handsome young man at court, and a member of the imperial family no less.
Not that Theodora had exerted any force, despite what gossips claimed. Except for forcing the two into common living arrangements.
Once Joannina had made a blushing and stammering Vesta tell her exactly what the ladies-in-waiting and other attendants were gossiping.
“Oh, your ladyship…I’d rather not say…but…oh…they claim Theodora came here herself and instructed you both to go into…into…the bedroom and…and disrobe. And then…oh…must I? Then she told you both exactly what to do and even helped…”
Joannina had laughed. “What nonsense! Theodora has hardly been well enough to move around on her own since Anastasius and I have been living here. She has never visited. It was nothing like that. Nothing like that at all.”
She did not tell Vesta what it had been like. That the haughty and handsome Anastasius had been absolutely terrified to do what his grandmother had made clear he must do.
That had done more than anything to endear him to Joannina.
Thinking about it, Joannina began to grow impatient. Where was he?
Despite her annoyance, she started drifting off to sleep on the couch. When he stamped into the sitting room he startled her.
She saw he was empty-handed, hadn’t brought anything for her. “What’s the matter, dearest? Where have you been so late?”
Joannina felt she had a wifely duty to assuage his anger, but when in the past she had tried soothing words or put her arms around him, it had just stoked his fury.
“I’ve been out and about asking questions.” He flopped down on the couch next to her, yanked off his malodorous boots, and threw them across the room. “I don’t like it! I don’t like it at all! Someone’s going to pay. I’ll have my revenge, you wait and see. Vengeance will be mine!”
He sounded more petulant than vengeful.
Joannina pulled herself into a sitting position and leaned over Anastasius who was slouched on his spine with his long legs stretched out on the floor. “What are you talking about? Vengeance for what?”
“For the murder of my grandmother. It’s not just a rumor. It’s true. She was murdered. Justinian has ordered that eunuch of his to find the culprit. I didn’t believe it, but now I have it on good authority. He spent the whole day visiting people who are under suspicion.”
“Vesta and ourselves are under suspicion?”
“And Germanus, not to mention your mother.”
“That’s silly. Mother was Theodora’s friend.”
“Maybe. But it’s very convenient for your mother that the empress died before our marriage, isn’t it?”
Joannina drew away from him. “You don’t think my mother killed your grandmother, do you?”
Anastasius said nothing but frowned furiously.
Joannina frowned back. “You can’t be thinking of taking vengeance on mother!”
“Well, no. The eunuch visited Artabanes. That’s who I suspect.”
“Why Artabanes?”
“Because Theodora arranged for his…uh…marital relations, just like she did ours, but the opposite, don’t you see?”
Joannina tentatively put her hand on his narrow shoulder. “What do you mean?”
“She arranged for us to stay together. She also arranged for Artabanes to stay with his wife. See. Artabanes wanted to marry Praejecta, just like we want to marry each other. But in Artabanes’ case, she stopped the marriage and forced him to live with his wife, while in our case, though we aren’t married, she made us live together so we can be married. It’s almost exactly the same except different.”
Joannina ventured to let her hand run down Anastasius’ arm. “I see, now that you explain it so clearly.”
“So Artabanes wanted revenge on Theodora for spoiling his marriage plans. That would make anyone want revenge.”
“But it isn’t your job to take revenge on anyone, Anastasius. And certainly not on Artabanes. We barely know the man.”
“It it weren’t for him there would be no way your parents could stop our being married!”
“Your grandmother was very ill,” Joannina pointed out.
Anastasius slid lower on the couch. “But she wouldn’t have died before she saw to it we were married if not for-”
“You sound as if you care more about our marriage than your grandmother!”
Anastasius turned toward Joannina and put his hand out. She moved slightly and the hand brushed her shoulder. “You know I care about you more than anything in the world, Joannina, my little sparrow.”
“Now that’s the Anastasius I love.” She kissed his forehead and her hand went to his belt. “Let the Lord Chamberlain worry about vengeance.”
Chapter Twenty-four
The carriage was utterly dark. The windows had been covered.
John had caught only a glimpse of the conveyance as he was thrown roughly inside it. It was an imperial carriage in poor repair, nothing the emperor would ride in, and had been relegated to other uses.
He tried the door. Not surprisingly, it was locked. He couldn’t see his hand or anything else. Except that he could feel his breath going in and out he might already have been a disembodied phantom.
The carriage had an unpleasant sour smell. The smell of fear, perhaps, from previous passengers.
At least half a dozen excubitors had come to the house. They hammered on the door loudly enough to wake him in the study where he had dozed off in his chair. Once he confronted them they had become taciturn about their mission and John’s destination.
“Emperor’s orders! That’s all you need to know!” their apparent leader barked when John tried to question him.
John recognized the man by the unruly red hair spilling from underneath his helmet.
He was the excubitor who had summoned Felix from the tavern for an urgent meeting with Justinian.
A meeting to order John’s arrest?
There had been no use resisting. John had not tucked the blade he usually carried into the tunic he had intended to wear to bed. It didn’t matter. A single man, even properly armed, would have no chance against so many trained soldiers.
He fought the only worthwhile battle left, the battle to maintain his dignity.
After so many years of imperial service, was his life going to end like so many others-like the guards outside Theodora’s sickroom, like the imperial cook-unexpectedly, at the whim of the emperor?
Everyone at court heard stories of people spirited away to be summarily executed on Justinian’s orders. Sometimes acquaintances or family members. And then they wondered what would it feel like? How would they react when they were roused from sleep and told they had less than a hour to live, if they were lucky? If they were lucky enough, that is, to be killed simply and cleanly and not taken down to the torturers first.
But however close the victim had been to a particular person, it was like hearing about someone killed by lightning or a run-away cart. An acknowledged possibility, but never something you really imagined would happen to yourself.
John stared into the blackness that pressed in on him like dark water. He feared deep water. Now he fought off the feeling he was drowning. He kept his lips tightly pressed together as if the darkness might get in and choke off his breath.
He didn’t know what time it was. How long had he dozed before waking? It might be the middle of the night or nearly dawn.
One wouldn’t have expected the emperor to schedule a meeting for either time.
He wished he had heard from Cornelia.
