Six for Gold by Mary Reed & Eric Mayer Page B

carefully around them. He heard the footsteps behind him too late, began to turn, and then the world went black.

Chapter Ten
    The captain of the excubitors could not see him.
    The clerk relayed the information to Anatolius with a knowing smirk. The message was the same one he’d delivered five days running, but the smirk had grown more pronounced every day.
    â€œI insist I must speak to Captain Felix. It’s an important matter and I am the emperor’s secretary.”
    â€œYou mean you were his secretary. The captain is not here. You can try again tomorrow, if you wish.”
    Anatolius left. The smirk followed him out into the corridor.
    Why was Felix being so uncooperative?
    He thought back to his last meeting with his friend. He’d asked him how he was faring in the search for Senator Symacchus’ murderer.
    Felix had appeared uneasy, and finally admitted no official investigation was being undertaken. “Why not? Because Justinian hasn’t ordered one. And why should he? John was caught red-handed.”
    As Anatolius questioned Felix further, it had become apparent John had not told the excubitor captain about Thomas’ involvement. If the Lord Chamberlain had chosen to withhold that information, it wasn’t for Anatolius to reveal it.
    Had Felix somehow sensed Anatolius was not being entirely forthright? Was that why he refused to see him?
    Anatolius decided he might be able to catch Felix at home.
    He took a shortcut through the palace grounds. As he came around the corner of a pavilion, he was startled to see the man he sought walking swiftly ahead. Although several neglected flower beds and overgrown ornamental shrubs separated the two men, the burly, bearded figure was unmistakable.
    Anatolius followed his friend at a distance. Felix did not turn toward the administrative complex where he had his office or down the path that would have taken him home. Instead he went out past the great bronze doors of the Chalke and strode along the Mese, moving rapidly further into the city.
    Anatolius hurried along behind. Ordinarily he would have simply hailed Felix, but today he was angry about his friend’s seeming avoidance of him as well as curious about the man’s destination.
    Had Felix been abroad on official business, he would certainly have been accompanied by a couple of his excubitors.
    Even more intriguing, however, Felix was wearing a nondescript tunic over the leather leggings of an off-duty soldier, essentially disguising his rank.
    Felix turned down a narrow street and vanished inside a tavern. It was a seedy establishment, opposite a public lavatory. The main attraction of the former appeared to be that it was open.
    The plague had cured many a drinking problem and put more than a few taverns out of business.
    There was no colonnade here. A row of shops opened directly onto the narrow street. All were closed, their wares protected by metal grates pulled down and locked to iron rings in the cobbles. The amount of debris that had accumulated around and behind the grates testified how long the businesses had been shut.
    Anatolius eyed the tavern. Beside its door hung a wooden sign cut in the shape of an amphora, but so irregularly made it could well have been created by a carpenter who had imbibed the entire contents of his model.
    Feeling foolish, he stuck his head around the tavern door and peered in.
    The cramped room was dim. Felix was talking to someone whose back Anatolius did not recognize at a table set against the rear wall.
    Why shouldn’t Felix meet a friend for a cup of wine?
    Even so, given Felix’s recent odd behavior, Anatolius was prepared to think the worst. He crossed the street and went under the marble archway into the lavatory. From inside, framed by the arch’s bas-reliefs of Greek gods, he could observe the tavern without being noticed.
    Or so he hoped.
    The smell made him gag. A glance at the state of the floor showed the facility