Murder in Megara

Chapter Twenty-six

Hypatia was talking with Philip yet again.

From her bedroom window Cornelia could see them standing where the dirt track behind the house passed through a sagging gate in a ruined fence. Hypatia’s basket was full of the herbs she had gathered. Perhaps she was talking to Philip about the herb bed she intended to start, a larger version of the one she had cultivated in the inner garden of John’s house in Constantinople, rather than meeting Philip by arrangement.

At least that was what Cornelia hoped.

Philip was supposed to be patrolling the boundaries of the estate and yet he invariably appeared to meet Hypatia whenever she went out.

Hypatia turned away and continued down the path. Philip followed, gesturing, saying something Cornelia couldn’t hear.

Cornelia pulled herself away from the window, feeling guilty and chagrined at feeling guilty. She certainly had the right to know how her servants were behaving, particularly when it might lead to disruptions in the household. Nevertheless, what she could only admit was spying made her uncomfortable.

She caught the mummified cat staring at her.

“No, Cheops,” she muttered. “No matter how isolated we are here I refuse to start talking to you.”

She went downstairs to the kitchen still contemplating the problem. She could, and probably should, order Hypatia not to spend time with Philip, or ask John to change the young man’s duties. It wouldn’t do to have their only two servants quarreling.

Traveling around the empire as a performer in a troupe had not prepared Cornelia to serve as mistress of a wealthy household, and neither had her years sharing John’s spartan life in the capital where his only servants had been, just as here, Peter and Hypatia.

They were more like family than servants.

Hypatia came in and set her basket down. It looked heavy. She’d dug up herbs by the roots for planting. Her cheeks were red from the exertion of carrying the basket, or from anger or some other strong emotion.

“Are you and Peter…?” Cornelia paused, groping for words that would not seem offensive.

“He’s only a little bruised and scratched and my bump is getting smaller.” Hypatia gingerly touched her head.

“I didn’t mean that. I meant are you…well, it’s been hard for all of us coming here. A big change. And you and Peter have already had a big change in your lives.”

Hypatia bent and settled some plants threatening to fall out of the basket more securely. The mixed scents of the herbs and fresh earth filled the air. “We’re happy, mistress.”

“Sit down, Hypatia. I want to talk with you.”

***

“Certainly I have time to talk to you, Peter. I hope our conversation the other night was helpful.” Abbot Alexis pushed a stack of codices out of the way and regarded Peter, seated on the opposite side of the table in the monastery study. “You remain fretful about this marriage of yours to a younger woman. Is that so?”

Peter nodded

“Are you familiar with the teachings of the apostle Paul?”

“Yes. In fact I have a special fondness for him.” Peter reached into the neck of his tunic and fished out a small, crude coin attached to a string. “I have taken to wearing this lucky coin around my neck. We need protection here. The coin is from Derbe. I found it along the way when I was serving in the military. I know that it sounds blasphemous to say it is a good luck charm, but Paul preached in Derbe and sometimes I think perhaps it fell from Paul’s own purse, or he may have sat to rest near where it was dropped, and that something of his spirit remains in it. But that isn’t what I came to talk about.”

Peter chided himself silently, exasperated. Why had he babbled about his coin? Was he too nervous and upset to control his tongue? Or was that another ability one gradually lost with old age?

Thankfully the abbot did not appear offended. In fact he smiled. “An portable icon one might say. There is nothing blasphemous about icons. We know that although the saints are everywhere they are most strongly where their icons are displayed.”

Peter turned the worn coin over thoughtfully before tucking it back into place. “My belief is not wrong then?”

“Not at all. Who knows what, exactly, the truth is? So long as we are making an honest effort to find it, where is the harm? The pagans I studied had their own icons, which they called idols. Yes, they were wrong. But they were trying to find the truth. Just as you are.”

Peter wasn’t certain it was necessarily a good thing to be compared to ancient pagans.

“You must be aware that Paul recommended marriage to those with less fortitude than himself,” the abbot said. “Better to marry than to burn.”

Peter felt his face getting hot. “Yes, but, that wasn’t…well…” What could he say? At his age he didn’t burn. There might still be a warm coal buried under the ashes in the brazier.

“You don’t need to be embarrassed, Peter.” The abbot went on to talk at length, citing scripture and the teachings of the church fathers.

By the time Peter left the study he was relieved to escape the torrent of learning. He had felt a need for spiritual assistance but had come away mostly with a feeling of mortification at his own weakness. What went on between Hypatia and him was no one’s business but theirs. Not even a clergyman’s. What had he been thinking coming here?

“Peter. Back to visit us.”

For an instant he didn’t recognize the young monk who spoke, then he realized it was his rescuer. “Stephen. Yes, I was speaking with your abbot.”

“Or rather he was speaking.”

“True enough. How did you know?”

“I’ve seen enough visitors emerge from that study looking as if they’ve been beaten about the ears. He’s a fine man, is our abbot, but his scholarship is boundless.”

They went into the sunshine, Stephen leading Peter to the monastery herb garden, the sort of garden Hypatia talked about planting, Peter remembered with a pang. Their voices, which had sounded so loud in the narrow, dim hallway, were suddenly quieter in the open landscape, under the high dome of the sky. Bees hummed, gulls cried, occasionally there came the sharp clang of a hammer from the direction of the blacksmith’s forge.

“I brought you here because I would like to talk to you in private, Peter. Has any progress been made in finding that poor soul’s murderer?”

Peter told him there had not been, so far as he knew.

“What does your master say? Does he suspect anyone?”

“The master would not confide such matters to me, Stephen.”

“He’s been investigating, hasn’t he? I’ve heard he had a great reputation for solving crimes for the emperor.”

Peter agreed, without offering more information on that matter.

While they walked through the garden, Stephen inspected the plantings, each variety confined to its own square plot. “We use a lot of these in the hospice. Abbot Alexis encourages our efforts and they provide much comfort to all. He is so caught up in his studies I sometimes doubt if he’d recognize any of our residents if he met one in the halls. Not that they should be wandering away from the hospice, though it has happened now and then.”

He paused and pointed out an aromatic shrub bearing light purple flowers. “Dew of the sea. A beautiful name for a beautiful herb. Strengthens the failing memory, you know. Yes,” he continued, “I once discovered an old fellow drawing with a pilfered kalamos on a page torn from one the abbot’s valuable old codices. He must have found his way into the study and stolen it along with the kalamos. A messy palimpsest that made!”

Peter murmured it was a shame anyone would steal from an abbot, not certain what Stephen was trying to tell him.

“My point,” Stephen said as if he had asked that very question, “is that Abbot Alexis is not perhaps the best person from whom to seek advice on worldly matters. Not that he isn’t a fine man, but oftentimes his thoughts fly nearer to the angels than to us earthly beings.”

“You know I’ve been seeking advice?”

“Don’t be embarrassed, Peter. I may be much younger than you but like the abbot I am a man of God and am here to serve all in such ways as can be done.”

“And what would you advise?” Peter asked reluctantly, since it had become obvious he was going to be given advice whether he wanted it or not. It occurred to him Stephen’s personal solution to worldly entanglements may have been to avoid them by entering holy orders.

“You know what the scriptures say, Peter. The wife is bound to obey her husband. It is up to you to instruct her, and it is up to her to follow your instructions.”

Peter murmured a reluctant assent. He was not comfortable giving orders, especially to Hypatia.

“And just as importantly,” Stephen continued. “You must pray to the Lord together.”

***

“You may go now, Hypatia.” Cornelia finally said.

The conversation had been brief and awkward. Cornelia had done her best to indicate her concern to Hypatia, stressing that her private life was considered such but that a certain standard of behavior was expected.

“Thank you for speaking with me, mistress,” Hypatia told her. “I will take your advice and pray to my goddess.”