Three for a Letter

Chapter Four

John sat in the study of his house on the grounds of the Great Palace, sipping a cup of the vinegary Egyptian wine he had favored since the long-ago days when he had lived in Alexandria.

It was late afternoon, when men hastened to their homes and evening meals while those who had neither began to drift into neglected corners of the city seeking the company of their impoverished fellows and perhaps a stale scrap of bread found in the gutter or stolen while the baker’s attention was elsewhere.

The rusty light of the dying sun laying a bloody hand across Constantinople spilled in through the window and across a wall mosaic depicting a placid rural scene not unlike those through which John had ridden on his return from Zeno’s estate.

John had discarded his travel-soiled garments for a simple white tunic. Lost in thought as he stared at the mosaic, he could have been mistaken for a well-to-do, albeit rather ascetic, merchant pondering about the day’s takings or possibly formulating plans for a family celebration.

“It seems that recent events on Zeno’s estate are sadly much more harrowing than what’s happening in your landscape, Zoe,” John said quietly as he set his cracked clay cup aside.

The almond-shaped eyes of the mosaic girl he addressed had been given a semblance of life by the sun’s rays, but she remained silent.

Zoe was a familiar figure, a confidante who knew more about John than anyone, for in times of stress he spoke to her. John knew that the habit distressed his elderly servant Peter, but he found it aided him in untangling his thoughts. Talking to Zoe allowed him to sort through untidy scraps of information. Thus, however indirectly, it helped bring him to a point where he could take the always breathtaking leap from uncertainty to clarity. It was subsequently proving what he saw to be the truth that was the difficulty, as he had remarked to Zoe more than once.

This evening, however, something in the mosaic girl’s appearance troubled John. He got up and paced back and forth across the tiles through the light of the sunset. After a while he realized the source of the problem.

“It’s the other girl,” John told Zoe. “She looks like you.”

It wasn’t just the large, almond-shaped eyes that the surviving twin Sunilda had in common with Zoe, although that similarity was striking enough. He recalled the little girl he had seen only briefly. She was, if anything, small for her age, with the thin limbs of a child but blessed with long, dark hair shadowing a solemn face that seemed much older.

Perhaps that was where the real resemblance lay, he mused. Both children, the one a guest on the rambling estate by the sea and the other living on John’s study wall, exhibited an air of maturity beyond their years. There was something mysterious about both of them too, as if they were not quite what they appeared to be.

“But, then,” John muttered, stopping to look out of the window into the square and talking to himself as much as to the mosaic girl, “who can blame those who have been imprisoned by circumstances as much as by prison bars if they develop strange humors?”

A rising breeze carried the tang of salt from the Sea of Marmara through the half-open window. The smell reminded John of the travels of his youth, the long journeys that had taken him half way around the world. Difficult and often dangerous travel, to be sure, yet no place he had visited, not even Egypt, had struck him as more exotic than Zeno’s estate.

“How long a journey from Italy it must have seemed for one as young as Sunilda,” he reflected. “She’s scarcely your age and already she’s lost her brother, Zoe. I think you would enjoy walking with her on the beach or looking for shells or perhaps even playing dodge ball with her.”

He paused, awkwardly and suddenly aware that he had not seen his own child grow from an infant to the coltish grace of the girl living in Zeno’s villa, far away from any of her blood relatives. How could he be certain what such children thought or what games they would enjoy?

“It’s a sad thing that the boy died so young. I fear Zeno will ultimately suffer for his carelessness, but fortunately for him he doesn’t appear to realize that. No wonder Anatolius has such an unworldly streak at times. It must be in the blood.”

The room was growing dark. Peter would soon bring in a lamp and announce his master’s meal was prepared, just as he did each evening. The thought reminded John of the lamps that had revealed the pathetically crumpled body of the boy when the mechanical whale’s mouth ponderously opened. Would the lighting of a lamp forever summon forth the same memory?

He recalled what had happened at the banquet. He had been first to realize that the figure within the great maw was not going to comically leap forward and indeed was not even Barnabas. But where could the mime have gone after performing his last scene?

And why would he have murdered Gadaric?

A tap at the study door disturbed John’s ruminations. Peter entered and set his lamp on John’s desk. The elderly servant averted his eyes from the glassy, hypnotic gaze of the mosaic girl as he replenished John’s wine from the jug on the table by the door. He asked if his master wished his evening meal brought to the study.

John nodded and resumed pacing up and down the room as Peter escaped down the corridor to the steamy kitchen.

***

“Some may laugh at the very idea,” pronounced Peter, “but I have heard that the village by Zeno’s estate is a hot bed of magick and superstition. In fact, the area’s famous, or perhaps I should say notorious, for the fortune-telling goats living on a local island.”

The young woman across the table from him, his assistant Hypatia, looked down at her dinner plate and tried without much success to stifle a laugh. “Oh, Peter, I’m sorry, really,” she giggled, “but fortune-telling goats! Really!”

“You may find it amusing, young lady, but the fact is that no matter what guise it’s presented under, it’s not wise to have commerce with such unholy things.” Peter’s spoon rattled rather too hard against his bowl. “I know Anatolius is a good friend to our master but I can’t help worrying about his uncle Zeno dabbling in all manner of strange knowledge. That’s not even to mention building automatons and other such strange devices for the entertainment of his guests.”

Hypatia looked thoughtful. “They sound fascinating. If they’re just for entertainment, surely there’s no harm in that?”

Peter’s eyes unexpectedly brimmed with tears. “Zeno’s infernal whale was built for entertaining his guests and it killed a little boy, leaving his sister alone. Don’t forget, Hypatia, that the master has a daughter of his own. No wonder he looked so distracted just now.”

The elderly servant mournfully wiped his eyes on his sleeve before mopping his bowl clean with a scrap of bread.

“At least the master’s back home now, Peter, and safely away from all the things you’ve been fretting about.” Hypatia was always kind.

“But for how long?” Peter stood and began to clear their dishes from the table. “As soon as anyone connected with the court dies, our master is immediately sent somewhere a Lord Chamberlain should never have to go. What dangerous quarter of Constantinople will he end up in this time?”