The Beacon at Alexandria

by Gillian Bradshaw

  I wrote him a very long letter, sealed it, and sent it off with the first courier. A week later Sebastianus himself appeared at the fort. I was in the hospital, cauterizing a wound, when he arrived. It was the second time I’d had to do this to the same patient. The injury, on the man’s shoulder, had been gangrenous when I had arrived. I’d dosed the patient with mandragora (I had a good supply of this drug, and could obtain more, as I’d found it growing wild not far from the fort) and cauterized the rot, then cleaned and bandaged the wound. It had stayed clean for a few days, then suddenly taken the rot again. I was surprised, and asked the patient about it; he told me that Xanthos had cleaned it for him once when I was busy. Cleaned it with that damned rot-water. I told him that if Xanthos tried to do that again, he should scream for help, and failing that, kill the man the way he’d kill a deadly snake. I dosed the poor man again and heated the irons, hoping that I could stop the infection; if it went any deeper it would certainly kill him, and as it was he’d lose much of the strength of the arm. I’d had to use the mandragora very lightly, too, because of the patient’s weakened state, and he began to wake up in the middle of the operation, giving the most heart-rending whimpers of pain. I had to stop and have him held down. I hate cauterizing: using red hot iron on a patient makes me feel like a torturer.

  I was just in the middle of this task when one of the staff messengers came in and said, “His Excellency Duke Sebastianus wishes to speak with all the doctors.”

  I sent Arbetio, who was helping me, up to headquarters at once, and finished the job. I didn’t know where Xanthos was; Diokles was down in Histria lining his pockets.

  When I had the patient settled again, I took off the butcher’s apron I wore for these jobs and went straight up to the presidium. I knew the way to Valerius’ office by heart now; I’d been there often enough, complaining. The dusty little antechamber, the legionary emblems on the door, the office itself with its desk of pine, its bearskin rug, and its red-covered couch with the dragon-claw feet . . . Sebastianus was sitting not on the couch but at the tribune’s desk, tapping his fingers with impatience. Xanthos was standing nearby, looking smug because I’d kept the duke waiting; Arbetio and the tribune Valerius just looked uncomfortable. I was angry enough not to care. Anger like this, steady, burning anger that churns unceasingly in the stomach, was something I was not very familiar with. I wanted very much to get rid of it.

  “Your Excellency,” I said, “I am sorry to have kept you waiting. I had a patient.”

  “So I’ve been told,” said Sebastianus. He glanced round at the others.

  “Yes, and the operation should have been unnecessary,” I went on, not giving the duke a chance to open the meeting peacefully. “The wound was reinfected by cleansing procedures I expressly forbade. I told the poor patient that if anyone tries to clean his injury like that again, he ought to kill them as he would a snake.”

  Xanthos gave a jump. “You worthless gelding! You and your book learning! Do you think —”

  “Silence!” snapped Sebastianus, and Xanthos fell silent, glaring. Sebastianus sighed and looked at me. “Well,” he said. “You have stirred up a hornet’s nest, haven’t you?”

  I bowed slightly. “Your Excellency wanted me to reorganize the hospital.”

  At this Sebastianus laughed. “Oh Immortal God! So I did. And I meant you to do so. But I thought you’d be able to do it without jumping at your colleagues’ throats. And I don’t see why you needed to write me such a passionate letter about it. I thought I’d given you the authority already.”

  “At the moment, Your Prudence, my authority doesn’t stretch very far. I can’t even recommend one method of treatment and have it stick.”

  Xanthos looked outraged. “Your Excellency!” he protested. “I have been practicing medicine all my life! I don’t see why this . . . this creature should be allowed to overturn all the traditions and procedures that we have always used, all on account of what he’s read in some book!”

  Valerius was nodding. “Indeed, I think Your Excellency is being too hasty. Let Chariton treat his patients his way, and let Xanthos continue to treat his patients in the old way. That way we can see the advantages of both methods.”

  “There are no advantages to Xanthos’ methods,” I said hotly. “If I had half a solidus for every patient he and his father must have killed, I could buy all of Novidunum! And he uses his butcher’s methods on my patients behind my back. I won’t have it; it’s a disgrace to the Hippocratic tradition!”

  Sebastianus looked at me and laughed. “Behold the ruling passion!” he said. “Very well, you shall have what you want. I’m sorry, Valerius, but I gave Chariton responsibility for the hospital, and he’s to keep it. What’s the use of importing learned men if you don’t listen to their advice? And the Hippocratic school in Alexandria is the best in the world, and carries more weight than the old ways they use here. I like these ideas, Chariton.” He picked my letter up from the desk and waved it at us. “Particularly the arrangement for the attendants. I don’t want any more men exposed to plagues than I can help. And going upriver and talking to the troops is another excellent plan; I’ll see that you get a horse so you can start this winter.”

  Tenella kallinike! Victory! I could hardly stop myself from shouting, and I smiled at Sebastianus so that I thought my face would crack. “Thank you, Your Excellency. I had one other request as well.”

  Sebastianus sighed, then eyed Valerius and Xanthos thoughtfully. “If you must. Though that sort of thing causes as many problems as it solves.”

  “I cannot have my patients interfered with.”

  Sebastianus nodded resignedly. “Very well. Xanthos, you and your colleagues are to obey the most esteemed Chariton and to follow his instructions on all matters of bloodletting and dosing with strong drugs.”

  Xanthos went red, then white. “I won’t,” he said flatly.

  “Then I relieve you of your post,” said Sebastianus evenly.

  Xanthos gasped, tried ineffectively to say something.

  “You can think again, if you like. I give you till tomorrow morning to make up your mind,” offered Sebastianus. “But you must either follow Chariton’s advice or leave the army: I give you no other choice. What about you, fellow — what’s your name?”

  “Arbetio, Your Prudence,” Arbetio said eagerly. “A slave of the legion. I’ll be very happy to follow Chariton’s advice. I value it highly.”

  “Good. You’re the slave, then, that Chariton wants to confine to medical duties? Another good idea: we have plenty of less valuable slaves for domestic chores. In future, if anyone tells you to do something outside your duties, I order you to disobey him.” Arbetio swallowed, stared, and bowed. Sebastianus smiled. “Wasn’t there another one?”

  “He’s in Histria, Excellency,” said Valerius.

  “In Histria? What’s he doing there?”

  There was an awkward pause. I said nothing. “Seeing his private patients,” Valerius admitted reluctantly.

  “Private patients in Histria! That’s a long way to go to see them! Tell him from me that any private patients he takes are to be not more than half a day’s journey from Novidunum. We don’t pay his salary for him to spend all his time down in Histria. Well, I think that’s settled, then. Valerius, Chariton, perhaps you would join me for lunch? Though I would appreciate it, Chariton, if you’d go and wash first.”

  I looked down and saw that my hands were still covered with my patient’s blood. “Of course, Duke Sebastianus,” I said, still smiling. “Thank you.”

  Things went smoothly after that. Xanthos swallowed his pride and stayed on, and though it was plain he hated me, I had no more trouble with him about patients. Diokles was equally angry when he got back from Histria, but he didn’t cause any trouble for me, only vowed to return to his private patients whenever he wanted, and damn the duke. Arbetio was quite touchingly grateful.

  I collected my band of attendants and trained them in cleaning procedures and basic nu
rsing, and had the immense pleasure of seeing the changes pay off at once and dramatically in our patients’ rate of recovery. I also sent a letter to Thorion. I sent it by state courier — as an army doctor writing to an imperial official I was able to do this. I’d written him just before I left Alexandria, telling him something of what had happened, and now I told him about the fort and begged him to buy some opium for me and send it by the state post, which he should be entitled to do.

  In the middle of December, when there were only a few patients to worry about, I went to the camp stables to choose a horse for my first trip up the river. When I turned up, the grooms regarded me contemptuously. The troops disliked me because I was a eunuch and a civilian from a notoriously soft province, and the changes I had made in the hospital had not yet been impressed on them. However, the head of the stables was polite, and showed me the spare horses. He recommended one to me, a sleek little mare. I had a look at her.

  “It won’t do,” I told the stablemaster. “She’s broken-winded.”

  There was a moment’s silence, then, “So she is,” said the man. “Perhaps you’d care for this one instead?” indicating a bay gelding. I pointed out that it had split a hoof fairly recently, and wouldn’t do for a long ride. He recommended another horse, healthy but far too old, judging by its teeth; then another one that was afflicted with the spavins. I turned both down, and suggested a remedy for the spavins. Somebody laughed.

  “Do you know something about horses?” the stablemaster asked incredulously.

  “I grew up in the house of a rich man who was crazy about chariot racing,” I replied. “Most of my first patients were horses.”

  My status rose dramatically. The grooms began a discussion of worms, hoof galls, and colic; the stablemaster gave me a decent mount; the veterinary appeared out of nowhere and began talking about spavins and the rampass; and finally we all went off to the camp tavern and discussed equine disorders and chariot racing. The troops in Novidunum were inclined to the belief that no one who could treat horses could be all bad.

  Riding, though, was another matter. I had never sat on a horse in my life. I couldn’t control it. When I started out upriver for the next fort with a party of soldiers and some supplies, the soldiers had to keep rescuing me from snowdrifts when my mount tried to go back to its nice warm stall. Even when they put me on a lead rein, like a child, I had difficulty. Riding uses muscles I didn’t know existed, pounds them the way a cook pounds meat. And it was bitterly cold — I hadn’t dreamed it could be so cold. The Danube delta was beginning to freeze, and chunks of ice floated on the dark river, turning slowly. The sky was white, and the earth was white with snow; the clumps of woodland were heaped with the stuff. The local people stayed sensibly by their warm fires; wolves came sniffing up to the very doors at night, leaving their footprints icy on the snow. It had snowed sometimes in Ephesus, but such snows always melted quickly, gone within a day or two. In Scythia the snows piled up, one on top of another, till the whole world seemed to be made of nothing else. I’d swallowed my civilized prejudices and bought two pairs of trousers from a fort trader, together with some stockings and the loose boots they wear on the frontier, and then I had had to go back and buy a fur cloak, since my old ones, though fine for Egypt, were woefully thin for a Scythian winter. Even so I shivered when I started off up the river, and felt chilled through before we’d ridden a mile. I arrived in the next camp feeling exhausted, cold, contemptible, and very sore.

  But contemptible or not, I went on with my lecture to the troops, showing them a couple of their cripples and explaining the evils of tourniquets. I set up a system for treating the milder fevers on the spot. I checked the arrangements for sanitation — perfectly adequate; the army always does that well — and for drinking water, and gave the local tribune instructions on what to do about contagious diseases. I felt very pleased with myself when I went on to the next fort.

  I didn’t manage to visit all the camps that winter. It took me until the end of the next year to do that. But even by the spring the troops had heard of me and would listen to me. I might as well have been talking to the wind for all the notice they took of me at first, but my changes at the hospital produced spectacular results. Xanthos predicted that patient after patient would die from my methods, and patient after patient recovered. Not all of them, of course — disease is a far more deadly enemy than the barbarians, and the best doctor can’t cure lockjaw or blood poisoning. But the troops were in fact an ideal group of patients: young to middle-aged, well-fed, active men, inherently better able to recover from an illness than the miscellaneous assortment of elderly and impoverished Alexandrians I’d treated before. More of them recovered than died, for the first time in the history of that sorry hospital. Xanthos began to mutter darkly about sorcery. Sebastianus was delighted.

  Thorion was not. That first January, when I returned from my trip up the river, I discovered that he had sent me a letter by the imperial courier. It was waiting for me on my writing desk at home. It was closed with several seals, and I could only hope that they were as unbroken as they appeared to be, because, though on the outside it was addressed to “Chariton the Doctor, Novidunum,” on the inside it began, “Theodoros to his sister Charis, many greetings.”

  “Have you gone out of your mind?” Thorion asked.

  I’m sorry I ever agreed to your schemes. Going to Alexandria and studying medicine for a few years was bad enough, but it did keep you out of Festinus’ way, and I knew you’d enjoy it. But you said you’d come back! Charition, it’s been almost four years; I have my own household now, and I can introduce you among civilized people without being ashamed of what I did. I’m strong enough now that Festinus can’t touch us. My friend Kyrillos is here at Constantinople, he’s an assessor and looks set to do well. He’d marry you quite happily; he asks about you sometimes, and I give him ambiguous answers about how I have news that you’re well. But, by Artemis the Great! nobody on earth would marry you if they knew you’d been an army doctor. The longer this goes on, the harder it will be to explain where you’ve been all this while. And soon you’ll be past marriageable age. Come to Constantinople at once. I can’t believe you’re doing this. I’ve never heard of a woman acting so shamelessly. Do you mean to stay a eunuch all your life? No children, no man? That’s only half a life. It’s unnatural.

  The letter hurt. I didn’t know how to answer it. I burned it and scattered the ashes, afraid that someone would read it, but the words stayed in my memory and stung. Now at last Thorion knew what had happened and saw the gap between what I had been and what I was, and so between him and me — a gap now as wide as the Danube. But he still thought I could recross it and go back. How could I? I’d been private physician to two archbishops of Alexandria, I was chief doctor of the fortress of Novidunum, I’d fought for my practice and won. Oh, to be sure, married women have more freedom than young girls, but still a noblewoman is bound by an iron propriety to do no serious business in the world.

  A week after receiving this letter, I dreamed that I was in Ephesus. I was dressed in my Thracian doctor’s clothes, trousers and all, but I was standing outside the front of my father’s house. I had a patient to see there, I sensed. I went in, walking through the First Court and then the Charioteer Room. No one was about, but I heard wailing. I went into my father’s bedroom, and there he lay, pale, drawn, and still. I touched his forehead, and it was cold. A bad sign, I thought, and looked in my bag for some opium. “I don’t want it,” Father said. “I don’t want to live. I will trade this world for Heaven. My son hates me and my daughter is gone.” “I’m not gone,” I said. “Here I am; I can cure you.” At this the color came back into his face. He smiled radiantly, sitting up; he embraced me. For a moment I felt deliriously happy; like Asklepios, I could call back the dead. Then his arms tightened around me. I couldn’t breathe. I began to struggle; when I pulled my head back I looked at his face, and it wasn’t Father anymore, it was Festinus, baring his teeth in a smile. I tried
to cry out, and he put his mouth over mine; I was suffocating, helpless. He pulled my short tunic off my shoulders and pushed me down on the bed; he pulled a pillow over my face to choke me; somewhere I heard people singing a marriage hymn. I woke up screaming.

  Someone banged at my door. “Who is it?” I asked, sitting up in bed and shivering, not knowing where I was. It was bitterly cold; the windowsill was white with ice, and the moonlight crept through the shutters.

  “It’s me, master.” The voice was my slave’s, Raedagunda's. “Are you all right?”

  “Oh. Yes. Just a nightmare.”

  I heard Raedagunda’s footsteps going back to the loft where she slept. I was still shaking. Sleep was impossible, so I got up and dressed, putting on my fur cloak against the cold. I sat down at my writing desk and answered Thorion’s letter.

  “To my dear brother Theodoros, many greetings,” I wrote.

  Yes, I do mean to stay a eunuch doctor all my life. Thorion, dearest, try to understand. I love the art more than anything on earth. And I’m good at it. It would kill me to be confined to people’s idea of what’s proper, or I’d kill myself. I couldn’t bear it, I’d suffocate. Perhaps this is only half a life, but it’s the half I prefer. Don’t expose me. You know that if you do, you’ll have me on your hands for the rest of my life. You said yourself no one would marry me if they knew, and what would be the point of my sitting in your house, disgraced, unmarried, and without my career? If you can’t forgive me, tell people I’m dead, and forget me as if it were true.