‘Shhh!’ hissed Ascletario. He looked around nervously. ‘Do not say such a thing. The Temple of Jupiter is just behind us and the god may hear you.’ And in an unnaturally loud voice he announced, ‘The gods love the fragrant smell of burning fat. It is a sweet savour to their nostrils, their nostrils, their nostrils.’
‘It’s over now, Nubia,’ said Jonathan. ‘You can look.’
‘It is time for me to return to the palace,’ said Ascletario. ‘Shall I come back for you later?’
‘I think we can find our way back to the palace,’ said Flavia. ‘Thank you very much for your help.’
‘I humbly bow.’ He backed away for a few steps, bobbing his head and rubbing his hands together like a fly. Then he turned and disappeared into the crowd.
‘Let’s go to the clinic, where the doctors are,’ said Flavia, ‘and see if we can find our Prometheus.’
Jonathan pulled a long face. ‘The clinic, the sanctuary. Clinic, sanctuary. Sanctuary, clinic!’
Flavia laughed.
But Nubia did not laugh. She did not smell any sweet savour. She only smelled blood. Suddenly she looked around.
‘Lupus!’ she cried. ‘Where is the Lupus?’
Lupus stepped into the innermost room of the temple, a narrow cella with small high windows. It was late morning and beams of pale sunlight sliced down through the incense-smoky gloom. One fat sunbeam illuminated the cult statue. The god Aesculapius was shown with curly hair and beard, wearing something like a toga and leaning on a staff round which a large snake coiled. The statue was painted and the downward slanting light threw the god’s eyes into shadow. It seemed as if Aesculapius really stood there, looking straight down at him.
Lupus shivered and glanced around. He was alone.
He reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a small object. Was it wrong to dedicate something stolen to the god? He hoped not. He hadn’t stolen it because he had no money. He had stolen it because he didn’t want the others to know.
Feeling slightly dizzy from the incense, he stepped towards the Healer, the son of Apollo.
He took one more look at the object in his hand: a little tongue moulded of clay. Then he laid it at the god’s feet and in his mind he prayed:
Dear Aesculapius, please heal me. Please give me back my tongue.
*
‘Lupus! Where have you been?’ said Flavia. ‘If we lost you here in Rome we’d never find you again! It was bad enough that time—’
Flavia swallowed the rest of her words and cursed silently. That was not the way to deal with Lupus. An open rebuke usually made him angry. She braced herself for a rude gesture or a hasty exit, and was amazed when he dropped his head and held up his hands – palms out – as if to say: You’re right. I’m sorry.
‘It’s just . . . we were worried about you,’ she said, and was surprised to find tears springing to her eyes. She turned away quickly, before Lupus could see. ‘Let’s see if these imperial passes work,’ she said briskly.
There was a long queue of people waiting at a gate beside the Temple of Jupiter. Some carried family members on pallets and others held sick children in their arms. One man pushed a wheelbarrow. At first glance it seemed to be full of rags, but when Flavia looked again she saw an old woman’s face glaring out at her. Some of the fever victims were able to stand, but they were coughing up phlegm and spitting blood.
‘I’m sorry,’ a temple attendant was telling the people. ‘There is no more room in the sanctuary. Try again tomorrow. There should be places then.’ He nodded towards a priest pushing an empty body-cart.
Flavia held the ivory plaque in front of her and tried to catch his eye.
‘But where can I take my daughter?’ cried a man in a patched brown tunic. He held a little girl of about five in his arms. ‘We can’t afford the doctor.’
‘Take your sick to the gardens across the river,’ said a commanding voice that Flavia recognised as the Emperor’s. ‘I have made provision for many to be treated there as well as here. You will find food and water and someone to nurse your loved ones.’
The crowd parted and Titus appeared.
‘Caesar is great! Caesar is merciful!’ sobbed an old man, falling at Titus’s feet and pressing his lips fervently to the imperial boot.
Titus allowed the old man to worship him for a moment. Presently he lifted him to his feet, murmured a few words, and dismissed him with a pat on the shoulder.
Flavia was close enough to hear Titus say to one of the guards in a low voice, ‘Give each of these people a silver coin. But discreetly. We don’t want a riot. And let that little girl and her father in.’ At that moment he caught sight of Flavia and her friends. His face lit up.
‘Children!’ he cried. ‘Salvete! Have your investigations brought you here?’
‘Yes, Caesar!’ said Flavia. ‘We think “Prometheus” may be one of the doctors.’
‘Really?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Then you’d better come in with me. I haven’t met your father yet, Jonathan, nor have I thanked him for coming. Will you introduce me to him?’
Jonathan heard the armour of the praetorian guard clinking and was aware of the Emperor close behind him as he stepped into the long portico. He glanced round quickly, trying to get his bearings and find his father.
He saw a narrow physic garden with long rows of columns stretching before him on both the right and the left: two covered walkways.
As he started to walk under cover of the right-hand colonnade, Jonathan saw that a long row of tiny rooms opened out onto it. Although the cells were narrow – barely wide enough for one bed – they were bright and well-ventilated because each looked straight out through red-based columns into the tree-filled courtyard. He glanced left and saw that the garden was filled with healing trees like laurel, myrtle, wormwood and walnut. He also noted ferns, mint, mallow, fennel, radishes and parsley. All useful for medicinal purposes.
Mingled with the cool green scent of the plants and trees was the familiar odour of the doctor’s consulting room. Purifying incense rose from the braziers: frankincense, camphor and myrrh. Jonathan also recognised the pleasant smell of herbs crushed in marble mortars – cloves, mustard, rose, anise and hellebore – and the much less pleasant smell of human sweat, urine and burning flesh from the cauteries.
Doctors, identifiable by their aprons, moved in and out of the cells. Some worked at tables set between columns of the covered walkway. Others stood over their patients in the cells, burning flesh, letting blood or helping them to vomit.
‘There’s your father,’ said Flavia, pointing.
In one of the cells in the colonnade across the garden a tall doctor was bending over a man on a low bed. Jonathan shook his head in wonder. ‘I still can’t get used to seeing him without his turban and beard,’ he murmured. And in a louder voice he said to the Emperor, ‘That’s my father, Caesar. Let me introduce you.’
‘Tell me, Doctor Mordecai ben Ezra,’ said the Emperor after Jonathan had made the introductions, ‘what do you think? Can this plague be stopped?’
Mordecai was wiping his hands on his apron. ‘I would not call this a plague, Caesar, but rather an epidemic. This is a quotidian fever with chills, shivering and aching muscles. Usually in such cases the patient recovers within a few days, but with the weakest – the very old or very young – the illness goes to a more severe stage. Then the lungs become full of phlegm and the patient drowns, even though he is far from water.’
Mordecai glanced back into a cell towards one of his patients, a young man of about twenty-one.
He lowered his voice. ‘But this particular fever is unlike any I have met before. What I saw in Ostia – what I see here in Rome – seems to be afflicting not only the young and the old, but also those of middle years, between fifteen and thirty-five. And in some cases it strikes with terrible swiftness. I heard of a case in Ostia last week. Four soldiers playing knucklebones together in the morning were struck down by the fever at noon and by evening three of the four
men were dead.’
‘Yes,’ said Titus, folding his arms across his chest and looking around. ‘I have heard similar stories. Do you have any idea why this is happening?’
Jonathan held his breath. Some Jews believed God was angry with Titus for destroying the temple.
Mordecai paused. ‘One possibility,’ he said at last, ‘is the fine ash in the air, from the eruption of Vesuvius. That ash makes people cough and weakens their lungs.’
‘But the eruption was months ago!’ cried Titus.
‘I’m afraid its effects will be felt for a long time,’ said Mordecai. ‘And there is another possible link between the volcano and this epidemic. Vesuvius sent many refugees to different parts of Italia, to Ostia and Rome in particular. I believe these refugees may have brought seeds of disease with them.’
‘What can be done to cure those with the fever?’ asked Titus. He began walking along the row of cells and Mordecai fell into step beside him. Jonathan and his friends followed, the clinking guards took up the rear.
‘They must be put to rest in a light, well-aired room.’ Mordecai gestured towards one of the cells. ‘These are perfect.’
‘But there aren’t enough of them here,’ said Titus. ‘I’ve had to open a portico in the gardens across the river.’
‘Good,’ said Mordecai, nodding. ‘That is good. The patients should be fed broth, if they can take it, and they should drink water and wine on alternate days. Also – and this is important – they must not be bled. I believe this weakens them unnecessarily. Finally, if the fever goes to the next stage and fluid fills their lungs, they must be made to bring it up. I have discovered that if patients breathe the steam from certain herbs boiled in water, it helps them cough.’
‘That is your special method of treatment?’ asked Titus. ‘Steam promoting a cough? Nothing more?’
‘Only prayer,’ said Mordecai. ‘As Hippocrates himself said, “The gods are the real physicians, though people do not think so.”’
‘Well, you seem to have had great success in Ostia. I will be interested to see how you get on today. Perhaps you and the children will join me for dinner later this afternoon in my private winter triclinium?’
Mordecai inclined his head.
‘Excellent. I’ll send a litter to pick you up at the tenth hour. Meanwhile, I will leave you to get on with your work.’
‘OK,’ whispered Flavia after Titus had gone. ‘Here’s our modus operandi. It’ll be quicker if we split up and look for likely suspects.’ The four friends were standing beneath a cherry tree in the medicine garden.
‘We are looking for the doctor named Prometheus?’ asked Nubia, pulling her lionskin cloak closer round her shoulders.
‘No, Nubia,’ said Flavia as patiently as she could. ‘Not a doctor named Prometheus but someone like Prometheus, who was the first physician. That’s why we’ve come here, where all the doctors are.’
‘So we look for the doctor, not the patient?’ asked Nubia.
‘That’s right,’ said Flavia, keeping her voice low. ‘If he’s like Prometheus he’ll be very clever and arrogant and think he knows best. Hubris. Remember what Aristo said about hubris?’
Nubia nodded. ‘Overweening pride.’
‘That may be hard,’ said Jonathan.
‘Why? You don’t think we’ll find a proud doctor?’
‘Just the opposite. Father says in his experience most doctors think they’re one step down from Jupiter.’
Flavia laughed. ‘That’s what we’ll look for then. Find a doctor who thinks he’s one step down from Jupiter. We’ll meet back here by this cherry tree at midday to report on our findings. Oh, and keep your eyes open for any suspicious boxes.’
Nubia walked slowly along the colonnade. The name MORDICÆ had been written in chalk to the right of several of the doorways and she realised that each of the doctors had about a dozen patients under their care. All the cells marked ‘Mordicae’ had thin curtains made of unbleached cream-coloured linen.
Presently she was passing cells with gauzy red curtains. Some of these curtains were pulled right across, screening the occupant from view, but most were open. Nubia saw that most of the patients in these cells were asleep or unconscious. They were all very pale and some had skin so white it was almost blue. One or two were moaning, coughing into chamber-pots beside their narrow beds, but most were still as statues. They must have a graver illness than Mordecai’s patients, she thought.
She noticed the doctor’s name had been scrawled in charcoal to the right of each of the red-curtained doorways: DIAULUS.
Presently she came to a cell with three people in it: a worried-looking young woman sitting up in her narrow bed, the doctor seated on a folding stool, and a standing young man, probably the doctor’s apprentice. The apprentice was fumbling with a bell-shaped object. Nubia recognised it at once. It was a cupping vessel like the one Lupus had shown her. She shuddered. The doctor – presumably Diaulus – was about to bleed the young woman. He was a big bald man with a smooth olive complexion.
‘Bring me my wound box,’ he said to his apprentice. The chinless young man set a small box on a folding table beside his master, who was still seated. Diaulus twisted his torso, examined the contents of the box and withdrew a scalpel.
As Nubia paused in the doorway to watch, Diaulus raised his head and gave her a brief glare.
‘Get out of the doorway,’ he said coldly. ‘Out of my light.’
Nubia moved hastily out of the cell’s doorway, then peeked round it just far enough to see into the room.
‘Is that ready yet?’ Diaulus asked his assistant.
‘Yes, sir,’ stammered the young apprentice. He dropped a piece of burning lint into the shiny bronze cup.
‘Good,’ said Diaulus, and Nubia watched in horrified fascination as he took the sharp scalpel and plunged it into the plump white crook of the woman’s elbow.
Diaulus had cut a vein in the woman’s arm and as the blood began to spurt, he took the cup from his assistant and pressed it to the white flesh. The woman sat quivering and biting her lip. Presently, when the cup was full and blood began to seep over its edge, Diaulus handed it to his assistant and quickly wrapped a strip of linen around her arm.
‘Empty it in the garden as usual,’ he said, after briefly inspecting it.
As the assistant moved out of the cell and passed through the columns into the garden, Nubia saw Mordecai approaching.
Jonathan’s father glanced at the red blood being poured away onto the ground and frowned.
‘I must tell you, colleague,’ he said, turning to Diaulus, ‘that I am opposed to blood-letting during this pestilence. It can prove useful for hysterical women or robust people with minor complaints, but I believe it weakens those with fever.’
‘Wool fluff!’ Diaulus rounded on Mordecai with blazing eyes. ‘Utter wool fluff! Blood-letting is a proven method. It helps almost every complaint. Don’t you know that blood causes decay? Don’t you know that the festering blood will poison a wound? Blood is bad.’
‘Blood is not bad. Blood is good.’ Mordecai spoke quietly but Nubia noticed his accent becoming more pronounced, as it did when he was upset. ‘Our holy book says the life is in the blood. When you pour out blood you pour out life.’
‘I don’t give a speck of fluff for your holy books!’ snorted Diaulus. ‘You must be crazy to believe that.’
‘It is not purely a Jewish belief. Some of the most respected physicians were also opposed to blood-letting. Erasistratus for example.’
‘Erasistratus was an idiot,’ huffed Diaulus. ‘Next you’ll be telling me that blood does no harm when it leaks from the veins into the arteries!’
‘Sir,’ said Mordecai, ‘I studied medicine in Babylon and Alexandria. I have operated on living bodies and I have dissected dead ones. I believe the arteries are not filled with air – as most doctors claim – but with blood, just as the veins are.’
‘Blood in the arteries?’ Diaulus gave a bark of laughter
and turned away in disgust. ‘Now I know you’re crazy,’ he said.
‘That smells nice,’ said Flavia, as she watched the doctor massaging a patient. ‘Is it myrrh and jasmine?’
The aproned doctor turned to her with a look of pleasure on his face.
‘Why yes,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a good nose.’
‘So do you,’ said Flavia, staring. He was a young man with jet black hair, liquid brown eyes and the most enormous nose she had ever seen. ‘I mean . . .’
‘Don’t worry!’ the young doctor laughed. ‘Everyone stares. I don’t mind. My nose is my livelihood.’
‘What do you mean?’ She took a step into the cell.
‘I can smell disease and I can sense the cure.’ He leaned towards her, closed his eyes and sniffed. ‘I can tell that you wear lemon-blossom perfume, myrtle hair-oil, and you recently soaked in a bath scented with lavender oil.’
Flavia’s jaw dropped.
‘For breakfast this morning you had goat’s cheese and bread, washed down with well-watered spiced wine—’
‘How can you—’
‘Tac!’ said the doctor, holding up his hand. ‘Falernian wine with cinnamon, pepper and honey.’ He opened his eyes and raised his eyebrows. ‘Correct?’
Flavia nodded. ‘That’s amazing! I don’t know what kind of wine it was but it did have cinnamon and honey. Pepper, too. How did you know that?’
‘The proboscis,’ he said, tapping his nose. ‘Worth its weight.’
She laughed. ‘My name’s Flavia Gemina. Daughter of Marcus Flavius Geminus, sea captain.’
‘Titus Flavius Cosmus,’ he replied with a smile.
‘Titus Flavius . . . Then you’re one of the Emperor’s freedmen?’
‘I am.’ Still smiling, he bent over his patient – a big man with a hairy back – and resumed his kneading and rubbing. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. You smell very healthy to me . . .’
‘I am healthy. I’m here with my friend Jonathan. He’s the son of Doctor Mordecai. The new doctor over there across the garden.’
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 87