Ten for Dying (John the Lord Chamberlain Mysteries) (9 page)

DAY THREE

Chapter Seventeen

John knew what it felt like to drown.

The gusting wind whipped rain and blinding, stinging sheets of salt spray across his face. Opening his mouth to gulp in air, he inhaled water instead. He gasped and choked. His boots slid on slick planks as the deck tilted. He grabbed blindly at the rail to avoid falling. A splinter dug into his palm. He didn’t loosen his grip. The
Leviathan
continued to roll.

It was going to capsize this time.

But again, at what seemed the last moment, the ship righted itself.

He kept a death grip on the rail and stared out into a chaotic, nacreous twilight of roiling fog and rain. It was past dawn but the storm which had kept him awake all night had not abated. The wind had picked up and the waves increased.

In summer the winds usually came from the northwest, assisting the prevailing currents to hurry ships out of the Sea of Marmara, but the night before they had shifted to the south. It was peculiar, almost inexplicable, as if the hand of evil were upon them. Or so John had been told by one of the rustic fellow travelers he had taken to be a farmer.

Even farmers knew more about sailing than John. He knew only that he dreaded traveling across the bottomless pit of the sea.

Why the captain had decided to leave their overnight mooring was a total mystery.

John had passed the night pressed against Cornelia’s back, listening to rain clattering against the deck above, hearing the mingled moans and cries of the
Leviathan
and her restlessly dreaming passengers. Cornelia’s even breathing told of the calm oblivion he only wished for. How could she sleep when he could not? In the time they had been together, wounded though he was, she had come to seem a part of him and he part of her.

In the dark sour-smelling hold, battered by the sea, John found himself staring into the abyss he had confronted so often as a younger man during his first years in Constantinople, when he had still been a slave.

He was on a voyage to nowhere. An estate in Greece? He couldn’t imagine it. He had lived on the move, on the borders of the empire as a mercenary, had existed as a captive in Persian encampments, and lived in Constantinople as both a slave and a high official in turn. Through all the years he had fought to survive, battled steel and political intrigue to go on living. Was there truly anything else?

He had dreamt often enough of settling down in the country but now he realized if he did he would be no better than a shade, wandering Hades without purpose.

When the rain and wind let up for a time, John could here the occasional nightmare-induced cry or groan from a fellow passenger and the low prayers of the aged pilgrim on the other side of the thin partition. She mumbled on tirelessly to her god and the mother of her god. To some of these Christians prayer came as easily as breathing.

The pilgrim was convinced—or trying to convince herself, judging from the way she kept repeating her prayers—that the Lord would save her, as he had saved Saint Paul. She counted on her Lord’s steadfast love. Or so she said repeatedly.

So far as John had observed there was no steadfast love in this world except between two human beings and that was rare. To throw oneself on the mercy of some imagined, invisible god of love was nothing more than surrender. Mithra demanded His followers battle the darkness, not meekly await salvation from it.

And wasn’t John battling the darkness by working for Justinian, who imposed law and justice on the empire? Wasn’t Justinian on the side of the light? Or was the emperor part of the forces of darkness, as many supposed?

Would John ever be certain?

Finally he had risen quietly, letting Cornelia sleep, and gone out on deck.

Captain Theon, a short, rotund man with a fiery red face, was speaking to a sailor who was taking soundings. John overheard bits of the conversation.

“I expected this to blow over by now,” the captain was saying.

The other made what must have been a disparaging remark, judging from the captain’s scowl.

“I’m not throwing out the anchors. If we can’t see the shore we’re not in the shallows. Keep testing the depth.”

The rattle of wind-driven rain obscured most of the sailor’s reply.

“…besides we’re well past…Yes, I know when the wind shifted. That’s why…you think I’m a fool? Who’s captain on this ship?”

John told himself to be calm. Theon obviously did not consider their situation to be as dire as it seemed. This was a normal squall, terrifying only to a person unfamiliar with sailing.

The crew were doing whatever needed to be done, whatever that might be. It made John furious to be rendered helpless by his ignorance, dependent on these strangers.

The sea, vast and mindless, was not amenable to reason nor could it be vanquished by steel.

The deck shook as a wall of water smashed into the hull.

John knew he should return to Cornelia below, protected from the sea only by fragile timbers.

He hesitated to take his hand off the rail. He had been squeezing it so tightly his fingers were white, except where they were stained with red. He was bleeding freely from the splinter in his palm.

He paused, allowing a gust to die before releasing his grip.

Then he was hurtling forward, smashing into the back of the cabin. There was a shrieking, grinding noise and the ringing snap of splintering wood, a sound he had heard long ago when his company had battered down the gates of a besieged town.

He tried to brace himself against the cabin as the
Leviathan
began to swing around abruptly, as if trying to shake off the crew. Shouts and curses rang out over the groaning of the hull.

John had to reach Cornelia.

Another jarring crash vibrated through the ship and he found himself on his hands and knees, crawling up a tilting deck. Up and up the deck rose, a wooden cliff rearing itself in front of him.

Disoriented, he glanced around. He appeared to be suspended over the black water.

A wave hit him like a giant’s hand and he felt himself sliding down the impossibly tilted deck.

***

Cornelia woke from a nightmare.

No, not a nightmare. The jolt and the deafening crack of breaking wood had been real. Passengers shouted and screamed.

She turned toward John as the ship rolled.

She felt his absence before she saw he was gone.

There was another crash and the ship rolled again and settled back down with a concussion so jarring Cornelia was surprised the hull didn’t disintegrate immediately. It was in the process of doing so, to judge by the tortured grating and creaking filling the dark cavern below deck.

John must have gone up on deck while she slept.

She scrambled from the compartment and climbed out into the gray rain that rattled onto the deck with a noise resembling thousands of games of knucklebones.

The captain was bawling orders to the crew.

Cornelia scanned the deck in a panic.

Only strange faces, not the face she sought.

“John!”

There was no answer.

Chapter Eighteen

In the morning as Felix rode to the Church of the Holy Apostles, the naked corpse he had hidden behind the statue of Aphrodite kept threatening to leap into his path. He couldn’t put the dead man’s specter out of his mind. The pallid revenant kept flickering into view, only to turn into a foraging cat or a slinking dog.

Anastasia, Felix’s personal Aphrodite, had found his solution amusing. Or at any rate she had laughed hysterically when he related his misfortunes with the cart and the eventual disposal of their unwanted visitor. A release of tension or a manifestation of horror. She had been drinking by the time he’d arrived home. He couldn’t blame her. He was shaking himself and not merely with the cold and wet.

Well, that was over now, he told himself.

Had the body been discovered yet?

Probably not. The streets were still nearly empty. The storm had passed but the morning remained dark. Ragged black clouds torn to shreds against the rooftops raced away across a slate-colored sky. Mist rose from puddles. From everywhere came the sounds of water, gurgling in gutters, dripping from colonnades.

The sound of something that should have been dead shuffling noisily through the standing water at the mouth of an alley.

No, Felix reminded himself. The victim—the intruder in his courtyard—had been perfectly and completely dead.

Inside the church it was as bright as a sunny midday. Felix blinked. Reliquaries glittered in the illumination of countless lamps, their gold decorations glowing. Felix’s vague speculations on why the Virgin’s relic had been taken and by whom, meant to banish thoughts of the dead man, were interrupted by rapid footsteps ticking across the marble floor.

“Captain!” Basilius appeared at his elbow. The priest looked ill, pale with red-rimmed eyes. “Have you brought good news?”

Felix shook his head. “I’ve only just begun my investigation.”

The priest gave a long sigh of despair. “By this time the thieves will have escaped far away. Already this morning I’ve been visited by the head of the urban watch and he thinks the same.”

“Justinian is extremely anxious that the shroud be recovered, wherever it is.”

“He would be, yes. The relic protects the city. Its theft is not only blasphemous, but involves a military matter, the defense of Constantinople.”

Felix nodded politely. The Virgin’s shroud might repel an enemy–as many believed–so long as it was accompanied by a thousand soldiers armed with steel. But then, he was a Mithran. Christians obviously felt differently. The emperor himself was anxious to have the shroud returned and he was a practical man notwithstanding his theological ruminations. If Justinian considered the relic a useless piece of cloth he wouldn’t have ordered Felix to investigate.

“I see you agree with me, captain.” Basilius gestured toward an emerald-studded reliquary. “We have many treasures, rich enough to tempt men to imperil their immortal souls. They would sell jewels wrenched from such beautiful works fashioned by the faithful, melt down the gold they are made from. Jewels can be replaced, but the holy shroud cannot. To think of it in evil hands!” Tears glistened on his cheeks.

It made Felix uncomfortable to see the man weeping like a woman who finds one of her best robes ruined by careless servants. “Would anyone buy such a famous relic?” He snapped. “Would it have any value? Who could want it?”

Basilius wiped his tears. “How would I know? I have nothing to do with affairs of the empire. Enemies of Constantinople might want to take it away.”

“You really believe it protects the city as people say?”

Basilius looked at Felix uncomprehendingly. “It is the shroud of the Virgin. How could it not protect us?”

“What evidence is there for it? Do you suppose we would be knee-deep in Goths or Persians if the shroud hadn’t been here all these years?”

“It is said that Emperor Anastasius carried it with him into victorious battle against the heretical rebels, many years ago.”

“I wasn’t aware Anastasius was a fighter.”

“With the protection of the Virgin it was not necessary.”

What did the priest mean? That one could fight the enemy from the comfort of one’s bedroom by simply holding onto a bit of cloth? There was no point pursuing the matter. If enough people thought an object was valuable, it was. “Does someone think he has a claim to the relic?”

“How could anyone? The church here has been in undisputed possession for almost a century. A pilgrim brought it back from the Holy Land.”

Stole it more likely, Felix thought.

“Could it really have been demons that took it? You heard what Mada and Peteiros said.”

“Have they remembered anything more? Do they still insist they saw these things out of a nightmare?”

“You sound skeptical? You don’t suspect them? They’ve always been faithful servants. Good Christians, both.”

“Gold answers prayers the gods ignore.”

Basilius looked shocked.

“As to these supernatural robbers they talked about,” Felix continued, “it strikes me as too much of a marvel to be true. Then there’s the matter of the frogs and the scarab. Is the mausoleum doorkeeper here?”

“Timothy? Yes. He hasn’t gone off duty yet.”

Felix was surprised to find the ancient down on his knees, washing the mausoleum floor.

“Don’t want any trace of them dirty frogs remaining, sir.” Timothy began to struggle to his feet, bracing himself against the sarcophagus.

Felix gave him a hand. “You remember me? The captain of the excubitors?”

Recognition came into the old man’s face. He dropped his scrubbing rag. Felix saw he was trembling. “Are you going to arrest me? How did you find out?”

Had the fellow been drinking or was he mad? “Find out what? About the demons?”

“You do know then! I was afraid, sir. Have mercy on an old man. I didn’t want to tell the truth when Basilius asked me if I had seen anything. It’s true, I only pretended I’d seen the demons the other two were talking about. I need this job to get by.”

“Go on.”

“To tell the truth I was asleep until the uproar in the church woke me. Then I saw an ape leaving the grounds.”

“An ape?”

“It looked like the ape that danced for its master at the shows at the Hippodrome. Like a man, yet not like a man. But I only got a glimpse.”

“Are you sure you didn’t dream this?”

“No, sir. I may doze, but I always keep one eye open.”

Felix cursed silently. As if demons and frogs and scarabs weren’t bad enough, along comes an ape. “Did the ape jump out from the mouth of a wine jug by chance?”

“Not so, sir. Not so!”

Felix’s malignant glare caused Timothy to cower backwards, as if he wanted to climb into Theodora’s sarcophagus with her. “I suppose I am under arrest now?”

“Not yet. But I may wish to speak to you again in case you remember anything else you’ve lied about.”

Felix stalked out deep in thought. There must be some connection between whatever had happened in the mausoleum and the theft which had taken place at the same time. If only he could discover what it was, the mystery would be solved. Wasn’t that how John would look at it?

As Felix rode away from the Church of the Holy Apostles the sky finally began to brighten. Light glinted off puddles and wet marble and further away in the cityscape stretched out below the hill upon which the church stood, the sun illuminated the gilded domes of other churches and mansions.

Was the shroud hidden in one of those mansions? Was a wealthy merchant gloating over his newly found power? With a relic potent enough to protect an entire city, what would any man need to fear?

He considered visiting the Jingler again. After all, Julian had acquired a new amulet in the form of the roundel on his garment. How much greater protection the missing relic would offer! But was it likely a man petrified of devils would even consider raising them so they could steal it for him?

Your humors are deranged, Felix chided himself. Demons are for terrifying children. If someone wants to steal anything they don’t need assistance from demons.

The Jingler might very well have been ordered by his superior to steal the shroud. If indeed he had a superior as he claimed. Whoever was involved with the theft of the relic would be in extreme danger, including an excubitor captain who had unwittingly agreed to assist in its delivery to its buyer.

And what was Felix supposed to say if the Jingler’s superior demanded to know whether the package had been passed along by excubitors as usual?

“No. I found the courier dead and disposed of the body.”

The next question would be: What had Felix done with the relic after killing the courier?