Nine for the Devil

Chapter Forty-eight

As John walked to Joannina’s rooms his breakfast sat at the bottom of his stomach like a stone thrown into the Marmara.

The young woman greeted him grimly. “Please try not to upset Vesta further, Lord Chamberlain. She’s devastated at being accused of murder.”

“Is her room in your quarters?”

“Anastasius’ and mine, you mean. No, she lives in the wing with the other ladies-in-waiting. They aren’t simply servants. Their accommodations are appropriate to their status.” Her bright blue eyes widened in alarm. “Why, if Vesta did live here someone would have had to creep secretly through my rooms to hide those herbs they found in hers. I don’t like to think about that.”

“Would it have been easier to enter a particular room in the wing the ladies-in-waiting occupy?”

“Relatively. One would still need access to the empress’ section of the palace.” She paused. “Excubitors would be able to march straight in and place incriminating evidence there.”

John asked her why she had suggested such a possibility.

Joannina shook her head and a strand of pale hair fell across her eyes. She brushed it aside. “To find a scapegoat to satisfy the emperor. Then too, it might suit you, Lord Chamberlain, if there was a murderer you could point out.”

“If I were responsible for those herbs, Vesta would have been left with the torturers.”

“Then perhaps it was someone who wished to distress me. I am fonder of Vesta than I should be.”

“I understand that Vesta idolizes you. She considers you and Anastasius the ideal romantic couple.”

Joannina’s eyes flashed. “Let me assure you she would not commit murder for me. Besides, Theodora’s death was the last thing I wanted. The empress championed my marriage to Anastasius. Now my mother will have free rein to put a halt to it. Vesta knows that.”

John wondered if Vesta might perhaps fantasize that she might take Joannina’s place in the handsome Anastasius’ affections if his marriage to Joannina was foiled.

Young people were prone to foolish ideas, John thought, as Joannina led him to the interior garden. It was as if by a certain age people were physically adults but had not managed to free themselves entirely from the phantasmal world of childhood. Outrageous actions might appear perfectly sensible. Then again, it was just as well young people did not yet see reality clearly. If they saw the world as it was they would never dare venture out into it but rather stay in bed with the covers pulled over their heads.

Vesta, looking very much like a child cowering beneath the covers, sat on the bench shaded by the awning beneath which he’d first spoken with her. She had twisted her thin legs around each other and wrapped her arms around herself.

She managed to untangle her limbs, none too gracefully, as John sat down.

“I–I want to thank you, Lord Chamberlain.” She gave him a fleeting smile. revealing a chip missing from the corner of one of her prominent front teeth. John did not inquire whether the injury had been deliberately inflicted or occurred by accident during her rough handling. Aside from that, and a few bruises on her face, she looked well enough.

“I don’t know anything about the herbs they claim to have found in my room,” she told John, in response to his next query. “I don’t even know what they were, excellency.”

“You sometimes delivered herbs to Antonina. You were not storing any in your room to take to her on your next visit?”

“No, Lord Chamberlain.”

“Antonina did not ask you to keep certain herbs in your room?”

Vesta shook her head. Her prominent chin might have been characterized as strong, but at present it was trembling. “No, no, I never saw those herbs, excellency. I was working here all day and when I returned to my room I was arrested. They never even showed me the herbs. I don’t believe there were any!”

John did not mention that despite her being released she was still considered the main suspect by the City Prefect.

“Herbs can be found in shops and homes all over the city. A bunch of stalks and leaves is not the same as a bottle of poison,” Vesta said. “Do you think they will leave me alone now, Lord Chamberlain? I could hardly sleep last night. I kept expecting footsteps outside my door. It’s a terrible feeling to enter your home and find strangers lying in wait for you.”

John gazed out into the brilliant sunlight illuminating the garden beyond the soft, light shade beneath the awning. “You told me you visited Antonina with your mistress’ knowledge, that Joannina hoped to reconcile with her mother and thought your assisting Antonina might help.”

Vesta nodded.

“Did your mistress ever send you with a message for her mother?”

“She did. She asked Lady Antonina to make a healing potion for the empress. Lady Antonina replied that since Theodora was a close friend, she was already doing so. And she was. Theodora was sending me to see Lady Antonina for that very reason, as I must have told you already.”

In fact, John recalled her telling him that Theodora had given her notes, that she had not known what they said, or what the packages she had brought back for Theodora contained. Had she been lying to protect herself or simply confused? If Theodora had been trusting enough to take Antonina’s potions, Antonina could have easily poisoned her to save Joannina from marriage, if thwarting the marriage was indeed her overriding desire.

“Did you notice if any potions Antonina sent had any effect on Theodora?”

The girl’s eyes flashed with anger and for an instant she truly resembled her mistress. “They made her worse, excellency. She would sleep for a short while. When she woke the pain was greater than ever.”

“Is that why you pretended to be unsure about whether Antonina had sent potions? Why you told me you didn’t know what was in the packages you delivered? Were you afraid the potions had been poisoned? That you had had an unwitting hand in it?”

“No! Not at all! When I said the pain was greater, I meant it seemed greater. The empress expected relief and none came. Nothing she took seemed to give her any real relief. The only thing that helped was when she prayed with the clergyman who visited late in the evenings. She looked more at peace after the visits.”

“Who was this clergyman?”

Vesta bit her lip, looked away, then looked back. “Oh please, Lord Chamberlain. I don’t think I am allowed to say. I believe the visits were supposed to be secret, and I don’t like to tell the secrets of the dead.”

“Why do you think they were supposed to be a secret?”

“Because he…the clergyman…wore a baggy robe with a hood pulled forward so you could hardly see his face.”

“It wasn’t Patriarch Menas?”

“No, from what I could see, his build, his height, I could tell it wasn’t the patriarch.”

“Did you recognize who it was?”

The girl looked at him pleadingly.

“Vesta, I am certain the empress would approve of you telling me if it helps me find her murderer.”

The girl looked worried. “Excellency, it won’t help you find her murderer.”

John asked her why.

“Because…because…the pope would hardly have murdered Theodora.”

John did his best to betray no sign of emotion. He prided himself on being unflappable, but this was a surprise. “Why do you say the visitor was Vigilius if you couldn’t see his face?”

Vesta nodded almost imperceptibly. “Once, when the empress was speaking, when I happened to go past the door…I wasn’t eavesdropping…she…she said something to him like ‘as head of the church’ and it shocked me, because I knew it wasn’t Menas so who else could she have addressed that way, except for the pope?”