“Perhaps,” Hypatia replied, “But in Egypt we think differently. And what about what you call your lucky coin? The one you found in Derbe when you were on campaign?”
“Oh, but that’s different!”
“Is it?”
Peter looked baffled and fell silent.
John heard Cornelia’s laugh. She came in from her walk on deck, dropped down beside John, and poked him in the ribs with her elbow. “I think Hypatia has won that argument, at least for now! All the same I’ll be happy when we reach dry land again.”
John nodded. Thinking of the greedy sea slapping on the wooden boards at his back made him uneasy. He distracted himself by turning his mind toward the matter of the stolen relic.
Hypatia had advanced a possible explanation for the visions those in the church had seen. Would it be of assistance to Felix?
“I wonder if Felix has located the stolen shroud yet?”
Cornelia looked at John sharply. “You shouldn’t dwell on that business. Felix can take care of himself. Besides, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“I could send a letter.”
“A letter from the exiled Lord Chamberlain? You might as well send him a bottle of poison.”
“Yes, you’re probably right.” He looked away from her scowl and watched Hypatia’s fingers move almost too quickly and nimbly for him to follow. She might indeed have been tying up Fate. The knots she was forming looked more complicated than those needed to hold anything physical.
She handed a knotted loop to Cornelia, who put it on.
Peter tore off a new strip to add to the pile beside him. He got to his feet. “That should be enough for now. I need to start preparing our meal. Captain Theon is well provisioned, but I can never find the proper utensils.”
As Peter left, John noted that despite his protest, the servant was wearing his own bracelet.
“If Felix hasn’t found the shroud, he must have at least unearthed new facts about the theft,” John mused. “The question is whether they are sufficient to lead him to the solution of the mystery. If I were there just long enough to hear the results of his investigations, I feel I could help.”
Cornelia gripped his arm and dug her fingers in. “John! What are you thinking?”
“A letter might be intercepted. But if I were to ride back to the city, in disguise, for just long enough-”
“No! Don’t even think about it!”
Hypatia averted her eyes, embarrassed. Who was Cornelia to give orders to the Lord Chamberlain?
“You can’t leave us, John,” Cornelia continued, her voice urgent. “You wouldn’t return. You know that. The emperor would find out and…”
“Yes, you’re right, Cornelia.” John excused himself and went up on deck. He walked with small, uncertain steps, like a sick man, ever aware of the slight rolling of the anchored ship. Wasn’t anyone else troubled by the incessant motion? Would he ever feel solid ground beneath his feet again?
From somewhere below came a burst of hammering.
Then there was an inarticulate cry, followed by shouts, running footsteps.
Crew members were converging near the rail beside the captain’s cabin, looking down into the water. Someone pointed.
He made his way to the crowd as fast as he dared.
The pilgrim Egina was there. She turned an anguished face toward him. “Sir! It’s your servant. He’s fallen overboard.”
Chapter Thirty-one
The enormously fat jailer loomed in the doorway to Felix’s cell. Behind him, two guards held short lances at the ready.
“You are wanted now.” The jailer’s thick lips formed an unpleasant smile as he lumbered in and bent with a grunt to unlock the shackle around Felix’s ankle.
Felix went out into the corridor without protest. There would have been no point in resisting.
Once outside the cell Felix saw that the jailer’s tunic was filthy with stains, as if worn by a butcher. Perhaps the man was a torturer rather than a jailer?
Felix was led past a series of thick plank doors, banded with iron, each with a tiny barred window. From behind one door came low moans of pain, from behind another there issued an even more chilling sound, a snatch of mindless, bubbling laughter.
Here and there the walls and floor were slimy with a rusty excrescence which could have been either mineral or mold. Moving numbly, Felix slipped once and stumbled against a cell door. The jailer-Felix preferred to think of him as a jailer-turned ponderously to grab his arm to steady him. The fat man’s fingers were incongruously long, pale and delicate, the fingers of a woman’s hand.
The air began to have the stench of an abattoir.
They passed through an open doorway into a room brightly lit by oil lamps.
Their light danced across shining metal instruments hanging from the walls and piled on shelves, a display of a variety of cutting edges and razor-sharp points to put an armory, or a surgeon’s office, to shame. Amongst these were countless weirdly articulated devices whose purpose Felix did not care to guess at.
The jailer came to a halt and looked around, the gleam in his eyes matching those of the metal instrumentalities surrounding them. He turned his head toward Felix. The tip of his tongue emerged maggot-like from between his bloated lips, then withdrew as the wistful look of a departing lover passed over his porcine face.
“Ah, what a waste,” he sighed, before grasping Felix by the arm and dragging him forward, through another doorway, and into a whitewashed room with benches along the walls.
The man seated there looked up as Felix entered. He had the profile of a classical Greek sculpture. Though not as old as Felix, his thick curly hair was tinged with gray.
Felix recognized him.
John’s good friend, Anatolius, the lawyer.
***
Anatolius was a lawyer now but Felix still thought of him as the foppish poet he had been when younger. The two men were well acquainted, largely because they had tolerated each other for John’s sake. Now they studied each other uneasily across a wobbly round table at the back of a tavern next to the Baths of Zeuxippos.
With barely a word of explanation, Anatolius had rushed Felix away. Both knew Justinian might change his mind and decide to have Felix arrested again as quickly and inexplicably as he had agreed to his release.
Felix never imagined he could be so happy to see the a cloudy sky or to simply walk out of the palace gate. The sour tavern air smelled sweet. His wine cup shook as he drank deeply, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and shuddered.
“I keep expecting to be arrested again,” he muttered. “How was it you knew?”
“A senator, who insists of remaining anonymous, contacted me, on behalf of a person whose name he was not at liberty to reveal.”
“I…I have to thank you, Anatolius. I was convinced I was a dead man. I don’t know how you managed to persuade the emperor to let me go. You must be a better lawyer than a poet. That is…I mean…”
“I will take that as a compliment from you, Felix. As it happened, Justinian didn’t need much convincing. I suspect he had already made his mind up to release you. He may have some ulterior motive. I can’t say. It was definitely on his orders you were arrested.” Anatolius leaned forward on his elbows and said in a near whisper. “What in the name of Mithra have you got yourself involved with now, Felix?”
“I wish I knew. I told you about the dead courier and the missing relic. But I had nothing to do with them.”
Anatolius glared. “Pretend I am John. Would you lie to him?”
Felix buried his face in his cup and took another long drink. “I’m not lying!”
“Weren’t you expecting that courier? Justinian seems to think so.”
“I…I…meant I had nothing to do with the courier being dead. No idea who he is.”
“What about the fact that his cloak was found at your house. In the servants’ quarters, I was told.”
“You don’t believe it was really found there, do you? Narses must have brought it with him, supplying his own evidence.”