Three for a Letter Read online

  Anyhow, after that we went for a walk in the garden with Bertrada. The gardeners were all rushing about trimming bushes and bringing in flowers and greenery to decorate the villa. It was so frantic it made my head ache. But even in the garden we kept getting in the way, so we went and found Poppaea and went down to the seashore. I was hoping we’d see Porphyrio but we didn’t.

  Zeno told us that a whale has been spied now and then for many years and that he’s called Porphyrio because he’s the same purple gray as the marble. I wouldn’t name a whale after a piece of rock, would you? We’ve seen Porphyrio a few times and he’s more gray than purple, it reminds me of the color of a storm cloud. Zeno says Porphyrio has been attacking ships for years and years. The sailors don’t like him, it seems, which goes to show how foolish some people are. But Zeno is very kind even if he is often mistaken, although I suppose he would have to be kind since it was Theodora herself who said we all had to spend the summer with him by the sea. She’s been to visit more than once and right now two of her ladies-in-waiting are helping Bertrada, if you can imagine that. They are very great ladies themselves although not royalty. I told Poppaea that some day I will make her my lady-in-waiting, just as her mother serves Theodora, but she didn’t seem very happy about the idea.

  The empress is not very pretty. She’s quite short as well but she’s got lots of beautiful clothes and jewels and attendants. Also soldiers to guard her, of course. And some men in very fine robes, all from court, are here as well. Just imagine that, all those high-born people coming to see us!

  I wanted to go to the banquet, only Bertrada said it was too late for us to stay up. That wasn’t the only reason, though, because I overheard her talking to Godomar—our tutor, you know, and a gloomier person than Godomar you never saw—and he told her the entertainments would not be suitable for young people. We were going to be shown how the mechanical whale works after the guests had gone back to the city but I haven’t seen it yet. Everyone is going about with long faces. Bertrada cries all the time. At the banquet Theodora raised her voice to the Lord Chamberlain—at least Godomar says that’s who the man is. I could tell by the way Godomar talked about him that he doesn’t like him, but I don’t know why. I’ve only seen the Lord Chamberlain briefly. He’s called John. He’s almost as tall as Godomar. He’s thin and moves very quietly.

  Anyhow, to get back to what I was saying, the banquet was very noisy and I kept waking up. Bertrada came in and went out again and then came back crying and told me Gadaric has gone away. If only she knew! You see, Porphyrio promised us we’d be taken to a safe place and when I asked him how he could do that so we wouldn’t be missed, he said he knew how but that it was a secret and we would see in time. So when they took me to see Gadaric to say good-bye I knew it wasn’t him, for that clever Porphyrio really has smuggled him away and left behind a figure like the ones Hero builds all the time. It’s so clever it’s fooled everyone, even the empress! Godomar was shocked because I laughed when I saw it but I couldn’t say why because I’d promised not to tell. But I know you will keep this secret, dear aunt.

  I am sitting by the window as I write and I can see the Lord Chamberlain and another man, I think he is the palace physician, talking in the garden. I wish I could hear what they are saying.

  Chapter Three

  “The boy’s throat was crushed. As a matter of fact, he was nearly decapitated. The neck was—well, never mind the details.” Gaius took a deep breath and released it in a ragged sigh.

  In the past the stout palace physician had delighted in regaling John with the most gruesome of medical details but on this occasion, in the watery morning sunlight, John could see that Gaius’ normally ruddy face was as pale as the marble peristyle where the two men had paused. The airy gardens laid out before them seemed a world removed from the dim room, just a few steps down the corridor behind them, where Gadaric’s body huddled beneath a coverlet in the posture of a child who has pulled his blanket over his head to escape some imagined terror of the dark.

  “If the boy had been brought to my surgery,” Gaius continued, “I would have guessed he’d been thrown from a horse and trampled or perhaps run over by a cart. Since he was found inside this construction—this whale you’ve described—I can only assume that the injury resulted from his being trapped in the mechanism. You say the mouth opened and closed?”

  “Yes. Zeno’s ordered the automaton back to the workshop, if you’d like to inspect it.”

  “No need.” Gaius resumed walking, leaving John to follow. “I’m convinced that the boy’s death was an accident. Now I’d like to go home. I’m accustomed to being summoned at odd hours but to spend half the night on horseback to get here, well, I’m getting too old for that. And then to find such a sight waiting for me…I’m not usually distressed by bodily misfortunes. You know that. The wagon maker can’t lament every broken axle. But when a child is involved…”

  They started along the flagstone path that crossed the interior garden. It was true, John thought. There was something particularly disturbing about the death of a child. He had been almost relieved when the mouth of the deadly contraption in which the boy had died had slowly closed, hiding the pitiful body from view. The death of one so young and defenseless against the whims of Fortuna seemed unfair.

  “I trust you are not thinking about accepting consolation from Bacchus?” John said quietly.

  Gaius assured him there was no need to worry about the possibility. “I’ve resolved to stop self-medicating with wine,” he asserted. “Bacchus is as likely to get an audience with Justinian these days as with me.”

  John remarked that he was glad to hear it. The emperor, as everyone in Constantinople knew, was abstemious to a fault. “So you’re certain it was an accident?”

  Glossy laurel leaves, still shining with dew, brushed at their robes as they paced along. From some hidden corner nearby drifted the sharp odor of fallen pears fermenting on the ground.

  “No one strangled him, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not unless Hercules walks among us mortals again.”

  “Barnabas is an acrobat, Gaius, as well as a mime. He’s reputed to have exceptional strength—and he is missing,” John pointed out.

  The physician shook his head. “John, the child’s throat was mangled. I’ve seen similar injuries after riots where the victims had been crushed by falling under the boots of panicked crowds.”

  “There weren’t any riots here last night, although I noticed that Theodora’s guests departed as fast as a losing faction leaving the Hippodrome.”

  “Do you suspect one of them was hiding something?”

  “What I suspect is that they decided it was more prudent to risk being robbed on a dark roadway than to remain within striking distance of Theodora’s wrath. She was as furious over Barnabas’ disappearance as Gadaric’s death, or so it seemed to me.”

  Gaius sourly pointed out that the empress was nothing if not practical. “One of the royal twins is still alive, after all. Barnabas, needless to say, is matchless. Nobody’s seen him since the performance?”

  “None who’ll admit it,” John replied ruefully. “I managed to have a few words with all the guests despite their eagerness to depart and as for Barnabas, apart from his reputation, not one of them had anything to say about him. I suppose they’re all of the same mind as Theodora, taking no interest in the private affairs of mimes.”

  “Not since she left the acting profession herself, you mean. Let’s hope he turns up soon. There’s no telling what the empress will do when she’s in such a foul temper. Yet what puzzles me, John, is how the child managed to get inside this mechanical whale in the first place.”

  “That’s a mystery as well. The children’s nursemaid insists she saw both of them safely to bed. She’s only a girl herself and distraught. Understandably so, of course. The arrangement of their apartments is such that Gadaric would have had to come through her room in order to get out.”

  “Ah, bu
t when children want to get up to mischief—well, you know how it is with children.”

  John smiled thinly. “About as well as I know how it is with the natives of Hyperborea.”

  ***

  Hyperborea. As John, having bid Gaius a safe journey home, strode off to the workshops at the back of the villa he decided it wasn’t surprising that the name of the dubious northern kingdom of ancient Greek legends had come to his lips. After all, he had spent the last few days surrounded by such strange marvels as doors that opened automatically, a mechanical satyr dispensing an endless stream of wine, and a serpent-slaying automaton.

  The rambling garden also displayed some of its owner’s previous interests. John could not begin to identify the rioting beds of exotic flowers, no doubt planted during a horticultural craze, while the small temples and statues scattered here and there bore mute witness to passing fascinations with various religious cults.

  The workshops were much more mundane. Housed in a series of low brick buildings augmented by wooden sheds and lean-tos facing a courtyard, they looked as if they had been lifted straight from one of the grimier streets snaking between the Hippodrome and the sea walls of Constantinople.

  Everything in this less public area—the overgrown mass of shrubbery edging the courtyard, the fountain set in its center, even the small marble statue of Eros standing in a bed of exotic flowers beside a bench under the courtyard’s lone tree—retained the dreary dullness of an undusted room despite the fresh morning sunlight.

  John tasted smoke in the air. It burnt the back of his throat as he entered the main building and spoke to the man manipulating the tongs thrust into an aperture in the side of the mechanical whale.

  John introduced himself, adding, “I take it that you are Hero, the builder of this marvel?”

  “The inventor of the creature, yes.”

  The man who had turned to face John had very nearly the appearance of a Nubian, the darkness of his skin enhanced by the stain of the smoke in which he must often have labored. John, having learned that Hero was Egyptian, had addressed him in his own tongue, but the man had answered in excellent Greek.

  “Hero was also the name of the ancient Alexandrian inventor,” John remarked. “Coincidence or fate?”

  “Neither, Lord Chamberlain. I took the name myself.” Hero smiled, displaying even teeth. His eyes were large and liquid, his beard spotty, and his black hair tightly curled close to his scalp. He had broad shoulders and a muscular right arm. His left arm ended abruptly at the elbow.

  “Zeno informs me that you can explain the whale’s workings to me.”

  “Indeed?” Hero bridled. “And doubtless the Patriarch of Constantinople could explain to you the nature of God if you had sufficient time.”

  John observed mildly that a rough description would be acceptable.

  “Very well then, Lord Chamberlain. It was a rather a hurried construction, I will admit. My assistants didn’t have much time.” He tapped the side of the whale. “The skin, as you can see, is painted canvas stretched over wooden ribbing similar to the frame of a boat. An old fisherman from the village assisted us with that part of the work.”

  Hero made a circuit of his creation, opening small doors in its frame to reveal taut loops of rope, cogged gears, and labyrinths of tubing. The air in the workshop was thick with the heat radiating from the forge in a corner. Tools, as inexplicable to the layman as those in Gaius’ surgery, littered wooden tables set along the walls. Beached in the middle of the timber-ceilinged workshop, the whale appeared less impressive than while swimming through Zeno’s dining room. Somewhat taller at its head than John, its back sloped down toward the tail.

  “The spouting action is accomplished with the aid of a sealed vessel partly filled with water,” Hero explained. “When its top is removed, the liquid is forced out by the action of compressed air.”

  “And when the whale rolled out and then back again, with no apparent human aid each time?”

  “Ah,” Hero beamed. “A most striking effect, is it not? Yet easily accomplished. It’s done by winding two ropes, one in each direction, around the back axle of the whale’s base. Now, as you see, inside the creature are two compartments, each half filled with sand.” Showing John the mechanism as he described it, he went on, “Each compartment contains a weight to which one of the ropes is tied. The weight rests on the sand. When the bottom of the first compartment is opened, the sand flows out and the weight it supports descends as it empties, pulling its rope down with it. That in turn moves the axle to which the rope is tied. Thus the whale rolls forward. Later, when the other compartment begins to empty, the process is repeated and the whale rolls backward. It’s the sort of device has been used in the theater for hundreds of years,” he concluded.

  Nonetheless, John expressed admiration for the ingenuity of the arrangement and then questioned Hero concerning the construction of the whale’s teeth. They had circled the creature and were now standing by its open maw.

  “Unfortunately, Zeno insisted they be made of bronze. He liked the way the metal shone in lamp-light inside the mouth. The lamps ignite automatically, by the way. Strikers attached to the gears ignite their wicks at the proper time and the gears are set in motion by certain rods governed by water clocks.”

  “A complicated affair indeed,” John observed.

  “Extremely complicated, yes, but simple enough for one as familiar as I am with such machinery. Still, even though I’ve given it a lot of thought, Lord Chamberlain, I just can’t explain how anyone could have caused the mouth to close on the child.”

  John glanced up sharply. “Surely it was an accident?”

  “It was no accident.” Hero’s voice was suddenly harsh. “Look!” He angrily shook the stump of his arm. “I lost this years ago in some fool’s badly designed gears. I would never build an unsafe device. Never! In fact, the mouth was kept closed at all times. Let me show you something.”

  He dragged a stool over to the whale and directed John to climb up and look under the trapdoor in the top of the beast’s head.

  “That’s where you get into the whale, Lord Chamberlain, provided you’re small enough, that is. I didn’t want to risk any possibility of the mouth shutting on anyone.”

  John opened the trapdoor and looked down into the beast’s dark interior briefly. “I can see it would be a dangerous venture without such safety precautions,” he agreed as he stepped back down.

  “And especially dangerous for me, considering it was Theodora’s favorite mime who was going to be inside. Small as Barnabas is, the empress would not have been pleased to see him diminished further.”

  “And as to the matter of the performance at the banquet…?”

  “The beast requires considerable preparation before its few moments of life,” Hero replied. “There are vessels to be filled with air and water. The ropes must be wound correctly and tied to weights, sand has to be poured into compartments, the lamps filled with oil, that sort of thing.”

  “You saw to all this personally, I take it?”

  “Yes, during the afternoon, right here in the workshop. A couple of servants pulled it into Zeno’s dining room at the appropriate time. The wooden platform it sits on has wheels, as you saw, although I have them blocked at the moment.”

  “You didn’t remain with the whale until the performance?”

  “No.” Hero’s tone was curt. “There was no reason for me to stand guard. The servants had had strict instructions not to touch it. Then too, once the whale is prepared it doesn’t take an expert to set it in motion.”

  “But if something had gone wrong?”

  “Naturally I would have been sought out immediately.”

  John expressed some surprise that the other had not wished to see his invention’s performance.

  Hero laughed. “I was thoroughly sick of seeing it working, we’d tested it so often! To tell the truth, I was happy to have finished my contribution to the festivities.”<
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  “I gather that anyone could have started the whale’s mechanisms?” John asked.

  Hero indicated a short metal rod protruding from the side of the whale. “They can only be set in motion by removing this rod, although that wouldn’t be done until Barnabas had climbed into the whale and given a specific signal. However, yes, anyone could start it—provided he were strong enough. Try it yourself.”

  John grasped the metal rod with both hands and pulled, feeling it move only grudgingly. “An excellent safety feature, Hero,” he congratulated the man. “But let us consider all possibilities, however unlikely they seem to be. For example, a large number of servants were moving around the hall, many of them carrying heavy platters. If one had accidentally struck the whale with some force, perhaps loosening the rod…?”

  “We’d thought of that as well. The whale was taken into the villa just before the banquet and positioned in the small storeroom off the end of the dining room. So it was well out of harm’s way but ready to be wheeled out to the back of the stage just before it was needed.”

  “You seem to have considered every eventuality. One final question, then. Can the jaws be operated separately from its other mechanisms?”

  “No.” Hero’s dark features furrowed into a scowl. “I rather suspect someone pried them apart with an iron bar. They’d close with tremendous force as soon as the bar was removed, of course. But once again it would require a very powerful man to lever them open when the safety mechanism is set.” Aware of his own muscularity, he met John’s questioning gaze squarely. “A man with two arms.”

  “But not necessarily a large man,” John replied.

  “You have deduced my thinking exactly, Lord Chamberlain.”

  “Do you have any particular reason to suspect Barnabas?”

  “The most obvious one. He’s run away, hasn’t he?”

  ***