Ten for Dying (John the Lord Chamberlain Mysteries) (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-one

Dedi pressed back against the shadowed wall of the Hippodrome as a gang of Blues erupted from an archway, cursing and laughing.

“So much for that!” one grunted.

“A rope necklace solves a lot of problems,” laughed another.

Dedi had halted abruptly just beyond the light from the torch beside the entrance. His attention shifted instantly from his own quarry to fear that he might spotted by the Blues and become a quarry himself.

Not that he would escape them for long.

Fortunately one of the beggars who clustered around the archway at night extended a grubby palm. Either he was blind or his humors were deranged, Dedi thought. Nobody begged from a Blue.

A Blue kicked the beggar’s legs out from under him. The pack moved in and the man was reduced to a bloody heap in scarcely less time than it took them to cross the street singing a ribald song after they’d finished.

Suddenly there was a figure bending over the moaning beggar. It had appeared from nowhere, as if precipitated out of the thick, rank night air by the evil Dedi just witnessed. The figure straightened up and with a thrill of horror Dedi recognized the face of the hellish being for which he had been keeping a watch, the thing that had taken the form of Antonina’s servant Tychon.

When the thing set off at a rapid pace parallel to the Hippodrome, it had two shadows. One its own, the other Dedi.

Its destination proved to be Baths of Zeuxippos. Why not? A creature mimicking a human would mimic human habits, Dedi reasoned as he stayed close on its heels. The creature paid the small fee to enter the baths and disappeared into the echoing portico.

Dedi, delayed at the entrance, finally located his quarry again near a fountain in the vast atrium. It was talking to two men seated on a curved bench. Dedi pretended to study the inscription on the base of a nearby statue of Demosthenes. From what he could overhear, the men were discussing palace scandals and whether the Green team had a chance of beating the Blues in the next round of chariot races.

“If the Blue charioteers are as savage on the track as their partisans are on the streets, the Greens don’t stand a chance,” the thing passing as Tychon said, and went on to describe what the Blues had done to the beggar. “He had a few coins on him. Enough to pay my way in here and buy me a drink.”

The bronze orator looked on, tight-lipped, as if expressing disapproval of the artless conversation.

At last the demon set off again. Turning down one corridor after another, he came to a cold pool, deserted at this time of night.

Dedi lurked beside its entrance. Venturing a peek around the corner of the doorway he saw the thing begin to strip off its clothing. He held his breath. Perhaps it hadn’t bothered to retain a semblance of humanity beneath its garments, nor would it bother to do so with no one, so it seemed, around.

Dedi braced himself for some vision of horror, hooves, a scaly tail.

There was only a pair of buttocks, paler than twin moons.

The cunning creature padded off to the pool. Dedi saw the thing dangle its legs into the water, which did not sizzle and boil at the touch of the infernal flesh as Dedi half expected.

Moving quickly Dedi crept into the changing room, pushed aside the tunic left crumpled on a bench, grabbed the woven belt underneath, and slipped silently away.

Unseen.

He hoped.

DAY FOUR

Chapter Twenty-two

John stood in the prow of the
Leviathan
staring into the fog. He could not make out the shore or even the waves rolling the deck under his sodden boots. Toward the stern crew members moved in and out of the mist, dissolving and materializing like phantoms, accompanied by the murmur of the unseen waves, the groaning of timbers, the creak of wet ropes, and occasionally a muffled, disembodied voice.

It was almost as if the sea had actually succeeded in catching him during the storm and dragging him into a dismal underworld. As he slid down the deck during the storm he was certain he was going to die. Perhaps he was dead and had not realized it yet.

The Lord Chamberlain—the man he had been—had died when the
Leviathan
sailed from Constantinople.

He tried to put the morbid thought away. An entire day and night had passed since the storm. The wind had gradually diminished, the heavy black shroud of clouds giving way to gray rags. A feeble sunset had glistened across the wet deck before another night of fitful sleep in the oppressive, rocking accommodations below.

Yet he could still feel himself sliding down the tilting deck.

The day had passed slowly, yet he could not recall exactly how he had spent it. He and Cornelia had not talked much. They found themselves adrift between a lost past painful to speak of and a future too uncertain to discuss comfortably.

Scanning the length of the ship he could make out a dull orange sun, the illuminated window of the captain’s cabin. John wondered whether Captain Theon was inside drinking again with the mysterious passenger who lodged there.

To hear the sailors gossiping with each other, the captain had started drinking before they were out of sight of Constantinople. The two submerged rocks along the coast were clearly shown on the charts. A sober man could never have miscalculated the ship’s position so badly.

The
Leviathan
had grazed one of the rocks, damaging a section of hull and the rudder. Anchors had been thrown out to keep the ship from being driven into the rock broadside until the seas calmed enough to attempt repairs.

These details John had learned by listening. The crew did not gossip with passengers.

The fog swirled slowly beside him and a voice spoke. “Let us hope an angel of the Lord stands beside us, as it did beside Paul when he was shipwrecked.”

John recognized the pilgrim Egina accompanied by the shadow of her silent companion.

“This will be my final voyage,” Egina said. “What a story I will have to tell my sisters! It is fortunate we have a number of anchors at the stern, as Paul’s ship did, otherwise we would have found ourselves dashed upon the rocks.”

“I am certain your prayers were of assistance,” John said, diplomatically, recalling her incessant supplications during the night.

“I can tell you are a man of faith. When you reach my age you will understand that God assists those who can anchor themselves.” She made the Christian sign and drifted away into the fog.

John walked carefully back along the slick deck and down into the hold where Cornelia was trying to nap, having been unable to sleep during the night. She sat up as John entered their tiny compartment. “It seems the fates are against your departing from Constantinople quickly,” she said. “Peter tells me we are barely a day’s ride from the walls.”

“Provided one’s horse is a strong swimmer or Pegasus.” He sat down on the mat beside her, glad to be able to stop bracing himself against the ship’s pitching.

“How bad is the damage? Can the ship stand being shaken around like this?”

“The crew seem more angry than worried. They have drawn cables around the hull, just in case, to hold us together.”

Cornelia put her arms around him. “You frightened me. When I called and you didn’t answer…”

“I couldn’t hear anything above the wind and the waves. I thought the ship was going to capsize. But let’s not talk about that again.”

With her pressed against him, John could make out a remnant of the scent she often wore. He supposed it probably would not be available in Greece.

“I hope they can make repairs soon. You know Justinian’s whims. I don’t like being so close to his reach.” Her grip on John tightened.

“The emperor’s reach extends to the limits of the empire,” John reminded her, then added, “I can’t help wondering how Felix is faring.”

Cornelia shook his arm in irritation. “That’s all behind you now, John. Felix is no fool, he’ll manage. If you want to wonder about someone what about that aristocratic looking man who rarely emerges from the captain’s cabin? I wager he has something to hide.”

“You may be right. He’s got the look of the court about him. Peter overheard him speaking to Captain Theon. He didn’t catch the man’s name.”

“You haven’t set Peter to spying, have you?”

“No. He finally persuaded Theon to let him use the brazier in his cabin, on condition he would make some honey cakes and cook a meal or two for the captain and his companion, this fellow you just mentioned.”

“I hope the ship’s cook isn’t upset. And that there’s honey on board!”

“I suspect the cook’s happy to do as little as he can get away with, given he’s just a member of the crew who was assigned culinary duty. But I wasn’t supposed to tell you. Peter wanted you to be surprised when he cooked our meal.”

Cornelia chuckled. “I will pretend to be surprised. But what about this nameless aristocrat who is going to be enjoying Peter’s honey cakes? Why is he on board?”

“That I can’t say. Perhaps he’s been sent to inspect some seldom visited family estates or he wishes to visit old temples.”

“And recite poems to himself while he strolls through the ruins?” Cornelia scoffed.

“The muse might appreciate it if nobody else did. No, he’s definitely more than he seems. Alert, watchful, carries a blade that’s meant for use, not decoration.”

Cornelia paled. “Is he…could he be an assassin?”

“You mean do I think Justinian sent him to dispose of me? If the emperor wanted me dead, he could have had me executed rather than sending me into exile.”

“He might not simply want you dead, John. It might serve his purpose to see you dead by a particular means in a particular place.”

John pulled her closer to him. “I’m glad we’re going to Greece, Cornelia. You’ve been living at the palace for too long.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Vast black wings beat around Felix, beating with the sound of a thunderous heart. Was he waking or slipping into unconsciousness? In his memory he saw a raven perched on a dry fountain.

“One raven stands for sorrow,” John explained. “It is a fortune-telling rhyme I heard from the farmers when I fought in Bretania. Two black-feathered birds signify joy, three a letter, four for a boy.”

But John was no longer in the city.

Five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret…

The rhyme chased itself through the pulsing darkness in Felix’s head. One for sorrow, two for joy…

Repeating itself maddeningly, it blotted out all coherent thought. Around and around it spun, like the sand beneath Felix’s back.

Five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told…

The wings beat in the darkness and Felix felt the wind of oblivion against his face.

Eternity. Eight was for eternity, nine for the devil.

And ten, what did ten black birds mean?

What did those dark specks soaring into the limitless blue dome of sky predict?

Did he see ten or nine ravens?

Felix realized he was awake, although groggy, and still alive, lying on his back, staring straight upwards. He remembered where he was. On the track at the Hippodrome.

He could feel his heart pounding. With each beat pain flared in his sides, reminding him of the beating he’d taken.

A shadow passed across his face, retreated, returned.

He dared to move his throbbing head slightly, and was relieved he could do so. Until he saw again the rope hanging from the sculpture of the giant serpents. The rope with the noose he had seen hours before.

Now it was taut with the weight of a dangling corpse.

A man whose face was nothing but a bloody piece of meat.

The corpse swung forward once more, until its shadow again reached Felix’s face, then it swung back as the enormous raven clinging to the gore spattered shoulder finally yanked the remaining eyeball free of its socket.

The carrion eater turned its glassy eyes toward Felix, then with a convulsive flap of its dark wings took to the air, leaving the hanged man to spin slowly, unseeing.

John’s voice rang out clearly in the deserted Hippodrome. “Ten for dying.”

Felix blinked away the last fog of oblivion.

Fully awake, he realized John could not be present. John was on the sea.

Yet the clarity of the words had been such they continued to reverberate in Felix’s head. Ten for dying?

No, Felix thought, as he managed to roll over and began to push himself to his knees.

No. Not yet.

***

Anastasia carefully washed Felix’s bruised and bloody face, grimacing as if it were she who was in pain.

“If you think this is bad you should have seen the other fellow,” Felix told her. A poor jest, since it immediately brought back the image of the hanged man’s shredded face.

Nevertheless, Anastasia chuckled. It sounded forced. “Fighting again! You would do well in Italy!”

Her long elegant fingers worked the silk cloth with the delicacy and precision he had come to expect from them. He felt a sharp stab of guilt at having drunk so much, betraying his promise to her.

There was also the fact that had he not been drinking he would never have been caught unawares. And even had he been ambushed, as a trained fighter he would have left more than one of those callow ruffians dead before the gang overpowered him.

Felix groaned. “I wish I was on the battlefield. Then I’d know who my enemies were.”

They sat, hips pressed together, on a bench in the shade of a fig tree in Felix’s garden. “Tell me again what happened. I waited all night for you. I was frightened.”

Felix related the events of the day before, leaving out the tavern visits. “It was dawn when I woke up next to the spina and there right in front of me was a man hanging from the noose I thought was waiting for me. For an instant I feared I had left my body and was looking at my own corpse.”

Anastasia shuddered. “Don’t say such things, Felix.” She squeezed her cloth out in the copper bowl of water at her feet. “Did you recognize the dead man?”

“No.” He refrained from explaining why. “Perhaps it was somebody else who had been asked about the missing relic and gave unsatisfactory answers. Possibly he was killed to frighten me.”

“That would be hard to do, you big bear!”

Felix gave her a bleak smile. It made his split lips sting. “They succeeded sufficiently in that I’d gladly hand that miserable rag over if I had it.”

“Which is what they’re counting on. If you don’t produce it on time, that will prove to their satisfaction that you don’t have it.”

“Or else they will think that’s what I hope they think. I’d be better off finding the damned relic than trying to guess what those thugs might be thinking. And even if I can even lay hands on it, what about after that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Consider. Justinian orders me to look into the theft, although it’s already under investigation by the urban watch. Why should the captain of the excubitors become involved? Perhaps the emperor’s counting on me failing or appearing to entangle myself with the perpetrators so…”

“So he has an excuse to eliminate you,” Anastasia completed his thought. “You don’t have to be afraid to speak the truth to me. You are a close friend of the former Lord Chamberlain. The emperor may want to be rid of you as well. These are delicate times. With Theodora gone, half the court is jostling for power.”

Did Anastasia assume Felix was in that half of the court, he wondered? Yet wasn’t he ambitious, if the truth were told? Wasn’t he hoping General Germanus would replace Belisarius? “If you want me to speak plainly, there’s also the matter of the murdered courier. Who will believe I didn’t kill him to get possession of the relic and then pretend he never had it?”

“Not the Blues who ambushed you. Bend your head down. You’re still bleeding.”

Obeying her command, he continued. “There are other possibilities. Whoever stole the relic from the courier and murdered him would be happy to pin both the murder and that theft on me. If they can’t, they certainly won’t wait around for me to find them and retrieve the shroud. Likewise, whoever originally stole it won’t care to be tracked down either. In fact, they might actually believe I have it, or know where it is.” He winced as Anastasia began to clean the deep cut on his forehead.

“That would be whoever is ordering Blues to terrify you into returning the relic? Anyone who orders Blues about is a brave man indeed.”

“Brave perhaps, but not as clever as he thinks.”

Anastasia straightened up from her task. The silk in her hand was stained crimson.

“He didn’t allow me to see him. Grabbed my hair and yanked my head back, staying behind me. And he tried to disguise his voice,” Felix went on. “But I recognized him all the same. It was Porphyrius.”

“The charioteer?”

“That’s right. You don’t sound shocked?”

“Everyone knows he’s fabulously wealthy, beyond what even the most famous charioteer of all ought to be. He seems to be involved in everything going on in the city. Why not this matter?”

“Yes. Racing for both the Blues and the Greens ingratiates you with everyone, and who doesn’t want to bask in the reflected glory of a famous charioteer?”

“And if to do so means throwing a business opportunity his way, legal or otherwise, what of it?”

“You are too astute for a woman, my dove. Sometimes you remind me of our late empress. I’ve spoken to Porphyrius a number of times and won a fair bit wagering on his races, but I never thought I’d meet him again lying on my face with a noose dangling nearby!”

Anastasia bit her lip and nervously kneaded the bloody cloth. “So the emperor might want you dead, and whoever stole the shroud surely wants you dead, as does whoever robbed the original thief or thieves?”

“No doubt someone else wants me dead too. I’m losing count.”

“But not hope,” she said firmly. It was not a question.

“No.”

Anastasia leaned back against the tree trunk beside the bench. “Why a fig tree?”

“For the shade, I imagine. I didn’t plant it.”

“Why do you suppose Jesus cursed the fig tree?”

“What?”

“Naughty bear.” She grabbed the chain around his neck and yanked it out from his garment, revealing a cross hanging from it. “When I gave you this, you promised you would read and study.”

“Well, I…I haven’t got to that part yet.”

“Did you ever suppose that Jesus cursed the fig tree because it is the sacred tree of the pagan god Mithra?”

“No,” Felix offered, truthfully. It made him uncomfortable when she started to talk about her religion. Was she serious about it, or merely serious about the political ramifications of not being a Christian at a Christian court? “What does this have to do with what we were discussing?”

She threw her cloth into the bowl and brushed stray hairs off her forehead, leaving a red streak. “It could be very important, Felix. Men have been known to save their skins, as well as their souls, by finding faith at the right time.” Her eyes shone feverishly and with the blood blazoned on her skin she looked as ferocious as a Pict.

“Yes, I understand.” Felix clumsily tucked the chain back into hiding.

“I don’t like the idea of Porphyrius being involved,” Anastasia said. “Why not write to the former Lord Chamberlain? He visited the Church of the Holy Apostles with you. Perhaps he has some advice. He’s had plenty of time to think the matter over aboard ship.”

“He’d be in Greece before—”

“Use the imperial post. A relay of riders would be able to overtake a merchant ship that’s trading locally. You know how they meander from port to port.”

Felix shook his head vehemently. “No, I can’t. I won’t involve John. He’s on his way to a new life. What if the emperor were to find out he had tried to help me?”

“There are more hiding places in Constantinople than there are stars in the sky, even if the relic is still in the city. Where will you start?”

“I’m not certain. If I can learn exactly who was trying to sell it and who wants to buy it, that might give me a path to follow.” He started to get up. Dizziness hit him. There was a roaring in his ears. He sat down heavily.

“You need rest,” Anastasia told him. “I’m acquainted with a woman who can make up a potion to help revive you. She also has protective amulets.”

Felix tried to push himself up but realized he was too weak. He had managed to stagger back from the Hippodrome but his panic had passed and the effects of the beating were beginning to make themselves felt. “I’m not superstitious enough to want an amulet,” he said, thinking of the Jingler, “but something to sooth the aches and pains would be useful. Hypatia, John’s servant, made such potions, I recall. Who are you thinking of?”

“Antonina, Belisarius’ wife.”

“You know Antonina? How?”

“Does it matter?”

Felix shook his head violently and when it throbbed he wished he hadn’t. “No, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t want to…impose on her.”

Anastasia looked at him curiously.

“People will gossip,” Felix stammered.

“Gossip? About what?”

“They don’t need anything to gossip about to gossip, do they?”

She stared at him then laughed. “Why, you nasty bear! You know Antonina too, don’t you? Where did you…meet her?”

“Don’t be foolish! I never, um, met her. Not the way you mean. Everyone knows General Belisarius—”

“A tryst! Where, I wonder? When? I shall have to ask her.”

“No, please, I mean, she wouldn’t remember anyway. I was a young idiot. Who are you to be questioning Antonina about such delicate matters anyway?”

Anastasia pulled her features into a parody of hurt feelings. Then leaned forward. Her breath scorched his neck. “I am devastated.”

“It meant nothing then and less now,” Felix mumbled.

“Prove it to me.”

She nibbled at his neck, then bit harder.

“You shouldn’t do that!”

“Mmmm. Why not? No one will notice another little wound.”