Eight for Eternity Page 8

  John had to acknowledge the truth of what Junius said, though he didn’t do so aloud.

  The audience seemed to be thinning.

  The hawker in the multi-colored robes noticed.“What, no one else wants to test their skill? Fortuna drives too ruthlessly today, does she?”

  “Do you hand our coins over to Fortuna?” someone yelled.

  The hawker ignored the jibe. “Wait. I have an idea.”

  He scrambled off the cart and reached behind one of the wheels. “Look! This explains it!” He pulled out a scroll, as long as his arm. From a distance it resembled lead but must have been dyed parchment because he could never have brandished such a weight over his head as he proceeded to do.

  “Now you see why you have been losing all afternoon. Have you ever seen a bigger curse tablet?”

  He let the scroll unroll. It reached to his feet. “There’s not a demon left in hell. Every last one’s been called up here to hobble your horses and steal your coins!”

  Junius chuckled. “I don’t doubt it. I hear a demon was spotted on the docks. And in other places too.”

  “They don’t seem to have confined themselves to interfering with the races,” John remarked.

  The hawker made a show of pouring what he claimed was holy water over the scroll. By the time he climbed back onto the cart the crowd was laughing and interested again. “Now, who has the courage to race?”

  “Why don’t you try?” Junius said to John. “See if Fortuna is on your side or not?”

  “I’d rather not put Fortuna to the test for matters of no consequence.”

  He noticed that the Blue he had spoken to earlier was standing on the cart.

  “And which team do you support?” the hawker asked.

  “The Blues. The emperor’s team!”

  There was general muttering.

  “And who amongst us would disagree with that,” the hawker said loudly, handing the Blue four colored balls.

  “Fortuna!” someone yelled in answer.

  “The demons,” suggested another.

  The Blue dropped the balls into the top hole. They flashed down through the maze-like track, popping in and out of sight. When the winner burst out of the machine the hawker looked startled. The ball skidded out of his hand, hit the bottom of the cart, and bounced away.

  Several shouts joined each other. “Red again!”

  Chapter Twelve

  When John stepped into the atrium of his house, four excubitors were clustered around the central fountain, struggling to drag a body out of the basin at the feet of the marble Aphrodite. John’s foot slipped. Looking down he saw a pink trickle running back across the black and white tiles from the fountain.

  The excubitors cursed.“Grab the arm. Heave now. Harder. Harder.”

  They had hold of an enormously fat man. The body was in a sitting position. The head with its pasty white face lolled on the multiple chins hiding the neck. The man looked vaguely familiar, John thought.

  The excubitors pulled, the man slid. Water sloshed over the rim of the basin and washed away the pink trickle at John’s feet. John noticed fragments from a broken wine jug scattered on the tiles.

  The body in the basin groaned. Its tiny eyes blinked.

  “Pull now. Pull,” ordered a broad backed excubitor. “All together. On the count of three. One. Two….”

  The fat man came up out of the water and toppled forward, nearly pushing two of the excubitors to the floor. They staggered backwards like over-laden brick carriers, and dragged him out of the basin. Not dead, but still a dead weight. One yellow slipper caught on the rim. The other foot was bare.

  Then the man was upright, supported by two of the excubitors. A swaying, shivering, mountain of sodden, tangled robes. The atrium was cold in January.

  “Mithra!” growled the biggest of the excubitors.

  John recognized the voice. “Felix.”

  The bear-like man turned around. “My apologies, John. Our esteemed guest Pompeius was contemplating the goddess, sat down in the water by mistake, and couldn’t get up. Or so he says.”

  One of the excubitors snickered. “He was wrapped around her like she was a whore in an alley.”

  Pompeius’ thick and now decidedly bluish lips moved and finally words spluttered out. “I was merely attempting to get to my…my…feet.”

  “Had a good hand hold,” the excubitor remarked.

  “Trying to pull myself up….” His words slurred together. The little eyes were noticeably red in the colorless face.

  Felix glared. “Get him back to his room. See he doesn’t injure himself further.”

  The excubitors assisted Pompeius out of the atrium, half carrying him into the hall leading past the chapel and to the back of the house. The man’s swollen feet—one slippered, one bare—moved, but hardly touched the tiles.

  John walked over to the basin and looked in. He expected to see the missing slipper. It had apparently been lost somewhere else. He didn’t much like the thought of the fat man’s yellow slipper at large in his house waiting to surprise him. Aphrodite, undisturbed, continued to spill water serenely from the shell in her upraised hand.

  “That was Pompeius, wasn’t it?” John said. “One of the nephews of old emperor Anastasius. I’ve seen him around the palace occasionally. What did you mean by calling him ‘our guest’? And what are you doing here, my friend?”

  Felix tugged at his beard. “Emperor’s orders. I got them straight from Narses, unfortunately.”

  Before he could explain further another man whom John knew by sight edged slowly into the atrium. The man looked around nervously. Had he been standing near the entrance to the hall, watching, the whole time?

  “Is it all right then? At first I was afraid rioters had got in.” Hypatius presented a stark contrast to Pompeius. An older man but without even a middle age paunch, immaculately dressed, his face would not have looked out of place on a gold coin. Only on close examination might one notice that the deep-set eyes had pouches beneath them, the square chin was rather weak, and the aquiline nose overly large. “My family and I appreciate your hospitality, John. Even if my brother has made himself a bit too comfortable already.”

  “Your family?”

  Hypatius glanced around again. “Pompeius and myself and my daughter, Julianna. The emperor suggested we stay with you, until the danger of rioting has passed.”

  “And your wife? You are married I believe?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. Mary’s well guarded at the house. I’d prefer to be home. But Julianna’s safer here. She’s an impetuous girl. She’d be out fighting in the streets. For Justinian. Caution is always the best policy.”

  “That’s why my excubitors and I are here,” Felix put in. “To guard the guests, just in case.”

  Hypatius nodded gravely. “Exactly. You never know. The factions might have designs on us. If you don’t object, I had better go and look after my brother.”

  John didn’t speak until Hypatius had vanished down the hall. Then he sighed. “So my house is to be a prison? Why my house, I wonder?”

  “Justinian knows you barely use it. I wouldn’t say Justinian is imprisoning them, though. They came to the palace as soon as the factions got restless and refused to leave.”

  “Since they are the closest relatives of the late Emperor Anastasius, they must be less worried about rioters than about appearing disloyal to Justinian.”

  “That’s right. They want to stick by his side so he doesn’t get the idea they’re plotting against him. Not that they’ve allayed his suspicions entirely. I was told to keep an eye on them, and make sure they don’t leave.”

  John could hear the disgust in his friend’s voice. He knew it wasn’t the kind of job Felix would enjoy. For his part, John wasn’t unhappy to host the excubitor. The two men had worked together in the past but lately their official duties had kept their paths from crossing very often. Between Felix’s increasing responsibi
lities in the imperial guards and John’s attendance on the emperor there was barely spare time for the occasional brief conversation at a tavern.

  “As far as I can tell, Hypatius isn’t the sort to venture out into the streets until he considers them perfectly safe,” John observed. “And Pompeius is lucky if he can stand up.”

  “I can’t say I blame him resorting to the grape. He must feel like a grape being crushed between the emperor and the factions. The third nephew, Probus, abandoned his mansion and fled the city. Talk has it that some in the factions want to replace Justinian with one of the Anastasius line. But then, I’m sure you know more about it all than I do. The family suspects they’d be more likely to end wearing a noose than a diadem.”

  “Very perceptive of them.”

  John scanned the atrium. He still didn’t see the yellow slipper. What he did see were puddles of wine and water on the floor and shards from the jug. He also saw two of his female servants peering in from the hall leading to the back of the house. Another servant, an older man, stood in the opposite doorway, staring uncertainly, a bucket in one hand and a rag in the other.

  “Shall we clean up, master?” asked the man.

  “Yes. Certainly.”

  One of the women spoke. “And you will want dinner. For you and your guests.” She helped out in the kitchen, John thought. Perhaps she was the cook.

  “Fine. Prepare something special.”

  “Immediately, master.” The young woman kept glancing toward Felix. She and her companion went off down the hall. John thought he heard them giggling.

  The remaining servant set his bucket down in a far corner and began cleaning vigorously.

  “I always feel I’m out-numbered,” John muttered. “Now, in addition to an army of servants, I also have three patricians and several excubitors as guests.”

  Felix grinned. “Don’t worry, John. There’s plenty of room. You should get out and explore your house some time. You’d see.”

  “Have the servant’s been talking out of turn?”

  “Not at all. It’s easy to tell when rooms are never used.”

  “You looked around?”

  “Pompeius wandered off. He was fairly inebriated when we arrived and…well, you’ve seen.”

  “Unfortunately. I’m not used to having servants creeping up on me all the time, Felix. I spent too many years sleeping in a tent with my sword at my side.”

  As he spoke yet another young woman entered the atrium. He couldn’t recall her name, but her face, like the faces of all his army of servants, was slightly familiar. She looked toward him expectantly. Wanting something to do, no doubt. “The floor is to be cleaned,” he told her.

  The young woman’s expression hardened. “That would hardly be appropriate. I am Julianna. The daughter of Hypatius.”

  ***

  “I don’t want to go back to that nasty little monk’s cell they’ve stuck me in. Let’s talk in the garden.” Julianna darted away, into the dining room John seldom used. The wooden screens were shut against the winter chill. She pushed them open far enough to squeeze through. She moved so quickly and unexpectedly, John could only follow, once again lamenting the size of the house. Yet he could hardly have refused the generosity of the emperor.

  The mansions of patricians were to be found all over Constantinople, especially in spots offering a view of the sea. A great many senators lived near the Marmara on the southern side of the city where the land sloped down from the Hippodrome. Certain imperial functionaries lived closer to the imperial couple they served. As a chamberlain to the emperor, John had been given an appropriate residence. Located behind the stables, close to the Chalke, the rambling, single story structure sat within the palace grounds but outside the palace complex itself—the enclosure which included the magnificent Augusteus throne room and the Daphne Palace surmounted by the emperor’s private bed chambers, the Octagon.

  John’s house, with its unprepossessing brick front, was squeezed in amongst a jumble of taller residences. He had heard it said that the atrium had been added onto a couple of abandoned stables and it was easy enough to believe. An unusually large number of cramped rooms opened off the halls running from either side of the atrium. Some were used for servants’ quarters, others for storage. Most remained empty. John slept in a room near the front of the house. He worked in the office between the atrium and the inner garden and generally took his meals there. For solitude he retreated to the chapel near the atrium. The suites of rooms at the rear of the house—intended for living quarters—were mostly unexplored territory. He sometimes passed through them on his infrequent visits to the kitchen and workshops.

  The garden he stepped out into was best concealed by winter screens. Brown weeds and straggling, untrimmed shrubs choked the area. A couple of yew trees had grown up to almost twice the height of the house. Vines entangled the columns of the surrounding colonnades and bushes reached toward the covered walkways. He couldn’t see Julianna but he heard her.

  “If the rioters get into the palace grounds we can simply hide here,” she was saying. “They’ll never find—” Her sentence broke off, replaced by a series of oaths that would have made a charioteer blush.

  He turned toward the direction of her voice and plunged through a tangle of evergreens. He found her bent over, tunic hitched up too high, rubbing her knee. Her calves appeared exceedingly brown and muscular for a lady of the court.

  “Banged into a horse!” Straightening up, Julianna indicated a statue, about waist high, half concealed by brambles. Though eroded and partially covered by bluish lichens, it appeared to be a stone horse. “Look. There’s another one.”

  She broke off handfuls of dry weeds to reveal a better preserved steed, this one with a carved blanket draped across its back.

  “I understand the previous owner liked horses,” John said.

  In fact, he had been told that the official worshipped the Christians’ god and horses, but not necessarily in that order. The unfortunate man would have done better to confine himself to religion. He might not have disgraced himself with gambling debts.

  “I would have liked that owner.” Julianna wrinkled her nose at John.

  “You like horses?” That explained the muscular calves, John thought.

  “I adore horses. My family has more than I can count. At our country estates.” Her expression brightened abruptly. Like the sun emerging from behind one of the clouds he could see in the rectangle of blue overhead. John noticed she was little more than a girl. Her simple green robes hung loosely on her slim figure. Her black hair was drawn up, out of the way, and coiled tightly on either side of her head. There was a firm set to her jaw.

  He realized why he had thought her familiar. She reminded him of Cornelia.

  Cornelia whom he had met in Egypt, so many years ago after he had left Haik and the rest of the mercenaries outside Antioch. Cornelia had possessed the same dark hair, lithe figure, and strong calves, the latter a result of her bull leaping. She was part of a troupe. One of their acts recreated the ancient Cretan art of performing acrobatics with bulls. Julianna might be almost the same age as Cornelia had been back then.

  Not more than half his own age now, John reminded himself. Nor was he the same then as now. He was aware of a chilly breeze rattling dead leaves. The tall yews swayed slightly, sending their shadows flickering across the garden.

  “I enjoy the chariot races myself,” John said. “I did a lot of riding when I was in the military.”

  Julianna looked at him quizzically. “You? In the military? I wouldn’t have thought you were the sort.” Her tone hardened again. Her mouth tightened in the same pronounced way Cornelia’s used to when she got angry. Had John been so obviously staring at her?

  “I spent quite a few years with a sword at my side. Judging people too quickly can be dangerous.”

  The girl did not quite roll her eyes. “Why do you want to talk to me?”

  “I like to get som
e idea of who I have in my home.”

  “But you never have anybody in this dusty old place.”

  “How would you know?”

  She shrugged. “You can tell the rooms haven’t been lived in. There are cobwebs in all the corners. I wanted to stay at our house, with mother, but father insisted I come to the palace.”

  “You’ll be safer here, if there’s more trouble in the streets. Your mother should have come as well.”

  “She told me not to worry. They aren’t interested in her. Just in father, and maybe Uncle Pompeius. As if anyone would be interested in uncle.”

  “Interested?”

  Julianna laid a hand, delicate like Cornelia’s, on the back of the miniature horse and absently petted the narrow back. “Oh, they say the factions want father to be emperor or some foolish thing. It’s just silly. You know all that though. It’s why we’re here.”

  John nodded. “You don’t take the idea seriously?”

  “Certainly not! Father doesn’t want to be emperor any more than this little horse does. I think it would kill him!” She spoke lightly but immediately bit her lower lip.

  “You understand that you are here so that no one can force your father to change his mind?”

  “I don’t know why we couldn’t stay in apartments at the Daphne Palace. Wouldn’t we be safer there? We weren’t spying on the emperor.”

  “Did anyone say he suspected you?”

  Julianna looked down at the stone horse. When she spoke it was to change the subject. “At least at the Daphne I had some friends to talk to. Do you suppose Justinian would mind if Antonina visited me?”

  “You know Antonina?”

  “Oh yes. Very well.”

  “She’s hardly your age. She’s a friend of Theodora, isn’t she? And older than the empress.”

  Julianna looked back at John. “Antonina and I have a lot in common. She’s as fond of horses as I am. Her father was a charioteer. She’s taught me a lot.” She scowled. “You’re just like father. You think I’m a child.”