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
