One for Sorrow

Chapter Twenty-one

Leukos’ funeral was a simple affair. The Keeper of the Plate had no known family, a thing not unusual in Constantinople where the ambitious, not to mention the desperate, arrived alone from all corners of the empire, intent on making new lives for themselves. His servants had prepared his body for burial. Now Leukos lay on the couch in a room off his atrium for the short time it took for his few acquaintances to pay their last respects. Light from the lamps illuminating the shuttered room danced across the dead man’s rigid features.

John was grateful that none of the mourners engaged in commonplace histrionics. There was no hair-pulling or breast-beating. Christians, John understood, did not favor crass emotional displays. He credited them for that. Waiting in the hall, he found the incense infusing the air with the promise of Paradise made his eyes and the back of his throat burn.

The puzzle of his friend’s death would not leave John’s thoughts. The prefect seemingly had dismissed the murder as a common street killing, unlikely to be solved. Though he knew it was irrational, John could not bring himself to accept that. So, while feeling it might be seen as disrespectful under the circumstances, he nevertheless sought out the young woman who had been in charge of Leukos’ handful of servants.

Euphemia, barefoot and dressed in a short tunic, looked up at John with fear in her large brown eyes when he requested her to accompany him to another room.

“I washed him with water mixed with spices,” she told John anxiously. “And then we anointed him with perfumes. Poor master, he never wore perfume when he was alive.”

The Lord Chamberlain, realizing that even in one of his less opulent robes he would be an impressive and awe-inspiring sight to a servant, tried to reassure her. “I’m certain you’ve done everything correctly. I only want to ask you some questions.”

He motioned her to a stool. He noticed that the water clock sitting in the wall niche had run dry. Euphemia must have followed his glance.

“Sir, I’m sorry, I forgot to fill it.” Her voice trembled. “We didn’t need them in the country. We had the sun there. Not so many walls pressing in on us.”

“You are from Caria?” John had recognized her accent. The girl nodded. There was an unhealthy pallor to her face. “And what will you do now that your master is dead? Return?”

“Oh yes, sir, as soon as I can go without disrespect to the master. Constantinople isn’t for me. So big and dirty, if you’ll excuse my saying so, sir.”

“I am from the country myself.”

“But you have achieved great office, just like the master.”

From the atrium came the sound of hushed voices, and a faint odor of perfume. Euphemia looked down at her clasped hands.

“Tell me, now. Did you see anything unusual recently? Did your master say anything to you?”

She shook her head. “It isn’t for a master to confide in his servants, is it?”

“They occasionally do.”

“Oh, no, sir, not my master.”

“Do you think he had something to confide?”

She looked at him questioningly. Again, anxiety shadowed her eyes.

“I just wondered why you mentioned confiding,” John said.

“No, there was nothing. We were not…friends.”

“I didn’t mean that. Did he seem agitated at all recently? Was there anything odd about his actions?”

She shook her head.

“Did Leukos have visitors?”

“No, sir. Never. Sometimes he went out in the evening.” Agitated, the girl rose and went to the window, open to a garden where a few spring flowers were beginning to bloom. She turned her face toward their scent and breathed deeply.

“Do you know where he went?”

The girl shook her head again.

“Might he have been going to the baths?”

“Well, I could tell when he’d visited the baths.” John looked at the girl quizzically. “He always used the gymnasium too. He was so pale,” she explained, “and when he got back he was still flushed, right up to the top of his head.”

John considered this insight into his friend’s life. Leukos had never mentioned any evening activities to him. Of course, there was no reason why he should. But one would have expected, at least on occasion, to be regaled with a description of a visit to the theater or of a particularly lively dinner party. There again, Leukos had been unmarried and his destinations may have been the sort a scrupulous man does not reveal. There was nothing wrong with that.

“And you are sure he had no visitors?”

“Yes Except…” Euphemia turned from the window. “Well, it wasn’t like real visitors, but a few times a man would come to the door.”

“Did you see this man?”

“I don’t mean any particular man. Different men. They seemed soldierly somehow, but not dressed that way, exactly. It was something about the way they moved. You have something of that yourself, sir, if I may say so.”

“They did not stay?”

“No. They just brought him things. A bag, or a scroll, or whatever it might be.”

John thought of the charioteer Gregorius, who habitually wore the dress of his profession, either from habit or boastfulness. “You said these visitors reminded you of soldiers, but they weren’t dressed in a military fashion. Were they dressed like charioteers?”

Euphemia screwed up her face in concentration, or was it distress? A tear ran from one eye and she put a fist up to her mouth.

“Oh, I don’t know, sir. I can’t remember.”

“Did he go out on those nights?” John said gently.

“Sometimes.” The girl folded her face into a frown. Her hands, held at her sides, balled into fists. “It’s all so complicated in this dirty city,” she finally blurted out. “All comings and goings in the night and nobody saying what they mean and dark alleyways and who knows what hiding in them. It isn’t what I thought. I thought it would be so grand and all. And mice. There are so many nasty mice.” She shuddered.

“But surely there are mice in the country?” John’s voice was gentle.

“Oh, but sir, they’re country mice.”