Those had been the days! How Theodora had laughed when he presented the radish colored cat, a gray feline he explained as resembling a radish that had grown old and molded. And no matter how many times she had him tell the joke to her courtiers they laughed just as hard. Well, what choice did they have?”
His appetite suddenly gone, he tossed the remains of the chicken leg into the rose bush behind the bench. Two cats-neither radish colored, one as black as night and the other brown and white-appeared as from nowhere and commenced a vigorous discussion as to which would eat the remaining scraps.
It was at that instant he caught a glimpse through the rose bushes of Anastasia passing by.
Lady Bast sends a sign, he breathed, ignoring the marble Justinian’s disapproving stare at such pagan blasphemy. For after all, was not Bast the protectoress of cats, women, and secrets? Surely his sacrifice of chicken to her sacred animals, unintentional though it may have been, would cause her to smile on his endeavor to use secret means to return the late empress to life?
Hadn’t he been wondering how he might gain admittance to Theodora’s private domain? Wouldn’t something from her sister, a blood relative, serve to attract the interest of Theodora’s wandering shade and be far easier to steal?
He jumped up and followed her, taking care to stay concealed behind shrubbery, hedges, and trees. Anastasia threaded her way across the palace grounds, passing under an arbor draped with grape vines, through a garden of Greek statuary set against a somber background of pine trees, past an artificial lake shaped as a map of the empire and inhabited by several swans that hissed as he crept by. Now and then she glanced back, as if suspicious she was being followed. Each time he crouched down, scarcely breathing, until she turned and resumed walking.
To his surprise, her destination was the Hormisdas Palace, where Theodora and Justinian had lived before he became emperor. More recently, Theodora had used the Hormisdas to shelter religious refugees adherent to the heretical sect toward which she was sympathetic. They were still in residence.
“By the gods of Egypt!” muttered Dedi, peering around the corner of a frescoed corridor at a raucous reception room buzzing with an assortment of ill-clad men attended by hordes of flies. The din was that of a public market, the smell a combination of refuse heap and public toilet. Apparently Theodora’s protection extended from beyond the grave. At least until Justinian decided otherwise. He had always indulged his wife’s whims but would he continue now that she was gone?
Dedi offered a prayer of thanksgiving for the crowds of humanity concealing him as he stalked after Anastasia. She had gone directly to the reception room, which still retained traces of its former frescoed glory despite the palace occupants’ unfortunate habit of lighting fires on its floors, and from there up the wide, green marble stairs formerly guarded by excubitors and into a room with a gilt-decorated door a few steps to the right of the top of the staircase. After a short stay, she emerged and then trotted quickly downstairs, carrying a package.
Dedi kept her in sight as she exited via a polished oak door, passed through corridors, and out into a rapidly fading warm, gray twilight.
As twilight deepened into velvet darkness, Dedi kept close to Anastasia’s heels.
She reached Antonina’s house where she was bowed in through the front entrance. Dedi scrambled over the back wall of the grounds. Creeping along on all fours from sheltering bush to bush, ears strained for shouts of discovery, he finally rose to his knees and peeked through a window into a dimly lit room.
He was startled to see Anastasia and Antonina standing a hand’s breadth away on the other side of the lattices. Had they spotted him?
They gave no indication they had. He heard Anastasia say, “I’ve brought something you might like to see.”
What it was remained a mystery, because his gaze went past the two women and he gasped in mingled delight and fear.
His magick at the empress’ tomb, though interrupted, had been powerful enough to work, after all.
Theodora was also in the room, staring out toward him.
DAY SEVEN
Chapter Forty-five
John was standing in front of the office of a shipping concern not far from the docks when he spotted the aristocratic stranger from the Leviathan prowling the opposite side of the square. The ship had finally reached a port where it could be properly repaired. He had wondered whether he and his family would be forbidden to go ashore. But apparently Captain Theon had not been instructed to insure that the former Lord Chamberlain was, in fact, delivered to his intended destination. Or else he considered there was no threat of John fleeing.
Then there was the further possibility that the mysterious passenger who was lodged in the captain’s cabin had been dispatched to keep a watch on John.
John had seen the man loitering at a distance as soon as he and Cornelia and the servants had left the ship. Wherever John went, the stranger was there as well.
The square was surrounded by low buildings faced with stucco which might once have been painted blue. Beside the doorways competing shippers advertised their services in black and white mosaics depicting the type of sea and land transport available. Pedestrians and laden carts filled the square. Down a colonnaded side street could be seen inviting rows of shops.
Reluctantly, John had left Cornelia, Peter, and Hypatia scouring the marketplace. He supposed that whoever had attacked Peter on the Leviathan would not risk violence in public, and Peter insisted on purchasing provisions-fruit, figs, olives-anything that didn’t need cooking since Captain Theon had barred him from the makeshift kitchen in the cabin.
“He thinks I fell over the rail,” Peter told John indignantly. “Says he’s afraid I’ll fall into the brazier and set the ship on fire!”
Hypatia, standing beside her husband, added, “Theon has no right to talk-a captain who sails his ship onto the rocks. He’s only pretending to think Peter fell overboard. Peter’s as spry as a young mountain goat.”
John had seen Peter stumble on the stairs of the house in Constantinople. He was not so sure that the servant possessed the spryness of even a very old goat. He did, however, believe in Peter’s unwavering honesty. If Peter said he’d been pushed overboard then he had.
It might actually have been John who was being attacked-or warned-through the attempted murder of one of his party. But about what? That he was not to think of returning to Constantinople? That no matter how far away John might be he would never be beyond the emperor’s grasp?
He walked away from the shipping company, went along the alley hugging the building, and past the stables behind it. Beyond, a short street ran between three and four story brick tenements. John turned down the street, then ducked into the first doorway he came to.
He waited. Shortly thereafter a figure walked past his hiding place. The passenger from the Leviathan.
The young man paused just beyond where John had drawn back into the shadow, and appeared to study the street in front of him. Then he broke into a run.
When the young man turned the corner at the end of the street, John left his hiding place and returned the way he’d come.
There appeared to be nothing on the street to attract a one who didn’t know the city. So, John deduced, the young aristocrat must indeed have been following him. With ill intent? To make sure he didn’t abscond? Suspicious of what John might be doing-or persons he might be meeting?
John hurried back to the Leviathan. He had seen Captain Theon preparing to leave the ship to consult a carpenter about the rudder. With both Theon and his passenger ashore John would be able to investigate the cabin. He was convinced that Peter hadn’t been banned from cooking there because of fear that he’d cause a fire.