Felix displayed the back of a spotted hand. “You shouldn’t touch me. I am unclean.”
The priest scowled and then smiled benignly. “Those are not the marks of a leper.”
“But I was told-”
“I have ministered to enough poor souls in my lifetime to know a leper when I see one.”
Felix stood up, still clutching his cross. It felt hot in his big fist.
“Do not look so astonished,” the priest told him. “I have not healed you. Thank the Lord that you do not have leprosy.”
Felix went out into the sunlight. How long had he been roaming the city out of his wits with horror? He was lucky Narse’s men hadn’t found him.
Yes, lucky. Thanks be to Fortuna.
***
Felix sat in the shadows in the back of a dingy and dimly lit tavern nursing a single cup of wine, deciding where to go next. He examined the spots on his hand. Was it true that he didn’t have leprosy? It would be the first thing that had gone right in the past week.
He had conflicting diagnoses from a former prostitute and a priest. Who should he believe? Doubtless the priest had seen more prostitutes than Isis. In the stories Anastasia insisted he read, Jesus had forever been healing lepers.
Could Isis have been correct? Might the Christian god have healed Felix there in the church?
No, the blotches looked no different than they had when Isis had become hysterical over them.
It seemed out of character. But so was her conversion to Christianity. Well, she was getting old. Felix was getting old. He reached inside his tunic and pulled out the cross, intending to tear it off and toss it away. Then he remembered Anastasia had given it to him and refrained.
Things had been simpler when he was young. They had been better. He would gladly give up his high position to be Emperor Justin’s bodyguard again.
Justin, now there was a man. He walked through the gates of Constantinople with dirt under his fingernails, a peasant farmer, and he died an emperor.
Over the years it had passed through Felix’s mind that, if circumstances allowed, he might follow in Justin’s path. But he was loyal to Justinian-weak and unwarlike as the current emperor was-and time went by so quickly. Anastasia had made him feel like a youth again. She had rekindled what he had thought were the dead embers of his ambitions.
Purposefully?
She had denied any desire to use Felix but why else would Theodora’s sister have entangled herself with him?
What bothered him most was how she had kept her relationship to the late empress a secret. No matter her excuses, could he really trust her, knowing she had deceived him from the start?
He wished he could, but at the palace wishful thinking could get you killed.
In his dark corner Felix tensed as he saw a large youth sporting the hairstyle of a Blue enter the tavern. After a moment or two, when the youth gave no indication he was there for anything but a drink, Felix relaxed. He had to fear every Blue he saw, and every guard and member of the urban watch, not to mention whoever Narses and Porphyrius, and perhaps others besides, had hired to work incognito.
Maybe he had even to fear donkeys, if Anastasia was right and his donkey might betray him.
He remembered her coming into the bath, telling him about Antonina’s servant, who saw demons and had thrown himself over the sea wall. He had wondered vaguely at the time if the man could have had some connection with the demons who had stolen the holy shroud. And if Antonina could have had some interest in relics.
Anastasia knew her. Might Anastasia also have some interest in relics?
But Anastasia could hardly be working with Antonina. Clearly Anastasia hoped that Germanus would supplant Antonina’s Belisarius as Justinian’s chief general. She was counting on Felix being given a command by Germanus.
And maybe counting on him being placed a step away from the throne.
Or so he imagined.
But then again, Anastasia, as Antonina’s friend, might have agreed to spy on Felix in hopes of discovering what Germanus was planning.
More than one strand of this sticky web in which Felix found himself struggling led back to Antonina. He needed to talk to her. But how could he? Especially considering their past history, brief as that history had been.
He took another sip of his wine. The blemishes on the back of his hand which had so frightened him caught his attention.
Ah. There was his answer.
Chapter Fifty-one
“Did Anastasia send you to me, Felix?” Antonina smiled coldly. “And if so, why?”
“She didn’t,” Felix said, “but I know you are a friend of hers and she wanted to ask you for a cure for my, er, skin problem…but, after all, a man must make his own decisions about these things. So I said I would think about it, and I only just decided to, um, well…do you have anything suitable?”
Now that he was face-to-face with the woman, Felix had no idea how he was going to question her.
Antonina laughed. “Oh, Felix, you’re trying to pretend you have forgotten our little tryst in the Hall of Nineteen Couches, aren’t you?”
Felix looked at the floor and said nothing. His broad frame was perched on a delicate gilded chair, suited to the aristocratic ladies Antonina normally entertained.
She bent, gave his beard a playful tug and whispered in his ear. “Surely you haven’t forgotten? I would be insulted if you had. But it will remain our little secret.”
Her warm breath was as welcome to him as a fiery gust from the gates of Hell. “I haven’t come here to resume our…uh…I’m just following Anastasia’s advice. I take it she’s a very good friend of yours.”
“You’re here to interrogate me about your lady love then? Not very gallant.”
“No, certainly not. I wouldn’t presume to pry. It’s this hand, as I told you.”
He held it up for her inspection.
“These little red patches? That’s what worries you?”
He nodded and drew his hand away quickly. “I’ve been told it’s serious.”
Antonina straightened. “I have a remedy for any complaint of the skin.” She went out of the room.
Felix tried to think. She was already suspicious. And why not? He had no real business showing up here. He was surprised, and unnerved that she had even recalled their encounter so many years, and so many liaisons, ago.
Antonina returned with an alabaster pot shaped as a miniature head of a woman whose hair was dressed in the classical Greek style.
Felix shuddered as she plucked off the head. The action reminded him too much of possibilities awaiting him. The contents of the pot proved to be a greasy ointment.
“The pot is valuable enough,” Antonina remarked, “but the ointment more valuable still. It’s made from the juice of Jove’s beard mixed with rendered fat, so use it quickly before its virtues are dispersed. Many court ladies have employed it for skin eruptions, but I do believe you’re the first military man.” Giving him a crooked smile, she handed the pot to Felix.
He set it on his knees and clumsily smeared part of the contents on his lumpy patches. It made his skin tingle unpleasantly.
“I’ll give you more to take with you but don’t let Anastasia see it or she will be jealous,” Antonina remarked. “I know about the difficulty in which you find yourself, Felix. Aside from your blemishes, that is. My advice is to leave the city immediately so you won’t risk compromising Anastasia. And when I say immediately, I mean as soon as you have had a cup of wine.”
“Leave the city? On foot? I don’t think-”
“I shall give you a horse for Anastasia’s sake. You can always go to Greece and take shelter with the former Lord Chamberlain. Stay here until evening. Darkness will cover your shall we say strategic retreat?”
Cowardly retreat, Felix thought. Did he have a choice? And why should she care if he stayed or fled, unless she were involved in the affair in some way?
It again occurred to him that Anastasia might be working with the enemies of Germanus, spying on Felix, a key ally of Germanus. Did he dare trust Anastasia any longer? How he could he possibly sort it out, while pursued by both the emperor and Porphyrius? Maybe he should take Antonina’s offer, escape while he still could.