“A man,” John said, trying to hurry her along.
“A big man, yes. Powerful once, but gone to fat. Looked middle aged. His head was tonsured and he wore a burlap garment. Surely he was a monk or cleric to judge by his looks most would say? But I knew better, Lord Chamberlain. I recognized the scoundrel. It was that vile tax collector, John the Cappadocian.”
For an instant John looked at Pulcheria without speaking. “Are you certain?”
“The gate is well lit by wall torches. They revealed his obscene face clearly. He is more bloated than he was before being exiled. He is quite deserving now of the nickname given that rapacious protegé he appointed to rob the provinces-Flabby-jaw. Yes, the visitor was definitely the Cappadocian.”
John was silent, absorbing the information.
“You are perhaps doubtful I would recognize him?” Pulcheria asked.“But don’t forget, in the profession I practiced before my accident forced me to beg on the streets, I knew many high officials very well, and knew other girls who knew other high officials. Girls who had loose tongues. What I could have discovered for you in those days would have much more value than what I can observe now!”
She sighed. “I made a better living then. But the Cappadocian…to think of him revolts me even now. He would hire a dozen girls at once and have them lie down naked in his private room. Then he would eat delicacies off their bodies, gorging himself until he vomited into a golden basin. He wasn’t satisfied until he sated every one of his horrid appetites, preferably all at the same time. He would watch an enemy being tortured while the poor girls performed certain services for him as best they could manage while trying to ignore the victim’s pitiful screams. Why, I heard he had girls come to his bed clothed only in golden jewelry and a thick coating of fish sauce!”
“Very little surprises me after years of hearing court gossip.”
Pulcheria cackled and glanced at her cat. “You’d like fish sauce, wouldn’t you, Tripod?”
John pushed himself to his feet.
“It seems to me some people aren’t human, Lord Chamberlain.”
John gave Pulcheria quizzical look.
“Seeing that evil creature gave me a fright. It made me think. People all appear to be the same flesh and blood, and maybe they are. But the same jar can contain wine or poison. Do you think there’s something different inside a creature like the Cappadocian than in you or I? Perhaps such things should not be called people just because they look like people on the outside?”
“Some call such people demons,” John said. “Or monsters, like the person who harmed you.”
Pulcheria ran a delicate white hand down the scarred ruin that made up one side of her face. “The man who threw the burning lamp at me wasn’t a monster, Lord Chamberlain, just a drunken fool.”
John pressed another coin on her and she did not protest.
He left the square, walking slowly.
He was almost sorry he had hired Pulcheria. It wasn’t right to spy on a friend, was it?
But John had merely wanted to explain Anatolius’ odd behavior. He had expected to learn Anatolius had resumed his old ways with women, that he had taken the young lady-in-waiting for a mistress, the sort of backsliding not uncommon with middle-aged men who were noticing the gray in their hair. He had never expected to implicate him in…in what?
There could not be any innocent explanation for the Cappadocian’s secret presence in Constantinople when he was supposed to be in exile in Egypt.
Reluctantly, he turned in the direction of Anatolius’ house.
Chapter Thirty-nine
That’s done, Kuria thought, and so now for the next step.
She set off down the Mese, having left the palace for the last time. She felt more confident than she had in days.
When she had returned to her room earlier after a stroll in the gardens, she found it sealed up, the door boarded shut.
There was irony in her being barred from her own room. Like most of the attendants, she rarely closed her door, let alone locked it. In this part of the palace there was no need. When they were not on call the young women spent as much time in each other’s rooms as their own.
The eunuch who oversaw the quarters for the ladies-in-waiting would not arrange for Kuria to be let back in, even to collect a few precious belongings. He claimed to have had the orders from the Master of Offices.
She asked if she might return for some things later when the room was cleared out.
The eunuch laughed. Everything inside was to be burnt.
Kuria felt a momentary pang of regret she had not chosen to go to the gardens later. If she had been present when the Master of Offices’ men arrived, she might at least have salvaged one particular item.
Perhaps it had been wise to go to the gardens early. For all she knew, they might have thrown her out of the palace bodily. She supposed, eventually, someone would do so. A bureaucrat in a warren in the administration building had probably forgotten to sign all the required documents.
So she had been deprived of a place to stay before being officially evicted.
There was no point in waiting.
After the shock of Theodora’s death had worn off, she had made plans. She had done what needed to be done in the palace, and now she had taken the first step on the way to her new life outside the palace.
Although she had lost almost everything, it was some consolation that she happened to be wearing her favorite dark green stola. It was no coincidence she practically coruscated in the morning sun, thanks to her jewelry. She’d prudently worn every piece she owned every day since the empress died.
Besides, she needed to look attractive for what she had to do.
She needed to make it plain that she was a lady now.
Kuria was not a beauty, but when she put her mind to it she was able to project an air of assurance that indicated a much higher station than she held.
A pair of laborers, judging by their dusty breeches and stained tunics, moved aside deferentially as she strode along.
Good, Kuria thought.
She was almost there.
She was prepared.
But it was also necessary for her to find a little of the young whore she’d been, to apply a dab of that garish makeup. Enough to say that she was a lady, but willing to be a bit more exciting than most ladies.
She passed the Hippodrome and crossed the street that ran along the side of the racecourse. She didn’t glance at the one-legged beggar sitting on a pile of rags near the intersection.
She never knew he was there until he was dragging her through the doorway of a vacant shop.
Chapter Forty
Instead of looking John in the eye, Anatolius stared down at the skull depicted on his desk top. “How could I turn him away, John? My father knew the Cappadocian well. You remember how much father wanted me to take up the legal profession. How could I refuse legal aid to one of his closest associates?”
John had broached the subject as soon as he set foot in the study.
“I am amazed Senator Aurelius would have allied himself with a man like John the Cappadocian,” John replied, keeping his voice level. He couldn’t help thinking of the Cappadocian’s escapades as described by Pulcheria. Nor could he see Anatolius’ staid, respectable, and happily married father engaging in such behavior or even wanting to be associated with a man suspected of such outrages.
Anatolius finally looked up. “That’s unfair, John. I know what people say about the Cappadocian. My father had a different view. He used to tell me people hated the man because of his reforms, because they didn’t like change.”