Two for Joy (27 page)

Peter said that that seemed a reasonable assumption, given the circumstances.

“At any rate,” Isis went on, “I was collecting up a few things to take with me as we discussed where to go, but a gang of ruffians broke in and surprised us.”

“We shouldn’t have sent the other guards away before the Blues arrived, madam,” Darius pointed out.

“Perhaps not, but I was thinking of their safety rather than mine,” Isis replied. “But Darius kept the bastards busy while I fled out the back door. After they had finished beating him, they threw him out after me. I crept back, and found to my relief—not to mention my surprise—that he was still alive. So we took to our heels. Fortunately, the guards at the Chalke had seen me often enough under happier circumstances. They let us into the palace grounds and so, here we are. Now you see why I say Darius is a hero.”

Darius smiled wanly. “Yes, Peter, I was extremely heroic while being beaten, just as madam said.”

“You must have been outnumbered ten to one,” Isis said. “And, Peter, it seems by the time they’d finished with him, they’d had enough fun for the time being and I’d apparently been quite forgotten. And lucky that was for me, since you could easily have run away and left me to their mercy, or what there was of it.” The woman shuddered.

Darius declared firmly that a man did not desert his family. “Or,” he added quickly, “his employer. And what do you think that we have here, Peter?” He nodded at the sack under the table.

Peter had no notion what one might try to save from a house such as Isis’. “Candlesticks? Statues? Jewelry?”

At the last word Isis let out a strangled sob and dabbed afresh at her eyes. “Jewelry? We had no time to gather up my jewelry. I even lost the earrings I was wearing. Some bastard accosted us in the street and ripped them right out of my ears. They were my favorites too, understated but elegant. Gold wire amphorae with a pearl inside each one. And now they’re probably decorating some low class tart’s filthy ears.” The irony of her words struck her and she gave a small, snuffling laugh.

Peter noticed for the first time that her throat was marred by the red imprint of splayed fingers.

“Oh, dear,” Isis went on, wiping away tears of mixed merriment and grief, “what a fool I am to worry about earrings at a time like this. But then again, no doubt some will be vastly amused to hear that I, the owner of the one of the richest houses of its kind in Constantinople, fled from it with only a sack and the clothes on my back, exactly what I had when I first arrived here from Alexandria. And that was longer ago than I care to remember.”

“Christians do not mock the afflicted,” Peter noted stiffly.

Isis looked unconvinced. “I’m glad to hear that. You may be asking yourself what I managed to save? Well, there’s two silver dishes and the djeds I brought with me when I came to the city.”

Peter murmured sympathetically, wondering what a djed might be. Something barbaric, no doubt.

“And,” Isis snuffled, “more importantly, my silver fruit knife and…” Tears began to roll down her bruised face, “…and an apple. So these are the only things all my years of labor have gained me—two silver dishes, a knife and an apple.”

Trying to think of some words of comfort, Peter hesitated and then asked awkwardly, “But surely your house at least is safe, if not its contents?”

Isis could not stop the flow of tears.

Peter looked helplessly toward Darius, who had turned away to stare out the window as if he could not bear to look at his distraught employer.

“They set fire to the house, of course,” he muttered to Peter. “As we ran for our lives, we looked back and saw the flames.”

***

Peter had scarcely returned to the kitchen from escorting the weeping Isis to a bedroom to rest when a blessedly familiar rap echoed in the entrance hall.

He hurried downstairs as fast as his aging legs could carry him, throwing the stout outer door wide open to welcome his employer home. The fear and anxiety of the past two days was forgotten, a heavy weight lifted from his bent back—or at least for the short time it took to register that he was admitting not a well-dressed court dignitary but a haggard man, wearing a filthy tunic reeking of smoke and the gutter.

John looked at Peter with eyes red-rimmed with fatigue. “Please heat water and find me clean clothing, Peter,” he said quietly. “But before you see to that, I would like some wine.” Noting the other’s aghast expression, a smile skittered across his weary face. “You are not to worry. We will be quite safe here.”

“Master, that is as well. Madam Isis and the man Darius arrived not long ago, fleeing for their lives. The poor things.” He hesitated. “I wasn’t certain what to do, but, well, I thought you would wish them be admitted.”

John secured the door, telling his servant that he had indeed done what John would have wished and concluding by remarking that doubtless Philo was having plenty to say to the new arrivals.

“He went out not long ago,” Peter said reluctantly. “He said he had an appointment.”

“At this hour? In these conditions?” John was extremely angry, Peter realized, despite his even tone. Not that he blamed him.

“The meeting was arranged for the first hour after dawn, he said. He claimed that the situation had calmed by the time he had to leave.”

“Of course, that’s exactly what he would say if he wanted to go out badly enough.” John’s shoulders had sagged at the news. “Keeping Philo from placing himself in harm’s way is proving more difficult than undoing the Gordian knot of these murders. Unfortunately I cannot emulate Alexander and solve the mystery by slicing it in half, since the solution is concealed somewhere in its coils.” He muttered a curse. “Did the old fool mention where he was going?”

Peter was shocked to hear his master speak of Philo in that fashion, and valiantly strove to conceal it. “Opposite the Chalke, it seems. He claimed that the unrest wouldn’t be allowed to approach so near to the palace.”

“A forlorn hope, considering the mob was all but battering its way through the Chalke not that long ago. And the rioting is all over the city. There’s no pattern at all, you never know what’s waiting for you around the next corner. It took me most of the night to make my way home. At times the situation was so dangerous that I had to take shelter and wait for my chance to move on.”

“Come and sit in the kitchen, master,” Peter said. “You look exhausted. You need to rest.”

“Not yet, Peter. I’ll have to go out and bring Philo back before he gets hurt. Thank Mithra Anatolius has sequestered himself, or he’d probably be wandering around unarmed in the thick of it, gathering impressions for an epic verse to rival the Iliad.”

Darius appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Lord Chamberlain! I couldn’t help overhearing. Will you allow me to rescue your straying guest? We came through the Chalke not long ago and he wasn’t there then. He’s probably wandering around the Mese. Very foolish if you ask me. You’re dead on your feet and as for me, well, if anyone’s looking for a fight, I’m more than ready to accommodate them.” The smile that broadened his bloodied mouth was not a pleasant one, despite his light tone.

“You seem to be making a habit of rescuing Philo, Darius,” John observed. “Very well. I’d welcome your help. Since surely even Philo has the wisdom to stay fairly close to the palace, he shouldn’t be too hard to find. Now, is there news of Felix?”

Peter shook his head wordlessly.

***

John leaned his folded arms on the kitchen table, nestled his head down on them and immediately fell asleep. Happy to see his master safely home, Peter charitably overlooked the fact that John’s filthy hair was straggling on to his well scrubbed table. That could be set to rights later.

The elderly servant stirred up the brazier as quietly as possible. Honey cakes, he thought, now I wonder if the master would like a honey cake when he wakes up? Of course, he did not normally indulge in sweet confections, but who knew what he had been eating in the past couple of days? By the look of him, not very much.

But as soon as Darius got back with the errant Philo and sanity and order were restored within the household, they could all retire and have a good night’s rest. Yes, it would be good to sleep snugly abed. If they could slumber at all, that was, what with the sound of distant and not so distant violence beating at their windows. It was quieter now but, having spent many years in the city, Peter fully expected the disorder to break out with renewed force when night again fell and darkness cloaked evil deeds.

As if summoned by the very thought, the ugly undercurrent of sound that had droned all day long swelled louder into a brief cacophony of shouts and cries before falling back into a sullen muttering. Peter glanced uneasily out. Here and there columns of smoke marked another house or workshop looted and set on fire. It was as if the city, having convinced itself it was next to suffer, was not content to cower while waiting for heavenly fire to descend upon it, but rather was undertaking to cleanse itself voluntarily.

He busied himself setting the last few honey cakes out on a platter and filled the wine jug as he pondered how he would feed this sudden influx of house guests, not having ventured to market that morning. He could not very well instruct an excubitor from the barracks across the way to go out and ask the first market stall holder he found to demonstrate his allegiance to Justinian by provisioning the Lord Chamberlain’s household.

Thinking of excubitors reminded Peter of Felix and he briefly wondered what had happened to him before returning to the vexed question of feeding the recent arrivals. He thought of vegetables and meandered naturally from that topic to his friend Hypatia. Thank the Lord she would be safe in her house on the palace grounds.

***

A loud knocking echoed upstairs.

John leapt awake, blade in hand before his eyes were fully open. How long had he been asleep? Probably only a short time.

“I will attend to that,” he said, striding out of the room before Peter could reply.

The heavy knock reverberated again, underlined by Darius’ hoarse shouts for admittance. Isis called anxiously from her room, as if she too had been startled awake by the commotion.

John yanked the door open. Darius lumbered past him, a limp form over his shoulder. Dumping his burden unceremoniously on the tiles, Darius rushed out into the garden, retching.

For an instant John feared that Philo had been harmed before Darius reached him but the bloodied body on the tiles groaned and muttered something unintelligible. The voice belonged not to Philo but to Anatolius.

Peter would be extremely unhappy about all the blood and mud that was being tracked into the house he kept so spotless, John thought as he helped Anatolius to his feet.

Isis was back in the kitchen and with Peter, John and now Anatolius there as well, even before an ashen-faced Darius staggered in, the cramped, hot room seemed very crowded.

“I couldn’t find Philo, Lord Chamberlain,” Darius confessed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “But I did see a woman. Or what had been a woman. A beautiful young…” He rushed into the lavatory that opened off the kitchen and vomited again.

John’s mouth tightened. He looked around the kitchen, as yet untouched physically by the riots yet full of human flotsam fleeing them. “I will have to seek Philo then,” he muttered. “And I pray to Mithra this will be the last time I’ll have to warn him about heedlessly courting danger.”

Chapter Twenty

Lord Mithra answered John’s prayer, although not
in a manner he would have desired.

Philo lay on the table in Gaius’ surgery so recently occupied by the plasterer with the broken arm, but unlike that particular patient he was beyond feeling pain.

If only he had found his old mentor before his murderer had struck, thought John. But then, he reminded himself, Philo might have been lying dead in the alley where the Prefect’s men found him even while John vainly searched the area near the Chalke.

John forced himself to walk over to the table and look down at the old man, who was decently covered by a linen sheet pulled up to his waist. Philo’s lined face looked serene, his white hair and beard neat. The bruising on his neck and the narrow wound in his ribs told the manner in which his shade had been set free to fly to eternity, there to discover the answers to those vexing questions that bedevil all who live, farmers and philosophers alike.

But he could not offer an answer as to why or by whom he had been murdered.

A ripe oath and the crash of breaking pottery emerged from the next room, followed by Gaius. “I fear that Bacchus is again interfering with my ability to carry out my calling,” he muttered. “I cannot seem to get my thoughts to flow correctly this morning.”

“If I may trouble you for such information as has been revealed by your examination?”

“Yes, you’ll want to know about Philo, naturally.” Gaius rubbed his temples. “Very well, then. Since it was apparent how he died, I did not carry out any internal investigation of the body.”

John was grateful to hear that. Philo had always been at pains to maintain his dignity and would have been horrified at the thought of his remains being violated by the physician’s sharp and disrespectful knives.

So far as his death was concerned, it had been clean enough as such things went. He had been spared the sort of obscene wounds John had seen in his time as a mercenary, wounds suffered by men who left their homes and loved ones whole but oft times came back maimed and occasionally half insane. Nor, his treacherous memory reminded him, was it only in times of war that this could happen…but he turned his attention firmly away from that dark river as the physician continued speaking, still massaging his forehead.

“In this particular instance,” Gaius was saying, “you would have been able to ascertain as much as I and that with a quick glance. By the bruising on Philo’s throat, I suspect that the assassin crept up from behind and choked him to render him helpless and muffle his cries. Then a quick stab, a shove to the ground, and a hasty departure to avoid discovery.”

“That is the coward’s way, to creep up on an old man.”