Nine for the Devil

by Mary Reed

  When it began to get light outside, John was happy to flee his bed, despite feeling more tired than when he lay down. As he went along the hall it came to him that Cornelia had appeared in some of the nightmares.

  Surely today she would send word? If not, he would have to…what? If it were not for his investigation he would have ridden immediately to Zeno’s estate, but Justinian would not take kindly to his Lord Chamberlain deserting his duties.

  “How is Peter?” John asked Hypatia as she served him his usual boiled eggs.

  “Almost his old self, master. He’s still asleep this morning.”

  “I told you he was a tough old boot,” John said. His nightmares had left a black film over his thoughts, like residue from smoke. Perhaps that explained why he couldn’t help thinking how the ill and aged so often rallied a day or so before they died. It was almost as if they knew the end was near and summoned up their final resources to take one last clear look at the world from which they were about to depart.

  He chided himself for entertaining such gloomy ideas. Might the thought give rise to the reality? Then he chided himself even more harshly for entertaining a superstition.

  John took a bite from a boiled egg. It wasn’t cooked enough. He preferred his eggs what most would consider overcooked. Peter knew that. He wondered, had Theodora rallied, given Justinian a glimmer of false hope before the end? There was no knowing, not that it mattered.

  Poison, unlike illness, would never grant the dying person one final day to say farewell.

  He took a gulp of water to wash down the egg. “Hypatia, you said Vesta picked foxglove leaves and took them to Antonina. Would they have some use other than in making poison? In love potions, for example?”

  “Recipes for potions tend to contain a little bit of everything you can imagine,” she said, refilling his water cup from an earthenware jug. “I don’t know how they work, or whether they would still be effective if you leave anything out.”

  “You knew Vesta by sight. Did you ever speak with her?”

  “A few times. Once, while I was working in an herb bed, she stopped and asked what could be used as a painkiller for a woman’s complaint. Everybody at court asks me questions. I must be interrupted six times a day. I sometimes think I supply more medical advice than Gaius.”

  John realized he did not know what herbs had been discovered in Vesta’s room. He had never taken a great interest in plants. They were stalks with leaves. “There are many herb beds in the palace grounds and all are available to anyone with access to the gardens,” he mused.

  “Yes, master. Also Gaius has a garden of medicinal plants for his own use but someone could easily steal from it. There are herbs in the garden inside Theodora’s quarters too, but you can only get into it from the imperial quarters.”

  “Is there anything unusual growing there?”

  “I don’t think so. I wasn’t called on to tend it very often.”

  John hadn’t expected Hypatia to know much of use although he had hoped she would.

  The last few days had worn him out. He would have been pleased to learn what he needed to know by staying at home.

  Unfortunately that was not possible.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  As John walked to Joannina’s rooms his breakfast sat at the bottom of his stomach like a stone thrown into the Marmara.

  The young woman greeted him grimly. “Please try not to upset Vesta further, Lord Chamberlain. She’s devastated at being accused of murder.”

  “Is her room in your quarters?”

  “Anastasius’ and mine, you mean. No, she lives in the wing with the other ladies-in-waiting. They aren’t simply servants. Their accommodations are appropriate to their status.” Her bright blue eyes widened in alarm. “Why, if Vesta did live here someone would have had to creep secretly through my rooms to hide those herbs they found in hers. I don’t like to think about that.”

  “Would it have been easier to enter a particular room in the wing the ladies-in-waiting occupy?”

  “Relatively. One would still need access to the empress’ section of the palace.” She paused. “Excubitors would be able to march straight in and place incriminating evidence there.”

  John asked her why she had suggested such a possibility.

  Joannina shook her head and a strand of pale hair fell across her eyes. She brushed it aside. “To find a scapegoat to satisfy the emperor. Then too, it might suit you, Lord Chamberlain, if there was a murderer you could point out.”

  “If I were responsible for those herbs, Vesta would have been left with the torturers.”

  “Then perhaps it was someone who wished to distress me. I am fonder of Vesta than I should be.”

  “I understand that Vesta idolizes you. She considers you and Anastasius the ideal romantic couple.”

  Joannina’s eyes flashed. “Let me assure you she would not commit murder for me. Besides, Theodora’s death was the last thing I wanted. The empress championed my marriage to Anastasius. Now my mother will have free rein to put a halt to it. Vesta knows that.”

  John wondered if Vesta might perhaps fantasize that she might take Joannina’s place in the handsome Anastasius’ affections if his marriage to Joannina was foiled.

  Young people were prone to foolish ideas, John thought, as Joannina led him to the interior garden. It was as if by a certain age people were physically adults but had not managed to free themselves entirely from the phantasmal world of childhood. Outrageous actions might appear perfectly sensible. Then again, it was just as well young people did not yet see reality clearly. If they saw the world as it was they would never dare venture out into it but rather stay in bed with the covers pulled over their heads.

  Vesta, looking very much like a child cowering beneath the covers, sat on the bench shaded by the awning beneath which he’d first spoken with her. She had twisted her thin legs around each other and wrapped her arms around herself.

  She managed to untangle her limbs, none too gracefully, as John sat down.

  “I—I want to thank you, Lord Chamberlain.” She gave him a fleeting smile. revealing a chip missing from the corner of one of her prominent front teeth. John did not inquire whether the injury had been deliberately inflicted or occurred by accident during her rough handling. Aside from that, and a few bruises on her face, she looked well enough.

  “I don’t know anything about the herbs they claim to have found in my room,” she told John, in response to his next query. “I don’t even know what they were, excellency.”

  “You sometimes delivered herbs to Antonina. You were not storing any in your room to take to her on your next visit?”

  “No, Lord Chamberlain.”

  “Antonina did not ask you to keep certain herbs in your room?”

  Vesta shook her head. Her prominent chin might have been characterized as strong, but at present it was trembling. “No, no, I never saw those herbs, excellency. I was working here all day and when I returned to my room I was arrested. They never even showed me the herbs. I don’t believe there were any!”

  John did not mention that despite her being released she was still considered the main suspect by the City Prefect.

  “Herbs can be found in shops and homes all over the city. A bunch of stalks and leaves is not the same as a bottle of poison,” Vesta said. “Do you think they will leave me alone now, Lord Chamberlain? I could hardly sleep last night. I kept expecting footsteps outside my door. It’s a terrible feeling to enter your home and find strangers lying in wait for you.”

  John gazed out into the brilliant sunlight illuminating the garden beyond the soft, light shade beneath the awning. “You told me you visited Antonina with your mistress’ knowledge, that Joannina hoped to reconcile with her mother and thought your assisting Antonina might help.”

  Vesta nodded.
<
br />   “Did your mistress ever send you with a message for her mother?”

  “She did. She asked Lady Antonina to make a healing potion for the empress. Lady Antonina replied that since Theodora was a close friend, she was already doing so. And she was. Theodora was sending me to see Lady Antonina for that very reason, as I must have told you already.”

  In fact, John recalled her telling him that Theodora had given her notes, that she had not known what they said, or what the packages she had brought back for Theodora contained. Had she been lying to protect herself or simply confused? If Theodora had been trusting enough to take Antonina’s potions, Antonina could have easily poisoned her to save Joannina from marriage, if thwarting the marriage was indeed her overriding desire.

  “Did you notice if any potions Antonina sent had any effect on Theodora?”

  The girl’s eyes flashed with anger and for an instant she truly resembled her mistress. “They made her worse, excellency. She would sleep for a short while. When she woke the pain was greater than ever.”

  “Is that why you pretended to be unsure about whether Antonina had sent potions? Why you told me you didn’t know what was in the packages you delivered? Were you afraid the potions had been poisoned? That you had had an unwitting hand in it?”

  “No! Not at all! When I said the pain was greater, I meant it seemed greater. The empress expected relief and none came. Nothing she took seemed to give her any real relief. The only thing that helped was when she prayed with the clergyman who visited late in the evenings. She looked more at peace after the visits.”

  “Who was this clergyman?”

  Vesta bit her lip, looked away, then looked back. “Oh please, Lord Chamberlain. I don’t think I am allowed to say. I believe the visits were supposed to be secret, and I don’t like to tell the secrets of the dead.”

  “Why do you think they were supposed to be a secret?”

  “Because he…the clergyman…wore a baggy robe with a hood pulled forward so you could hardly see his face.”

  “It wasn’t Patriarch Menas?”

  “No, from what I could see, his build, his height, I could tell it wasn’t the patriarch.”

  “Did you recognize who it was?”

  The girl looked at him pleadingly.

  “Vesta, I am certain the empress would approve of you telling me if it helps me find her murderer.”

  The girl looked worried. “Excellency, it won’t help you find her murderer.”

  John asked her why.

  “Because…because…the pope would hardly have murdered Theodora.”

  John did his best to betray no sign of emotion. He prided himself on being unflappable, but this was a surprise. “Why do you say the visitor was Vigilius if you couldn’t see his face?”

  Vesta nodded almost imperceptibly. “Once, when the empress was speaking, when I happened to go past the door…I wasn’t eavesdropping…she…she said something to him like ‘as head of the church’ and it shocked me, because I knew it wasn’t Menas so who else could she have addressed that way, except for the pope?”

  Chapter Forty-nine

  “You couldn’t seriously suspect me of murdering the empress.” Vigilius’ prim mouth tightened. John was not certain if the short, white-bearded man was frowning or trying to suppress amusement. “I occupy the throne of Saint Peter. I am God’s representative on earth. What did you imagine, that I’d presented Theodora a copy of the scriptures with poisoned pages?”

  The two men were walking through the inner courtyard of the Hormisdas Palace, the refuge for Theodora’s collection of religious heretics.

  When John arrived at the Hormisdas, a scarred flagellant had pointed his bloody lash in the direction of Vigilius’ rooms. On his way, John had encountered Vigilius in a corridor.

  They went into the courtyard to talk. The air there was slightly less malodorous than that inside the building. The stench created by hundreds of holy men, many intent on humiliating the flesh, in many cases by not washing it, was almost enough to choke John. It reminded him of the smell of a battlefield two days after the fighting ended.

  “I do not believe you gave the empress poison,” John told Vigilius, not adding that in his experience the rich and powerful did not dirty their own hands.

  “As I have explained, I did not visit Theodora. Why would she want to see me? She is responsible for having me detained in the city. She is the one who ordered me to stay in the Hormisdas Palace, this wretched tenement. The empress thought I betrayed her. I had more to fear from Theodora than she had to fear from me.”

  The Hormisdas Palace had been home to Justinian and Theodora before the former acceded to the throne. Now it was hardly a fit abode for anyone. Over the years Theodora had given sanctuary there to the persecuted of her religious persuasion. Monophysites, who would otherwise have been exiled to the far corners of the empire or executed outright, had been granted safety there, bishops and holy beggars alike, clerics who had lived in palatial mansions and zealots who had occupied columns in all weather. The place was filled to bursting and still they came to sanctuary, like cats who knew where to find discarded scraps, thought John, noticing a dark, feline shape slinking through the weeds.

  “You have a much better chance of being allowed to return to Rome with Theodora gone,” he told Vigilius. “It is a motive, and when I learned you had been a visitor to her sickroom, I could not ignore the information.”

  “So-called information surely, Lord Chamberlain?”

  “It appears Vesta was deceived. Who might the empress request provide spiritual comfort?”

  “Menas springs to mind,” Vigilius observed.

  The courtyard was an overgrown wilderness. Bronze emperors and marble philosophers lay entangled in vines and rank brush, the pedestals upon which they had stood occupied now by ragged stylites whom, John supposed, remained continuously on their low perches just as they had remained for years atop their tall columns. An enormously fat man resembling a huge toad had taken up residence in the dry basin of a crumbling fountain.

  “Menas visited her only a few times,” John said. “The empress and he reconciled over the years, to an extent, for political purposes. He displaced her hand-picked favorite Anthimus in the patriarch’s palace but not in her affections. Although that was years ago.”

  “Twelve years ago, but the empress never forgets a grudge.”

  It was true enough, but John said nothing.

  Justinian almost never called upon John for advice regarding religious disputes. Perhaps, as more than one person had warned and John had long suspected, the emperor realized that his Lord Chamberlain was a pagan and his views on religion therefore untrustworthy. For his part John was happy to avoid delving into the endless squabbling to which Christians were prone. When he needed to deal with such squabbles as a member of the consistory his approach was to treat them as he would treat any other political disagreement. In the end it was always a question of personalities, power, position, and wealth. That holy men might sincerely be battling to gain theological ground, to enhance the value of their particular beliefs and further their power to impress those beliefs on others, struck John as largely irrelevant.

  That was why, when Vigilius began to hold forth on the contentious points of the Three Chapters dispute, John began to excuse himself.

  A monstrous ululation interrupted him. It might have been the cry of a holy hermit confronted by the devil himself, but the yowling and hissing that followed identified it as the sound of a furious cat.

  There was a scrabbling in the undergrowth and then a small, tan-colored cat burst into view, raced straight over John’s boots, and vanished under an ornamental thorn bush. A much larger black feline limped in pursuit.

  Vigilius chuckled. “Cyril and Nestorius are at it again. For the most part they are friends. After all, they are both cat
s. But Nestorius will insist on biting Cyril’s injured leg, and finally when Cyril has had all he can endure, well…”

  “Strange names for cats,” John remarked.

  “I’m not sure what wit named them. You will recall the Council of Ephesus supported the teachings of Cyril and anathematized Nestorianism, so since these two are forever fighting in the garden, naturally, we are reminded of—”

  “Yes, naturally,” John cut in. “I am amazed at the humor of holy men. But I can’t detain you any further.”

  He departed in haste.

  It had been a short visit.

  Then again how long would one expect it to take to clear a pope of murder?

  Chapter Fifty

  The stench of the Hormisdas had not faded from John’s nostrils before he began to wonder if he had been too hasty in accepting Vigilius’ insistence he had not been the hooded man seen by Vesta.

  Or had John been too hasty in accepting the accused girl’s word she had seen a hooded stranger in the first place?

  The odor of the Hormisdas clung to his clothing like smoke. He would have to change.

  He usually gave a wide berth to the columns occupied by stylites dotted around the city. When he thought of the religion of the Christians he smelled incense and neglected, unwashed bodies. Mithraism by contrast brought to mind the coppery odor of blood spilled by the sacrificial bull, the smell of raging battle.

  He did not understand the attraction of Christianity.

  As he neared his house he saw a well-dressed stranger approaching its doorway.

  Had a message finally come from Cornelia?

  There was no horse to be seen.

  The messenger might have stabled his steed.