Jewel of the Nile

by Tessa Afshar

  “No. Never. Healthy as a horse.” She half rose as a paroxysm of coughs shook her.

  “I see that,” he said, relieved to know the fever was not a recurring one. Sitting behind her on the bed, he shifted her body so she could lean her back against his shoulder, taking on the weight she seemed unable to bear.

  He held her until the wrenching coughs subsided. Carefully, he rose, still supporting her back, while with his free hand he arranged the pillow against the wall. Trying not to jostle her too much, he settled her against the cushion. “I’ve sent for a physician. He will be here soon.”

  “I only need a bit of rest and fresh air.”

  “We shall see.” Theo sent up a stream of silent prayer. He noted her short, rapid breaths, the shivering limbs, the profuse sweats. He was no physician, but even he could see that whatever ailed her was no passing malady.

  She gasped suddenly and sat up straight, looking around with desperation. “Your shoes,” she said, as she leaned to the side.

  It took him a moment to take in her meaning. He had barely enough time to leap out of the way before she vomited. Sophocles walked in just as she sat back, closing her eyes, looking wan.

  “I’ll clean that up,” the old sailor said, his voice matter-of-fact. It wouldn’t be his first time, though usually he rendered such services for his sailor brothers following a cheerful evening featuring too much wine.

  “The physician?” Theo asked, his throat dry.

  “Taharqa went to fetch him. Should be here soon. Lives on a street behind the harbor.”

  Sophocles reached a hand to stroke the top of Chariline’s head. Theo had never seen the old mariner so tender. “Chin up. You’ll be hale as an ox soon,” he said. “Back to telling us what to do by tomorrow, I reckon.”

  She tried to smile and failed.

  “Can you fetch her some water, Sophocles?”

  “Right away, Master. And I’ll bring her some of your good wine with honey.” The old mariner scooted out, leaving the door open to allow the sea air into the stuffy cabin. Theo noticed a few of his men congregating too close, ogling with curiosity. He gave them a narrow-eyed look, and they dispersed as fast as tumbleweeds in a desert wind.

  “Did I get your shoes?” she rasped.

  “I’m too quick for you.”

  “That’s a relief. Already owe you for passage to Rome. Don’t want to add the price of shoes to my debt.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  Theo laid his hand against her forehead and swallowed. Her fever burned too high. Her eyes glittered with it. “Where is Sophocles with that water?” he growled.

  “Don’t tell him off.”

  “I won’t.” If she had asked him for his entire cargo, he would have agreed, if only to put her mind at ease.

  Sophocles returned, his hands piled high with sheets and jars. “Here is water.” He handed a flagon to Theo.

  Glad of something to do, Theo poured a fresh cup for Chariline while Sophocles fell to his knees to clean the floor.

  “Beg your pardon, Sophocles,” Chariline said.

  “Aw, it’s just a dainty morsel. You should see what the boys manage after a good festival celebration.”

  “Here,” Theo said, holding the cup to her lips. “Take a sip and rinse your mouth. You can spit into this bowl.”

  He was alarmed to find her too weak to sit up. Theo wrapped a supporting arm about her shoulders and held her as she cleaned her mouth. He mixed a bit of the honeyed wine in water and urged her to drink. She took a small sip. But he could see she had exhausted herself and laid her back against the pillow. Her eyes closed, though he sensed from the labored rhythm of her breathing that she was not asleep.

  In the heap of things Sophocles had brought, he found a clean rag and, dipping it into water, dabbed her forehead, cheeks, and neck, trying to cool her off. He felt helpless. His insides squeezed with anxiety as he stared at her flushed, listless face.

  “We ought to change the sheets.” Sophocles pointed at the wrinkled bedding. “I brought some clean ones.”

  “Right.” Theo frowned. The tiny cabin left little room for maneuvering. “I’ll lift her. You change them.”

  Slipping his hands under her body, Theo lifted her once again and cradled her close to him. If she had been less weary, she might have squawked at being forced into such unusual intimacy without regard for her modesty. But in her exhaustion, she laid her head against his shoulder. Without meaning to, he allowed his hands to tighten around her, feeling a curious surge of protectiveness that caught him off guard.

  “I’m not skilled as a lady’s maid,” Sophocles said when he had finished changing the sheets. The linens looked as wrinkled as before. At least they were dry and clean. Gently, Theo laid Chariline on the bed.

  “Thank you,” she murmured with a sigh.

  Taharqa appeared at the door, his barrel of a chest cutting off the sunlight. “The physician is here. Teretius of Myra.”

  Theo exhaled with relief. It seemed to him that Chariline’s condition had deteriorated even in the short hour since he first found her.

  The physician, a pale-skinned man with a thin nose and clever eyes, asked Sophocles to vacate the cabin. At Theo’s nod, the old mariner scurried out. Refusing to budge, Theo stood at the door like a sentinel, keeping a wary eye on Teretius. Not every physician could be trusted. There were even those who did more harm than good.

  If Teretius felt any alarm at Theo’s narrow-eyed scrutiny, he hid it well. Theo supposed in his line of work, the man had grown accustomed to wary inspection by the concerned relatives of his patients. He began, in a calm voice, to ask Chariline to describe her symptoms. Only after he had exhausted every inquiry did he begin an examination. Theo felt relief wash through him when he noticed the man’s silent competence.

  The physician pressed his ear to Chariline’s back and listened to her breathing, listened intently with a large ear pressed to her chest as she coughed, examined the color of her sputum, and felt the rhythm of her pulse. Finally, he straightened.

  “The acute fever, serrated pulse, and chills could be caused by many things,” he said. “But the dyspnea, the severe ache in her chest, and the color of the sputa are a sign of pleuritic affections.”

  Theo frowned. “What is that in plain Greek?”

  “She is suffering from what Hippocrates called peripneumonia. A malady of the lungs.”

  “What is the cure?” Theo forced his voice to sound calm.

  “According to Hippocrates, you open the vein here.” He held Chariline’s arm up and pointed to a pale blue line before letting go. “The bleeding will balance the humors.”

  Chariline’s eyes widened. She coughed, her face crumpling in pain. Theo reached out and clutched her hand, squeezing it softly. Her fingers wrapped around his, clinging.

  Teretius shrugged. “Four hundred years later, many physicians still hold to Hippocrates’ methods. I have never found them helpful with such maladies. They only weaken the patient. She is young and strong. An old man would have little hope of recovery. But your friend here . . .” He shrugged again. “She should regain her health. With careful nursing.”

  “She’ll regain her health. Tell us what to do,” Theo asked.

  “We reduce the fever using the herbs I will prepare. Eight times a day, steep a spoon in boiling water and give her a full cup. You can add honey to sweeten the brew. I will also prepare an analgesic to help with the pain. Don’t give her too much, as it will slow her recovery. Enough to help her sleep. Rest is the cure for this malady.”

  “How long?” Chariline asked, her voice wobbly. “How long will this last?”

  “The worst should pass in two weeks. One if you are exceptionally strong. But you will need to rest until the cough is gone and you feel no more pain in your chest as you breathe.”

  She groaned. “Impossible. I won’t delay the ship that long.”

  Theo waved away her response. Before he could assure her that they would work out a
solution, Teretius spoke. “You won’t have to. Once I give you the herbs, you can be on your way. You can rest on the sea as well as at the harbor.”

  Theo turned to the physician. “Do you not need to examine her again?”

  “I could. And charge you a bundle for my services. In truth, I can do no more for her than I have already said. I will bring you the herbs and the tincture I mentioned. Follow my instructions. Skip no doses. Do you have a slave who can look after her?”

  Theo squeezed the slim, shivering hand again. “I will look after her myself.” He cast a glance at Chariline, noting the downturned line of her lips. Reading her thoughts with ease, he said, “Don’t apologize again.”

  She dropped her gaze, but not before he saw the glitter of tears. Gritting his teeth, he rolled his shoulders. “I have watched over colicky horses for many a sleepless night. Nursed sick foals for days on end. An ailing girl does not daunt me. At least she won’t try to kick me when I pour your brew down her throat.”

  The physician smiled. “I would not be too certain of that. That remedy can grow quite vile by the third day.” He wiped his hands on a linen towel. “I suppose there is not much difference between nursing a sick horse and nursing a sick woman.”

  Theo hid a grin when Chariline gave Teretius a poisonous look.

  Unfazed, the physician went on. “As long as you remain persistent and accurate in your care, I have no objection. I will deliver the herbs to your ship once I have mixed them. Lest you forget, I will write out the instructions. Follow them without fail.”

  “You can trust me.”

  “In that case, you can sail at your convenience. The herbs will do their work equally on land or at sea.”

  Chariline sat quietly through Teretius’s instructions. As soon as the physician left the cabin, she burst out, her words overflowing like hot lava that refused to remain trapped inside, “I am sorry, Theo. And thank you!”

  Only then did he realize that he was still holding her hand. Holding on to it as tightly as he had held on to the rope Taharqa had used to pull him to safety in the midst of the storm.

  CHAPTER 16

  I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

  JOHN 16:33, NIV

  Chariline made a face as she drank down the tincture. Her third cup of the day. Not all the honey of Attica could conceal the smell of fenugreek, an herb she had disliked since childhood. Four days into her sickness, and the fever had not budged. Her body still shivered and quaked, and she continued to feel as if she was drowning with every labored breath.

  Theo had barely left her side since the physician’s visit. His chin, shadowed by the start of a thick, dark beard he had not had time to shave, matched the dark circles under his eyes. He had made up a pallet for himself on the cabin floor, in the narrow cave she had occupied earlier, though she suspected he slept little.

  Sophocles seeped her herbs and prepared her tinctures. He made her fish broth and warm bread. But Theo would not allow him to step inside the cabin. It took her a day to realize he feared contagion. The physician had warned them that the disease would be deadly to an old man. She could not bear the thought of causing Sophocles harm.

  She remembered sitting next to Telemachus on his cart, and the way he had hacked away the morning she had sneaked onto the Parmys. She hoped he had fared better than she had.

  She worried most for Theo. Was her mere presence a danger to him? What if he fell ill? Yet regardless of how much she urged, he refused to leave her side, irked by her pleading.

  She had learned that Theo was unshakable as granite. The man’s blood pulsed with loyalty. Once he made a commitment, nothing would shake it. In his steady, quiet way, Theo claimed people. Took them into his heart and made a home for them there. Gave them a place where they belonged. And for some strange reason, he had claimed her, the stowaway on his ship, the Great Inconvenience, the thorn in his side. Claimed her alongside Sophocles and Taharqa and only Iesous knew how many others.

  In the end, she admitted defeat and gave up urging him to leave. Instead, she did her best to accept his care with grace.

  For all she had learned about Theo over the piling, restless hours, in many ways he still remained a mystery. She had tried asking him polite questions about his past. His parentage. His upbringing. She had never met a man so adroit at deflecting personal inquiries. After four days, she still did not know much about him. She had laid herself bare before the man. Shared the mortifying secrets of her family. Yet not once had Theo returned the favor. Whatever mystery haunted him, he guarded it jealously.

  She watched him now as he sat leaning against the wall, writing on a roll of papyrus, his brows knotted in thought.

  “Are you writing a love letter?” she teased and was surprised by the flush that spread over his cheeks.

  Her belly spasmed. Did Theo have a sweetheart? To her shock, she found the notion more unpleasant to swallow than Teretius’s disgusting tincture.

  “No,” Theo said. “No love letters here.”

  Chariline exhaled. “Surely not your accounts. That look of deadly concentration could not be for a column of numbers.”

  “No.”

  Theo’s features grew inscrutable. Closed off like the iron gates of a walled city when the enemy approached. The fever may have turned her mind into a bog, but she knew it was time to back away. Gingerly.

  He rolled up his secret papyrus and set it aside with a thwack. “Do you want to know one of Yeshua’s favorite sayings?” he asked, changing the subject without even a pretense at subtlety.

  “Yeshua?” she asked. He pronounced the Lord’s name the Jewish way, having come to faith through the friendship of the famous rabbi, Paul, and his friends Priscilla and Aquila. But although he used a different version of the Master’s name, he said it the way Hermione said “Iesous.” With a world of emotion. With honest love. Like a son to a beloved father.

  “Yeshua.” He nodded.

  “Tell me.”

  Theo had set a rhythm for the long hours they spent together. In the mornings, they prayed. In the afternoons, he would recite Scripture or tell a story about the Lord. Sometimes they just talked about the places they had visited, few in Chariline’s case, but eclectic and fascinating in Theo’s. He was insatiably curious. Having never been to Cush, he asked endless questions about Meroë and seemed fascinated by the most mundane details. In the evenings, they prayed again, Theo often taking the lead, as if this was a natural part of his own routine that he shared with her.

  And in between, she drank a lake of steeped herbs. Enough to drown in. Enough to float on.

  To add to her misery, Theo plied her with Teretius’s sticky analgesic paste to dull her pain so that she could sleep. Still the fever raged, fraying her at the edges. The endless, suppurative cough continued to afflict her, robbing her of breath.

  She was careful never to complain. Not one word. She would not reward Theo’s determined efforts to nurse her back to health with spurious grumbling.

  “Take heart,” Theo said, and in the fog of fever, it felt as if he had read her thoughts and wanted to encourage her.

  “Thank you.”

  “I mean, that was one of Yeshua’s favorite sayings. Take heart. He used to say it to all sorts of people. He said it to his disciples when they were overcome by fear. Said it to a paralytic man with no hope for healing. Said it to a woman who had been sick for twelve years. Take heart.

  “Take heart when you are afraid. When you are overwhelmed by trouble. When you are ashamed. When you are hopeless. When you are despondent. Take heart.

  “Not an empty, meaningless phrase, you understand? Because Yeshua never wasted words. When he whispered take heart, he was making a mighty proclamation. An impartation. A divine assurance. His consolation and his promise present in those words. Take heart, he said, and his Spirit stepped into the words to inhabit them with power and comfort.”

&
nbsp; Theo leaned close, his voice growing quiet. “Take heart, Chariline. Yeshua is here with you, as surely as he was with the bleeding woman and the paralyzed man.”

  It was not until he said the words that she realized she had lost heart. Somewhere in the endless hours of feverish pain, discouragement had managed to wriggle inside and take residence. Spreading its roots.

  Take heart.

  Theo’s lips had formed the words. His voice had spoken them. But Chariline felt Iesous capture them. Felt his Spirit impart strength to them. Her eyes drifted closed. Startled, she became aware of the weight of fear she had been carrying without realizing.

  Take heart.

  The words reverberated in her spirit, more powerful than Teretius’s herbs. The burden of fear sloughed off slowly, measure by measure, and peace inhabited where there had once been the darkness of discouragement. The drowning pressure that had been sitting on her chest lightened. And she fell asleep.

  When she awoke, the fever no longer raged but burned low, a simmering heat that lacked its initial fury.

  “You look better,” Theo said, in surprise.

  She studied him with the fresh insight of a mending body. “You look terrible.”

  Theo grinned and rubbed his scratchy cheek. “I’m insulted.”

  “Theo, you need to leave me for a few hours. Rest. Eat. Or you will also fall ill. And take time to bathe! My nose is starting to work again.”

  Theo laughed. “Sophocles said you were bossy.”

  When Theo left, closing the door softly behind him, Chariline set to work. She might have told Theo to bathe, but her own need for a good wash surpassed his. Stripping off her stained, wrinkled tunic, she dipped a cloth in the tepid basin of water Sophocles had delivered earlier in the day. On a ship overflowing with soap, she could not find a single sliver in the cabin. Too afraid to ask Theo lest he forbid her from too much activity, she settled for a simple rinse, washing away the sweat and grime of fever.

  By the time she finished her ablutions, hair braided in a neat rope down her back, she felt weak with overexertion, legs quivering like jellyfish tentacles. It took all her strength to fetch a fresh linen tunic from her bundle and draw it over her head. When she was done, she lay back against her pillow, panting with exertion, but feeling oddly improved.