by Albert Noyer
Chapter twelve
When Arcadia regained consciousness, she was lying in one of the hospital beds, slowly becoming aware of a young woman wearing a white tunic and veil, who was smiling down at her.
“I am Sister Paulina,” the nurse said. “You injured your head when you fell. Are you feeling better?”
Arcadia nodded, then winced after touching a bandage on her forehead. Her skull ached, the inside of her mouth felt dry as the summer sand on Ravenna’s beaches, and her stomach was nauseous.
“Ingunda told me who you were,” Paulina continued. “I’ve sent for your husband.”
“In that vat,” Arcadia croaked through her parched throat.
“I know”—Paulina touched her arm in sympathy—“but be at peace, sister, the lid is closed again. The creatures cannot escape.”
Escape? My God, the woman didn’t look inside! She thinks I fainted from seeing the leeches.
Paulina tucked another blanket around Arcadia, and she closed her eyes. Perhaps it’s just as well the woman doesn’t know about Surrus Renatus until Getorius is told. Had it really been the archdeacon’s body in that black stinking water, or some kind of hallucination brought on by anxiety? No, it had definitely not been an apparition—the rotten smell of the vat’s stagnant contents still lingered in her nostrils. Arcadia frantically rubbed at her nose, then her arm, imagining that dark, slimy creatures were clinging to her skin.
She recalled that Getorius had been worried that this very thing would happen. Two of the witnesses to the papyri’s discovery were already dead, both within the space of a day, Miniscius the construction worker had probably been murdered too, and now Archdeacon Renatus was obviously a fourth victim—no one could accidentally fall into a vat that size, not even with the cover off. And he had had no reason to be in the room. Bringing the Eucharist to a patient in the wards would be the closest Renatus might come to the Hirudorium, and he would probably have sent one of his sub deacons to perform that simple ministry.
Arcadia opened her eyes, touched the bandage again, and murmured, “When in Hades’ name is that husband of mine coming for me?”
Getorius arrived shortly afterward. He spoke briefly with Paulina, and then came to his wife’s bedside.
“Finally,” she muttered. “Hades heard my plea.”
“Hades? Arcadia, what are you talking about?”
“Nothing.”
“Then, how are you feeling? The Sister told me you fell back and injured your head.”
“Getorius—”
“Don’t talk until I have a look at you.” He slipped the bandage off and lightly touched the bruise on Arcadia’s forehead, then sniffed the remnants of a glistening poultice on the cloth. “Good, they put camphor ointment on the wound. How badly does your head hurt?”
“Getorius. In that leeching vat—”
“I know. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have sent you to the Hirudorium alone.”
“No, no, not that. Where’s Paulina?”
“At the far end of the ward. Do you want her to bring you something?”
“NO! Why won’t you listen to me?”
“Is something else wrong?”
“Getorius,” she rasped, “the body of Archdeacon Renatus is inside that vat.”
“W…what? Renatus? That…that’s impossible.”
“Don’t shout, Husband. I’m telling you, someone drowned the archdeacon in the leech tub. Paulina and the other sisters haven’t discovered his body yet.”
Getorius slumped down on the edge of her bed. “Then it’s just as I feared. Another witness is dead.”
“Yes, and it happened inside the palace again. We have to warn Galla Placidia right away. Even she may be in danger, if someone on the staff is involved in this.”
“Right. I’ll tell Paulina I’m taking you home, then try to schedule a meeting with Placidia.”
“I’m going with you when you talk to her.”
Getorius knew better than to object to his wife’s stubbornness. “Have Paulina help you dress, and ask a sister to walk you home. Meanwhile, I’ll find the Gothic Queen’s secretary.”
In her private reception room Galla Placidia took the news of the archdeacon’s murder badly.
“Flavius Aetius is behind this,” she screamed, flinging her silver wine cup at the wall. Purple liquid splashed against a mosaic depicting two pigeons on the rim of a fountain, and dribbled down the tiles in streaks. The goblet clanged to the floor, echoing metallic vibrations throughout the room. “He and that Gothic wife of his want to rule the Western Empire.”
Arcadia winced. Getorius’ slight shake of the head warned her not to react out loud. It was better for the woman to vent her anger without commenting.
“Two of my staff dead,” Placidia ranted on, “and now the Archdeacon of Ravenna. Who will be next? The bishop? My son Placidus? Me? I’m telling you, Aetius wants to be the next Augustus, and quickly at that.” She paced the room a moment, and then glared at the couple. “Well? What do you two think?”
“With respect, Regina,” Getorius ventured. “Aetius would be more direct.”
“Direct?”
“My husband isn’t implying that Aetius is plotting something,” Arcadia said quickly.
“Oh, what would either of you know about what goes on in this palace?” Placidia scoffed. “You’re so immersed in your cures….” She waved out a servant who had heard the clatter and looked in, then picked up the bent cup and set it on a marble table. “Sigisvult dead, now Renatus,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. “And don’t tell me that building master accidentally slipped off a wharf. With all this happening, my son is out hunting again with his two barbarians. Theokritos hasn’t given me a report on his tests. Why is he stalling?”
“Your library master wants to be sure,” Getorius said to reassure Placidia. “I was impressed by the way he’s experimenting in various ways to determine the age of the papyri and writing style.”
Placidia slumped down onto a silk-upholstered couch. “This is so important, Surgeon. Have you found out any more about that monk who was found dead?”
“Only that Behan came to the library from time to time, to read.”
“These holy men…monastics…have been active in Egypt for years,” Placidia went on. “I understand some in the West have also formed communities. Was this Behan trying to proselytize? Why was he here?”
“I’m not sure,” Getorius replied, “but would you accept a suggestion, Regina?”
“Anything. I’m about at the end of my tether.”
“I don’t know who he is, but the leader of the Judean community in Ravenna might be told about the will. He could have advice about handling the forgery, or at least give you the Judean reaction to the terms.”
Placidia stood and poured herself more wine from a silver flagon before nodding, “Yes, you have a worthwhile idea, Surgeon. The will may be a forgery, but that didn’t stop the so-called letters of Pontius Pilate to Herod and Tiberius from attracting believers. I like your proposal.”
“I think the Judeans have a synagogue at the far northeast quarter of the port.”
“Yes, Surgeon, I know my city. Come to think of it, I believe the Judeans’ leader was a friend of your father’s.”
“My father?” Getorius was startled. “H…how could that be?”
“Nicias once told me the story. I don’t recall this Judean’s name, but the tax assessors can look it up in their records. The man was a merchant on business in Ravenna or Classis, when the Burgondi raid took place. He heard that his wife had been killed—along with your parents—and never went back to Mogontiacum.”
“And now he’s what, high priest of the Judeans here?” Getorius was excited at the possibility of talking with someone other than Nicias who had known his parents. “Regina, his connection with me may help in getting him to cooperate.”
“Yes, and I’ll remind him that my father, Emperor Theodosius, protected Judean rights in his Code. It is worth the risk of tel
ling one other person about the papyri, yet is this man trustworthy?”
“Regina, we must do something.”
“You’re right, Surgeon. Go to the tax office and find out the man’s name. Where he lives. But get an impression of him before you say anything about the will. We don’t want some Hebrew fanatic demanding to move into the palace before sundown.” Placidia went to her writing desk and took a small square of vellum that had her signet on the front. “This is authorization for getting the information,” she said, handing the note to Getorius. “The tax office is near the Scholarian barracks.”
“We’ll find it. And the Judean.”
Placidia walked to the door with the couple. “Surgeon, I want this resolved quickly. If Aetius is behind this, I remind you that at least three witnesses are dead.”
“How would the commander even find out about the papyri?” Arcadia asked.
“My dear, the man has informants everywhere, probably including some among those who are responsible for forging the will. After the document was released, he would tell us that only his armies could deal with the situation. Meanwhile, he’s making sure that none of us who were in my mausoleum that night lives to tell about it.”
“With respect, Regina,” Getorius countered, “his two Huns could have killed us then, but he sent them to protect you. We may see conspiracies where none exist.”
“Like hypokhondrioi,” Placidia challenged, “patients who come to you with imaginary illnesses? Don’t you act as if they are really sick, in order to help them? No, Aetius is undoubtedly as surprised as we are that the papyri were discovered. Go now, but be cautious.”
Protasius, the clerk who admitted Getorius, was surly, mistaking him for another citizen coming to argue about a tax assessment. But he ogled Arcadia and asked about her bandaged forehead with exaggerated concern.
Placidia’s signet tempered his hostility, but it was the prospect of impressing the chestnut-haired woman that interested Protasius as he led the couple back to the records area. The room resembled a library, with scrolls and bound volumes of deed and property descriptions crowding sagging shelves. The clerk ignored Getorius and explained to Arcadia the intricacies of locating the information she wanted.
While Getorius looked on, annoyed, his wife went along with Protasius’ flirting in order to expedite matters.
After guiding Arcadia by the arm among the narrow stacks, Protasius pulled down a thick volume, then ruffled through pages interleafed with worn maps. He took her finger in his and rested it on an entry. Rabbi David ben Zadok, he told her, lived in the port city of Classis. It seemed the Judean community of Ravenna did not have a rabbi.
After Arcadia murmured her thanks, Protasius grinned, revealing the stained teeth that caused his bad breath, then said that Placidia’s authorization would be valid for lodging at the government mansio, an inn for those on imperial business.
Flushed and annoyed, Getorius pulled his wife away by the arm and stalked out, realizing that he had not asked about this David ben Zadok’s exact location in the port, yet stubbornly refusing to go back.
Getorius had once considered opening a practice in Classis and remembered a little about the port, two miles south of Ravenna. The naval base for the Roman Adriatic fleet was rundown now, but at one time its docks, berthing facilities, and shipyards could service two hundred and fifty war galleys.
The commercial buildings of Classis spread along the southern curve of its crescent-shaped harbor entrance. Wharves followed this bend, before the waterfront streets straightened out where the Via Armini jogged through the city center and continued south. A wooden bridge spanned a narrow western arm of the harbor and connected an island of shops and warehouses to that end of the port.
In the four hundred years since Augustus Caesar had chosen the site as the Adriatic base for Rome’s eastern fleet, the inland arm of the bay had gradually silted up. Alluvial deposits from rivers had added additional soil, which choked up the old galley berths. Classis had also suffered a population decline after barbarians breached the Rhine frontier, thirty-two years earlier. Port authorities had ordered the quadrant nearest the sea abandoned, and a new wall built further in, but the barrier was never completed.
Recently, the vital trade links with North African cities had been cut by the Vandal capture of Carthage, which left the polyglot population of Classis struggling to survive. The port had attracted Asian Pontians, Syrians and Judeans, who competed on the docks with Thracians, Macedonians, Dacians, and even citizens of the northern Pannonian plains. Most of the groups kept to themselves on streets named after their areas of origin. Despite these rivalries, Getorius recalled that the population was fairly tolerant of differences. Tenants of apartment blocks that smelled of regional cooking realized they were bound together by the sea, in a common hope for prosperity.
Discussions among the men often centered on religious differences between the predominant Arian Christians and a fast-spreading Manichaean faith. Even fanatical Donatists, who had been exiled by imperial decree, still emerged from hiding to argue their justification for excluding sinners from their ‘pure’ congregations. A few Nestorians, who taught the literal manhood of Christ, as opposed to the dual Natures that even Arians accepted, were endured for a time before they were forced aboard ships and exiled to whatever destination the galleymaster chose. Toleration, it seemed, did have some limits.
For a month now the talk in dockside taverns had been about the capture of Carthage, in October, by the Vandal king Gaiseric. Rome itself, and now the African city; both had fallen to barbarians in the space of a generation. The metropolis of Rome had recovered to an extent, but the topic of many presbyters’ sermons was the horror prophesied in the Book of Revelation. Many people accepted that the catastrophic events described were being fulfilled and prepared for the final stage of the world’s existence.
Flavius Aetius was not one of them. Instead, he was making sure that what had been a devastating event for the citizens of Carthage would be a revitalizing one for those at Classis. He ordered his fleet prefect to recondition war galleys at the port by stripping older vessels of equipment to outfit newer ones. The commander hoped that the overhauled triremes could repel any Vandal invasion of Italy.
The Western naval commander at Misenum, on the Bay of Neapolis, had been given the same orders, but with a greater sense of urgency. No one knew for certain whether the Carthaginian war galleys had been burned, captured, or been able to escape eastward and find refuge in Egypt. Rumors, to confirm Revelation, tended toward disaster. Misenum was three or four days’ summer sailing north of Carthage. Winter would make that a longer, more risky venture, but Sicily was well within reach. Gaiseric and his Vandals were Arians, as was Maximian, the bishop on the island. He was said to have offered his co-religionists hospitality if they invaded.
Getorius ordered Brisios to ready the covered carriage for a journey. By the fourth morning hour on November twenty-first, the fog was beginning to thin out.
After the gateman slid a leather traveling case into the back, he helped Arcadia onto the seat next to her husband. She felt slightly nauseous from stomach cramps. Her monthlies had begun the night before.
Getorius leaned across his wife. “Brisios, I told Childibert that we’re going to Caesena. Your mistress needs to get away for a few days. This miserable rain and taking care of patients have tired her.”
Brisios nodded and went to open the courtyard gate. Getorius clucked the mare left, onto the Via Caesar. At the intersection with the Via Honorius, about twenty paces distant, visibility disappeared into a lingering veil of fog.
Arcadia pulled the hood of her coat higher against the dampness and turned to her husband. “Why did you tell Brisios that we were going to Caesena? We’re going to Classis.”
“We don’t need everyone knowing that,” he answered. “With the Gothic Queen worried about Aetius’s spies, the fewer people who know our true destination, the better.”
“But, Brisios?”
“I’m sure he has gossiping friends in local taverns.”
“Getorius, I’m not sure I appreciate being the excuse for a lie.”
He patted her hand. “Sorry, cara. We don’t know what this is all about and I’d rather be cautious.”
“But no one goes to Caesena in the winter, it’s a summer resort. Even Brisios could figure that out.”
Getorius did not reply, realizing his wife was right and not wanting to antagonize her further by persisting in the discussion.
At the corner of the Via Theodosius the market square teemed with slaves and their mistresses picking out the day’s food supplies. Getorius threaded the mare between the carts and pedestrians, then to the right, onto the Theodosius. The carriage passed fragrant smells coming from bakeries and sausage vendors’ stalls, and the less pleasant tavern stink of stale wine and vomit from the night before. At the Via Armini, where the street had been paved with stones from the ancient walls of Augustus, Getorius guided the mare to the right again. Arcadia recalled walking the road to the old necropolis, when she had searched its tombs, with Veneranda, for examples of clothing that women wore during the Republic.
When the carriage reached the Porta Laurenti, sunlight had broken through the mist and set points of light sparkling on the surface of swamps outside the wall. To the left, the bright blue line of the Adriatic Sea materialized out of the haze.
Getorius steered the mare, carriage wheels clattering, over the boards of the bridge spanning the river. Beyond, the weathered mausoleums and monuments of the necropolis lined both sides of the roadway. A few were decorated with ivy or votive offerings of food, mute testimonials to the fact that crypto-pagans still venerated the dead, despite the ban on their religion.
Arcadia was silent, and Getorius sensed that his wife was still annoyed with him.
“You were right,” he said, squeezing her knee, “I should have told Brisios the truth. I was nervous about meeting this David ben Zadok.”