He lowered the basket to the floor, cut the thick cord tying it shut and, assuring the outraged Briarus that Castor would not hold him personally responsible for allowing such freedom to be taken with his possessions, he pulled off the lid.
Lying inside the box was one of strangest contraptions he had ever seen, a bizarre construction of metal, wires and leather straps. At first he thought it merely a particularly elaborate set of pincers but then he realized it was a fair simulacrum of a human hand.
The fingers were curved as if ready to grasp hold of something but by the dried blood covering them, they might as well be pointing to a murderer.
Chapter Eighteen
Hero stood defiantly beside the forge, a hammer in his one soot-streaked hand. He looked away from John, Zeno and Anatolius, toward Felix and the two excubitors accompanying him.
The anger in the brawny inventor’s eyes was as hot as the forge. He looked swiftly around the workshop, as if weighing what chance he and his hammer might have against six opponents, but when he finally moved it was to raise the stump of his arm to wipe sweat from his glistening forehead.
“What did you mean when you said you weren’t going to hurt the girl?” John asked him again.
“It was a misunderstanding, Lord Chamberlain. I admit I was going to look around Poppaea’s room. I was searching for my mechanical hand. The children have hidden things before and so I thought perhaps they were playing another little joke on me. Then Godomar accused me of intending to harm the child. So naturally when you arrived with guards…”
“You gave me a terrible fright as well.” Zeno’s tone was as sharp as John had ever heard it. “How are we supposed to get anything done with excubitors constantly getting underfoot? And what’s this about your hand being missing, Hero?”
Hero glared at his employer. “I don’t know anything more about it than that, since I haven’t been able to work on it for days or even think about it, what with finishing constructing the whale and then all the commotion after the banquet. Not to mention that I’ve just started on this pressing new project.” He waved his hammer at the collection of lengths of fine chain, cogs, scraps of leather, and an assortment of body parts made of hammered metal laid out on the dirt floor.
“A representation of a cart accident on the Mese?” Anatolius mused callously.
“They will be shaped into an exceedingly fine contribution to the festival, as you well know!” Zeno told his nephew in a severe tone. “Although how it and the other automatons could possibly be assembled without Hero’s expertise and oversight I can’t say!” He directed a meaningful stare in John’s direction.
“I’m sorry, Zeno,” John replied, “but unless Hero intends to be more cooperative, I’m going to have to order him kept confined for now.”
“How can I tell you any more than I know?” Hero’s voice rose to a shout but he made no effort to resist as the excubitors stepped forward to escort him away.
“Confine him to one of the spare rooms in the back of the villa,” Felix instructed his men, “but see that it isn’t anywhere near the one Briarus is locked up in.”
“Do you think they were working together?” Anatolius wondered, looking after the trio as Hero was marched away.
John replied that he had no idea.
“The weapon was in Briarus’ possession but it belonged to Hero, so therefore both are suspect,” Felix told Anatolius. He barely looked at John, obviously still angry over their previous day’s conversation concerning Bertrada. Zeno however was oblivious, continuing to complain bitterly like a child whose outing has been ruined by a sudden rain storm.
John, who had laid the strange prosthesis out on a work table, ignored Zeno’s protests and examined the device closely.
“It’s a complicated affair, isn’t it?” Anatolius eyed the artificial hand. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say so but by the look of the intricate workings, Hero must have spent considerably more time working on this hand than on that simple mechanical man spread out all over the floor.”
Zeno looked offended. “This automaton is sufficiently complex to fire an arrow before it’s tipped over the precipice into the sea, Anatolius. You should never judge by appearances.”
John had picked up the mechanical hand and was tugging experimentally at one of its dangling leather straps. The action caused two of the fingers to curl realistically. Looking more closely he saw that the finger joints were hinged, held together by thin leather sinews.
“How could he possibly hope to operate the thing? Did he intend to hold the straps between his teeth?” Felix rubbed his great beard vigorously, as if the action might cause the answer to fall out of it. “Though it’s recorded that when the general Marcus Sergius lost his right arm to the enemy, he ordered an iron hand be manufactured. According to Pliny, it was designed solely to hold the general’s shield. So while it allowed him to resume battle it could do nothing more than that, and thus was quite unlike this strange monstrosity.”
“How fascinating!” This interesting morsel of knowledge distracted Zeno from his annoyance. “You wield the scroll as well as the sword, then?”
“I’ve read a bit of history,” Felix admitted. “One can always learn from the great generals.” His emphatic statement was accompanied by a sideways scowl at John.
“But what reason could Hero possibly have had to kill Gadaric?” Anatolius put in. He sniffed. “It’s the wretched smoke in here,” he added apologetically.
“None whatsoever so far as I can see. The twins loved Hero,” Zeno replied, “and he was very fond of them. He and Bertrada occasionally took them to the beach, for example, and sometimes he made toys for them. There was a jackal that ran about on little wheels. It was so funny to watch that I insisted he make one for my own collection. And he seemed to enjoy it when the children visited the workshop.”
“But even if he did kill Gadaric, why would he hide the hand in Briarus’ lodge?” Anatolius continued. “Then again, if Briarus was the culprit, how did he obtain the hand? Did he know Hero? And if it was Briarus, why would he hide the weapon in his own home? Also, if-”
John interrupted his friend. “All puzzling questions indeed, Anatolius, but I fear you’ve missed the most significant question. Where is Castor? After all, if Briarus is indeed guilty of murder then his master’s unexplained absence suddenly becomes considerably more sinister, wouldn’t you say?”
Zeno looked stricken. “Briarus’s dictatorial style of estate management might have been modeled after Sulla’s methods, but I am absolutely certain that he would never kill his master,” he declared emphatically.
John did not care to argue with Zeno, who after all had spent most of his life on his estate, away from the court in Constantinople, and so had not been in a position to observe how remarkably often “never” seemed to come around.
“It’s now even more urgent that we find Castor,” he said instead. “I’ve thought of an excellent place to begin. Castor’s account books will reveal the merchants with whom he habitually dealt. Anatolius, I fear you must be back in Constantinople, knocking on their doors and asking questions before night falls again.”
Anatolius looked horrified. “But John, I’ve just arrived! I can’t leave again so quickly. You’re aware of the circumstances. My future romantic happiness hangs in the balance,” he concluded pitifully.
“Duty must always come before affairs of the heart.”
Anatolius’ mission was soon arranged. A quick visit to Castor’s estate to scan the account books, then on to Constantinople to interview those with whom the vanished man had done business. He sputtered protests and then fell into grief-stricken silence.
Only when he and Zeno had left the workshop did Felix speak. “Do you really suppose Castor might be absent on business, or did you just want Anatolius away on horseback before that young woman gets her claws properly hooked into him?”