Five for Silver: A John, the Lord Chamberlain Mystery (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The sound of John’s footsteps followed him as he departed homeward from Isis’ establishment. Away from its warm lamplight and quiet voices, it was difficult to believe there was anyone left alive in the city.

John reflected that the only apparent result of his investigations so far had been to assist Isis in obtaining erotic statues from a forger of antiquities. If, indeed, she decided to do business with Aristotle. He had counseled against it.

Isis had chuckled and patted his arm. “You declare he’s not to be trusted? He’s in a suspect business? What would I know of such things, is that what troubles you? I am not the innocent child you remember from Egypt, John.”

That was true enough.

Isis’ revelation about Aristotle had placed the man’s nocturnal activities in a different light. He had been burying a statue rather than a body. On the other hand, the discovery also lent credence to John’s theory concerning the possibility of forged wills.

His thoughts invariably returned to the will. Oral wills were not common. That Gregory had been murdered within hours of witnessing such a will strongly indicated a connection. John had hoped that the remaining witnesses would provide information that could indicate what it might be.

He continued along the Mese, past shuttered emporiums. Only a few of the torches shopkeepers were required to maintain at night still burned. Now and again, John traversed pools of almost total darkness.

Could Byzos the cart driver have been the one person who could have illuminated the mystery?

There was also the incident at Nereus’ house to consider. Was it possible that the night visitor had expected another witness, the steward’s assistant Cador, to be there?

Even if that were the case, why had no one attempted to murder any of the other witnesses?

Did the solution lie with the wayward son who had been disinherited, yet another who had been removed by the plague before John could speak to him? Had that been John’s mistake, to overlook Triton’s obvious interest in the will? Then there was the woman Triton and his father had quarreled about. Should John again attempt to seek her out?

Of the witnesses, there remained only one for John to interview, the so-called holy fool. The others had revealed nothing useful.

What were the chances that the final roll of the bones would be the lucky one?

Having spent as much time gambling as any military man during his days as a mercenary, John knew the answer.

It didn’t happen often, but often enough.

As he rounded the corner of the barracks across from his house John considered whether he should attempt to get a few hours’ sleep, or spend the time contemplating his problem in the company of Zoe and resume his efforts with dawn.

Lamplight spilling from the second-floor windows startled him. At this time of night the house should be dark.

He sprinted across the square.

His first thought was for Peter. Had all John’s efforts suddenly been rendered pointless?

His next was of Cornelia.

Perhaps the lamps were lit because of her arrival, rather than Peter’s departure.

Both surmises were wrong.

John found Hypatia sitting on the edge of Peter’s pallet, feeding him gruel with encouraging words and clucking noises, as if persuading a sickly child to take sustenance.

John drew a stool to the bedside as Hypatia apologized for not extinguishing the house lamps. He waved her back to her task, sat down, and scrutinized his elderly servant.

Peter was a wraith. His skin appeared colorless, all but transparent. The notion struck John that if the window were opened, the old servant might float up and rise heavenwards unless someone grabbed an ankle to detain him.

That he had allowed Hypatia into his bedroom and then accepted being fed indicated how feeble was the old soldier’s grip on the world.

Peter made a slight motion with his head and Hypatia drew bowl and spoon away. The coverlet tucked up under Peter’s chin hid any marks of disease.

“Master.” Peter spoke in less than whisper. John was not certain his servant had actually said anything, or if his lips had merely formed the word without releasing a sound. John leaned closer to listen, until he could feel the old man’s shallow breathing against his cheek.

“I regret my disobedient foolishness,” Peter went on. “I should not have disrupted the household by refusing to open my door, no matter what good reason I thought I had to defy your orders. Please, master, it’s best not to come so close.”

John waved the apology away. “I see Hypatia’s persuaded you to eat at last. It’s always a good sign when the appetite returns. It seems then, despite your doubts, you will remain with us a little longer.”

Peter released a long, rattling breath. Again his head moved slightly. “No, master. I have a feeling in my bones it will not be so. However, Hypatia can be very persuasive when she wants and, well…as I said…but I also wanted to know if you’d been able to find anything out about Gregory.” A smile briefly illuminated his pallid face. “Shouting at each other through the door is not the proper way to conduct a conversation with an employer.”

He slumped lower, exhausted by even that brief response.

John exchanged a glance with Hypatia. “I haven’t yet been able to find the person responsible. I’m sorry, Peter. I can only hope Fortuna will smile on my labors tomorrow.”

“I know you have been doing all you can, master, and that if the Lord wills it you’ll find whoever took my friend’s life. I only pray I’ll live long enough to see justice done.” Peter squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again they glistened. Hypatia brushed away the incipient tears before Peter could manage to lift his own hand.

Peter offered John a weak smile. “There is one last thing. I wish to leave a gift to whatever family Gregory left behind. He never spoke of that part of his life, although I believe it was because he was too proud to admit his poverty. All he ever said was that he worked near the docks. I am certain you will be able to find his family.”

He fixed his gaze on John and went on in a stronger voice. “I’ve saved a little during my service with you, and while there is not a great deal, I wish it to be divided into three. One portion is to go to Gregory’s family, leaving one each for Hypatia—”

The young woman protested, but Peter took no notice.

“No, Hypatia, you and I have been friends since the days we served Lady Anna and you are as close to a family as I have. The third portion I leave to you, master.”

“Thank you, Peter. It will be done as you wish if the need arises,” John replied. “I give my oath on that.”

“Hypatia has promised to attend to the kollyba,” Peter went on, his voice fading to a painful whisper. “Some might say that with Hypatia not being of the faith…but it is the intent and not the belief that is important, or so I have concluded after much thought on these matters over these last few days.” A look of terror transformed his weary face. As if gaining strength from it, he struggled to sit up.

He no longer seemed to be seeing his familiar room. “Don’t let them throw me into the pit, master!” he cried and then fell back.

***

John sensed Zoe glaring at him. He set his cracked cup down and met the mosaic girl’s accusatory gaze.

“You didn’t tell Peter the truth about Gregory,” Zoe told him. Although her lips remained frozen, John could hear her words in his mind, as clearly as Peter claimed to have heard those spoken by the angel.

“Peter should know his friend wasn’t a failed ex-soldier,” Zoe continued. “Gregory was a successful man, happily married. It would please Peter to know that.”

“Wouldn’t it distress him more to realize his old friend had concealed so much from him?”

The mosaic girl made no reply. Tonight the slightly curved line of tesserae forming her mouth looked less like a wistful smile than a frown of disapproval.

John glanced toward the door. He half expected to hear Peter’s footsteps approach, slow, and halt as he lingered fretfully in the hallway, reluctant to intrude on another of his master’s strange soliloquies. John’s conversations with Zoe always distressed the elderly servant. If he chanced to overhear this particular exchange he would be even more upset, John thought.

He got up and opened the door.

Only shadows populated the hallway. Peter was unable to leave his bed and perhaps might not rise from it. It occurred to John it was more than likely he would never again glimpse Peter shuffling away down the hall, pretending to have overheard nothing, and muttering a prayer for his master’s soul.

“Gregory chose not to reveal the truth to Peter, Zoe. He had his reasons. Should I overrule Gregory’s decision?”

Zoe’s eyes gleamed in the flickering lamplight.

John looked down into his cup. “I spoke to Gregory’s wife for some time. I wanted to know the man better. He was a simple man, a soldier, not the sort one would expect to find working in a customs house’s administrative offices. He’d come by his high post almost by accident. It wasn’t a position he’d striven to achieve. I believe it never even occurred to him that Angelina might misinterpret his unexplained absences when he met with Peter. Perhaps he felt uneasy about misleading Peter about his station in life, not correcting his misapprehensions, and didn’t want to involve Angelina in the deception. After all, Peter is a servant, and Gregory employed servants…if it could in any way be characterized as a lie, it was one born of a kind heart.”

But does kindness justify a lie, Zoe wanted to know.

John had no answer. He realized also that Gregory’s motivation might well have gone beyond sparing his old friend’s feelings. He may have feared Peter would feel compelled to end their friendship if he became aware of the disparity in their social positions. At the very least, their relationship would have changed.

“The whole puzzle has become a labyrinth akin to the Minotaur’s maze,” he observed to Zoe, “and one that’s just as murderous, because you never know who might be lurking around the corner or in some dark alley.”

The mosaic girl expressed surprise at his choice of metaphor.

“It’s because I’m having a difficult time keeping my thoughts from galloping all over the place,” John confessed. “They insist on constantly returning to Crete. Cornelia and Europa returned there when they left Constantinople some years back.”

He sighed, took another sip of wine, and continued. “In private I sometimes called Cornelia Britomartis, after the Cretan Lady of the Nets. And why was that, you ask? Because the first time I saw the troupe perform, the sight of her snared me as securely as fishermen catch Neptune’s creatures in their meshes. Even so, when I approached her she sent me away after exercising that sharp temper and wicked wit of hers on me for some time. It took me two or three further visits to persuade her to my way of thinking, but then I had to join the troupe since she would not leave it. We traveled with them for a time, and many’s the night we spent under the stars away from the others, just us and the kindly darkness…” A smile briefly illuminated his face. “But perhaps I should not speak of such things to a young girl like you.”

“Perhaps not,” Zoe replied tartly, “particularly since you must keep your attention focused upon resolving the murder of Peter’s friend. Yet it seems to me that Gregory also wanted to preserve the past and managed to do so,” she went on, “because every time he met Peter he immediately stepped out of his life as an aging customs official and back into his vigorous, military youth.”

“As you say.”

“For all your wealth, you envy Gregory because he could do that and you cannot,” Zoe observed.

John silently raised the cracked cup to his lips.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

John entered Scipio’s emporium just as a man dressed in rags and a few stray flower petals was leaving.

The bookseller, fussing over the enormous mound of flowers the ragged fellow had left on a table near the door, looked up at the sound of John’s footstep.

“Welcome, excellency! Let me guess the reason for honoring me with another visit. You have been thinking about
The Rustic Versifier
and decided you must have it after all!”

“I fear I must disappoint you, Scipio.” John brushed a few stray petals off his cloak. “Aren’t all these flowers expensive?”

“My ragged friend offers them for a very reasonable price. Of course, there are many abandoned gardens in the city these days, but if it helps him buy a crust of bread…well…Are you certain you are not interested in the work of your friend Byzos?”

“No, I’m here to ask about something you said to Crinagoras.”

Scipio raised his eyebrows. “You’re a friend of Crinagoras? A man blessed by the Muses! But then you will already know that.” He tossed down the flowers he had been holding, rummaged in a crate under the table, and pulled out a piece of parchment. “I have a superb selection of his work, ready to be beautifully copied out by one of my excellent scribes.”

John found himself asking why Scipio had nothing already copied on hand.

“Why? Well…you know Crinagoras’ poetry, excellency. Whenever my scriveners copy it out…uh…they’re so moved…well…it’s all so tragic…they’re no good for anything until the next day, so I try not to overtax their sensibilities.”

“There is that, not to mention some might not find his work to their taste.”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I was getting at,” Scipio nodded. “Very upsetting for them, it is, having to copy such, well…Nevertheless, even the poorest words copied out in a fine hand on good quality vellum, perhaps, and enclosed in an expensive leather cover would please a lady. And isn’t it true that the most pleasing ladies are not necessarily the most literate?”

“I’m not here to buy Crinagoras’ poetry, Scipio. I’m seeking information about the fellow who calls himself a holy fool. I’ve been told you’ve been taking an interest in him.”

Scipio dropped the parchment back into the crate. “I hope to eventually be able to offer an account detailing his visit to the city and his antics while he was here, but I have yet to find an author. It’s a pity, because I’m certain it would sell very well.”

“That being the case, have you any notion where I can find the fool?”

Scipio brightened. “We can do business after all, excellency. The fool has been keeping me abreast of his exploits.”

John expressed surprise.

“The strange fellow got a ride with Byzos one day,” Scipio explained. “By what I hear, the fool has an unhealthy affinity for the dead. After Byzos had disposed of his cartloads of the departed that particular day, he brought the fool around here, to share a meal with him. I suppose Byzos thought he looked as if he needed some nourishment, but that’s the nature of these holy men. Always as thin as shadows. However, it gave me an opportunity to strike a deal with the fool. He drops in every morning for a loaf of bread and tells me where he’s going to be that day in exchange. I can always find a street urchin to follow him around and report back on the latest hijinks. I note them down for the chronicle I am collating. When this plague has passed, people will want to read all about the fool’s exploits. You can depend upon that, excellency.”

“No doubt. Meantime, where will he be today?”

***

From where John stood at the sea wall none of the burial pits Peter so feared were visible. A heavy pall of smoke half-obscuring masts and sullen water alike was the only evidence of municipal efforts to cope with the grim situation.

The raucous sound of squabbling gulls rose up on cool air redolent of the sea, overlaid with the sound of voices. Not the shouts of individual dockworkers, but rather the murmur of a group of people speaking all at once.

John trod to the bottom of a slippery flight of steps leading to a rocky strip of shoreline littered with rotting seaweed and other debris. There he halted to observe the situation.

A short distance away several people talked and gestured excitedly. A sudden shout directed John’s attention toward the water. Scipio’s information had been correct. He could see a spindly figure some way out.

It appeared as if it were dancing on the surface of the sea.

“Came out of nowhere, so it did,” someone loudly remarked.

“It’s magick, I tell you!”

“Smoke and sea spray. That’s all.”

“No, it’s him! That holy bastard!” The speaker was a long-armed, lanky fellow, with shoulders as wide as a spar and an untidy bowl of blond hair.

“Performing miracles now, is he?” The blond man had a companion of comparable size, but darker and bearded.

“I’ll give him miracles,” cried the blond. “He’s the bastard who insulted my wife when the cart came for her!”

The figure identified as the holy fool spread his thin arms as if they were wings and swayed perilously from side to side, his feet moving in place as if to keep a precarious balance on the water.

The fool began to laugh wildly.

His merriment enraged the two men even further. They ran to the shoreline, shouting virulent abuse, which was amply returned in kind.

More epithets followed. Then the pair splashed into the water. It had risen up to their waists before they reached the fool, who was still lurching from side to side.

“Have you been baptized, my sinful friends?” he cried, kicking spray into their faces.

The lanky blond grabbed the fool’s arms.

“Now let’s see you do another miracle, you old goat!”

He shoved the fool’s head under the water.

Eerily lit by strengthening sunlight, the two big men forcing the slight figure beneath the frothing surface might have been chiseled in marble. For an instant John remained frozen in place by the prospect of entering the dark depths in which a murder was taking place.

He ordered himself to move.

He did not have time to obey the order, or to disobey it.

A stiff arm emerged from the roiling water and slapped the blond assailant’s leg.

The man let out a yelp of disgust and then he and his companion were retreating to the shore, dragging the fool in their wake.

John glimpsed a bloated face leering from just below the surface and a swollen torso, rotating slowly as it drifted away.

The disturbance created by the fool and his assailants had set in motion the floating corpses upon which the fool had been balancing.

Back on land, the enraged pair began to beat the fool. Between coughs and sputters he taunted them, spitting blood in the bearded man’s face.

The onlookers drew back, apparently disinclined to come to his aid.

The blond man pulled out a long blade.

Now John did move, and quickly. “In the name of Justinian, I order this ended!”

Three startled faces turned his way.

“And who might you be?” sneered the man with the blade.

“I know who it is!” came the helpful reply from the fool. “It’s the Lord Chamberlain!”

“He’s no more Lord Chamberlain than you are holy, you stupid, blaspheming bastard!”

The fool rolled on to his side and propped his chin in his dirty palm. “A fool I am, but not stupid. Look at his clothing.”

“It’s worth more than I make in a month,” growled the bearded man.

“No one’ll notice another naked corpse,” his companion suggested, lifting his blade.

John turned his head toward the stairs. “Guards!”

The blond grabbed his friend’s wrist. “Bodyguards! Now who’s the fool? You think he’d be out walking about alone?”

The murderous pair took flight up the shore, not pausing to look back in their panic. The rest of the crowd followed.

John turned his attention to the man he had rescued.

The fool’s face was sunburnt and creased with deep, innumerable furrows. His eyes were black and glittering, deep wells sunk in a parched desert.

With a shock, John realized he knew the man he had just saved.

Years before the fool had claimed to be a soothsayer.

***

“Ahaseurus?”

Thomas downed a gulp of wine and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Ahaseurus is the holy fool? I can’t say I’m surprised though, since going by what I’ve heard about his antics, he isn’t much of a holy fool. There was one in Antioch you could track through the streets by his spoor. That would have been very useful in your quest to find him, wouldn’t it?” He gave a hearty laugh. “But leaving that aside, the question is what’s Ahaseurus doing in Constantinople?”

“That’s what I hoped you’d be able to tell me,” John replied, pouring more wine into his cracked cup.

He had returned to a house occupied only by Peter. After a word or two with the elderly servant, John allowed himself to lie down and awoke late in the day to the fragrant smell of boiling chicken.

Evidently Hypatia had found a suitable fowl in the marketplace.

After the evening meal, when dusk cast a kindly veil over the city, Hypatia lit the lamps. As she and Europa chattered in the kitchen, John had invited Thomas into his study.

Thomas regarded the wall mosaic and pondered John’s question. “I have no notion why Ahaseurus would be in Constantinople posing as a holy fool. Why do you think I would?”

“Am I wrong to suspect you were associated with the rogue in some manner the last time he was here?”

Thomas ignored the question. “If he really was a soothsayer as he claimed, you’d think he’d have avoided Constantinople, because he’d know if he came here he’d be riding around in a cart hauling the dead or getting himself assaulted by murderous ne’er-do-wells.”

“He was fortunate today. Tomorrow he may not be so lucky.”

Thomas shook his head in admiration. “Dancing on the sea! What a sight it must have been and yet so simple to accomplish when you know how it’s done. Provided one had the agility. I’m sure Europa could have done it. Not that I would allow her to try. Still, why wasn’t the trick of it apparent at once?”

“During our conversation he claimed he is able to make people see only what he wants them to see, not to mention that he can also stop them seeing things he does not wish them to see.”

“An excellent skill to have, I’d say. Apart from gallivanting about the city getting up to no good and being rescued by Lord Chamberlains, what else is he doing? Is he still working as a soothsayer?”

“He mentioned he continues to practice the art, except instead of reading a chicken’s entrails, the chicken itself does the fortune telling. He claims he was recently consulted by the empress at the palace baths, no less.”

“He showed a chicken to Theodora in the baths and lived to tell the tale?” Thomas guffawed. “Mithra, but you have to admire the old rogue’s tale spinning! Did he happen to mention what the chicken supposedly revealed?”

“Apparently the empress asked it if she would die of the plague and the answer given was that she would not. However, Ahaseurus added that as an oracle the bird was not too reliable because people often don’t ask it the right question and it can only answer yes or no.”

“I suppose time will tell if Theodora outlives the plague.”

“Indeed. On the other hand, according to Ahaseurus, while Theodora definitely will not die of the plague, she also has no notion of just how close she is to the end of her life.”

“I wouldn’t like to be the chicken that told her that little tidbit, would you?” Thomas grunted. He stared at the mosaic figures animated by the flickering lamplight.

“Speaking of seeing things or not, John,” he went on, “that god up in the clouds and the woman with him…It must be the result of working at Isis’ establishment. It stirs up one’s, um, imagination.”

“You mean the flute-player? In daylight she’s properly clothed. However, the tesserae are set an angle, so they present a different picture by lamplight.”

“Very different! The little girl with the big eyes looks the same, which is to say just as disturbing.” Thomas took another gulp of wine. “Did you learn anything useful from Ahaseurus?”

John shook his head. “All he would say about Gregory’s death was that it was due to the hand of heaven.”

“It would be exceedingly difficult to bring heaven to justice, I fear. Did he happen to say where he’d been all these years?”

“To the ends of the earth. Much like you, Thomas.”

The two men sat in silence for a while, passing the wine jug back and forth. Darkness pressed conspiratorially against the room’s diamond-shaped windowpanes.

Laughter drifted along the hallway.

His daughter’s laughter.

John ran his finger along the crack in his wine cup. He thought of the woman with whom he had shared the original.

“I’ve noticed you haven’t been spending much time here, Thomas. I could almost suspect you were avoiding me.”

Thomas denied the suggestion.

“No matter. I wanted to question you concerning Cornelia, but not in front of Europa.”

“She’ll be here as soon as she—” Thomas stopped abruptly and uttered a ripe curse under his breath.

John kept his gaze level on Thomas’ broad, flushed face.

Inside he began to tremble.

“I should have told you right away, John, but, well, Europa, I mean, her mother…You’ve guessed, haven’t you?” Thomas fell silent, tugging unhappily at his mustache.

A chill settled over John. “Something has happened to Cornelia? Something Europa knows nothing about?”

Thomas nodded. “Forgive me, my friend. Cornelia charged me with bringing Europa safely to you, and she would never have left her mother’s side if she’d known.”

“Known what?”

“Just before we left, Cornelia promised Europa she’d send word if she were going to be delayed more than—”

John leapt to his feet.

Dark foreboding encased him in a clammy shroud. “The truth, Thomas! Has Cornelia gone to someone else? Or…Mithra! No! Not my Cornelia!”

Thomas bowed his head sorrowfully. “She didn’t want Europa to see. While Europa went to get her cloak so we could leave right away, she told me she had certain symptoms, but insisted I was not to reveal this to Europa or you on any account. Difficult though it was, I have done that. But by now Cornelia…”