Unholy Sepulcher, page 27
part #4 of Getorius and Arcadia Mystery Series
Arcadia noted that that Shams's Aquarian water-bearer symbol covered the male ankle and lower leg. If he becomes dangerous, I could disable him with a solid kick to that weak area. Temporarily, at least. She avoided thinking of the consequences for such an attack.
The sheikh had moved to a circular chart with twelve symbols of the zodiac equally spaced around the rim. Lines drawn from a central circle intersected each sign. The rest of the parchment was blank.
Apelles checked off a Capricorn and wrote ARKADIA above it with a charcoal stick, then spoke to al-Shams. He listened impatiently, but nodded agreement.
Arcadia said, "You told him you needed time to draw up my horoscope, to question me about my place of birth, hour, and so on?"
"You're a 'Hypatia of the West'!" Apelles marveled. "Do Latins know of that brilliant pagan woman philosopher?"
"According to my tutor, wasn't she torn to pieces by an Alexandrian mob of fanatical Christians?"
"Tragically," he mumbled, "and a misplaced intended compliment to you."
Arcadia tried to ease the old man's embarrassment by asking about another person. "Who is that with the sheikh watching us from the doorway?"
"El Kahin, a haruspex…soothsayer…for al-Shams. If the sheikh is displeased with my predictions, he turns to him. Shuffling marked rods is that charlatan's method of divination. Such nonsense!"
Al-Shams again spoke to Apelles, while staring Arcadia. Despite his attempt to be pleasant, his narrow eyes and hard mouth betrayed an innate cruelty
Apelles translated, "The sheikh says we must leave now and attend a camel sacrifice to his sun goddess. It is to honor your arrival and…and forthcoming nuptials."
Arcadia burst out, "That's insane! He can't force me into marriage."
"His concubine, then? Who will stop him?" Apelles caught her sleeve and counseled under his breath, "It would be wise not to anger the man, so let us go witness this sacrifice. Afterward, there will be food and wine."
And the wine can't come too soon for you.
When they left the sheikh's quarters, the courtyard was engulfed in darkness. Fires blazed in the main cooking area and at the bower-shrine of the goddess Shams. Firelight reflected off the fort's south wall and cast a dancing orange glow over stable walls and Apelles's workshop. Oil and wine presses in the adjacent shed stood in shadow. Firelight barely reached black tents at the far end of the compound.
Arcadia looked toward the circular dwellings. "Apelles, does Al-Shams maintain those dwellings for his relatives and their wives?"
"A Bedouin tradition, as is the sacrifice you shall witness."
The sheikh and his soothsayer, El Kahin, led the way to the shrine. Men of the garrison not on sentry duty sat cross-legged on the ground around the fire.
Women of the harim stood further back on the perimeter of ight, concealed in shadow. Only their eyes and henna designs shown in the reflected flames.
The she-camel, Jameel, legs folded beneath her body, waited nearby, decorated with henna branches and calmly chewing fresh leaves from the plant. The girls had finished painting the animal's hooves and muzzle with designs. Antimony darkened skin around the camel's eyes. A white woolen shawl draped the beast's curved neck.
Both barefoot, Kahin and al-Shams approached the shrine sanctuary, where charcoal smoldered on a crude stone altar. Arcadia, standing a short distance back, was close enough to see that a stone pillar had been incised with a sun design similar to the one on the sheikh's forehead. She recognized an almost effeminate statue placed a short distance from the stele as one of Apollo, the Roman sun god.
Apelles had gone for his wine goblet and returned. "Shams, as Bedu call the sun, is a female deity to them,' he said. "When the sheikh brought back that marble sculpture from a raid, I told him the sun god, Helios, was female."
"Then Bedouin worship the sun?"
Apelles mocked, "Sun, moon, stars, even misshapen stones. In short, the tribes are indiscriminating pantheists."
"Sir," Arcadia pleaded, "won't you make that horoscope an unfavorable one for the sheikh? Stall him until my husband discovers where I am."
Apelles ignored her request and sipped from his cup. "Now, they will circumambulate that pillar. Kahin chants gibberish as he sprinkles water on the idol. Finally, the sheikh will 'reverently' touch the ansab, the stone, before he sacrifices."
Arcadia, aware that Apelles had not answered her question, asked, "That poor camel will be killed?"
"Did you not listen?" Annoyed, the old man gestured toward the altar with his cup. "Its liver will be burnt to the goddess…Ah, the ritual walk is ended. Watch."
Unsheathing his curved dagger, Amir al-Shams approached Jameel. He waited while Kahin fed the she-camel a final branch of henna, then, in one sure motion slashed the beast's throat. With an eerie bellow, the animal tumbled sideways onto the dirt. In its death throes, all but the camel's lame leg kicked out in futile attempts to stand. Al-Shams bent to wash his hands in the jugular blood, smeared his face with the gore, and let out a chilling yell of triumph. While he wiped his hands on the white shawl, his men stood and cheered him in trilling Arabic tones.
Drum and tambourine music sounded from inside the shrine. In the distant shadows, harim wives began to sing a caravan song, clapping time to a drum rhythm that imitated the movement of a camel's stride. The younger concubines began a swirling dance to the metallic clink of brass finger cymbals and ankle bells.
Arcadia felt sickened by the animal's violent death. "This whole affair leaves me nauseous. What happens now?"
Apelles gestured toward the cooking area. "You will sit with the harim women and eat lamb roasted at that fire, and other foods. The camel will be butchered and divided among seven of the sheikh's kin."
"That will take all night," Arcadia objected. "I'm very tired."
Apelles winced and shifted weight, but ignored her complaint. "The men will eat first, including a traveler who arrived this afternoon."
Arcadia noted that the old man slurred words. He evidently gulped as much wine as he could in his workshop before coming back outside. I'm sure he's added opion to ease his leg pain.
Swaying, Apelles grinned foolishly and held up his goblet in mock tribute. "Later, thou shalt eat of the sacrificial flesh and thou shalt become immortal like unto the gods."
Arcadia realized that his irreverent ridicule of the Christian Eucharist came from the wine. He's drunk. Blessed Cosmas, in that state what will he write on the horoscope?
Before she could say anything to him, Apelles limped off toward his quarters, swaying to keep his balance.
A moment later the eunuch guard materialized from shadows to escort Arcadia back to sit with the women. As they passed the garrison men congratulating the sheikh, she noticed one of them standing apart. Dressed as a Bedouin, a hood on his cloak was pulled low over his face. That must be the traveler Apelles mentioned. As she walked past him, the man tugged the hood aside—as if to momentarily reveal his face—then quickly turned away to join other men.
Arcadia's stomach reacted as her mind tried to grasp the significance of the man's furtive movement. He…he wanted me to recognize him I would swear to a magistrate that the stranger is our guide, Abd al-Shira!
CHAPTER XX
Arcadia felt renewed hope as she walked ahead of the eunuch toward the women. It hardly seems possible, yet al-Shira may have found out I'm here! I probably won't be able to speak with him, but he'll tell Getorius. The authorities must act when they hear where I am, and that we're under the protection of the emperor's sister.
Their eunuch guards brought platters of roasted lamb, saffron rice, squash, and olives to the women. Napkins were given out, beginning with al-Shams's elder wife. Arcadia took hers from the eunuch who had escorted her to the main house, then sat on the ground with the others. She joined them in taking food from the common dishes with the fingers of their right hand, as at al-Shira's home.
Near the goddess's shrine, the sacrificed Gameel was skinned and butchered into portions that would feed members of Amir al-Shams's family. The animal's inner organs were set aside as a sacrificial dedication to the sun goddess. While Kahin chanted in
Arabic, the sheikh placed the camel's liver on the altar's coals. He faced east, raised both hands, and recited a prayer to the sun goddess. The sheikh no sooner had stepped away from the sacrifice than an unmistakable rumble of thunder sounded from the northwest. Men of the garrison and the women stood to look in that direction.
Unseasonal streaks of distant lightning flashed inside a rapidly approaching veil of clouds that moved in to obscure the clear canopy of stars overhead.
Arcadia stood with them to watch. Earlier, she had noticed rain in the direction of Jerusalem, but now a particularly violent storm approached from the north. Distracted by loud voices near the burnt offering altar, she saw al-Shams arguing with his soothsayer. Arabic words turned angry. Kahin gestured in the direction of the storm, then at the butchered carcass of the lame camel.
Moments afterward, a spiraling whirlwind whipped the women's tunics around them. Sandy grit blew into faces and platters of food. Hail crystals bounced on the hard ground and a cold rain that followed turned into a torrential downpour. Lightning flashes spawned crashes of thunder that reverberated ever closer to the fort. Wood fires in the cooking pits and on the sacrificial altar fizzled out.
Screaming with fright, the harim women left their meals on the muddying ground and scurried to the main house. Eunuch guards followed after them. Al-Shams and his men ducked into the shelter of the goddess's palm-branch shrine.
In the confusion, Arcadia hurried to Apelles's workroom for shelter, but inadvertently stepped on the warning stone outside. Even before opening the portal, she heard the mechanical raven's frantic calls coming from inside—an eerie echo almost more frightening than the storm. She opened the door to wind sweeping in that blew manuscripts off work benches.
Apelles, hunched over a desk near a bank of fluttering lamps and candles, turned to see who had entered. "Domina, you're soaking wet."
"This sudden downpour." Arcadia forced the door shut against the gale and wiped water from her eyes. "Sir, you said the sheikh would sacrifice to his goddess, but why would he argue with his soothsayer?"
Apelles scoffed, "Without telling Kahin, the fool offered an animal that was lame. Victims must be unblemished, thus his sun deity is displeased."
"And sent the thunderstorm to punish him?" She almost laughed at the coincidence, but recalled the sudden tempest that arose at Paphos. Moshe ben Asher had considered it an answer to his prayer for deliverance—as it proved to be. She glanced over Apelles's shoulder. "You…you're working on that horoscope? Sir, I beg you again to make it unfavorable."
Before he could reply, Apelles clutched at his right side with his maimed hand. Furrows of pain creased his forehead. He trembled violently in reaching for his wine goblet with the other hand. Flickering lamplight made his jaundiced complexion an even more sickly yellowish color.
Alarmed, Arcadia touched his shoulder. "May I help you lie down?"
He held his side, but shook her off. "Tipota…it is nothing."
"Do you have a copy of Galen in Latin?"
Apelles nodded his head toward bookshelves and manuscript bins. "Not only Galen," he said, breathing in shallow gasps, "but Greek physicians unknown to you…you in the west."
"Sir, with respect, I believe you suffer from bladder stones. I'd like to review what Galen prescribes. Any diet he suggests."
"Young woman, Erasistratos is more…thorough yet I'm perfectly capable…of…of treating myself."
"Fine, do so." Stubborn Greek! "I noticed that Aphrodisia was not at the sacrifice. Does she stay in the harim?"
Apelles shook his head. "The sheikh's elder wife…would not…allow it. The…scorta has a…a cot at the infirmary."
"Where is this infirmary?"
He cautiously removed his left hand from his side and took a few tentative deep breaths. "The old monastery chapel, this side of the main house. The north end has an entrance." Breathing normally and seemingly recovered, he went back to his horoscope. "Where was I? Yes. For the sheikh, the thirtieth of October is not a propitious day."
"But that's tomorrow," Arcadia said.
"When in November?" he muttered as if he had not heard her comment.
"You're going ahead with this?"
Apelles drained his cup and handed it to Arcadia. "Would you? A step on that metal plate at the cabinet—"
"Certainly not!" Eyes tearing, disappointed in his determination to go ahead with a horoscope that pleased the sheikh, Arcadia strode to the door and looked out at a courtyard criss-crossed by rivulets of mud gushing toward the entrance gate. Across the sodden field, the infirmary was a black extension of al-Shams's quarters. The building was dark except for a dim light showing in the first window to the far left; Apelles had said an entrance was located there. She flinched at a flash of lightning and its echoing reverberation, then hiked up her tunic to run before the next bolt hit. "Cosmas, don't let me slip," she prayed, then started across the courtyard.
The infirmary door was unlocked, the chapel's nave dark, except for light that shown through a curtained area to the right of the entrance. Beyond, two rows of floor mats lay on the paving. Arcadia pushed the curtain aside.
Aphrodisia lay on one of three cots in a space cluttered with discarded clothing and dishes of half-eaten food. A desert mouse nibbling from a metal platter stood on its hind legs, sniffed the air, then scurried off. Faintly glowing charcoal in a brazier provided scant heat in an are that smelled of vomit.
The woman stirred at the movement and opened her eyes. "Medica?" She struggled to sit up. "What are you doing here?"
Arcadia helped her lean against a pillow. "You weren't at the meal. I wondered why."
"The bitch-wife of that red-headed sheikh is trying to poison me."
"What? How do you know that?"
"I been vomiting all afternoon. Look in that pot if you don't believe me."
Arcadia bent toward the woman's face. "The pupils of your eyes are dilated, but that could be this dim light." She picked up a ceramic vessel from the floor and brought it closer to the lamp. A thick liquid glistened at the bottom. Bile mostly. She hasn't eaten much today, but that unpleasant odor is unmistakable.
"Well, am I right?"
"Have you had strange dreams the past few nights? Feverish delirium?"
"Men come here," Aphrodisia smirked. I…I'm not asleep much, but I did feel sick after I talked to you this afternoon. Came to lie down here."
"From what I detected, I believe you're being given hyoscyamus."
"Hyo-what?"
"Hyoscyamus. In proper dosage, it'san herb sedative, yet deadly poison if not controlled."
She fell back on the pillow. "That bitch! That bitch!"
Arcadia waited a moment before saying, "The night you left Ascalon I wanted to examine you vaginally." In response, Aphrodisia flounced her body toward the wall. "I suspected you suffered from gonorrhoia, but Iwant to confirm that now." She considered the woman's slight shoulder movement as granting permission. When Arcadia pulled down the blanket, she gagged at a strong smell of perspiration and male sperm. "Horrible. Hasn't al-Shams's wife allowed you to bathe?"
"The men aren't particular. They just—"
"Turn on your side, please," Arcadia ordered as professionally as circumstances allowed. "Face me."
After she eased the woman's night tunic over her head, Arcadia saw that she wore no underclothes, but had wadded a filthy linen towel between her legs. A leather band strapped a stylus-thin dagger to the woman's right thigh. She loosed the weapon and held it up. "What is this?"
"Tutela…protection for me." Aphrodesia's tone suggested that the medica was a fool for even asking.
Arcadia dropped the knife to the floor. "Lie back while I finish examining you."
Purplish bruises discolored Aphrodisia's thighs and upper arms; clients had grasped her in a sexual frenzy that was in actuality rape. When Arcadia probed the bruises, the woman whimpered quietly, but submitted. After gently working the towel loose, Arcadia found the vagina bruised and inflamed. An ugly discharge of pus and blood stained the linen cloth. St. Paul called the body a temple of the Holy Spirit and insisted that fornication was a violation of one's own body. How awful for this woman that he was correct.
Throwing the towel aside, Arcadia wiped a tear away with the back of her hand and again tried to remember what Soranus prescribed for the disease he called 'The flux of semen.' He believed the condition chronic, that the body became pale, lost strength, and was consumed. Aphrodisia's imbalance is so advanced that I doubt if any of his remedies would be of value.
Exhausted at a seemingly endless day of crises, Arcadia could only say, "I…I'll clean you up."
"A soak in a warm pool would be nice, but that bitch won't let me use the baths."
"I bathed in a tub that had hot or cold water flowing into it from a spigot. Do you have something like that here?"
"No tub. Water is up near the front."
"I'll bring some." Arcadia pulled her blanket up again, took the oil lamp, and walked the length of the dark nave. Only about half of the space had mats, but no patients lay on any of them. "What happens to women who fall ill?" she asked Cosmas. "It's odd that no one else is in here."
Only a brick foundation remained where the chapel's altar once stood. Arcadia thought it was being reused for sacrifices to pagan gods. A small, octagonal baptismal pool stood on one side. Apelles had equipped it with a wall spigot like the one in the harim bath. Several clay amphorae, jugs, and flasks of oil leaned against the wall. Used towels were strewn on the pool's rim. Perhaps patients bathe here. Arcadia remembered how to operate the spigot. She laid the lamp down and turned the valve until water became hot, then filled the smallest amphora. She took it, an oil flask, and two of the cleanest towels back with her.
