“I thought everyone knew, Godomar,” stammered Anatolius. “In fact, Calyce predicted Minthe’s potions would make the girl stronger and you can’t deny they have.” He gestured toward Poppaea, who was sitting up in bed, looking pale but alert.
“You may attribute her recovery to magick,” Godomar told them. “But I drove the unclean spirit from her frail body.” He glared at Anatolius.
“I must speak to Poppaea concerning Sunilda,” John said sharply, too fatigued to practice the civility he prized.
“I doubt you’ll ever find her,” Godomar returned.
“You know something useful concerning her disappearance?”
The prelate’s bloodless lips tightened into a smile suitable for a death mask. “I fear the demon was too willful and I could not drive it out of her, Lord Chamberlain. Isn’t it obvious? It would have been better for her poor soul had she died with Gadaric. Now the foul spirit has taken her away somewhere beyond our reach.”
“I see. I regret I must now ask you to take yourself away, Godomar,” John replied curtly. Seeing that the prelate was about to protest, he added, “and as Justinian’s Lord Chamberlain, you may consider my order to be his own.”
Godomar strode out of the small room without a word.
Anatolius idly fingered the codex Godomar had left open on the table by the bed. “It’s the tale of the Gadarene swine,” he noted. “I must say that’s a poor choice of something to read to a child.”
“Godomar’s read it to me more than once,” Poppaea said gravely. “He says I had a demon living inside me, just like those poor pigs did.”
John sat down on the chair. “A few morsels of tainted food is all you had inside you, Poppaea.”
“Would I know if I had something bad living inside me?”
“Of course you would, but you didn’t, so don’t let the notion give you nightmares,” Anatolius replied.
“Do you remember much about your picnic?” John asked the girl gently.
“Yes. It was very nice. Bertrada got honey cakes and apples and sweetmeats for us. She said the cook was very cross to be asked to find such things so early in the morning.”
“And then after the picnic?” John prompted.
The girl made a show of thinking hard, pursing her lips and frowning fiercely. “I went to a grand party but I don’t remember much about it. I got sleepy and my stomach hurt. Sunilda was at the party too. Why don’t you ask her about it?”
“But there weren’t any demons there as well, were there?” Anatolius put in.
Poppaea shook her head vigorously.
“So, you see,” Anatolius said with a smile, “there couldn’t be any lurking about to jump inside you, could there, or else you would have seen them.” He paused. “Was Minthe at this party?”
The girl shook her head again. “She wasn’t invited.”
“Did you see her on the day of the picnic?”
Poppaea shook her head a third time.
“Has she come to your room to give you any potions?”
“No. She’s Sunilda’s friend, not mine,” the girl replied firmly. “But Calyce keeps making me take some horrible tasting mixture.”
“It was for your own good, as people are so fond of saying,” Anatolius said with a smile.
“And you can’t recall anything about the party?” John asked.
“No, I can’t.” Poppaea looked unhappy. “It all seems like a dream.”
John said he understood and, changing the subject, asked her if she had any idea where Sunilda might be hiding.
He did not really expect her to know, but she did.
“Oh, yes. I think she’s hiding in our secret place.”
“A secret place?” Anatolius echoed with interest.
“We found a place to hide that only we know about,” the girl explained with an impish smile. “We play there a lot. And Sunilda keeps her letters there so Godomar can’t read them. He’s always poking about peoples’ rooms, you know.”
“Letters?” John hid his surprise.
The girl hesitated.
“That sounds like a fine jest,” Anatolius observed. “I’m certain Godomar would have loved to read them! But who were these letters for, Poppaea? Don’t worry, we won’t tell!” he added in a conspiratorial whisper.
Poppaea giggled. “Sunilda often writes to her Aunt Matasuntha in Italy, but Zeno told her it wasn’t any good sending them because Belisarius was ‘beseeching’ Ravenna and they wouldn’t get there. So Sunilda decided to keep them safe till he was done ‘beseeching.’” The rush of words stopped for a short time. “Only we knew about our hiding place,” she went on, “and Gadaric did too. Oh, and Barnabas as well. Gadaric insisted on that. He thought Barnabas was very funny and just had to show him where we hide.”
“Will you tell us where this secret place is, Poppaea? I think it could help us find Sunilda and bring her safely home,” John said softly.
Poppaea started to speak, then stopped, looking distressed. “But if I tell you it wouldn’t be secret anymore, would it, and besides I promised Sunilda I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“But you see, Poppaea,” John replied, “I must ask you to tell because it’s also the emperor’s business.”
“Couldn’t you tell the emperor about my promise?” the girl replied slowly. “If you did, I’m sure he’d understand. Everyone says we have to keep promises, even Godomar.”
“John,” Anatolius interrupted. “Let me have a few words with Poppaea, would you?”
John got up and moved out of earshot by the door as his young friend whispered for a few moments with Poppaea, then beckoned him into the corridor.
“I believe I know where she means.” Anatolius kept his voice low. “She didn’t tell me directly, of course. She just answered a question I posed to her.”
***
The two men made their way to a far corner of Zeno’s gardens where tangled thickets of laurel and rose bushes rioted in a manner that would have made even the stoutest-hearted gardener pale if faced with the prospect of pruning them.
Plunging into the thick and thorny jungle, Anatolius got down on his hands and knees to squeeze along a natural tunnel under the mass of entwined vegetation and limbs. John followed, uncomfortably reminded of the short tour of the garden Theodora had so recently arranged for him.
When he was finally able to stand he found himself some distance from the path, in a cramped clearing invisible to any passersby. The small space was almost filled by a moss-encrusted marble structure whose open entrance revealed a narrow stairway leading down into the depths of the earth. Three large birds, obviously ravens, were carved over the doorway.
It was a mithraeum dedicated to Mithra, John’s god-not to mention that worshipped by Anatolius as well as Felix and most of the excubitors.
“Uncle Zeno built this years back when he had an enthusiasm for exotic, not to say proscribed, religions,” Anatolius explained. “Although as usual he did not entirely follow tradition. I mean, look at those coraxes over the door. One of his little personal touches, I suppose.”
“An appropriate motif for a doorway, though, since each Mithran enters the order as a corax,” commented John, who had reached the high rank of Runner of the Sun. “At least it’s well hidden from official eyes.”
“Its concealment is probably more from neglect than design, John. Uncle isn’t one of those subtle thinkers. It’s just as well he doesn’t live at court.”
“Even though it’s said that a raven brought sad news to Apollo,” John replied, “I can’t help feeling that that trio of birds is a good omen. They remind me of that strange rhyme I heard so long ago in Bretania. You know the one, I’ve mentioned it before. ‘One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a letter…’ Of course, there were those who declared vehemently that three was for a girl but I’ve found that there’s always disagreement over even the smallest things. Yet if Lord Mithra has been kind, we’ll find Sunilda hiding down there, safe in His care. Tell me, though, what made you think of it?”