Seven for a Secret

Chapter Forty-Seven

John found Cornelia sitting in his study, staring at the wall mosaic.

The lowering sun spilled red light across the glass country scene, a place upon which the sun set, but never rose. Zoe stared out, silent as ever, while Cornelia told John about her visitor. He had a suspicion who it might have been, but he said nothing. It might only alarm her more.

“Could you be implicated, John? Would Justinian believe you are involved in plot against him?”

“It’s impossible to say what Justinian might believe. It can change from hour to hour. He believes whatever he wishes and what the emperor believes might as well be true so far as the rest of us are concerned.”

“You must continue to do whatever is proper,” Cornelia said.

John put his hand on her arm. “Even if I didn’t worry about you, there is still our daughter. Felix has already set off with a contingent of excubitors. The city is liable to be in flames before the sun comes up tomorrow. I want you and Peter to leave while you can. Go straight to Zeno’s estate and join Thomas and Europa. It will be safer for you all.”

“You’ll come with us?”

“No. Justinian would conclude, or be persuaded, I had fled because of guilt, in which case there’d be nowhere in the empire we’d be safe. I have given Peter his instructions. You need to hurry now.”

He started to take his hand from her arm but she grasped it. There was more anger in her eyes than fear.

“It’s all because of that girl-that woman! You’ve told her things you’d tell no one else!”

“Because she is no one, Cornelia, merely pieces of glass. Do you really think I talk to her? I am only talking to myself.”

Cornelia squeezed his hand and let it go. “She’s destroyed everything, John. You would never have gotten involved in any of this, except for her.”

“A woman died because she wanted to speak to me. A real woman, not a mosaic figure. Justice must be served.”

John realized he was gazing at Zoe. He went to the window and looked out. Would he have paid the slightest attention to the prostitute in the square had she not identified herself as the model for Zoe? Was there any possibility he would have agreed to meet her the next day? Couldn’t the Prefect have investigated her death? Cornelia was right. It was only because of Zoe that he had become involved. Or was it entangled?

“Did you know there’s someone watching the house?” he asked.

Cornelia came to his side.

“Look,” he told her “Just past the corner of barracks. In the shadows.” He turned abruptly. “I have to go. There are things I need to do. Don’t worry about me, but call Peter and leave as soon as you can. It is still possible now, but it won’t be for much longer.”

He strode out without looking back and Cornelia did not go after him.

As he left the house, he laid his hand on the blade in his belt. He could see that the shadowy figure remained beside the barracks. He walked directly toward it.

Rather than fleeing the figure stepped forward.

She stepped forward.

A shade.

Agnes.

Zoe.

The fading red light robbed the face of detail so that it resembled the mosaic even more closely than it had the first time John glimpsed it.

Had the little girl, Zoe, known what was about to happen, that she was to be deprived of her father, she and her mother thrown onto the street? Was that why she had appeared so sad? Or had Figulus, the mosaic maker, known what was in the store for the innocent child and depicted her in mourning for her future?

A torch on the barracks wall threw her shadow across the square and part way up the side of John’s house.

John glanced back and saw Cornelia-only a shadow herself now-beyond the ruby tinted window panes. The brick front of the house was the color of blood.

Or red dye.

He looked back toward Agnes.

She stood still for a heartbeat, then fled.

John went after her.

She cut down a paved path that led off into the imperial gardens. She wasn’t moving fast, but each time John accelerated to catch her, she responded by running faster herself.

She veered off into a gap in a line of towering shrubs making a solid black wall in the twilight. She might have evaded him, but when he emerged from the shrubbery he saw her dark figure making its way across a glimmering flag stoned court, angling in the direction the palace gates.

John’s boots clattered across the stone. Black and white tiles formed an enormous sundial in the center of the open space, but at this hour the gnomon was nearly lost in darkness.

Then they were in the vast hall leading to the Chalke. The sound of the crowd of workers leaving the palace grounds for the night or returning from the city echoed up into its lofty vaults.

Agnes had slowed almost to a walk, dodging in and out through the clerks and laborers and servants spilling toward the gates. She kept looking back over her shoulder. John moved straight ahead, cutting through the crowd.

No one dared to block his path.

Should he alert the guards?

If they went into action there would be chaos. She would likely escape in the confusion.

Besides, the longer he watched her, the more glimpses he had of her face, looking back at him, the more convinced he was that the woman was indeed the same who had accosted him in the square.

The body in the cistern therefore had not been Agnes.

Who then?

It must have been the prostitute Anatolius had learned about, the young woman who had fled the convent.

Which meant that the corpse had been dyed to make it appear that the person responsible was trying to hide the tattoo that would identify her. So that John would overlook the fact that the battered face could have belonged to anyone.

Was that possible? A tattoo could be painted on a living wrist, especially if it needed only to be seen for an instant.

Agnes was outside the palace now, moving down the Mese, not quite at a run. A shadow flickering in and out of the pools of light cast by shop torches under the colonnades.

John followed, keeping her in sight.

He became aware of a sound that was not the usual clamor of hurrying crowds anxious to be home. A sound as of wind sighing around columns and statuary in enclosed squares.

A formless sound, more rhythmic than wind gusts, akin to waves washing against the sea walls.

Had the rioting begun?

Agnes turned off onto a narrow street, turned again.

John followed her through an archway connecting one street to another and plunged into a surging mass of humanity.

He reached for his blade, then realized he had not stumbled into a melee. The chanting mob was marching along in an orderly fashion.

It was a procession, a common enough occurrence. This one was obviously on its way to a church, for here and there he saw men in ecclesiastical garments. Most of the crowd wore the rough clothing of the poor or of pilgrims who have traveled far. Some carried torches. Gilded icons ascended toward the heavens on poles. Stern bearded figures stared into the night, images of the Christian god. Torchlight struck liquid fire off the golden figures.

The monotonous chanting washed over John, filled his head, as if he had fallen into deep water. Was he still feeling the effect of the attack he’d suffered?

He couldn’t see Agnes.

Had he lost her again?

A shouted curse caused him to whirl around. A gem-studded silver angel tilted precariously on a platform borne along by several husky acolytes, who were now trying to maintain their grip while at the same time keeping the angel from falling. No doubt the angel was a reliquary, holding the bones of a holy man.

Over one glittering wing John spotted Agnes, staring back at him from the far side of the procession.

He forced his way through the crowd, but when he reached the opposite side Agnes was gone. Just behind where she had stood was a dark, irregular opening in the wall of a derelict shop.

John squeezed through into darkness. Faint light from the street illuminated a steep slope of debris, the remains of collapsed floors. He picked his way down through splintered shelves and broken pottery.

When his eyes had accustomed themselves to the dimness he was aware of a faint, undulating radiance. Light reflected off water.

He had entered a building built over a cistern, perhaps the upper part of the very cistern where he had found the body. He could still hear muffled chanting from the world above.

Then he heard her voice, resonating amid the rows of pillars against which water lapped.

“Lord Chamberlain! At last we can talk.”

“What do you want to tell me, Agnes?”

“Not here. We can’t talk here.”

Where was she?

Her voice seemed to come from no particular direction. Distorted by the echoing space, it sounded hardly human.

He peered into the dimness. Reflected light wavered and pulsed over the columns and walls of the cistern.

There she was, at the far end of the concrete walk which ran down the center of the cistern.

As quickly as he dared, he loped along the narrow path, all too aware of the water waiting for him.

At the other side of the cistern a brick archway opened into a cavernous room echoing with Agnes’ receding footsteps.

He followed her through a series of basements and sub-basements. In places stinking swamps of stagnant water soaked his boots, while other areas were dust dry. He could hear rats skittering in darkness relieved by scattered shafts of light.

Agnes remained in sight. John realized that if he caught her, he would not discover where she was leading him.

However, he could now guess their destination.

They passed corridors which slanted upward and skirted piles of rubble. One, a huge mound of shattered tiles had obviously been part of an elaborate floor. Pieces of couches stuck out from the mass, wooden arms broken, cushions gutted by rats. A fountain basin filled with rust-colored water sat amidst fragments of monumental statues. A pale, naked Aphrodite stood in a niche, pristine, as if whatever calamity had befallen this place had feared to touch her.

This must be what remained of the palace of Lausos.

Then abruptly they had passed through one last doorway and John saw they had arrived at the destination he had expected.

They were behind Troilus’ subterranean establishment.

Armed excubitors milled around the dry cistern.

A hand clamped down on John’s shoulder. He turned to face the man whose familiar voice spoke his name.

It was Felix.