Galla Placidia, dressed in the magnificent tunic she had worn at her republican dinner, but with a silk veil replacing the Visigoth crown, knelt in prayer on the bottom step of the altar platform.
To one side, away from everyone, Flavius Aetius talked with a blonde woman, whom Getorius assumed was Pelagia, his Germanic wife.
Toga-clad senators and palace officials also conversed in separate groups, but Maximin was not among them.
“The only one I recognize is Protasius,” Getorius said to Arcadia, “that records clerk we dealt with before going to Classis.”
“Where?”
“Over to the right. The man is talking to someone who looks like he might be his assistant.”
“He’s not a clerk,” Senator Maximin remarked, appearing from behind a marble column. He grasped Arcadia’s shoulders in a light embrace. “Pax Christi, my dear. Surgeon, I must thank you. Mother is here, sitting up front in that wheeled chair you suggested she have made. You’ve given her new hope.”
“I’m pleased, Senator.”
“That man you see with Protasius is Leudovald. He’s an interrogator in the judicial magistrate’s office. He would have questioned you if the…ah…if what you had been accused of had been a civil concern, not the bishop’s.”
“Senator, what was Placidia’s response to the Gallican charter?” Getorius asked.
“The Empress Mother took the abbot’s case.”
“And?”
“I’m not privy to what she does… Oh, Senator Justin just came in. I must talk to him about his visit to Constantinople.”
After Maximin hurried away, Getorius turned to his wife. “As you said, Arcadia, the man is smooth. He stayed long enough to tell us that the Gothic Queen has the charter, but nothing about her reaction or intention.”
“She wanted the papyrus burned. She might—” Arcadia stopped when she saw a procession of churchmen filing out from the vesting room. “There’s Bishop Chrysologos. He’s ready to start the service.”
Ravenna’s seven senior deacons, holding lighted candles, preceded the bishop. Five presbyters followed Tranquillus, who walked ahead holding aloft a codex of Jerome’s Latin Testaments.
The clergymen began to sing an antiphonal psalm, whose words were gradually picked up by some members of the congregation.
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear?
The Lord is the refuge of my life; of whom should I go in dread?
When evildoers close in on me to devour me, it is my enemies, my assailants, who stumble and fall.”
“Not a very celebratory hymn,” Getorius whispered to Arcadia, “but then the Vandal capture of Carthage has dampened everyone’s morale.”
“What could have happened if we hadn’t discovered the papyri would have been much worse.” Arcadia shuddered and grasped his arm tightly. “I’m so nervous, Getorius. My stomach is totally out of balance.”
“Everything will be fine, cara,” Getorius reassured her, not entirely convinced. The procession wound its way to the apse, as the final verse of the psalm echoed in throughout the nave.
“Wait for the Lord, be strong, take courage and wait for the Lord.”
Deacons and presbyters seated themselves on marble benches set around the altar. Bishop Chrysologos moved behind the table, raised his hands to a prayer position, and intoned a greeting to the congregation.
“Dominus vobiscum. The Lord be with you.”
“And with your spirit,” the people responded.
Tranquillus knelt before the altar platform and chanted, “Introibo ad altare Dei…I will go unto the altar of God.”
The rite continued with the bishop asking God’s blessings on the catechumens, and then with petitions for the sick, the imprisoned, slaves condemned to penal labor, and finally for deliverance from further depredations by the Vandals.
A deacon went to the marble pulpit to read from the prophet Isaiah.
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.”
One by one the other deacons arose and held their flaming wicks down to light the oil lamps and other candles until, by the end of the reading, the apse area was ablaze with light.
“I’ve been imagining Brenos here if we hadn’t discovered the papyrus,” Arcadia leaned over to whisper to Getorius. “I wonder at what point in the readings he intended to reveal the will?”
“The prophecy had to do with a gospel of John. It would make sense if the first reading were taken from an epistle of Peter’s, since the letter was forged to look like it came from the Apostle. Brenos probably would have selected the texts to reinforce his revelation of the will, then, in a homily, explained the role of his Gallicans as its protectors and executors.”
The deacon at the pulpit announced a reading from a part of Peter’s second letter, which he said dealt with both prophecy and the Hebrew people.
Getorius felt uneasy and whispered to Arcadia, “If Brenos recruited clergy other than Archdeacon Renatus to his Gallicans…” His thought was too disturbing to finish.
“But first note this,” the deacon read from the letter, “no one can interpret any prophecy of Scripture by himself. For it was not through any human whim that men prophesied of old. Men indeed they were, yet impelled by the Holy Spirit, they spoke the words of God.
“But the Hebrews had false prophets as well as true, and you likewise will have false teachers among you. They will import dissenters, disowning the very Master who brought them, and bringing swift disaster on their own heads.”
“That can’t be the reading the abbot would have chosen,” Getorius whispered. “It refutes his own case for believing his prophecy. Who could have…?” He glanced toward Galla Placidia. She had been looking at him, and now turned away. Was it a trick of the light, or was her mouth curved in the trace of a smile? “The Gothic Queen…”
Arcadia pulled at his sleeve. “Getorius, what are you muttering about? Sing the response.”
“A holy day has dawned upon us.
Come you nations, and adore the Lord, Today a great light has come upon the earth.’”
Tranquillus came to the
