by Albert Noyer
“Latin manuscript?” Theokritos rasped. “How could you know that one of the manuscripts was written in that language?”
Brenos realized his error and tried to distract the sick man from it. “May I help you drink, Librarian? Your throat seems dry.”
Theokritos waved a hand toward a cup on the table. “A little of Antioches’ poison.”
Brenos sniffed the drink. “Mint crushed in wine. Our monks would succumb to many illnesses to…to drink this,” he quipped, but his voice faltered. As he held the cup while Theokritos sipped the medication, the thought that the will might have been discovered clogged Brenos’ mind. He had to find out exactly what the old man was testing, and deflect his attention away from his slip about the Latin manuscript. “You have many ancient volumes in your library?” he asked as he put down the cup.
Theokritos nodded and lay back. “Some were brought from Mediolanum when Honorius made Ravenna his capital. Homer, Plato. Herodotus…” His voice trailed off in a spasm of coughing, and he closed his eyes.
Brenos felt new alarm. He had to find out which manuscript the librarian had found without further arousing his suspicion, yet could not risk tiring the old man and be forced to leave. “I ask about your library because the Queen told me you were testing the age of a document that was recently discovered.” Theokritos only responded with a dry cough. “Librarian,” Brenos insisted, his voice rising, “where is this papyrus?”
“Papyrus?” Theokritos opened his eyes and eased himself to a sitting position. “How did you know the manuscript was made of papyrus? The material has been out of general use for decades.”
“Th…the Queen mentioned it,” Brenos lied, realizing he would have to be more cautious. For a sick old man, the librarian was alert. “Have you come to a decision about the document’s authenticity?” When Theokritos did not reply, Brenos pushed in another direction. “Is it a new letter of Pilate? The others are forgeries, but many good people are deceived.”
“It is not that.”
“No? But you have come to a conclusion?”
Theokritos nodded slowly, but said nothing. Brenos waited a moment, then demanded, “Well? Do you believe the papyrus to be a forgery or authentic?”
“That is written only for the Regina’s eyes to see.”
“Of course.” Old fool. Would he have stored the papyrus in his library? No.
If it is the Nazarene’s will and Theokritos has discovered it to be a forgery, he would keep it near him. In this room. He wouldn’t have expected a stranger to visit. At the least his conclusion is here somewhere. Brenos glanced around at the sparse furnishings. Besides the bed there was the wicker chair, a single wardrobe, and a shelf of books above a writing desk that was much like the ones in the scriptorium at Culdees. Cabinet doors closed off storage space under the slanting top. That’s where the papyrus would be placed! So would the damning results of his tests. Brenos looked back at Theokritos. The librarian was slumped against the pillows, his eyes closed again. He seemed asleep.
Even though Brenos stood up carefully, the wicker chair creaked. His hands felt clammy as he began to ease himself toward the desk with as little noise as possible. He was halfway to it, when he heard the rustle of bedclothes and looked around. Theokritos was sitting up, his glance darting from the abbot to the cabinet doors and back again.
“It’s in there, isn’t it?” Brenos asked in a husky whisper. “The papyrus is in the cabinet. Let me see your test results. The Queen won’t have to know.”
“What? No, get away from there!” Theokritos ordered. “How did you know the documents were written on papyrus, or that there was a Latin scroll? You…you’re part of the conspiracy to release the will. That’s why you came.”
The will! It is the Nazarene’s testament! As Theokritos struggled to get up from the bed, Brenos strode back and snatched up a pillow from behind the old man’s back. Before Theokritos could cry out, the abbot had stuffed the soft bag over his face and pushed him back onto the mattress.
Suffocating the librarian was more difficult than Brenos expected—he had been weakened by exhaustion, from the rigors of his winter journey, and by the fever. As he struggled to keep Theokritos’ face pressed hard against the pillow, Brenos winced at the agonizing pain stabbing out from the rawness on his side. The librarian’s arms flailed around, trying to tear away the deadly covering, and his legs kicked out to push his assailant away.
One of Theokritos’s feet caught Brenos in the groin and threw him off-balance for an instant and the old man managed to work his head free. The abbot glimpsed his terror-filled eyes, before frantically stuffing the pillow hard over the librarian’s face again. His effort must not fail. The success of the Gallicans’ plan depended on finding the Nazarene’s will, and this stubborn librarian had it.
“Brandub!” With the spat-out Celtic curse, Brenos stiffened his arms and pushed against the pillow with all his remaining strength.
Theokritos’ struggle ended moments afterward.
Breathing in gasps from his exertion, Brenos propped the librarian’s body up against the pillows, arranged the rumpled bedclothes to look normal again, then went to the desk and opened the cabinet doors.
Theokritos had made no effort to conceal the vellum on which he had penned the results of his experiments. Brenos found it in a cedar box, on the lower shelf. His hands shook as he unrolled the white sheet. He glanced past the record of the experiments, to the librarian’s conclusion, making sure it was the Nazarene’s will that the man had been testing, then turned as pale as the white vellum page.
Brenos mumbled the conclusion to himself. “Theokritos of Athens, Library Master to Flavius Placidus Valentinianus III, at the court of Ravenna, through the results documented above, declare that the papyri of the Apostle Petros, and the Last Testament of Jesus, the said Christos, are authentic and genuine.”
Brenos was stunned. Th…the old fool thought…thought it was real! Theokritos declared the will to be authentic! As his shock ebbed, the abbot replaced the vellum in the box, then rummaged through other scrolls stored on the shelves to find the will itself. All were blank. Brandub, he cursed again, silently. The two papyri were elsewhere in the palace. How had they been discovered, and who else knew of their existence? Perhaps now, with the librarian dead, only the Queen, the emperor’s mother, knows.
He slumped back down into the chair to think. If the documents were in the palace, Smyrna could help locate them, but why hadn’t the man contacted him? Had the Gallican plot been discovered, or had Theokritos been recruited as one of the conspirators and agreed to declare the will genuine? That would have been clever.
A rap at the door startled Brenos, sending a shiver of alarm through his body. The portal opened and the Queen’s steward, who had brought him, looked in.
“Pardon, Abbot,” Magnaric apologized. “The Empress Mother was worried at your absence.”
“I…I was about to come to her with poor news. I was praying with Theokritos for renewed health…for both of us. After we said a Confiteor together, her librarian slipped into eternal sleep, just…just moments ago.”
Magnaric glanced over at the figure on the bed, signed himself with a cross, and murmured in Gothic, “Atta, wairthai wilja theins…Father, thy will be done.”
“Steward”—Brenos slipped a silver coin from his belt purse— “tell the Queen about the librarian’s death for me. I…I must get back to the bishop’s residence immediately.”
In his room, as Brenos’ feelings of tension eased gradually, he laughed aloud. It was a manifestation of nervousness, yet, strangely, also of relief, when he realized that the premature discovery of the Nazarene’s will might actually work to the advantage of the Gallican League.
The second phase of the plot—determining the authenticity of the two papyri—was well under way, accomplished, in fact. A respected Greek scholar, the librarian to the Western Augustus, had studied and tested the documents and pronounced them authentic. There would be further debate
, of course. Sixtus III, the Bishop of Rome, would call together secret councils in the Lateran Palace, but the weight of evidence was on their side and the endorsement of the emperor was already in. Brenos was confident that the pontiff could not delay making the will public any longer than the start of the forty-day penitential season in late winter—exactly as the League had anticipated.
A rap at the door interrupted Brenos’ musings. When he opened it, one of the bishop’s servants handed him a note. He told the man to wait, then went back in, standing at the far side of the room, near a window. He tore at the red wax seal, destroying some of the signet image in his eagerness to anticipate the contents.
After reading a moment he murmured, “Praise the Nazarene, the message is from Smyrna. I’m to be in the narthex of the Basilica of the Holy Cross, next to Galla Placidia’s mausoleum, at the tenth hour this afternoon. A carriage will meet me and drive me to an estate outside Ravenna called the Villa of the Red Rooster.” Brenos chuckled at the apt name, then pieced enough of the crumbling wax back together to make out the symbol of a cockerel.
The abbot had no response for the servant to take back, but before dismissing him, ordered the man to bring him an armful of fresh yew branches.
Chapter twenty
On the same afternoon that the death of Theokritos was reported to Galla Placidia, Getorius, confined in the room assigned to him, heard the clack of hob-nailed boots in the corridor outside. He sat up from the bed, where he had been reading what the ancient Greek historian Herodotus said about embalming methods, wondering if there had been some new development in his case. Would he be freed? He heard the bolt slide through its retaining brackets, then Charadric swung open the door. A ruddy-faced Flavius Aetius stood at the jamb, in a swirl of cold air from the garden.
“Commander…” Getorius set his book aside and stood up. “I…I’m honored.”
Aetius dismissed the compliment with a wave of his hand, then turned and spoke in Hunnic to a man with oriental features who accompanied him. The guard sheathed his curved sword and took a position by the open door.
“My bodyguard, Kursich, is my left hand,” Aetius explained. “I remembered you, Surgeon, from that unfortunate dinner where I made a fool of myself. Thought I’d ask you a few questions about why you’re here.”
“I’m grateful. Please sit down, although I must apologize—my borrowed furnishings are somewhat spartan.”
Aetius grunted his thanks, and dropped heavily into the room’s only chair. He rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “I do feel tired, like an old pack mule after a season’s campaign.”
Getorius guessed that the commander must be aged around forty, but sixteen years of fighting against barbarians and potential usurpers in Africa, Gaul and Italy had aged him; he looked at least a decade older. Aetius wore a new pair of heavy field boots, but had set aside his worn campaign uniform for a tunic of fine wool that was belted at the waist with a silver-inlaid leather belt. A curved dagger of Hunnic design hung from it. The enameled gold pendant around his neck portrayed one of the mounted Asiatic warriors, a not-so-subtle reminder to Galla Placidia that fourteen years earlier, he had enlisted sixty thousand loyal Huns as allies to depose the usurper John. The army had arrived too late, but the warriors had frightened Placidia enough for her to bribe them to return home, and to reluctantly accept Aetius into her service.
All Ravenna knew that the commander had been appointed consul twice, and that Valentinian had recently awarded him the rank of Patrician. Even though he was Supreme Army Commander, citizens had begun to refer to him as “The Emperor’s Patrician.”
“You’re just back from inspecting your field legions?” Getorius asked.
Aetius nodded. “Between here and Mediolanum. Rain the whole time, but with Carthage in Vandal hands our men needed a boost in morale. I convinced the Augustus to distribute his New Year bonus to them early.”
“That should help.”
“Hopefully. I’m also trying to mitigate some of the bad feeling against our Goths that still exists in the area.”
“Ever since Flavius Stilicho was murdered and the families of his allies slaughtered afterward?”
“You do know your history, Surgeon, that was over thirty years ago.” Aetius bent to brush away dried mud on the toe of one boot, then looked up at Getorius. “I have a better understanding of barbarians than anyone since that unfortunate commander. As a child I lived among Huns as their hostage. Stilicho was betrayed and murdered after being promised asylum.”
“Lured outside of a church here in Ravenna and killed.” Getorius understood why Aetius had not forgotten the man who had held the same post as supreme army commander—their positions were similar.
“The most stupid thing Emperor Honorius ever did,” Aetius went on. “It’s probably human nature that Stilicho would have liked to see his son made Augustus, as his enemies claimed, but his truly unforgivable offense was failing to maintain the Rhine and Danube frontiers intact. Citizens even hailed him as ‘Savior of the West’ at one point, for all the good that did him in the end.”
Getorius knew that Stilicho had allowed himself to be executed rather than provoke civil war. Galla Placidia did not like or trust Aetius. She resented the fact that her regency guardianship over Valentinian was now over, yet she needed the commander’s military expertise. Aetius, in turn, depended on the continuation of his victories to maintain his position and avoid Stilicho’s fate.
“Well,”—Aetius glanced around the room—“I see they gave you Cassian’s quarters, but the tribune seems to have taken almost everything with him to Rome.”
“I’m comfortable enough.”
“I was told of the charge against you, Surgeon, so I’ll aim directly for the target. Did you dissect that monk’s body?”
“No, sir.”
“I’m inclined to believe you, but…well…my men report that about three weeks ago you went out in the direction of the stream where the corpse was kept.”
So Aetius was informed about our journey to Classis. What else does he know? Perhaps he’s not that sure of the target, or how many others might be involved in this.
“Surgeon?” Aetius asked.
Getorius tried not to sound defensive when he replied, “I had business in Classis.”
“Mind telling me what kind of business?” After Getorius hesitated, Aetius came over and put a hand on his shoulder. “I said I believed you, but the charge was brought by the bishop. The Augustus wouldn’t interfere even if he felt like doing so. Do you know why someone would want to implicate…to dishonor you this way?”
“I don’t.” Getorius did not elaborate. If Placidia was correct and Aetius was involved in a palace plot involving the will, the worst he could do would be to tell the commander that he knew about the existence of the two papyri. “I have no idea, I only know I wasn’t involved.”
“All right.” Aetius rubbed his eyes and sat back down. “There’s something going on, but it’s well hidden. My men have heard only a word here and there…not enough for me to make any sense of anything. But perhaps my comment at dinner that night about a secret document wasn’t a total jest. Has someone ‘discovered’ a testament of Constantine that wills the Western Empire to the Bishop of Rome? Shall I put the Scholarian Guards on alert?”
“I…I couldn’t say, sir.” Now Aetius is mentioning a will. Is the man toying with me about what he already knows, like a cat with a wounded bird? Does he hope I’ll drop my guard and then tell him something?
“In the name of Hades, Surgeon, talk to me!” Aetius burst out. “Do you want to be exiled with your wife to some gull-dung-spotted rock off the Dalmatian coast? What were you supposed to have done? What part of the monk’s body were you charged with…mutilating…as the indictment reads?”
“Arcadia told me the deacons said it was the abdominal area.”
“Neither of you has seen the corpse?”
“No. Bishop Chrysologos wouldn’t allow it.”
Ae
tius ran the fingers of one hand along his dagger sheath a moment. “The bishop’s tribunal won’t hold your trial until after the new year,” he predicted. “Chrysologos has decided that the monk will be buried on the twenty-fourth of December. In three days.”
“Literally covering up the evidence. That won’t help me, but I suppose the bishop will be glad to have the matter laid to rest, as it were, even though nothing has been heard so far from Behan’s monastery.”
“You don’t know? The monk’s abbot arrived here from Gaul yesterday.”
“His abbot?”
“Yes, a churchman named Brenos. I’m just as astonished as you that he would make that long a journey in winter. I had enough trouble getting back over a much shorter distance.”
Getorius barely heard the comment. The arrival of the head of the monastery to which Behan belonged had to be connected to the revelation of the will. He wondered how much it was safe to tell Aetius, but the commander was still talking.
“…And not a single galley from the Egyptian grain fleet would risk a winter voyage, despite the fact that we offered the captains a handsome bonus in order to help avoid a food crisis.”
“Egypt? I’ve been reading about the country in Euterpé, the second book of Herodotus…” As Getorius reached over the bed to show the volume, a sudden thought came to his mind. “Of course, Egyptian priests! Sigisvult had mentioned something about embalming Behan’s corpse.”
“What are you talking about, Surgeon?”
Getorius held up the old historian’s book and waved it at Aetius. “Commander, don’t we have an Egyptian colony in Ravenna?”
“Yes, a small one, in the port area…commercial offices, a temple to Isis, little else. Why do you ask?”
“I’ve been reading about embalming. This may be an impossibly long throw of the javelin, but if I could tell you exactly what organs had been excised from Behan’s corpse, would that help my case?”
