Nine for the Devil Page 9

  She sighed, theatrically John thought. “I intended it as a gesture of friendship to Theodora but it was completed too late. She will never see it now.”

  John wondered if a reproduction of the companion Ravenna mosaic of Justinian and his courtiers graced another room and whether Belisarius would approve of these new decorations. Equally, they would serve as a reminder of his taking Ravenna from the Goths, as well as flattering the imperial couple.

  As if reading his mind, Antonina said, “No doubt you have heard I was hoping to persuade the empress to intercede with Justinian in the matter of sending more troops and supplies to my husband. It is quite true. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived in Constantinople earlier this month, Theodora was so ill she refused to receive me. As an old friend, it was hurtful even though I believe she was trying to spare me the pain of seeing her as she had become.”

  Or sparing herself being seen, John thought. “Very few were admitted to her room once she began her final decline,” he replied.

  “Let us be frank, Lord Chamberlain. I am well aware you suspect me, given I have made it plain I wish to stop the proposed marriage between my daughter and Anastasius. However, since I was not able to visit Theodora, obviously I had no opportunity to do her harm. Then too, even you must agree preventing a marriage is hardly a good reason to arrange for an empress to be poisoned. Particularly since the empress was my closest friend.”

  “You are of the opinion Theodora was murdered?”

  Antonina pursed her lips. “That is Justinian’s opinion. Do any of us dare to entertain another?”

  “Although you did not visit Theodora you must have sent her gifts. Cosmetics or perhaps something to ease her pain?”

  Antonina gave John a frigid smile. “It is customary to send gifts to one’s friends. It is hardly a matter of official concern or anything I care to talk about in detail. I am sure my modest offerings were thoroughly examined, as gifts to the imperial couple always are. Since you are looking for the culprit have you considered the Cappadocian?”

  “He is imprisoned in Egypt. As he has been for years, since you conspired with Theodora to have him removed from office.”

  She glared at him. “He can still have eyes and ears and hands here in the capital.”

  “They would require payment and Justinian was eventually persuaded to strip him of his wealth.”

  Antonina gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “The Cappadocian’s wealth is like the root of a noxious weed. It goes too deep to be pulled up entirely. What I hear is he is free to return and resume his rape of the populace now that the empress is no longer here to protect us.”

  “I doubt the Cappadocian will have his way with you, Antonina.”

  She looked as if she was about to spit at him. As John knew, she hated the former Praetorian Prefect, usually derisively referred to as the Cappadocian or more simply as the tax collector.

  “I would think you and General Belisarius would welcome the Cappadocian’s efficiency in raising revenues,” he went on. “Justinian would then have more funds to pursue the war in Italy.”

  Antonina’s eyes sparkled with cold fire. “Let me educate you about how the Cappadocian assisted my husband’s soldiers. Bread for an army must be carefully twice baked so it does not spoil for a long time, during shipping, in storage in camp, during marches.”

  “I am aware of that.”

  “I forgot. You are from a humble background too.” Her expression softened momentarily. “At any rate,” she continued, “the method of baking requires extra firewood and extra wages for the bakers, money which otherwise could have been spent by the Cappadocian on luxuries and debauchery. This extravagance, as he saw it, offended him so he had uncooked dough delivered to the basement of the Baths of Achilles where fires continually burn to heat the water. He had the dough placed near this free source of heat until it appeared more or less cooked, then thrown into bags and shipped to Italy. Needless to say, the loaves started to rot before they arrived. My husband tells me you could smell them at the dock where the ship lay moored. Yet there was nothing else to eat. It was in the middle of a summer as hot as this one. Five hundred of my husband’s men died. He ordered the armies be furnished bread from the surrounding countryside. At our own expense, Lord Chamberlain.”

  “It is good to know our soldiers have a champion like yourself.”

  “You are sarcastic. Doubtless you think I only care about my husband’s fortunes.”

  The cloying odor of the lilies and roses ranged about the room had begun to irritate John. He allowed his gaze to wander, avoiding Theodora and coming to rest in the painted garden outside the painted window behind Antonina’s couch. For the first time he noticed, half hidden amongst the elaborately painted leaves, a yellow bird caught in the jaws of a lion.

  “I do not see the Cappadocian as a credible suspect,” John said.

  “If you are looking for a better possibility, consider Justinian’s cousin General Germanus. If it weren’t for Theodora he would already have been accepted as heir to the throne. She did everything she could to cripple his career. Now he will thrive.”

  “At your husband’s expense, Antonina. Aren’t you afraid he may supplant Belisarius both as Justinian’s foremost general and his eventual successor?”

  John noticed Antonina’s fists clench and quickly relax again. “My husband has no designs on the throne. You remember that was the Cappadocian’s undoing. He mistakenly believed Belisarius to be a traitor.”

  “Yes, and when he went to meet Belisarius you were there with officials from the palace.”

  “He deserved it for thinking ill of Belisarius. My husband is an honorable man.”

  “Honorable men are so rare at court, it is dangerous to assume honor in anyone.”

  She glared at him again. John wondered if her approach to their conversation might be different were he more prone to fall to her artfully preserved charms.

  “You are being unfair to me,” she said. “Germanus had more to gain by Theodora’s death than I did. Why do you insist on turning your suspicions toward me? I know how much you hated the empress. Do you hate her friends too? Which of your enemies will you choose to turn over to the emperor? Everyone is speculating and some are trembling. Am I to suffer for Theodora’s sins?”

  Antonina got up, kissed her finger, and placed it tenderly against Theodora’s painted cheek. “My dear, dear empress. Even in death you are wronged.”

  She faced John. “You’re frowning, Lord Chamberlain. Don’t you like my fresco? One of my servants doesn’t like it either. She’s a superstitious girl, the tedious and stupid sort who insist on finding omens in the shape of spilt wine or the movements of clouds. She will not enter this room for any reason, because she’s convinced my beautiful decoration foretold Theodora’s death. Were she not so clever at concocting dainty sweetmeats I would dismiss her.”

  “It is not difficult to be wise after the event, and especially when the event is known to be inevitable a week or two before it occurs,” John pointed out.

  Antonina gave a grim smile. “Superstitious nonsense, that’s all it is. I questioned the stupid child at some length. According to her the attendant shown lifting the curtain is unveiling the afterlife, the imminent departure for which is about to arrive for one of the women represented. Further, it seems the goblet Theodora holds represents an overflowing cup of blessings. The poor girl believes it foretold the blessing of the ending of her agony. There again, for others it may well be a warning we will drain the cup of sorrow. What do you think, Lord Chamberlain? Are there any clues to her murderer to be found in the fresco on the wall of this room?”

  John stood. “As much information as you are likely to give me willingly.”

  Or as much as anyone else at court will, he added to himself.

  As he walked out of the mansion into the shadow of
the Hippodrome, he wondered who would drain Theodora’s cup of sorrow. Not people like Antonina. People like Kuria, cast adrift from palace life with no prospects except returning to a life of selling herself to strangers.

  The same people who always drank from imperial cups of sorrow.

  If only the painted empress could lift the veil of mist that obscured his vision and reveal the solution he sought.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Though it had already been a grueling day, John decided to talk to General Germanus, another interview designed largely to satisfy Justinian. If Antonina was pointing an accusative finger at the emperor’s cousin others would do the same. However discreetly, once word reached Justinian he would expect to hear John had looked into the matter.

  It was not his normal way of conducting an inquiry to be pointed this way and that, but then his inquiries normally revolved around an actual murder rather than one imagined by the emperor.

  Or rather one that John feared was imagined by the emperor. He hoped for his own sake and his family’s sake that his initial impression was mistaken.

  For the time being John intended to interview those he would be expected to interview. Once he had fulfilled that obligation, if nothing had shown up to point him in a specific direction…well, he wasn’t certain what he would do.

  John was trying to dismiss such doleful thoughts, as well as thoughts of the dinner Hypatia had no doubt prepared by now, when a supercilious doorkeeper informed him that the general was not seeing visitors. John thrust his orders and the attached imperial seal he always carried under the fellow’s upturned nose. The man cringed and explained Germanus was not seeing visitors because he was not at home. He was at the Baths of Zeuxippos.

  The baths, between the entrance to the palace and the Hippodrome, was an immense complex of pools, gymnasiums, lecture halls, meeting rooms, and shops. John bought a skewer of grilled swordfish from a vendor who had set up his brazier near the wide stairs leading up to the baths’ entrance. The vendor was better at cooking it than John, not nearly as proficient as Peter. When John finished, feeling only slightly less famished, he threw the skewer into the gutter, went up the stairs, and paid an attendant the paltry admission fee.

  The atrium was as vast as a public square and packed with people. Some wore elaborately decorated garments, others leather leggings and dirty tunics. Voices echoed hollowly around the towering walls and up into the distant dome. None of the baths were visible but the air was noticeably humid. Corridors led off in all directions. It would have been difficult to locate an individual quickly but it was easy to spot the entourage which accompanied generals wherever they go. John found the contingent in a gallery lined with statues.

  There were enough men and arms to have conquered the entire bath complex in less than an hour. They were big men, as broad and muscular as the larger-then-life-size bronze Hercules beside whose pedestal they stood. Germanus was one of the smaller men, wearing a subdued rust-colored dalmatic rather than a leather cuirass. In his early forties, Germanus was, like Justinian, a nephew of the late Emperor Justin. Unlike Justinian, his appearance betrayed his peasant origins. He had a blocky build, powerful, sloping shoulders, a thick neck. His dark hair and beard were trimmed almost to a stubble.

  As John approached, Germanus grinned, displaying square ivory-hued teeth. The big men surrounding him did not grin. They stared. Scarred fists tightened on spears and swords.

  “Lord Chamberlain! I’ve been expecting you. The palace is buzzing over your inquiries and I know some busy bees have aimed their stingers at me. The question is, who sent you?”

  “You’ll understand I can’t answer that, general.”

  Germanus’ grin broadened. “Not that it matters. I can guess.” He glanced around at his scowling bodyguards. “You will understand why my men are surly and wary. There are those who can’t believe I intend to wait my turn to take the throne and just might want to stop me from doing so.”

  “It’s common knowledge Justinian intends you to succeed him, even though he did not make it official while Theodora was alive.”

  “Considering her hatred for me and my family, can we be surprised? You’ll doubtless agree I wouldn’t have any reason to kill Theodora. She might influence the emperor while he’s alive but she could hardly influence him to deny me the throne when he was dead.”

  “She might have convinced him to anoint a new heir before he died.”

  Germanus laughed. “I wasn’t looking that far ahead. It doesn’t matter now. I’m happy for my whole family, Lord Chamberlain. My daughter Justina and her husband can return to Constantinople. They’ve been living on one of my estates in Bithynia, near the hot springs. My son-in-law feared for his life when it was rumored Theodora ordered Antonina to have him killed merely for marrying against her imperial wishes.”

  “Was there any particular reason Theodora objected to the marriage?”

  “Spite, Lord Chamberlain. That was all. My sons still aren’t married. Justina defied her. She was eighteen. How much longer could she wait?”

  Theodora had a penchant for interfering with marriages. John wondered if Cornelia was right, that interference in personal relationships was more likely to result in retaliation than political, religious, or financial meddling. When power or money was at stake people acted with a clear view of Theodora’s enormous power. When the issue was personal, passions reigned.

  He was reminded of Europa, who had never been far from his mind lately. It irked him to have to remain in the city, chasing shadows, when he should be beside his daughter.

  Germanus strolled away from the bronze Hercules and his retinue flowed with him. John remained at his side.

  The gallery featured a mismatched collection of bronze figures: pagan gods, philosophers, military men, anonymous Greeks who had been famous enough to immortalize in a long distant era.

  “It’s not as impressive as when I was a boy,” Germanus said. “Before the mob burned the baths down during the Nika riots, there were some magnificent works here.”

  “I remember.”

  “One day the whole imperial school was herded over here to hear Christodorus perform his poem about the statues. A tiny, shriveled-up Egyptian with lungs like one of Justinian’s heralds. He took us from statue to statue, thundering out his descriptions of each. The bronze was silent. He kept telling us that. Then he would help the mute bronze out by imagining what Homer or Sappho or Apollo was thinking. As if he had any way of knowing. We would have been just as happy if he was silent. We were only interested in the heroes, or at least the boys were. Pretending to battle Achilles. Hiding behind Ulysses.”

  It was hard to imagine the burly, dark-bearded man as a child. It was easier to imagine him battling Achilles. He differed from his imperial cousin in that he was actually a military man. He had fought on the battlefield, had his horse killed under him on one occasion, and nearly died himself. A true soldier emperor in the Roman tradition.

  “It was not the educational experience your tutors desired,” John observed.

  “No, but I’m certain Christodorus received a fee. Poets have to earn a living somehow.” Germanus stopped in front of a bronze Aphrodite. “This is the only statue rescued from the ruins, and not entirely intact. Years after that performance I looked the verse up. ‘Her breasts were bare but her robes were gathered around her rounded thighs.’ A true enough description, but now she has only a single breast. The goddess of love turned into an Amazon warrior!”

  The restorers had done their best to repair the statue. Perhaps they had honestly mistaken her for an Amazon.

  Germanus’ smile faded for the first time. He ran a hand over his cropped beard. “Such genius and centuries of art annihilated in a day by the ignorant rabble, all of whom together could not create even the kerchief that binds Aphrodite’s hair. There is no justice in the world, Lord Chamberlain.”<
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  “There is a little justice in the world, Germanus.”

  The general’s hulking guards shifted their grips on their weapons, shuffled their feet, looking bored. They appeared to John the type of men who would not be fully engaged by anything except violence.

  Germanus smiled again. “I have fought my whole life to gain justice for my family. Here I am, descended from a royal line, and myself and my children are told to stand aside for whores and bastards bred from a bear keeper.”

  “But no longer.”

  “No. However, don’t think I’m only concerned with justice for myself…” He trailed off abruptly. “Lord Chamberlain, every single person you approach will single out an enemy as a potential suspect. Therefore I wish to stress Artabanes isn’t my enemy.”

  “General Artabanes?”

  “A fine commander. The opposite of his predecessor. Justinian should never have sent Areobindus to Libya. He was a senator, not a military man. And a coward to boot. I’m sure you know the story.”

  John did indeed. Areobindus had surrendered himself and his wife Praejecta to the rebels. Artabanes arrived, restored order, and rescued Praejecta, but not before Areobindus had been assassinated.

  “Are you telling me Artabanes acted against Theodora?”

  Germanus’ thick lips tightened. “As good as, Lord Chamberlain. A month ago he visited me at my house, supposedly to discuss the situation in Libya. But before long the conversation turned to the imperial couple. They were both worthless in his opinion. He claimed he wasn’t alone in saying so. On the other hand, I was as close a relative to the old emperor Justin as Justinian, and more fit to rule being a military man and not a self-styled theologian, a soft fellow who took orders from his wife. If only I had been older at the time of Justin’s death, and so on.”

  John pointed out such talk was tantamount to treason.

  “That’s what I told him. But he took no notice. He said he knew I was a fair-minded man. Everyone knew I was fair-minded. Otherwise some treacherous senators would have already begged me to put Justinian out of the way.”