Three for a Letter (10 page)

He pointed at the nearby fountain. A bronze ibis stood on the edge of its basin. Smaller silver birds and fruit swinging from chains occupied the branches of an intricately carved marble tree growing from a facsimile of a cliff face set in the middle of the basin. “This must be the contraption for which he showed me the diagram just a few weeks ago. When the fountain is working, the small birds sing and the fruits act as chimes. I understand that the effect is very melodic although after some hours it must become rather annoying.”

“Then it’s an excellent arrangement for it to be set out of earshot of the villa. And what about the ibis? What does that do?”

Anatolius shook his head. “I’m not certain. Perhaps Hero and Zeno haven’t decided yet. I gather this is only a working model.” A worried look crossed his face. “I hope that I’m not eventually going to be presented with a fully functional version for my own garden!”

As they returned to the front gate, John observed that he would have liked to have examined the papers in the missing estate owner’s office more closely. Solicitous of his master’s privacy, however, Briarus had seemed particularly anxious for his visitors not to linger there.

“On the other hand, Castor is Senator Balbinus’ nephew so it would be wise to proceed with caution. All the same, it seems very odd that Briarus doesn’t know where Castor has gone, or at least claims not to know.”

Anatolius snuffled miserably. “Since you appear to suspect everyone and his brother, I believe I can lend you a hand, John, especially as I intend to escape back to the city as soon as possible.”

“No,” John cut in firmly, “I do not wish you to question Balbinus about his nephew’s whereabouts.”

“But it would be so helpful to your investigations and I would be happy to visit Balbinus as soon as I arrive back in Constantinople.”

“Anatolius, I appreciate your kind offer but I fear that your leap into action is connected much more with the prospect of visiting Balbinus’ wife than of interviewing her husband.”

“Lucretia? That was years ago. She’ll most likely be elsewhere when I call anyway.” The expression in his eyes betrayed his hope that this would not prove to be the case.

John’s lips tightened. There were enough pitfalls strewn about court for a young man without inviting disaster by becoming involved, again, with a woman who was now a senator’s wife. Even so, he chided himself, it required the consent of both parties to have an affair and Lucretia had always conducted herself in an honorable way despite her less than happy arranged marriage. Then too, it might be the only way to find out quickly why the owner of the estate next to the one on which a young boy had been horribly murdered had suddenly departed for a destination unknown without even leaving instructions for his estate manager. That is, if what Briarus had said was true.

“Very well, then,” he finally said, “if you insist. But promise me you will do nothing that might be misconstrued, not a single word or an inappropriate look, however romantic it might strike you at the time. The situation is difficult enough. Inappropriate relationships only bring trouble. We don’t need any more of them.”

Chapter Twelve

Bertrada discovered Hero sitting on a bench outside the workshop, gazing glumly at a diagram spread across his knees. A frown nagged a deep bridge between his eyebrows. She sat silently down beside him, trying to compose herself.

“There’s something I have to tell you, Hero,” she finally managed to say. “About us. Something important.”

Distracted from his musing, Hero looked up and smiled. “Bertrada, my dove. What did you say? Have you escaped from your nursemaid duties for a while?” He leaned toward her for a kiss.

Annoyed, she glared at him and then spoke, attempting to imitate the withering tones she had often heard Calyce and Livia use to each other. “I certainly haven’t left Sunilda alone, if that’s what you mean. Do you think me nothing but a foolish girl?” She realized she couldn’t recall exactly how she had planned to convey her decision to him in the kindest possible manner.

Hero gave a deep chuckle of merriment that creased his dark face, banishing the frown that had greeted her. “Ah, Bertrada, you may be a girl but never foolish. However, I’m glad that you came to visit even if it’s just for a short time. Would you like to inspect my latest inspiration?”

The girl blushed. Now her carefully composed speech vanished entirely from her memory. “Unfortunately, I—”

Another chuckle. “No, I didn’t mean that sort of inspiration although certainly you inspire me in more ways than one. However, since we agreed we must be discreet, I shall forgo the opportunity of being inspired in daylight at least!”

Bertrada’s smile was as frosty as her blue eyes. “Some of your mechanical marvels have certainly been inspired, although in need of one or two adjustments to make them perform the task intended. Or perhaps even three or four, in some cases.”

“Yes, the lyre-playing automaton was not supposed to serenade us all in the middle of the night,” Hero replied gloomily, “although I did ascertain the nature of the problem. And just as well, as Zeno is most insistent that it is to be one of the figures accompanying the procession for the village celebration. He’s spending almost as much time in the workshop as I do, you know. Personally, I would have thought he has enough to worry about right now having to arrange the boy’s funeral rites.”

Bertrada’s eyes filled with tears at the mention of Gadaric. “I hope there will be a little ceremony at least.”

“Well, I don’t think Gadaric would care much for something so simple as that, considering how much time the boy spent prowling around my workshop gaping at my inventions. I suspect he would have much rather had fire-breathing monsters or some such to see him off on his final journey. Is this why you are in such a bad humor?” He patted her hand. “I keep telling you, you shouldn’t blame yourself, Bertrada. You couldn’t have known Gadaric was intent on creeping out as soon as he could.”

Bertrada silently wiped her eyes.

“Try to keep busy,” Hero advised kindly. “Look at Zeno. Now I think on it further, it’s just as well he has so much to occupy his mind. Or perhaps he’s just blessed with ignorance and doesn’t realize how quickly Theodora could easily decide that it’s his fault the boy is dead. She’s insistent that the wretched festival go forward. Perhaps that’s what’s saved him so far, since she wouldn’t want to risk his loss spoiling her entertainment. The empress was fascinated when she toured my workshop, you know. She told me she was eager to see all my half-wonders completed and in operation.”

“I’m certain it will be a fine spectacle indeed, Hero, but I hear not all the villagers are happy about it. There’s been much grumbling about not tampering with ancient tradition, especially when ungodly machines are going to be involved.”

“Ungodly machines!” Hero was outraged. “Who said that? It was Godomar, wasn’t it? Why, they’re the finest automatons that can be constructed! They’ll make an astounding display for Theodora. Zeno plans not only to include two or three of my lyre-players in the procession but also the flautist I’m working on at the moment. They’ll be pulled along on a cart so their music can accompany the singers. I’m also making a magnificent archer to be carried on a litter. We were discussing that just recently. And when the procession arrives at the headland, there will be speeches and so on. It’s going to be really spectacular, especially since it’s all done by torchlight. The straw man is thrown off the cliff just as the sun rises, you see.”

“We’ve heard something about it from Minthe,” Bertrada replied. “I gather it’s been going on for centuries. A celebration of the end of summer, she said, the straw man being its representation and having to be sacrificed to the autumn gods for a good harvest, or something like that. But really it’s just one of those interesting old customs that Zeno loves so much. Nobody believes in such sacrifices these days and even if they did, they could hardly say so, could they? And yet,” she concluded thoughtfully, “do you suppose that in the old days, real people were thrown off the cliff into the sea?”

Hero shrugged powerful shoulders. “Possibly, one might say almost certainly. However, Zeno’s improvements, as he calls them, will certainly enliven the festival without posing any danger to anyone.”

He continued enthusiastically, explaining the mechanical archer’s role to the girl, and then paused, ruefully contemplating the destruction of the result of so much of his thought and labor.

“If it were not for the honor of enhancing the occasion,” he went on, “I would much rather not lose the archer. But there it is. I gather it’s going to be dressed in some of Zeno’s finest clothing, with not a wisp of straw about its person. Needless to say, Zeno’s been fussing about like a mother hen, chiding me for my slowness in completing the musicians. And they do need to be tested before the day. There’s only a week left.”

Bertrada rearranged the folds of her linen robes daintily, imitating the oft-observed actions of Theodora’s ladies-in-waiting. “Life continually seems to swing back and forth between haste and wait and rarely continues for any space on an even keel, as seamen would say,” she remarked. Her philosophical comment began a chain of thought that leapt rapidly from sailors to soldiers and then she suddenly remembered her reason for seeking Hero out.

“Did Zeno mention anything about guards for the procession?” she asked with over-elaborate casualness. “After all, we can’t afford to take chances with Sunilda’s safety.”

Hero nodded. “He was complaining about the estate swarming with excubitors. Not so much because of their presence but because they aren’t always very careful where they tramp during their patrols and the gardeners are constantly complaining about damage to the flower beds. Then he said that their captain has been very insistent about the need for extra caution, what with the estate being more or less unprotected and open to the world, not to mention the business of the procession. Apparently he thinks it is the height of folly in the circumstances.”

“Captain Felix carries out his duties faithfully, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, and he also stares a lot at a certain young lady,” Hero snapped. “Quite the barbarian, if you ask me.”

“Some might call Sunilda and me barbarians,” Bertrada flared, color tinting her cheekbones. “He is polite enough and after all he and his men were ordered here to protect Sunilda. No doubt he would much rather be at court.”

“And so would you, wouldn’t you?” Hero retorted hotly. “Your strange humor has something to do with this ignorant soldier, doesn’t it? A man who’s grizzled enough to be your father, at that.”

Bertrada said nothing but stood and began to walk away.

“Wait, Bertrada,” Hero called after her. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have spoken so hastily.”

She half turned. There was something in what he’d said about Felix, she admitted to herself. The soldier was certainly a lot older than she.

“Come inside and let me show you the improvements I’ve made to the hand. You know I’m making it only for you. A woman naturally wants a man who is whole.”

Affecting an expression of irritation, she nevertheless followed him into the workshop. “If you’re making the hand on my behalf why are you so eager to boast about it to everybody, Hero? Do you think I don’t know that everyone in the villa has seen it?” Her complaint sounded weak, even to her own ears.

“Ah, but nobody has seen the latest adjustments I’ve made to the leather straps and wires,” Hero explained. “Soon I will be able to hold you with two hands and not just one.”

The girl reddened again.

Hero looked around a cluttered work table, scowled, and walked over to an equally over-burdened shelf by the window.

“I must have put it away.” He reached for a large box set on the low shelf. “Now, it’s only in the very early stages and there are still some problems to be resolved, but wait until you see—” He hefted the box onto the workbench and then removed the lid as he spoke. As he looked down into the container his flow of words was suddenly cut off as cleanly as his arm had been severed.

“It’s gone! Setesh take the bastard who’s stolen it!” His shocked expression presented a ghastly sight as he turned toward the girl, his remaining huge fist clenched in a knot of fury.

***

Godomar tugged at the stubborn door of the low wooden cupboard beside Bertrada’s bed. He gave a harder yank and the door came partially open with a loud creak. For an instant he held his breath and listened intently. Through the open window he heard Sunilda’s faint laughter. So Bertrada was playing with the child in the garden, he thought. It was remarkable how little heed the young paid to mortality. It seemed strange that with her brother dead and her young playmate lying desperately ill the child could even laugh at all.

He eased the cupboard door open. The lone shelf held only a terra cotta lamp and a small box that investigation showed contained Bertrada’s few pieces of jewelry.

Crouched beside the bed, he peered around the room. Its whitewashed plaster walls were bare. Aside from the bed, beneath which he had discovered only dust and a baked-clay playing piece from some board game or other, its furniture consisted of a wooden stool, a storage chest holding several robes, and the small cupboard just inspected.

The same perfume that so often accompanied the young nursemaid faintly permeated the air although Godomar had not found any perfume bottles or unguent jars. He sniffed again. Calyce. It was the scent in which the lady-in-waiting habitually soaked herself. Yes, he thought sourly, she was exceptionally concerned with worldly vanities, was Calyce, and thus doubtless a bad influence upon Bertrada.

A pile of discarded clothing lay in the narrow space between bed and window. He bent over the untidy heap. Overseeing the proper upbringing of children was an onerous affair indeed. However, it was the task he had been assigned by Theodora personally and he dared not shrink from even its most distasteful aspects, such as searching a woman’s bedroom.

The odor of perfume assailed him more strongly. Gingerly he plucked up a thin linen tunica. His lips tightened as he discovered what the artfully disarranged clothes concealed.

It was a stack of codices topped by a collection of John Chrysostom’s homilies. The volumes below were much less commendable. Moving aside a history of the Goths he pushed open the leather cover of the codex lying beneath it.

He noticed first the curse inscribed within:

Then he read its title. It was Ovid’s Art of Love.

His long fingers twitched as he hesitated, debating whether or not to continue. He lifted the volume and noted it fell open at a certain place, no doubt because it had been consulted often. Here was something he did not wish to know, as a decent man. Yet, however unpalatable it was, would he not be remiss if he failed to learn the precise nature of the vile error into which his charge had obviously fallen?

The verse was nearly illegible, words and whole phrases had been crossed out, others substituted between lines and in the margins. It looked as if someone had been correcting Ovid’s meter. He had no time to reflect on this before a voice interrupted him.

“Why don’t you read a few verses to me?”

Mortified at being discovered, Godomar twisted around to see Bertrada standing in the doorway.

“You’ve left Sunilda unattended!” He spoke brusquely.

“She’s with the Lord Chamberlain, Godomar. Surely you have no objection to that?”

“How dare you speak to me in that tone! Furthermore, I insist on knowing where you obtained this pagan filth.”

“Ovid? He’s the finest of poets, pagan or not. Besides, what are you doing creeping about in other people’s bedrooms?”

“The Lord will forgive your disrespect because you are as yet an uneducated child,” the prelate replied wearily. “But as for the woman whom I suspect obtained this obscenity for you, I cannot venture to say.”

“I think that poetry is beautiful. With all the awful things that have happened here lately, is it so wrong to be reminded that there are beautiful things in the world too?”

“I shall instruct a servant to return these to our neighbor immediately,” Godomar said. “In the meantime, I remind you that I am not only Sunilda’s tutor but also her guide in spiritual matters. Any reading material that enters these apartments must first be approved by me. There are enough wholesome writings to keep you occupied during your remarkable apparent idleness without the possibility of the child finding such disgusting works as this.”

Bertrada made a face. “More than enough. The church fathers wrote so much it’s a wonder they ever had time to pray. What a lot of boring old men. Is the world a better place for all their writing? Not one of them could use a sword to any great effect, I’ll wager. Or anything else, for that matter.”

“What sort of talk is that?” Godomar was horrified. “And pin up your hair, Bertrada. Why is it hanging down like that? It isn’t seemly.”

The girl patted her long, blonde hair, which was rioting past her shoulders rather than plaited in her usual style. “Some people might prefer my hair this way,” she said with a sly smile.