Seven for a Secret

Chapter Twenty-Six

John paused outside Petronia’s lodgings to decide in what direction the truth might be discovered.

From the street the sea was invisible, obscured by the structures rising all around. The low sun left the street in shadow except for a single, sharp lance of fire which found its way through some gap in the buildings.

If Petronia wasn’t lying, which was far from certain, then Troilus could not have murdered Zoe. Whatever had been in the sack, Agnes had been seen alive hours after Helias had noted Troilus’ late night labors.

In addition, Troilus had been baring his soul to Petronia when Agnes died, perhaps even as John was gazing down at her dyed and lifeless body in the cistern.

No matter the exact duration of his visit, Troilus could never have killed Agnes, attempted to obscure her identity with dye, and conveyed her body to the cistern unless he had in fact followed straight after her, which, according to Petronia, he had not.

No doubt Petronia had thought she was protecting Troilus by initially failing to reveal his argument with Agnes. He would have been one of the last to see the victim alive. An obvious suspect. As it turned out, Petronia had inadvertently concealed the innocence of the man of whom she was so obviously fond.

Her fondness for Troilus meant that Petronia could not be ruled out as an enemy of Agnes.

The lance of light crossing the thoroughfare faded as the sun sank lower.

John turned for home.

He walked up the short incline toward where the narrow street intersected a colonnaded thoroughfare.

It must have been the same direction Agnes would have gone on her way to meet him in the square. While John waited, she had been waylaid and killed.

By whom? And where?

If John were to attempt to retrace her route he might notice something useful. He would still be moving in the general direction of the palace. She would have kept to the main streets. There would have been no need to take shortcuts to a prearranged meeting, especially for a woman in predawn darkness.

Merchants were closing their shops. The torches they were setting into wall brackets would have rendered the colonnades relatively bright and safe even in the dead of night. Nevertheless, the shops were interrupted by gloomy alcoves, open doorways leading to apartments, archways opening into courtyards, and the black mouths of alleyways, all places where a murderer might lie in wait.

He spoke to a merchant, who jumped up, startled in the midst of locking the grating protecting his shop to the iron ring set in the pavement. No, there had not been any disturbances recently. He’d seen nothing out of the ordinary. He never arrived to open his establishment until dawn anyway.

Most shopkeepers would have been at home at the time Agnes passed by on her way to her appointment.

A familiar odor caught John’s attention.

The smell of grilled fish, the sort sold on skewers by the docks. This street was a fair distance from the docks. He dismissed it as nothing more than hunger coupled with imagination.

The smell grew stronger.

Why would anyone be selling grilled fish in this part of the city at this time of the evening?

Then he saw the ragged creature huddled on the step of a doorway, surrounded by charred skewers from which hung mostly scraps of blackened meat, obviously unsold or ruined wares discarded by a vendor at the end of the day.

The beggar noticed John looking at him, grabbed an empty skewer, and waved it like a sword. “Get away, you bastard, or I’ll have yer eyes out. It’s all mine, this is. I didn’t battle them mangy curs to stuff the chops of a worthless lout like you!” Bits of fish clung to the man’s beard.

“I have a couple of coins for you, if you have certain information,” John replied in an even tone.

The man squinted up at John suspiciously. One eye was blackened, the other watered profusely and he blinked it repeatedly. While considering the unexpected offer, he gulped down a bit of fish and nearly choked.

“My apologies, excellency,” he gasped when he had stopped coughing. “I thought you was after my hard earned dinner.”

“All I want is information.” John angled his hand so the two copper nummi in his palm caught light from a nearby torch. “Have you noticed anything unusual around here lately?”

“No, excellency. This is a quiet street once the shops are closed for the night. There’s no reason for anyone to be creepin’ about up to no good and there’s not enough taverns to attract them Blues and Greens.”

“It’s deserted here at night?”

“There’s usually just carts, excellency, passing by on their way from the docks. In an hour or so no one will be around. Well, there might be something going on in the alleys, but it’s the same all over, isn’t it?” he leered.

The squeal and crash of another grate being lowered further up the street seemed to bear out the beggar’s words.

The rags piled behind the beggar suggested the doorway was his residence. John asked whether he had been in the same spot a little more than a week earlier.

“Oh yes, excellency. I like this place. The last fool who tried to take it from me found out just how much I like it. Which is not to say I didn’t do him a good turn because a one-eyed man gets more handouts and that’s a fact.” He gave a hoarse chuckle, his gaze fixed on the coins glinting in John’s palm.

“You’re observant. You must be to spot a bounty like that fish quickly enough to beat everyone else to it. Now, try to remember eight days ago, around dawn. Did you see anyone who might have seemed out of place at that time of the morning?”

“I’m not sure. Time does run together. I hardly know what day it is unless I’m due for an audience with the emperor.” The fish eater emitted a coughing laugh. “What sort of person was you thinking about?”

“A young lady.”

“Ah, yes. Now I remember. Yes, a young lady went by here just when you said.” A greasy hand reached out.

John closed his fingers over the coins. “What did she look like?”

The beggar licked his lips. “Young she was, sir. A lady.”

“As I’ve just said.”

The beggar’s good eye blinked rapidly. “No, excellency, I mean dressed like a lady, or rather dressed to look like one. A tart if you ask me. Some men like to pretend they’re paying a lady for…well, that’s surely worth them two coins in yer hand.”

“What do you mean by saying she looked like a lady?”

“I mean she weren’t a lady. But the first time I seen her, I thought, what’s a high born woman doin’ out here this time of the morning and with no attendants at that? Then, when she got closer, I seen her clothes was all bright colored like, but not much better than mine.”

“You’ve seen her more than once?”

“Yes, excellency, every so often. She must live ‘round here to be out on the streets on her own like that. Not respectable, is it?”

“The last time you saw this woman was about a week ago?”

The beggar nodded.

“Was anyone following her?”

“No, excellency. No.” His voice trailed off. “Why do you want to know?”

John said nothing.

“Yer from the palace, aren’t you?” The beggar shrank back into the doorway. “It’s some trouble, isn’t it? I din’ have nothin’ to do with it, excellency. Swear to our Lord.”

“Nothing to do with what?” John demanded.

“With nothin’, excellency, nothin’ at all.”

John bent, grabbed the front of the man’s garment, and yanked him to his feet. “Nothing to do with what?” he repeated.

The rotten fabric tore and the beggar tumbled backward. John squatted down and addressed the blubbering figure, now groveling in the remains of his feast.

Tears streamed from the beggar’s unclouded eye. “Mercy, excellency. Have mercy. I seen her. I don’t know nothing more. I knew there must be trouble of some kind, what with one like you askin’ about her. It were about a week ago. She came along here just before dawn. You can have me tortured, excellency, but I won’t say different. Trust a tart to get a man minding his own business into trouble. If I see her again I’ll-”

John stood. “Here.” He added another coin to the two he still held and tossed them into the heaped rags behind the huddled, trembling man before him.

John strode away down the street.

The hollow feeling in his stomach had nothing to do with hunger.

He wished he could give up for the evening and return home to Cornelia.

He knew he had to keep following Agnes’ footsteps.