“The Goth is fortunate in one respect,” Getorius remarked. “Sea water kept this reasonably clean. No problem sewing skin back over the wound, but those tendons inside can’t be joined together. He won’t be moving that thumb again.” He looked up at his wife. “Someday I intend to dissect a human hand, Arcadia, not just animal paws. I’ll cut tendons and try to reconnect them…” He noticed Varnifrid’s eyes beginning to glaze over. “The narcotic I gave you will make it hurt less when I sew your hand together,” Getorius said, helping him to a cot. “This is quite deep, Arcadia. Prepare a dose of hyoscamus so he’ll be asleep while I do the suturing.”
“Do you want the alium ointment?”
“Garlic? Why not? He couldn’t smell any worse.”
“Getorius!”
“Sorry. Bring achillea as a poultice after I’ve closed the wound.”
Arcadia noticed Varnifrid’s regular breathing. “The eupatorium is taking effect.”
“Hurry with the hyoscamus. And bring a gold needle…the medium silk thread.”
While Varnifrid jerked reflexively in a drugged sleep, Getorius pulled his tanned skin over the cut and stitched the edges together. After the procedure, Arcadia dusted powdered achillea leaves over the sutures, then deftly tied a woolen strip around the hand, as Hippocrates had instructed in his treatise on the suitable form of bandages.
“Let him sleep,” Getorius advised. “When he awakens give him ointment to put on the wound and try to make him understand that he must come back tomorrow.” He straightened up, groaned, and stretched. “Who’s still waiting?”
“A mother and child. The boy’s feverish.”
“Another phlegm imbalance. Could you treat him, Arcadia? Arctium root extract and cool baths at home.”
“You can’t wait to see Theokritos about those manuscripts, can you?”
“I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something mysterious about them. Perhaps even in that monk’s death.”
“Behan accidentally drowned, you said so yourself.” Arcadia came to rub her husband’s back a moment. “All right, go set your mind at ease. I’ll treat the child.”
Getorius was familiar with the library wing of the Lauretum Palace, in the east sector of the rear second story. The windowed west side overlooked the garden, so copyists could glance out from time to time and relieve the strain on their eyes. These penmen were ranged along the wall at desks set beneath narrow windows whose openings were now sealed with alabaster slabs thin enough to admit light, yet keep out the cold. Manuscript illuminators, who worked with the you?” copyists, inking in or painting designs to beautify pages, occupied three of the desks.
A reading area was set behind a curtain beyond the lattice bins and shelves, where most of the collection of Greek, Roman, Hebrew, and Christian texts were stored. Many of the scrolls and books had escaped barbarian raids, or been salvaged from the Alexandria library after its burning by the anti-pagan fanatic Theophilos, less than fifty years earlier. It was an outrage for which Theokritos had never forgiven his fellow Greek.
Theokritos had instituted his own index system for locating material, based on authors, rather than subject matter. The old librarian’s memory, as clear as the crystals he used to enlarge words, could recall which author had written on a particular theme, and where it was stored. Even though labels on the manuscript ends helped identify their contents, Getorius found the system aggravating. A history of medicine by Artistotle’s pupil Menon might be shelved next to a treatise on Manichaeism that was written in Syriac. With Arcadia’s help Getorius had located all the medical texts and written their details on a diagram that indicated where they could be found.
As Getorius walked up the narrow stairway that led to the library, he passed a boy hurrying down. The child’s face and arms were spotted with color, and he clutched his genitals through a smudged tunic. One of the pigment grinding apprentices on his way to a latrine, Getorius thought. He had seen the area where inks and colors were prepared, and the one for the final polishing and cutting of parchment skins after they were delivered from tanning shops. Workers in an adjacent room stored them as blank manuscript sheets, or bound the final lettered pages into books.
When Getorius reached the top of the stairs, a smell of fish glue coming from the bindery reminded him of his clients’ payments. Nothing but fish today! His clinic had the pleasant scent of medicinal herbs. How could the library staff stand this nauseating odor day after day? He also heard the irritating rasp of marble slabs grinding the pigment material, a sound that always set his teeth in an involuntary imitative gnashing whenever he was in the reading area.
Feletheus had his worktable facing the stairs so he could scan visitors, but the assistant was not there. As Getorius entered the room, Lucius, the chief copyist, looked up from his desk and nodded a greeting. He was half way past the storage bins, on his way to Theokritos’ office, when Feletheus’ voice startled him from behind.
“Surgeon. You’re here to consult a medical text?”
Getorius turned to the balding, sallow-looking man, who was about thirty years of age. The library assistant combed what hair he had to the front of his head, and the beginnings of a reddish beard fuzzed his cheeks. His eyes held either a suspicious squint, or a perpetually sad expression. “I…”
“Salus, Librarian, your health,” Getorius greeted pleasantly.
“Is that a medical text, or have you brought me new material?” Feletheus interrupted, eyeing the manuscript case.
“Neither. I wish to see
