[Getorius and Arcadia 01] - The Secundus Papyrus

by Albert Noyer

  “Hurry up with that stove,” he ordered, handing Primus the flask of urine, “then take this out to the fuller’s shop and take that basket to the kitchen.”

  Getorius went back to his desk and slid the scrolls from their case. He unrolled the one with Latin text that was penned in the elegant Celtic script.

  “Father, the dawn watch has come,” he read aloud. It continued:

  I living in them, You living in me, that our union may be complete. So will the world know that You sent me to them, and that You love them as You love Me.

  “Sounds like a prayer of Christ for unity,” he muttered, scanning the second verse.

  Father, the dawn watch has come. Give glory to your son. I pray for those who will believe in me that all may be one. I pray that they may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent me.

  Getorius had begun reading the third of the verses when Arcadia returned.

  “I let Felicitas out through the small courtyard. What have you there?” She came to look over his shoulder. “Behan’s manuscripts. I might have guessed.”

  “Look at this third section. Read the others first, then tell me what you think.”

  He had realized that the last part was different. The meter of the third and fourth verses was shorter and the text of both was little more than half as long as the other two.

  After reading, Arcadia looked up. “The last one sounds like a kind of prophecy.”

  “Good. That’s what I thought.”

  Father, the dawn has now come, the hour when the proof of your love will finally be revealed. Proof that I love them, as You commanded me, is in the Testament of John. Let your Will, manifested at the Nativity, be fulfilled.

  “The change is pretty obvious,” Arcadia agreed, “but what does it mean?”

  “That’s what I want to ask Theokritos. Do I have another patient?”

  “Varnifrid, a fisherman. He cut his hand at the thumb joint. It looks serious.”

  Getorius barely concealed his impatience. “So, send him in.”

  Varnifrid followed Arcadia into the office, cradling his left arm and a freshly caught mullet with the other hand. A clump of bloody moss was packed around the injured thumb. Fish scales glistened on the man’s soiled vest and the smell of his trade came in with him. He eyed the room suspiciously, as might an animal put in a cage, but sat on the stool where Arcadia pointed.

  “This mullet will be fine as payment.” She smiled as she took the fish from him.

  “Careless with a knife were we?” Getorius asked with sarcasm he regretted as soon as Arcadia glared at him.

  “He speaks Gothic,” she said. “I barely understood him, but you can see what happened.”

  “A Goth raiding mere fish? What wonders will we see next? Get that bloody packing off and put a bowl under his hand. I’ll need to probe.”

  The wound was jagged, with shreds of flesh from a saw-toothed knife framing the cut. When Arcadia worked loose the clotted fibers that covered it, fresh blood oozed out. Getorius sponged it away and concentrated on assessing the damage to the tendons.

  “Put a leather strap around his wrist and twist it,” he ordered Arcadia. “Even if I can save the hand, he’ll never use it again much, but I have to stop the bleeding before I can do anything.”

  Varnifrid grunted and tried to pull away. Getorius grasped his wrist. “Lekeis,” he said, using the Gothic word for physician and pointing to himself, but the man only stared at him in fright. “This is ridiculous. Calm him down with a measure of eupatorium wine.”

  “I did. In the atrium.”

  “Then the sedative should be taking effect. Hold still, Verna…”

  “Varnifrid.”

  “Yes.”

  Probing for tendon damage, Getorius recalled what Nicias had taught him about the basic procedure. Stop the bleeding and keep corrupted air away from the wound. Even so, more often than not, the flesh around such a laceration soon became dead and odorous. A spongy black bile replaced normal tissue. The swollen skin crackled to the touch, exuding a foul smell, and the patient developed a fever. Injured limbs usually had to be amputated at the nearest healthy joint, or an agonizing death would follow. He had noticed that dirty wounds, such as deep scrapes that bled little, were more prone to develop the bile excess.

  “The Goth is fortunate in one respect,” Getorius remarked. “Sea water kept this reasonably clean. No problem sewing skin back over the wound, but those tendons inside can’t be joined together. He won’t be moving that thumb again.” He looked up at his wife. “Someday I intend to dissect a human hand, Arcadia, not just animal paws. I’ll cut tendons and try to reconnect them…” He noticed Varnifrid’s eyes beginning to glaze over. “The narcotic I gave you will make it hurt less when I sew your hand together,” Getorius said, helping him to a cot. “This is quite deep, Arcadia. Prepare a dose of hyoscamus so he’ll be asleep while I do the suturing.”

  “Do you want the alium ointment?”

  “Garlic? Why not? He couldn’t smell any worse.”

  “Getorius!”

  “Sorry. Bring achillea as a poultice after I’ve closed the wound.”

  Arcadia noticed Varnifrid’s regular breathing. “The eupatorium is taking effect.”

  “Hurry with the hyoscamus. And bring a gold needle…the medium silk thread.”

  While Varnifrid jerked reflexively in a drugged sleep, Getorius pulled his tanned skin over the cut and stitched the edges together. After the procedure, Arcadia dusted powdered achillea leaves over the sutures, then deftly tied a woolen strip around the hand, as Hippocrates had instructed in his treatise on the suitable form of bandages.

  “Let him sleep,” Getorius advised. “When he awakens give him ointment to put on the wound and try to make him understand that he must come back tomorrow.” He straightened up, groaned, and stretched. “Who’s still waiting?”

  “A mother and child. The boy’s feverish.”

  “Another phlegm imbalance. Could you treat him, Arcadia? Arctium root extract and cool baths at home.”

  “You can’t wait to see Theokritos about those manuscripts, can you?”

  “I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something mysterious about them. Perhaps even in that monk’s death.”

  “Behan accidentally drowned, you said so yourself.” Arcadia came to rub her husband’s back a moment. “All right, go set your mind at ease. I’ll treat the child.”

  Getorius was familiar with the library wing of the Lauretum Palace, in the east sector of the rear second story. The windowed west side overlooked the garden, so copyists could glance out from time to time and relieve the strain on their eyes. These penmen were ranged along the wall at desks set beneath narrow windows whose openings were now sealed with alabaster slabs thin enough to admit light, yet keep out the cold. Manuscript illuminators, who worked with the you?” copyists, inking in or painting designs to beautify pages, occupied three of the desks.

  A reading area was set behind a curtain beyond the lattice bins and shelves, where most of the collection of Greek, Roman, Hebrew, and Christian texts were stored. Many of the scrolls and books had escaped barbarian raids, or been salvaged from the Alexandria library after its burning by the anti-pagan fanatic Theophilos, less than fifty years earlier. It was an outrage for which Theokritos had never forgiven his fellow Greek.

  Theokritos had instituted his own index system for locating material, based on authors, rather than subject matter. The old librarian’s memory, as clear as the crystals he used to enlarge words, could recall which author had written on a particular theme, and where it was stored. Even though labels on the manuscript ends helped identify their contents, Getorius found the system aggravating. A history of medicine by Artistotle’s pupil Menon might be shelved next to a treatise on Manichaeism that was written in Syriac. With Arcadia’s help Getorius had located all the medical texts and written their details on a diagram that indicated where they could be found.

  As Getorius walked up th
e narrow stairway that led to the library, he passed a boy hurrying down. The child’s face and arms were spotted with color, and he clutched his genitals through a smudged tunic. One of the pigment grinding apprentices on his way to a latrine, Getorius thought. He had seen the area where inks and colors were prepared, and the one for the final polishing and cutting of parchment skins after they were delivered from tanning shops. Workers in an adjacent room stored them as blank manuscript sheets, or bound the final lettered pages into books.

  When Getorius reached the top of the stairs, a smell of fish glue coming from the bindery reminded him of his clients’ payments. Nothing but fish today! His clinic had the pleasant scent of medicinal herbs. How could the library staff stand this nauseating odor day after day? He also heard the irritating rasp of marble slabs grinding the pigment material, a sound that always set his teeth in an involuntary imitative gnashing whenever he was in the reading area.

  Feletheus had his worktable facing the stairs so he could scan visitors, but the assistant was not there. As Getorius entered the room, Lucius, the chief copyist, looked up from his desk and nodded a greeting. He was half way past the storage bins, on his way to Theokritos’ office, when Feletheus’ voice startled him from behind.

  “Surgeon. You’re here to consult a medical text?”

  Getorius turned to the balding, sallow-looking man, who was about thirty years of age. The library assistant combed what hair he had to the front of his head, and the beginnings of a reddish beard fuzzed his cheeks. His eyes held either a suspicious squint, or a perpetually sad expression. “I…”

  “Salus, Librarian, your health,” Getorius greeted pleasantly.

  “Is that a medical text, or have you brought me new material?” Feletheus interrupted, eyeing the manuscript case.

  “Neither. I wish to see Theokritos.”

  “Ah. The Master, coincidentally, was about to send for you. Come.”

  After Feletheus pushed aside the curtain to Theokritos’ office, Getorius saw the old librarian thumbing through a thick volume. His ruddy face was wreathed by a white beard and matching full head of hair, and his dark eyes had a nervous squint from years of poring over manuscripts and books. Dusty shelves had left him with a chronic cough. When the man turned around, Getorius noticed a gold medal hanging from his neck. The design depicted a serpent with its tail in its mouth, encircled by the Greek letters IAW ABPAXA. Abraxas…definitely not a Christian symbol!

  “Surgeon, you read my thoughts,” Theokritos rasped, looking at him. “The last galley from Constantinople brought me books. One was this Latin translation of a treatise on gynecology by Soranus of Ephesos.”

  “There are midwives for that, sir. I’m never called on to assist at a birth.”

  “Then perhaps it would interest your wife,” Theokritos countered. “I understand she trains with you.”

  Getorius flushed. “Thank you. Arcadia will be grateful.”

  Theokritos squinted at the leather case. “You have brought me a scroll?”

  “Three, sir, to ask your help. Yesterday I examined the body of a holy man who died.”

  “Behan of Clonard. The”—Theokritos succumbed to a fit of coughing before continuing—“The monk read here often.”

  Getorius was not surprised that the librarian already knew about the death—there were few secrets kept from palace gossipers. He slid the parchments from their case. “These manuscripts were in his hut and I didn’t want bandits to destroy them. Two are in Celtic.”

  “The language of the barbaroi.”

  Getorius ignored the implied slur about non-Greek barbarians and unrolled the sheets. “Sir, this one is in Latin.”

  “Perhaps a translation of the others? Feletheus can read the writing of the Keltoi for us in a moment.” Theokritos scanned the Latin, then scoffed, “Even an acolyte could identify this paraphrase of verses in the Testament of the Apostle John.”

  “The last ones, too? They seemed different.”

  Theokritos read again. “Hmm…you’re correct, Surgeon. Clumsy, but it seems to be a prophecy concerning the other two.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Such predictions are common, every cult has one. Feletheus, read the other scrolls.”

  After examining the writing, Feletheus admitted, “Master, I’ve not seen this alphabet style before.” The assistant read silently a moment, then translated, “‘The humble meditations of Behan, from Clonard Abbey. Know that the Eternal King, the Son of the Living God, speaks in threes. For this is the number of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’”

  “Hibernians are fond of spinning riddles involving a triad,” Theokritos commented. “Words, numbers, verses and such. Please continue.”

  “‘For one and two make three, just as three and four make Seven, the number of Completion.’”

  “Of creation, I assume he means.” Theokritos cleared his throat, spit into a cloth, then sneered, “A childish game.”

  “Truly, Master.” Feletheus bent over the words and then continued,

  And Three…Blessed Jesus, Holy Mary, and the Saintly Joseph comprise the Unblemished Family.

  Three-sectioned Triangle, the Eternal Monogram of Three Persons in One.

  The Three of the enlightened Pythagoras…Beginning, Middle, End.

  Three astrologers who first saw the Blessed Child.

  Three days in the tomb.

  Heaven, Earth, under the Earth…

  “Arkata!” Theokritos cried in Greek. “Enough! Great Zeus, the man tells us nothing with his riddles. These Hibernian monks are flooding into Gaul from their island, founding monasteries and trying to force Gallic bishops into adopting their liturgies. Get to the end of this ridiculous game.”

  Feletheus moved his index finger down to the last few lines.

  Know that the Nazarene was in the world, but not of its ways. Know this through the Testament in a book of John, to be revealed now, in our time.

  He paused at the final six lines. “Master, another arrangement of threes.”

  A book of John.

  A Testament.

  The Fulfillment.

  Faith, Hope, Love.

  The greatest is Love.

  Proof is hidden in a book of John.

  When Feletheus finished reading Theokritos had already turned back to examine the gynecology volume. Getorius was disappointed in the librarian’s lack of interest, but determined to ask about the interpretation of what he suspected was a prophecy.

  “‘To be revealed now, in our time.’ Sir, what does that mean? Or, ‘Hidden in a book of John? Shouldn’t it be ‘The Book of John?’”

  “Word games to pass the time,” Theokritos snorted without looking up from Soranus. “These monks need a diversion from their penances and constant prayers.”

  Frustrated, Getorius snatched the scrolls from the worktable. He was rolling them up when he noticed a sketch at the bottom corner of the one with the prophecy. A few deft strokes in red ink depicted the outline of a cockerel. The symbol reminded him that he had heard a rooster crowing somewhere outside Behan’s hut.

  Why mention it to Theokritos and be ridiculed? He thought the verses prophetic, then dismissed them as a word game. If it was a prophecy, did the monk drown before he could proclaim it? Getorius eased the scrolls into their case with an uneasy thought. Was Behan strangled, as Arcadia thinks, so he couldn’t predict an event that is to be revealed soon, ‘in our time?’ And why this emphasis on a dawn watch? Is that the significance of the rooster?

  Getorius tucked the leather cylinder under his arm. “I’ll give that volume by Soranus to my wife.”

  Theokritos nodded a reply and handed him the book. Feletheus held the curtain open, then followed Getorius out of the office.

  “The master is preoccupied with a Gnostic Gospel of Thomas he received in the shipment from Constantinople,” he said. “You saw his amulet.”

  “It’s a Gnostic talisman?”

  “Yes. I…ah…found the monk’s word games intriguin
g, Surgeon, as I suspect you did.”

  “I found them a waste of my time,” Getorius retorted, “and would have done better coming here to read either Galen or Hippocrates.”

  “What will you do with the manuscripts?”

  “Keep them until someone from Behan’s abbey comes to claim what I found in his hut.”

  “Let us talk of this again,” Feletheus suggested.

  “Fine, you know where my clinic is located.” As Getorius started down the stairs the boy with the smudged tunic sidestepped around him, going back up to work. At least he feels better. If Theokritos isn’t interested, perhaps whoever comes from Autessiodurum can explain Behan’s word games, and what this so-called prophecy signifies.

  Autessiodurum

  Chapter four

  Warinar, the courier who was sent from Ravenna to Autessiodurum to report the death of Behan, arrived at the Abbey of Culdees before mid-November. A native of the area, he had been given more gold coins to make the dangerous journey than he could have earned in Ravenna all winter.

  Brenos of Slana was abbot at Culdees. Germanus, the bishop who had appointed him, was a man after the abbot’s ascetic heart, if not his humble background. Brenos had been born in Slana, a port hamlet on the island of Hibernia’s eastern shore. The two main concerns of those who lived in its stone, thatch-roofed huts were catching enough fish to feed themselves, and coming back alive with them from the stormy seas.

  The aristocratic Germanus had studied law in Rome. After the Senate appointed him governor of a province, he had administered it with model efficiency. This had prompted the then bishop to view him as good material for the growing Gallican Church. He had tonsured Germanus into the presbyterate with a ruse, then mollified his anger by telling of a vision in which God ordered that the governor would follow as the next bishop.