Four for a Boy

Chapter Twenty-One

John found Felix lounging on a bench set under a stand of pines overlooking the palace’s seawall. Afternoon sunlight glittered on the restless water.

Felix looked around at the sound of approaching boot steps. “Am I late for our meeting? Or is there yet more trouble brewing? It’s bad enough Viator managed to escape us.”

“I’m early,” John replied. “I asked at the barracks where I might find you. Senator Opimius just relieved me of my tutoring duties.”

Felix scratched the stubble on his jaw. It had not grown enough to conceal the cut and the angry bruise where the snowball had hit. The jaw was obviously too tender to withstand the ministrations of a razor. “That will be trouble for both of us once Justinian finds out. You won’t make much of a spy, peering in through the senator’s windows. What did you do to bring this calamity down on us? Who did you hit?”

“Nobody.”

“Then why did Opimius dismiss you?”

“He somehow got the notion I was in the habit of escorting Anna on tours of the docks. From that he deduced I probably took her around various seedy tenements and dark alleyways.”

“Somehow?” Felix spit over the seawall. “You mean someone’s been putting poison in his ears!”

John was surprised at his reluctant partner’s genuine anger.

As soon as John and Anna had returned from visiting Avis that morning he’d sensed something was awry. No one looked in his direction or offered the usual greetings as they passed through the kitchen.

Opimius was pacing the atrium. The senator’s features were livid with anger, but he did not speak until Anna had gone into her study.

“John,” he said without preamble. “I will no longer require your attendance here. You will leave my house immediately. Furthermore, do not ever attempt to return or to contact my daughter again.”

“Senator Opimius…What…?” Had Opimius deduced that Justinian might have sent John to spy on him? Was his anger because he had something to conceal? Those had been John’s first confused thoughts. Then Opimius, unable to contain his rage, began thundering at him about his gross negligence.

“You put my daughter in harm’s way! Didn’t you hear me when I told her she was no longer to go about the streets with you? And taking her to the docks. The docks! Wasn’t there some handy den of cutthroats you could have introduced her to while you were at it? Or a riot? You should know how she romanticizes everything! Trying to impress her, were you? Oh, I’m sure she thought it was a great adventure. Where’s your sense? I’d have said you were thinking with your gonads if you had any! Don’t even bother trying to deny it! Trenico told me everything.”

John had said nothing. How could he defend himself? Call the senator’s friend Trenico a liar? A slave’s word against that of an aristocrat? It would only have made the situation worse.

Felix was staring out to sea. “Do you ever think of Greece?”

It struck John as a strange question. “I try not to.”

“It’s been a long time since I was in Germania. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever see it again. Perhaps we were barbaric, but at least we didn’t grow villains as thick on the ground as they are here. If you ask me there are as many dangers at court as in the city streets. I wouldn’t have chosen to work with you, but I know you wouldn’t subject the Lady Anna to danger.”

John stared out over the dancing swells with less enthusiasm than his companion. He did not care for deep water.

Felix looked pensive. He fingered his jaw. He was almost able to grasp the stubble growing there. “It’s good for thinking, tugging at whiskers. Perhaps I’ll keep them.”

“What is it you’re thinking about?”

Felix heaved himself off the bench. “Viator. Now that he’s dead we can catch up to him. Gaius once told me that those who die in the streets or on the docks are usually taken to the hospice.”

***

The Hospice of Samsun was even more crowded than on their initial visit. Extra pallets were crammed into each of its already cramped rooms. Without exception the staff looked ill themselves. Wan and harried, they scurried along corridors rendered nearly impassable by patients lying on the soiled floor. The stench of urine burned the nostrils.

Inquiries for Gaius led them to a room where the odor of herbs emanating from shelves that occupied one wall masked the general stink. The physician reclined in a corner, which might have seemed inexplicable except for the presence of the wine jug next to him.

Felix muttered a curse. “He’s drunk!” He tapped Gaius’ side with the dirty toe of his boot.

Gaius awoke and muttered groggily. “Yes, yes, right away. Is the baby’s head visible yet?” Bloodshot eyes peered up at them. “Just taking a little break. I need one every now and then. Haven’t been out of this place in a week.”

“Gaius, we must talk to you,” Felix said loudly.

The stout physician winced and sat up.

“Be good enough to talk more quietly, Felix,” he muttered. “The Furies are fighting a battle in my head and I can scarcely see straight. I’ve got to deliver a beggar’s baby any instant.”

“You’ll need steady hands for that,” John observed, helping him up.

“And probably plenty of opiate as well. The mother’s just a child. We’re starting to run out, but what can you expect?” Gaius picked up his wine jug and shook his head ruefully over its emptiness.

“We’re here to ask about a man named Viator,” Felix began. “He’s dead already, not one of your patients. He was found at the docks so I’m betting he was brought here.” He described the man briefly.

Gaius let out a morbid chuckle. “Ah, that’s Viator, is it? Yes, he’s here. Who could forget someone that size? The Gourd’s men didn’t tell me who he was, only that their master wanted to know what killed him. They also ordered that anyone who came to claim the body should be detained.”

Gaius led them along the corridor, treading unsteadily between the arms and legs splayed in their path. They descended two flights of stairs, ducked through a low brick archway, and then into a cavernous room. Gaius clumsily struck a light to the lamp sitting on a sweating stone ledge beside its door.

Felix let out a grunt of surprise. The icy place was a barracks for the dead. A score of bodies reposed on marble slabs. Only a few were decently covered.

“We’re still hosting some of the guests sent here by the Gourd after that business at the Strategion,” Gaius said. Evidently the freezing air had somewhat revived him.

He patted the closest chunk of stone. “These were part of a defective shipment, donated to us by none other than Viator. That’s why I was chuckling. I wager he never thought he’d end up laid out on one of them. Apparently the marble was destined for a private bath house at the palace. Now it serves a humbler class.”

He drew a sheet back from the face of an enormous mound.

“That’s him,” Felix said. “What did the Gourd’s men say?”

“Nothing much. They’d dragged him out of the water. Mind you, he wasn’t drowned, but stabbed in the back. I can understand that. Who’d attack a man this size from the front? I’d say it was a robbery. He’s well known and reputed to be wealthy.”

“His son hasn’t claimed the body?” John put in.

“No. If he has a son, he had better hurry up, otherwise his father will be buried by strangers tomorrow. I don’t expect to see him. He would be here by now if he were going to come at all.”

Back upstairs they were greeted by the wail of a child. The thin sound crept into the higher register and then ended abruptly.

“Could that be the infant you’re supposed to be delivering?” Felix inquired.

Gaius shook his head. “No. It’s a little girl brought in this morning. An accident. Dislocated shoulder. One of my assistants has been trying to manipulate it back into place. Let’s hope she’s lost consciousness this time so he can get the job done properly. Now I must go and see how my pregnant patient is doing. You’re reporting back to the Gourd, I imagine. Tell him I will send him an official report on the matter of Viator as soon as I run out of patients to treat.”

***

The Prefect’s offices were located in the drab, seemingly endless administrative warrens that formed as much a part of the Great Palace complex as its lavish dining and reception halls, gardens, and luxurious private residences. Anyone traversing its anonymous hallways might be traveling to any of a hundred destinations on the palace grounds. As it happened, John and Felix caught sight of Trenico just as he emerged from the Prefect’s office.

The aristocrat turned smartly on his heel and veered away down the corridor. From his quick glimpse, John thought Trenico looked exceptionally startled.

A strapping guard eyed them coldly as they entered the outer office until a brief order from Felix in the name of the emperor led to an announcement of their presence.

The doorway leading into the Prefect’s inner chambers was open and the man stamped out, wiping his hands on his shirt. He was in a foul mood, which turned fouler still after he impatiently heard their information concerning the cause of Viator’s death.

“Now you’ve told me, I expect Gaius won’t bother putting kalamos to parchment,” he rumbled. “I agree with him. It was obviously a robbery, but that won’t stop fools from wagging their tongues about it. Let me catch them at it and I’ll see they have the wag yanked out of them on the spot.”

John wondered why the Gourd would care if the death of Viator were laid at his door. Wouldn’t such rumors enhance the ruthless reputation he cultivated so assiduously?

“If you hadn’t blundered at apprehending the man when he was right within your grasp,” Theodotus went on, “he would have told us everything by now, including where Hypatius’ murderer is hiding.”

“Even though the man suspected is his son?” Felix said.

The Prefect laughed. “Believe me, he would have revealed all we wanted to know, son or not. However, since you are here and I have been instructed to make use of your services. I have a new task for you. One of my informants tells me that some Blues are planning to make trouble in the Augustaion tonight. They never learn their lesson, do they? But I have a little surprise for them. My men will be hidden around the area to grab them as soon as they start assembling, before they even know what’s happening. Find yourselves a good hiding place near the Augustaion. One of those foul alleys would be ideal. Just make certain you don’t get into conversation with any of those kind-hearted ladies who inhabit so many of them.” His leer was most unpleasant.

“What exactly will be our role?” Felix’s tone was crisp.

Theodotus tilted his misshapen head to one side and looked at Felix with undisguised contempt. “Your role? Why, simply to wait. When the time comes, fight and, if need be, help capture any stragglers who attempt to escape. You can manage that, can’t you? Yes, I’m sure you can. This is an assignment even you two can’t fail at.”