Five for Silver: A John, the Lord Chamberlain Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

purchased the house, having been installed by the previous owner. It was strange to think that if his surmise was correct, the model for Zoe could well still be alive. John might see her one day while inspecting some artisans’ enclave, or she might appear in one of the hallways of an imperial residence, perhaps even be glimpsed moving down an alleyway off the Mese.
    He was as likely to run into her as he was to see his own daughter again.
    Would he recognize either of them?
    He thought he heard someone moving about in the hall. Rising from his plain wooden chair, he looked out. A single lamp flickered at the far end, where narrow stairs led up to the mostly unoccupied servants’ quarters. Nothing moved.
    It hadn’t been exactly a footstep. It was a softer sound, similar to heavy garments brushing against a wall. Birds often got into the house from the garden or through the compluvium, yet he couldn’t help recalling Peter’s imagined heavenly visitor.
    Zoe stared solemnly at him as he sat down again.
    “Peter doesn’t like me talking to you, Zoe.” John could not have said whether he spoke aloud or not.
    There was a hint of sympathy in the girl’s almond-shaped eyes.
    “Strange to think, isn’t it, that my servant possesses what I do not? That is to say, a past.”
    He brought the wine cup to his lips. It was a cup akin to the one he’d owned when he lived with Cornelia, the mother of his daughter. The vessel was a duplicate he had ordered made, down to the crack in the rim. It was all of the past he could bear to keep close to him. Of the man he had been before his capture and emasculation in Persia, there remained nothing.
    As for the family and friends of the man he had been then, they had vanished as surely as if the emperor had ordered every one of them dragged off to the dungeons in the dead of night. Or as if his Lord Chamberlain had ordered it, for John could certainly wield such power if he ever chose to exercise it.
    Still, he admitted, if only to Zoe, he missed hearing Cornelia’s light breathing as she slept in the bed beside him, when the night was as silent as this one.
    He lit the lamp on the desk and stared out of the window for a while. In the darkness there was no sign of the horror that stalked the city’s streets. For that matter, it could be lurking within this very house. The plague could go wherever it chose.
    John forced his mind back to his investigation. He had become a servant to his own servant, as Gaius had said. Yet Peter was part of John’s household, and if it were possible, John intended to find out who had killed Gregory. Elderly men like Peter did not have much time left to outlive their sorrows and disappointments.
    “He’s already lost an old friend, but he at least has good memories of him. If I tell him the work Gregory did, will I murder those memories too? What do you think, Zoe?” John poured himself more wine.

Chapter Four
    The bakery was deserted. Empty shelves in its front and cold brick ovens at the back confirmed what John had known as soon as he turned down the street and failed to smell freshly baked bread.
    He crossed Eustathios the baker off the list on Gregory’s wax tablet.
    There were now no names left. The list had led John to a succession of closed shops and silent houses where knocks had gone unanswered, their residents having departed to the country—or forever—or were perhaps too ill or frightened to answer.
    He wondered if the names had in fact been Gregory’s itinerary.
    That the bakery had been left open and unlocked indicated not only that Eustathios was dead, but that he had fallen prey to the most virulent variety of the plague, the type that took its victims within hours.
    A muted thump caused John to turn quickly. Was there someone here after all?
    He saw a cat, little more than an animated skeleton, stalking away from an empty grain bin. The cobwebs hanging off the animal’s whiskers testified to the extent of its hunting efforts. No