Mary Reed - Nine for the Devil

“Too late,” he whispered. Yet there was nothing one could miss in life that meant anything compared to the glories waiting in heaven. “I have always served you, Lord, to the best of my ability.”

Peter felt himself drifting. His bed might have been floating on the Marmara. How long had he been in bed? He was useless, and just when the master needed him. The least he could do was make him a decent meal. Hypatia would insist on overspicing the dishes.

His leg didn’t pain him as much. He shifted, experimentally, and found his body no longer felt as inert and heavy. He pushed the coverlet down, took a breath, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The splinted leg stuck straight out, which made it awkward when he stood, bracing himself against the wall with one hand.

He hobbled toward the door. Obviously Gaius had overreacted. Peter was perfectly able to put weight on the supposedly broken leg.

He was standing next to his cooking brazier before he knew it.

“Let’s see,” he clucked to himself. “A dish needing only one pot. I can’t be standing too long. What’s on hand?”

He found several eggs lined up on the windowsill and a basket under the table containing a cabbage. The wine jug was full and neither the master nor Hypatia had eaten any of the cheese intended for breakfast.

He sang a hymn. His voice was the creaking of a cart wheel.

“Why do you veil your faces?

“Let your hearts be uplifted!

“For Christ, Christ has arisen!

“Glorious and gleaming,

“Christ, Christ is born

“Of He who gave light.”

Wasn’t the master’s god, Mithra, the lord of light?

It was something to consider.

But first the evening meal must be prepared.

He chopped happily at the cabbage and tossed its shredded remains into the large pot simmering over the glowing coals. He splashed in some wine, added cheese and eggs, and leftover scraps of the swordfish that had caused so much trouble. He took a clove or two from the string of garlic hanging from a ceiling hook and tossed them into the now bubbling mixture.

Then he was back in bed, once again feeling the warm breath of the long ago servant girl as they sat together in the cool grass behind a hedge.

Or rather, it was Hypatia’s warm breath, her face bent down close to his. But it had been the servant girl’s lips touching his cheek, not Hypatia’s. Surely.

“What are you looking so glum about, Hypatia?” Peter asked, but she drew away as if she hadn’t heard.

He hadn’t managed to speak. He made a determined effort.

This time she heard. “Peter, you were so still I was worried. What are you saying?”

“The evening meal. I started it. It’s on the brazier.”

“What do you mean? I’ve just been in the kitchen, and there’s nothing…” Her voice trailed off. “Oh, I see. Yes. Thank you, Peter.”

She turned and left the room and Peter could hear her sobbing for some reason in the hallway.

It was twilight by the time John reached Artabane’s house, a one story villa in the classic Roman style, not far from the northern wall of the Great Palace.

“Close enough so the Great Whore could keep an eye on me,” Artabanes explained in slurred tones when John noted the convenient proximity.

The Armenian was a lean, sinewy man, clean-shaven. If he’d been sober he would have been handsome. Now his deep set eyes were bloodshot, his finely chiseled features flushed, his narrow lips slack.

The dignified, gray-haired servant who answered the door had been turning John away because his employer was too ill to see anyone when Artabanes came lurching across the atrium, as if engaged in a slow corybantic dance, utterly intoxicated.

“John? John the Eunuch, isn’t it?” Artabanes said heartily. “Pay no attention to my servant’s lack of manners. Welcome. I was just out in the garden communing with nature.”

“That part of nature which grows on vines,” muttered the servant.

John raised an eyebrow at the disrespectful remark.

“He is a difficult master, sir,” the servant said. “He’ll forget everything said before he’s in bed tonight, if not sooner. If he manages to make it to the bed for a change.”

Artabanes stumbled forward and grasped John’s arm. “Let me show you the way to the garden.” Leaning heavily on John, he pointed toward the left side of the atrium. “This side, please.”

John saw the tiled floor was bisected by a broad black marble stripe leading from the street door, across the atrium, and into the garden beyond.

Artabanes noticed where John directed his gaze. “That’s the border, Lord Chamberlain. Beyond lies enemy territory.”

“Enemy?”

“The bitch. My former wife. The harpy Theodora forced me to live with. I may be imprisoned here but I won’t live with her except in disharmony. I divided the house in two. She stays on her side, I stay on mine.”

Once the entrance to the garden was reached, the symbolic frontier continued with a knee-high hedge that crossed the open space and then reverted to a black marble stripe when the green barrier reached the edge of the portico on the far side. The height of the hedge gave an indication of how long Artabanes and his wife had lived under these peculiar circumstances.

“Do the servants have access to both sides of the house?”

“I caught one of hers stealing a fig from my tree. I had the villain scourged. Does that answer your question? Her servants are forbidden to speak to mine or to me.”

John reflected that there were worse penalties for straying across borders. “Who announces guests when your wife has visitors?”

“My former wife, you mean? The servant who let you in, Augustine, is our ambassador. He handles diplomatic missions when necessary.”

“Indeed.”

“Here, sit down.” Artabanes collapsed onto a bench, forgetting to let go of John’s arm and nearly pulling the Lord Chamberlain down on top of him. John freed his arm and positioned himself as far away from Artabanes as possible, which proved to be not far enough to escape the miasma of sour wine the man emanated.

“Not that she has many visitors,” muttered Artabanes. “Why would she? She’s not from Constantinople. She was happy enough to stay in Armenia, until I made a name for myself, until she realized I might suddenly have a few more coins than her suitors. I’ll wager that surprised her. Then she was on the trot to Constantinople, weeping and wailing to the Great Whore. The Lesser Whore, that’s what my former wife is.”

“Theodora decreed you were not divorced under Roman law,” John pointed out.

“Roman law! I repudiated the bitch. That’s the way we do it in Armenia. Repudiate and be damned!” Artabanes spat. “While I’m off spilling my blood on the battlefield, back home half the nobility is spilling its seed into her. What’s Roman law have to say about that?”

He reached under the bench and pulled out a jug of wine, lifted it to his lips, and drank. John was thankful his host didn’t offer him any. He could hear a few bees buzzing in the gathering darkness. Like John they were putting in a very long day.

Artabanes belched. “So the empress ordered me to share this miserable excuse for a house with the bitch. But what can I do? She sentenced me to years of torture is what it amounted to. Don’t feel sorry for me. You’re suspected too, Lord Chamberlain. She made no secret of her enmity toward you. It’s a miracle you’re still alive.”

Artabanes might be preposterously intoxicated but he was not entirely without sense.

“Until Justinian is satisfied we’re all liable to be executed,” John observed