Six for Gold

Chapter Three

Suicidal sheep?

No sooner had Justinian imparted this information than he ordered John escorted from the reception hall.

The party marched briskly away. Their route took them through one of the buildings housing the palace administrative offices, a warren of whitewashed walls punctuated by the dark doorways of empty rooms. From the entrance to one cubbyhole, where a lamp burned at a desk piled high with parchment, a pallid clerk peered out at them with the huge eyes of a startled nocturnal creature.

As the company turned a corner and exited into a small, tree-girded garden, John heard giggles. The sound turned to shrieks as three gaudily costumed court pages, who clearly had no business there, threw twigs and abuse at the excubitors and then raced away into the shrubbery.

The first red light of dawn illuminated the colonnade under which they walked. The harsh complaints of seagulls and a swelling chorus of birds greeted another day. Mist steamed off the dark vegetation.

John thought of his family. They would be informed he had murdered a man and would have to live with unanswered questions until he returned. There was no helping it. No one could be told the truth. Justinian was not the only person with spies everywhere, or torturers to elicit information from the unwilling.

As the party descended a series of stone stairways leading to the palace’s private harbor, Felix ran up.

“John, I want to speak with you! I was detained. I fear there is bad news. Theodora sent for me. She’s relieved me of the funds Justinian meant to be given to you for your journey.”

“I see.”

“It was a delicate situation, John. The empress said Justinian was being too kind, sending you into exile with a bag of coins. He would surely think better of it, were he asked to reconsider.”

“She was right. He would have changed his mind,” John replied as they arrived at the dock. A squat merchant ship bobbed on the swells of the harbor.

“The Minotaur,” Felix remarked as they boarded. “There’s more to this than it appears, isn’t there? I realized that when you traced that seven on the granary floor. There are seven degrees in our religion and you were trying to reassure me. And how often does a man sent into exile be given funds as he departs?”

“I didn’t murder the senator, Felix. I swear it as your brother in Mithra.”

“You cannot tell me anything more?”

“I fear not.”

“Mithra guard you always, John.” Then Felix clattered off the ship.

***

John shivered in the brisk breeze and looked up past the sea wall into the city. An hour or two had passed since Felix and his excubitors had departed. The sun had risen, and now the dome of the Great Church stood out against an azure sky.

He turned at the sound of light footsteps.

A slim, deeply tanned woman whose dark hair held more than a hint of gray approached. She had the delicate, perfectly sculpted features of a patrician except for her lips, which were too thin for classical notions of beauty. They were now drawn into a determined line.

“Cornelia! Why are you here?”

“Felix came to the house not long ago and told us what little he knew,” she replied. “Don’t think I’m letting you go away on your own!”

“You must return home immediately.” Though the words formed automatically he struggled to speak them.

Cornelia smiled, her expression halfway between laughter and tears. “I fear you will have to get used to not giving orders, Lord Chamberlain.”

The deck planks creaked and for the first time John noticed Peter. The old servant appeared to be limping. “Don’t worry, master. I haven’t been hurt. It’s just that…well…”

He placed the satchel he carried on the deck, bent unsteadily, and pulled off his footwear.

He held them out to John. “There was only time to pack one little bag and your favorite boots wouldn’t fit in it. Though my sandals did so I have them. Captain Felix said you were being sent away in nothing but a tunic.” His tone was outraged. He bent again to rub his feet. “Your boots aren’t the right size for me, master, but I shall soon lose my limp.”

Cornelia laid her hand on John’s arm. “Before we left, I sent Europa to tell Anatolius. I’m certain between them, Thomas and Anatolius can take care of everything.”

The ship moved under their feet. Timbers groaned.

Peter gave his satchel a few pats and then sat down stiffly on his make-shift cushion. “I’ve never been to Egypt, master. I hear it is a fascinating land.”

A thought occurred to John. “How did you persuade the ship’s captain to allow you aboard?”

The servant’s wrinkled face assumed an innocent expression, but before he could reply Cornelia provided the answer.

“Peter insisted on paying for our passage with his savings.”

“It seemed a good use for them,” the old man smiled.

“I am very grateful, Peter,” John said, and turned toward the bow. Wheeling gulls squalled. The noise reminded John of the shrieking court pages he had seen earlier. Thinking of them, he recalled a page now grown. Hektor.

Why should he think of Hektor? Perhaps because he was Theodora’s creature. Like the empress, he would have delighted in seeing John suffer, particularly since not so long before he had been badly disfigured in an accident.

Hektor’s once pretty face was now a demon’s visage, akin to the one John had glimpsed in Justinian’s reception hall.

“Mithra! Hektor was there!” John stopped himself from blurting out the rest of his thought-that his household had been left unguarded.