“Do you think Anastasius is in danger?”
“No, he’s recovering. He told me it was lucky he only had a sip of the poisoned wine. If he’d drunk a whole cup…” Her lips began to tremble and she broke off. “I don’t want to think about it. You must have Artabanes arrested immediately!”
“What were Anastasius’ bodyguards doing while Artabanes was poisoning his wine?”
“They were waiting outside with the carriage.”
“So he was able to walk out to the carriage?”
“No. They told me they heard shouting from inside the house. The sounds of fighting. So they raced in. What about Artabanes? Aren’t you going to have him arrested?”
Joannina’s voice had risen to a screech and passersby gave the pair curious looks.
“Did the bodyguards say anything more?”
“They told me they ran into the garden and saw Artabanes attacking Anastasius.”
“It seems odd. Why would he do that if he had poisoned him?”
“Because the man is demented. He was swinging a stick and shouting ‘You’re dead, Gontharis I stabbed you in the heart!’ Demented, obviously!”
John recalled Artabanes reenactment of his killing the Libyan tyrant Gontharis “I see,” he replied. “And Anastasius was unable to fight back?”
“Only because his own stick had broken. And then he fell down and his bodyguards had to carry him home. Artabanes will no doubt claim Anastasius attacked him. People were supposed to think he had killed Anastasius with a stick in self defense, to cover up the fact he’d poisoned him.”
John’s opinion was that such a plan was beyond Artabanes. He made polite noises about looking into the matter further. Joannina began to calm down. Did she truly believe Anastasius wasn’t simply inebriated? “Why did Anastasius go to see Artabanes in the first place?”
“He didn’t tell me, Lord Chamberlain. I didn’t know he had gone there until the bodyguards carried him in and put him on the couch.”
“You shouldn’t be away from Anastasius too long. Go home and take care of him. I don’t believe Artabanes is dangerous.”
He managed to send her away slightly mollified and continued on his way, quickening his pace to make up for lost time.
Chapter Thirty-four
John caught Felix leaving his office in the administrative building. The excubitor captain looked annoyed when John asked that guards be posted secretly to keep a watch on Anatolius’ house. “Do you suspect your friends now, John?”
“I’m not interested in Anatolius, but in who might be seeking his legal advice.”
“I don’t know if I can spare the men, John. Since Theodora died you’d think Justinian was fighting a war in the city, ordering guards here and there, usually for no reason I can see.” He ran a big hand through his bushy beard. A patch of white bristles had recently appeared in its center, like the first snow of the year glimpsed at the very peaks of distant mountains.
“I’ll find some men somewhere,” he went on. “I wish it were a war. With a real enemy we could come to grips with. How are excubitors supposed to defeat phantoms in Justinian’s mind? I wish I’d made my career in the army. I’d be a general now, rather than the leader of a bunch of bodyguards.”
“The Captain of the Excubitors ranks above most generals,” John reminded him. “If you really would prefer a military command, you might yet have the chance. Now that Theodora is gone, Germanus might take over from Belisarius. Justinian has always wanted-”
“And what makes you think Germanus would favor me? I don’t know the man. And, now, I need to go. Urgent business. All the emperor’s business is urgent these days. I will see that Anatolius’ house is kept under watch but I can’t believe you would try to catch him at something he shouldn’t be doing.”
“If he is doing anything he shouldn’t, or being tempted to, it would be better if I caught him at it before the emperor does.”
Felix grunted. “I suppose so.”
Then John was looking at his friend’s broad back receding down the corridor.
He seemed as impatient to get away from John as Anatolius had been. John thought of Peter, sick, and Cornelia gone to Zeno’s estate and silent. Theodora’s death had shaken John’s whole world.
Why should he be surprised that the world changed? That people grew older and died? Why did he notice the gray in Anatolius’ hair and the white in Felix’s beard? What did those details tell him that he didn’t already know? How much time did people spend making meaningless observations that only confirmed what they already knew?
They weren’t observations but distractions, just as his interviews of the previous day had been. What had he learned except that most of the court had reason to want Theodora dead? If he interviewed everyone who wanted Theodora dead he would need to talk to most of the population of Constantinople just for a start.
What was more important than motive was how Justinian’s theoretical murderer had reached the empress. The question was not merely who had access but who had access to those who had access. The lady-in-waiting Vesta, for example, was in contact with Antonina, Joannina, Anastasius, and, unfortunately, Anatolius.
Thinking about Vesta reminded John of the other young woman who had served Theodora, the girl the empress had plucked from Isis’ brothel, Kuria.
He thought he should talk to Isis again. The former madam had remembered Kuria as being a favorite of courtiers.
Now that a day had passed-a day that felt more like a week-perhaps Isis would be able to remember more about her former employee.
Chapter Thirty-five
John’s route to Isis’ house for penitents took him through a nondescript square bounded on one side by a porticoed warehouse. As he approached it, the heap of gaudily hued rags piled in one corner moved. A dainty hand waved a greeting.
“Pulcheria!” John replied.
The beggar turned the good side of her face toward her visitor. It was an attractive face. Middle-aged now. Like everyone else John knew she was showing her age. Or at least one side of her face was attractive. The other side, ruined when a dissatisfied client had thrown a burning lamp at her years before, had not aged at all. It was still a melted mass of flesh, the visage of a demon caught in the act of changing into human form.
“You are enjoying our warm weather, Pulcheria?”
“Oh, yes. Those of us who live outdoors prefer the heat. But it has been so hot lately that people are staying inside, and so I have had fewer coins tossed my way. If you had a job for me, I would be pleased.”
Before John could reply there was a loud hiss. A mangy feline resembling a worn-out sack on three twisted sticks wobbled out from the sheltering rags, hissed at John again, and wandered away with all the grace of half a spider.
Pulcheria looked fondly after the cat. “Poor Tripod. He’s feeling his age in all three of his legs.”
“I am amazed he is still with you.”
“Oh, he’s tough. Nearly twenty now as near as I can tell. Thank the Lord. I know he can’t go on forever, but I try not to think about it. We all need a companion. I can almost feel sorry for the emperor.”
“I noticed you in the crowd watching Theodora’s funeral procession.”
“We must all pay our respects to our rulers whatever our stations in life.”
A generous attitude, John thought, for a woman who had been forced to make a living as a prostitute until disfigurement turned her into a street beggar. She showed no signs of bitterness. He saw she still bound her dark hair with countless colored ribbons, matching the wild arrangement of brilliant rags which formed her clothing.
They spoke for a while, then John pressed several coins of a denomination rarely glimpsed by beggars into her hand. He turned as if to leave, paused, exchanged a few more words with her, and added another coin. Finally he continued on his way.
***