After the two men turned into the Aurea from the Honorius, they were challenged by a scarred veteran and his companion, a burly brute who may have had only one arm, but who looked capable of strangling a bear with his remaining hand alone.
“Where y’going?” one-arm asked.
“Senator Maximin summoned this surgeon,” Tetricus replied. “I’m his servant.”
“Never seen you before.”
“I work inside the villa, but was entrusted with this errand.”
“This is my medical case.” Getorius held up the leather box slung over his shoulder, then reached into his belt purse and selected a silvered bronze follis. “When you’re off duty, men, get yourselves some hot mulled wine.”
One-arm’s companion grinned and palmed the coin. “On your way, bone-cutter.”
“Money, the universal gate-opener,” Getorius muttered. “How far is Maximin’s?”
“Not far, Surgeon.”
“Good, perhaps I won’t be spending all of my fee on bribes.”
Tetricus turned in at the entrance to a sprawling villa that was set back from the street and surrounded by a wall. Its brickwork was in disrepair, and sections of stucco on the villa facade were crumbling. In a port city like Ravenna, Getorius surmised, young freemen found it easier to make their fortunes in trading or shipping than through an apprenticeship in the building trades.
While Tetricus rapped a bronze Gorgon head against its plate, Getorius shivered. Even though the cape and hat had kept his upper body reasonably dry, his boots and trouser bottoms were soaked. That would not help his humor imbalance. He wiped drops of water from his face, realizing that Maximin probably had called Antioches, but the old man would have refused to come out in weather that gave only marsh ducks a reason to rejoice.
After a locking bolt grated through its retainer, Maximin’s porter opened the door.
“I brought the surgeon,” Tetricus told him.
The man nodded and led the way through a vestibule into an atrium. Both areas were paved in a pattern of alternating green and white marble slabs, rather than the mosaic tiles usually found in private homes. Not even Lauretum Place boasted a marble entranceway. A loud splashing sound came from an overflowing atrium pool, where water cascading from the roof was spilling onto the floor. Three soaking-wet slaves were frantically sponging the overflow into buckets.
“Where’s Senator Maximin?” Getorius asked the porter.
“Master is away. I will take you to his mother.”
“Her name?”
“Domina Agatha Maximina.”
At the end of a colonnaded porch surrounding the drenched garden, a folding door led into a fair-sized bedroom. Getorius found it overly warm and smelling of camphor. Agatha, a cadaver of a woman who looked as if she should have gone to meet her namesake Saint Agatha years ago, lay in bed. Another woman, presumably her slave, sat by an oil lamp, sewing. She stood up when Getorius entered.
“What seems to be the trouble, Domina?” he asked Agatha, pulling a folding stool to her bedside. “Your ailment?”
Agatha fixed him with watery blue eyes that were alert, despite her emaciated face. “Which one, Surgeon?” she asked wryly. “Haven’t you heard that old age has a thousand illnesses?”
Getorius smiled. Nothing wrong with her mind. “Then we must treat the worst one first. Where do you hurt the most?”
“My spine. Fabia has now become my legs.”
“Fabia? Your slave?”
Agatha gave a hoarse chuckle. “Oh, I’ve freed her, Surgeon. She’s just waiting around for an inheritance from me.”
Getorius looked toward the woman. “Turn your mistress on her side, facing the wall, so I can examine her back. Gently.”
Agatha’s cervical and thoracic vertebrae were curved in a humpback. Her shoulder blades, lumbar vertebrae, and pelvic bones protruded in sharp lumps through the silk of her night tunic. She winced as Getorius felt along the skeletal ridge of spine. Agatha implied she couldn’t walk. Her vertebrae have deteriorated to the point that all I can hope to do is relieve her pain. “Fabia. Put a pillow against the headboard. I’ll help your mistress turn back around and sit up.” He grasped Agatha’s bony wrist and eased her into an upright position with his other hand.
Agatha’s wrinkled face creased into a smile that still suggested it had once dazzled young men. “Surgeon, your hands are strong. Not like Antioches, who spills most of my medication.”
“The palace physician is old.”
“And my son…the Senator…sent me rather a handsome replacement.”
“Domina, you tease me.”
“Tease? When I was younger…” Her blue eyes misted as she glanced away. Agatha wiped an eye and turned back to Getorius. “Well? Can you help me walk again?”
“I…I’m afraid I can only alleviate your pain. Send Fabia to my clinic for an opion solution.”
“Opion?” Agatha looked back at him. “The water of the river Lethe…to forget.”
“I…I’m sorry.”
“Am I also to forget that Dis Pater beckons from the opposite shore?”
“Father Death? I don’t think you’ll—”
“I’ll miss not being in my garden,” she went on. “Do you think Dis Pater has a garden?”
“Domina Agatha,” Getorius said as an idea came to him, “a carpenter could build you a cushioned chair fitted with light wheels. Fabia could roll you into the garden…around the house. Perhaps even to the marketplace.”
“You are clever, Surgeon. My son should have thought of that.”
“Publius Maximin is concerned with governing,” Getorius replied. Fabia slid a small gold coin from a leather bag toward him as he stood up. “The Senator left your fee, Surgeon.”
“A tremissis? That’s too much,” he objected. “The pay of a laborer for an entire day.”
“The Senator can afford it…” Agatha winced and shifted position. “My son is a conceited man. Did you know they erected his statue in the Forum of Trajan
