feel the pulse through the soft spot at the top where the skull was not yet fused.
The pulse was not there. The baby's head was stone cold.
I hesitate to describe the horrible scene that ensued, Brother, for whatever you can imagine, it was ten times worse. Thinking I had made some mistake, had somehow lost my touch, I placed both hands on the infant's head and palpated frantically, then pried him from Helena's arms and lifted him to the light to examine him more closely. The skin was deathly white, the eyes rolled back into the head, the joints stiff and hard; such symptoms are terrifying enough when seen in a man who has fallen in battle, perhaps unconscious and facedown in a pool of his own blood. But in an infant, in a tiny vessel of Almighty God Himself, the effects of it are perverse, the very image of evil. I let out a cry, and Helena struggled to a sitting position, reaching for her baby at the same time as Julian rushed in and saw me clutching the infant in horror. He snatched the tiny creature from me and brought him into the light of the anteroom, where he collapsed to his knees, holding the baby to his chest.
'H-how can this be?' he stammered questioningly at Flaminia, his eyes filled with confusion. Helena struggled out of bed and stood leaning against the door frame as I supported her on the other side. 'Help my son,' he pleaded to the midwife, 'he's not breathing.'
Flaminia looked sorrowfully down at him. 'Your wife must have rolled over and suffocated him in his sleep, Caesar,' she said. 'It happens often enough to first-time mothers. I should never have placed him in her arms this night and then left. My God, I intended to return later and check on them, but I received this urgent message. Lord knows what has become of the other baby I was called upon to deliver this evening.'
Julian stared at her uncomprehendingly, and then turned to look at Helena, who had straightened up in wild- eyed astonishment, clutching her belly in pain and rocking back and forth on the balls of her bare feet. Tears coursed down her cheeks as she contemplated the implications of what the midwife had just said.
'Please, my lord, it will be daylight soon,' the midwife pleaded. 'I first left the palace over two hours ago — I have an urgent assignment that I must attend.'
'Urgent assignment…' he muttered, then he looked up fiercely. 'Begone with you, then! I'll not be the cause of another…'
Flaminia smiled triumphantly at the two sentries, who quickly stepped forward to cut her bonds. My mind raced at the thought of what had happened, as the midwife's ropes dropped free. She stepped quickly to the door, massaging the feeling back into her numb hands that were white where the tight knots had bound them, knots that had slowly cut off the flow of blood… the flow of blood…
'Wait!' I shouted, and everyone in the room jumped. Flaminia stepped quickly out the door and I could hear her steps as she began racing down the corridor. I leaped away from Helena, who was only barely able to brace herself in the door frame on her own, and ran out the door. I skidded around the corner into the polished-marble corridor and saw Flaminia running pell-mell toward the staircase and the exit. The two sentries, after recovering from their initial startlement, themselves raced out the doorway to follow my strangled cry.
'Hold that woman! Hold the midwife!' I shouted, and there was no contest, for although I was tired, I was still a young man, and it cost me little effort to catch up with a woman twenty years my senior. I was not gentle, however, and seizing her about the waist I tackled her as do boys playing a game of chase in the dust. We fell heavily onto the marble floor, where she hit her jaw hard, and narrowly avoided being trampled by the sentries following close on our heels.
'What in God's name?' shouted Julian, himself emerging from the anteroom and running to where we had all gathered around the moaning midwife. 'What are you doing, Caesarius? Are you mad? Will you cause the death of another infant tonight?'
'My lord,' I gasped, 'this woman must be held until I can examine the baby. I assure you,' and I gulped hard, thinking of the white skin and already stiffened joints, 'I assure you that Helena did not kill your son.'
Julian stared at me, wild-eyed, then whirled on Flaminia in a fury. By now half the palace had been awakened and was in an uproar. Servants were running into the corridor in their nightclothes, hair bedraggled, and a trio of household dogs had set up a mad yammering, running through people's legs and leaping at the soldiers as they struggled to lift the writhing midwife, blood pouring from her broken teeth and split chin, and place her again in fetters.
'Throw her in the cellar, and may God damn her,' Julian shouted at the guards as Flaminia spit and clawed at him frantically. 'I want a full confession!' His voice was choked and his breathing labored now, and he glared at the woman with an expression as crazed as I had ever seen on the apoplectic Constantius during one of his own fits of rage.
'Julian,' I began, trying to remain calm. 'Julian, I must examine the baby first. We can't know what happened until-'
'A full confession, damn her!' he screamed at the guards as they dragged their prisoner away. He whirled on me. 'Caesarius!' he barked. Despite the wild commotion around us and Flaminia's frantic screaming echoing down the corridor, I jumped. For a moment I was afraid he would order me to extract the confession, for a physician's knowledge of pain centers and joints was sometimes used for just such a purpose. My fear on this score, however, was quickly allayed, as he paused for a moment, still staring at me, trembling in rage. Then his face softened slightly as, struggling, he gained control over his emotions, and turned away, slowly but still shaking. 'I have an assignment for Paul the Chain,' he muttered, to himself more than anyone, before sweeping past the pandemonium of hysterical maidservants to return to his sobbing wife.
Minutes later, the reluctant Oribasius and I examined the body of the baby, much to my colleague's distaste, as he had little use for autopsies, particularly on infants.
'The midwife was probably correct,' he said laconically before we began. 'Helena simply rolled over on him in her sleep. She's a big girl, Caesarius. It happens all the time.'
I was not convinced. 'I saw her myself, Oribasius,' I countered. 'Helena sleeps soundly, without moving the entire night. As her physician, I have witnessed this many times in the past. When I found her and the baby, they were in precisely the same position as when the midwife had left them. Besides, the baby was white, not blue as he would have been had he suffocated.'
Oribasius shrugged. 'Proceed, then,' he said. 'I will observe your efforts, but don't ask me to participate.'
As it happened, an autopsy was unnecessary. When we unwrapped the swaddles, we were surprised to find not the normal two layers, but five full sets of wrappings — the outer ones hiding the inner layers, which were soaked in blood.
'The infant's cord was not tied,' I noted grimly. 'He bled to death.'
Oribasius peered at the bloody little corpse in astonishment.
'But I saw her tie it off?' he exclaimed. 'I held the cord in my fingers while she knotted the string — it was still pulsating!'
We stood staring at the baby in silence.
'And then,' I began slowly, 'and then you left, and Flaminia gave the baby to Julian to hold.' I thought hard, straining to remember all the insignificant details of the past night. 'A few minutes later she took him back, and then she and her daughter went to the corner and changed his swaddlings, before taking him in to Helena.'
'Changed his swaddlings? So soon?' Oribasius asked, puzzled.
'To murder him. She clipped off the cord above the knot, then wrapped extra cloths around him to hide the bleeding. My God — for a newborn, just losing a small cup's worth of blood would be fatal.'
He had died in his sleep in his mother's arms, losing blood so quickly as to be unable to sustain life in his little body for more than an hour or two at the most, or even to gasp in distress to his sleeping mother — but long enough for the culprit to make her escape.
As Julian had ordered, Flaminia was placed in the cellar below the palace, where in times past noble hostages who had been captured in battle were kept in relatively comfortable surroundings while awaiting ransom payments from their relatives. Prisoners had not been kept in those cells for two centuries or more, however, and the quarters now were far less accommodating. Her unceasing shrieks and howls, like those of a maddened dog, jangled our nerves that entire night and most of the next morning as Paul applied his instruments and techniques of interrogation. The sounds wafted up through the kitchen flues and ash drops, anywhere there was a vent or duct communicating with the cellars, and they trebled in volume a few hours later when Flaminia's husband and several other immigrant men were brought in, after being captured while attempting to flee disguised as beggars. The prisoners' incessant wailing drove all of us to near lunacy, and their cries were joined periodically by those of
