Four for a Boy (19 page)

“Do you happen to know what it is?”

“Hypatius had not begun building his final resting place, although he’d given Dio very detailed instructions for its design,” was the surprising answer. “He greatly admired the tomb the young man created for Dominica’s last husband.”

Fortunatus gave John directions to Dio’s studio. “Let’s hope it doesn’t decide to run away before you arrive,” he concluded.

He began to swing the gate shut, but John stopped him. “You say Dio designed the tomb for Dominica’s last husband?”

“Dio was the husband’s bastard son. As for me, I tend to think he may be Dominica’s offspring, but then I am just an old man who has fled the world, and glad to have left it behind.”

The gate banged shut, leaving John alone with his thoughts—among them that Fortunatus had not left the world nearly so far behind as he claimed.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

When he was ushered into Emperor Justin’s private apartment, Felix saw that the most powerful ruler in the civilized world was reclining on a couch. He was eating bread and cheese from an earthenware plate.

The homely sight heartened him. He could not help comparing the frugal fare to the culinary conceits offered at the Gourd’s banquet. There was certainly something to the old saying that a man’s nature was in his nourishment.

“Ah, my excubitor,” Justin muttered around a mouthful of bread, without waiting for Felix to bow. He handed his crumb-dusted plate to the guard stationed behind his couch, who juggled with the dish one-handedly while contriving to retain his other hand on the pommel of his sword.

“Take that plate away,” Justin instructed the man irritably.

“As you direct, Caesar.” The guard eyed Felix suspiciously.

“He’s one of my bodyguards, just like you, but one who doesn’t balk at carrying out his orders,” Justin snapped. “Leave.”

Felix felt a glow of pride at the emperor’s words. For an instant he forgot the chagrin that had been building inside him for the past few days as he talked endlessly to various people, never daring to say exactly what he meant, nodding politely at the palpable lies he was offered. It had made him feel as if he was an obsequious palace bureaucrat rather than a military man. He remembered now that however unpleasant his duty might be, the man he served had once been a soldier too.

When they were alone, Justin’s voice fell to a tired whisper akin to parchment sheets rustling in a breeze. “What have you been doing, Felix? Do you have anything to report yet?” He made no effort to conceal a grimace of pain as he leaned back.

Felix outlined the investigations he and John had carried out. Put into words and presented to the emperor, their efforts sounded futile, even ludicrous.

Justin waved his prominently veined hand. “No, no. The words these people speak aren’t worth a clod of dirt. I’m not interested in what they told you. What I want to know is what did you learn? What did you observe? What do you make of the situation?”

For a moment Felix could not speak. He could hardly believe that the emperor was asking for his opinion. Finally he said, “To begin with, Caesar, there are more axes to grind at court than there are in to be found in all the woodworkers’ shops in the city.”

“I have numerous axes myself. Mine are extremely sharp and very useful for removing heads from shoulders.”

“As you say, Caesar. However, it would appear that the majority of those to whom we spoke were more intent on fomenting difficulties than in aiding our inquiries.”

“This colleague of yours, Justinian’s eunuch. Has he said anything about my nephew?”

“I regret that I’m not certain what you mean.”

Justin shifted ponderously on the couch, his lips compressed into a tight line. A large crumb clung to the moist corner of his mouth. Felix had the fleeting impression that the man was not so much living within his big body as being crushed under its dead weight.

“Slaves always talk to each other. The palace is full of gossip. Do you think I don’t know what is being whispered behind my back? What about this notion Justinian’s got into his head, that I’m planning to accuse him of having a hand in the murder of Hypatius?”

“Justinian’s man watches me, I watch him. He has revealed no more to me about his master than I have revealed to him about you.”

“Oh, nicely said! Proclus should recruit you to work in his office. Very well. What are they saying about me in the streets? That’s what really matters, as Euphemia advises me.”

Felix felt sweat trickling down his back. A shade had just walked into the room.

Justin fixed him with a rheumy glare. “I asked you a question. Why are you looking like that?”

Felix cleared his throat. His gaze was drawn to the crumb hanging from the emperor’s lip. He forced himself to look away. “I have heard nothing unusual.”

“The mob isn’t whispering against me? That’s how it always begins. In the streets, in the forum. Like a festering wound down in the leg whose poison creeps nearer to the heart with every passing day. Blood flows in some stinking alley and before long armed men are breaking into the emperor’s bedchamber to murder him.”

“You are much respected, Caesar,” Felix assured him.

“However, the Gourd has contained the unrest,” Justin went on, ignoring his comment. “A good man at his work. Proclus recommended him to me. Yes, he knows how to handle my nephew’s precious Blues. Personally, I’d like to set him loose on the actress.”

“There are many who oppose Theodora, both on the streets and at court,” Felix offered truthfully, happy to be able to tell Justin at least one thing he might want to hear.

Justin scowled. “My dearest Euphemia detests her and refuses to remain in the same room if their paths should cross by accident. Whatever can Justinian find to love in Theodora, the world’s whore? But young men tend to be ruled by their loins, not logic, and she has certainly had plenty of practice in the art of seduction.”

As Justin spoke he turned his head slowly until he was staring directly at the door. Felix was struck by an irrational fear that it was about to open to admit the dead Empress Euphemia.

“Caesar, about my mission. It is always a good plan when going into battle to be armed with detailed orders and—”

“But you have had your orders! Investigate the murder of Hypatius. Watch the eunuch while he works. Keep your eyes open, and your ears.”

Felix made a bow.

“Now, hold that pot for me.”

Felix looked at Justin in confusion.

The emperor gestured weakly at the plain ceramic vessel sitting on the floor at the side of his couch.

“My night soil pot. I wish to relieve myself. Yes, you could tell the time by me. I drip like a water clock.”

“Caesar, I—”

“You’re embarrassed for your emperor. Understandably.” Justin grimaced. “I don’t need a physician, Felix. What I need is a plumber.”

***

John sat on the edge of his pallet and tried to organize his thoughts. He had been certain Hypatius’ death was somehow connected with the sculpture. Not that there had been any obvious reason. It was simply a feeling he had, that bits of information were about to fall together to form a coherent whole.

He tended to take sudden leaps into the darkness of doubt. Usually he found what he half expected. This time, though, he had, perhaps, jumped in the wrong direction. Fortunatus’ words, coupled with the group of men John had seen at the baths, clearly damned Opimius as one of the political intriguers Justinian feared. And what did that mean for Anna?

Should he warn her? Use the servants’ entrance as she’d suggested? Perhaps he should see if the sculptor Dio had returned. Even if that avenue of investigation seemed fruitless, it would get his feet moving. As soon as his feet stopped his thoughts seemed to come to a halt.

He was just about to leave when Felix appeared.

“I hoped you’d be here, John.”

The excubitor looked pensive. John inquired about his meeting with the emperor.

Felix summarized the conversation. “I think the hardest fate for a military man like Justin is dying by degrees far from the battlefield. I hope neither of us suffers that fate. Tell me, John, what is your favorite tree?”

John said nothing. He expected to detect the reek of wine about the excubitor, but there was none. “You’ve come here to ask me about trees?”

“Well, if you understand…but if you don’t…”

John realized what he was really being asked. He offered Felix a thin smile. “I suppose I would have to say the fig.”

Felix visibly relaxed. “It is said the fig is sacred to certain proscribed deities.”

“To Mithra, you mean?”

“To Mithra, yes. You called upon Him when we were attacked, my friend. You mention any number of deities and personages when you become angry, and in most unflattering terms. You speak Egyptian well, don’t you?”

John looked at Felix, bemusement in his expression.

“Then I suggest you curse people in Egyptian henceforth, at least in public. It might be safer for you. For now, come with me.”

***

The shadowy mithraeum the two men entered was familiar to John, even though he had never set boot into this hidden underground temple situated on the palace grounds. He had seen several mithraea in his time, the first one in far-off, misty Bretania. This place of worship could have been any of them.

To reach it, he and Felix had passed through a doorway set deep inside the armory behind the excubitors’ barracks and then progressed through a series of subterranean corridors that reminded John uncomfortably of the path he had taken from the imperial dungeons to light and air only a few days before.

Finally they reached a stout door. An armed excubitor swung it open and they stepped into the mithraeum.

Felix kept his hand on his sword and a close watch on John. Passing between the statues of Mithra’s twin torchbearers, Cautes and Cautopates, flanking the entrance, John bowed his head to the bas-relief set at the far end of the low-ceilinged room. It was illuminated by the shifting light of a small fire on the altar before it.

A man wearing the dark mask of a raven stepped forward to greet them.

“Welcome, brothers in Mithra,” he said.

“This is John, a fellow adept,” Felix replied.

“I am accepted as such?”

Felix grinned. “Had you not given homage to Lord Mithra, you would not have lived long enough to tell anyone about it,” he said. Turning to their raven-headed companion, he added, “The ceremony will begin soon?”

“As soon as the Father and the initiate arrive.”

John glanced around the narrow space. A dozen or so men, some wearing the masks of their Mithraic rank, stood talking. Torchlight threw strange shadows across the walls, flickering across the sacred scene behind the altar where Mithra, cloak flying in an eternal wind, had plunged His dagger into the Great Bull, releasing its blood to gush forth to create animals and vegetation.

The new arrivals sat down at the end of the low bench running along the right-hand wall as their fellow worshippers took their seats both beside them and on the bench against the opposite wall. A hush settled over the cave-like temple, the only sounds the crackling of the sacred fire and the torches set in brackets.

John gazed at the holy figure of Lord Mithra. He had found praying to his god calmed his mind when it persisted in twisting and turning in on itself, the Furies raging back and forth inside his head until he felt it would split open.

The familiar scene depicted Mithra, Lord of Light, and to him he prayed nightly for acceptance of the terrible fate his rashness had brought upon him.

There was a clash of cymbals and those assembled stood as the Father entered the mithraeum. Behind him walked the man to be initiated, naked, his eyes covered in a red cloth tied tightly at the back of his head, his hands bound around with entrails and stout rope. His two burly escorts, wearing masks whose flowing manes identified them as adepts holding the rank of Lion, guided him to the altar where the Father waited.

The Lions pushed the initiate down on his knees and stepped a few paces back as the Father raised his hands in prayer.

“Lord of Light,” he intoned, “we assemble tonight to admit a new follower, Petros, to Thy service and to honor Thee, Slayer of the Bull and Guardian of all who serve Thee.”

One of the Lions who had escorted the initiate to the altar stepped forward, drawing his sword with a whisper of oiled metal. The blindfolded man turned his head toward the sound and then back toward the altar, coughing in smoke drifting from its fire.

Looking down, the Father addressed the kneeling initiate.

“You are a soldier and have fought for the empire and seen the aftermath of battle, when Mithra’s ravens come to cleanse the field and escort the souls of the faithful up His seven-runged ladder. Those who know not the mysteries of Mithra call His sacred bird carrion, but if you complete the ordeal then you will become a member of the first rank, a Corax, named for that very bird.”

Petros nodded silently.

“It is difficult indeed to live the life that Lord Mithra demands of His followers,” the Father went on, “for He demands all those He accepts to be honorable, chaste and obedient. Therefore, the adept guards his honor, does not defile himself or others, and never refuses aid to another follower. Above all, he loves the Lord of Light.”

The Father paused and turned his head in the direction of the Lion with the drawn sword as he continued sternly, “Acceptance is not easily gained. First, you must die.”

As he spoke, the Lion’s sword sliced down and laid open the initiate’s shoulder. The man swayed, but remained kneeling. He made no sound although his fists clenched the slippery entrails tied around them more firmly, their dark drippings running down onto his bare knees. A second sweep down of the sword and blood was running down his back.

Still he made no sound.

“It is well done,” the Father said approvingly. “But mark this well, Petros. If you betray your brothers in Mithra, your end will bring only oblivion, for you will be forever barred from climbing Mithra’s ladder to live with Him in heaven.”

Turning to the altar, he picked up a small bowl set beside the sacred fire.

“Remember too that in all things a Mithran is discreet and speaks not of his knowledge to anyone but Mithrans,” he instructed Petros.

The Lion bent forward and forced open the initiate’s mouth with the bloodstained point of his sword, cutting Petros’ tongue.

“And as the blood flowing from you symbolizes both the death of your old life and your rebirth, not of woman but into the care of the Lord of Light, then so too this…” The Father dipped a spoon of honey from the bowl and placed into the man’s mouth. Most of it dribbled out, mixed with bloody saliva. Sufficient remained for Petros to swallow as the Father completed the initiation ritual, by pouring another spoonful of honey onto Petros’ head as he continued, “…anoints you to silence and sweetens your soul, purifying it so that it is acceptable to Lord Mithra.”