Nine for the Devil

Chapter Nineteen

Peter was awakened by the banging of a door.

He turned his head to look at the window. Movement was difficult. His skull seemed to weigh as much as the dome of the Great Church. In the darkening sky above the dome he could make out a star.

Had the master returned home?

Peter thought about stars. Some said they were angels but there was nothing angelic about those cold, hard, sharp points of light. They were jewels on a rich man’s robe, caught in the church lights during a night vigil.

The pain in his broken leg waxed and waned like the unseen moon. A throbbing pain, as deep and intense as pain could possibly be. It brought tears to his eyes.

It wasn’t time for him to die. He must remain to see the master through this latest trial. He didn’t like to think about him going around the palace, questioning powerful people, any one of whom would not suffer for having him killed if it suited them. The master was a powerful man himself, but an outsider. Not to mention a Mithran. What would the Lord think about Peter having spent so many years serving a Mithran?

“Please, Lord,” Peter muttered. “Keep the master safe. His beliefs may be wrong but you should know him by his works, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

A noise interrupted his thoughts. Or had it awakened him? What had he heard?

“Hypatia?” He was startled at how weak his voice sounded.

There was no answer.

He had the impression Hypatia had opened the door a crack, peered in at him, and shut the door. It might have been his imagination. The girl was always underfoot. He ought to make it plain to Lady Anna that Hypatia was not to interfere in his kitchen. Her duty was to grow the herbs Peter needed. She was not a cook. It would not do for her to be in the way while he was standing watch on the pot boiling over the hot coals.

No. That had been years ago. Both he and Hypatia had been Lady Anna’s slaves before her death freed them and they came to work for John.

The potions Gaius had given him were making Peter light-headed.

“How can I manage in such a state? What was the scoundrel thinking of? Does he imagine I can lie around like the idle aristocrats he treats?”

He closed his eyes.

He remembered a young servant he used to meet at the back of a garden at the house he worked in years ago. He could feel the soft flesh of her rounded arms and her warm breath.

She would be an old woman now. He felt a sadness deeper even than the agony in his leg. What kind of a world was it where such beauty withered away?

Peter had never known a woman for long. For much of his life he had been on the move, as a camp cook, constantly on the march, as a servant moving from one household to another. He had always thought that some day he would find himself in the right situation and the right woman would present herself. But it had never happened. And without ever being aware of it, he had finally stopping thinking about it.

Now he was an old man and it was too late.

“Too late,” he whispered. Yet there was nothing one could miss in life that meant anything compared to the glories waiting in heaven. “I have always served you, Lord, to the best of my ability.”

Peter felt himself drifting. His bed might have been floating on the Marmara. How long had he been in bed? He was useless, and just when the master needed him. The least he could do was make him a decent meal. Hypatia would insist on overspicing the dishes.

His leg didn’t pain him as much. He shifted, experimentally, and found his body no longer felt as inert and heavy. He pushed the coverlet down, took a breath, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The splinted leg stuck straight out, which made it awkward when he stood, bracing himself against the wall with one hand.

He hobbled toward the door. Obviously Gaius had overreacted. Peter was perfectly able to put weight on the supposedly broken leg.

He was standing next to his cooking brazier before he knew it.

“Let’s see,” he clucked to himself. “A dish needing only one pot. I can’t be standing too long. What’s on hand?”

He found several eggs lined up on the windowsill and a basket under the table containing a cabbage. The wine jug was full and neither the master nor Hypatia had eaten any of the cheese intended for breakfast.

He sang a hymn. His voice was the creaking of a cart wheel.

“Why do you veil your faces?

“Let your hearts be uplifted!

“For Christ, Christ has arisen!

“Glorious and gleaming,

“Christ, Christ is born

“Of He who gave light.”

Wasn’t the master’s god, Mithra, the lord of light?

It was something to consider.

But first the evening meal must be prepared.

He chopped happily at the cabbage and tossed its shredded remains into the large pot simmering over the glowing coals. He splashed in some wine, added cheese and eggs, and leftover scraps of the swordfish that had caused so much trouble. He took a clove or two from the string of garlic hanging from a ceiling hook and tossed them into the now bubbling mixture.

Then he was back in bed, once again feeling the warm breath of the long ago servant girl as they sat together in the cool grass behind a hedge.

Or rather, it was Hypatia’s warm breath, her face bent down close to his. But it had been the servant girl’s lips touching his cheek, not Hypatia’s. Surely.

“What are you looking so glum about, Hypatia?” Peter asked, but she drew away as if she hadn’t heard.

He hadn’t managed to speak. He made a determined effort.

This time she heard. “Peter, you were so still I was worried. What are you saying?”

“The evening meal. I started it. It’s on the brazier.”

“What do you mean? I’ve just been in the kitchen, and there’s nothing…” Her voice trailed off. “Oh, I see. Yes. Thank you, Peter.”

She turned and left the room and Peter could hear her sobbing for some reason in the hallway.