Mary Reed: Three for a Letter

John quickly related what he had learned during his visit to Nonna. “She described a very vain slave with exceptionally long hair, who had, let us say, social ambitions but who was sold away to another master.”

“Slaves are always invisible, aren’t they? And so are their children….But what made you think of Minthe? Castor’s mother could have been anyone.”

“I considered the people living on this estate and in the village. Minthe had long hair, and she was not from the village. You’ll recall Paul mentioned that she moved into that odd little house near him some twenty years ago. Then I remembered you had said that Castor and Zeno had been friends as well as neighbors for a couple of decades. I suspect that Minthe had been keeping her eye on Castor from afar and moved to be near him when he came to live out here.”

“Well…” Anatolius said dubiously.

“Consider, too, how close she had managed to become to the twins. An ordinary village woman and two royal children form rather an unusual friendship, wouldn’t you say? But useful if harm is intended. It’s often those nearest the victims who strike the fatal blow. After all, they have easier access to them than everyone else.”

“Looking at it like that, I suppose it’s not surprising that Minthe appears to be the missing piece.” Despite his agreement, Anatolius still sounded dubious. “However, I can see a very large flaw in your mosaic, John. How could a slave such as Minthe move around so freely?”

“Slaves can be freed, Anatolius. Am I not myself one such? However, I will admit that what finally convinced me of Minthe’s involvement was when she disappeared at the same time as Sunilda.”

Anatolius leapt to the conclusion John had already reached. “Mithra! She’s kidnapped Sunilda! She intends to kill her as well!”

John nodded. “She’s already attempted to poison the girl.”

“The plates and cups in the mithraeum! Of course!” Anatolius frowned. “But how could Minthe possibly have known about the children’s secret hiding place?”

“She didn’t have to, Anatolius. You’ll recall that after the abandoned picnic Zeno found Sunilda safe with Minthe. Given everything else that’s transpired, it is not beyond the bounds of reason to assume that before he arrived, Minthe gave Sunilda a poisoned treat to bring back here. Now, the swine fed the remains of the picnic are all still alive, but there was a dead rat in the mithraeum. Dead rats are not unusual, of course, but what if in this instance the animal ate the remains of the treats for the grand party Poppaea talked about-a party we had dismissed as mere delirious ramblings-including whatever remained of what was meant for Sunilda?”

“But surely Sunilda would have eaten it too,” Anatolius argued, looking even more perplexed. “And she didn’t even get ill. It was Poppaea who almost died.”

“But what if it contained nuts, like the honeyed dates Peter sometimes prepares for me? Sunilda mentioned in one of her letters to her aunt that the twins were not permitted to eat nuts. Apparently it’s because they provoke some undesired effect in them, just as proximity to certain plants does to you.”

“You amaze me, John! I could never have thought of such a convoluted theory!”

“Nor would I,” John admitted, “if Minthe hadn’t directed the gravest suspicion at herself by vanishing at the same time as Sunilda. It was too much of a coincidence not to be connected with what has taken place here. In effect, she had accused herself and as soon as I realized that, all the fragmentary information fell into place and I saw the whole.”

“But we must be too late to save Sunilda now, she’s been gone so long!” Anatolius frantically burst out, all thought of discretion forgotten.

John shook his head. “You’ve forgotten that Sunilda wrote about her plan to join Gadaric. It will begin when the straw man is tossed off the headland and that won’t be for a while yet since it’s not yet dawn. Unfortunately, if Sunilda balks I’m absolutely certain Minthe will be only too happy to assist her to carry out her fantasy.”

Anatolius pointed out that Minthe must have known she could not fail to be hunted down and executed.

John shrugged. “I may be able to hazard a guess at what someone has done or may be planning to do, but as to how such a one would propose to escape from such a certain fate I confess myself puzzled. Perhaps this is one of those situations where once the desired object is accomplished, nothing else matters and so the perpetrator’s plans extend no further beyond that.”

“Eliminating the twins would certainly remove even the remotest possibility of any impediment to Castor assuming the throne.” Anatolius lowered his voice again, even though they were standing well away from the general flow of pedestrians. “Of course, given the enormous crushing power that Hero’s accursed artificial hand is capable of exerting, it would be easy for Minthe to employ it to kill Gadaric. To think of her using it on the boy’s throat….”

John remained silent.

“Why didn’t Poppaea die, John? Minthe is, after all, a very knowledgeable herbalist.”

“Since she was responsible for the poisoning attempt, she knew the antidote to administer when the wrong person ate it,” John replied, turning at the sound of Peter’s shuffling approach.

“You must be hungry, master. I’ve been hunting for you for some time.” The elderly servant ceremoniously offered John a hunk of bread and a piece of cheese from a small silver plate that reminded John of Nonna’s recent hospitality.

“I regret that this was all I could obtain for you,” Peter went on in an outraged tone. “Theodora’s entourage appear to have scoured the kitchen as cleanly as a plague of locusts.”

John quickly ate the frugal meal. When he had been requested to attend Zeno’s grand banquet in honor of the twins he had not expected the invitation to lead to the consumption of so much bread and cheese-for once, almost too much. As he finished and handed the plate back to Peter, Godomar loomed out of the darkness and, to John’s well-concealed annoyance, paused to converse with them.

“Lord Chamberlain,” he began with a slight bow. “I sincerely hope you do not intend to take part in this blasphemous festival. It would be unconscionable enough at any time, but when an innocent child is dead and another has vanished, to even contemplate holding it is unspeakable.”

“As a matter of fact, we are about to resume our search for Sunilda,” John replied.

“Then you won’t be in attendance at the service I have arranged for the villagers? Needless to say, I consider it my duty to offer an alternative to this hideous pagan rite, for it’s obviously no more than that.”

John noticed Peter directing a furtive, sorrowful glance him. “You are free to go if you wish, Peter,” he told his servant, knowing that it was his, John’s, pagan beliefs that worried Peter much more than his master’s absence at the service just announced.

“What of Calyce? Is she going?” Anatolius asked with over-elaborate casualness. “And Livia?” he added hastily.

“The empress has decreed that all of her attendants, including the ladies-in-waiting, will accompany her to the event. No doubt they’ll be much educated in the ways of wickedness after witnessing it!”

“That’s a lesson Theodora would be well qualified to teach, if it weren’t that her ladies have already been long enough at court to be well practiced,” muttered Anatolius as Godomar departed for the village with Peter trailing behind.

Watching his servant leave, it struck John, not for the first time, that the aging Christian-who was after all a freed man-might well decide to end his days contemplating the world from a monastery rather than cooking meals for a pagan master with the culinary tastes of an ascetic. Should that come about, what would his house be like when it no longer sounded with Peter’s tuneless singing of lugubrious hymns as he scrubbed the kitchen floor or his scolding when his master did not eat what he considered adequate nourishment?