by Mary Reed
“All girls may indeed love horses, I’m not an authority on the matter. Some, however get into the Hippodrome to watch races, or so I hear.”
Hypatius looked startled. “Not Julianna. She’s a well bred young lady. Related to an emperor, remember. You’re not accusing her of any such thing, are you?”
“Yesterday I saved her from being raped in the Augustaion, Hypatius. Do you have any idea what your daughter was doing out there? An assignation perhaps? You don’t have to worry about her reputation. Anything you tell me will remain private.”
Hypatius’ face was no longer red. He looked as pale as his eggs. “I have no idea why she left this house. I will speak to her severely. She’s a dreamer. An innocent though. Just a child.”
“You don’t trust me, do you? Maybe I am treacherous. Your daughter’s life is at stake, Hypatius. Are you going to cook eggs for Julianna too, or risk having my staff preparing her meals?”
“I…I…No one’s trying to kill Julianna…are they? If she’s in danger it’s because of because of me and Pompeius. We’re the targets. Julianna would be safer back in our house with her mother. Then anyone trying to…to…kill me wouldn’t….”
“If you want to protect Julianna you must tell me what you know.”
Hypatius looked away from John. He pushed the eggs around on his plate, then brought his spoon down on each, too hard, sending pieces of shell flying. “There’s nothing I can tell you. Nothing. I wish there were.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
January 17, 532
Felix opened his eyes a slit but remained otherwise motionless on the stool where he’d spent most of the night. He was sure he had heard a sound.
A footstep?
Grey, pre-dawn darkness filled the hallway leading back to the rooms where Hypatius and his family were staying. Why wasn’t the wall torch burning?
He slid his hand stealthily toward the hilt of his sword. He hadn’t been sleeping, only dozing, he assured himself. It would have been impossible to fall asleep sitting on the three-legged wooden stool.
He remained with his back to the wall, legs extended into the hallway, and strained to see into the darkness. A hazy phantom floated into view and moved slowly down the corridor.
He blinked, trying to clear his vision. Then the figure suddenly darted in his direction.
Felix sprang forward. His arm shot out and his hand fastened around a slender wrist.
Julianna uttered a string of oaths an aristocratic girl should never have had the opportunity to hear, let alone commit to memory.
“At least you have the sense to curse quietly enough not to wake the household,” Felix muttered.
She tried to pull away with more strength than he would have expected for such a slight thing. Felix refused to release his grip. “I’m glad I insisted on taking most of the watches here. I had a feeling you’d try to creep off again.”
“I didn’t intend to do that, Felix. I need to see Antonina. I was about to ask you to accompany me, but you decided to try and break my wrist before I had the chance.”
“That explains why you put the torch out, and that dark cloak you’re wearing.”
“Don’t you want to come with me? You seemed very keen to visit my friend the other day, when I saved you from making a grave mistake.”
Felix took his hand off her arm. “You claim you saved me. I’m trying to return the favor by saving you. Which is to say by making sure you stay safely inside.”
Julianna made a show of rubbing her arm. “Safe? With rioters baying at the palace walls? Nowhere’s safe. Besides, you can guard me as easily walking to the Daphne as here. You do want to see Antonina….”
She was right. Felix had to admit it to himself, although not to the girl. He hadn’t been able to banish Antonina from his thoughts except for when he’d been fighting. She’d been whispering in his ear all night long while he guarded the corridor. “I’m sure Antonina wonders why I haven’t paid my respects.” Felix got to his feet. “You did go out of your way to help me. I’ll come with you, it’s the least I can do.”
He sent the guard in the atrium to take his post. The man gave him and Julianna a curious look as they went out but Felix offered no explanation.
The cold outside made him catch his breath. The rising sun turned ice-filled ruts in the muddy yard outside the stables into an orange embroidery. Ice-glazed marble walkways and frost glistened on grass and shrubbery.
Felix was happy to enter the Daphne Palace, which wasn’t much warmer. The silentiaries hardly glanced at Julianna. They didn’t seem concerned that she’d brought a companion.
“You’re a frequent visitor,” Felix observed.
Julianna nodded and led him along a bewildering series of hallways. He half expected to see the Eros he’d treated so cruelly during his previous visit but no one else was about at this early hour.
By the time they reached the tall double doors at the entrance to Antonina’s quarters, Felix was breathing hard, not the result of exertion but rather in anticipation of seeing Antonina again.
A servant answered their knock.
“Eugenius,” said Julianna, “I have brought a visitor to see Antonina.”
The servant ushered the two into a cramped vestibule where more silentiaries stood shoulder to shoulder with life-sized Greek sculptures. Another set of doors opened onto a warm, humid atrium graced by potted plants.
Felix felt his heart pounding. He glanced around, expecting Antonina to appear. How would she receive him?
He followed Julianna past low hanging palm fronds and into a room filled with cushion-strewn furniture. Frescoed seascapes covered the walls. Three golden cherubs flew above painted waves in an ascending line. Tables and alcoves displayed a welter of enameled boxes, ivory figurines, and elaborate glass vessels.
“Don’t look so surprised, Felix. A lady of the court is bound to accumulate expensive gifts and it’s only polite to display them.”
Felix realized he must have looked as awestruck as a peasant on his first visit to the capital.
The air felt warmer than in the atrium and heavy with unidentifiable scents, a mingling of perfumes, spices, and strange herbs. His breath caught at the sight of Antonina. No, only a small marble statue. He spotted at least two larger than life bronze busts.
Julianna tugged at his hand, leading him deeper into Antonina’s abode, down a short hallway, and then into a room lined with shelves crammed with bottles and stoppered clay pots. A pan steamed on a brazier and dried herbs hung from the ceiling.
Finally, he saw her. She stood at a marble table, working a mortar and pestle. She looked up, pushing a loose strand of hair away from her eyes. Beads of perspiration glistened on her forehead.
“Felix,” she said.
Was she surprised to see him? Happy? Annoyed? To his dismay, her tone conveyed absolutely nothing.
She wore a plain silk tunica, almost immodest. Her pale hair dangled to her shoulders in disarray. He could make out faint wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.
“I needed to see you,” Julianna said. “Felix agreed to accompany me, for safety.”
Antonina put down the pestle. “Very wise. I’ve nearly finished the charm I promised you. Everyone at court wants my services. I’ve already supplied Theodora with the magickal devices she requested, along with several philters.”
“It wouldn’t be necessary if the excubitor’s would fight like men,” Felix said. “Sharp blades are all the charms the emperor needs.”
“Spoken like a soldier,” Antonina replied, without looking at him. “Now, Julianna, if you will go and wait in my reception room, I can complete your charm.“
“Maybe a potion to make the excubitor’s fight is what’s wanted,” Julianna said.
“I’m not sure that’s within my power.”
“I thought we might visit for a time,” Julianna told her.
“Yes. Surely. But you must allow me to finish first.”
She looked directly at Julianna.
Clearly she was avoiding looking at Felix.
“Antonina,” he blurted. “Did I somehow offend you the other night? If so…I…I apologize. I had to see you again.”
Felix realized she was staring straight past him, over his shoulder.
He turned his head.
In the doorway stood a rumpled and sleepy-eyed Belisarius.
Chapter Thirty-Five
At dawn John was walking through the palace gardens. He had been walking for a long time. He had lain in his bed thinking, unable to sleep, and finally decided he would think better on his feet whatever the hour. All the time he walked, a false ruby dawn illuminated the western sky, the glow from countless fires. Now the light from the rising sun had begun to drown out the lurid firelight.
The sun—John’s god, Lord Mithra.
Did Mithra care about the empire upon which he looked? An empire which had chosen a different god?
Shadows lingered beneath covered walkways amidst the trees and shrubbery and on the western sides of the buildings. John saw movement in the shadows. Something red passed through a patch of light then vanished into another shadow.
He narrowed his eyes. The red shape resolved itself into the red robed Persian emissary Bozorgmehr.
Why would he be out on the grounds so early, so far from the Daphne Palace?
Had he also been unable to sleep?
John followed him at a distance. To his surprise Bozorgmehr headed to the remains of the Chalke. Laborers had cleared a path through the rubble, at the same time piling debris so as to form a more or less unbroken wall where the gate had stood. The emissary nodded to the excubitors guarding the way out. They waved him past.
John waited until the man was out on the street before approaching the guards. “Do you know the man who just went by?”
“That was the Persian emissary, Chamberlain. I’m sorry, I can’t remember his name.”
“You have seen him before this morning?”
“Several times. Early mornings and evenings too.”
“He goes out by himself?”
“Always alone, yes.”
The guard’s partner looked down the street after the dwindling red figure. “Peculiar isn’t it? But the Persians are so fierce, I reckon they have no fear of anything they might find in our streets.”
John went after Bozorgmehr. He wondered what the guards said about his own solitary peregrinations.
The emissary walked straight down the Mese, necessarily keeping to the middle of the street since most of the structures had collapsed. John suspected he was going to the Hippodrome. Would Porphyrius be waiting there?
But he moved briskly by the high, arched entrance.
A short distance further on he abruptly swerved to the far side of the street.
John saw he was merely avoiding a group of men in front of a half destroyed tavern. By the look of them, they had managed to save much of the wine. Some staggered about, others sprawled on the street or leaned groggily against a column or a wall. They would be in no shape to engage in whatever kind of mayhem they had planned in their state of grandiose inebriation the night before.
Knots of people loitered quietly. No murderous crowds had formed yet. Even rioters needed to sleep. Later, it would be different. Perhaps that was why the emissary had left the palace so early. Or perhaps it was to avoid detection by anyone except the lowly guards at the gate.
By now the morning sun found its way down the Mese but with rubble and overturned carts everywhere it was a simple task for John to stay out of sight. His quarry did glance back over his shoulder from time to time but John thought that was probably more to insure that none of the ruffians milling around were approaching than any apprehension of being followed.
They came to the Praetorium and John saw that it was still burning. Flames licked above the remaining walls. The first fire must have been brought under control, but now the building was being consumed again. At least the macabre curtain of bodies had been removed from the portico.
Was Bozorgmehr going to the Forum Constantine?
No. Abruptly he veered down a side street.
They had come some distance from the palace, but it made sense for conspirators to meet as far away from the gaze of the emperor as possible.
By some chance the colonnades here remained mostly intact but they edged a continuous line of blackened debris from which charred and jagged beams thrust up like the shattered bones of giants.
Bozorgmehr turned and went under a miraculously preserved archway. It might have been the entrance to the grounds of a patrician’s mansion. In reality it was courtyard ringed by mundane commercial establishments, a candle maker and a perfumer among them.
A nondescript door across the courtyard opened and admitted the red robed figure. There was no sign or plaque to identify what lay beyond.
There was no time to debate what to do. John strode across the courtyard and rapped on the door.
It opened a crack, emitting a gust of almost overpowering perfume. A girl no older than Julianna looked up at John. She wore a gauzey blue garment which might have been sea mist, except that a heavy mist would have hidden her body to some extent. Her lips were stained bright red. Behind her John saw other similarly attired girls moving about a room filled with plush furniture.
He had followed the Persian emissary to a brothel.
***
The enormous silence in the palace reception hall swallowed up the dull thump of John’s boots. He noted that the room was deserted, except for Justinian and Narses huddled in conversation near the raised dais with its double thrones, and Theodora, who stared down from one of them.
Justinian broke off his conversation and turned to face John. “As you can see, this isn’t a public audience. I threw them all out.” His reedy voice sounded too loud. Or was it only that the vast empty space made it seem so? The emperor rarely raised his voice.
“Everyone needed a favor,” the emperor went on. “Lend me a ship, an armed guard, a bag of gold. Two bags of gold. As if I could insure their safety. Find a church, I told them. Pray to the Lord. That’s what your emperor is doing.” Justinian glanced upwards, toward the cross painted on the ceiling.
It was a giant version of the one decorating the chapel at John’s house. He supposed it might bring comfort to a Christian. Though it was nothing but insubstantial gilt, to John it felt more like a sword of Damocles that might come crashing down on his head at any time.
Justinian took a few nervous steps to one side, as if he had the same idea, although he still remained underneath the looming image. The emperor’s gaze darted around the hall.
Theodora’s voice ripped through the silence. “The whole court is nothing but a gang of begging sycophants. No different from the mob outside except they don’t smell as bad.” Even from a short distance John could see her eyes glittering, her pupils hugely dilated.
She was largely correct in her evaluation of Justinian’s courtiers, he thought. Now the air was harsh with smoke from hanging lamps, but there remained a faint memory of perfume, a ghost of the almost choking miasma of scent that filled the place when it was crowded.
“Courtiers and aristocrats carry more concealed blades than any street rabble,” Narses remarked. The bald eunuch looked toward John and pursed his lips as if he dared to spit.
“Narses assures me that this uprising has been carefully planned,” Justinian said, fixing John in his gaze. “Whoever had the faction members at Saint Laurentius killed is behind the unrest. That being so, your investigation is critical. Haven’t you made any further progress?” The emperor’s countenance was bland. Which, John knew, meant nothing, particularly since he detected an uncharacteristic edge to the voice? Anger? Fear?
“I learned nothing new this morning, Caesar. It is nearly impossible to move around the city. There are fires up and down the Mese all the way to the Forum Constantine. I hear the rioters hav
e occupied imperial offices around the city.”
It had been difficult returning to the palace. The people in the streets had become more restless. After following Bozorgmehr to the brothel, he had spent considerable time making certain that the establishment was not, in fact, being used for illicit meetings of a more sinister purpose than it might have appeared. In the process of interviewing the inhabitants of the establishment, he had learned much more than he wished to know about the sexual proclivities of Persian men.
Narses issued a high pitched cackle. “If you are afraid to go out on the streets, John, why don’t you stay inside? I’m sure you can serve the emperor just as well. Like Plato’s cave dwellers you can observe the shadows of the real conspirators outside, cast upon the palace walls by the flames of the burning city. You are clever like that, having been schooled at Plato’s pagan academy.”
“I see you have concerned yourself with my past, Narses.”
“It is prudent to know what beliefs are held by those the emperor chooses to hold close.”
“Quite true,” put in Theodora. “Do you know, I once saw a performer who created shadow plays with puppets. Highly amusing.” She spoke much too quickly, sounding tense.
“There’s plenty of work to do in the palace,” John said. “If there is a plot, it probably reaches into the palace.”
“Straight to those two vipers under your guard,” Justinian replied. “They haven’t said or done anything to rouse suspicion? They’ve had no visitors? Haven’t gone out?”
“No. They have made no attempt to see anyone or to leave. The last thing they want is to leave.”
“How can you be certain what they’ve been up to? You’ve spent most of the past few days out, looking into the murders,” Narses put in.
“Felix and his excubitors report to me.”
“Can you trust them?”
“Indeed, I can. I know Felix personally and can vouch for him.”
Justinian offered a forced smile. “But how observant are they? That foreign visitor of yours was murdered under their noses.”