Chapter 85
The girls wandered into a sheep field, picking late-blooming cyclamen and crocus flowers. Bees hummed. Lying on the grass with a cup of wine, Lady Euphrosyne Katamonitissa gazed up at the clouds. One was an anvil, another a bear changing into… a horse? Less than an hour’s wagon ride from her mansion, she felt at ease. The Latin knight shooed the hunchbacked poet and the lame storyteller away, and they retreated to the wagon.
“I must confess, Lady, that I have an ulterior motive for bringing you here.”
“I suspected as much.”
“My liege, Margrave Guilhelm, was in the city recently and asked me to convey his and Dame Judith’s regards. She remembers you fondly from the time she spent at court when Caesar Ioannes and Maria Porphorygenita had that big wedding.”
“Were you there? I do not remember seeing you?”
“Ha! That was years ago, I was in the background, and all the ladies’ eyes were on Dame Judith’s sons, Conrad and Bonafice.”
“The tall blonde men who displayed their jousting skills in the Hippodrome? Yes, they were spoken about for some time after they left the city.”
Pons chuckled, “Lady Judith said you knew everyone and were intimately connected with the… intrigues of the court.”
“You mean I am a gossip.”
“Domina, no, I… meant no slander…”
“Are you blushing, Ser?” she teased.
“I merely have a question to ask you? I thought, with your knowledge of the noble families, you might be able to point me in the correct direction.”
“Sounds intriguing. Let’s intrigue.”
When the foreign soldier posed his question, Lady Euphrosyne was baffled.
“Why on Earth do you want to know which wives of currently serving courtiers are pregnant and due to give birth?”
“You know me. I like to send flowers.”
“That, Ser, is no answer at all.”
“The ‘why’ is not important. Best if you do not know for the sake of your conscience and innocence.”
“Now I feel that I should not tell you anything. Are you planning something sinister?”
“Well… yes… but I would never harm a mother, or newborn babe. Nor the father or anyone in the household, for that matter. Never.”
“You still intend to confound Emperor Andronikos?”
“The man who tied you to a battering ram? Yes, I do. My lord has charged me to be his vendettist for the murder of his son.”
“My family’s fate is on a knife’s edge, and the ‘knife’ is Andronikos’ clemency. Is there anything sharper?”
* * *
Cyn had to hand it to Pons. The man knew how to plan a murder.
“Watch and learn, son, watch and learn. It is like hunting. You have to catch them at their watering holes and feeding grounds. Lure them out of their dens.”
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He understood the need to remove the Emperor's henchmen. A sound plan, one that they should have implemented a year ago. Starting on the first day, the black-clad noseless cheat should have been thrown down a flight of stone stairs at the Hippodrome - as soon as he tried to run out on the bet. Likewise, the poisoner should have been done away with long ago. Brian the Saxon said he had likely killed Renier, and that was good enough for Cyn.
Of course, getting rid of the Emperor needed to be carefully calculated.
They knew he would be emerging from his den to re entomb his first wife’s remains once the restoration of Forty Martyrs’ Church was complete.
They scouted the location. The busiest traffic congestion in the city occurred where the towering blocked the Great a stone’s throw from the stairs leading to the doors of Forty Martyrs. They wandered the area both by day and at night.
“Before we plan the killing, we need to plan the escape,” Pons explained. “On the day Andronikos reburies his wife, he will join her in death. But… we cannot kill him inside the church. That is not done. After the service, he will distribute alms outside, even this blasphemer will make that much of a pretence at charity. His guard and attendants will keep it to a few destitute souls. That should give you enough time to feather him, from up there. Atop the tetrapylon. You can use the pyramid which adorns it as cover or to reload.”
Pons raised an eyebrow. Please. “Reload? One bolt at this distance will do. I will not need to reload. And look, atop the pyramid is a statue of an angel. Pretty. It can fly away. How am I to escape?”
“Ladder.”
“Down to the traffic below?”
“No. Laid sideways to the nearest roof. Like a wooden bridge. Then you hop like a rabbit, roof top to roof top, all the way to the Forum of Theodosius. We will place another ladder there, which will see you back to the ground.”
Cyn was impressed. “Listen to you. Telling me a plan ahead of time instead of when we are in the middle of it.”
Now they just had to wait on the pace of the tile layers, masons, and stone carvers. Cyn suggested that they speed things up by contributing some gold to the restoration project.
How they laughed at that one.
Today, another opportunity under the guise of a picnic had popped up. Pons had stressed that this was simply a scouting mission.
“We will have an innocent lunch, while you see where our prey plays. Observe. Get as close as you can to the Imperial party without being spotted. Take no risks. Note how he is guarded. Look for an opportunity, but do not force one. Will they come back here on another day? Could you set up a hunter’s blind and hide in place before they arrive? Plan the escape before planning the kill.”
“And if I come across him half-naked in a vineyard, playing hide-and-seek with his girls?”
“It will never happen. We are not that lucky, but what a happy thought.”
His scouting mission was helpful. He spied where the Emperor and his party drew to a pause and encamped. Over fifty people filled his entourage, borne on litters, or riding carts and wagons. An honor guard of twenty marched on foot, while the Emperor and half a dozen nobles were mounted. Tents with awnings were erected.
On a nearby hill sat a thicket of trees and brambles where he, and even a horse, could be hidden. If Andronikos could be lured away from his guards… perhaps. On this day, however, he could get no closer. When he returned, he gave the girls some pears he had pilfered from an orchard to feed the mules pulling the wagon, and helped load the dishes onto the wagon before they returned to the city.
“Anything?” Pons asked once they had seen the lady to her mansion, and the waifs and beggars had departed with the picnic’s leftovers.
“I could not get too near; some were hunting hares with falcons, and would have spied me. Maybe I could get a shot, but I would need a fast horse to make a run for it, and somewhere to run. You?”
“The Master of the Inkstand’s eldest daughter is due to give birth any day now. She is married to a .”
“Why don’t we kill the noseless one first?”
“Him I can get to any time. I need to simply sue him for the coin he cheated me out of. When he comes to refute me in front of a magistrate, I use Zinth’s rhyming insult on him. He will have no choice but to challenge me to a duel to maintain his reputation. Challenge accepted. I kill him, and the magistrate is a witness.”
“That is… a good idea. Do you think you can beat him in a duel?”
Now it was Pons’ turn to arch an eyebrow. Please.
“What about the eunuch who poisoned Renier?”
“I will get to him, too, but I was thinking of starting with Andronikos’ magician first. Since he can see what the future holds, he will be able to warn Andronikos and foil our plans. Suppose Andronikos asks, ‘Who means to harm me?’ and the magical ritual tells him to ‘Seek the Golden Eel.’ Then what? He is the Emperor’s seer - his eyes. We need to blind the Emperor.”
“Logical thinking, Pons, that makes good sense.”
“These Greeks are pious, but they are superstitious. We will have Nestor or a couple of his lads linger near the ’s mansion. When the child is nigh, a midwife will be sent for. If the babe is a boy and survives, the following evening - when all good Christians have gone to sleep - the diviner will come to cast the horoscope.”
“And we will be waiting in the dark.”
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