One for Sorrow

Chapter Twenty-six

Berta smoothed the last of the kohl into her eyebrows, pursed the full lips she had reddened with wine dregs-the customers enjoyed that-and evaluated her efforts in her hand mirror. Yes, it was a passable job even if the chalk on her cheeks was a little uneven. She was almost ready for the first of the night’s visitors.

She glanced at the small urn sitting unobtrusively in the corner. It was a water clock. She smiled when she recollected that according to Madam it had once graced a Roman court of law, ensuring that representatives for both sides were given an equal but reasonable length of time for their orations. At least Berta, unlike lawyers, could guarantee her clients satisfaction by the time the water ran out.

Berta plaited her hair, thinking how much she enjoyed her life in the city. Perhaps after all her father had been correct when he had told her, as she clung sobbing to him before he left her at Madam’s house, that she would enjoy her new life.

Her thoughts turned to the raggedly dressed woman she had met in the market place. The woman was a fool to turn down the chance to save herself and her husband by working at such a fine house as Madam’s.

The whole world passed through Madam’s house. The men she met had been everywhere. Such tales they told. And the gifts they brought. Cosmetics, perfumes. Wonderful jewelry, as beautiful as anything worn by all those fine ladies she had entertained the other night.

Remembering, she reached into the inconspicuous tear in her mattress and pulled out the pendant the old man at the palace had given her. Its fine gold chain flashed enticingly in the orange lamplight. Dimmer points of light flickered within its flecked central stone like stars on a winter’s night.

She smiled as she recalled the palace celebration, how she’d danced, so gracefully, across the table. The handsome young men had all desired her-and the not so handsome old men as well. She liked being desired. It had given her an easier life than having to toil in rocky fields, or chase goats up and down the hillside, or clean out the pens of the swine, just as her father had said. Not but what she still sometimes dealt with swine.

But, as she had recently realized, the career he had chosen for her was a short one. Applying liberal dabs of perfume to her wrists, she weighed the recent offers she had received from some of her regular clients. One or two were rich men. But not young men. Still, a rich lady such as she would soon become could still enjoy her slim, young men as well as her husband, or so the other girls at Madam’s house had told her.

She put the bauble back into its hiding place. A determined look crossed her face. When the time came, she would be the one to choose her husband, not Madam.

She glanced around. All was in order. Soon she would be free of this place, she resolved, arranging cushions. But she would not make a hasty decision. It was too important. She certainly would not leave to live with Felix, even though he’d been cajoling her to marry him for weeks. She had been as plain with him about that as she could be without actually discouraging him from returning. He was too old for her.

Yes, when she married, she intended to marry into a noble family. And a wealthy one. Then she would live in a fine house in the city, and spend the hottest summer days at a beautiful villa in the countryside. Her houses would have marble floors and colorful wall mosaics and statues. There would be well tended gardens, with shady trees and flowers and many pools. She would spend her days being waited on hand and foot, with nothing to do but wear lovely clothes and jewelry. Yes, she decided, I shall wear emeralds every day. And all the rich ladies at the palace who think they are better than me will want to come to the wonderful dinners I shall give. They’ll envy me, because of my youth and my beauty.

She smiled to herself. I will never have to entertain men again, well, not unless I want to, and then they’ll be young men, muscular, smooth faced, clean. Yet still, she found herself thinking again about Felix. The big bearded captain made her smile. He was nice enough. Nicer than the fat man who had been around too often recently. Perhaps the one who called himself a knight would return. He had certainly lived up to the promise of his fiery red hair. A barbarian, to be sure. Not as cultured or, by the look of his clothes, as rich as some of her other clients, yet there was something very attractive about him

Footsteps in the hallway interrupted her musings. There was a soft knock at her door.

She filled the water clock in the corner from a jug. The liquid, less than an hour’s worth, began to drip steadily from the spout in the bottom of the urn into the holding bowl.

“Come in, my dear,” she said softly, opening the door.

***

Isis tied up the parchment scroll and affixed a wax seal. The bill of sale having been completed, she asked to speak to Felix in private. “I must take the part of Berta’s mother. The legal necessities are over but there are other things I expect of the husbands of my girls.”

John left the room. He found Darius sitting on a bench in the entrance hall. When John sat next to him, he felt dwarfed.

“Tell me, Darius, have you remembered hearing anything unusual or strange the night Leukos was found in the alley?”

“More than the usual odd noises, you mean?” Darius smiled at his feeble jest. He looked tired. “To tell you the truth, John, with Madam torturing that infernal organ night and day you can’t hear a thing. We had a party of charioteers last night. Rowdy bunch. I had to subdue a couple of them after they made disparaging remarks about my appearance. But no, as I told Madam, I heard nothing unusual.”

“And you’re sure you didn’t see Leukos here before he was found dead in the alley?”

“I’m certain. I would have-” Darius’ reply was interrupted by a shriek from upstairs. He leapt up, an erupting volcano. “Someone’s hurting one of the girls!”

He pounded for the stairs but had barely set sandal to step when a terrified, half-dressed girl flung herself downstairs into his arms. She clung to him, sobbing.

“There now, Helena.” His voice was surprisingly tender. “Show him to me and I’ll…. “

“No,” wailed the girl louder. “It’s not me. It’s Berta!”

When John reached the second floor cubicle that reeked of perfume, he saw Berta reclining languidly on her bed, her short tunic hiked up teasingly. Half leaning against the wall, she stared wide eyed, as if surprised by the girls who crowded around her doorway, whimpering and exclaiming over the discovery.

Berta could no longer be anyone’s wife.

She was dead.

John pushed through the girls in the doorway. He could see the mark of a powerful hand on Berta’s slim neck.

“Strangled,” he muttered to Darius.

Darius began to snarl a string of oaths, biting them back as Isis arrived from downstairs.

“Who would do this to one of my girls?” the madam wailed.

The room contained little, John thought as he glanced around. Little except perhaps the dreams any young girl might spin. There was a bed, its coverings rumpled. Berta had been a slight girl, obviously unable to put up much of a struggle against her attacker. On a table nearby, the wine and sweetmeats awaiting visitors were undisturbed beside a few pots of makeup and a jar of perfume. The water clock in the corner, John noted, was still nearly full. Had she filled it in anticipation of a client?

“Felix! Stay back!” Darius warned a newcomer.

The excubitor captain pushed past to stoop over the girl’s body. He was silent but tears streamed down his bearded face. He was familiar with the death of fighting men on the field of battle, but this was a much more terrible scene to contemplate.

“Mithra,” he entreated his god softly, “so you send a stealthy murderer to my lover? I wonder, would the Christian’s god be so cruel?”

“Zurvan!” Darius swore with belated caution. “Who’s guarding the front door?”

John heard him pound away, but did not follow.

There was something unnatural in Felix’s strangely calm tone, as if his lips were forming words of their own volition while his brain ignored their content.

Then he howled. It was a wolf’s howl, a battle cry, a sound of pain and fury. The girls clustered in the doorway began to scream. Some fled hysterically down the hall to their rooms.

Felix stopped, turned away from the bed, and left the room in grim-faced silence, having paused just long enough to adjust Berta’s displaced tunic to cover her decently.