Eight for Eternity by Mary Reed, Eric Mayer

bucket in one hand and a rag in the other.
    “Shall we clean up, master?” asked the man.
    “Yes. Certainly.”
    One of the women spoke. “And you will want dinner. For you and your guests.” She helped out in the kitchen, John thought. Perhaps she was the cook.
    “Fine. Prepare something special.”
    “Immediately, master.” The young woman kept glancing toward Felix. She and her companion went off down the hall. John thought he heard them giggling.
    The remaining servant set his bucket down in a far corner and began cleaning vigorously.
    “I always feel I’m out-numbered,” John muttered. “Now, in addition to an army of servants, I also have three patricians and several excubitors as guests.”
    Felix grinned. “Don’t worry, John. There’s plenty of room. You should get out and explore your house some time. You’d see.”
    “Have the servant’s been talking out of turn?”
    “Not at all. It’s easy to tell when rooms are never used.”
    “You looked around?”
    “Pompeius wandered off. He was fairly inebriated when we arrived and…well, you’ve seen.”
    “Unfortunately. I’m not used to having servants creeping up on me all the time, Felix. I spent too many years sleeping in a tent with my sword at my side.”
    As he spoke yet another young woman entered the atrium. He couldn’t recall her name, but her face, like the faces of all his army of servants, was slightly familiar. She looked toward him expectantly. Wanting something to do, no doubt. “The floor is to be cleaned,” he told her.
    The young woman’s expression hardened. “That would hardly be appropriate. I am Julianna. The daughter of Hypatius.”
    ***
    “I don’t want to go back to that nasty little monk’s cell they’ve stuck me in. Let’s talk in the garden.” Julianna darted away, into the dining room John seldom used. The wooden screens were shut against the winter chill. She pushed them open far enough to squeeze through. She moved so quickly and unexpectedly, John could only follow, once again lamenting the size of the house. Yet he could hardly have refused the generosity of the emperor.
    The mansions of patricians were to be found all over Constantinople, especially in spots offering a view of the sea. A great many senators lived near the Marmara on the southern side of the city where the land sloped down from the Hippodrome. Certain imperial functionaries lived closer to the imperial couple they served. As a chamberlain to the emperor, John had been given an appropriate residence. Located behind the stables, close to the Chalke, the rambling, single story structure sat within the palace grounds but outside the palace complex itself—the enclosure which included the magnificent Augusteus throne room and the Daphne Palace surmounted by the emperor’s private bed chambers, the Octagon.
    John’s house, with its unprepossessing brick front, was squeezed in amongst a jumble of taller residences. He had heard it said that the atrium had been added onto a couple of abandoned stables and it was easy enough to believe. An unusually large number of cramped rooms opened off the halls running from either side of the atrium. Some were used for servants’ quarters, others for storage. Most remained empty. John slept in a room near the front of the house. He worked in the office between the atrium and the inner garden and generally took his meals there. For solitude he retreated to the chapel near the atrium. The suites of rooms at the rear of the house—intended for living quarters—were mostly unexplored territory. He sometimes passed through them on his infrequent visits to the kitchen and workshops.
    The garden he stepped out into was best concealed by winter screens. Brown weeds and straggling, untrimmed shrubs choked the area. A couple of yew trees had grown up to almost twice the height of the house. Vines entangled the columns of the surrounding colonnades and bushes reached toward the covered walkways. He couldn’t