Ahasuerus placed the egg in her hand and commanded her to question it about her future.
Europa stifled a laugh as the woman swallowed her anger and addressed the egg as requested. Ahasuerus put the egg on the table and, waving his hands in mystical gestures, mumbled what sounded very much like nonsense over it. Finally he said “Move that plate nearer. I am going to break this egg open. If the contents are red it means a happy future. If they’re black…well….”
As he spoke he tapped the egg on the edge of the plate.
Red-tinted contents oozed forth.
Mistress Kaloethes clapped her hands. “Ah, happiness is in store!” she cooed, by all appearances instantly mollified. “Perhaps I was too hard on my poor husband. I should let him know the good news.” She got up and climbed the stairs to find Kaloethes.
Cornelia smiled at Ahasuerus and complimented him on his showmanship. “That was well-done. I saw you exchange the eggs, but then I knew what to look for.”
“You have sharp eyes, lady,” he returned. “And so do I. Few have the skill to see the future.”
“It takes a fair amount of skill to extract the innards of an egg, color them with wine, and get them back in the shell without breaking it.”
“You need a steady hand,” Ahasuerus acknowledged. “The worst part is repairing the small hole in the egg afterwards, especially if you’ve been sampling the wine beforehand. I usually carry a couple of prepared eggs with me when I go out and about in case I meet a possible client. In her case I thought it better not to give her the egg filled with soot. It always means trouble ahead, or so I tell my clients. But how did you know how the trick’s accomplished?”
“There’s a magician in our troupe. He showed me once. Unfortunately he does not always accomplish the effect he intends,” Cornelia replied. “One of his most spectacular failures was when he set fire to a house with his flying Hecate trick. We left in great haste.”
Ahasuerus smiled. “One of the tricks to being a magician is knowing when to leave in great haste.”
Europa laid her hand on Cornelia’s arm. “But do you think he could tell us our futures, mother?” she whispered.
Europa knew very well that the troupe’s own magician was nothing but a clever charlatan, Cornelia thought. Strange how people were more willing to respect the skills of strangers than of those they knew. “I doubt it.” Cornelia smiled at Ahasuerus to soften her words.
“Oh, but you are wrong, my dear. The future is all around us. It’s in the shape of the clouds we see through that door. In the wine stains on this table. In the sound of the wind in the fig tree by the fountain. The future can be foretold by anyone who has the knowledge to interpret the signs and the wit to use their eyes and ears.”
An orator as well as a charlatan, Cornelia thought as she escorted Europa away beyond the reach of the ancient’s persuasive tongue.
Halfway across the courtyard they were approached by one of the men who had been watching the quail filliping. “Pardon me, ladies. My name is Gregorius. I heard you inquire about the troupe staying here. Can I be of assistance?”
Cornelia noticed Gregorius glancing at Europa. It wasn’t uncommon. She was an attractive young woman, but perhaps too inclined to encourage such attentions. “We don’t need any help, thank you. We’ll come back later.”
“My apologies. I meant no offense. You’re not the first to be interested in Kaloethes’ guests. Why, the Lord Chamberlain himself questioned me about them.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. I shall not soon forget it. It isn’t every day one is interrogated by John the Eunuch.”
The statement hit Cornelia like a hammer blow. Surely she must have misheard. “What did you call him?” Her words emerged faintly.
“John the Eunuch. It’s what everyone calls him.”
She felt Europa’s hand clasp her arm. “People will have their coarse jests about high officials.”
Gregorius looked confused. “It isn’t a joke. It’s just what he is. His kind are underfoot all over the palace. Lord Chamberlains are always eunuchs. Since they can’t have any heirs, they aren’t as likely to have designs on the empire.”
“I see.”
Cornelia allowed Europa to tug her in the direction of the street. The courtyard, the archway they passed under, seemed to have no substance. She was dreaming. She had been dreaming since the instant she had opened the door of the ship’s cabin and seen John.
Yet it had seemed real.
Perhaps that had been real, and this was a dream. A nightmare. Cornelia willed herself to wake up, tried to push sleep away, but the dream continued to press down on her with all the infinite, crushing weight of reality.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Two deaths in four days.
In overcrowded Constantinople, it was not unusual for death to brush past. But two murders, both involving Isis’ house-one in the alley outside, the other inside-could there be some connection?
The Lord Chamberlain’s study was lit by wavering lamplight but when a brighter light flickered across its walls, John turned toward the open window, half expecting to see the unsteady glow from one of the fires that so often raged in Constantinople. He was relieved to see a flash of distant lightning.
He drank more wine from his cracked cup. The girl in the mosaic seemed to be looking at him with reproach in her big eyes.
“No, my child, I haven’t forgotten you now that I have a real daughter,” he muttered. Zoe seemed unappeased. If he were unable to deal with a child of glass and imagination how could he deal with one of flesh and blood?
“Perhaps it isn’t that,” John continued to think aloud. “Do you imagine I have spent too much time thinking about Cornelia and Europa and too little unraveling Leukos’ death? I assure you, I have explored many possibilities.”
Why then was he no nearer to his destination, his solution?
“And now there has been another murder. But you wouldn’t understand,” John told the girl. “You are only a child.”
He recalled his dream of running tirelessly across fields, from which he had been awakened by the emperor’s messenger, young Hektor. Was the dream perhaps prophetic, or merely wishful thinking?
Surely not. It could be more readily explained as an imbalance in the humors or a reflection of his waking experiences. Seeing Cornelia and her-their-daughter in the Hippodrome had brought back to him the feelings of his youth.
The cup rose to his lips again and John was surprised to find it empty.
As empty as his thoughts.
A well-dressed palace official unadvisedly turns down a dark alley during a celebration and is stabbed to death. A young prostitute is strangled.
These were not unusual occurrences. Perhaps he was trying to find some meaning in them that simply was not there.
And what about Thomas? He claimed to have visited Leukos.
Could a man who claimed to be a knight from Bretania questing after a holy relic be trusted, thought John, a man who had, moreover, surreptitiously followed him through the palace grounds in the middle of the night?
John had begun to find Thomas’ behavior suspicious. What was he to think now that Thomas had revealed himself to be a fellow Mithran?
Thunder rumbled over the walls of the city as the storm moved inland. John rose abruptly from his seat.
“Peter,” he called. “I’m going out.”
***
After he had secured the house door behind his master, Peter returned to the study. Keeping his watery eyes averted from the blasphemous mosaic, he retrieved John’s cracked cup. Why did the Lord Chamberlain insist upon using a thing so time worn? Sometimes it seemed to Peter that John was like one of those holy hermits who denounce every worldly pleasure. Except, of course, that John was a pagan.
More puzzling yet to the old servant was why his master sometimes spoke to the wall of his study. Not that Peter eavesdropped, but in the course of his duties he often passed the room and had observed John gazing at the mosaic as he spoke. That had frightened Peter. Holy men often went mad, it was true. But surely the Lord Chamberlain was a man of this world?