Nine for the Devil

Chapter Thirty-four

John caught Felix leaving his office in the administrative building. The excubitor captain looked annoyed when John asked that guards be posted secretly to keep a watch on Anatolius’ house. “Do you suspect your friends now, John?”

“I’m not interested in Anatolius, but in who might be seeking his legal advice.”

“I don’t know if I can spare the men, John. Since Theodora died you’d think Justinian was fighting a war in the city, ordering guards here and there, usually for no reason I can see.” He ran a big hand through his bushy beard. A patch of white bristles had recently appeared in its center, like the first snow of the year glimpsed at the very peaks of distant mountains.

“I’ll find some men somewhere,” he went on. “I wish it were a war. With a real enemy we could come to grips with. How are excubitors supposed to defeat phantoms in Justinian’s mind? I wish I’d made my career in the army. I’d be a general now, rather than the leader of a bunch of bodyguards.”

“The Captain of the Excubitors ranks above most generals,” John reminded him. “If you really would prefer a military command, you might yet have the chance. Now that Theodora is gone, Germanus might take over from Belisarius. Justinian has always wanted-”

“And what makes you think Germanus would favor me? I don’t know the man. And, now, I need to go. Urgent business. All the emperor’s business is urgent these days. I will see that Anatolius’ house is kept under watch but I can’t believe you would try to catch him at something he shouldn’t be doing.”

“If he is doing anything he shouldn’t, or being tempted to, it would be better if I caught him at it before the emperor does.”

Felix grunted. “I suppose so.”

Then John was looking at his friend’s broad back receding down the corridor.

He seemed as impatient to get away from John as Anatolius had been. John thought of Peter, sick, and Cornelia gone to Zeno’s estate and silent. Theodora’s death had shaken John’s whole world.

Why should he be surprised that the world changed? That people grew older and died? Why did he notice the gray in Anatolius’ hair and the white in Felix’s beard? What did those details tell him that he didn’t already know? How much time did people spend making meaningless observations that only confirmed what they already knew?

They weren’t observations but distractions, just as his interviews of the previous day had been. What had he learned except that most of the court had reason to want Theodora dead? If he interviewed everyone who wanted Theodora dead he would need to talk to most of the population of Constantinople just for a start.

What was more important than motive was how Justinian’s theoretical murderer had reached the empress. The question was not merely who had access but who had access to those who had access. The lady-in-waiting Vesta, for example, was in contact with Antonina, Joannina, Anastasius, and, unfortunately, Anatolius.

Thinking about Vesta reminded John of the other young woman who had served Theodora, the girl the empress had plucked from Isis’ brothel, Kuria.

He thought he should talk to Isis again. The former madam had remembered Kuria as being a favorite of courtiers.

Now that a day had passed-a day that felt more like a week-perhaps Isis would be able to remember more about her former employee.