Mary Reed - Nine for the Devil

“I’m glad there’s someone I can rely on,” John said, “even if it is a street woman with a three-legged cat.”

“Pulcheria confided to me Kuria was not happy to see her. She kept shrieking that Pulcheria was a demon, no doubt because of her scarred face. Pulcheria told her she wasn’t a demon, but her guardian angel. But you said you wanted to see her.”

Isis led John through narrow hallways lined with doors to cramped rooms which functioned as simply and well for penitents as they had for her girls when they practiced their former profession.

Kuria lay curled up on a wide shelf that served as a built-in bed on the back wall of her tiny cubicle. The thin mat serving as a mattress must have been a penance for someone used to sleeping on a palace bed. An earthenware plate holding a half-eaten scrap of bread and several olive pits sat on the floor.

The girl whimpered and rolled over, as if the entrance of John and Isis had triggered a nightmare. As her eyes opened she cried out.

“Quiet! You’re safe here. Don’t you recognize the Lord Chamberlain?” Isis said sternly.

“My apologies for startling you, Kuria,” John said. “Isis has told me about what happened. I need some information without delay.”

Kuria squirmed into a sitting position. Her triangular little face looked crumpled by fear and confusion. There was a purpling bruise on one temple, scratches down her cheeks, and her lip was split. “What is it you want to know, Lord Chamberlain?”

“Did you entertain Anatolius years ago, while working here?”

“Anatolius?” Isis asked. “I thought it was Felix who favored her? My memory definitely isn’t what it used to be.”

“Is it true, Kuria? Anatolius says he used to seek you out regularly. He says he gave you a copy of a poem he wrote about Theodora.”

Kuria rubbed her eyes. Her wounded mouth quivered as she nodded. “Yes. That’s true. About seeing him and the poem. How did you know?”

“The poem was found in your room at the palace,” John told her.

“You stupid girl,” Isis muttered. “That filthy verse! Didn’t I instruct all of you to discard everything of that nature when we changed our direction? You kept it! You had it here in my refuge, before Theodora took you away! And you took it with you, precious to you as it was! If I had known…what was I thinking to take pity on you?”

“Oh, please don’t turn me out, madam…I mean…Mother Isis. I…I…couldn’t bear to part with that verse. It was written in his own hand.”

“You were fond of Anatolius?” John prompted.

“Yes, Lord Chamberlain. I know it was foolish. He’s an aristocrat and I was just a, well, even so I was sure he was fond of me. Only it was impossible, the way things were, and I accepted that.”

“I doubt it,” Isis put in. “Tell the truth, Kuria. Didn’t you fancy yourself another Theodora and Anatolius your own Justinian?”

“I know you don’t believe me, but the situation was different after I started to work at the palace. I thought Anatolius might see me in a better light. A lady-in-waiting has some dignity. Only…only…” She buried her face in her hands.

“Only what, Kuria?” John asked.

“He was having an affair with Vesta!” She raised her face from her hands and her eyes were full of anger. “The lying bitch was off to his house at all hours, and she pretended to be my friend. It all came out when I showed her the poem he gave me. She was horrified about his gift to me. She blurted out he was hers or words to the effect. Right away she wished she hadn’t, but it was too late. I started thinking about her comings and goings. It was clear enough what she was up to.”

“When you were attacked, you were on your way to visit Anatolius, to see if you could rekindle the old feelings you imagine he held for you,” John suggested.

“Yes. And now I’m in no condition to do so.”

John recalled how he had taken her for a helpless, befuddled young girl after their first meeting in the gardens.

He had been badly mistaken.

“Did you tell Vesta about your hopes?”

“Certainly not. I let her think it was over between Anatolius and myself years ago.”

Isis snorted with a sound more appropriate to a madam than the head of a refuge. “Girls are all so silly. I’m glad to be out of the business!”

“Kuria,” John continued. “Isis told me you attacked a rival not long before you left here, quarreling over a favorite patron. Was it Anatolius?”

Kuria glowered at John but said nothing.

“You placed the herbs in Vesta’s room and arranged for the note to be sent to the City Prefect, didn’t you, Kuria? Your room must have been near hers, since all the ladies-in-waiting live in the same wing. “

“It served her right, Lord Chamberlain! I almost put it off too long. Right after I got back from the gardens with the herbs I found my door nailed shut. Vesta was naive. After I convinced her I no longer had any interest in Anatolius she started extolling his virtues and confiding how she would soon be together with him. It would be a great romance, just like Joannina and Anastasius.”

Kuria’s scratched and bruised face twisted into a sneer. “The bitch wanted to be just like her mistress. Like a trained dog, she was. Didn’t you notice how she tried to dress like Joannina and wore her hair like her? She wanted her own aristocrat too. Wanted a romance that everyone at court would frown on, just to make it more exciting. She tried to steal my Anatolius from me.”

“Ha!” remarked Isis. “You flatter yourself, thinking Anatolius belonged to you!”

“He would have come back to me! He didn’t love Vesta. It’s easy to feel you’re fond of someone in a beautiful room with a soft bed and luxurious furniture, but to feel you love someone on a cold, bare slab like this…” She slapped the utilitarian shelf on which she was seated.

“And you think Vesta a romantic,” sniffed Isis.

“As a matter of fact,” John said, “Anatolius and Vesta were not having an affair. He was at his wit’s end trying to avoid the girl. He’s old enough to be her father, or yours for that matter, Kuria.”

Kuria’s looked at John hopefully. “Are you sure they-”

“It doesn’t appear to concern you that your jealousy placed Vesta in danger,” John said in a cold voice, “but doesn’t it bother you that you’ve put Anatolius in danger?”

Kuria’s face clouded. “But why?”

“Have you forgotten what that poem says about Theodora? The emperor is convinced Anatolius plotted to kill Theodora with your assistance.”

Isis chuckled grimly. “If everyone who pointed out Theodora was a slut was plotting against her…” She broke off abruptly and stared at John. “That means the emperor will have his men looking for Kuria.”

There was as yet no sign of dawn when John emerged from Isis’ refuge and set out at a trot for the palace. The black shapes of ox-drawn carts making night deliveries materialized from the darkness and creaked past. A dog barked frantically as he went by its resting place, a niche sheltering a statue of a once illustrious general.

John had lost all sense of time. He was afraid to look at the sky for fear he would see it brightening.

But even as he raced to save Anatolius, his thoughts kept turning toward Cornelia.

What had happened to her?

Where was she?

He imagined her imprisoned somewhere, having been abducted. Terrified, perhaps injured.

He recalled his own abduction, lying in the dark in the carriage, not knowing its destination, expecting only that the trip would end in his death.

What might Cornelia be feeling right now. Or worse yet…

No, he forced his thoughts away from the idea. And yet he had seen so much violent death he could entirely prevent unbearable images from forming in his mind.