The Road to Bithynia: A Novel of Luke, the Beloved Physician

by Frank G. Slaughter

Luke rolled up a blanket and threw a heavy cloak about his shoulders. Silvanus took him along the mountain road that led to the narrow pass. In the defile itself they were halted by the Roman advance guard but were allowed to go on when the centurion gave the password. Perhaps a quarter of a mile beyond, where the road began to descend, he led the way off the road into a small wooded glen, one side of which was a vast empty darkness where the mountains dropped precipitously to the plain below.

  “What have you brought me to see, Silvanus?” Luke asked, mystified.

  “Sleep first,” the centurion advised. “I will wake you at dawn.”

  Luke lay down on a level spot and wrapped himself in the cloak, drawing the blanket around him, for it was already growing cool. No sound disturbed the peace of the night, nothing to remind them that the Roman Army was encamped behind them and an enemy in front. Luke was asleep at once, for he was tired from the long trip north and the days of hard work.

  When Silvanus awakened him by shaking his shoulder, Luke sat up and rubbed his eyes. Then he remembered where they were and looked around, but there was as yet only a little light, and he could see nothing beyond the confines of the small glen. While waiting for the sun to come up, they munched the bread and goat cheese which Silvanus had carried and drank from his canteen.

  As the dawn brought light Luke could see that one side of their glen ended in a precipitous craggy drop, although the fog curtain still shielded the lowlands from view. Slowly, as the gray tendrils of the fog dissolved before the rising run, the valley below them began to take form. Luke saw a small river winding its way to the north and west through a broad green carpet of fields and pastures. Distantly to their ears came the lowing of cattle, the neighing of horses being led to water, and the sound of human voices as people began to stir in the farmhouses below. To the west another mountain range towered, its craggy tops dark blue against the morning sky, but the plain below extended as far to the north as Luke could see, ending in a bluish haze upon the horizon. It was a calm and peaceful land of small farms and farmhouses, fields, orchards, and pastures, with the bright colors of flowers painted against the green background of the fields and the brown thatch of the housetops as if by the brush of a divine artist.

  Luke turned to Silvanus, his eyes shining. “It is the most beautiful land I have ever seen,” he cried. “Surely this must be Bithynia.”

  The centurion smiled. “Yes, Luke. This is Bithynia. The plain stretches northward to the Pontus Euxinus, which the inhabitants call the Black Sea. Paphlagonia lies to the east, and there is more of Bithynia behind the mountains there to the west, more mountains and more valleys like this one. The climate is mild in those valleys,” he continued, “and on the shores of the Black Sea the sand is sometimes as white as the snow on the mountaintops to the east there. I wanted you to see it as I always picture it in my mind.”

  “Take me with you when you go, Silvanus,” Luke begged again. But the old centurion only shook his head. “You will take the road to Bithynia soon enough, Luke,” he promised. “But only when you have fulfilled your personal destiny, as we all must do to find peace and happiness.” He gathered his cloak about him. “Come now. We must get back to the troops; our place is with them on the eve of a battle.”

  VI

  The Paphlagonians had managed to choose their own battleground, thereby accomplishing the unusual feat of forcing Roman soldiers to fight on ground not of their own choosing. And worse still, since the battle was joined in many narrow defiles and small pockets among the mountain peaks, the Romans could fight only in small groups and were unable to use the famous “square of shields” by which Julius Caesar and the generals who had followed him were able to batter great holes in the ranks of other armies. The Paphlagonians were cunning fighters. As soon as one band of them isolated a small group of Romans, others, climbing like goats about the mountain crags, loosed a shower of arrows and spears from above upon the luckless soldiers of the empire.

  Casualties from the very first were heavy. Luke, because of his skill in surgery, had been ordered by Sergius Paulus to set up a hospital at the advance camp upon the small plateau. Here he worked tirelessly, suturing wounds, removing arrow and spearheads, splinting broken bones, and measuring out liberal doses of the powdered poppy which was his main weapon against pain. Many of the wounds were hopeless, spear thrusts into abdomen or groin, and compound fractures where splintered bones tore through muscle and skin as the wounded man dragged himself away from the fighting, grinding gravel and dirt into the exposed tissues. Wounds of the chest rarely reached Luke’s hospital; for the most part they died upon the field, as did severe wounds of the skull.

  All day long the battle raged back and forth. Dispatches from the front indicated that the Romans were holding desperately although being cut to pieces in a multitude of tiny conflicts in the craggy pockets among the mountain peaks. Just before nightfall a litter was borne through the trees to where Luke was working. When it came closer Luke recognized Silvanus, his face chalk-white and drawn with pain. He ran to steady the litter while the soldiers set it down under a tree near the improvised surgery.

  Silvanus opened his eyes. “There is nothing you can do, Luke,” he said quietly in a voice taut with pain. “I got word that Apollonius and his troops were surrounded and led a party to open a path for them to retreat. One of the barbarians thrust a spear into my side, but the boy is safe.”

  Luke examined the wound, an ugly gaping spear thrust in the right flank, penetrating deeply into that vital area. There was little external bleeding, almost surely meaning an internal hemorrhage. Silvanus had spoken the truth, Luke agreed silently. There was no hope in cases such as this, nothing to do but wait for the inevitable. As the hemorrhage continued, death would come with increasing swiftness.

  “Attend those who can be helped by your skill, Luke,” Silvanus whispered. “If I could only have something for the pain.”

  Luke poured a liberal dose of the powdered poppy and mixed it in a little wine. He lifted Silvanus’s head while he drank the medicine, then covered the wounded man with his cloak. “I sent word to Apollonius that my wounds are only minor,” Silvanus gasped. “He is troubled enough already without worrying about me.”

  Luke nodded, and the centurion closed his eyes. Presently his deep, even breathing told Luke that he was sleeping under the influence of the powerful narcotic.

  There was no rest for Luke that night, and shortly before dawn one of the less severely wounded came for him where he was dressing wounds. “The centurion Silvanus is awake and calling for you,” he reported.

  One look told Luke that the end was not far away, for already the grayish pallor of death was creeping into the bearded cheeks of the centurion. Luke knelt beside the litter and took one of the gnarled hands in his own. “What do you wish, Silvanus?” he asked.

  The old man opened his eyes. “My time is almost up, Luke,” he whispered. “Grant me a last favor.”

  “Anything.” Luke’s voice broke. “Anything I can do.”

  “I would die in Bithynia, in the glen where we were this morning.”

  “I will get men to carry the litter,” Luke said promptly.

  “Hurry, my son,” Silvanus urged. “There is but little time.”

  The bearers deposited the litter upon the grass carpet of the little glen overlooking the plain of Bithynia close to the edge of the crag so that Silvanus could see over it. Luke sent the litter bearers back and knelt beside his dying friend. Weeping unashamedly, Silvanus opened his eyes. “Do not grieve for me, Luke,” he said softly. “I have found the way to eternal life and I have seen Bithynia. I want nothing else.” His voice trailed off for a moment, and Luke reached for his pulse, thinking that the end might have come, but the heavy-lidded eyes opened and the low whisper came once more. “I have been honored, Luke; Jesus, too, had a spear thrust in the side.” He tried to raise himself up on his elbows. “Can you see the pl
ain below?”

  “Not yet,” Luke said. “But the fog is thinning, and I will lift you up when the valley can be seen.” A few moments later the sun shot through the fog, dispelling it, so that the fertile plain below was revealed, as if a curtain had been drawn back. When Luke lifted Silvanus by the shoulders, the dying man’s eyes searched eagerly the scene of peace below them and a smile broke over his face, erasing the pain. “Bithynia!” he gasped. “Bithynia at last!” Then the tortured body went suddenly limp and the lines of pain about Silvanus’s mouth were eased by the peace of death.

  Luke lowered the body of his friend back on the litter and got slowly to his feet. His eyes were still fixed upon the land below the mountain, the green fields and the pastures, and the golden ribbon of the river winding through it in the morning sunlight. “Bithynia,” he repeated softly. “Peaceful land.”

  Suddenly Luke’s heart was sick of fighting and death and he longed for the peace of that scene below him. But the words of Silvanus came again to his mind: “You will take the road to Bithynia soon enough, Luke.” Bithynia lay before him, almost within his grasp, as it had been almost within the grasp of Silvanus. A narrow road wound along the face of the mountain; he had only to take it now to be free. But Silvanus had died before he reached Bithynia, and with scores of wounded needing his skilled care, Luke knew that his place was with the army. The path leading down the mountains, the road to Bithynia, seemed farther away than ever now.

  Stumbling through the pass toward the battle lines where he knew he would find Apollonius, Luke came upon Probus riding toward the front in a chariot with messages for the commanders from Sergius Paulus. The scribe stopped the chariot. “You have no business up here, Luke,” he said severely. “Are you mad?”

  Luke looked up at him dully. “I am looking for Apollonius. Silvanus is dead and we must bury him.”

  Probus knew how much Luke and Apollonius had loved the centurion. “Step into the chariot,” he said. “I am going to see your brother now and will bring both of you back with me.”

  There had been an early morning sortie in force, and the dead and dying littered the small pocket where the battle had been fought. Bodies from the day before still lay on the ground, swollen with the bloat of death, and the stench of war was appalling. Apollonius had led the Romans in their last sortie and was resting now with his battle-weary troops. Since the way was too rough for the chariot, Probus sent the driver ahead for Apollonius while he and Luke waited.

  An old and battle-scarred centurion, the short sword in his hand dripping with blood, was walking over the battlefield. Twice they saw him kneel beside a body on the ground, then rise and quickly plunge the sword into the soldier’s neck. Luke felt a wave of anger and revulsion at what looked like an act of wanton murder and took a step toward the centurion, but Probus gripped his shoulder. “Steady, Luke,” he advised. “Those men are beyond help. He is only performing an act of mercy; the soldiers want it that way.”

  “What do these men gain, Probus?” Luke asked, a little unsteadily. “The ones who are fighting and dying, both ours and the enemy?”

  “What do the little people of the world ever gain from wars, except the privilege of dying? If their army wins, they know a short period of pride in naming themselves victors. And if their army loses, they change masters and death comes a little sooner.”

  “Is life, then, without either purpose or hope of happiness?”

  “I did not say that.” Probus sniffed as a breeze enveloped them with the scent of the battlefield. “The driving force in every man is the need to convince himself that he is better than his fellows. Eating fine food, drinking spiced wine, satisfying the animal passions, overcoming other men in combat, war, or politics, acquiring great wealth and power—all give a man the illusion of being nearer to a god than other humans, so those are the things that men risk their lives for.”

  “But there can never be peace so long as every man strives to be better than the other.”

  Probus grunted. “When has there ever been peace? You remember the Jewish concept of the creation of man, don’t you?”

  “The story of Adam and Eve? Yes.”

  “Then you remember that in the Garden of Eden everything was perfect and Adam and Eve were created in the image of Jehovah, which should have satisfied them at least. But when they learned of a tree whose fruit would let them know things they did not know, they needed to eat of it so that they might think themselves better than they had been before. And even when they had sons, the two fought and one was killed.”

  “Do you believe those stories?” Luke asked.

  Probus shrugged. “They are nothing but allegorical tales, of course. The writer was showing that the base impulses which make each man seek to triumph over the others were present in the very beginning, just as they will be present in the last man on earth, the one who finally triumphs over all others and stands alone.”

  “What then? After he has triumphed?”

  “He will realize, too late, of course, that he is a fool. For if there is a god, then man is under him and can never be supreme. And if there is no god, there is always death, which he cannot vanquish.” Probus smiled wryly. “My philosophy is better, Luke. Live for today—tomorrow comes soon enough. Pray for what you deserve, and think yourself better than no man, for then you must try to be better than the man above him.”

  A chariot whirled across the littered battlefield with Apollonius at the reins and the driver they had sent to find the tribune standing beside him. Apollonius was tall and handsome driving the chariot, but when he stepped down from it Luke saw that his shoulders drooped with the despondency of near defeat. Remembering the carefree and happy youth with whom he had played in Antioch, fishing under the great stone arch that carried the road to Seleucia across the yellow flood of the Orontes, throwing stones at wine jugs floating in the stream, and swimming in the strong current, Luke felt a new sense of depression grip his spirits.

  “Luke!” Apollonius cried, embracing him. Then his face grew serious again. “You should not be so near to the battle, little brother,” he said, using the nickname of their childhood together. “Tell me of Silvanus; I heard he was wounded yesterday.”

  “Silvanus is dead,” Luke told him.

  “Dead!” The tall tribune’s voice broke. “B-but he saved my life only yesterday when he led a party to rescue me.”

  “He was wounded then, but he didn’t want you to worry and would not let me send word to you. He died about an hour ago; I came for you because I thought we two should bury him.”

  Apollonius nodded, but tears were in his eyes. “He did enough for us; we can at least do that for him. Fontinus!” he called to the centurion who had been dispatching the wounded on the battlefield. “You will command until I return. Come, Luke. You and Probus can ride with me; my chariot is larger and faster.”

  Apollonius wiped sweat from his forehead. He and Luke had just finished erecting a small cairn of stones over Silvanus’s grave. “So that is Bithynia,” he said, looking out over the valley. “Now I can understand why Silvanus loved it. Did he see it again before he died?”

  “He brought me up here the morning before he died to watch the sunrise,” Luke said. “And he died happy, Apollonius, for he told me he would live again with Jesus of Nazareth.”

  “I know. He often talked to me of these things in Antioch. But I am too weary to think right now; we had better be getting back.” Apollonius started toward the mouth of the little glen, where Probus was waiting with the chariot, but Luke lagged behind for a last look at Bithynia. He turned quickly when Probus’s shout of warning reached his ears, and what he saw sent a chill of apprehension through his body.

  From the rocky wall of the glen three men were in the act of leaping to the grassy floor, swords in hand. Their clothing and weapons stamped them as Paphlagonians, and Luke saw at once what had happened. The three must have been clim
bing along the craggy face of the mountain, seeking to get behind the Roman lines, where they could lie in wait beside the pass and leap upon the chariot of any high-ranking officer who happened to be passing, killing him and escaping for another foray. But the three in the glen were even easier prey, for only Apollonius was armed.

  Caught off his guard, Apollonius barely had time to draw his sword before the men were upon him, forcing him backward, so that he stumbled and dropped to one knee to keep from falling. The tribune fought desperately, but the Paphlagonians were huge men, obviously intent upon dispatching their victim quickly. One of them beat down Apollonius’s weapon as a second lifted his heavy sword for the fatal thrust into the young officer’s heart. Acting by instinct, Luke seized a rock from the cairn at Silvanus’s grave and threw it with all his strength at the attackers.

  There was no time to aim the stone well, but some remnant of the skill he had developed as a youth breaking wine jugs floating on the Orontes still remained. The rock went true, striking the shoulder of the man whose sword was intended for Apollonius’s heart, deflecting his aim so that the blade was buried instead in the tribune’s upper breast, and shoulder. His shoulder shattered by the blow, the Paphlagonian let out a scream of agony and reeled backward while the other two whirled to meet this unexpected attack, converging upon Luke where he stood almost at the edge of the cliff.

  From the mouth of the glen where Probus was holding the horses came a sudden rumble of wheels and the spatter of gravel as the horses leaped from the cut of a whip. But Luke had no time to watch anything except the two men whose swords were almost at his throat. Unarmed as he was, he could only retreat, expecting at every step to go plummeting backward into space, but knowing that only death awaited him at the hands of the attackers. Then he heard Probus shout, “Jump, Luke! Jump!” and obeyed without looking to see what the scribe was doing.

  As Luke dived sideways, landing on his breast in the dirt and sliding along the gravel, he had a glimpse of Probus, his face contorted, driving the chariot and whipping the horses like something possessed. One wheel of the heavy vehicle struck the Paphlagonian with the shattered arm, bowling him over beside Apollonius, who lay on the ground with the blade of the sword in his upper chest snapped off almost at the skin. The chariot wheels spattered Luke with gravel, so close did they come to him as he lay on the ground. The other two attackers had no chance to escape as Probus drove over them, sweeping men, chariot, and horses over the edge of the cliff. At the last moment the scribe leaped from the vehicle, a flying jump that carried him clear. He struck the ground almost at the edge of the cliff and rolled along the precipice until he came up short against a boulder.