Peter continued, his quiet voice barely audible over the splashing of waves and the creak of ropes and timbers. “I have heard it said, if you will excuse me for repeating such gossip, and bearing in mind that… well…I have heard that in particular she hates those men who are not such as may fall prey to her womanly attractions. Could that not be the reason?”
John shook his head. “Who does not distrust a eunuch, Peter? They’ve always had bad reputations, and in many cases with good reason if you care to study history. So it may be that Theodora, because of my condition, mistakes me for one of those treacherous creatures. But I believe there may well be a more specific reason.”
He paused, collecting his thoughts, as Peter looked expectantly at him.
“Some years ago, upon the death of Emperor Anastasius,” John continued, “his Lord Chamberlain, by name Amantius, had ambitions to wear the imperial purple himself. Unfortunately as a eunuch he was barred from doing so. But as it happened, Justinian’s uncle Justin was at that time commander of the excubitors. It’s said that Amantius had a candidate, one Theocritus, picked out to rule and thus secretly provided a vast sum of money to Justin, money that was quite possibly stolen from the imperial treasury, to buy support for the man. Justin, in a fine display of imperial maneuvering, used the money to buy support for himself and began his reign by putting the deceitful eunuch Amantius to death.”
“I can see the meaning of your story,” Peter said, “although I would not say it offers any moral to be drawn.”
“It was a eunuch’s failed plotting that brought Justinian’s family to power. Who is to say whether another eunuch’s more successful plot might not topple him from the throne?”
John looked down into the sea and immediately wished he had not. Their ship’s foaming wake, pointing an accusing finger back toward Constantinople, lay across a darkly glassy sea, a polished mirror from Hades such as Persephone might have used during her time in that shadowed land. The gleaming surface beckoned him to gaze into it, enticed him to throw himself into its embrace. Much as he feared deep water, there was still something fascinating and irresistible about it, like those certain heights where men with everything to live for were drawn to throw themselves over the precipice to their deaths on the rocks below.
His grip on the rail tightened at the thought. With an effort, he wrenched himself away from the siren call of the water and hunkered down next to the ramshackle shed over the hatchway behind the mast.
Peter sat stiffly down beside him, gazing around as they sailed slowly into the mouth of the narrow, twisting Bosporos. Its treacherous currents formed a fitting warning to exercise caution to those traveling down from the Euxine to visit Constantinople.
The captain was much in evidence directing his crew, ever wary of the many centuries’ worth of drowned wrecks waiting to claim for their own the ships of captains who were not quite canny enough. Each new victim rendered the sea passage more dangerous still. The ship’s slow tacking to and fro promised many extra hours of travel.
Peter sighed. His bones were protesting already. He asked John, not for the first time, where this shockingly sudden journey would end, but his master made no reply.
Darkness had fallen when John shook Peter’s shoulder. The servant, dozing with his back to the cabin wall, startled awake. John quickly informed him that the ship was anchored for the night.
“Master, what…?”
John’s gesture indicated the need for discretion. Light from the tiled firebox supporting the brazier on which the crew’s evening meal was being cooked flickered through gaps in the cabin wall. Voices were audible, arguing about who had wagered what on the most recent game of knucklebones.
“We have reached the end of our sea voyage, Peter, and none too soon for me.”
His servant looked about in sleepy confusion.
“No,” John assured him, “you did not sleep for the entire journey. We have not yet left the Bosporos. Did you think I would flee, even from Justinian? With friends lying dead and unavenged or imprisoned and in danger? But be as quiet as you can, for I do not want to alert the captain of our departure. It would be better for him if he knows nothing.”
Peter struggled to his feet. His eyes were wide with fear. “But if you defy the emperor…”
Though he still spoke in a whisper, John’s tone was suddenly, uncharacteristically harsh. “What do I have to flee that would be more terrible than the fate that ambushed me long ago? Now hurry, Peter, please.”
Chapter Twenty-six
The stout door to Anatolius’ cell swung open, admitting an icy draught scented with a musky perfume he recognized immediately. He scrambled to his feet.
Theodora took the few dainty steps necessary to reach his side. Uncomfortably close to his side.
“Empress, your servant,” he stammered, drawing back a pace.
Theodora looked up at him, an enigmatic smile curving her lips. Pearl-strung gold chains hugged her elaborately braided hair and the barbaric emerald brooch nestled snugly on her breast glinted in the flickering light of the oil lamp John had left behind. Anatolius wondered if it was her usual custom to visit those incarcerated in the imperial dungeons. There were those who hinted, always in whispers and inevitably after assisting in the emptying of too many wine jugs, that she was not averse to seeing jailers at their work. As to the details, even the most intoxicated remained cautious enough to leave them unsaid.
The empress glanced pointedly around the cold cell.
“These are not the sort of quarters a fine young man such as you should be inhabiting.”
“Excellency, I regret that I cannot offer you a seat, for I have none to offer,” was the only response the dazed Anatolius could manage.
“And yet this small cell is as large as the Hippodrome compared to those in which many of our martyrs were imprisoned,” Theodora continued matter-of-factly, as if she had arrived to debate theology over a goblet of wine and a tray of sweetmeats. “Then again this little temporary lodging of yours is quite dry, I see, and seems free enough of vermin. Yes, many a beggar living on the street would consider this a fine dwelling place, preferable to sleeping under the chilly portico of the senate house or huddling in some rat-infested corner.”
Theodora’s smile was chilly as the ice that occasionally drifted past the harbor walls. “It is true,” she continued, “that even the poorest and most miserable people in Constantinople possess a rare treasure that you, Anatolius, for all your family connections, wealth, and high office, do not. Freedom. Although it is freedom at a price. There is always a price, is there not? In their case, it’s the endless struggle to keep body and soul united long enough to recreate themselves in their miserable children. To what end, I confess, I have yet to fathom.”
Theodora sighed, then went on in the same casual tones. “You are no doubt wondering if your freedom has a price and how high that price might be. Is it too high? Can a murderer such as you afford to haggle over the cost of his life?”
The empress stopped in her speech and looked at him expectantly but Anatolius remained silent. He reminded himself that he was a soldier of Mithra, that he had been anointed with the blood of the bull. He would not ask what ransom she had in mind. He would not give her the pleasure of forcing him to bargain for his life.
A look of disappointment momentarily marred Theodora’s perfectly painted face. So, thought Anatolius, she had thought he would grovel, beg for mercy, kissing the hem of her robe and weeping, like so many soft young men who had found themselves on the wrong side of justice.
Theodora, seeing he would not speak, went on in that husky whisper that some, and inevitably to their bitter regret, had found seductive but that others considered akin to the warning rumbling growls of the wolves that ran in the dark forests of Germania.
“You are such a handsome young man,” she remarked. “It would be a pity to see you executed. And of course the emperor speaks highly of your work for him. I know he relies upon you to keep account of his official correspondence and advise him on all those minute details of etiquette, how to address this ambassador or greet that statesman. Your duties for him are rather like those of your friend John, so far as that goes, but,” her tone hardened, “I hope you have never shared John’s desire to influence the emperor’s decisions.”
Anatolius could not hide his surprise at her mention of John.
