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he been overly optimistic in expecting to find Hypatia tending to one of the larger flowerbeds now in full bloom? Another hour and it would be as dark as despair.
    One more place to look and then he must return home. He passed under a low archway and entered an enclosed garden that had once contained a sunken pool. His then future son-in-law Thomas had stumbled into the pool while creeping around the grounds one night years earlier. Thomas had arrived in Constantinople claiming to be a knight from Bretania. John had been inclined to consider him a fraud. He would never have imagined the big barbaric redhead settling down to the life of an estate manager or fathering John’s grandchild. Thinking of Thomas made him think of Europa and Cornelia. He sighed. Waiting for news was like waiting to go into battle, except others were fighting it and he could only observe from a distance.
    As John grew older he no longer saw places simply as they were, but also as they had been, as he had seen them through younger eyes, as settings for the events of his life.
    The original ornamental pool and fountain were gone, replaced by graveled walkways radiating away from a circular plot in which clipped yews reproduced in miniature the landmarks of the city. A dark-leafed Great Church grew next to a recreated Hippodrome, while nearby the open Chalke Gate of the palace was just tall enough to admit a column of marching rabbits if such a squad had decided to trample through the box-edged beds edging the walkways.
    White and purple-red poppies filled the beds, each mass of blooms growing round a yew in a pottery container. Each tree was trained into the shape of an animal. Some were familiar denizens of this world, others had stepped down through the centuries from mythological days to amaze and delight visitors. A bear, a horse, a centaur, a gryphon were among them. The reddish light crept in among the dark shapes, adding long shadows to the advancing twilight.
    The garden had been another of Theodora’s whims.
    Hypatia often worked here and John thought he might find her trimming stray twigs, bringing order to the green menagerie.
    She was not there.
    John began to walk around the perimeter of the enclosed garden, then stopped. He heard rustling in the foliage, yet saw no one.
    He looked around.
    There. Crouched behind a plane tree at the edge of the garden. A diminutive figure in green. A triangular, frightened face peeked around the trunk.
    “Come here,” he ordered.
    The girl advanced slowly, hands to mouth, shoulders hunched, as if expecting a beating. She stood hardly as high as John’s chest. He found himself looking what seemed a long way down at the top of her auburn hair.
    “Excellency?”
    “What are you doing here?”
    “I was just walking, excellency.”
    John studied the girl. He recognized her. “Kuria.”
    She looked at him in amazement. “You know my name?”
    “Naturally. You are one of Theodora’s closest personal attendants. Have you seen the gardener Hypatia?”
    Kuria shook her head and suddenly burst into tears. “Nobody has said a word to me since yesterday,” she sobbed. “Where am I to go now my mistress is dead?”
    “A new post will be found for you,” John reassured her.
    “Oh, but I think not,” she replied with a flash of venom that surprised him. “I did not want to work for the empress. She only ordered me to serve her because I was from the brothel. She rescued me, she said. She used me as an example of her good works. There will be no other post here for such as me.” She snuffled and wiped her pug nose with the back of her hand. “Begging your pardon for saying so, excellency.”
    It was probably true, John thought. Theodora had taken delight in pointing out her efforts to reform such women, especially when she granted an audience to a representative of a patrician family, someone she could horrify with lurid details. The girl was right. No one at court would employ her. The girl’s grief