Athanaric stared again, then looked at his half-eaten bread. “Bishop Peter is back on the throne of St. Mark,” he stated. “That was the message I took to Constantinople.”
“What!” I exclaimed. A week before, even news from Thrace had seemed stale and uninteresting; this morning I was thrilled with everything. “What happened to Lucius?”
“His troop of guards was recalled, and he thought it wise to leave Alexandria. His Sacred Majesty didn’t have time or troops to waste on Alexandrian riots, and he’s leaving Peter the episcopal throne so as to have some peace.”
“Then I’ll go to Alexandria!” I said, and finished my wine in a gulp.
“The hell you will!” said Athanaric. “Peter will be back in exile as soon as the emperor has settled the Goths — unless he’s dead. They say he’s ill.”
“Then he’ll need a doctor. He may not even mind that I’m a woman, if I tell him that Athanasios didn’t mind.”
“You barely escaped the rack when you left Alexandria last time!”
“This time I’ll be more careful. I’ll try to put a bit of distance between me and the church. I’ll stay with Philon.”
“He won’t mind that you’re a woman?” Athanaric asked sarcastically.
“He knew that before I left. He treated me during an illness. And he was like Arbetio — we were colleagues; it was a shock at first but made very little difference.” Arbetio grinned and nodded. “I suppose you think I should go to Bithynia and sit in my brother’s house looking ladylike?”
Athanaric opened his mouth and closed it again. Then he said, “Your brother is very anxious to see you again.”
“Well, I’d like to see him too. If he’ll agree to let me go when I want to, I’ll go to Bithynia first. But then I will go to Alexandria. It’s a wonderful city, Arbetio, the best place in the world for medicine. Come on! Let’s get away before the Goths come looking for us. Who would’ve thought I’d have to urge haste on a courier?”
Athanaric scowled, shoved the rest of his bread into his mouth, and went over to the horses. Arbetio grinned at me. “That’s more like the man I remember,” he told me. “You look better already.”
I laughed and stood up, then looked at my skirts again. “You don’t have any spare trousers?” I asked Arbetio.
“We didn’t think of that,” he replied. “And we wanted to travel light. Sorry.”
“Ouch,” I replied. “Lend me your knife, then.”
Arbetio handed me his belt knife, and I cut some strips off the bottom of my undertunic and began to bandage my knees, which had been scraped raw against the saddle on the previous day. Athanaric brought my horse over, then stopped, staring at my legs. I stared too. They were not a pretty sight: very thin, and besides the raw knees they had scratches over the shins from the day before. “You should have brought trousers,” I told him.
Strangely, he went quite red, and looked away. I felt embarrassed as well. I threaded some of the skirts through my belt to make them more trouserlike, then scrambled into the saddle. Arbetio handed me the rest of my bread.
We started off. “We’re going to Novidunum,” Athanaric explained. “Salices is closer, but I judged that the Goths might send a party out in that direction to look for you: This way we should be safe — they don’t have the men in Carragines to search all directions, and the countryside should be deserted.”
It was. Much was waste as well, wild forest and open heath, but we crossed abandoned farmland too, and passed some houses and a village, all deserted by their inhabitants and burned down by the invaders. We rode at a walk, because the horses couldn’t stand another long gallop, and for a while we rode in silence as well. Then, partly to ease the awkwardness between us and partly because I was genuinely curious, I asked Athanaric when and how he had guessed my secret.
Athanaric snorted. “A long time after I should have done,” he said. “I’m supposed to notice things, too; it’s my job. But I didn’t spot something that a seventy-year-old clergyman saw at once. When I did realize, I was thoroughly ashamed of myself.”
“Athanasios said that God revealed it to him,” I said. “And he was the only one that ever did guess. People believe what you tell them — particularly when the alternative is more preposterous than the story itself.”
Athanaric snorted again, then smiled apologetically. “That was it: the idea was too preposterous. But I should have guessed. I knew a fair bit about you — I asked around about you in Egypt, when we first met and you turned down the bribe I offered you. Everyone agreed that you were a very clever doctor and not interested in money. I went and asked the chief physician at the Museum about you; he said the same, and added that you’d turned up quite suddenly one spring, practically without references and practically without money, claiming to be connected with the household of a certain Theodoros of Ephesus and begging to be taught the Hippocratic art. He said that he had thought a eunuch wouldn’t be able to stand the hard work involved in the study of medicine, and that he thought you might be a runaway slave, and that he had advised you to go away. He said that Philon had only taken you out of charity, but that you’d done brilliantly since then and were very gifted. When I pressed him, he admitted that he still thought you were a runaway slave, and a few others suspected the same. But I agreed with him that a eunuch was better employed treating the sick than taking bribes in some rich man’s house, and I left the matter at that.
“I already knew the story of how Festinus was jilted in his marriage garlands — it caused a stir in Asia when it happened — and when your brother and Festinus were both governing in Thrace I checked up on it, because I thought a private enmity like that might cause problems. And I learned that the sister of the most excellent Theodoros had simply vanished one spring, vanished without a trace. Her brother was still under their father’s authority at the time and didn’t have a separate household in which to conceal her, and all the searching by her father and Festinus couldn’t uncover any sign of her. I did wonder then whether you might be connected with the disappearance, and whether you had gone to Alexandria in a hurry to get away from Festinus, but I didn’t suspect the truth. You said you were a eunuch, and everyone else agreed; I never doubted it. Though I should have realized you weren’t. I suppose in my heart I did realize, but what my heart saw, my brain dismissed very quickly. I suppose I was even offended with myself for thinking such a thing of another male.
“And then you were accused of sorcery. Your own slaves thought you were a sorcerer, and one of their reasons was that you always bathed and dressed yourself in private. But I didn’t think anything of that. Eunuchs have reason to be modest. Then the governor of Scythia treated you like a brother. Well, I reasoned, he’s the Theodoros you knew before, he may owe you some great favor. He referred to you once or twice as ‘she’ — a slip of the tongue, or a private joke? I wondered if, despite what you said, you’d been lovers — only he didn’t seem the type. I was puzzled by it, but I still didn’t connect Chariton the doctor with Theodoros’ sister — and I’d never heard your name, either; people don’t mention a young lady’s name.
“And then, that night in Marcianopolis — Festinus was still brooding over his injury and accusing Theodoros, and I thought, ‘Here is a very powerful, vindictive, and cruel man, and he couldn’t find any trace of the girl; where could she have hidden?’ And he didn’t remember you, though you were afraid of him. I still didn’t suspect, not with my mind, but I started to feel that I knew something I hadn’t realized yet. And you quoted a bit of poetry you said you’d heard Festinus quote, but you quoted it wrong, saying ‘Charis’ where the poem reads ‘Chloe.’ The natural assumption was that Festinus had quoted it to a girl called Charis, but would he have done that with one of Theodoros’ eunuchs looking on? So I asked you for help, and you told me very firmly to let the matter be — and still I didn’t guess. Or rather, I couldn’t admit to myself what I had guessed.
“Well, I was kept busy. I talked to Fritigern, went back and tal
ked to Lupicinus, and then rode back and forth between Antioch and Hadrianopolis, too busy to think about anything but Gothic problems. Then I was kept for a couple of weeks in Antioch, reporting and discussing with various officials and not getting them to see sense. And one night I got drunk with a friend, and when I got back to my rooms I fell asleep and had a dream about you. Never mind what; you were a woman in the dream. And when I woke up, with a splitting headache, I thought, ‘Christ Eternal, what a crazy dream!’ and then I thought, ‘Is it really?’ And everything came together. But I still wasn’t certain, not certain enough to write to anyone about it. Instead I asked around for someone who knew Theodoros of Ephesus, and I found an assessor at the governor’s office, a fellow by the name of Kyrillos.”
“Kyrillos? He studied law with my brother; Thorion wanted me to run off with him instead of going to Alexandria.”
“That weedy logic-chopper?” Athanaric said in disgust. “Your plan was bad, but that would have been worse. You, marry some wordy lawyer?”
“I don’t think he’d want me now,” I conceded.
Athanaric gave me an odd look, then shrugged. “I told him that I was a friend of Theodoros’ and took him out for a drink, and we talked about your brother until I could ask him about you. ‘Do you know what happened to his sister?’ I asked. ‘What was her name — Charis?’ ‘I don’t know, but he must,’ he replied at once. ‘He tells me she’s well. I hope it’s true; she was a splendid girl, as clever as any man. She would’ve been wasted on an ignorant money-grubber like Festinus.’ And he told me how you learned Latin to help your brother out and were better at it than he was, but that this wasn’t your real interest; really you liked medicine. I felt as though he’d kicked me — and I could have kicked myself, for having been so stupid. So I said that I thought I might have seen you in your brother’s house in Thrace, and I gave him a description, and he agreed to it, and hoped that your brother would bring you out of concealment soon. We drank to that, and I went home and . . . never mind that. I wrote to Sebastianus.”
“He told me,” I said.
“She was furious,” put in Arbetio.
“I didn’t see why you should expose me,” I said. “It would have ruined me. Though I suppose now I’m ruined anyway.”
“I wouldn’t have exposed you,” Athanaric said wearily. “But Sebastianus had to know, and do something. A noblewoman of high rank and fortune is not someone to be hazarded in some rough campaign. And I was responsible; I’d sent you to him. I thought he would probably fall in love with you, once he knew. As I thought you were in love with him. But I was cautious; I didn’t want the letter to fall into the wrong hands. I was due back in Thrace soon, I thought I could wait until I saw Sebastianus personally. But war started, and I was kept dashing about carrying messages and trying to reorganize the posts, and I couldn’t get to Scythia until the week after you’d been captured. Sebastianus was still angry with his tribunes about that. But he told me that there were rumors from the Goths that you’d been unmasked as a woman, and he asked me what I made of them. I tore my hair and cursed both of us, and after a while Sebastianus did the same.”
“I didn’t know what to think when I first heard the rumors,” Arbetio said. “I didn’t believe them, until I treated some escaped slaves who’d met you and who confirmed it. And they said you were going to marry Edico.”
“That was Fritigern’s first idea. Before he knew who I was. Edico was very much relieved when I said I wouldn’t.”
Arbetio thought for a minute, then laughed; Athanaric scowled. “Edico always was a bit afraid of you,” said Arbetio. “And I don’t suppose he finds it any easier to think of you as a woman than I do.”
“We are friends, you and I,” I said. “And colleagues. How is everyone at Novidunum?”
Well, it seemed. Arbetio and his wife had been living in my new big house, with all my slaves. “I hoped you wouldn’t object,” he told me. “I was trying to look after all your household as well as mine, and needed the space.”
“Keep it,” I said, “as a gift from me. I won’t need it; I’m leaving Thrace.”
“I hope not forever,” Arbetio said, smiling earnestly. “We would like to see you again.”
“You can come visit me in Alexandria. You ought to go anyway; they can still do dissections there sometimes, and it’s wonderful what you can learn from a cadaver.”
Athanaric winced. “I hope your brother keeps you in Bithynia,” he said harshly. “He should never have allowed you to go to Alexandria in the first place, and he’s doubly a fool if he lets you go back. A woman has no place practicing medicine on her own in such a dangerous city.”
I stared in surprise, then in anger. “You always talk in generalities,” I told him. “ ‘There are no honest eunuchs,’ ‘women shouldn’t practice medicine.’ One thing I learned in Alexandria is that every case must be treated on its own merits. You can’t say something like ‘women should have half a man’s dose of opium’ — it would be too small an amount for a large, strong woman in good health, and too large for some sickly maiden, and in some cases you might not want to use opium at all, but mandragora or Indian hemp or hellebore, depending on the patient and the disease. If you can’t prescribe drugs for a whole sex, why should you prescribe behavior? I am an Ephesian of good family, a Roman, and a Hippocratic as well as a woman, and the first three are at least as important as the last one. And if you consider the first three, there’s no reason that I shouldn’t go to Alexandria.”
“I didn’t say that women shouldn’t practice medicine!” Athanaric said irritably. “And I certainly didn’t say that you shouldn’t; I can’t imagine you stopping for any reason short of death. But you’ve managed to get yourself into trouble in four provinces already, and saying that you’ll be more careful this time isn’t good enough. If you go sailing into Alexandria to treat Bishop Peter, you’ll probably end up accused of sedition and heresy. And knowing you, I’ll bet there’ll be some oaf waiting to marry you as well. You must already be the most un-married woman in the Roman Empire — Festinus, and Kyrillos, and Edico, and half the Gothic nobility, to say nothing of Sebastianus.”
“No one will want to marry me now,” I replied. “No one important, that is. I’m disgraced.”
“Oh, is Your Grace going to change her name again?” Athanaric said sourly. “For God’s sake, be sensible for once in your life! Wait and see what happens in Alexandria, and what happens here in Thrace, before you go anywhere. You’re lucky to be alive at all! Next time you may not be lucky. And you could use a rest anyway, from the look of you.”
I bit my lip. It was good sense, though I hated to admit it. The thought of Alexandria was so tempting, after Carragines. Though perhaps if I went back there as Charis daughter of Theodoros, I would find it completely different from what I remembered as Chariton. And most likely I wouldn’t be allowed back at all. But I didn’t see why Athanaric should presume to tell me what to do.
Except that he had just risked himself and his career to restore me to freedom. Considering it objectively, I admitted that that did give him some right to advise me.
“Very well,” I said. “I will stay with my brother in Bithynia for a while, and see what happens.” And I smiled at Athanaric, trying to apologize for my anger.
He looked away and frowned again. I couldn’t understand the frowns; I remembered how easy and cheerful he used to be. Perhaps he just didn’t know how to treat me as a woman. Or perhaps he felt that I had caused him more trouble than I was worth. I sighed, and we rode on in silence.
I was once again very tired by that afternoon, and exhausted by evening. If I had escaped from Carragines on my own, I thought, I wouldn’t have got very far, walking across country in my present state. Thank God for horses! Ours were sturdy animals, and though we traveled some thirty-five miles that day and had galloped fifteen or twenty the day before, they were enduring well. But Athanaric was impatient because we had to proceed at a walk. Still, he judged that we should
reach Novidunum during the next day.
We camped in a deserted farmhouse that night; we hadn’t seen a human form all day, and Athanaric judged that it was safe. It was certainly more comfortable than the woods: though everything was in one room, there were beds, with mattresses, to lie on, and firewood stacked beside the hearth, dry enough for Athanaric to agree to light a fire. My muscles ached savagely from the riding, and I lay down as soon as we arrived, leaving the others to tend the horses and prepare the food. I feel asleep instantly.
I woke up when I felt someone watching me. I opened my eyes just a fraction, cautiously, and peered into the darkness. There was a fire burning on the hearth, and that gave enough light for me to recognize the shape of Athanaric. He was standing over my bed and looking at me; I couldn’t see his face, since his back was to the fire. I didn’t move. I was feeling tired and, in the tiredness, once again depressed. He had treated me with such anger, suppressed but clear. I felt ashamed, a fool for dragging him to Carragines to rescue me from what he clearly viewed as a situation of my own making.
“She’s still asleep,” he told Arbetio, turning away.
“Well, wake her up,” said Arbetio. “She needs to eat just as much as she needs to sleep.”
Athanaric turned back, put out a hand to shake me awake, then stopped, just before I worked up the energy to get up on my own. Instead he pulled my cloak over me, then touched my hair very lightly. I thought my heart would stop. “Let her sleep a little longer,” he said in an unfamiliar, gentle voice.
Arbetio made a noise of disgust. “So you can look at her?”
“She’s tired.”
“She’s tired because she’s half-starved and hasn’t ridden for a year. Food will make her feel better. If Your Excellency can give it to her without reminding her what a fool she’s been to let herself get into this state in the first place.”
“Have I been doing that?”
“Yes. She probably thinks you despise her.”
The Beacon at Alexandria Page 46