Murder in Megara

Chapter Thirteen

The sun peeked into the room in shy fashion as John and Cornelia ate a frugal meal of boiled eggs accompanied by olives and stale bread, served by an apologetic and hollow-eyed Hypatia. John had ordered Peter to rest for a few hours before taking up culinary chores again, stifling the loyal servant’s protests about laziness and not carrying out his duties with a threat to increase the time he was not permitted to work.

“I’m surprised the sun dares to look in on us,” Cornelia remarked. “Who knows what dreadful event it will see happening next?” She pushed her plate away without touching her bread. “When do you expect the City Defender to speak with you again?”

“When he’s ready, which will no doubt be after constructing a theory, no matter how ramshackle, concerning why I murdered Theophilus and who my accomplices might be.”

“You have decided the intent is to blame you?”

“We cannot know what was intended by Theophilus’ murderer or the person who left that basket beside his body, or whether it was the same person in each case. However, I am expecting Georgios to prosecute me for the murder. Towns have long memories. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody remembered a rumor about how Theophilus got that scar.” John dunked his bread in his wine cup and took a bite. “At any rate I found the body, which was on my property, and I have a family connection to the victim. There are three good reasons to suspect me.”

“Not to mention the City Defender will become a hero in Megara for prosecuting you.”

“Perhaps he has designs on the provincial governorship.”

“An ambitious bumpkin. He’d wouldn’t last an hour at Justinian’s court,” Cornelia said scornfully.

John swallowed his wine-softened bread. “Oh, I think he would do very well in the capital. It’s his bad fortune he was born in the provinces. A dangerous man.”

“I hope you are wrong, John. But of course you rarely are when judging men.” She stared down at the table top and her face grew thoughtful. She might have been reading auguries from the pattern of scattered bread crumbs. “You’ll begin investigating the matter immediately?”

John was gazing outside. A light fog had begun to dissipate. Another torrid day was in the offing.

“I shall pay for Theophilus’ funeral if no one else comes forward, which seems likely. Even he deserves decent rites. Beyond that, the matter is out of my hands. I am not Lord Chamberlain now, merely an ordinary citizen. It is the job of City Defender to uphold the laws in Megara.”

“But John…” She paused, uncertain how to continue.

“And beyond that, solving this murder will almost certainly mean raking through my family’s history, I would rather not. I am tired, Cornelia, tired of digging through people’s secret lives, turning over the boulders of the past to see what they conceal. I did it when it was my duty, but it is not my duty now.”

“What about your duty to your family? We are all in danger of being caught in the nets the City Defender casts.”

“I do not see that. If necessary I will engage Anatolius to defend me, but there is absolutely nothing of legal significance linking me to the murder, let alone anyone else here. How could there be? His plan is to use the threat of prosecution to drive us away from Megara, that’s all. Remember I said I expected him to try to prosecute me, not that I expected he had any chance of success.”

“You also said he was a dangerous man.”

“I am familiar in dealing with dangerous men!”

Cornelia stared at him, speechless. Then she shook her head from side to side and gave a thin laugh. “Oh, John, a heartbeat ago you were explaining to me why you were a suspect. Now you are telling me it’s not even necessary to investigate. And there’s something else I’ve been worrying about. How do you know you weren’t the intended victim?” Her voice rose.

John stood. “Always losing your temper or asking unanswerable questions, Cornelia.” He put his hand on her shoulder and bent to kiss her furrowed brow. “Or both. Of course I had thought of that possibility.”

“Goddess! You appear remarkably unconcerned,” she snapped back.

“I didn’t want you to worry. We’ll talk about it later today. Now I have retired from my official duties-”

“An involuntary retirement!”

“Indeed. But an estate owner must direct his men as to the tasks to be undertaken and the sun tells me I am already late in attending to that. You wanted me to be a farmer. That’s what I am now. You should be pleased.”

As he turned his back to leave Cornelia picked up her uneaten bread. Rather than throwing it at him she dunked it in her wine and forced a mouthful down.

***

The day became as hot as the morning sun had promised. Cornelia uncrated a set of silver dishes and pondered whether she and John should begin using the triclinium for their meals. Situated on the ground floor, it was more convenient to the kitchen. Hypatia would not have to carry plates of food up the stairs.

She went to look over the triclinium where the crudely rendered waterfall in one corner caught her attention. It’s as if we were logs in a river, helplessly carried toward destruction, and about to go over a raging torrent like that, she thought. Helpless and nobody willing to throw a rope to rescue us. Nor wanting to, which was even worse.

Then she began to notice the satyrs hiding in the painted bushes, and the peculiar, childish drawings of stranger beings apparently added to the wall murals more recently. They made her uneasy, even in the daylight. Was there a story behind them?

She went across the courtyard and to keep busy began to check the amphorae of oil stored for market. Most were empty. The bundle of vegetation Hypatia had tied together was still hanging into the amphora in which the dead mouse had been found. What was it Hypatia had said she had used, coriander?

She began to consider what needed to be purchased in the market for the week, although she wasn’t certain how the trip into Megara could be made safely. Corinth was less than a day’s journey. Would it be better to take a wagon there for supplies, a larger city where no one would pay any attention to a few strange faces? Or perhaps Athens, just a bit farther?

Perspiration ran down her sides, tickling her ribs. Suddenly she decided she needed to bathe. It wasn’t just her sodden clothes or the gritty dust from the courtyard that had stuck to her. It was everything that had happened recently. The hatred of the city. Murder. The City Defender barging into their home, poking into every corner.

The bath was on the ground floor. In contrast to the triclinium its mosaics featured a city scene which gave the user the impression of bathing in a public fountain in a forum. Perhaps the artisans who had decorated this country house had indulged their senses of humor at the expense, in both senses of the word, of the owner.

The hypocaust was not working, but on a day like this tepid water would be a relief. She left her clothes in the cramped vestibule and went down the steps into the pool. It was not large, but larger than the one in John’s city house. The dome overhead was blue but sooty from lamps that burned in wall niches during the evenings. She couldn’t tell whether the vague white shapes flying in the mosaic overhead were intended to represent clouds or angels.

Angels, she eventually decided, given a domed church dominated one side of an open square, just as the Great Church loomed over the vast plaza of the Augustaion near the imperial palace in Constantinople. There was even a stylite on a column, getting a clear view down into the bath, along with numerous classical Greek statues, marble sculptures rendered in miniature with tesserae.

Cornelia sluiced herself down and pushed dripping hair away from her face. As she stretched out her arms, letting the air play luxuriously over her wet body, she noticed several carefully detailed pedestrians facing in her direction.

“Go ahead, don’t bother moving. Stand there and stare if you must. I don’t care. On a day like this I’d happily bathe in the Hippodrome on race day if I could feel cool!”

She reached up and toward the dome and writhed sensuously, a move from long ago days when she’d danced after leaping from bulls for a living. “There, are you happy or would you like more?”

“More, definitely,” came a voice from the doorway.

“John! How long have you been standing there?”

“Hardly an instant!” He marched naked into the room and down into the water. “Before you say anything, Cornelia, yes, I will investigate this wretched matter. Now let’s say nothing more about it and just sit together for a while and enjoy the scenery!”