Hypatia nodded. “Last night. It was at the same hour as when it last appeared, only this time I didn’t dare answer its summons.” Her distress was obvious in the increasingly halting way she spoke.
“Immediately I get home I’ll send one of my servants around to keep you company,” Anatolius offered. “You really shouldn’t be here alone, even if there is a barracks full of armed men just across the way. And if I may say so, if Peter comes back and finds any of your friends standing about,” he said in an attempt to lighten her mood and with a nod toward the clay scorpion that still sat on the shelf, “he won’t be at all pleased to see them.”
At Anatolius’ suggestion Hypatia had taken the opportunity to pour a cup of wine for herself. It had brought some color back to her face. “I notice you keep wiping your eyes, sir. Are you unwell? I would be more than happy to make up a potion for you.”
Anatolius looked thoughtful. “Strangely enough, it seems that the longer I’m in the city the better I feel. Perhaps I should stay here myself tonight. I don’t like to see you so upset.”
He was recalling when he had initially met Hypatia. She had been a slave belonging to the Lady Anna, but the first time he had seen her he had not realized the fact. Not that a difference in social position was any bar to love. After all, Lady Anna had married a former tonsor. Yes, it was true, he thought, noting anew Hypatia’s golden skin and large, dark eyes and finding himself wondering that if John were not as he was, might he…
Anatolius’ impertinent speculations were abruptly interrupted by a loud banging on the door.
“It’s probably just a message for the Lord Chamberlain, Hypatia. I shall attend to it.” He got up and went down to the entrance hall.
It was not the authoritative, insistent pounding of someone whose duties commonly included rousting citizens out of their beds in the middle of the night. It was more frenzied than powerful.
Anatolius drew the knife he carried, the small blade that was an accessory worn by every prudent man who walked the streets of the city. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Hypatia had come to the top of the stairs. He waved her back.
The loud knocking continued. Blade at the ready, he slid back the bolt.
Silence fell.
He felt his heart racing. He did not believe in demons, but, on the other hand, it was rare indeed that good news came calling at such an hour and in such a manner. He cracked open the door and peered out.
The demon standing in front of the door looked back at him.
Or rather the woman, for he now saw by the lamplight seeping out into the darkness that the night caller was both human and demon. One half of her face was that of a woman while the other was a scarred mass akin to a melted candle.
“I am Pulcheria, your honor, and I wish to speak to the Lord Chamberlain.” As the woman addressed him she pulled a veil over the ruined portion of her features.
***
Before long Pulcheria was sitting in the kitchen providing Anatolius and Hypatia with details of what, according to her, had been a long and close working relationship with the Lord Chamberlain. Anatolius originally supposed she was exaggerating, but after close questioning it was obvious that she was sufficiently informed about John and his investigation of Barnabas to prove she was at least telling the essential truth about the commission she said had been given her.
“But how did you get into the palace grounds unseen?” Anatolius asked with great interest when Pulcheria had finished her explanation for her unexpected appearance at John’s door.
“Do you not think that I was a guest here often enough before my unfortunate accident?” the woman replied with half a smile. “Besides, there are always ways into any place you wish to name, however secure they seem. Even the palace itself, as you see-or indeed as any rat could tell you.”
Seated in the warm, bright kitchen, with her elaborate wrappings of colorful scraps of cloth and hair festooned with ribbons, she did not resemble any rodent Anatolius had ever seen. She was more like a peacock, or perhaps a pile of colored rags discarded by a dyer.
“So it was you who’s been terrifying me?” Hypatia asked, apparently uncertain even now that the disfigured woman was only that and nothing more.
Pulcheria admitted she had come calling before. “I regret I could not visit at a more civilized hour,” she concluded.
“I peeked out the window of the master’s study and all I could see was…well…I thought…”
Pulcheria gave her frozen half-smile. There was no need for further explanation.
Anatolius held his tablet over the embers remaining in the brazier, obliterating all traces of his notes on Castor’s business associates. Then the man whose occupation was transcribing the words of the emperor turned his skill instead to taking notes on the detailed ramblings of a beggar and street prostitute.
“So the great mime was born in the countryside not far from Zeno’s estate?” Anatolius interrupted her, amazed at the woman’s flow of information. “How could you have found all this out in such a short time?”
“I may no longer have my looks, sir, but I do have a way with people!”
Hypatia, Anatolius noticed, was sitting staring somewhat dreamily at the ceiling, another cup of wine in her hand. She looked pleasantly flushed, relieved of her fears now that her demon was inside and happily chatting with them.
“I haven’t told you all that I have to tell,” Pulcheria was saying. “I also heard it rumored that he has bedded more than one noble lady for whom he had performed. Or, to put it more correctly, they have bedded him. It seems he’s very popular with the ladies.”
“People working in the theater can be terribly attractive,” put in Hypatia, her words slightly slurred.
Anatolius finished writing. He had almost filled his tablet despite the brevity of his notes and the tiny size of his script. “I’m sure the Lord Chamberlain will be most grateful for your efforts on his behalf, Pulcheria,” he said, finally laying it aside.
The woman’s garish rags rustled as she leaned forward confidentially. “There’s one last piece of information for you to convey to him, sir. Barnabas is a great lover of literature and he has a large collection of scrolls and codices.”
“An expensive interest indeed, even for a performer as well paid as he.” Anatolius recalled his recent conversation with Scipio.
“Too expensive even for Barnabas, it seems,” came Pulcheria’s reply. “For I also hear that he has a habit of visiting the libraries of those aristocrats who hire him to entertain at their homes. Not just visiting them, you understand, but returning when their owners are not present to help himself to one or two choice items. I don’t necessarily mean his patrons’ wives, either,” she added with a coarse laugh.
Anatolius observed that, aside from the matter of the wives, he did not think that Barnabas would continue to receive invitations to perform in aristocratic homes if he was suspected of stealing from their libraries.
“He’s remarkably agile,” Pulcheria observed. “It’s child’s play for him to climb through a second floor window in the middle of the night. So he’s never observed and most of his wealthy patrons don’t realize things are missing. If they do, they may well suppose they’ve been pilfered by one of their drunken guests. After all, why should a mere mime, even as one as brilliant as Barnabas, be suspected of aspiring to such culture? No doubt they would find the very idea laughable.”
Anatolius saw Pulcheria away into the night after rewarding her more handsomely than he would normally have been inclined, but knowing how generous John could be for information.
As he went back upstairs he realized he would have to return to his uncle’s estate with the dawn to convey to John what he had just discovered.
Could the visitor to Castor’s library who had left the mud on its immaculate tiles that so outraged Briarus have been Barnabas? Even if it were, he could not see how it could be linked with the deaths on his uncle’s estate. Still, if there were some connection, John would make it fairly quickly. Doubtless this other unexpected and useful information he had uncovered would be instrumental in aiding John to deduce why Barnabas at least had vanished. Perhaps they would now be able to run the fugitive mime to ground.