[Getorius and Arcadia 01] - The Secundus Papyrus

by Albert Noyer

  “Very good, Arcadia. I see that your superior beauty is complemented by superior intelligence.” Maximin squeezed her arm and moved on to show her the masks. “The twins, of course, are Romulus and Remus. Next is Tarquin, the last Etruscan king.” The senator indicated the next personage. “Ah, here’s a hero of mine, Publius Scipio, victor over Hannibal at Carthage. We need a leader like him in Africa now, to drive out the cursed Vandals.” He passed several effigies without identifying them, then stopped at one of a glowering man. “Here’s another favorite. Lucius Sulla restored senatorial power after the Populares rammed through laws limiting our influence.”

  The dictator Sulla. Arcadia recalled what her tutor had taught her about the older contemporary of Julius Caesar. After gaining power in a bloody civil war, Sulla had declared a dictatorship and posted lists of his enemies in the forum. More than six thousand of them had been hunted down and killed, including ninety senators who had opposed him. Their confiscated property had been auctioned off. If this is Maximin’s hero, heaven help Ravenna!

  “The next mask is of Julius Caesar,” he continued, “but I don’t wish to bore you, and you’ll surely want to rest before supper. We’ll eat sooner because of the early dark.”

  “Your wife, Senator?” Arcadia prodded him.

  “Yes.” Maximin twisted his carnelian ring. “Prisca will join us at supper. And I’ve just had an idea for the entertainment. Jason,” he called to the man, “my guest will choose one of these masks and you’ll do a pantomime about the person. Who shall it be, Arcadia?”

  “I…live on the Via Julius Caesar. How about him?”

  “Splendid choice. Did you hear, Jason?”

  When the man nodded, Arcadia asked, “What mask is he working on now?”

  “Personifications of various cities in the empire. Jason, hold that up.”

  Arcadia went closer to read the inscription on the turreted headdress of a female personification. “Smyrna? Senator, isn’t that one of the seven cities mentioned in the Revelation of Saint John?”

  “I…a…a presbyter could tell you that, I know it as a town in Asia. Now, I’ll have Melisias take you to your room.”

  After he clapped his hands a middle-aged woman appeared at a side door. Maximin nodded to her as if she had already received instructions. Melisias beckoned to Arcadia, and then led the way through a corridor to a small room at the rear of the house.

  Arcadia’s travel bag was on a stand. Closed window shutters kept out the rain, and an iron stove threw off a pleasant heat. A bed, chair, table, and wardrobe were the only furnishings.

  She noticed a silver chamber pot by the bed, but asked Melisias, “Where is the latrine?”

  “Dhen milao latina, mono elinika.”

  “You don’t speak Latin, only Greek?” Well, Melisias, I don’t believe you. I’m not letting on that I know some Greek, so let’s find out how much you do understand. “I need to use the latrine quickly,” Arcadia repeated, adopting a frantic tone. “Where is it, at the end of the hallway?”

  “Use that,” Melisias said in Latin, pointing to the chamber pot. Glancing up at Arcadia, she reddened, and hurried out of the room.

  “I thought you understood me. Now let’s see what’s outside this window.”

  The shutters opened onto the dismal view of a muddy field glittering with puddles, noxious with the stink of chicken dung. The rain had let up, but even though it was around midday the sky was overcast and gloomy. With the shortened winter hours it would be dark in three or four hours. A ground mist rising at the far end of the field obscured several stone buildings, which Arcadia assumed were chicken coops. Maximin had not said at exactly what hour the afternoon meal would be served, but the nauseating smell had already settled in her throat and curbed her appetite.

  Arcadia closed the shutters and turned to look inside the wardrobe. Her cloak had been hung up. It felt dry. She unpacked her clothing and hung the items on pegs located around the inside of the cabinet. Afterward she warmed herself at the stove a moment, thinking that at least the room was comfortable, then lay down and closed her eyes. The nervous excitement of coming to Maximin’s villa had passed; now it was time to think about the charge against Getorius.

  Why would someone excise the inner organs of a corpse, and then try to blame my husband? And how could his scalpel have gotten inside the dead monk’s shroud? The bishop will have the mutilated condition of Behan’s body, Getorius’ scalpel, and two witnesses as evidence. What can Maximin’s lawyer do to counter those? Getorius has no witnesses to speak up for him. And if he is right in thinking all this is somehow connected to the papyri, I must find out why Maximin seemed interested in the documents. How much he knows about them.

  Arcadia was abruptly awakened by a knock on the door and Melisias’ voice calling out, “Kiri, dhipno.”

  “Thank you,” she answered back, “I’ll be ready in a moment.” Dinner already? I fell asleep.

  When Arcadia came out of her room, Melisias was at the end of the corridor. She led the way to a large dining area on the left of the reception room. Senator Maximin had a reputation for lavish banquets, but on this occasion a section of the space was partitioned off with folding doors, to make a more intimate eating space. Wall paintings depicted Ravenna and its environs, including views of the Apennine foothills and the villas of wealthy citizens, undoubtedly those of his friends. In the west wall, glass-paned windows covered by bronze screens admitted the fading light of a pinkish sunset. Arcadia was pleased that the scented smoke swirling from an incense burner was reasonably effective in masking the pervasive dung smell.

  The meal was to be served at a dining table with chairs, not the reclining couches Arcadia had half expected. Maximin stood up when she entered. He was wearing a toga decorated with the twin purple stripes of a senator, a light woolen cloak, and a pair of red boots.

  “Arcadia”—he smiled stiffly, fidgeting with his ring—“may I present my wife, Prisca Maximina.”

  Prisca nodded a greeting without extending her hand.

  Rightly suspicious. I’m sure she’s wondering exactly what it is I’m doing here. Arcadia guessed that Prisca was about forty, a slim, handsome woman with a simple hairdo that was held in place with a pearl-studded golden diadem. A two-strand pearl necklace circled her throat. She had draped a flowing silk shawl over a full-length tunic that was belted high at her waist.

  Maximin sat down again to supervise a slave who was mixing water into a wine flagon. After his steward, Andros, poured pepper and coriander sauce over a platterful of grilled crayfish, the senator asked amiably, “Did the Empress Mother serve this at that dinner she hosted on the ides?”

  The question took Arcadia by surprise, even though Maximin had already mentioned that he knew about the meal. “Y…yes. But I’m still not sure why my husband and I were invited.”

  “Count on the Augustus having a reason.” Maximin snickered and glanced at his wife. “A pity Prisca and I were unavailable that afternoon.”

  Arcadia realized his excuse was a lie. Maximin would not have dared refuse an invitation from the mother of the Augustus, especially when he was petitioning her son for the title of Patrician.

  “Is it true that your husband couldn’t come here with you?” Prisca asked Arcadia in a voice that was husky, almost masculine in tone.

  “Yes, my sweet,” Maximin interposed quickly, before Arcadia could answer. “Because of a ridiculous charge that Bishop Chrysologos brought against him. The subject is not dinner conversation.”

  “No? Then I suppose we could talk about your infernal chickens,” Prisca retorted, “for we can certainly smell them. Have you shown the surgeon’s wife your ‘Rooster Coop’ yet?”

  “Rooster coop?” Arcadia was confused. “The buildings I saw outside?”

  “No, ‘Rooster coop’ is my wife’s nickname for my upstairs office,” Maximin explained. “It’s where I keep my collection of memorabilia. There’s also a wonderful water clock that Jason built.”

&
nbsp; “Ah, Jason.” Prisca almost smiled. “Will the Greek Hephaestus be entertaining me tonight?”

  Arcadia noticed Maximin flush at her tone of calculated sarcasm. In the Roman myth the crippled craftsman god Vulcan, named Hephaestus by the Greeks, was married to Venus and repeatedly cuckolded by Mars, the god of war.

  “My sweet, he and Phoebe will perform a pantomime later on,” Maximin replied tersely.

  Arcadia leaned aside while Andros used silver tongs to place three crayfish on her plate. When she tasted one, it was excellent, with the coriander seasoning about perfect.

  Prisca nibbled at hers for a while, then discarded the shell and looked across at Arcadia. “I understand you study medicine with your husband?”

  “She treated Agatha a few days ago,” Maximin said. “Very efficiently, too.”

  “How clever of her.” Prisca wiped her fingers on a napkin without looking at him.

  “Yes.” Maximin cleared his throat. “I was suggesting that you might want Arcadia as a physician.”

  “How very thoughtful of you, Publius.”

  Maximin chuckled nervously. “Well, Antioches is getting along in years.”

  “And is not a pretty young woman.” Prisca gave Arcadia a wan smile. “Isn’t that so, my dear?”

  “I….I’d be honored to…to help you,” Arcadia stammered. “With my husband’s consent, of course.” Your tone may be matter-of-fact, Prisca, but your disposition is as acid as the vinegar I use to treat Felicitas’ leg ulcers.

  “Prisca, I told you the rumors,” Maximin continued. “Her husband Getorius will be appointed palace physician at the New Year.”

  Arcadia was grateful that the tense exchange ended when Andros beckoned for a slave to bring in the second course. A silver serving dish shaped like a fluted scallop shell was presented, containing a stew of dried peas cooked with pieces of chicken, thin Lucanian sausages, onion, rissoles of minced pork, and chunks of pork shoulder. Seasoned with oregano, dill and coriander, it was a simple yet savory meal. She thought Maximin either served more exotic dishes only to his important guests, or perhaps actually practiced the republican austerity at which the Gothic Queen only pretended.

  The three ate in silence. Arcadia was unable to think of a way to bring up the subject of the papyri, to see how Maximin might react, but she had more days in which to do so. She realized that she also had to convince the senator’s wife that his guest was no threat to her marriage bed.

  Andros had just begun the sweet course, frying almond-stuffed dates in salted honey, when there was a stirring at the curtained backdrop of the low stage that was set up against the north wall. Jason stepped onto the platform, followed by a young woman holding a seven-stringed lyre. Both were dressed in short tunics of silver cloth and red sandals laced to the knee. Jason held a mask of Julius Caesar, whose gaunt features and thinning hair had been exaggerated into a frowning, tight-lipped caricature of the Roman dictator.

  “Good lad,” Maximin applauded. “Andros, light those candles at the front of the stage. What episode from Caesar’s career have you chosen to pantomime, Jason?”

  “Sir, his capture by Cilician pirates,” he replied with a slight bow.

  “Good, good. Caesar was quite young then, but he still taught those brigands a lesson.” Maximin glanced at Arcadia. “Sorry, my dear. I don’t want to give the story away.”

  Prisca forced a thin smile. “And Phoebe will accompany you on the lyre, Jason?”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “How charming.”

  The actor bowed again and arranged the mask over his face. After Andros had finished lighting the candles, Phoebe began a light plucking of the lyre’s strings. Jason swayed, picking up the rhythm, then began to recite the verses he had written:

  “Let others praise proud Hercules,

  and Bacchus of the frenzied maids,

  Diana’s unerring bow, Neptune’s rage at sea,

  or Jupiter, mightiest god of all.

  Here, ’tis cunning I will praise.

  Young Caesar’s mastery of its ways.”

  Arcadia had not seen a pantomime before. Jason accompanied the music and the sense of the poem’s verses with graceful movements of his head and arms as he modulated his voice from frenzy, to rage, to awe.

  “Caesar! Through the kings of Alba,

  kin of Aeneas, and love-queen Venus.

  Her son Iulus gave the family name.

  But Caesar Julius won it fame.

  On wild Pharmacusa, by wilder pirates still,

  held for ransom. ‘Four thousand, eight hundred

  pieces of gold?’ Our Caesar laughed!

  Dolts. Twelve thousand will they pay,

  But ’til then, in respect, I’ll stay.

  Practice speeches. Recite my poems to you.

  Curb carousing! My mind must concentrate.

  But hear me. Ransomed, I’ll gain justice yet.”

  Arcadia was impressed. The man and woman had only had a few hours to compose the piece. The meter was good, and two of the stanzas rhymed, but in different lines.

  Jason continued:

  “Return? Justice? My vulture captors laughed.

  Gorged on others’ riches, they would threaten

  Rome itself, despoil the city, as they had Italia.

  Twelve thousand paid. Freed, Caesar gathered

  ships. Miletan friends.

  Victory gained! Captors, by Caesar’s mercy,

  first hung, then crucified!

  ’Tis cunning here to you I praise.

  Brave Caesar’s mastery of its ways.”

  After Phoebe’s final strumming, which echoed the cadence of Jason’s closing verses, the actor pulled off the mask and bowed low. When he straightened again, he deftly caught the small purse that Prisca threw to him.

  Maximin pretended to ignore the gesture and turned to Arcadia. “Well done, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, absolutely. I…I didn’t remember the story.” She thought Maximin might invite the two actors to the table, but they turned and went back through the curtain.

  It was totally dark outside now; only a few lights gleamed in the windows of a building on the perimeter of the chicken yard. Maximin picked up a honeyed date with his fingers, ate it, then yawned and stood up.

  “Well. I have early business. Arcadia, perhaps you and Prisca will find womanly things to talk about.”

  “Publius, I have business too,” Prisca told him in a cold tone.

  “No, no,” Arcadia offered quickly, “I’ll read in my room. I brought a copy of Soranus on gynecology.”

  “Fine. Then, may you both sleep well.” Maximin left the room without further words.

  Prisca pushed back her chair and stood. “I’ll have Melisias take you back to your room. She’ll call you for breakfast.”

  “No, I can find it. Ah…Domina?”

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing.” Arcadia blushed. “We…we can talk in the morning. Good night.”

  When Arcadia returned to her room, she found a twin-spouted oil lamp providing the space with a warm glow. Her travel bag was in the wardrobe, and in its place on the stand were a water pitcher, basin, and towels. The room’s door did not have a key lock, but could be secured from the inside by a wooden bar that slid into a bracket.

  She changed into a wool night tunic. After washing her face, she tried to arrange her hair into a braid for the night, but gave up quickly.

  “I should have brought Silvia for that, at least,” she muttered as she rubbed a rose-scented lotion on her face and arms. After crawling under the bedding, Arcadia settled down to read Soranus.

  The villa was strangely quiet. Even the distant barking of hounds in farmhouses outside the walls was muffled. Arcadia guessed that watchdogs at the villa might have harassed the chickens, and were not kept there. In any case, Maximin had his own private army guarding the place.

  Before she put the book down so she could get some sleep, Arcadia thought she heard the faint crowing of
a rooster in a room somewhere, but it sounded unnatural, in some way mechanical, and dawn was still far off.

  At the first early glow of light, a cacophony of live roosters crowing outside the window awakened Arcadia. Groggy from a somewhat restless night in a strange bed, she sat up and looked toward the door. The locking beam was still in place.

  “Blessed Cosmas, toward morning I slept like a hibernating bear. Anyone might have…” Arcadia shuddered without finishing the thought aloud. An intruder could have entered, as the bandit at Classis did, and she would not have noticed.

  After splashing water on her face and rinsing her mouth, Arcadia dressed in a tan, ankle-length tunic and sat down to comb her hair.

  Afterward, she was reading a section in Book III of Soranus, about conditions peculiar to women, when Melisias called to tell her that breakfast was ready.

  A cerulean sky visible through the dining room windows hinted at the possibility of the muddy fields drying out at least partly by afternoon. Prisca was seated alone, watching Andros arrange a basket of bread and dishes of olive oil and honey on the table. She glanced up when Arcadia entered.

  “You slept well?”

  “Quite well. Doesn’t the senator eat breakfast?”

  “The senator is probably at the harbor.” Prisca selected a roll from the basket Andros offered. “He imports pepper and Macedonian wine…eastern merchandise.”

  Good, Prisca seems more talkative without her husband here, Arcadia thought, as the steward pulled back a chair for her.

  “Publius wanted me to schedule a rooster fight as entertainment,” Prisca said with a throaty chuckle. “I declined for you.”

  “I’m grateful. Domina, I—”

  “You may call me Prisca.”

  “Prisca. Last night I started to tell you—”

  “That you had no interest in sharing my husband’s bed?”

  “Why…yes.” The woman’s perception and honesty surprised Arcadia.

  Prisca pushed the dish of honey toward her. “I know your father. Petronius Valerianus is one of the few honorable men we have left in the cesspool that Ravenna is becoming. His daughter could be no less respectable.”