The Beacon at Alexandria

by Gillian Bradshaw

  An archbishop’s doctor doesn’t rate a private cell. I was put in the common prison, with about twenty others. My guards marched me in by torchlight, and stood for a moment looking for somewhere to tie me. The prison was dark, the walls of unfaced stone; the floor was covered with a little dirty straw full of fleas. Wild eyes stared up at the torches; a few filthy bodies picked themselves up off the floor and crouched warily, watching us, while others lay heaped in exhausted sleep. There was a clanking of chains, a little moaning. The whole place stank. There was only a ditch along the wall to serve for a latrine, and it was crawling with sleepy flies. It was too late for the jailers to forge chains for me. They found a free bracket set into the wall, kicked one of the sleepers away from it, dragged me over, and tied the lead thong to it. One of the guards kicked my leg so I fell into the straw. “You’ll be questioned tomorrow,” he told me. “And racked, if you’re eligible for it. We can worry about the chains after that. Sleep well.” And he and his fellows marched out with the torches, leaving the prison dark.

  I had no time to lie there wondering what had happened. As soon as the guards had gone the other prisoners began asking questions: Who was I? Was I imprisoned for the faith as well? Was it true that Archbishop Peter had escaped? Then one of them began shouting in great excitement. I recognized her voice with a shock even through my numbed horror: the nun Amundora. “He has rescued our lord, Archbishop Peter!” she told the others.

  She told them all about me: I was a foreign eunuch who’d been converted to the Nicene faith after a divine revelation to Archbishop Athanasios; I’d followed the path of true religion and asceticism, treating the poor for nothing and attending on the saints of the church; I’d visited Archbishop Peter and helped him escape. She had been arrested earlier in the day when the authorities had gone to look for me, and was sitting chained in a filthy dungeon because of me, ignorant of where her sisters were, but she thought nothing of this. She gabbled out a pious, passionate speech full of admiration for me. All the prisoners began to praise my resolution and encourage me and each other with the glory of martyrdom. I felt quite sick, from the beating and from fear. If Amundora's tale was believed by the authorities, I might be tortured even after they discovered that I was a woman.

  I was worried about what would happen to my hands if I stayed in the leather bonds all night — I’d treated too many fingers gangrenous from tight shackles not to be aware of the danger. I asked my neighbor if he could help me loosen the rope. He was chained to the wall, but managed to catch the thong with his leg and twist it into my fingers so that I could work at the knot. I couldn’t do much, but managed to loosen it a little, then pull and twist it outward with my wrists until the blood flowed stinging into my hands again.

  Even when the other prisoners had settled and the room was still except for the occasional moan or clank of a chain, I sat in the dirty straw exhausted and wide awake. I thought about calling the guards and telling them that I was not Chariton, a doctor of the Nicene faction; I was Charis, daughter of Theodoros of Ephesus, whose father would reward them for sending her home.

  But I was ashamed to run away, and it didn’t even seem true. I was not that noble maiden. I never really had been. The thought of returning to my father’s house was like the thought of being buried alive, or rather, of being smothered like a baby in pillows. Part of it — most of it — was the art. The more I studied it, the more I loved it; nothing could be more fascinating, or more moving, than the intricacies and mysteries of the body, nothing more wonderful than the realization that you had saved a life. And beyond that, I was so accustomed now to ruling myself and ordering my own affairs that to depend on a man to do all that would be like having my tongue cut out. No, I would keep up the pretense as long as I could, until they actually stripped me for the rack. And it might not come to that. Perhaps I could convince the authorities that I was as ignorant of Peter’s disappearance as they were.

  I wondered if Theophilos had tried to contact me to tell me to leave the city, and simply failed to find me in time — or if he hadn’t even tried. Probably he had seen some good opportunity to rescue the archbishop and taken it, deciding to help me afterward if and when he could. Of course I wasn’t important to Theophilos. Peter wasn’t important either, as a person. We were just tools for the construction of the freedom of the church of Egypt. Athanasios had seen that: that had been why he distrusted the deacon. Athanasios had never seen people as tools. He was as fascinated by them as I was by the art of healing. And of course he had genuinely loved God more than he loved power.

  At that thought I tried to pray. It was exactly what Amundora’s fanatic might be expected to do, but it helped. I went to sleep. I woke when the gray light of dawn crawled through the narrow slits in the opposite wall. My bruises ached miserably, I was desperately thirsty, and my new collection of flea bites itched. My hands, caught by the rope as I’d slumped in sleep, had gone numb again, and I crouched in the straw flexing my fingers until I felt some pain in them as well. The light showed me that several of my fellow prisoners had been questioned already, and were marked by the whip and twisted by the rack. They woke, noticed my stare, and told me proudly that the torturers had wanted to know the whereabouts of some of the leaders of the church, and had wanted them to confess to various crimes so they could be executed. None of them had cooperated. I could do nothing for them.

  About an hour after dawn there was a clanking of metal, and then the guards came in. They set out a few cups of water for the prisoners, then picked out several for questioning, unfastened their chains from the wall, and pulled them out in stony silence. The other prisoners began to pray for the victims, and the guards cursed them, kicked one or two, and went out, bolting the door.

  I couldn’t even reach the water in the cup the guards set out near me. The rope was too short. I tried to think of some way to help the torture victims, and couldn’t manage that either. It was no use advising the sufferers to keep the wounds clean and to rest: that was impossible in this damp and filthy prison. So I sat and waited for the guards to fetch me, imagining the treatments I would have prescribed if I had been at liberty and had my medical bag. I was afraid to think about my own position. Eventually, though, I ran out of treatments and had to face the issue. What should I say to the authorities?

  I felt a wave of bitterness toward Theophilos, a sudden desire to make him regret that he’d betrayed me. But that would be a pointless piece of vindictiveness. And at once I realized that he must have meant to warn me; no one can be relied upon to stay silent under torture, and I knew too many of the secrets of the church. Now that I’d been arrested, Theophilos wouldn’t be in his hiding place anyway — though others might be. My only course was to deny that I’d seen the deacon since he first disappeared, and to continue my role of competent but dull physician, obsessed with medical detail and not trusted by the church authorities with any other knowledge.

  But would the prefect believe that? Believe it without having me tortured first? What had Athanaric told him about me?

  I remembered all the victims of torture I had ever seen, and I felt so sick with fear that I forgot almost everything else. I tried to pray again, for strength, and couldn’t. I mustn’t panic, I thought, it’s all over if I panic. Desperately I began running over the Aphorisms of Hippocrates in my mind. They came back to me easily, despite everything. “Life is short and the art long”; I didn’t panic.

  About noon the jailers brought the prisoners back, dragging the ones who couldn’t walk, and chained them up again. Then they looked around, found me, cut the rope loose from the wall, and dragged me out; my legs were asleep and I was staggering. The other prisoners began to pray loudly for me as we left, and the jailers shouted for them to stop it or they’d get no food that day. They didn’t stop it.

  “Obstinate Egyptian pigs,” said one of my guards, and kicked me in the leg to relieve his feelings.

  I was led out of the prison and along the quiet streets of the citadel t
o the prefecture. It was a fine building, fronted with marble columns, domed, and surrounded by gardens. My guards took me through the tiled atrium with its mosaic of the seasons, through a courtyard full of peach trees, and into an office. It was a large room, the floor covered with a very fine mosaic of dolphins, the walls painted with city scenes and hung with draperies. It seemed like something in a dream to me, after the rioting and the soldiers and the prison. The prefect, Palladios, was reclining on a cedarwood couch, finishing a cup of wine; he was freshly bathed and wore a green cloak with a purple stripe. He was a middle-aged man, an Illyrian. I’d met him a few times at the episcopal palace, where he’d come to see first Athanasios and then Peter. On the couch next to him sat another man, a thin, nervous man with a goiter, curling brown hair, and large, restless hands; his cloak too had the purple border to it. He was wearing on his finger a gold signet ring carved with the lion of St. Mark the Apostle; Athanasios had worn it, and then Peter. So this was Lucius.

  Behind these two, sitting at a writing desk, was the notary who’d taken down my words after I’d seen Peter. He had his tablets ready now and his stylus in hand; he looked up and nodded to the soldiers, and they saluted. “The eunuch Chariton of Ephesus,” they announced, and everyone looked at me. I’m sure I looked criminal enough. I was wearing the old black cloak that had been Theophilos’, on which several patients had bled or vomited, and my stained blue tunic, now filthy from the prison, and I was covered in dried blood and dirt. I knew that I stank; the prefect wrinkled his nose in distaste. I couldn’t open one of my eyes properly; it had swollen from the blows the night before. I stood between my guards, my hands tied behind my back, and looked at the floor.

  “Umm, yes,” said the prefect. “Well then, eunuch, have you any notion of the whereabouts of the false bishop, Peter of Alexandria?”

  “He was in prison here in the citadel,” I said. “I saw him here three days ago. I was going to see him again later this week.”

  “Where were you going to see him?” put in Lucius angrily.

  “In prison in the citadel,” I returned evenly. “If he’s not there now, I know nothing about it.”

  “Heretic and liar!” Lucius said, sitting up straight, a flush coming to his thin cheeks. “You arranged for him to receive some money in a book! You had the books sent to him, so that he could bribe his guards and escape!”

  “What?” I asked, staring.

  The notary coughed and looked at some notes. “The prisoner requested, on behalf of the false bishop, some Gospels; His Excellency Lord Palladios acceded to this pious request, and sent a letter authorizing the books to the prisoner.”

  “Yes, I did ask for some books for Archbishop Peter, but —”

  “He confesses it!” Lucius said triumphantly.

  “— but Peter asked me for them! I thought he just wanted something to read. I don’t know anything about them. I didn’t bring them to him, I just passed the request on to his friends!”

  “Which friends?” asked the prefect patiently.

  I hesitated, then named a couple of wealthy laymen who were supporters of the church but who had not been molested by the law.

  The prefect shook his head. “Where is Theophilos the deacon?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I thought he’d fled the city.”

  “Young man,” said the prefect solemnly, setting down his wine cup, “this will get you nowhere. We understand that you are claiming immunity from torture on the grounds of noble birth, but the status of any eunuch is highly questionable. You must have been a slave at some time. I will have no hesitation in having you put to the rack if you refuse to cooperate with us and tell us all you know.”

  “I don’t know anything,” I said, feeling very cold. “I’m just a doctor.”

  “An Athanasian fanatic!” said Lucius hotly. “Have him flogged, and see if he won’t talk then! It’s no use trying to reason with these people!”

  Suddenly the door of the room swung open and in walked the agent Athanaric, followed by a nervous scribe. “Your Excellency,” he said, nodding to the prefect; “Your Holiness,” to Lucius; and “Greetings, Chariton!” to me. We looked at each other for a moment, and then he turned back to the prefect. “Your Excellency, I hope you will forgive my intrusion, but I have an interest in this prisoner. May I sit in?”

  The prefect nodded, and Athanaric sat down on the nearest couch, perching on the end of it to allow space for his sword.

  “I didn’t know you were in Alexandria,” I said. I didn’t mean it to sound like an accusation, but it did.

  “Oh, I came with a message for His Excellency,” said Athanaric easily. “Were you involved in this escape?”

  “I was Archbishop Peter’s doctor,” I said, glad of the chance to state my position exactly. “I went to check on him when he was in prison. But I had nothing to do with smuggling him any money; all I did was recommend that he have some barley broth, and pass on a request for some Gospels.”

  “Well, there you are!” Athanaric said to the prefect. “Is there any evidence he produced these Gospels himself?”

  The prefect frowned; the notary checked his notes. “The books were given to the guardsman by an unidentified citizen, together with His Excellency’s letter of authorization. The magistrate Apollodoros, a friend of the false bishop, sent another set of Gospels to the prison after the escape, together with another letter of authorization, which on examination proved to be a forgery copied from the first. His slaves have denied, under torture, that they know anything about it.”

  Apollodoros had been one of the men I named. I wondered whether he had known about the plan and sent the second set of Gospels to protect himself — or whether Theophilos had deceived him too.

  “So,” said Athanaric, “Chariton told Apollodoros that Peter wanted some Gospels, and gave him the letter of authorization; Apollodoros arranged to have them sent; some friend of Apollodoros heard of it, stole the letter, and sent another set of Gospels with the money hidden in the binding. I don’t see that Chariton can be held responsible for that.”

  Everyone looked at Athanaric in some bewilderment; I was more bewildered than any of them. I’d thought he’d come in to give evidence against me, to tell the prefect about how I’d refused his bribes. But instead he seemed determined to defend me — and he was doing quite a good job, too. The prefect Palladios looked a bit less sure of himself.

  “He’s one of those damned fanatics,” Lucius objected. “He’d do anything to support their heretical faction.”

  Athanaric snorted. “He’s a fanatic, all right. The True Word of Health was revealed to the prophet Hippocrates, only begotten son of Divine Healing, whose word is law — except perhaps on the custom of dosing with hellebore, about which Chariton has a heresy of his own. Go on, you searched his room. Did you find Gospels, psalters, theological tracts?”

  The notary checked a list. “Bishop Athanasios’ treatise On the Incarnation; all the others . . .” His eyes ran down the paper. “All the others are medical texts. Sixty-two of them.”

  “Not even an epistle?” asked Athanaric.

  The notary shook his head, smiling a dry little smile. “Your Excellency,” he said to the prefect, “I am inclined to agree with the most esteemed agent’s assessment of the prisoner. I was present at his interview following his meeting with the escaped prisoner, and all he talked about was the state of Bishop Peter’s bowels. As regards personal correspondence, the prisoner’s effects contained only this, which is far from incriminating.”

  The notary held up a sheet of papyrus. Athanaric took it from him. “What’s this? A letter?” I saw that it was from Thorion, his most recent one: it had been written in response to mine about Athanasios’ death, but before Lucius arrived in the city. “ ‘Theodoros son of Theodoros to Chariton of Ephesus,’ ” read Athanaric. “ ‘Very many greetings,’ et cetera — here! ‘I understand that Bishop Athanasios was your patient and you felt you couldn’t turn your back on him, but, by Artemis
the Great! he’s dead, and you’d do well to get yourself some less controversial patients, or even none at all. Even if it doesn’t pay as well. There’s bound to be trouble in Alexandria now, Charition, I don’t want you caught in it. You know you couldn’t care less about any damned theology, so why don’t you drop the lot and come stay with me in Constantinople? Maia would be overjoyed to see you.’ ” Athanaric lowered the letter and looked at me assessingly. “Sensible man, your friend. Why didn’t you listen to him?”

  “Peter was my patient too,” I said. “And lots of the others. And the hospitals were closed, and there was no one else to treat them.”

  Athanaric handed the letter back to the notary. “This man here,” he said, indicating me, “is a very good doctor, and nothing more. When I offered him a bribe for information, back before Bishop Athanasios’ death, he couldn’t think of anything to spend it on. I checked on that; I couldn’t find that he ever does anything but practice medicine, read about medicine, go to lectures about medicine, and talk about medicine with his old teacher, who’s not even a Christian. For all I know he spends the rest of his time thinking about medicine and dreaming about medicine. He’s not one of your fanatics, Your Holiness. If some of Archbishop Peter’s friends used what he told them about the old man’s request, it wasn’t his fault and I don’t think he knew anything about it.”

  “He was in the thick of that viper’s nest of heresy,” Lucius said obstinately. “He knew all the men we want. Even if he wasn’t part of the plot to free the false bishop — and I still think he was! — he must know where Theophilos and those other serpents are hiding. I’d wager my life that he’s treated half the fugitives from justice who leave this city, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s seen and treated that false bishop Peter since he escaped. Put him on the rack!”

  Palladios hesitated, then reluctantly nodded agreement. He turned back to me. “Will you talk, eunuch, or do I have to do as the most pious archbishop suggests?”