Ten for Dying (John the Lord Chamberlain Mysteries) (23 page)

DAY EIGHT

Chapter Fifty-three

Maria flung a bucketful of dead rats over the railing into the bear pit. The bear reared up on its hind legs and batted at the falling rodents, its monstrous head looming so near Felix felt the animal’s humid breath. He could make out a crescent shaped white patch on the creature’s chest.

The pit looked dangerously shallow. Felix glanced nervously toward the gate at the top of the ramp descending into the well-like concrete hole, reassuring himself it was securely chained shut.

“Hercules does love his rats.” Maria was a ponderous ruin of a woman, her face wattled and wrinkled as if it had come partly loose from her skull. She had succeeded her long dead husband as bear-keeper. “Now then, sirs, since I have served Hercules, how may I serve you?”

“We need a place to stay for a while,” Felix told her.

Maria examined him suspiciously. “Is that so? I wouldn’t think this would be a suitable place to stay for a gentleman such as yourself, sir. As for your servant…” She peered at the magician with a mixture of distaste and horror.

“We both need lodgings.” He handed her the copper ring. “Anastasia said if I showed you this ring, you would assist us.”

Again Felix was beginning to have his doubts about this arrangement. Even if the old woman were trustworthy, what about all the people in the Hippodrome he had asked directions from? Would they remember him asking the whereabouts of Maria the bear-keeper if questioned?

Maria drew the ring up close to her eyes. “Praise be! I always told the dear little sisters they could count on Maria, but now they are of high rank I never imagined any of them would ever need the help of a poor woman like me.” She wiped at the tears suddenly running down her wrinkled cheeks. “To think, little Anastasia remembers old Maria. A fine lady like her and the sister of an empress.”

Remembered you when you could be of some use, Felix almost said, then chided himself for being unfair to Anastasia. Maria appeared to be genuinely moved. Nothing in her demeanor suggested that Anastasia had sent Felix into a trap.

“Come along then.” Maria turned and waddled away. “You can stay with me for as long as you wish.”

Felix followed, Dedi at his heels.

The clammy air was disturbed by the occasional freezing draught slithering along the concrete floor.

He expected Antonina’s guards to suddenly come running into the subbasement. After all, Antonina’s house was practically next to the Hippodrome. The sun had long since risen. The guards must be scouring the area.

They passed several pits similar to that occupied by Hercules. He heard a cacophony of scrabbling, roars, hisses, grunts, growls. At one point he shuddered at what sounded like the dolorous cry of a distressed infant. Animal odors rose from the pits, each different yet equally foul. Who could say what beasts were confined in those noisome holes?

The trio passed by a wall into which were built cages with iron bars. Grotesque shadows shifted in the dark corners of the barred dens. Felix made no attempt to look inside. He knew there was nothing here but the common animals which regularly performed or were displayed at the Hippodrome.

After what felt like a long time but probably wasn’t, Maria said, “Here we are.”

Where they were appeared to be a heap of planks, bricks, broken masonry, and even pieces of carts piled in a corner of the subbasement. Maria invited them to step through the doorway that opened, incongruously, into the pile.

Felix hesitated. For no reason he could name he had a terrible premonition.

Something was waiting inside for him.

Antonina’s guards? Excubitors? Porphyrius’ murderous Blues? Or something much worse?

He clutched at the chains around his neck. His fingers brushed past the cross and touched the amulet Anastasia had given him. The irrationality of his reaction shamed him, brought him back to his senses.

Inside Maria’s home a clay lamp burned atop a table made from an overturned crate. The body of a chariot served as a couch. The walls were draped with ragged, stained hangings.

Before Felix could assimilate all the details, Maria ushered them through another opening and into a smaller chamber, similarly lit by a guttering flame.

“Make yourselves comfortable,” she told the pair, with no hint of irony. “I will be back soon with something to eat.”

Felix blinked in the shifting light and fingered his amulet.

He glanced around and abruptly realized he was staring into two black, bottomless vortexes. The eyes in the stern face of the Christian’s crucified god.

His fingers left the amulet for the cross.

Chapter Fifty-four

As the day passed the icon’s baleful stare never wavered.

Or at any rate Felix hoped and believed the day was passing. How much time had gonne by he couldn’t say. Now it seemed an eternity, now only a few heartbeats.

As a young soldier he had often waited for battle, sometimes in the darkness of a tent, other times in the open under night skies. Now he felt the same unbearable tension, every muscle in his body, every thought, screaming to get on with the fight, to be done with it, to feel the sweet relief of victory or perhaps to feel nothing at all ever again. But at least to have it over.

The future was always more frightening than the present. The present you grappled with as best you could. The future was a mocking, unreachable phantom.

But this waiting was worse because Felix did not know what it was he waited for. What sort of fight? Or would he have any chance to fight?

Felix tried not to stare at the icon, an image of Christ painted on a plank by an amateur hand. It had been half consumed by fire. The face wore a pointed beard, as black as the charred edges of the plank. The thin-lipped mouth evidenced cruelty and the enormous eyes were demonic in the flickering lamplight. Anastasia insisted her god looked into men’s souls. This god seemed to be skewering Felix’s soul. His head pounded.

“It’s such a comfort to me,” came Maria’s voice from the doorway. “It reminds me that He is forever looking after us.”

The bear-keeper had brought bread, cheese, and olives, along with a jug of wine. Felix thanked her. Perhaps if he got something into his stomach his headache would go away. Was it from being kicked or from the sleeping potion Antonina had slipped him?

“I found the icon shamefully abandoned in the ruins of a burnt house.” Maria tapped the dented jug from which she had poured wine into a pair of mismatched ceramic cups. “The same place I found this jug.”

“The authorities tend to frown on upon theft,” Felix noted

“Theft? Rescuing useful items, you mean. Anyway, Hercules loves taking walks with me and no one seems to care if we pick up an item or two along the way.”

“You take a bear out into the streets?”

“On a chain, naturally.”

Recalling the animal cages they had passed, Felix supposed Hercules could use the exercise. “Apes,” he said. The story of the watchman at Theodora’s mausoleum had come into his thoughts. “Do you have apes?”

“We had an ape, but it escaped. Don’t look so alarmed. That was years ago. The ape’s long dead by now, or else married a rich woman and became a senator.” She gave a hearty guffaw.

In speaking to her, Felix noticed the colorful wall hanging behind her shoulder. It showed several angels in flight. “Did you find that in a burnt-out building as well?”

“Oh, no. My girls sent that to me. The sisters, you know. They have never forgotten their old friend Maria. I refused to let them be put out on the street. Imagine the cruelty of the Greens, refusing to help the family of their own bear-keeper after he died so untimely. The Blues will show they are better than that, I said. And so we did. Not that we were not benefited. The girls turned out to be splendid performers.”

Indeed, their performances were the subject of a thousand salacious rumors, some of which might even be true, Felix thought.

“They often sent me gifts,” Maria continued. “Alas, poor Theodora has left us already.”

“Maybe not,” muttered Dedi, who had been keeping silent.

Maria glanced at him with grim disapproval before turning her attention back to Felix. “I am happy to find you so much better. When I looked in before you were dozing and muttering about strange events. I fear you may have a demon inside you, sir, contending for your soul. I have been praying and I am sure you are doing the same.”

Felix grunted in a noncommittal manner.

Maria smiled at the icon. “You could not have come to a better refuge, unless it were the Great Church. Our Lord will surely expel any evil creatures that dare to come within His sight.” She frowned at Dedi again. “I will leave you and your servant alone for now. If you should kill any rats, I collect them for Hercules, so throw them into the box beside the outer door.” She lumbered away.

Felix squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them the icon was still glaring at him. Or was it glaring at an evil creature inside him? “Did I doze off?” he asked Dedi.

“Yes. Probably you are still feeling the effects of whatever Antonina put you to sleep with. She could as easily have put you to sleep forever. You’ve been lucky.”

“Lucky. That’s my name, isn’t it?”

Or was he only slow-witted? Maybe he should have taken Antonina’s offer. He’d have been safely away from Constantinople. Dedi was right, if she had wanted to kill him he’d already be dead. What would be the point of ordering her servants to kill him before they reached the city gates when it could have been done in private at her house?

Well, Felix was often a step behind. But it didn’t matter so long as you kept going. If your opponent stopped before the end of the race, you’d end up ahead. Still, Felix wished his head would stop pounding. Would Julius Caesar have crossed the Rubicon if he’d had a bad headache that day?

“Don’t excite yourself,” Dedi said. “Whatever vile potion Antonina’s given you will take hold of your thoughts if you let them get out of control.”

“You know a lot about such potions?”

“I studied much ancient lore when I lived in Egypt. How do you think I pass by guards as though I were invisible? A bit of powder in their wine, or tossed into the air and they are oblivious to the world.”

“Do you have a powder that will tell me what to do next instead of sitting here, rotting away in this dark hole while half the city is hunting me?”

“I have explained how I shall bring Theodora back to save us.”

“It seems to me you’ve already failed twice. An Egyptian amulet and frogs! Why frogs?”

“Because frogs are sacred to the frog-headed goddess Heqt, who represents resurrection. Just as scarabs are involved with resurrection.”

“But they didn’t work to resurrect the empress.”

Dedi’s mouth puffed in and out in annoyance. “It is more efficacious to place the scarab directly on the body, which I could not do. Also, I stood on a frog. Since they were sacred in Egypt at one time that was a capital crime. I hope I have not offended the goddess.”

Felix shook his head. “I’d hate to be hanged for a frog. I saved your life, Dedi. The least you can do is tell me the truth even if nobody else will!”

“You saved me? It was I who burst in just as Antonina was about to finish you off.”

“What are you talking about? She was offering me a way out of the city. And where would you have gone to hide, if not for me? You’d be in the dungeons by now.”

Dedi patted the small satchel attached to his belt. “I was about to use the invisibility dust I keep here, but there wasn’t enough for two.”

“I thought you said it was your sleeping potions that made you seem invisible to guards.” The self-styled magician had been making a living for years entertaining Theodora with his inventions and wild tales. “Look,” Felix said wearily. “Tell me honestly what you saw that night in the mausoleum. Did demons run out of the church?”

“Yes. I did see those two demons fleeing from the church. I thought I had conjured them myself, by mistake.”

“And then?”

Dedi turned his palms up. “And then…nothing. I saw demons racing off into the night. That’s all.”

Felix could see he was lying. But there was no use arguing and possibly antagonizing one of the few allies he had left.

Dedi reached up and rapped at the icon’s nose. “Never mind these Christian tall tales. If the old woman senses demons around us it is because I have been summoning them from the underworld. The door has opened. The demons are here. Now I need only to command them to bring Theodora back up into the land of the living.”

“Only…”

“It is not much, compared to what I’ve already accomplished. We must wait until dark. Then…then I will complete the task I have begun. I have everything I need in my satchel. In a few hours Theodora will rise to serve us.”

Felix looked at the crooked little creature with whom he was temporarily trapped in this subterranean cell. Did Dedi actually believe the foolishness he was spouting? Or did he only want to believe? Was he as mad as the Jingler? Were old Maria or Anastasia any less mad for believing their prayers to an invisible god might somehow be effective?

But what could Felix do? His home was under surveillance. He couldn’t stride out into the center of the Mese and defeat an army of guards and gangs of Blues single handed. If he fled the city then he would never dare to return. And was Dedi trustworthy? Better have him intent on reanimating Theodora than weighing whether to betray Felix to the emperor.

So let Dedi play his game. At least it would pass the time. And it would keep Dedi in his sight. And who knows, maybe it would work.

Felix couldn’t help feeling that if his future depended on Dedi’s magick, he didn’t have much of a future.

Chapter Fifty-five

“Here she comes! Hide the buckets!” a tall excubitor shouted from the alley gate to a colleague lounging by the back entrance to Felix’s house.

Anastasia gave the man announcing her arrival a haughty look as he opened the gate for her. “Impertinent fool!” she muttered as she passed. She noticed that the guard with witty remarks wasn’t one of those with burns from the hot coals.

She crossed the courtyard in haste and paused when the guard at the door barred her way.

“You can’t enter without permission.”

“And whose orders might this be?”

“Mine,” came the reply from the hall. “I will however make an exception for the sister of the late empress. You may come in and tell me why you are here.”

It was Narses. The guard stepped aside and Anastasia crossed the threshold.

“Come into Felix’s study. He should be back soon.” Narses smiled grimly. “Like a bird to its nest.”

“Lamb to the slaughter, you mean,” snapped Anastasia.

Narses shrugged. “Those who plot against the emperor must take their chances.”

“Why would you think Felix was plotting against Justinian?”

“We have received convincing information. What business do you have at the traitor’s house?”

“It is a personal matter.”

“Indeed?” Narses looked politely unconvinced.

“I do not see why I should be questioned by a palace functionary, but since you ask, I have come for certain of my possessions.”

Narses openly sneered at her. “Are all your servants intoxicated or run away like the brave former excubitor captain that you must fetch your belongings yourself? I fear I find that highly unlikely.”

“Which is of no concern to me. You would not wish Justinian to hear you prevented me from taking my own property, Narses?”

The eunuch’s thin lips curved into a baleful smile. “You may be able to rely on your family ties to protect you from harm but dalliances with those who plot against Justinian will cost you any influence at court. Since Felix’s treachery has been discovered and his fate sealed, why not help yourself by assisting us? Where can we find him?”

“Betrayal doesn’t amuse me.”

“Think of it as cutting short the period of terror and misery the poor man must be suffering. A mercy, one might say.”

“Felix is not seeking to overthrow Justinian.”

Narses shrugged again. “If you insist. Cupid has much to answer for, it seems.”

“What can you know of love, you loathsome creature? Get out of my way!”

Narses stood back with an exaggerated low bow and sweeping gesture of one arm. As Anastasia strode past and down the hall, his eyes—the black, expressionless eyes of a carrion bird—fixed their longing gaze on her back.

Anastasia went into Felix’s room and sat down on the bed. Out of Narses’ sight she allowed her hands to shake. She had expected, wrongly, that the guard at the house would be reduced by now. It would have been possible to take sufficient clothing and anything else that might be useful for Felix under pretext of retrieving her own belongings. With the disgusting eunuch on the scene that wasn’t going to work. Luckily, she had brought money with her, concealed in a pouch hanging under her tunic. She would take that to Felix at Maria’s and beg him to flee. What choice did he have? And now she would have to evade whoever Narses sent to follow her.

Narses had come after her and stood in the doorway, watching.

She placed several jars of cosmetics, a hand mirror, and a silver comb in a sheet pulled from the bed. “You see, Narses? This is all I came for, although I am sure your suspicious mind sees it as disposing of incriminating evidence.”

“Why dispose of the evidence? The entire palace knows the former captain of excubitors is your lover. At least your current—”

She pulled an alabaster jar from the bundle she had made and drew her hand back.

Narses flinched.

Rather than throwing the jar, Anastasia laughed at him and left.

As she entered the Mese, she saw a familiar figure walking in her direction. It was Anatolius, the lawyer she had arranged to free Felix from the dungeons. After she had cleared the way with Justinian, she had sent a senator she knew to Anatolius. Was he hurrying to Felix’s house? “What a wonderful surprise, meeting you like this,” she exclaimed loudly as he approached, for the benefit of whoever was following her.

Anatolius gave her a look of bewilderment as she half dragged him down the wide street.

“I’m not in need of any…uh…services right now,” he stammered, peering at her.

“Don’t you remember me? From the palace? We have so much to talk about! But first, I wish to choose a new lamp. You know how careless servants can be, and here is just the place to find one.”

The shop was a cave filled with flickering light from lamps of clay, bronze, silver, gold, alabaster. Some small enough to carry in one’s hand, others as big as cauldrons. Lamps hung from the ceiling by chains and stood on tripods and thin marble pedestals.

Anastasia propelled Anatolius to the rear of the shop where a lamp modeled on the Great Church, covered with a glowing perforated dome, sat on a table against a wall from which elaborately worked hanging lamps sprouted like a form of fabulous fungi.

“Thank heavens I saw you, Anatolius.” Next to the Great Church was an Egyptian artifact made of silver to a design that would bring a blush to many. She pretended to examine it. “Narses is waiting in ambush in Felix’s house.”

“You’re Anastasia,” Anatolius said. “Theodora’s sister. I’ve seen you at a distance with Justinian and Theodora but we’ve never met. How did you recognize me?”

“Oh really! When you worked for the emperor, all the young ladies knew about his handsome young secretary. You were pointed out to me. We’ll have to get to know one another better soon. But right now, it’s fortunate I did recognize you.”

She pointed to a pottery lamp decorated with a wreath and inscribed with a wish Fortuna would light its owner’s days. “Perhaps an omen? You were walking right into their clutches.”

“I was alert for such a trap and would just have strolled past if need be. I am aware Felix has got himself into a great deal of trouble. May I assume you know where Felix can be found? Tell him he must come to my house, as soon as possible, no matter what. It is urgent.”