[Getorius and Arcadia 01] - The Secundus Papyrus Read online

  The Secundus Papyrus

  Albert Noyer

  THE SECUNDUS PAPYRUS

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2003 Albert Noyer

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by AmazonEncore

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN: 978-1-935597-86-5

  With special thanks to the writing group:

  Jennifer, Melody, Mary, Frank, Russell

  and

  Leslie S.B. MacCoull Ph.D.

  Society for Coptic Archeology (North America)

  Fallite fallentes: ex magna parte profanum

  sunt genus: In laqueos quos posuere, cadant.

  Deceive the deceivers;

  they are mostly an unrighteous sort.

  Let them fall into the snare they have made.

  Ovid, Ars Amatoria

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  Getorius Asterius

  Surgeon at Ravenna, son of Treverius and Blandina

  Arcadia Valeriana Asteria

  Wife of Getorius, training with him to be a medica

  Flavius Placidus Valentinian III*

  Emperor of the Western Roman Empire

  Licinia Eudoxia*

  Valentinian’s wife, Empress

  Galla Placidia*

  Mother of the emperor, daughter of Theodosius I

  Theokritos of Athens

  Palace Library Master

  Feletheus

  Assistant to Theokritos

  Brenos of Slana

  Abbot of the Abbey of Culdees at Autessiodurum

  Fiachra

  Secretary to Brenos

  Sigisvult

  Architect of the mausoleum of Galla Placidia

  Surrus Renatus

  Archdeacon of Ravenna

  Flavius Aetius

  Supreme Commander of the Western Roman Army

  Publius Maximin†

  Wealthy senator at Ravenna

  Prisca Maximina

  Wife of Publius Maximin

  David ben Zadok

  Rabbi of the Judean community at Classis

  Nathaniel

  Rabbinic student of ben Zadok

  Charadric

  Guard at the palace, friendly to Getorius

  “Smyrna”

  Gallican League’s secret contact at Ravenna

  GLOSSARY OF PLACES MENTIONED

  GERMANY

  Mogontiacum—Mainz Treveri—Trier

  FRANCE

  Aballo—Avallon Forum Julii—Fréjus

  relate—Arles Genevris—Genévre

  Autessiodurum—Auxerre Lugdunum—Lyon

  Cabillonium—Chalons-sur-Saone Massilia—Marseilles

  Cularo—Grenoble Narbo—Narbonne

  Flavia Aeudorum—Autun

  Culdees—“Friends of God” fictional monastery at Autessiodurum

  ITALY

  Albinganum—Albegna Florentia—Florence

  Augusta Taurinorum—Turin Forum Livii—Forli

  Caesena—Cesena Genua—Genoa

  Classis—Classe Mediolanum—Milan

  Faventia—Faenza Ravenna—Ravenna

  (Somewhat fictionalized)

  HIBERNIA (Ireland)

  Clonard—in County Meath

  Slana—Slaine

  RIVERS

  Arar—Saone Rhenus—Rhine

  Bedesis—Montone Rhodanus—Rhone

  Icauna—Yonne Sinnenus—Shannon

  Padus—Po

  Contents

  Dramatis Personae

  Glossary of Places Mentioned

  Ravenna

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Autessiodurum

  Chapter four

  Ravenna

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Lugdunum

  Chapter ten

  Ravenna

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Classis

  Chapter thirteen

  Ravenna

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Chapter eighteen

  Chapter nineteen

  Chapter twenty

  Chapter twenty-one

  Chapter twenty-two

  Chapter twenty-three

  Chapter twenty-four

  Chapter twenty-five

  Chapter twenty-six

  Chapter twenty-seven

  About the Author

  Ravenna

  Chapter one

  Emperor Valentinian III halted his horse to take in a deep breath of the chill November air, pungent with the scent of evergreen resin and the musty odor of decomposing leaves. A less pleasant fishy smell, from marshes on the nearby Adriatic seacoast, also filtered into the earthy fragrance of the pine forest.

  The emperor grinned at a jay that scolded his intrusion from the top of a dead tree. It was good to be hunting in the forest outside the imperial capital of Ravenna with only his two bodyguards, Optila and Thraustila, even if it was only for a few hours. Inside the palace, he, Flavius Placidus Valentinianus, the Augustus of the Western Roman Empire, still had to endure the endless nagging of his mother, Galla Placidia.

  “‘Placidus, you must take more interest in the government,’” he mimicked in a falsetto voice to the jay. “‘You spend too much time, Placidus, with your filthy Hun guards.’ ‘You should pay more attention, Placidus, to Licinia and your baby daughter.’”

  Licinia Eudoxia…pregnant again. Valentinian frowned at the thought of his young wife. He had been married to his cousin for two-and-a-half years, and half that time she had been pregnant, or sullen at having had to leave the Eastern capital of Constantinople. Marriage had been exciting at first, but now it was boring. Thank a lucky zodiac moon sign that Heraclius can always find me any number of slave girls who are willing to do anything for a bronze coin they can stash away toward buying their freedom.

  The jay called again, a harsh warning this time, but Optila, nearby, had already seen the boar.

  “There, August-us,” the guard whispered in Hunnic-accented Latin. “In clump of sumac to right.”

  Valentinian squinted in the direction of the fire-orange bushes. The boar stood rigidly still, with only a glimpse of its angry red eyes and breath vapor visible. Snorting, the animal tried to assess the danger from the intruders. Valentinian slowly brought up his bow and let a feathered shaft fly. A sharp squeal of pain betrayed that the beast had been hit, yet rather than charging, it turned and shambled off into the forest’s dark-green shadows.

  “Caco!” Valentinian spat out. “Shit!” He clucked his horse forward into the sumac, ducking his head low to avoid being bruised by the tangle of branches, trying to keep the boar in sight. Optila, with Thraustila behind, followed to help track the wounded beast.

  As Valentinian deftly guided his mount between the pines, he heard a splash of water ahead—the boar had crossed a stream that flowed eastward into the tidal swamps of the sea.

  “Zeus, let the furcing beast go,” he muttered, reining in his horse at the waterway.

  The two Huns halted a short distance a
way. Thraustila unstoppered a calfskin bag to share gulps of wine with his companion.

  While his mount guzzled from the stream, Valentinian picked gobs of pinesap off his leather vest and brooded. Between his wife, his mother, and army commander Flavius Aetius, life was becoming increasingly unpleasant inside the Lauretum Palace. Eudoxia was merely bad-tempered, but Galla Placidia had gotten more critical—of practically every piss he took. Mother resents giving up her hold on me now that I’m twenty and married. Well, she’ll have to furcing well live with it. Aetius, secure at being big shot Supreme Commander of the Western Roman Army, still treats me like a child. His strutting around reminds me of those two ostriches that the African galley master just brought in for my palace zoo.

  After the Vandals captured Carthage in October, Valentinian, as Emperor newly freed of Galla Placidia’s regency, had had to sit in on endless emergency meetings with his ministers. Something about African grain no longer being available and the threat of bread shortages spawning riots in Ravenna. Aetius even worried that the city of Rome itself was in reach of the barbarians, by way of Sicily, because the Arian sect bishop on the island had promised to shelter his fellow believers.

  Aetius again. After he drove that barbarian, Theodoric, from Narbo in Gaul, then came back to Ravenna, the Senate appointed him Consul for the second time. Yet the bastard never came to report to me, his emperor. He resents the fact that he has to deal with me now, not mother. The only person I can trust is my eunuch steward, Heraclius.

  Valentinian spat and glanced around. He was in a small clearing. Although he often hunted in the vast forest outside Ravenna called Pini, the Pines, and knew the stream, he had not been to this particular location before. Trotting his horse along the left bank of the waterway, the emperor noticed a hut a few paces downstream, half-hidden among the evergreens. He surmised that it was a woodcutter’s shelter and reined his mount toward the hovel. There might be smoked pork, wine, and bread stashed away inside.

  Optila and Thraustila each took a final, gurgling swig from the wineskin, wiped mouths on sleeves, then clucked their horses forward after him.

  At the bank opposite the hut, Valentinian’s mount shied, almost throwing him to the ground. He regained control then looked down to see what had frightened the animal.

  “Wh…what the…?” he stammered at the unexpected sight.

  A man’s body bobbed stiffly in the icy stream, his arms outstretched in a cruciform stance. He was naked except for a cloth that swaddled his genitals. Both feet were pressed against a small rock dam in the current, which kept the thin, white body bizarrely jerking in place.

  Valentinian recognized the man’s tonsured head and pale features. “It’s that Hibernian monk who comes to the palace library,” he scoffed. “I heard that the fool does this kind of penance…staying in the water until he can’t stand the cold any longer.”

  Optila laughed, then dismounted and knelt beside the stream to take a closer look. The monk’s eyes were open in a sightless stare.

  “Shave-head in trance, August-us,” he called out. “I wake him up.” The Hun poked at the monk’s midsection with the end of his bow, but the body only continued its grotesque bobbing motion. After a sharper jab at the torso, Optila looked up, his grin of amusement replaced by a puzzled look. “It not trance, August-us. Shave-head dead!”

  “Dead? Then that stupid monk’s done his last penance.” Valentinian made the customary sign, small crosses against forehead and heart, more from superstition that piety. “The shock of being in that icy water must have killed him.”

  “Who was he, August-us?”

  “Named Behen, Behan, something like that,” Valentinian replied with a shrug. “Came here from someplace in Gaul.”

  “August-us Val-tin,” Thraustila called out, “order palace healer to come see body. Don’t want to be blamed for this.”

  “You won’t be blamed,” Valentinian assured him, “but Antioches is too old. He’d probably die before getting out this far.”

  “Young healer on Via Cae-sar healed my knife wound,” Optila recalled. “Send him.”

  Valentinian hesitated. Perhaps his two bodyguards had the right idea about bringing out a surgeon to see the body. Peter Chrysologos, the Bishop of Ravenna, would surely be informed of the hermit’s death. And after his mother found out, Galla Placidia would pester him about details. Better that a surgeon confirms the Hibernian had accidentally drowned. That would end the affair.

  The jay returned and settled on a branch to clean its beak against a branch. Valentinian eyed the crested, blue-gray bird, reminded of why he had come to hunt in the Pines.

  “Optila, you bring that surgeon here in the morning,” he ordered, reining his horse away from the stream and its grisly occupant. “Let’s flush out another furcing boar. Right now I’ve got a real taste for wild pig meat at supper tonight.”

  Chapter two

  Arcadia looked at the thin white corpse of the monk lying on the rough boards of the hut’s table, and then turned to her husband. “Getorius, why did the judicial magistrate ask you to come out and examine Behan?”

  “Antioches is too old—restricts his practice to the palace,” he replied in a curt tone. Getorius set his instrument case down hard on the seat of the only chair in the room, muttering, “The real question is why you came out here with me.”

  “I heard that, Husband. I’m training with you to be a medica, remember?”

  “Right, but you don’t need to see this, Arcadia,” he said more gently. “A drowning victim isn’t a pretty sight.”

  “I told you before we married that I wanted to study medicine,” she reminded him, her greenish eyes meeting his blue ones. “It didn’t seem to bother you then. Let’s just examine the poor man.”

  “August-us sent messenger to abbot of Shave-head at Autess-odurum,” Optila volunteered, standing at a distance from the body.

  “Autessiodurum? I think that’s in central Gaul.” Getorius frowned. “Even with luck it should take, what, over thirty days for someone to come this far in winter? It’ll be close to the feast of the Nativity by then.”

  “What will happen if Behan’s abbot doesn’t authorize burial here?” Arcadia asked. “Does Bishop Chrysologos have jurisdiction over the body?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s a good thing the weather’s turned colder. Optila, look around outside for anything that belonged to the monk. I thought I heard a rooster crowing.”

  Getorius turned back to his task. “Let’s start. Bring my medical case over here.”

  Arcadia paid no attention to his brusque tone. Examining the body of a fellow human was always unsettling, and he was already annoyed with her for insisting on coming along.

  While she held open the leather box, Getorius studied his array of bronze probes, tweezers, clamps, and surgical knives. He indicated an instrument in the top row of the kidskin-lined case, “The long probe. I’m not exactly sure of what to look for here. The holy man must have surely died from exposure. His body is as white as Germania’s snows.”

  “And as cold.” Arcadia noted the monk’s glassy stare. “At least shut his eyes.”

  Getorius grunted and closed his fingers over the dead man’s eyelids, then began an examination of his head. The sunken cheeks were shadowed by beard stubble, which was studded with bare scar spots. A few splotches reddened the pale skin, and scabby lesions crusted the shaved portion of his ear-to-ear tonsure.

  “When did Behan die?” Getorius abruptly asked his wife.

  “When?” Arcadia gritted her teeth and lifted the right arm to test its flexibility. It was somewhat rigid, but she knew the monk’s emaciated condition and the cold water would have retarded rigor mortis. Her estimate was a hesitant question, “Since…since about the last night hour of the day before yesterday?”

  “Possibly. It’s still dark then, so Behan began his last penance before sunup.”

  “Poor man,”—Arcadia touched the pale skin stretched over the monk’s prominent rib c
age—“so thin.”

  “Probably lived mostly on bread, with fish now and then. Not exactly banquet fare.”

  When her husband scraped at small red spots on the dead man’s forearm, Arcadia bent down for a closer look, then blurted out, “He had the pox!”

  “Ah…cara, these are old insect or mosquito bites,” Getorius corrected with an indulgent smile. “We’re near off shore marshes, remember?”

  “Sorry,” Arcadia mumbled and plucking self-consciously at her hairnet, resolved to be more observant next time before voicing a diagnosis.

  Getorius traced his fingers over the skin, pausing at white scars where Behan had been injured and healed, and wondering if some of the wounds had been self-inflicted as penances. He touched a reddish welt around the neck, then used the probe to examine inside the monk’s mouth. Arcadia turned away to keep from gagging and looked around the hovel.

  The walls were constructed out of upright pine poles interwoven with thick willow branches that had been chinked with sandy mud. Daylight showed through the coating in several places where it had crumbled and fallen away. Three rough boards on the dirt floor partly covered with a gray blanket, and a rounded wooden block, served as Behan’s bed and pillow. Yellowish evergreen needles lay strewn on the bare earth around it.