One for Sorrow (2 page)
During the afternoon, when the dead man was still alive, John had sat with him and the others at the Hippodrome. Between the chariot races there had been other entertainment. Acrobats, wild animals. A trained bear.
The bear amused the spectators when it was down on the floor of the Hippodrome and not in their midst. They shouted their approval from the safety of the stands as the animal lashed out futilely at its trainer. Restrained by a chain, the bear could not quite reach the man’s wagging buttocks.
Shifting his lean flanks on the hard marble bench, John had sympathized with the wretched bear. This afternoon he felt chained himself. Chained by his high position at the court, weighed down by his richly embroidered ceremonial robes. The sunlight was too fierce for early May. A tepid sea breeze did nothing to relieve his discomfort.
What did the friends beside him make of it, he wondered?
Felix, the excubitor captain, scowling intensely, was probably gauging the trainer’s deftness with the trident he was brandishing at the bear.
Anatolius, who wrote poems when he was not serving as imperial secretary, looked as if he were only half-attending to the performance. The handsome and elegantly dressed young man might be composing an ode, but to the bear or to its tormenter?
The Keeper of the Plate, Leukos, was a kind man, a devout Christian. John was not surprised to notice him frown and look away as the trainer darted in at the captive animal, prodded it with the trident, pirouetted, and retreated.
“I suppose our empress is enjoying the entertainment,” remarked Anatolius, “considering her father was a bear keeper.”
“Indeed.” From his seat in the emperor’s box, John could see only the backs of the elevated thrones occupied by the emperor and empress. Theodora’s father had died when she was a child, leaving her family destitute. The racing partisans known as the Greens had turned them away but the Blues had offered charity. Which was why she had spent the afternoon raucously cheering for the Blue chariot teams with all the exuberance of a fisherman’s wife.
As an adult she had turned to acting and caught the eye of Justinian. Otherwise she might have been down in the dust assisting the bear trainer instead of observing from a throne.
The bear was chained to a stake directly in front of the imperial box. The trainer broke into a run, circling the stake with a comical, high-stepping gait. The bear, though encumbered, pursued him, still hopeful of exacting revenge for its injuries. So intent was it on its pursuit that it did not notice that every turn around the stake wound its chain tighter, shortening it inexorably so that suddenly the beast found itself trapped, unable to move.
The bear roared its pain and fury to the unheeding sky as its trainer gave the beast’s shaggy back a final vicious dig with his trident.
The crowd responded with coin-throwing enthusiasm as the bear trainer finally departed with his ill-treated charge and slaves, swathed in whirling dust devils, removed the stake and raked the arena’s churned floor smooth.
“I wish the only enemies I had to guard against were bears attached to lengths of chains,” grumbled Felix.
“Don’t worry,” offered Anatolius. “You don’t have any enemies here. At least not within arm’s length. You lost our bet though. The bear didn’t draw blood.”
Felix grunted. “Maybe next time it will.”
“Since our enemies don’t have chains, our best defense is to learn which way they are going to jump,” remarked Leukos. He ran a thin hand across his gleaming, bald scalp. Behind his back the apprentices said their master’s skull so resembled a silver bowl that there must be an imperial seal stamped behind one ear.
Anatolius pushed a few dark curls off his forehead and regarded Leukos with surprise. “Why have you been so gloomy this afternoon? What enemies do you have?”
“We all have enemies. You might want to consult the soothsayer who has recently arrived in the city. Perhaps he can point out a few of yours for you.”
“Oh, I’ve heard about him. Who hasn’t? He disemboweled a chicken for a certain office holder we won’t name and was able, from its guts, to assure this august personage that he would not end up like the unfortunate chicken, or at least not for a week or two. I’m visiting the soothsayer later.”
“He’s going to be busy today,” Leukos said. “I have an appointment with him at the inn in a short while.”
“Do you both think it’s wise?” put in John. “It might cause the emperor embarrassment if anyone spots his officials dealing with a charlatan like that.”
“Actually, he’s very knowledgeable,” Leukos replied. “I’ve already had him cast the augurs for me.”
Felix shook his head. “Leukos, you of all officials must be aware that the more plausible the rogue, the tighter you need to hold on to the silver. You can’t trust people these days.”
Anatolius grinned broadly, an expression which diminished somewhat his resemblance to a classic Greek sculpture. “Are you thinking of these kidnappings and extortion plots we’ve been plagued with lately, or the street violence, or…” he paused for effect, “…is it that little tart at Madam’s?”
Felix’s directed a chilly gaze at him. “You’re a gossip, Anatolius. If you don’t watch your tongue you’ll lose it.”
Anatolius pretended to look hurt. “That’s unfair, Felix. Gossips are the ones who spread tales about the patriarch’s tribe of illegitimate children—such slander to cast at a churchman—and swear that the emperor is really a faceless demon in human form. I just pass along the news.”
Leukos stood up. “I have to be off to see the soothsayer. I’ll be glad to be out of this sun.” He fumbled with the leather pouch he carried on his belt, closed it, and wiped the sweat from his broad forehead with the back of his hand. “Do you want to come with me, Anatolius?”
“I can find the Inn of the Centaurs, Leukos. I think I’ll stay for the next performance and another race or two. I’m not supposed to call on him until the end of the afternoon.”
A moment after Leukos had left the imperial box the massive teak gate at the far end of the chariot track slid open and, as the crowd cheered, a monstrous black bull garlanded in blossoms and ribbons charged out into view. The bull raced around the arena’s perimeter, violently tossing gold-tipped horns.
John drew in his breath sharply. The magnificent beast was the perfect incarnation of the sacred animal of the Lord of Light, John’s own god.
“Mithra!” he exhaled, forgetting for an instant that he was practically within earshot of the ruler of an officially Christian empire.
A trio of figures followed the bull out of the gate. All were clothed in azure loincloths and beribboned chaplets of flowers. Barefooted, they moved smoothly and swiftly along the track until they stood near the imperial box. John realized, with a shock, that they presented the image of bull-leapers from the ancient days of Crete. He had not seen bull-leapers since….he pushed the memory away, as he always did when it ambushed him.
The bull wheeled around, kicking up clods of earth, and then charged at the trio.
Two of the figures, armed with spears, stepped aside. John saw that the remaining figure, unarmed, was a slim woman. His heart leapt as if he were the one confronting the bull.
The spectators’ clamor subsided into a silence like that between breaking waves. In the eerie hush, the beat of the bull’s hooves carried clearly up into the stands.
The woman stepped forward, raising delicate arms as if preparing to push the onrushing beast aside.
John tried to pick out details of her features, but shimmering heat waves hid her face.
The bull closed in. It lowered its massive head. Horns flashed in the sunlight. The woman left the earth as easily as a sparrow, grabbed the bull’s horns, vaulted over them, and landed lightly on the animal’s back.
The crowd’s thunderous appreciation echoed around the Hippodrome.
The bull whipped its head back and forth, but the woman already sat securely astride its broad back. The maddened beast raced around the track to the far side. As it completed its circuit and galloped back toward where John and his friends were sitting, John could see the gleam of the approaching beast’s wild eyes and the foam flecking its mouth. The rider pulled herself up into a crouch and then executed a back flip, ending in a handstand on the arena’s floor directly in front of the imperial box.
She made a low bow, then straightened, raising her arms to the noisy adulation of the crowd and gazed up toward the imperial box.
John stared, transfixed. He did not notice how the spear carriers reappeared to chivvy the animal out of the arena. When the woman looked up John had looked straight down into her dark eyes. Eyes in which he had lost himself, years before.
“Look at her!” Anatolius blurted out. “I have to meet her!”
How many times had John heard the same refrain from his younger friend? But this time Anatolius sounded far away, a voice in a dream. John didn’t hear what he said next. He didn’t notice the second and third bulls, or the rest of the troupe, enter the arena.
“John? What’s the matter? You look as if you’ve seen a demon.”
“I knew that woman,” John managed to say, his voice little more than a whisper. “Long ago, in another place, we were lovers.”
As he gazed down at the bull-leaper, death had been as far from John’s thoughts as when he was twenty-three and watching Cornelia for the first time.
And now, only hours later, Cornelia’s dark eyes were replaced by the sightless eyes of John’s friend.
He caught only a fleeting glimpse of the face. The shutters of the window which had briefly illuminated the scene had slammed shut and he was alone with the dead man in Stygian darkness.
“Leukos,” John said to himself. “What were you doing here?”
He became aware again of the noise of the mob in the square. The shouts and screams had diminished. He heard the bear roar. It sounded far away.
As he peered toward the dim light at the head of the alley a line of fire shot through the night toward him.
He ducked and felt the heat of a torch fly past his face. The still burning torch clattered to the cobbles, leaving John exposed in a ring of light as heavy footsteps thundered toward him.
The murderer or murderers?
His hand went to the dagger he carried. He leapt up and faced a creature out of a nightmare.
A towering, bullish Persian with a braided beard. As the monster raised its sword the flaring torchlight sparkled off dainty wings sprouting from its wide shoulders.
John recognized Madam Isis’ doorkeeper.
“Darius!”
The Persian lowered his weapon.
“Lord Chamberlain. I wasn’t attacking you. I thought you might be in trouble but now I see….” His gaze went to the body lying on the ground.
“Leukos, the Keeper of the Plate. A friend of mine.”
Darius swore. “Let’s get him inside before the vultures strip him.”
John agreed. If the mob realized there was a dead man here he and Darius would find themselves fighting to defend the body like a couple of soldiers at the gates of Troy.
It was only as they got hold of their awkward load that John noticed Leukos’ killer had left a knife in his victim. Had someone scared the murderer off or had the mild palace administrator put up a fight?
John hope the latter had been the case.
They carted Leukos out of the alley.
“If it weren’t for these damnable wings I’d have simply thrown the poor man over my shoulder,” Darius complained. “Madam has me dressed as Eros.”
Luckily the square had emptied out.
Madam Isis greeted them in her brightly lit doorway. An ample woman, whose actual outlines were disguised by layers of billowing pink silks, her face showed traces of the beauty she had once been. “John, thank the goddess you’re safe! I thought I saw you when the riot broke out. Who do you have there?”
John explained.
Isis clucked with distress and ushered them inside into a fog of perfume and incense almost as choking as the poisonous stench in the streets. Several barely clothed young women peered at them with curiosity. They laid Leukos’ body on a couch in a side hall and Darius left to return to his post, fussing with his right wing which kept flopping forward.
“What were you doing observing the mob, Isis?” John asked.
“I went to the doorway to see the bear. It got away. Broke loose from the crowd. That’s why the square’s deserted. Everyone fled. Except the trainer.”
“Did you see Leukos in the crowd?”
Isis shook her head.
“Was he in here earlier?”
“No, John. I never saw the man, and you know I never forget a patron’s face.”
“Or remember a patron’s name. Yes, I know. I wouldn’t have expected Leukos to come here anyway.”
John felt lightheaded. The fever of battle that had gripped him as the mob turned violent was fading away and he was beginning to feel the pain of his loss.
“Did you notice anyone who seemed suspicious, looking for trouble, looking for a victim?”
“No. And I always keep a close watch. I pride myself on running the most civilized house in the city. During the celebrations the wolves come out and my establishment is a good place to find stray lambs.”
John knew Isis was right. But why had Leukos strayed into the alley next to her house? Unless he had been on his way to his appointment? “Is the Inn of the Centaurs near here?”
“Oh, yes. Just around the corner.” Madam described its location. She further agreed that the alley where Leukos died could have served as a short-cut along his route to the inn.
John would have thought Leukos was too cautious to go down alleys, but he had been excited about going to see the soothsayer.
“I’ll question all my girls and my guards as well,” Isis told him. “Someone might have seen or heard something. It might be one of them saw your friend. That bald head must have stood out in a crowd like the dome of the Church of the Holy Wisdom.”
John stared down at the still figure on the couch. It resembled Leukos yet already death had begun to smooth out the details. Leukos was gone and what was left was as hollow as a bronze statue. Had he reached wherever it was Christians imagined they went after dying?
“I will need to inform the urban watch, Isis. If it will be a problem….”
She waved a pudgy hand and her numerous rings glittered. “It’s no problem. I pay the prefect more than the tax collector.”
“Besides which, we’re here already,” boomed a voice from behind John. Three helmeted men wearing leather cuirasses and armed with spears clattered down the hall in hobnailed boots.
“We put the bear trainer—what pieces we could find—in the kitchen,” said the man who had addressed John. “A little more blood in the kitchen won’t make any difference. Someone will be round shortly to collect him.” The man directed his gaze to Leukos’ body. “And now, what have we got here?”
