Getorius blew on her cold fingers. “And for Nicias. Placidia made him palace surgeon.” Remembering, he looked away at the lengthening shadows of the evergreen forest that hemmed the road, then added softly, “He was the only father I really knew.”
“Nicias took care of you and trained you to be a surgeon.”
“I’m grateful, and now cara, I’m training you to be a medica. Despite the archdeacon’s opposition.”
“Surrus Renatus thinks wives should only manage their husband’s households. Did you know there’s a woman presbytera at the Arian sect church in town?”
“A woman?”
“I think her name is Thecla.”
“Well, Arians are also considered heretics.”
Arcadia pushed his arm in mock annoyance. “You mean that I’m one by not following a woman’s tradition and wanting to be a physician?”
“You’ll be a good one, cara.”
“Yes I will. And,” she jested, “after you’re made palace physician, I’ll take over our clinic.”
“Being surgeon to the Augustus and his family could be a deadly honor. Anyone who serves inside Lauretum Palace is undoubtedly caught up in court politics.”
As the Via Popilia neared Ravenna, the pine forest gradually gave way to patches of farmland. On either side, marshes lay as flat as Behan’s table. After the road passed under one arch of the aqueduct that supplied the city from the Apennine springs, skeletal poplars and the green-black spears of cypress trees began to line ditches bordered by the peculiar yellowish earth that had been reclaimed from swampland. Dormant gray vines tied to high trellis supports and distant, tile-roofed white farm buildings gave occasional relief to the monotonous landscape.
The Via Popilia crossed a small river, then, about a half mile before reaching the city walls, the road angled sharply to the northeast. As the cart careened into new ruts on the roadway, Arcadia tightened her grasp on Getorius. When Optila half-turned to see if his load and passengers were safe, the flattish profile of his Hun ancestry was evident.
As the cart approached the bridge over the southern arm of the Bedesis River, which went on to encircle Ravenna to the north, cultivated land gave way to marshes once again. Earlier that morning the glittering expanses had been shrouded in autumn fog, but under the late afternoon sun the smooth surfaces sparkled like dancing pearls. Beyond the bridge, the Porta Aurea was bathed in warm sunlight, momentarily living up to its name, “The Golden Gate.” The portal gave access to the ancient quarter of the city, the Oppidum, and dated back some four hundred years, to the time of the Emperor Claudius.
Massive round brick towers flanked the Aurea’s twin marble entranceways. Slouching sentries, eating chunks of roast pork impaled on their daggers, waved Optila through. A beggar on crutches hobbled forward, saw the Hun driver, muttered something, and walked back to the shadow of the portal.
Inside the wall, Arcadia saw the familiar roofline of the Basilica Ursiana and the square end-towers of Lauretum Palace. To the far right, a cluster of masts marked the port quadrant of the city, where merchant galleys could moor in a protected harbor, after being rowed in from the Adriatic Sea. Getorius wondered what was happening at the old naval base of Classis, two miles to the south. With the new Vandal threat at Carthage, hopefully war galleys would be under construction, or older ones refitted. He frowned when he thought of the legion camp on the Via Armini, where Ravenna’s garrison was billeted. There never seemed to be much training activity there, or on the adjacent Campus Martius.
“Flavius Aetius can’t seem to get the men to train properly,” he muttered aloud.
“What, Getorius?”
“Our barbarian mercenaries. They’re the butt of every tavern jest,” he complained.
“But the Augustus had to open enlistment to Goths, didn’t he?” Arcadia probed.
“Ever since Theodosius ordered it, yes, but it was a decision of desperation. Officers still train the men to fight in a line, behind shields. No room to maneuver against an enemy like…like Huns, who attack as suddenly as Jupiter’s thunderbolts.”
Arcadia gestured toward Optila with her head, but the driver gave no indication that he had heard the remark. “Husband,” she asked, “how did you get to be such an expert in military tactics?”
“I don’t read only medical texts, you know.”
Fragrant smells of baking bread, food frying in olive oil or lard, and roasting meat and fish, were heavy on the late afternoon air. The rays of the setting sun tinted the brick and stucco buildings a pale vermilion, even lending a temporary splendor to the damaged temple of Apollo, closed now for half a century. Further on, the shadowed front of the Basilica of Hercules acted as a backdrop for a colossal statue of the demigod. He stooped on one knee, supporting a hemisphere on his shoulders whose flat top surface was a solar and lunar hour dial.
Stalls in the new market square on the north side of the Via Theodosius were almost empty of customers; only a few slaves still bought bread and meat in the shops along a plaza colonnade. Subdued babble came from taverns, where patrons were eating supper. As they passed the public baths opposite the old forum, Getorius nudged his wife. The resident white-bearded philosopher was on the rostrum again, haranguing a scattering of idlers who were interested—or amused—enough to indulge him.
When Optila guided the mare onto the Via Honorius, a cold northeast wind buffeted the cart. Arcadia pulled up the elk skin, suddenly aware of how much her back ached and rump hurt. It would feel good to relax in the warm pool of her bathhouse.
Getorius’s villa, “The House of the Surgeon,” as it was commonly called, had been deeded to him by Nicias. It was located just south of Lauretum Palace, at the intersection of the Honorius with the Via Julius Caesar. The villa had a separate wing for the clinic where patients were treated. A side facing the Honorius was built into a second story whose lower level was divided into shops, including a fuller’s cloth works
