Ten for Dying (John the Lord Chamberlain Mysteries) (3 page)

Chapter Four

“When they told me to be ready to receive a valuable item I never guessed they meant a relic as important as the Virgin’s shroud!”

Felix had been pacing the bedroom, pouring out his worries to Anastasia who sat on the bed. She had put back on the blue silk gown she wore when she arrived the night before. It was crumpled and she hadn’t finished applying her makeup. Her powdered cheeks belonged to a girl. Her untouched eyes looked older.

Felix dropped down beside her, cursing under his breath.

“So you have been using your office for financial gain?” Anastasia stared at him. He tried to read her expression. Condemnation? Admiration? Fear? Anger? He could not fathom what she was thinking.

“Using my office…that’s not a very pleasant way to put it.”

“And how else can I put it? You receive goods and then order excubitors to transport them safely under imperial seal.”

“But neither I nor my men have any idea what we’re delivering.”

“Which makes it better?”

“I’ve seen enough to have a notion of what’s going on. It’s miraculous how saints’ bones resemble those of the unsaintly. It’s nothing but forgeries. What’s the harm?”

“Indeed. Forgers are being taxed for delivery of their fraudulent goods and those hoping to buy real relics illegally are penalized by being cheated. You’re practically doing the empire a service!”

“Did I say I was proud of myself? I’ve already explained my difficulties.”

“But how can you be in debt? You’re the captain of the excubitors. Don’t tell me Justinian doesn’t reward you handsomely.”

“He does but—”

“He’d better. Your men could pull him off the throne as easily as guard him.”

Felix raised his hand, gesturing her to be silent. “Please don’t say such a thing, even in a whisper, even in private.”

“I see you looking at the door. Do you think that impertinent servant of yours is eavesdropping?”

“No. Well, I don’t know. Any of the household could be passing by.”

Anastasia briefly pressed her lips together in annoyance before speaking. “How large can these debts be? You must own a fair amount of property.”

“Certainly I have properties. They cost me more than they bring in.”

“What kind of useless properties are these?”

“Vineyards, farms. I can hardly keep track. The only thing that seems to grow on them is debt. It’s amazing how well debt thrives in rocky soil.”

“Are you certain?”

“Do I look like a farmer? I only know what my stewards tell me. Last month a hailstorm destroyed most of my grapes.”

“Did you inspect the damage?”

Felix shrugged. “Why? I know nothing about grapes.”

“Except when they are in your wine cups. Oh, Felix, you may not be a farmer but you can be a perfect chickpea.”

“You don’t think my stewards lie to me, do you?”

“Everybody lies. How would people live without lying? It would be impossible. You are going to be a general soon, my love. You have to stop thinking like a soldier and start thinking like a general.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

She leaned over to kiss him lightly. “Of course I’m right.” Her breath felt hot against the side of his face. He had a sudden urge to pull her down onto the bed and forget his finances.

As if reading his mind she straightened up and crossed her arms over her breasts. “You must have put your money into something other than land, Felix.”

He forced himself to look away from her. He stared at the door, half wondering if someone might indeed be lurking behind it. “What’s wrong with land?” he muttered. “Land is what wars are fought over. I’ve seen colleagues bleeding to death on the battlefield over a piece of ground smaller than the Augustaion.”

“Don’t you have investments?”

“Investments! Yes. I almost forgot. Another excellent way to diminish one’s fortune.”

“Let’s see. Your business partners advise you that they encountered unforeseen circumstances. Just a little more money is all it will take to overcome them. Enough to hang on until conditions change, and then the gold will start to rain down.”

“Exactly! How did you know?”

Anastasia gave one of her pretty little laughs. “Oh, my poor dear…”

Realizing she was making fun of him, Felix felt his face flush. “I’m not so stupid that I don’t know people take advantage of me. I detest business. I hate the smell of ink and lawyers. I try to choose advisers I can trust, then forget about them. But as you say, everyone lies, so I’m always disappointed. I’m not a fool, you know.”

Anastasia tried to look chastened. She didn’t do a good job of it, but the attempt mollified Felix.

“But how much money can you make smuggling relics?” she asked.

“Enough to pay certain of my debts. Gambling debts, if you have to know. The charioteers I’ve backed lately have served me as well as my vineyards. Every time they take to the track, their horses are struck down by a hailstorm of bad fortune.”

“Why not sell a vineyard to pay the debts?”

“It wouldn’t look good. People at court would wonder why I was selling off land, and they’d ferret out the reason. Besides, land is land, even if it isn’t sprouting gold. I’ve fought hard for that land.”

“So then tell the gamblers to consider their loans to you as gifts to Justinian’s soon-to-be general, and hint at benefits to come.”

“Those men aren’t generous. They want payment now.”

“Tell them to get into the habit of giving or go to Hell.”

“They’ll all be in Hell soon enough. I doubt they’re in any rush to get there.”

“Have them arrested for threatening you. Whatever they say, accuse them of lying.”

“It isn’t that easy. I’m not the only one caught in their web. They’ve spun their sticky strings from the palace to the dome of the Great Church. Too many high-ranking officials would be eager to flay me alive to save their own skins.”

“What a strange turn of phrase. Do spiders skin flies before they eat them?”

“I apologize for not being a poet!”

Anastasia put her arms around his shoulders. “Now, now, my big bear. I don’t want any poets poking around me with their nasty little pens. I was only trying to make you smile.”

Felix apologized for his apology.

“What a repentant bear you are this morning.”

“You do understand I would never agree to help smuggle the Virgin’s shroud?”

“Who says you’ll be asked? Perhaps the robbery was a coincidence. No one brought anything to your doorstep last night. I know. I was here.”

“Yes. How could I forget?” He reached out to paw at her but she squirmed away.

“Not now, Felix. What are we going to do about this? Why don’t you tell these people dealing in relics that you’ve found out about their scheme—if it turns out you’re right—and you won’t help them any longer?”

“Because they’ll go to my creditors and complain that I refuse to work to pay off my obligations.”

“You think the smugglers and gamblers are working together?”

“For all intents and purposes. And my financial difficulties could prove more dangerous than smuggling. The knowledge could easily be used against me. An ambitious underling might point to the possibility of my being bribed. After all, I’m the man who guards the emperor…you can see how it would seem to Justinian. He’d have my head, especially given his state of mind right now.”

“So you’re afraid of losing your head as well as your skin. You’ll be little more than those relics you’re smuggling. Yet you have just confessed your debts to me.”

Felix found himself gazing at her speculatively. Why should he trust this woman he barely knew? Weren’t there dozens like her swarming around the palace, attending to their superiors, hoping to catch an aristocrat of their own? Dressed in expensive silks, her face expertly painted, Anastasia resembled an empress. But didn’t they all? Most likely she was the daughter of an ambitious petty official. Or, given her age, the widow of such a man.

“You can’t sit here and brood, Felix. You need to do something about this. Time flies.”

Who was this woman to order him about? He started to protest, then stopped himself. She was right.

Besides, she wasn’t just any woman. There was something different about Anastasia.

Chapter Five

As Felix passed the doorway to a boarded-up shop he felt the edge of his cloak being grabbed. He went for his sword, then saw the feminine hand belonged to a skinny young girl who reeked of perfume. She simpered at him with crookedly painted lips and used her free hand to yank down the top of her tunic, displaying an undeveloped breast.

He pried her fingers from his cloak and continued on.

“Eunuch!” she spat after him.

Felix couldn’t help wishing John were here. The Lord Chamberlain would know better how to extricate him from a delicate situation like the one in which he was embroiled. But John and his family must be on the Marmara by now, gazing back at the dome of the Great Church for the last time as it dwindled and finally sank from sight.

Felix could see sunlight flashing off the dome between gaps in the ramshackle wooden tenements along both sides of the street, a vision of heaven even as he passed archways from which the heat of metal forges issued, akin to the fiery breath from gateways to the Christians’ Hell. At the edge of the Copper Quarter, the air smelled of smoke. The buildings, coated with soot, looked diseased. People in the street glanced at him furtively, suspicious of someone in a helmet and cuirass. It was the sort of area where its inhabitants made their livings by robbing one another.

He had never understood why the man he needed to see, his contact with the smuggling ring, chose to live in such an insalubrious place. But then Julian—the Jingler, as everyone called him—was a most uncommon man.

Felix entered the doorway of a five-story wooden building indistinguishable from its neighbors, and climbed the stairs to the top floor. Worn slick, canted at odd angles, the boards sank alarming beneath his boots. A sickening miasma of boiled onions and fish filled the building.

He rapped on Julian’s door. There was no answer.

“I know you’re in there, Julian,” he shouted. “It’s Felix.”

There was a scuffling noise, like a rat in the walls, from the other side of the planks, then a tight, high-pitched voice. “Please. I’m not prepared. You’ll have to come back later.”

“I have to speak to you now! Shall I see if I can kick this door down?”

“No. No. Please! Give me a little time…”

Felix waited, trying not to choke on the stench in the hallway. There was silence for a long while. Somewhere below a baby howled as if it were being tortured. Finally he heard a faint ringing, as of small bells, then bolts sliding, locks clicking, chains rattling. The door sagged open with a groan.

He had hardly stepped inside before Julian slammed the door behind him and, muttering to himself, immediately refastened an array of security devices that resembled a display in a locksmith’s shop.

It occurred to Felix he could use a few of the devices on his bedroom door to keep Nikomachos out when it was necessary to do so.

There was a rattling and chinking as the man known as the Jingler finished his task and turned toward his unexpected and unwelcome visitor. Julian’s narrow, lined face bore its usual expression of extreme anxiety. His plain garments were virtually concealed beneath amulets and talismans dangling from short golden chains sewn to the cloth.

“You hardly gave me time to recite the imprecations, Felix. For all I know there could be a devil under your cloak.”

“I’m sure I’d feel its claws biting into my shoulder.”

“You weren’t followed?”

“No?”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes. I’m positive.”

The Jingler shuddered and his protective decorations rattled faintly. The room was stifling. The shutters were all closed and numerous lamps produced more smoke than light.

“They’re sly, you know,” the Jingler said. “They can conceal themselves in a wisp of shadow, or cling to the belly of a cat. If anything did get in, it could hide anywhere.” He gestured vaguely toward the jumble filling the room. Crates and sacks were stacked between and on top of expensive furniture. Vases, amphorae sat in corners. Painted icon panels leaned against the walls where there was space. Felix had never decided whether these were goods destined for sale or the Jingler’s own possessions.

The Jingler walked around Felix, keeping his distance. He was jingling loudly today. That meant he was worried and wearing extra charms. Felix didn’t like what he was hearing and he hadn’t even questioned the man.

He noticed two or three new amulets, including a tunic roundel depicting a mounted soldier spearing a monstrous creature, and a small bronze disc incised with what were no doubt protective incantations. A green gemstone carved in the shape of a scarab hung from one shoulder.

“Felix, I do not think it wise for you to visit me here.” The Jingler’s tone verged on panic.

“I learned about a disturbing matter today connected with our business. It would have been even more unwise to commit it to parchment and a messenger.”

“You are right. Continue.”

Felix rapidly outlined the events of the morning. He couldn’t tell whether his story was affecting the Jingler since the man looked uniformly terrified all the time. “You advised me to be on the alert for an important shipment. Assure me it isn’t this shroud of the Virgin that’s been stolen.”

The Jingler made a dismissive gesture, causing talismans on his arm to clash together. “I know nothing about that. I’m only one link in the enterprise, and a small one. I receive wrapped packages and instructions and pass them on to you, with payment. I know nothing further. I don’t even know what the packages contain. Nor do I wish to.”

“So you claim. How do I know you’re taking orders from anyone? Who is this person?”

“Even if I knew I wouldn’t dare tell you.” Julian’s expression resembled that of a frightened rabbit.

“I should think mere human beings would hold no terrors for a man who spends his days stalked by demons.”

The Jingler shook his arms clamorously. “I can protect myself from devils, not from sharp swords.”

“That armor of charms looks as if it would stop a lance. Think, will you? We’re not talking about some old saint’s tooth that spent life chewing the cud. A relic like this is far too dangerous. The emperor and Patriarch will both want it back.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know any more than you do.”

“I believe you when you say you’re afraid. At least tell me when I can expect this new delivery, whatever it is?”

“Soon, as I told you already.”

Felix could almost feel the man trembling. In fact, his own hand started to shake, as if in sympathy.”Try to calm down. I need your help and you need mine. Give me some hint of assistance. Where do you receive the goods you send me? Here? Some other place where I might happen to linger, just by chance you understand? No one needs to know you told me anything.”

“They’d kill us both. I can’t—” The Jingler gave an agonized cry and shot a shaking forefinger toward a corner of the room. “Something moved! Didn’t you see it?”

Felix shook his head. “Probably just a shadow from the lamps.”

“They love shadows!”

“I assure you, I saw nothing.”

“You might have missed it!”

“I’ve spent nights at the empire’s border watching for Persians crossing moonless deserts. If there was anything in this room besides the two of us I’d know it.”

“Other people can’t see the devils the way I do!”

“Yes, you’re probably right.”

The Jingler waved both arms in a frantic fashion. “Leave now! I am going to have to perform rituals expelling fiendish creatures for the rest of the day, thanks to your intrusion.”

Felix had to stop himself from pulling out his sword. John had told him often enough that it was a good habit for a soldier on campaign but a dangerous one in the vicinity of the palace. “What about this delivery?”

“What about it? Do your job and don’t ask any more questions. That’s what’s best for both of us.” The Jingler’s voice rose into a strangled shriek. With his wild expression, flailing arms, and maddening jingling, he resembled a demon himself.

Felix shuddered.

“Very well. I’ll leave. If you manage to calm yourself and change your mind about what you can tell me, let me know.”

As he hurried downstairs Felix was shivering. He hoped Anastasia was still lounging in the bedroom.