Dear and Glorious Physician

by Taylor Caldwell

  “All your gloomy prophecies!” he exclaimed. “Ah, if you were not the son of Diodorus Cyrinus I would laugh at you! But you are young and inexperienced, misfortunes time will cure!”

  He was exuberant, and Lucanus was bewildered. “You have had good news?” he ventured. “From the port we touched briefly last night?”

  “We did not touch the port,” said the captain. “A small craft rowed out to us, bringing letters. One is for you. It is here on this table. We were not allowed to touch port, carrying a yellow flag. But the flag is being furled today!” He shouted with joy, and slapped his thigh and grinned tauntingly at Lucanus.

  He shook his head tolerantly. “You physicians! Even my Priam was mistaken. There was no plague aboard! You know that all die who are afflicted. But even those galley slaves who were stricken recovered, and for three days we have had no illness among them. Do you hear me, young Master? Even the stricken have recovered, and that is impossible with the plague! From one hour to the other they rose from the floor of the galley and took their places at the oars.” He struck his thigh again and bellowed happily in his relief. “And not a single death in three days! It was no plague at all!”

  Lucanus was incredulous. “It is not possible!” he exclaimed. He almost betrayed himself, then added, “Your Priam is an excellent physician. He could not have been mistaken. He has seen plague before.”

  He was greatly shaken in his self-confidence. Was it possible that both he and Priam had made an error? He brought up the faces of the dead and dying before him; he again saw the buboes; he smelled the red vomit; he felt the scorching fire of the fever. He shook his head in absolute bewilderment. The sick and dying had been beyond hope. Yet they had lived, they had recovered quickly, they had been restored to health! Something impossible had happened.

  Nor had it been the medicines he had left for those beyond hope. They had contained only standard opiates to relieve the agony of the moribund. The disinfectant had had its share in preventing fresh infections of the plague, but even this was often ineffective in the face of such virulence. But the sick and dying had lived! Lucanus shook his head again, numbly, and he thought, What sort of a physician am I? The only explanation is that I was mistaken. But the buboes, the hemorrhages from rectum and lung! Could it be that some other as yet unknown disease simulates the plague?

  “From one hour to the next the apparently sick and dying rose from the floor and lived and were well!” said the captain, jubilantly. He reached out his hand and clapped the shoulder of Lucanus. He chuckled over and over. “I have talked with the overseer, and you know how superstitious these animals are. He swore to me that Apollo and one of his attendants, shining like light, entered through the locked door — the locked door! — and ministered to the dying, and they recovered!” The captain wagged his head amusedly. “Ah, well, let the poor wretches have their dreams. It is all they have.”

  “Yes,” said Lucanus, rising. “It is all we all have.”

  He took his letter from the captain’s table, and followed by the captain’s laughter, he left the cabin and went to his own cabin with a heavy step and a musing mind. Let this be a warning to you, he told himself with severity. Make no hasty judgments. He found Cusa in his cabin, Cusa, who was shivering in the expectation of being seized and thrown into irons. Lucanus smiled at him feebly. “Do not be afraid,” he said. “All is well.” And he told Cusa of his conversation with the captain.

  Cusa listened, and his lively face became grave and still. He gazed at Lucanus with the strangest of expressions. “It is as I suspected,” he murmured, and before Lucanus could stop him he fell on his knees and laid his head on Lucanus’ feet, to the young man’s amazement. “No, no,” he said, “I did not cure them, my good Cusa! It was not the plague after all.” But Cusa kissed his feet and said nothing.

  Lucanus raised him, trying to laugh. “Let us be sensible,” he said, and took up his letter from Rome, to read it. Iris had written him.

  Then Lucanus uttered a great cry of sorrow and despair, and when Cusa came to him, he threw himself into his teacher’s arms and wept uncontrollably.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Two weeks before Lucanus had left Alexandria he had written to Keptah, and now this morning, five weeks later, Keptah unrolled that letter, it having arrived that morning through the agency of both a fast sailing ship and special couriers. The physician read the letter, then looked thoughtfully and with melancholy over the garden in which he sat. Beyond the open portico the trees sang in the soft autumn wind, and the earth exhaled such a sweetness and freshness that it was a poignancy to the heart. The bright sun glittered on rough fountains and on large crude statues, for Diodorus preferred forms and movements that resembled the earth in their strong outlines and motion and simplicity. Hence the bright colors of the tiles which formed the floor of the portico, the sturdy unpretentiousness of the columns surrounding it, the vital hues of the flowers, the powerful and sinewy trees.

  Far beyond the garden rose the low mosaic-colored hills of ripening grapes, vineyards belonging to the estate. Their perfume blew on the wind like a rich promise. The olive and fruit groves climbed other hills, and between the house and these hills the pasturage was still emerald green and populated with the placid forms of cattle and sheep and horses. The little stream that moved through the meadows was a brighter green, but very calm, forgetting the turbulence of spring. An air of peace, almost palpable, hovered over the land, tinged with the mellowness of wide warm gold.

  Keptah had grown scarcely older these past four years. There was the agelessness of the East about him, and its secret wisdom. But the hooded eyes were disquieted this morning. Keptah thought of Diodorus. Should he tell his master of the decision Lucanus had reached about his future? Or, considering the tribune’s physical condition, was it best left to Lucanus himself? Keptah reread the letter, and especially the latter part:

  I have some dark and dreadful premonition about my father, Diodorus. He has written me, and my mother also, of his frequent appearances in the Senate as the guest of Carvilius Ulpian. I do not know this senator, who is my father’s kinsman, but a stir of uneasiness comes to me when thinking of him. Who could know Diodorus and not honor and love and respect him? Surely only evil men.

  I understand why Diodorus, who is a man of action as well as a man of thought, and patriotically loving his country, should feel that he must do what he can to save Rome. But I have come to the conclusion that Rome is not worth the saving, so base has she become these past hundred years, so corrupt and monstrous. Why then should my father strive so desperately? Moreover, man’s fate is in the hands of God, and God is not notable, according to my observations, for showing mercy or loving His prophets. Only yesterday a teacher of mine rebuked me for my conviction. He said to me, ‘You are too absorbed in man. Suffering and death are the common fate of all men, so why are you in such bitter rebellion? What would you have, that all men be immortal and never feel pain again?’ I saw he misunderstood me. But I said, ‘When God made the world and man, why did He make them so imperfect, so full of agony and torment and evil?’ And he replied, ‘You are young. But I have told you of our prophets and heroes, and our ancient religion and legends. God gave man free will, otherwise man would be as the innocent animals of the fields. As man is an immortal soul, as well as a physical body, the honor of choosing his own fate was bestowed upon him, for the spirit is not one with trees and beasts. If man choose evil, and its attendant pain and suffering and death, man alone is to blame, and not God.’

  It would seem then that Rome has chosen pain and suffering and death through her bloodthirstiness, crimes against humanity, and libertinism and oppression. Shall my father strive against these unavailingly? There are also my mother and my brothers and sister to consider. If you still believe in the power of prayer to a God who loves not man, pray that my father return to the peace of his estates, of which he spoke constantly in Antioch. For I fear for him.

  And I also, thought Keptah. T
he overseer of the hall came to him then, winding his quick way across the graveled paths of the garden. “My lord wishes to see you, Master. He has one of his headaches.”

  Frowning, Keptah rose and took his majestic way into the large yet simple house, and went to Diodorus’ chamber. Diodorus was lying on his bed, writhing and cursing, holding his temples fiercely between his palms. Seeing Keptah, he sat up and glared wrathfully at him. “I have another migraine!” he exclaimed, in accusation. “But this one is the worst of all, and I am to be the guest of Carvilius Ulpian in the Senate today, and I shall address the scoundrels in one last effort to stir their vulture souls. You physicians! You cannot cure even a simple headache or snuffles in the nose or phlegm in the throat, while you speak learnedly of obscure diseases and their treatments! Bah!”

  He groaned and fell back on his bed, and cursed blasphemously. It was obvious that he was very ill. His low forehead was flushed a bright crimson; there was a grayness under the brown of his broad cheeks, and the lobes of his ears and his lips were pallidly blue. His eyes squinted with agony beneath the black and ferocious brows, and trickles of sweat ran from his temples. Pulses beat ominously and visibly in his sturdy throat, and he appeared to be having some difficulty with breathing.

  Keptah sat down quietly beside the bed. He spoke. “Master, I have told you this past year that what afflicts you is not your ordinary migraines. Your blood pressure is exceedingly high; I have had to bleed you on numerous occasions. Your heart has alarming sounds at times. I have begged you to struggle for calmness and tranquillity; a man is not the victim of his emotions unless he permits himself to be. I implore you to wait for that root from Indi, as I understand that the physicians there have been using it with marvelous effect for over a thousand years, in the treatment of high blood pressure, distressed minds, and insanity. Lucanus’ Indu teacher has promised to send me this root, and it should be here now within four weeks.”

  Diodorus sat up suddenly, enraged, caught his temples again, groaned, then regarded Keptah furiously. “’Insanity!’” he roared, swearing. “You infernal slave!”

  Keptah replied with an affectionate smile. “I am no slave, Master, thanks to you. And as a physician, and free, under the laws of Julius Caesar I am also a citizen of Rome. No, Master, I do not consider you mad. I consider you a noble spirit of complete rectitude and filled with the passion of justice and truth. We owe our poets and our heroes to your turn of mind and soul, our artists, our teachers, our scholars, our patriots, and all those who, like Pygmalion, try to turn obdurate stone into glowing flesh. And who knows? Perhaps thousands upon thousands of years from now their words of exhortation and beauty and strength, their godly reproaches, will echo with overwhelming power in the hearts of men, and there shall be no more evil.”

  Diodorus listened irately, lying there holding his head. Then he bellowed, “All very fine words! But shall no voice but mine be lifted in behalf of Rome? And if there is only my voice, shall I withhold it? I am not interested in nations yet unborn. I am interested in my country! How can I live with myself otherwise?”

  Keptah sighed, and did not speak. Diodorus sat up painfully, and now his voice was quieter, almost pleading. “You are a wise man, my good Keptah, but you are a philosopher, waiting for the dust of wildernesses to become governments in the far future. Suppose we all took the words of philosophers seriously and let present evil have its way, supinely? Then evil would become universal, and there would be not only no rejuvenated present but no future either!

  “Keptah, I am in this world now, and in this present. The future belongs to my children. Shall I not strive for a world of law and order and justice for them when I am ashes with my fathers? Or shall I mumble, like you, of future great generations and let my children immediately inherit degeneracy, lawlessness, and crime?

  “Listen to me, Keptah! A man’s first duty is his duty to God and his country. Nations are God’s expression of spiritual realms. When those nations become abandoned and debased, given up to bloody pride and debauchery, to war and tyranny, then they have defaced the kingdoms of the earth, and the penalty is death. Rome will inevitably die unless many like me shall speak, and where are the voices raised in her behalf? Who shall cry out to Romans, ‘You have destroyed what God has built, and you must return to freedom and purity and virtue at once, lest you die’?”

  He lifted his hand to prevent the physician from speaking. His brow was almost as red as blood, and purple veins writhed at his temples, and he panted.

  “Let me finish. God and country. They are the Law. You would speak of my family, as you have done before, warning me uneasily of deadly danger. But my first responsibility is to my God and my country, and the memory of my fathers, who died for both. If I die, then I leave the fate of my family in the hands of God. Should they die also, because of me, then they will not have to endure the horror of living in a world that has become depraved, without mercy or goodness. I should prefer them to die, for who, being a man, would choose life and slavery?”

  He lifted his clenched fist solemnly. “Better to die than to live in the world as it is now. And it is my desperate duty to try to change that world, even if I fail.”

  Keptah rose and bowed to him profoundly. “Yes, Master, I understand. Forgive me for placing my love for you before the mighty and just passion that fills you. I will now prepare for you a potion which will temporarily relieve your suffering and permit you to go to Rome this morning.”

  He started from the chamber, when Diodorus, in a voice strangely gentle, called him back. The tribune reached out shyly and took the physician’s hand. “My good Keptah, loved both by my father and me, and by my household, you obscurantist wretch! I know you will never leave my family.”

  Keptah could not speak for emotion. He could only raise Diodorus’ hand to his lips.

  “Let the noble tribune speak!” shouted the senators, and here and there the chorus was derisive.

  Diodorus stood up, a dark and eagle figure in his military tunic and plumed helmet and armor, with the broad short sword at his belt. He lifted his mailed hand, and the senators, some contemptuous, some grim, some smiling, some old, some young, some patrician, some despicable freedmen of no honor, fell silent and stared at the tribune. The sunlight slipped on their white-robed shoulders, and here and there a noble face was carved in somber light, or a lip was illuminated, or an eye sparkled or turned to fire, or a mean profile was revealed in its craven outline like the crude drawing of a young child. The marble floor and walls shimmered, the columns gleamed, and soldiers with drawn swords stood at the open bronze doors.

  Diodorus looked at them all, and a strange and formidable foreboding came to him. It only enhanced the growing power of wrath in his heart, his detestation, his sensation that the weldings of his body strained against the bursting passion of his soul. He strode to the podium, and in the silence the echo of his ironshod sandals sounded from wall to wall, from pillar to pillar, and the sunlight glanced on his helmet and armor in a sudden blaze. He was Mars, buckled and warlike, armed with lightning, and there was a quality of high grandeur about him.

  He rested his hands on the lectern and looked at the senators, and he smiled, not pleasantly, but with rage.

  “You, Romans, friends and countrymen, have heard me before. I speak today in the name of Rome for the last time. Then I shall be silent.”

  He drew a deep breath, and his breast swelled with passion and strength.

  “I come not to honor Rome but to bury her.”

  A voice shouted, “Treason!”

  Diodorus smiled again, and bent his head. “It is always treason to speak the truth.” He lifted his head and fixed the senators with the mighty flash of his eyes.

  “In this very Senate, not many years ago, a senator was done to death because he spoke the truth. Not by knife or sword or spear was he murdered, and not by honest stones. No honorable hand struck him down, for there was no honorable hand here. He spoke of Rome. He cried out that Rome was no long
er a republic, and that she had become a bloodthirsty empire, ruled not by men of wisdom and not by law, but by Caesar and his legions, and his generals and his rapacious freedmen and his palace politicians. The senator stood on this very podium, and he wept for the Republic. He wept that emperors were not elected by the people, but by infamous legions and the idle and ravenous mobs who wished only to devour the fruits of the granaries and the treasuries, and to be amused by charlatans and mountebanks and actors and singers and gladiators and pugilists — at public expense.

  “That senator was a young man with a bright eye and a heart like a sacred bull, fired by his love for his country. A brutal young man, who used no polished phrases and had no elegances. He had only love for his country. A passionate young man who believed that truth was invulnerable, and that lies were as fragile as a spider’s web! But, you see, he only loved his country, and only fools love their country.”

  The senators fell into a hard but intent silence, but some of the older men bent their heads, remembering their shame, and were enraged against the tribune who recalled their shame to them. The soldiers paced slowly at the door and listened, and turned their faces to Diodorus, and some were young and patriotic, and their hearts beat faster.