Death at Pergamum

by Albert Noyer

  A shrill voice broke through Getorius's musing. "Just where is this physician?"

  An overweight, gray-haired woman squeezed through a cabin door almost too narrow for her bulk, then turned to a short, stocky man following her. "Bobo, those widows said there was a physician on board."

  "'Asterios'," Arcadia quipped, "it seems that everyone in Thrace knows you. Presbyter, do you recognize the woman?"

  Tranquillus rolled his eyes in a gesture of sufferance. "Basina Bobo. She's come with her husband, Flavius, from some healing shrine or other. Ah, if you'll excuse me. I must read morning prayers with the widows."

  Basina spotted Getorius and decided that he fit the widows' description. "There he is! Bring Hermias and my remedies," she snapped at her husband, then affected a graceless, set smile as she limped forward. "Physician, those widows told me, but I forgot your name."

  "Getorius Asterius. This is my wife, Arcadia."

  Without acknowledging Arcadia, Basina complained, "I hope you're a lot smarter than those jack-mules I've been seeing. That stupid Greek at Naupaktos had the gall to insist there was nothing wrong with me. What was his name again, Bobo?"

  "I forget Dulceda, my 'Sweetness'."

  "You never remember anything!" she snarled. "Never mind, here's Hermias." After a flirting smile at the Greek slave, her tone softened, "Love, give me that case."

  The slim, olive-skinned youth unslung a leather box from his shoulder, briefly tangling the strap in his slave collar. He opened the case to an assortment of glass and wooden medicine containers with their contents labeled on the stoppers.

  "Physician!" Basina demanded, "What did you say your name was again?"

  "Getorius Asterius."

  "Getorius? What kind of name is that? I never heard it before. Never mind, I want you to look at these remedies and tell me what else I need."

  "Domina, I really can't."

  "Tell me what I need," the woman persisted,

  "Fine. Let's see what you have." Getorius read the labels aloud, "Spirea, good for headaches. Daucus, a diuretic and for menstrual disorders. Rumex, a fever and throat gargle. Arctium, helpful for fevers. Sonchus for eye and skin ailments." He looked up at her. "Domina, your pharmacy is as complete as mine."

  "Nonsense! You must have something else that can help me."

  "What exactly is wrong with you?"

  "Wrong? None of those jack-mules physicians seem to know." Basina held up an arm confined in a sling. "This shoulder. My legs, feet. Can't you tell by looking? Aren't you a physician?"

  "A surgeon, actually," Getorius sighed. "I suppose I could examine you."

  With coyness in her voice, Basina tittered, "Must I take off my clothes?"

  "Arcadia would be there, Domina. She's studying with me to be a medica."

  Basina's tone changed to disappointment, "Oh, her."

  "Dulceda," her husband ventured, "physicians say you must follow a diet."

  She glared at him. "Shut up, Bobo. And take off that ridiculous straw hat. You look like a Lucanian peasant."

  "I must shield my head from the sun, dulceda. Those brown moles worry me"

  "I'm hungry," Basina abruptly announced, then fixed a cold stare on Getorius. "Physician, I want you to find new remedies to add to mine. Follow me, Bobo." Without waiting for him, she limped off toward the smell of food at a cooking pit in the stern.

  Arcadia watched the woman push her way though passengers standing at the rail and those seated on benches. "I thought that we had difficult patients, but Basina Bobo."

  "She reminds me of Felicitas at Ravenna, overweight and probably suffering from an imbalance of sweet." Getorius chuckled at thinking of a related quip. "Come to think of it, her husband calls her 'dulceda'."

  "That could be funny, except her personality is pure vinegar." Arcadia looked out at the sea. The galley had cleared the harbor and begun to pitch into waves that rolled in from the north. "Getorius, I should sit down. What are those bench numbers again?"

  He glanced at his tokens. "Seven and eight. Cara, you do look pale."

  "I'll take the center seat farthest from the side."

  The morning's mist dissipated quickly on a relatively calm Propontis. As Helios rose toward his zenith, the sea breeze warmed. Wicker screens on each side of Hermes's prow kept capricious sea sprays from soaking passengers. Getorius sat next to his wife, slipping an arm around her as she closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder.

  Herakles picked a good location under an awning near the galley's prow. The smell of food, to say nothing of chicken and goat dung, is behind us on the wind. Now if only Poseidon heard our guide's prayer and behaves himself.

  Hermes paralleled the coast a half mile offshore, on a green sea speckled with brightly painted fishing boats. Two mammoth grain carriers with the Egyptian names Toth and Hathor were sighted. The shoreline soon began a broad, northward curve broken by in-reaching arms of the sea, where sandy beaches and whitewashed stone houses of fishing villages stood out. Between these settlements, a range of desolate hills rolled inland to form a backdrop for deeply eroded ravines tumbling toward the sea.

  The muffled sound of the mallet beat and rhythmic splash of oars lulled the couple and some of the seated passengers to sleep.

  * * *

  Just as Herakles returned, Getorius was startled awake by the galley-master yelling in Greek at passengers standing near the railing with the goats they had brought aboard.

  "What is he angry about?" he asked the guide, easing Arcadia's head off a numbed shoulder. The movement awakened her.

  Herakles replied, "Nikephoros is ordering them to clean up after their animals so passengers won't slip on droppings. He may as well order tides to behave. They will not do so."

  "Why did people bring chickens and goats aboard?"

  "Asterios, I will be honest. The owners receive a better price for them in the capital than here. Most people go to visit relatives, so the sale will pay for their passage." Herakles noticed Arcadia's wan complexion. "Domina, you are not well?"

  "A little queasy," she admitted.

  "We shall anchor soon to rest the rowing crew and eat a mid-day meal."

  Getorius eyed the sun's position. "What hour is it?"

  "Almost the fifth, Asterios."

  Surprised, Arcadia asked, "The oarsmen have been rowing for five hours?"

  Heracles shrugged, "They are used to it, Domina, and well paid."

  An officer wearing a tunic and blue sash similar to the galley-master's came down the passageway, shouting instructions in Greek at the passengers.

  Getorius asked, "Herakles, what is he saying?"

  "The officer is warning everyone to use the latrine now. Once we stop men are forbidden to urinate over the rail."

  Arcadia looked up. "Where is this latrine?"

  "At the stern, behind the cooking pit. Not elegant, a board with four holes built over the sea."

  Her mind pictured the stark facility. "And that's what the wives of those senators use?"

  "Ohi, no, Domina. They have pots in their cabins for the purpose. Their slaves dispose of...."

  "I understand," she interposed quickly. "Herakles, I'm not using an open air latrine. Is there any other way while we're anchored?

  He flashed his guide's smile at her. "Domina, there is a way. One cabin at the end of this row has public pots for a fee, yet I shall waive the cost to you."

  Getorius heard him. "Speaking of fees, what is your charge for being our guide at Constantinople? You've never said."

  "Asterios, I trust your generosity to be my paymaster."

  "No, I'd like some idea of the amount."

  Arcadia stood up. "Discuss that later. I need to use that cabin."

  "Papias is by the door," Herakles told her. "Tell him my name, yet perhaps you will have a small coin for him?"

  Getorius said, "I'll go with you, Arcadia, and pay." As he led the way along the narrow aisle between seated and standing passengers, some with goats, he watched the pl
anking for the slippery brown pellets about which Herakles had warned. In the stern, Holy Karpos billowed in the wind, but his monks were seated on deck, leaning against the strake sides, eyes closed in blissful relaxation.

  The port side of the stern deck had a sand-filled pit holding brick-lined charcoal stoves. Slaves prepared food their owners had brought. A hatch and ladder on the opposite side led down to the rowing benches. Beyond was the public latrine, with a seated man plainly in sight.

  Two women had paid the fee and waited in line to use the cabin pots.

  Getorius mentioned the guide's name to Papias and slipped him a bronze coin. "I'll use the public one," he told Arcadia, "and meet you back here."

  He walked past the stoves and waited by a ladder that reached up to the board. After the man came down, Getorius climbed to the narrow platform. A wooden back attached to a flat board cut with irregular holes kept seated passengers from falling overboard. The area around the seats was stained with damp urine. Poor design, the wind blows back here from the bow. And there's no cleansing sponge in a bucket.

  Getorius relieved himself and then went to wait for Arcadia. When she came out of the cabin, his wife looked even more pale and held a hand over her mouth.

  "Bad?"

  She nodded. He left it at that.

  * * *

  A short time later Hermes gently nosed into a cove that was sheltered by a semi-circle of hills overgrown with pine forests. Thatch-roof houses of gray stone were clustered on one shore. A group of food vendors waited in skiffs on the clear turquoise water. As the galley approached, they held up baskets and trays, calling out their wares.

  At a piped signal midway into the cove, oars were retracted and lead bow and stern anchors cast off. After the galley drifted to a stop, vendors' sing-song calls, the soft bleating of goats, and a gentle lapping of waves against the hull were the only intrusions into the abrupt stillness.

  Getorius watched the oarsmen come up from the hatch. Of different heights, complexions, and hair or beard coloring, he surmised they represented all the races found in Roman provinces around the Mediterranean. A few had smoothly chafed skin at their necks, left there from discarded slave collars, but a superb musculature was what each had in common.

  "Look at those oarsmen," he marveled. "Any one could have posed for Phidias! They remind me of the gladiators I met at their camp outside Forum Julii."

  Arcadia said, "You never talked much about them and that female gladiatrix who was there."

  "Giamona."

  "Giamona?" She faced him with a look that could wither a house plant. "Husband, you certainly recall her name easily enough."

  Regretting his slip, he stammered, "I...ah...was with her for a couple of days."

  Arcadia probed further, "What was she like? What did you two talk about, a surgeon conversing with the next thing to a prostitute?"

  "That's not fair, Arcadia. Giamona and Tigris saved your life at Ravenna."

  "Don't be defensive." Arcadia was quiet a moment, then pushed at her husband's arm and smiled as she stood up. "I was teasing you, Getorius. Let's see what we can get to eat. I feel a bit hungry now that we're not moving."

  Herakles emerged from a knot of passengers crowding the rail and guided the couple toward the vendors. In the skiffs, women sold the same flatbread stuffed with meat and vegetables as on the wharf. Men held up trays of dates, figs, almonds, and a variety of melons.

  "Two siliquae," Herakles asked, his expression bland, hand outstretched.

  After Getorius gave him the silver coins, he tossed them to a vendor and ordered his choices. A woman filled a bark basket with eight portions of the stuffed bread, an assortment of fruits, and three skins of wine, then passed it up.

  After the guide brought the basket to Getorius, he held up a fuzzy, pinkish-yellow fruit the size of an apple. "You will not know this in the West. Ambrosial. In Latin called Persicum. Delicious. Taste, Domina."

  Arcadia bit into flesh that was soft and juicy, its flavor more sweetly delicate than an apricot. "It is good, Herakles."

  "Was I not honest?" The guide put down three of the peaches and acanthus-wrapped flatbreads, along with a wineskin. "You will like fruits and wine. Now I must attend to the two widows and one other client you have not met, Spurius Fuscus."

  "Fuscus," Getorius repeated. "Who is he?"

  "An apartment builder, Asterios, from Eternal Rome itself. I will send him over, since a portion of what I gave you is for him."

  "And Brisios?" Arcadia reminded the guide. "There are only three portions here."

  "Your slave may share yours." Herakles took the basket with the remaining food and rapped on the door of a cabin until a large man in a rumpled tunic stepped out. After the guide spoke to him, Fuscus looked toward the couple and loped over to them.

  "You a physician?" he asked Getorius in a tone of disbelief. "Too young. Too young. Call me Spurius Fuscus, better, just Fuscus."

  "Herakles told us your name. I'm Getorius and, actually, a surgeon. This is my wife, Arcadia."

  Fuscus acknowledged her with a glance, then demanded, "Getrus, where are we? Why did we stop?"

  "To rest the crew and eat a mid-day meal."

  "That's right, Heraclete said you had food for me."

  Does he get everyone's name wrong? Arcadia thought as she took off the leaf wrapper and handed Fuscus one of the stuffed breads. "This looks very good."

  "What is it?"

  "Bread with a meat and vegetable filling."

  Fuscus frowned disgust. "Eat this here slop? Aren't we going ashore to find a good tavern that has sausages? Corma. You know, beer to drink?"

  "We can't leave the galley," Getorius told him.

  "Caco...shit," Fuscus muttered under his breath, then sat down to try the stuffed bread. At his first bite a chunk of lamb squished out and stained his tunic. "Caco," he complained again, louder this time, as he wiped the stain with his fingers.

  Arcadia took a linen cloth from her sleeve to wipe at the spill. The man was undoubtedly well built and handsome at one time, but that's quite a paunch bulging his tunic front. Fuscus combs his hair forward in the Patrician manner, but those pouches under his eyes betray far too many late night carousings. Links of a golden necklace showed at his tunic's neckline, and his fingers sported the gaudiest rings she had yet seen. Wealthy enough to travel, yet uneducated.

  Some of the passengers bartered chickens with the boat merchants for food. A goat lowered to a skiff in a makeshift sling bleated protests, but it was not a risky transfer; Hermes rode low in the water.

  Basina Bobo's harsh voice came from the stern, yelling orders in Latin down to uncomprehending Thracian vendors. Her husband retrieved a basket of food, but both, mercifully, went back to eat in their cabin.

  Juggling food aboard the galley was difficult, even though Hermes did not have a full complement of passengers. The forty oarsmen added to the cramped conditions. Arcadia wondered briefly if she should have taken the Via Egnatia from Herakleia after all, then decided that nine or ten hours of relative discomfort was preferable to at least two crippling days in a jostling carriage.

  On the helmsman's platform, Arcadia noticed the "pompous peacock" seated at a table under an awning. He dined with his officers and drank snow-chilled wine out of a silver goblet. She asked Getorius to loosen the clay seal on their wineskin, then gulped a mouthful. The wine had an unexpected taste reminiscent of pine pitch. She passed the container to her husband, and he on to Fuscus.

  "Awful! Awful!" he complained after spitting onto the deck. "What's that taste? Getrus, I need beer."

  "The vendors only sell wine."

  "No beer? That isn't right," Fuscus muttered, tossing his food over the rail. "Neither is eating that pig slop. I'm going to my cabin."

  A few of the oarsmen took their food below deck, but most ate topside, flirting with dark-eyed, giggling girls who teased them from the boats. A few younger fellows stripped off their loincloths and dived into the bay. Some of the girls sl
ipped in the water to swim away from the galley and join the men in frolicking face-to-face fun.

  Two slaves with brooms came to mar the idyllic scene by sweeping goat droppings into sacks. In exchange for a small bronze coin, they tossed them down to farmer-vendors as fertilizer.

  * * *

  In precisely one hour as indicated by his sand glass, Nikephoros ordered the Hermes underway again. The galley rounded out of the cove, leaving behind satisfied vendors counting money, and, possibly, a newly pregnant mother or two of boys who might one day be named "Hermes."

  Passengers unstrapped sheepskins from their baggage, carried them to the shady side of the galley, and lay down on unoccupied benches or the decking to nap away the after-noon. Even chickens and goats settled down. From somewhere in the stern, the high-pitched notes of a twin-reed aulos sounded a plaintive shepherd's tune of lost love.

  Arcadia remarked to her husband, "I didn't see Tranquillus or the two widows come out to eat."

  "No, but Herakles brought them food. And the senatorial families have barely left their cabins for fresh air. Those small windows can't let in much coolness while we're stopped. It will be stifling by mid-afternoon."

  "I'm going to see if Melodia and Maria are all right."

  Getorius stood up with her. "Fine, Arcadia, they're in cabin ten. I'll bring Brisios the rest of this food."

  Melodia answered Arcadia's knock on the door with a pleasant smile. "My dear, how nice. Maria and I were just saying that we're fortunate to have a surgeon with us. Please, come inside."

  Maria, seated on a wicker bench at one end of the cramped space, added, "Melodia is correct about your husband, but we understand that you're a medica?"

  "I'm still training with him, but I hope one day to open a woman's clinic."

  "In Ravenna? How wonderful of you. Sit with us."

  Arcadia estimated the small cabin to be about six feet long by five wide. Narrow benches took up both ends, with luggage stored underneath. At the wall opposite the door, two hammocks swayed with the galley's slight yaw. A table between the benches held a wooden dish with the remains of uneaten stuffed bread. Fruit pits and two half-full cups of wine were alongside. The sliding cover of the small window was open, but air in the confining space smelled strongly of lamb, garlic, and rosemary.