One for Sorrow

Chapter Twenty-nine

Elsewhere in the storm-shrouded city others had gathered to consult a different sort of oracle.

The cramped palace room was as gloomy as the night outside, one of the indistinct figures squatting in the semi-darkness tended to a partially covered lantern. Acrid smoke from the almost extinguished flame filled the air. The feeble light died at the edges of the darkness in the corners, glimmered on the white of an eye, a moist lip, and cast a sheen on the water in a large bowl.

Justinian’s young page Hektor sat beside the brimming bowl, a frown on his powdered face.

“Why didn’t you get a chicken? Too scared in case it pecked you?” one of the boys jeered.

“A cook caught me trying to steal one,” Hektor replied. “Slapped me too, but he’ll regret it.”

“What did you do? Spit in his soup pot?”

“Better than that. I went back when he wasn’t looking and stuck a dead mouse in the pan of lentils he was cooking. A word in the right ear-and I’m the one to do it-and Justinian will hear about it and the cook will find himself without a head. We all know how much the imperial pair are terrified of being poisoned, and who’s to say the mouse was not poisoned first and kept handy until needed?”

The story was met by laughter from the assembled pages.

“Does a cook with its head cut off run around like a chicken with its head cut off?” someone wondered.

Clucking noises emanated from the semi-darkness.

“Shhhh,” Hektor cautioned. “Is there anyone in the hall?”

He listened until the rushing of blood in his ears seemed loud enough to drown out any other sound.

“What’s the water for?” asked Hektor’s interrogator, in a whisper this time. “Going to wash your feet? Smells like they need it!”

“It’s to tell your future, Tarquin.”

“Without a chicken to sacrifice?”

“Forget about chickens! Now, sit in front of the bowl. You have to stir it with your finger, and then I’ll interpret what the currents say. But you have to keep absolutely still or it won’t work. The rest of you, hold Tarquin tight and don’t let go until I say you can.” He paused and glanced around the ring of shadowed faces. “Otherwise demons will appear and carry you all off!”

The pages huddled around Tarquin. They were still in the heavy make-up they wore while gracing the court, but aside from that they were entirely naked. It was obvious they were no more than children.

Hektor snickered, a sound that caused more than one boy to flinch. They had all suffered at one time or another in Hektor’s hands. None of them would have changed places with Tarquin.

“Stir the water,” Hektor ordered. “What are you waiting for?”

“You’re jealous because the Master of the Offices prefers me,” Tarquin riposted. His kohl-outlined eyes glittered. “Anyhow, it’s not the right way to read fortunes. You have to have chicken guts. Everybody knows that!”

“Oh? You heard about the fortune-teller reading them for the empress at her celebration? Well, I was there, and it didn’t impress me,” Hektor sneered. “This way is much more accurate.”

“What did he tell the empress, if you really were there?”

“Tell us, Hektor,” another boy piped up.

“I don’t dare repeat it. It’s too horrible. A terrible fate. Stop wasting time, Tarquin. Stir the water. Or are you scared?”

Tarquin stared down into the bowl. “You’re not going to tell my future. You’re only going to make up a lie.”

“Swear on the True Cross, I’d never do such a thing.” Hektor made the Christian sign. He wished he’d managed to steal the chicken. Crucifying it might be an enlightening experience.

Tarquin must have seen the wild look that crept into Hektor’s eyes because he emitted a whimper and lowered his hand toward the bowl.

“Hold him tight,” Hektor said.

Tarquin stirred the water with a grubby forefinger.

“Ah, my pretty boy,” Hektor leered in what was supposed to be a basso profundo as he looked into the bowl. “Do you see that?”

“What? Where?”

“Here, you fool!” Hektor grabbed Tarquin by the back of the neck and pushed his face into the bowl. “Keep hold of him, or you’ll get the same!” he ordered the others. One boy sobbed.

“You baby!” Hektor said, pushing the struggling Tarquin’s face deeper into the water.

“You’ll drown him!”

“He won’t be much loss, and in that case his future was certainly shown in the water!” Hektor laughed and yanked Tarquin’s head up out of the bowl. “A little more fortune telling, Tarquin?”

Before his dazed victim could splutter in reply Hektor pushed his head back under the water.

One of the boys jumped up, preparing to run. “Stay there,” Hektor commanded. “Don’t alert the guards.”

The boy dropped back down, leaned over, and vomited where he sat.

Tarquin was allowed to emerge into air again.

“And now for your future,” Hektor intoned. “By Jupiter and Cybele and the Emperor of the Toads. By the left arm of John the Baptist and the talisman of all healing, in the names of Justinian and Our Lord Jesus Christ, show us what fate waits for the boy Tarquin!”

Hektor stared into the slowly settling water.

He suddenly felt lightheaded. The floor appeared to be tilting. Perhaps there was something in this soothsaying business, he thought in horror. Perhaps one of those fearsome entities he’d invoked had actually heard him and responded. His heart leapt in sudden panic.

The naked boys looked afraid, startled eyes wide in their garishly rouged faces.

“More light!” Hektor demanded of the lantern tender.

He peered down at the bowl. The eddies squirmed like living things. Surely it must be an effect of the smoke-induced tears welling in his eyes?

“What do you see?”

“Go on, you can’t see nothing in a bowl of water!”

“Be quiet!” Hektor’ voice quavered. “It’s like listening to thunder to tell the future. Look there, see, waves.”

He became aware of a powerful presence. Someone or something was looking down at him from a great height. He hadn’t meant any harm. It had all been a joke. He hadn’t even remembered exactly what the old soothsayer had chanted. Or had he? The uneasy feeling that he was being watched grew stronger. The currents in the water formed shapes. There, a face…a familiar face…it was…no…it couldn’t be…and yet…it was….

“Hektor!”

He leapt up wildly at the sound of his name. Startled boys scattered, screaming.

A hand grabbed Hektor’s bare shoulder and spun him around.

Hektor gasped. He was looking up into the scowling face of the Lord Chamberlain who, without benefit of chicken entrails or thunder, well knew the destiny of pretty powdered boys who grew into manhood, but was too kind to reveal it.