“But you thought he was responsible for your being blamed for the dissection.”
“Arcadia, he’s undoubtedly much more conniving than I gave him credit for. Under confinement, I would have been eliminated at the will’s revelation. After that, no one would care.”
“Yet, if something went wrong, you’d still be alive. Maximin has said he wanted you to help him get Patrician rank.” Arcadia shuddered. “Placidia was to be killed.”
“So were you, cara,” Getorius reminded her softly. “We narrowly escaped anarchy.”
“What will other accomplices do when there’s no revelation?”
“The plot is exposed,” Nathaniel said to Arcadia, “but that the senator exposed it is a puzzle. Your theory, Getorius, may be correct. There’s no truth in his story of this abbot’s death, other than the man was at the senator’s villa, for some reason.”
“With the Gallican League plan unraveling because the documents had been discovered, Maximin lost his nerve and decided to abort the conspiracy.”
“And tried to blame both Theokritos and Aetius.”
“Arcadia, Maximin certainly had enough time to look for the papyri inside the palace,” Getorius said. “That ‘gossip’ among palace staff is nonsense…he saw Theokritos’ results. Christ! The senator had Behan strangled and planned to seize power with the abbot. When the plot looked like it would fail, he had Brenos killed.”
“The most important thing is that this is ended.” Arcadia turned to Nathaniel. “And you needn’t worry about the forgeries, they’ll not see the light of day. Tell Rabbi Zadok to inform your men that there’s no danger to them.”
The words were still a woman’s riddle, but Nathaniel nodded and stood up to go back to the Judean quarter.
After he left, Arcadia said, “I…I feel so drained by what we just heard, but I suppose we’d better get ready to attend the vigil service.”
“I understand, cara.” Getorius pulled his wife into an embrace and kissed away the glistening tears at the corner of her eyes. “Have Silvia help you. It isn’t too cold out, but wear a woolen tunic and fairly heavy cape.”
As Getorius put on wool hose and a clean tunic, he decided to leave things as they were and not question his wife any further about what she had done with the golden case and the two papyri. What he had guessed about her actions was an ironic end to the entire affair. However incomplete the details might be, the evening’s events had exposed the Gallican conspiracy. Maximin was undoubtedly involved with Smyrna as the abbot’s contact, might even be the conspirator himself, yet there was no way to prove it. As he pointed out, his guards would testify that the abbot must have accidentally fallen in the act of manifest theft, while trespassing on a senatorial estate. They would cite the golden rooster clutched in his hand. It’s a ridiculous charge, but the law is on the senator’s side. And after Bishop Chrysologos has read the Gallican charter, he’ll also condemn the fanatical abbot who wanted to implement his twisted interpretation of John’s apocalyptic vision. Chrysologos won’t inquire too closely into Brenos’ death and will probably leave out the details in his report to Bishop Germanus at Autessiodurum.
Chapter twenty-seven
When Getorius and Arcadia left their villa to walk to the Basilica Ursiana for the Nativity service, the snowy drizzle had stopped. A southwest breeze ruffled the surface of the remaining street puddles, and the night air smelled of smoke from bonfires burning throughout Ravenna to celebrate the birth of the man who had called himself the Light of the World.
The low, scudding clouds and rippling sheets of water were tinted a pale orange hue by the celebration flames. In the countryside, beyond the city walls, Getorius imagined that a few pagan worshippers tended their own blazes in secret, to lure back the sun god Helios—or Belenos as the Celts called him, or Tiwaz, the Germani—from his southward wandering.
Brisios saw himself as a self-declared guard and walked ahead of his master and mistress on the way to the cathedral. Childibert and Agrica followed a few steps behind, with Silvia and young Primus lagging further back. Most citizens went on foot, but a few oldsters were being carried in litter chairs. Maximin’s black carriage clattered past on the Via Honorius, along with a few other rigs that belonged to senators and palace officials. Bishop Chrysologos had urged that people walk to the basilica, in imitation of the shepherds who had journeyed to see the newborn child in Bethlehem, four hundred and thirty-nine years earlier.
At the basilica, Arcadia spotted Publius Maximin’s carriage on the torch-lit front plaza, with a shadowy form hunched on the seat.
“It’s too dark to recognize the driver,” she said, “but it’s probably that mute.”
“I’d like to be sure that the senator actually did show the Gallican charter to Galla Placidia. Let’s go inside. Perhaps we can ask him.”
The vast interior of the Ursiana was dimly lit. The altar was illuminated solely with four tall candles on stands, although many more unlighted lamps and candles were clustered nearby. The five-aisled cathedral had been dedicated to the Resurrection of Christ, as had, coincidentally, Ravenna’s older Arian church. To distinguish between the two, Nicene Christians referred to their church by the name of its late founder, Archbishop Ursicinus.
Inside the nave, men and women mingled freely and chatted with each other, unlike churches in the east, where the congregation was separated by an iron railing—men on the right and women on the left. Yet even here not everyone was treated with the equality the Apostle Paul had envisioned: members of the imperial retinue stood apart, with chairs being available only for that family. A pregnant Eudoxia was already seated, with a nursemaid standing next to the
