Three for a Letter

by Mary Reed

  She invited him to the kitchen and, as he began to follow up her upstairs, he glanced into the atrium. A dark shape, some small creature, was scuttling across the raised edge of the impluvium.

  No, he realized. It was only the clay scorpion he had seen during his last visit, brought to a semblance of life by the flickering reflection of torchlight in the water. Or perhaps it was not the same scorpion, for there was another guarding the top of the stairway and yet another set on the floor beside the kitchen door.

  “Have demons besieged you again, Hypatia? I see you have placed your guardians everywhere.”

  The young woman’s offended expression told him that he would not be able to dispel her fears by making light of them.

  He apologized. “I suppose this big house must seem rather frightening when it’s empty,” he went on. “It wouldn’t echo so much if John would just get a few more furnishings.”

  He sat down at the kitchen table. Seeing the jug set on it, he hinted that while an unannounced visitor such as himself would hardly expect to be offered his host’s favorite wine, on the other hand he would not be averse to sampling another vintage.

  “You mean you don’t wish to have a cup of the master’s Egyptian wine, sir?” Hypatia said. “Then this will suit you very well. It was a gift from some ambassador or other and the master directed Peter and myself to feel free to drink it. I think that you’ll find it less raw than the sort that the Lord Chamberlain prefers.”

  Anatolius took a sip of the wine she poured for him and nodded approval. “Perhaps John likes the type of wine he does because of someone with whom he once shared it. I’m only guessing, of course,” he added hastily, realizing that he shouldn’t be chattering about the Lord Chamberlain’s personal life with a servant. Normally it would never have occurred to him to say such a thing, but somehow in John’s household this sort of conversation seemed quite natural.

  John’s relations with his servants were, he reflected, extremely irregular but that was his own business, insofar as anything at Justinian’s court could be said to remain one’s personal business.

  “Tell me what has happened, Hypatia. Have you had another night-time visitor?”

  Hypatia nodded. “Last night. It was at the same hour as when it last appeared, only this time I didn’t dare answer its summons.” Her distress was obvious in the increasingly halting way she spoke.

  “Immediately I get home I’ll send one of my servants around to keep you company,” Anatolius offered. “You really shouldn’t be here alone, even if there is a barracks full of armed men just across the way. And if I may say so, if Peter comes back and finds any of your friends standing about,” he said in an attempt to lighten her mood and with a nod toward the clay scorpion that still sat on the shelf, “he won’t be at all pleased to see them.”

  At Anatolius’ suggestion Hypatia had taken the opportunity to pour a cup of wine for herself. It had brought some color back to her face. “I notice you keep wiping your eyes, sir. Are you unwell? I would be more than happy to make up a potion for you.”

  Anatolius looked thoughtful. “Strangely enough, it seems that the longer I’m in the city the better I feel. Perhaps I should stay here myself tonight. I don’t like to see you so upset.”

  He was recalling when he had initially met Hypatia. She had been a slave belonging to the Lady Anna, but the first time he had seen her he had not realized the fact. Not that a difference in social position was any bar to love. After all, Lady Anna had married a former tonsor. Yes, it was true, he thought, noting anew Hypatia’s golden skin and large, dark eyes and finding himself wondering that if John were not as he was, might he…

  Anatolius’ impertinent speculations were abruptly interrupted by a loud banging on the door.

  “It’s probably just a message for the Lord Chamberlain, Hypatia. I shall attend to it.” He got up and went down to the entrance hall.

  It was not the authoritative, insistent pounding of someone whose duties commonly included rousting citizens out of their beds in the middle of the night. It was more frenzied than powerful.

  Anatolius drew the knife he carried, the small blade that was an accessory worn by every prudent man who walked the streets of the city. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Hypatia had come to the top of the stairs. He waved her back.

  The loud knocking continued. Blade at the ready, he slid back the bolt.

  Silence fell.

  He felt his heart racing. He did not believe in demons, but, on the other hand, it was rare indeed that good news came calling at such an hour and in such a manner. He cracked open the door and peered out.

  The demon standing in front of the door looked back at him.

  Or rather the woman, for he now saw by the lamplight seeping out into the darkness that the night caller was both human and demon. One half of her face was that of a woman while the other was a scarred mass akin to a melted candle.

  “I am Pulcheria, your honor, and I wish to speak to the Lord Chamberlain.” As the woman addressed him she pulled a veil over the ruined portion of her features.

  ***

  Before long Pulcheria was sitting in the kitchen providing Anatolius and Hypatia with details of what, according to her, had been a long and close working relationship with the Lord Chamberlain. Anatolius originally supposed she was exaggerating, but after close questioning it was obvious that she was sufficiently informed about John and his investigation of Barnabas to prove she was at least telling the essential truth about the commission she said had been given her.

  “But how did you get into the palace grounds unseen?” Anatolius asked with great interest when Pulcheria had finished her explanation for her unexpected appearance at John’s door.

  “Do you not think that I was a guest here often enough before my unfortunate accident?” the woman replied with half a smile. “Besides, there are always ways into any place you wish to name, however secure they seem. Even the palace itself, as you see—or indeed as any rat could tell you.”

  Seated in the warm, bright kitchen, with her elaborate wrappings of colorful scraps of cloth and hair festooned with ribbons, she did not resemble any rodent Anatolius had ever seen. She was more like a peacock, or perhaps a pile of colored rags discarded by a dyer.

  “So it was you who’s been terrifying me?” Hypatia asked, apparently uncertain even now that the disfigured woman was only that and nothing more.

  Pulcheria admitted she had come calling before. “I regret I could not visit at a more civilized hour,” she concluded.

  “I peeked out the window of the master’s study and all I could see was…well…I thought…”

  Pulcheria gave her frozen half-smile. There was no need for further explanation.

  Anatolius held his tablet over the embers remaining in the brazier, obliterating all traces of his notes on Castor’s business associates. Then the man whose occupation was transcribing the words of the emperor turned his skill instead to taking notes on the detailed ramblings of a beggar and street prostitute.

  “So the great mime was born in the countryside not far from Zeno’s estate?” Anatolius interrupted her, amazed at the woman’s flow of information. “How could you have found all this out in such a short time?”

  “I may no longer have my looks, sir, but I do have a way with people!”

  Hypatia, Anatolius noticed, was sitting staring somewhat dreamily at the ceiling, another cup of wine in her hand. She looked pleasantly flushed, relieved of her fears now that her demon was inside and happily chatting with them.

  “I haven’t told you all that I have to tell,” Pulcheria was saying. “I also heard it rumored that he has bedded more than one noble lady for whom he had performed. Or, to put it more correctly, they have bedded him. It seems he’s very popular with the ladies.”

  “People working in the theater can be terribly attractive,” put in Hypatia, her words slightly slurred.

  Anatolius finished writing. He ha
d almost filled his tablet despite the brevity of his notes and the tiny size of his script. “I’m sure the Lord Chamberlain will be most grateful for your efforts on his behalf, Pulcheria,” he said, finally laying it aside.

  The woman’s garish rags rustled as she leaned forward confidentially. “There’s one last piece of information for you to convey to him, sir. Barnabas is a great lover of literature and he has a large collection of scrolls and codices.”

  “An expensive interest indeed, even for a performer as well paid as he.” Anatolius recalled his recent conversation with Scipio.

  “Too expensive even for Barnabas, it seems,” came Pulcheria’s reply. “For I also hear that he has a habit of visiting the libraries of those aristocrats who hire him to entertain at their homes. Not just visiting them, you understand, but returning when their owners are not present to help himself to one or two choice items. I don’t necessarily mean his patrons’ wives, either,” she added with a coarse laugh.

  Anatolius observed that, aside from the matter of the wives, he did not think that Barnabas would continue to receive invitations to perform in aristocratic homes if he was suspected of stealing from their libraries.

  “He’s remarkably agile,” Pulcheria observed. “It’s child’s play for him to climb through a second floor window in the middle of the night. So he’s never observed and most of his wealthy patrons don’t realize things are missing. If they do, they may well suppose they’ve been pilfered by one of their drunken guests. After all, why should a mere mime, even as one as brilliant as Barnabas, be suspected of aspiring to such culture? No doubt they would find the very idea laughable.”

  Anatolius saw Pulcheria away into the night after rewarding her more handsomely than he would normally have been inclined, but knowing how generous John could be for information.

  As he went back upstairs he realized he would have to return to his uncle’s estate with the dawn to convey to John what he had just discovered.

  Could the visitor to Castor’s library who had left the mud on its immaculate tiles that so outraged Briarus have been Barnabas? Even if it were, he could not see how it could be linked with the deaths on his uncle’s estate. Still, if there were some connection, John would make it fairly quickly. Doubtless this other unexpected and useful information he had uncovered would be instrumental in aiding John to deduce why Barnabas at least had vanished. Perhaps they would now be able to run the fugitive mime to ground.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Wheezing and cursing, Barnabas inched toward the island’s craggy summit, hauling a large goat through the darkness. His toe was caught by a root, or perhaps the entrance hole to the burrow of a small animal. It hardly mattered what it happened to be this time. He fell heavily again and the cloven hoof of his caprid charge clipped his shoulder painfully.

  He struggled from beneath the musty-smelling beast, uttering further imprecations as he gripped its damp body and felt one of the legs wobble. He tugged at it and a clump of goat hair came off in his hand. Finally he managed to shoulder the goat once more and continued to struggle toward the high meadow where a number of the herd glimmered in the pale moonlight.

  The dwarf was strong and agile. For years—and to the delight of numerous audiences—he had performed amazing acrobatic feats, leapt and tumbled, brandished stuffed phalluses of exceptional size and weight, and dazzled onlookers with his agility, but he had never before been called upon to haul an entire herd of stuffed goats up and down dark crags.

  Reaching the meadow, he thankfully set his burden down and surveyed the heavens. At least he had managed to get the albino goats assembled at one of the highest spots in good time. Having reasoned that he might be more easily spotted moving the lighter-colored beasts about as dawn came on, he had taken to relocating them first when they needed to be taken to higher elevations. There the grass grew less readily and offered less concealment than it did further down the slopes.

  He turned away from the motionless animals and trudged back down the steep track.

  ***

  Dawn found Barnabas coaxing life from the remains of a wood fire, heartily huffing and puffing on them until glowing sparks formed a necklace of red that eventually burst into flames. The task made him look paler than usual since it coated him with gray flakes of ash, giving him the appearance of a demon. Fortunately the man lying on a pallet close to the hearth was not particularly concerned with outward appearances.

  “Now we’ll have some warmth to chase the fog out of our bones,” Barnabas said, poking twigs into the burgeoning fire to feed its quickening life. “Then I shall get breakfast.”

  “And about time too,” remarked Pythion from his bed. “And that reminds me, Barnabas. While it’s true I’ve been known to curse my monotonous diet now and then, I must say I find the increasing presence of wrinkled turnips and shriveled radishes on my plate becoming rather tedious. Perhaps if you kept trying you might catch a fish or two and we could cook them?”

  The man had somewhat the appearance of a wrinkled and shriveled vegetable himself, albeit exceedingly sun-browned, with the unruly hair and beard of a desert hermit and the rope-like muscles of a dock worker.

  “It’s not easy catching fish,” Barnabas protested, omitting to mention he had not even attempted the task. “Especially when you have to be so quick to get them. I am constantly exhausted from moving those disgusting goats up and down the slopes.”

  “I know how difficult that can be,” his companion agreed, “but you have to keep moving them around. It’s my livelihood, you know! At least you don’t have to worry about placing them in any particular pattern. Wherever the animals are standing, the person who interprets their message will always find something suitably vague, or vaguely suitable, to declare to anyone foolish enough to consult them.”

  Barnabas looked up from the fire. “It will be your skin as well, Pythion, if the villagers ever find out about the goats,” he pointed out. “So it’s just as well I got here when I did, what with your broken foot. Where would you be now without my help, eh, that’s what I want to know?”

  “And how did I break my foot? Scrambling down to the beach to see who my unexpected visitor might be!”

  “You mean to say your goats didn’t warn you I was about to arrive?”

  The other only grumbled a bit more and then grudgingly expressed gratitude for the mime’s assistance. “Now I know what’s going on over there,” he went on, “I realize this sudden stream of people consulting the goats is because Theodora’s visiting Zeno’s estate. Whoever would have thought that the empress would appear in these parts? Well, you can be certain that more than one of those high-ranking officials travelling with her is less interested in learning his fortune, under the guise of entertainment of course, than of taking advantage of a good excuse to get out of range of Theodora’s presence for a while.” Accepting a piece of bread he dunked it into his cup of wine and continued. “But you’ll be able to stay long enough to see me back on my feet, Barnabas?”

  “Yes, and even a little beyond that in case of unforeseen difficulties.”

  Barnabas had not mentioned the reason for his arrival on the island and had no intention of doing so. The keeper of the goats had enough to worry about, he told himself. Winter was coming on and there was a very poor crop to show for all the man’s summer laboring in the small vegetable patch next to his hut, without his having to worry about possible repercussions if it were discovered he was harboring a fugitive, no matter how unwittingly.

  Thinking about vegetables as he chewed on a stale bread crust, Barnabas considered a more pressing problem. With two of them to feed, the stunted cabbages, beets and leeks would quite possibly all be gone before spring came again. He wondered if it was his fate to starve to death on an island. Yet even that might be preferable to what could—no, most certainly would—happen to him if he were caught. The thought that he was at least still free, if not performing at the palace or sleeping in his own bed, brough
t a better flavor to his humble breakfast.

  Hopefully, he thought, when their small stock of food was consumed the villagers would be generous in what they brought when they came to the island, provided of course that conditions continued to allow them to make the journey.

  Then at the right time, and if Fortuna continued to smile on him, he would be gone. To Africa, perhaps, or off to Greece. He recalled wistfully his small room in Constantinople. Doubtless Brontes would enjoy using it but could he be trusted to take care of it?

  Gnawing on his crust, he mulled over his plans concerning what he would do as soon as it was safe to slip away from the island. By the look of recent activity on shore, it appeared this might be further in the future than he had originally anticipated when, in a panic to find a hiding place, he had stolen a boat and rowed with all speed to his temporary sanctuary. However, he had not expected his continued personal safety to involve creeping up and down steep inclines and rocky paths carrying stuffed goats half the night and hiding in a small hut for most of the daylight hours. At least, he congratulated himself, he had had the wit to push the boat back out into the sea so that the current would carry it away. Even if it traveled only a little way down the coast before beaching, doubtless its owner would retrieve it thankfully enough, not to mention making certain that he pulled it further up the beach than before. No, he was safe from discovery as long as he kept out of sight.

  He chuckled at the recollection of the revelation he had received upon assisting the injured goatkeeper into his hut.

  “This is a terrible disaster,” the man had cried, pulling off his boot and wincing as his painfully swollen foot was jarred by the action.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say so,” Barnabas had offered with callous cheerfulness. “I’ve broken more than one bone in my, er, everyday job and they heal quickly enough if you’re fortunate and avoid physicians. You know what Martial said of Diaulus? He remarked that the man had been a doctor and then became an undertaker but even so he was doing the same job as he had when he was a medical man.”