“It isn’t a coincidence the man vanished the very day the empress died,” Manuel observed.
“No. No coincidence.” Petrus slapped the denuded chicken down on the table and picked up a knife. “I think we can safely say the emperor was disappointed in the poor man, whoever he worked for and…well…” Petrus stabbed his blade into the chicken and tore its belly and chest wide open.
“Justinian’s gone mad,” Manuel said. “He’s convinced the empress was poisoned, impossible as that is. He’s looking for someone to blame.”
“He must think this spy of his missed something important.”
“One of the dishwashers didn’t show up this morning either. Perhaps he was working for the Master of Offices. I’m sure we’ll eventually notice others are gone too.”
Petrus reached into the chicken carcass and pulled. A handful of guts came out with a slurping noise. “If Justinian knew who the poisoner was he would have him gutted like this chicken, but more slowly.”
“You can’t execute someone who doesn’t exist. So the watchers pay the price for not spotting someone who was never there. When I delivered the emperor’s breakfast I noticed the guards to Theodora’s sickroom have been replaced.”
Petrus was groping deep inside the dead chicken. Finally his hand emerged, fingers gripping the last, stringy bloody entrails. “At least he doesn’t suspect you, Manuel.”
The empress’ cook grimaced. “I pray he doesn’t.”
“Don’t worry. If Justinian suspected you, do you think you’d still be alive? I’ll wager you didn’t sleep much last night. Try to catch up on your rest. Come in late. I’ll take charge until you feel like coming in.” He started sweeping offal from the pile of gutted chickens off the table.
Manuel left to the moist sound of vital organs plopping into a bucket.
He nodded to the sentry at the door. A new man. Had the familiar sentry been reassigned? Or perhaps the question was had he been reassigned to a post in the land of the living or sent to the land of the dead?
He decided to return to his rooms via the brightly torch lit walkway that passed by the Triclinium rather than taking his usual shortcut through the dim gardens. There were so many guards about one might have thought the palace was under siege.
Perhaps it was time for him to retire. How many years had he served the empress? Ever since the previous cook had been-well, it was best to forget the incident of the fish. What would he do now? There were endless banquets to be prepared. Perhaps he might be ordered to take over the cooking for Justinian.
He hoped not. Cooking for the emperor, who was a vegetarian and austere in his tastes, would be like cooking for a peasant farmer. There were those who hated Theodora. Manuel could never understand why. There was no dish too exotic for her palate. She had been a joy to cook for until the last few weeks, when she had been unable to hold down anything but broth. Even so, had she not complimented him on his broth of partridge, venison, and crab?
Yes, he had accumulated enough wealth to retire in luxury. Perhaps he could move to the provinces, run an inn for well-to-do travelers who would be glad to have a good palace style meal during a long journey far from the amenities of the city.
He heard boots thudding along the marble walkway behind him.
Some emergency?
As the footsteps came up beside him they slowed to match his pace.
“Manuel, cook for Empress Theodora?” inquired a gravelly voice.
Two hulking guards, hands on the hilts of their sheathed swords, flanked him. A hollow space as vast as the inside of the Great Church seemed to open up inside Manuel’s chest. “Yes?” He wasn’t sure how he managed to get the word out.
“You are to accompany us. Orders from Emperor Justinian,” said one of the guards. He was practically a youngster. A curl of red hair fell from under his helmet and lay across his unlined forehead.
“What…what is this about?”
“We are here merely to carry out the emperor’s orders. Come with us.”
Manuel felt a hand on his shoulder. It was all he could do to control his bladder.
They led him down a narrow path into the gardens. Their feet crunched on gravel.
“Justinian desires to see me?”
The guards did not answer.
They passed through a gap in the shrubbery and the bright light illuminating the broad marble walkway and pouring out into the grounds beyond was abruptly blotted out.
Manuel’s heart pounded in fits and starts. “Am I…am I under arrest?”
The guards remained silent.
They halted at a patch of dark bare ground surrounded by bushes. Manuel could hear the ratcheting of summer insects in the dark foliage. The sharp odor of dill came to his nostrils. Oddly, as much as Theodora had favored esoteric spices, she had always loved dill.
He heard the whisper of a steel blade slipping from its sheath.
The guards said nothing.
The red-haired youngster slit Manuel like a chicken from belly to breast.
Chapter Sixteen
The sprawling two-story mansion of General Belisarius and his wife Antonina rubbed its polished granite walls up against the southern end of the Hippodrome. It wasn’t a salubrious location but then Belisarius wasn’t home very often. He was usually camped on some distant border though at present, to hear some tell it, he was on board a ship sailing up and down the Italian coast, shaking his fist at the Goths and waiting for Justinian to send swords and spears.
John guessed when races were in progress the cheers of the crowds must shake the house like thunder. Did the sound remind Antonina that despite her wealth and high position she had come from a family of charioteers? Theodora had accomplished a similar rise to greater power from even lower antecedents, being the daughter of a bear trainer. Perhaps this was the main strand in the bonds of friendship between the two women.
As he climbed the flight of white marble steps, John reflected that even when races were not in progress, Antonina would be reminded of her past by the pervasive smell emanating from the vast stables beneath the track, the same atmosphere in which she had grown up.
He had no desire to speak to Antonina or any reason to suspect her of harming her imperial friend, but her name was on everyone’s lips and therefore he considered it prudent to be able to tell Justinian he had questioned the woman. More than that, Gaius had wanted him to speak to her and he could hardly ignore his friend’s request even though he didn’t expect to discover anything that would make the physician less fearful for his own safety.
At the thud of a knocker shaped like a horse’s head the door opened and John was ushered in by a lugubrious servant who escorted him to a room on the far side of an atrium decorated with frescoes of heroic battles from mythology. It was a fitting flourish for the house of a successful general, even if its owner didn’t have much opportunity to admire it.
John stepped into the room to which he had been directed and found Theodora staring at him.
A chill prickled the back of his neck, then, in a heartbeat, he realized it was only a painted representation of the empress. She was flanked by attendants in garments almost as rich as her own, though none wore jewelry to rival hers and only she wore a crown. The fresco covered the entire back wall. The room was filled with fragrant lilies and roses in pots and vases.
Antonina reclined on a scarlet upholstered couch beneath a window opened to a garden. “It is a good likeness, is it not, Lord Chamberlain?”
“Indeed.”