by Mary Reed
He felt cool flesh.
Carefully, he turned the woman over.
The water was so shallow at the cistern’s edge she might have escaped drowning, but she was dead nevertheless.
A welt circled her neck. John hoped she had in fact been strangled first, before her face was battered into an unrecognizable mask. The cheekbones had been smashed inwards, the nose crushed. The mouth was a gaping, twisted, toothless hole in the red stained ruin.
Yet she was not covered in blood.
Even had the woman been washed clean by immersion in the cistern, John knew, only too well, the color and smell of blood.
The woman had been dyed red from head to foot.
Why?
To conceal her identity?
The beating she had been given would have been more than sufficient to accomplish that.
John took hold of a delicate wrist and lifted it out of the water.
He saw what he had feared.
If he had not been looking for it, he would never have noticed because the dye had almost entirely concealed the tattoo. Only a faint shadow remained visible. Enough for John to recognize the scarab, overlain by a crude cross.
The same strange tattoo he had glimpsed the morning before, when she had raised her arm to push aside her veil.
The dead woman was Zoe.
Chapter Five
Grass and weeds obscured many of the graves in the tree-shaded cemetery which lay outside the inner wall of the city. The somnolent sound of insects overlaid by the cooing of doves resting in plump rows along the twisted boughs of ancient yews did nothing to disturb the slumbers of those buried beneath unmarked mounds or elaborate memorials.
John and Cornelia paced slowly along a narrow path to the outer side of the sacred space and came to a halt in a sun-dappled corner half hidden by a tangle of bushes. Several monuments were chiseled with pious sentiments and hopes for the departed.
“All is vanity,” Cornelia read. “John Chrysostom wrote a homily on that. Peter once ventured to quote him at me.”
“He’s a favorite of Peter’s. It’s obvious from his writings he wasn’t too fond of Lord Chamberlains.”
“Ah yes. Eutropius. There was a Lord Chamberlain who would never have eaten his breakfast at the kitchen table. Unlike some.”
They stood at the foot of a bare earthen mound. The anonymous woman buried there would not have been accorded even so modest a grave in a decent cemetery except that John had ordered it.
“It was kind of you to have her buried here when you don’t even know who she was,” Cornelia said after a time.
“I intend to find out both her identity and who murdered her,” John replied.
An image of the red dyed corpse face down in the cistern floated to the surface of his thoughts, momentarily displacing the peaceful, sunlit surroundings.
Cornelia looked up at him, concern in her face. “Was she really the girl in the mosaic, the one you call Zoe?”
“She was the model for her. I’m convinced of it.” He paused. “I know it worries Peter when he hears me talking to the mosaic, but Zoe and I have had many conversations. She knows more about my thoughts than anyone else.”
“More than I do after our being apart so many years! Naturally you want to find out the truth of the matter.”
“Beyond that, I suspect she was murdered because she spoke to me. And that means someone is concealing something which makes it even more important I discover the reason behind her death.”
“Are you certain that’s what’s making it so important to you, John? How likely is it you’ll be able to find out who she really was? Half the city is dead of the plague, and those left won’t want to talk to a man from the palace. The only answer you get is liable to be a blade between the ribs one moonless night!”
“Ambushes take place everywhere in the city. Probably least of all on moonless nights when you’re expecting them. In fact, I notice there’s a pair of boots sticking out from behind those bushes.”
Cornelia’s eyes widened as she looked in the direction John indicated. “I see them and they’re moving.”
“Indeed they are,” came a voice from the bushes. “And who dares to disturb the dead?”
At first glance, it might have appeared the man who stepped out from the vegetation was referring to himself. He was little more than a skeleton wrapped in rags. His eyes were milky and his skin pallid. He was however alive enough to wave a sword before thrusting its point into the middle of a patch of ivy wreathing the foot of a monument. “I don’t get many people visiting this corner of the little kingdom I watch over. Who might you be? Family members?” His wheezing voice sounded suspicious.
“No—” John began.
The pale apparition hefted his weapon again. “Is that so? Couples think nobody sees what they’re up to in the long grass.” The man leered. John doubted the pale eyes could distinguish errant couples or anything beyond shadowy shapes.
“We were wondering about the person buried here,” Cornelia said.
“Her?” The man spat on the bare mound. “Well, them that put her there said t’was by order of the Lord Chamberlain to the emperor.”
He laughed, precipitating a fit of coughing that shook his gaunt frame. “Given what he is, it’s much more likely she’s some courtier’s fancy woman. I’m already getting complaints from families whose relatives are buried here.”
Cornelia gave the man an angry scowl and began to reply. John laid his hand on her arm and shook his head.
Oblivious, the cemetery caretaker continued. “They don’t want their respectable dead anywhere near who knows what. Lord Chamberlain indeed! If the Lord Chamberlain arranged for the likes of her to be buried then Timothy the baker over here ruled Persia when he wasn’t at his ovens.”
He gave a hoarse laugh and patted the grave marker he stood beside. “I have my own troubles. Can’t see too well, but mind now, I know every dip and bend of this cemetery. Them that try to dig up the dead find that out soon enough. I can make my way better in the dark than they can when the sun is high. Or rather I could before all them new graves appeared. Still, I’ll soon learn my way around again.”
John observed the recent visitation of the plague must have meant many more interments than in past years.
The other agreed. “I’ve had a busy time, keeping an eye on new burials. Fresh earth makes for easier digging, and there’s less chance they’ve been robbed already.”
“I’m sure you’ve kept a close watch on this grave,” John said. “Has anyone visited?”
The caretaker emitted a wheezing snort. “Who’d visit such a one except you two? If that’s really what you’re up to. Or maybe her good friend the Lord Chamberlain? Do you know, in the course of my duties I once met a man who claimed he was the Lord Chamberlain. It’s my belief he was a rogue intent on stealing bones to pass off as saints’ relics.”
He paused. “There’s quite a brisk trade in relics. Every church in the city is filled with them and more than a few might have come from this cemetery if the truth be told, but not while I have kept watch. Anyhow, I was about to haul the fellow I was telling you about off to the authorities when a cat rescued him. Yes, it leapt right at me and that supposed Lord Chamberlain got away. Perhaps the cat was a demon. Perhaps they were both demons. Perhaps the real Lord Chamberlain is a demon. They do say the emperor is a demon and walks about the palace at nights with no face. Take care, my friends. Don’t linger until night falls.”
Chuckling to himself with a sound akin to a hoarse crow, the pale guardian of the dead turned and shuffled off without a word of farewell, dusty tunic flapping around spindly legs.
Cornelia stared at John.
John gave a thin smile. “Yes, I was the man he remembers. It was during the time I was investigating my friend Leukos’ murder. I came to visit the grave.”
They walked to Leukos’ simple tomb, a vault which was in reality nothing more than a t
hin layer of plaster over a mound of dirt.
John felt the faint breath of a breeze against his face. He was aware of the almost imperceptible trembling of grass at his feet, forming a contrast to the stillness of the denizens of the cemetery he could see in his imagination, the stillness of his friend who had been gone for seven years already.
“So many things in the present point back to the past,” John observed. “When we’re young, everything leads to the future.”
“It depends on what direction you turn your gaze, doesn’t it?”
John laughed softly. “You prove my point. You’ve just reminded me of those nights in Egypt. Remember while the rest of the troupe slept, we’d lie in our tent and ponder Marcus Aurelius?”
“And wonder whether we were the only couple within a week’s ride who were lying in their tent discussing Marcus Aurelius!”
“I’d wager we were the only couple consisting of a Greek mercenary and a bull leaper who discussed him.”
“You never knew any other bull leapers?”
“No one else has recreated that ancient sport as far as I know. The skill was lost. To the past.”
“How long had you been in Alexandria before we met?” Cornelia asked with an innocent look.
“Only a day or two,” he replied, suppressing a smile. He added, in response to the unspoken question, “Not enough time to drink the dust out if my throat, much less warm a woman’s bed.”
Chapter Six
As they arrived home, John and Cornelia were greeted by the sound of Peter lustily singing a lewd marching song. His off key rendition continued to drift downstairs as they stood in the atrium, a sure sign the old servant was as deaf to their entrance as he was to the effect of his own painfully out-of-tune vocalization.
“It’s livelier than that morbid old hymn written by Justinian,” Cornelia remarked. She ran a hand through her dark hair. “I really must visit the baths. My hair feels like a gorse bush and I’m dustier than the belly of a cart ox.”
“I’d be happy to escort you.”
“Why, John? I’m perfectly used to going out and about by myself, you know that.”
“It makes me uneasy,” John admitted. “I’ve been contemplating engaging a bodyguard for you.”
Cornelia put her hand on John’s arm. “Better yet, you might consider having that private bath in the back of the house put back in working order.”
“Would you like that?” He glanced up the wooden staircase in the direction of the singing, which had continued unabated. “Its mosaics scandalize Peter.”
“Considering those lyrics he’s been treating us to ever since we arrived, I doubt it! You wouldn’t have to go to the Baths of Zeuxippos every day if you had your own put in order. It would make a change, bathing with someone other than Anatolius and half the population of Constantinople.”
John smiled. “True, although I would still attend to use the gymnasium regularly. I’ll engage the necessary workmen.”
“Thank you. And don’t follow me at what you hope is a discreet distance, John.”
Noting her expression, John ruefully agreed not to attempt the subterfuge.
After Cornelia had gone, John loped upstairs and paused at the kitchen door. Despite its open window, the room was warm, heated by a glowing brazier. The aroma of savory lamb and pine nuts hung in the air, drifting over the pungent smell of onions.
Peter looked up with a start from his chopping. His marching song turned miraculously into a hymn in mid-verse. Then he stopped singing. “Master, I didn’t hear you. I should have attended the door.”
His distress was evident. John suspected it had as much to do with the tacit admission of increasing deafness than any lack of attention to household duties.
“Do you wish me to bring wine to the study?”
“No, I can help myself. Continue with your cooking.” John filled the cup that sat beside the jug on the scarred table at which Peter was working. “Peter, Cornelia tells me you refuse to accept her help in the kitchen.”
“That is so, master. I feel it is not the place of the mistress to work as a servant. I have never proved incapable of carrying out my duties.” The servant ducked his head to continue his work, but his hurt expression was not lost on John.
“Of course not,” John replied. “But with another person in residence and Hypatia working elsewhere, there is more work for you to carry out.”
John thought Peter looked uncommonly haggard. The lines in his leathery face appeared deeper and his wrists thinner. As he stepped away from the table to stir the pot bubbling on the brazier he looked unsteady. It would be difficult to persuade him to undertake fewer duties. It might be possible to arrange for Hypatia to return. Peter might be more amenable to accepting help from her. He would do whatever he was ordered to, but John did not wish to injure the old servant’s pride.
“There’s no need for you to try to do more than you can manage, Peter. As I’ve said before, you will always have a place here whether you can work or not.”
Peter’s lips tightened. He kept stirring. His spoon clanged against the side of the pot. “If I can’t earn my keep, master, I will end my days in a monastery!”
“I could not allow that, Peter. You have been a loyal and excellent servant and deserve some time to rest in the sunlight when you grow old.”
“You will forgive me saying so, master, but I am a free man, not a slave, and I may leave your employment if I wish.”
John finished his wine and set down the cup. “We will discuss this some other time, Peter. Right now, there is something else I wish to talk to you about. I know you are always discreet and I appreciate that.”
A smile added new wrinkles to Peter’s face. “Thank you, master.”
He left the brazier and resumed chopping.
John paused, seeking the best way to frame his question without casting aspersions on his servant’s loyalty. “It concerns the mosaic in my study and the girl Zoe. As you know, I sometimes talk to her.”
Peter hesitated. “I have heard you speaking out loud, if that’s what you mean.”
“This worries you,” John went on.
“I would not question you, master. After all, I sing to myself.”
“But I know that my speaking to Zoe distresses you.”
A look of horror clouded Peter’s face “Master! I wouldn’t criticize you to anyone! Is that what you believe? I never talk about you or the mistress! What goes on in this house is nobody else’s business. The court is a dangerous place and there are always those looking for information they might use for their own evil purposes.”
Such as the fact the Christian emperor’s Lord Chamberlain was a practicing Mithran, John thought. “I am sorry to have had to raise the matter,” he replied. “My talking to myself, as you put it, is innocent enough, but I wondered if you had voiced your concern to anyone. I could understand it if you had.”
“I assure you, master, I have done no such thing.”
“I believe you. Yet the fact is somehow this habit of mine has become known to strangers.”
Peter flushed with anger and flourished the knife he had been using. “They are talking about it on the public streets you mean? How dare they? But how could anyone know, master? Who would say anything?”
“It might have been a friend who let it slip,” John mused.
Peter’s expression brightened. “Ah. Well, if I may say so, master, young Anatolius can be indiscreet, and Captain Felix too, sometimes, well, after a cup too much wine. And then there are a number of courtiers who would be only too happy to make you a figure of fun.”
Considering John employed one servant and entertained few visitors, it was difficult to think of more than a handful of people who might have overheard his conversations with the mosaic girl, let alone discovered the name by which he called her.
“They say the very walls of the palace have ears,” Peter went on, as if reading his thoughts.
“They might,” John replied, “but can they talk as well?”
Chapter Seven
“Of course I haven’t mentioned Zoe to anyone! Furthermore, I’d be extremely annoyed if I didn’t realize you had good reason to question me.”
Anatolius gestured at his desk, piled with documents and scrolls. “With all the legal work brought about by the plague, I’ve hardly had time to speak to the servants let alone gad about the city gossiping about my friends behind their backs.”
He picked up a scroll and waved it in John’s direction. “I must get this summons delivered today. An old acquaintance of my father’s has engaged me to bring a case against an estate. It involves the deceased children of deceased parents and competing guardians, some dead, not to mention grandchildren, several of whom might actually be alive. Or perhaps not. As you know, we have four months to conclude these cases one way or the other, before they are thrown out. It could take that long to find enough competent witnesses to swear to the pertinent documents. And, needless to say, our opponent will cry forgery in any event.”
“Not as easy as going down to Avernus,” John observed.
“No. More like trying to return.” Anatolius gave a rueful laugh as he stared down into the jumble of documents. Following his gaze, John saw the image of a skull staring back from the tiled desk top.
Anatolius shoved a leather bound codex over the fleshless visage. “That was father’s idea. He thought a man should surround himself with reminders of his mortality. What I say is mortality’s perfectly happy to tap you on the shoulder and remind you when the time comes.”
“The cupids at least bring a note of joy.” John nodded toward the nearest wall, decorated with cavorting godlets playing musical instruments or driving chariots pulled by donkeys.
Anatolius smiled. “Yes. You’ll recall this was my mother’s reception room, and after she died father made it his study. I must admit I’ve noticed some of my clients looking askance.”
“You hadn’t thought of meeting them in another room?”