Mary Reed - Nine for the Devil

Vesta looked distressed. “She gave me packages for the empress. I don’t know what was in them.”

“Did Theodora instruct you to ask Antonina for potions?”

Vesta shook her head. “No. I have delivered notes back and forth.”

“You have been kept busy, Vesta. And in addition to everything else, you continue to seek out legal advice at odd hours?”

Vesta flushed. “Yes.”

“Nothing else? You didn’t deliver potions or packages to Anatolius? Gray heads sometimes need them, although a girl your age might not realize that.”

Vesta’s face reddened further.

John looked around as he heard quiet footsteps.

Joannina appeared in the atrium. “You may go now, Vesta,” she said and then turning to John went on, “I take it you have established my lady-in-waiting has an acceptable reason to be visiting my mother?”

John smothered his irritation as Vesta hastened away.

“I heard part of your conversation, Lord Chamberlain,” Joannina said. “My mother did concoct potions and cosmetics for Theodora at one time or another. After she returned to Constantinople, I believe she resumed the practice. For a very short time. If mother wanted to poison the empress, she had opportunities. But she and Theodora were very close friends.”

Joannina was smiling, but her blue eyes looked as hard as glittering gems. “My mother and I have our differences, but, based on Vesta’s reports, my impression is lately mother’s main interest was persuading the empress to advise Justinian to send more aid to my father. Not in thwarting Theodora concerning my marriage.”

“Indeed,” John replied. He noted Joannina did not bother to protest that her mother was incapable of murder.

Joannina’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Now the empress is no longer able to insist Anastasius marries me, what will happen to us?”

Her air of confidence evaporated. She resembled the young girl she was. A girl who was afraid.

“Is Anastasius here?”

Joannina paused. “No. He’s gone out. Why? Why do you ask?”

“I wish to talk to him. He has an interest in the situation.”

“Yes, the same interest as mine, Lord Chamberlain. But bear in mind he surely wouldn’t have killed his own grandmother, even if she were opposed to us marrying. Her death was a double loss for him. I have no idea where he went and I can’t imagine what he could tell you that would be of any assistance.”

John took his leave. No one was telling him the entire truth. Of that he was certain. But to what extent they were lying, and about what, or what exactly they might not be telling him, he could not fathom.

He needed to take a different approach.

Anastasius left his carriage and guards waiting conspicuously outside Artabane’s house and stalked to its door, doing his best to project an air of menace.

A gray-haired servant looked him up and down, projecting an irritating lack of respect, let alone fear. “Your name?”

“Anastasius”

The servant looked unimpressed. “For whom are you calling?”

“Artabanes of course!”

“You are on the wrong side then, sir, please step this way.” The servant inexplicably gestured to the left of a line of black marble running down the middle of the atrium. Anastasius stamped through the door, stepping on the black marble.

“Please, sir.” The servant inclined his head and nodded at the offending foot. “That is enemy territory.”

The old man must be losing his wits, thought Anastasius. He moved his foot and followed the man along the left side of the black strip, into the garden, and down a path beside a knee-high hedge.

Artabanes was sharing a bench with a collection of wine jugs and cups. He pushed himself up from his seat, swaying and blinking.

“Anastasius wishes to speak with you,” announced the servant before bowing slightly and departing with a faint sniff of disdain.

During the short ride from the palace Anastasius had been stoking a blaze of anger. He had vowed to Joannina that he would take revenge on the man whose actions had thwarted their marriage, or else see to it that Artabanes atoned for it by aiding the young couple. However, as soon as he was out of sight of Joannina, the idea of confronting a powerful elder terrified him.

Truthfully, he feared confrontations. To face them he had to work himself into a blinding fury, but the sight of this skinny little man, badly shaven and utterly inebriated, quickly quenched the flames. Anastasius had envisioned himself shouting demands and threats. Now he could barely remember what he intended to say.

Artabanes peered foggily at him. “Anastasius? You are Theodora’s grandson, aren’t you? My commiserations. That is to say, on your grandmother. Your grandmother’s…uh…passing…”

“Yes…well…so…so, you deny everything then?” Anastasius recalled part of the speech he had planned, but it didn’t make as much sense as it had earlier when his imagined Artabanes played his role better.

Losing the fight to keep his balance, Artabanes took a staggering step backwards. His legs hit the bench and he sat down abruptly, knocking three empty cups into the bushes. “Please have a seat,” he said thickly.

Not only was the bench crowded with cups and jugs, but it also looked coated with what, at best, might be half-dried wine. “No, thank you! You deny everything, I take it?”

“Deny? What do I deny?”

Artabanes’ refusal to play his role began to get Anastasius angry again. “Murdering my grandmother!”

Artabanes stared at him with bloodshot eyes. He picked up a cup, noticed it was empty, tossed it away, picked up another, and slurped some wine. “What do you mean, I murdered your grandmother? Are you intoxicated, son?”

“You’re asking me whether I’m drunk?”

“Are you?”

The general was as mad as his servant, thought Anastasius.

“One as young as yourself should not become involved with Bacchus,” Artabanes went on. “However, since you have already been drinking, please have some wine.” He gestured toward a large blue glass jug.

“No, thank you.”

Artabanes narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps you are too young to-”

Anastasius grabbed the jug and picked up a wine glass that didn’t look too soiled. He poured himself a drink and gulped it down. He might as well have swallowed fire. No water had been added. Once he had managed to avoid choking, however, he had a second cup.

“Now,” said Artabanes. “What is this about my murdering your grandmother? If I was the sort to resort to murder I would have killed her before she forced me to occupy this wretched house with my so-called wife and married off my beloved to another man. It’s a little late now.”

“You wanted vengeance. People do want vengeance. As a matter of honor.”

“Let me guess, that is why you are here. To avenge your grandmother.”

Anastasius, who was finishing another cup of wine, made a conscious effort to stand up straight. “That is correct, sir.” The wine was helping him regain his resolve.

“A fine sentiment, son. It’s good to see a youngster with some spine. But alas, your anger at me is misplaced.”

“I don’t understand. Do you mean that after everything my grandmother did to you…well, not that I wished you’d killed her…”

“No, aside from how much I am sure you loved your grandmother, there is that matter of your marriage to…what is her name…Belisarius’ girl.”

“Joannina.”

“Yes. Joannina. That marriage is not likely to occur now, is it? Any more than my marriage to Praejecta did. Your grandmother was forever meddling, one way and another. Assisting you, thwarting me.” He paused and his gaunt features tightened as he looked down into his cup. “There is some deep ironic philosophical lesson in our situations, son, though I have no idea what it might be.”