One for Sorrow

Chapter Eleven

As Keeper of the Plate, Leukos had performed his business in a more austere setting than Isis conducted hers. The palace’s administrative complex occupied a drab labyrinth of plaster-walled corridors and rooms decorated only with the occasional cross.

John had preferred meeting Leukos outside the keeper’s offices and now, as he made his way toward them, it was if he were walking back into his own past. He could hear his boots on the tiles. Footsteps in the halls of bureaucracy echo as hollowly as in a tomb.

The guards at the entrance stepped aside at John’s approach. Passing between them he entered a familiar open area scattered with desks and tables. The late afternoon sunlight slanting through barred windows striped the room with shadows as it had years ago. At the back the massive bronze door to the windowless storage vaults stood open. The air smelled of the vinegar that was mixed with clay to remove tarnish from silver. It completed the illusion that he had traveled back in time.

John spotted a round-shouldered, middle-aged man standing by a long table at which boys and young men were polishing wine jugs. Any of the young men might have been himself. The man was checking off items on a tablet. He suddenly whipped his stylus against an apprentice’s ear.

“Put some effort into it! Do you think the emperor’s putting a roof over your head so you can admire your reflection in his silver?”

The voice brought back more memories. John’s lips tightened and he felt heat rise in his face. He had spent his first years in imperial service counting and polishing a vast array of plate. He had polished so many goblets that wine from one always tasted more bitter than wine from a ceramic cup. And he had frequently been mistreated by the man before him.

“Xiphias!” John snapped at the man who had just cuffed another apprentice.

Xiphias turned. His eyes widened. “Lord Chamberlain.” He sounded as if he might choke on John’s title. His narrow face made him resemble a rat, John thought.

“You will answer some questions,” John said. He saw the apprentices sneaking smirks at one another as their obviously flustered master gestured them away.

“Excellency?” Xiphias’ voice shook.

John noticed the clerks hunched at their desks raising their heads from their work to glance in his direction.

“We’ll speak in the treasury,” he told Xiphias and led him back past the bronze door.

There was no one there. The two men were alone with wealth possessed by few but kings and emperors. The shelves were crowded with tableware manufactured of precious metals, much featuring incised designs of religious importance, as well as sacred vessels and other gifts to the emperor from visiting dignitaries-huge meat platters boasting gem-studded covers, silver lamps decorated with engraved scrolls of flowers, gold goblets almost too heavy to lift with one hand.

And there were many other vaults beyond this one.

“How can I help you, excellency?” The corner of Xiphias’ mouth twitched uncontrollably. He was only head clerk and John held much higher office. Knowing how he would take revenge had the situations been reversed, Xiphias expected no better from John.

He had been one of John’s chief tormenters, ordering him about with blows and sneers of “eunuch!” although never when Leukos was within earshot. His chief ambition, as he often boasted to his fellow clerks, was to become head clerk and, who knew, perhaps Keeper of the Plate and after that Master of the Offices. Now his hair was touched with gray and he had achieved only his first modest goal.

“Coming here brings back memories,” John said. “I should return more often. Although since the Keeper of the Plate is gone-”

“A terrible tragedy.”

“As a man of such feeling I am surprised you can manage to work today.”

“We must keep to our duties, excellency.”

John picked up a delicate filigree fruit basket of beaten gold and turned it over in his hands, admiring the workmanship. “Leukos used to say the gold is worth nothing, the craftsman is the treasure.”

“Very true, excellency.”

“A wise man, was Leukos. And kind. He used to summon me here to speak quite often, as you no doubt recall.”

Xiphias’ tic was pulling his mouth continually up into what might have passed for a lopsided smile, but he was not smiling.

John reflected that had Leukos been a harsher master he would have had the hasty-tempered young slave John had been in those days flogged four times a week. Leukos had only sighed when another complaint about John fighting with his fellow workers came to his ears.

“John,” he had said. “You must control your humors. You are the most intelligent man in my employ and I expect you will go far. Remember that while your body is not your own, your mind and soul remain your possessions. Control your anger, and in due course I shall not be ashamed to say I gave you your opportunity to become something more than one of my assistants.”

It was excellent advice. John ultimately saw its wisdom. He was grateful to the Keeper of the Plate for his patience with one who was, after all, merely an imperial possession. When, afterwards, they became friends, John wondered if Leukos’ kindly nature was natural to him or sprang from his devout Christianity.

Not every worker in Leukos’ employ had been grateful for the master’s considerate treatment.

“Xiphias, tell me about the traveler from Bretania who met with Leukos the day before yesterday.”

A look of near panic washed over Xiphias’ features. “I….I don’t remember a visitor….”

“A burly redheaded man. He claims to be a knight.”

“I did not see such a man, excellency.”

Xiphias’ evident terror at not being able to give the desired answer convinced John that the man was telling the truth. Had Thomas lied? Then again, Xiphias might simply have missed seeing Thomas when he arrived to see Leukos.

“Did Leukos mention anything about expecting a visitor?”

“No, excellency.”

“Did he seem himself the past few days? Did he appear preoccupied? Worried?”

“Not at all.”

“I can see you are not going to be able to help me.” Or not willing to help? John asked himself.

He questioned the clerks, but no one had seen Leukos’ exotic visitor. They had not necessarily been at their desks or at work at the time he arrived.

Xiphias looked relieved at not being contradicted.

“I will be back,” John said. “Continue considering my questions.”

Halfway down the corridor, John regretted his final words. He heard Xiphias taking out his chagrin on his workers.

“Thought it humorous, the eunuch’s visit, did you? I’ll teach you!” His words were accompanied by the thud of heavy blows. John wondered whether they were administered with the aid of Xiphias’ favorite weapon, a heavy wine jug presented to the imperial couple by a bishop from Antioch. More than once he had had the task of cleaning it after it had been used to belabor his head. The gems embedded in its sides had hurt.

John paused in mid stride, his anger rising, then hesitated, hearing again Leukos’ advice years before.

“Yes, Leukos, you are right,” he muttered. “I must not allow losing my temper to distract me from finding your murderer.”