“Vesta, my lady-in-waiting, was just arrested by the excubitors!” Joannina managed to blurt out.
It was fortunate Gaius was safely upstairs, no doubt with his nose buried in a wine cup again, so he did not hear the statement. John encouraged the girl to continue.
“We had been out together looking at jewelry and when we returned, there were excubitors waiting for her. They said incriminating herbs had been found in her room, ingredients for poison.”
Though unable to speak, rooms were more forthcoming than many people, John thought. “How did they know they were poisonous rather than cosmetic?”
“I don’t know but that’s what they said. And they said Vesta had murdered Theodora.”
John wondered who had told the excubitors about the herbs.
“Why would Vesta want to murder the empress?” Joannina was saying. “Anastasius and I, our marriage, the empress wished it. Now she’s gone and my parents can interfere…it may never happen…my lady-in-waiting was devoted to me, why would she try to thwart it? And now she’s in the hands of the imperial torturers and…and… what will happen to her?”
It was a reasonable question, but not one John was prepared to answer, given Joannina was upset enough without knowing any details of what went on in underground cells.
Chapter Forty-three
Justinian was not in the great reception hall or his personal quarters. An assortment of silentiaries, eunuchs, courtiers, and servants sent John here and there and as time passed he couldn’t help imagining what horrors the emperor’s torturers might already be applying to Joannina’s young lady-in-waiting. In his role as Lord Chamberlain, John had been obliged to attend several inquisitions. He had not been able to eat for a long time after any of them.
John finally found the emperor hunched over a table in the imperial library, surrounded by disordered mounds of codexes and scrolls of a religious nature according to the few titles he could make out. Justinian often spent entire nights poring over religious tomes, assisted by theologians in his employ, trying to come to some understanding of the unknowable or, lately, attempting to forge a compromise between beliefs which by their very nature admitted of no compromise. It was a strange occupation for a man who had just sent a girl to be tortured,
Justinian looked up, clearly annoyed. His eyes glittered feverishly. “What is this, Lord Chamberlain? You have broken my chain of thought.”
“My apologies, excellency. It is a matter of urgency.”
“It usually is an urgent matter, isn’t it?” Justinian folded over the corner of the illuminated page of his codex and closed the jeweled cover. “We will dispense with the usual amenities for that reason. Proceed.”
“A lady-in-waiting has been arrested after a search of her room led to the discovery of-”
“Yes, yes, I have given orders concerning the girl,” Justinian interrupted, fingering his ruby necklace in an absent-minded fashion.
John realized with a shock the emperor was wearing a piece of Theodora’s jewelry. A cold chill ran up his spine as if a snake was wriggling up his back. With a silent prayer to Mithra for aid, he said, “I believe this is a grievous error, excellency.”
“Do you expect me to countermand my orders?” Justinian asked. “Much blood has been shed on the matter you are investigating. What is a little more if it leads to the truth? You may speak frankly.”
“I wish to point out that if the girl dies, we have lost a valuable source of information.”
Justinian waved his hand. “Consider this beautiful necklace, Lord Chamberlain. Rubies as red as blood, each connected to its neighbor by a fine golden chain. We might draw a comparison between your investigation and the truth. The golden chain of truth, dotted with regrettably bloody incidents, leading finally to the clasp to be undone, the solving of the mystery.” He smiled and fondled the necklace again.
“Still, I am reluctant to shed innocent blood,” he went on, a statement of such immense hypocrisy John wondered the emperor did not choke on his words, “and on the other hand we must not lose a possible source of information.”
“Indeed, excellency,” John agreed.
“Why did they search the room?” Justinian asked.
“I do not know at present,” John admitted.
“It is of no importance. What is important, if indeed she poisoned our dear empress, is establishing on whose behalf she was working. The real murderer is whoever hired her, the name of whom my torturers are bound to discover.”
“I confess I am worried, excellency. A delicate young girl like that might not survive questioning long enough to reveal her employer. The culprit could well be counting on that.”
Justinian acknowledged it was a possibility.
John offered another silent prayer to Mithra and continued his persuasive efforts. “Another difficulty is she could say anything, give any name that occurs, and then I would waste time following a false trail, giving the murderer an opportunity to elude justice.”
“Yes, I see your point, Lord Chamberlain,” Justinian replied. “We must have a proper inquiry You may rescue her, assuming you arrive in time. I will send for you when I wish to have a full account of what you have learned.”
As John bowed himself out of the library, the emperor opened his codex and bent his head over it. He held the sullen red-gemmed necklace flat against his chest, as if again embracing his dead wife.
Chapter Forty-four
John raced down the stone steps leading to the dungeons in a controlled fall and then sprinted along the corridor at their foot. His chest burned with exertion. He had run all the way from the meeting with Justinian.
It was one thing to die in combat but the death meted out in the crude cells he raced past was quite another matter. Though torturers sometimes withheld death, permanent injury was inflicted quickly.
A scream sounded nearby, ascending into throat-aching shrillness and then down into loud sobs mixed with entreaties for mercy.
The air stank of smoke, seared flesh, blood, and less savory odors.
John suppressed a gag.
Turning a corner he saw firelight reflected on wet stones from the open door of the nearest cell.
He hoped the wetness was water.
The scene that met him as he stepped into the cell was much as expected. Vesta lay on the floor weeping raggedly, her clothes torn. A broad-shouldered man bent over her, boot poised to deliver another kick to the girl’s side.
“Stop!” John commanded as he crossed the threshold.
The man looked up, his thick lips curling. “Just softening the captive up a little. You can’t expect results immediately with some of these women, Lord Chamberlain.”
“You haven’t begun questioning the girl?”
“No, you’re just in time. I’ve been showing her the hot irons, the knives, and my other pretty toys.” The torturer leered in the direction of a brazier and a cluttered table occupying one wall. “So I haven’t got around to business. I was waiting for my assistants to arrive so the fun can begin.”
Vesta had taken advantage of the conversation to crawl to John and cling to his boots.
“She’s not that much of a pretty young thing,” the torturer observed, “but men will be men, and I find that afterwards, criminals don’t care much any more what they reveal. If you’d care to join-or-uh-watch-”
“Silence! Justinian’s orders are she’s to be released.”
The other looked both surprised and disappointed. “But the irons are just starting to glow! We haven’t got
