Seven for a Secret (24 page)

Chapter Forty-Five

John and Anatolius left Petronia and turned their steps to the thoroughfare that led toward the Augustaion and the Great Palace. John walked a few paces ahead. He was turning matters over and the harder he thought, the faster he walked.

“Troilus is Theodora’s son,” John muttered.

Anatolius managed to catch up to John. “What did you say? Troilus is Theodora’s son?”

“Yes. Or at least he holds himself out as her son, when it suits him. I’ve finally managed to piece most of the mosaic together. I’ve been listening to people for days. Their stories are all interesting enough by themselves. Like the tesserae I saw in Michri’s shop. Colorful in isolation, but the picture they form when assembled correctly is much more fascinating. Listen to my argument and see if you can rebut it. It will be good legal practice.”

“I will if I can keep up with your stride,” Anatolius complained.

John did not diminish his pace. “I’ve recounted all the facts to you more than once, my friend. Now, consider that according to the empress’ servant Theodoulos, the soldiers who pursued the boy reported he vanished as if into thin air in the Copper Market. Alba told me she’d watched a boy chased by men in military garb hide inside Lazarus’ pillar. Afterward she considered what she saw to be a miracle because the boy was never seen or heard of again. In fact, she told Menander about it while trying to convince him to change his ways.”

“That might have piqued Menander’s curiosity about the pillar.”

“I believe it did. About the same time the stylite’s acolyte discovered Lazarus had disappeared from the top of his column and been replaced by an automaton. Menander had at least two automatons, Alba told me. One she remembered must have been the Sergius I saw in Troilus’ shop. The automaton on the pillar was also a soldier, the other half of the pair of military saints. Everyone knew Menander had sold much of his collection to Troilus over the years, but it appears their connection was closer than that.”

Anatolius agreed it was likely, given the information just provided by Petronia.

“I am taking a leap into darkness,” John admitted, “but I believe Menander was intrigued by Alba’s story. Alba said there were guards posted in the square for several days, but Troilus was up on the pillar with the body of Lazarus for longer than that. After the guards had gone, Menander must have climbed up into the column during the night, if only to be in a position to contradict Alba the next time she mentioned it to him. He must have been surprised to find Troilus. He sent the boy to live with Petronia, as she just told us. He wouldn’t have wanted him staying in the same building as Alba because she might have recognized him.”

Anatolius grinned. “I have it! Just as the acolyte guessed, someone left an automaton behind so no one would notice the stylite’s absence for some time! And who do we know who had not one but two of those useful artifacts?”

“Indeed. Menander didn’t want attention drawn to the pillar, in case anyone from the palace was still looking for the boy.”

Anatolius frowned and asked John about the whereabouts of the missing stylite.

“That’s part of the mosaic I haven’t yet filled in,” John admitted. “The square isn’t much traveled at night, particularly after the shops are closed, not to mention the local populace can’t be relied on to be forthcoming when questioned, as we’ve discovered ourselves. It wouldn’t have been difficult to take an automaton to the column or to smuggle a boy or a body away after the guards were no longer stationed in the square. In the meantime the boy could have eaten the stylite’s food.”

“But what could Menander want with this boy?”

“Menander had grievances against the imperial couple. No doubt he thought that a son of Theodora—even if one only purported to be such—would be useful to him one day.”

Anatolius stepped around a dog eating offal. “And Agnes involved herself with actors and disgruntled former courtiers and officials and the like, the same circles in which Menander and Troilus moved. But what conclusions do you draw from this? Is a plot really being fomented or is it just more play acting?”

John and Anatolius passed basket-laden shoppers, begrimed laborers carrying the tools of their trade, and twittering clerks. If any of them heard Anatolius utter the word “plot” they pretended to be deaf. It was not the sort of information you admitted to knowing if you valued your life.

“If Troilus is Theodora’s supposed son then he must be one of the plotters, since they cannot proceed without him,” John replied.

“He doesn’t appear to be the one who murdered Agnes, since she was alive when the sundial maker Helias spied Troilus dragging a sack about in the middle of the night, given she was arguing with Troilus in Petronia’s room the next morning,” Anatolius said. “And indeed why would Troilus murder Agnes? Petronia said they were inseparable.”

“Think of Dedi’s vanishing skull act, Anatolius. It appears to be magick only because a skull would not burn the way it does. Once you realize that what you thought was a skull isn’t one, but rather a thin, flammable counterfeit, then it does not appear so remarkable. Fostering a false assumption or two and some skilled misdirection can make perfectly unremarkable events appear quite sinister. Or, for that matter, make sinister events appear unremarkable.”

“What do you mean, John? What misdirection? And where are we going in such a hurry?”

They had crossed the Augustaion, and were walking toward the Chalke. Gulls flapped out of their way, protesting as they were forced to abandon the city’s discarded debris on which they’d been dining.

John glanced at his companion. “Do you remember you mentioned you saw Felix entering a tavern not far from the cistern where I found the girl’s body and on the very same morning? A coincidence, it would seem. But how was it he happened to be on hand to rescue me when I was attacked in the street, not to mention being at the right place at the right time to prevent Theodoulos from throwing himself into the sea?”

“But surely…I can’t believe Felix…”

“People often see what they wish to see, not what is actually there.”

“But if Felix is involved,” Anatolius protested, “who sent that message about two conspirators meeting at the Milion…well, if you are right you did meet a conspirator there…but you aren’t a conspirator!”

“No. And I know I’m not, and so do you. But consider again Dedi’s act.”

They passed through the magnificent Chalke gate, entered the palace grounds, and made their way to its far less imposing maze of administrative buildings.

Felix was not present in his office, although a mismatched assortment of rugged excubitors and callow clerks milled in the antechamber.

John stopped a thin man who visibly trembled at the touch of the Lord Chamberlain’s glare. “Where is the captain?”

“I…I…don’t know…uh…excellency. He’s gone off with a contingent of excubitors. Trouble of some sort…a riot…”

“Mithra! It’s started! I have to warn Cornelia!”

Chapter Forty-Six

“The Lord Chamberlain is not available,” Cornelia told the stranger at the door.

“We know that. I’ve come here to speak to you.”

The caller was a man of average appearance, aside from his immaculate dress and perfectly trimmed hair and his exceedingly dark and chilling eyes.

“He refused to give his name, mistress,” said Peter, who had answered the insistent knock.

“I hope you are not offended,” the stranger said to Cornelia. “It is not possible for me to give you my name. It would not be safe for either of us.”

“Give your blade to Peter, and come into the office,” Cornelia replied.

The room beyond the foot of the stairs, furnished with cushioned chairs and a desk of inlaid wood, opened on to the garden. John rarely used it. He preferred to meet visitors in his stark upstairs study.

Cornelia posted Peter beside the door. The visitor refused the proffered seat so she remained standing.

“What did you mean when you said that you knew the Lord Chamberlain is not here?”

“Only that we have been watching him.”

Cornelia forced herself to breath slowly. She could not stop her heart racing. John was in grave danger. She was certain of it. The mild-voiced stranger chilled her in a way that finding Menander’s body in the bath had not. The dead man’s identity had been known. Whatever peril his death represented to the household could therefore ultimately be traced.

Confronted with this unknown caller she could not tell from which direction danger might come.

“Who has been watching?”

The stranger offered a faint smile. At least Cornelia interpreted the expression as a smile. “My apologies, but I simply cannot say.”

Where was John now? He had been gone all day again. Was he safe? Was he…? She pushed the thought away.

“Say whatever it is you’ve come to say.” Somehow she kept her voice steady.

“Please believe me, we have your best interests at heart. The Lord Chamberlain—your husband—has spent a great deal of time lately in the company of people with whom he would not seem to have any legitimate business.”

Cornelia did not correct his misapprehension that she and John were married. If, indeed, he really believed it. “As Justinian’s representative he might have legitimate business with anyone in this city or indeed the empire,” she pointed out.

“That may well be, but these people I mention are like pieces of colored glass—innocent enough singly but when arranged together they form a picture. In this case, a most sinister picture.”

“What people are these?”

“Why, Felix for one, the excubitor captain who controls a contingent of armed men within the walls of the palace itself. Did you know that General Belisarius is also in the city? Justinian relieved him of his command, so he has a grievance against the emperor, and the loyalty of a great many soldiers. I have it on impeccable authority that your husband has consulted an associate of the general.”

Cornelia noticed a look of outrage appeared on Peter’s face. Evidently he too had grasped the implication contained in the smooth words. She glared at the visitor who continued unperturbed.

“The Lord Chamberlain and the excubitor captain have been friendly for years and would hardly be expected to oppose one another if they became, shall we say, ambitious. And then there are all these persons your husband has been meeting in the Copper Market. A seditious rabble, to be sure. He has been present at clandestine meetings, or meetings those attending foolishly imagined were clandestine. You surely realize all this.”

“Are you implying the Lord Chamberlain is involved in some intrigue against the emperor?”

The visitor sighed and made a vague gesture with his hands, the fingers of which were perfectly manicured. “If you step back a pace or two, you will have to admit the picture formed by all these circumstances is very suspicious, particularly since one of the scoundrels known to be involved was found dead in your bath.”

“You insult the Lord Chamberlain’s loyalty by even suggesting he would be part of such a conspiracy!”

“Perhaps he wants us to think he could not be involved because if he were he would not be so stupid as to call attention to himself by leaving the corpse of one of his co-conspirators in his own bath? That by doing so we would overlook the remarkable amount of time he has spent in the Copper Market recently?”

“Investigating the death of a young woman. I am certain I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, whoever you are.”

The stranger smiled again. Or was it a sneer? “Investigating a murder makes for a fine pretext for being in places palace officials would best avoid. And if the victim who supplies the pretext is a person who needed to be put out of the way…”

Cornelia felt her face flush with fury. “You dare to say John murdered her to give himself a pretext to visit with a band of plotters?”

“If your husband was really investigating such a death, why did he not inform the emperor?”

“He considered it a private matter!” Cornelia regretted her hasty words as soon as she had spoken.

The man gave a contemptuous smile but remained silent.

“Why are you telling me?” she demanded. “Confront the Lord Chamberlain with this outrageous nonsense, if you dare.”

“I suspect you may be more amenable to reason, Cornelia. You have a daughter, don’t you? Yes, she is quite fond of Zeno’s horses. She was out riding yesterday.”

Cornelia stifled the cry that formed in her throat. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Peter move. She motioned him to remain where he was. “If you will not reveal who you’re working for—”

The stranger’s voice remained quiet. “At the moment, I am working for you. For you and your husband and your family. A family which may be in danger. I am only trying to help.”

He paused and stared thoughtfully out into the garden. “I had hoped we might talk in your husband’s study. I would be curious to see that mosaic girl I’ve heard about. I understand when Justinian executed the former owner of this house he spared Glykos’ family. I have it on good authority that he is not likely to be so forbearing this time.”

“I fail to see how your threats and insinuations are of any help to anyone in this house. Watching John, trying to manufacture a case against him out of nothing…”

“Ah, but you assume we are the only ones watching, the only ones who have observed your husband’s actions these past days. Not so. Perhaps the emperor’s ire cannot be avoided. So long as the emperor is Justinian. The Lord Chamberlain is a man of principle. A man who would surely put principle above all else, perhaps even his family. This is why I wished to speak to you, Cornelia. I must leave now. Your husband will be back soon and you will want to discuss these matters with him.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

John found Cornelia sitting in his study, staring at the wall mosaic.

The lowering sun spilled red light across the glass country scene, a place upon which the sun set, but never rose. Zoe stared out, silent as ever, while Cornelia told John about her visitor. He had a suspicion who it might have been, but he said nothing. It might only alarm her more.

“Could you be implicated, John? Would Justinian believe you are involved in plot against him?”

“It’s impossible to say what Justinian might believe. It can change from hour to hour. He believes whatever he wishes and what the emperor believes might as well be true so far as the rest of us are concerned.”

“You must continue to do whatever is proper,” Cornelia said.

John put his hand on her arm. “Even if I didn’t worry about you, there is still our daughter. Felix has already set off with a contingent of excubitors. The city is liable to be in flames before the sun comes up tomorrow. I want you and Peter to leave while you can. Go straight to Zeno’s estate and join Thomas and Europa. It will be safer for you all.”

“You’ll come with us?”

“No. Justinian would conclude, or be persuaded, I had fled because of guilt, in which case there’d be nowhere in the empire we’d be safe. I have given Peter his instructions. You need to hurry now.”

He started to take his hand from her arm but she grasped it. There was more anger in her eyes than fear.

“It’s all because of that girl—that woman! You’ve told her things you’d tell no one else!”

“Because she is no one, Cornelia, merely pieces of glass. Do you really think I talk to her? I am only talking to myself.”

Cornelia squeezed his hand and let it go. “She’s destroyed everything, John. You would never have gotten involved in any of this, except for her.”

“A woman died because she wanted to speak to me. A real woman, not a mosaic figure. Justice must be served.”

John realized he was gazing at Zoe. He went to the window and looked out. Would he have paid the slightest attention to the prostitute in the square had she not identified herself as the model for Zoe? Was there any possibility he would have agreed to meet her the next day? Couldn’t the Prefect have investigated her death? Cornelia was right. It was only because of Zoe that he had become involved. Or was it entangled?

“Did you know there’s someone watching the house?” he asked.

Cornelia came to his side.

“Look,” he told her “Just past the corner of barracks. In the shadows.” He turned abruptly. “I have to go. There are things I need to do. Don’t worry about me, but call Peter and leave as soon as you can. It is still possible now, but it won’t be for much longer.”

He strode out without looking back and Cornelia did not go after him.

As he left the house, he laid his hand on the blade in his belt. He could see that the shadowy figure remained beside the barracks. He walked directly toward it.

Rather than fleeing the figure stepped forward.

She stepped forward.

A shade.

Agnes.

Zoe.

The fading red light robbed the face of detail so that it resembled the mosaic even more closely than it had the first time John glimpsed it.

Had the little girl, Zoe, known what was about to happen, that she was to be deprived of her father, she and her mother thrown onto the street? Was that why she had appeared so sad? Or had Figulus, the mosaic maker, known what was in the store for the innocent child and depicted her in mourning for her future?

A torch on the barracks wall threw her shadow across the square and part way up the side of John’s house.

John glanced back and saw Cornelia—only a shadow herself now—beyond the ruby tinted window panes. The brick front of the house was the color of blood.

Or red dye.

He looked back toward Agnes.

She stood still for a heartbeat, then fled.

John went after her.

She cut down a paved path that led off into the imperial gardens. She wasn’t moving fast, but each time John accelerated to catch her, she responded by running faster herself.

She veered off into a gap in a line of towering shrubs making a solid black wall in the twilight. She might have evaded him, but when he emerged from the shrubbery he saw her dark figure making its way across a glimmering flag stoned court, angling in the direction the palace gates.

John’s boots clattered across the stone. Black and white tiles formed an enormous sundial in the center of the open space, but at this hour the gnomon was nearly lost in darkness.

Then they were in the vast hall leading to the Chalke. The sound of the crowd of workers leaving the palace grounds for the night or returning from the city echoed up into its lofty vaults.

Agnes had slowed almost to a walk, dodging in and out through the clerks and laborers and servants spilling toward the gates. She kept looking back over her shoulder. John moved straight ahead, cutting through the crowd.

No one dared to block his path.

Should he alert the guards?

If they went into action there would be chaos. She would likely escape in the confusion.

Besides, the longer he watched her, the more glimpses he had of her face, looking back at him, the more convinced he was that the woman was indeed the same who had accosted him in the square.

The body in the cistern therefore had not been Agnes.

Who then?

It must have been the prostitute Anatolius had learned about, the young woman who had fled the convent.

Which meant that the corpse had been dyed to make it appear that the person responsible was trying to hide the tattoo that would identify her. So that John would overlook the fact that the battered face could have belonged to anyone.

Was that possible? A tattoo could be painted on a living wrist, especially if it needed only to be seen for an instant.

Agnes was outside the palace now, moving down the Mese, not quite at a run. A shadow flickering in and out of the pools of light cast by shop torches under the colonnades.

John followed, keeping her in sight.

He became aware of a sound that was not the usual clamor of hurrying crowds anxious to be home. A sound as of wind sighing around columns and statuary in enclosed squares.

A formless sound, more rhythmic than wind gusts, akin to waves washing against the sea walls.

Had the rioting begun?

Agnes turned off onto a narrow street, turned again.

John followed her through an archway connecting one street to another and plunged into a surging mass of humanity.

He reached for his blade, then realized he had not stumbled into a melee. The chanting mob was marching along in an orderly fashion.

It was a procession, a common enough occurrence. This one was obviously on its way to a church, for here and there he saw men in ecclesiastical garments. Most of the crowd wore the rough clothing of the poor or of pilgrims who have traveled far. Some carried torches. Gilded icons ascended toward the heavens on poles. Stern bearded figures stared into the night, images of the Christian god. Torchlight struck liquid fire off the golden figures.

The monotonous chanting washed over John, filled his head, as if he had fallen into deep water. Was he still feeling the effect of the attack he’d suffered?

He couldn’t see Agnes.

Had he lost her again?

A shouted curse caused him to whirl around. A gem-studded silver angel tilted precariously on a platform borne along by several husky acolytes, who were now trying to maintain their grip while at the same time keeping the angel from falling. No doubt the angel was a reliquary, holding the bones of a holy man.

Over one glittering wing John spotted Agnes, staring back at him from the far side of the procession.

He forced his way through the crowd, but when he reached the opposite side Agnes was gone. Just behind where she had stood was a dark, irregular opening in the wall of a derelict shop.

John squeezed through into darkness. Faint light from the street illuminated a steep slope of debris, the remains of collapsed floors. He picked his way down through splintered shelves and broken pottery.

When his eyes had accustomed themselves to the dimness he was aware of a faint, undulating radiance. Light reflected off water.

He had entered a building built over a cistern, perhaps the upper part of the very cistern where he had found the body. He could still hear muffled chanting from the world above.

Then he heard her voice, resonating amid the rows of pillars against which water lapped.

“Lord Chamberlain! At last we can talk.”

“What do you want to tell me, Agnes?”

“Not here. We can’t talk here.”

Where was she?

Her voice seemed to come from no particular direction. Distorted by the echoing space, it sounded hardly human.

He peered into the dimness. Reflected light wavered and pulsed over the columns and walls of the cistern.

There she was, at the far end of the concrete walk which ran down the center of the cistern.

As quickly as he dared, he loped along the narrow path, all too aware of the water waiting for him.

At the other side of the cistern a brick archway opened into a cavernous room echoing with Agnes’ receding footsteps.

He followed her through a series of basements and sub-basements. In places stinking swamps of stagnant water soaked his boots, while other areas were dust dry. He could hear rats skittering in darkness relieved by scattered shafts of light.

Agnes remained in sight. John realized that if he caught her, he would not discover where she was leading him.

However, he could now guess their destination.

They passed corridors which slanted upward and skirted piles of rubble. One, a huge mound of shattered tiles had obviously been part of an elaborate floor. Pieces of couches stuck out from the mass, wooden arms broken, cushions gutted by rats. A fountain basin filled with rust-colored water sat amidst fragments of monumental statues. A pale, naked Aphrodite stood in a niche, pristine, as if whatever calamity had befallen this place had feared to touch her.

This must be what remained of the palace of Lausos.

Then abruptly they had passed through one last doorway and John saw they had arrived at the destination he had expected.

They were behind Troilus’ subterranean establishment.

Armed excubitors milled around the dry cistern.

A hand clamped down on John’s shoulder. He turned to face the man whose familiar voice spoke his name.

It was Felix.