Unholy sepulcher, p.9
Unholy Sepulcher, page 9
part #4 of Getorius and Arcadia Mystery Series
"Surgeon, you are perceptive," ben Asher commented. "Today is Shemini Atzeret"
"I don't understand."
"In our month of Tishrei it is last day of the pilgrimage festival of Sukkoth, the oldest of our celebrations. It recalls the booths in which Israelites dwelt during their wandering in the desert. For me today's festival symbolizes our people's return from Cypriot exile." Ben Asher turned and faced eastward again to hide tears welling in his eyes. "My regret is that I could not travel to Yerushalayim in time for the occasion."
Getorius touched his arm. My wife and I are going to Jerusalem as soon as possible. Come with us."
"Tanna," Mordecai broke in, "we should find the synagogue at Ascalon. You could celebrate the ending of Sukkoth there."
"If it be the will of the Holy One, blessed be His name." Ben Asher looked back at Getorius. "Surgeon, I will consider your offer. Mordecai, let us gather our meager belongings ready to disembark. Tell the others."
* * *
In less than an hour, the galley's four anchors had been hauled aboard and soundings taken of the sea's depth. The rowing crew worked the oars to bring Theophilos into port. No fishing boats clogged harbor entrance to pose navigational hazards to the galley.
Getorius went back to watching their approach toward the port, yet even before Theophilos had been rowed between the twin jetties that embraced entrance to the harbor, it was evident that the wharves and warehouses were deserted. A line of merchant galleys, riding empty, lay moored along the stone quays. Protective sailcloth covered sections of the deck: the boats would not be used until spring navigation season. A building of tan stone, the harbormaster's office, bore a weathered name in Greek: ASCALON. The harbor but no signal pennants, no pilot vessel to tow us in. Where are the people? Of course. Today is the Lord's Day. Still, at the least harbor slaves should be on duty.
Saturnilos came down to speak to the bow officer on the port side. Getorius noted that both he and Olympios had put on hooded cloaks that concealed the brands on their earlobes. Protection from the chill, or are they purposely hiding identities?
As Theophilos glided smoothly toward a vacant wharf space opposite the harbormaster's building, a man wearing the expensive tunic and cloak of a port official, and two armed guards, stepped out from the portico and walked to the edge of the quay. When the gallery-master called to him in Greek, the man responded in the same language.
Getorius said, "I didn't catch what he said.
"He wishes to know who we are, why we're here at this time. What cargo. I replied that I would speak with him in his office."
"I should like to be there, but hope the man knows Latin."
Saturnilos agreed, then gave orders to his bow officer and went back to join Olympios on the helm-deck.
Even without dock slaves to help with the mooring lines, crewmen deftly laid down the gangplank and secured Theophilos to worn cotton bales that cushioned her hull against a stone wharf.
As at Pergamum, the harbormaster's office was being closed at the end of the shipping season. Furniture was pushed against the walls, except for a single desk and chair. The port official, Leontios, said he was assistant harbormaster and acted impatient at having been called out on a non-work day.
Saturnilos opened a leather case slung around his shoulder and took out a purple-dyed vellum envelope. Getorius asked, "Could you both speak in Latin? My Greek is spasmenos, 'broken'."
"Tu?" Leontios asked, raising his eyebrows in a question.
"Me?" Impress him a bit in Latin." Getorius Asterius, physician to Galla Placidia, the mother of Valentinian the Third, our Western Augustus."
Not recognizing the names, Leontios shook his head. "My Latin not kalos. Not good."
When Saturnilos spoke again in Greek, Getorius caught Pulcheria's name.
"Ah…" Leontios brightened and turned to him. "Physician, you travel to Jerusalem with letter of sister to our Sebastos"
"Yes, but we picked up Judean refugees on Cyprus."
"Hebrews?" Leontios frowned. "Kakos…bad."
"Why? Most only want to reach Tiberias, but an aged scholar and his student might come with us to Jerusalem."
Leontios shook his head, releasing a mist of perfumed hair oil. "Not possible."
"Why not?" Getorius asked. "They have a travel authorization from Empress Eudokia."
"Tarahi…trouble…at Jerusalem. Eudokia not at city now." Leontios turned to Saturnilos and explained the situation.
He translated the Greek. "Hebrews have not been permitted to enter Jerusalem, Surgeon, yet this year Eudokia gave permission for them to celebrate their October harvest festival in the holy city."
"Ben Asher told me it's called Sukkoth. That's why he wishes to go there. What trouble is Leontios talking about?"
"More Hebrews arrived than were expected. On the first day of the festival, a monk named Bardanes incited his followers to attack worshippers praying at the Temple ruins. Many were injured and several killed."
"Where were the authorities who should have prevented this?"
"Surgeon, citizens in the West misunderstand the power of these holy men."
"Perhaps. I'd forgotten that in Pergamum we saw 'The Sleepless Ones' harangue a mob into destroying the Asklepion. I presume the monk has been arrested and his followers punished?"
"Ah, no, Physician. This Bardanes has charmed Eudokia. He enjoys her patronage."
Getorius insisted, "Mordecai must find a synagogue. Ask Leontios if there's a Judean quarter in Ascalon."
After the master spoke to the official, he said, "It's in the older northwest quadrant of town, but two days ago word reached here about what happened at Jerusalem. Fanatics in Ascalon torched the synagogue. The riot was brought under control only last night."
Getorius feared that they would be stranded at the port, unable to move on to Jerusalem. "What do we do now?"
"Go back to the galley," Saturnilos said. "Tell the Hebrews the situation, and that ben Asher cannot enter Jerusalem. I will hire coaches for us to travel there in the morning. Tonight we stay in Ascalon."
When Getorius re-boarded Theophilos, he knocked on his cabin door. "Arcadia, I need to come in to get our belongings. Coaches will take us to Jerusalem tomorrow." She opened the door for him without speaking. Inside, Aphrodisia lay on the bed. When he asked how she felt, the woman turned listless eyes toward him without answering. "Is your fever down?"
"You'll ask me," Arcadia told him.
Getorius firmly grasped his wife's arm. "This has gone far enough. Come outside, please. As he closed the cabin door, she pulled away from his hold and looked away at the harbor. "There's been trouble in Jerusalem between a group of monks and the Judeans allowed to re-enter the city for a festival. What do you plan on doing with Aphrodisia?"
"She's going where I go."
"Her condition is serious. I'll ask the harbormaster if there's a hospital here like the one Pulcheria finances at Constantinopolis."
"Aphrodisia is staying with me."
"She's not any better. I read about her vaginal flux last night. The woman needs a physician who knows how to treat the condition."
Arcadia turned to him. "Did you come here for something?"
"What clothes we have left. Your books, our money, my medical case—"
"Get them, please."
Getorius sighed. It's useless to try to reason with Arcadia at the moment. "I will, then inform ben Asher that he can't go on to Jerusalem." He slipped the shoulder strap of his medical case from a peg. Cowhide covered a wooden box with a quantity of medications and surgical instruments. Pulcheria's authorization had covered expenses so far, but he had concealed seventy gold Valentinians in a bottom compartment for unforeseen situations. Coins also were sewn into his cape's lining. A belt purse contained silver coins and large bronze denominations. Every port had moneychanger's offices along the wharves.
After cramming the tunics and books into the smaller travel bag he brought from Ravenna, Getorius went to ben Asher's cabin to explain about monks attacking Hebrew pilgrims. The old man was adamant: he and Mordecai would go to the Holy City. The other Cypriot refugees could stay with Judean families in Ascalon until they arranged transportation to Tiberias.
* * *
Within the hour Saturnilos returned with two travel coaches and their drivers. He also brought loaves of day-old bread and two skins of watered wine.
Getorius asked him, "Why bring the wagons today? Is where we're staying that far from here?"
"Augusta Aelia Pulcheria owns an estate about two miles north, along the Via Maris," Saturnilos replied. "Leontios thinks we will be safer there. We leave through the Azotos Gate."
"Isn't that direction away from Jerusalem?"
"My instructions, Surgeon."
Getorius was not convinced, "Pulcheria's instructions, not those of Leontios?"
"Get your wife ready," he snapped and turned to tell one of the drivers, a swarthy, bearded man named Shapur, where to put his luggage.
Getorius called to him, "Arcadia wants to take Aphrodisia with us."
"Impossible! The scorta stays here."
Angered by the man's arrogance—even though he agreed—Getorius reminded him that Pulcheria was his sponsor. Saturnilos relented; Aphrodisia could ride in the coach carrying Arcadia. Getorius would share the second one with ben Asher and Mordecai. Olympios was left at Ascalon in charge of Theophilos and its crew.
* * *
The wide, stone-paved Via Maris, a Roman Sea Road from Egypt's delta north to Syria, here passed through a flat landscape of ochre-brown dirt and rolling sand dunes. The immense sand barriers on the left flattened out from time to time, giving travelers a glimpse of white surf and an azure Mediterranean Sea. To the right, stands of scrub cypress, palm trees, and massive oval cacti bracketed neatly harvested fields. Groves of gnarled olive trees bore ripening fruit, but vineyards had been culled of their grapes; as on Cyprus, the pungent smell of fermenting wine occasionally soured the air. Flat-roofed farmhouses dotted the landscape, some with oil presses in the yards. Farther back from the road, at the end of trampled paths, glimpses of white villas with tile roofs were surrounded by eucalyptus and palm trees. A few donkeys, led by children, and laden with firewood, trotted along a dirt path next to the road.
The sturdy coaches built of wood with curved leather tops and a door on one side, had stuffed leather seats that accommodated four persons. Two windows afforded a view of the countryside, unless blowing dust forced their curtains to be drawn. High axle clearance and suspension on leather straps gave a jostling ride.
At the first milestone to Azotos, three youngsters had built a small booth of palm fronds. The trio ran out, holding up bunches of grapes and persimmons, calling out in Greek and Syriac. One ran alongside the coach a short way before tripping and falling. Shapur and the other driver did not stop.
After riding in silence, Moshe ben Asher took the occasion to comment, "Surgeoan, I thought your wife looked unwell this morning."
"She's exhausted from treating Aphrodisia. I have no belief in demons and yet it's as if one has taken over her body. Do the Sages have anything to say about such reported spirits?"
Ben Asher looked toward his student. "Mordecai?"
"Tanna, six things are said. In three the spirits are like human beings, and in three they are like ministering angels."
Ben Asher smile softened his eyes. "Your wife's 'demon,' then, is of an angelic nature."
Getorius admitted, "Arcadia has been helpful to me in the clinic, yet has this obsession with treating Aphrodisia. She even calls the woman 'my patient'."
"A common harlot," Mordecai scoffed.
Ben Asher reprimanded him. "My son, it is said that if your enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat. If he be thirsty, give him water to drink. The woman is morally offensive, yet the surgeon's wife is performing a mitzvah, a good deed. Do you not agree, Surgeon?
"Perhaps. We've had minor quarrels, but now she seems to despise my presence."
After reflecting a moment, the old scholar asked, "You came from Pergamum?"
"About a week before we arrived at Cyprus."
"There were events at Pergamum that were upsetting to her?"
"Very much so." Getorius recalled, "Also at Ravenna, a few months before that, Arcadia was taken hostage by a Cybelene cult."
"Mordecai told me about the death of the obese actor. She witnessed it, along with that of your servant and the others."
"We both did."
"Though Mordecai might not agree"—ben Asher reached over to pat his student's sleeve—"there is wisdom outside the Torah."
"What do you mean?"
"Let us liken your wife's mind to a delicate cloth, one woven of a fine, sheer material. If it is taken in both hands and twisted, pulled many times to the right, to the left, the warp eventually will give way. The weave will be damaged."
"You think Arcadia's mind was affected by tragedies she experienced or witnessed?"
"Surgeon, what do your medical books say?"
"They deal mostly with ills of the body."
"And yet did not the Holy One, Blessed be His name, create us as body, mind, and spirit? Was it not Plato who told Timaeus that excesses of pleasure or pain may cause a disease of the spiritual principle he called 'Soul?' In your wife's mind-struggle to annul her pain, perhaps she is unable to see or hear reasonably."
"I'll consider that, sir. I also recall that Hippocrates associated madness with autumn, which he said could bring on an excess of black bile and melancholia." Getorius was silent a moment before saying, "Also strange is that Arcadia became obsessed with that zodiac on the floor of a dining room at Paphos."
Ben Asher nodded. "Our synagogues at Hamat Tiberias and Beth Alfa in the Galilee have such designs."
"So Hebrews believe in the efficacy of astrological predictions?"
"The psalmist rejoices that the heavens declare the glory of the Holy One and the vault of the sky reveals His handiwork."
"Respectfully, sir, that is not an answer."
Ben Asher held up a corner of his cloak. "Surgeon, to make that cloth whole again, you must very gently reweave the threads."
"I know I'll have to humor Arcadia for the present, and yet make sure she does nothing to harm her…her patient."
The men fell silent. Getorius glanced out the window, again thinking of Aphrodisia's condition. Her vaginal flux indicates a chronic yellow bile flowing into the uterus, which Soranus describes as a lax state, requiring a styptic treatment. Potions of halikakabon or agnus castus, but I have no idea what those are. He advises sexual abstinence, which, in Aphrodisia's case, is like asking water to run uphill. She's undoubtedly had repeated abortions. Could they have had an effect on her humors? He sighed and closed his eyes. I have no experience in treating this woman's illness. Perhaps Arcadia's wish to open a woman's clinic at Ravenna is worth considering after all.
* * *
Getorius dozed when he felt himself pushed against the left side of the wagon. He glanced out the window. Shapur had taken a sharp turn onto a dirt road. Up ahead, an iron gate lay open in a stone wall that surrounded a vast area of countryside. A flock of gray crows, with black hoods and wings, quarrled in a grove of olive trees that screened the villa buildings from view. A short distance beyond the gate, the grove opened into a clearing large enough for a fair-sized chapel. The structure of light-colored stone had a Greek title on the door lintel proclaiming that the building had been dedicated to Saint Helena.
Getorius heard Arcadia calling for her driver to stop. "What does she want?" he wondered aloud.
Saturnilos looked back and told Shapur to halt. Arcadia stepped down from her coach door to help Aphrodisia out.
Getorius asked from his window, "What is it, cara?"
"I'm taking Aphrodisia into that chapel."
"Why? Pulcheria's villa must be just up ahead." When she failed to respond, he asked, "Should I come with you?"
"No. " Arcadia started up a brick walk with the ill woman, explaining, "This church is dedicated to Helena, the mother of Constantine. A hundred years ago she came to the Holy Land and discovered the True Cross at Jerusalem."
Aphrodisia stopped. "I'm better on a stage than in a church."
Arcadia covered the woman's head with a mantle and urged her forward. "We'll say a prayer for your recovery."
"Prayer?" Aphrodisia snorted in ridicule, but followed Arcadia to the entrance.
The chapel was empty, smelling pleasantly of incense that had been used in an early service. Behind the altar, light from a row of windows brightened an apse mural that depicted the event Arcadia mentioned: an aged Empress Helena pointed into a pit where workmen handed up a Latin cross to her. At the empress's feet lay the titulus crucis, the inscribed wooden board that Pilate ordered nailed above the crucified Christ's head. It mocked him as "King of the Judeans."
When she reached the sacristy, Arcadia said, "Let's pray together to the Virgin."
Aphrodisia held back. "I don't furcing pray and learned to depend on noone."
"Then listen to me. The Virgin prayed, 'My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit cannot keep from being overjoyed at God my savior'."
Getorius came and stood at the door, listening. Is Arcadia expecting a miraculous cure by coming here?
"'…He has looked upon the low position of his slave girl'," Arcadia continued. "'For from now all generations will pronounce me blessed. Because the powerful One has done great deeds for me, and—'"
"I feel sick," Aphrodisia complained. "What's at this place anyway? Why did we come here?"
"I…I'm trying to help you."
"You're making me worse!" The woman threw down the mantle, turned, and strode to the entrance. and saw Getorius. "Your holy wife is acting insane, What's going to happen to me?"
"Arcadia wants you to come to Jerusalem with us."
"Jerusalem? That is insane! I want back to Cyprus."
"We'll have to stay here tonight. In the morning—"
Aphrodisia abruptly bent over to vomit yellow bile and bits of bread. Getorius helped the woman wipe her tunic with a cloth he took from his sleeve, then folded it over so she could clean her mouth.
