by Albert Noyer
Arcadia followed the youth across an unkempt, weed-filled garden area, noticing that a pool in the center was clogged with dead leaves. Obviously Virilo did not employ a competent gardener.
The villa was arranged around three sides of a courtyard. To her left Arcadia saw that half of the two-story wing had been faced with pink marble. An entryway, flanked by Ionic columns, suggested a sacred building. There’s no inscription, but if Diotar’s cult is located here, that’s probably his temple to Cybele.
Adonis led the way under the portico of a building across from the temple, knocked on a door, and then entered.
Diotar turned from a mirror, where he was combing his hair, but stopped in mid-stroke when he saw Arcadia.
“ArchGallus, I found this woman outside our gate,” Adonis told him. “She wants to see Claudia.”
“The wife of the surgeon. How did you find our temple?”
“I can help Claudia,” Arcadia told him. “I’d like to talk with her and her father about an epilepsia treatment…about care during her pregnancy.”
“Your husband sent you?”
Arcadia shook her head. “Getorius doesn’t know I came.” As the words slipped out of her mouth she realized her mistake in admitting that, but it was already too late.
Adonis bent down and whispered something to Diotar, who nodded and forced a smile. “Claudia may be in the temple. Adonis, we’ll take…again, what is your name?”
“Arcadia.”
“Yes. We’ll take Arcadia to see Cybele’s house. Bring Thalassius and Malarich…to prepare the temple for evening worship.
Outside, as Diotar escorted Arcadia across the garden to the temple entrance, he continued talking, his high-pitched voice amiable, “I understand your shock at first seeing Cybele’s face in Olcinium…the sacred stone…but you’ll see that our statue here is quite beautiful.”
Inside the temple the space was gloomy, the waning afternoon sunlight diffused by the single high window. Arcadia saw that Diotar had spoken the truth. The seated image of Cybele was lovely, similar to the smaller statue in the outdoor booth that had been destroyed in the earthquake.
“The two paintings explain our cult,” Diotar said, leading Arcadia to a mural on the left wall. “This one depicts Cybele and Attis rising heavenward to eternal bliss.”
Intent on studying the unfamiliar imagery, Arcadia paid little attention when she heard the front door open. She glanced around to see Adonis come in with the two men Diotar had sent for, but then turned back to continue looking at the mural. Suddenly she felt a hairy arm encircle her throat. Frantic, she tried to struggle free, but a powerful grip kept her hands pinned to her sides. A cloth was stuffed into her mouth and tied roughly in place behind her hair. She winced at a sharp pain on the side of her face. One of her earrings had almost been torn off.
Arcadia went limp, realizing she would only be hurt more if she tried to fight back. She felt her feet being lifted off the floor by one of the men, while the other supported her under the arms. Together they easily carried her behind Cybele’s statue, then more awkwardly down a series of steps, into a small chamber. Another flight of stairs led further downward.
Arcadia only had time to think about what a fool she had been to come alone before she felt the man at her head press his finger against the pulse in her throat, and blackness overcame her.
Arcadia awoke to an unfamiliar, slightly salty taste in her mouth, and an aching head. When she became aware of her surroundings again, she found herself lying on her side, with the gag still in her mouth.
I remember passing out, but they must have rubbed opion on my gums as a quick anesthetic to keep me unconscious. Someone here knows about medicine. Arcadia looked down at her tunic. It was untorn and intact. At least no one raped me. Struggling to stand up, she found her feet were bound and her hands tied behind her back, but by twisting her body around she managed to get into a kneeling position on the stone floor.
Light from two small high windows gave feeble illumination to a room that looked familiar. Although Arcadia did not feel as if much time had passed, her hunger and need for urination told her that it was later in the day. After her eyes became accustomed to the dim light, she recognized the worktables she and Getorius had seen a few days earlier. The baskets of bronze coin discs were gone. The press lay on the floor, dismantled, with its parts laid out in sections. I’m in the room we discovered at the end of that final sewer tunnel. It was under Virilo’s house, and it looks like he’s getting ready to leave, move his counterfeiting operation elsewhere. That silversmith must have warned him that Getorius was around, asking questions. Poor Claudia. What will happen to her now? If Cybele’s temple is here, Diotar must be part of whatever’s going on, and I was stupid enough to ask Adonis about Chen’s crates in that cart. The priest was evidently afraid that I’d tell someone about them, but what does he and Virilo plan to do with me now?
Arcadia shuddered on recalling that her husband believed that the galleymaster had murdered Atlos. Getorius. He must realize I’m gone by now and be frantic. Neither he nor anyone else knows where I went. Blessed Cosmas, at least I should have had enough sense to tell Childibert!
Chapter nineteen
What do you mean, you don’t know where Arcadia went?” Getorius stormed at Silvia, shoving away the breakfast plate she had put in front of him. “Don’t you keep track of your mistress better than that?”
“She di…didn’t tell me wh…where she was going,” Silvia sobbed.
“Nor I. And she’s been gone all night…” Getorius glanced up, feeling both hope and alarm when Childibert looked into the dining room. “What is it, word about Arcadia?”
“Master, sick woman came to clinic.”
“Of all times. All right. Silvia,” Getorius said to her more gently, “perhaps your mistress went to her father’s house. Valerianus may have come back to Ravenna from his winter villa. Take Brisios and go over there. It’s near the Theodosius Gate—he knows the place.”
Getorius watched her leave, then went through his study to the clinic. Childibert had admitted Felicitas, the former patient he had seen at Thecla’s funeral. Her son Fabius was with her.
The woman suffered from mellitus, Getorius recalled. A few months earlier he had prescribed a vegetable diet, unsweetened wine, and vinegar rubs for her leg ulcers. Arcadia had given Felicitas the first treatment and instructed Fabius to continue them at home. It was logical that an excess of sweet be balanced with acid, hence the dry wine and vinegar washes.
Felicitas’s soiled tunic reeked of urine. She was sniffling, indicating a wet humor imbalance. It was evident she had lost some weight by following the diet, but her legs were no better.
“Are you continuing the vinegar treatments, Domina?” Getorius asked gently. “Your legs—”
“Had t’ bring mother here in a litter,” Fabius complained, confirming what Getorius had observed about her ability to walk.
“You said I’d be dancing around the basilica on the Feast of Palms,” Felicitas scolded in a tone that was more disappointed than angry.
Getorius tried to recall why he would have told her that. The woman’s case was serious and he avoided giving patients false hope. “I probably meant that I’d like you to be well enough to do that, Domina. Have you been eating properly?”
Felicitas gave a non-committal shrug of her head and looked away.
“Fabius?”
“Mother wants her fried pork. She’s still pissin’ in bed. Tired all th’ time. Thirsty. I’m workin’ now and can’t be with her as much.”
“I understand.” Arcadia had been there the first time Felicitas came in, Getorius recalled, had treated the woman’s leg ulcers, and even cajoled her son into continuing the vinegar washes. He suddenly realized how much he missed his wife, how much he needed her as a partner. Felicitas’s weight loss obviously was not the result of dieting. It was clear that the woman would die soon, probably before the summer solstice. The thought reminded him of what she h
ad said about walking around the basilica, but he had meant Bishop Chrysologos’s church—back then he had not known Felicitas was an Arian Christian. Perhaps she knew what happened to the porter.
“Domina, the Arian basilica. Do you—”
“We don’t cause trouble,” Fabius cut in, “but your bishop closed our church.”
“Fabius, I’m not harassing you, I even treated your presbytera. I thought your mother might know what happened to Thecla’s porter.”
“I already told you that Odo’s never been found.”
“Do you know anything about the death of that youth in April? After Thecla found him she called me to the basilica.”
Fabius shook his head. “What about mother?”
He’s obviously not going to talk. “Get her on a vegetable diet…without the pork…and continue the vinegar washes as best you can. I’m sorry, that’s all I can tell you that might be of help.”
After the two of them left, Getorius went into his office to wait for the return of Silvia and Brisios. He wandered the room, absently touching his jars of preserved animal organs, and parts of the skeletons in his collection. The plaque of the Hippocratic Oath, which Arcadia had given him on his birthday, was still propped up on a lower shelf; he had not gotten around to having Childibert mount it to the office wall. Getorius took up the bronze plate, half-heartedly held it up in various locations, and returned it to the shelf.
He sat behind his desk and idly leafed through the Soranus volume on gynecology that Arcadia had been reading. Had he been too harsh in refusing her wishes to open a women’s clinic? Claudia had asked for an abortifacient. It had been the first such request in his experience, since women usually went to midwives for such advice. Soranus had an entire section on the procedures, yet most midwives could not read, and knew only what their own teachers had taught them. Perhaps Arcadia could save the lives of both mothers and children, if women trusted her enough to ask for her services.
Getorius was asleep, his head on the desk top, saliva dribbling from his mouth, when he was startled awake by Childibert’s voice.
“Master. Master!”
“What is it?” he asked, wiping his lips on a sleeve and rubbing at the stiffness in his neck. “Was your mistress at her father’s house?”
“Man from magistrate office is in atrium.”
“Leudovald? What hour is it?”
“Ninth, Master.”
“Leudovald came here?” Getorius repeated as his mind cleared of sleep. Christ, don’t let it be that he’s found Arcadia’s body in a canal or the harbor. He rose and swept past his steward, half-ran into the atrium, and saw the investigator idly tossing pebble bits into the pool. “Leudovald. Is…do you have news about my wife?”
“News about your wife,” he repeated in his eccentric manner. “Surgeon, I came here to interrogate her. What is this riddle?”
“No riddle. Arcadia has been missing since yesterday afternoon, and without telling me, or her house servants, where she went. I sent Silvia to her father’s house, but Childibert didn’t say anything just now. I presume she hasn’t returned.”
“You perhaps…offended her, Surgeon?”
“What?”
“It’s said that women are like wasps in their anger.”
“We’ve not had a quarrel, if that’s what you’re saying. Look…come into my study.” Getorius led the way through the reception area and into his room, then closed the door. Leudovald chose the same stool on which he sat the first time he had questioned Getorius, three weeks earlier. “You wanted to talk to her about the counterfeit ‘Valentinians’?”
“Yes, but now there seems to be a more serious problem. A missing wife.”
“Leudovald, I’ll be honest,” Getorius told him. “I don’t much like your sarcasm and insinuations, but I’ve already said that I believe you’re sincere in wanting to find out the truth about the death of Atlos.”
“A death with unfortunate consequences for the old woman. The…presbytera.”
“Yes.” Getorius was surprised at the investigator’s soft words that did not refer to Thecla as a heretic, or belittle her ordination. The man sounded almost regretful. “Leudovald, if I’m going to find Arcadia, I probably don’t have much choice but to trust you. We…accidentally discovered the ‘Valentinians’ hidden in wool bales aboard the Cybele.”
“In the property of our illustrious senator.”
“Publius Maximin. On impulse I told Arcadia to put a few of them in her purse.”
“Three.”
“One of the bronzes in the pouch had been silvered.”
“Silvered. A sample,” Leudovald suggested, “for an accomplice at Olcinium to imitate?”
“You already know a lot about the coins.”
“Surgeon, why would one export false coins of the western emperor to the eastern empire? For what purpose?”
“We’ve asked ourselves that…” Getorius paused. “Can we speculate about the coins later? This isn’t helping me find Arcadia.”
“Where would you suggest we start, Surgeon?”
Talk of the counterfeiting had reminded Getorius of the underground room at Virilo’s. He could tell Leudovald about its location, at the end of a sewer tunnel, but not necessarily that he knew it was in the galleymaster’s villa.
“I haven’t been completely open with you,” he admitted. “That day we went to the basilica with you, Arcadia found the hidden passage that Thecla’s people used to escape church authorities. We followed it through sewers.”
“Through sewers to where, Surgeon?” Leudovald’s velvet tone had hardened, and he phrased the question as a demand.
“To a location where…where we found counterfeiting equipment.”
“Counterfeiting equipment. Then let us first search for your wife there.”
“There? Actually, I…did tell her…” Getorius caught himself before blurting out that the press was located in a basement of Virilo’s house.
“Tell her what?”
“Never mind.” Getorius stood up. “Let’s go to the Arian basilica and get down into that tunnel.”
It had begun to rain, sending rivulets of water down the street gutters to gurgle into sewer openings in swirling pools. Despite leather rain capes, by the time the two men reached the basilica they were soaking wet. Leudovald pried the grille off the door with the iron bar he brought. Getorius led him around the apse to the hidden ladder, and down along the same route he had taken with Arcadia. But this time water poured through the street openings and dropped down in drenching cascades at twenty-five-pace intervals. The Armini channel was filling up rapidly, and had now almost reached the level of the walkway.
When they reached the lateral sewer leading to the harbor, it was calf-deep with mucky water, its smell intensified by having been stirred up by the torrents of falling rainwater. The splashing sound, as it emptied into the harbor, echoed back into the tunnel arch.
Water in the main channel was nearing the level of the maintenance walk when Getorius led the way into the side tunnel that led to the underground room. He worked the brick loose with his belt knife and retrieved the key.
Leudovald grabbed it. “I’ll open that door.”
Getorius watched him push the wards up and slide the bolt back. Leudovald pulled the door open a crack, then stepped aside, waiting for anyone who might be in the room to investigate the intrusion. All was quiet.
He stepped in.
Getorius walked after him. The room’s already minimal light had been made even dimmer by the storm, but he sensed that something was missing. “What the…? That screw press is gone!”
“You have me chasing phantoms, Surgeon?”
“Christ be my witness, there was a wooden press here, like the one fullers use. I saw the inside of the coin dies.” Getorius went to the tables ranged around the walls. “The lamps and bronze slugs are gone, too…only these workbenches are still in place.” After glancing around once more, Getorius’s eyes caught the glisten of shiny
fabric on a shelf beneath the farthest table. Goosebumps shivered down his neck as he went to kneel beside what seemed to be a lumpy bundle of cloth that was shaped somewhat like a body. “Blessed Cosmas, don’t let it be…”
“Step back, Surgeon,” Leudovald ordered and stooped down to tug at the bundle. It was heavy. After he used both hands to ease it toward the edge of the shelf, he jumped back.
The stiff body of Zhang Chen, dressed in an orange silk robe, rolled out onto the floor with a dull thump.
“It’s the Oriental!” Getorius exclaimed. “Zhang Chen is supposed to be staying at Maximin’s villa. What is…was…he doing here?”
“What was he doing here, while our senator is away at Arminum?” Leudovald stood up and examined the bench tops, then scooped up some particles he found on the surface of one. “Breadcrumbs among the bronze shavings. And here a candle stub, yet the dead do not eat, nor need light to see.”
“Then Chen was kept here as a prisoner before he was killed.”
“Or someone else, Surgeon? The crumbs are recent, otherwise mice would have left us their mementos.” Leudovald tugged at the candle to loosen it from a pool of hardened beeswax holding it in place. He turned the stub over, then worked a shiny object off the bottom. He held up a small piece of jewelry. “Surgeon, is this perhaps your wife’s?”
Getorius fingered a gold earring fashioned in the form of a circular serpent. “It…it is Arcadia’s. I gave it to her on the ides of January…her birthday.”
“A clever woman, to leave us a clue that she was here.”
“But none to where Arcadia is now.”
“Where are we, Surgeon?”
“I…I think in a basement somewhere under Virilo’s house.”
“Virilo’s house. Then the porridge thickens. This Zhang Chen arrived in Ravenna on the Cybele?”
“Yes. That door on the far side of the room probably leads upstairs to Virilo’s.” Getorius went to run his fingers over the portal. “Solid oak, and undoubtedly barred from the other side. It will take a squad of Scholarians with a battering ram to break through.”
