Nine for the Devil

by Mary Reed

  “John,” Gaius said with a hiccup, “I was hoping to find you in residence. Been waiting a while.” He laid a finger alongside his red nose and winked. “As you have no doubt deducted. Good at that, John, always have been. But you’ll need Mithra’s help this time.”

  “So do you, my friend.”

  Gaius ignored the remark. He peered around the room as if eavesdroppers were concealed behind its sparse furnishings, “At least I have good news about Peter. He’s out of danger. I wish I could say the same thing about myself.”

  John sat down at his desk and raised interrogative eyebrows at the physician.

  Gaius leaned forward and continued in a whisper. “I am not so intoxicated as I appear, John. I can see clearly how Justinian’s madness is growing. I hear the head gardener was arrested this morning. A man who has done nothing but served the empire all his life! The talk is he was heard railing about the empress in a fashion he should not have done, but if people will raise their voices in inns, what can they expect? And he knows his plants. Knows which are poisonous, you see?”

  “If railing about Theodora were the real reason for his arrest half the city would have been arrested by now. Besides, how could he introduce poison into Theodora’s food? He never sets foot in the kitchen.”

  “Could have had an accomplice,” Gaius pointed out.

  “And paid him with what to risk his skin? A lifetime of free cabbages, all the roses he likes? However, I can put your mind at rest. I saw him not an hour ago on the palace grounds hoeing the vegetables and looking the same as ever.”

  Gaius gave a grimace rather than a smile. “Rumor has many heads, cut one off, two grow in its place. You never know when the excubitors will knock at your door, or kick it down, more likely, and you’ll be dragged away. It isn’t so much death I fear…I’ve seen enough of death…but the dungeons. As a physician I am too aware of the body’s capacity to suffer. I have been summoned to keep alive the poor wretches the torturers weren’t yet done with.”

  He gulped down more wine and burst into tears.

  John cast about for a way to divert his friend’s attention from the imagined imminence of death. “It’s always been that way at the palace. This is nothing new. It doesn’t—”

  “No, nothing new, nothing new,” blubbered Gaius. “How many great men have we seen paraded off to be executed? Senators, generals…”

  “Who are you speaking about, Gaius? Exile is much more—”

  “Not even religious vestments can save you from the emperor’s wrath. Remember the heretic Anthimus? I treated him for an abscess. He was patriarch, then suddenly he was gone. Like magic. Vanished, never to be heard of again.”

  “None of us are ever entirely safe, Gaius. But consider. How long have you served the emperor? Why would he turn on you now?”

  Gaius gave no indication of hearing. “You know Menas replaced Anthimus, so naturally Theodora hated Menas even if she never said so. And with this business of the Three Chapters, Menas had reasons to want Theodora out of the way, before she—”

  “You’re not making sense,” John interrupted.

  “You don’t think so? I worked at Samsun’s Hospice when it was headed by Menas. You don’t think they’ll be whispering he employed me to do away with Theodora?”

  “They?”

  “Yes, they. Who is more dangerous at court than they, John? The unidentifiable purveyors of gossip, those who put the wrong words in the wrong ears? They are the scourge of the empire.”

  John decided his friend was intoxicated beyond reason. He changed the subject. “Tell me about Peter. He is over the worst, you say?”

  Gaius wiped his nose with the heel of his hand. “Yes. That is to say barring a relapse. See,” he burst into shrill laughter, “I am covering all eventualities. But I think he will mend. Possibly with a more pronounced limp than before, but he’ll be able to race up and down stairs again soon enough. He attributes his recovery to holy oil. I suppose it was unbelievable to him my own ministrations might have had some benefit.”

  “Peter is a Christian,” John reminded him.

  Gaius snuffled. “If healing were that simple all I’d need to do would be to travel from shrine to shrine collecting souvenirs. Holy water and oil and those blessed coins made from the mud at the bottom of stylites’ columns. Just give those to my patients. The Christian ones, at least.”

  “I am sure Peter appreciates your efforts.”

  “Perhaps. Well, it might be that the oil had an effect, if he believed it did. What if our thoughts affected our humors?”

  John had no opportunity to answer. The conversation was interrupted by rapping at the front door. The sound was not loud, but under the circumstances it might have been a peal of thunder.

  “It’s them!” Gaius cried, his face, aside from the reddened nose, paler than John had ever seen it.

  “I don’t think they would bother to knock so politely.” John went downstairs, not at all confident it wasn’t more trouble for him.

  He hoped it would be news from Cornelia, but the heavy door swung open to reveal Joannina, panting and disheveled.

  “Lord Chamberlain,” she cried, gulping back tears. “Vesta’s been taken away! Please help her!”

  John drew her in and closed the door.

  Gaius had staggered to the top of the stairs. “Don’t worry,” he called up to the physician. “It’s only Joannina.”

  He lead the sobbing girl into the garden, trying to calm her by assuring her he would do what he could once he knew what her visit was about.

  “Vesta, my lady-in-waiting, was just arrested by the excubitors!” Joannina managed to blurt out.

  It was fortunate Gaius was safely upstairs, no doubt with his nose buried in a wine cup again, so he did not hear the statement. John encouraged the girl to continue.

  “We had been out together looking at jewelry and when we returned, there were excubitors waiting for her. They said incriminating herbs had been found in her room, ingredients for poison.”

  Though unable to speak, rooms were more forthcoming than many people, John thought. “How did they know they were poisonous rather than cosmetic?”

  “I don’t know but that’s what they said. And they said Vesta had murdered Theodora.”

  John wondered who had told the excubitors about the herbs.

  “Why would Vesta want to murder the empress?” Joannina was saying. “Anastasius and I, our marriage, the empress wished it. Now she’s gone and my parents can interfere…it may never happen…my lady-in-waiting was devoted to me, why would she try to thwart it? And now she’s in the hands of the imperial torturers and…and…what will happen to her?”

  It was a reasonable question, but not one John was prepared to answer, given Joannina was upset enough without knowing any details of what went on in underground cells.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Justinian was not in the great reception hall or his personal quarters. An assortment of silentiaries, eunuchs, courtiers, and servants sent John here and there and as time passed he couldn’t help imagining what horrors the emperor’s torturers might already be applying to Joannina’s young lady-in-waiting. In his role as Lord Chamberlain, John had been obliged to attend several inquisitions. He had not been able to eat for a long time after any of them.

  John finally found the emperor hunched over a table in the imperial library, surrounded by disordered mounds of codexes and scrolls of a religious nature according to the few titles he could make out. Justinian often spent entire nights poring over religious tomes, assisted by theologians in his employ, trying to come to some understanding of the unknowable or, lately, attempting to forge a compromise between beliefs which by their very nature admitted of no compromise. It was a strange occupation for a man who had just sent a girl to be tortured,

  Justinian looked
up, clearly annoyed. His eyes glittered feverishly. “What is this, Lord Chamberlain? You have broken my chain of thought.”

  “My apologies, excellency. It is a matter of urgency.”

  “It usually is an urgent matter, isn’t it?” Justinian folded over the corner of the illuminated page of his codex and closed the jeweled cover. “We will dispense with the usual amenities for that reason. Proceed.”

  “A lady-in-waiting has been arrested after a search of her room led to the discovery of—”

  “Yes, yes, I have given orders concerning the girl,” Justinian interrupted, fingering his ruby necklace in an absent-minded fashion.

  John realized with a shock the emperor was wearing a piece of Theodora’s jewelry. A cold chill ran up his spine as if a snake was wriggling up his back. With a silent prayer to Mithra for aid, he said, “I believe this is a grievous error, excellency.”

  “Do you expect me to countermand my orders?” Justinian asked. “Much blood has been shed on the matter you are investigating. What is a little more if it leads to the truth? You may speak frankly.”

  “I wish to point out that if the girl dies, we have lost a valuable source of information.”

  Justinian waved his hand. “Consider this beautiful necklace, Lord Chamberlain. Rubies as red as blood, each connected to its neighbor by a fine golden chain. We might draw a comparison between your investigation and the truth. The golden chain of truth, dotted with regrettably bloody incidents, leading finally to the clasp to be undone, the solving of the mystery.” He smiled and fondled the necklace again.

  “Still, I am reluctant to shed innocent blood,” he went on, a statement of such immense hypocrisy John wondered the emperor did not choke on his words, “and on the other hand we must not lose a possible source of information.”

  “Indeed, excellency,” John agreed.

  “Why did they search the room?” Justinian asked.

  “I do not know at present,” John admitted.

  “It is of no importance. What is important, if indeed she poisoned our dear empress, is establishing on whose behalf she was working. The real murderer is whoever hired her, the name of whom my torturers are bound to discover.”

  “I confess I am worried, excellency. A delicate young girl like that might not survive questioning long enough to reveal her employer. The culprit could well be counting on that.”

  Justinian acknowledged it was a possibility.

  John offered another silent prayer to Mithra and continued his persuasive efforts. “Another difficulty is she could say anything, give any name that occurs, and then I would waste time following a false trail, giving the murderer an opportunity to elude justice.”

  “Yes, I see your point, Lord Chamberlain,” Justinian replied. “We must have a proper inquiry You may rescue her, assuming you arrive in time. I will send for you when I wish to have a full account of what you have learned.”

  As John bowed himself out of the library, the emperor opened his codex and bent his head over it. He held the sullen red-gemmed necklace flat against his chest, as if again embracing his dead wife.

  Chapter Forty-four

  John raced down the stone steps leading to the dungeons in a controlled fall and then sprinted along the corridor at their foot. His chest burned with exertion. He had run all the way from the meeting with Justinian.

  It was one thing to die in combat but the death meted out in the crude cells he raced past was quite another matter. Though torturers sometimes withheld death, permanent injury was inflicted quickly.

  A scream sounded nearby, ascending into throat-aching shrillness and then down into loud sobs mixed with entreaties for mercy.

  The air stank of smoke, seared flesh, blood, and less savory odors.

  John suppressed a gag.

  Turning a corner he saw firelight reflected on wet stones from the open door of the nearest cell.

  He hoped the wetness was water.

  The scene that met him as he stepped into the cell was much as expected. Vesta lay on the floor weeping raggedly, her clothes torn. A broad-shouldered man bent over her, boot poised to deliver another kick to the girl’s side.

  “Stop!” John commanded as he crossed the threshold.

  The man looked up, his thick lips curling. “Just softening the captive up a little. You can’t expect results immediately with some of these women, Lord Chamberlain.”

  “You haven’t begun questioning the girl?”

  “No, you’re just in time. I’ve been showing her the hot irons, the knives, and my other pretty toys.” The torturer leered in the direction of a brazier and a cluttered table occupying one wall. “So I haven’t got around to business. I was waiting for my assistants to arrive so the fun can begin.”

  Vesta had taken advantage of the conversation to crawl to John and cling to his boots.

  “She’s not that much of a pretty young thing,” the torturer observed, “but men will be men, and I find that afterwards, criminals don’t care much any more what they reveal. If you’d care to join—or—uh—watch—”

  “Silence! Justinian’s orders are she’s to be released.”

  The other looked both surprised and disappointed. “But the irons are just starting to glow! We haven’t got started yet!”

  “No matter. I am taking charge of her.”

  The man cursed. “Well, since you are Lord Chamberlain and I am not, I suppose I must agree to it,” he sneered. “Perhaps you wouldn’t get any pleasure from watching anyhow.”

  John fixed him with a level stare. He could have the impertinent man subjected to his own toys if he wished it. John said nothing but perhaps the would-be torturer suddenly realized the possibility, because his features turned to stone and he looked away quickly.

  John pulled Vesta to her feet and helped her into the corridor.

  She was trembling convulsively and clung to him as a child would.

  They laboriously climbed the stairs and crossed the palace grounds.

  ***

  Hypatia and Joannina greeted them anxiously at John’s house.

  John let the women take the girl away to an unused bedroom while he got himself a cup of wine. He gulped it down and refilled his cup.

  By the time he rejoined the three women, Vesta was wearing one of Hypatia’s garments, which fitted the slim young woman almost perfectly.

  As she thanked him profusely and incoherently his gaze fell on the purpling finger marks on her arms.

  “She’s only bruised, master,” Hypatia said. “You were in time.”

  John nodded. He hoped the girl’s mental bruises were no deeper than her physical marks. He remembered only too well the feeling of horrific helplessness she had experienced, that he himself had experienced so long ago.

  He asked the other two women to leave him alone with Vesta.

  When they had he said, “I am sorry to have to ask you questions, Vesta, but the sooner I have answers the better. What are these herbs that were found in your room?”

  “I know nothing about them,” Vesta’s voice quavered. “I am learning how to make salves, perfumes, and cosmetic preparations for my mistress and the ladies of the court. As I told you before, Lady Antonina is instructing me in the work. Please, I’m telling the truth. Don’t send me back.”

  John had an urge to pat the girl’s arm comfortingly, but refrained. “I won’t,” he assured her instead.

  He had been informed the herbs were of the sort used in poisons. Was it possible she had been betrayed by someone at court? No one except those on the palace grounds could have had access to her room or even know where it was located.

  The simplest explanation was that she was lying.

  “You were denounced anonymously, Vesta. I gather the prefect was informed incriminating items could be found in your room. D
o you have any idea who might have done that?”

  Vesta narrowed her reddened eyes as she pondered the question. “No. No, Lord Chamberlain. Who could hate me so? And why would anyone suspect me?”

  “You attended Theodora during her last days,” John pointed out.

  “Oh, but it was Kuria who was her personal attendant. I was simply helping her. Kuria was with her so much more than I.”

  “Are you accusing Kuria of poisoning the empress?”

  Vesta’s eyes widened. “No. But it just occurred to me…”

  “What occurred to you?”

  “Oh…I…what I said. That Kuria spent more time with her. Please, Lord Chamberlain. Don’t question me any further. Who am I? Barely more than a servant. I can’t afford to have enemies in high places.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  The girl seemed to panic. Her eyes widened and she started to leap up but toppled backwards. John caught her before she fell to the floor and eased the unconscious girl onto the bed.

  At least she appeared to be unconscious and after her recent experience it would be understandable.

  John didn’t want to suspect Vesta, but he knew he had no choice.

  Chapter Forty-five

  Night pressed its dark veil against the windows of John’s study.

  By this time the house was usually quiet but tonight he could hear footfalls upstairs as Hypatia bustled about caring for Peter.

  John had looked in on the servant and listened respectfully to the old man’s encomiums to his Christian god and the miracle he had wrought. John could see the attraction of believing the most dire of problems could be solved with a dab of Egyptian lamp oil, that the world was overseen by a loving omnipotent being who was willing to assist His followers if correctly petitioned.

  His own god, Mithra, was a general who sent his men into a battle against the the forces of darkness, a battle in which they depended entirely on themselves.