Three for a Letter

by Mary Reed

  Worse, the villa’s polished wood door had swung open as the men stepped up to it, but no servant waited in the exceedingly narrow and unusually short vestibule. The door had opened of its own accord.

  Peter trod stoutly forward anyway, determined to accompany his master to the end, even into Hell itself.

  He was therefore not completely surprised when the outer door thudded shut behind them without apparent aid, but he was certainly shocked when the lamp set in a wall alcove sputtered and suddenly died, leaving the vestibule in darkness.

  Felix cursed in a disgustingly obscene manner and John uttered a short, sharp phrase in a foreign language that, going by the tone his master used, Peter was happy he was not able to translate.

  There was a grating squeal and the marble beneath Peter’s feet vibrated in the manner that the pavement of a forum moved when a heavy cart passed by. The inner door of the vestibule opened a crack, spilling some light into the space in which they were trapped.

  It stopped moving.

  Felix stepped to the door and tried to force it open, his shadow swimming around the now dimly lit vestibule as he struggled. Instead of obliging, the door clanked shut again.

  “Stand away,” he finally growled. His sword came out of its scabbard. “This could well be a trap.”

  He pounded on the inner door and shouted a command that it be opened in the emperor’s name, his voice booming around the enclosed area.

  Again the floor vibrated slightly and again the door creaked open just enough to allow a little light to enter.

  Footsteps approached and then a woman’s voice spoke reassuringly.

  “Don’t worry, you in there. It keeps jamming even though Hero’s tinkering endlessly with the mechanism. I’ll have you out very quickly.”

  A thinly shaped object was thrust through the narrow illuminated opening. Felix raised his sword but the object proved to be an iron bar with which the woman on the other side proceeded to lever open the recalcitrant door.

  Their rescuer had dark hair dressed in an elaborately rolled fashion. Her silk garments were obviously not those of a servant.

  “We keep this useful item to hand,” she explained with a hint of a smile, setting the bar back against the wall as the erstwhile captives emerged into Zeno’s bright atrium.

  “Thank you, Calyce,” John said with a slight bow.

  The woman looked surprised. “Lord Chamberlain! We spoke only briefly on the night of the tragedy. You have an excellent memory for names and faces.”

  He smiled. “A very useful skill, considering many of my court duties.”

  Calyce bent to place a wooden wedge under the inner door. “We generally keep it open this way,” she explained, “but it must have been knocked aside by accident.”

  Felix was looking around suspiciously, sword still half raised. “There seem to be rather a lot of accidents on this estate,” he remarked dourly, finally sheathing the weapon.

  “What about the outside door? Have there been problems with it?” John asked the woman.

  She shook her head. “No, it’s only the inner one that’s given occasional difficulty—at least up until now.”

  “Calyce! What are you doing?” Another woman swept into the atrium in an impatient flurry of rustling robes. She was shorter than Calyce and as plump as a dove. She sounded angry.

  “I am admitting guests, Livia.”

  “That is a servant’s duty! The empress would be appalled to learn that one of her ladies-in-waiting had decided to act as a doorkeeper.”

  “Livia, my felicitations,” John intervened. “We spoke on the night of the banquet, didn’t we? I’m afraid Zeno’s servants are not so attentive today as they were then. Indeed, they all appear to be otherwise occupied at present. However, I can find my way now that Calcye has so graciously released us from our temporary imprisonment.”

  “Thank you, Lord Chamberlain,” replied Livia. “Needless to say, I shall have a very stern word with the servants about their negligence.”

  Having been spared the need to resolve the dilemma of whether an empress’ lady-in-waiting should wait upon the emperor’s Lord Chamberlain, the two women then departed into the depths of the villa, muttering irritably at one another.

  Felix looked even more annoyed than the women. “I doubt that was an accident, John,” he said bluntly as soon as Livia and Calcye were out of earshot. “Surely even Zeno must be tired of all these malfunctioning mechanisms by now? It seems extremely suspicious to me.”

  John agreed it was certainly very odd.

  Much relieved, Peter finally spoke. “If I may say so, master, visitors should always be escorted immediately to the presence of the master of the house and not abandoned to stand around in the atrium. After all, you never know what some of them might get up to if they’re left alone to wander about the halls.” He gave a sniff of censure but did not offer his entire opinion, which was that apart from Zeno’s estate being a stew of blasphemy and black arts, its master apparently oversaw it very carelessly, not to say with dangerous negligence.

  Following his own master and Felix down the corridor, Peter prayed silently that they were not walking straight into disaster. But then, with the arrival of the Lord Chamberlain and a captain of the excubitors, not to mention a contingent of trained military men joining forces with the guards already present, what could possibly compromise the safety of the estate?

  Chapter Eight

  “You want your men to patrol my estate?” Zeno flapped his hands in horror. “It’s impossible, Felix! Some of my servants live in the village. How could an excubitor possibly tell one of my gardeners from a prowler lurking in the shrubbery with evil intent?”

  “The village is part of your estate, Zeno,” put in Livia. “I’d expect it would be patrolled as well.”

  The lady-in-waiting made a valid point, John thought. He said as much.

  Felix had spent hours surveying Zeno’s estate. The main house was a rambling edifice with multiple wings and interior gardens connected by colonnades. A maze of ornamental gardens interspersed with groves and meadows in which stood workshops, baths, and shrines surrounded the large dwelling. Beyond, the estate proper gradually merged into fields and the outskirts of the village with no clear demarcation between them, let alone a wall.

  Now Felix had convened a meeting to discuss this security nightmare. The gathering was in an unadorned office looking out into an interior courtyard. Even with the writing desk pushed against its back wall, with several members of Zeno’s household as well as the visitors from Constantinople present, the small room was crowded. It did however have the advantage of being devoid of any of Hero’s mechanical monstrosities.

  “Yes, that’s right, the village is part of my estate,” Zeno said vaguely. “I’ve never paid much heed to the matter. My servants have always come and gone as they wish and I’m certain they won’t want armed men patrolling on their doorsteps.”

  Livia glared. “But surely if their master says they’ll have patrols, they’ll have patrols—and be glad of them, too.”

  “Oh, Livia, what I am going to do with you? We’ve only been guests since summer began and already you want to run the entire estate!” Calyce spoke laughingly but her smile looked forced.

  John’s gaze passed wearily over the two women. They formed a marked contrast. Calyce was slim and dark with an overly prominent jaw, while Livia was shorter, fairer, rounder in figure and face. He had no doubt that the empress had chosen them deliberately. It was the sort of pairing she’d find highly comical and if they also happened to dislike each other, well, the imperial mistress of the disgruntled ladies-in-waiting would doubtless find that even more amusing.

  Bertrada, the nursemaid who had hitherto remained standing near the door, now took a couple of steps forward and spoke. She was, John noted, an angular young woman, balanced precariously between the girl she was no longer and the woman she had not yet become. She had the blonde hair and blu
e eyes of the northerner.

  “I’m in favor of extended patrols, sir,” she timidly addressed Felix. “As Sunilda’s nursemaid, her safety is always my first responsibility.”

  “And an excellent job you’ve done so far,” remarked Livia sarcastically.

  Bertrada looked as if she was about to cry. “Gadaric wasn’t…it was an accident…” The girl’s lips began to quiver. Her eyes filled with tears and she whirled and ran from the room, closely followed by Calyce, who shot Livia a look of hatred as she left.

  John exchanged glances with Felix. Behind his shaggy beard the excubitor captain appeared pale, strongly suggesting that he would rather face twenty armed foes than one hysterical woman.

  “I think it would be wise to have wider-ranging patrols,” John advised, turning to Zeno. “You were just relating to us what a terrible fright you’d had when Bertrada and Poppaea came back from the beach without Sunilda. This time you were fortunate to find the girl safe with her friend, but next time you may not be so lucky.”

  “I suppose you’re right, John.” Zeno’s uncertainty grew. “Only you don’t suppose that all these new arrangements and guards and patrols going about will impede our preparations for the festival, do you?” He stared out at the sunny courtyard as wistfully as a child toiling over its lessons while longing to go out and play. “Hero seems confident that everything will be completed in good time, but the day is fast approaching.”

  “I’m happy to hear that your plans are going forward, Zeno,” observed Livia. “Theodora doesn’t want her personal tragedy to ruin the villagers’ little bit of rustic joy, you know. That’s why she intends to attend the festivities herself, although of course it will be with a heavy heart.”

  John suppressed a sigh. His visit to Zeno’s villa was going to seem exceedingly long, however short a time it might turn out to be as measured by a water clock.

  ***

  “I don’t suppose you’ll require this, Lord Chamberlain.”

  Entering the guest room Zeno had allotted him, John was surprised to see the tall man whose words had prefaced the appearance of the whale at the banquet reaching up to remove a wooden cross hung high on the wall.

  “I am Godomar, the twins’ tutor, and a plain-spoken man, as you can tell from what I just said.” Godomar bent to add the cross to a crate almost filled with codices and writing materials. “I make no apologies for that. After all, my host Zeno is a plainspoken man himself in his own way.”

  “Do you mean he has a loose tongue?” John replied with a smile.

  Godomar did not return it. John wondered if the man were capable of such an expression or whether his starved features had been paralyzed by disuse, like the legs of stylites perched too many years atop their columns. He was one of the few household members John had not yet interviewed.

  John moved to the small table by the window and picked up a wax tablet, reading aloud the Latin scratched thereon. “Thy hair is like the wool of goats.”

  “One of Bertrada’s exercises,” growled the other impatiently. “She’s also my pupil. I’ve had to instruct her to confine herself to appropriate works to study repeatedly. However, I fear that, like goats, she tends to stray and I regret to say that I have had to correct her about that tendency on more than one occasion.”

  As he handed the tablet to Godomar John caught a faint hint of the perfume wedded to the wax. “My taking this room won’t inconvenience your lessons, Godomar?”

  “No. I’ll just tutor elsewhere. Zeno has a very large residence and the only reason I used this particular room is because it’s next to mine.”

  The room was hot. Looking out of its small window, John noted shrubbery and ornamental trees as still as the bucolic scene surrounding the mosaic girl on his study wall.

  “Lord Chamberlain, I must speak frankly with you,” Godomar said abruptly. “It is about your religious inclinations.”

  John wondered who could have mentioned his religious beliefs to Godomar. Zeno’s careless prattling, perhaps.

  “You and the excubitor captain have been ordered to protect Sunilda from physical harm,” Godomar went on. His deep-set eyes gave the impression of having seen much pain, John thought. The eyes of a martyr—or of a torturer. “My duty is to guard her spiritual welfare, for how can it benefit us to prolong our ephemeral sojourn in this earthly realm if we lose our immortal souls in the process?”

  “Sunilda is only a child, and thus I would think hardly in danger of losing her soul,” John observed.

  “Evidently you do not realize that although yet an innocent child, the blood of heretics runs in her veins.”

  “But surely the Ostrogoths are Christians?” John pointed out.

  “Their blasphemous beliefs have been proscribed for two centuries,” retorted Godomar. “I have traveled to Ravenna, Lord Chamberlain. In a church in that city there is a depiction of our Lord being baptized, and whereas the workmanship is undeniably exquisite, yet consider how the Arians view Him.” Outrage and agitation became increasingly obvious in his expression and voice as he continued. “As a created being—admittedly the highest of all such creations—rather than one who shares the substance of God, that’s how they see Him. And this disgraceful work was commissioned by King Theodoric, my remaining charge’s great-grandfather.”

  “The young Theodoric did not have the benefit of your excellent guidance,” John replied tactfully.

  Godomar swept a codex off the table and into his crate. “Someone should have guided him, Lord Chamberlain. He grew to manhood in Constantinople, after all.”

  “Yes, he was an imperial guest just like the twins. Therefore I think you’ll agree that we have an even more compelling common interest in seeing that his great-granddaughter comes to no harm.”

  “Indeed we do. This has been a most rigorous summer, Lord Chamberlain. My patience has been sorely tried between infernal machines on one side and fortune-telling goats and magick on the other. Now there has been the unspeakable tragedy of Gadaric’s death. But at least he died uncorrupted. I am convinced that this estate is situated in the atrium of Hell.”

  He hefted the heavy crate with a slight grunt and proceeded to bear his burden out of the room.

  ***

  “You must have suffered from far worse neighbors than Godomar in all those military camps you lived in during your years as a mercenary, John.”

  Felix’ remark sounded humorous but he looked as morose as Godomar. The Lord Chamberlain had found the stalwart captain looking around the back of the villa, not far from the workshops where one of his excubitors was stationed. The occasional clang of metal striking metal broke the stillness of the hot air.

  “You look unwell, Felix,” John replied. “Perhaps you should get out of the sun? There’s a seat under that tree.”

  Felix followed him silently across the courtyard and sat down on the lion-footed marble bench. He appeared distracted. After tugging unhappily at his beard once or twice, he finally burst into speech. “I’ve seen something that has greatly disturbed me, John.”

  John remarked that he was not surprised since there was much to be disturbed about on the estate, especially from a security viewpoint.

  “True enough, but it isn’t anything to do with that. I’m ashamed to admit it. I—” Felix broke off and shook his shaggy head silently.

  John waited, hoping Felix would continue. Beside their bench unfamiliar flowers on slender stems swayed, not in the breeze, for there was none, but bent by the arrival and departure of bees. John could hear the insects’ buzzing in the short, quiet intervals punctuating the sound of Hero’s metalworking.

  “Well, here we are, two followers of Lord Mithra who have also been comrades a long time,” John finally said. “What could there possibly be that you would be ashamed to confide to an old friend like me?”

  Felix attempted a smile. “It’s the sight of the girl,” he finally muttered, looking away from John at the nearby statue of Eros as he s
poke. “The young blonde. Didn’t you notice her?”

  “The nursemaid? Bertrada?”

  “Yes, Bertrada.” Felix looked as if about to strangle on the name. “It is she, John! She’s Berta. The very likeness of my love, even to the name! She has come back to me.”

  John thought of Isis’ young employee Berta, a blonde like Bertrada and the girl Felix had wished to marry. “Berta has gone from you, my friend,” he said gently, “and I must say that I do not see any likeness between the two women.”

  He tried to persuade Felix of the folly of his strange delusion but his words sounded unconvincing to his own ears. Even as he spoke them, he could not help thinking how much Sunilda resembled the mosaic girl, Zoe.

  He did not have time to reflect further on these enigmas because Calyce suddenly appeared, running toward them in a panic. A thin strip of her silk tunic, doubtless torn by some thorn in her hasty passage through the garden, was flying out behind her.

  “Lord Chamberlain! Captain Felix!” she gasped out. “It is Poppaea! Someone has tried to murder her!”

  Chapter Nine

  Greetings, dear Aunt Matasuntha.

  Things here are very exciting! Poppaea was found dead in the garden, or so everyone thought because she was so still, but then they saw she was just ill and put her to bed. Livia screamed until she was hoarse and Zeno stood about looking as if he wanted to weep. Bertrada said not a word, although it would have been difficult to hear her if she had, because Godomar said a great deal and sounded worst of all. As for the Lord Chamberlain, he looked very stern and Captain Felix swore in the most awful way, or at least until he saw me listening.

  Did I tell you about Captain Felix? He is a big soldier with a beard. He reminds me of the bear that Theodora showed me, the one she keeps in a cage at the palace. The estate is swarming with the soldiers Captain Felix commands. Justinian does have ever so many soldiers, doesn’t he? I would have thought with all the ones he’s sent to Italy he wouldn’t have any left, but they’re everywhere. Ever since Gadaric went away I can hardly go anywhere without someone watching me. It’s very tiresome.