The Cybelene Conspiracy

by Albert Noyer

  “Ah, Chen.” Diotar stood to greet the man. “Good, I was planning to send for you.”

  “You wish see Zhang Chen?”

  “Yes, about…what do you call it…the cough of a Dragon?” Diotar turned to Claudia. “Child, go to your room and rest now. Adonis, stay with us.”

  Claudia did not reply, but, after a glance at Adonis, obediently left the room. When she was gone, Diotar motioned Chen to a couch upholstered in silk damask.

  “Chen, I’m making plans for a public celebration to Cybele at the June solstice. It would be an appropriate time to honor her as Fruitful Mother. I wanted to ask you—”

  “The girl is child of galleymaster?” Chen interrupted.

  “Yes, Virilo’s daughter.”

  “Why she not dress like other Ta-Ts’in?”

  “The robes? Through metempsychosis, Claudia is the reincarnation of an ancient Roman Vestal priestess.”

  “Met-em—?”

  “The rebirth of the soul after death,” Diotar explained with a high-pitched giggle at Chen’s confusion. “It’s a Greek term, but Eastern holy men in India also teach the concept.”

  “In-d’a.” Chen nodded. He had heard of an immense country to the southeast of Sina, beyond a river called the Gangem. It might be that the strange rebirth idea was held there, but he had seen from the recent corruption of Lao-Tzu’s precepts that men tried to make others believe whatever suited their own ambitions.

  “Our Cybelene cult grows day by day,” Adonis boasted, standing up. “The Great Mother protected Rome from the Carthaginians once before, and we are convincing more and more citizens that she will do so again against this new invasion of Vandals.”

  Chen nodded politely, not really interested. He was concerned with his own well-being, not some remote conflict in which these Westerners fought each other. He voiced his complaint, “Dio-t’r, Zhang Chen not happy at house of Sen-t’or.”

  “Unhappy?” Diotar frowned and toyed with a medallion of Cybele hanging around his fleshy neck. “Why is that?”

  “Sen-t’or strange man. Have room with many rooster statue. Bad smell in house. Bad food. And Chen not have gold you say Sen-t’or promise. Chen want bring chih and Dragon’s Cough here.”

  “Here?” Diotar gave Adonis a questioning glance. What was Maximin up to? He had the process for making a writing material that would make him unimaginably wealthy. How could he be stupid or treacherous enough to balk at paying the Oriental? Might he have some other scheme in mind and be planning to betray Chen? In any case it might be advantageous to have him and his inventions here at Cybele’s temple. At Pessinus he had seen the Dragon’s Cough used during Sinese New Year celebrations, harmless displays of noise and smoke that had frightened children and dogs, but done no harm. It was an amusement that he thought would attract attention and add another element of interest to the solstice celebration of Cybele.

  “Want boxes here,” Chen repeated, “not at rooster house.”

  “Yes, if you wish,” Diotar agreed, “but the Senator’s villa is well-guarded. How will you bring the crates to the temple?”

  “You friend of Sen-t’or,” Chen snapped. “You find way.”

  “Indeed.” Diotar thought a moment. “Adonis. Get me a list of those new members you mentioned. Perhaps one of them has access to Maximin’s villa, a servant or guard. A gold coin blinds all eyes.”

  After Adonis left, Diotar took a key from his belt ring and opened an iron box that was bolted to the floor under a table and concealed by drapery. He took out a leather bag, selected a sapphire from inside, and put the gem in Chen’s palm.

  “There will be more of these for you,” he murmured, closing the man’s fingers over the blue stone, “along with that gold you were promised. I wanted to ask you to make a few of your sparkling dragon candles for Cybele’s feast. If Senator Maximin is foolish enough not to appreciate you, Chen, know that you have friends at the temple of Magna Mater. Of course you may stay here.”

  Zhang Chen bowed in appreciation. The capon-man might be a friend after all.

  Around mid-morning on May sixth, Leudovald sent word to Getorius that Bishop Chrysologos had permanently closed the Arian church, but had given permission for Thecla to be buried in the sect’s cemetery. The time of burial was to be at the first hour after sunset. He added that the name of the basilica’s porter was Odo, but he had not been found.

  “Why is the service so late in the day?” Arcadia asked Getorius, ducking under the awning of a shop on the Via Porti as a gust of wind brought in a cold spring rain.

  “This storm will keep people away and it will get dark early. Mourners won’t stay at the graveside for long afterwards. No doubt the bishop intends this to be the last gasp for Thecla’s Arians.”

  “Poor woman. To die so horribly that way.”

  They found the cemetery close to the west wall of the octagonal baptistery, but the narrow sides gave little protection against the rain that continued to drive in from the northeast.

  In the murky light, the scarred brick building and its adjacent basilica seemed like abandoned mausolea guarding the burial ground’s wooden and limestone grave markers. The leaning and toppled monuments and slabs resembled the scattered, bleached bones of some dismembered antediluvian creature that had expired there.

  The few mourners who were gathered around the open grave held squares of leather over their heads as protection against the downpour. Alongside, on a wooden pallet, Thecla’s body lay wrapped in a simple winding sheet, its rain-soaked linen cloth clinging to the contours of her frail form.

  Getorius recognized Leudovald and Deacon Dagalaif standing in the lee of the baptistery.

  “The wolves as watchdogs,” he commented to Arcadia.

  “I noticed an iron grille nailed over the baptistery door,” she said. “There’s probably another one sealing the basilica entrance.”

  “Then we’ll never get into that tunnel again, and I want to find out more about where those coins were being struck. Look, that’s Fabius over there with his mother.”

  “I didn’t realize they were Arian Christians.”

  “Neither did I. I’ll talk to him about locating Thecla’s porter.”

  A gaunt, middle-aged man, who identified himself as Deacon Maurilio, began the funeral service with a reading of the sect’s creed, the same text that Thecla had used to direct Getorius to the tunnel entrance.

  After a nervous glance in the direction of Leudovald and Dagalaif, Maurilio shielded the book under his cloak and began his eulogy.

  “Taking the name of Blessed Thecla, Paul’s companion, our presbytera served this Arian community for over thirty years,” he told the assembled mourners. “She tried to follow Christ’s command to love one another, but as Arians we are a hated people, persecuted for our beliefs, just as the Israelites were persecuted by their enemies. Yet, as did Blessed Paul, let us persevere in our distress, in our hardships, in the floggings and imprisonments imposed on us by our countrymen.”

  “Surely, he’s exaggerating,” Getorius whispered to Arcadia.

  “I’m not so sure. Have you noticed women looking back at Leudovald from time to time? They’re frightened.”

  “Then this Maurilio isn’t helping.”

  “Enough falsity!” Dagalaif suddenly called out from the shelter of the baptistery. “Throw mud over the heretic, then go back to your homes.”

  Maurilio frowned at him and motioned for two men to approach the graveside. One was Fabius. He and his companion lifted Thecla’s body and lowered it into the rectangular pit, coffinless, wrapped only in the wet shroud.

  Defying Dagalaif, Maurilio announced, “These are the words that Paul wrote to those he had recently converted in Corinth. ‘Not all of us shall fall asleep, but all of us are to be changed…in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye. The trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible.’”

  “Appropriate, at least,” Getorius remarked. “Thecla’s basilica was named for the Resurrection
. I didn’t know about the deacon, but I think I’ll talk to him afterward. Maybe Maurilio can shed more light on that tunnel room.”

  As the mourners quickly began to disperse after the burial, Leudovald hurried down to the grave, where Maurilio had lingered to watch the men shovel wet earth into the opening. Getorius saw the investigator say something to the deacon, then grasp his arm and guide him across a muddy field toward the Via Porti, in the direction of the palace.

  “Looks like I’ll have to wait until Leudovald finishes talking to the deacon to see him.”

  Arcadia stifled a sob and wiped her eyes. “While you’re talking to Fabius, I’ll ask Felicitas about her leg. She hasn’t come to the clinic lately.”

  “Good. See if she’s following that diet we gave her.”

  Getorius waited until Fabius had thrown a last shovelful of muddy dirt into the open grave, then approached him. “I’m your mother’s physician.”

  “I’m helpin’ mother,” Fabius said with a defensive scowl.

  “Fine, but this is not about her. When Thecla called me to the basilica about the dead youth, she mentioned a porter. Do you know where he might be?”

  “Odo? Nobody’s seen him since then.”

  “The man just disappeared three weeks ago?”

  Fabius shrugged and started toward Felicitas and Arcadia. “I got t’ take mother home. Out of this furcin’ rain.” He paused, searched through his belt purse, and handed Getorius a bronze piece. “Look, I got money t’ pay you. I want t’ bring mother home.”

  “Where did you get this?” Getorius asked after seeing the coin.

  “Th’ ‘Valentinian?’ I…uh…change from a siliqua I gave Videric for mother’s pork.”

  “I see.” He handed the bronze back. “Here. Take your mother home now.”

  Getorius followed him to where Arcadia was talking to Felicitas. They both watched Fabius support his mother as she hobbled toward the Via Armini, then Getorius turned to his wife. “Fabius had one of the counterfeit coins. When I turned it to the reverse there was the RV minting location, here at Ravenna. He said he got it in change for a siliqua.”

  “Where would he get a silver coin, Getorius? As far as we know he has no job.”

  “Exactly. This may connect him to the counterfeiters, although it’s not impossible that some of the false coins are being circulated in Ravenna.”

  “Felicitas said she’d come to the clinic soon. Did her son tell you about the porter?”

  “His name is Odo, but he seems to have disappeared.”

  “But this Odo probably would know more about that tunnel than anyone except Thecla.”

  “Or that deacon.” Getorius sneezed and wiped water off his face. “Let’s go back to the clinic, out of this downpour. My dry humor is completely out of balance.”

  “Do you still feel feverish?”

  “A bit.”

  When they had almost reached the end of the Via Porti, Arcadia stopped her husband under the balcony of a tavern at the eastern corner of the palace grounds.

  “Let’s wait a moment,” she suggested, “there’s no shelter between here and the Vicus Caesar.”

  “We could both use hot mulsum to temper the chill. Let’s go in.”

  The tavern was crowded with supper customers. Getorius knew the proprietor, Ageric, a florid-faced man who looked like he sampled too much of his own vintages. He escorted the couple to a small table against the wall, and then hung their wet cloaks on pegs at the back. The unheated room felt damp, but was fragrant with the smell of Ageric’s food. A tan-colored dog nosed around the black and white mosaic floor, snuffling up food scraps.

  Getorius ordered white wine mulled with mastic and laurel leaf, and a portion of prawn rissoles. After listening a moment, he asked his wife, “Are you catching any of the conversation around us?”

  Arcadia shook her head.

  “I’m picking up words like ‘Vandals’ and ‘Carthage.’ There evidently hasn’t been another large grain shipment come in since the Horus. They’re worried about a bread shortage.”

  “And higher prices.” Arcadia continued after a moment, “Getorius, I’m really interested in setting up a clinic for women.”

  He looked down and feigned interest in the dog. “Yes, you’ve mentioned that once or twice.”

  “For problems with monthlies, or pregnancy, childbirth.”

  “You’d have trouble on your hands from midwives. You know that’s their specialty.”

  “I’d hire some to help out…to teach me.” Arcadia leaned aside to let a serving girl put down the rissoles and clay cups of steaming wine. “Perhaps the midwife we saw at Faustina’s.”

  “I wonder how she is. No one has called us over there since we returned.”

  “Her midwife was Calliste,” Arcadia recalled. “Greek women are the best, according to Soranus, the most free of superstitions.”

  Getorius took a sip of wine and reached for a rissole. He had met Arcadia when she was fifteen, after he went with Nicias to treat her uncle’s fever. She later told him she had decided to marry him then and there, although it was four years until the wedding.

  Before the marriage, one of the “understandings” they had come to—coercion might be too brutal a term—was that Getorius would allow Arcadia to study medicine with him, and eventually become a medica. There was no denying that his wife was what her father called “strong-willed.” Even David ben Zadok, the old rabbi in Classis, who had known Getorius’s parents, observed that Arcadia seemed as determined as his mother, Blandina, had been. She too had flouted tradition, in her case to be trained in map-making.

  Getorius realized that Arcadia had learned rapidly in the past five years, but the idea of opening a clinic of her own was still premature. The Oath of Hippocrates demanded ability and judgment. He had worked under Nicias for six years before the physician died, and eleven more since then. Seventeen years in all, and yet at times he still felt as incompetent as an apprentice. No. His wife would have to wait.

  “Getorius? Are you thinking about what I said?”

  “Yes.” He looked up, touched her hand, and replied gently, “Your clinic proposal, Cara. I can’t agree to it just now. You need more training.”

  Arcadia pulled her hand away, pushed her cup aside and stood up. “It’s stopped raining. Let’s go.”

  “Don’t be upset.”

  “I’m upset at what happened to Thecla. And tired. I just want to go home.”

  Getorius shrugged and dropped the last rissole on the floor for the dog, left a half-follis on the table to pay Ageric, and retrieved their cloaks.

  Arcadia walked in silence for the rest of the distance to the villa, and Getorius did not bring up the subject of her women’s clinic again.

  Childibert met the couple at the door and told them the galleymaster’s daughter was waiting to see them.

  “Claudia? This late?” Getorius asked in a mixture of surprise and alarm. “Has something happened?”

  He hurried to the clinic, with Arcadia following. Claudia was sitting in the wicker chair. She looked pale and her eyes were red from crying.

  “Did you come alone, child?” Getorius asked.

  “Adonis is waiting outside.”

  “Atlos’s twin. Is your pregnancy giving you trouble?”

  “I…I feel sick.” Claudia stared down at her lap a moment, then mumbled, “Father made me jump up and down to shake the baby loose.”

  “The bastard—”

  “Getorius,” Arcadia chided. “Claudia, that’s terrible.”

  “But then he said you could give me something to…to get rid of it.”

  “Abort the fetus? No, I can’t do that,” Getorius told her. “My Oath is quite clear about protecting human life.”

  “I don’t want a baby.”

  “But…you loved Atlos. It would be a part of him.” When Claudia did not respond, Getorius went on, “I hope your father isn’t letting you take part in any more rituals like the one we saw at Olcinium, just
before the earthquake.”

  Claudia looked away instead of responding.

  “Child,” Arcadia asked softly, “why did you accuse the woman presbytera of killing Atlos?”

  Claudia looked around, startled at the unexpected question. “She…she did kill him.”

  “But Leudovald said he found Virilo’s knife next to Atlos’s body. Are you trying to protect your father? Is he responsible?”

  “No!” Claudia bolted up and smoothed down her tunic. “If you won’t help me, I’m going back home.”

  “Wait”—Arcadia held her back by the arm—“first let me give you a pelvic examination. To make sure there are no complications, no vaginal bleeding from that jumping.”

  Claudia glared at her and shook herself free, then started for the door that led outside to the Via Honorius.

  “I could get you a sedative,” Getorius called after her. “You said you weren’t feeling well.”

  “Let her go,” Arcadia advised. “You don’t want to bring on an epileptic attack.”

  “No, but I’m certainly going to talk to Virilo in the morning. He can’t order his daughter to do dangerous things like that.”

  “He shouldn’t, but, under a stupid law, he can.”

  Arcadia was quiet a moment before asking, “Getorius, did you notice that Claudia didn’t seem quite so timid as before, when we first saw her?”

  “She’s worried about having the child.”

  “Not just that. Did you see the look on her face when she pulled free of me?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t.”

  “It was one of pure hatred.”

  “So, our little girl has a temper.”

  “She may not be that young, Getorius.”

  “Oh? Claudia looks no more than seventeen. And you examined her that night, after you brought her back here from the basilica.”

  “Just enough to determine she was pregnant,” Arcadia said. “That’s why I wanted to do another examination now.”

  “And she wouldn’t let you.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What’s your point, Arcadia?”

  “I’m not really sure. I probably don’t have one…yet.” She waited until her husband finished a bout of sneezing. “Getorius, I’m going to order Silvia to fill the bathtub with hot water. You have a long soak, then take that sedative you mentioned and get a good night’s rest for a change.”