Unholy Sepulcher Page 2

  Brisios nodded, yet moved a short distance away along the railing.

  Several hundred paces from the edge of the docks, warehouses stood on both sides of the square. Nearby shops were closed, the work-places deserted as free citizens and slaves crowded around food and wine booths set up at various locations around the open area. Garlands of leafy grape canes and late autumn field flowers decorated vendor stalls.

  In the center of the square a troupe of traveling actors had set up a platform stage on top of a wagon—a common sight, even at Ravenna, now that Christian emperors withheld subsidies for theater productions. Gaudy colors did little to disguise the stage's decrepit condition. The performance was announced on a painted board: "A Conversion to the True Faith of the Roman Proconsul, S. Paulus, and Blinding of Elymas, Hebrew Magician and Son of Satan."

  Most of the audience stood around the stage, yet on a wooden platform built to one side, a group of well-dressed spectators sat in chairs to watch the drama. Several armed guards surrounded the most richly garbed man at the platform's center.

  Getorius surmised, "That's probably Cyprus's governor and his council members.

  Rank does have its privileges."

  "The play has begun," Arcadia noted. "Eustilios disappeared without a parting word. Can we go ashore yet? I don't want to miss too much of the drama."

  "The gangplank is in place." Getorius called over to Brisios, "Saturnilos will tell you what to do."

  He nodded a response. At the foot of the gangplank, the couple passed a marine guard and walked toward spectators nearest the stage. On the platform a clean-shaven Sergius Paulus sat on a folding stool, questioning an equally beardless, Roman-looking Saint Paul. Barnabas, the Apostle's companion, stood to one side. A Chorus of several women translated the Latin dialogue into Greek for peasants who had come from the countryside for the city festival.

  Proconsul Sergius addressed Paul, with a stage wink at the audience. "Surely, sir, you are Hebrew. Your atrocious accent betrays you."

  Paul smirked, "Governor, since I changed my name from Saul to Paul, we share names. I am a Hebrew who is as Roman as Your Excellency, or even old Romulus and Remus."

  After the Chorus translated the dialogue into Greek, rustics in the audience laughed. Paul turned to them with exaggerated bows.

  Sergius asked, "Well, Saul-to-Paul, you come from where?"

  "Lately of Damascus."

  "Damascene? Would that your speech were as sharp as your city's sword blades." After pausing to let the audience appreciate his wit, the actor continued, "I hear you've been stirring up trouble by preaching in Hebrew churches."

  Barnabas contradicted him. "Not churches, Excellency. Synagogues."

  Sergius feigned annoyance. "Sin-what? Who are you?"

  "Barnabas. A Cypriot native of this island, who in all modesty is destined to be venerated here."

  After the spectators rewarded Barnabas with scattered applause, a tall, heavily bearded figure, wearing a black cape and waving a wooden staff, sprang from behind a stage column. "Blasphemy, Proconsul!" he screamed. "These two impostors preach a crucified and resurrected criminal as their God! Blasphemy! Blasphemy!"

  Sergius stage-whispered an aside to the audience. "It's Elymas, my favorite magician, even though he's Hebrew." Over the crowd's hisses, he continued, "Magician. I give everyone an impartial hearing."

  Elymas turned to the audience and smirked, "Just as a coin of gold versus a coin of bronze will give an 'impartial' verdict?"

  As the crowed hooted, Arcadia frowned. "This is a farce, Getorius. Is he implying that the governor takes bribes?"

  He squeezed her hand. "Let's hear him out."

  "Saul-Paul," the proconsul continued, "Elymas claims you believe that your God was resurrected from the dead? Is he a magician? Are you one, too?"

  "Sir, my power is of Christ."

  "So you do have mystical powers?" Sergius turned to the audience. "I enjoy a good magic show, don't you?" After the translation and half-drunken shouts of agreement subsided, he ordered, "Paul, prove your power by doing what my magician can do.

  Elymas, show me that Moses serpent trick with your staff."

  The magician babbled an incoherent phase, "Eulamon Moshe Ousiri Aphi Ousiri Mne Phri," then threw his staff down and commanded, "Bring thou forth a serpent!"

  To the gasps of those in the audience who had not seen the trick before, and then scattered applause, a snake formed at the end of the staff and slithered onto the floor.

  Standing near the stage, Getorius murmured to his wife, "Did you notice him slip a cap off the staff's top? That serpent was concealed inside."

  "Let's see what Paul will do."

  The proconsul beamed. "Well done, Elymas. Well, Saul-Paul, can you match that?"

  Paul boasted, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I will do better." He strutted to the stage's center and spread out his cloak on the deck. The rectangular cloth gradually disappeared into the floor, then a moment later reappeared with a shape taking form under the material. The Apostle snatched up the cloak, revealing a heron crouching underneath. The long-legged bird stood up, glanced around until it noticed the serpent, then ran to gulp it down in one swift movement. Paul bowed to the proconsul. "Excellency, thus the power of Christ swallows up evil."

  Sergius applauded. "Well done, Saul-Paul, your Christ truly seems potent. Elymas, this Christian magician is impressive. What else have you to show us?"

  Spectators who knew the trick chanted, "Talking skull…talking skull…talking skull."

  Elymas bowed and then faced the crowd on center-stage. With his back to the spectators, he held up his enormous cloak to conceal what was in front. Again mumbling an incantation of gibberish, the magician stepped back with a flourish of the cape and revealed a blanched skull set on a bronze tripod.

  Puzzled, Arcadia wondered, "How did he do that?"

  "I heard something that sounded like a winch being turned. There must be a section of the platform's center cut away that can be raised and lowered. The bird appeared that way."

  "But that's so obvious."

  "No one is fooled. It's festival entertainment that everyone except rustic newcomers have seen many times before."

  "Speak! Speak!" a man in front of the wagon shouted to the skull.

  Elymas, seeming in a trance, drew out an ebony wand from his left sleeve and touched the fleshless head three times, intoning, "I command thee…to tell us…where thou art from."

  The macabre relic slowly turned to him, and a hollow-sounding voice intoned, "I come from the House of Hades, King of the Dead."

  Some women spectators stifled screams and turned away. A frightened child began to wail. Several men nervously drained their wine cups and stared. Even though many had seen the trick before, this macabre reminder of their own mortality sent a shudder of fear through spectators.

  As the crowd quieted, Elymas asked, "Messenger of Hades, who is there with the king?"

  "Ghosts of unhappy Patroklos, rider of horses, and Odysseus of the many wiles," the skull replied in its funereal tone. "Swift-footed Achilleus, son of lovely-haired Thetis, languishes with Hades. Glorious Hektor, son of Priam."

  "Priapus?" a throaty female voice interrupted. A heavily made-up, red-haired woman, wearing a saffron-colored tunic, sauntered provocatively from behind one of the stage columns. "Did I hear someone mention Priapus, my favorite god?"

  "Aphrodisia!" The actress-prostitute's name rippled through men in the crowd as they whistled and applauded. The woman's entrance had tempered their fear in a swirl of scented air and bright silk garments that revealed much of her nude body underneath.

  Elymas drew back in horror from being polluted by a harlot. As Paul stepped forward, Aphrodisia adjusted the neckline of her tunic lower to show more of her ample cleavage and demanded, "Who are you, stranger?"

  "Paul, one born out of time, but by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, an Apostle, not by human commission but by commission from the Father who raised Him, and—" r />
  Aphrodisia shushed his lips with a finger, turned toward the spectators, shrugged, and made an uncomprehending gesture with both hands. The crowd laughed at her mockery of Paul's pompous reply.

  "Well, boring-talker, show me a trick I don't already know," she said, with bold winks at the men. "If you can."

  Paul threw his cloak around the woman and hustled her to the back of the column, shouting, "I command that thou be converted from harlotry to Christ Jesus!"

  The crowd waited. A moment later, a wrinkled, bent-over crone in the black tunic and veil of a holy woman hobbled out from the opposite side of the pillar. Women in the crowd shouted approval at the transformation. Men groaned and shouted for Aphrodisia to return. It was also a chance for them to refill their cups from vendors circulating among the crowd with pitchers of newly fermented wine.

  Paul turned to the skull and cried, "Away, O son of Satan! By the power of Christ I command you back to sheol!"

  In moments the skull distorted into a horrifying lump that melted before the crowd's eyes. A smell of burning candle wax drifted from the stage.

  Getorius said, "I think I know how that was done. The skull is beeswax, probably mixed with plaster. The stage crew placed a lighted charcoal brazier beneath the tripod, just out of sight."

  Arcadia frowned, "I've had enough of this lewdness. This isn't a religious drama at all. Besides, I'm tired and haven't bathed in a week. Getorius, I'd like to go where we'll be staying tonight."

  "Let's wait and see how it ends with the proconsul's conversion. Listen—"

  "…a miracle, two miracles, indeed," Sergius was saying. "Elymas, I think I'll invite Saul-Paul to dinner. Listen to what he has to say about his resurrected God."

  "Excellency," he whined, "you haven't seen my trick with Obeso yet."

  The Hebrew magician turned to the spectators and urged them on with hand gestures. Cued, they shouted for the actor in unison. "Obeso…Obeso…Obeso. Bring out Obeso!"

  On the right side of the stage, three men struggled to push and pull a wheelbarrow up a ramp and onto the platform. Lying in the barrow, a grossly overweight man whose fleshy face held an eerie, vacant expression, grinned at the audience. Occasional guttural sounds came from a mouth that drooled saliva. Obeso's gross legs hung like bursting wineskins outside the barrow's sides. He wore only a soiled loincloth. To titters from the audience, the grunting stagehands stopped near the center of the stage.

  "That poor man," Arcadia sympathized. "Look at his face. His mind is…is—"

  "That of a lunatic."

  "Yes. Why…why humiliate him this way?"

  Some in the audience threw bits of food at Obeso, calling for him to eat and become as fat as Dionysios of Herakleia. The idiot grinned and picked morsels off his chest to stuff into his mouth.

  "Hebrew," a spectator challenged, "turn Obeso into a beautiful god."

  "That will take all of my power…" Elymas stood in front of the actor and spread his cape out as far as he could. It barely hid Obeso's bulk. The magician waited long moments while sounds of machinery came from in front of him.

  Someone in the crowd shouted, "What's wrong, Hebrew? Has your magic vanished into your beard?"

  A few drunks tossed food at the back of the magician's cape.

  Finally Elymas intoned, "Iarphe Arphe Akarnachthas!" and stepped aside. "Forwosus…'Handsome'…stands before you!"

  A tanned youth, his muscular body glistening with oil, back to the audience, had replaced the grotesque figure of Obeso. Formosus rippled his shoulder muscles to the admiring shouts of male spectators, and even a few of the bolder women, then slowly turned toward them to reveal an immense phallus strapped to his groin.

  Men in the audience went wild with cheering. Formosus strutted about the stage, thrusting his pelvis at females in the crowd. Most turned away or covered their eyes, but a few girls hiked tunics up above their knees, waving him in.

  Arcadia complained again, "I can't watch this any longer. I want to leave."

  "It is getting raw," Getorius agreed. "Much too Dionysian." He had taken his wife by the arm, to lead her back through the crowd, when he paused to look back. Paul had thrown his cloak around Formosus and faced Elymas. "Wait, this is near the end."

  "Enough, you sorcerer," Paul shouted. "You fraud, son of Diabolos, and the enemy of all goodness, stop falsifying the ways of Jesus Christ. Through my power, the hand of God strikes! You shall be blind in your eyes, as your soul now is blind. For a time you shall not see light."

  While the Chorus translated Paul's rebuke, Elymas trembled and staggered around the stage, his hands outstretched like a blind man's, pleading for someone to guide him.

  Paul grasped one of his hands. "Be not blind, Elymas, as are your Hebrew brethren. Accept Christ, and you shall see Everlasting Light."

  "I will, I will," Elymas sobbed, dropping to his knees. "I renounce my spells and my sorcery. Show me the True Light."

  A smiling Sergius stood up, clapping his hands. "And I accept your Christ, too, Paul, for I now call you by your Roman name. Come teach me about your God."

  As the officer led the Apostle a short distance away, the actors lined up at the edge of the platform, bowing for applause. Formosus, wearing a loincloth and without his phallus, jumped down into the crowd and passed a bowl around to collect coins. Some of the girls surrounded him, squealing with delight, stroking his arms. A few spectators dropped bronzes into the bowl, but most turned back to the festival booths, mimicking the nude actor as they went to buy food and more wine.

  Watching the cast, Getorius wondered aloud, "Where is Obeso? He should be on stage with the others."

  Arcadia said, "The poor man has been exploited enough. This drunken crowd will only continue to mock him."

  A stagehand climbed out of the stage opening and ran over to whisper to the actor who had played Sergius Paulus. He looked back and went with the man. After glancing into the pit, he hurried to the edge of the platform.

  "A physician?" he called out. "Is there a sober physician among the spectators?"

  Getorius called up, "I'm a surgeon."

  "Come quickly by the side ramp." When he came around to the stage, the actor remarked, "Your tunic and speech tell that you're from the West."

  "Yes, from Ravenna. You are?"

  "Lysandros. I direct the dramas."

  "Why do you need me?"

  "Obeso is…" The director noticed Arcadia climbing onstage and objected. "No! The woman should not see this."

  "She's my wife and trains with me. Is something wrong with Obeso?"

  "C…come and look for yourself."

  Obeso lay jammed at an angle inside a stage pit that was too small for his immense size. His flabby arms were squeezed tightly against his body, pressed against walls built around three sides of the moveable platform. His flesh had a yellowish tint, the pudgy face contorted into a grotesque mask. Eyes slightly open, slits of white embedded in dark-circled hollows. Drool threaded down from a gaping open mouth.

  Getorius reached down to Obeso's throat. He couldn't breathe and suffocated. He appears afflicted by jaundice, undoubtedly the result of a poor diet. Unable to find a pulse in the mass of greasy flesh, he looked up at the ring of actors peering down at their comrade. "Quickly. Find a mirror and bring it to me."

  Lysandros spoke in Greek to Aphrodisia. She turned and ran toward the troupe's house-wagon at the rear of the stage.

  Getorius bent over to pick up the frayed end of a rope. "This pulley line controlling the up and down movement of the platform is broken. The device tipped to one side, trapping Obeso. He wasn't able to move or, tragically, to breathe."

  "I told you, Lysandros," the stagehand criticized. "We should have repaired it."

  "Issihos!…Shut up!" the director hissed at him. "Obeso will be fine."

  Aphrodisia returned and handed Lysandros a scratched bronze disc with a bent handle. Getorius held the mirror under Obeso's fleshy nose.

  "This probably is useless, yet I wanted t
o be sure by looking for even a trace of breath moisture on cool metal." He positioned the mirror close to the actor's nostrils, then shook his head. "Nothing."

  "Nothing!" Lysandros demanded. "What do you mean, Latin? 'Nothing'?"

  Getorius stood and faced him. "I mean, director, this farce on the conversion of Sergius Paulus has ended in tragedy. Your actor, Obeso, is dead!"

  CHAPTER II

  "Obeso dead?" Lysandros ranted in anger, not sympathy. "I told the fat imbecile he was heavy enough, to stop gorging like a sow in a herd of swine."

  "The man was ill, yet you were exploiting him!" Arcadia criticized. "I'd think you'd have some pity for your dead actor."

  The director glared at her, then rebuked Getorius. "Surgeon, do you not follow the advice of Holy Paul? Women should speak only with their husband's permission."

  When her husband ignored Lysandros. Arcadia grasped his sleeve. "Horrible. If Obeso has a family, what will happen to them?

  "What will happen to my drama?" he lamented. "That imbecile was my largest attraction. 'Largest…'" He chuckled at his cleverness. "I've made a joke."

  Getorius was about to confront the director's insensitivity, when he heard a voice calling behind him. He turned to see two of the guards who had been with the privileged spectators on the platform. Tall, with blondish hair, and carrying sheathed long-swords, the men resembled Gothic mercenaries. Still annoyed, Getorius snapped, "What is it?"

  "Come with me," one guard ordered in guttural Latin.

  "For what reason?"

  "Philocalos, Archon of Kypros, asks why you are here."

  Slightly relieved, Getorius asked, "Archon is your Greek term for a governor?"

  The Goth answered by gesturing toward the galley. "Philocalos there. You and the woman are to come."

  "Good," Arcadia said, "we'll meet the governor. I intend to complain about what just happened."

  Getorius cautioned her. "Cara, let's not stir up unnecessary waves."

  "This Philocalos should know about that dead actor."

  As the couple walked down the platform stairs, Lysandros jeered, "Enjoy our 'imperial' hostility, Westerners!"

  Getorius took Arcadia's arm and followed the guards to the wharf. Philocalos and several city councilors were admiring Theophilos. When the archon saw the couple arriving, he broke away from the group to meet them. A short man with dyed and curled hair, the governor had outlined his eyes with black antimony and rouged his lips. His swarthy complexion was lightened with a white powder, now stained with rivulets of perspiration. Getorius thought he looked like one of the actors, except that he wore an expensive damask tunic. The official carried his scepter of rank in one pudgy fist—an olivewood staff topped by a gilt falcon inlaid with colored enamel. His other hand limply swished a fan.