Mary Reed - One for Sorrow

The grip on his throat loosened.

Above him, swimming into his blurred sight, was the face of Felix. Felix grinning broadly, both hands fastened on Kaloethes’ throat.

The innkeeper’s head snapped back and his hands clawed at the stranglehold Felix had on him.

“Kaloethes,” Felix addressed him, his voice eerily calm. “I’ve just come from the inn. Your widow said I would find you here. She thought I’d come to assist you as in the old days when you paid me well not to notice things I should have reported. ‘Hurry up, they’re at the Cistern of Hermes’, she told me. Oh, she was beside herself. It had all gone wrong. You’d been found out, she said. It was all your fault. And you never got the object you were seeking either, despite desecrating that little whore’s grave.”

Felix paused. A frown passed across his face, and then he continued, speaking louder to drown the noises the innkeeper was making. “She was angry at Berta, you see, because she wouldn’t give the accursed pendant to you. So you killed my beautiful Berta, didn’t you, you murdering bastard?”

The innkeeper pawed ineffectually at the iron grasp on his throat. John, on his hands and knees, gagged, as the world darkened again.

He heard another voice, more shouting, and peered into the gloom. Thomas’ sword had gone. Surely it was not possible that such a man had been vanquished by a mere criminal? John knew he must stand and go to the aid of his comrade in arms but his legs refused to cooperate.

Now Thomas’ assailant was grinning, raising his sword to dispatch him.

As if he had simply decided against killing the knight, he paused. A strange expression crossed his face. Then he pitched forward, pulling with him Anatolius, still gripping the sword he had thrust into the man’s back.

And now there was only one man left, and he was coming to his end. John, Anatolius, and Thomas looked around at Felix. He was straddling the innkeeper’s back, pinning down his flailing arms with his knees, and began to sing loudly as he held Kaloethes’ head under the water.

John gagged again.

Felix, still singing merrily, pulled the innkeeper’s dripping head out of the water. Kaloethes gasped for air, begging for his life. Felix spat in his face, screamed, “Did Berta beg?” and pushed the innkeeper’s head underwater again.

John recognized what Felix was singing. It was an obscene marching song.

Thomas staggered over to John and helped him to his feet. “It isn’t a soldierly way to take a life,” he muttered. “And yet who can blame him?”

Felix’s singing reverberated louder in the vaulting overhead. There was a frenzied thrashing in the churning water. Reflections leapt madly against walls and pillars.

Anatolius was on his feet, trembling. Thomas clasped his shoulders briefly. “Thank you, my friend. You saved my life.”

Anatolius began to sob. “I stabbed him in the back! All I did was creep up behind him and stab him in the back!”

“And he is dead and we are not,” Thomas said gently. “That is the difference between life and poetry. But now you are a true Soldier of Mithra.”

Cornelia had revived and John helped her to her feet, glad she had not witnessed his madness.

They thankfully left the hellish place. As they climbed back toward the cool night air, they were accompanied by echoes from the semi-darkness below.

The echoes of the exultant singing of a man slaking his blood-lust, slowly drowning the man who had murdered his beloved Berta.

“Now that Leukos is avenged, the black creature that was gnawing inside of me has flown,” John said, lifting his wine cup to his lips.

The day after the fight in the cistern, John and Anatolius sat in the Forum Bovis opposite the great bronze bull head Europa had admired. John explained how he had identified Kaloethes as the murderer of both Leukos and Berta.

“When Thomas and I visited Isis we saw Kaloethes arrive, and his greeting to Berta indicated he had visited her before. Isis told me that Berta had been boasting about an valuable pendant she had been given worth more than all the wealth in the city, or so she claimed. Kaloethes no doubt heard about this piece of jewelry from Berta, and tried to make her give it to him. And indeed Mistress Kaloethes told Felix her husband killed Berta because she would not do so.”

“But to attempt to rob her grave…!”

“Many do far worse things than that for far less reason.”

Earlier in the day, Anatolius had accompanied Cornelia and Europa to the docks. John exchanged private farewells with his family and then, standing at his study window, watched them leave. Although he was a master of elaborate court ceremony, the simpler, unwritten rituals of everyday life such as leave-takings made the Lord Chamberlain uneasy.

Anatolius’ gaze moved around the forum coming to rest, it appeared to John, on two patrolling members of the urban watch.

“I heard from an impeccable source today that four men were found dead this morning in a cistern,” Anatolius said. “The authorities suspect robbery and aren’t inquiring too closely.”

“Just as well.”

“Why did Kaloethes want to murder you, John?”

“He must have feared that I suspected he was the murderer, that my coming to the inn to speak to Ahasuerus was only a pretext. If so, he overestimated me. I wasn’t certain until yesterday when I went back to search his establishment.”

“Of course! You were the inquisitive visitor Mistress Kaloethes complained about!”

“Yes. When I noticed she had a set of table linens matching the one found in Leukos’ pouch, that is to say with the imperial mark, I was convinced she and her husband had had a hand in his death, not least because I also found imperial plate in their cellar. Leukos had to be silenced.”

He paused. “I suspect that was the reason for Xiphias’ flight. Who else could have sold them stolen palace plate? He must have decided drowning was preferable to Justinian’s torturers.”

Anatolius shook his head. “Imagine the odds on the Keeper of the Plate going to an inn where, among other things, stolen imperial goods are in use!”

“He would have recognized them at once. I assume he wanted to take some proof away. A piece of linen is easier to conceal than a platter or goblet.”

“And Kaloethes saw him take the linen?”

“If he had, he would never have left it with the body. No, I am supposing Leukos insisted on searching for more imperial goods and Kaloethes caught him examining the plate.”

Anatolius frowned. “But what caught your attention about that piece of linen in Leukos’ pouch? How did you know it didn’t belong to Leukos?”

“He didn’t have it earlier that day at the Hippodrome because I recalled him wiping his face with his hand.”

Anatolius remarked with admiration that only John would have noticed, let alone remembered, such a small detail.

“Small details are essential in court ceremony, are they not, and I have had to cultivate a keen eye.”

Anatolius grew quiet, his face darkening. “Stolen imperial plate. Imagine the punishment! Mutilation would be the least of it!”

He took a long drink of wine as if to fortify himself against the thought. “No wonder Kaloethes panicked. I’m surprised he let poor Leukos get as far as the alley before stabbing him.”

“He didn’t. He drowned Leukos in the fountain at the inn. Held his head underwater, as if he were reviving an intoxicated reveler like the charioteer I saw him bringing to his senses.”

John closed his eyes, trying to control his emotions, and then continued. “I should have realized at once when I saw Leukos’ blue lips. I’d seen it before, when my brother in arms died in that icy stream in Bretania. Perhaps I didn’t want to be reminded.”