He finally stopped at the shrine sitting opposite the island. The shrine was a simple, open-sided, four-pillared structure with a small pedestal sheltered under its flat roof. Soggy ashes lay in a deep bowl set into the top of the pedestal, the remains of a question addressed to the goats that someone had written on a scrap of parchment and burnt before sunrise in keeping with tradition. It was all superstitious nonsense, of course, but entertaining enough.
Zeno blinked. The strengthening sunlight glinting off the incoming waves hurt his eyes. Had Porphyrio really come for the child? Could the sea have swallowed her up? He was struck by an inexplicable sense of doom. He would never see her again. Another young life was gone, snatched away from under his roof.
Then he heard laughter carried on the freshening breeze and he reminded himself that he had known all along where he would find her if he had just paused long enough to think about it.
Minthe’s house sat at the base of a hill that thrust out toward the water. Surrounded by herb beds, her home was a strange dwelling, originally a small half-ruined temple to some forgotten god and now repaired in a makeshift manner.
Minthe and Sunilda were looking out to sea, sitting on a fallen marble column that served as a bench.
“We just talked to Porphyrio,” the girl called to Zeno as he approached.
“And what did he tell you?” Zeno spoke calmly but shot a glare toward Minthe.
“That’s a secret,” replied the girl, wrinkling her nose as if annoyed he’d asked. Though Zeno had heard her laughing not long before, her solemn little face revealed no sign of humor.
“We’ve been having a pleasant little chat, sir,” put in Minthe. “I was just about to bring her back.”
She stood, a short woman but straight and angular, with long silver hair that stirred in the sea breeze. Zeno couldn’t help thinking that her bony face with its high cheekbones must have given her a most striking appearance when she was young. If she lived long enough she would again be beautiful.
“Would you like me to make a protective charm for her?” the woman inquired.
“Certainly not,” Zeno snapped. “We mustn’t undo all of Godomar’s tutoring, Minthe. And as for you, young lady,” he said, trying without much success to look and sound severe, “I fear I must forbid you to wander about unaccompanied until we can be certain it’s safe to do so.”
The child hopped down from her perch. “I know what you’re thinking, Zeno. It’s about Gadaric, but you don’t need to worry. Why, what do you suppose Minthe and I were laughing about just now? But don’t ask. That’s a secret too!”
***
Peter followed John to the front door of Zeno’s villa. Having posted excubitors along the paved drive leading up from the coast road, Felix accompanied them, but even though they were protected, Peter glanced around the lush surroundings with increasing trepidation. As they passed through the gardens, he had noticed several statues of horrifying blasphemy set here and there among the riot of flower beds as well as numerous shrubs pruned into the likenesses of fantastic creatures. A bronze mechanical owl that unexpectedly hooted at the visitors from its perch on a marble tree stump near the wide terrace in front of Zeno’s house had given him a terrible fright.
Worse, the villa’s polished wood door had swung open as the men stepped up to it, but no servant waited in the exceedingly narrow and unusually short vestibule. The door had opened of its own accord.
Peter trod stoutly forward anyway, determined to accompany his master to the end, even into Hell itself.
He was therefore not completely surprised when the outer door thudded shut behind them without apparent aid, but he was certainly shocked when the lamp set in a wall alcove sputtered and suddenly died, leaving the vestibule in darkness.
Felix cursed in a disgustingly obscene manner and John uttered a short, sharp phrase in a foreign language that, going by the tone his master used, Peter was happy he was not able to translate.
There was a grating squeal and the marble beneath Peter’s feet vibrated in the manner that the pavement of a forum moved when a heavy cart passed by. The inner door of the vestibule opened a crack, spilling some light into the space in which they were trapped.
It stopped moving.
Felix stepped to the door and tried to force it open, his shadow swimming around the now dimly lit vestibule as he struggled. Instead of obliging, the door clanked shut again.
“Stand away,” he finally growled. His sword came out of its scabbard. “This could well be a trap.”
He pounded on the inner door and shouted a command that it be opened in the emperor’s name, his voice booming around the enclosed area.
Again the floor vibrated slightly and again the door creaked open just enough to allow a little light to enter.
Footsteps approached and then a woman’s voice spoke reassuringly.
“Don’t worry, you in there. It keeps jamming even though Hero’s tinkering endlessly with the mechanism. I’ll have you out very quickly.”
A thinly shaped object was thrust through the narrow illuminated opening. Felix raised his sword but the object proved to be an iron bar with which the woman on the other side proceeded to lever open the recalcitrant door.
Their rescuer had dark hair dressed in an elaborately rolled fashion. Her silk garments were obviously not those of a servant.
“We keep this useful item to hand,” she explained with a hint of a smile, setting the bar back against the wall as the erstwhile captives emerged into Zeno’s bright atrium.
“Thank you, Calyce,” John said with a slight bow.
The woman looked surprised. “Lord Chamberlain! We spoke only briefly on the night of the tragedy. You have an excellent memory for names and faces.”
He smiled. “A very useful skill, considering many of my court duties.”
Calyce bent to place a wooden wedge under the inner door. “We generally keep it open this way,” she explained, “but it must have been knocked aside by accident.”
Felix was looking around suspiciously, sword still half raised. “There seem to be rather a lot of accidents on this estate,” he remarked dourly, finally sheathing the weapon.
“What about the outside door? Have there been problems with it?” John asked the woman.
She shook her head. “No, it’s only the inner one that’s given occasional difficulty-at least up until now.”
“Calyce! What are you doing?” Another woman swept into the atrium in an impatient flurry of rustling robes. She was shorter than Calyce and as plump as a dove. She sounded angry.
“I am admitting guests, Livia.”
“That is a servant’s duty! The empress would be appalled to learn that one of her ladies-in-waiting had decided to act as a doorkeeper.”
“Livia, my felicitations,” John intervened. “We spoke on the night of the banquet, didn’t we? I’m afraid Zeno’s servants are not so attentive today as they were then. Indeed, they all appear to be otherwise occupied at present. However, I can find my way now that Calcye has so graciously released us from our temporary imprisonment.”
“Thank you, Lord Chamberlain,” replied Livia. “Needless to say, I shall have a very stern word with the servants about their negligence.”
Having been spared the need to resolve the dilemma of whether an empress’ lady-in-waiting should wait upon the emperor’s Lord Chamberlain, the two women then departed into the depths of the villa, muttering irritably at one another.
Felix looked even more annoyed than the women. “I doubt that was an accident, John,” he said bluntly as soon as Livia and Calcye were out of earshot. “Surely even Zeno must be tired of all these malfunctioning mechanisms by now? It seems extremely suspicious to me.”
John agreed it was certainly very odd.
Much relieved, Peter finally spoke. “If I may say so, master, visitors should always be escorted immediately to the presence of the master of the house and not abandoned to stand around in the atrium. After all, you never know what some of them might get up to if they’re left alone to wander about the halls.” He gave a sniff of censure but did not offer his entire opinion, which was that apart from Zeno’s estate being a stew of blasphemy and black arts, its master apparently oversaw it very carelessly, not to say with dangerous negligence.