The mansions of patricians were to be found all over Constantinople, especially in spots offering a view of the sea. A great many senators lived near the Marmara on the southern side of the city where the land sloped down from the Hippodrome. Certain imperial functionaries lived closer to the imperial couple they served. As a chamberlain to the emperor, John had been given an appropriate residence. Located behind the stables, close to the Chalke, the rambling, single story structure sat within the palace grounds but outside the palace complex itself-the enclosure which included the magnificent Augusteus throne room and the Daphne Palace surmounted by the emperor’s private bed chambers, the Octagon.
John’s house, with its unprepossessing brick front, was squeezed in amongst a jumble of taller residences. He had heard it said that the atrium had been added onto a couple of abandoned stables and it was easy enough to believe. An unusually large number of cramped rooms opened off the halls running from either side of the atrium. Some were used for servants’ quarters, others for storage. Most remained empty. John slept in a room near the front of the house. He worked in the office between the atrium and the inner garden and generally took his meals there. For solitude he retreated to the chapel near the atrium. The suites of rooms at the rear of the house-intended for living quarters-were mostly unexplored territory. He sometimes passed through them on his infrequent visits to the kitchen and workshops.
The garden he stepped out into was best concealed by winter screens. Brown weeds and straggling, untrimmed shrubs choked the area. A couple of yew trees had grown up to almost twice the height of the house. Vines entangled the columns of the surrounding colonnades and bushes reached toward the covered walkways. He couldn’t see Julianna but he heard her.
“If the rioters get into the palace grounds we can simply hide here,” she was saying. “They’ll never find-” Her sentence broke off, replaced by a series of oaths that would have made a charioteer blush.
He turned toward the direction of her voice and plunged through a tangle of evergreens. He found her bent over, tunic hitched up too high, rubbing her knee. Her calves appeared exceedingly brown and muscular for a lady of the court.
“Banged into a horse!” Straightening up, Julianna indicated a statue, about waist high, half concealed by brambles. Though eroded and partially covered by bluish lichens, it appeared to be a stone horse. “Look. There’s another one.”
She broke off handfuls of dry weeds to reveal a better preserved steed, this one with a carved blanket draped across its back.
“I understand the previous owner liked horses,” John said.
In fact, he had been told that the official worshipped the Christians’ god and horses, but not necessarily in that order. The unfortunate man would have done better to confine himself to religion. He might not have disgraced himself with gambling debts.
“I would have liked that owner.” Julianna wrinkled her nose at John.
“You like horses?” That explained the muscular calves, John thought.
“I adore horses. My family has more than I can count. At our country estates.” Her expression brightened abruptly. Like the sun emerging from behind one of the clouds he could see in the rectangle of blue overhead. John noticed she was little more than a girl. Her simple green robes hung loosely on her slim figure. Her black hair was drawn up, out of the way, and coiled tightly on either side of her head. There was a firm set to her jaw.
He realized why he had thought her familiar. She reminded him of Cornelia.
Cornelia whom he had met in Egypt, so many years ago after he had left Haik and the rest of the mercenaries outside Antioch. Cornelia had possessed the same dark hair, lithe figure, and strong calves, the latter a result of her bull leaping. She was part of a troupe. One of their acts recreated the ancient Cretan art of performing acrobatics with bulls. Julianna might be almost the same age as Cornelia had been back then.
Not more than half his own age now, John reminded himself. Nor was he the same then as now. He was aware of a chilly breeze rattling dead leaves. The tall yews swayed slightly, sending their shadows flickering across the garden.
“I enjoy the chariot races myself,” John said. “I did a lot of riding when I was in the military.”
Julianna looked at him quizzically. “You? In the military? I wouldn’t have thought you were the sort.” Her tone hardened again. Her mouth tightened in the same pronounced way Cornelia’s used to when she got angry. Had John been so obviously staring at her?
“I spent quite a few years with a sword at my side. Judging people too quickly can be dangerous.”
The girl did not quite roll her eyes. “Why do you want to talk to me?”
“I like to get some idea of who I have in my home.”
“But you never have anybody in this dusty old place.”
“How would you know?”
She shrugged. “You can tell the rooms haven’t been lived in. There are cobwebs in all the corners. I wanted to stay at our house, with mother, but father insisted I come to the palace.”
“You’ll be safer here, if there’s more trouble in the streets. Your mother should have come as well.”
“She told me not to worry. They aren’t interested in her. Just in father, and maybe Uncle Pompeius. As if anyone would be interested in uncle.”
“Interested?”
Julianna laid a hand, delicate like Cornelia’s, on the back of the miniature horse and absently petted the narrow back. “Oh, they say the factions want father to be emperor or some foolish thing. It’s just silly. You know all that though. It’s why we’re here.”
John nodded. “You don’t take the idea seriously?”
“Certainly not! Father doesn’t want to be emperor any more than this little horse does. I think it would kill him!” She spoke lightly but immediately bit her lower lip.
“You understand that you are here so that no one can force your father to change his mind?”
“I don’t know why we couldn’t stay in apartments at the Daphne Palace. Wouldn’t we be safer there? We weren’t spying on the emperor.”
“Did anyone say he suspected you?”
Julianna looked down at the stone horse. When she spoke it was to change the subject. “At least at the Daphne I had some friends to talk to. Do you suppose Justinian would mind if Antonina visited me?”
“You know Antonina?”
“Oh yes. Very well.”
“She’s hardly your age. She’s a friend of Theodora, isn’t she? And older than the empress.”
Julianna looked back at John. “Antonina and I have a lot in common. She’s as fond of horses as I am. Her father was a charioteer. She’s taught me a lot.” She scowled. “You’re just like father. You think I’m a child.”
“We had better get out of the garden,” John said. “It’s getting cold.” The truth was he needed to think of Julianna as a child because when he didn’t she reminded him too much of the past. “I’ll ask Justinian if Antonina can visit,” he added.
Julianna followed him back into the dining room. He pulled the screen shut against the rising wind.
“Thank you,” Julianna said. She brushed a burr off the front of her tunic. “And please accept my thanks for your hospitality toward my family.”
Chapter Thirteen
Felix began to lose his nerve when he reached the top of the low marble tiers encircling the terrace outside the Hall of the Nineteen Couches. He stopped and took a deep breath. Why would a woman like Antonina invite him here?
Because she was the same sort of woman as her friend Theodora? A woman who shared the empress’ malicious and often sanguinary sense of humor?
It was time for the assignation. The last pale rose of sunset had darkened to imperial purple and then black over the wall of the Hippodrome. All around the dark, blocky masses of palace buildings loomed up toward the starry sky. They reminded him of long ago scouting expeditions amongst the crags of the Isaurian mountains. More exhilarating than guarding the emperor and probably less dangerous.