Nine for the Devil (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-three

Joannina loosened the top of her light blue tunica, dabbed more perfume between her breasts, and settled down on the couch to wait for Anastasius.

She had dismissed Vesta for the night, after pressing upon her a silver chain she considered too heavy for her own delicate neck but which suited her lady-in-waiting. It pleased Joannina’s vanity that Vesta made every effort to emulate her and Joannina was determined to turn the girl into a suitable match for some handsome courtier. Not that the plain-looking Vesta had any chance of catching a man such as Joannina’s Anastasius, but then that match had been made by the empress herself.

On second thought, Joannina got off the couch and padded barefoot around the room snuffing out all the lamps except for one in a far corner. Anastasius preferred to have the lights blazing but she felt more comfortable with a softer ambiance.

Except for the diaphanous tunica and too much perfume she wore only tiny silver earrings in the shape of sea shells. Anastasius, she knew, liked her to keep on a bit of jewelry.

She was partial to silver jewelry. It suited her pale skin.

Skin the color of moonlight, Anastasius had told her.

It would have been better if he had left it at that and hadn’t elaborated by telling her she was more glorious than the heavens because the heavens boasted only one, rather than two silvery moons. And even then the words might have struck Joannina as more poetical if the poet’s hands hadn’t been so busy with the celestial orbs.

Where was he anyway? He hadn’t seemed himself since the Lord Chamberlain’s visit. He’d been short-tempered. He had done nothing during their ride that morning except complain about how much he was sweating. When they’d returned he’d changed his clothes and gone off without telling her what he was planning to do. Which was rare. Perhaps he intended to surprise her with a present, to make up for his bad mood.

At least he wouldn’t stumble home intoxicated as men did, she had heard. He put more water in his wine than anyone she’d ever seen and he never drank except at meals. In that way, he was only a step removed from the abstemious emperor.

Anastasius was, she thought dreamily, the ideal husband, except that he wasn’t quite her husband yet.

“Well,” she murmured to herself, “in the eyes of the Lord we are man and wife, and that’s all that truly matters.”

She liked to hear herself say that. Unfortunately, unless they were legally married and beyond the interference of her parents, it was unlikely they’d be allowed to continue living together.

If only Theodora had lived a few weeks more, she would have ensured the ceremony was held as scheduled and no one would have dared to come between the two young lovers.

Joannina had been terrified when the empress first suggested that Joannina and her grandson marry. The young girl was awed by Anastasius. Tall and regal with his thick mane of glossy black hair, he was a familiar figure at court, bantering easily with his few equals, withering inferiors in the heat of his disdain. Everyone deferred to him despite his youth. It was not surprising, considering he was Theodora’s grandson.

Nevertheless, Joannina’s parents had not approved. Her mother had been apoplectic judging from her letters. But what could her parents do? They were in Italy. Joannina thought they should have been pleased to see their family allied with Theodora’s. For one thing, it would block the ascension of General Germanus over Joannina’s father Belisarius once and for all. She had been aware of their rivalry practically before she could talk. But no, her mother insisted Theodora was just trying to get her hands on Belisarius’ family’s fortune. As if the empress needed anyone else’s miserable fortune.

And what right did her faithless slut of a mother have to interfere in the authentic pure love shared by Joannina and Anastasius?

Joannina was hardly more than a child, but a child has eyes and ears. She had observed the men who came and went when her father was absent. And there was the one who was her stepbrother. How vile.

Yet there were those who disapproved when Theodora ordered Joannina and Anastasius to live together in the same rooms in the empress’ part of the palace. People whispered. Most of the girls Joannina’s age who whispered were envious. They could only wish the empress would force them to share a bedroom with the most handsome young man at court, and a member of the imperial family no less.

Not that Theodora had exerted any force, despite what gossips claimed. Except for forcing the two into common living arrangements.

Once Joannina had made a blushing and stammering Vesta tell her exactly what the ladies-in-waiting and other attendants were gossiping.

“Oh, your ladyship…I’d rather not say…but…oh…they claim Theodora came here herself and instructed you both to go into…into…the bedroom and…and disrobe. And then…oh…must I? Then she told you both exactly what to do and even helped…”

Joannina had laughed. “What nonsense! Theodora has hardly been well enough to move around on her own since Anastasius and I have been living here. She has never visited. It was nothing like that. Nothing like that at all.”

She did not tell Vesta what it had been like. That the haughty and handsome Anastasius had been absolutely terrified to do what his grandmother had made clear he must do.

That had done more than anything to endear him to Joannina.

Thinking about it, Joannina began to grow impatient. Where was he?

Despite her annoyance, she started drifting off to sleep on the couch. When he stamped into the sitting room he startled her.

She saw he was empty-handed, hadn’t brought anything for her. “What’s the matter, dearest? Where have you been so late?”

Joannina felt she had a wifely duty to assuage his anger, but when in the past she had tried soothing words or put her arms around him, it had just stoked his fury.

“I’ve been out and about asking questions.” He flopped down on the couch next to her, yanked off his malodorous boots, and threw them across the room. “I don’t like it! I don’t like it at all! Someone’s going to pay. I’ll have my revenge, you wait and see. Vengeance will be mine!”

He sounded more petulant than vengeful.

Joannina pulled herself into a sitting position and leaned over Anastasius who was slouched on his spine with his long legs stretched out on the floor. “What are you talking about? Vengeance for what?”

“For the murder of my grandmother. It’s not just a rumor. It’s true. She was murdered. Justinian has ordered that eunuch of his to find the culprit. I didn’t believe it, but now I have it on good authority. He spent the whole day visiting people who are under suspicion.”

“Vesta and ourselves are under suspicion?”

“And Germanus, not to mention your mother.”

“That’s silly. Mother was Theodora’s friend.”

“Maybe. But it’s very convenient for your mother that the empress died before our marriage, isn’t it?”

Joannina drew away from him. “You don’t think my mother killed your grandmother, do you?”

Anastasius said nothing but frowned furiously.

Joannina frowned back. “You can’t be thinking of taking vengeance on mother!”

“
Well, no. The eunuch visited Artabanes. That’s who I suspect.”

“Why Artabanes?”

“Because Theodora arranged for his…uh…marital relations, just like she did ours, but the opposite, don’t you see?”

Joannina tentatively put her hand on his narrow shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“She arranged for us to stay together. She also arranged for Artabanes to stay with his wife. See. Artabanes wanted to marry Praejecta, just like we want to marry each other. But in Artabanes’ case, she stopped the marriage and forced him to live with his wife, while in our case, though we aren’t married, she made us live together so we can be married. It’s almost exactly the same except different.”

Joannina ventured to let her hand run down Anastasius’ arm. “I see, now that you explain it so clearly.”

“So Artabanes wanted revenge on Theodora for spoiling his marriage plans. That would make anyone want revenge.”

“But it isn’t your job to take revenge on anyone, Anastasius. And certainly not on Artabanes. We barely know the man.”

“It it weren’t for him there would be no way your parents could stop our being married!”

“Your grandmother was very ill,” Joannina pointed out.

Anastasius slid lower on the couch. “But she wouldn’t have died before she saw to it we were married if not for—”

“You sound as if you care more about our marriage than your grandmother!”

Anastasius turned toward Joannina and put his hand out. She moved slightly and the hand brushed her shoulder. “You know I care about you more than anything in the world, Joannina, my little sparrow.”

“Now that’s the Anastasius I love.” She kissed his forehead and her hand went to his belt. “Let the Lord Chamberlain worry about vengeance.”

Chapter Twenty-four

The carriage was utterly dark. The windows had been covered.

John had caught only a glimpse of the conveyance as he was thrown roughly inside it. It was an imperial carriage in poor repair, nothing the emperor would ride in, and had been relegated to other uses.

He tried the door. Not surprisingly, it was locked. He couldn’t see his hand or anything else. Except that he could feel his breath going in and out he might already have been a disembodied phantom.

The carriage had an unpleasant sour smell. The smell of fear, perhaps, from previous passengers.

At least half a dozen excubitors had come to the house. They hammered on the door loudly enough to wake him in the study where he had dozed off in his chair. Once he confronted them they had become taciturn about their mission and John’s destination.

“Emperor’s orders! That’s all you need to know!” their apparent leader barked when John tried to question him.

John recognized the man by the unruly red hair spilling from underneath his helmet.

He was the excubitor who had summoned Felix from the tavern for an urgent meeting with Justinian.

A meeting to order John’s arrest?

There had been no use resisting. John had not tucked the blade he usually carried into the tunic he had intended to wear to bed. It didn’t matter. A single man, even properly armed, would have no chance against so many trained soldiers.

He fought the only worthwhile battle left, the battle to maintain his dignity.

After so many years of imperial service, was his life going to end like so many others—like the guards outside Theodora’s sickroom, like the imperial cook—unexpectedly, at the whim of the emperor?

Everyone at court heard stories of people spirited away to be summarily executed on Justinian’s orders. Sometimes acquaintances or family members. And then they wondered what would it feel like? How would they react when they were roused from sleep and told they had less than a hour to live, if they were lucky? If they were lucky enough, that is, to be killed simply and cleanly and not taken down to the torturers first.

But however close the victim had been to a particular person, it was like hearing about someone killed by lightning or a run-away cart. An acknowledged possibility, but never something you really imagined would happen to yourself.

John stared into the blackness that pressed in on him like dark water. He feared deep water. Now he fought off the feeling he was drowning. He kept his lips tightly pressed together as if the darkness might get in and choke off his breath.

He didn’t know what time it was. How long had he dozed before waking? It might be the middle of the night or nearly dawn.

One wouldn’t have expected the emperor to schedule a meeting for either time.

He wished he had heard from Cornelia.

The carriage wheels creaked. John was jolted continually. He couldn’t tell where he was being taken. At least the carriage had not been moving downhill, which would indicate that the destination was the docks or some lonely stretch of sea wall beyond which the hungry waters waited for the emperor’s offerings.

Instead, the carriage was going uphill. It slowed, turned, came to a halt.

“Mithra!” John muttered.

The door swung open. Powerful arms pulled him into the night and dragged him along before he had a chance to get his bearings.

Abruptly he was released.

He stood amidst massive sarcophagi illuminated by torches in curving walls.

Was this some kind of horrible jest on Justinian’s part?

John realized he had been brought to Constantine’s mausoleum behind the Church of the Holy Apostles. Around him lay emperors, who having lived in the purple slept for eternity enclosed in the imperial color. Purple porphyry folded angular arms about Constantine, Theodosius, and other departed rulers. Although Zeno lay under dark green Thessalonian stone, veined in white.

Thinking of the emperor reminded John of Anatolius’ uncle Zeno, on whose estate John’s family was currently living.

A hand shoved him forward.

He moved through a haze of incense, its sweet perfume foretelling the gardens of heaven.

He might have been dreaming.

An excubitor stood on each side of him. He could see the steel of their drawn swords glinting.

Light flashed from the mausoleum’s gem-studded gold fittings, icons glittered in lamplight glowing from silver dove-shaped lamps suspended on long chains from the frescoed roof, reflected in marble walls.

They passed out of Constantine’s burial place and into the mausoleum Justinian had only recently had completed.

The excubitor with the red hair stopped and clamped a hand on John’s shoulder. “Far enough!”

The guards at John’s side moved away.

A prickling sensation ran from the nape of John’s neck down his back.

Where would the steel penetrate?

He remembered well the feel of a blade cutting through flesh.

He had endured the pain before and he would endure it one last time.

***

Hypatia stood in the dark kitchen, trying to overcome her fear. The clatter of the carriage moving away across the square still seemed to reverberate through the house,

The Lord Chamberlain may have been called away on business, she told herself. Though it was before dawn, it would not have been impossible. Affairs of the empire did not keep regular hours.

But he would never have left the door open or gone without leaving word with her.

Would he?

Then again, he had been working too hard. He was exhausted. It was plain in his gaunt features.

What about the raised voices? Had they only sounded overly loud and angry because they had startled her in the middle of the night?

She told herself not to leap to conclusions. The Lord Chamberlain did not explain his comings and goings to her.

Perhaps he would return soon.

She preferred not to think the worst.

She pulled a chair up to the table, sat down, and waited.