The Kashat Deception
Page 26
I wish to be home more than ever, Father, to see you of course, but also because, mirabile dictu, my Getorius will allow me to open the woman’s clinic that so long has been my dream. An attempt to soothe me because of my illness may have had something to do with his mildly reluctant agreement, yet I am sure he thinks me competent enough for such an undertaking. I am not the same woman who left Ravenna. I have since traveled to Dalmatia, Anatolia, the Holy Land, and Egypt, during which time I capably helped my husband whenever medical matters arose.
In a moment of despair, Sergius Abinnaeus quoted Jerome, the Holy Man who lived thirty-four years in a monastery at Bet-Lehem, while translating the Greek and Hebrew Testaments for Latin readers. Jerome himself despaired that the Roman world was in a state of collapse and none seemed to take notice. True, barbarian invasions, ecclesiastical disputes with heretics, and incompetent emperors sap our strength, yet has not Rome always been renewed? Has not our worldly Roma Aeterna been supplanted by a spiritual empire of which pagans could never inagine? I, for one, shall continue to work alongside Getorius for the physical, mental, and spiritual health of the afflicted unfortunates about which Blessed James has written.
Vivat Roma Aeterna!
Getorius cordially greets you.
With all affection,
Your loving daughter, Arcadia Valeriana Asteria.
THE AUTHOR
ALBERT NOYER was born in Switzerland but raised in Detroit, Michigan. After Army service, he pursued his interest in art at Wayne State University, and then worked as a commercial artist before entering a Detroit Public Schools career teaching art at the technical/vocational high school level, and part time art history instructor at St. Mary’s College, Orchard Lake, MI.
Since retiring in New Mexico with his wife, Jennifer, he has shown watercolor paintings and woodcut prints in numerous regional exhibits. The March 1994 New Mexico Magazine and December 2006 Mature Life in New Mexico supplement of the Sunday Journal featured his work. The Saint’s Day Deaths was his first A.D. 5th century historical mystery. In 2012 Amazon Encore reissued his Getorius and Arcadia Mystery novels, The Secundus Papyrus and The Cybelene Conspiracy. Third in the series, Death at Pergamum, is in Kindle format, as are Unholy Sepulcher and The Kashat Deception. Plain View Press (PVP), Austin TX, published Alberix the Celt/Book 1: Weep the Long Sorrow, a retelling of Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul from the viewpoint of a Celtic Helvetian youth, who survives the war and becomes a Gallo-Roman magistrate. Alberix the Celt/Book 2: Hear again the Lark (2015) completes the story
Contemporary novels: PVP published The Ghosts of Glorieta/A Fr. Jake Mystery (2011), which begins in Michigan and moves to a fictional village in New Mexico’s Rio Communities. A sequel is ONE for the MONEY, TWO for the SLUICE (2013.) Noyer is a member of SouthWest Writers, Sisters in Crime, Croak & Dagger, New Mexico Watercolor Society, New Mexico Veteran’s Art and the Historical Novel Society.
www.albertnoyer.com
Author’s note
In all my novels I did my on-site research at actual locations and countries: Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Yugoslavia’s Dalmatian coast, Greece, Turkey, Israel, and Egypt. Perhaps The Kashat Deception was the most exotic: in 2007 I traveled to Egypt with Jennifer to follow “The Holy Family Trail” that traces Joseph, Mary, and Jesus’s 4.5-year sojourn in Egypt. A travel agency booked through AAA was Coptic, our guide, a Muslim. Hassam, who spoke perfect English, was proud to be a guide and eager to learn more about the Coptic Churches we visited. His wife was an attorney who wrote legal briefs. We did not start at Pelusium, which over time had silted up and left few visible ruins, but visited Coptic sites along the Nile between Bubastis and Asyut, some 200 miles to the south. Here Coptic tradition believes that an angel told Joseph that Herod was dead and it was safe to return to Judea.
My unlimited gratitude goes to Professor Leslie B.MacCoull, a papyrologist at Arizona State University, who worked for a time in Egypt and steered me toward books I should read as background material.