“Die with dignity?”
“Yes. And I’d advise you to do that. Be merciful and put some of this in her drink,” he said and held out a small vial. When Iulius didn’t take it, he set it on the small table near the bed. “You can let nature take its course,” he said, “but, in my opinion, that would be the ultimate cruelty.” He looked toward the bed. “She’s of little use to herself or anyone else in this state. If she had a choice, I’m sure she would choose to die.”
Alone with Phoebe, Iulius sank down on a stool beside the bed. He looked at Phoebe lying so still and pale, completely helpless. Her eyes were closed. The only sign that she was alive was the gentle rise and fall of her chest.
He thought of how hard she worked to help others, the hours she spent preparing for the coming day. Would she want to live like this?
Could he bear life without her?
Iulius took the small vial in his hand and looked at it. The doctor’s conviction about her condition rang in his ears. He had to think of her, of what she would want. But after a moment he set it back on the table. “I can’t do it, my lady,” he said in a choked voice. “I’m sorry. I can’t let you go.”
Reaching over, he took her left hand and pressed it between both of his.
16
“Put the tray over there,” Alexander said to the servant who entered the bibliotheca, not even glancing up from the scroll he was studying. He tapped his finger on the parchment in frustration. “I’ve been over and over these records, Rapha, and I’m still no closer to knowing what’s wrong with her. The baths and massage didn’t do any good. She’s as uncomfortable now as she was a few weeks ago.”
Hadassah stood near the windows, looking out over Ephesus. They were a long way from the booth near the baths. She could see the Artemision from here, its magnificent facade enticing masses into the dark environs of pagan worship. She was uncomfortable in this place, too close to the steps of that foul but beautiful temple. She remembered Julia dressing in her red finery and setting off to seduce the famous gladiator, Atretes. Oh, what tragedies had come of that! What other sorrows befell those who bowed down to Artemis and other false gods and goddesses like her?
“Are you listening, Hadassah?”
She glanced back at him. “I’m sorry. . . .”
He repeated himself. “What do you think?”
How many times had they been over this same conversation? Sometimes she was so tired and disheartened, she could weep. Like now, when her mind was elsewhere. Why was Marcus so much in her thoughts of late?
“Hadassah?”
“Perhaps you’re too busy treating symptoms and neglecting the possible cause.”
“Specifics,” Alexander said. “I need specifics.”
“You say you’ve found nothing in your physical examinations of Venescia to explain the severity and persistence of her many ailments.”
“That’s correct.”
“Then what do you know about her?”
“She’s rich. I know that. Her husband is one of the proconsul’s advisers.” Hadassah turned toward him, and he looked at the blue hue of the veils that covered her scars. When his financial circumstances had changed for the better, he had purchased new tunics and veils for her, but she had gone on wearing the gray. Finally, exasperated, his temper had erupted.
“What stubbornness is this you have that keeps you attired like a specter of death? Has God something against colors that you must look like a veiled raven? You look more like a servant of the underworld ready to pole someone’s way across the river Styx than a healer!”
Of course, he had immediately regretted his outburst and apologized. And the next morning she had appeared in the blue dress and veils she now wore. He had been embarrassed, his face hot. Something within him was changing subtly toward her, and he wasn’t sure what it was or what it meant.
Patients often gave her gifts of money. She didn’t dissuade them, but accepted it with murmured thanks and then simply dumped the coins in a box and left it forgotten on a shelf. The only time she opened it was before she visited the patients they had treated near the baths. She poured the contents into a pouch and took it with her. When she returned, it was always empty. However, time was becoming more precious these days as his practice grew and demands upon her increased.
“Did you hear me, Hadassah?” he said, perplexed at her pensiveness this evening. Was she praying again? Sometimes he could tell simply by the quietude that surrounded her.
“I heard you, my lord. Do you think Venescia’s wealth has something to do with her illness?”
Tired, Alexander tried to curb his impatience. It was dusk, and he had seen more than twenty patients today, most with simple complaints that were easily remedied. Venescia was different. And her husband was important. A misdiagnosis could mean the death of his career.
There were days when he wished he had stayed in the booth by the baths.
“You’re leading me again, but not telling me where,” he said. “Just say what you think and stop expecting me to come to the right conclusions on my own.”
She turned and looked at him. “I don’t know what the right thing is to do,” she said simply. “You’re a physician and you want physical answers. All I know about diet is what I remember from the Pentateuch, and you’ve already written that down. All I know about drugs I learned from you. All I know of massage and rubbing techniques I learned by watching you.”
“Pray then, and tell me what God says.”
Hadassah’s hands clenched. “I do pray. I pray all the time. For you.” She turned away again. “And others . . . ,” she added after a moment.
Was Marcus all right? Why did she have this persistent nagging inside her to pray for him? And what of Julia? Why was she on her mind so much lately?
Lord, I pray and pray and still have no peace about them.
“So Venescia’s problem isn’t physical,” he said, doggedly searching for treatment. Hadassah said nothing. Maybe she was thinking the problem over. Alexander took some meat from the platter and poured himself some wine. “All right. We’ll look at this logically. If it’s not physical, it’s mental. Maybe she thinks an ailment into being.” He chewed the tender beef and swallowed. “Maybe the answer is to have her change her thinking.”
“Will you ever change yours?”
He raised his head and looked at her standing by the windows. Something in her stance made him sense her sadness. He frowned slightly. Crossing the room, he put his hands on her shoulders. “I believe everything you’ve told me, Rapha. I swear it. I know God exists. I know he’s powerful.”
“Even the demons believe, Alexander.”
His hands tightened as he turned her to face him. Filled with an inexplicable fury, he swept the veils from her face so he could see her eyes. “What are you saying? That I’m a demon in your eyes?”
“I’m saying your knowledge is all in your head, and that’s not enough. Saving knowledge is of the heart.”
“I want saving knowledge,” he said, mollified, thinking again of Venescia. “What do you think I’ve been asking for all this time we’ve been together?”
Hadassah shook her head. His hands dropped from her shoulders, and she sank down on a stool.
Alexander went down on one knee before her and put his hands on her knees. “I believe, Rapha. I say all the prayers I’ve heard you say exactly the same, and still I never have the answers I need. Tell me where I’m going wrong.”
“Maybe you receive no answers because you’re asking for the wrong things.” She put her hands over his. “Maybe what you really desire is God’s power and not his revealed wisdom.”
Alexander let out his breath. “I’d take either one if it would help that woman get well. That’s all I want, Rapha, to heal people.”
“It’s what I want, too, only in a different realm. God comes first.”
“I only know the realm of reality. Flesh and bone. The earth. Reason. I have to deal with those things I know best.”
/> “Then think in those terms. Life is like a pond, and every decision and act we commit, good or bad, is a pebble flung into it. The ripples spread in widening circles. Perhaps Venescia suffers the consequences of the choices she made in her life.”
“I’ve thought of that. I told her to abstain from sexual relations with men other than her husband, and she’s already abstaining from wine and lotus.”
“You still don’t understand, Alexander. The answer isn’t in removing things from your life or adding more rules to follow. The answer is giving your life back to the God who created you. And he’s every bit as real as flesh and blood, the earth, reason. But I can’t make you see that. I can’t open your eyes and ears.”
He sighed heavily and stood. He rubbed the back of his neck and went back to his scrolls. “Unfortunately, I don’t think Venescia is looking for God, Rapha.”
“I know,” Hadassah said quietly.
Venescia was like so many of the patients that had come to Alexander and her since Antonia had been delivered of her child. They came looking for magic cures and quick recoveries. Some were pale and thin, addicted to vomiting one rich meal so they could partake of another. Others complained of trembling muscles while their breath reeked of wine and their skin was yellow with jaundice. Men and women alike practiced a life of promiscuity and then wanted to be cured of ulcers on their genitals or noxious discharges. The appeal was so often the same: Make me comfortable so I can go on doing whatever I want to do.
They wanted sin without consequences.
How do you bear us, Lord, when we are so stubborn and foolish? How do you bear us at all?
And then there was poor Alexander, empathetic to their pain and suffering, striving to be a master physician, yearning for concrete answers to all the ills of mankind.
Remedies, he always thought in terms of remedies! Avoid the midday sun, the morning and evening chill. Be careful not to breathe the air near marshes. Observe the color of your urine. Exercise, sweat, take lots of cleansing baths, get a massage, read aloud, march, run, play. Be cautious of the cut of meat, the type of soil your foods were grown in, the quality of water, and freshness of food.
None of them, not even he, seemed to realize they weren’t just physical beings, that God had left a mark upon them by the simple fact of his creation. They preferred their idols, tangible, possessing capricious characteristics like themselves, easily understood. They wanted something they could manipulate. God was inconceivable, intangible, incomprehensible, unexploitable. They didn’t want a life of self-sacrifice, purity, commitment, a life of Thy will be done, not mine. They wanted to be master of their own life, to have their own way, and be answerable to no one.
And you allow it, Father. You absolutely refuse to violate our free will. O Lord, blessed Jesus, sometimes I wish you would reach down and take hold of us and shake us so hard there would be no one able to deny you—that every man, woman, and child would bow down before you. Forgive us, Lord. Forgive me. I am so discouraged. I saw you at work in those near the baths, but here, Lord, I only see pain and mulish struggle. Father, I see Julia over and over again in their faces. I see her same unquenchable, wanton hunger. Strengthen me, Lord. Please strengthen me.
“I’m going to tell Venescia and her husband that she’ll need to find another physician,” Alexander said, rolling up the scroll.
Hadassah looked up in surprise. “What reason will you give them?”
“The truth,” he said simply. “I’ll tell them you believe her illnesses are of a spiritual nature. I won’t contend against God.” He shoved the scroll into one of the many cubbyholes in the large shelf above the desk. “Perhaps I’ll recommend Vitruvius. He’d contend against anything.”
“Don’t send her to a diviner, my lord. Please.”
“Where do you suggest I send her?”
“Leave that up to her.”
Someone tapped on the door, and Alexander called for them to come in. Rashid entered. “There’s a young man downstairs who was sent to find Rapha. He said his mistress has been struck down by a sudden, strange paralysis. I wouldn’t have bothered you, my lord, but when he told me her name, I thought it best to advise you.”
“What is her name?”
“Phoebe Valerian.”
Hadassah’s head came up sharply. Rashid glanced at her. “You know this name?”
“Everyone knows the name,” Alexander said. “Decimus Andronicus Valerian was one of the wealthiest and most powerful merchants in Rome. According to legend, he started his enterprise here in Ephesus and then moved to the more lucrative hills of Rome, where he flourished. I heard he returned with his family a few years ago to die of a wasting illness. Last I heard, his son, Marcus Lucianus, had taken the reins of the holdings. Was it the son who sent this servant?”
Hadassah’s heart beat wildly.
“He didn’t say who sent him,” Rashid said. “I came to you, my lord, because I know Valerian is a name far more powerful than Magonianus.”
Alexander raised his brows. “Then his message was in the manner of a summons.”
“No, my lord. He pleads as though his life depended on it.”
“Valerian. I’m not sure I want to be involved with someone so powerfully connected,” Alexander said, thinking of his current dilemma over Venescia. He had trouble enough with her. Could he afford to add more risk?
“Tell him we will come, Rashid,” Hadassah said and rose.
Surprised, Alexander protested. “We should think about this!”
“Either you are or you are not a physician, Alexander.”
Hadassah didn’t recognize the servant. He was young and handsome, his skin swarthy. He was the sort of slave Julia would purchase, not Lady Phoebe. “What’s your name?”
“Gaius, my lady.”
She remembered him then as a young boy who’d worked in the kitchen.
“Rashid,” Alexander said, “call for the litter.”
“That won’t be necessary, my lord,” Gaius said, bowing. “There is one waiting for you outside.”
They were carried swiftly to the Valerian villa in the most exclusive section of Ephesus. Alexander lifted Hadassah from the litter and carried her up the marble steps. Another slave had been watching for them and opened the door to greet and usher them in. “This way, my lord,” the young woman said and hurried toward another marble stairway. Alexander glanced into the peristyle and thought it was one of the most beautiful and restful he had ever seen.
He carried Hadassah up the steps and lowered her when they reached the upper corridor. She swayed slightly. He caught her hand to steady her. It was ice cold. “What’s wrong?” he demanded. She shook her head and took her hand from his, preceding him down the corridor and into the bedchamber.
She recognized Iulius at once. He had been Decimus’ personal servant, and she had had little discourse with him. He sat beside Phoebe’s bed, his face lined with worry. The slave girl spoke softly to him, and he rose and came toward them. Bowing deeply, he said, “Thank you for coming, my lord.” He bowed again to her. “Rapha,” he said, and there was great respect in that single word—and great hope as well.
Hadassah looked toward the bed and the woman lying upon it. She walked slowly toward it, each step bringing back piercing memories. Phoebe’s hair lay against the cushions. Her skin was pale, almost translucent.
While questioning Iulius, Alexander examined Phoebe. Iulius told him how one of the servants had found her lying on the tiles out on the balcony, how she uttered strange sounds and couldn’t move anything but her left hand.
While they talked and Alexander worked, Hadassah stood close by studying Phoebe intently. Her face was lax, her mouth sagging slightly, one eye dull. She muttered garbled words at Alexander once as he examined her.
“She was working very hard, my lord,” Iulius went on. “Too hard. She spent every day down at the tenements near the docks visiting sailors’ widows. She’d be up late at night weaving cloth for tunics.”
; “I’ll need to speak with her son,” Alexander said, drawing up her eyelid and leaning closer to study her.
“He sailed for Judea some months ago. There’s been no word from him since.”
Hadassah’s heart sank. Judea! Why would Marcus want to go to that war-torn country? Yet a pang came as she remembered the flower-splashed hillsides of Galilee.
Alexander put his head against Phoebe Valerian’s chest, listening to her heartbeat and breathing. “Has she any other children?” he said, straightening.
“A daughter.”
“Here in Ephesus?”
“Yes, but they don’t see one another,” Iulius said.
Alexander stood and moved away from the bed. Iulius followed.
Hadassah moved closer to Phoebe. She saw a chain around her neck and a small medallion lying against her white skin. Leaning down, she took the small medallion and turned it in the palm of her hand, expecting to see one of the many gods or goddesses Phoebe had always worshiped in her lararium. Instead, she found the engraving of a shepherd holding a lamb over his shoulders.
“Oh!” she breathed softly, and warmth and thanksgiving spread through her. Phoebe’s eyes moved, one seeming to focus in confusion on her veils. Hadassah leaned down closer and looked into Phoebe’s face, studying her intently. “You know the Lord, don’t you?”
Alexander spoke with Iulius a few feet away. “She’s suffered a brain seizure.”
“That’s what the other physician said,” Iulius said. “Can you help her?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” Alexander said flatly. “There’s nothing anyone can do. I’ve seen a few cases like this before, and all you can do is make her comfortable until it’s over. Mercifully, I don’t think she’s aware of what’s going on around her.”
“And if she is?” Iulius said in a choked voice.