Ten for Dying (John the Lord Chamberlain Mysteries) (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-eight

Felix fumbled with his boots. He hadn’t had such a difficult time getting them on since he’d learned to dress himself as a child, but then he wasn’t in a hurry to begin his long march to the dungeons. He had sent enough miscreants there to have wondered what it must be like to make that last walk through the city, seeing the sky for the final time, hearing a burst of laughter from a tavern, catching the rich odors of fruits and spices and the tang of the sea, before descending into the dim, dank, stinking underworld beneath the palace, never to emerge.

“Be quick about it!” Narse’s voice was the bark of a small, bad-tempered dog.

Felix rose. And saw Anastasia appear in the doorway behind the guards. She carried a metal bucket gingerly, almost at arm’s length.

Noticing Felix gaping over their shoulders, Narses and his men began to turn.

Anastasia swung the bucket.

Felix understood what was happening an instant before his visitors.

They roared with pain and shock as a torrent of glowing coals from the kitchen brazier pelted them.

Felix dodged to the side and was out the door and racing down the hall while they cursed and slapped at their hair and the smoldering spots on their clothes.

He realized he was abandoning Anastasia. But what could he do? He had taken off his sword when he arrived home. He was unarmed. Clearly she had wanted him to escape.

The guard left at the back gate must have left his post when he heard the commotion. Running across the courtyard he looked startled to see Felix barrel out of the house. He barked out a warning and raised his sword, and looked even more startled when Felix rushed forward and bulled into him, knocking him to the ground.

Then Felix was out the gate. He ran down the alley behind his house until he reached the street. On the far side lay the passage which had been too narrow to admit a donkey cart bearing a corpse. For a man fleeing on foot it offered a dim, inviting refuge. Once into the noisome maw, Felix risked pausing to peer down the street. Guards had emerged from the house and were shouting at a couple of passersby who were going through the usual ritual of shaking their heads and averring they had seen nothing. Nothing at all. Less than nothing if you insist on pressing the point.

Unfortunately, a cadaverous ragged man lounging against a nearby wall eating a piece of bread was apparently less learned in city ways or else hoping for a reward.

The man nodded and pointed a skeletal finger, akin to the finger of Death, directly at the alley’s mouth.

Felix whirled around and fled. He splashed through puddles of green-scummed water and leapt over piles of refuse whose foul smell suggested much worse then rotting vegetables. Coming to a cross alley, he glanced up and down before veering left and increasing his pace.

The pounding of his footsteps drowned out any noise of pursuit but he was certain the guards could not be far behind.

He wondered what would happen to Anastasia.

Had she been able to escape in the confusion or was she even now being dragged to the palace to face…?

He didn’t want to think about it.

Emerging in a street of shops, he sprinted across and down another narrow passage. The door of a tenement stood open, showing twilight at the end of a filthy hall. Ducking into the building, he ran through it and came out in a square, little more than a rectangular space of packed dirt somehow overlooked by centuries of builders.

Pausing to catch his breath, he listened for his pursuers.

And heard running footsteps echoing in the hallway he had just left.

He spun on his heel, dashed across the square, went around a corner, leapt down a flight of slippery stairs.

He zig-zagged through back streets and shadowy alleys until, at last, his panic faded and he realized night had filled all the narrow ways in a sheltering darkness as deep as the depths of the sea and he was alone, except for rats rustling through the middens piled against brick walls.

With a shock he saw that Fate had led him to the very place he feared. He was several pools of shadow and one torch-illuminated space away from the gate to the Great Palace.

But, he thought, that would be the last place anyone would search for him.

Had Narses put the excubitors at the gate on alert? Why would he?

Was it worth another wager?

“Mithra help me,” Felix muttered. Then for good measure he briefly touched the cross hanging from the chain around his neck. He’d gambled himself into this predicament and the only stake he had left was his life, for which no reasonable man would give a copper coin for at the moment.

He walked through the shadows and the patch of light.

Narses and the emperor might have known that he was a condemned man, but to the guards who lowered their lances respectfully he was, for a while yet, still captain of the excubitors.

Unless they had been ordered to let him into the palace.

Could it be a trap?

There were no signs of one as he forced himself to saunter slowly across the palace grounds, more worried about Anastasia than himself. Eluding capture had given him renewed hope. He could leave the city, could follow John to Greece for that matter. Admittedly the long imperial arm could still reach out for him but it would be a shrewd move to retreat, go to ground, and see what happened.

For Anastasia flight would be next to impossible.

Why had she chosen to sacrifice herself for him? Certainly he had enjoyed being with her. Well, he had been obsessed with her. And she, apparently, with him. But did she think that meant…well, what did it mean?

His feet led him unthinkingly to the cobbled square where John’s house sat across from the excubitor barracks. Felix couldn’t risk showing himself to his men. Even if they didn’t realize he was a fugitive, what could he do? What would he say? “Good evening, men. Justinian has accused me of murder so let’s go and depose him. All hail, Emperor Felix!”

John’s house appeared to be unguarded. With its owner gone, naturally no lights showed in the windows, which began on its second story.

Felix remembered the key John had given him.

The key sitting in the study of his house, he realized when he reached the ponderous nail studded door.

He pushed anyway and to his amazement the door groaned open.

It was obvious why whoever had been there last had neglected to secure the door. There was nothing in the unlocked house worth stealing. John had told Felix to take whatever he wanted before the emperor did. He was too late. The emperor, presumably, had taken everything. The place had been stripped bare. The atrium was a stygian cave. The faint, ambient illumination of the city night filtering down through the rectangular opening in the ceiling glimmered on the water in the impluvium.

Felix climbed the wooden stairs. Their creaking echoed through the empty shell of the house, the cries of ghostly voices. How often he had trodden those stairs before! Perhaps the emperor’s men—for surely it was Justinian who had ordered everything be taken away—had left a bed. If not John’s then Peter’s in the servant’s room on the third floor.

Felix was feeling the results of his exertions. If necessary, he would lie on the boards and try to get some rest, plan his next move.

Passing the kitchen where John had eaten his meals at a scarred wooden table not fit for the lowest inn, he could see the lights of Constantinople through the many-paned window. It was as if the great flaming mosaic of the starry sky had come loose and settled down over the earth.

He paused at the study where he had so often shared a jug of wine with his friend.

On impulse he went in. Dim light entered from the window overlooking the cobbled square which, Felix was relieved to see, remained deserted.

No furniture had been left but on one wall the mosaic with its rustic scene glinted. Felix hoped that John and his family were going to a countryside in reality as peaceful as that depicted in the pieces of cut glass. The scene had not changed…except…

Felix stepped toward the wall and knelt down.

There was shown in the lower part of the scene a young girl. John had called her Zoe and had been in the habit of confiding secrets to her that he would not share with many who were flesh and blood.

Or rather, Zoe had been there, all the years Felix had been visiting the house. Now there was only a jagged space, where tesserae and plaster had been torn away, leaving the bare wall behind.

He reached out and touched the gap.

Could John have taken Zoe with him?

He couldn’t imagine his friend doing such a thing.

A furtive gleam caught his attention. He picked up a tiny piece of glass from the floor. It was pure, glossy black. Part of Zoe’s somber, all-knowing eyes?

He was pondering the mystery when he heard footsteps downstairs.

Chapter Twenty-nine

“That’s an ugly burn. You’re going to have a scar.” Antonina smeared white unguent along the side of Anastasia’s hand, then wrapped a scrap of cloth around the affected area. “Perhaps it’s time to end this little romantic adventure of yours.”

Anastasia drew her lips into a pout. “Just when it’s getting exciting?”

“It’s also getting too awkward, don’t you think? It’s one thing to want the men to burn for us, but to use hot coals…”

The two women were sitting beneath the gaze of the painted empress in Antonina’s reception room. Anastasia couldn’t help feeling that Theodora—long time champion of General Belisarius—was frowning at her in a reproving fashion. “You don’t approve of Felix because he’s allied with Germanus.”

“I do wish you had made a better choice, but let’s not speak of that again. There’s no point allowing our men’s rivalries to come between us.” Antonia replaced the lid on the ceramic unguent jar, sat it down on the side table, and picked up the jewel box there. The box was of polished wood, inlaid with ivory crosses. She opened it to reveal a collection of amulets.

“I pray for Felix every day,” Anastasia said. “But he refuses to let go of that pagan deity of his. Do you think the Lord answers prayers for pagans?”

“The Lord works almost as mysteriously as the emperor. Still, you’re probably right, an amulet can’t hurt. Although, from what you told me, it may already be too late.” She rummaged through the collection, which ranged from smooth pebbles one might pick up on the sea shore to medallions made of precious metals.

“I prayed for him in the Great Church,” Anastasia went on. “I think prayers work better there. When I pray in my room I feel as if I’m talking to myself. In the church I feel a presence, in the light and the shadows up in the dome.”

“How about this one?” Antonina handed over a carnelian suspended from a silver chain. “It’s been engraved with magick symbols. How you intend to give it to him however…?”

“He’ll find his way back to me.”

“Indeed. I can tell you are still under the captain’s barbaric spell. A brawling ruffian is quite a change from courtiers who fight with poisoned tongues. You’re like our dear Theodora, except she kept her bears caged and you prefer them in your bed.”

“And what about you? You like keeping wild things around. Didn’t you say that many of your servants had been recruited from the factions because you liked their spirit?”

“That’s not to say I sleep with all my servants.”

“Oh? You have always advised me that the best way to stay young is to remain open to new experiences. Since we’re talking in confidence, what happened to that young man you brought back with you from Italy? You are keeping him well hidden. He never showed his face at the court.”

“Karpos? I couldn’t tell you where he is right now. I don’t keep my men on a chain, regardless of what people say.”

“I thought maybe you didn’t trust me. I might try to steal him.”

“Really Anastasia! I would never suspect you of such a thing. It’s servants who steal things. In fact lately I’ve noticed petty thefts—a bracelet missing, a jar of cosmetics.”

“Perhaps the thief is that demon your servants were afraid of?”

“More likely it is Tychon. A tough fellow. One of my wild things as you put it. In his case the faction was the Blues. I suspect he’s been helping himself to my wine on the sly. I have devised a little trap for the thief, whoever it turns out to be.”

“When you catch the culprit, let me know who it was. Maybe it is Karpos!” Anastasia stood up. “I’d better get back to Felix’s house now.”

“If you must. Do you really expect him to elude the emperor?”

“If he doesn’t then I shall have something to say about it!”

“I’m sure you will. Be careful. These are not normal times. This game might not turn out as you wish.”

“Oh, Antonina! You’re just cross because you know Belisarius will be retired and underfoot before long and Felix will commanding troops in Italy!”

***

Felix took a step toward the door’s barred window before the chain around his ankle brought him up short. Feeble light from a torch somewhere in the corridor made its way through the bars and trembled around the bare and otherwise windowless cell. Leprous plaster fallen from the walls revealed the bricks beneath. White flakes littered the concrete floor.

This diseased hole in the earth was the last place he was likely to see.

Narses had allowed him to escape, hoping he would lead the guards to the stolen relic. It should have been obvious. How could Felix have been so stupid as to imagine he was really outrunning trained military men half his age?

He’d put up a good fight, however, when they’d cornered him in John’s study. At least one of those callow bastards was going to have a permanently flattened nose to remind him of Felix.

Felix kicked and yanked at the chain, which was firmly attached to the wall.

Mithra!” It was a curse rather than a prayer. He didn’t feel like praying, either to his own god or Anastasia’s Christian one. They could both go to Hell as far as he was concerned, along with Narses and Justinian.

What evidence did Narses really have against Felix? Not that it mattered. He had trapped Felix by bringing that jeweled cloak to the house and having his guard pretend to find it. If Felix swore the courier hadn’t been wearing the cloak he’d be admitting he had, indeed, found the courier in his courtyard and disposed of the body.

How the stinking eunuch had enjoyed ordering Felix to lie on the floor of the emperor’s reception hall. When Justinian ordered Felix to stand he was pleased to see a huge, red blister on Narse’s naked scalp, the result of one of the hot coals Anastasia had flung.

“I am deeply troubled, captain,” Justinian had said, his bland features looking as untroubled as one of the marble busts decorating the hall. “Is there no one left whom I can trust? No one except Narses? The theft of the Virgin’s shroud is not the only matter for which you have to answer. In addition, you were observed talking to the disgraced Lord Chamberlain not long before he left the city. Narses has told me he suspects a plot. I tend to agree.”

He would. Justinian’s predecessor as emperor, his uncle Justin, had been captain of the excubitors, although in Justin’s case he had outmaneuvered a scheming Lord Chamberlain to seize the throne.

There was no reason for Narses to fabricate such a plot on Felix’s behalf. Theft of the relic was more than enough to cost him his head. No doubt the treacherous eunuch wanted an excuse to pluck John out of the safety of exile.

Felix wished he could warn John.

But the best he could hope for was to resist confessing to Narse’s inventions under the ministrations of the imperial torturers.

And that was a doubtful proposition. He had seen what was left of those from whom the torturers had torn the desired confessions—mindless, bleeding husks. By the time their mouths had babbled the required words any semblance of reasoning or humanity had long since fled.

This was what Felix anticipated in the near future. Not only death but agony beyond imagining and the knowledge that in the end he would surely betray his friend.

He shuddered. The malodorous air was clammy, but the chill he felt had nothing to do with the moisture. He stared through the bars into the corridor. The flickering torchlight gave no clue as to the time. What difference did time make here? For those who entered the emperor’s dungeons time had ended.

But surely, in the world above, it must be near dawn.

Felix heard voices. Approaching steps.

The light from the corridor dimmed, blocked by a figure in front of the cell door. A huge man.

A key rattled in a lock and the door swung forward, its hinges giving off the high, thin shriek of a terrified woman.