Five for Silver

Chapter Twenty-Nine

In a cellar hidden at the end of a labyrinth of underground storerooms situated in a remote part of the palace grounds, flickering torchlight gave intermittent life to the sacred scene gracing the wall behind the altar of a mithraeum.

John looked up at it. The familiar depiction of Mithra, Lord of Light, slaying the sacred bull had always been a comfort in times of darkness, but now it merely served to remind him that death was everywhere and none were safe.

He bowed his head, wordlessly pleading again with his god for some revelation, some explanation, of why Cornelia had been taken while he was left behind. He felt numb, as if he had imbibed a poppy potion. Cornelia’s loss was a deep pain felt to the bone and yet seemed far away, shrouded in mist, and hidden from view.

Tears welled as he offered a despairing prayer to Mithra.

“Lord of Light, I have always served you faithfully. I ask no intervention for my sake, but for Cornelia’s, grant I will find her so I can perform the proper rites…” His petition trailed off incoherently.

Staring up at the bas relief he sought a sign, any sign, that his plea would be granted.

The carved figures remained obdurate, unchanged, and silent.

***

“I’m certain they were the travelers you seek. How could anyone forget a trio like that?”

The innkeeper, who introduced himself as Stephanos, stood a pace or two from the doorway of his hostelry, which is to say in the road itself. Very short and very broad of build, his hair, face, and clothing were the same gray as the dust-coated facade of his dilapidated building.

“They put on several performances in the courtyard. Quite comical, they were too, although I will say the red-haired fellow didn’t look very comfortable playing the part of the bull.”

“You have paid their fee?”

“Of course!”

“And the older woman who stayed behind?”

“She’s not here, excellency. Where she went, I cannot tell you.”

An ox-cart piled with household goods rumbled along the road. The hunched driver stared straight ahead over the fly-speckled back of his ox, not acknowledging the two men in front of the inn. As the cart passed John could see blackened swellings on the driver’s arms.

A fog of dust billowed from beneath the cart wheels. John tasted grit.

“I have a small bath-house,” Stephanos offered. “I’ll have my servant stable your horse, if you wish to stop to rest or refresh yourself.”

John shook his head. If he rested, he would never rise. Thanking Stephanos, he remounted and continued.

There wasn’t a muscle in his body that didn’t ache from the long ride. He could feel every rut in the road as clearly as if he had been trudging barefoot along it.

The realization came to him that he had not dared to rest in all the years since he had arrived in Constantinople. Part of him longed for death. Another part, the part who was a follower of Mithra, knew that every day he awoke he had dealt another defeat to the Persians who had captured and mutilated him, destroying the future he might have had.

By the time he had made his way from the mithraeum to the city docks his dark despair had turned to blinding rage. He had hardly noticed the deep waters beneath the prow of the boat he engaged to take him to the Asian shore.

Once on the road he stopped at every inn along the way, in case Cornelia had tried to complete her journey to Constantinople, but found herself unable to proceed.

Proprietors cowered under interrogation from the fiery-eyed palace official.

None had seen her.

Now his anger had drained away. He was no longer certain why he had undertaken the journey.

Had he expected a miracle?

How could he have hoped to find her? Cornelia knew John, knew he would come after her if he discovered the true situation. Of course she wouldn’t have stayed at the inn where Thomas and Europa had left her. If she had wanted John to see her die she would have come to Constantinople with them.

Days had passed. By now Cornelia would be dead.

Perhaps John should not be questioning innkeepers, but rather whoever buried those victims who had no families to do so.

He came to a roadside column, most likely the one once occupied by the stylite after whom Stephanos had named his inn. The perch was not very impressive. Made of eroded granite, it was twice John’s height. Only a few rusted stubs around the edge of its platform remained of what had once been an iron railing.

There was no reason to go on, he realized. What chance did he have of finding Cornelia?

He was needed at his house.

He had better return as soon as he could.

As he coaxed his horse around, a flash of red caught his eye.

A short, bushy pomegranate, lancet leaves interspersed with scarlet blooms, was growing just behind the deserted column.

John’s chest tightened.

He did not know plants. Not even the ones in his own garden. He only recognized it as a pomegranate because he and Cornelia had spent an afternoon in the shade of one such, lying in the grass sampling its fruit, talking about a life that would never be.

John climbed down from his mount.

In the shadow of the column where a Christian holy man had once stood, John opened his wineskin and poured an offering around the tree sacred to the goddess Cornelia had worshipped. He offered a prayer for Cornelia, thanked Mithra for the opportunity to do so, and rode back toward Constantinople.

***

With his gaze turned homeward, John’s thoughts again centered on Peter and his murdered friend. Considering the puzzle helped push aside the dark cloud of John’s bereavement for a little while.

What had Peter’s angel said? “Gregory. Murder. Justice.”

He would never find Cornelia now, but perhaps he could still find the justice Peter desired.

Reviewing the events of the past few days and his attempts to form a coherent pattern from disparate scraps of information, John recalled his brief conversation with the bear trainers near the Hippodrome, and his subsequent musings about mythological beings.

Neptune’s horses.

The thought persisted and grew stronger.

There was something important, a pointer to the solution, involving Neptune’s horses.

Very well then, examine the conundrum logically, he thought.

Neptune was the god of the sea.

Nereus was named after a sea god.

Triton the same.

The sea.

A connection with the sea.

A link with horses.

Neptune’s horses, beautiful animals with flowing, golden manes and gleaming bronze hooves, pulling the god’s chariot over the surface of the sea.

Yet the thoughts passing rapidly through his mind made no sense, didn’t immediately suggest anything that would lead to a leap of deduction, launch him into the darkness with the certainty that his boots would find a firm surface on which to land.

If he could but apply the whip to his flagging imagination, he would have the solution in his grasp. He knew that to be the case as certainly as he knew his own name.

But the only thing that he could think of right now was that there was, in fact, one witness to Nereus’ will with whom John had not spoken.

The servant Cador.

It was true that Anatolius had conducted an interview with Cador, and in doing so had discovered that Prudentius was Nereus’ lawyer.

Was it possible Cador had other useful information?

John decided he would add a few more hours to his journey and visit Nereus’ country estate on his way back to the city.

***

By the time John arrived at the departed shipper’s estate, the lowering sun cast a pale yellow light across the landscape, lending it the appearance of an ancient mosaic sorely in need of cleaning.

From Anatolius’ description John recognized the muscular man shifting crates in front of the villa.

“Cador?” John proceeded to introduce himself and explain the purpose of his visit. He had to speak loudly to make himself heard over the noise of hammering coming from inside the building. “If we could perhaps talk in private, somewhere quieter?”

“We can step into the kitchen garden if you wish, sir,” Cador replied with a keen look at his visitor.

He led John around behind the house. “We’re crating up the master’s belongings. The estate and its contents are to be sold and the money donated to the church.”

The kitchen garden was yellowed from lack of watering. Cador strode to its far end, where a bull grazed in a pen.

As they approached, the animal greeted them with a loud bellow.

Cador looked admiringly at the animal. “He is a handsome specimen, isn’t he?”

“He certainly is, Cador.”

During his ride to Nereus’ estate, John had gone over the questions he intended to ask Cador, attempting without success to identify some stone he’d not already turned over during his interrogations of the other witnesses. No new line of inquiry had occurred to him.

He therefore concluded he would have to ask his usual questions about the will and its witnesses and hope Fortuna might finally favor him. He sighed and gazed at Apis. “Have any arrangements been made for the bull?”

Cador did not reply, continuing to stare at Apis with a smile on his lips.

John repeated his question.

Still the man did not respond.

John took a step backward and spoke the other’s name authoritatively, demanding an immediate answer.

There was no response.

John placed his hand on Cador’s shoulder. The man turned and looked expectantly into John’s face.

“You are cannot hear, can you?” John said.

***

Darkness fell as John questioned Cador further.

No new revelations were forthcoming. Sylvanus brought wine out to them and departed after greeting John and directing a few fond words at his bovine charge.

“I’m sorry I have nothing useful to tell you, sir. Most people don’t realize I cannot hear because I can follow their words by their lip movements. If they happen to notice me apparently rudely staring at them, a few get aggravated until they grasp why I must do it. On the other hand, some people will get angry no matter what you do.”

“Anatolius mentioned you were from Bretania. I imagine you had difficulty learning to interpret Greek since it is not your native tongue?”

“It took more than a little time. The master was never impatient. There were those who laughed at him because of his great interest in oracles, and though he will never admit it, Sylvanus more than once got into fisticuffs with the other servants, although he never told the master why he had been fighting. Some would have dismissed him immediately, but not Nereus. He treated us all very well. He had a kind heart, sir, and did not deserve to have such an ungrateful son.”

“Indeed. You mentioned all of Nereus’ possessions are to be sold. Is Prudentius handling that?”

Cador looked puzzled. John wondered if he were having trouble reading his lips in the dim torchlight flickering into the garden from the kitchen windows.

“Is Prudentius, his lawyer, handling the sale of your master’s possessions?” John tried to form the words clearly.

“Oh, no, sir. Prudentius is not the master’s lawyer. He employed a young fellow with offices not far from the Great Palace.”

“I understood that you had delivered a missive to Prudentius.”

“That’s true, sir. I don’t know what it was about. After Nereus and his steward died, it was my duty to do what I could to put the master’s affairs in order, so I did what I’d seen Calligenes doing, sorted through the papers on his desk, put aside bills waiting to be paid, that type of thing. There was a letter addressed to Prudentius, so I delivered it when I took a number of other missives here and there.”

John stared into Apis’ pen.

The bull lay in the shadows, a darker shape identifiable by the odor of dung and hay.

John wasn’t looking at Apis.

It was Prudentius he saw, sitting at his ornate office table, explaining to John the law of wills.

A person who could not hear was among those legally barred from serving as a witness to a will.

Nereus’ oral will was therefore invalid.