Six for Gold (5 page)

Chapter Ten

The captain of the excubitors could not see him.

The clerk relayed the information to Anatolius with a knowing smirk. The message was the same one he’d delivered five days running, but the smirk had grown more pronounced every day.

“I insist I must speak to Captain Felix. It’s an important matter and I am the emperor’s secretary.”

“You mean you were his secretary. The captain is not here. You can try again tomorrow, if you wish.”

Anatolius left. The smirk followed him out into the corridor.

Why was Felix being so uncooperative?

He thought back to his last meeting with his friend. He’d asked him how he was faring in the search for Senator Symacchus’ murderer.

Felix had appeared uneasy, and finally admitted no official investigation was being undertaken. “Why not? Because Justinian hasn’t ordered one. And why should he? John was caught red-handed.”

As Anatolius questioned Felix further, it had become apparent John had not told the excubitor captain about Thomas’ involvement. If the Lord Chamberlain had chosen to withhold that information, it wasn’t for Anatolius to reveal it.

Had Felix somehow sensed Anatolius was not being entirely forthright? Was that why he refused to see him?

Anatolius decided he might be able to catch Felix at home.

He took a shortcut through the palace grounds. As he came around the corner of a pavilion, he was startled to see the man he sought walking swiftly ahead. Although several neglected flower beds and overgrown ornamental shrubs separated the two men, the burly, bearded figure was unmistakable.

Anatolius followed his friend at a distance. Felix did not turn toward the administrative complex where he had his office or down the path that would have taken him home. Instead he went out past the great bronze doors of the Chalke and strode along the Mese, moving rapidly further into the city.

Anatolius hurried along behind. Ordinarily he would have simply hailed Felix, but today he was angry about his friend’s seeming avoidance of him as well as curious about the man’s destination.

Had Felix been abroad on official business, he would certainly have been accompanied by a couple of his excubitors.

Even more intriguing, however, Felix was wearing a nondescript tunic over the leather leggings of an off-duty soldier, essentially disguising his rank.

Felix turned down a narrow street and vanished inside a tavern. It was a seedy establishment, opposite a public lavatory. The main attraction of the former appeared to be that it was open.

The plague had cured many a drinking problem and put more than a few taverns out of business.

There was no colonnade here. A row of shops opened directly onto the narrow street. All were closed, their wares protected by metal grates pulled down and locked to iron rings in the cobbles. The amount of debris that had accumulated around and behind the grates testified how long the businesses had been shut.

Anatolius eyed the tavern. Beside its door hung a wooden sign cut in the shape of an amphora, but so irregularly made it could well have been created by a carpenter who had imbibed the entire contents of his model.

Feeling foolish, he stuck his head around the tavern door and peered in.

The cramped room was dim. Felix was talking to someone whose back Anatolius did not recognize at a table set against the rear wall.

Why shouldn’t Felix meet a friend for a cup of wine?

Even so, given Felix’s recent odd behavior, Anatolius was prepared to think the worst. He crossed the street and went under the marble archway into the lavatory. From inside, framed by the arch’s bas-reliefs of Greek gods, he could observe the tavern without being noticed.

Or so he hoped.

The smell made him gag. A glance at the state of the floor showed the facility hadn’t been cleaned recently—not to mention that he would have to burn his footwear when he returned to John’s house. Public services were vanishing even faster than the public. He wasn’t surprised the long, communal marble bench boasted only a single customer, seated at the far end. The man, slumped forward, ignored him.

Anatolius fixed his gaze on the tavern and its peeling plaster exterior. Flies droned. Time passed. More flies appeared, adding their complaints to the others clustering around the malodorous facility. He began to think if Zeus turned an ear toward the earth, all that god would hear from the capital would be a buzzing akin to that of a gigantic insect.

The man at the far end of the bench still hadn’t moved a muscle. Anatolius now realized he was dead. The morbid notion came to him that urchins had found a corpse in the street and sat it there as a macabre jest.

He almost missed Felix’s companion emerging from the tavern. All he could make out was the man’s retreating back.

He briefly considered following from sheer curiosity, but it was the captain of excubitors to whom he needed to talk. Thankful to be able to leave his temporary shelter, he went into the murky tavern, and sat down next to Felix who looked up, startled, from his wine cup.

“Something smells…” Felix’s gaze moved to Anatolius’ feet.

“I plan on burning my boots, Felix, but something else will still offend my nostrils. What have you been doing about helping John? Why have you been avoiding me?”

“You must have followed me here. Is that what a friend does?” Felix sounded hurt. His words were slurred. Anatolius realized his companion was intoxicated.

The portly owner of the establishment waddled toward them. Anatolius put him to flight with a baleful glare that conveyed the clear message: “Observe my elaborate robes. I am from the palace and that means trouble if you interfere!”

“Are you in some sort of difficulty, Felix?”

The captain stared over Anatolius’ shoulder for a short time as if considering the question, then slammed his cup down, splashing wine on the scantily clad women dancing lewdly in the fresco beside them.

“That’s it, Anatolius!” he roared. “I know what you’re going to complain about. You’re going to complain that I’ve taken up gambling again even though it’s my business, not yours! Not to mention just a small wager now and then doesn’t hurt anyone…”

“I was going to say you’re intoxicated—”

“Now there you’re totally wrong! Totally! Totally, totally wrong…”

Anatolius decided Felix could not possibly have got so inebriated in the short time he’d been inside the tavern. He must have begun drinking not long after he rolled out of bed.

“Who was that man who just left? Someone you’ve been placing bets with, I’ll wager!”

A huge grin parted Felix’s unkempt beard. “You’ll wager? You criticize me for betting, but you’ll wager?” He started to laugh.

“Proprietor!” he yelled. “Listen to this jest! The gentleman here questions my wagering yet he bets himself! Did you ever hear anything more comical?”

“Yes, I have,” replied the man from the other end of the tavern. “Mostly concerning the empress!”

Anatolius waited for the captain’s mirth to subside. “Felix, you can’t become involved in wagering again. You know you swore you were finished with that years ago.”

Felix grunted. “Shows what you know. The man I was speaking to isn’t a gambler. He’s a horse trainer. How could I wager with the races cancelled thanks to this pestilence? But I am keeping informed. I am an informed man. Very, very informed.”

He took another gulp of what remained of his wine. “I know the Greens lost their best horses last week. I wager you didn’t know that! That’s how informed I am. The owner sold them, you see. Race horses are worth more to butchers than bettors these days.”

Anatolius suddenly felt queasy. He couldn’t help wondering whether Francio, the universal gourmet, might not have taken the opportunity to sample the flesh of a Hippodrome champion.

“More than one person has remarked to me that fewer people seem to be dying,” he replied. “The emperor and empress have returned to the palace, as you know well enough. Would they put themselves in danger if it were not true?”

“Fewer people are dying because there’s hardly anyone left to die,” Felix pointed out.

It was possibly true, Anatolius thought uneasily. The plague seemed determined to linger until Constantinople was deserted.

“Felix, I know there is no official investigation, but have you found anything out about the murder of Senator Symacchus? Anything to free John of suspicion?”

Felix tugged at his beard. “No. Not a thing. What could there be? John was there when we arrived. I saw him myself. He was standing over the body.”

“But he denied killing the senator.”

“He didn’t deny it when we arrived at the Hippodrome. Took one look at us and ran. It’s not like John at all. What in Mithra’s name does it all mean? That’s what I want to know. It’s a puzzle. A puzzling puzzle.”

Felix attempted to pick up his partly filled cup and knocked it over. The proprietor lumbered over with a rag almost before the rosy stream hit the straw on the floor. Anatolius’ glare forced him away again.

“And why did you happen to be at the Hippodrome with so many men at that specific time, Felix?”

“I’ve explained already.”

“You haven’t.”

“I haven’t?” Felix frowned. He looked genuinely perplexed. “But why was that?”

“Felix, I can’t tell you why you didn’t tell me. Just tell me now, would you? Why were you there?”

“A fellow came and told me,” Felix explained. “Said a senator was being murdered in the Hippodrome.”

“A fellow?”

“A man. A stranger. Came into my office. And he was right. I raced over with my men, but Symacchus was already dead.”

“Wasn’t that a bit unusual?”

“I wouldn’t say so. Once the cord was around his neck he didn’t have a chance.”

“I meant wasn’t it unusual for someone to go to your office to report an impending murder? Most people would rush to the nearest barracks, don’t you think? Or stop a guard on the street?”

“Perhaps he worked at the palace and naturally thought of the excubitors first?”

Anatolius nodded eagerly. “Good! Now we’re on the track of something useful. What makes you say that? Think? Was it the way he dressed? Was the face familiar because you’d passed by him in a hallway or seen him on the palace grounds?”

Felix shook his big head like a petulant child. “I can’t say how he was dressed. What do you take me for, one of Theodora’s ladies-in-waiting? An expert on sartorial elegance? Yet sometimes I wonder at that, considering the type of tasks Justinian orders me to carry out.”

Anatolius stood. It was obvious he wouldn’t get anything useful out of Felix in his current state. His immediate problem now was seeing the captain home in one piece. “Come on, Felix.”

The dim room darkened further. He noticed the proprietor had blocked the doorway with his considerable girth. He flipped him a coin and the man moved aside.

Felix remained seated. “You go ahead. I need another cup of wine. Or two. Or even more.”

Anatolius sighed. Trying to shift the big excubitor from his chair would be like trying to move a boulder with a twig.

“Here’s something you’ll like, Felix,” he said with a grin. “I’ll wager you can’t get from here to your house without falling into the gutter.”

Chapter Eleven

“The next thing I knew I was lying in the alley and…” Peter’s voice cracked as he forced the words out. “…The last few coins were gone, master.”

The servant hid his anguished face in his hands.

Peter, Cornelia, and John sat in a wide doorway on a street not far from the hostelry where they had spent the night.

The sun had passed its zenith, but heat still lay honey-like upon Alexandria. The city seemed quiet, John thought. Had they already become accustomed to its raucous patchwork of sounds—the rattle of carts, the cries of hawkers, the screams of dusty children who wore amulet necklaces and little else?

John looked at Peter appraisingly. “You’re not hurt?”

Peter picked a flat, oval seed from his scanty hair and tossed it into a rut nearby. “Fortunately I fell into a heap of rotten melons.”

A brown bird dropped from nowhere and flew off with the discarded seed.

“It was better than I deserved for my carelessness,” Peter went on. “I don’t think the thief meant to harm me, and he left my satchel. Except…” His voice trailed off again.

“Never mind, Peter. It was an excellent idea to bring silks to sell. Let’s see them,” Cornelia told him.

With obvious reluctance Peter pulled the satchel open.

The shriveled head of a mummified cat glowered out.

“The thief took them, mistress, and left this as payment. I was going to throw the nasty thing away, but somehow the way it seemed to look at me…”

Cornelia chuckled. “It’s adorable, Peter. I won’t let you abandon the poor thing. What should I call him? How about Cheops?”

“It’s clear who’s responsible,” John said. “Show me this emporium, Peter. I will resolve the matter with Pedibastet quickly enough.”

John began to stand. Cornelia placed a hand on his arm. “This isn’t Constantinople, John. You have no authority here.”

“I’m certain I can do a good enough impersonation of a high official to frighten Pedibastet into returning Peter’s coins!”

“Dressed in those rags?”

John looked down at his threadbare, stained tunic. “You’re right. It’s a pity I don’t have one of my ceremonial robes.”

“If you did, we could sell it for more than enough for our boat fare to Mehenopolis,” Cornelia said.

The trio fell silent for a time.

“But master, why would the emperor order you to a place on imperial business with no means of getting there?” Peter finally asked.

“A good question,” John replied with a thin smile. He did not care to mention that Theodora was responsible for their lack of funds. The change in arrangements ordered by Justinian worried him. It would worry Peter and Cornelia even more.

Cornelia soon spoke sharply. “It seems to me Justinian does not care how you arrive at Mehenopolis. In fact, it’s entirely possible he didn’t want you to arrive at all.”

It was true. Theodora’s interference in John’s exile had been peculiar. Was it possible she had acted with Justinian’s blessing?

John put the thought out of his mind. “More importantly, at this point we have to find our fare to get to Mehenopolis. They always need workers to load wheat on the docks. I can do that.”

“Master!” Peter burst out. “The Lord Chamberlain should not be carrying sacks about like a common laborer! I would be—”

“By the Goddess!” Cornelia interrupted. “John, don’t you remember how we earned our keep the last time we were in this land?”

“I haven’t forgotten. You were part of a bull-leaping act and I helped guard the troupe.”

“Not just bull-leaping. Remember there was also a magician called Baba? An engaging rogue, but always a crowd pleaser.”

“We don’t have a magician with us, mistress,” Peter timidly pointed out.

“Baba taught some of his knowledge to the other performers,” Cornelia replied. “He said a magick trick is like a coin in the hand. You’d never go hungry with something of the kind to entertain and astonish people. I could teach you and Peter one or two of them.”

Peter looked alarmed. “My apologies, mistress, but I am not certain such an act would be a Christian thing for me to do.”

“We don’t have time to learn magick,” John added.

“That’s so,” Cornelia admitted. “What about a bit of play-acting? We sometimes did that, you’ll recall, and you could easily—”

John raised his hand imperiously. “Cornelia, I’m not a performer.”

“How can you say that? You take part in all those elaborate processionals to the Great Church and the Hippodrome and other such tedious ceremonies without looking bored. Of course you can act!”

***

“I am Empress Theodora, and I demand you fetch the Lord Chamberlain immediately! There is an extremely delicate problem of great urgency that requires his immediate attention!”

The visibly trembling old man thus addressed bowed obsequiously and scuttled off.

The imperial speaker peered up toward the tip of the obelisk beside which she stood, and slowly stroked the monument’s warm sandstone. “I’m glad to see Egypt, and it seems Egypt is glad to see me.”

A few onlookers guffawed. Cornelia adjusted her crown, which John had cut from a dried melon rind. Although she spoke Coptic nearly as fluently as John, she had chosen to speak in Greek, realizing that in this part of Alexandria, so near to the docks, most passersby would speak that language.

“Now that I’ve traveled all the way from Constantinople,” she continued, “what would my loyal subjects like to hear about? My charitable works on behalf of former prostitutes? Or would you prefer I relate my theological discussions with the Patriarch?”

“Tell us about the chickens and the grain,” someone yelled.

Peter, playing the empress’ aged servant, had returned and now held his hand up to the side of his mouth and addressed the growing audience in a loud whisper. “Don’t insult the empress by mentioning her past indiscretions! She’s a good Christian now, you know.”

Then, his orthodoxy offended by the line he had spoken, he added, “Even if she does believe the monophysite heresy that Christ has not two natures, but only one, and that fully divine.”

“We all agree with the empress here, old man,” retorted one of the now considerably larger crowd.

“And knowing Theodora, if He really had two natures she’d bed them both,” offered another.

A flurry of other remarks followed.

“How many bishops has she got hidden in the Hormisdas Palace now?”

“At least she claims they’re bishops…”

“I wonder what kind of services they offer her?”

Peter covered his ears in horror.

The shouted demand came again. “Tell us about the chickens and the grain, empress!”

Cornelia stamped her foot. “It’s always that wretched matter! Do you really believe that in my youth I would strip off my garments, lie on the ground, and allow chickens to peck grain from my private parts? I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Peter stood silently by, until he noticed Cornelia glaring at him. “Ah…” he muttered, “…er…Highness, I just heard the chickens…ah…talking.”

“Talking chickens?” Cornelia clapped her hands. “This is truly a miracle! And what did these remarkable fowl say?”

“Dinner’s on the empress!”

This brought forth coarse laughs and applause.

“Highness, here is the Lord Chamberlain!”

The crowd began to titter as a tall, thin figure in a tattered tunic approached with obvious reluctance from behind the obelisk.

A few wits continued to add their comments to the performance.

“If that’s a Lord Chamberlain I’m a pharaoh.”

“What cave did you drag him out of?”

“In Constantinople they starve their Lord Chamberlains and dress them in rags, didn’t you know?”

“What is this most urgent problem, highness?” asked John.

“A most intimate matter, Lord Chamberlain. It concerns the emperor’s heir. I wish you to arrange for the child to be presented to the court with appropriate ceremony.”

“Heir? But surely everyone knows there can be no heir?”

Cornelia gave John an exaggerated scowl. “I do not understand your meaning. Make yourself clearer immediately.”

“Highness, everyone knows the emperor is not a man, but a faceless demon and therefore incapable of siring children in the usual fashion.”

“True,” Cornelia purred, giving the obelisk a tickle, “but I am an unusual woman. Servant, bring the imperial infant here at once.”

Peter bowed and presented his satchel to Cornelia. She pulled out a diminutive figure wrapped in what might have been swaddling clothes, but when she held it aloft the withered, whiskered face of Cheops the mummified cat glared reproachfully at the audience.

The first coins landed beside John’s boots.