He was alone in the room with Julianna, who was looking at him.
“Thank you for being discreet,” she said in a whisper.
“Please try to be more discreet yourself. No more excitement.”
He went out into the corridor where Hypatius was gesticulating at Rusticus. “You’re sure it isn’t poison? Haik could have been poisoned outside the palace. Everyone agreed. It might have been slow acting.”
“There would be signs,” Rusticus said. “Why I recall, back when Senator-”
“But what if there’s a poisoner among us?” interrupted Hypatius. “Or a murderer with access to this house? I could be next. Or my brother.”
Pompeius put a hand on Hypatius’ shoulder. “Come away now. Have some wine with me. For all you know you might be poisoned already. The pain might start any moment.”
Hypatius looked stricken. Pompeius chuckled, then began to sway on his feet. His hand tightened on his brother’s shoulder. Hypatius grabbed Pompeius’ arm to steady him.
“You’ll be nearby if my brother should need you, Rusticus?” Hypatius asked. “Or if I should?”
Rusticus gave a curt nod. “Yes. The last thing either of you need is wine. I will send a concoction for Julianna, and a sleeping potion for the two of you.”
“I’ll accompany you out,” John told the physician after the brothers had departed. “Perhaps you should just stay at my house. You seem to visit the family constantly.”
“Mostly Pompeius. Julianna is healthy as a horse.”
“I suspect she would appreciate your saying so.”
“The last time I saw her was when I treated her uncle, right after the executions. It was Pompeius who was on his sick bed that afternoon. Julianna had come over to tend to him until I arrived. The two houses are practically next to each other. She’s a strong girl. Not squeamish. Demanded to hear every detail of what I’d witnessed. Did I describe the executions to you?”
“As a matter of fact, you did and it was most interesting,” John said quickly, as they walked into the atrium. “Please excuse me. I have something to attend to.”
He left the elderly physician beside the statue of Aphrodite.
An image of Haik floated through his mind. The dream was already dissipating from his memory. Haik had said something about Persians, hadn’t he? Felix said that the Persian emissary traveled with Belisarius. Haik had also accompanied the general’s troops to the city. Then too, Julianna had been with Pompeius when Rusticus had treated him. These were connections John had not known about. They formed new possibilities.
***
It took only a few inquiries before John was being ushered into the Persian emissary’s rooms at the Daphne Palace. No one sought to deny him entrance. It was perfectly natural that the chamberlain in charge of the imperial banquet might wish to confer with the honoree. The only puzzle was why preparations were still ongoing, given the state of the city, but then the emperor was known as a man of strange whims.
The quarters had been decorated in wall hangings with Persian motifs. The emissary was sitting at a table, poring over something there. When he rose, John saw he was a tall man, not much older than John, with a black spike of a beard and hair that hung to his broad shoulders in glossy ringlets.
John’s breath caught in his throat before he could speak. He recognized the man, from his time in captivity.
For an instant he was back in the Persian encampment. A military officer with a sharply pointed beard walked down the line of chained men. “This one, and this one,” he said, and the men were dragged away to the waiting executioner. Only a handful had been spared, John among them. Spared to be led into a tent, where they were tied to a table and a man with a razor-sharp knife relegated them to a worse future than the condemned whose heads already had been piled up in blood soaked baskets.
No, John realized. That commander would have been much older today. The emissary was the same age that other Persian had been when John’s life had been so drastically changed, more than ten years ago, an eternity.
The commander had worn the same style of beard, and was Persian. There was no other similarity.
Nevertheless it was only with difficulty that John managed keep his voice from shaking as he returned the emissary’s greeting.
“Please tell your emperor that I appreciate his hospitality all the more in light of the crisis with which he is dealing,” the emissary said. “You speak Persian well. You have spent time in Persia, perhaps? One hopes your stay was pleasurable.”
John made no reply. His heart was still racing from his initial, mistaken impression. What had the man said his name was? Bozorgmehr? How peculiar. That translated as Great Mithra. So the Christian emperor was negotiating an Eternal Peace with Mithra, John’s god. “I wanted to insure the banquet arrangements are suitable,” John said. He showed him a proposed menu he had written out on a sheet of parchment.
John had no clear idea of what he might learn from his visit. He hardly dared question the Persian official directly. Particularly if his reasons for being in the city were other than diplomacy. Bozorgmehr’s crimson tunic bore a decorative pearl-outlined roundel of a boar’s head. The boar stared at John while the emissary studied the parchment. Over the Persian’s shoulder John saw what the man had been looking at so intently on the table. It was a rectangular board of light, polished wood inlaid with long triangles of darker wood. Several rows of flat, enameled disks had been laid out in lines along some of the triangles.
Bozorgmehr must have noticed the direction of John’s gaze. “That is the ancient game known as Nard.” He handed the menu back. “Your choice of courses is excellent, Chamberlain.”
“Thank you. I imagine a game like that would be a good way to pass the time during a tedious journey.”
“True enough. That is why I brought it with me, in part. But in addition, I have been refining the rules. Rather as your emperor has been organizing the welter of your old Roman laws. I find games to be exquisite miniatures of life.”
“Assembling a guest list and arranging seating for a banquet is not unlike placing pieces on a board,” John remarked.
“Exactly. Men are fascinated by games, even if their outcomes change nothing. The wealthy and the poor are passionate over the races, though the wealthy have no need to win more than they already possess and the poor are not made wealthy by cheering for the winner.”
“Charioteers have a financial stake in racing, however. Their game is their life. Perhaps it would please you if I seated Porphyrius within speaking distance. Or have you had the chance to speak to him already since you arrived?”
Bozorgmehr displayed no reaction that John could see beyond genuine perplexity. “Why would I have spoken to Porphyrius? I know him only by reputation.”
“My apologies. He is one of the city’s most famous residents and I am certain would have been highly honored if you had granted him an audience. I fear that in my eagerness to provide suitable entertainment for you the thought was father to the assumption.”
“Certainly I have heard of this Porphyrius,” the other admitted.
“In Constantinople,” continued John, “who has not? And his name is known even further afield. If you happened to speak to Haik, a fellow traveler on your journey here, you would have heard a great deal about Porphyrius.”
Still, John could see nothing but puzzlement in the Persian’s long, angular face.
“I do not recall speaking with anyone named Haik.”
“He accompanied Belisarius, as you did. I know him from my time in that part of the world. A hearty, hawk nosed fellow. A pistachio grower.”
Bozorgmehr betrayed no awareness that Haik had ever lived, let alone that he was dead. “General Belisarius escorted a large number of people to Constantinople. I stayed with my own retinue.”
“Ah. Then I should strike Haik off the guest list. I wondered how he would know such a high official as yourself. No doubt he was playing his own game-to win an invitation to an imperial banquet. It is a good thing I came to speak to you.”