[Getorius and Arcadia 01] - The Secundus Papyrus by Albert Noyer

Author:Albert Noyer [Noyer, Albert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781935597865
Google: UKpptwAACAAJ
Amazon: B0061MWL58
Barnesnoble: B0061MWL58
Goodreads: 16180598
Publisher: San Val
Published: 2003-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Getorius ordered Brisios to ready the covered carriage for a journey. By the fourth morning hour on November twenty-first, the fog was beginning to thin out.

After the gateman slid a leather traveling case into the back, he helped Arcadia onto the seat next to her husband. She felt slightly nauseous from stomach cramps. Her monthlies had begun the night before.

Getorius leaned across his wife. “Brisios, I told Childibert that we’re going to Caesena. Your mistress needs to get away for a few days. This miserable rain and taking care of patients have tired her.”

Brisios nodded and went to open the courtyard gate. Getorius clucked the mare left, onto the Via Caesar. At the intersection with the Via Honorius, about twenty paces distant, visibility disappeared into a lingering veil of fog.

Arcadia pulled the hood of her coat higher against the dampness and turned to her husband. “Why did you tell Brisios that we were going to Caesena? We’re going to Classis.”

“We don’t need everyone knowing that,” he answered. “With the Gothic Queen worried about Aetius’s spies, the fewer people who know our true destination, the better.”

“But, Brisios?”

“I’m sure he has gossiping friends in local taverns.”

“Getorius, I’m not sure I appreciate being the excuse for a lie.”

He patted her hand. “Sorry, cara. We don’t know what this is all about and I’d rather be cautious.”

“But no one goes to Caesena in the winter, it’s a summer resort. Even Brisios could figure that out.”

Getorius did not reply, realizing his wife was right and not wanting to antagonize her further by persisting in the discussion.

At the corner of the Via Theodosius the market square teemed with slaves and their mistresses picking out the day’s food supplies. Getorius threaded the mare between the carts and pedestrians, then to the right, onto the Theodosius. The carriage passed fragrant smells coming from bakeries and sausage vendors’ stalls, and the less pleasant tavern stink of stale wine and vomit from the night before. At the Via Armini, where the street had been paved with stones from the ancient walls of Augustus, Getorius guided the mare to the right again. Arcadia recalled walking the road to the old necropolis, when she had searched its tombs, with Veneranda, for examples of clothing that women wore during the Republic.

When the carriage reached the Porta Laurenti, sunlight had broken through the mist and set points of light sparkling on the surface of swamps outside the wall. To the left, the bright blue line of the Adriatic Sea materialized out of the haze.

Getorius steered the mare, carriage wheels clattering, over the boards of the bridge spanning the river. Beyond, the weathered mausoleums and monuments of the necropolis lined both sides of the roadway. A few were decorated with ivy or votive offerings of food, mute testimonials to the fact that crypto-pagans still venerated the dead, despite the ban on their religion.

Arcadia was silent, and Getorius sensed that his wife was still annoyed with him.

“You were right,” he said, squeezing her knee, “I should have told Brisios the truth.

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