Seven for a Secret

Chapter Seventeen

Although Opilio at first insisted that he had not wanted to know about the unwholesome places Agnes frequented, John’s interest in his wares, especially at the exorbitant price quoted, assisted the sausage maker’s memory.

Thus he learned Agnes had let slip a location where reprobates of her sort often congregated to put on what they were pleased to call performances.

Following Opilio’s directions, John soon found himself on the long narrow street leading to the square where Agnes had approached him.

A strident cry caused him to look up. A raven rose from the top of the wooden cross on a nearby roof. Then another raven appeared and another. John counted them. Seven.

Their wings beat furiously. For an instant they hung over him, their shadows hovering beside his boots. Then the birds gained height and soared off.

John looked away, back to earth, to an archway from which issued a breath of warm air both acrid and appetizing. Stepping under it, he discovered among the businesses, opening off the packed dirt courtyard beyond, were a public bakery, a dye house, and a coppersmith’s workshop.

The city felt limitless to those confined to its maze of streets and alleyways, amidst the crowds and clamor and stench, where every new turn opened upon a new world-a forum, a church, tenements, warehouses, a line of shops, a monument to a dead emperor. There was no limit to what might be found in the capital. The ravens in the sky would have seen that despite all that it contained, Constantinople was a small place. No location was far from any other. From the southern harbors on the Marmara to the northern shore along the bay of the Golden Horn was an easy walk, even for earthbound creatures, made difficult only by the necessity of ascending and descending the steep ridge that formed the backbone of the peninsula upon which the city sat.

John’s investigations had thus far not taken him beyond the Copper Market to the north and west of where the Mese ended at the Augustaion. He wished he could ascend like the ravens and peer down into the brick and marble tangle of the city.

He remembered the old rhyme, common in Bretania, which foretold the future by counting black birds. Seven was for a secret. If he could join those ravens would the secret he sought be easily seen? Or, as the rhyme went, was it a secret never to be told?

As John entered the courtyard, he heard raised voices. People bustled about under the columned roof of a semicircular exedra, reached from the far end of the enclosure by three long, low steps.

The structure resembled a smaller version of the front of Isis’ establishment. Its curved wall contained a number of doors. Most, however, were boarded up. Two obese gilded Cupids, wings encrusted with soot, looked as if they’d have a hard time climbing out of their wall niches, let alone soaring with the ravens, in the case of the Cupids not to scavenge for scraps but to search for the lovelorn.

John hailed a youngster hauling a basket of loaves out of the bakery toward what was clearly the make-shift stage Opilio had mentioned disparagingly. At the mention of Agnes, the boy’s eyes narrowed, but he raced off, and as John mounted the stairs, a woman emerged from one of the functioning doorways and came toward him.

“My name’s Petronia.” The speaker was dressed in an threadbare yellow tunic. Her finely chiseled features, set off by black hair fashionably coiled at either side, were as perfect and white as those of an ancient Greek sculpture from which time has worn the last vestige of pigment. She was no longer young, but John was old enough to appreciate stubborn, aging beauty more than the careless, unchallenged, and common prettiness of youth.

In this case, the beauty was somewhat diminished by the monstrous phallus the woman wore.

She cocked her head to one side reprovingly. “What right do you have to stare like that, coming in here with your sausage in your hand?”

John looked down at the offending articles hanging loosely in his grasp for want of a basket.

“Save that lot for the wife,” Petronia cackled, swaying her hips in order to waggle the stuffed, leather protuberance jutting from beneath her garment. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” she continued with a simper. “Did I offend you? We are all Christians here.”

“It wasn’t that.” John’s tone was sharp.

The playful expression left her face. “I overheard you asking about Agnes.”

“Do you know her? Daughter of the tax collector, Glykos?”

“We share a room, off and on,” the woman replied. “I haven’t seen her for a few days. What do you want with her? A private performance? Are you looking for Agnes in particular or might I be of assistance?”

“I wish to question her,” John replied.

Petronia was suddenly wary. “And who are you to come questioning me?”

“I am Lord Chamberlain to Justinian.”

Petronia opened her eyes wide in feigned surprise. “Of course you are! That explains why you carry sausages about in your hand. Well, it’s makes no difference to me who you are. All our best patrons are pretending to be something they aren’t, or at least aren’t any more. It’s hard to say on what side of the stage the best actors reside.”

“Many of your patrons used to be at court?”

“That’s right! This quarter suits those who want to stay in the city, or have no place left to go. It’s not the most desirable area, what with all the smoke and furnaces and smells and such, so the rents are reasonable. Yet it’s near enough to the palace and the Baths of Zeuxippos where they might run into old friends for a chat. Or at least old friends still willing to recognize them.”

A number of people John took to be Petronia’s fellow thespians strolled about, talked, and gesticulated. They didn’t seem curious about the tall, thin stranger in their midst. Just another patron. There were as many women and dwarves as men.

“You offer those who once enjoyed the privileges of the palace something of the culture they miss,” John said. “I imagine you are well patronized?”

“Indeed. We’re one of the few troupes to stage the classics. We’re doing a new version of Lysistrata.”

“That explains your unusual adornment.”

“What did you think? Old Aristophanes didn’t take full advantage of the comic situation. We’ve eliminated all the boring dialog and debate. We offer something friskier. You’re lucky to find us here. We don’t rehearse every day. As it happens we like to stage our performances during the afternoons when they’re holding one of those religious processions. There are always pilgrims waiting for the procession to begin, so we do well enough.”

“Doubtless some would say you’re taking coins that the pilgrims would otherwise offer to the church.”

“Oh, I expect we do the church a good deed,” came the airy reply. “There are bound to be pilgrims who feel guilty about having come here and seen…what they saw, and so give more to the church than they intended in the first place.”

John glanced around. “Do you employ this place regularly?”

“We call it our theater. It’s been deserted for years.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a failed brothel before,” he replied, inclining his head toward the Cupids.

“It didn’t fail. Theodora had the girls rounded up to help populate that convent of hers across the Marmara. Not that these girls wanted to be saved, but a job’s a job and it wasn’t that hard to be a reformed sinner. Rumor is that the empress paid the madam to talk them all into moving, with the madam taking on the new duties of abbess.”

“Who owns it now?”

“No one knows who this ruin belongs to. I believe whoever it is doesn’t care to come forward. It’s not much good for anything. The cubicles would all have to be torn down and the whole inside repaired, so it stands here ignored and perfect for our uses. That is to say, this part serves for a stage and we store our props in the back.”

“And there are plenty of rooms left over for getting in and out of costume?”

“Indeed. Our patrons sometimes…assist with that.”

Petronia’s demeanor suggested she hadn’t heard about Agnes’ death.

John told her.

The powder on Petronia’s face could not have turned any whiter. Her eyes, however, plainly registered shock and she put a hand to her mouth, muffling a gasp of horror.

For a moment she tottered, as if about to collapse. She walked unsteadily to a wall niche and sat at the foot of a Cupid. She wiped away the tears before they could ruin her makeup, blinked, and attempted to compose herself.

Her sitting position thrust the leather phallus up in front of her face. She pushed it aside, and then fumbled with the strap holding it around her waist. The phallus fell off and she kicked it away.

“There, and I’m glad to be done with the nasty thing. They do get in the way. And that’s a small one compared to some we’ve used on stage. How vexing they must be.”

She covered her face, burying her failed smile. When she finally looked up her pale makeup was half gone, showing fine wrinkles at the corners of reddened eyes.

“What is it you want to know? I haven’t seen Agnes for days, as I told you. And now, now I will never see her again. I’ll miss her.” She paused. “But before you ask, I know little about her private life. Women like us are always busy. Even when sharing a room we don’t see much of one another and we don’t share our woes. They’re all the same anyhow. When that bastard Opilio kicked her out I offered her shelter. If you got those sausages from him, I’d have a servant taste them for you before you eat them.”

“Did she have other friends, Petronia? I’m not here to cause anyone trouble. I’m trying to find out who murdered her.”

“You really are from the palace, aren’t you? Who do you think killed her? Who’s usually responsible when an…an…actress is murdered?”

“I realize it is a dangerous profession. I have reason to think this might not be related to her work. Did she ever mention a man named Menander?”

“Didn’t have to. We all know about Menander. He’s one of our most generous benefactors.”

“Could there have been a closer relationship between her and Menander?”

A sound between a laugh and a sob escaped Petronia’s lips. “What would Agnes see in an old man like Menander? What would Menander do with an actress? But I understand what you mean. I might as well tell you. I don’t want you to think I’m holding anything back. Talk to Troilus.”

She got to her feet, supporting herself with a hand on the pudgy thigh of the gilded Cupid. “Yes, Troilus might know more than I do. He’s a handsome young man. Youth seeks out youth, doesn’t it? His shop is just in the back there. He sells all manner of curiosities.”

She pointed toward a doorway on the end of the exedra, then, seemingly overcome by emotion, swayed, and fainted.