Chapter Twenty-two

John sat at the kitchen table while Hypatia ladled the stew she had kept simmering onto his plate. He had discarded his cloak and changed into a clean linen tunic. The hour was very late.

Hypatia carried the pot back to the brazier and set it down with a crash. “I’m not surprised Gaius threw up on you, master. He’d been drinking when he arrived to see Peter judging from the smell of him, and it was only the middle of the day. How can he treat patients if he’s drunk all the time?”

“You say Peter’s no better?”

Hypatia’s lips tightened for a moment. “No. He’s wandering in his mind. He’s under the impression he came down here and prepared dinner.”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t try. I won’t need you again tonight, Hypatia. I’m going to try to get some sleep.”

She went down the hall, climbed the stairs to Peter’s room, and cracked the door open quietly. His window let in the faint glow the city gave off even in the depths of the night, barely enough to show the rise and fall of the sheet covering the sleeping form in the bed.

Did she dare ask the Lord Chamberlain to find a more reliable physician?

She was a servant. It wasn’t her place to suggest any such thing. Besides, Gaius was John’s friend. But should she let Peter die just because she was a servant?

She went back downstairs. The house was large and felt empty. Why did the Lord Chamberlain choose to live this way?

No wonder Peter seemed glad to have her company.

Hypatia stepped out into the dark garden, into the smell of foliage and damp earth. Night insects chirped, hidden in the black leaves. She took a narrow flagstone path in the direction of the burbling that filled the quiet space. Some light-footed creature rustled away through the bushes.

Hypatia lowered herself on the bench by an eroded fountain. She could make out faint reflections in the gently bubbling water. In the square of night overhead a few stars blinked in the humid air.

In even such a tiny patch of nature she found respite from the brutal world of humankind. No matter what miseries men visited upon each other the insects would continue to chirp and the wild creatures would go on their nightly forays.

The Lord Chamberlain had been distressed by the lack of news from Cornelia. Hypatia could see it plainly in his face, which was unusual. He normally masked his emotions.

He had said he intended to sleep but Hypatia knew he would sit up drinking wine in his study and talking to the mosaic girl on the wall.

He would be better off if he stopped talking to bits of colored glass, came downstairs, and listened to the sounds of his garden. Cornelia had probably told him as much. It was good she was living here now. The Lord Chamberlain was not as solitary as he had been when Hypatia had first worked for him. People shouldn’t be alone.

A breeze, chilled by the darkness, made Hypatia blink. She had been dozing off on the bench, lulled by the fountain’s music.

She pushed herself to her feet, walked wearily back inside, guided by a single torch beneath the peristyle, and tiptoed up the stairs and down the hallway.

As she’d expected, a line of lamplight showed under the closed door of John’s study. She knew Peter had sometimes stood outside the door long enough to hear John muttering to himself, or rather, as he imagined, to Zoe, the mosaic girl. She hurried past, preferring not to hear, and climbed the stairs to the servants’ quarters.

Her room was next to Peter’s. She lay down on her pallet, then realized she should check on him before she slept.

She must have been more exhausted than she imagined. The next thing she knew she was waking to a sharp banging noise.

Had a crate fallen off a cart passing by outside?

Shouts.

From downstairs.

More banging. Knocking.

Someone at the house door.

She leapt up and scrambled down the stairs, still half asleep.

John’s study was dark.

She heard footsteps, more voices.

By the time she reached the atrium there was only silence inside.

From outside came the rattle of wheels and the clatter of hooves on cobbles. The sound was coming through the front door, standing open.

A carriage vanished around the corner of the excubitors’ barracks across the square.

She slammed the door, and went up the stairs two at a time.

The kitchen was just as empty. So was the study and John’s room.

“Master,” she called. “Lord Chamberlain.”

There was no reply.

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