vital breath throughout all the nerves and vesicles of the body. And the pneuma is only diluted, perhaps fatally, by the admixture of lifeless outdoor air-’
‘Fascinating,’ murmured Gamaliel. ‘Hold out your tongue,’ he said to the old peasant.
Behind them, Aetius swept from the room.
‘However,’ said the second doctor, ‘notwithstanding my colleague’s animadversions upon my own school, for I am myself an orthodox Peripatetic Atomist, having participated at Athens, Mother of Learning, in the experimental decapitation of both eels, goats, tortoises and grasshoppers, I can assure you, as against the doubtless well- intentioned but hopelessly misguided teachings of the Alexandrian Pneumatists, that it is the head, and not the pneuma, which is the seat of the vital power, and it is the crowding of atoms to the head which causes all manner of night sweats, interferences of vision, and spasms of the bowels.’
Gamaliel frowned. ‘What are you saying? We should cut his head off?’
The Peripatetic Atomist smiled indulgently at the old fellow’s foolish jest. ‘My dear man, I am saying, in short, that in a man of his late years, doomed to expire shortly as he is, his body is too soft and relaxed, his atoms are slowed and weighed down with too much moisture, and he needs must be condensed.’
The pregnant woman in the bed behind them groaned.
‘Condensed?’ scoffed the Alexandrian Pneumatist. ‘On the contrary, the atoms of his pneuma are already too condensed. They need to be more spaced apart. This can be achieved by moderate suffocation, or else by bleeding with leeches.’
Gamaliel regarded them. ‘Gentlemen, when you see a ruddy man, full of air and fire, does he seem to you strong or weak?’
‘Strong,’ admitted the Atomist.
‘And when you see a man as pale as whey and obviously of thin or little blood, as this one, does he appear to you strong or weak?’
‘Weak. But, sir, the learned Galen-’
‘Oh, bugger Galen!’ snapped Gamaliel impatiently. ‘Now gentlemen, I could listen to you all day, but I must be about my work. Madam, all the shutters open, if you please. And boil some water. A large vat, yes.’
‘Water!’ exclaimed both doctors. ‘Too much moisture, too much softness! Highly dangerous!’
‘As for this one,’ said Gamaliel, turning to the woman, and then bending down to her kindly, ‘how old is… he? She?’
‘Near a week since, sir,’ she gasped. ‘She.’
‘A blessing,’ he said, then turned to the nurse. ‘Find some mouldy bread, rye if possible.’
‘We have made our examination of this one already,’ said the Alexandrian Pneumatist, ‘notwithstanding her protestations of modesty – always amusing in one so low-born. She suffers from a filthiness of her uterine matter, which is not all ejected. We recommended an application of dung, ideally of swine, being the foulest of dungs, on the sound principle that filth drives out filth.’
‘Absolute twaddle,’ said Gamaliel, washing his hands. ‘Mouldy bread is what she needs. Mouldy rye bread.’
Both doctors laughed with disbelief. ‘My dear sir!’ ‘You know about ergot, the fungus that grows on rye-grain? Reappears in the loaf afterwards, if left to go mouldy. Mildly toxic, yes, hallucinogenic, yes, but also a powerful emmenagogue. Stimulates contraction of the uterine muscles. Now, out of my way. Swine dung indeed!’ He pushed the open-mouthed doctors aside and bent down to talk to the woman. To the doctors’ even greater astonishment, he wasted his time actually explaining to this unlettered peasant what treatment he would be administering to her, and why. He explained to her gently and patiently that the mould would make her feel a little sick, a little light- headed and unwell, but within a day it would make her better. The woman smiled faintly.
‘This is quite wrong, a gross categorical error,’ said the Pneumatist. ‘A woman’s afterbirth is not mouldy, it is filthy, and must be treated as such.’
‘Filthy?’ said Gamaliel, standing straight again. ‘Nonsense. You could cook it and eat it quite happily. Very strengthening. In fact, you could eat it raw if you really wanted, nice and fresh.’
‘The man’s mad,’ they muttered, and they backed away, appalled.
Gamaliel smiled and moved on.
Up on the walls, five men were on lookout post: Prince Torismond with his two Gothic wolf-lords, Jormunreik and Valamir, and two of the survivors from Viminacium, Knuckles and Arapovian. Rumour had spread that the empress had been taken ill earlier that day, and was treated by an old Jewish doctor. A couple of other learned medical men from Athens and Alexandria had also been in attendance, arguing furiously about the empress’s pneuma. And all this time, the clouded horizon came nearer.
‘Doctors!’ opined Knuckles. ‘Don’t give me fuckin’ doctors. Translate stuff, that’s all they ever do. Translate what you tell ’em into Greek and chuck it back at you. What’s this pneuma?’
‘Breath,’ said Arapovian, watching the north over Knuckles’ ox-like shoulder.
‘There you are, then. You go to a doctor, and you tell him you got a sore throat that won’t shift, and he tells you to poke your tongue out and he peers down your gullet, and then he pronounces, “Ah, yes, my good man, now what you have there is what we doctors call laryngitis.” Which is just Greek for “sore throat”. And you think, But I just told you that, you cockwit! And he says, “That will be one fine gold solidus for my invaluable diagnosis, if you please. Next client!”’
Aetius appeared beside them. ‘What is it?’
‘A dust-cloud,’ said Arapovian, ‘a few degrees west of north. And growing.’
The wolf-lords rumbled that they could see nothing, leaning their great copper-banded arms across on the top of the wall and gazing out into the twilight. Aetius could see nothing, either, but the Easterner had the eyes of a hawk. If the Huns were on the horizon, from this height, maybe a hundred feet above ground, that would be – he did a quick calculation, learned decades back from his old tutor – twelve miles off, perhaps a little more. Even slow-moving cavalry would be here in three hours, and the Huns did not move slowly.
It was time they left, with nightfall to hide them.
14
In the gloom of the convent chapel, there was a priest intoning the ancient litany, and, kneeling before him, a woman in white, veiled in keeping with the teachings of the Church, and, either side of her, two veiled handmaidens. The priest looked up, his expression angry.
‘The sacraments have been administered?’ demanded Aetius.
‘Who are you, and how dare you interrupt the holy mass?’
‘I see they have. Shut up your gospel, Father. The service is finished. It’s time for the empress to leave.’
Immediately one of the handmaidens stood before him. ‘Night is falling, and the empress is in no fit state to leave.’
Aetius frowned. Two other of her handmaidens helped her to her feet. She turned. Through the dim gauze he saw a woman who looked old but once beautiful, her eyes still large and luminous. In truth, she was only in her middle forties. She looked at him and clutched one of her maids.
Aetius’ heart sank. ‘Take her to the hospital,’ he ordered.
There was a moment of hesitation, then the empress bowed her head and her handmaidens led her away.
Athenais lay in a fever, very pale, her broad brow damp with perspiration. Gamaliel sent out for some fresh willow leaves. He said an infusion would help, but it would take time, and she must drink boiled water. His cures struck those around him as mad. Heat should be used to drive out heat, surely? The empress should be laden with blankets, and given strong spiced wine. But they did his bidding, under the stern eye of Master-General Aetius, who seemed to have some connection with this bearded and peculiar ancient.
The general was hovering in the door of the hospital, about to leave, when the empress summoned him over. For a moment, her fever seemed to clear. She gave him a sad smile.
