Dear and Glorious Physician (15 page)

“Oh,” said Aurelia, unconvinced. She yawned. She lost interest in the conversation, and she forgot her injured feelings. She glanced at her bed, then smiled at her husband innocently. “You have been overwrought more than usual today, Diodorus. Were the magistrates and tax-gatherers and the nobles and the chieftains exceptionally obnoxious?”

“They were pigs,” said Diodorus, expanding. He had caught his wife’s glance at the bed. His hands began to unfasten his girdle. Aurelia rose, shook down her braids, then bent to blow out the lamp.

When they were in bed, and embracing, Diodorus said, “I have arranged a marriage between our Rubria and your favorite nephew, Piso.” And he laid his head on his wife’s breast, and it was a warmth to his heart and a coolness to his forehead. He enveloped himself almost desperately in her strength and gave himself to the gentle ministrations of her hands. He closed his eyes and willed himself to forget Iris, who had retreated like the moon behind a cloud.

In the morning Diodorus awoke in an expansive mood, touched with some regret. Lucanus was only the son of a freedman; nevertheless, Diodorus, who truly loved him as a son, was ashamed of himself. It was that cursed migraine, of course, which had the same effect on a man’s reason as Medusa had on the flesh. What had made him forget that no modest Roman maiden could marry without her father’s consent? It was her young heart that I was probably considering, thought the tribune. I did not want it crushed. As he had loved Iris, so was it possible that the gentle little Rubria would love Lucanus. This made Diodorus more determined than ever to send her and her mother to Rome. In the meantime he concluded the arrangements for Rubria’s betrothal at breakfast with Carvilius Ulpian. They haggled over the dowry. The cautious tribune wished to be certain that if Piso ever divorced Rubria, or she decided to leave his house, her dowry would be returned to her. The senator was in good humor, though he had decided to leave this impossibly simple place the next morning.

Keptah, this rosy dawn, was in Rubria’s room for his usual morning examination. He was deeply distressed. The girl had had a recession in her mortal disease which had lasted longer than any case ever recorded by Hippocrates or his disciples. But the signs of its returning were here. The soft mucous membranes of her mouth and throat showed the deadly lumps of the white sickness. One of her knees was swollen and hot, and, overnight, she had lost the color in her cheeks, and her face was ghostly again. She was languid and feverish, but there was one good sign: her spirits were still merry. There could be another recession if internal bleeding did not occur. The physician examined her urine, and made certain inquiries of the nurse. So far all bodily secretions were free of blood. He advised that she remain in bed for a few days.

He met Diodorus on the stairway. The tribune had an expression of high satisfaction and contentment on his ferocious face. “Why is the maiden not with her mother?” he asked.

“She is a little weary,” said the physician, in a low voice.

Diodorus stopped on the stairway. “Is she ill?” he demanded, and his heart plunged.

The physician hesitated. How long should he keep the tribune unaware that his daughter must die? Diodorus was watching his face keenly. Keptah smiled. “I think she has been romping too vigorously,” he said. “She has sprained her knee. She must remain in bed until the swelling departs.” He added, “I have given her a potion to make her sleep, to rest the injured part.”

The tight compression around Diodorus’ throat relaxed. He shook his head. “It is unseemly for a maiden of fourteen to behave as a capering child of four. I was looking for you, my Keptah. Before the spring rains begin the Lady Aurelia, and my daughter, and you, will leave for Rome. I have just arranged a marriage for her with my nephew, Piso, son of Carvilius Ulpian.”

Keptah was appalled. He folded his thin and dusky hands in his white robe so that Diodorus could not see their clenching and trembling. “Master,” he said, “it is not time. Rubria has made much progress in this warm and gentle climate. She has been well for a number of years. However, she is still of a delicate constitution, and to expose her to the dampness and the raw winters of Rome, as yet, will be dangerous.”

“Nonsense,” said Diodorus, but he was alarmed. “I have seen the sickliest girls become buxom and sturdy after marriage, and particularly after the birth of children. Rubria has been pampered too much.”

Keptah moistened his lips, and kept down his eyes so that the tribune would not see the fear in them. The girl had less than a year to live; she might die within the next day or two. To take her from her father, from her beloved playmate, from the warmth and scents of Syria, would hasten her death, deprive her of tranquility.

“A year, six months,” pleaded Keptah. “She is only fourteen.”

“No,” said Diodorus, slapping his hand emphatically on the white wall of the stairway. “Within a month.”

Keptah, forgetting his position, lifted his voice and cried, “In the name of God, Diodorus, do not send the child away from you! She is heart of your heart; she loves you more dearly than anyone else in the world.”

“That I know,” said Diodorus, in a softer tone. “Do you think it will be easy for me to relinquish her? But if she and her mother go to Rome, that ice-blooded Caesar may recall me. Carvilius Ulpian will do all he can. Tiberius always listens to the senators, and Carvilius has many friends among them. I wish peace. I wish to retire to my farm.”

Keptah thought of the love between Rubria and Lucanus. He had watched the growing innocent passion between the maiden and the son of Aeneas. He had not warned Lucanus lately that the girl must die. They must have their young dream of love, the fairest and the sweetest dream of all, until the inevitable moment. It was a pure love; sadly, it was developing into the love of a woman for a man each day that passed. Were not Rubria dying, Keptah would have suggested to the tribune himself that he remove his daughter from a situation that would inevitably produce anguish for her.

Keptah was in a quandary. He could not bring himself to tell this father that his child would inevitably expire within a few months at the most. Yet he knew that she could not go to Rome, to die in tears for Lucanus and her father. There was only one thing to do. Bowing in silence to the tribune, he left for the women’s quarters and asked a slave to beg Aurelia to grant him a moment’s consultation. Aurelia, who was spinning industriously among her slaves, called him to her, not pausing in her work. Keptah studied her. She was a woman of sense and fortitude, never hysterical, never capricious, never sullen or irrational. Her cheeks were pinker than usual this morning, and her large brown eyes softer, as if she were dreaming of some past pleasure and love.

“May I speak to you in private, Lady?” asked Keptah. Aurelia immediately sent her slaves away, but her hands moved busily. “How is our Rubria this morning?” she asked.

Keptah said, “There is something I must tell you, Lady, that I dare not tell the noble tribune.”

Aurelia held the distaff still in her hand, and her foot paused on the treadle. She paled a little, but her eyes did not darken, nor did they enlarge with alarm. She said, quietly, “Rubria is ill again?”

“Yes, Lady. And she cannot live. She will die before the autumn.”

Aurelia became white under the brownness of her skin. She put the distaff down without a single tremor of her hands. “Tell me,” she said, in a hushed voice.

Keptah had never admired her as much as he admired her now. The strength in her was as the strength of an oak, tormented by a gale but not overthrown by it. Like Ceres, who had lost her daughter Proserpine to the god of death, Pluto, so she would lose her daughter to him. Unlike Ceres, she would not curse the earth, nor go up and down it, wailing. Her roots were deep and sinewy.

“The little Rubria has the white sickness,” said Keptah, and he could not keep the tears from his enigmatic eyes. Aurelia saw them, and she was touched. She said, “The white sickness. There is no cure for that, that I know. You are certain, Keptah?”

“Yes, Lady. She has had a recession for a number of years, far beyond my expectations. But now the disease has returned. God granted a miracle once for His own mysterious purposes. He will grant no other miracle this time.”

Aurelia folded her sturdy hands on her knees and looked down at them. “I have not told the tribune that I am with child. I wished to be sure. Shall I tell him this in order to lighten the blow of Rubria’s coming death?”

“Lady, you may tell him of the coming child in another two weeks. Then we can be sure. But do not tell him of Rubria. His heart is in her hands.”

Aurelia nodded. She was silent for a long time, while Keptah stood before her in that bare and shining room. She began to weep, but in silence. She accepted even death with fortitude.

“Let him have peace. Let him be joyful in both his daughter and the child to be born,” said Keptah, honoring her. “I have told you the truth, Lady, because I need your help. Rubria cannot go to Rome. As she must die, inevitably, it is well that she die here with her father beside her.”

“I see,” said Aurelia. Mechanically, she made as if to lift the distaff, then withdrew her hands. “I will tell Diodorus that I prefer to remain here until the autumn, and that the summer in Antioch will further improve Rubria’s health. We were to leave in fourteen days.”

She looked at Keptah again, and her full bosom trembled. “Thank you,” she said, with deep gratefulness. And she took up the distaff again.

Keptah intercepted Lucanus as the youth was about to enter the schoolroom where Cusa was already laying out the lessons. “Come with me,” said Keptah, and took the boy’s arm and led him into the sweet wild blue wind of the early spring morning. They stood in the center of the garden, where no one could hear them. Keptah looked into the eyes of the young man and said quietly and seriously, “I have evil news to tell you, my Lucanus. The white sickness has returned to Rubria, and she will die before the leaves fall.”

Lucanus stiffened. His cheeks became like marble. During the past two or three years he had come to believe that Rubria would live. Moreover, it seemed to him that his very spirit was entangled in hers, like the two trees of the souls of the husband and wife who had received mercy from the gods because of their great love. He had not talked with Keptah of Rubria; he had been too afraid. Each day that she blossomed he rejoiced; each hour with her was as gold, newly mined and pristine. Her laughter was clearer and stronger, the color in her cheeks brighter, her limbs lighter and swifter in movement. God had wrought a miracle, and though Keptah had warned him at first that this was only a recession, Lucanus had mutinously come to believe that the miracle was permanent.

“I do not believe it,” said Lucanus, in a strangled voice, and tried to pull his arm from Keptah’s grasp. Now his eyes became vivid with pain and terror, and he looked at Keptah as at a deadly enemy. Keptah tightened his hand. “I do not lie,” he said. “The girl is dying.”

“God cannot allow this terrible thing to happen,” said Lucanus, and with a note of hatred in his tones. He looked at the pellucid dome of heaven. “He cannot take Rubria, who has harmed no one, whose heart is pure, who brings delight and love in her very shadow.”

Keptah sighed, “If God took only the wicked, then this world would be paradise, indeed. It is said that they whom the gods love die young. God loves this child. She will be taken to Him, to rest in peace and light forever, waiting for you.”

But the young heart of Lucanus rebelled violently. His mind was full of darkness and despair. The soft wind on his flesh made him shudder. He hated God, who could deprive the world of Rubria and tear his spirit to tatters. All that he had known of God, all the love he had given Him humbly and with joy and exultation, died down into bitter ash blowing in a deathly wind. Often he had prayed, “Not Rubria, Father, but me. Spare Rubria.” And he had believed that God had heard him and would grant his prayer.

He said to himself, distractedly, I do not believe! I do not believe any longer! If God takes Rubria, then He is evil, and there is nothing but evil in the world. There is no God.

Had Rubria died when she had once been dying, Lucanus would have accepted with the simplicity and sadness of an innocent child, and would have prayed for Rubria’s soul. He loved her now as a man, with power and intensity and his whole soul’s longing and dedication. As a man he suddenly believed that she would die completely and be lost to him forever.

Keptah, watching him, saw the fierce hatred and agony in the youth’s eyes, the bitter rebellion, the refusal. He said, with alarm, “Have you, then, forgotten all you knew, my Lucanus? Have you forgotten the Star, the love, the understanding? Have you lost your devotion to God, and your knowledge of Him?”

Lucanus said through dry lips, “I have forgotten. I dreamt as a child. I am now in a man’s world.”

“Then, as a man, you must accept. Revolt is for children, who have no knowledge.” Keptah sighed again. He put his hand on Lucanus’ rigid shoulder. He remembered that the Magi had told him that Lucanus must travel a dark and lonely path to God. Yet he wished the youth not to travel alone.

“Do you think that only you have known grief?” asked Keptah. “The heart recoils at grief, for that is natural. But you have known more than grief. You have known God. Is He so easy to forget?”

Lucanus was silent.

“Not to reject pain instantly is not to be human,” said Keptah, urgently. “Be happy that all these years have been yours, that no sadness has touched you, that you have the love of your parents, and Diodorus, that your life has been serene and joyous, that you have loved Rubria. God has been tender and loving with you. Yet, at the very moment when He demands that you understand, that you have faith, that in despair and storm you accept Him as simply as you accepted Him in sunshine and beauty and laughter, you turn from Him in hate and cry in your soul, There is no God!”

Lucanus drew a deep breath. “Let Him perform another miracle.”

Keptah shook his head. “Are you to lay down the rules of what He shall do?” He added, “I have been your teacher. You have gone with me through this large household. You have seen pain and suffering and death. You have knelt beside the pallet of dying slaves and have comforted them with words of peace and love and faith, and have directed their thoughts to God. But — God must not touch you, He must not wring your own heart! Are you, then, so sacrosanct that you must be spared the common fate of all other men? Oh, you egotist! Oh, you of little faith!”

Lucanus did not reply. His eyes were like blue stone. Keptah continued. “A woman is stronger and wiser than a man. I have given the news to Aurelia, and she accepted it with bravery and submission.” He added, “I have not told Diodorus. He, like you, has no fortitude.”

Lucanus cried, “How can there be fortitude when there is no answer to grief and suffering?”

Keptah looked at the earth meditatively. “There was a man called Job who asked that question. And God said to him, ‘Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the world?’ And Job was silenced.”

“That is a Sophist’s answer,” said Lucanus.

“Nevertheless, it is an answer more comforting than any other.”

Lucanus pressed his hands over his eyes, and Keptah regarded him with compassion. Then Keptah said, “Rejoice in small mercies. It was the will of Diodorus that Rubria leave you in two weeks for Rome. Now the heroic Lady Aurelia will dissuade him, for she knows. She will not have her daughter die so far from her father. And from you. Can you not be as noble as a woman?”

Cusa emerged into the garden. “Ah, there you are, you rascally Greek!” said the Grecian tutor. “You will avoid your lessons, will you? Make haste, you vagabond!”

Lucanus looked at him with wrath. But Keptah smiled and touched his arm. “My good Cusa, your pupil is ready. I have just completed a lesson.” He turned to Lucanus. “Have I completed the lesson?”

But Lucanus looked at him somberly. And he left Keptah, who gazed after him in sadness.