Following Scipio’s gaze, Anatolius realized there was a trace of ink on his forefinger, a remnant of recent labors. “You’re very observant, Scipio,” he said with a smile. “However, my master doesn’t find it necessary to scrimp on the purchase of parchment.”
Understanding dawned on Scipio’s lined face. “Or to cut back on building churches and forums or conquering foreign lands?”
“Quite so.” Any of the countless administrative clerks serving at the palace probably would have impressed Scipio by the fact they labored there but Anatolius did not inform the man how closely he worked with the emperor. Instead, he gave him the same instructions he had given the other merchants he had visited, which was to send an immediate message to the captain of excubitors at the palace should they receive any communication from Castor.
He had turned away to step out into the shadows lengthening along the street when inspiration struck him. “How long would it take you to copy out some poetry for me? I’d also like decorative borders with a motif suggesting the past glories of Italy, and leather covers.”
“Ah, sir, I could see immediately that you are a man of refined taste,” Scipio beamed. “But I’m afraid that it might be a little while as we’re still overwhelmed with business generated by the emperor’s codification of the laws. Every provincial town seems to think it ought to have a copy even though half of them don’t even have a man of law who can read Latin. It’s my opinion that they just sit whoever is hearing petitions on a bench in front of those volumes to lend some credence to his rulings. Not, however, that we’re complaining about the amount of work.”
Anatolius thanked Scipio, saying he would visit again to consult him about the copying and then slowly made his way through the deepening twilight back toward the Mese.
Around him men laughed and jostled, grimy workers returning home from their long labors in the sun, important persons conversing with their companions as they strode through the bustle, ignoring the beggars that sat at every corner and haunted every colonnade. The street sounds beat around his head, a ceaseless babble of noise that was beginning to give him a headache.
His thoughts turned toward his uncle’s estate where it would be quiet and cool and there would be good food and wine as the night crept in over the sea to lay its kindly fingers across the garden. Yes, it would be wonderful to stroll there with Calyce. She would certainly enjoy his poems, he thought as he walked quickly along. Of course, it was true that he could copy them out himself, but he hardly had the time right now.
He realized his journey would cause him to pass not far from the house where Balbinus and Lucretia lived. Yes, he chided himself, he’d been foolish to imagine some ember might smolder beneath the ashes of time. His acknowledgement of the truth was bitter-sweet, but then again perhaps it hadn’t really been an ember glowing in the darkness of memory waiting to be fanned into a blaze, but rather just a warm thought like a ray of sunlight, insubstantial and impossible to capture-or recapture. Strange were the whims of Fortuna, he mused, as he turned a corner and began to move briskly down a street leading directly into the Mese. If his affair with Lucretia had not been so ill-fated, he, not Balbinus, might well have married her and then he would never have found his true love, Calyce.
All the same, it would certainly be most helpful to John’s investigation to visit the senator’s house again and inquire of Balbinus if he had now heard anything from his missing nephew.
Indeed, he told himself, it was increasingly obvious that Castor was not just away on business but was missing. Just like Barnabas.
He turned to retrace his steps and saw a familiar figure moving quickly along on the opposite side of the street. The sight brought a sinking feeling to his stomach.
It was Balbinus returning home. To his wife. To Lucretia.
Anatolius wiped his suddenly watering eyes and looked again.
No, he had been mistaken. The pedestrian was someone he did not know. Strangely, the thought made him happier.
***
Later-he could not have said how much time had passed but darkness had long since fallen-Anatolius found himself unexpectedly approaching the barracks across from John’s house. He had been lost in thought. Thoughts of Calyce, of Lucretia, of events he wished he could change. He had no recollection of his walk down the crowded Mese nor of entering the palace grounds. His feet had followed the familiar route as automatically as one of his uncle’s odd mechanical devices went through its movements. He was fortunate he hadn’t been run over by a cart.
Lamplight shone brightly through the diamond-shaped panes of John’s second story window, the window of the study in which the Lord Chamberlain was usually to be found when he was at home. It was puzzling, since at present John was supposed to be some stadia away.
Anatolius crossed the cobbled square, acknowledging the greeting of the excubitor guarding the barracks. On reaching John’s door he raised his fist to rap sharply, the action reminding him of Hypatia’s distress about her recent strange visitor.
Perhaps, he mused, that was why his feet had carried him here at this late hour. Perhaps they had more commonsense than his head.
He pounded on the door for a long while before it was opened. Hypatia greeted him warmly enough although she looked haggard. The flaring torches in the entrance hall and atrium, more torches than seemed necessary in a house currently occupied by a single servant, accentuated the shadowed hollows around her eyes. He had barely stepped inside before she had the door securely bolted.
She invited him to the kitchen and, as he began to follow up her upstairs, he glanced into the atrium. A dark shape, some small creature, was scuttling across the raised edge of the impluvium.
No, he realized. It was only the clay scorpion he had seen during his last visit, brought to a semblance of life by the flickering reflection of torchlight in the water. Or perhaps it was not the same scorpion, for there was another guarding the top of the stairway and yet another set on the floor beside the kitchen door.
“Have demons besieged you again, Hypatia? I see you have placed your guardians everywhere.”
The young woman’s offended expression told him that he would not be able to dispel her fears by making light of them.
He apologized. “I suppose this big house must seem rather frightening when it’s empty,” he went on. “It wouldn’t echo so much if John would just get a few more furnishings.”
He sat down at the kitchen table. Seeing the jug set on it, he hinted that while an unannounced visitor such as himself would hardly expect to be offered his host’s favorite wine, on the other hand he would not be averse to sampling another vintage.
“You mean you don’t wish to have a cup of the master’s Egyptian wine, sir?” Hypatia said. “Then this will suit you very well. It was a gift from some ambassador or other and the master directed Peter and myself to feel free to drink it. I think that you’ll find it less raw than the sort that the Lord Chamberlain prefers.”
Anatolius took a sip of the wine she poured for him and nodded approval. “Perhaps John likes the type of wine he does because of someone with whom he once shared it. I’m only guessing, of course,” he added hastily, realizing that he shouldn’t be chattering about the Lord Chamberlain’s personal life with a servant. Normally it would never have occurred to him to say such a thing, but somehow in John’s household this sort of conversation seemed quite natural.
John’s relations with his servants were, he reflected, extremely irregular but that was his own business, insofar as anything at Justinian’s court could be said to remain one’s personal business.
“Tell me what has happened, Hypatia. Have you had another night-time visitor?”