[Getorius and Arcadia 01] - The Secundus Papyrus

by Albert Noyer

  “It has to be a forgery, Getorius.”

  “I agree, but who are the forgers? What’s their purpose? If…” Getorius abruptly slammed down his cup on a table next to his chair. “My God, Arcadia! The will papyrus must be connected to that prophecy Behan was going to announce. Hiding the documents in his flimsy hut would have been too risky. Poor weather, or a fire would have destroyed them.”

  “But Behan would have had to have accomplices to conceal it in the mausoleum,” Arcadia reasoned.

  “True, workers would have noticed a monk wandering around the site. And that niche had to be left in the brickwork…the trap set.” Getorius took a gulp of wine. “This was well thought out. Even with the will a forgery, some factions would be eager to use it for their own purposes.”

  “Placidia could simply have the documents burned.”

  “Theokritos wouldn’t allow it, and besides him, there are five other witnesses. We would all have to be, ah, silenced.”

  “Silenced by whom?” Arcadia asked, while realizing there was no ready answer. “Getorius, I imagine Sigisvult is depressed. He must think Placidia feels as if a loyal dog has suddenly turned on its owner. Why don’t we go see him after we’ve eaten?”

  “Good idea, Arcadia. We’ll bring a pitcher of that Venetian wine.”

  “And I’ll have Silvia pack some of our dinner for him.”

  The wind had shifted after the rain and now manifested as a mild southwesterly breeze that tempered Ravenna’s unseasonably cold autumn. All but the largest sheets of water had drained off, leaving small lakes that were wind-ruffled and sparkling under a sky of fluffy clouds that allowed the sun to shine through at irregular intervals.

  It was a short walk to the palace. “Will we have trouble getting in to see Sigisvult?” Arcadia asked, after she saw sentries patrolling the entrance.

  “I doubt it. If his detainment is just a formality, he’ll be lightly guarded. Ah, good, one of the sentries is Charadric. I once treated him for a nasty knife wound.”

  “Charadric, how is your hand?” Getorius asked when he came up to the guard.

  “Doing good.” He showed a white scar on his palm. “I owe you, Surgeon.”

  “Nonsense, I’m pleased everything turned out well.” Getorius slipped a silver coin into the man’s hand. “Our friend Sigisvult is being held on a ridiculous charge. Do you think we could give him this food my wife brought?”

  “The architect? He’s in an anteroom down the hall. I’ll take you there.”

  When Charadric went with them to point out Sigisvult’s room, Getorius noticed that the Huns were no longer on duty. “Hopefully, these Goths are the best men the Ravenna garrison has to offer,” he murmured to Arcadia.

  “You said the other evening that they were generally loyal.”

  “To Aetius, anyway. The man has more contacts among barbarian tribes than anyone since Flavius Stilicho.”

  Sigisvult was in a small anteroom off the atrium hallway, across from where Galla Placidia had held her dinner. It had been furnished with a cot, a folding stool, and an army field table. Several books were scattered on the bed, where the architect was reading one by the light of a lamp. He looked up when the couple entered.

  “Getorius…Arcadia. It…it’s good of you to come.”

  “We brought you some dinner.” Arcadia looked around for a place to put her basket.

  “Let me move that game off the table.”

  Getorius looked at the animal-headed pieces on the checkered board. “Whom have you been playing Hounds and Jackals with?”

  Sigisvult laughed as he placed the board on the floor. “My own personal bodyguard.”

  “No cheating while he’s out of the room,” Getorius jested.

  “He said he was going to the latrine…more likely to cadge food from the kitchen. Again,” Sigisvult added more seriously, “thanks for coming.”

  “How are you?” Arcadia asked.

  “Innocent.”

  “We know that,” Getorius agreed, “but whom do you think might be involved in this?”

  Sigisvult sat back on the cot and leaned against the wall. “Miniscius, my construction master, must have known about that hidden niche.”

  “Has he been questioned?”

  “It seems they can’t find him.”

  “What?”

  “Getorius, he’s disappeared,” Sigisvult said. “I…I’ve had time to think about what will happen when that document is made public. Communities that accept it will be pitted against those that don’t. It will make all other civil wars seem like…like playing that board game. And the impact on the Judeans will be devastating…literally.”

  “We thought the same thing,” Arcadia told him, “and whoever forged the papyrus must realize that. Why would they want to cause such a civil crisis?”

  Footsteps in the hall indicated that the guard was returning. Arcadia glanced out the door and was surprised to see Surrus Renatus walking alongside the man. The archdeacon carried a round ivory box and glass container with a gilt cover.

  When he saw her, the churchman looked as startled as she. “I…I’ve brought Sigisvult the Holy Sacrament,” he explained, flushing. “The bishop requested that I do so.”

  “It’s a bit late in the day,” Arcadia commented, without intending to be sarcastic.

  “I’ve been distributing food with my deacons.” Renatus brushed past her and saw Getorius. “I didn’t expect either of you here, you must both leave. Sigisvult should receive the Sacrament in privacy.”

  “No, let them stay,” Sigisvult told him. “I have nothing to confess—certainly nothing to do with what happened in that mausoleum.”

  “They may return afterward,” Renatus insisted. “Guard, you must also go out.”

  “It’s all right, Sigisvult,” Getorius said. “We’ll wait in the garden.” While the guard went back toward the kitchen, Getorius took his wife’s arm and led her past an atrium pool. It was filled to the brim with water that was an opaque gray from being stirred up by the deluge off the roof. Even the bronze wellhead over the storage cistern was full. Rain had washed the garden trees and plants free of dust, but had also encouraged a crop of weeds to sprout up in the damp soil between them. A few of the tropical palms had not survived the recent cold, and now their withered fronds hung limply in black, twisted shapes. At the low wall around the plantings Getorius helped Arcadia sit on the stone ledge.

  Both sat in silence, until she said, “Getorius, we have to help Sigisvult establish his innocence.”

  “I’ve been thinking of that, too. Galla Placidia could order a trial, but the magistrate would learn about the papyri. She isn’t ready to do that.”

  “Let’s hope Theokritos can quickly prove the documents to be forgeries.”

  “He should, with his knowledge of old books and scroll materials in his library.”

  “Yes, he’ll probably…” Arcadia cocked her head at a low, menacing growl that came from an area to her right. “What was that?”

  Getorius laughed. “The Augustus keeps wild animals in his zoo at that end of the garden. Want to look at them?”

  “Let’s, if we’re allowed.”

  Arcadia eased herself off the wall. Getorius took her hand and had started toward the zoo, when the sound of a glass breaking sounded from the hallway.

  “That came from Sigisvult’s room!” he cried, then turned and bolted toward the area.

  When Getorius reached the anteroom, Renatus was standing outside the door, his face white as he supported himself on the jamb.

  “God’s hand! I saw the hand of the Lord,” he babbled. “The judgment of the Almighty is revealed.”

  “What are you talking about?” Getorius looked past him and saw Sigisvult lying on the floor, his face a bluish color. Shards of the communion wine cup were scattered beside him. Getorius knelt and felt his throat. “There’s no pulse. What happened here Archdeacon?”

  “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son,”
Renatus gibbered.

  Arcadia sucked in a breath of horror when she came in and saw Sigisvult. “Getorius, what happened?”

  “I’m trying to find out, but Renatus keeps prattling nonsense. Archdeacon, I asked you what happened.”

  “The Testament of John reveals it.”

  “Reveals what? Make sense, man. Tell me what took place. You were giving him the sacramental bread and wine?”

  “The judgment of God—”

  Getorius stood up in a flash of anger, scattering some of the glass fragments with his boot as he grabbed Renatus’ shoulder. “Tell me how Sigisvult died!”

  The archdeacon shook off his hand, pushed the books aside, and sat down on the cot, trembling. “I…I gave him the Body of the Lord. No. First we said a Confiteor together. After the architect drank the wine of Christ’s blood, he looked at me, seeming at peace. Forgiven. But he suddenly gasped and went into a convulsion…dropped the glass and fell. I went to help him, but realized I had just witnessed the hand of God. He took Sigisvult, after he had become one with Him through the Sacrament.”

  “I’m a surgeon, not a theologian,” Getorius said, controlling his anger. “Death is not caused by supernatural means.” He continued, softening his tone, “Archdeacon, Sigisvult was a patient of mine. I want you to get permission from the Bishop for me to examine his body and see what caused his death.”

  “A dissection? Impossible. Besides, I told you. It was God’s judgment. I witnessed it.”

  Charadric had evidently heard the commotion and it was he who came into the room, instead of Sigisvult’s guard. He saw the body on the floor, had heard some of what Renatus had said, and decided he wanted no part in the way God settled scores. He turned to leave.

  “Wait, Charadric.” Getorius pulled him back, searched out a coin, and pressed a half-siliqua into his hand. “Tell your tribune that his prisoner is dead, but I want the body left here with nothing disturbed. Understand?”

  “I…I’ll tell Tribune Lucullus.” Charadric half-saluted and hurried out.

  “Renatus. Go to Bishop Chrysologos now, so I can begin an examination—short of dissection—as soon as possible. I can do it here. While you’re gone, I’ll get my medical case.”

  “Let me cover Sigisvult until we get back.” Arcadia pulled a blanket off the cot and knelt to lay it over the architect’s body.

  Outside, Getorius took his wife by the elbow and strode toward their villa. “Judgment of God,” he scoffed. “I need to find the physical reason that caused Sigisvult’s death.”

  “Then don’t walk so fast.” Arcadia took a circle of broken glass out of her purse. “This may help you.”

  Getorius stopped to examine the round shard. “This is the bottom of the glass that held the wine. How did you get it?”

  “From under the cot, where you kicked it when you grabbed Renatus.”

  “After you bent down to cover Sigisvult?”

  “Yes. I’ve seen these before. Gold leaf images fused into a commemorative glass, but look at the design on this one.”

  “Peter and Paul, the two Apostles. Appropriate for a Communion cup I suppose.”

  “Look at their symbols, a sword for Paul and a cockerel for Peter. Martyrdom and betrayal.”

  “Another furcing rooster!”

  Arcadia ignored his outburst. “Getorius, I’m admittedly only an apprentice medica, but I think Sigisvult was poisoned.”

  “That entered my mind too, but by the archdeacon, practically in our presence? Why would he do that?”

  “Perhaps Renatus didn’t know. Someone else may have prepared the wine for him…a presbyter, or one of his deacons.”

  “He did act totally distraught…almost incoherent.”

  “He didn’t expect us to be there.”

  “And it was a coincidence that we were.” Getorius ran his finger around the inside rim of the glass. It was still damp with dregs of wine. He smelled, then tasted the residue, and grimaced at the bitter taste. “Atropa…you’re diagnosis was right. That explains the color of his face and the convulsions Renatus described. I won’t have to look further than his esophagus for traces of poison.”

  When the couple returned to Lauretum Palace, the Gothic guards had been replaced by Huns, who made it clear that neither one of them would be allowed inside the building.

  “So much for examining Sigisvult’s body,” Getorius remarked as he walked back down the stairs. “The guards’ commander must have spoken to someone higher up.”

  “Flavius Aetius?” Arcadia suggested.

  “Possibly. Or even the Gothic Queen.”

  Getorius had turned toward the clinic when Arcadia pulled him back by the arm. “Would workers be at the mausoleum on Sunendag…the Lord’s Day?”

  “Work has been suspended and the building placed under guard, but I doubt if they’d be on duty today.”

  “Let’s go over there, Getorius.”

  He nodded agreement. “With Sigisvult dead, we should look around inside.”

  Immersed in trying to understand the architect’s murder, the couple said nothing as they retraced the same route to the mausoleum they had taken on the deadly evening. The fields alongside the Vicus Galla Placidia were still muddy, and rain had halted construction on the new villas.

  There were no guards at the point where they had been challenged the night before, only the damp ashes of the men’s fire. Ahead, attached to the narthex of the Basilica of the Holy Cross, the mausoleum stood as a stark, octagonal entombment for present and future dead.

  Arcadia abruptly stopped and grasped her husband’s arm. “Getorius, that’s two murders in as many days. Perhaps we shouldn’t be here after all.”

  “Cara, it was your idea to come,” Getorius pointed out. “We’ll be fine.”

  “I’m reconsidering. This isn’t our business.”

  “True. Someone from the judicial magistrate’s office would be investigating if the Gothic Queen hadn’t sworn us all to secrecy about the librarian’s death. Still, I believed Sigisvult when he said he was innocent. I’d like to go back inside and look around.”

  “I guess you’re right,” she relented. “We owe him that at least.”

  They found the mausoleum unguarded; even its door was not locked. Getorius surmised that Tranquillus, the presbyter at the adjoining basilica, must be having dinner with Bishop Chrysologos in the Episcopal Palace.

  Inside, the cruciform building was as it had been the evening when Placidia brought the group in, but now a soft light entering through eight high alabaster windows, revealed the splendor of the mosaics and a marble wainscoting that was installed as background for the sarcophagi.

  Getorius saw that the niche was still open. The small weapon that had shot the deadly bolt had not been removed. He traced a trajectory with his eye across to the mosaic of the Imperial Shepherd. The missile had hit at lower left, gouging out green landscape tiles between three of the sheep. The shattered wooden shaft and its iron head still lay on the floor beneath.

  “What shot the arrow?” Arcadia asked, following his gaze. “It had to be small.”

  “A kind of miniature catapult…the army’s Scorpion is a larger version. Greeks invented the weapon, called it a gastrophetes.”

  “That would mean…‘stomach-shooter?’”

  “Right, Arcadia. The bow is a composite of ash, horn and sinew glued together. A large one is so hard to draw that the person cocks the device by centering it on his abdomen and pushing against the ground or a wall.”

  “How do you know all this, Husband?”

  “I don’t always read about medicine in the library. Heron of Alexandria describes the bow. A wound is devastating—witness poor Feletheus.”

  Arcadia glanced at a dark area on the floor. Sand had been sprinkled over the blood-stain, but it was still evident. She bent to rummage on the floor among the broken tile fragments that had made up the book design, then picked up one of the larger pieces and brought it to her husband.

  “Getori
us, look on the back. There’s another rooster symbol.”

  He studied the design a moment. “This one could be an artisan’s mark. The kind they press into bricks to identify the kiln.”

  “But it’s drawn in red ink, not impressed.”

  “It does seem to match the one on the prophecy manuscript.” He tossed the fragment on the worktable in frustration. “I just wish I knew what was going on here. Why would Behan, or the conspirators, choose this place to hide the documents?”

  “You said the monk’s hut was too risky, and an unfinished mausoleum wouldn’t get any visitors. Perhaps if that workmaster Sigisvult mentioned is found…” Arcadia slipped the tile fragment into her purse. “Would Theokritos be in the library today?”

  “Probably, it’s almost his home. Why?”

  “I’d like to show him the tile, but how can we see him when we’ve been barred from the palace?”

  “There is a stairway outside, at the back,” Getorius recalled. “Theokritos had it built in case of a fire, but I’ve never used it.”

  “How would we get inside the palace grounds? The laurel grove?”

  “Let me think. Wait, there’s a gap in the wall where the Padenna River runs out from the garden. Are you willing to get your feet wet?”

  “Let’s go, husband. We don’t know what the forgers will do once they realize the will has been discovered.”

  The couple slipped under the iron grill at the stream opening, then threaded their way through the laurel trees to the rear of the palace. The wooden stairway was unguarded. At the top, the door into the library was slightly open. As soon as Arcadia entered she smelled smoke that had an herbal odor, like field grass burning.

  “Something’s on fire!” she cried.

  Getorius had also noticed the smell. Running ahead of her, past storage bins and into Theokritos’s office, he saw the librarian intent on watching two scraps of papyrus burn in a clay dish.

  “Theokritos!” he shouted. “What are you doing? That document is priceless!”

  Getorius beat the flames out with a bare hand, shattering one of the dishes and scattering ashes on the table.