Dear and Glorious Physician (5 page)

Aeneas was all confusion and abject fear. He had offended Diodorus, and he turned with anger on his son. “It is nothing to you that your mother was disturbed, and about to go searching for you in the darkness. It is nothing that you have affronted the noble tribune — ”

“He did not affront me,” interrupted Diodorus. The light from the doorway slanted on Iris’ beautiful and distressed face. Diodorus yearned to put his hand consolingly on her shoulder. “The little Rubria is his playmate. I found him in the gardens, praying beneath her window, for she is ill. I have reason to thank him.” He watched Iris, and noticed that she had begun to smile in grateful relief. He said to the trembling Aeneas, and strove for an easy tone, “A most unusual boy, this of yours, Aeneas, and it has been a privilege to talk with him.” He hesitated. “My throat is dry. May I take a cup of wine with you?”

Aeneas was again overcome. He could hardly believe his own ears. He looked at Lucanus with respect. This was his son of whom the tribune had spoken! And it was because of this son that the tribune had condescended to ask for wine in the house of his freedman. Aeneas was dazzled. He could only mumble and stand aside until Diodorus had strode into his house. He looked briefly and dumbly at Iris, but she had put her arm about her son’s neck and was leading him forward. Aeneas followed, his knees quaking. The tribune had brought the boy home, when he needed only to order him out of his gardens, or, if kindly disposed, might have sent a slave with him in the darkness!

Diodorus had recovered his good humor. He stood in the small but not in the least humble room and surveyed it expansively. There were flowers in a bowl on the table, and flowers in the vases on the floor, which was of marble. The doorways leading to the kitchens and the bedrooms were hung with gay woolen cloth, which swayed in the night air pouring in the small windows and the door. Here and there Diodorus recognized, among the furniture left by the former administrator, chairs and tables from his father’s house, which had been given to Aeneas upon his marriage to Iris. Diodorus looked at one chair in particular, and with pleasure. It was of ebony, inlaid with ivory, and it had been one of his father’s favorites. There was even a little table of precious lemonwood, gleaming in the lamplight, which had belonged to Antonia. It held the silver lamp, with its tongue of bright flame.

“The slave I assigned to you does his work well,” said Diodorus, more and more pleased. He sat down in the ebony chair and stretched his brown and muscular legs before him with all the unaffected movements of a soldier. As Aeneas stood before him uncertainly, formally clad in a long white robe he, the bookkeeper, seemed more the patrician, with his long slender features and narrow face and head, than the frank and unceremonious tribune in his casual short tunic. Why, thought Diodorus, the poor creature even possesses a toga to wear in the secret bosom of his family.

“I have no wine worthy of you, Master,” said Aeneas. But Iris slipped gracefully behind a curtain and brought out a ewer and two silver cups, which Diodorus also recognized from his childhood. Iris, moving like a lovely and animated statue, placed the cups on the lemonwood table and poured the wine. A rosy light reflected back onto her face from the liquid, and Diodorus thought of a marble maiden struck by the sunset. He wanted to touch her miraculous hair, which he had touched so easily in his childhood. He could feel its silken lengths again, and he was all yearning. He thought that his mother, Antonia, ought to have opposed the marriage of Iris to Aeneas with more vigor.

“I am not a connoisseur of wines, thank the gods,” said Diodorus. “One vintage is the same as another to me.” He stretched out his hand for a cup and Iris gave it to him with her ineffable smile, for Aeneas was still too stunned for voluntary movement. “What, are you not drinking with me?” said Diodorus, in a burly tone. Aeneas snatched a cup, and some of the wine splashed on his shaking fingers.

Lucanus, obeying a slight gesture of his mother’s, bowed to Diodorus and bade him good night respectfully. Diodorus smiled gravely, and the boy left the room. Diodorus poured out a small libation to the gods, and Aeneas, still very pale, poured the libation also. The tribune watched as the Greek poured a little more wine, his lips moving reverently. “Ah, yes,” said Diodorus, “the Unknown God.”

“It is a Greek custom,” said Aeneas, apologetically.

“An excellent one,” said Diodorus, and his fierce face became almost bland. He turned his head and saw that Iris had followed her son. He was deeply disappointed, but as an ‘old’ Roman he also approved. “Tell me, Aeneas,” he said. “I am interested in that boy of yours. What are your hopes for him in the future?”

“May I sit, noble Diodorus?” asked Aeneas. He sat stiffly in a chair some distance from his guest. He pondered over Diodorus’ words, and was freshly amazed and humbled by this condescension. “I have thought, Master, that he would follow me in your service.”

“Keeping books and records, that boy?” asked Diodorus, scornfully. “Ah, no. Has he not confided in you that he wishes to be a physician?”

Aeneas, paling still more, could only stare. Certainly the boy had confided in him and in Iris, but Aeneas had severely frowned at the presumptuous thought, and had been offended. “I see that he did.” Diodorus nodded. “Well, then, my good Aeneas, he shall be a doctor.” Again he hesitated ruefully. “I shall send him myself to the school of medicine in Alexandria when he is older. In the meantime he shall take lessons with the little Rubria’s tutor.”

Tears rushed to Aeneas’ eyes. Before Diodorus could move, the bookkeeper had sprung to his feet and had prostrated himself before Diodorus’ dusty sandals. He was beyond speech; he could only mumble distractedly in his gratitude and incredulity.

“Come, come, man,” said Diodorus, who could never endure being thanked. “I have no son of my own, and this is the boy I ought to have had. He shall be a physician. Rise, Aeneas. You are not a slave. And have you forgotten that you took your lessons with me, also?”

He knew exactly what Aeneas’ pretensions were, and how he considered his master a barbarian and he an exiled philosopher from a land he had never seen, and he knew how small, if how honest, a mind Aeneas possessed. Would Aeneas never forget that he was no longer a slave? Diodorus watched, scowling at the white-robed man at his feet. He moved them, as if fearful that Aeneas would kiss them in his extremity of wonder and gratitude, and this, from the husband of Iris, would have been unbearable to him.

Aeneas seated himself in his chair again and dried his tears. Diodorus considerately looked aside and his eye fell on a roll of parchment on the table beside him. He saw that it contained Aristotle’s treatise on Democracy and Aristocracy. Diodorus was immediately interested. He said, “There was delivered to me today some of the books of a new philosopher, Philo. There is much excitement about him, and I wished to compare him with Aristotle.”

For a moment hope awakened in the lonely tribune. He knew, from past experience in talking briefly with Aeneas, that though the freed-man could quote long sections of Plato and Aristotle exactly, and in Greek, he was incapable of any subtle understanding. Yet, still, hope came to Diodorus.

“Philo?” murmured Aeneas, faintly. A spasm of disdain, totally involuntary, passed over his long pale mouth. Then, fearful that he had again offended Diodorus, he hurried on: “Surely he must be a great philosopher.”

Diodorus shrugged. “There are too many in Rome who acclaim him. If a man is judged by the enemies he has made, then he is also judged by the men who honor him. Philo, at his youthful age, has already received too much honor to be of much worth.” He paused. In many ways Caesar Augustus resembled the ‘old’ forgotten Romans, for it was said of him that he was a moral man in comparison with those who thronged his court. He had tried to respect the Senate; if he could not respect the senators, it was not to his blame. “I have heard,” said Diodorus, “that Caesar himself has conversed much with Philo. Ah, well, I shall soon know whether Philo is worthy of such consideration.”

He folded his short but massive arms on his chest and contemplated Aeneas. “Aristotle,” he said, reflectively. “I like his Definitions. In many ways his philosophy is superior to Plato’s, for Plato, though believing himself a realist, yet veiled himself in mysticisms. Even though he taught that universals have objective existence he swathed himself in poetry, for all his Republic, which, in my opinion, is an aery piece of work. What did Aristotle say of him? ‘I love Plato, but I love truth more’.”

Aeneas, to whom Plato was the very essence of revealed truth, could only blink. He strove frantically to follow Diodorus, who he did not believe really understood the Grecian philosophers at all. He could find no words, but contented himself in nodding solemnly.

Diodorus sighed. He saw that Aeneas was not following him. But at least the poor creature was distantly acquainted with the words of the philosophers. The tribune stretched again.

“Plato, though he inherited a mania for defining terms from his master, Socrates, had really no awareness of the real connotations of terms,” said the tribune, warming to the subject. “He did not know it, but all he wrote and said was subjective. Aristotle is the true father of logic. The absolute particular was the only particular which he acknowledged. He was completely objective.” Diodorus mused, scowling for a moment. “Plato was a paradox; demanding precision, he finally foundered in the sea of his generalities. It is interesting to remember that Aristotle was once a soldier, and a soldier knows there are absolutes, such as discipline, honor, obedience, patriotism, and respect for authority.”

“Certainly there are absolutes,” murmured Aeneas complaisantly. What, in the name of the gods, was an ‘absolute’?

Diodorus’ ferocious eyes twinkled almost gently at his freedman. He yawned, drank his wine to the last drop. “It is also interesting to remember that Aristotle belonged to the medical fraternity of Asclepiads. That brings me again to Lucanus. I believe he will be a philosopher as well as a physician. Do you not deny him access to your precious manuscripts, Aeneas.”

Aeneas forgot himself for a moment and said with pride, “He already has access to them. I teach him myself, Master.”

“Good.” Diodorus stretched and stood up, and Aeneas bounded to his feet. God preserve the boy from his father’s fogged teachings, thought Diodorus. He bade Aeneas a pleasant farewell, then went on his lonely way back to his house, through the moonlight, which had turned white and sharp. He began to brood on his frustrations. His heart ached, and he remembered Iris. Even if he desired to behave like the foul swine of modern Rome, he knew it was beyond him. Iris, a former slave, the wife of a freedman, would not dare to deny him. If she still remembered him with love, he could not violate that love. Too, she was a virtuous matron. She had looked at him tonight with misted eyes, and she had smiled at him as she could not possibly smile at her husband. He thought of the handmaiden of his mother with reverent tenderness, which was something so far different from his love for Aurelia that he could not accuse himself of licentiousness even in thought. He compared Iris with Diana, the inviolate, the eternally pure.

He looked at the moon and, in his deep simplicity, he implored the goddess to protect this Greek woman whom he had loved, and whom he still loved. Some comfort came to him.

He did not remember the boy, Lucanus, until he entered his house to find Aurelia unusually anxious. The little Rubria had awakened, and was moaning in her pain, and was asking for her father.

Together, hand in hand, they ascended the staircase and entered the child’s room. Two lamps burned in the small spare chamber, and increased the stagnant heat. Diodorus choked, almost suffocated after the cool night air he had encountered outside. There was a strange stench here; he looked at the little window high on the white wall, on which grotesque shadows were dancing as the slave house physician, Keptah, and the nurse hovered about the bed. The silken curtains had been drawn heavily across the window, and Diodorus marched instantly to it and roughly pulled the curtains aside. “Pfui!” he exclaimed. “It is enough to smother the child! And what is that foulness I smell?”

Aurelia’s ripe cheeks paled. As an obedient matron, she rarely upbraided her husband, especially not in the presence of slaves. She only said, “Diodorus, the night air is dangerous at this time of the year. I ordered the window closed.”

But Diodorus was breathing deeply of the fresh coolness. He took the curtains and fanned them, thus wafting a breeze into the room. “If the child is not already smothered this should revive her,” he said. He motioned to the nurse to continue the fanning, and she scuttled to obey him, her eyes big with alarm.

Diodorus came to the bed. Rubria smiled up at him from her pillows. But it was a painful smile, and she moved her dark head restlessly, holding out her little hand to her father. He took it strongly in both his hard brown palms, and though his heart lurched at its heat he said sturdily, “What is this I hear, my daughter?” His eyes scanned the small face, noting the dwindled outlines of it, the dry hot lips. The fever was consuming this dearest of all creatures. Under the flushed flesh the grayness of death was creeping, like a stealthy tide under sun-red waters. Terror wrinkled the heart of Diodorus, squeezing all its auricles together and bringing with it pure physical anguish.

Keptah was saying smoothly, “Master, I have rubbed an ointment on the limbs of the child, vulture grease, mixed with vulture gall. It is that which is so pungent. But I was taught that it is most efficacious in the treatment of painful joints and sinews.”

Diodorus listened to the slow and torturous breaths drawing through Rubria’s young lungs; he could see, by the struggling light of the lamps, the throbbing of tortured arteries in her childish throat, and in her temples. Still holding her hand, he put his right hand on her breast. The vibration of her heart came to him, fast and frantic. The mysterious disease which so afflicted the tender sinews of her body had struck at the innocent heart and was strangling it.

He bent over the child, who, young as she was, saw her father’s fear and wished only to assuage it. She whispered faintly, “I am much better, my father. The pain is not so bad.” He smoothed the long dark hair on the pillow with shaking fingers; it was damp with sweat. He smoothed the fiery cheek, the delicate curve of throat. He said in himself, Let me die, but spare my daughter. Twist my body and throw it into the dust, but spare my daughter. On me the fire and sword, on me all the curses of the gods, but spare my daughter. A great and awful silence filled him.

The physician was mixing a concoction in a goblet, and after a moment he held it to Rubria’s lips. But she retched on it, and Diodorus motioned the physician aside and took the goblet himself. Obediently then, and controlling her retching, the child drank, slow drop after slow drop, pausing frequently to gasp. Aurelia had begun to massage the swollen portions of the pretty little legs and arms, patiently, steadily, and Diodorus watched her as he held the goblet to his daughter’s mouth. How calm his wife was; if she felt terror she did not betray it. Rubria was sighing now, under the ministrations of her mother, and the spasms became less violent. The nurse continued to fan the room with the curtains, and Keptah moved away from the bed, inscrutable and silent.

Aurelia dipped her fingers again and again into the silver dish of ointment as she rubbed. Her short white fingers had strength in them, and purpose. She seemed to know when to press, when to lift gently. She was like one moving steadfastly upon an enemy, confident and unafraid. Rubria’s body relaxed, inch by inch, became less taut against agony, less tense with suffering. “Ah, ah,” said Aurelia, in a soft and soothing voice. “We shall drive it out. Shall we not?” The muscles of her arms, the muscles in her plump hands, rose and fell visibly; the light of the lamps rippled on them. She fought, but there was no sign of the fight in her placid face, in her serenely smiling eyes. My Aurelia may not have much imagination, but she is a woman, and strength lies in women like the force of armies, thought Diodorus with new humility. Rubria clung to her father’s hand, but she unconsciously turned to her mother as a newborn babe turns. Aurelia’s robe fell forward, and Diodorus could see the rich swelling of her bosom, that untroubled and unhurried bosom. It glistened with sweat, but no frightened breath made it rise and fall.

Still rubbing her child, Aurelia glanced up at her husband, and her smile was full of love. Her brown eyes said to him, I shall save this little one for you. Do not grieve, my dearest. There was no jealousy in her regard. It mattered only that Diodorus must be spared an overwhelming sorrow. Aurelia’s buxom cheeks glowed with her calm exertion, and her full lips curved. She had loosened her black hair for the night; it poured in a dusky cataract over her rotund young shoulders.

Now the fear of Diodorus became less. He turned to Keptah, the physician. He had much regard for his slave, and had frequently lent him to friends who were ill. Priscus had sent him to the great university at Alexandria, early recognizing that the boy had a genius for medicine. The father of Diodorus had liked him as a person, and had secured Diodorus’ promise that when Keptah reached the age of forty-five he would receive his freedom and enough gold to assure his security. Diodorus intended to keep that promise, but though he had respect for his slave as a physician he disliked him as a man. There was no patience in Diodorus for the subtle, the ambiguous, the secretly smiling, the darkly enigmatic, the smoothly skeptical and silent.

For Keptah, at forty, was all of these. No one had ever known his racial origin, but there was something Egyptian in the gaunt face, so remote, mysterious and swart, with its chiseled hooked nose, tilted and hidden eyes, and thin folded mouth. His hair, as short as that of Diodorus, seemed painted by a black brush over a long and fragile skull. He was tall, almost fleshless, and under his robe his bony shoulders were wide. He had brown hands which were long and supple, with bloodless nails and large joints. Diodorus believed that these joints indicated a philosopher, but Keptah, if he had philosophies, occult and mystic, which Diodorus would have enjoyed exploring, nimbly evaded all his master’s tentative probings. “I do not know, Master,” he would murmur in his soft and curiously accented voice. “I am only a slave.”

This haughty parody of humility never failed to irritate the intellectually hungry tribune, who felt himself rebuffed as a rough and stupid soldier. Diodorus also suspected that Keptah laughed at him. There was no denying, however, that he was a wise man and a great physician.

Diodorus, looking at him now, standing aside yet not standing aside, remembered a strange event which had taken place in this house only a few months ago.

The overseer of the hall servants had been celebrating his birthday in the hall of the slaves. Diodorus, good master that he was, and appreciative of faithful servitors, had given orders that excellent food and wine from his own tables be used on that night. As his own gift he had presented the overseer with a bag of gold coins. No restraint was to be put on the celebrations, and so Diodorus, working his way slowly but surely through an obscure treatise on ethics, had put down the roll of parchment and had frowned. It was quiet and lamplit in his library, but the tumult from the slaves’ quarters was an uproarious clamor in the warm air. Then Diodorus had smiled with an effort of indulgence. Theodoras, an old man, would not have many more occasions for hilarity and festiveness. Let the pretty girls dance before him, and the young men cavort, and the wine flow, and the bones be tossed on the marble floor, and the music pound against the walls of the house.

But the noise became more and more unrestrained. The little Rubria would be disturbed, and Aurelia, who rose before her slaves. There was a limit to all things, even birthday celebrations. Diodorus did not confess to himself that the sound of joyous human life under the moon tugged at him, for was he not an austere Roman who detested frivolity? He muttered to himself that he must halt this uproar, but his step was light and quick as he made his way to the slaves’ hall.

The festivities had overflowed from the hall into the scented courtyard of the slaves. Lamps had been set on tables dragged from the hall, and they flickered on palms and flowers and the humble statues in the distant corners. The moonlight and the lamplight mingled together to show a scene of unbridled and ribald festivity. The slave girls, particularly those who had delightful rosy bodies, were almost naked, their hair tossing about them as they performed astonishingly lewd dances, their faces brilliant with lasciviousness and youth and wine. Tresses of brown and black and gold fluttered like banners over nude breasts and round limbs. The young men, dressed like fauns and satyrs, leaped about the girls with shameful gestures. And the music screamed and soared, danced and laughed, incited and lured and shrilled. Lolling like the master himself on a soft couch, Theodoras watched with joy and impotent lustfulness, his white head nodding in time with the music, his twisted fingers snapping.

The fragrance of flowers, herbs, wine, sweat and hot roasted meats and bread was like a fog in the air. The lamps, as if inspired, themselves, burned brighter, and light and shadow chased themselves in drunken shafts over the courtyard. Diodorus was appalled. In this most proper and discreet and decorous household where had the girls and the young men learned these shameless dances, these licentious gestures, these songs, these obscene shouts? It was a bacchanalia! It was not to be permitted! Diodorus, in a deep shadow, felt himself blushing. He must have a talk with Aurelia in the morning. But surely Aurelia must be hearing all this noise herself. Why had she not summoned a slave, sternly, and commanded order and an end to all this?

He hesitated. Theodoras was singing in his cracked and quavering voice. He had begun to clap his hands. Now, to Diodorus’ amazement, the old man was inciting the girls and the young men to wilder antics in phrases which his master had not believed he even knew. Such words, by the gods!

More accustomed now to darkness and lamplight and moonlight, Diodorus let his eyes roam. Across the courtyard he saw a dim movement, then the glimmer of a white robe. He recognized the tall and majestic figure of Keptah, the physician. Diodorus was further astonished. Keptah did not associate with the other slaves at any time. Yet, there he was, watching as Diodorus was watching. He, too, must be lonely.

Keptah suddenly came out of the shadow, revealing himself in his long white physician’s robe, erect and still and incomprehensible. The lamplight shone fully on his face, and Diodorus hardly recognized it, so strange it was, so gleaming, so cryptic, and so contained. Keptah stood and watched the leaping bodies, the tangled arms and legs, the blowing hair, the welter of hot flesh, the joyous abandon of drunken and voluptuous youth. The dancing feet whirled nearer and nearer to him. Sometimes he was obscured by the maidens, and then they receded again, approached and danced away, the young men and boys following in perfect rhythm, their hands grasping and darting after the amorous breasts and arms, or tossing hair. But Keptah did not move or retreat. He had begun to smile, and, seeing that smile, Diodorus frowned. The light on Keptah’s face became a glitter.

Then Keptah lifted his right hand. If he thinks to halt them he is a fool, thought Diodorus. Only a thunderbolt would be effective.

Keptah stood with his hand upraised, and Diodorus could see the flat and swarthy palm. It was not a gesture of command. The thumb curled on the palm in a curious way, and the fingers parted. Diodorus was so absorbed in watching his physician that it was some moments before he became aware that an utter silence had fallen. Even the musicians had ceased to play their wild music.

Diodorus started. He looked about him with disbelief, and then he was struck with amazement. The dancers had halted in the very motions of their dance. The lutists and the harpists and the flutists had frozen, their hands in mid-air. Theodoras’ head had fallen to his ancient breast. Now there was only the most profound silence in the courtyard, except for the hissing of the lamps, the chirp of night insects, the distant cries of birds, the far barking of a dog. Moonlight poured into the courtyard; the lamps died lower. The dancers stood, legs lifted, arms thrown out, faces white and entranced. This might be a scene from a painted mural, or a courtyard crowded with statues, the carved bacchanalia of a mad sculptor.

Diodorus could not believe it. He gaped and stared, then rubbed his eyes and stared again. The night was very warm, but all at once Diodorus was deathly cold. Something rustled; there was the softest step. He jumped in sudden fright, and turned. Keptah was standing near him, smiling darkly and respectfully, and then bowing. He murmured, “They were disturbing you, Master.”

Diodorus shivered. He moved a step or two away. He whispered, “What did you do?”

The unfathomable eyes contemplated him seriously, but in their depths there was a reddish spark. “I, Master?” said the physician, raising his tilted brows as if in surprise at some childishness. “It is nothing at all. I saw you across the courtyard and it was evident that you were annoyed. So I commanded the foolish ones to cease, and they ceased.”

“What did you do?” repeated Diodorus, and now for all his trembling his voice was loud and harsh.

Again Keptah studied him in that mocking surprise. “It is something I learned as a physician, Master.” He turned a little and regarded the awful scene before them. Moonlight, here and there, struck a young and marble breast, the stilled motion of a marble arm, the bend of a marble knee. “It alarms you, Master?” asked Keptah, as if astonished. “It is nothing at all.”

Diodorus lifted his arm in an involuntary gesture of horror and menace. “Release them at once!” he cried, and fell back from the physician, all his superstition making his flesh crawl.

“To abandon and noise, Master?” Keptah appeared puzzled. “It will shortly be dawn.”

“Release them, cursed be you!” shouted Diodorus. He was terribly frightened.

“To more decorum, perhaps?” urged that insidious voice, anxiously.

Diodorus was silent. Keptah appeared to reflect on his master in bafflement. Then he shrugged. He lifted his hand again, and he muttered something under his breath.

The scene did not change suddenly. But moment by endless moment the arms and legs began to move, to drop listlessly. The bodies became alive, though sluggishly. As if moving in dreams, heads turned, feet began to move, not in dance, but in enchantment. The moonlight, cold and motionless, shone down on heavy shoulders, heavy limbs. One by one the slaves crept out of the courtyard, not speaking, not glancing at each other, completely unaware of each other. It was like watching a scene of total exhaustion and animal unconsciousness. To Diodorus it was some soundless and awful nightmare.

And now the courtyard was empty. Only the lamps, the littered tables, the empty chairs remained. The instruments of the musicians lay on the stones as if thrown down in flight. The lamps sputtered out. The moon sank slowly and the palms clattered.

Keptah spoke, and it appeared to Diodorus that they two had stood there for endless time: “They will forget, Master. They will believe they went to their beds after a happy night of revelry and rejoicing.” He sighed. “How fortunate they are to have such an indulgent lord!”

Keptah’s garments fell about him in angular folds. The moonlight lay in the deep hollows of his cheeks, emphasized the caverns about his mouth. “You have thought me evil, Master,” he said. “But I have knowledge. There is an ancient legend that evil and knowledge are one and the same thing. It is not good to know. It is much better to be an innocent animal.” He looked now at Diodorus, and where his eyes were there were caves of depthless darkness. “But,” he said, “who is there among us who would prefer to be without a knowledge of good and evil? Not to know is not to be man. Or the gods,” he added, even more softly.

He moved away, and there was no sound about him.

It was as he had said. When Diodorus, in the morning, cautiously asked Theodoras about the night’s festivities the slave replied joyously, “Thanks to you, Master, it was a glorious night! Never have your servants been happier!” He bent his creaking knees and kissed the hands of Diodorus. The sun was bright on his withered face. “We shall remember it forever,” he said.