Ten for Dying (John the Lord Chamberlain Mysteries) (7 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Felix shook his fist at Anastasia.

“No!” She shoved the fist away. “No more micatio!”

He shook his fist again anyway, shouted “Three!” and opened his hand extending two fingers, just in case Anastasia relented and reciprocated.

She didn’t. Instead she got up from the dining room table and stared out into the long twilight shadows creeping across the garden. “I can’t bear to play that stupid game again. Besides, unless you’re gambling on it, where’s the interest?”

“There’s the strategy. I noticed you kept showing one finger so I showed two and guessed the total would be three. I suppose you thought I was bound to guess you’d stop showing just the one eventually and—”

“I couldn’t be bothered to lift more than one finger, Felix.” She shook her hand. “My wrist is sore from micatio!”

Felix helped himself to some figs from a platter on the table. “Well, have some more to eat then. It isn’t dark enough yet.”

“I’m not hungry. After spending all that time in the bath, with that hideous thing…I may never feel like eating again.”

“It’s only a corpse, Anastasia. I’m still sorry you had to display yourself to those—”

She turned, her hands balled into fists. “Oh, Felix! I saved your life and you’re fretting over me exposing myself to a couple of youngsters?”

Felix ran a hand through his beard. “Well…”

The grim line of her mouth suddenly softened into a smile. “It is rather touching, my big bear.” Immediately her face fell again. “But you can’t imagine what it was like half expecting to feel a cold, wet hand on my naked back.”

After Felix had shown the flustered urban watchmen out, she had been waiting for him in bed, trembling. They had made love until Felix was worn out. Then they had made plans.

Felix had to dispose of the body, but it would have to wait until darkness, when there was less chance of being observed. Once they decided what to do they had to bide their time. They walked in the garden, Felix ate and tried to encourage Anastasia to do the same. They played micatio. They also listened for a knock on the house door, announcing the authorities had arrived to conduct a more thorough search.

“I often wish I had never come to this city,” Felix said.

Anastasia gave a small lady-like snort of disapproval. “How often have you told me you were thrilled to escape that farm in Germania?”

“True enough. As soon as I could walk, my father had me patrolling the fields.”

“As soon as you could walk?”

“Well, I may have been a little older. He had me protecting our borders from wolves. I was armed with a sharpened stick.”

“What was your father thinking? What could a child with a sharp stick do against a wolf?”

Felix smiled, remembering. “Oh, there weren’t any wolves. Our farm was part of a settlement around a Roman fort. Most of what we grew we sold to the army. My father wished he had led a more exciting life. He had entertained Roman officers at dinner from time to time and I listened to their stories. When I patrolled the fields I imagined I was guarding the Persian border.”

“You did spend some time at the border, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and during the middle of night, staring out over that desolate landscape, I remembered watching for wolves to emerge from the woods. The difference was, there really were Persians among the crags and ravines.”

“You must have left home at an early age.”

“As soon as I was old enough I walked into the local fort and joined the army. My mother cried. She had hoped I would be a farmer like my family had always been but my father had put other ideas into my head.”

“Your father must have been happy. You certainly have led an exciting life.”

“A farmer might think so. My mistake was excelling as a soldier. I was eventually sent to Constantinople and brought to the attention of Emperor Justin. I became one of his bodyguards.”

“But soon you will be fighting in Italy.”

“Provided the corpse in the bath doesn’t end up blocking my way.”

“Everything will turn out all right. Tell me more about Germania.”

“But I’ve already told you about all that.”

Felix felt the weight of his predicament pressing in on him and grew silent.

After a while Anastasia said, “I can’t bear it, sitting here, waiting and waiting. I have things to attend to at the palace. I’ll be missed. I’ll come back before dark.”

Felix had taken hold of her arm, gently but firmly. “Stay. Please.”

She stared at him. “Do you think I’d betray you to the City Prefect?”

He looked away, ashamed. How could he doubt this woman who shared his bed? And yet a woman about whom he knew nothing? “Perhaps I should go for a stroll to calm my nerves.”

She gave him a grim look. “No. I would prefer you didn’t. It feels like rain. The breeze has a chill in it. I wouldn’t want you to get wet. It’s best that we both stay here.”

So, they understood each other. Both feared the other, and with reason, given both might be found equally guilty. Those who unthinkingly trusted others, those who were never afraid, did not survive long at the palace.

Anastasia must have guessed what Felix was thinking. She grasped his hand and led him back to the bedroom.

The day passed slowly. There was time for speculation. The corpse remained a mystery. In death the courier had been empty-handed. If he had carried a package to the house someone had taken it. Had the man been robbed and killed in the courtyard upon his arrival or had he been left there? There was no way to tell. Anastasia did not recognize the dead man as anyone she had seen at court. The discolored and contorted face bore little semblance of humanity and she could barely bring herself to glance at it.

At some point Felix decided how to deal with his unwelcome visitor. He would not resort to lawyers or the authorities. Laws were unreliable allies. He would handle the matter himself.

After an eternity, when a single invisible bird sang from the darkness pooled in the garden, Felix instructed Nikomachos to order the servants to remain in their quarters for the night.

“I will summon you later to refresh the bath.”

Nikomachos’ face exhibited its usual vaguely supercilious expression.

How much had he observed apart from the obvious fact that two of the urban watch had searched the house? Had he seen the body? Had he overheard anything of their conversation?

“And you will remain at the house until I give you further orders,” Felix added.

Nikomachos offered one of his bows, little more than a peevish twitch, and departed.

“He knows,” Anastasia said.

“Why do you think so?”

“He’s always hovering nearby, listening, peeping. And the other servants must know. They must have realized something illegal was going on, with this courier constantly arriving in the middle of the night.”

“Not at all. I dropped hints to Nikomachos that I was buying silk at less than imperial prices. These days, who doesn’t?”

He took the last fig, stuck it into his mouth, and wiped his fingers on his tunic. “But now I have work to do.”

Chapter Fourteen

Less than an hour later Felix was cursing the narrowness of the alley behind his house.

He hadn’t driven a donkey cart since he’d left the family farm in Germania to join the legions. He might have felt a pang of nostalgia under different circumstances, ones that didn’t involve secretly disposing of a strangled corpse. The cart’s wooden sides scraped brick walls as he urged the donkey through semi-liquid drifts of discarded vegetables and other slippery detritus better not investigated in the dark, or for that matter in such light as straggled down into the narrow way even in daytime. The stubborn beast refused to follow a straight line. Apparently donkeys were much stupider than they used to be.

Felix would have slung the body across the back of one of his horses but he feared drawing attention. Lying in the bottom of the cart, wrapped in a blanket, the corpse would pass for a sack of grain if anyone took any notice. Or so he hoped.

He kept expecting a contingent of urban watch to materialize in the alley mouth to block his way. When he had managed to maneuver the cart out of the alley and the wheels rattled over the street cobbles he began to feel easier. The further he could get from the house the better.

His relief lasted only a short time until he discovered the cart was too wide to be driven through the slit between the buildings opposite the mouth of the alley. He would have to travel in more public places than he had planned in order to reach the seawall, where his burden could be tossed into the water to become a plaything for Poseidon’s children, as Anastasia had delicately put it.

He had left her behind. If she wanted to betray him this was her chance. He’d know whether she was loyal or not when he got back.

His house was located on a side street off the Mese, conveniently near to the Great Palace and not far from the water. Tugging clumsily at the reins, he convinced the donkey to turn down the thoroughfare. The beast continued to plod slowly but erratically, veering from side to side. Torches outside shops shut for the night intermittently illuminated the street. A gust of wind blew grit into Felix’s face. Moon-silvered clouds raced through the sky.

The cart rolled into an oblong of light spilling from a doorway.

“Felix! Stop!”

What the voice stopped was Felix’s heart. Discovered? Already?

He raised his whip, ready to urge his reluctant animal forward, then he saw a familiar figure reeling out of the tavern, one Felix too often frequented. Or had until he met Anastasia.

“Felix, my friend, come and share a cup with me! How long has it been since we’ve saluted Bacchus together? You’ve been away as long as Odysseus.”

“I regret I’m off on urgent official business, Bato.”

To Felix’s chagrin the donkey decided to halt dead in its tracks, allowing Bato to stroll over to the side of the cart and lie against it.

“Official business, is it? That’s why you’re taking the imperial carriage?” Bato looked bleary-eyed into the cart.

“It’s a matter that calls for discretion.”

“Ah.” Bato exhaled pungently, leering up at Felix. “You are off to see a lady, aren’t you? Come my friend, are we not men? There is no need for prevarication. You have fallen under Circe’s spell.”

“Mithra!” Felix muttered under his breath. “I admit it,” he said loudly, “I’m on way to visit a woman, who is waiting impatiently.”

Bato made no effort to push himself away from the cart. Instead he banged the side. “And with such a conveyance? Do you expect to be so exhausted you’ll have to be carted home?”

“Hardly. I just decided to…to show her how things were back in Germania when I was growing up.”

Bato ignored his excuse. “I have it. You’re going to pretend to be bringing the cart back after repairing it, so her husband will be misled if he hears of your visit.”

Felix sighed, winked, tapped his nose, and flapped the reins. He didn’t like the way Bato was staring into the cart. The donkey started to trot with a jerk, almost jarring Felix from his seat.

Relieved of his support, Bato crumpled to the cobbles and sat there in the tavern light, waving after Felix. “Go sail the wine dark seas into the arms of your sorceress, Felix! When she grows bored, you know where to find your loyal old friend Bato.”

Glancing back over his shoulder Felix saw his inebriated friend shooing away a dog which had come to investigate the interesting offal in the gutter. Fortunately the street was otherwise deserted.

He had to get off this wide street. There were bound to be people about, not to mention occasional patrols.

With difficulty, Felix convinced the beast—or it convinced itself—to enter what was little more than a noisome crevice between tenements. Dark shapes swarmed around the cart and the wheels went over bumps that let out piercing shrieks.

The panicked donkey moved faster. Felix shouted orders, futilely. It didn’t respond to any of the curses he tried.

The cart careened through various gradations of almost total darkness, banging walls, splashing through blessedly invisible filth, turning corners when the way ahead seemed blocked. Not that the route mattered. Felix was not familiar with the back ways here. As long as he continued downhill, as seemed to be the case, he would reach the water, which was all that was necessary. Constantinople was a long, narrow peninsula. He couldn’t help but find the water eventually.

When the cart reached more level ground and emerged from its dark narrow passage into what seemed by comparison a blaze of light, he discovered he had been optimistic, not to mention badly disoriented. Instead of the sea wall he had expected, he faced a thoroughfare broader than the one he had fled and more brightly lit.

It could only be the Mese.

Felix looked back into the cart. His dark, shapeless burden still lay there. Had he expected it to get up and walk away?

Considering everything that had happened lately he wouldn’t have been surprised.

Now what? He hadn’t calculated on having so much difficulty navigating or driving. Craning his neck, he was able to spot the glow from the dome of the Great Church rising toward the moon, now visible, surrounded by a misty halo, in a gap in the gathering clouds.

Perhaps he had better brave the Mese. If he simply continued straight on, he could dump the body in one of the cemeteries outside the city’s inner walls. The worst risk of his being discovered had been near to his house, hadn’t it?

He ordered the donkey forward.

Few pedestrians were abroad and mostly in the noisy vicinity of taverns. Horses trotted by, thankfully none carrying military men.

Despite the muggy air, Felix kept getting chills. He couldn’t help recalling Anastasia telling him she’d been afraid the dead courier would reach up from the bath and put its cold hand against her back.

He resisted the urge to twist around to peer into the cart.

The eerie feeling that there was something there, reaching out, behind him, grew stronger. He could almost sense a hovering presence a finger’s breadth from his neck.

“Don’t be a fool,” he growled. He didn’t like the uneasy note in his voice. The courier was as dead as a grilled fish. No, Felix wouldn’t turn. Wouldn’t give in to irrational fear. He stared straight down the street.

He could hear the voices of those he’d interviewed at the church, describing the supernatural thieves they’d glimpsed fleeing, recalled the strange spectacle in the mausoleum, the dead frogs, the scarab on Theodora’s sarcophagus.

Who could say for certain what might be out here in the night?

Where was he?

Wasn’t that the fork, where the Mese split into a northern and eastern branch? The northern way led past the Church of the Holy Apostles.

“South, then!” Felix told himself, yanking at the donkey’s reins. The beast resisted, slowed. Exasperated Felix swung his whip. Too hard.

“Gently, gently, my boy. The whip is only to direct the animal,” he heard his father telling him.

The donkey leapt forward in its traces, jerking the cart. Felix grabbed his seat to avoid falling into the street.

The terrified beast would have tired itself out quickly but it didn’t get the chance. A gaping rut spared it the effort.

Felix saw the jagged hole looming an instant before the cart hit with a bone-shaking jolt. There was a sickening crack from below and the cart tipped over sideways as one wheel flew off onto the nearby colonnade.

His precious cargo slid out, hit the ground, and lay there in the bright illumination of a nearby torch, looking exactly like a dead body wrapped in a blanket.