Chapter 46
He turned, looking at Nirma and Arya with sharp eyes.
"The possibility is that he was marking the name of someone he had just met.
Someone who may have given him the letter, someone who may have given him instructions, someone who may have been his last contact before that ill-fated morning. Not his killer."
He returned to his chair, sitting with the same upright posture.
"The initials N.M. could refer to a meeting, not a murderer.
If the victim truly met me beforehand, it is possible he was recording his last contact.
It is possible he felt the need to mark someone connected to the letter he carried.
It is possible he was instructed by someone to meet N.M. and carve it as a reminder, fearing he might forget amidst his duties as a courier."
Nikephoros drew a breath before continuing in a slightly sharper tone.
"And regarding the accusation that the victim wrote a Greek name phonetically in Latin letters, that is a highly unethical assumption.
A Frank might easily misspell a Greek name.
They did not grow up with this language.
They are not accustomed to sounds foreign to their ears.
N.M. could be a mistaken interpretation of another Greek name that sounds similar but is spelled differently."
The wax tablet in Nirma's hand should have been filled long ago, since the moment they crossed the threshold of the Triclinium, since the first words of Nikephoros Melissenos flowed like sweet poison in this grand chamber.
Yet somehow, perhaps by the will of the strange objects that always seemed to follow them wherever they went, the wax surface returned smooth, ready once more to receive the strokes of the stylus without a trace of previous markings.
Nirma wrote with a speed that would astonish any observer, her fingers moving in a rhythm only she understood, carving letter after letter into the soft wax that suddenly seemed limitless.
Arya beside her did the same, his tablet appearing to possess impossible depth, capable of holding pages upon pages of notes without ever filling, without ever showing signs of running out of space.
And when Nirma rotated her tablet with one hand, a movement that should have been impossible due to the weight of wood and wax, it spun lightly between her fingers, glimmered briefly under the oil-lamp light, then settled back upon her lap with effortless grace.
Dozens of minutes passed in silence.
Nikephoros Melissenos had returned to his ivory chair, seated with the same upright posture, yet his sharp eye now began to reveal faint traces of unease.
He watched the two foreign investigators carefully, observing how Nirma's fingers continued to dance across the wax tablet, how Arya occasionally gave a slight nod while adding strokes he never bothered to read aloud.
Outside the window, the sun climbed higher, its rays piercing through gaps in silk curtains, casting lines of light that sliced the chamber into bright divisions.
A servant in a gray robe entered soundlessly, carrying a tray of dried figs and diluted wine, placing it upon the low table between them before retreating as silently as he had arrived.
Nikephoros did not touch the food, his gaze fixed instead on the wax tablet in Nirma's hand that never seemed to fill, never seemed to run out of room for the words he had spoken over the past hour.
"How much longer will you continue writing?"
Nikephoros' voice suddenly broke the silence, deep and authoritative like distant thunder beneath the earth.
He leaned slightly forward, elbows resting upon the arms of the ivory chair, chin supported by his wrinkled knuckles.
"I have given you extensive explanations regarding both pieces of evidence.
I have refuted every assumption you presented.
I have lifted a portion of the veil to show you how this world truly operates.
And all you do is write, write, and write, without a single question, without a single rebuttal, without any reaction to prove that you are still breathing within this chamber."
His eye narrowed, focusing on Nirma with growing intensity.
"Will you ask more questions?
Or shall we end this tedious interrogation here and now, before the sun's heat grows stronger and my soldiers begin to wonder why the Emperor's guests spend so much time in the residence of an old man who is no longer dangerous?"
For several seconds, no one moved.
Nirma still held her stylus, its tip resting upon the wax surface that had once again turned smooth as though it had never been carved.
Arya sat beside her in the same posture, his tablet open upon his lap, his eyes fixed upon something unseen in the corner of the chamber.
Then, with calm certainty, Nirma closed her wax tablet.
The sound of wood meeting wood echoed clearly in the silent room, followed by the same motion from Arya as he did likewise.
Nirma placed the tablet upon the table, beside the untouched tray of figs, then lifted her face.
A smile spread across her lips, not the disturbingly disarming smile she had shown Adrianos hours earlier, nor the warm smile she had offered when Nikephoros asked about their origins.
This smile was different.
Wide, sincere, and carrying within it a satisfaction difficult to describe.
"Thank you, Your Excellency Caesar Nikephoros Melissenos," Nirma said, her voice soft yet clear, flowing like morning honey.
"We extend our deepest gratitude for Your Excellency's willingness to devote time to this exceedingly tedious interrogation.
We understand how busy a Caesar must be, how many affairs of state demand attention, how many important guests must be received each day.
And yet, despite all that, Your Excellency has been willing to sit with us for hours, answering every question we asked, even those that may have seemed trivial, providing lengthy explanations about matters that may already be obvious to you but remain obscure to us."
At that very moment, while Nirma's smile still lingered and her words of gratitude echoed in the grand chamber, Arya—who had been sitting quietly with his closed wax tablet upon his lap—suddenly moved.
His motion was calm, unhurried, yet decisive, like a lion that had finally chosen to strike after hours of observing its prey from afar.
His slender fingers opened the wax tablet in one swift motion, and with both hands he lifted it, facing it directly toward Nikephoros Melissenos.
The strong midday sunlight streaming through the tall windows illuminated the wax surface, making every carved letter clear, every stylus groove visible, every word upon it seeming to shout within the chamber that had suddenly become suffocatingly silent.
Nikephoros, who had until then sat upon his ivory chair with dignified posture, froze instantly.
Both his eyes—the left wide open and the right hidden behind the white bandage—fixed upon a single point on the wax surface, reading line after line of notes he had never realized were being written over the past long minutes.
"What… what is this?"
Nikephoros' voice emerged almost as a whisper, yet within it trembled something unfamiliar, a vibration he had not displayed in sixty-five years of life, a tremor that appears only when one realizes he has been ensnared in a web he never noticed being woven around him.
To be continued…