by Albert Noyer
“I please you, Sergis?” Pennuta asked in a low, pleasantly accented voice.
Still breathing hard from their love-making, Sergius Abinnaeus smiled at her. “Like…Venus…pleased Mars.”
“You are Christian, Sergis, but still talk of Roman gods?”
He jested, “One can’t have too many gods, especially these days.”
The Kushite woman pointed to her shrine. “Same like Apedemek?”
Abinnaeus chuckled. “Just like your lion-headed deity. But I can’t say I’m fond of that heart offering in the bowl. It’s quite large, from what animal?”
“Butcher say calf…” She leaned over to tongue his chest and swirl black hairs with the palm of her hand. “You love me, Sergis?”
He shushed her lips with two fingers.“You know I would do anything for you.”
“Then marry me!” She giggled and raised herself to kneel on the couch and look down at him. “Make me queen. My mother is queen in Kush.”
“That only makes you a princess.”
“Then, Sergis,” she pouted, “make me queen.”
Abinnaeus laughed at his concubine’s innocence. “You wouldn’t be a queen, only the wife of a governor. Besides, I’m already married to Dorothea.”
“Dora not like me.”
“Her name is Dorothea.”
As usual, Pennuta ignored his correction. “Dora pleases you?”
He reached up to rub away her frown lines with a finger, then caressed the dark nipples of her breasts. “Not in the ways you do.”
“Then love me again,” she teased, sliding down onto his body.
Despite a new stirring in his groin, Abinnaeus rolled the Kushite woman aside and sat on the edge of the couch. “I…I can’t longer. The bishop’s dinner will soon be over and Dorothea could return to my office at any moment.”
“Dora already know of us.”
“Not everything. She doesn’t even suspect that this room exists.”
Pennuta noticed the shrine candles flicker in an unfelt draft. “See, like Isis, women know everything.”
“I thought that was old Leo’s shrine over there.”
“Mother Isis everywhere.”
To mock her self-assurance, Abinnaeus asked, “Then does your goddess know that this building was a Ptolemaic king’s summer palace?”
“Isis everywhere,” she repeated.
The governor chuckled amusement. “The dynasty always feared rioting and assassinations, so when a previous governor renovated the pretorium, he discovered this secret room and an escape tunnel that leads to…well…to the apartment where you live in Pelusium.”
Pennuta reached on a side table to un-topper a glass phial and pour the last drops of fragrant oil into her hand. As she rubbed the balm between her breasts she complained, “Sergis, this all my agaru oil.” She pulled his head down. “Smell.”
He leaned over to inhale a heady fragrance similar to that of sandalwood, but enhanced by a rose and balsam scent. “Mmmm…I can understand why it’s the most expensive perfume in the cosmos.”
“You give me more?”
He playfully tapped her nose. “After I come back from Myos Hormos. Agaru comes from so far to the east that you couldn’t pronounce the country’s name.”
Pennuta sulked as she shifted position to kneel behind him and massage his neck. “You go away soon,” she said, her strong fingers kneading his trapezius muscles.
“Only to Hormos. You know it’s for my yearly business to deal with your brother.”
“I not like Shandi. He sell me on slave market there.”
Abinnaeus reached back for Pennuta’s hand and pulled it forward to kiss her fingers. “That’s where Nepheros saw you and bought you for a gift to me. He did all three of us a service, no?”
“Maybe,” she teased, “if you love me.” She rested her chin on his shoulder to ask, “You take me to Hormos?”
“Perhaps,” he teased back.
Pennuta’s right hand slid around to his inner thigh, but he pushed it away with a quip, “Woman, don’t make my ‘centurion’ stand at attention just now. Go bring me my tunic.”
* * *
Her husband was behind his desk, turned away from Dorothea, when she came to the doorway of his study. She held a sleeping Miu in the crook of her right arm.
“Sergius, you’re still working?”
The unexpected sound of a voice startled Abinnaeus; he spun around in a crouch, his military belt knife in hand. The abrupt movement knocked a silver wine cup off the table, sending it clanging to the tile floor. The noise awakened the kitten, which arched its back and hissed.
To calm the animal, Dorothea stroked its fur. “That’s all right Miu, it’s only our lord and master.”
Abinnaeus sheathed his knife. “I…I didn’t expect you.”
“No.”
He ventured, “How…how was the dinner, carita?”
“Interesting. Sergius, did you curse Tyche because you had to stay here and work?” Dorothea came around the desk to give his cheek a brushing kiss and glance around. “This clutter looks the same as it did when you said you couldn’t come to the bishop’s supper because you were packing things. What were you doing?” When he did not reply, she reprimanded him. “Your tunic reeks of incense. You weren’t here the whole time were you?” After he again failed to answer, she murmured, “Sergius, I know where you were.”
“Wh…What?” he stammered, reddening. “What did you say?”
“Where you were?” she repeated, petting a now-purring Miu. “In the pretorium chapel, of course, praying to Hagios Pachomios for a safe journey to our winter villa at Hormos.”
Abinnaeus exhaled a held breath and brushed his graying hair in a nervous swipe. “Yes. Correct. In…in the chapel, carita.”
“Oh, stop calling me ‘dearest’!” Dorothea suddenly flared out. “Save that for when we’re with strangers, like the two Latins who arrived.” After nuzzling the kitten a moment, she continued more softly, “Your second lie, Sergius, is that you said you didn’t receive Aelia Pulcheria’s letter, the one meant for the surgeon and hs wife. I believe you not only have it, but that you’ve read everything the Augusta wrote. What could Her Piety have said that you don’t want them to know?”
Composed again, the governor turned back to his scrolls. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Truly, Sergius? Then you also don’t know the latest report that a courier from Constantinople brought here tonight. Nepheros took the man to Bishop Eusebios, after he couldn’t find you anywhere in the pretorium.”
“I…I might have been using the latrine.”
“Or, Miu, perhaps he was in the chapel,” she told the kitten in a sweet tone of voice.
Abinnaeus wheeled around to demand, “What was the message?”
“Don’t you want to hear it from the lips of the messenger himself?”
He tightened his fists over her taunting and snarled, “In the name of Jupiter, woman, what did he say?”
She admonished him without raising her voice, “Sergius, you’ll frighten my kitten by shouting that way.”
“I wasn’t shouting,” he hissed through half-clenched teeth. “The message, please?”
“Very well. The Augusta has become victim of another intrigue at the Great Palace. That disgusting eunuch, Chrysophios, has poisoned the Empress Eudokia’s mind against Pulcheria and confined her to one of her palaces.”
Abinnaeus thought a moment. “Possible charges against the Augusta aside, that means that our two Latins are without Pulcheria’s protection.”
“Beached here like two abandoned galleys.”
He grunted sarcastic appreciation. “You always were quicker than I with a simile.”
She did not acknowledge his compliment. “Furthermore, any connection to Pulcheria at this time would be a liability for them. And, Prefect, it also might prove quite deadly for you.”
“I could be recalled as governor?” Abinnaeus exhaled an exhausted sigh. “W
hat…what should I do?”
“You’re the governor, ‘Caro,’ see to it. I’m going to bed.” She turned at the doorway. “And bathe that disgusting smell off of you before you come in. It offends Miu terribly.”
* * *
The courier’s alarming report had ended the bishop’s dinner. Eusebios offered Bardas food, but when Nepheros saw the sparse meal he politely told the clergyman that since the courier would sleep in a hostel for imperial visitors, he would buy supper for him at an adjoining tavern. When Getorius thanked Eusebios and told him he and his wife would like to go with the messenger and find out more about Pulcheria’s situation, the bishop agreed. The Augusta was a patroness of his church and he needed time to think of what her banishment would mean to his bishopric. Supporters of imperial persons who fell from grace often disappeared by morning, the victims of a nocturnal visit by palace Scholarian guards who were loyal to the emperor.
* * *
Bonfires exuding an acrid smell of burning pitch lighted the narrow streets of the southwestern quarter of Pelusium. Nepheros led the way with the messenger and Latins past the damaged temple of Zeus Kassios that Getorius had seen from a distance. The Greek god’s dwelling was closed; its bronze entrance doors had been removed for their valuable metal and were replaced by a crude iron grill that barred entry. This time the secretary alerted the visitors to a Greek dedicatory inscription that named Emperor Hadrian as the temple’s donor.
The tavern-eatery on the lower floor of a new-looking two-story building was called PELVSIOS. Nepheros explained that it was the name of the drowned foster son of the Egyptian goddess Isis. Oldsters argued she was the founder and patroness of the port.
The secretary spoke briefly to the proprietor, standing at an entrance counter. A few patrons, all male, turned to gawk at Arcadia when she came in: it was unusual for respectable women to be present there.
“Domina, pay them no mind…” Nepheros pointed toward a curtained alcove. “We shall sit in there, screened from ill-mannered rustics.”
Four stools were set around a wine-stained square table that held a blackened clay oil lamp. They were hardly seated when a male serving slave pushed the curtain aside. Nepheros ordered food in Greek, then asked Bardas, “You understood what I said…stewed beef, olives, leeks, and bread?” He told Getorius, “For you Latins, a sweet course of melipekton, spiced honey cake, which the bishop omitted serving because of the abbot. And khiotikon, a wine from Chios that the prefect’s wife would not bring out for dinner.”
Arcadia wondered aloud, “In what part of the town are we? We passed that temple, and the sign here has a painting of Isis on it.”
“As I said, Domina, the goddess mourns her dear drowned Pelusios. This is an ancient quarter, a single remaining pagan enclave in the port. Since mostly foreign citizens abide here, Bishop Eusebios is tolerant of its presence.”
“What is this building?”
“I think in Italia you would call this a deversorium.”
“An inn and lodgings.”
“Nai…yes, Domina, but other residents also live in the building. In truth, it belongs to the governor.”
Arcadia was surprised at his admission. “Abinnaeus owns this building? Is it an imperial post station?”
“Of a kind, one might say. Two levels, a large court for stabling and exercising horses. It serves as an accommodation for all transients.”
Impatient that Arcadia’s questions were postponing information about Pulcheria, Getorius whispered, “Nepheros, even though this messenger’s Latin isn’t very good, ask for more details about the plot against the Augusta.”
After the secretary spoke to Bardas in Greek, the courier looked over at Getorius to boast, “I am trapazita, horse warrior. I fight men, not these God things. Often I wish to fight barbarians like you in west.”
Nepheros scoffed, “Our Danubian and Parthian frontiers are secure, so where will these enemies come from, Arabia Felix?” He laughed at the absurdity. “Will those ‘merchants of sand’ attack us from Makkah? No, those Arab traders battle only each other for gold and tribal honor.”
Still puzzled, Getorius asked the secretary, “What ‘God things’ is Bardas talking about?”.
“Differing views concerning the nature of Christ. Disputes about the role of the Holy Virgin in the Incarnation.”
Arcadia recalled, “Those ‘differing views’ can make vicious enemies. At Ravenna we experienced their tragic results when an Arian presbytera was murdered.”
“Indeed, Domina, yet in the East, it is the heresy of our former Patriarch, Nestorios, that causes dissent. The man denies that the Virgin is the Mother of God, a concept especially dear to Christian Egyptians.”
“The Theotokos controversy,” Arcadia said. “It also penetrated Ravenna,”
Nepheros continued, “Worse is Nestorios’s arrogance. On Easter, he forbade Pulcheria and her women companions to receive the Holy Sacrament in the sanctuary, as was the custom. Her Piety left the Great Church in humiliation. The heretic also alienated common citizens by banning circus games and the theater, then infuriated city monks by sending them off to desert monasteries.”
“A true fanatic,” Getorius scowled. “What has happened to him?”
“Nestorios’s teachings were condemned years ago at a council in Ephesus, yet he brazenly persisted in his error. Patriarch Cyril justly banished the heretic to a remote monastery at Hebet, in the Oasis Maior.”
“Where is that?”
“Far to south, near our border with the Kushite kingdom.”
“So his exile ended the matter?”
“Presumably, Surgeon. He’s confined there in isolation.”
Arcadia recalled, “Dorothea warned that one should presume nothing in Egypt.”
“Indeed, the heresy had spread to―” Nepheros was interrupted by the slave bringing their food.
Bardas spooned down his meal like a starving dog gulps chunks of meat. The honey cakes were sticky and the Chian wine strong. Nepheros called for damp towels, which the proprietor himself brought with apologies. The slave would be beaten for not remembering to bring them―the prefect’s secretary was well known at the place.
Arcadia ate only a little of her cake. The others had almost finished when three burly men in military uniforms pushed the curtain aside.
“Don’t mean to barge in,” one said in rough Latin. “We heard a nuntius, a messenger from Constant’nople, came here today.”
Seeming nervous at the intrusion, Nepheros stood up. “Who are you?”
“We’re with Legion Six Ferrata,” a companion told him. “Thought we could catch up on things in the capital from him.”
After Nepheros spoke to Bardas in Greek, the leader joined in. At the end of the jest all five laughed. “They say they will drink, talk awhile, then”―he glanced at Arcadia ―“pardon, Domina…perhaps find a woman for their important new friend.”
“That’s fine, “Getorius said. “Nepheros, we should get back and decide what this news about Pulcheria means to us.”
“I understand. You are, of course, under the protection of the Prefect and safe until you decide on a course of action. Bardas will sleep in a room here, and I’ll send a slave to the courtyard stables with his horse.”
“I’m grateful…” Getorius took out Pulcheria’s authorization from his purse. “I…I need to present this to pay for our food.”
Nepheros closed his hand over the vellum to warn, “Surgeon, I would not show the Augusta’s document now. Besides, you are guests of the Prefect. The proprietor is reimbursed every month by the pretorium quaestor.”
Arcadia smiled. “Very kind and I am exhausted. Could we go back?”
“Indeed, Domina.” Nepheros turned to the four men and evidently jested with them in Greek, since they laughed once again. “I told them that onions are considered sacred by the pagans in Pelusium. The reason, Domina, is far too vulgar for you to hear.”
While the secretary stood at the counter, writing the fo
od costs on a tally sheet, Bardas came from the alcove and motioned the couple aside to whisper, “You are surgeon and wife that Her Piety send to Egypt?”
“Why, yes,” Arcadia replied in surprise. “How could you know?”
“Tyche smile on me.” Bardas leaned closer to confide, “I have message for you, hide in horse saddle. Give you tomorrow…” He saw Nepheros coming back, nodded to him, and returned to the three legionaries.
While fastening his cloak, the secretary asked casually, “Surgeon, did Bardas tell you anything else of importance?”
“He…he only assured us that the Augusta is well.” Getorius was not sure about why he had not been entirely truthful.
“A good man,” Nepheros said, “and we need many more like Bardas. Shall we return now?”
* * *
The bedroom was still unheated by wall flues, but the brazier had been lighted with fresh charcoal, so its heat tempered the damp to an extent. Arcadia warmed her hands for a moment, then sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor tiles.
Getorius asked, “What is it, cara? Are you feeling worse?”
“Yes, that, but I…I was worrying that perhaps we should return to Jerusalem. At least Bishop Juvenal knows us. Here, we’re among total strangers.”
Getorius tried to be encouraging. “Nepheros seems concerned about us and he’s a fine aide to the governor. He offered to help us, and if we need them I have gold coins hidden in a false bottom of my medical case.”
Arcadia felt unconvinced. “If there’s a purge at Constantinople, Abinnaeus could be replaced as governor or even arrested.”
Getorius went to sit on the mattress beside his wife and slip an arm around her shoulders. “Cara, let’s wait until we read Pulcheria’s latest message. She must have given us further instructions.”
“I suppose you’re right. It’s just that we seem always to become involved in some plot or other.”
He squeezed her shoulder and tilted her chin toward him with his other hand. “You didn’t think training to be a surgeon would be that exciting, did you?”