The Cybelene Conspiracy

by Albert Noyer

  “Stand back.” Leudovald smashed his mallet hard against the brickwork. As the wall shattered under his blows, the opening was enlarged enough for him to look inside. After he peered in, his expression of eagerness changed to a frown. “There’s an oak door about a half pace in. My mallet is too small, I’ll have to bring a guard detail to batter it down. Let us go back.”

  “Leudovald, we’ll stay here and look around some more,” Arcadia said.

  “For what?” he asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “It’s obvious that the door leads to the tunnel.”

  “We…we want to be sure this is the only entrance,” Getorius added, thankful for his wife’s quick reaction. “There might be others.”

  “Very well, Surgeon, but don’t go inside and bar the front portal after I leave. I don’t want any of Thecla’s Arians coming in and seeing what I’ve discovered.”

  After the investigator was gone, Getorius slid a beam into its supporting brackets to secure the door. Arcadia led her husband back into the apse and showed him the IXYC drawing. “Look at that symbol. It’s the same as on Thecla’s papyrus. Could it be marking a tunnel entrance?”

  “Leudovald thinks it’s behind that door.”

  “These panels are wood, easier to move if you’re in a hurry,” she reasoned. “Feel around the edges.”

  Getorius felt, then pushed at each of the surfaces, but none of them moved. “Nothing, Arcadia. Let’s just wait until Leudovald comes back.”

  “You commented on the unusual ‘Ichthus’ design,” Arcadia recalled. “The eye and cross. Perhaps it’s not just an eye. It could be pointing us to the left.”

  “Where do you get these ideas, Wife? It’s just the old Christian fish symbol.”

  “Then humor me, Husband.”

  Getorius sighed and retested the two panels on the left side. All were securely attached to the bricks behind them. “Sorry, they’re solid, and after the last one you’re back in the nave again.”

  Arcadia looked up again at the picture of the open tomb above the center panels. “Getorius, the few murals of the Resurrection I’ve seen all have Christ at the entrance of a burial cave, the way the Testaments describe the scene. This one has a rectangular grave set in the ground.”

  “That is unusual.” He tapped the black area with a knuckle. “Arcadia! It sounds hollow!” When he pushed hard at the bottom, the black rectangle began to swivel inwards. An immediate rush of cool air and the stench of decay came from the opening. He pulled back, covering his mouth. “Aggh! It smells like I’ve literally opened a tomb.”

  “Is it the tunnel?”

  “Let me look inside.” Getorius held his breath and glanced in. It was totally dark below, but light from the small opening revealed the rungs of a ladder attached to the back wall, about a pace in. He tested the swiveling wooden board and felt behind it. His hand came away wet and slippery. “Olive oil smeared on an iron rod, so the door can easily open. Thecla’s followers weren’t taking any chances, Arcadia—they kept this in working order.”

  “Where does it lead?”

  “Judging from that smell, the ladder probably goes down to a sewer, or perhaps the drainage canal under the Via Armini. Stay here and tell Leudovald where I’ve gone.”

  “I’ll not stay here, Getorius. I’m going down with you.”

  “That’s insane, Arcadia. Who knows where the tunnel leads?”

  “You’re wasting time, Husband. I’ll follow you in.”

  Getorius felt too curious to argue with her. The stench filled the immediate area now and he suppressed an urge to retch. After he had squeezed into the cramped space, he counted six ladder rungs before his feet touched solid ground. He flailed at something that brushed his hair, then realized it was Arcadia’s sandal. She had not waited long to come after him, and was carrying his medical case.

  Getorius helped his wife down to a low, curved passageway. A bluish glow in the distance tempered the darkness. “Let’s walk toward that light. Keep your head down.”

  Arcadia slung the case over her shoulder and clutched the back of her husband’s tunic as he hugged the curved wall. Getorius counted thirty paces before the darkness brightened and the gurgle of running water was heard.

  The wall ended at right angles to a higher arched tunnel that stretched off into the distance. Small wells of light from above, at what Getorius estimated were twenty-five pace intervals, illuminated the sewer. In front of him, a stream of water almost as wide as the Via Armini swirled past. Its smell, although unpleasant, was not that of raw excrement.

  “I’d guess that this is Augustus Caesar’s old canal from the Padus River,” Getorius said, with an eerie echo to his words. “It’s a storm drain now, with a few slops tossed in through street openings, but we’re lucky…it would be a lot worse if public latrines emptied into the culvert.”

  A narrow maintenance walkway built above the channel followed the left wall. The stones were wet, and slimy with green, moss-like growths. Getorius ducked down and went in.

  “Which way do we go?” Arcadia asked, following him. “Left or right?”

  “I’m not sure.” After looking around, Getorius noticed a faint fish symbol scratched high on the wall, facing to the left. “This graffiti looks to be ancient. Thecla’s predecessors were well prepared. If you’re correct about the eye, we should go in the direction it’s pointing.”

  Getorius started along the walkway, counting paces. After reaching the first opening overhead, he heard the rumble of carts passing on the Armini and realized it would be impossible to become lost. It was the ancient canal, now a sewer that went in the same straight direction as the road above. Peering through the grating, he saw a sky that was a cloudless cobalt blue. He and Arcadia would not be drenched with a deluge of rainwater from the curbs. Yet up ahead, at the next opening, a slim column of water sparkled in a brief cascade—someone was emptying a pot though the opening. There are hazards he thought, grasping Arcadia’s hand to continue their trek.

  Getorius estimated he had walked over a hundred paces when bright daylight ahead shone in from the right. The Armini sewer had intersected with another channel, a cloaca that swept wastes from the western quadrant of Ravenna into the harbor.

  The mouth of the drain was a short distance away. Through the opening, Getorius caught a glimpse of galleys at anchor and some of the harbor warehouses. An iron grate over the end of the cloaca was jammed with brush, and what he realized were the bloated and decaying carcasses of small animals. There were undoubtedly human remains in the tangle of debris, possibly murder victims whose bodies had been disposed of by being jammed through street sewer openings.

  “I’ll have to wade across this channel, but I’ll carry you,” he said, giving Arcadia’s hand a squeeze. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, but I can walk by mysel…” Arcadia started to protest, when a gray snake slithered past in the murky water. “Fine, carry me,” she relented. “And please don’t fall.”

  Getorius tested the bottom with a foot. It was slimy, and the water ankle-high, but he made it across, with Arcadia clinging to his back, her nose buried in his tunic to block out the stronger stench. The lateral sewer did carry latrine wastes off into the harbor.

  Further on, at a point Getorius estimated was a few paces more distant than they had come, a smaller tunnel angled off to the right. He looked at it and the main sewer, which, like the Via Armini, continued on toward the Porta Anastasia in the north wall.

  “Do we keep going straight or turn here?” Arcadia asked, glancing up at a grate over the intersection.

  “We’re somewhere in the port area. The harbor is on our right, so this side tunnel might lead to a wharf where the escapees could have boarded a galley.”

  “That would make sense if they were trying to escape.” Arcadia looked around the well of light and spotted the incised outline of a fish on the wall to her right. “There. Another ‘Ichthus.’ It’s pointing into the tunnel.”

  “Good, then we’re
still on the Arians’ escape route.” Getorius helped his wife across paving stones set in the channel to the passageway. “Watch your head again,” he warned. “This tunnel is lower and darker.”

  Only a small patch of light shined in the distance, from above, where the passageway suddenly ended. The dim illumination revealed a wooden door set in an end wall of bricks.

  “Let’s find out where that leads.” At the door Getorius rattled its sliding bolt, but the securing wards held fast. “Of course…locked. Look around. The Arians wouldn’t have come this far without hiding a spare key somewhere close by, in case they couldn’t bring one from the church.”

  After searching the wall in the poor light, Arcadia noticed an equal-armed Greek cross scratched on one of the bricks, less than an arm’s length above eye level. “Getorius, look. This may mark something.”

  “Makes sense. Open my medical case, I’ll try to pry the brick out with one of my larger scalpels.” After Getorius had worked the bronze blade into the mortar joint he edged the brick forward in short, grating scrapes. He handed the block to Arcadia, reached inside the opening and pulled out a bronze key. The short handle was decorated with a head of Christ. “That was almost too easy, but then I don’t imagine anyone but fugitives would ever be down here.” Pushing the key wards up into their corresponding slots, Getorius slid the bolt loose and cautiously pulled the door open. He peered in. “Incredible luck—a room, and it’s empty.”

  The entranceway led up three stairs, into a medium-sized area with rough brick walls and a low ceiling. Two narrow windows set high on one side lighted the space. Another larger door was at the far end.

  “This looks like the basement of a house,” Arcadia whispered.

  He nodded. “After our eyes adjust to this light, we can see what’s stored here.”

  It soon became evident that worktables were set against the walls, and a number of lampstands near them, that, when burning, would substantially increase the light. Getorius puzzled at an upright device, which had a long handle attached to a wooden worm screw.

  “Are we in a fuller’s shop? This looks like the cloth press at the one on the Vicus Caesar.” Glancing around, he noticed a basket on a worktable next to the press, heaped with coin-sized bronze discs. He examined one and found it blank. “Could it be?” He ran a finger under the head of the press screw and felt a circular incised design. Directly under it, a matching depression in a block of bronze had been lined up with the center of its upper mate. Peering into the die, he recognized the reverse profile and inscription of Valentinian III. “Arcadia, this is a coin press! It’s where the counterfeits are minted. Could Thecla…her Arians…be involved in a conspiracy to subvert the emperor?”

  “I can’t believe that. There aren’t enough members, and they have enough trouble as it is. Getorius, let’s go back. I’m frightened someone will find us.”

  “Right, and it wouldn’t do for Leudovald to discover that we vanished into the ether. On the way back I’ll pace off the distances down here more carefully. If I start outside at the Arian basilica and count steps north along the Armini, then to a street on the right, I probably could come close to the building where we are.”

  Getorius locked the door, replaced the key and brick, then led the way back to the main sewer. At the junction, he paused to lean against a wall. “I can’t believe we’ve found the place where the counterfeit coins are being made. But what can the connection with the Arians be?”

  “I don’t believe there is one, or Thecla wouldn’t have led us there.”

  “Good point. One of her congregation members might have stumbled on the room in checking out the escape route.”

  “And she was alluding to it in her Testament passages,” Arcadia said. “She wanted us to find the place.”

  “I’ll have to think about that later. Right now, we’d better get back before Leudovald does.”

  Retracing and counting his steps, Getorius reached the ladder and helped Arcadia out through the access door concealed by the tomb painting. Inside the church apse, he glanced down at his boots.

  “Soaking. If Leudovald notices these are wet, he’ll have questions. What can I dry them with?”

  “That cabinet he moved could hold Thecla’s vestments. There might be towels, for the Baptistry.” Arcadia ran down, opened the door, and pulled out a folded linen cloth. “Yes. Here, dry your shoes with this.”

  Getorius had soaked up most of the wetness by the time Leudovald pounded on the front door for admittance.

  “Open it for him,” Arcadia said. “I’ll mop the floor with the towel and put it back.”

  After Getorius unbarred the portal, Leudovald stalked in with four palace guards.

  “Now we’ll see where this tunnel leads,” he told the men. “Smash down that wall and pry the door open.”

  Getorius wondered if there might be two escape routes, as he watched the men hammer apart the bricks. They used a crowbar to yank the door planks off, but even before the work was finished, he had seen the blank wall behind the splintered wood. “It’s a decoy, Leudovald,” he said. “Wasting a pursuer’s time on the niche and false door would have given the Arians more time to escape through the…through a real tunnel.”

  “Perhaps I’ve underestimated the heretics.” Leudovald scowled. “Did you two find anything?”

  “They say that cunning helps weak folk survive,” Getorius hedged.

  “Indeed. And if you hunt a fox, know his tricks. Surgeon, you said there was a porter here?”

  “An old man, Thecla told me. I forget his name.”

  “I’ll find and question him. The presbytera may have deceived us with ‘clues’ to a non-existent tunnel.”

  Arcadia shivered. “It’s chilly in here. I’d like to go home, Getorius.”

  “Of course, Cara. Leudovald, you’ll investigate Thecla’s death and let me know what you find out?”

  “Investigate to what purpose?” he retorted. “We have the girl’s testimony about the slave’s murder, and the perpetrator’s death is an accident. I’ll report those to the magistrate.”

  “That’s all you’ll do?”

  “Reprimand the guard for carelessness. Yet there is still the matter of the false ‘Valentinians.’”

  “Well, you know where our home is. Let’s go, Arcadia.” So much for trusting Leudovald, Getorius thought as he took his wife’s arm. “Solve” the murder no matter what. As he walked to the door, he glanced down at his damp boots. Evidently, “the little icy man” had not noticed them.

  Once she was outside, Arcadia took a deep breath of spring air. “I need a bath to soak away that sewer stench.”

  “I’ll certainly join you.”

  At the corner of the Via Porti, Getorius turned to look along the Armini. The tunnel underneath had run roughly north, into the heart of the harbor quarter, then the smaller one a short distance east. But to which shop, house, or apartment?

  “Are you figuring out where we were?”

  He nodded. “Thecla knew about that room, Arcadia, but she couldn’t tell us in so many words. And it’s under a building I may or may not be able to find.”

  “The Testament passages she marked off might be clues in locating it,” Arcadia suggested.

  “What, that her persecuted Arians devised an escape route?”

  “The other sections, Getorius. About a man’s wealth not giving him life. Nation making war against nation.”

  “Senator Maximin is certainly the best candidate for the first one, but how would Thecla know that the counterfeits were being smuggled in his wool bales? If that’s what she’s telling us.”

  “Nations…our two empires…would be at war with each other as a result of the coins’ distribution in the East.”

  “Either Thecla’s a prophetess, Arcadia, or she somehow found out about all this and her death wasn’t an accident.”

  “Horrible. You thought that the power of Chen’s invention could change warfare entirely.”

  “The
Dragon’s Cough. Those four crates are at the senator’s villa, with Chen.”

  “We haven’t seen him again,” Arcadia recalled. “I wonder how he’s doing there?”

  “I don’t know who it is that Maximin intends to have witness the power of the dragon, but I need to talk with Chen once more. And soon.”

  Chapter seventeen

  Zhang Chen had decided that he was not happy at the Villa of the Red Rooster. For one thing, he was lonely. Ravenna did not have a community of his people, as had Pessinus, and the strangely seasoned food of the Ta-Ts’in was not to his liking. His quarters were permeated with an overwhelming stench of chicken dung that stuck in his throat day and night. In addition, this arrogant official, Sen-t’or, now treated him like a servant, and had not spoken of the gold coins that the eunuch priest Dio-t’r had promised he would receive for bringing samples of chih, his writing material, to the West.

  And now that the screen for making chih was finished, Sen-t’or did not seem in much of a hurry to see a demonstration of how the writing sheets were manufactured. And after foolishly trusting As-t’us, Chen felt that the cunning healer and his wife had tricked him into revealing the Dragon’s Cough by bewitching his mind with the enchanted drink that Lao-Tzu had warned against.

  Although Zhang Chen did not much like Dio-t’r, he thought that it was time to talk to the womanish priest. It was the eunuch who had suggested that Chen travel to the land of the Western Emperor with his inventions, promising that he could sell them there and escape as a rich man from the repressive statutes of the new ruler of Sina. Yes, he would go see the priest whose strange goddess ordered her worshippers to turn themselves into neutered capons. Was it not well known that the eunuch court around the Sinese Emperor wielded enormous influence? Perhaps Dio-t’r could take Chen away from the stinking house of roosters, and get him his promised gold.

  When Zhang Chen arrived at the gate to the temple compound of Cybele, a novice porter admitted him to Diotar’s rooms. Adonis and Claudia were there, the girl dressed in her vestal robes.