"Meanwhile, we haven't eaten since mid-morning. Shall we see what monastery meals are like?"

  "If you're ready, Surgeon." Arcadia stepped back and brushed at stains on his tunic. "Bathe after supper. Tomorrow, after you put on that new clothing our guide will buy, you'll feel much better. Now, shall we dine?"

  The couple walked through an empty reception area and out under a porch that sheltered the entrance to the building. Guests and pilgrims took their meals in the refectory at tables set at a distance apart from monks and nuns, who sat on opposite sides of the large dining room. A row of central columns supported two overhead barrel vaults, which further divided the monastery's male and female members. Sputtering, double-spouted oil lamps on the tables provided rings of wavering light.

  As Getorius stood in the doorway, he noticed, at the far end of the room, a middle-aged, heavily bearded man sitting in the only chair. He was at the head of a plank table, with other monks ranged at four tables to either side of him. One of them, the beggar who had cajoled the silver coin in the basilica forecourt, glanced toward the surgeon, yet made no sign of recognition. A younger bearded man, dressed in a tunic and vest of a coarser material than Jerusalem monks, was the center of attention, along with several companions.

  "That's probably the abbot at the head of the table," he whispered to Arcadia. "He's talking to monks who seem to be visitors, so they may not observe a rule of silence here."

  A black-robed Brother, his face half-concealed by his cowl, appeared from behind a column. He silently beckoned Getorius toward the men's table, then motioned for Arcadia to go to the women's side.

  Ben Asher and Mordecai had already been seated at a table away from the monks. On the women's side, at the near end of the last table occupied by the convent's nuns, an older woman dressed in a white tunic and loose head veil sat eating alone.

  Again, Saturnilos was absent and there seemed to be no other guests.

  While Getorius went to sit with the two Hebrew men, Arcadia smiled at the older woman and approached her table. "Domina, may I sit here? You seem to be alone."

  As she looked up, the woman's gray eyes sparkled in the lamplight. "Of course, yet you may decide not to do so."

  "Why would that be?"

  "I'm a Hebraea woman."

  "Hebrew? Is that why you're not eating with the Sisters?"

  Instead of a direct answer, a wry half-smile formed on the woman's lips. "My name is Flavia Ruth Hyrcana," she said in softly accented Latin. "You came from the Western Empire, did you not?"

  "Yes. I suppose my Latin betrays me. I'm Arcadia Valeriana Asteria. My husband, over there, is a surgeon."

  "I know."

  "You know?" Arcadia glanced at Getorius, then back to Ruth. "So you've probably talked with Moshe ben Asher and Mordecai?"

  Her half-smile again. "Yes, the aged Tanna and his brash student. Please, do sit with me. A Brother assigned to this table eventually will serve you." After Arcadia sat on the bench opposite, Ruth said, "I was saddened to hear that your freedman was killed on Cyprus and all your possessions lost."

  "Thus far it has not been a very pleasant pilgrimage." I can't tell her about the dead man we found in the Holy Sepulcher, but I'll ask about her. "Do you stay at the mansio?"

  "No. I am allowed to board with the sisters, but only because my dear companion Melania and I were benefactresses of this monastery and convent."

  "Where is Melania?"

  As tears misted Ruth's eyes, she dabbed them with her napkin before explaining, "My dear, dear friend went to her Lord on the last day of this past month of December."

  "I…I am so sorry." Arcadia leaned aside to let a young, thinly bearded monk wearing a sleeveless tunic and cowl silently slide a plate of food in front of her and set down a pottery wine cup.

  Ruth regained her composure to warn about the meal. "Overcooked lentils and stringy 'camel meat,' as I call it, but it's probably wild gazelle. The bread and olives are quite good. When not overly watered, the Ascalon wine is excellent."

  "I've never thought much about what monks ate. We have few monasteries in the West, but I didn't think they were allowed meat."

  "Normally, no, but this is the week that commemorates the birth of Holy Serapion, after whom this monastery is named. Archimandrite Ephrem…you would call him an abbot…is the older man at the head of the table. He permitted meat today, yet many of the overly pious Brothers won't eat any. At a risk of punishment for disobedience, some will even vomit afterwards in their latrine."

  "Strange." Arcadia recalled the Hebrew kashrut laws and looked at Ruth's plate. Her ceramic dish was divided into three sections that kept food portions from touching each other. "I see you can follow your dietary rules."

  "The youngest monk here is Pambo. Some make fun of his name, but his a potter and fashioned the dish for me. He doesn't understand kashrut, but the dear youth believes he's making sure that what I eat is according to Deuteronomy." Her chuckle was one of sadness rather than amusement. "I probably remind him of his grandmother."

  Arcadia tasted her lentils and found them the consistency of porridge, but well seasoned with coriander and mint. The gazelle meat was inedible. She eased a wad of gristle onto the side of her plate before asking, "Domina, if it's not too painful, please tell me about your Melania."

  "My dear, I…I'm touched at your interest." Ruth tucked a wisp of short gray hair under her veil before continuing. "She was given the same name as her grandmother, thus was called Melania the Younger. She was a Valeria, of a wealthy Roman patrician family. Melania married into another such family at age thirteen."

  "Not unusual."

  "No, yet after the untimely death of two children, Melania and her husband, Pinianus, vowed to live a celibate life. After the Visigoth invasion forced them out of Rome, they went to Sicilia, then lived at Hippo in northern Africa."

  "She must have met Bishop Augustinus."

  Ruth finished a spoonful of lentils. "A little over twenty years ago, Melania sold some of her estates in Hispania, then came to Jerusalem along with her mother and husband. The dear woman spent immense amounts of money on charitable works, and funding convents and monasteries such as this one."

  "Where did you meet her?"

  "She financed a convent for widows and destitute women beyond Gath-Shamma, on the slopes of Haar Zeytim. Lest I forget Hebrew, what you Christians call Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives. My dear husband recently had died and left me considerable wealth, so I volunteered to help Melania. Although I was Hebrew, she accepted me."

  "Ruth, Saint Paul calls Hebrews, 'Brothers in the family of God'."

  "Who share a heavenly calling, yet how many Christians heed that letter of his? No matter. Arcadia, ben Asher told me that your husband is training you to be a medica."

  "Yes. One day I hope to open a women's clinic at Ravenna."

  "Then," Ruth proposed, "you would be interested in visiting the infirmary we have for Sisters in the convent? Through modesty, holy women are reluctant to let male physicians treat them."

  "Lay women, too, and my reason for opening a women's clinic—"

  A metallic sound interrupted Arcadia. Abbot Ephrem had struck a metal plate with a hammer to get the attention of everyone in the refectory. He indicated the dinner guests and spoke briefly to a blond-haired monk at his side.

  Ruth explained, "The abbot speaks Syriac and Greek, but when we have western visitors his words are translated into Latin by Celtillos, a Gaul."

  When he began speaking, he gestured toward several visiting monks seated closest to him. The Gallic translator's provincial Latin was fair enough to understand that the monk who was the center of attention had come from Edessa, a city in Mesopotamia, far to the north. As a courtesy he was allowed to choose and read the evening's scripture passage.

  Arcadia whispered, "I didn't catch that visiting monk's name."

  "Bardanes. He arrived a few days ago with a band of followers. It's said that they instigated the rioting against Hebrews celebrating Sukkoth."

  "And the abbot is hosting him? Incredible!"

  "My dear, you have much to learn about the politics of the Holy Land."

  When Bardanes stood up, Arcadia saw that the wild-haired man was probably in his early twenties, gaunt, barefoot, and with an untrimmed beard. He wore a camelhair vest over a tunic of undyed sackcloth. The monk scowled at the two Hebrew men seated with Getorius, then at Ruth. When he glanced at Arcadia, she met his deep-set, hazel eyes with an involuntarily shudder: in that brief moment they bore into the depths of her soul.

  Ruth noted Arcadia's reaction and reached across to touch her arm. "My dear, that monk also frightens me. He came here once last year and managed to insinuate himself into the confidences of Empress Eudokia."

  "Then he is the one we were warned about."

  Ruth's eyes widened in surprise. "You had heard of Bardanes?"

  "Aelia Pulcheria wants me to…" Arcadia paused. How much should I tell Ruth? I've just now met the woman and really know very little about her.

  "Wait, Domina." Ruth touched Arcadia's arm. "Bardanes is about to read. I'll ask what you know about him afterward."

  The Mesopotamian holy man went to a lectern and turned to a golden ribbon that marked pages near the end of the Testament. Celtillos announced that Bardanes had chosen passages from St. Paul's letter to the Hebrews.

  Bardanes spoke in a Syriac dialect, beginning in a low, threatening tone that gradually rose to an intensity of emotion that the translator could not match.

  "'Consequently, holy brothers, we who share a heavenly calling, train your eyes on the apostle and high priest whom we confess, Jesus Christ. He was faithful to the God who appointed him, as Moses once was faithful in the household of God. For Jesus is counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who builds a house has more honor than the house itself. Every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of all. Moses as a servant was in the house of God to witness the things that were to be spoken afterwards. But Christ was faithful as the Son placed over the house, and it is we

  Christians who now are that House of God'."

  Getorius, increasingly disturbed by the words and tone of the reading, noticed ben Asher and Mordecai look down and shift position on the bench. Bardanes purposely chose that reading to goad the Hebrews.

  "'For this reason'," Celtillo continued, "'as the Holy Spirit says, 'Today if you Hebrews listen to His voice, do not harden your hearts as at your rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness. Your forefathers tested me, and yet had seen my works for forty years. Because of that I was angered with this Hebrew generation and said, 'They always go astray in their hearts and they have never known my ways.' So I swore in my anger, 'These Hebrews shall not enter into my rest'."

  Mordecai became increasingly agitated, his face flushed. He bolted up, grasped ben Asher's arm, and urged him in Hebrew to leave. When the scholar shook his head, his student turned and strode toward the door in unconcealed anger.

  Bardanes's swarthy complexion turned a mahogany hue. He shouted in Syriac for the Hebrew to stop, but Mordecai walked on through the refectory door and back toward his room.

  Abbot Ephrem, flustered at an unaccustomed disturbance, stood and spoke sharply to Bardanes. The monk glared at him, then beckoned to his followers. All stalked out and returned to their assigned cells.

  A trembling abbot offered no apology to his visitors. Rather, he gestured to the monk who had served Arcadia. The youth, pale at the confrontation, nodded and struck a gong, signaling the end of the meal. Ephrem's obedient monks, male and female, rose and filed out in silence to their separate sections of the building.

  Stunned at the viciousness of a man of God, Arcadia said nothing. Getorius, equally disturbed, worried about ben Asher, whose eyesight seemed to be failing by the hour.

  Ruth was first to break the silence. "Perhaps, Arcadia, this would be a time to visit our infirmary?"

  "I should tell my husband."

  "I'll go over to him with you. I wish to speak with the tanna"

  After Arcadia introduced Ruth Hyrcana to Getorius, the woman spoke in Hebrew to ben Asher. The old scholar turned his face up toward the voice. After listening and replying, he hit his palms on the table in frustration.

  Ruth sad, "I told the tanna that Mordecai must be careful. I doubt Bardanes will let a perceived insult by a Hebrew go unavenged."

  Arcadia said, "He wouldn't dare do anything. Moshe ben Asher is traveling under Eudokia's authorization."

  Ruth shook her head to indicate that it would not matter. "I was here during the rioting and saw Hebrew worshippers cudgeled at the Temple's western wall. They, too, had Eudokia's invitation. Come, my dear, there are two patients you should see."

  Arcadia asked, "Getorius, will you take ben Asher back to the mansio? You could bathe while I'm gone."

  "Fine." He stood to kiss her cheek and help ben Asher to his feet. "God with you, Domina Ruth."

  She smiled. "Thank, you, Surgeon. I shall not keep your wife away for long."

  * * *

  The infirmary was a separate building across the courtyard from the refectory. An entrance led from outside, and an inner door that opened to an adjacent chapel.

  When Arcadia entered, two of the younger Sisters were clearing away patients' supper dishes. The large, barrel-vaulted open area was not divided into wards by curtains—only a pace separated each wood-frame bed from its neighbor. Three ceiling chains, each holding a quartet of bronze lamps, cast a warm, orange light that gave a deceptively healthy glow to the sick women. Cold air in the room smelled of camphor and burnt sulfur, purifying scents that were not quite strong enough to overcome an overriding fecal stench. Despite the cramped beds and foul odor, the room was clean, with beds made up and orderly.

  An older Sister, a night attendant, nodded a greeting to Ruth from her table at the far end of the infirmary, then resumed reading a manuscript.

  Occasional coughing echoed in the room as Arcadia followed Ruth down the center aisle, half hoping—yet realizing it was impossible—that she would recognize Aphrodisia lying in one of the beds.

  Ruth said, "Most of our patients have seasonal humor imbalances of one sort or another, but I want you to look at Tachom. The soles of her feet are inflamed. Suppurating wounds, in fact."

  When they reached the shivering girl's bed, Ruth spoke in simple Greek to her. Arcadia smiled at Tachom, but after loosening a blanket covering her feet, she gasped at the bloody wounds. "Horrible! Ruth, what did the girl walk upon to cause this?"

  "Tachom is Egyptian and speaks little Greek. I determined that it was the result of a beating by the abbot. She had filched…'stolen' he said…bread from the common storeroom for a novice who was hungry. One not used to such meager rations."

  "The punishment was to destroy the soles of her feet?"

  "It is in the monastic rules. Maintaining discipline is difficult."

  "Those are not peasant feet."

  "No. Tachom is from a wealthy family in the Delta."

  "Why did she come here?"

  "Again, my dear, you have much to learn about why men and women enter this life of deprivation. They seek what they hope is God's grace and salvation."

  "Grace?" Arcadia looked on a wooden table next to the bed. Along with a cup of water, a tin container of salve lay with a half-open cover. She sniffed the glistening ointment, which smelled of almond paste. "What is this?"

  "Amygdalin.

  "I don't know the medicament." She replaced the cover. "Who are physicians who treat patients here?"

  "Sent by Bishop Juvenal."

  "How often do they come?"

  Without masking her sarcasm, Ruth replied, "Usually, just before they request a benefice from him. But the monastery grows herbs and a few of the Brothers are learned in healing methods."

  "Ighia," Arcadia said to the girl in Greek. "Health be with you."

  Tachom stared at her: the incomprehension of being punished so severely dulled any response.

  Arcadia began to feel nauseous in the fetid air, but asked, "Who is the other patients?"

  "In the last bed behind a screen to not frighten the others." Ruth led the way to the far end of the row. "This is Katerina," she whispered, indicating a thin girl whose legs periodically jerked under a light sheet. Saliva dribbled from a mouth in a face contorted by pain. Her eyes were closed, as if she were asleep.

  "Ruth, what is the matter with her?"

  "The poor girl was assigned to weeding the monastery's vegetable garden. Late this afternoon…some two hours ago…she reached under a bush and was stung by a scorpion."

  "Scorpio?" Arcadia murmured. "Another sign in the zodiac."

  "I'm sorry. I didn't hear you."

  "Nothing, Domina." Arcadia looked at the girl's right hand, swollen to twice its normal size. An inflamed rising of the skin marked an open lesion, where the creature's stinger had injected venom. "What is being done to treat Katerina?"

  "A sedative and cool cloths on her face and over the sting site."

  Ruth picked up two moist cloths dampening one side of the sheet. "The poor dear has thrown them off in thrashing around. There is little else we can do. Most victims tolerate the poison, but others die within a day. Pray it will not be so with Katerina."

  "I've not seen a scorpion sting victim before."

  "Most are attacked on the hand or lower leg—

  "Ruth," Arcadia interrupted, "I suddenly feel quite faint. May I return to my room?"

  "Of course, my dear."

  "I would like to come back tomorrow."

  Ruth touched Arcadia's sleeve and smiled. "You would be welcome, but I trust you aren't becoming ill. A humor imbalance."

  "I'm just tired. We came from Ascalon, a long, two-day journey."

  "Perhaps after breakfast, if you're feeling better then."

  Arcadia recalled that she and Getorius would meet Delphinus at the third hour. "Late morning?"

  "Very well," Ruth agreed. Sleep well.

  One of the Sisters came to unfasten and lower the three lamp chains and began to extinguish all but one flame on each holder.

 

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