by Mary Reed
Felix nodded. “In fact, I was coming to tell you I think whoever gives you instructions ought to know about the danger. At the very least we ought to get paid more for handling them. Don’t you agree?”
“The man who gives me instructions?” The other looked puzzled.
“Yes, that man.”
“Oh, him? Yes, yes, I think you’re right. I’ll certainly tell him.”
Felix doubted it. He had deliberately thrown the Jingler into confusion and fear with his pretense of seeing a demon. His puzzled look at the mention of his supposed superior, followed by his awkward recovery confirmed Felix’s guess was right and the Jingler actually knew more than he was telling. That and the fact that the Jingler had inadvertently admitted he knew very well what was in the packages he handled—holy items—despite his earlier denials.
“Who was supposed to receive the shroud of the Virgin, Julian?”
“You can’t imagine I had anything to do with that theft?”
“Can’t I? I might not have had read much philosophy or poetry but you’d be surprised what I can imagine. I only wish I could imagine the dead courier in my courtyard away. Who was the courier? You gave him packages to deliver.”
“And you received the packages. I didn’t know more about him than you do.”
“Your…superior must know.”
“Yes. I suspect he does. He communicates with me anonymously.”
“So unfortunately you can’t give me his name.” Felix noticed that Julian’s jingling had ceased indicating the man had, unfortunately, got his wits about him again. Or as near as he could ever get to having his wits about him.
“I’d like to get to the bottom of this as much as you would.”
“Why? Has Porphyrius threatened to hang you too if you don’t produce the missing relic?”
The Jingler began to rattle loudly again. “Hardly.”
“Then why are you shaking?”
“Just the idea…”
“Is he your superior?” The idea had suddenly struck Felix.
“How would I even know?”
“Perhaps he supplies manpower. His Blues work to enforce his wishes.”
“In the same way you supply excubitors for transport? As for my superior…I can’t say who else he employs.”
Felix was at a loss how to question the man. The possibilities were endless. Felix wasn’t John. How could he know what line of questioning to follow? It would help if he wasn’t so woozy and his legs didn’t feel weak. He wondered, had it been prudent to question the Jingler about Porphyrius?
“I don’t know what I was thinking.” The Jingler was examining the hand which had touched Felix, turning it this way and that in the sunlight.
“Never mind, you didn’t hurt me,” Felix growled, totally perplexed. “Except for that sharp amulet.” He showed the Jingler a bloody palm.
The Jingler shuddered with a faint ringing.
There was no point in continuing the questioning. Felix’s head was spinning. He’d make his humors as unbalanced as Julian’s.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Perhaps Felix had lost his wits. As he neared his house, the sinking sun lengthening the shadows of columns and statues and passersby, pulling them taut, made him think of hangmen’s ropes.
“Anastasia,” he called, striding across the atrium. There was no answer. Had she returned to Antonina for more medical advice? What did she have to do with Antonina, anyway?
He sat down in his study and pulled off his boots. Not that he could give his feet a long rest. Much as he would have liked to linger while Anastasia applied hot poultices to his aching limbs he didn’t have time.
“Nikomachos! Wine!”
Had he convinced Porphyrius or the Jingler that he did not possess the relic? Or had they in turn convinced whoever was in charge of the smugglers, if indeed it was a party unknown to Felix? Perhaps after all one of his informants would remember he had seen something useful, or Porphyrius or the Jingler would decide their best course would be to discuss matters further.
His servant did not appear promptly. It was not unusual. Felix got up and inspecting the jugs sitting here and there found one still partly filled and poured himself a cup. He decided to visit the nearest excubitor barracks. Despite his misgivings he would bring a contingent to the house and if Porphyrius did send men to carry out his threats Felix would have them arrested, pursuant to the investigation Justinian had ordered. As he’d explained to Anastasia, the consequences to his reputation when people began to talk to protect their own skins would be devastating, but what else could he do? Better his reputation than his neck.
Assuming his neck was spared.
His hand went to his neck, finding only the sore spot where Anastasia had nibbled.
He looked at the wine cup. Suddenly he was dizzy. Were the wine and potions he’d taken warring or was it the lingering effects of kicks to his head? He pushed the cup away and shouted for his servant again and at last heard a footstep at the doorway.
Turning he growled his displeasure. “About time. You do at least have two legs, if you’d choose to use them!”
“True enough, captain.” The speaker was a short, bent, almost dwarfish man, as bald as a vulture. His plain looks were emphasized by their contrast to the sumptuously embroidered silk garments he wore.
“Narses!” Felix stared at his visitor. From the atrium came the clatter of boots and raised voices. Armed men appeared in the doorway beside Justinian’s trusted official. By rank Narses served as imperial treasurer but in practice, as had been the case with John, he carried out whatever duties the emperor ordered.
“I bring you greetings from the emperor,” Narses went on in a reedy voice.
Despite the wine, Felix’s mouth had gone dry. “He wishes a report of my investigation so far?” he managed to say, trying to feign a hope he did not really feel. “I regret I have not yet discovered much of assistance, and—”
Narses made an impatient gesture. “You will be able to report personally to Justinian on your way to the dungeons, although not as captain of the excubitors. You are relieved of your command. Guards!”
Two men stepped forward and yanked Felix to his feet.
“On what grounds?” Felix demanded with a scowl.
“You question imperial orders?” Narses snapped.
“There is always the possibility of misunderstanding.” Felix contemplated the distance between himself and the door and wondered if surprise might give him a small chance of escape. Was it worth the wager? The palace dungeons were escaped as frequently as the grave.
His captors evidently sensed his thoughts or noticed the direction in which his gaze had flickered. He felt strong fingers dig more tightly into his bruised arms.
Two more guards entered the study. There were others nearby. Felix could hear voices and the slap of boots on tiles. They were probably searching the house. Luckily, this time, there was nothing to find.
Narses smirked up at him. “Hardly a misunderstanding, Felix. You see, the courier you murdered was not a complete fool. He left a note saying where he was going and when he didn’t return his wife sent a servant to inform me. It’s well known I do like to keep a keen watch on court matters.”
More like watching for the next fly to blunder into a web of intrigue so you can benefit in some way, Felix thought. Narses was so close he could smell the cloying perfumes with which the eunuch official drenched his heavy robes. The years had not wrinkled his face like that of a natural man but rather seemed to have worn it as smooth as the face of an ancient sculpture.
“If you believe every schemer who tries to bring down his enemies with lies you must be very busy, Narses. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“No? It was another big, bearded fellow who deposited a naked corpse behind a statue of Aphrodite?”
&nbs
p; “What are you talking about? What statue is this?”
“We have a witness. The streets are full of witnesses. No crime goes unglimpsed.”
“You mean beggars will gladly agree to see anything you want them to see to avoid a beating.”
Narses chuckled. His vulturine head bobbed up and down as if he were feeding on a carcass. “The wife of the victim, and I am sure I do not need to name him for you, identified his body. You had stripped the man but the corpses one finds on the street are rarely well fed, healthy, and clean, so the connection was made immediately.”
“What connection? What makes you think he was here? The Blues have been allowed to roam the city like hungry dogs. No doubt they robbed the fellow and disposed of his body.”
An visibly excited guard came trotting into the study and handed Narses a short jeweled cloak. “Found it in a servant’s room, excellency.”
“Ah!” Narse’s thin, colorless lips curved into an imitation of a smile. “Yes. His wife said he was wearing a cloak exactly like this one.” He held it out for Felix’s inspection. “Familiar? Isn’t this what your visitor had on when you killed him?”
Felix stared dumbly at the cloak. He remembered the dead courier, crumpled against the courtyard wall. An aristocrat obviously, judging by the richly embroidered robes. But a jeweled cloak? “No. It’s a lie. He wasn’t wearing—I mean —”
“Ah, you did see him then. So you admit your guilt?”
Felix said nothing. He could make no sense of it.
Narses signaled the guards and they yanked Felix in the direction of the door.
“Wait! You’re not going to drag me off with bare feet, are you? If I have to die, let me die like a soldier with my boots on.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Felix fumbled with his boots. He hadn’t had such a difficult time getting them on since he’d learned to dress himself as a child, but then he wasn’t in a hurry to begin his long march to the dungeons. He had sent enough miscreants there to have wondered what it must be like to make that last walk through the city, seeing the sky for the final time, hearing a burst of laughter from a tavern, catching the rich odors of fruits and spices and the tang of the sea, before descending into the dim, dank, stinking underworld beneath the palace, never to emerge.
“Be quick about it!” Narse’s voice was the bark of a small, bad-tempered dog.
Felix rose. And saw Anastasia appear in the doorway behind the guards. She carried a metal bucket gingerly, almost at arm’s length.
Noticing Felix gaping over their shoulders, Narses and his men began to turn.
Anastasia swung the bucket.
Felix understood what was happening an instant before his visitors.
They roared with pain and shock as a torrent of glowing coals from the kitchen brazier pelted them.
Felix dodged to the side and was out the door and racing down the hall while they cursed and slapped at their hair and the smoldering spots on their clothes.
He realized he was abandoning Anastasia. But what could he do? He had taken off his sword when he arrived home. He was unarmed. Clearly she had wanted him to escape.
The guard left at the back gate must have left his post when he heard the commotion. Running across the courtyard he looked startled to see Felix barrel out of the house. He barked out a warning and raised his sword, and looked even more startled when Felix rushed forward and bulled into him, knocking him to the ground.
Then Felix was out the gate. He ran down the alley behind his house until he reached the street. On the far side lay the passage which had been too narrow to admit a donkey cart bearing a corpse. For a man fleeing on foot it offered a dim, inviting refuge. Once into the noisome maw, Felix risked pausing to peer down the street. Guards had emerged from the house and were shouting at a couple of passersby who were going through the usual ritual of shaking their heads and averring they had seen nothing. Nothing at all. Less than nothing if you insist on pressing the point.
Unfortunately, a cadaverous ragged man lounging against a nearby wall eating a piece of bread was apparently less learned in city ways or else hoping for a reward.
The man nodded and pointed a skeletal finger, akin to the finger of Death, directly at the alley’s mouth.
Felix whirled around and fled. He splashed through puddles of green-scummed water and leapt over piles of refuse whose foul smell suggested much worse then rotting vegetables. Coming to a cross alley, he glanced up and down before veering left and increasing his pace.
The pounding of his footsteps drowned out any noise of pursuit but he was certain the guards could not be far behind.
He wondered what would happen to Anastasia.
Had she been able to escape in the confusion or was she even now being dragged to the palace to face…?
He didn’t want to think about it.
Emerging in a street of shops, he sprinted across and down another narrow passage. The door of a tenement stood open, showing twilight at the end of a filthy hall. Ducking into the building, he ran through it and came out in a square, little more than a rectangular space of packed dirt somehow overlooked by centuries of builders.
Pausing to catch his breath, he listened for his pursuers.
And heard running footsteps echoing in the hallway he had just left.
He spun on his heel, dashed across the square, went around a corner, leapt down a flight of slippery stairs.
He zig-zagged through back streets and shadowy alleys until, at last, his panic faded and he realized night had filled all the narrow ways in a sheltering darkness as deep as the depths of the sea and he was alone, except for rats rustling through the middens piled against brick walls.
With a shock he saw that Fate had led him to the very place he feared. He was several pools of shadow and one torch-illuminated space away from the gate to the Great Palace.
But, he thought, that would be the last place anyone would search for him.
Had Narses put the excubitors at the gate on alert? Why would he?
Was it worth another wager?
“Mithra help me,” Felix muttered. Then for good measure he briefly touched the cross hanging from the chain around his neck. He’d gambled himself into this predicament and the only stake he had left was his life, for which no reasonable man would give a copper coin for at the moment.
He walked through the shadows and the patch of light.
Narses and the emperor might have known that he was a condemned man, but to the guards who lowered their lances respectfully he was, for a while yet, still captain of the excubitors.
Unless they had been ordered to let him into the palace.
Could it be a trap?
There were no signs of one as he forced himself to saunter slowly across the palace grounds, more worried about Anastasia than himself. Eluding capture had given him renewed hope. He could leave the city, could follow John to Greece for that matter. Admittedly the long imperial arm could still reach out for him but it would be a shrewd move to retreat, go to ground, and see what happened.
For Anastasia flight would be next to impossible.
Why had she chosen to sacrifice herself for him? Certainly he had enjoyed being with her. Well, he had been obsessed with her. And she, apparently, with him. But did she think that meant…well, what did it mean?
His feet led him unthinkingly to the cobbled square where John’s house sat across from the excubitor barracks. Felix couldn’t risk showing himself to his men. Even if they didn’t realize he was a fugitive, what could he do? What would he say? “Good evening, men. Justinian has accused me of murder so let’s go and depose him. All hail, Emperor Felix!”
John’s house appeared to be unguarded. With its owner gone, naturally no lights showed in the windows, which began on its second story.
Felix remembered the key John had given him.
> The key sitting in the study of his house, he realized when he reached the ponderous nail studded door.
He pushed anyway and to his amazement the door groaned open.
It was obvious why whoever had been there last had neglected to secure the door. There was nothing in the unlocked house worth stealing. John had told Felix to take whatever he wanted before the emperor did. He was too late. The emperor, presumably, had taken everything. The place had been stripped bare. The atrium was a stygian cave. The faint, ambient illumination of the city night filtering down through the rectangular opening in the ceiling glimmered on the water in the impluvium.
Felix climbed the wooden stairs. Their creaking echoed through the empty shell of the house, the cries of ghostly voices. How often he had trodden those stairs before! Perhaps the emperor’s men—for surely it was Justinian who had ordered everything be taken away—had left a bed. If not John’s then Peter’s in the servant’s room on the third floor.
Felix was feeling the results of his exertions. If necessary, he would lie on the boards and try to get some rest, plan his next move.
Passing the kitchen where John had eaten his meals at a scarred wooden table not fit for the lowest inn, he could see the lights of Constantinople through the many-paned window. It was as if the great flaming mosaic of the starry sky had come loose and settled down over the earth.
He paused at the study where he had so often shared a jug of wine with his friend.
On impulse he went in. Dim light entered from the window overlooking the cobbled square which, Felix was relieved to see, remained deserted.
No furniture had been left but on one wall the mosaic with its rustic scene glinted. Felix hoped that John and his family were going to a countryside in reality as peaceful as that depicted in the pieces of cut glass. The scene had not changed…except…
Felix stepped toward the wall and knelt down.
There was shown in the lower part of the scene a young girl. John had called her Zoe and had been in the habit of confiding secrets to her that he would not share with many who were flesh and blood.