Mary Reed: Three for a Letter

“What is it?” Anatolius asked.

“It seems Mithra has indeed smiled upon us,” John replied. “For indeed his sacred ravens were right, whichever version of that old rhyme you accept, Anatolius!”

“But how can that be?”

“Because from this letter I know where to find the girl,” John said rapidly. “She’s gone to meet the whale. Apparently it’s promised to take her to Gadaric. She describes her plans to her aunt, right down to the last detail.”

Anatolius sadly shook his head over the girl’s mistaken notion of being reunited with her brother, characterizing it as a childish fantasy. “But at least we now know where she is. Where is that, John?”

The parchment crackled as John’s fingers tightened around it.

“We’ll find her hiding near the headland when the straw man festival is under way.”

“That’s at dawn tomorrow! This is wonderful news! But how does she expect to meet a whale on a cliff top? Does she suppose it will fly up to carry her off?”

“Hardly, Anatolius,” John replied. “Unless we can stop her, it seems she intends to throw herself into the sea at the same time as the straw man-just like the Gadarene swine.”

The sea was the bright and unnatural green of a hand-blown glass vessel, its frozen waves, far below, flaws just underneath the bright surface. Sunlight glanced off the swells with the painful brilliance of the dog days of summer yet the rocks beneath John’s feet felt cold. He could not remember how he had come to the precipice or why, yet he had the distinct feeling that if he stepped over its edge he would soar out across the water like a raven. Some urgent matter pulled at the edge of his memory. He had to be in attendance at a particular place at a specific time. But where? And at what hour? He couldn’t recall. Looking down at the solid sea made him giddy.

Suddenly a sluggish line of light rippled across the green, glassy seawater.

He leapt from his bed, blade in hand before he was fully awake.

“Master!” Peter’s flickering oil lamp made his shadow huge as he advanced a few steps. The room thus illuminated was now better furnished than it had been when John had moved into it. Although the Lord Chamberlain did not care much about comfortable beds and good furniture, his servant knew what was fitting and proper for one of such standing and had requested them for his master.

John sat on the edge of his bed. The dream lingered, sea and precipice submerging the room for a few heartbeats until the vision flowed away into the darkness like a wave from a beach, leaving behind only the racing of his heart.

“You have overslept, master,” Peter said.

John thanked him, glancing toward the ceramic water clock set in the corner. Its water level showed it was still the middle of the night.

“Anatolius is waiting for you in the atrium,” Peter went on, bustling about the room, laying out clothing.

John dressed rapidly. An alarming twinge of pain in his knee reminded him of his recent fall on the road.

Peter followed him into the corridor, which, despite the hour, was thronged with Zeno’s servants mingled with the small army of attendants and guards accompanying Theodora. Darkness pressed silently against the windows.

“Even you need to sleep occasionally,” Anatolius remarked when John greeted him with apologies for his tardiness. “You aren’t Justinian, you know, who apparently manages to rule the empire without the need for any rest at all.”

“I shall not require anything to eat, Peter,” John said wearily in answer to his servant’s inquiry.

“I will find you a bit of bread at least,” Peter insisted, moving off toward the kitchen before John could order otherwise.

Anatolius informed John that Felix had the headland guarded as requested.

“And along the road from the village?”

Anatolius nodded silently.

They picked their way through the crowd into the garden. John did not speak again until the two men had emerged into a clearing where they could not be overheard if they kept their voices low. Even then, he bent to put his mouth to Anatolius’ ear as he quietly sketched Balbinus’ confession concerning Castor’s parentage.

Anatolius looked stricken. “The senator lied to me!” he managed a choked whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me yesterday? There I was telling you what I’d learned from my investigations, which was practically nothing, and-”

“How could you have possibly known? He was only forced to admit it when I presented him with proof that had not fallen into your hands.”

“Castor having royal blood!” the other marveled. “And to think I always considered him a younger version of Uncle Zeno, as alike as two peas in a pod-and eccentric peas at that.” A fresh thought struck him. “But who could have been Castor’s mother?”

“Minthe,” John replied and smiled at Anatolius’ astonished expression. He could guess the question he was about to be asked, yet he knew that if challenged he could not adequately explain the origin of his insight to himself, let alone to someone else. Still, his friend was obviously interested in how he had reached such a startling conclusion.

“My thoughts began to march in order when I learned about Bassus,” John began. “It’s not always the case that one fact points to another and that to the next and so on. Solving this particular puzzle involved the accumulation of several pieces of information until I had gathered enough to reveal a pattern, or a mosaic if you will.”

“But how…?”

“It’s a complicated business indeed, Anatolius. The Goth heir Gadaric is murdered. What’s the first thing you inevitably think of when something like that occurs?”

“Who else is in the line of succession to the throne, of course.”

“Exactly. Now, when confronted, Balbinus confirmed that the man he called his brother, that is to say Bassus, was actually the illegitimate son of King Theodoric and so had a closer claim on the Italian throne than the twins’ father Athalaric, who after all was only Theodoric’s grandson.”

Anatolius said he agreed with John’s reasoning thus far. “But Bassus is dead,” he pointed out.

“As you say. However, Balbinus also revealed that Bassus had fathered a son and that this son was Castor. So if Gadaric’s murder was connected to the matter of succession and there seems no doubt that it was, then obviously it involves Castor, a hitherto unknown heir.”

“Who ran off immediately after Gadaric’s murder!” Anatolius choked back his excitement. “It sounds so obvious when it’s explained, John, yet I still don’t understand how you could possibly have seen a familial connection between Castor and Minthe.”

John waited while several heavily armed imperial guards passed nearby, their boots clattering with the staccato sounds of one of Hero’s automatons.

“Normally I would regard my chain of reasoning to be as flimsy as cobwebs,” John went on, “but consider what I was just saying about patterns. We have established Castor as an heir to the throne. We know the identity of his late father. But what about his mother? Castor was obviously not ambitious or he would have declared his lineage long ago, but as history has repeatedly shown, mothers are often murderously ambitious for their children.”

“That’s certainly true.”

“So I cast about for a possible candidate to fit into the mosaic I was constructing, to see what sort of picture it made. I was looking for someone near Bassus, someone who would not be noticed carrying Bassus’ child. Remember, he had been killed in very odd circumstances. Given his lineage….”

Anatolius looked thoughtful. “Yes, I can see it would be highly dangerous for both mother and child.”