The Mammoth Book of Classical Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  ‘I fear that when the dawn arrives, Theodore will not be persuaded from calling the prefects,’ John commented, as much to himself as to Anatolius. ‘And who knows where they will point.’

  ‘Why? Some new edict of the Emperor?’

  ‘No. People are more reasonable in the daylight.’

  ‘You have twelve hours then.’

  ‘If only they were the longer hours of a winter night.’

  ‘Do you really think fingers will be pointed at Hypatia?’

  ‘I can’t say.’ John did not voice his conclusion, which was that Hypatia, an herbalist and a foreigner, newly arrived in the city, would be the obvious suspect if not presumed automatically to be the culprit. Nor did he tell his young friend that she might well be responsible. If that were so, he would have to prove it beyond question. As if even an incontrovertible truth would save their friendship under such circumstances. John was not one to flinch from the unpleasant, but he truly wished he could be somewhere else this night.

  He tried to turn his thoughts toward the facts. What did he know of Lady Anna, except that she had been an intelligent and pleasing conversationalist? At even her best, she had been a plain woman – a dusty hen in a court of peacocks – but her father was a senator and she had carried with her a good dowry. Even so her marriage to the handsome Theodore had caused a seven-day wonder at the court. Several prominent matrons’ tongues had been viperish at the prospect of the union lasting, although John, noting all had unwed daughters, rather suspected their tattle was fueled by thwarted maternal ambition. Yet several years had passed and the marriage, though sadly childless, had flowered and flourished as had the gardens Anna loved so much. And, after all, Theodore may have been a most well-proportioned man, and had made himself comfortable as the court’s most sought-after tonsor – still there was a limit to how high a barber could elevate himself socially and how much wealth one could clip from the beards of the rich. And to say that the marriage was of mutual convenience was not to imply that it could not be much more as well.

  They found a bench artfully concealed in a miniature copse near the back of the gardens. The air was heavy, as the gathering darkness drew up and held the scent of flowers and herbs. Occasionally the sounds of the street, the clatter of cart wheels on cobblestones, the shout of an itinerant merchant, penetrated the sheltering walls, only faintly.

  ‘Country in the town,’ John said suddenly.

  ‘Martial,’ Anatolius identified the author of the epigram.

  John nodded. ‘Very apt. Tell me what happened today, Anatolius.’

  The young man sat down beside John. The Lord Chamberlain wondered if his friend had shared this artfully secluded seat with a more suitable companion.

  ‘It seems unbelievable,’ Anatolius began. ‘I was here only last week, and Anna and Theodore were planning a celebration for the anniversary of their union. Theodore said he would dress her hair. Of course, he knew about such things, being a barber. He’d color her nails, patch her blemishes, as he’d done for his customers. And now she’s gone.’ His eyes welled, whether because he was recalling Anna or due to the effect of the flower-perfumed air on his allergy, John could not say.

  The Lord Chamberlain remembered the unkind remarks the wags at court had made when Anna and Theodore had first married – that she’d taken him for a lady’s maid – and later, that maybe Theodore should trade duties with his wife’s attendant Euthymius, because the eunuch might have as much chance fathering heirs as her husband had.

  ‘But how did you come to be here, today, Anatolius?’

  ‘I ran into Theodore at the market beside the Mese this afternoon. He’d been looking for plantings for Anna’s garden. The yellow one, he said. She had devised a little conceit. Apparently her favorite color is – was – yellow and so half the flowers were to be yellow. And the other half were to be white, which she also loved.’ He made a snuffling noise, as if even the thought of so many flowers disturbed his faculties.

  ‘I remember Lady Sophia once claimed Theodore had purchased all the white roses in the city to give to his wife on the feast of Venus,’ John mused. ‘She seemed put out. I think she wished someone would bestow such attention on her. They are lovely flowers.’

  ‘Yes, Anna planned to plant white roses, he told me and apple trees – white blossoms, you see. Also pears, I believe. Sacred to Athena, they say. Yellow flowers had been more difficult to find but I understand she had already established a few. Hypatia pointed them out to me the other evening. She is really quite wise in these matters. She was telling me some of the uses of plantings.’

  ‘Lord Chamberlain, so this is where you’ve been hiding.’

  John was startled because in the shadows the figure which had appeared suddenly on the path between the shrubberies appeared ghostlike. But only for a moment would anyone mistake the Lady Sophia for some flimsy wraith.

  ‘Sophia, I’m sorry to see you again –’

  ‘Under such sorrowful circumstances. Yes, I know. And also very inconvenient circumstances. My chair is arriving in an hour. My attendants will already be on their way.’

  John, feeling at a disadvantage, stood. ‘I’m afraid they will have to return in the morning,’ He was glad her expression was half-concealed by the shadows.

  ‘Surely you don’t intend to detain me also?’

  Detain someone who, due to the predatory tax collecting of her late husband, was one of Constantinople’s richest women and thus entitled to a life free of petty inconvenience, was what she meant, John thought. But he confined himself to pointing out that he would need to ask the lady a few questions, later on.

  ‘Without my dear Anna’s company I have no wish to spend the night in this house. Attended by Euthymius. Poor Anna, she had no taste in servants.’

  ‘It is maddening, isn’t it?’ put in Anatolius, bounding to his feet. ‘Come, Sophia, Theodore has a magnificent stock of wines. The air’s getting cold. Maybe we can find something to ward off the chill.’

  Taking her by the hand he pulled her politely away, all the while prattling brightly. John thanked his friend silently.

  The old cook, Peter, had reclaimed his kitchen. He was very slowly sweeping up the freshening sawdust he had spread over its floor, singing some lugubrious Christian hymn to himself, tunelessly but loudly, when John entered the room. John, being a Mithran did not recognize the hymn. He hoped it was not one of the Emperor’s own compositions, any or all of which he feared he might one day be asked to incorporate into an imperial ceremony.

  ‘Peter, may I talk to you for a moment?’

  ‘Lord Chamberlain, I would be honored. I am flattered you know my name.’

  John’s perfect memory for names was the least of his talents. More remarkable was his grasp of the relative locations of each person so named in the palace hierarchy.

  ‘Tell me, John, what were you preparing for this evening?’

  The old cook hobbled over to a cupboard, using his twig broom as a support, and pulled out a scrap of parchment. He squinted hard and began to read, haltingly. ‘Sea mussels with leeks, oysters, melons cooked with mint, a pear soufflé in honey and wine sauce, cooked apricots –’

  ‘It sounds like a feast.’

  ‘A private celebration, for my master and mistress.’

  ‘Private. Yes, I see. Might some of those recipes inflame the passions?’

  Peter’s walnut-wrinkled face darkened. ‘It wasn’t the pleasures of the flesh that were wanted, your excellency, but only that a holy union be fruitful in the eyes of Our Lord.’

  ‘Of course.’ John refrained from pointing out that Theodore and Anna did not worship Peter’s Lord but the older gods. ‘Was the food fresh, Peter?’

  The old cook straightened his back, outraged. ‘I learned my trade in the camps.’

  ‘Yes, we used to say a careless cook could put a legion on the run faster than a troop of mounted Persians.’

  ‘As you say.’

  ‘Who has access to your kitchen
?’

  ‘When I am cooking? No one.’

  ‘Are you sure no one was in here while you were preparing the meal?’

  ‘There was no chance for anyone to slip anything into the food,’ said Peter, stiffly. ‘After I left the military I worked for a time at the palace. I keep my eyes open. Besides, the lady ate nothing this morning. Not so much as a piece of fruit. She was too nervous.’

  ‘Is that why she was drunk?’

  ‘Drunk? Hardly. She took a little wine, I believe.’

  ‘And what are these?’ John indicated a basket set on the stone floor by the brazier.

  ‘Just some sweets.’

  John bent and plucked one of the sticky confections from the basket.

  ‘I was cooking them when I heard Euthymius cry out. I finished preparing them. I didn’t realize, until later –’

  ‘Dates. Stuffed, I see. What’s in them?’

  ‘Ground nuts. I sprinkle them with salt and stew them in honey,’ Peter explained with pride. ‘A little specialty of mine.’

  John popped the date into his mouth and chewed. ‘Very good,’ he remarked.

  John left the kitchen and wandered thoughtfully through the house. The air was hushed. He could hear the oil lamps sputtering. He found himself in Anna’s apartments. The rooms were deserted. The unseemly invasion by men who would never have dared enter while the lady was alive had ended. John felt he was trespassing in this woman’s place, although, he realized uneasily, by custom eunuchs were also allowed access to such apartments.

  A low groan drew his attention and, following his ears, he came to the bedroom where Anna had died. Her body had been removed from the room, which had been left otherwise undisturbed, according to John’s instructions, except that someone, perhaps the overly well-organized Theodore, had not been able to resist placing the broken clypsedra back into its niche.

  Or perhaps it had not been Theodore who had replaced the clock, but Euthymius, who stood in the middle of the room, moaning softly, tears streaming down his cheeks, worrying a fingernail – for all the world like a small, distraught child.

  John stepped quietly through the doorway. A few white rose petals floated on the puddle of water left by the clock. A mercenary in his youth, the Lord Chamberlain was inured to a different sort of death, where the end of one’s span was measured by the flow of blood from the veins.

  ‘Euthymius.’

  Anna’s attendant turned. He wiped brimming eyes. ‘I’m sorry I – but, then, you – you understand, of course.’ Euthymius’ sentence ended in a hiccoughing sob.

  John fought back revulsion. ‘No,’ he said, too loudly. ‘No, I don’t understand. What do you mean when you say I understand?’

  Euthymius looked confused.

  The Lord Chamberlain was a thin, hard man. He had served as a soldier for years before his – wounding. He had killed men and loved women. Euthymius, on the other hand, had been castrated as an infant. He was the typical eunuch. Surely no one would mistake John for fat and ungainly Euthymius? His whimpering disgusted John.

  ‘No one was to enter this room,’ John said curtly. ‘You’ll have to leave.’

  ‘The master asked me to fetch a coverlet for her, and yellow was her favorite.’

  ‘She has no favorites now.’

  ‘Yes, Lord Chamberlain.’ Euthymius began to sob uncontrollably. ‘They moved her. It was my job to do that. They moved my poor mistress and didn’t even tell me. They had no right.’

  John concealed his surprise. A slave – even a distraught slave – did not speak of the ‘rights’ of his master.

  Euthymius managed to regain some control. ‘If you want to speak to me about –’

  He took a step toward John who stepped aside. The overpowering pomade on the eunuch’s curled hair buried the room’s gentle scent of rose petals, but did not quite mask a more offensive odor.

  ‘If I need to speak to you, I will summon you.’

  John waited until the attendant had left. Then he turned his gaze on the room. He was sure the answer lay here. Anna had been poisoned here. Regardless of what had been said, it was almost certain someone had brought something into the room to her. A lady did not retire, in perfect health, to her private chambers only to be found dead a scant two hours later.

  But John wanted to speak to the household before he examined the room. In his own way, he was as methodical as Theodore. Although, John realized, a more genuinely scientific mind than his would have wished to find a physical cause before peering into the human souls which could have set that cause into motion. Yet while there were opportunities to commit crime at every turn, it was the motivation that was usually lacking.

  A thought struck him. Had Euthymius moved anything other than the clock?

  He was distracted by raised voices from the next room, the guest room. Theodore stormed past Anna’s door. John opened his mouth to speak but Theodore made a dismissive gesture.

  ‘Not now. I have a long list, Lord Chamberlain. Certain things must be done.’ Evidently realizing then the imprudence of being rude to one so high at the court, he abruptly shifted to a conciliatory tone. ‘I’m just distraught, John. And Sophia, she was Anna’s best friend. Practically lived here. She is stricken. Please excuse me.’

  He pivoted and hurried off, his footsteps echoing on the marble. John looked into the room his reluctant host had so lately left.

  ‘Forgive him, Lord Chamberlain. We all have our own ways of dealing with grief.’

  The Lady Sophia’s way was to lounge on a couch, a goblet of wine at hand, and color her fingernails.

  John did not judge her harshly. He was familiar with the patrician class. It was not uncommon for those of rank to disdain a vulgar display of emotions in front of those they considered not their equals.

  ‘I am taking your friend’s suggestion, you see.’ Sophia paused long enough to bring the goblet to her mouth. ‘Theodore does have a splendid stock.’

  Her face was flushed with wine. Perhaps it was that, coupled with the way the flickering light from the single lamp on the dressing table softened her features, or maybe just the artfully applied make-up, that made John realize, abruptly and for the first time, that she was young as Anna had been, and that one might almost consider her lovely – a term he would not previously have associated with the widowed Lady Sophia.

  Sophia, her senses honed as sharply by court life as John’s, noticed he was appraising her.

  ‘Don’t tell Gaius I’m drinking. He claims I drink too much. Not that he has any right to talk. He’d insist I drink nothing but barley water.’

  ‘You’ve seen the physician professionally? Is he reliable?’

  ‘I see him as seldom as possible. He hasn’t treated me for poisoning, so I can’t vouch for his expertise there, if that’s what you mean.’

  John paced over to the dressing table. The cross in the clock’s silver bowl had already sunk toward the ring marking the second hour of night, as the water escaped through a small aperture in the bowl’s bottom into a holding vessel. The lamp beside the clock flared, illuminating a make-up box whose lid hung open revealing compartments for jars of unguents, rouge, kohl, ochre and a dozen other artifices. Most of its jars were jumbled on the table next to Sophia.

  ‘I understand this was to be a special day for Anna and Theodore?’

  ‘Indeed. And the matter being so private – why was I here?’

  John nodded.

  ‘I had agreed to come over to hold her hand, if things didn’t go right. Anna was overwrought. She’d confided her plans to me, of course. We were very close. She sometimes lent me her jewelry, since she didn’t wear it too often. Too cumbersome, she said. She gave me some of the new creams and potions and such that that new servant of hers concocted. A clever girl, that young Egyptian. But too clever for a servant, if you ask me.’

  John enquired when had Sophia arrived at the house.

  ‘I was just taking off my cloak when I heard Euthymius cry out. I’m here often, of
course. I have no one at home, any more.’

  ‘Anna’s father, he was a supporter of your late husband, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. He spoke out for Victor in the Senate, when the . . . troubles came.’

  When the taxpayers demanded his head, thought John. And they’d been given it too, in the end. Literally. But not the deceased’s money. That had been left to Sophia.

  ‘But how did a senator’s daughter come to be betrothed to a barber?’

  Sophia looked irritated. ‘The senator likes the way his beard is trimmed. He gives away his daughter. What do you think, John? Why do people fall in love? But, then, you wouldn’t understand that – men and women – any more than poor fat Euthymius.’

  John bit back his thoughts. ‘But, financially, it must have benefited Theodore?’

  ‘Theodore wasn’t just an ordinary tonsor, John. He had raised himself up. He employed assistants. He was a man of substance. Quite a charming man. Not all are born to their rightful place in society. Some must make their own fortunes.’

  ‘Nevertheless, Anna’s dowry –’

  ‘Would pass to her children. Not to Theodore.’

  ‘But there were no children.’

  Sophia glared up at John in a manner that made him forget any impression of loveliness. ‘They didn’t know that was going to happen, did they? Certainly they tried hard enough. Theodore was – not able to father children.’

  ‘You know that?’

  ‘As I told you, I was her friend.’

  The faint light from the sickle moon illuminating the bronze bands of the garden sundial could not reveal that the second hour of the night had passed.

  ‘Thank you for helping to ward off the chill, earlier, Anatolius. Lady Sophia seemed much calmer when I finally spoke to her. What of the others?’