Five for Silver: A John, the Lord Chamberlain Mystery (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

The bellow of a bull greeted John as he turned down a familiar street leading off the Strategion. It was almost as if Nereus’ oracular bovine were foretelling his visit. Was it a good omen from Mithra?

Sylvanus stood outside his late master’s house securing a basket full of frantically clucking chickens to a donkey cart.

“You’ve arrived just in time, Lord Chamberlain. I’m about to embark on a new adventure, since I’m off to the master’s country estate with my charges. I was lucky enough to be able to purchase this cart this morning. Its owner demanded an exorbitant price, but I won’t stay here another night!”

A cloud of feathers wafted out of the basket as Sylvanus struggled to tie it to the side of the cart.

Recalling their previous conversation, John asked what would drive a confirmed city dweller into the countryside sooner than would be necessary.

A puzzled look crossed the rustic servant’s face. “You haven’t come to investigate the incident last night when someone broke into the house?”

The bull bellowed again. Sylvanus swiveled his head toward the open house door. “Apis!” he shouted. “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you!” Turning back to John, he invited him inside.

Nereus’ house was a shambles. Fragments of terracotta and marble, the remains of lamps and statuary, littered the atrium. John stepped over a pale arm. The marble lump in one shadowy corner might have been a head.

“It’s an outrage, sir!” Sylvanus fumed. “As if we hadn’t enough to weep over! Yet heaven heaps even more misery upon us.”

John glanced into Nereus’ office. Whoever had broken into the house had taken the trouble to damage its wall mosaic. Glass tesserae sparkled here and there among the ripped codexes and scrolls carpeting the tiled floor.

“Theft and breaking into houses are becoming the city’s main occupations,” lamented Sylvanus, “and fine pickings for the dishonest too, what with so many homes unoccupied. I can almost sympathize with those who break into a house they think empty, looking for something to steal and sell so they can feed their families, but wanton destruction…”

“What was taken, Sylvanus?”

“I can’t be sure, sir. You’d have to ask the house servants.”

The garden had also been vandalized and shrubs uprooted and tossed into the fish pool.

“They left the oracular chickens and fish,” Sylvanus pointed out. “I would have thought to a hungry thief both would have prophesied a very hearty dinner.”

“You were absent when these intruders broke in?”

“In a manner of speaking. I regret to say I over-imbibed last night and did not realize that strangers were in the house until I saw the destruction this morning.”

Bacchus, John thought, had become almost as popular these days as Fortuna.

“You heard nothing at all?”

Sylvanus, looking ashamed, shook his head and then, unexpectedly, beamed as he picked up a metal plate which had been half hidden under a low bush. “Here’s another of the master’s Dodona oracles. Bent, as you see, but I’m sure it can be put right. That makes three I’ve managed to find. I wonder where the other one is?” He looked around vaguely.

“You’re fortunate you weren’t murdered,” John observed.

“I keep my door locked at night. It’s always a wise precaution.” Sylvanus strode over to Apis and grabbed the pitchfork lying by the pen. “If I’d heard the villains at work you can be certain I wouldn’t have cowered in my room.”

He sank the pitchfork vehemently into the sparse pile of hay and tossed some to the bull. “It might have been demons who did this all by magick, sir. The streets are full of demons these days, looking for victims. Let them strike you once and before you know it the plague is carrying you off.”

It occurred to John demons would have found Nereus’ garden of pagan oracles a very pleasant place, rather than one to destroy.

Apis chewed contentedly. Sylvanus rubbed the sleeve of his rough woolen tunic over the plate he had just recovered.

John thought it more than likely the stealthy night visitors had been seeking something specific. Could it have been Nereus’ last written will?

But the oral will had immediately superseded it, he reminded himself.

“I returned to question you about the man called Aristotle of Athens. I understand your master conducted business with him and thought you might know where I could find him.”

“Yes, sir, I do,” the other replied. “In fact, I visited him only a few days ago regarding a statue of the oracle of Hermes the master had purchased. But then, I’ve told you about that already, haven’t I? There was some difficulty in making delivery arrangements. Now he will never see that amazing statue and neither, sir, will I.”

Taking a key from the pouch at his belt, Sylvanus opened the gate of Apis’ enclosure. “I noticed you admiring the beast. You can come into his pen. He sounds very fierce, but really he’s quite tame.”

Accepting the invitation, John patted the bull’s flank as Sylvanus knelt to unlock the creature’s shackle.

The click of the lock snapping open drew John’s gaze down and then he knelt to examine the bull’s restraining chain. “Do you see that, Sylvanus?”

“See what, sir?”

John pointed out a bright, shallow notch in one of the chain’s tarnished links. “Someone made a valiant effort to cut this.”

“The bastards!” Sylvanus sprang to his feet and stroked the placidly chewing bull’s muzzle. “Don’t worry, Apis. No one’s going to steal you, and soon you’ll be frisking about in country fields.”

Sylvanus inclined his head toward John and added in a whisper, “He’d feed a whole family for who knows how long.”

John remarked it was possible. “Before you leave, I wish to look at Nereus’ room.”

The room, overlooking the street, showed the same vandalism as the rest of the house. The water clock had been overturned again, and the sheets of papyrus scattered on the floor were sodden, already starting to smell of mold. There had been a cross on the wall. Now it lay on the floor. The bed had been turned over. So too had a heavy writing desk, a few bulky chairs, and a pair of oversized tables.

One wall was covered with a bright fresco depicting a frozen sea populated by numerous vessels swarming with fantastical baboon sailors setting course to far-off lands where buildings sporting spires, domes, and towers could be seen set amid woods and rolling meadows. Closer to home strings of camels brought boxes and bales from the docks toward a house depicted in the lower right-hand corner. It was obviously Nereus’ house, and three well-dressed figures, presumably those of Nereus, his late wife, and Triton, stood beside it.

John wondered, if Nereus were still alive, whether he would have ordered his servants to move one of the larger pieces of furniture in front of that portion of the fresco now that Triton had fallen from paternal favor.

It was not a large room. John had a difficult time imagining seven witnesses crammed into it, standing alongside the dying man’s bedside as servants rushed in and out. Where had the holy fool found space to dance with the archdeacon?

A number of codexes in a wall niche sat undisturbed. John pulled one out. It was part of Nereus’ set of Justinian’s Institutes. His legal oracle. He checked the niche quickly. Nereus had not concealed his last written will there.

John wasn’t certain why he had wanted to visit the room. Did Nereus’ shade linger? While the departed shipper made his way past heavenly tollhouses or up the heavenly ladder, or by whatever route one imagined led to the afterlife, did he still remain connected tenuously to a world he had not quite left, like a newborn clinging to its mother? Perhaps Nereus was even now discussing shipping affairs with Gregory, both detained by the same recalcitrant demon.

The break-in was as mysterious as the other circumstances surrounding Gregory’s murder. Had it merely been vandals? Or thieves? Someone seeking Nereus’ will or something else? As he went back downstairs a thought occurred to John.

“Sylvanus, a word of warning.”

The oracle keeper was leading Apis across the atrium. He paused and the bull stopped immediately, perfectly obedient. “An oracle keeper never ignores words of warning or he’d soon be out of a job, sir. What is it?”

“It’s possible that whoever broke in last night intended to harm you, or possibly somebody else they expected to find here.”

“All the more reason to be off for the country as fast as I can, then.”

***

John accepted Sylvanus’ offer of a ride.

He sat uncomfortably beside the oracle keeper as they lurched away from Nereus’ now barred and shuttered house, shifting his lean flanks continually in a fruitless effort to be marginally comfortable.

The chickens in the basket squawked indignantly and water sloshed out of the amphorae holding the oracular fish as the donkey struggled up a steep incline to the Mese and then dawdled along the thoroughfare to the Capitolium, where one branch pointed north, the direction the cart would have to journey in order to get to Nereus’ estate, and the other south.

Thanking Mithra and Fortuna both that Aristotle’s establishment lay to the south, John climbed down from the cart in front of a looming marble structure that might have been a temple to Zeus, except for the huge crosses adorning the facade. The overladen cart crawled away, the tethered Apis ambling placidly along behind.

John set off at a brisk pace.

Soon he had passed down the Mese and through the Forum Bovis with its huge bull’s head. Aristotle had set up business on the seaward side of the Mese, not far from Constantine’s wall, in an area of small workshops and private warehouses.

John soon spotted a building that displayed a sign bearing the inscription
Oracles, Antiquities, Bricks
.

The edifice in which Aristotle conducted his trade sat at the end of a narrow road next to a patch of scrubby land. Whatever use it might once have had, the open area was now dotted with heaped mounds bearing silent witness to the continued decimation of the city’s population.

However, even proximity to the sad place could not account for the overwhelming, acrid odor that permeated the air.

The pungent smell was immediately identifiable, although a quick glance around did not reveal its source.

John knocked at Aristotle’s door.

Another door, he thought wearily. Perhaps he should petition Janus, god of thresholds and of beginnings and endings, for aid in his search.

The door swung open to reveal a man hefting a wooden cudgel. He was short and broad shouldered and wore a soiled leather apron over a grubby work tunic. He warily eyed his unexpected visitor.

With the door open, the source of the overpowering smell of urine was apparent.

It emanated from inside the building.

Doing his best to ignore the odor, John stated his interest in talking to the seller of antiquities.

“Aristotle’s not here. Haven’t seen him since this morning.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“No.”

John curbed his irritation. “You are a member of his household and know when he is expected to return?”

“No, I’m not.” The short man spoke in an aggrieved tone. “I’m Anthemius. I’m a brickmaker by profession. Aristotle and I merely share these premises. Rentals in the city are outrageous, not to mention since this cursed plague arrived there hasn’t much call for bricks. Yet there seems to be plenty of money for antiquities and oracles. Aristotle brings back huge sums every day. I don’t know how he does it.”

Evidently Anthemius had been waiting for an opportunity to air his grievances. He scarcely paused for breath as he rattled them off.

“All day long I’m attending the door and it’s always Aristotle whose services are being sought. Nobody seems to have any use for a brickmaker any more. However, as I told you, Aristotle’s not here right now. Would you care to step in to take some refreshment and wait a while? I could show you some of my handiwork. You might well find it of interest. I do excellent work, sir, if I say it myself.”

Declining wine, John followed the man inside. The atrium had been turned into a storage space and held piles of stacked bricks. In the inner garden patches of weeds alternated with areas of hard-packed earth.

John noted the source of the smell. A concrete-lined pit almost filled with urine. A tethered donkey grazed contentedly nearby. Several long mounds of earth, some of them overgrown, testified this house too had seen losses.

Anthemius intercepted his glance. “You get used to the smell, sir. Aristotle keeps talking about going into the leather business, but so far he hasn’t done much about it except collect one of what you might call the necessaries.”

John commented on the pitiful mounds.

Anthemius scratched his head. “Sad, isn’t it? Most of them were there when I arrived a few months back. Don’t know who they are, since Aristotle never spoke of his family. They’re all gone now. The last one was buried right after I arrived. It was a bit of a surprise to me since there was nobody in the house but us, or so I thought. Then, in the early hours one morning, something woke me up and I looked out of my window and what do you think I saw?”

John indicated he could not guess.

“Aristotle was burying the last member of his family. Well, I couldn’t see too well because it was so dark, but the departed was either wrapped in white or stark naked, but either way, it was tragic, sir, tragic. I didn’t like to observe such a private matter, so I closed the shutters as soon as I realized it wasn’t one of those stealthy nocturnal visitors who come to steal whatever they can run off with.”

“Doubtless if it was your cudgel would soon have persuaded them otherwise.”

Anthemius lifted the cudgel and tapped it lightly in the palm of his free hand. “Indeed it would and in fact it has done so on occasion.”

“You’ve had to fight off intruders recently?”

“Just a few rambunctious children, actually,” Anthemius admitted.

“No one has attempted to break into this house?”

“No. I’d know if anyone had tried to get in. I’m here most of the time right now, with so little call for my bricks. And that reminds me, sir, I was going to show you samples of my work.”