An Empire for Ravens Page 3

  Aging and disappointed generals were often still ambitious and, with their time running out, not always to be trusted, John reminded himself.

  “I was summoned here by Justinian’s emissary, General Felix,” John said. “His aide, Marius, brought me this document.”

  John handed Felix’s letter to Diogenes, who eyed it with obvious suspicion.

  “Where is Marius? I wish to question him about this communication.”

  “Captured by the Goths. I could not help him, but managed to escape and make my way into the city.”

  Diogenes scanned Felix’s letter. “Easily forged as an excuse to ask questions and expect answers.”

  John produced from the pouch at his belt the imperial seal he had surreptitiously carried with him into exile.

  Diogenes waved it away. “Stolen.”

  “That would not be so easy a task. As you well know.”

  Diogenes ran a finger absently down the side of his nose. An old habit, perhaps. He must have checked a thousand times to see whether it was healing straight. “So you may be an excellent thief. Or perhaps a spy. Is the true story that Marius deserted to the Goths and is telling them all they wish to know about our defenses?”

  “Certainly not. I just hope he is still alive. Do you have any reason to suspect Marius of disloyalty?”

  “None at all. Except that he accompanied Felix from Constantinople. Who can say what intrigues might be hatched at the imperial court?” Diogenes offered a smile even icier than before. “But I don’t need to tell you that. You know the court. You are John, former Lord Chamberlain to the emperor. You are supposed to be in exile in Greece. One of my men, who served under Felix as an excubitor in Constantinople, recognized you. I am of a mind to have you locked up to await execution for leaving Greece.”

  “That would be unwise. I am here on important business involving Felix.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “If you choose not to, you will have to answer to Justinian.”

  “It was Marius who delivered Felix’s letter to you. Am I supposed to imagine Marius had orders directly from Justinian?”

  “Felix is Justinian’s emissary. Everything he does is imperial business.”

  Diogenes tapped nervously at the side of his crooked nose. “Hemmed in by Totila and his Goths out there, and now I have a man who should be in Greece asking questions likely to bring all manner of troubles on my head if I give answers that I later regret.”

  “My only purpose is to assist Felix. Do you know what sort of trouble he writes about?”

  Diogenes shook his head.

  “Then I will have to ask him myself. Where can I find him?”

  The general’s eyes narrowed and he stared at John speculatively. “You don’t know? Felix has been missing for two days.”

  Diogenes pointed towards a vast, sunken enclosure running alongside the portico through which he was leading John. “When Domitian ruled, it was a remarkable garden with menageries of wild animals. Now, as you see, it’s just a vast overgrown tangle of vegetation. Here’s the door to my quarters.”

  Sunlight streamed in through tall windows overlooking the erstwhile garden.

  “It’s said there are still lions in the garden, descendants of Domitian’s specimens. They have lairs in there and come out to hunt rabbits and birds and whatever else makes its home in the undergrowth.”

  “You are skeptical?”

  “Once or twice, while trying to sleep, I thought I heard a distant rumbling, a muffled roar. But I was half asleep, still dreaming. There may be foxes down there, however. Foxes hide everywhere, don’t they?”

  Diogenes invited John to sit at a long wooden table in his dining room, which had once served as a conservatory, judging by the ceramic pots piled against its walls. A servant brought in wine and small portions of duck cooked with olives.

  “We have enough supplies for now, but it doesn’t hurt to be frugal,” Diogenes remarked. “Were you lost in the catacombs long? Some have gone into them and never returned.”

  John took a sip of wine and said nothing.

  Diogenes continued, “Long enough to enter them outside the city and emerge in the cistern beneath Saint Minias, then.” His tone of voice conveyed his feeling it was a story many would not believe.

  “What is the situation in Rome?” John asked. “How many men have you garrisoned here?”

  Diogenes gave him a suspicious look. “I can tell you that because it’s common knowledge. About three thousand.”

  “And Totila?”

  Diogenes shrugged. “Who can say? His ranks swell every day. He’s probably recruited more deserters than I have men. And he can pay his soldiers, which I am finding difficult.”

  “Will you be able to defend the city, general?”

  “I believe so. Four days ago we held off a series of forays against the walls. I suspect Totila was simply testing our defenses and the real assault will begin soon.” Diogenes shook his head and sighed. “Not a day passes when I fail to remember that I walk the same streets the immortal Julius Caesar walked. And what will my legacy be? I came, I saw, I avoided being conquered?”

  They had finished their meal. A servant took away the duck bones and refilled their wine cups.

  “And now, what about Felix? You said he was missing. When did you last see him?”

  “He told me he was going to visit Archdeacon Leon. He’s the man who has officially taken over Vigilius’ duties. A troublesome man, Leon. In fact it was because of him that Justinian sent Felix.” He leaned forward. “It was this way…”

  When John had been escorted away, Diogenes returned to the portico.

  “Viteric.”

  “Yes, sir?” answered the young soldier who resembled a statue of Hercules dressed in armor, except for his dark beard, which was still barely more than shadow.

  “I’m assigning you to assist the man just brought to me. I’ve sent him to lodge in Felix’s house. He implies he is here on the emperor’s business, to assist Felix. Which now means helping to find him.”

  “He should start looking in Totila’s camp, sir.”

  “You may be right, but if his story is to be believed, he could be of great help to us. From all I’ve heard, he’s a shrewd man. Not to be trusted, however. A eunuch.”

  Viteric looked as if he would have spit except one does not spit at the feet of a general. “What help would you expect from such a man?”

  “This is the man known in the capital as John the Eunuch. He once served as Lord Chamberlain to Justinian.”

  “That kind have a way of intriguing themselves into powerful positions.”

  “He fell out of favor rather recently and was sent into exile. Of course Justinian often changes his mind. I’m sending a courier to Constantinople to determine whether the emperor knows his former Lord Chamberlain has left Greece. The trip there and back shouldn’t take more than three weeks, and until then I wish you to keep an eye on everything he does, everywhere he goes, everyone he speaks to.”

  “And if it turns out he did not have permission to leave Greece?”

  “I’ll have him executed on the spot.”

  Chapter Three

  As twilight deepened and night drew on, John followed Viteric through grass-grown streets. Some of the buildings lining the way tottered half-demolished, others looked untouched. In the distance an occasional shout and once a scream shattered the night air. A ragged fellow armed with a stick detached himself from the darkness and approached the pair, but scuttled away as soon as Viteric and John drew their swords.

  “When General Diogenes returned my weapon, he told me I would need it,” John said.

  They continued on. Small fires twinkled on patches of wasteland and in the shelter of walls. Shadowy figures outlined by firelight crouched over steaming pots.

  “At pr
esent that’s in hand, sir,” Viteric said in response to a question about food supplies. “Looking to the future and based on previous sieges, however, those who remain in the city have begun cultivating as much land as possible. There’s a man who’s planting nettles in his garden.”

  “An unusual choice of crop,” John observed, having guessed that Viteric would be reporting everything John did and said to General Diogenes.

  “It’s been said his humors are deranged by his experiences but the common explanation in the taverns is since people ate boiled nettles during the last siege, he is preparing for the same eventuality and planning to sell his crop when food becomes scarce. It’s even whispered, since he will sell for a high price, he may well recover much of the fortune he lost in the last looting of the city.”

  And what would he do with the fortune in a city reduced to eating nettles, John wondered. “If Totila fails in his assault and lays siege, how long until we are eating nettles, Viteric?”

  “Months, sir. The storehouses are full and the fields are planted with wheat.”

  “I didn’t realize there were many fields inside the walls of Rome.”

  “There are now. When Totila captured the city the last time he spared the public buildings but reduced much of the city to rubble. He declared he intended to turn Rome into a cattle pasture but General Belisarius persuaded him against it. As it was, he forced the entire population out and dragged the aristocrats off into captivity, leaving the city to the owls and ravens. Then he left to campaign in the south. Belisarius re-entered the city, repaired the walls as best he could, and invited the population to return. A few did. The desperate, the destitute, those with no other place to go.”

  “This is where I will stay? General Felix’s house?” It was located off the street called Sandalarius. Behind the house rose what appeared to be a rectangular mountain of brick. The Temple of Rome, Viteric told him. Past the temple lay the Roman Forum.

  John stepped over toppled columns.

  “Don’t worry, sir. The building is habitable. But…”

  John gave his guide a questioning look.

  “I shouldn’t say anything. I’m not superstitious. However, despite it remaining intact, unlike the buildings on either side as you see, it’s commonly rumored it is a house on which Fortuna frowns.”

  “And in what way does Fortuna frown? Aside from the fact that its last occupant has vanished?”

  “That’s part of it. General Conon lived here before Felix. He was killed in the house by his own troops. They had not been paid for some time and finally mutinied. Belisarius straightened it all out, but now…well, Diogenes was hoping Felix would bring funds from the emperor.”

  Viteric knocked on a stout door and a pale face peeped out. “Oh, sirs, is there news of the master?”

  “None yet, Eutuchyus. For now, this is your new master,” Viteric replied. Turning toward John, he added, “I have been told that Eutuchyus was Conon’s steward. He still serves as steward but there are only two other servants and a cook. With such a small staff, Eutuchyus assists with everyday chores as necessary.”

  Eutuchyus simpered and bowed. He was slender and long-limbed with hands as delicate as those of a woman. A eunuch, neither man nor woman or even angel as some believed, the sort of being that John despised, despite his own condition. For were not those creatures castrated before puberty different from himself who was mutilated after reaching manhood? At least the steward was not drenched in perfume as some were, not that it would be likely to be found in the devastated city.

  “My needs are simple, Eutuchyus, so your duties will be light,” John said. “We will consult on that tomorrow.”

  John tossed and turned on the bed once occupied by Felix. Despite his exhausting day and desperate need for sleep, he could only fall into a light intermittent doze. He kept recalling the final stages of his journey to Rome. Hearing that the city had been surrounded by the Goths, he and Marius had left ship south of the city. It had been John’s idea to purchase a wagonload of pigs. From all reports Italy was filled with wandering armies. Posing as farmers on the way to market gave them a plausible reason to be traveling whoever they might encounter.

  Contending armies had rampaged across Italy for more than a decade. Now the birthplace and former center of the Roman Empire was a landscape of death. Yet the combatants continued to fight over the corpse. In the dark he imagined he was still enveloped in the ripe smell of swine mingled with the dry odor of ashes as they passed farmhouses gutted by fire. Fields were scorched or lay fallow, populated by the skeletons and carcasses of cattle, sheep, and goats. Whatever had not been carried off to feed the military had been devoured by carrion birds to be seen alighting nearby or startled into flight but always returning to the rich pickings awaiting them.

  There were human remains along the roads also, but few travelers, mostly refugees with wagons or donkeys laden with household goods, sometimes only a sack on their backs, fleeing one battlefield, most likely to find themselves in another.

  The sun shone brightly and birds sang, yet an invisible cloud of dread lay across the ruined landscape, a sense that whatever monster had caused this destruction might lie in wait over the next hill.

  “So this is what Justinian seeks to reconquer,” John had murmured. “An empire for ravens.”

  He did not think for long about Felix. If he knew his friend, his absence meant he had been detained by a lady or was recovering from a drinking spree. He worried mainly about Cornelia and the others left on his Greek estate. What if Justinian paid a spy in Megara to keep an eye on him? Would the emperor choose to make John’s family pay for his disobedience in leaving Greece?

  Yet, from the moment Marius arrived with his plea from Felix, there had been no real doubt about John’s going to Rome. Cornelia knew John would never desert her, but she also knew that he would never forgive himself for abandoning a friend. In the end it was she who insisted he go.

  She would have insisted, even if he had not downplayed the risk he was taking. Then again, she surely realized that he would try not to worry her. She certainly wouldn’t want him worrying about worrying her.

  He smiled faintly to himself. It sometimes seemed he and Cornelia understood each other so well there was no need to talk. They could almost hear each other’s thoughts. Now, if only they could communicate over distances, across the hills, and the terrible sea. Perhaps in time…

  Having finally been clasped in the arms of Morpheus, at the darkest hour of the night he was awakened by the sound of stealthy footsteps. He slid out of bed, grasped his sword, and crept out into the hallway.

  He cautiously prowled the corridors. Eventually he stumbled upon Eutuchyus, huddled in a corner of the kitchen.

  The steward admitted to hiding after hearing faint noises during the night. “It was the shade of General Conon returning, sir.”

  John could hardly conceal his disgust at such cowardice. “It was more likely to be your master Felix returning.”

  Eutuchyus’ white hands fluttered. Was it fear or was he making the sign of the Christians? “Oh, sir, I fear if General Felix returns, he will also return as a shade.”

  Cornelia walked along the ridge overlooking the sea and wondered if John had reached Rome safely and what had been waiting for him there. Long ago they had parted and he had not returned. For years she had been torn between cursing him for deserting her and mourning his death. Their daughter was nearly grown when they met again by chance in Constantinople and she learned the truth, that he had been captured and sold into slavery by the Persians.

  He was a different man, no longer a simple young mercenary but Justinian’s Lord Chamberlain, when for so long she had imagined him either dead in a battlefield grave on the Persian border or a hardened, rootless wanderer.

  Now he had gone again to an uncertain fate.

  She felt too old to bear losing him a second time.


  She did not look much different than she had when she was young, still slender with dark hair and sun-browned skin, but she sometimes felt as if she were a hundred years old.

  For a while she sat on a fallen pillar in front of the small, half-ruined pagan temple where she and John often came to talk. Then, restless, she made her way to the opposite end of the estate, to the house John had given to their former servants, Peter and Hypatia.

  Hypatia, almost comically younger than her husband, came out to meet her, scattering chickens pecking in the grass. “Mistress, is there anything I can do for you?”

  Cornelia didn’t bother to point out she was no longer Hypatia’s employer. “The villa seems empty without him.”

  “If you need any help…”

  “You and Peter have your own work to do.”

  Cornelia accompanied her into the nearby meadow. Hypatia sought out the spots where her chickens nested and put the eggs into the basket she carried. Bees darted amidst the wildflowers in the grass.

  “Have you seen that stranger on the road again, Hypatia?”

  “The one who was loitering beside the gate yesterday? No. Probably just a wandering beggar.”

  “I worry John was being spied on.”

  “If there’s trouble coming,” Hypatia said, “the master should never have left. He put you in danger.”

  Although Hypatia continued to use the term mistress, this was clearly not a sentiment she would have dared to share when she was still serving Cornelia.

  “If Justinian finds out about John leaving, he will take action against John, not me.”

  “I wouldn’t be so certain. The emperor can be merciful one day and cruel the next. Hurting you is the worst thing he could do to the master.” Hypatia bent to lift a hen off its eggs. The hen clucked in outrage.

  “I wasn’t unhappy when John was exiled,” Cornelia said. “I thought we had put palace intrigue behind us. He always said he wished to return to the countryside and live simply. However, he is not a man who will abandon his friends.”