“Your wife, Senator?” Arcadia prodded him.
“Yes.” Maximin twisted his carnelian ring. “Prisca will join us at supper. And I’ve just had an idea for the entertainment. Jason,” he called to the man, “my guest will choose one of these masks and you’ll do a pantomime about the person. Who shall it be, Arcadia?”
“I…live on the Via Julius Caesar. How about him?”
“Splendid choice. Did you hear, Jason?”
When the man nodded, Arcadia asked, “What mask is he working on now?”
“Personifications of various cities in the empire. Jason, hold that up.”
Arcadia went closer to read the inscription on the turreted headdress of a female personification. “Smyrna? Senator, isn’t that one of the seven cities mentioned in the Revelation of Saint John?”
“I…a…a presbyter could tell you that, I know it as a town in Asia. Now, I’ll have Melisias take you to your room.”
After he clapped his hands a middle-aged woman appeared at a side door. Maximin nodded to her as if she had already received instructions. Melisias beckoned to Arcadia, and then led the way through a corridor to a small room at the rear of the house.
Arcadia’s travel bag was on a stand. Closed window shutters kept out the rain, and an iron stove threw off a pleasant heat. A bed, chair, table, and wardrobe were the only furnishings.
She noticed a silver chamber pot by the bed, but asked Melisias, “Where is the latrine?”
“Dhen milao latina, mono elinika.”
“You don’t speak Latin, only Greek?” Well, Melisias, I don’t believe you. I’m not letting on that I know some Greek, so let’s find out how much you do understand. “I need to use the latrine quickly,” Arcadia repeated, adopting a frantic tone. “Where is it, at the end of the hallway?”
“Use that,” Melisias said in Latin, pointing to the chamber pot. Glancing up at Arcadia, she reddened, and hurried out of the room.
“I thought you understood me. Now let’s see what’s outside this window.”
The shutters opened onto the dismal view of a muddy field glittering with puddles, noxious with the stink of chicken dung. The rain had let up, but even though it was around midday the sky was overcast and gloomy. With the shortened winter hours it would be dark in three or four hours. A ground mist rising at the far end of the field obscured several stone buildings, which Arcadia assumed were chicken coops. Maximin had not said at exactly what hour the afternoon meal would be served, but the nauseating smell had already settled in her throat and curbed her appetite.
Arcadia closed the shutters and turned to look inside the wardrobe. Her cloak had been hung up. It felt dry. She unpacked her clothing and hung the items on pegs located around the inside of the cabinet. Afterward she warmed herself at the stove a moment, thinking that at least the room was comfortable, then lay down and closed her eyes. The nervous excitement of coming to Maximin’s villa had passed; now it was time to think about the charge against Getorius.
Why would someone excise the inner organs of a corpse, and then try to blame my husband? And how could his scalpel have gotten inside the dead monk’s shroud? The bishop will have the mutilated condition of Behan’s body, Getorius’ scalpel, and two witnesses as evidence. What can Maximin’s lawyer do to counter those? Getorius has no witnesses to speak up for him. And if he is right in thinking all this is somehow connected to the papyri, I must find out why Maximin seemed interested in the documents. How much he knows about them.
Arcadia was abruptly awakened by a knock on the door and Melisias’ voice calling out, “Kiri, dhipno.”
“Thank you,” she answered back, “I’ll be ready in a moment.” Dinner already? I fell asleep.
When Arcadia came out of her room, Melisias was at the end of the corridor. She led the way to a large dining area on the left of the reception room. Senator Maximin had a reputation for lavish banquets, but on this occasion a section of the space was partitioned off with folding doors, to make a more intimate eating space. Wall paintings depicted Ravenna and its environs, including views of the Apennine foothills and the villas of wealthy citizens, undoubtedly those of his friends. In the west wall, glass-paned windows covered by bronze screens admitted the fading light of a pinkish sunset. Arcadia was pleased that the scented smoke swirling from an incense burner was reasonably effective in masking the pervasive dung smell.
The meal was to be served at a dining table with chairs, not the reclining couches Arcadia had half expected. Maximin stood up when she entered. He was wearing a toga decorated with the twin purple stripes of a senator, a light woolen cloak, and a pair of red boots.
“Arcadia”—he smiled stiffly, fidgeting with his ring—“may I present my wife, Prisca Maximina.”
Prisca nodded a greeting without extending her hand.
Rightly suspicious. I’m sure she’s wondering exactly what it is I’m doing here. Arcadia guessed that Prisca was about forty, a slim, handsome woman with a simple hairdo that was held in place with a pearl-studded golden diadem. A two-strand pearl necklace circled her throat. She had draped a flowing silk shawl over a full-length tunic that was belted high at her waist.
Maximin sat down again to supervise a slave who was mixing water into a wine flagon. After his steward, Andros, poured pepper and coriander sauce over a platterful of grilled crayfish, the senator asked amiably, “Did the Empress Mother serve this at that dinner she hosted on the ides?”
The question took Arcadia by surprise, even though Maximin had already mentioned that he knew about the meal. “Y…yes. But I’m still not sure why my husband and I were invited.”
“Count on the Augustus having a reason.” Maximin snickered and glanced at his wife. “A pity Prisca and I were unavailable that afternoon.”
Arcadia realized his
