“Indeed?”
“Yes. Gregory was taking his leave of Peter because he had a call to make. I had to return to my office, but since Gregory’s business was in a street right on Crinagoras’ way, he volunteered to accompany the old fellow. The streets are more dangerous than ever and Gregory was happy to accept the offer of an escort. He did keep saying he didn’t want to cause any trouble, but if Crinagoras would see him to the door, that would be helpful.”
“Do you know where was he going?”
Anatolius beamed. “To visit a shipper by the name of Nereus. Crinagoras told me all about it when I saw him next day. He was beside himself with excitement. Apparently Nereus was on his deathbed and frantic to make an oral will, so Crinagoras and Gregory were both recruited as witnesses! The experience was new to Crinagoras…and perhaps deserves an Ode.”
Chapter Six
Empress Theodora stepped out of her silk tunica and pushed it away across the tiled floor of the Great Palace baths with a deft flick of her bare foot.
Naked, she was a short, middle-aged woman with thick ankles and slightly fleshy arms, hardly the glamorous subject for sculptors as she was when clothed in imperial regalia. She did, however, still possess the shapely calves and thighs of the dancer, one of the professions she had followed in her youth.
This afternoon her audience consisted of her ladies-in-waiting and two aristocratic matrons, standing nearly up to their chests in the steaming circular pool, plus the startled bathers’ two servants.
Theodora’s ladies-in-waiting carefully folded the layers of glinting, gem-patterned robes she’d just shed and gathered up several pieces of jewelry. The empress glanced down over herself, performing the ritual examination that had become common for the city’s inhabitants. “Do you see any of the signs?”
The attendant she’d addressed, trained never to stare at her mistress, timidly directed her gaze toward the empress. Finally she shook her head and quickly turned away, bending to retrieve the discarded tunica.
Would anyone dare tell her if they did note some indication of the plague, Theodora wondered.
She padded over to the steps leading down into the water. The baths she had chosen occupied a semicircular room, reminding her of the apse of a church. Steam from the pool coiled upwards through a shaft of light descending from the circular aperture in the large room’s domed ceiling. Benches and tables sat against the walls. A monumental Diana, hunting gear strewn around her chiseled feet, stood nearby, looking ready to place a bare marble foot into the pool.
“My private bath is well appointed, ladies, but it gets lonely, bathing with only echoes for companions,” Theodora observed to the room at large.
One of the bathers, chubby and pink, began to execute a low bow, became suddenly aware that her pendulous breasts were, perhaps, not an appropriate display of respect, and clamped her arms down over them. Her companion, a pallid, angular woman with sunken cheeks and chest, stepped backwards in the water, wincing as her spine came up against the sharp snout of a fancifully carved, water-spewing fish.
“There is no need for formalities, Priscilla,” Theodora addressed the plump bather. “Just think, now you’ll be able to tell everyone you’ve bathed with the empress. That stable boy you’ve been trysting with in the palace gardens will be most impressed, not to mention your husband the senator.”
Priscilla was suddenly much less pink despite the hot water.
“As for you, Galla,” Theodora observed to the other woman, “I expect you don’t have anyone to tell your secrets. But you don’t have to run away. I won’t bite.” She narrowed her eyes. “You’re not a devotee of Sappho, are you? Might it be I will not be safe with you in there?”
“Oh, no, excellency. Never. That is to say…”
Theodora giggled. “This is so much more pleasant than my solitary ablutions. I know, let’s play.” She splashed a handful of water into Galla’s face.
The woman sputtered and coughed.
Theodora splashed her again. “Come now, fight back. It’s no fun otherwise. You too, Priscilla. Hurry up!” She sent a spray in the direction of the plump woman. “What? Afraid to splash the empress? Just pretend I’m someone else. Pretend I’m your stable boy.” Her tone sharpened. “I might as well be bathing with the Patriarch. Play!”
Priscilla bent slightly, cradling her bosom with one hand, dipped her fingers into the water, and shook them in Theodora’s direction.
The empress gasped. Her hands flew up to her eyes. “What did you do?” she wailed. “I can’t see!”
Her ladies-in-waiting rushed to the edge of the pool.
Priscilla gaped in horror.
“Don’t stand there! Help me!” Theodora cried.
Priscilla stumbled forward clumsily. The empress executed a well practiced dance step, swung her foot, and cut her fellow bather’s legs out from under her. Priscilla disappeared below the water, sending a wave up over the rim of the pool, soaking the ladies-in-waiting.
Theodora laughed with delight.
As Priscilla surfaced, choking and spitting, Theodora gleefully prepared to dunk her playmate’s head beneath the water.
Before she could do so, a shadow passed over the pool.
Something was blocking the light from the aperture in the dome.
Theodora looked up.
A dark shape almost filled the opening.
A great, black bird.
It dropped, dark wings spreading, and hit the center of the pool in an explosion of water.
What bobbed to the surface almost immediately wasn’t a bird, however, but a man whose leathery face was half hidden by a sodden hood. In one claw-like hand he clutched a sack from which emanated a hideous, demonic cackling.
The matrons and attendants shrieked in unison.
“Silence!” Theodora commanded. “All of you! If I’m not mistaken, we have a holy visitor.”
The hooded man shook the dripping sack, which cackled even more frantically. “What do you mean, highness? Can’t you see, I’m Death! Just thought I’d drop in unexpectedly, like I always do!”
“You’re the holy fool we’ve all been hearing about,” Theodora told him with a scimitar of a smile.
“Am I? Well, you’re the empress, I suppose, so if you say so, I must be.” He lurched toward Galla, his cloak floating on the surface of the water. Galla covered her chest with her hands and cringed away, but was pinned against the carved fish head.
“Don’t you want to hear my riddle?” asked the intruder. “Why is the empress like Rome?”
Galla’s only reply was to tremble with horror and embarrassment.
“Because…because…she’s the symbol of all that’s great?” offered Priscilla in a quavering tone.
The man now sidled in Priscilla’s direction. “You should be trying to flatter me, not her, don’t you think? After all, I might be carrying a knife. As far as I can see, the empress isn’t armed.”
“Tell us why the empress is like Rome,” Theodora demanded.
“Why, because Justinian will do anything to have her, even though she’s already been well plundered by strangers!”
He scrambled nimbly up the bath stairs, scattering the ladies-in-waiting, and squatted toad-like, dripping water, on the tiles.
Theodora followed and hunkered down next to him, careless of her nudity. “Tell me, fool, how did you get in here? There are guards everywhere outside.”
“It was a miracle, highness.”
“It will be an even greater miracle if you can get out…still attached to your head, that is.”
“Of course, for I have seen too much.” The man leered. “Well, if the Lord wills it, so be it. But, first, allow me to entertain you.”
He opened the soggy sack, tipped out an extremely agitated chicken, and then scooped two handfuls of wet grain from the depths of the sack.