Five for Silver: A John, the Lord Chamberlain Mystery (3 page)

He was as likely to run into her as he was to see his own daughter again.

Would he recognize either of them?

He thought he heard someone moving about in the hall. Rising from his plain wooden chair, he looked out. A single lamp flickered at the far end, where narrow stairs led up to the mostly unoccupied servants’ quarters. Nothing moved.

It hadn’t been exactly a footstep. It was a softer sound, similar to heavy garments brushing against a wall. Birds often got into the house from the garden or through the compluvium, yet he couldn’t help recalling Peter’s imagined heavenly visitor.

Zoe stared solemnly at him as he sat down again.

“Peter doesn’t like me talking to you, Zoe.” John could not have said whether he spoke aloud or not.

There was a hint of sympathy in the girl’s almond-shaped eyes.

“Strange to think, isn’t it, that my servant possesses what I do not? That is to say, a past.”

He brought the wine cup to his lips. It was a cup akin to the one he’d owned when he lived with Cornelia, the mother of his daughter. The vessel was a duplicate he had ordered made, down to the crack in the rim. It was all of the past he could bear to keep close to him. Of the man he had been before his capture and emasculation in Persia, there remained nothing.

As for the family and friends of the man he had been then, they had vanished as surely as if the emperor had ordered every one of them dragged off to the dungeons in the dead of night. Or as if his Lord Chamberlain had ordered it, for John could certainly wield such power if he ever chose to exercise it.

Still, he admitted, if only to Zoe, he missed hearing Cornelia’s light breathing as she slept in the bed beside him, when the night was as silent as this one.

He lit the lamp on the desk and stared out of the window for a while. In the darkness there was no sign of the horror that stalked the city’s streets. For that matter, it could be lurking within this very house. The plague could go wherever it chose.

John forced his mind back to his investigation. He had become a servant to his own servant, as Gaius had said. Yet Peter was part of John’s household, and if it were possible, John intended to find out who had killed Gregory. Elderly men like Peter did not have much time left to outlive their sorrows and disappointments.

“He’s already lost an old friend, but he at least has good memories of him. If I tell him the work Gregory did, will I murder those memories too? What do you think, Zoe?” John poured himself more wine.

Chapter Four

The bakery was deserted. Empty shelves in its front and cold brick ovens at the back confirmed what John had known as soon as he turned down the street and failed to smell freshly baked bread.

He crossed Eustathios the baker off the list on Gregory’s wax tablet.

There were now no names left. The list had led John to a succession of closed shops and silent houses where knocks had gone unanswered, their residents having departed to the country—or forever—or were perhaps too ill or frightened to answer.

He wondered if the names had in fact been Gregory’s itinerary.

That the bakery had been left open and unlocked indicated not only that Eustathios was dead, but that he had fallen prey to the most virulent variety of the plague, the type that took its victims within hours.

A muted thump caused John to turn quickly. Was there someone here after all?

He saw a cat, little more than an animated skeleton, stalking away from an empty grain bin. The cobwebs hanging off the animal’s whiskers testified to the extent of its hunting efforts. No baker meant no grain to feed the rats and no rats to feed the cats.

The creature glared balefully at John, who had nothing to give it.

Only a few coins.

No use at all to a hungry cat.

John realized he was hungry too. It had been a long time since the chunk of bread that had formed his breakfast.

The sun, now high overhead, drove all shadow from the streets here, a lengthy walk from the Great Palace grounds. John had made his way along the northern ridge from which, between buildings crowded conspiratorially together, he could occasionally glimpse the scintillant waters of the Golden Horn. He had planned his route to avoid climbing and reclimbing the seven-hilled city’s precipitous streets.

Now, however, he decided to walk down toward the docks.

When he reached a square facing the sea wall he was disappointed again. The seller of grilled fish, whose smoking brazier usually sat beside the marble statue of Emperor Anastasius, had gone. No sign of him remained except soot on the emperor’s chin and a few discarded fish bones, picked clean by seagulls.

There were still a fair number of pedestrians. A traveler unaccustomed to the capital’s jostling masses might not have noticed how relatively few they were or how most maintained careful courses, keeping a safe distance from strangers—rather like ships navigating the harbor, except that the ships in the harbor were not moving. There wasn’t a sail to be seen, only a forest of bare masts.

John recalled what Peter had said about his visits with Gregory. Sometimes they met at the Great Church or the Church of the Holy Apostles. Both were certainly places of some interest to Christians, but the latter was a long walk from John’s house. Was it was nearer to where Gregory lived? The thought occurred that there must be some record of where Gregory lived, either at the customs house or in the administrative warrens of the palace.

John turned away from the sea wall and started back up the steep thoroughfare. He often walked, since he found he thought better when his feet were moving. Thus he knew the alleys and byways of the city well. He crossed the top of the ridge, navigated a series of side streets not quite narrow enough to be called alleyways, passed under the Aqueduct of Valens, and eventually reached the Church of the Holy Apostles.

A motley assortment of associated ecclesiastical buildings all but hid the church. Not far beyond, the city’s inner wall stood guard. Impregnable to men, the walls had provided no defense against the plague.

John looked up and down nearby streets until he found an establishment that appeared to be open. A pyramid chiseled above its entrance bore the admonition
The Wise Man is Prepared
. A plaque beside the door identified the establishment as belonging to one Paraskeve, Builder of Tombs of Distinction.

John found the owner in the courtyard behind the shop, surrounded by the equivalent of a warehouse’s stock of marble, granite, and more exotic stones. Some were blank, awaiting the chisel, while others were in the midst of being carved into bas reliefs, cornices, or vine-entwined columns, or inscribed with appropriate verse.

Paraskeve hurried over to greet John, beaming. He had one of those round, snub-nosed faces that never age yet never look quite adult. Over his work tunic he wore an embroidered rectangular apron.

“How can I serve you, excellency?”

“I’m trying to find a man I believe may live in the area. Do you know a customs official named Gregory?”

“Yes, indeed I do.” Paraskeve looked crushed.

“I shall naturally reimburse you for the information.”

Paraskeve waved a stubby-fingered hand. “No. No, please, there is no need. I must apologize if my disappointment showed. The plague has all but carried my business off and I hoped you might wish to order…that is to say, for future use of course, not wishing any tragedy on your household, or in other words…” He floundered to a halt.

“I understand,” John replied. “Although I would have imagined a tomb builder would be overwhelmed by work in the midst of so much death.”

“The dead don’t purchase tombs, excellency. My customers are dying before they can make appropriate preparations. Constructing a proper tomb can take years. It’s not just hacking a few stones about, as some in the profession are wont to do.”

“You’ve had business dealings with Gregory?”

“Not exactly, but I can tell you where to find him. You can’t miss his house. Continue up the Mese from here and it’s the house just before the obelisk the candlemaker erected in front of his emporium.”

“You don’t know Gregory personally?”

“No. He is, however, said to be a good Christian.” Paraskeve’s tone was abrupt.

John asked why people had formed this opinion.

“For one thing, he petitioned Justinian to renovate the Church of the Holy Apostles.” Paraskeve didn’t seem inclined to add a second thing.

“Emperor Constantine built that church to be his tomb, didn’t he?”

Paraskeve’s cherubic face brightened suddenly. “That’s right. There’s a fine example of forethought, excellency. It’s one reason I set up my workshop as close as I could to the church.”

John inspected a carved piece of black-veined marble leaning against a pile of sandstone blocks. As he bent to examine the partially completed inscription, heat from the sun-warmed stone touched his face. He read the half finished verse aloud. “‘Do not believe you have twice five thousand years; death is close at hand, thus while—”

“—you breathe, while there is time, live in a fitting fashion,’ Marcus Aurelius,” Paraskeve finished the verse.

“You are quite a philosopher, I see.”

“Not at all, excellency, but when you’re in the business of constructing tombs you just can’t avoid Marcus Aurelius. I think I must’ve engraved every word of his miserable Meditations at some time or other.”

“You don’t agree with his thoughts?”

“I’m an optimist! Tomorrow I might die, but as long as I know that it means I’m still alive, doesn’t it? How could an emperor be so gloomy? Especially considering just about everyone’s going to die without ever being emperor. I encourage my customers to choose contemporary verses, if verse they must have. Something specially composed. Not that I can afford to engage a decent epigrammist the way things are right now.”

“So you think we should contemplate our deaths to the extent of commissioning our tombs?”

“Please, excellency! Clients who commission tombs, well, their deaths are the last things on their minds. No, not at all. I’ll give you an example. Years ago a basket-maker came to me. At the time he was practically a youth. He had his tomb constructed in a secluded corner of a cemetery just outside the city wall. Was he contemplating his mortality? Hardly! He wanted to impress a young woman whose hand he sought. It worked too! A man of sufficient substance to finance such a project at such a young age and so responsible and practical as shown by the very act…well, excellency, women like men who have their tombs already built. Now he tells me he and his wife take a basket of food out there on sunny days and enjoy the country air.”

John remarked that tomb construction sounded like a very interesting profession, but before he could turn the conversation back to Gregory, Paraskeve, seemingly happy to have someone to talk to for a time, had embarked on another story.

“So the bootmaker’s tomb is no more than a hand’s-breadth from the Via Egnatia, practically in sight of the city. Naturally it gets as dusty as the boots he sells,” Paraskeve concluded. “Ah, but consider this! It’s also readily seen by every footsore pilgrim. What a fine advertisement for his goods. Idle boasts read much better as epitaphs!”

John agreed there was some truth in the statement.

“Then there was a certain senator,” the other rushed on. “You’d know his name immediately were it to pass my lips. His tomb overlooks the Marmara from a promontory on his estate. He was so pleased with the edifice I built he hired me to add apartments to it where he could sit and meditate.”

“I can’t say I would want to spend more time than necessary in my own tomb,” John observed.

“His wife apparently felt the same. She was horrified and refused to set foot near the place.” Paraskeve laughed. “Ah, but then again, his mistress is not so squeamish and I understand is much given to meditation!”

“Did Gregory have a family?”

“A wife, but he refused to show her my design for their final resting place. It was a representation of the hold of a cargo ship. The tomb itself was in the shape of a crate, adorned with angels and set amidst monumental amphorae and crosses. They would be part of the heavenly ship’s cargo, bound for some higher land, you see. Very appropriate for a high-ranking customs official. I still have the…but wait! Why are you asking me about Gregory? He’s not been taken off too?”

John confirmed his suspicions, without elaboration.

Paraskeve’s shoulders slumped. “I may as well throw those sketches away then. His wife won’t commission anything like that, you can be certain of it. On the other hand, there are other customs officials who might be interested, aren’t there? Yes. I shall save them, then. Now you, excellency. Have you made suitable arrangements, if I may be so bold?”

“I don’t intend to have a tomb built.”

“It’s natural enough to be afraid of death, but it’s no use pretending—”

John cut him off abruptly. “I don’t fear death. What happens to my remains doesn’t concern me in the least.”

***

John rapped again at Gregory’s door.

There was no reply.

He stepped back and looked up at the second story window. There was no movement behind the tiny panes.

While to passersby the house displayed only a plain brick facade, doubtless it was well appointed inside. At four stories, it looked out over the roofs of the surrounding buildings. From the top floor, Gregory would have had a magnificent view of the Sea of Marmara.

For years the customs official had met Peter, often not far from here. The pair might have walked right past this very house. What would Peter have thought if he knew his old army friend lived here, rather than in some dingy tenement? What if he were to find out?

John debated questioning Paraskeve further, but decided he had heard enough tales of the tomb builder’s trade and started back. Better to go home to his evening meal and further thought on the knotty problem with which he was grappling.

As he drew level with the Church of the Holy Apostles the noise of a sudden uproar broke out, sounding somewhere between a fully fledged riot and a flock of angry seagulls. The church doors burst open and white-robed figures rushed into the street, shrieking in terror. Most were children.

Several boys raced frantically past John, their garments flapping around spindly legs. They were followed, at an increasing distance, by two lumbering middle-aged men, obviously unaccustomed to running. The men stopped, looking relieved, when John accosted them. Both had the soft, immaculate look of clerics.

“Thief,” gasped one. “Did you see him?”

“Some crazed old man,” added his companion, panting. “Yet spry on his feet all right!”

The other man took a few deep breaths and wiped his perspiring brow on his sleeve. “It was this holy fool everyone is talking about, sir. He tried to tie himself to the Column of Flagellation. Blasphemy of the highest order.” His tone conveyed his horror at the recollection.

“Trying to steal it, you mean,” his companion corrected him. “He was trying to tie it to his back to make off with it. The very instrument of our Lord’s torture meant nothing to him but a few gold coins.”

“Anyway, we chased the fool away. It’s only a fragment of the column that we have, but even so, it’s too heavy to carry, or so I’d have thought. The boys will follow him and find out where he’s gone, then we’ll alert the authorities and they can take care of the matter.”

The clerics continued on after their vanished charges, limping rather than running.

John set his course for home. No matter the disaster, there was always someone ready to take advantage, he thought. The Christian church seemed to attract more frauds than might be expected. Perhaps it was because their god seemed less inclined to interfere with the mortal world, less likely to let loose thunderbolts than Zeus would have been.

He passed a street he’d visited earlier. Movement caught his eye as a thin shape slunk into an alley. The starving cat from the bakery, carrying something in its mouth.

John sighed. “I’m glad the day has brought someone good fortune, my feline friend.”

***

Gaius perched his bulk uncomfortably on a stool in John’s kitchen. Hypatia shifted a bronze pot to the back of the brazier, added water, and stirred the mixture in an attempt to tame the wildly bubbling concoction. Nose-stinging smoke hung in the air. Evidently some of the pot’s contents had boiled over when Hypatia went downstairs to admit Gaius to the house.

“I’m sorry to have made you wait, sir. Peter’s usually prompt to answer the door. He isn’t himself right now.”

“Of course. He will be mourning his friend. And what are you preparing, Hypatia?”