Death at Pergamum

by Albert Noyer

  "Do something to help him!" Getorius shouted to the crewmen, but Nikephoros shouted a counter-order to his men. When none moved forward, he said, "Then I will."

  Arcadia pleaded, "Getorius, you can't do anything!"

  "I won't leave Fuscus lying there. The man's badly injured."

  As Getorius started toward the gangplank, Herakles stepped in front of him. "Asterios, our danger is greater than you know. When that mob finds its courage...or a leader...they will try to board Hermes."

  Realizing the same threat and now alarmed, Nikephoros finally shouted further orders. Most crewmen went below to their rowing stations. Several dragged the gangplank onto the galley's deck. Others brought axes and chopped at bow and stern hawsers. Four took up long poles from the strake sides, ready to push the galley away from the dock once the restraining ropes had been hacked through.

  Arcadia clung to her husband, both horrified as they watched the dead body of Fuscus being stripped of clothing and boots.

  As Hermes finally eased away from her berth, Herakles shouted a warning to another rioter, who carried a clay jug. Ignoring him, the man knelt and poured fluid from it onto a rag. After he struck a spark, the saturated cloth flared up in a smoky blaze. He stuffed it into the jug's neck and threw it at the retreating galley. The container fell short, but a circle of floating fire radiated from where it struck the water.

  "Naphthta," Herakles remarked tersely as a strong smell wafted toward the galley. "Greek Fire. That mob will loot Serapis of grain, then burn the vessel."

  Enough oarsmen were aboard Hermes to row out to the safety of the open harbor. At the Serapis, its guards went over to the mob and helped fill their containers with grain. Rioters ransacked the master's cabin, while others looted warehouses, then splashed naphtha on the wooden shutters of shipping offices. They were set ablaze until the charred wood could be pulled down and the interiors plundered or simply left to burn.

  A frightened Basina Bobo and her husband had gone to their cabin, but Maria and Melodia stood at the rail, silently observing the carnage on shore.

  "This is terrible for you to see," Getorius said. "Wouldn't you rather stay in your cabin?"

  "Surgeon," Maria replied softly, "we both survived Visigoth sieges at Roma. During the second, starvation was so severe that the cry went up, 'Set a price on human flesh!' In one siege, Alaric's men ransacked the city for three days. Melodia and I took refuge in a church on the Aventine Hill. This is a local riot, not a barbarian invasion."

  "We were to meet Droseria tomorrow," Melodia recalled. "She was to bring Aelia Pulcheria's charter for the new church. What will happen now?"

  "One can hope the riot will be spent by morning." Getorius looked toward the guide. "Isn't that so, Herakles?"

  "The demes will fill their sacks, then destroy the galley with whatever grain is left in the hold."

  As if to fulfill his prediction, a bright burst of flame appeared at the stern of Serapis, near the master's cabin. After the fire spread forward, smoke billowed from the hatch to the cargo hold. Dark shapes of men scampered out with their sacks of looted wheat and barley. In moments the galley was a dark silhouette outlined in flames.

  A new commotion was heard at the gate to the docks: a file of imperial guards carrying shields and swords jogged in though the portal. At an order, they fanned out to slash down looters at the nearest warehouse, then quick-stepped toward other rioters.

  "Scholarians, "Herakles said tersely. "Guards from the Great Palace."

  Once at the Serapis, the guards' officer shouted at his men to form a line. Shields were locked in place and steel sword tips glinted in the orange light. As the Scholarians moved forward, rioters cheering the galley's fate saw them and scattered in panic. Looters dropped their grain and jumped off the wharf to escape sword thrusts, gagging as they thrashed in the water, trying not to drown. Others in the mob were cornered against the port's wall and cut down without mercy by the Scholarians.

  Getorius watched the carnage with the others for a short time, then put an arm around Arcadia and pulled her away. "Cara, you don't need to see this. I'm taking you to a cabin on the other side of the galley."

  Sobbing from tension and exhaustion, she nodded grateful agreement.

  * * *

  Inside of an hour the wharf again was quiet: the only sounds were the moans of wounded men and the crackle of flames visible in the midst of smoke billowing from the Serapis and the burning shipping offices. Once the fires had blazed out, an eerie silence gradually settled over the devastated port. Yet Hermes's passengers did not sleep that night, or fitfully at best.

  * * *

  Just before dawn, Getorius went on deck in time to see the morning star brilliant in a blue-gray sky above Constantinople's dark eastern silhouette. Rain had fallen during the night; wet planking and wharf puddles glistened in the feeble light. The gate in the harbor wall was closed and civic guards allowed entry to only a few men who had businesses on the docks.

  Serapis was still afloat, a dark skeleton of charred timbers. The galley had burned to the waterline, the remains of her grain cargo now a blackened, smoldering mound smelling of burnt bread. During the night, guards took away the bodies of dead rioters and that of Spurius Fuscus, but several crews in skiffs used pole hooks to snag corpses out of harbor water filmed with a layer of gray ash. In front of the line of gutted offices, a few owners gathered in stunned silence, or ranted to God against the mob that had destroyed their livelihood. Several wept. At wharf-side, most of Hermes's oarsmen had returned. Now they crowded into small boats to reach their galley.

  As a distant clatter of small wooden planks being beaten against each other sounded from the direction of Hagia Sophia, Herakles came around the end of the star-side cabins. Getorius asked him about the unfamiliar sound.

  He explained in a subdued voice, "This clacking of wooden semantra reminds citizens that today is Kyriaki, what you call the Lord's Day."

  "I see. Herakles, will the rioting resume?"

  The guide shook his head. "The Basileus will open grain warehouses and the dead will be mourned."

  "Then I could go back to the mansio with Arcadia."

  "Asterios, you cannot go into the city."

  "Why not?"

  "By now half the port quarter knows you are Western. Those rumors of grain being diverted to your Augustus endanger you and my other clients."

  Getorius asked, "Are the stories true?"

  "No matter. You saw the fury that can accompany such anger."

  "What then?"

  "We will go on to Alexandria Troas and Pergamum. I regret the death of your companion."

  "We only met Fuscus on the galley and know nothing of him other than he built apartments."

  "Presbyters will give him a burial."

  "I suppose that's all that can be done." Getorius paused, still shocked at the man's brutal murder. "Despite his crudeness, I liked Fuscus. There was something childlike about him. Herakles, when will we leave? My wife tells me that a woman friend of the Augusta is to come with us. And Presbyter Tranquillus hasn't returned."

  The guide shrugged at questions he could not answer. "I will be honest. Nikephoros was provisioning the galley when the rioters appeared, and other pilgrims also must board. Perhaps by midmorning?"

  Getorius pointed to his torn ribbon. "Herakles, the Blue Faction was behind this riot, wasn't it? You were at the Augusteion."

  The guide paused before replying, "Certain senators threatened to withhold their grain to force up prices. I agreed there should be a demonstration, but tried to reason with the leaders when they proposed this reckless action."

  "And they turned on you."

  Before he could answer, Arcadia and the two widows came out to stand by the rail, scanning persons whom the guards admitted to the dock area. Arcadia suddenly cried, "Getorius! I see Droseria and the presbyter. They're safe!"

  "Thank God for that."

  Nikephoros, monitoring the harbormaster's signal pennants, shouted
an order to move Hermes back to her berth and finish taking on supplies. Once the gangplank was in place, Tranquillus came aboard. Droseria limped up the ramp, favoring her left knee.

  Arcadia helped her onto the deck. "I'm so relieved you were able to come," she told her. "There was rioting last night. How did you get here?"

  "Escorted by Vidimir's guards. I have Pulcheria's authorization for my church, yet part of my reason for going to Pergamum is in hope of a cure at the Asklepion."

  "And you, Presbyter?"

  "Domina, when I returned from dining with Proklos, the clerk told me where you had gone." He glanced around at the devastated port scene. "Jesu Christe, the burning Valley of Gehenna could look no worse!"

  An exhausted Droseria, flushed with fever, was made comfortable in the cabin shared by Melodia and Maria. When Arcadia noticed that the woman's feet were swollen, the nails curling into her sandals, she thought the symptoms exhibited an advanced lung disease. Droseria refused her suggestion that Getorius examine her.

  In the absence of dock slaves, Nikephoros ordered his crew to finish storing provisions in the galley's hold from what could be salvaged at the warehouses. Somewhat less than eighty men accomplished the task quickly, while a nervous clerk from the port prefect's office tallied the supplies.

  * * *

  Just before the third hour, muted chanting was heard outside the port wall. After the guards opened the gate, about fifty persons were allowed through. Most were

  clustered together under the banner of a saint. A few limped in alone or were supported on the arm of an attendant. Some were carried in litter chairs or stretchers; still others lay in carts or wagons. A few women wearing dark-blue tunics accompanied them, along with a man with the diagonal sash of a deacon over his tunic.

  Watching them arrive, Getorius asked Herakles, "Who are they?"

  "Pilgrims, Asterios, hoping to be healed at the Pergamene shrine of Asklepios."

  "Are those are saints on the banners?" Arcadia asked. "I can read the names of Apollonia and Dorothea. Blasius."

  "Helpers for a particular illness, Domina," the guide replied. "Apollonia heals diseases of the teeth. Dorothea burns. Blasius is petitioned to cure ulcerous wounds and throat ailments."

  "I recognize Cosmas and Damian, patrons of physicians, but hadn't heard of the others."

  "Domina, these are holy persons of the East from Alexandria, Armenia. Cappadocia. Even your two physician patrons were Arabian."

  Getorius realized, "Then those are the other passengers you mentioned."

  Herakles forced a wan grin. "Asterios, I predict you will have no rest once these pilgrims discover that you are a physician."

  Getorius looked at the line of unfortunate victims lining up at the gangplank under the supervision of the sisters and one deacon. To keep them together, the ill wore cloth scapulars around their necks painted with an image of their group's saint. "My God!" he exclaimed, "every disease and mutilation on the face of the earth must be present here."

  Arcadia remarked, "Poor souls, yet Pulcheria is using her wealth and influence to help them. The Augusta surely is paying for their passage and lodging at Pergamum."

  Basina Bobo limped out of her cabin, complaining to her husband, "What is that awful singing? It's disturbing my rest, and I hardly slept with that noise last night. Who are those disgusting people coming aboard?"

  "I'm not sure, dulceda."

  "They're pilgrims going to the Asklepion," Getorius called over to her.

  "Caco, I thought I'd be alone at this time of year. Isn't that what you told me Bobo? You said you'd been there once fixing sewers." She emphasized the last two words and cackled a laugh. "I've got a pain in my head. Get Hermias here with my medications."

  "Yes, dulceda."

  Getorius moved closer to the gangplank, trying to diagnose the illness of each person as he or she came aboard. Broken limbs set wrong, ulcers allowed to eat into bone. Skin lesions disfiguring faces, withered arms dangling uselessly at the sides. Coughs racked some of the ill and suppurating eye ailments blinded others. The child of a woman with a crusted skin rash carried a sick pet rabbit. An unkempt, drooling man, his head twitching as if in demonic possession, stopped to glare at Getorius until a deacon moved him on. I imagined that chaos at the pier in Herakleia as a scene from the Odyssey, but this. "First, numberless bands of the dead came on with a tremendous shout, and sallow fear seized me lest noble Persephone send out the Gorgon head of the dread monster, from the hall of Hades, against me."

  Getorius turned away to confront Herakles. "All those people can't hope to be cured at Pergamum."

  "Hope?" the guide repeated. "Asterios, they expect miracles and yet for those they also need the hope that the curious Pandora found in the vase."

  "Is that why you're with the Blue Faction?" Arcadia asked. "To help people? Sophia called you a deme."

  "Ah, Domina," he rejoined amiably, "we are discussing religion and politics. Both are flammable as was that naphtha. I meant that Apollonios offers hope to the ill."

  "Apollonios?' she repeated. "Maria mentioned the name. Who is he again?"

  "The archpriest-physician of the cult of Asklepios at Pergamum."

  Arcadia noticed Maria beckoning to her. The widow led her further down the deck, then handed her a folded vellum sheet, its edges dyed purple like the invitation to the Pulcheriana. "Droseria gave me this for you," she said. "It's from Aelia Pulcheria."

  "Yes, I recognize the imperial color. What is it?"

  "I have no idea. Why don't you read the letter on the opposite side of the galley, where there it's quieter?"

  "Yes, thank you." Arcadia walked around past the front benches and leaned against a cabin wall to work loose a wax seal. When she unfolded the vellum, Pulcheria's monogram in gold ink, APA, glistened at the head. Arcadia began to read half-aloud, noticing that the Augusta used the formal pronoun in referring to herself.

  "'Our Serenity, Aelia Pulcheria Augusta, is greatly impressed with the decision of Arcadia Asteria to become a medica. It is a noble calling to care for Christ's ill and infirm. More particularly, We are pleased with her plan to open a clinic at Ravenna for the exclusive use of women. Since it is Our will and desire to participate in this charit-able endeavor, We agree to offer the sum of two thousand gold numismatae to build such a clinic, and staff it with virtuous widows willing to remain Virgins for Christ'."

  Arcadia held the letter down, thinking, Two thousand gold solidi? That's about twenty years income! If Getorius thought that funds were a problem, now he has to agree to my clinic.

  Her hands trembled as she continued reading silently. "While We yet recognize the sacred character of Christian marriage, yet, as a condition of Our munificence, it is Our wish that Arcadia renounce the sexual intimacy implicit in such a union, as did Petronius, Marcella and other married couples of this city, and agree to live celibately with her husband as sister and brother. You shall make each one's body dead to its passions by bringing The Crucified One into the bedchamber as a spiritual consort.

  "Our monogram on this contract, and her husband's signature, will validate its terms when presented to the judicial magistrate and Imperial Bursar of His Excellency Valentinianus III, Western Augustus at Ravenna."

  Arcadia's eyes blurred with tears even before she had finished reading. Pulcheria was giving her an unequaled opportunity to fulfill a dream that would help countless women who might otherwise die in childbirth, or suffer excruciating uterine diseases. Getorius kept saying that she was not ready, not trained enough, but with such a sum she could hire the finest gynecological specialists in Constantinople and work alongside them in her Ravenna clinic. Or perhaps this Apollonios could recommend someone from his shrine at Pergamum.

  Yet at what cost? She treasured the intimate moments spent with Getorius, and often initiated them herself. Some day she hoped they might have children. All their marital trust, their plans, would be in peril. Even her marriage itself.

  Now she was on her way to
Pergamum. Was this God's plan for her that Bishop Ignatia foretold?

  Arcadia folded the note again and wiped tears off on a sleeve. She decided not to show Pulcheria's offer to her husband at this time.

  CHAPTER VI

  Getorius noticed his wife come around the cabin's side and called out, "Arcadia, there you are. I saw Maria give you something. Cara, you've been crying! What's wrong?"

  "Nothing, really."

  He asked about the folded vellum in her hand. "Is that a letter Maria gave you?"

  She replied without looking up at him, "From Aelia Pulcheria."

  "The Augusta? What does it say? Is that what's upsetting you?"

  Arcadia lied, "She's thanking me for coming with the widows."

  "Good of her. I wanted to tell you that Tranquillus and I are going to work with that deacon in getting sick passengers settled on the deck and in cabins. Brisios will help, but could you assist?"

  Arcadia nodded and tucked the vellum into her purse.

  "Basil is the deacon's name," Getorius continued as they walked toward the prow. "He speaks Latin well, so I shouldn't have worried about being understood here."

  It took the better part of an hour to get the pilgrim groups settled on outside benches or in vacant cabins. Patients lying on stretchers were covered with sheepskins or blankets and arranged on deck around their saints' banners. Once it was clear that several of the seriously ill might not survive the voyage, Getorius mentioned that to Tranquillus. The presbyter prayed with them and signed crosses on their foreheads.

  Brisios helped Arcadia bring water to the bedridden, surprising her with his gentleness toward the ill. She had not suspected such a nurturing trait in her slave.

  Two clerks from the port prefect's office arrived to count passengers and assess a tax on each. At the western end of the docks, Scholarians continued searching moored galleys for any demes of the Blue Faction hidden on board. Earlier, a few had been arrested, chained together, and dragged off to a magistrate.