Angelina, Gregory’s widow, was spinning wool in a sunny room at the back of her sister’s house, a short walk from her own home. A small, plump woman perched on a stool, she reminded John of a dove. A dove whose feathers were, however, a blue and dark as the waters of the Sea of Marmara under the glare of the midday sun. In one hand she held a clump of wool. A weighted spindle dangled from the other.
She greeted John with a timid smile, indicated he should take a seat, and continued working. “My sister’s husband has been taking care of such matters that need to be taken care of, I am thankful to say. The news was a terrible shock. A man from the palace administrative offices came to tell me. It all seems a terrible dream.”
John offered condolences.
“Thank you. As you see, I am keeping myself busy. Not crying in lamentation or any such extravagance. A nasty pagan practice, excellency. They might well tear their hair at the mouth of Hades, but why should we when our loved ones are standing at the gate of heaven?”
The widow’s cheeks were rosy without the aid of makeup, her skin unlined, her hair, pulled away from her face, dark brown. It struck John that Gregory must have taken a much younger bride, until he noticed the joints of the hands that tugged at the wool and twirled the spindle were swollen and knobby with age.
“Not that the journey there is easy unless one is a saint,” Angelina continued. “My poor husband must be braving the toll-houses at this very instant, arguing over his baggage with demon tariff collectors.” A brief smile illuminated her face. “He always said he’d be well prepared to deal with them, having been a customs official himself.”
John remarked that such a position would certainly be of great assistance in the circumstances.
“He was a good man, excellency. A good husband. I never wanted for anything. If he is facing some satanic judge right now, he surely has a score of angels defending him.”
Not to mention angelic messengers seeking justice on his behalf, John thought. “I would say Gregory is not carrying the sort of baggage that would interest demons.”
Did a wistful look cross the round face before him? “None of us are without sin, I fear,” Angelina said.
The room had whitewashed walls lined with chests and baskets of wool. A shaft of light from the open window fell across the dark floor tiles, touching the stool where Gregory’s widow worked. John told her, without elaboration, he was investigating her husband’s death.
She accepted the statement without question. It would not be unusual for the palace or the City Prefect to take an interest in the murder of a high-ranking customs official.
“I understand your husband was once a military man. How did he come to be a customs official?”
“John Chrysostom got him the post,” was the surprising answer.
“But he died almost a century and a half ago!”
“My husband had a great and abiding interest in him, excellency. When he served in Isauria he would visit every church he saw to ask if it owned any copies of the man’s writings. Whatever he found, he committed to memory as best he could. Thus eventually he carried in his head a library no ordinary soldier could possibly have afforded.”
John realized that the young Gregory had probably shared this knowledge with his friend Peter. “How did he become interested in John Chrysostom?”
“It was because John was exiled to that part of the world near the end of his life. He was part of the history of the mountains, if you wish. The beauty and power of his writing impressed Gregory.” Although the old hands continued to work the wool and spindle, a quaver crept into her voice. “Gregory chose a phrase from them for his tomb inscription long ago.”
“Since he was a Christian as well as formerly a military man, might I venture to guess it questions the supposed victory of the grave?”
The spindle stopped for an instant. Then she plucked hastily at the thread, smoothing out an errant thickening. “Why, yes, excellency. You are also a man of the church?”
“I am often at the Great Church.” John did not explain that, as Lord Chamberlain, it was part of his duties to arrange and oversee the emperor’s ceremonial entrances into the church, and that further, it was extremely wise for him to attend its services, despite holding other religious convictions.
Angelina forced a smile. “But I was telling you how Gregory obtained his post, wasn’t I?”
She lifted the spindle and pushed down the multiplying coils of thread. “It was in Isauria that he took a spear in the arm.”
There was the slightest hesitation in her words. The ancient wound she had mentioned might well have reminded her of the more recent and fatal wounding.
“He couldn’t remain in the army,” she continued. “He always said it was a sign sent by heaven. In any event, he came back and took a clerical job at the customs house. As it happened, one of the higher officials there was also a student of John Chrysostom’s writings. He learned that Gregory shared his interest and when they began discussing matters of religion he soon recognized my husband’s intelligence and talents.”
Her hands continued like separate creatures, going about their own business. “He was blessed to be given a path leading so sure-footedly from a soldier’s life in the wilderness to great wealth here in the capital,” she went on. “I know Gregory wouldn’t like to hear me complain it ended as it did. That would be ungrateful and unreasonable, he would argue.”
“Did your husband discuss his work much with you, Angelina?”
John was not surprised when she told him he had not. Was there any connection between Gregory’s post and his death? Was his death related to Nereus’ oral will? Tariff collectors were so much disliked that it was not surprising that the church, seeking to remind the faithful of future accountability, had populated the soul’s road to heaven with demonic customs officials.
John asked whether anyone with whom Gregory had recently transacted business might hold some resentment against him.
“No, excellency. He felt he was simply taking wealth on behalf of our Christian emperor from those who had more than enough. He personally donated a great deal of his own wealth for charitable purposes, particularly to the Church of the Holy Apostles.”
“Did he receive any unusual visitors during the past few weeks?”
The spindle was full. Angelina placed it in the basket set beside her stool and brought her gnarled hands together in her lap, folding them together as if in prayer. “As I indicated, I did not know much about my husband’s business. Indeed, you exhibit considerable knowledge of him.”
“Peter related a few things about your late husband to me,” John explained.
“Peter?”
“Gregory’s old army friend.”
“I’ve never heard Gregory mention him.”
“Peter is the man Gregory met every week or so to talk about theology and-”
John was unable to finish because Angelina sprang off her stool, a dove taking awkward flight.
“Bless you, excellency!” She burst into tears. “You were sent from heaven. Now I see it all! Sent from heaven!”
She looked up at the whitewashed ceiling. “Gregory, forgive me!” she cried, and then addressed John. “All these years when Gregory was going off to his meetings with this Peter you’ve just mentioned, and never saying why or who he was visiting, oh, Lord forgive me, I supposed he had been seeing another woman.”
Chapter Nineteen
Loud voices from the atrium distracted Hypatia. The scorpion’s tail snapped off in her hand.
She set the lump of clay she’d been modeling on the kitchen table and quickly wiped her hands on a rag. The door slammed below and someone stamped angrily upstairs.
Europa burst into the kitchen, eyes bright with anger.
“I wish we’d never come here, Hypatia! I’m telling Thomas I want to leave!”
She found a cup, filled it from the wine jug, and drank thirstily.