Death at Pergamum

by Albert Noyer

  "I was sold to pay off my new master's debts."

  "Well, it was our gain. You're a good groom and gardener." My God, I'm talking to this man as if he were a child or pet dog that behaves well. Even a dog wouldn't have been sold that many times. "Brisios, at the Asklepion you said that people in the city might hide Hermias until he can escape." When he did not reply, Getorius persisted, "You warned us about the riot at Constantinople and I'm grateful. Could you find out from slave gossip at the Poseidon where Hermias might be? No matter how badly he may have been treated, that slave is a murderer."

  "I'll try, Master."

  "Fine," Getorius replied, yet wondered if a slave would betray another slave.

  The two walked in silence as the path grew steeper and turned down toward the Selenos River valley. After Getorius crossed a bridge that spanned the waterway, he paused. Out of breath and perspiring, he sat on a limestone outcropping to mop his face.

  "We've probably come less than a mile, but it's getting more difficult," he panted, "Rest a moment."

  Brisios stooped down a short distance off to examine plants, pinching off and sniffing ones that looked like wild herbs. Getorius scanned the massive stones of ancient Pergamon's lower wall, which were at the base of the opposite valley slope. Crossing the barrier would not be a problem; blocks from large sections of wall had been hauled away to build the new Roman city. Beyond, perhaps another quarter mile up, steep theatre seating sprawled across the hill. Above them, massive stone arches supported the base of Trajan's temple that Herakles had identified.

  "We should get a good view of the city from up there," Getorius remarked.

  "I would think so, Master."

  "Master. Brisios, I want you to call me 'Surgeon' from now on. That's what I am."

  He agreed in a hesitant voice. "If you wish, Surgeon."

  "Good. I'm sure Arcadia, your mistress, will be pleased. Shall we go on?"

  "Surgeon," he asked. "Could I borrow your belt knife?"

  "Belt knife? Don't you have one? Every man carries a knife."

  "I'm a slave."

  Of course. Getorius flushed in unsheathing his blade, wondering why Brisios would need a weapon.

  The slave knelt to whittle at the base of a sapling the diameter of his wrist. "A staff will make climbing easier."

  "Good. I should have thought of that, but Ravenna is on flat land and I don't get into the Apennines that often."

  When the two resumed the climb, they came upon a few goats nibbling at scrub under-brush. The animals looked up, then scrambled off at the sight of humans who were not their herders. The outcropping became steeper than it seemed farther down. Recalling his geometry lessons, Getorius estimated the angle of ascent at about forty-five degrees in places. Sheep had abandoned grazing that high; only goats sought out mossy greens that grew between the stones.

  Breathing hard, thirsty, his boots bruised by the stony ground, Getorius reached a point where the path leveled off at the theatre's stage platform. He wiped sweat from his forehead and grinned at Brisios, who looked less winded, then put down his staff and sat against the stones of a retaining wall. "Rest again."

  To the west, ridges of the mountains along the route they had traveled that morning overlapped each other in diminishing bands of hazy blue. Beyond, a silver ribbon of river that emptied into the harbor of Elaea, and a sparkle of Aegean Sea, broke the mountain chain. In the southwest, a broad open space on the right interrupted the regular grid of streets in Pergamum. A theater and temple were visible. The elongated hippodrome racecourse beyond them was embraced by a branch of the stream the two men had crossed. The waterway meandered toward an oval arena and could be channeled in to flood the paving for mock naval battles.

  Most of the city's occupied buildings were in blocks closest to the Asklepion. Other quadrants were abandoned or razed weed-grown areas that obliterated the grid pattern of Roman surveyors. Herakles had complained about Theodosius's neglect of his Anatolian provinces. Pergamum was another stark example.

  The October sun was near its zenith, yet a steady breeze coming in from the sea quickly cooled the men's overheated bodies. Getorius winced as he struggled up again; his calf muscles ached, even as he marveled at the scene below him. "What a view that theater audience had from up here while waiting for a drama to begin. There's the Asklepion over there. Up here, the horror we saw at the mud bath seems distant, like the scene in a play. Your mistress was upset about Droseria's death, so I never should have let her come with me to the pool." Getorius shaded his eyes to better squint at an immense, flat-roofed building, directly south, standing amid the desolation. "Come here, Brisios. See that. It's almost like the temple of Isis at Ravenna. Do you suppose there's an Egyptian cult here?"

  Brisios squinted in that direction and shook his head, ignorant of an answer.

  Getorius turned to look beyond the theater seats at the temple above him. Trajan's marble monument was at the highest point of the acropolis. In the morning light, the dazzling white structure gave an impression of intangibility, a phantom creation that might vanish in the blink of an eye. "I'm not sure Arcadia would have been able to walk this far up. Are you ready to climb and get a closer look at that tribute to an emperor?"

  Brisios grinned for the first time and shook his staff in a gesture of agreement.

  The two men walked along the base of a stage platform, where the portable backdrop had been made of wood. Rainwater glistened at the bottoms of square holes in the stone floor that once held wall supports. Getorius resisted the urge to drink the brackish liquid, but soaked his sweat cloth, wiped his face, and handed the wet linen to Brisios.

  The steep climb up the rows of seating set the men's hearts beating faster. At the upper third, Getorius slumped down on a stone, breathing hard. While resting, he counted the semi-circular rows. Twenty five above me and fifty below. Perhaps eighty in all. A potential audience of several thousand. "You go ahead, Brisios, I'll be along."

  "Master. I mean, Surgeon. I'll wait with you."

  "Fine. I'll be ready in a moment."

  In a quarter of an hourglass, picking their way through broken areas in the retaining walls, the two men reached the level ground on which arches that supported the temple's platform were built. Sunlight penetrated part way into each cavity, casting a black shadow of the curve on its interior. Weathered remains of wood and stone counters had belonged to vendors, who used the shaded niches from which to sell food and drink to audiences. The soft bleating of goats came from a few niches where the animals had found cool retreats. One came out to gaze at the intruders with the strange-pupiled eyes of malevolent daemons that some people believed inhabited the ether between Heaven and Earth.

  When Brisios broke off a clump of wild thyme and extended his hand, the goat shied away. The slave walked past the other arches, clicking his tongue and throwing in sprigs of thyme, trying to coax out its companions.

  "I see that you like animals," Getorius called to him.

  "I do, Surgeon." Brisios stopped in front of an opening where weeds recently had been trampled down. "There are no goats in this one," he shouted back. "An animal might have crawled in and died."

  "Or a poisonous serpent could be in there. Be cautious." Getorius watched his slave carefully step through the bent grasses and glance inside the arch. Then he heard Brisios's agitated shout.

  "Master! There is a body here!"

  "A dead goat? Some other beast?"

  Brisios backed out. "No. A person."

  "Person?"

  Getorius scrambled up to the niche. Inside the darkness of the arch's shadow, half hidden by undergrowth, he recognized the face of Hermias. The slave's body was nude. Flies swarmed around a bloody wound where his genital organs had been hacked off, the penis and scrotum now stuffed into his mouth. He stifled a retch and turned away. "My God! This means that Flavius Bobo drowned his wife in that mud and misled us into thinking that Hermias had killed them both. He murdered Basina and mutilated her slave in revenge."<
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  Brisios glanced around at the warren of ruins surrounding the temple site. "The man could be hiding up here."

  "No, Flavius is far away by now, even though he never imagined Hermias would be found this soon. He counted on wolves and vultures destroying the corpse before its discovery. Brisios, we must tell Apollonios of this latest death. Now he can't possibly avoid informing authorities about the murder of his client's wife and slave, by his own client!"

  CHAPTER XIII

  Scrambling back through the wall opening and down the theater stairs, the two men ran along the stage foundation toward the slope to the goat path and river. Halfway down Getorius wrenched his ankle on an outcropping and fell headlong into a clump of brambles. Bruised and limping, he let Brisios support him on the path to the bridge.

  He sat on the riverbank, soaking his swelling ankle in the cold water, when Brisios called his attention to Herakles coming in their direction. "Surgeon, the guide runs this way."

  Getorius looked around. "What could he want that makes him hurry like that?"

  At the bridge Herakles leaned on the rail to catch his breath. "Asterios," he panted, "Kalos, I found you."

  "What is it?"

  "That deaconess again came for your wife."

  "Lydia?" Getorius pulled his injured foot from the water and hobbled to the embankment top. "Where did they go?"

  "Asterios, she did not say. I came to tell you because you were angry with me last evening." He noticed his bare reddened foot. "You are hurt?"

  "Twisted ankle. Did the widows go with Arcadia?"

  "Ohi, no, they stayed at the Poseidon."

  "Then they might know where she is." Getorius limped onto the bridge. "Herakles, we just discovered the body of Hermias up by the temple. Flavius wanted us to believe that his slave killed him and Basina, when all along he was the murderer."

  "Christos zoodotes! By now he could be at Elaea, looking to escape on a galley."

  "Flavius planned this very well, acting meek when he was seething inside, like...like Aetna waiting to erupt."

  Herakles worried, "The Asklepiad priests, even Apollonios, could be in danger if the husband is not found."

  "Danger? Why would that be?"

  "The woman dragged him from shrine to shrine at great expense, always complaining that no physician helped her. Flavius may vent his anger on them."

  "True, Basina obsessed about believing she was ill." Getorius held onto the railing with one hand to put on his boots. "At the moment it's Arcadia who worries me. Let's get to the mansio so I can question the widows. If Lydia is going to the same place as yesterday, they'll know where my wife is."

  "Asterios, you cannot walk back. We go to the arena and rent a carriage there."

  "Fine, I can hobble that far."

  "Your knife, Surgeon," Brisios asked. "I'll cut another staff."

  Getorius handed him the blade and thanked the guide. "Gratias, Herakles for coming to tell me. It's far past time that I found out what actually is going on."

  * * *

  The carriage driver took the shortest route from the arena along a vaulted avenue that led to the Sacred Way. Just before the colonnaded approach to the Asklepion's entrance, the street opened into a square. Herakles pointed to a gilt statue at its center.

  "Asterios, there is Galen, looking toward the shrine."

  "A brilliant physician, even if I don't always agree with his diagnoses."

  When the carriage reached the opposite end of the square, a crowd had gathered outside a bakery shop. Damianos stood in their center, the object of everyone's attention.

  "Stop here," Getorius told the driver. "That's one of the pilgrims who came to me on the galley. My patient in a sense, as I told him his leg must be amputated."

  Getorius climbed down from his seat and limped toward the man. Damianos spotted him and taunted, "Surgeon, come examine my leg." Then he announced to the crowd, "This Latin medicus had no faith in my holy saint and Asklepios. He predicted my leg would be lost, yet see how healthy it is after two baths in the sacred mud."

  Getorius examined what had been a diseased limb, astounded that the unbelievable had occurred. Black tissue on the gangrenous leg now was a fragile, pinkish membrane that stretched over the putrid area. "I'm pleased, Damianos. What did you do?"

  "Do? I prayed to Holy Damianos the day before, then was dumped in the mud. Last night I dreamed that Asklepios cured me and I believed the god. Today, two priests lowered me into the pool again. In moments, I felt my leg to be on fire. I screamed to be taken out. When they wiped off slime, the blackness, the stink, was gone."

  "That is truly amazing."

  "I'm buying a pastry in the shape of a leg as an offering to Asklepios." He noticed Getorius's swollen ankle. "Surgeon, you're limping," he smirked. Why don't you take a votive to the temple and beg for the god's help?"

  Amid mocking laughter, Getorius returned to the carriage and admitted, "Herakles, I've seen no cure like it before."

  "I told you, Asterios, to have hope and faith."

  "Add love to those, as Paul suggested, Herakles, and you'd make a passable Christian."

  The guide laughed. "Yet your Apostle also warned that Christians must not be boastful. Alas, Asterios, I cannot change that fault in me."

  At the Poseidon, Getorius found Maria and Melodia in the garden, speaking with Tranquillus. The presbyter noticed his limp.

  "Surgeon, how were you injured?"

  "That isn't important." He confronted the widows, "Ladies, where did Lydia take my wife?" When both looked away without answering, he insisted, "Maria? Melodia? Is it to the same place as yesterday?"

  Maria nervously smoothed her shawl. "We promised not to tell anyone."

  Getorius tried to keep anger from his voice. "We're far past that. You and Arcadia kept secret that a woman minister is here, one who falsified her death. I see that doesn't surprise you, so you both know that Epiphania is alive. Lydia took you to see her, didn't she?"

  "I'm confused," Tranquillus interposed. "What do you mean?"

  "Presbyter, Arcadia blurted out to you that the person in the coffin wasn't Epiphania."

  "Yes, I recall that."

  "So, our mysterious presbytera is involved in some sort of deception. Getorius's voice rose. "Ladies, where is she?"

  Although distressed, Melodia refused. "Our promise. We can't tell you."

  "Can't tell me? Have you heard about what happened to Basina Bobo?"

  Maria nodded, "We were just talking about her horrible death. Have they found that poor husband's body yet?"

  "Poor husband? Flavius made it look like the slave killed him and his wife, but Brisios and I just discovered Hermias's body on the acropolis."

  A shaken Tranquillus asked, "Hermias is dead?"

  "Flavius drowned his wife in that mud pool and made it seem that her slave was responsible. Certainly, you've not been blind to how Basina constantly humiliated him? I should think that would make him hate all women."

  "He seemed so accepting, so fond of her," Maria said

  Getorius looked at Tranquillus. "Flavius may be hiding in Pergamum and planning more revenge killings. Herakles thinks even the shrine priests could be victims."

  "What can we do?"

  "You can start by persuading Maria and Melodia to tell me where my wife is."

  Tranquillus faced the two widows, pleading, "Ladies, in the name of Christ."

  "Presbyter, we can only assure you that Arcadia is safe." Maria stood up. "Come, Melodia, we'll return to our room and pray for the souls of the unfortunate dead."

  Getorius watched them leave. Women who saw their husbands murdered by Visigoths aren't intimidated by a surgeon and presbyter. Perhaps Brisios can find out where Arcadia might be from the Poseidon's staff.

  * * *

  Arcadia looked out of the carriage at the ruins of houses and apartments. She

  surmised that an earthquake might have caused much of the damage after the area was abandoned. In daylight, Andros to
ok a route to the Serapion that avoided the marketplace by directing the mule along a street of ruined houses. Weeds and scrub ailanthus grew wild in former gardens. A few columns stood around dry atrium pools, stark reminders of what had been a well-off residential quarter in a thriving city. Herakles said that Pergamum had fallen on bad times. He blames it on the government, yet the East hasn't suffered the relentless barbarian invasions of Gaul and Italy. Arcadia wondered about her new summons to the Serapion. Lydia, sitting across from her, had said nothing. What could Epiphania want with me now?

  A glint of sunlight shone off Arcadia's wedding ring, she twisted the band and thought of the incredible events of the past few days. Seems like a month, yet we just came to Constantinople a week ago to study medical texts. Since then I've met the sister of the Eastern Augustus, been promised...at the risk of my marriage...financing for a women's clinic at Ravenna, survived a riot, and met a female bishop who ordains women ministers. Flavius and Basina are dead. An unpleasant woman, yet she deserved better. Flavius certainly did. The man had the proverbial patience of Job.

  "The temple is ahead."

  At Lydia's words, Arcadia turned to look. "In daytime, the Serapion has an even more forbidding appearance than after dark."

  "The temple has its uses."

  "As a place to hide out?"

  Lydia looked away. Andros again followed the courtyard wall. Beyond it was the source of the water heard inside the Serapion: an arched opening channeled the Selenos River, which entered at the far side of the courtyard and flowed under a section of the temple itself. Inside the yard, details of the huge statues Arcadia had barely made out in twilight were revealed. Twice-human-size, the black marble sculptures supported the roof of a walkway around three sides of the walls. Only mud-coated leaves lay at the bottom of the drained pools. The barnyard smell came from the pens of a white heifer and several restless sheep.

  After Andros unlocked the tower portal, Lydia opened the successive ones to the ante-rooms. At Lydia's rap on the last door, the panel to the main underground chamber slid open. Taking a quick look around, Arcadia saw twelve women standing by the walls. Most had Hunnic features and wore deacon's tunics similar to Lydia's. Epiphania was seated on a bishop's throne near the altar, holding a wooden shepherd's crook in her right hand. She wore a chasuble of golden brocade and a white stole around her shoulders. Two equal-arm crosses at its ends were the same designs Bishop Ignatia had worn.