Mary Reed - Eight for Eternity

“Shall we clean up, master?” asked the man.

“Yes. Certainly.”

One of the women spoke. “And you will want dinner. For you and your guests.” She helped out in the kitchen, John thought. Perhaps she was the cook.

“Fine. Prepare something special.”

“Immediately, master.” The young woman kept glancing toward Felix. She and her companion went off down the hall. John thought he heard them giggling.

The remaining servant set his bucket down in a far corner and began cleaning vigorously.

“I always feel I’m out-numbered,” John muttered. “Now, in addition to an army of servants, I also have three patricians and several excubitors as guests.”

Felix grinned. “Don’t worry, John. There’s plenty of room. You should get out and explore your house some time. You’d see.”

“Have the servant’s been talking out of turn?”

“Not at all. It’s easy to tell when rooms are never used.”

“You looked around?”

“Pompeius wandered off. He was fairly inebriated when we arrived and…well, you’ve seen.”

“Unfortunately. I’m not used to having servants creeping up on me all the time, Felix. I spent too many years sleeping in a tent with my sword at my side.”

As he spoke yet another young woman entered the atrium. He couldn’t recall her name, but her face, like the faces of all his army of servants, was slightly familiar. She looked toward him expectantly. Wanting something to do, no doubt. “The floor is to be cleaned,” he told her.

The young woman’s expression hardened. “That would hardly be appropriate. I am Julianna. The daughter of Hypatius.”

***

“I don’t want to go back to that nasty little monk’s cell they’ve stuck me in. Let’s talk in the garden.” Julianna darted away, into the dining room John seldom used. The wooden screens were shut against the winter chill. She pushed them open far enough to squeeze through. She moved so quickly and unexpectedly, John could only follow, once again lamenting the size of the house. Yet he could hardly have refused the generosity of the emperor.

The mansions of patricians were to be found all over Constantinople, especially in spots offering a view of the sea. A great many senators lived near the Marmara on the southern side of the city where the land sloped down from the Hippodrome. Certain imperial functionaries lived closer to the imperial couple they served. As a chamberlain to the emperor, John had been given an appropriate residence. Located behind the stables, close to the Chalke, the rambling, single story structure sat within the palace grounds but outside the palace complex itself-the enclosure which included the magnificent Augusteus throne room and the Daphne Palace surmounted by the emperor’s private bed chambers, the Octagon.

John’s house, with its unprepossessing brick front, was squeezed in amongst a jumble of taller residences. He had heard it said that the atrium had been added onto a couple of abandoned stables and it was easy enough to believe. An unusually large number of cramped rooms opened off the halls running from either side of the atrium. Some were used for servants’ quarters, others for storage. Most remained empty. John slept in a room near the front of the house. He worked in the office between the atrium and the inner garden and generally took his meals there. For solitude he retreated to the chapel near the atrium. The suites of rooms at the rear of the house-intended for living quarters-were mostly unexplored territory. He sometimes passed through them on his infrequent visits to the kitchen and workshops.

The garden he stepped out into was best concealed by winter screens. Brown weeds and straggling, untrimmed shrubs choked the area. A couple of yew trees had grown up to almost twice the height of the house. Vines entangled the columns of the surrounding colonnades and bushes reached toward the covered walkways. He couldn’t see Julianna but he heard her.

“If the rioters get into the palace grounds we can simply hide here,” she was saying. “They’ll never find-” Her sentence broke off, replaced by a series of oaths that would have made a charioteer blush.

He turned toward the direction of her voice and plunged through a tangle of evergreens. He found her bent over, tunic hitched up too high, rubbing her knee. Her calves appeared exceedingly brown and muscular for a lady of the court.

“Banged into a horse!” Straightening up, Julianna indicated a statue, about waist high, half concealed by brambles. Though eroded and partially covered by bluish lichens, it appeared to be a stone horse. “Look. There’s another one.”

She broke off handfuls of dry weeds to reveal a better preserved steed, this one with a carved blanket draped across its back.

“I understand the previous owner liked horses,” John said.

In fact, he had been told that the official worshipped the Christians’ god and horses, but not necessarily in that order. The unfortunate man would have done better to confine himself to religion. He might not have disgraced himself with gambling debts.

“I would have liked that owner.” Julianna wrinkled her nose at John.

“You like horses?” That explained the muscular calves, John thought.

“I adore horses. My family has more than I can count. At our country estates.” Her expression brightened abruptly. Like the sun emerging from behind one of the clouds he could see in the rectangle of blue overhead. John noticed she was little more than a girl. Her simple green robes hung loosely on her slim figure. Her black hair was drawn up, out of the way, and coiled tightly on either side of her head. There was a firm set to her jaw.

He realized why he had thought her familiar. She reminded him of Cornelia.

Cornelia whom he had met in Egypt, so many years ago after he had left Haik and the rest of the mercenaries outside Antioch. Cornelia had possessed the same dark hair, lithe figure, and strong calves, the latter a result of her bull leaping. She was part of a troupe. One of their acts recreated the ancient Cretan art of performing acrobatics with bulls. Julianna might be almost the same age as Cornelia had been back then.

Not more than half his own age now, John reminded himself. Nor was he the same then as now. He was aware of a chilly breeze rattling dead leaves. The tall yews swayed slightly, sending their shadows flickering across the garden.

“I enjoy the chariot races myself,” John said. “I did a lot of riding when I was in the military.”

Julianna looked at him quizzically. “You? In the military? I wouldn’t have thought you were the sort.” Her tone hardened again. Her mouth tightened in the same pronounced way Cornelia’s used to when she got angry. Had John been so obviously staring at her?

“I spent quite a few years with a sword at my side. Judging people too quickly can be dangerous.”

The girl did not quite roll her eyes. “Why do you want to talk to me?”

“I like to get some idea of who I have in my home.”

“But you never have anybody in this dusty old place.”

“How would you know?”

She shrugged. “You can tell the rooms haven’t been lived in. There are cobwebs in all the corners. I wanted to stay at our house, with mother, but father insisted I come to the palace.”

“You’ll be safer here, if there’s more trouble in the streets. Your mother should have come as well.”

“She told me not to worry. They aren’t interested in her. Just in father, and maybe Uncle Pompeius. As if anyone would be interested in uncle.”

“Interested?”

Julianna laid a hand, delicate like Cornelia’s, on the back of the miniature horse and absently petted the narrow back. “Oh, they say the factions want father to be emperor or some foolish thing. It’s just silly. You know all that though. It’s why we’re here.”