Could Antonina be involved in the theft from the church?
He would rather wrestle with a denizen of hell than be caught looking at her askance. Suddenly he felt a presence at his back. Something infinitely cold with menace. He staggered around, heart leaping, but there was nothing to see except the icy moon hanging high up in the sky, beyond the grasp of the countless crosses reaching up from the rooftops of the Christian capital.
Nevertheless, he fled, peering this way and that, fearful of being observed.
Dawn and a nap had cleared away the black cobwebs of Dedi’s fears. Having been frustrated in his attempts to revive his employer, he began to consider other schemes. It hadn’t taken long to discover that the object clutched by the demon had been the shroud of the Virgin. News spread fast. Half the city had probably learned about the theft while Dedi pursued the perpetrators. Both Justinian and the church would be grateful if he were able to restore the relic to its rightful place. Could he steal it back?
He wasn’t certain what he might learn, but he would soon be out on the streets and idle anyway.
So now a shriveled face peered out from behind a statue of Virgil. Although looted from Rome, the statue was not, in truth, a very good example of classical art, barely good enough to fill one of the many niches needing residents in the nether walls of the Hippodrome. Dedi had no interest in either sculpture or poetry, but only in the concealment offered by Virgil’s voluminous marble toga.
Invisible though he was from the street and the mansion, his terror returned. However, his fear of demonic forces and Antonina were outweighed by his fear for his future. He might have taken consolation in being free of Theodora’s whims, for nobody could have shielded him from her wrath if he had offended her, even if the offense arose, as a storm on the Sea of Marmara, for no other reason than that she was bored. But the fact was, with Theodora gone, he no longer had a place at court.
The empress had delighted in his magick. Dedi’s talking, human-headed snake might be an obvious fraud, but its often obscene repartee always made the empress laugh. Not that her laughter was a pleasant sound. Thus did the jackal cough over the dead and crows croak over their carrion. Still, coaxing that hellish noise out of her earned him a comfortable place to live, and the jingle of coins in his purse pleased him.
“Send for Dedi of Egypt,” Theodora would order, and he had never failed to make her scimitar smile appear.
It didn’t hurt that his shrunken stature almost qualified him as one of the dwarfs on which she doted. He puffed out his sunken chest with pride at the recollection. His elation did not last long. For she and her scarlet smile were gone forever and he had made enemies who sneered at him and whispered of unholy practices as he passed by in the frescoed halls of the Great Palace. And it was true, not all of his tricks were as patently fraudulent as the talking snake. Ironically, the courtiers were afraid of him. Afraid his magick would do them harm. But now, without Theodora’s protection, his reputation was going to harm him.
During his solitary hours behind Virgil’s toga, Dedi had reached a frightening conclusion. The desecration of the mausoleum was sure to be identified as his handiwork and by extension he would be accused of stealing the sacred icon on the same night.
Dedi wished he hadn’t forgotten the Egyptian talisman in his panic. Still, he could never have caught all the frogs, and they were equally damning. It was unfair. He had only wanted to bring Theodora back from the halls of the dead, or at least within earshot of the emperor. Who could fault him for that? He had nothing to do with the theft of the holy relic. The Christians did not understand that the magick he practiced was not the same as their magick. What use would their holy charm have been to an Egyptian magician?
Except now he desperately needed it to save his own ugly little head.
And how did he plan to regain the shroud of the Virgin? It was one thing to trick the empress into laughing and quite another to do battle with forces of evil. Would the malign spirits he needed to overcome be as powerful as Shezmu, slaughterer of wicked souls in the underworld? He recalled tales he and his childhood friends had used to scare each other. Shezmu employed a press and the heads of such souls to make wine for the virtuous dead.
Movement at the side of the mansion caught his attention. A figure emerged from the side door, just visible in the light from an open window, and slunk away.
Things were becoming clearer. But what, exactly, was he going to do now he knew the demon had disguised itself as Antonina’s servant Tychon?
Chapter Sixteen
Felix picked himself up off the street, cursing rut-splintered axles, overturned carts, dead bodies, Fate, and skittish donkeys. He took a few tentative steps, making certain he hadn’t broken anything. Fat droplets of rain began beating down on his head, so he cursed the heavens too.
His cargo lay sprawled at the edge of the colonnade, clearly illuminated by the torch left burning in front of a shuttered butcher’s shop. The blanket had become slightly undone. One hand stuck out, signaling for help.
Felix looked up and down the street. At present it was deserted. The rain increased, stirring up a smell of dust where it hit. A gust of wind groaned through the colonnade. Lightning flashed repeatedly. The flickering light made the dead hand look as if it were waving frantically. The noise of the accident may have alerted someone. For all he knew the urban watch could be on the way.
Even if he could push the cart upright it wasn’t going anywhere with a broken axle.
Did he hear voices? The sound of rain drowned everything out.
He grasped the blanket-wrapped corpse and lifted it with a grunt, feeling a sharp twinge in his side. Perhaps he’d broken something after all. As he staggered over to the donkey the whole length of an arm freed itself and slapped against his leg.
He flung the horrid load over the donkey’s back, undid the traces leaving the bit and a length of rein in place, and urged the animal onward. Forget the cemeteries. He couldn’t be too far from the sea. Judging from the driving rain, blowing straight into his face, the sea was coming to him. He was moving downhill. Water rushed along the street, splashing around his ankles. All he needed to do was follow the gurgling rivulets.
Soon man, beast, and dead man were soaked. The corpse kept slipping and sliding further out of the blanket until both arms and an elegantly booted foot dangled in plain view. Luckily no sensible person would be abroad in such a torrent, and beggars sheltering in doorways or vacant shops had problems enough of their own without worrying about what others might be doing.
Thunder reverberated, the ground vibrated. Lightning flashes revealed a city devoid of color, a bas relief in pure white marble. The roar of the rain numbed the senses. Felix was hardly aware of his beard dripping or his saturated clothes. He might have been accompanying his lifeless companion into the land of the dead. The warm bedroom he had so recently shared with Anastasia existed in another world.
Then he saw an orange light in the thickening mist. A lantern, surely, to be shining in the midst of the downpour.
The urban watch sometimes carried lanterns.
Felix froze and pulled awkwardly at his reins, forcing the donkey to stop.
The light bobbed in the middle of the street. The rain and mist obscured whoever was holding it. A whole contingent of armed men might be staring at him, wondering what sort of madman would be leading a donkey along in weather like this. A madman whose actions required investigating.
The light moved, crossed the street, and vanished under the colonnade.