“This won’t hurt, Domina,” he said, gently pressing a finger into the swollen tissue. As he knew it might, the impression remained in the leg for a few moments afterward. “Have you stayed in bed for a time recently?”
“My phlegm was out of balance,” Ingunda complained. “Antioches told me to rest.”
“Antioches?” Getorius frowned. “If you’ve seen the palace physician, why come to me?”
“He forgets how to cure things. Antioches is old.”
“And you remembered that I was younger.”
“Getorius,” Arcadia muttered through clenched teeth, “you’ve taken an oath to help whomever comes to you.”
“So I have.” He tested the tissue again. “This calls for leeching, to drain off surplus blood and restore your balance.”
“Leeches?” Ingunda shuddered. “Those crawly little insects? I seen them in the marshes.”
“Leeches, hirudos, are not insects, not according to Aristotle. And they may be your only hope if you want help for your leg. I don’t keep them here, but the palace has a leeching room near the new hospital. My wife will take you there for a treatment.”
Taken by surprise, Arcadia stammered, “M…me, Getorius?”
“Part of your training, my dear,” he replied in an innocent tone, and with a trace of a smirk.
“Apply several to that leg for the period of about an hour. Perhaps Antioches could help you.”
Arcadia caught the emphasized sarcasm in his last remark. “Fine. I’ll order a litter chair for Ingunda. My patient will not be walking even that short distance.”
“Good. I’ll see if anyone else is waiting.”
Arcadia hailed a pair of litter bearers, who were loitering at the corner of the Via Julius Caesar and Via Honorius in hopes of attracting clients. Ingunda climbed slowly into the wicker chair. The carriers started for the palace, with Arcadia walking beside the woman.
“What…what will them slimy creatures do to me?” Ingunda asked in a frightened voice.
“It’s quite painless. They’ll relieve the excess blood in your leg,” Arcadia reassured her, while dreading the thought of dredging around in the vat where the leeches were kept.
“But the furcin’ little… Will I lose my leg?”
“Try not to think of that. No, Domina, you’ll be walking back home.” Arcadia immediately regretted the remark. To give a patient hope was one thing, but predicting the success of a procedure was another. She would have to control her empathy in a more professional manner. “How is your husband?” she asked, to counter her rashness and relax Ingunda.
“Charadric’s been promoted to a special palace unit of Frankish guards.”
“You must be proud of him.” As Arcadia neared the Lauretum Palace’s front entrance, she became aware of the two carriers snickering and making strained guttural noises, to mock their passenger’s weight. “Let them jest over the small copper they’ll get as payment,” she murmured.
At the palace entrance Gothic guards were on duty again. Both sentries recognized Ingunda and waved her in. After crossing the atrium and garden, Arcadia dismissed the two bearers, but relented and gave the men a larger follis coin than she had intended.
Antioches’ office and the clinic where he saw patients were on the second floor, opposite the library. The old physician had stopped training assistants, but beyond his clinic there was a large area recently opened up as a hospital.
Arcadia occasionally helped out in the wards and knew that the idea of a shelter where the poor could be treated was gaining acceptance in the Western Empire. Bishops in the East, like Proclus at Constantinople, had already convinced some wealthy women to fund hospitals in fulfillment of Christ’s declaration that if one helped the needy, they also ministered to Him. Aelia Flaccilla, the first wife of the late Emperor Theodosius, had founded a hospital years earlier. Pulcheria, the eastern emperor’s wealthy sister, was doing the same.
Bishop Chrysologos had broached the idea to Galla Placidia and urged her to emulate Flaccilla’s example. Chrysologos himself had recruited a number of women—‘Sisters’ he called them—who were willing to renounce the world and live as Brides of Christ and administer the nursing facility. Since Constantine the Great had repealed laws that formerly punished celibates, the unmarried state was now seen as a desirable ideal, and encouraged by bishops. One of the Sisters had told Arcadia that there were some four thousand virgin women in Antioch alone who were devoted to such work.
Antioches was not in his office and the clinic was empty of patients. A corridor led along the western wall, past the hospital and toward storerooms. The leeching room was at the far southwestern corner of the hall, to isolate the unpleasant area. It had been labeled hirvdorivm by one of the library scribes.
Arcadia paused in front of the door, feeling her skin pucker in revulsion, yet she forced herself to open it and peer inside, hoping that Antioches was there with a patient.
He was not. The room smelled of mildew and was semi-dark, with the only light coming from a cobwebbed, dirty glass pane covering a high window. While Arcadia waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim light, she fought to keep from gagging at the stench of mold and rotting wood. I have to set an example for Ingunda.
She made out two cots next to one wall, and a good-sized wooden vat set on a stand in the center of the room. Its top was at waist level. A hinged door was cut into the removable cover, and a small net hung down on the right side, but she had no idea how difficult it would be to scoop up the slimy creatures.
Arcadia took a deep breath and hoped that one day she would be worthy to swear by Apollo the Healer to keep the Oath that would make
