by Albert Noyer
Unwilling to be patronized, she insisted, “Were these women medicae in training?”
“Arcadia―”
“Getorius, I’ll not be treated as if I were a…a delicate honey confection.”
Dorothea looked at her husband while shelling an egg. “Arcadia shall accompany you, Sergius.”
“Of course, carita. Where…where is Nepheros? He usually breakfasts with us.”
“I’ve not seen him this morning.”
“Just as well,” Abinnaeus muttered, avoiding a facedown. “I…I’ll go outside, see if everything went well with the temple closing.”
In the cold morning air no shouting from a mob was heard, nor black smoke seen billowing from the direction of the Sobek temple. Satisfied that trouble had been averted, Abennaeus stood by a carriage waiting for the others while brooding over the confrontation with his wife the previous evening. After seven years the truth finally comes to light. Dorothea was with Nepheros the night our infant sons died, and how many times since? She’s thrown her father’s position as curator of the lighthouse at Alexandria and urban councilman in my face whenever we quarrel, yet he was pleased enough to have an Abinnaeus as kin. Great-grandfather Flavius was prefect of the fort at Dionysias and since then family men have served with distinction in Egyptian military garrisons. I’m glad Nepheros will remain here while we visit the hospital.
Abinnaeus sat toying with the reins of two handsome milk-white mules when Getorius and Arcadia came out.
Getorius glanced around for the secretary. “You’re not taking Nepheros? Are we waiting for him?”
His reply was brusque. “My secretary undoubtedly has work to do. Help your wife into the carriage, Surgeon, and we’ll go to the bishop’s residence.”
The streets seemed less thronged than usual with residents; those who were out stared at the governor’s carriage as he drove by.
At the bishop’s, Paulos told Abinnaeus that Eusebios was at the rear of his villa, praying in the Basilica of the Holy Family.
Built at a time when Christians dared not openly identify themselves, the small limestone church resembled a Roman provincial temple from the outside. A dim, chilly interior reeked more strongly of mildew than incense. Light from clerestory windows fell on Eusebios as he knelt in front of a faded icon of Saint Mark that was propped against a wooden Eucharist table in the apse. When the clergyman heard the door open behind him, he arose to greet visitors he expected.
Arcadia glanced around the nave. “Bishop, this seems like a very ancient church building.”
“Indeed, Domina. It was built within a century of the Holy Family’s arrival at Pelusium. Our tradition is that they sheltered in a home on this location and Holy Joseph paid his host with Parthian astrologer’s gold. Joseph was no longer under the protection of the caravan and three persons traveling alone are prey for bandits. A crypt still visible beneath the sanctuary once concealed the Holy Child and his mother.”
Getorius looked up at darkened, cedar-wood trusses supporting the roof. Below, twin rows of slender columns divided the nave into three sections. “Bishop, was this a temple at one time?”
“Disguised as one, Surgeon. The family who owned my villa accepted The Way early on, claiming to have been converts of Blessed Mark himself. See here…” Eusebios took the three to a door leading into a baptismal annex. In the center an immense, hollowed-out Corinthian capital held a hand-span of water filmed with iridescence. After they looked around a moment, the bishop went to a locked cabinet nearby and ran a hand over the wooden doors. “This holds ancient Christian papyri and records. Some are apocryphal or Gnostic, of course, but all shed some light or other on the Holy Family’s four-to five-year sojourn in Egypt.”
Getorius wondered if the Joseph diary account might be ‘hidden’ in view under another title. “Holiness, what sort of writings do you have?”
“‘The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew,’ ‘The Tale of Joseph the Carpenter,’ also various narratives of the Savior’s infancy…homilies on the Annunciation. I admit I have not read all that is contained herein.”
Arcadia wondered, “Bishop, why are these kept here and not in your library?”
“Domina, I prefer leaving them in situ, a location where these ancient writings have been kept for some three centuries.”
“Will you add the Kashat papyrus to the collection?”
Eusebios stroked his beard in thought before answering Arcadia. “About that, I must await the Patriarch Cyril’s instructions.”
An impatient Abinnaeus had strained to be attentive during the clergyman’s explanations and asked, “Bishop, had you finished your prayers? We should talk to Papnouthios.”
“I am ready, Prefect.”
* * *
A weak winter sun barely cast the carriage’s shadows when the governor halted the mules at the hospital’s entrance. The table-flat landscape, scavenging sea birds, and green alfalfa fields were as Getorius has seen them a few days earlier―and had been that way for millennia. Aegyptvs Aeterna.
The physician himself opened the side entrance door.
“Holiness, I am pleased to have you visit my place of healing.” Papnouthios stepped aside to allow Eisebios to enter first.
Abandoning tact, the bishop bluntly informed him, “Physician, I have come to close down your experiments in the name of Holy Church. You have gone far beyond the permission I gave you in conducting dissections.”
Papnouthios’s retort was as blunt, but smug. “Holiness, all my patients are cured.”
“What do you mean?”
He indicated empty cells on each side of the corridor. “See for yourself.”
Skoros was nowhere in sight, but the doors were open in expectation of the bishop’s visit. Fairly clean linen covered straw mattresses on beds or cots. The small rooms exuded a pleasant smell of camphor.
“This isn’t what I saw,” Getorius whispered to his wife.
Abinnaeus smoothed the covers of the nearest cot with a hand. “I am impressed. Bishop, it seems you were mistaken.”
“By no means! Don’t you find it strange, Prefect, that every patient is ‘miraculously’ cured upon word of our visit? Physician, where are your records?”
Papnouthios’s smug smile remained in place. “They are not to be shared except with other physicians.”
“Getorius is a physician.”
“A surgeon, actually―”
He ignored Papnouthios’s intended slight. As Getorius neared the end of the corridor with the others, he came to a former chapel, where the physician carried out his most deadly experiments. He tried the door. It was bolted, but an odor of decay seeped past the door jamb. “Physician, why is this room now locked?”
“Surgeon, it is a mortuary chapel.”
“Not when I was inside―”
“Where is your paupers’ cemetery?” Eusebios asked before Getorius could further question the Egyptian. “Which of my presbyters blesses the dead and officiates at funeral services?”
When Papnouthios failed to reply, Getorius probed again. “Your assistant, Skoros. Where is he?”
“Engaged in other tasks.”
“With his death cart?” Getorius turned to Abinnaeus. “Governor, when I went to the Sobek temple the evening I was injured, I saw human limbs inside the crocodile pen. I believe that is where Skoros disposes of the bodies of patients…of victims, really.”
“Ridiculous,” the physician protested, “and certainly without my knowledge.”
At the doubts Getorius brought up, Abinnaeus changed his mind. “There do seem to be unseen irregularities here. Physician, unlock this…this mortuary door.”
Defiant, Papnouthios blocked the portal with his body and an excuse, “Skoros is custodian of the key.”
“Move aside,” Abinnaeus ordered. “My knife is strong enough to pry off the bolt’s retaining plate.” He unsheathed his weapon, eased its steel blade behind the iron rectangle, and worked it forward until four bronze nails came loose from century-ol
d palm-wood.
Silence and a nervous stroking of his shaved head replaced Papnouthios’s former arrogance. His normally bland expression showed strain, and a frightening wildness bulged his eyes.
When the door to the chapel was pushed open, buzzing insects flew in restless arcs inside a nave that resembled a charnel house: mutilated bodies lay on three tables. Several corpses stacked like hypocaust cordwood lay on the raised sanctuary apse. Arcadia covered her nose with a shawl edge. Bishop Eusebios murmured a blessing for the dead through a linen handkerchief. The governor observed the corpses in shocked silence, then followed Getorius to the fly-infested bodies lying on the tables. A separate procedure had been performed on each vagrant: the opened chest of one oldster exposed his heart; gray brain matter oozed from a removed section of another’s skull; the small intestine of a third man lay exposed.
After a brief examination of the corpses, Getorius exclaimed, “This is beyond anything I’d seen here! What I can’t explain is that each victim has a small slit in the femoral artery of their left thigh―” He heard Arcadia gasp behind him and turned to rebuke her. “You shouldn’t be this close.”
“I’m fine, but I saw that poor man’s open chest and recalled an offering in front of Pennuta’s image of her god. It…it was a human heart.”
Abinnaeus heard her and came to see for himself. “Zeus, that establishes a link I hadn’t suspected between Pennuta and my physician!” He turned back to question him, but Papnuthios had left the room. “Where in Hades….”
“Shall I go after him, sir?” Gertorius asked.
“No, I’ll eventually find the malefactor. Meanwhile, Orestes can assign a burial party here to assemble funeral pyres for these poor unfortunates.”
As the four left the hospital in shock at what they witnessed, sunlight had broken through clouds to give welcome, if unaccustomed, warmth to the November air. As he helped Arcadia into the carriage, Getorius noticed Skoros’ cart at the far end of the building. The assistant had not appeared.
On their return to the city, the carriage was within sight of Pelusium’s west wall when Abinnaeus shouted, “There’s smoke coming from inside the town! Word of the temple’s closure circulated and Christians must have torched the building.”
Getorius slipped his arm from around Arcadia and sat up. “That smoke seems too far south to be at the temple.”
“We’ll see…” The governor caned the mules to a faster trot.
The west gate portals stood open, but unguarded. Abinnaeus turned the carriage to the left, toward the Crocodilopolis quarter. When the Sobek temple came into view, a crowd of citizens in front had turned and now were hurrying away from the building.
“Something is happening up there,” Getorius noted. “People are running this way, screaming, as if escaping some danger, yet the temple doesn’t look damaged.”
Abinnaeus halted the mules and leaned from his seat to question a man loping past. He mouthed what sounded like the name “Sobek” and gestured frantically back toward the direction of the temple. “Yes, yes, the temple of Sobek. What is going on there?”
The man hurried on without answering the governor. Two others, one a woman clutching a child, veered around the carriage. When Abannaeus clucked the mules on, they balked at moving. “Wha―? Pighenete! Pighenete! Go!” he shouted in Greek and caned them without success. Wild-eyed with terror, the animals shied and backed away, swerving the front carriage wheels into a sharp angle that almost overturned the vehicle. “Zeus Kassios, I’ll find out what is happening up there! Bishop, remain here, and you stay with your wife, surgeon.”
Abinnaeus jumped from the carriage to jog toward the dark-stone building. The last of the crowd had left. As other curious citizens arrived, they stopped and turned to run back the way they had come.
The temple doors were barred and intact. Mystified, the governor had started to walk around the building’s left side, when a deep-throated, rumbling growl sounded ahead of him. He froze in place: directly in his path, one of the sacred crocodiles blocked the way, its cavernous pink mouth gaping, teeth bared, slit-pupil eyes a dull black. A foul smell of stagnant pond water was strong on the creature. Scum and filaments of green algae coated the reptile’s dorsal scales.
Abinnaeus looked beyond the beast and saw a section of the pen’s mud-brick wall sledged away. What reptiles remained at the enclosure fought each other to crawl through the opening. On the outside, two of the scaly creatures quarreled over the remains of an unfortunate child they had surprised and snatched, as the parents fled.
A figure in a pharaonic crown, white tunic, and leopard skin cloak stood on the wall, urging, in the Egyptian language, Sobek’s crocodiles to attack.
“That’s Tanutamun up there―”
Getorius’s voice startled Abinnaeus. “Zeus, surgeon, don’t surprise me like that and…and don’t move. Are you wearing your belt knife?”
“Yes. As I said at the hospital, those creatures are fed human flesh.”
Abinnaeus grunted that he understood. “They’re incredibly swift. We couldn’t outrun that one in front of us back to the carriage. In moments the others will crawl our way.”
“The creature looks…looks confused at being outside its enclosure.”
“Not for long.” The governor’s right hand reached for the hilt of his knife as he ordered, “Slowly unsheathe your blade as I do. On my count of two, hurl the weapon at the reptile’s open gullet, point first if you can. Then we’ll run back to the carriage as if escaping from King Hades himself. Unus…duo!”
The two steel blades sliced through the crocodile’s soft palate in a spurt of vermillion gore. Agonized bellows sounded from the beast as it struggled to dislodge the knives by thrashing its reptilian body and deadly tail in wide S-loops. Blood and mucus spattered the two men and temple wall. Reptiles outside the pen heard the creature’s distress cries and crawled forward to kill and dismember their wounded mate.
When the two men reached the carriage, Arcadia stood up, looking in the direction of smoke that was heavier now. She told Abannaeus, “The temple wasn’t attacked, but the bishop’s church was set afire by that pagan mob. You can see flames from here, and. Eusebios has gone there.”
“Domina, give me your shawl,” the governor said. “I need to blindfold these mules and cover their nostrils. The crocodiles were let loose but your perfume may mask the reptile scent, so perhaps I can lead the animals away.”
“Loose?” She handed him her head covering. “What will happen to the creatures?”
“They will enter sewers and otherwise be a menace to citizens for months to come. That fool Egyptian priest has unleashed his satanic gods on his enemies in a way that the Hebrew deity was reported to have done on many occasions.”
With the mules somewhat calmer, Abinnaeus walked them toward the site of the church fire. Shops along the street were shuttered to prevent looting, but the rioters had destroyed only the church. Curious stall owners and citizens watched the blaze in a way that fire usually fascinates bystanders.
After a short time the ancient basilica was gutted. Vigiles, men who fought fires, abandoned their water bucket chain and watched along with idling spectators. Eusebios stood apart behind a wall, eyes tearing at the loss of a precious building.
The church’s cedar roof trusses had burned through. Smoldering remains of wooden beams and clumps of gray debris littered the nave paving or blocked the sanctuary. Most of the graceful Ionic columns lay among the wreckage, toppled by falling timbers. Heat had fractured the limestone walls, most of whose blocks were collapsed into the rubble. In the Baptistery, a Corinthian water font was choked with damp ash. The storage cabinet’s sides and shelves, where ancient writings had been kept, were now charred boards. A few papyri and bound codices had not been totally destroyed, yet water from ineffective Vigile attempts to extinguish the flames now rendered most of their pages unreadable. It would be days before the smoldering rubble cooled enough to allow a careful inspection that might salvag
e some volumes..
Abinnaeus noticed that several men watching wore legionary uniforms. He accosted two of them standing together. “Legionaries, stand at attention! Why aren’t you dispersing this crowd?” When the two looked at each other and suppressed a laugh, the governor flushed. “You think this humorous? Are you under Orestes’s command?”
“The tribune?” one smirked. “Ohi, no. Under Centurio Nonnos.”
“Where is he?”
The legionary jerked a finger in the direction of an officer who was surrounded by a gaggle of admiring girls.
He stalked over to him. “Centurio, I’m Sergius Abinnaeus, Prefect here at Pelusium and provincial governor. Order your men to disperse this mob back to their homes. Have you arrested any one?”
Nonnos looked at him as if he resided in hyperborean regions. “You’re civil, sirrr, and this is military, so you’re swimmin’ out of water, sirrr.” His inflection made a mockery of the word and the prefect’s civilian status.
Abinnaeus reached for his knife before realizing the sheath was empty. He asked more calmly, “Where is Tribune Orestes?”
The centurion glanced at the sun’s position and chortled. “He starts on his Falern’an at the fourth day watch.”
“It’s not that time yet…still in the third.”
“Yes, sirrr.”
“Smells like you already have begun imbibing,”Aninnaeus noted. “Centurio, get your men to question this crowd about the fire―”
“Nobody saw nothin’.”
“Question men in the crowd,” Abinnaeus ordered as if he had not been interrupted. “Make a few arrests as a warning to other rioters, and send the rest of this mob off home to their families. Do you understand my orders, centurio, or will it take a good lashing on the furca to whip that piss-stained attitude out of you?”
Finally unnerved by the governor’s firmness, Nonnos straightened with a half-salute. “Sir!”
Getorius asked him, “Is anyone injured, Centurion? I’m a surgeon.”
Realizing that anyone hurt might be his responsibility, the officer lied, “No one, surgeon. Th…the church burnin’ was real peaceful.”
