Mary Reed - Four for a Boy

John stood beside her. “To give up one’s life to achieve what anyone can see is impossible seems a useless death, Lady Anna.”

“Is a thing impossible just because all the world insists it is?”

He observed that surely flying was the province of birds.

“You think we are not the equals of those gulls circling over the water?” She paused. “Beyond that, what would Avis be without his quest?” she went on. “Just another self-indulgent, wealthy man. One of the sort who spend their lives scrambling over one another for money or power, like quarreling dogs. And whichever wins out, what is accomplished? The victor is still just a dog.”

John made no reply.

Anna glanced up at him. “Is there any work of man which did not begin as nothing more than an idea? How can someone who dreams of flying be of lesser worth than one who has no dreams? I try to believe all things are possible.”

John looked away from her solemn gaze. Clearly Lady Anna had intended the visit to Avis to be instructional or inspirational. Just as clearly, a slave could not throw off his shackles any more easily than a free citizen could jump into the air and take flight. Anna’s inappropriate interest in him was a danger to both of them.

“Do you believe Avis will ever try out that contraption he showed us?” John finally asked.

“Yes, I do, John,” Anna replied softly. “When Avis is ready to go to join his son, then he will strap on his wings.”

John found Felix lounging on a bench set under a stand of pines overlooking the palace’s seawall. Afternoon sunlight glittered on the restless water.

Felix looked around at the sound of approaching boot steps. “Am I late for our meeting? Or is there yet more trouble brewing? It’s bad enough Viator managed to escape us.”

“I’m early,” John replied. “I asked at the barracks where I might find you. Senator Opimius just relieved me of my tutoring duties.”

Felix scratched the stubble on his jaw. It had not grown enough to conceal the cut and the angry bruise where the snowball had hit. The jaw was obviously too tender to withstand the ministrations of a razor. “That will be trouble for both of us once Justinian finds out. You won’t make much of a spy, peering in through the senator’s windows. What did you do to bring this calamity down on us? Who did you hit?”

“Nobody.”

“Then why did Opimius dismiss you?”

“He somehow got the notion I was in the habit of escorting Anna on tours of the docks. From that he deduced I probably took her around various seedy tenements and dark alleyways.”

“Somehow?” Felix spit over the seawall. “You mean someone’s been putting poison in his ears!”

John was surprised at his reluctant partner’s genuine anger.

As soon as John and Anna had returned from visiting Avis that morning he’d sensed something was awry. No one looked in his direction or offered the usual greetings as they passed through the kitchen.

Opimius was pacing the atrium. The senator’s features were livid with anger, but he did not speak until Anna had gone into her study.

“John,” he said without preamble. “I will no longer require your attendance here. You will leave my house immediately. Furthermore, do not ever attempt to return or to contact my daughter again.”

“Senator Opimius…What…?” Had Opimius deduced that Justinian might have sent John to spy on him? Was his anger because he had something to conceal? Those had been John’s first confused thoughts. Then Opimius, unable to contain his rage, began thundering at him about his gross negligence.

“You put my daughter in harm’s way! Didn’t you hear me when I told her she was no longer to go about the streets with you? And taking her to the docks. The docks! Wasn’t there some handy den of cutthroats you could have introduced her to while you were at it? Or a riot? You should know how she romanticizes everything! Trying to impress her, were you? Oh, I’m sure she thought it was a great adventure. Where’s your sense? I’d have said you were thinking with your gonads if you had any! Don’t even bother trying to deny it! Trenico told me everything.”

John had said nothing. How could he defend himself? Call the senator’s friend Trenico a liar? A slave’s word against that of an aristocrat? It would only have made the situation worse.

Felix was staring out to sea. “Do you ever think of Greece?”

It struck John as a strange question. “I try not to.”

“It’s been a long time since I was in Germania. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever see it again. Perhaps we were barbaric, but at least we didn’t grow villains as thick on the ground as they are here. If you ask me there are as many dangers at court as in the city streets. I wouldn’t have chosen to work with you, but I know you wouldn’t subject the Lady Anna to danger.”

John stared out over the dancing swells with less enthusiasm than his companion. He did not care for deep water.

Felix looked pensive. He fingered his jaw. He was almost able to grasp the stubble growing there. “It’s good for thinking, tugging at whiskers. Perhaps I’ll keep them.”

“What is it you’re thinking about?”

Felix heaved himself off the bench. “Viator. Now that he’s dead we can catch up to him. Gaius once told me that those who die in the streets or on the docks are usually taken to the hospice.”

***

The Hospice of Samsun was even more crowded than on their initial visit. Extra pallets were crammed into each of its already cramped rooms. Without exception the staff looked ill themselves. Wan and harried, they scurried along corridors rendered nearly impassable by patients lying on the soiled floor. The stench of urine burned the nostrils.

Inquiries for Gaius led them to a room where the odor of herbs emanating from shelves that occupied one wall masked the general stink. The physician reclined in a corner, which might have seemed inexplicable except for the presence of the wine jug next to him.

Felix muttered a curse. “He’s drunk!” He tapped Gaius’ side with the dirty toe of his boot.

Gaius awoke and muttered groggily. “Yes, yes, right away. Is the baby’s head visible yet?” Bloodshot eyes peered up at them. “Just taking a little break. I need one every now and then. Haven’t been out of this place in a week.”

“Gaius, we must talk to you,” Felix said loudly.

The stout physician winced and sat up.

“Be good enough to talk more quietly, Felix,” he muttered. “The Furies are fighting a battle in my head and I can scarcely see straight. I’ve got to deliver a beggar’s baby any instant.”

“You’ll need steady hands for that,” John observed, helping him up.

“And probably plenty of opiate as well. The mother’s just a child. We’re starting to run out, but what can you expect?” Gaius picked up his wine jug and shook his head ruefully over its emptiness.

“We’re here to ask about a man named Viator,” Felix began. “He’s dead already, not one of your patients. He was found at the docks so I’m betting he was brought here.” He described the man briefly.

Gaius let out a morbid chuckle. “Ah, that’s Viator, is it? Yes, he’s here. Who could forget someone that size? The Gourd’s men didn’t tell me who he was, only that their master wanted to know what killed him. They also ordered that anyone who came to claim the body should be detained.”

Gaius led them along the corridor, treading unsteadily between the arms and legs splayed in their path. They descended two flights of stairs, ducked through a low brick archway, and then into a cavernous room. Gaius clumsily struck a light to the lamp sitting on a sweating stone ledge beside its door.