Peter observed the ways of heaven were beyond understanding.
“They’re certainly beyond mine. Those clay scorpions you scorn are more much straightforward. Besides, do you think I haven’t noticed your lucky coin?”
Peter gave her a questioning look.
“The coin you keep in your room. I’ve seen it now and then when I’m cleaning.”
Peter related how he had found the coin in Isauria. “And consider this, Hypatia. Paul himself might have held that very coin!”
“It could have magickal powers then,” the young woman suggested slyly.
“You make it sound like one of those…” Peter hesitated, choosing his words with care. “…foreign talismans.”
“This sort of foreign talisman, Peter?”
Hypatia took off a small pendant suspended on a thin, leather thong and handed it to him for inspection. “It’s an udjat. They’re very highly thought of in Egypt.”
The green faience piece was a stylized representation of a large eye, with a trailing, curved tail descending from its left side.
“That’s an Eye of Horus,” Hypatia went on. “It protects its wearers against evil and ill health. Everyone in this city should be wearing one, if you ask me.”
“What an odd thing,” Peter observed. “And without intending blasphemy, it reminds me of the all-seeing eyes of the Lord.”
“Why don’t you put your coin on a chain and wear it, Peter? Then you’d be protected wherever you go.”
“But why are you convinced it is lucky?”
Hypatia beamed. “Why, because it bears the likeness of Fortuna, of course.”
Chapter Eight
Triton had not moved a great distance from his father’s dwelling, but he had fallen a long way from its comfortable surroundings.
The address to which Sylvanus had directed John lay not far from the silversmiths’ quarter, across the street from a squat edifice completely occupied, according to the plaque beside its entrance, by furriers. Chunks of the plaster facing of the apartment building where Triton lived had fallen off, revealing rough brickwork beneath. Many of its grubby windows displayed shattered panes or shutters hanging drunkenly from broken hinges.
Just inside a low archway leading to the building’s inner courtyard, two chipped columns, which looked as though they’d been recently scavenged from a refuse pit, called attention to a splintered door.
John knocked and waited. Looking back across the street, he could see a formless brown heap against the wall of the building opposite. Presumably furriers’ discarded wares. The malodorous smell wafting from that direction suggested rather a dead donkey.
A lock snicked and the door cracked open to reveal a tiny woman with the creased yellow skin of a quince and an expression almost as sour. Despite the warm weather, she was swathed in layers of black wool.
“What is it?” She firmly clutched the edge of her door, obviously prepared to slam it shut if necessary.
“Are you the owner of this building?”
“Yes. My name’s Glykeria. How can I assist you?” She inclined her head to one side to look up at John. Her eyes had a glassy, vacant look.
John realized she was actually turning an ear toward him.
The woman was blind.
He told her he sought a man named Triton.
“Do I know where he is? Indeed I do,” Glykeria replied. “Burning in the eternal fires, that’s where. That young villain will be roasting long after the empire is dust and that’s just for the rent he never paid. So whatever he owes you, I’m afraid you’ll just have to be content with considering that he’ll burn for that as well.”
The sightless eyes gleamed as if reflecting the flames she contemplated.
John sighed. He’d never undertaken an investigation where death seemed to be not only the crime, but also the murderer’s accomplice. Nonetheless he forged ahead, explaining he wasn’t a bill collector but rather a palace official.
The woman glowered at him. “Of course not. You’re a good friend and just want a word. He had so many good friends wanting a word. Never met anyone so popular, I must say. I could tell by my nose just who he’d robbed. The perfumer visited more than once. for a start. At the end he couldn’t even pay the cheesemaker’s bill. All good friends, so they said, although none of them claimed to be from the palace before now.”
John assured her he was, in fact, from the palace. She gave no indication that she had heard him, or believed him if she had.
“When did Triton die?” he asked.
“Only yesterday. Or possibly it was the day before. Not long ago.” She flapped a claw-like hand vaguely.
“Do you know anything about his family or friends? Perhaps some of these visitors you mentioned-”
“His father won’t be settling Triton’s debts, so you’re out of luck there. I can assure you, the rogue had long since cut himself off from whatever family he had, or they cut themselves off from him. Little wonder, really. If he hadn’t died, I would’ve evicted him at the end of the week.”
“Triton was a troublesome tenant?”
“Named for a pagan god and had the morals of one.”
Something in the woman’s tone told John he would have to tread around the subject of Triton carefully. He asked to see Triton’s room.
Glykeria’s head inclined further to the side. “I see I misunderstood your intentions.”
Suddenly she grabbed a fold of John’s robe.
A toothless smile added another crease to the woman’s face. “I can feel from this fine cloth you can afford my rooms. For an instant I thought I’d have to direct you to a tenement. If you would wait…”
She banged the door shut and emerged not long afterwards grasping a bundle of keys.
“This way,” she said as she scuttled out. Despite her lack of sight, Glykeria crossed the paved courtyard without hesitation and vanished into an entranceway. John followed her to the top of a gloomy flight of stairs.
“I’m not proposing to become a tenant,” he said, wondering how she had formed the misconception. “I only wish to see where Triton lived. I’m curious, though. How did you initially suppose I couldn’t afford one of your rooms?”
“Excuse me, sir, but it was because you carry the smell of the most vulgar of wines.”
Glykeria led him to the second floor. If any lamps were provided in the windowless stairwell, they weren’t lit. The hallway was nearly as dark. Glykeria’s key grated in a lock, a battered plank door swung open, and they stepped into a room whose furnishings consisted entirely of dust.
“Spacious, as I’m sure you’ll agree. If you’d care to look out the window and direct your gaze between the building over the way and the warehouse next to it and then over the top of the distant granary, there’s a fine view of the sea, or so I’m told.”
John walked over to the window. Whoever had described the view to Glykeria possessed either eyes or a tongue that couldn’t be trusted.
“A most pleasant view,” she went on. “But then to me any view would be pleasant.” She emitted a brief cackle.
Ignoring his recent statement that he did not wish to take a room, she continued. “I must caution you, sir, there’s already been some interest in this fine place. Several well-spoken young men came by just yesterday. Come to think of it, that proves Triton must have been dead then. Unless it was this morning when I showed them the room. They looked around for the longest time. They wanted to meditate on the decision by themselves, so I left them. I suspect they were praying for advice. In the end, they did not take it. Perhaps it was heaven’s plan the room should still be here for you, sir. They gave me a nummus for my trouble. Very pious young men, they were.”
Not to mention strong, since the courteous thieves had apparently stolen everything in the room. Not that there had been much furniture to begin with, judging from the dust-free markings on the floorboards.