Three for a Letter

by Mary Reed

“Wherever Barnabas may be, he’s not on my estate. My servants searched all night.” Zeno sounded weary as he led John through the garden. This morning the old man was plumaged like a particularly colorful bird in a fine cotton dalmatic dyed a glaring orange.

  He had paused beside one of the shrines scattered around his garden. Placed beside a pine tree, it displayed a sculpture set upon a black marble boulder. John noted with some discomfit that the statue was a depiction of the goddess Cybele, flanked by lions.

  “What a dreadful trial these past few months have been.” Zeno sighed. “I knew no good would come of it. ‘You’re all by yourself on that huge estate,’ Theodora informed me. ‘And right by the sea,’ she said. So of course this was a perfect place to send her little hostages for the summer.”

  “Her diplomatic guests, you mean,” John replied with a thin smile.

  “Oh yes, of course that’s what I really meant! I am just a silly, careless-tongued old man. Certainly not a proper host for royal children.”

  “When I spoke to Anatolius before he returned to the city, he mentioned you got along wonderfully with the twins.”

  Zeno beamed. “My nephew is too kind, John. If it had been only the children who came to live with me, it would have been different. But my household has had to endure their entire entourage, including their saucy nursemaid and a lugubrious tutor, not to mention those two ladies-in-waiting Theodora foisted upon me as well. With their airs of superiority and the way they order my servants around, you’d think they were waiting to become empresses themselves!”

  “Calyce and Livia?”

  “You’ve talked to them?”

  “Only briefly. The children’s playmate, Poppaea, isn’t Livia her mother? The woman with the round face and sharp tongue? There’s a family resemblance there, in the face at least.”

  “Ah, John, what a horror it’s been with all these women constantly under foot. And just between us, the empress has been particularly trying. In fact, she’s visited me more often than her tax collectors this summer. What’s worse, while she’s staying here she treats my estate like her private gardens at the palace, wandering about unattended like some foolish girl. Can you imagine what it’s been like, half-expecting to run straight into the empress every time you walk around a bush?”

  “Very distressing, I should think,” John replied.

  “And Anatolius hasn’t visited me at all this summer either, apart from accepting my invitation to the banquet. It’s as if he is avoiding me.”

  “It’s more likely he was avoiding the empress.”

  “Yes, probably. Do you suppose she is still angry over those verses he wrote about her? Still, even though half the palace guard is tramping through my garden, Barnabas is not. There isn’t a stone my servants haven’t turned over looking for him.” He patted the large boulder beside him. “Or at least all the ones that could be turned over.”

  “Barnabas may still be hiding nearby,” John observed.

  Zeno blinked, as if surprised by the notion. “But why? If he committed this terrible crime, as it seems you suspect, wouldn’t it be natural for him to flee?”

  “One of the royal twins is indeed dead, Zeno, but the other is still alive and therefore could be in great danger,” John pointed out.

  “Yes, I see your point. Let me assure you that Sunilda is being continually watched and is quite safe from any murderous mime. You can be certain of that.”

  John walked on, forcing Zeno to follow. He did not care to remain in the vicinity of the representation of Cybele, whose priests so joyously castrated themselves.

  They followed the winding path through banks of shrubbery and emerged into an open space graced by a small fountain before strolling down a track leading through the olive grove beyond.

  “Gaius believes the boy’s death was an accident, but Hero appears to think it must have been murder,” John remarked.

  “What do you think, John? Could it have been murder? I’ve been berating myself since last night for the boy’s death,” Zeno confessed. “To be honest, this morning I was ready to order all these automatons of mine thrown into the sea. Deadly abominations! Yet if it was a human hand that killed the boy rather than an accident brought about by my vanity, for I wanted to impress the empress, you see, well, that’s a different matter entirely.”

  John did not point out that if Hero’s whale were proved to have accidentally caused the youngster’s death, both the Egyptian inventor and his employer would be likely to lose their heads, unless Theodora happened to be feeling less than merciful. In that case, they would suffer a fate far more terrible before death finally ended their agonies.

  “On reflection, though,” Zeno continued, “how could it have been an accident? Barnabas and Hero spent hours together. Every time I visited the workshops they were deep in discussion about the whale’s mechanisms, making absolutely certain that nothing could go wrong even though it goes without saying that Hero would have prepared everything meticulously. He is not a man to leave anything to chance.”

  “How did you become interested in these strange mechanical devices in the first place?” John asked with interest.

  “Well, it came about because my neighbor Castor has a most remarkable library. More than a hundred volumes, if you can imagine that, and not just your usual works by Homer and John Chryso-stom either! Anyhow, it was in his library that I came across a copy of Hero of Alexandria’s Pneumatics. It’s filled with diagrams and instructions for the construction of any number of truly amazing inventions.”

  “Hero never mentioned this Pneumatics. He called himself the inventor of the whale.”

  “That’s true enough. The ancient inventor did not describe a whale as such but rather useful bits and pieces that we incorporated into it, duplicating the parts as closely as possible. I can tell you, it wasn’t easy when we first began. A pressurized container exploded, not once but twice. Hero had been carefully following a special instruction in his namesake’s treatise. However, Castor must have been studying the work, thought he had a better idea, and amended the text! Not surprisingly, the original inventor had known better.” Zeno had begun to gesticulate enthusiastically, his eyes glittering with excitement, but as they emerged from the olive grove between his gardens and the grassy headlands of the shore, his voice trailed off.

  “I’m such a fool,” he said sadly. “A prattling old fool! A child has died and here I am, rambling on about such things! Gadaric should be playing dodge ball out here, not lying dead under my roof. I acquitted myself quite well when we played it, you know. I’m nimble considering my age although there again I do present a larger target than either of the children.”

  The gentle breeze ruffling the rough grass on the headland they were crossing carried the faint smell of smoke from the workshops.

  John asked if the children had displayed particular interest in Hero’s inventions.

  “Of course they did!” Zeno replied sorrowfully. “I must say in a way I blame myself since I allowed them to watch Hero and his assistants at work. The children were fascinated by it all. They’re frighteningly intelligent children, monsters of precocity, John. I suppose it comes from being raised in isolation and tutored endlessly almost from birth.”

  Zeno moved suddenly, like a startled bird, his baggy orange dalmatic billowing out and his hair flying. A dull thump and the leather ball lying in the grass arced up into the sky, propelled by his boot.

  John decided Zeno’s estate was not a good place to ponder puzzles. Not that this particular puzzle seemed very difficult. The only missing piece was Barnabas and if he was not here, then where else could he have gone but Constantinople?

  It was time to return home.

  Chapter Four

  John sat in the study of his house on the grounds of the Great Palace, sipping a cup of the vinegary Egyptian wine he had favored since the long-ago days when he had lived in Alexandria.

  It was late afternoon, when men hastened t
o their homes and evening meals while those who had neither began to drift into neglected corners of the city seeking the company of their impoverished fellows and perhaps a stale scrap of bread found in the gutter or stolen while the baker’s attention was elsewhere.

  The rusty light of the dying sun laying a bloody hand across Constantinople spilled in through the window and across a wall mosaic depicting a placid rural scene not unlike those through which John had ridden on his return from Zeno’s estate.

  John had discarded his travel-soiled garments for a simple white tunic. Lost in thought as he stared at the mosaic, he could have been mistaken for a well-to-do, albeit rather ascetic, merchant pondering about the day’s takings or possibly formulating plans for a family celebration.

  “It seems that recent events on Zeno’s estate are sadly much more harrowing than what’s happening in your landscape, Zoe,” John said quietly as he set his cracked clay cup aside.

  The almond-shaped eyes of the mosaic girl he addressed had been given a semblance of life by the sun’s rays, but she remained silent.

  Zoe was a familiar figure, a confidante who knew more about John than anyone, for in times of stress he spoke to her. John knew that the habit distressed his elderly servant Peter, but he found it aided him in untangling his thoughts. Talking to Zoe allowed him to sort through untidy scraps of information. Thus, however indirectly, it helped bring him to a point where he could take the always breathtaking leap from uncertainty to clarity. It was subsequently proving what he saw to be the truth that was the difficulty, as he had remarked to Zoe more than once.

  This evening, however, something in the mosaic girl’s appearance troubled John. He got up and paced back and forth across the tiles through the light of the sunset. After a while he realized the source of the problem.

  “It’s the other girl,” John told Zoe. “She looks like you.”

  It wasn’t just the large, almond-shaped eyes that the surviving twin Sunilda had in common with Zoe, although that similarity was striking enough. He recalled the little girl he had seen only briefly. She was, if anything, small for her age, with the thin limbs of a child but blessed with long, dark hair shadowing a solemn face that seemed much older.

  Perhaps that was where the real resemblance lay, he mused. Both children, the one a guest on the rambling estate by the sea and the other living on John’s study wall, exhibited an air of maturity beyond their years. There was something mysterious about both of them too, as if they were not quite what they appeared to be.

  “But, then,” John muttered, stopping to look out of the window into the square and talking to himself as much as to the mosaic girl, “who can blame those who have been imprisoned by circumstances as much as by prison bars if they develop strange humors?”

  A rising breeze carried the tang of salt from the Sea of Marmara through the half-open window. The smell reminded John of the travels of his youth, the long journeys that had taken him half way around the world. Difficult and often dangerous travel, to be sure, yet no place he had visited, not even Egypt, had struck him as more exotic than Zeno’s estate.

  “How long a journey from Italy it must have seemed for one as young as Sunilda,” he reflected. “She’s scarcely your age and already she’s lost her brother, Zoe. I think you would enjoy walking with her on the beach or looking for shells or perhaps even playing dodge ball with her.”

  He paused, awkwardly and suddenly aware that he had not seen his own child grow from an infant to the coltish grace of the girl living in Zeno’s villa, far away from any of her blood relatives. How could he be certain what such children thought or what games they would enjoy?

  “It’s a sad thing that the boy died so young. I fear Zeno will ultimately suffer for his carelessness, but fortunately for him he doesn’t appear to realize that. No wonder Anatolius has such an unworldly streak at times. It must be in the blood.”

  The room was growing dark. Peter would soon bring in a lamp and announce his master’s meal was prepared, just as he did each evening. The thought reminded John of the lamps that had revealed the pathetically crumpled body of the boy when the mechanical whale’s mouth ponderously opened. Would the lighting of a lamp forever summon forth the same memory?

  He recalled what had happened at the banquet. He had been first to realize that the figure within the great maw was not going to comically leap forward and indeed was not even Barnabas. But where could the mime have gone after performing his last scene?

  And why would he have murdered Gadaric?

  A tap at the study door disturbed John’s ruminations. Peter entered and set his lamp on John’s desk. The elderly servant averted his eyes from the glassy, hypnotic gaze of the mosaic girl as he replenished John’s wine from the jug on the table by the door. He asked if his master wished his evening meal brought to the study.

  John nodded and resumed pacing up and down the room as Peter escaped down the corridor to the steamy kitchen.

  ***

  “Some may laugh at the very idea,” pronounced Peter, “but I have heard that the village by Zeno’s estate is a hot bed of magick and superstition. In fact, the area’s famous, or perhaps I should say notorious, for the fortune-telling goats living on a local island.”

  The young woman across the table from him, his assistant Hypatia, looked down at her dinner plate and tried without much success to stifle a laugh. “Oh, Peter, I’m sorry, really,” she giggled, “but fortune-telling goats! Really!”

  “You may find it amusing, young lady, but the fact is that no matter what guise it’s presented under, it’s not wise to have commerce with such unholy things.” Peter’s spoon rattled rather too hard against his bowl. “I know Anatolius is a good friend to our master but I can’t help worrying about his uncle Zeno dabbling in all manner of strange knowledge. That’s not even to mention building automatons and other such strange devices for the entertainment of his guests.”

  Hypatia looked thoughtful. “They sound fascinating. If they’re just for entertainment, surely there’s no harm in that?”

  Peter’s eyes unexpectedly brimmed with tears. “Zeno’s infernal whale was built for entertaining his guests and it killed a little boy, leaving his sister alone. Don’t forget, Hypatia, that the master has a daughter of his own. No wonder he looked so distracted just now.”

  The elderly servant mournfully wiped his eyes on his sleeve before mopping his bowl clean with a scrap of bread.

  “At least the master’s back home now, Peter, and safely away from all the things you’ve been fretting about.” Hypatia was always kind.

  “But for how long?” Peter stood and began to clear their dishes from the table. “As soon as anyone connected with the court dies, our master is immediately sent somewhere a Lord Chamberlain should never have to go. What dangerous quarter of Constantinople will he end up in this time?”

  Chapter Five

  John gazed down over the sea wall. The docks below swarmed with gangs of sinewy men loading and unloading the ships that rose and fell on water so befouled with floating debris that it would have been impossible from a distance to tell where land gave way to sea except for the gentle undulation of the swells.

  At night flaring torches lent a lurid glow to the proceedings and prudent merchants sent deputies to count crates and bales and amphorae. Away from the harbor, the widely spaced torches kept burning overnight in front of business premises seemed only to accentuate the darkness and sense of danger, especially if the wind, or human hands, dowsed their guttering flames.

  Not that the latter might necessarily mean criminal intent, John thought, as he padded down the stone steps leading to the dock. He had to shade his eyes against the sudden blow of sunlight as he emerged from the dark tunnel of the stairway. Though it was true that a man could be waylaid and dragged into the stygian depths of an alley, never to see daylight again, other sorts of commerce were transacted along those dark and narrow ways, including a variety of fleshly trades. With the
number of wayfarers arriving daily in Constantinople by road or sea, there was certainly plenty of money to be made by fair means or foul.

  All in all, the harbors were easy places to move around unobserved. Having already visited the larger Theodosian Harbor, John had walked east to Harbor Sophia. He had to admit that even with imperial spies everywhere and armies of informers reporting to more than one palace official, it was all but impossible to discover where anyone who had left the city in haste would have gone. Yet he must leave no stone unturned in his search for Barnabas.

  The mime, he reasoned, must have realized that given his distinctive looks he could not remain hidden for long, even in the multitude of twisting byways and human warrens that crowded the houses of the wealthy and the walls of the Great Palace itself—especially once it was known that a court official was making inquiries concerning his whereabouts. The natural and correct assumption would be that anyone with the right information would be rewarded, and richly so. A prudent man would therefore have left the city, and the quickest way to do that was by ship.

  The toe of John’s boot stuck for a moment to the stones underfoot. An acridly sweet smell identified the sticky patch as wine from a smashed amphora, its odor mixed with the smell of the sea and the musk of the rotting vegetation being slapped hypnotically against the docks.

  A burly man emerged from the arched doorway of a nearby latrine, speaking over his shoulder to someone inside. Whoever his listener was, the man had plenty to say about his antecedents and future prospects although at least he had the grace to leaven his obscene comments with a broad grin that revealed several broken teeth. An answering burst of coarse laughter and a string of Egyptian curses made John chuckle. Docks and the people who frequented them were the same everywhere, whether at Alexandria or Constantinople.

  “And did you really marry the camel-driver’s daughter?” John asked the man as he passed by.

  The man scratched his stubbly chin. If he was surprised to have been understood by the tall, lean Greek, he gave no indication.