Unholy Sepulcher Read online

  The governor bowed, murmuring a ritual welcome, "I, your servant, Achilleos Philocalos humbly greet your Excellencies from the court of our illustrious Sebastos, the Second Theodosius. May I offer you my—"

  Getorius broke in, "Governor, we aren't from Constantinopolis. My wife and I live at Ravenna. We've stopped at your island on our way to the Holy Land."

  "Latins? But, the imperial flag…" Philocalos's puffy black eyes narrowed in suspicion. He rapidly fanned himself while assessing his visitors. Getorius noticed that the governor's face was florid under his make-up, as if he had already spent time sampling new Cypriot vintages. Then his fleshy expression abruptly softened and he bowed with affected humility. "You come under the insignia of Her Serenity, Augusta Aelia Pulcheria. I offer you my poor island's hospitality."

  Arcadia smiled at him in the dazzling way she knew flustered men. "Excellency, we offer our sincere thanks."

  Philocalos bowed acknowledgement. "May I know your names?"

  "Getorius Asterius, surgeon to Galla Placidia, mother of Western emperor Valentinian the Third. My wife, Arcadia."

  Unimpressed or feigning indifference, Philocalos merely nodded. "My councilors and I were admiring the Augusta's galley. A remarkable craft…sleek as a dromon…undoubtedly swift as a porpoise. Cabin space on deck, both main and artemon sails. Ten oarsmen for increasing speed."

  "It's not actually Pulcheria's," Getorius blurted without thinking. "The galley belonged to conspirators."

  "Conspirators?" The governor's arched eyebrows and quick glance at his guards revealed that he was unaware of that information. "What conspiracy is this, Surgeon? Are the Sebastos and Sebaste…the Augusti…safe?"

  "Yes. It…it had nothing to do with them."

  "God be praised." Philocalos pondered briefly, then decided that to flatter the Latins might be prudent, might reveal more facts. "Surgeon, the Marine crew from Rhodos are a tribute to your importance. Members of the Polycles Squadron, a most illustrious naval unit. Centuries of fame for its bravery."

  "You spoke to the men?"

  "Ah, no, Surgeon. Their emblem speaks eloquently for them." Getorius looked back at the wood-and-metal shields hung above the rowing ports. Each bore a golden dolphin and trident painted on a blue field. "Surgeon, you are surprised that I know such things? My island is ruled by the sea, by Neptune. I must anticipate what mischief that capricious sea god might bring to my people. Whether it will be a time to mourn or a time to dance." He fanned himself before probing, "Surgeon, you pick a strange season for your pilgrimage, a time when uncertain weather makes sea travel dangerous. You are perhaps on an important mission for the Augusta concerning this conspiracy?"

  Whatever I tell him could get back to Pulcheria. "No, Excellency. We intend to visit the holy places."

  "Of course. What Christian would not wish to see where, so long ago, the Savior trod? Ah…who is epiplos…master…of the Augusta's galley? Where is he?"

  "Saturnilos went with our servant to an imperial mansion, where we'll stay."

  "And which one would that be?"

  "He called it the Villa of Theseus."

  "Governor," Arcadia interposed to halt his questioning, "I'm quite exhausted from our voyage, desperately in need of a bath. And"—she smoothed her wrinkled tunic and adjusted the belt around her slim waist—"I've worn this at sea for a week. You'll understand if my husband and I wish to leave?"

  "Of course, Domina, yet we get few visitors from the West. I fear that my curiosity speaks too boldly." Philocalos forced a wan smile at being criticized by a woman, then spoke rapidly in Gothic to one of his guards. "Gunteric will escort you."

  "To the villa? Is that necessary?"

  The smile evaporated. "I'm afraid it is. The crowd can become boisterous at festivals such as the Dionysion"

  Or you want us to go directly there. "Appreciated, Governor." Getorius took Arcadia by the arm. "We're ready now. Our baggage already has been taken there."

  "Kalos…good." Philocalos recovered his poise and waved the scepter in a cursory benediction. "I wish you a pleasant stay on Kypros."

  The couple fell in step behind the Goth. Gunteric led the way along a paved street that sloped upwards, away from the port. The roadway was empty of people—all were at the Dionysion—but feral dogs scavenging thrown-away food slunk off into alleyways. A number of buildings had been abandoned after earthquakes and never repaired.

  In honor of the festival the entranceway of a church was decorated with grape vines, but the door remained closed.

  In less than a hundred paces, even inhabited houses gave way to stark basement foundations and piles of brick and stone rubble.

  In the distance, the white temple shone on the acropolis amid its grove of shattered columns. Eyeing the ruins, Getorius whispered to Arcadia, "Paphos, like towns we saw in Anatolia, looks to be on the decline. And that governor learned a lot about us, no thanks to my blunder in mentioning a conspiracy. Now his guard will go back and tell him exactly what room we're in."

  "Philocalos was suspicious, yet that could be his reaction to all strangers."

  "This festival certainly is well-named, celebrating Dionysius as it does, and the governor was correct. By evening that drunken crowd well may become rowdy."

  He did warn us." She sighed in fatigue. "I am tired, but it feels so good to walk on solid land again."

  "Agreed!" Getorius half-laughed. "And I'll actually be glad to see Saturnilos."

  The smells and sounds of the celebration gradually faded into the distance. Getorius guessed they had walked over a half mile through the quarter before reaching the Villa of Theseus. He glanced at the sky: the air had cooled and dark clouds over the mountains had moved in from the north. "We definitely will get a storm before morning," he predicted to Arcadia.

  At the villa, Gunteric left the couple near an iron gate set in the inn's stone wall. Without a parting word, he headed back toward the port area.

  "Perhaps Lysandros wasn't jesting about imperial 'hostility'," Getorius muttered, pushing the gate open.

  A brick walk littered by dry, brownish leaves led to a door set back under a sagging porch. Rusted iron grilles blocked two high windows in a wall. Broken areas of a stucco coating on the building revealed ancient brickwork underneath.

  The mansion's door stood partly open. In an atrium at the end of a short hallway, a lank, swarthy man in a fur hat, with an enormous mustache curled up at the ends, directed two slaves in carrying a couch across the mosaic floor.

  When he saw the couple, he scowled and waved them off in a badly pronounced mixture of Greek and Latin. "Ohi, no. Villa close…klisto. Go back."

  "We're to stay here tonight," Getorius said. "Didn't Saturnilos arrange for us to have rooms?"

  "I say your Saturn man we not open."

  "You mean Saturnilos?"

  "Yes, I say that. Saturn"

  "This man's native language certainly isn't Latin or even Greek," Getorius murmured to Arcadia. "Let's see if I can make him understand. How are you called?"

  "Call-ed?"

  "Yes, what is your name?"

  "Onoma? Ah. I am name Akhalsheni."

  Getorius misunderstood. "Akhal Shaynee?"

  "Akhal good."

  "Very well. Akhal, where is, ah, 'Saturn'."

  "Saturn go."

  "Gone?" Getorius felt uneasy at the officer's absence. "Did he tell you where?"

  "He go."

  "Where is our room?"

  "Dhomatio? No room,"Akhal insisted. "Villa is klisto. Winter come, no visitor stay."

  Arcadia grew impatient at the pointless talk. "'Saturn' has an authorization from Aelia Pulcheria for us to stay here."

  Akhal scowled at a woman questioning his authority. "Who is Pul-carry?"

  "Sister of the Augustus."

  "No, August gone. This October. No visitor come."

  Getorius felt close to exasperation. "Akhal, 'Saturn' came here with our servant and about six or seven galley crewmen. Fleet Marines. Where are they?"

  "Marini?" The man's face brightened as if a mirror had reflected sunlight onto it. "Kalos, you with them?"

  "Yes, we're with them."

  Akhal grinned. "Kalos."

  Brisios walked into the atrium from a hallway on its far side. He rinsed his hands in the atrium pool and shook them dry as he came toward Getorius. "Surgeon, I left the travel cases in your room."

  "Nice room," Akhal emphasized.

  "So we do have a room?"

  "Yes, very nice dhomatio"

  "Do you have a bathhouse here?"

  "Bath-house?" Akhal looked puzzled at Arcadia's question.

  "Bathhouse…" She looked at him, eyes wide in expectation, picturing herself luxuriously immersed in clear, steaming water. "Hot and cold pools."

  "Ah, kolimbo. Pool."

  "Pool."

  "Pool, no. Klisto…all close. Water gone. No—"

  "'No visitor come,' Arcadia mimicked, now half-amused at the man. "I know."

  "Mistress," Brisios told her, "I saw a tub in a small room off the hallway. I could bring hot water to fill it."

  "Aren't there slaves here to do that?" Getorius asked. "You're free now."

  When Brisios reddened and looked down, Arcadia touched his sleeve. "Thank you, but please get someone to help you. There must be a few…servants…left here."

  He nodded. "Domina, I'll call you. Surgeon, I'll show you the room."

  Akhal had begun to walk away when Getorius called to him, "You do have something for us to eat?"

  "Trogho?" The custodian smiled, his teeth gleaming in a lined, swarthy face. "Fai? Food, yes. Trogho, eat. You, Briso, soon take man, woman to eat-room."

  As Brisios led the couple through the atrium and into the hallway, Getorius asked him, "Surely that isn't the manager?"

  "No, he's at the festival. Akhal is a…a slave custodian…closing the villa for the winter. No visitors will come to Cyprus until April."

  "That explains a lot. Where are the marines sleeping?"

  Brisios pointed ahead. "Rooms off a hallway on the left."

  "And Saturnilos?" Getorius asked. "Where is he staying?"

  Brisios shrugged his ignorance. "After we arrived, he left without saying where he was going."

  "Again? That's so strange," Arcadia remarked. "Can he possibly know someone in Paphos?"

  Getorius reminded her, "I've already said that we know very little about the man. I—" He stopped, open-mouthed.

  A few paces ahead in the hall, a naked man suddenly ran out of a room, laughing as he threw a dripping sponge back inside. A companion followed and began to wrestle with him. When both looked around and saw Arcadia, they ducked back into the room.

  "Brisios, Please see what that was that all about," she asked.

  He went ahead to glance inside the alcove, then returned. "Mistress, the galley crew has taken over the tub. I…I'll bring hot water for the washbasin in your room. It's the last one at the end of the hall."

  "Thank you, Brisios. I can pretend I'm a bird."

  * * *

  Later, after Arcadia had washed herself as best she could in the basin and put on a clean, if wrinkled, tunic, Getorius walked to the dining room alongside his silent wife.

  "Your sponge bath was better than nothing," he ventured to mollify Arcadia's disappointment.

  "Our room is filthy. Cockroach shells everywhere, with even a dead mouse lying along one wall."

  "I told Brisios to sweep them out. Cara, the room is considerably larger than our galley cabin."

  "Sorry. I…I'm just upset. In my mind I just keep seeing that dead actor. And I didn't even have a chance to tell the governor about Obeso."

  Getorius took her arm. "I understand. Let's go see what Cypriotes eat for supper."

  The dining room was located to one side of the atrium. In passing through the courtyard, Getorius glanced at the sky through the opening above the pool. "No stars and black as the pit of Tartarus. I knew those rain clouds would come in off the mountains."

  Arcadia reached for his hand. "Husband, a least our room won't pitch like the galley did. My mood will improve after a decent sleep."

  Most of the tables, chairs, and benches in the "eat room" were pushed against a far wall and covered with sheets. Akhal was there, ordering three slaves to pull tables and benches away and set them up for the unexpected guests.

  The right side of the dining area still bore scars on wall plaster, where three couches once were attached. Guests had reclined while dining with the villa's original owner. Doors had been cut through the opposite walls, one to the kitchen and the other to a front room. It was clear that the ancient Villa of Theseus had been remodeled to accommodate as many imperial visitors as possible.

  The room had a lingering smell of grilled fish and burnt garlic cloves fried in overheated olive oil.

  Akhal noticed the couple enter and hurried to them, adjusting his hat and twirling his mustache ends. "Kalos. Surgeon, wife, kathome. There you sit for you."

  Arcadia looked toward a round, three-legged marble table with two chairs. "Brisios will eat at our table," she said. "Please bring another chair for our servant."

  Akhal frowned at her order, but shouted to one of the slaves in a foreign-sounding language. The man dropped his end of a table and ran to uncover and bring another seat.

  The table was set with glass cups and a pitcher of wine. Akhal resumed his professional smile while pouring two servings. "Krassi…wine of Kypros. New wine. Kalos. You drink now."

  Getorius sniffed the cup, which had the yeasty smell of new vintages. He took a sip and frowned. The wine was raw and harsh. When he held the cup out to Arcadia, she tasted it, then handed it back to Akhal.

  "Have you something from last year's barrels?"

  "Last year? I bring, Domina."

  Arcadia watched him go through the doorway to the kitchen, then half-laughed. "Well, he's pleasant enough. I just expected an imperial mansio in a major port of the Eastern Empire to be more…more—"

  "Imperial?"

  "Something like that. Getorius, did you notice that floor mosaic when we came in? It's an immense zodiac with the inscriptions in Latin." She pushed her chair back. "Let's see what they say."

  Half in jest, he warned, "As long as we don't think it actually tells our fortune."

  The circular design depicted the twelve signs of the zodiac. The center read,

  * FOR EVERYTHING ITS SEASON * EVERYTHING ITS TIME. *

  "Those male and female heads represent the four seasons," Arcadia surmised. "Each sign has a short saying…" She moved around to the figure of a woman holding a balance. "We're still in Libra. Can you see what the verse is?"

  Getorius bent down and read, " 'A time to keep and a time to throw away'."

  "Keep? Throw away? I wonder if that's significant?"

  "Bishop Chrysologos doesn't like us to speculate about pagan oracles."

  "But this is from Ecclesiastes…Oh, here's Brisios. Let's sit down again. Try to put him at ease."

  Six crewmen followed Brisios. All filed silently onto benches on either side of a long table. None looked over at Arcadia.

  Akhal brought a sweeter wine and dishes of goat cheese, bread, and what he said were well-seasoned rissoles of porpoise.

  The marines recovered from their initial embarrassment and soon were drinking, mocking Akhal's accent, and jesting with him about where to find women in Paphos.

  Brisiso ate silently, still awkward at being included at his former owners' table. Conversation between Getorius and Arcadia was centered on Obeso's tragic death, when several bearded men silently entered the room. They were followed by an older couple and three women with children. One held an infant of nursing age; the other two carried pans of food and their own pottery dishes. The men and an older couple sat down at trestle tables and benches that were already set up near the kitchen entrance. The women settled the children at a separate table and began to serve food.

  "There are other guests here," Arcadia whispered. "Who do you suppose they could be?"

  "From their clothing, I'd say they were Judeans. At Classis, Rabbi ben Zadok and Nathaniel were dressed in long coats and baggy trousers like those men are wearing."

  "Yes, I recall."

  "And the women have brought their own food to serve. We learned from ben Zadok that Hebrew dietary laws are quite strict."

  "What would Hebrews be doing here on Cyprus?"

  "Arcadia, there are Judean communities throughout the empires."

  "But they're among Gentiles in imperial lodgings. At Ravenna, ben Zadok wouldn't stay with us."

  "That is a bit puzzling. Ah, here's our food."

  For the main meal Akhal brought several dishes of fried delicacies, which he said were apo thalasses, "from the sea." Arcadia identified portions of sea crayfish, mussels, and black squid tentacles, but a strong cumin sauce suggested that the creatures had not been marketed that day. Hungry, everyone nevertheless ate. The presence of Brisios and the recollection of the tragic death of Obeso turned talk toward opinions on the food.

  Near the end of the meal, Akhal had brought a plate of dates and slices of persimmon, when Arcadia said, "Getorius, that oldest Judean man keeps glancing our way as if he wants to say something to us. More likely to you."

  "Perhaps he's as curious about us as we are of him."

  Abruptly, the oldster she mentioned seemed to suffer a seizure at his table. He stiffened, then shook in spasms. Bits of food dribbled from his mouth. Alarmed, his companions stood and laid him on the bench where they had been sitting.

  "If he knows Latin, perhaps I can help him." Getorius hurried over and told the men, "I'm a surgeon. Is the man…your companion…epileptic?"