John thought it a strange question coming from Felix, who seemed to be the quarry of another young woman. He refrained from mentioning it. There had been enough friction between him and his friend.
“I admit, it’s a good opportunity to put him beyond Calyce’s reach,” he said, “but I still hope we’ll discover Castor has gone off on business. I’ve been told he’s often away for long periods. Quite possibly he may just have left without telling anyone.”
“Not even his estate manager?” Felix shook his head. “In the old days, I would be betting on a more sinister explanation.”
“It’s true Briarus hasn’t been very helpful. I shall have to insist he be more forthcoming.” John turned his attention back to the heavy prosthesis he held in his thin, sun-browned hand. He frowned and pulled another strap, causing the artificial thumb to move.
“I think you’ve missed something,” Felix commented. “If I could look at that?”
He took the device carefully but rather than testing the hand’s leather straps like John, the big German gripped the extension that served as its forearm.
“While you were operating the fingers just now, did you happen to notice the hand’s hinged at the wrist?” he asked as he squeezed the prosthesis as if operating pincers. It was a slight pressure but the fingers curled together with a loud snap.
The excubitor captain looked at the clenched metal fist with a military man’s admiration. “Yes, anyone could commit mayhem with this. Indeed, if that long-ago general had been fitted with an iron hand such as this, he wouldn’t have needed a sword.”
***
Poppaea woke late in the afternoon.
It was an abrupt and strange sort of awakening. The sick girl simply opened her eyes, sat up and began to babble gibberish like an oracle. At least that was how Bertrada, watching at the bedside, had frantically described it when she located John.
Familiar by now with Bertrada’s tendency to paint events in overly vivid colors, John was surprised, when he arrived at Poppaea’s room, to find the child’s condition very much as depicted.
“Ah, here is someone very high at the court,” Poppaea was saying as he entered the room. “How very good of you to visit.”
John wondered that the girl recognized him. Then he realized that although her eyes were open they were not focussed on him or anyone in the room.
She rambled on, talking about a picnic, banquets, the garden. Her gaze darted back and forth as she turned her head back and forth as if addressing first this person and then another, but her blank stare never rested on John or Bertrada beside him, or on the only other person present, her mother, who stood trembling at the bedside.
Livia’s round face was almost as colorless as her daughter’s. “Where is she speaking from? Who is she speaking to? I fear Poppaea has left us, Lord Chamberlain. That’s not my child speaking.”
“Calyce has gone to get another potion from Minthe but we’ve said nothing about it,” Bertrada whispered to John. “No doubt Godomar will be in here spouting prayers soon. He seems to think the girl is possessed.”
“Your daughter is just delirious,” John tried to reassure the distraught mother.
“Demons prey on those who are weak.”
“Don’t pay so much heed to what Godomar says,” Bertrada told her impatiently. “Poppaea’s been ill but now she’s awake, she’s going to get better. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
John addressed Poppaea by name. She made no acknowledgment of it but continued to talk to her invisible audience.
“…it was a fine picnic,” she murmured. “Won’t you try some of these? But they are so sweet… look…the queen is approaching…”
Sunilda had appeared in the doorway. “Poppaea,” she exclaimed. “I’m happy to see that Porphyrio has cured you.”
Poppaea looked away from an empty spot in the air and directly at her playmate. “Sunilda, welcome! Yes, the whale has indeed taken care of everything and now we are having a grand celebration, as you can see.” She lifted her hand and gestured weakly around the room.
Sunilda smiled. “It is a very grand celebration indeed, Poppaea,” she agreed.
***
Godomar made the sign of his religion as he entered Poppaea’s bedroom. It seemed to him that his moving hand was met with some slight, inexplicable resistance, as if the very air were ready to impede his mission, while the ecclesiastical stole draped ceremoniously over his shoulders and crossed over his chest felt as heavy as a wooden yoke.
“The Lord Chamberlain just departed with Bertrada,” Livia informed him. “He tried to question Poppaea but the demon within her insisted on answering him with the most terrible blasphemies.”
“Oh, Livia, she was just telling us about the party and Porphyrio,” Sunilda said sharply. The girl was standing by the head of her friend’s bed. “And now as you can see all that talking’s tired her out.”
She brushed a fine strand of hair away from Poppaea’s closed eyelids. Delicate veins, like fine blue stitchery, were visible in the girl’s linen-white skin.
Godomar stepped resolutely forward, convinced that he was in the presence of something evil. Yet was it any wonder, surrounded as they were by mechanical mockeries of the human form, not to mention constant talk of fortune-telling goats and pagan festivals?
“Please move aside, Sunilda,” he said sternly. “I have come to abjure the fiend that has taken up residence in Poppaea.”
Sunilda remained where she was and glowered at him.
“Please, Sunilda, Godomar must perform this ceremony.” Livia timidly laid her hand on Sunilda’s shoulder as she spoke.
The girl jerked away and glared. “I will not be touched in such a fashion by a mere servant! If I were queen such impudence would be worth your head!”
Livia burst into tears.
Godomar sidled up as close to Poppaea’s bed as he could manage. Sunilda made him uneasy. Who would put such awful words on the lips of a little girl? Or perhaps he should more accurately ask what would do so?
He bent over and laid his hand on Poppaea’s forehead. It felt as hot as if imbued with the fires of Hell. While Sunilda stood rigidly nearby, staring at him with what struck him as equally burning hatred, he murmured his adjuration, concluding more hastily than he had intended, “Leave this innocent one, in the name of He who suffered and died for all our sins.”
“Poppaea is only sick,” Sunilda remarked pointedly.
“I am doing what is necessary,” Godomar replied softly.
“You are doing it for yourself,” the girl replied.
Looking at her, Godomar had a sudden thought. “But as to you, Sunilda….”
Livia let out a ragged sob. “No! Not her as well!”
“It would be a wise precaution,” Godomar argued. “She is after all descended from a line of heretics and such flesh, although blameless itself, may yet be prone to demonic infection. One cannot be too careful.”
He took a swift step forward. As his fingertips reached the top her head, Sunilda gave a piercing shriek, grabbed his stole and yanked it with more strength than Godomar would have imagined it possible for an eight-year-old to possess.
He lurched forward and fell to the floor.
As she walked calmly from the room, Sunilda paused in the doorway to glance back at him.
“When I am queen, you will not be returning to Italy with me, Godomar. And while everyone seems to think I’m in danger, I can assure you, there are many here in much greater danger.”
Chapter Nineteen
Since Poppaea’s poisoning, Zeno’s household had eaten almost as simply as peasants. Meals were plain, free of the possibility of camouflaging deliberately tainted food with spice or sauces, and all were prepared under the watchful eye of some person of undoubted trustworthiness, usually one of Theodora’s ladies-in-waiting.
The breakfast of wheat cakes and wine well suited the Lord Chamberlain’s taste, for his culinary preferences had never risen to match his high position at court. When they had finished their frugal meal, John and Felix retired to Zeno’s study to discuss their two prisoners. Codices and scrolls were piled untidily on the desk. The room carried a hint of the dusty smell of desiccated papyrus.