[Getorius and Arcadia 01] - The Secundus Papyrus

by Albert Noyer

  “Hardly, Surgeon,” Aetius replied softly. “If you were responsible, of course you’d know what parts had been removed.”

  “If I told you where to find the organs, in a place where I couldn’t possibly have had access?”

  “Then there probably wouldn’t be a case.” Aetius chortled. “Except, perhaps, a new one for practicing sorcery!”

  Aetius seems pretty honest. If I want to find out if my hunch is correct, I don’t have much choice but to trust him. “You owe me nothing, Commander,” Getorius said, retrieving a wax note tablet and stylus from the table, “but if you think I’m innocent, take a few men and, well, ‘raid’ is probably the wrong word, but if you could go and inspect the sanctuary of Isis in that Egyptian temple…”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Not only does Herodotus mention embalming rites,” Getorius explained as he wrote in the wax, “but I found a Latin translation of a Coptic manuscript in the library about ancient funerary rites for someone named…I think, Nes-Nekht.”

  “And?”

  “Have your men try to locate four small jars, probably made of alabaster. They would have the heads of a man, a dog, a jackal, and a…a falcon carved on the lids. This is what you’ll find inside.”

  Aetius took the tablet. “Liver and gallbladder in one,” he read. “Lungs and heart. Stomach. Large and small intestines.” He looked up with a frown of disgust.

  “What is this butcher’s list you’ve given me?”

  “Commander, show it to the deacons who were in charge of the body. I think that word got out in the port area about Behan dying in that isolated location, and his body might have been used to practice embalming rites. Secretly. Apprentice priests are no more anxious to be arrested than I am.”

  “I don’t know—looking inside that temple could be touchy,” Aetius warned. “With African grain no longer available, the Augustus wants to be certain that nothing alienates local Egyptian interests. Reports of an intrusion into a religious rite of Isis would be certain to enrage him.”

  “Then what will I need to take with me when I’m exiled to that Dalmatian rock?”

  Aetius smiled at Getorius’s jest as he slapped the tablet covers together. “Fine, Surgeon, I’ll do what you ask…but I was also told that one of your surgical instruments was found inside the dead man’s shroud.”

  “I know.” Getorius’ elation at his guesswork faded. “I can’t explain that, except to say that it didn’t get there through sorcery.”

  “No. All right, I’ll take two guards to the temple…pretext of a tax inspection or something like that.”

  “I’m grateful, Commander.”

  Aetius stood and grasped Getorius’ arm. “That pretty wife of yours must be frantic at your arrest.”

  “Arcadia’s strong, sir. I’ll tell her what you’re doing to help when she brings my supper.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right about the embalmed organs. I’ll let you know what we discover…if anything.”

  Once Aetius and his bodyguard were gone, Getorius’ doubts surfaced again. Based on speculation about the dissection that might be groundless, he was asking a possible conspirator to help him. The commander—without actually going to the temple—could come back and say he had found nothing. Getorius slumped back down on the bed and picked up the history book.

  “I don’t even know if Egyptians still practice the embalming you describe,” he muttered to Herodotus, “especially in a damp climate like Ravenna’s. Once Behan is buried my trial will only have the two deacons as witnesses. They’ll say they found his body mutilated and my scalpel inside the shroud. All I’ll be asked to do is identify the instrument. Any magistrate would draw the same conclusion of guilt.”

  What’s the penalty for mutilating a corpse? Probably close to that for desecrating a tomb. At best I’d be forbidden to practice medicine, and at worst, as Aetius suggested, I could be exiled to some desolate island in the Mediterranean Sea.

  Getorius was aware of the irony in the thought. His immediate fate would be of small consequence if whatever conspiracy was underfoot succeeded. By the date of the trial, controversy over Christ’s intentions would have begun to pit Christian against Judean communities in the major cities of both empires. Through the resulting slaughter, the apocalyptic horrors that John had described would be fulfilled in his and Arcadia’s lifetime. Indeed, an isolated island might be a temporary haven.

  Aetius said that an abbot from Behan’s monastery had arrived. He has to be connected with the papyri. The first thing the man would do is to contact those who know about the will. Hades! Here I am, helpless in this room, while he and his fellow conspirators are in the city finalizing their plans to institute a theocracy.

  Chapter twenty-one

  Hunched over in his tattered cloak, and with wet boots making a squishing sound on the paving stones of the Vicus Galla Placidia, Brenos of Slana saw the queen’s mausoleum up ahead. He glanced to the west. A faded red sky held the dark etched silhouettes of ragged clouds; the light rain would soon stop. The cold drops felt good on Brenos’ feverish face, but he was forced to walk with an awkward lope to keep his robe from rubbing the painful ulcer on his side. Perhaps he should have consulted the queen’s physician, but there had not been time.

  By that final glow of rosy light, the abbot noticed that Smyrna’s carriage was already waiting next to the first narthex arch. The two-wheeled rig was painted black, almost invisible in the twilight, and had a leather top to keep off the rain while it took him to the Villa of the Red Rooster. There, Smyrna would sort out what had happened after the confusion caused by Behan’s untimely death, and the accidental discovery of the two papyri.

  In his letter Smyrna had boasted of his access to the palace of the Augustus, so it should not be too hard for him to locate the documents in time for the vigil service, although that was only two days away.

  When Brenos reached the carriage he looked up at the driver, who motioned him to climb alongside. Once his passenger was seated, the man pulled back his hood and pointed to a silver plaque hanging around his neck. The abbot squinted at the letters, making out the words MVTVS SVRDVS, and nodded that he understood. Clever of Smyrna to send a deaf-mute to pick me up. Nameless. No questions and no answers either.

  The mute directed the mare along a narrow street that paralleled the Honorian wall. At the Theodosius Gate, guards chuckled and exchanged mocking comments with each other about Mutus, before waving the carriage through with a sweep of their spears.

  About a quarter mile beyond the gate, the silent driver guided the horse to the left, off the main stone-paved road and onto a muddy pathway that was scarcely wider than the carriage. The rain had stopped. Since the pinkish tinge of twilight on the horizon was barely enough to light their way, Mutus slackened the reins, letting the mare instinctively follow the rutted path.

  Brenos heard the carriage wheels sound a hollow clatter as they passed over the boards of a bridge spanning a river. From the persistent sound of rushing water beneath it was clear that the stream was swollen almost to the point of breaking its banks.

  A small distance beyond, the far eastern boundary of the Villa Galli Rubris was fenced by a low stone wall. An opening in the barrier was lit by torches and blocked by a large wooden sawhorse, rather than a gate. The mute rang a handbell until two men came out of a cottage alongside and moved the obstruction aside.

  It was almost totally dark as the carriage lurched on, with just enough twilight left to make out the black outline of the villa buildings in the near distance, which were set behind a higher wall. Torches blazed in holders on the gatehouse, their smoky light reflecting off the underside of a bronze rooster that surmounted the roof. Brenos half smiled. Behan had chosen his accomplice well. The very openness of the cockerel images would allay suspicion, should an outsider see and question the Gallican League symbol.

  Several guards armed with lances patrolled the gate. After being admitted, Mutus drove the carriage past a two-
level barn structure and another barracks-like building. To their left was the gateway to the villa compound. The driver stopped at the near end of a courtyard, which led into the main villa buildings. Smoking torches on a three-sided portico revealed a fountain in the center, but it was turned off. Brenos frowned, aware of an unpleasant smell of chicken dung that hung on the damp air.

  When Mutus turned toward the abbot, Brenos saw the dancing flicker of torch flames animating the driver’s face. A shiver ran down his neck; the man’s coarse features resembled the blank grin of a Culdees monk who had gone mad after being possessed by demons. He jumped from the carriage. A guard materialized from the portico shadows, motioning for the abbot to come with him. As Brenos followed, he felt reassured at the presence of so many sentries. Smyrna had his own army. That would be useful in controlling the turmoil that would be sure to follow the disclosure of the will.

  The guard led the way across the courtyard, toward the portico of the villa’s central building. After opening the door to a darkened atrium, he motioned the abbot inside. Brenos could hear the splash of water falling into a pool from a roof opening, and through the gloom he thought he could see a figure standing by one of the columns. The guard indicated the door of a room immediately to the right, then walked away and was lost in the portico shadows.

  Brenos entered a small reception area that was illuminated by a single oil lamp set on a bronze stand. Three chairs and a round table were the only furnishings. A curtained doorway was on the right. The walls were undecorated except for six masks that hung on the side opposite the door. Drawn to them, Brenos studied the effigies and realized that each carved and painted female face was the personification of a city, with her headdress forming a wall and gate.

  As he read their names, cut over the gate entrances, he was surprised to recognize the code names of the Gallican League affiliate cities: EPHESVS, PERGAMVM, THIATIRA, SARDIS, PHILADELPHIA, AND LAODICIA. Yet there should have been seven masks. The second peg, where the smyrna mask should have hung, was empty.

  As Brenos waited, trying to control his nervousness, he again wondered how Behan had found his accomplice. The monk would have gone to the library not only to read, but to glean information from palace gossipers, both freemen and slaves. He would also have visited the bishop’s residence and churches, where presbyters and deacons might voice their complaints to a simple monk, a “holy fool for Christ.”

  Behan undoubtedly must have heard about Smyrna in this way. The man would be someone disaffected with his status in government or business, perhaps even the army. Once Behan had been convinced the man had resources and position, could be trusted, and would cooperate, he would describe the mission of the Gallican League and the unimaginable power that would come from being part of the conspiracy. There was rivalry even among bishops and abbots—how much more so in an ambitious layman? Smyrna’s letter had implied that he was familiar with palace government. Good, he would have the administrative skills for implementing the League’s plan to set up a theocracy—God’s kingdom on the earth.

  A century ago the Emperor Constantine had had such a vision, but his sons squandered his legacy in deadly squabbles over territory. Then, an apostate emperor tried to revive the worship of pagan idols again. Two subsequent dynasties had failed to stem the tide of barbarians and heretics inundating the empires, and the present weak emperor and his mother had turned Ravenna into the lair of the Harlot, of whom John had warned in his Revelation.

  A rustling of the curtain that closed off the door opening interrupted the abbot’s thoughts. He turned away from the masks. A tall, bizarre figure wearing a black robe with the outline of a skeleton embroidered on the front swept in through one side of the curtains. The Smyrna mask concealed its human face, and the two bony hands held wooden paddles with the Greek letters A and Ω painted on them.

  Alpha and Omega? Brenos felt his skin pucker at the unexpected entrance of this supernatural apparition before he made the connection. John’s vision to the Angel for the church at Smyrna was of Alpha and Omega, Christ the First and Last, He who had died and come back from the grave again. Clever I suppose, yet I had expected to meet a sophisticated accomplice, not some theatrical phantom in a satanic costume.

  The figure posed a moment, holding up the two paddles, then asked in a voice that was muffled by the hollow headpiece, “Brenos of Slana, Abbot of the monastery of Culdees?”

  “Yes…yes, that is who I am,” he stammered, recovering from his surprise. “And you are Smyrna?”

  “Sit down, Abbot,” the figure commanded.

  Brenos wanted to remain standing, the better to bolt from the room if need be, but did as he was asked and sat, choosing the chair nearest the lamp, where he could see the specter more clearly. Smyrna had towered over him by at least a head when standing; now that he was seated, the costumed figure still loomed like some overpowering courier of evil.

  “Our plan, Abbot, seems to have gone wrong,” the voice intoned through the Smyrna mask, “just as an unexpected storm at sea may destroy a galley.”

  Brenos’ scalp tightened at the confirmation of what he feared. “So…so it’s been hinted to me. I was delayed by such a storm and came later than I expected.”

  “An unfortunate circumstance, Abbot. It may be yet a further whim of Fortune, but the testament of the Nazarene seems to have been unearthed by those who are not Gallicans.”

  “I’ve just learned that, but only one other person may be aware of it, the Emperor’s mother. We need only find where the will is now. I believe it to be in the palace.”

  “And you were the building’s architect?” Smyrna mocked. “Go, then, find the document.”

  “I…I meant that the papyri must be near the librarian’s room. Wherever he was testing the manuscripts.” Brenos was sweating now, intimidated by the apparition in a way he had not been since his novice days at Clonard. He needed to impress this Smyrna, and so he blurted out, “Did you know that Theokritos declared the will to be authentic?”

  “Authentic? Who told you this?” Smyrna demanded, his sarcasm replaced by a tone of angry surprise.

  “I…” Brenos hesitated. No one knew he had looked inside the librarian’s cabinet after suffocating him. “Th…the old man told me before he died.”

  “And you told whom?”

  “No one. Nobody. On my oath to Ciallanus, no one,” Brenos babbled. “Now, only you. But we must locate the Nazarene’s will in time for the Nativity Mass.”

  “You sound desperate, Abbot, and you should be. The fate of our Gallican League depends on finding the document in time.”

  “Yes, yes. I discovered only the librarian’s result…” Brenos stopped. He had almost slipped again, after saying he had been told the results of the tests, but Smyrna either did not catch the error or ignored it.

  “You mentioned the librarian’s room,” the muffled voice said, “but the will could be with the Empress Mother. I will try to locate it.”

  “Wh…what of the prophecy?” Brenos asked nervously. “Behan evidently failed to announce it.”

  “The fool drowned beforehand, in one of his penances.”

  “I received word of his death at Culdees, and the note—your note—about the cockerel being ready to crow. We agreed Behan’s murder was the signal for me to come, but you mentioned no accidental death, nor that the prophecy had not been revealed. How were the two papyri discovered?”

  “All you need know, Abbot, is that the witnesses were…are…being silenced.”

  Brenos felt resentment surface at the man’s arrogant and patronizing attitude. He had called it “our” Gallican League. This Smyrna was meant to be a mere instrument for bringing about a theocracy that was his, Brenos’, idea.

  “Abbot? Your mind has wandered.”

  Smyrna’s voice brought Brenos back. “Yes. There…there isn’t much time for you to find the Nazarene’s will.”

  An eerie chuckle sounded from behind the mask. “Only until the cock crows twice more.”
/>
  “Twice more?” There were two dawns until the Nativity, but was the comment intended as a taunt about Peter’s betrayal of the Nazarene? Does this…this satanic apparition think he is being deceived, that I have betrayed my own Gallicans? The pain in Brenos’ side was excruciating. He realized that he had to get out of the oppressive room, try to sleep, but first he must arrange another meeting. “When will you contact me again?”

  “Tomorrow, at the monk’s funeral, I will tell you what I have found out. Now, Mutus will take you back to Ravenna.”

  When Brenos stepped up into the black carriage again he was trembling. A blinding white light behind his eyes pulsed regularly, mimicking each beat of his heart. Nauseous, it was all he could do to keep from vomiting. There was no choice but to trust Smyrna, yet there were only two days left in which to locate the papyri. If the prophecy had to be announced after the disclosure of the Nazarene’s will, Behan’s accidental drowning would be a suitable excuse, but once the terms of the will were made public, no one would really care any longer.

  No, wait, Brenos thought. I could announce the prophecy at my eulogy for Behan. It’s not the way I had planned it, but the will itself is the crucial document. Smyrna must locate that papyrus.

  As the carriage rattled back across the bridge Brenos rankled at his humiliation. Smyrna had questioned him as if he were a novice monk and only a small part of the conspiracy, not an abbot and head of the Gallican League. Yet he would be patient. Once the Nazarene’s testament was made public and the League triumphant, an arrogant associate like Smyrna would be humbled—destroyed in the winepress of God’s wrath!

  Chapter twenty-two

  Late on the afternoon of December twenty-third, Getorius was pleasantly surprised when Charadric admitted both Arcadia and Silvia to his room.

  Arcadia called the guard back as he turned to leave, “A moment, Charadric. How is your wife Ingunda’s leg? The Surgeon treated her after I…I—”