Dear and Glorious Physician

by Taylor Caldwell

  Lucanus thought of the faceless wretches in the hold, chained together, sweltering and sick and dying. He said, abruptly, “Summon your physician.”

  The physician was a tired and middle-aged man, a Gaul with darting dark eyes, and a slave himself. “This is my own physician, Priam, Lucanus,” said Gallo.

  Priam looked at Lucanus and bowed.

  “It is plague on board?” said Lucanus.

  “It is only the galley slaves,” said Gallo, impatiently. “But now that you know, Lucanus — and I feared to let you know — I shall order one of these fumigating lamps sent to your own cabin. Your Cusa already knows; he keeps himself and his wife and babe locked up now in his own cabin, except when he serves you. I ordered him, as captain and the absolute authority on this ship, not to divulge the plague on board in an effort to spare you disquietude.”

  “The slaves are men,” said Lucanus, in a hard voice.

  Gallo stared at him in amazement. Priam’s face became strange, and he too stared at Lucanus.

  “What is a slave?” Gallo was aghast. He could not believe his ears. He knew that Lucanus was peculiar and unlike other young men, but this was beyond belief. “Lucanus, these creatures are felons, murderers, and thieves, condemned to the galley for years or life.”

  “Nevertheless, they are men,” said Lucanus. His white face now bore spots of furious red on the wide cheekbones, and his blue eyes raged below his fair brows. Gallo was convinced he was mad. A galley slave a man! Gallo was alarmed. He said, with solicitude, “Your appearance is unwell, Lucanus. The climate in Alexandria is arduous, I know. If you will permit Priam to prescribe a light sedative for you — ”

  “You do not understand me,” said Lucanus, trying to keep his voice quiet. “To me, as a physician, a slave is a man, a human being, capable of suffering as fiercely as a Caesar. A criminal, a felon, a murderer are also men. They are not apart from us in their humanity.”

  Gallo’s eyes tightened. He would have Lucanus’ wine drugged. Gods, he thought, I am not responsible for his derangement! But what shall I tell the authorities when we arrive home? That the adopted son of Diodorus Cyrmus had been confined as a madman? The thought made him shudder. He said, in a brotherly tone, trying to soothe Lucanus, “Yes, yes. Certainly. Priam will conduct you to your quarters. He will stay with you for a while, Lucanus. He was graduated from Tarsus, and no doubt you will find much medical knowledge to discuss together.” He half rose from his chair. But Lucanus leaned forward and said in a repressed tone, “You still do not understand. You are a Roman, and you feel and think as a Roman, Gallo. A slave to you is less than a jackal. To me he is a brother.”

  Gallo was in despair. He had troubles enough, and a madman was on his own precious ship with him! He glanced at Priam, who was gazing at Lucanus as one hypnotized, and a tear lay at the corner of his eyelid. Gallo stared at his physician. Was the rascal drunk? He said angrily, “Priam, conduct the noble Lucanus to his quarters and prepare a draught for him at once! He is obviously ill.”

  But Lucanus turned to Priam and said, “My Indu teachers have taught me that rats and their fleas spread this disease. Have you heard?”

  Priam was unable to speak. He shook his head dumbly.

  “It is true,” said Lucanus, as one physician to another. He pointed at Priam’s thin dark legs. “You should wear wrappings of linen on them to protect yourself from the fleas when you go among the slaves to minister to them.”

  Gallo lost control of himself, and shouted, “Do you think I would permit my physician, for whom I paid a thousand gold sesterces — a thousand gold sesterces! — to go into the galleys? He is here to protect my passengers, not slaves, and none of the passengers has been stricken. The moment he reported to me that the plague had struck the galley slaves I forbade him even to approach their locked door. I am the captain! My orders are of life and death on this ship, and I seek no pardon from even you, Lucanus, when I remind you of this!”

  Lucanus answered calmly, “I suggest that every rat on this ship that can be found be exterminated at once, that every room be fumigated against the fleas, that every inch of wood on this ship be washed with lye.”

  Gallo had regained his control. Lucanus was speaking rationally, but madmen also had their rational moments. He said, “I will give these orders at once. And now — ”

  Lucanus rose. “And now I will go into the galleys and see what I can do, after I wrap my own legs and arms in linen against the fleas.”

  Gallo got to his feet. He said, in a deadly tone, “I must remind you again that I am captain, and that even if Caesar were my passenger he would have to obey the maritime laws. While we are on this ship, my ship, I am the supreme authority. You will return to your quarters. Lucanus, and my physician will go with you to calm you.”

  “No,” said Lucanus. “Unless you drag me there. I am a physician, and I too have my duties, and my laws.”

  He will have to be confined closely, thought the unfortunate captain. At any moment he may become violent, and the gods only know what will happen. How was it possible even for a madman to reach such heights of madness? “I shall go into the galleys — ” Gallo hesitated. He would summon his officers and have a light chain attached to Lucanus’ legs and wrists. The dismal prospect opened before him of delivering the adopted son of Diodorus Cyrinus, the descendant of the Quinites, the former Proconsul of Syria, chained like a criminal, at the home port. Diodorus’ tempers and rages were notorious. The captain himself would have to answer for this serious offense against the person of Lucanus, even though he was only too obviously mad. Gallo debated. The dilemma was hideous. But still he had the law with him, and it was for Lucanus’ protection that he must act.

  “Have you no pity, Gallo?” asked Lucanus, hopelessly. “I know that a slave, particularly a galley slave, is less than an animal to you. Galley slaves can be slaughtered with impunity. But consider. Let your heart listen and be moved for a moment. The slaves bleed as you bleed; they die as you die. And where your spirit goes, there go their souls also. Are you concerned with my own health and safety? Yes. If I should sicken, or die, then you would fear Diodorus, my adopted father. I understand.” His voice softened. “You have only to leave the galley door unlocked. I have my medicines, and I swear to you that I will do all to protect myself, and I absolve you of blame in my behalf. No one need know but us that I am ministering to the slaves. I will come and go unseen except by them.”

  “I am weary, Lucanus,” said the captain. “Leave for your quarters at once or I must — I must — have you taken there by force.”

  “Unless I halt the disease, Gallo, it will spread to the passengers. We may float into port a ship filled only with dead men.”

  Gallo turned away. “Go to your quarters,” he repeated. “In the meantime I will give orders to do as you have suggested.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “I must get into those galleys,” said Lucanus, after he had summoned Cusa at midnight. He had listened for hours to slaves and seamen hunting and destroying rats and washing down the ship with lye.

  Cusa said, “You are insane, of course. I will heat some wine for you and spice it.”

  Lucanus considered him. “You are a clever man, my Cusa. How fast could you pick the lock to the galleys?”

  Cusa refused to take him seriously, or rather refused to show that he took Lucanus seriously.

  “I pick a lock, Lucanus?” He laughed merrily. Then he gave a mighty yawn. “Why did you wake me at this hour? Was it to exchange pleasantries?”

  “You wily Greek,” said Lucanus. “Certainly you are an expert lock-picker. There was not a coffer or a chest or a closet safe from your prying in Antioch. You call Calliope a gossip; you are the worst gossip of all! I used to watch you admiringly, I confess, from a distance, when I was a child. I remember your talents well. Do not look so wounded.” He listened a moment. The squealing of the pursued rats was gone; the ship creaked and groaned and swung listlessly. Only the call of the watch could be
heard here and there.

  Lucanus began to muse aloud. “The ship sleeps, except for the galley slaves and the watch and the officers on deck. From past observation, Cusa, I should judge that a few moments would suffice for you to unlock that door in the bowels of the ship and let me in with my medicines.”

  Now Cusa was greatly alarmed. “Master! Consider if you become infected yourself. Ah, yes, you have already said you have considered it. Am I to deliver a dead body to Diodorus? Your face is set like iron. Let us then consider more practical aspects of the situation. Gallo has refused you admission to the galleys, and I apologize to him because I had considered him a gross person to whom to offer good wine is a blasphemy. He has supreme command over this ship. Should the watch discover me tampering with the lock, the captain would throw me in irons, and that is only what I should deserve. You and he, then, would maintain an icy silence while I languished, waiting for the day when we landed so I could be dragged off to prison. Yes, yes,” and he lifted a delicate palm, “I understand that you would take the blame. But Gallo would not put Lucanus, son of Diodorus, in irons. He might confine you to quarters, which he ought to have done the moment we sailed. I have a wife and child; the prospect of prison for violating maritime law does not invite me. Consider the wife and child, Lucanus.”

  Lucanus became impatient. “I have considered everything,” he said. “I will go with you to the door, and if we are caught I shall tell the captain that you did what I asked under the most ferocious of threats, and you can then ask the captain to protect you against my madness. If irons are still the result, Diodorus will have you freed in a twinkling.”

  “I doubt it!” cried Cusa. “You know what a stickler for law he is!”

  Lucanus’ face brightened, and he snapped his fingers. “Bring me Scipio, the younger of the centurions!”

  “At this hour?”

  “At this hour. Hasten, Cusa. Your arguments bore me.”

  Shaking his head dolefully, Cusa left the smoky cabin and soon returned with Scipio, who, though red-faced with sleep and swollen of bleary eye, had first put on his armor and his helmet and his sword, as befits a soldier. He lifted his right arm in salute to Lucanus, and Lucanus returned the salute. “Sit beside me, my excellent Scipio,” he said. “I wish to talk with you.”

  Cusa stood by the door and listened, scratching himself under his night tunic and full of anxiety. Lucanus said, “Scipio, as a soldier you have no high opinion of seamen, have you?”

  “Master, as a soldier I despise them. They are fit only to maneuver warships into good positions so that soldiers may attack.” Scipio’s black eyes began to shine with interest, but as a military man he did not question why he had been called at midnight. Lucanus, to him, was proxy for that powerful soldier, Diodorus, whose name was reverenced by all soldiers.

  “Seamen are so arrogant,” said Lucanus, sighing. “Do you know that Gallo threatened me tonight, threatened to bolt me in my quarter s because I differed in opinion with him? He shouted at me that he was king on this ship.”

  Scipio was outraged. “He spoke like that to you, Master, you, the son of Diodorus Cyrinus?” He could not believe this monstrous thing.

  Lucanus sighed again. “He did. In the presence of his slave.”

  “In the presence of his slave!” Scipio’s young face blackened, and he put his hand on the hilt of his sword and started to rise.

  “Now,” groaned Cusa, throwing up his hands, “who is the wily Greek now?”

  Lucanus ignored him. “I am a physician, Scipio, and surely a physician is more intelligent than a mere captain of a cargo ship, and certainly more valuable. There is plague aboard.”

  At this, Scipio paled, and slowly sat down again. “Unless I can check it in the galleys the whole ship will become infected, and perhaps we all shall die. Have you seen cases of the plague, Scipio? Ah, it is most frightful. Your glands distend, become suffused with pus; your body rots; you vomit blood; you cough blood. You hurl yourself, in delirium, into the most dangerous situations. That is what confronts all of us. Death. There is little chance for survival when one acquires the plague. But that puppethead of a captain refuses to permit me to treat and stop the disease! Is that not incomprehensible?”

  The simple young soldier was incredulous. “But what can one expect of a miserable sailor, Master?” He was becoming excited.

  “May I speak?” asked Cusa.

  “You may not,” replied Lucanus, hastily, and Scipio scowled at Cusa.

  “Naturally, as a physician, and a man of nobility and family, you wish to ignore the orders of that swinehead of a captain,” said Scipio, boiling with wrath.

  “Scipio, you are a young man of the most astute understanding,” said Lucanus, with admiration.

  “Eheu,” groaned Cusa. “I have been accused of having a serpentine nature, but here is one who puts to shame the very serpents of Isis!”

  Lucanus continued to ignore him. Scipio said in a trembling voice of rage, “How dare he presume to give orders to the son of Diodorus Cyrinus?”

  Lucanus nodded mournfully. “He shouted his authority at me; he beat his fist on the table. He threatened me with — what did you call it, Cusa? Ah, yes, irons.”

  Scipio sprang to his feet. “Someone shall pay for this!” he exclaimed.

  “And all I wished was to protect all of us from the plague. We fly the yellow flag, Scipio. We may not even be allowed to land in Italy. We may even be returned to Alexandria, or left to float at sea until we are all dead. You know how rigorous those doctors of Rome are. How long has it been since you have seen your sweetheart, Scipio, and your parents, and Rome, where Romans are Romans and not guardians of a whole ungrateful world?”

  Tears filled Scipio’s eyes. He could have murdered Gallo at once.

  Cusa gaped at Lucanus with astonished admiration. The valorous idiot was as subtle as an Oriental!

  “I need your help, Scipio. There may be a watch at the locked door leading to the galleys. Or the patrolling watch may make his rounds before my wonderful Cusa here picks the lock.”

  Picking locks was reprehensible. For a moment Scipio’s face showed doubt. Then it cleared. What was lock-picking to a Greek?

  “So,” said Lucanus, with a wave of his hand, “all that is necessary is for you, Scipio, to be sleepless or commanded by me to guard me tonight because I am a very nervous man at times and subject to nightmares. So you wander suspiciously over the ship. You come to the door of the galleys; you discover for me if the door is guarded. If so, you will have no trouble in luring away the guard. Then you will divert the patrolling watch while Cusa picks the lock. I need but an hour or two. Cusa will tell you when I emerge from the galleys. Naturally, as he is a pusillanimous man, he would not venture in there.”

  “Being pusillanimous has nothing to do with it!” cried Cusa. “It is a matter of law!”

  Lucanus regarded him more in sorrow than umbrage. “Cusa, you have forgotten what it means to be a soldier of Rome, who is executor of the supreme law.”

  “We are the law,” said Scipio, giving Cusa a curdling glare. “Do you think a sailor’s order is more important than we?” But Cusa only looked at him with pity for being the victim of a scheme he thought not only dangerous but nefarious.

  “I command you to be silent, Cusa,” said Lucanus.

  “Be silent!” said Scipio. “You have heard your master speak.”

  “Eheu, yes. But he has not told you — ”

  Lucanus interrupted. “It is very quiet now, Scipio. Take my thanks and go. Do we not wish to arrive home well, and soon?”

  “And in irons,” said Cusa, desperately.

  “Go also, Cusa, and bring that little black leather bag of yours, with those fine lock-picking tools you probably bought from a thief,” said Lucanus, smiling. “And, Cusa, I charge you not to attempt to whimper your cowardly fears in the ear of a soldier of Rome when you are out of my sight.”

  “Master,” said the young centurion, proudly, “a Roman is
deaf to the conversation of a freedman.”

  Cusa returned alone with his black bag. Lucanus was busily examining the contents of his physician’s pouch. “Naturally,” said Cusa, with bitterness, “you will send some of my fine wine to Scipio, to console him, when the captain throws him in irons. And you will neglect to send the same wine to me.”

  “You worry too much,” said Lucanus. He was as alert and brisk as if he had newly arisen. His cheeks were rosy; his eyes flashed with satisfaction.

  “I never thought that my pupil would condescend to the degradation of lies,” said Cusa.

  Lucanus checked his scalpels. “I never uttered a single lie,” he said.

  “No, no, of course not. You are a Sophist. You reek with virtue. That makes you a Stoic, too. You are a man of many parts, Lucanus, and I confess that I have underestimated the streak of villainy in you. And so, as your teacher, I admit I was full of illusion, which was very foolish of me.”