by Mary Reed
“You are abroad early, sir. A worker like myself, no doubt? Times are hard for those who labor to earn an honest crust.”
The man sat back on his heels. “It’s not just outrageous taxes. When do you think Justinian will authorize measures to protect merchants from beggars using our doorsteps as lavatories?”
John was reminded of Artabanes urinating across his hedge frontier. Before he could answer, the shop owner, evidently a man happy to pass the time of day with anyone who would listen, continued.
“Every morning I have to scrub my steps. The ladies don’t want to buy in a place smelling of—well—it reminds me of a certain landowner one of my cousins works for. This landowner, you’d know him if I mentioned his name, very well-known he is, he’s so rich he has a servant whose only task is to keep his master’s collection of statues cleansed of bird droppings. And yet he only collects damaged statues! You know, missing a limb or damaged in the casting. What’s the use in buying such statues, I ask you, sir? They’re fit only to melt down for the value of the copper.”
John agreed that it was quite puzzling and hurried on before the fellow could bring up Theodora’s death and point out a rival who sold cloth colored with poisonous dyes.
It occurred to him that the peculiar collector might feel he was sheltering those poor, injured images. At times he found himself reacting to a statue he passed as if it were alive. Feeling sorry, for example, for the long-forgotten dignitary who stood year after year in the forum near Anatolius’ house, alone and unrecognized though he had been a great man once. Could a statue retain some part of the living man? If a dessicated piece of bone could harbor the essence of a saint, why not?
His thoughts uncharacteristically wandering, he almost failed to see the figure emerging from the entry of the passage to Anatolius’ house.
It was Vesta, walking quickly with her gaze on the ground.
John stepped back and positioned himself behind the unfortunate statue standing forlornly in the fountain’s basin. The marble man could have used the assistance of the benefactor of statuary. The less than artful modifications made by the weather and gulls made it hard to tell whether he was a general or a poet.
John waited until Vesta’s slim figure vanished down the street before continuing on his way.
When he had seen Vesta at Anatolius’ not long before, Anatolius’ comment had indicated the fair-haired lady-in-waiting was a client. However, it seemed a strange hour to be conducting business, and with a girl practically young enough to be a daughter.
Anatolius greeted him effusively.
“John! So you are well after all! Hypatia must be relieved.”
“She was here?”
“Yes. Didn’t you meet her on your way?”
John shook his head. “I took a shortcut.”
“She was frantic. Something about you being dragged out into the night. I was just about to rush off to the palace to see what I could find out.”
John gave a brief account of the night’s events, leaving out the fear he had felt.
“You best be getting home, John. Who knows what Hypatia will do when she gets back and finds you’re still absent?”
“Hypatia is a sensible woman. I’m sure she realizes she’s done what she could. Although I missed her, I did see Vesta leaving,” John added after a short pause.
Anatolius shook his head tiredly. “I’m overwhelmed with work, John. Vesta was here again yesterday. I stressed I couldn’t see her today because of a number of important appointments. So what does she do? She turns up on my doorstep before dawn, or as she put it in advance of my first appointment.”
“Is she consulting you on behalf of her mistress?”
“What else? The girl is a devoted servant but I wish she wouldn’t harass me endlessly. I’ve told her repeatedly there is nothing I can do to help a couple living together illicitly and without the approval of the girl’s parents.”
He paused and rubbed his red-rimmed eyes. “Since Anastasius is Theodora’s grandson he’ll doubtless avoid prosecution. I’ve stressed that more than once to Vesta, not to mention pointing out the young couple should be grateful for the protection Theodora extends them from the grave.”
“A strange notion,” John observed.
“Yes. Well, I shouldn’t detain you.”
John was struck with the unsettling impression that Anatolius was concealing something. Was his friend really so tired or was he trying to mask his nervousness? Did he seem overly anxious for John to return home?
Perhaps Anatolius sensed John’s doubts. He smiled ruefully. “I must be getting old, John. The young ladies visit my house only for advice these days.”
“You mentioned that the last time I saw Vesta here.”
“Did I?”
In the old days a young lady who insisted on visiting Anatolius with regularity would most certainly have found herself subject to his attentions. Not that Vesta was a beauty. She was still just a ungainly girl.
“At least I have saved you going to the palace to try and save me,” John said. “I’d best be on my way.”
“Wait, my friend. I’m afraid I might have given you the wrong impression. I didn’t mean to be rude. Stay a little while. Have a cup of wine. You look as if you need one.”
“But Hypatia—”
“As you say, she’s sensible. She was much calmer by the time she left. I’ll have the wine brought. You don’t have to worry about Hypatia.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Hypatia peered toward Antonina’s house, into which Vesta had just vanished.
Why would Vesta be taking foxglove from the palace garden to Antonina? She would have to tell the Lord Chamberlain, when she saw him.
She tried to assure herself she would see him soon.
There was Peter to think about now, though.
She started back to the palace, hurrying, avoiding knots of idlers lounging against the walls of the Hippodrome and stepping carefully to avoid rotting straw and vegetable matter scattered along the way.
She passed by the Palace of Antiochus with its distinctive domed hexagonal entrance hall and turned onto the Mese. A one-legged beggar seated on a pile of rags near the intersection shook his walking stick at her. “Charity, lady, for the love of heaven,” he rasped.
Preoccupied with concern for Peter and having nothing to give anyway Hypatia barely noticed the man. She hurried past with a shake of her head. She hoped Peter would not panic when he realized she was gone. She hoped in particular that he would not try to get out of bed.
A footstep sounded behind her. Before she could swing around or shriek, a hand clamped over her mouth and she was dragged through an open doorway. It happened so quickly it was unlikely any passersby had noticed, even more unlikely that strangers would come to her aid.
“Charity, lady, for the love of heaven,” leered the beggar she had ignored. His tone sounded quite different and he was suddenly spry and two-legged.
Hypatia bit his hand. Her attacker yanked it away and as she started to scream smacked her face hard with his other hand. She fell to the ground, stunned. By the time she regained her senses the hand was clamped over her mouth again. The air smelled of ashes. From the little she could see in the dimness they were inside a fire gutted store.
The erstwhile cripple bent over her. “Maybe I should let you shout, lady. There’s plenty who would like to share in your charity! After all, what is one more man? Or a couple of men?” He tore a strip of cloth from the hem of her tunic, stuffed it roughly into her mouth, and rolled her onto her back.
Half choking, Hypatia stared up at him. How could she have allowed her attention to wander while out on the streets by herself? A child would have known better. If only she could go back to the point when she had watched Vesta emerge from Anatolius’ house. She should never have foll
owed her. She would be home now, tending to Peter. She forced herself not to think of it. Whatever happened, she would not plead with her assailant.
“Not going to struggle?” The beggar sounded disappointed. “Perhaps a little encouragement…?” His hands closed around her neck.
Then, as if mad with rage, he screamed.
***
As John started down the Mese on his way home, he told himself he had lingered too long with Anatolius. Talking about current events over a cup of wine, Anatolius had seemed less wary, more himself. Even so, John sensed an unusual undercurrent. Was his old friend trying too hard to appear himself? Did he speak too lightly and at too much length? Did he smile too broadly? Or was it that John was exhausted and overly suspicious?
He would never have registered the familiar sight of a beggar emerging from the side of the Hippodrome and settling down in front of a row of vacant shops if Hypatia had not appeared almost immediately from the same direction.
He increased his pace to catch up with her. He saw the beggar hold out his hand as she passed where he squatted on his rags.
Then John saw the beggar leap to his feet, nimbly, despite the walking stick he’d displayed.
As the assailant dragged Hypatia into a fire-gutted shop, John sprinted toward them.
He heard Hypatia scream.
He increased his pace and dodged around two laborers on their way to work. A ragged woman jumped out of his path and stared incredulously after the tall, lean man racing as if pursued by demons.
Finally he burst into the burnt-out building. It took an instant for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. Then he saw the beggar kneeling over Hypatia, his hands around her neck.
John stepped forward before the beggar realized he was there and reaching around the man’s face dug his fingers into the eye sockets.
The attacked man shrieked. Twisted away. Elbowed John in the stomach. Though he must have been half blinded, he stumbled out onto the Mese and ran, weaving back and forth.
John didn’t bother to pursue him. He helped Hypatia to her feet instead.
“I’m all right, master,” She assured him, brushing ashes off her torn tunic. Her voice quavered.
It was sheer good fortune John had happened to be on hand to save her from assault. He did not like having to rely on fortune.
“I thought I would never see you again, master. I thought they had come to…” Her voice quavered.
“The emperor had a sudden urge to discuss theology,” John replied. Already the night had taken on the quality of half recalled nightmare, a confused jumble of horror and incongruity, in which the incongruities were somehow as terrifying as the obvious threats.
They walked slowly down the Mese. When Hypatia regained her composure she recounted her visit to Anatolius.
John listened with increasing concern and bemusement. That Vesta had gone directly from Anatolius’ house to the palace gardens and then to Antonina’s house suggested the possibility of connections, not only between Vesta and those she had visited, but between Antonina and Anatolius.
In addition, the man who attacked Hypatia had been unusually quick and strong for a beggar.
“Are you certain you weren’t observed by anyone at Antonina’s house?” John asked Hypatia.
“I didn’t see any guards posted outside,” she said.
That she hadn’t noticed any guards didn’t mean no one was watching. Or she could have been followed, even as she was following Vesta. Unaccompanied women were frequently assaulted in the streets. It struck John as strange Hypatia should just happen to be attacked after seeing Vesta visit Antonina. He thought of how Germanus had sent one of his guards to subtly threaten John after being questioned.
Yet he could see no way that Antonina could have ordered such an attack, so quickly, even if someone had spotted Hypatia lingering outside the house.
No, John decided, there had probably been no connection. He was trying so hard to find connections where there were none—to find a link between Theodora’s death and someone at court—that he was beginning to see them where nothing existed.
He left Hypatia at his house.
As much as he would have liked to visit Peter, and have a bite to eat and a rest, he had other business to attend to first.
Chapter Thirty-two
Vesta greeted him at Joannina’s rooms in the womens’ quarters.
She must have left Antonina’s house shortly after Hypatia had turned around and headed back home.
“Lord Chamberlain! I shall fetch my mistress at once.”
“After I speak with you, Vesta. I am told you picked foxglove leaves from the palace gardens and took them to Antonina.”
The attendant looked at him like a frightened child. Again he noted the mousy brown hair, the overly long nose, the protrudent front teeth. John found it hard to imagine Anatolius carrying on an affair with this homely, half-formed adolescent despite the apparent evidence.
“It’s true that I delivered them to Lady Antonina. She uses foxglove in her herbal preparations.”
“What sort of preparations?”
“All kinds. It’s a common ingredient. It’s often used for love potions.” She blushed.
“Your mistress and her mother are estranged. She doesn’t approve of your mistress’ liaison with Anastasius.”
“Oh, excellency. It’s more than an affair. Empress Theodora intended them to marry and they will marry unless—”
“Unless Antonina prevents it. So how is it you are permitted to assist Antonina and go back and forth between the two households?”
“My mistress is trying to mend things between them.”
Not to mention using you to spy on Antonina, John thought.
Vesta bit her lip. “It’s been tiring. So many extra chores. And sometimes it’s been terrifying. I have to be out in the city at night, unattended. Because, you see, the ladies don’t want anyone to know they are availing themselves of Lady Antonina’s services.”
“Services such as love potions?”
“Yes. I suppose that might be it. Lady Antonina never reveals to me what the ladies have ordered.”
John, thinking of Hypatia’s recent observations, accepted the truth of this part at least of Vesta’s statements. “Did Antonina have you take anything to Theodora during her illness?”
Vesta looked distressed. “She gave me packages for the empress. I don’t know what was in them.”
“Did Theodora instruct you to ask Antonina for potions?”
Vesta shook her head. “No. I have delivered notes back and forth.”
“You have been kept busy, Vesta. And in addition to everything else, you continue to seek out legal advice at odd hours?”
Vesta flushed. “Yes.”
“Nothing else? You didn’t deliver potions or packages to Anatolius? Gray heads sometimes need them, although a girl your age might not realize that.”
Vesta’s face reddened further.
John looked around as he heard quiet footsteps.
Joannina appeared in the atrium. “You may go now, Vesta,” she said and then turning to John went on, “I take it you have established my lady-in-waiting has an acceptable reason to be visiting my mother?”
John smothered his irritation as Vesta hastened away.
“I heard part of your conversation, Lord Chamberlain,” Joannina said. “My mother did concoct potions and cosmetics for Theodora at one time or another. After she returned to Constantinople, I believe she resumed the practice. For a very short time. If mother wanted to poison the empress, she had opportunities. But she and Theodora were very close friends.”
Joannina was smiling, but her blue eyes looked as hard as glittering gems. “My mother and I have our differences, but, based on Vesta’s reports, my impression is lately mothe
r’s main interest was persuading the empress to advise Justinian to send more aid to my father. Not in thwarting Theodora concerning my marriage.”
“Indeed,” John replied. He noted Joannina did not bother to protest that her mother was incapable of murder.
Joannina’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Now the empress is no longer able to insist Anastasius marries me, what will happen to us?”
Her air of confidence evaporated. She resembled the young girl she was. A girl who was afraid.
“Is Anastasius here?”
Joannina paused. “No. He’s gone out. Why? Why do you ask?”
“I wish to talk to him. He has an interest in the situation.”
“Yes, the same interest as mine, Lord Chamberlain. But bear in mind he surely wouldn’t have killed his own grandmother, even if she were opposed to us marrying. Her death was a double loss for him. I have no idea where he went and I can’t imagine what he could tell you that would be of any assistance.”
John took his leave. No one was telling him the entire truth. Of that he was certain. But to what extent they were lying, and about what, or what exactly they might not be telling him, he could not fathom.
He needed to take a different approach.
Chapter Thirty-three
Anastasius left his carriage and guards waiting conspicuously outside Artabane’s house and stalked to its door, doing his best to project an air of menace.
A gray-haired servant looked him up and down, projecting an irritating lack of respect, let alone fear. “Your name?”
“Anastasius”
The servant looked unimpressed. “For whom are you calling?”
“Artabanes of course!”
“You are on the wrong side then, sir, please step this way.” The servant inexplicably gestured to the left of a line of black marble running down the middle of the atrium. Anastasius stamped through the door, stepping on the black marble.
“Please, sir.” The servant inclined his head and nodded at the offending foot. “That is enemy territory.”