“If someone wishes to harm the girl, they’re not going to lurk around in the vicinity waiting to be apprehended, are they? I’d guess she’s nowhere near here. It’s more likely she’s half way to Constantinople by now.”
“If she’s even still alive,” John responded somberly.
“It’s as if the intruder entered the villa by magick.” Felix sounded uneasy. “Even so, with Theodora breathing down our necks we’d better be seen to be searching.” He lowered his voice as a pair of Zeno’s servants passed by, torches in hand, calling Sunilda’s name. “So just in case I’ve dispatched several of my men back towards the city, John. With everyone milling around, even Theodora won’t notice a few guards are gone, assuming she even knows how many were here to begin with.”
“Theodora never misses anything but I agree you’re right to look beyond the estate. I’m off now to talk to Minthe. She was friendly with the girl and could well know something useful.”
Felix gestured toward a nearby group of excubitors waiting for orders but John shook his head. “No. I’ll go alone.”
In a short while John was on the shore road, looking down towards the village. He could see bobbing lights marking progress from hut to hut as the search for the girl continued. The murmur of breaking waves formed a peaceful lullaby as he loped swiftly down the hill toward Minthe’s house. An observer might have mistaken him for a young man running to meet his lover at this late hour, anticipation quickening his stride.
No lamplight shone through the window of the woman’s strange dwelling. John cut across the herb beds, whose crisp, clean smell of thyme mingled with the musky smell of decaying seaweed lying on the beach.
He stepped carefully around the fallen column Minthe used as a bench. It was not hard to imagine the resident of such a strange house practicing magick. Perhaps there lingered in the remaining pieces of the original building’s walls some trace of the power of whatever god had once been worshipped here.
His flickering torchlight glanced off the glossy, blackberries hanging heavily on a bush under the dark window. The house door stood open to the surrounding night and the mournful sound of the sea.
John drew his blade, tossed his torch through the door and then leapt inside after it.
His caution was unnecessary, however, for the small room was empty, its atmosphere even more pungent than that hanging above the herb beds outside.
John scooped the torch from the stone-flagged floor, sending shadows slithering around the walls and across the bundled herbs hanging from the ceiling beams. The flickering light passed over a low bench and an array of clay pots on a table.
An arm extended from the shadows under the table.
His torch revealed a rotund figure clothed in a worn but finely made orange dalmatic, sprawling limply, its limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Its head was a shapeless mass.
For a heartbeat John feared it was Zeno. Then realization flooded in and with it the grim prospect of returning to the villa to inform the empress that all he had been able to locate was the straw man.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“So, Lord Chamberlain, you have failed in your search.” Theodora was seated on a red couch by the window in Zeno’s main reception room.
John bowed his head wordlessly, wondering if the two dismissed ladies-in-waiting were listening outside the door. The only people now in the room were himself, the empress, and her unfortunate host, Zeno.
Theodora gave a particularly unpleasant smile. “Yes, Justinian will not be pleased to hear that our dear young guest has disappeared while in your personal charge.” She paused. “Not to mention while she was also under the guard of Captain Felix.”
John’s face remained impassive. He well knew that, despite the truth of any given situation, punishment was commonly meted out according to imperial whim. Thus quite often the innocent suffered along with those who, if not guilty by design, had failed in their duty-or had been judged to have failed.
“Highness,” he replied curtly, “no punishment would be sufficient for my neglect of my duty.”
He was pleased to see that his answer surprised Theodora, although few except him would have noticed the transitory narrowing of her eyelids or the almost imperceptible tightening of her reddened lips.
“I am quite certain an appropriate punishment can be devised, Lord Chamberlain,” she replied coldly. “However, I will admit that I am curious. Why do you admit to this negligence?”
John squared thin shoulders and looked her directly in the eye, a liberty that few attempted. Of those who had, most had soon regretted it. “I neglected my duty because I allowed anger to control my actions, highness. That is never acceptable.”
Theodora’s hard expression changed to thoughtfulness. “That’s true enough, and that you should admit it makes me almost respect you. Yes, almost.”
In the ensuing heavy silence, John spared a quick thought for Felix, hoping he did not need to be reminded of the danger in which he also stood.
Then his mind turned to Sunilda, so young and far from her home and family. She might well already be dead. The thought sickened him.
The truth of the matter was, he admitted to himself, that he had become fond of the girl. Now she was gone, perhaps forever, he felt as if he had first gained, and then lost, another daughter. The thought caused him more pain than he would ever have anticipated.
Theodora suddenly smiled. For an instant John imagined she had somehow read his morbid thoughts and was reacting to them with pleasure.
“At least you managed to find the straw man the herbalist was commissioned to make for the festival,” she commented ironically.
“We will have no need of it, highness,” Zeno spoke up at last. “Obviously all these frivolities will have be put aside while we search for the child. In all fairness, I should like to say that not all of the blame should be laid on the Lord Chamberlain and Captain Felix, for I have realized as the hours have gone by and Sunilda has not come home that I’ve been too caught up with my automatons and not attentive enough to my responsibilities to her.”
Theodora rose from her seat. “I admire your loyalty to your friends, Zeno. However, we will not compound your errors by disappointing the villagers. I ordered that the festival go on. I do not repeat orders. Indeed, why should the sorrows of the rulers of the empire ruin their subjects’ quaint little joys? They’ve worked long and hard and the festival I have come here to witness will be held for that, if for no other, reason. Who knows, perhaps we shall be able to find a companion to accompany their straw man on his watery journey.”
Her gaze lingered on John’s face as she spoke.
***
“John!”
John turned to see Anatolius hurrying toward him.
His friend’s expression was troubled. “I heard about the girl when I arrived. When did you sleep last? You look half dead. And why is your face all scratched?”
“Never mind about that, Anatolius. We have bigger worries to cope with right now.”
As John spoke, he briskly strode down the corridor, leaving Anatolius to follow close behind. Navigating the vestibule without incident, they crossed the threshold and set off across the garden. Around them, figures could be dimly seen moving through the shrubbery in the graying darkness that heralds dawn.
“There is someone I must speak to,” John said. “I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me earlier, but something Theodora said made me think of it.”
“I’m coming along with you, John. You look as if you’re hardly fit to cross a cart track by yourself right now.”
They cut through the olive grove. It lay under the chill, empty silence that gathers at the very end of the night and in the shadowed interiors of mausoleums. Gnarled roots along the way caught at John’s feet. He had never noticed such obstacles before. His legs felt as heavy as his eyelids. He thought of relating to Anatolius what Balbinus had revealed about Castor but decided it was not the time. There were more pressing concerns. Besides which, he knew his friend would immediately blame himself for not seeing through the senator’s lies.