yet, in my time, have I not praised you? Has not my son smiled on you and opened the hand of generosity to you? But what do you do? You repay my lavish kindness by becoming as drunk as sots and chasing every maid.’ The rest of the German corps now had their noses pressed against the grass. Helena turned swiftly, and smiled and winked at Claudia before returning to the attack. ‘You should have been more vigilant,’ she declared. ‘Dionysius should not have died, the House of Mourning should not have been burnt, but what cut my heart was the disappearance of the Holy Sword! I entrusted that to your care.’ The wailing from her bodyguard grew. Helena returned to stand on the stool and Burrus tried to follow her, but she yelled at him to keep his head down. ‘Nevertheless, you ungrateful scum,’ she continued, ‘I have decided to pardon you.’ Burrus sat back on his heels and smiled dazzlingly at this woman whom he worshipped and adored. ‘In my great kindness,’ Helena rested on the cane, ‘I have forgiven you.’
Claudia could no longer contain her own amusement. She hurried out of the garden and into the palace, where she stopped abruptly and glanced back. The Empress was an actress who kept that horde of ruffians in a grip of iron. The Germans worshipped the ground she trod on; they regarded it as the greatest honour to shed their blood for her. Helena knew that, so why berate them now?
Claudia sat down on a marble window seat and stared at a painting of Bacchus climbing a vine terrace to steal luscious grapes. Was Helena’s confrontation with the Germans for some other purpose? The Germans were loyal, warriors born and bred; they were also drunkards, lechers and, above all, great thieves. Had they stolen the sword? The mercenaries had a deep awe of anything religious, and Burrus had refused to go into the Sacred Place, yet Claudia wasn’t fooled by his slouching ways and uncouth appearance. Burrus was a highly intelligent man, sly and skilled. Had that been part of an act, a pretence to mislead people? Claudia recalled the cellar, the two guards outside, Burrus with the key. Timothaeus the steward was such a fusspot. Had the door been locked with two keys or only one? Had Timothaeus thought he had locked the door with his, but somehow been fooled by the Germans? If that was so, it would be easy for Burrus to unlock the door himself, take the sword, leave the cellar and relock the door. Timothaeus would come down . . . Claudia paused. What would happen then? Had Burrus switched the keys, or had the lock been tampered with so Timothaeus thought his key was turning when really the door was already open?
Forgetting her terrors of the previous evening, Claudia borrowed a lantern and returned to the cellar, tripping quickly down the steps. She deliberately ignored what had happened previously and, crouching down, examined both locks, the first above the handle, the other beneath. Holding the lamp close, she examined the rim of the door and the lock but could detect no scraping, no sign of any tampering. Exasperated, she got to her feet. If her theory was correct, Burrus must have fooled Timothaeus into thinking that he had locked the door when he hadn’t.
Claudia sighed, opened the door and went into the cellar. ‘Let us say,’ she spoke loudly, pretending to be in a schoolroom, ‘that the thief enters.’ She walked to the edge of the circle and stretched out to touch the chain, but couldn’t reach. She climbed on to a stool but that too was fruitless. She recalled the long sword Burrus carried. ‘He could have used that,’ she whispered excitedly. Burrus could have drawn the chain towards him using his own weapon and taken the Holy Sword from its hook. Claudia climbed down from the stool and looked back towards the door. Four problems remained. First, Burrus would need the cooperation of the two guards outside. Secondly, there was the problem of the keys. Thirdly, what would Burrus do with the sword once he had stolen it? Finally, and most importantly, Burrus would have known he would face the Empress’s fury.
Claudia sat down and considered this. Helena would be angry, but there again she would have no proof. The Empress was correct. Burrus often acted like a naughty schoolboy and accepted being lashed by her tongue as part of his military service. Was that why Helena had assembled them all this morning, to give them a tongue-lashing they would never forget? Did she suspect the mercenaries and hope she would frighten them into returning the Holy Sword?
Claudia cocked her head at the sound on the steps outside. She walked back through the door to see Timothaeus coming down, slowly, carefully, like an old man. He still looked anxious-eyed and troubled.
‘I always come here.’ He sniffed. ‘I always think that perhaps I’ll return here and discover the sword has been restored.’ He sat down on the bottom step, where Claudia joined him. ‘It’s not there, is it?’ he asked dolefully.
‘No, it isn’t.’ Claudia grasped his arm. She rather liked this red-faced official on the verge of tears. ‘Tell me,’ she continued quickly, ‘are you sure there’s no trickery involved? I mean, when you locked the door, are you sure you locked it?’
‘I know what you’re thinking.’ Timothaeus glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. ‘I don’t trust those Germans as far as I can spit. No, I was very careful, we always went through the same ceremony. I locked the door, then tried it. Only then did Burrus insert his key.’
‘Ah.’ Claudia realised her theory held no water. ‘Could the keys be copied?’
‘I wore mine on a chain round my neck,’ Timothaeus declared, ‘and, to be fair, so did Burrus. However, I can only speak for myself when I say that wherever I went, the key went too. We were never separated.’
Claudia thanked him, rose and went to her own quarters, where she changed, donning a dark green silver-edged tunic, a robe of a similar colour clasped round her shoulders, a leather belt about her waist. At the back of this hung a sheath for the sharp knife she intended to take everywhere for as long as she remained in the Villa Pulchra. She slipped her feet into boot sandals and took from her jewellery casket a small finger ring, one of the few heirlooms from her mother. She touched the painting of the purple chalice as if to remind herself, then hurried out to the servants’ refectory, which adjoined the imperial kitchens.
She had to fight for her food, bullying the heavy-eyed cook for bread, cheese and honey, a goblet of watered beer and some rather dried grapes. Constantine loved his food, and the kitchens were once again busy, the cooks, scullions and maids preparing another repast for the Emperor and his court. Claudia sat at one end at the long communal table and hastily finished her food. The other servants avoided her. She knew the reason. They viewed her as a spy, but she took no offence because that was the truth. She, of course, was sure that the Empero
r, not to mention the likes of Rufinus and Chrysis, also had their agents here listening to gossip and collecting information to pass to their masters.
When she had finished her meal, she wandered into the gorgeous atrium, with its marbled walls, exquisite paintings and eye-catching mosaics. She stopped before the shrine built into one of the walls where the Lares and Penates, the household gods, were venerated. She studied the tabernacle and the statues it contained. A bronze tripod stood before these, flames flickering up from a bed of charcoal laced with a fine covering of incense. The smoke rose, white and fragrant. Claudia watched it disappear. Did it go somewhere else, she wondered, or just vanish? Was that what happened to prayers? Did anyone listen? Or were they just gusts of incense, all show and no substance? She closed her eyes and prayed, she didn’t know to whom, but she expressed her love for Felix, her dead brother, for her parents, for Polybius, Murranus, Poppaoe and all those bound up in her life.
‘Are you ready?’
Claudia opened her eyes and turned round, so quickly she felt rather giddy. She had thought she was alone, but Timothaeus, Burrus and Gaius stood behind her.
‘Are you going?’ Gaius smiled, his freshly shaved face gleaming with oil. He was dressed in a simple white tunic, a sword belt casually draped over one shoulder, a toga on the other, ready to dress more formally if the Emperor appeared.
‘The debate,’ Timothaeus explained. ‘It’s going to take place in the peristyle garden.’
Claudia smiled. In fact, she had forgotten. Now she remembered the steward breathlessly informing her the previous evening how the Empress was keen for the philosophers to meet and openly debate the issues between them.
‘We have been discussing the Holy Sword.’ Gaius grinned, nudging Burrus playfully. The German looked more composed. His icy blue eyes, no longer tear-filled, were studying Claudia carefully.
‘Why have you been discussing it?’ she enquired. ‘Do you have a theory about its disappearance?’