The air in the atrium of John’s house was sweet, pleasantly imbued not with perfume but rather honey and a hint of spices.
Following the lithe Egyptian woman upstairs to the kitchen, Anatolius noticed anew that her hair was the same raven’s wing color as Lucretia’s. She offered him a cup of wine, seeming ill at ease.
“Just continue with whatever you were doing, Hypatia,” Anatolius said. Various chopped herbs were set out on the kitchen table. “What are you making? A new kind of sweetmeat, perhaps?”
“Not exactly, sir. I’m experimenting with one of Peter’s recipes while the master is away.”
“And also while Peter is absent.” Anatolius grinned, well aware of the elderly servant’s aversion to sharing his kitchen.
“As you say. However, I think Peter will enjoy this new dish. He has something of a fondness for sweet things, unlike the master, although he does occasionally indulge in honeyed dates.”
“They’re probably the Lord Chamberlain’s only indulgence,” Anatolius remarked.
Hypatia raised her eyebrows but, as befitted a servant, made no comment on his observation, merely continuing to stir the mixture bubbling gently in a pot set on the kitchen brazier.
Glancing idly around the room, Anatolius noticed a small clay figure sitting on a shelf.
“What’s this, Hypatia?” Picking up the statuette he saw, with some alarm, that it was a crudely fashioned scorpion. The creature was significant to Mithrans and was to be seen in bas reliefs and mosaics of Mithra’s battle with the sacred bull. He could not imagine John being so careless as to leave such an emblem of his pagan beliefs lying about in plain sight. Obviously it was not his.
“Peter won’t like you cluttering up his kitchen with this, Hypatia,” Anatolius said in a jocular tone.
The woman gasped and dropped her ladle. It landed between them, spattering hot liquid on both Anatolius’ boot and her bare foot. She did not seem to notice. “Sir…” she said faintly, “I…”
Anatolius, seeing her so distressed, carefully replaced the scorpion on the shelf. He seemed to be blundering into all sorts of difficulties with women today, he thought ruefully. “What is it for, Hypatia?”
The woman suddenly burst into tears. “It’s a charm against demons, such as we swear by in my country. It has to be displayed in order to drive them away.”
Anatolius stared at her. “Demons?” he repeated.
“Demons,” Hypatia nodded, sniffing and swiping tears from her cheeks with her knuckles.
Anatolius considered putting a comforting arm around her but decided the action might be misconstrued. He had displayed some fondness for her before she had entered John’s employ. No wonder he was always having difficulties with women, he thought. Sometimes he thought he had never encountered one who hadn’t turned his head for a day. He stood looking awkwardly at the girl, not knowing quite what to do or say.
“I myself don’t believe in demons,” he finally said. “It must just have been your imagination. You’re all alone in this big house-”
Her tears began to flow again. “No, pardon me but it’s not that, sir. Something very upsetting happened early this morning. I was woken up by a strange noise. It sounded like the scratching of a beast’s long claws. I’m not certainly exactly how to describe it. I was half asleep, you see. It was just a dream, I told myself. The house creaks terribly in the wind at night. You’d think that vile tax collector who first owned it had decided to return and was walking about, looking for the head Justinian relieved him of. Then that horrible, strange noise started again.”
Anatolius, intrigued, asked her to continue.
“Well, sir, I got my lamp lit and crept down to the entrance hall but by then the noise had stopped. It must surely have been a rat, I thought, a rat that sounded much louder than usual because I heard it when I was half asleep.”
“That would certainly be what it was, I’m certain of it,” Anatolius said.
“But it wasn’t a rat!” the woman blurted out in a panic-stricken voice. “Because as I turned to go back upstairs, that terrible sound started again and I could tell that the creature was right on the other side of the front door!”
Anatolius tried to reassure her. “Surely if it were really a demon it would have burst straight in, not politely scratched on the door waiting to be admitted, Hypatia. Don’t you think if it wasn’t a rat it must have been one of these feral cats that prowl the palace grounds?”
Hypatia shook her head. “I wish it had been. But it wasn’t. You see, whatever it was, I felt I had to see it, so I went into the master’s study.” She suddenly blushed. Her next words explained why. “Lamplight brings out, well, to be blunt, obscene details in the wall mosaic in there that I would not even dare to speak about. I’d never seen something like that before.”
Anatolius immediately pointed out that it had been the tax collector who formerly owned the house who had commissioned the mosaic in question and not John.
“Oh, yes, I know that, sir,” Hypatia nodded. “I blew out the lamp but that scary little girl still seemed to be staring at me out of those big eyes of hers…But anyhow I crept to the window and peeked out. And then I saw the thing…the demon…scuttling off across the square. It wasn’t human. So I made a charm to protect the master and his house and everyone who lives in it,” she ended simply.
Anatolius put his arm around her shoulders. She pressed her face into his chest and sobbed. Meant to comfort her, his gesture made him distinctly uncomfortable. He reminded himself that there was absolutely no possibility that John would suddenly burst into the kitchen and find him standing there with his arms around his servant.
The Lord Chamberlain was on Zeno’s estate. Anatolius wondered whether John’s investigations had been more fruitful than his own. At least John was not having to deal with hysterical women who believed in demons and magick, he thought with a sigh.
Chapter Fifteen
“She’s wedded to evil! I won’t allow the woman in here. Potions and magick indeed! There’s too much magick in this cursed place already!” Livia burst out of her daughter’s room, sweeping imperiously by John without so much as a second glance. The round moon of her face was shadowed by clouds as sullen as those gathering over the sea.
John stepped through the doorway into the glare of Theodora’s other lady-in-waiting. “Let Poppaea die then,” Calyce was shouting after Livia. “Your stupidity-” She broke off in embarrassment at the sight of the Lord Chamberlain.
“They’re arguing about Minthe,” Sunilda put in helpfully from her seat beside Poppaea’s bed. “They always do, you know. Minthe will make Poppaea better. She isn’t married to anybody, either,” she added as an afterthought.
John bent over the sick girl. He could detect no improvement in her state. She lay as still as Gadaric had been when pulled from the mouth of the whale. Her eyes were closed, the lids bluish, almost translucent. There was a terrible pallor to her cheeks, cheeks that were no longer rounded but sunken. Her breathing was barely discernible.
“Has she been awake yet?” John asked Calyce.
The woman shook her head. “Not fully but she stirs occasionally. I’ve managed to get some of Minthe’s potion past her lips, and her sleep seems much more natural now, whatever her mother says!”
John realized that Livia had somehow learned of Minthe’s stealthy nocturnal visit, which Felix had reported to him. He didn’t propose to discuss the matter further right then, however, since he had as little desire as Felix to place himself between Theodora’s warring ladies-in-waiting.
“We should let Poppaea rest,” he told Sunilda. “Calyce will stay with her. Would you like to take a walk along the beach before the rain arrives?”