“When was Gaius here?” John asked her.
“He just left.”
“I’ll see if I can catch him. Try not to worry about Peter. What’s true for many isn’t necessarily true for a tough old boot like him.”
As the door shut behind him and he hurried across the square, John wished he believed his own reassuring words.
Chapter Thirteen
Vesta, lady-in-waiting to Joannina, plopped down on the bed next to Kuria, former lady-in-waiting to Theodora. “Who do you think I saw just now rushing toward the administrative building? The Lord Chamberlain! I made sure he’d gone by before coming inside. If he was coming to see me again, I didn’t want to be found. He makes me nervous. It’s almost like talking to the emperor.”
“They say he has bags and bags of gold even though he lives like a holy hermit,” Kuria replied.
The two young women sat in Kuria’s room, a few doors down the hall from Vesta’s, deep in the interior of the empress’ portion of the palace. The residences allotted to attendants of the most powerful members of the court were luxurious. Without moving from her perch on the end of the bed, Kuria could have touched more silk, silver, gold, perfume, jewelry, and fine glassware than most people in Constantinople would ever possess in their lifetimes.
“The Lord Chamberlain’s not only rich, he’s awfully tall, like Anastasius,” Vesta mused. “I might find him attractive if he were twenty years younger.”
“And actually a man.”
“Oh, don’t be mean!” Vesta giggled. “Anastasius called him a eunuch to his face, can you imagine? I was leaving and overheard.”
“If Anastasius doesn’t control his tongue he might end up missing an even more important part of his anatomy than the Lord Chamberlain. The part that sits on top of his neck.”
The two friends looked strikingly different, Kuria, exceedingly short, had a small pointy face, referred to by the unkind sons of aristocrats as rat-like, while the tall, gangly Vesta possessed features those same spoiled young men mocked as horsey. Kuria wore a stola of dark green to compliment her auburn hair. Vesta was dressed in a garment of the same light blue favored by her mistress Joannina.
“No one is going to harm the empress’ grandson!” Vesta said firmly. Suddenly she wrinkled her nose. “Do you know the Lord Chamberlain lives with a woman. Despite him being the way he is. Isn’t that the most disgusting thing? And what’s the point?”
Kuria gave her a sly look. “What a little innocent you are. There are other things….”
Vesta turned red. “I’m not all that innocent, Kuria. But I’m glad I don’t know everything you had to learn.”
Kuria’s gaze flickered around her sumptuous living quarters, as if she were taking inventory. “It’s just as well I learned some skills when I came to this city. I expect I’ll be back on the streets before long.”
Vesta leaned over and clutched her friend’s arm. “Oh, surely you won’t go back to the streets?”
“What else? No one but the empress would have a former whore for a lady-in-waiting. Don’t fret about me. I’ll get along. It was so terrible, when Theodora died. I adored her. I couldn’t think straight. I’m afraid I made a spectacle of myself in front of the Lord Chamberlain. Now I’ve calmed down. I’ll think of something.”
“You’re so brave. I wish I were as brave as you.”
“Whatever happens, it won’t be that bad. It was a lot worse growing up on the farm. And almost as bad after father sold me to be a city whore.”
“How could a man sell his own daughter?”
“Easily, when he’s paid enough to buy a donkey.”
“How dreadful it must have been.”
“Coming to the city wasn’t so bad. Father beat me all the time and barely fed me. My first owner in the city beat me too, but he fed me. After a while I escaped and found a new place. Isis fed me and never beat me.”
Vesta squeezed Kuria’s arm more tightly. “Oh, but I shall miss you if they make you leave the palace. Look, I’ll tell father to take you in. We have a huge house. There’s plenty of room.”
“I’m sure he’d be pleased to have someone like me under his roof.”
“He wouldn’t know. Father doesn’t know about anything except the Praetorian Prefecture or care about anything else.”
“Didn’t you tell me he’s some sort of official there?”
“Yes. Quite important, I suppose, but he wouldn’t be connected with the court exactly, except for my service to Joannina. That suits his sense of self-importance. Can you imagine, he’s writing a history of the Prefecture. As if it matters. He used to read parts of it to me, all about its regalia, buildings, organization.”
“I’d rather be beaten!”
“Listening to him you’d think Romulus and Remus suckled at the teat of some boring old bureaucrat with an account book. He faults Constantine for abandoning Rome.”
“There’s nothing in Rome these days but Goths and ruins.” Kuria laughed. “You’ve convinced me I would never want to stay at your father’s house even if he’d have me.”
Vesta drew away from her friend, a look of distress crossed her long face. “I didn’t mean to-”
“Anyway, never mind what I’m going to do with myself. What about you? Do you think Antonina is going to let that pair of doves you’re looking after continue billing and cooing now that Theodora’s gone?”
“The marriage is already scheduled.”
“Do you think Antonina cares? It’s just as well. You don’t want to be a lady-in-waiting forever.”
“What do you mean, Kuria? I love working for Joannina.”
“Yes, but you really want to find a husband at court, don’t you? Isn’t that what all ladies-in-waiting want? Well, we’ve talked about it often enough, haven’t we? Not that those of us who are former whores are likely to snag anyone.”
“Those of us who are homely aren’t likely to find anyone either. Not with all the gorgeous aristocratic women looking for their own men.”
“Well, you’re not exactly ugly, Vesta. You can make up for homeliness…” Kuria dropped her voice to a whisper. “…in other ways.”
“Not if you are innocent.” Vesta bit her lip. “Maybe you could teach me what you know. I mean, what it is men like.”
Kuria chuckled. “Men aren’t particular. It’s not like cooking. It doesn’t take much skill.”
“That can’t be true. You said you learned some skills, that they taught you something when you came to the city.”
“Mostly we know how to avoid getting pregnant and what draught to take when we got pregnant despite our precautions.”
“You’ve been pregnant?”
“More than once.”
“How awful! My poor friend. Just thinking about it…and all the men…different men all the time…” Vesta flushed.
Kuria looked wistful. Her eyes lost their focus, as if they were fixed on something far outside her room in the palace. “There were special men sometimes. They gave me gifts. They told me secrets they wouldn’t share with their wives. It wasn’t all bad.”
She jumped up from the bed, opened a chest at its foot, and rummaged through silks and enameled boxes. She pulled out a rolled sheet of parchment and handed it to Vesta. “Read this.”
Vesta unrolled the parchment and her gaze moved across the handwriting.
When she finished the color had drained from her fact, her hands shook, and her features were suffused by a look of utter horror.
Chapter Fourteen
John did not catch up with Gaius but finally tracked him down to his surgery in the administrative complex.
The physician was professionally noncommittal when questioned about the outlook for Peter. The shock of the injury had unbalanced Peter’s humors, he said, a serious matter in a septuagenarian. He hoped his concoctions would help restore the balance. The bones had not torn through the skin, so there was less chance of infection. That was a positive aspect to the accident.