Chapter Thirteen
John found the first person he sought standing under the portico of the senate house on the north side of the Forum Constantine.
Senator Balbinus looked as if he’d not slept since he’d appeared at Aurelius’ house hotly demanding to speak to his recently murdered colleague concerning certain mysterious matters whose details he had refused to divulge.
On this occasion, however, Balbinus’ anger was directed elsewhere.
“The senators were ordered to convene here in the very midst of the mob,” he complained, “and furthermore, we’ve been forbidden to leave the city.” His tired gaze moved past John out into the forum.
The crowd of raucous humanity eddying past the base of the Column of Constantine was the usual mixture of roughly clad laborers interspersed with an occasional better robed aristocrat. Customers jostled each other in front of the shops lining the upper and lower levels of the colonnades surrounding the forum. Nothing in the scene seemed out of the ordinary. Still, on his way over, John had sensed impending violence. Was the collective breath of the city sourer with wine, were its citizens talking louder than normal?
“No doubt the emperor fears the sight of the entire senate scattering to their estates would cause a panic,” John commented.
“It has nothing to do with Justinian. It’s Theodora who’s holding us hostage,” Balbinus replied. “There’s no doubt that this order is her doing. The emperor is a reasonable man, except when he chooses to wrestle with the angels. Not that we don’t all support his theological efforts, of course,” he added hastily. “Yet even the Patriarch has fled the city, or so I hear.”
The two men were conversing beside one of the portico’s four towering columns, taking advantage of the scant warmth offered by weak early afternoon sunlight. John inquired politely about security measures at Balbinus’ country estates and vineyards and the senator grumbled and muttered his replies in irritated tones.
“Do you think ne’er do wells in the country aren’t aware that we are being detained here?” he demanded. “Do you suppose they won’t be swift to take advantage of the situation if violence breaks out in the city? We are all men of property. Businessmen. It is intolerable that we should not be permitted to look after our assets at such a time as this.”
John found himself wondering if it had been an illegal business arrangement that had led one senator to murder another. Yet powerful men did not usually find it necessary to personally resort to murder to dispose of their rivals. They had more subtle means at their disposal. Nevertheless, Balbinus’ visit to Aurelius had been just ill-timed and inexplicable enough to pique John’s curiosity.
Then too, he could not help noticing that as Balbinus spoke he kept the side of his face presented toward his visitor. Certainly, John thought, it was a regal profile that would have looked more fitting on a follis than Justinian’s commoner cast of features. Was it the practiced vanity of a thoroughly professional politician or was the man trying to distract attention from the partially healed wound running along one cheekbone?
“Was it affairs of business that brought you to Aurelius’ door?” he asked.
Balbinus’ hesitation was slight enough that few but John would have noted it. “Of a sort,” he finally admitted.
“Is it then a new arrangement that men of property normally discuss such matters at the first light of dawn?”
“My visit concerned something I prefer not to discuss, Lord Chamberlain.”
“Perhaps you would rather discuss it with the Prefect?”
Balbinus looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
Now it was John who paused. The senator’s surprise seemed genuine. Could the man truly be such an innocent? Didn’t he realize the implications to be drawn from the odd hour of his visit to Aurelius’ home?
“I mean no offense, senator, but your colleague Aurelius was murdered. The Prefect will naturally be interested in, let us not say an enemy, let us say a colleague with whom he had fallen out, who arrived uninvited at the victim’s doorstep shortly thereafter.”
Balbinus affected a half-hearted laugh. “If I’d had the old rascal murdered why would I come calling? To ascertain whether the poison had had the desired effect? The whole affair is the talk of the senate.”
Several senators emerged from the busy throng and nodded familiarly to Balbinus as they passed by on their way into the senate house. John did not recognize any of them, not surprisingly since most of the landholders who comprised the senatorial class visited the city only very occasionally. Aurelius was one of the few who lived there. Or had lived there, he corrected himself.
Balbinus scowled. “Now that my colleagues have seen us talking, they’ll be asking me what fresh gossip I have from the palace.”
“Senator, I must ask you again about your business with Aurelius. Let me also assure you that I am a much more discreet man than the Prefect.”
“But you can’t suspect me, surely? I am a senator!”
“I am not implying that, but surely you will understand that under the circumstances you are almost certainly already under suspicion so far as the Prefect is concerned?”
“So you consider that’s a possibility? Well, then, it seems I must speak after all. It strikes me that if I’m thrown into the dungeons you can take over my job here, Lord Chamberlain. You certainly have the persuasive tongue for it!”
Balbinus stared out into the forum for a few moments, deep in thought. One hand went absently to the reddened wound on his face, then drew away quickly.
“My business with Aurelius was personal and of a very delicate nature,” he finally said. “My wife Lucretia has been missing these past few days. I thought I might find her at his house.”
Balbinus’ reluctant words not only explained his interest in speaking to Aurelius but also strongly indicated the feminine hand that had inflicted the half healed scratch that marred the senatorial face, John thought. “You had reason to believe that you would find her at Senator Aurelius’ house?”
“I did. She was, however, not there and is still missing.”
“I see. You have, of course, alerted the Prefect to her disappearance?”
“No. I intend to take care of the matter myself. Do you think I have no resources at my disposal?”
“If she wandered off…”
“Lucretia did not wander off. She is a capable woman although young. And very beautiful. Any man half my age would be proud to claim her as his wife!”
One of the men who had recently arrived emerged from the senate house. “Balbinus, we need your assistance. Several of us are composing a petition to the emperor, pointing out that if our estates are sacked while we are detained here against our will, the imperial treasury will suffer mightily since compensation will be due and most certainly sought.”
John silently admired their courage in even contemplating presenting such a petition to Justinian.
“I have to attend to this, Lord Chamberlain,” Balbinus said. “So if you will permit me? There is nothing more I can tell you, at any rate. I do not need to say, I trust, that I rely upon your discretion regarding what I have just told you.”
John nodded, adding “And if anything else occurs to you, I am not difficult to find.”
John remained standing under the portico after Balbinus had gone inside. Again he noticed that the eddying crowds seemed louder than usual, and few beggars could be seen prodding charitable purses by displaying their malformed bodies or ghastly sores. That was strange, he thought, since more often than not society’s outcasts were at the forefront when unrest fermented in dark alleys and darker lives boiled over from a scalding cauldron of noise and hate, its flood sweeping all before it. He must mention this sudden curious lack of mendicants to Felix.
John made his way quickly across the forum. At the Column of Constantine he glanced up briefly at its mounted statue of the first Christian emperor. A smile flickered over John’s sunburnt face as he recalled one of Anatolius’ more unfortunate remarks, to the effect that the emperor’s statue should have been placed on a lower
