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

by Frank G. Slaughter

Darkness caught them less than halfway across the mountain range, and the old man stopped on a small plateau, flatly refusing to go on until the moon rose about midnight. He insisted that they would only fall in the darkness and lose their lives, since the way was even more dangerous ahead of them than behind. They had no choice but to agree when their guide lay down and began snoring. Luke and Probus propped their backs against the rocks and waited for the moon to rise.

  Luke did not mean to sleep, but weariness overcame him. It could have been the similarity of the small plateau to the glen where he and Apollonius had buried Silvanus that brought on the dream. Or perhaps it was another force, one watching over them there close to the mountaintop. In the dream he stood at the edge of the glen where Probus had driven the chariot over the cliff, with the small cairn of stones marking the grave of Silvanus at his back. As plainly as if he were really there he could see Bithynia and the distant road winding along the face of the mountains from the heights to the valley below. Two small figures were walking down that road hand and hand.

  And now, as if his eyes had been given the power of extra vision, the figures grew nearer until he could distinguish their faces. The girl was Thecla, and he recognized the man as himself. They walked down the road happily, eyes fixed eagerly upon the plain of Bithynia, their feet hardly touching the path. In the dream Luke could even read their thoughts, the happiness they shared at the prospect of reaching the beautiful land below them at the foot of the mountain and the realization of their dreams of the future.

  Then with a sudden horror he saw the road begin to crumble ahead of the two lovers and tried to call out to them to warn them against the danger. But no words came, and he could only watch, unable to warn them while they continued down the road, oblivious of the danger. When at last he found his voice to shout, “Thecla! Thecla!” it was too late, and she slipped from the road to go plummeting down to the rocks below while he watched, frozen with horror.

  “Luke! Luke!” At first he thought it was Thecla calling to him, then he opened his eyes and saw Probus bending over him, shaking him. “Wake up, Luke,” Probus cried. “You were having a nightmare.”

  Luke sat up. The moon was already up, but the old man still snored on the grass. “It is late,” he said in sudden apprehension. “Look how high the moon is.”

  “It was a lucky thing for us that you had a nightmare,” Probus said as he went to wake up their guide. “Your groaning awakened me, or we would have slept here until morning and never made Caesarea in time.”

  The dream was still vivid in Luke’s thoughts as they continued their climb in the bright moonlight. Had God chosen this way to reassure him that he and Thecla would still take the road to Bithynia? he wondered. But if so, why had Thecla fallen from the road, leaving him to go on alone? Or had some higher force than their own weary minds sent the dream to awaken them before they lost all chance of helping Thecla? Then the way became steeper and more perilous, forcing him to keep his thoughts upon the job at hand.

  X

  Herod the Great, builder of the magnificent temple at Jerusalem, had also reconstructed the old city of Samaria and renamed it Sebaste, Greek for Augustus. Within sight of Sebaste on the coast he built a new city which he named Caesarea. It was the military headquarters for the Roman government of the district. The first Herod had also transformed the shallow harbor into a safe anchorage by building a giant stone mole reaching in a half-mile crescent out into the waters of the sea. Upon the hills close to the water he had erected a great amphitheater, and nearby a palace and a citadel similar to the grim fortress of Antonia in Jerusalem.

  As Luke and Probus rode down from the foothills on the mules they had purchased from their guide’s son, the sun was bright upon the stone seats, great columns, and splendid façade of the amphitheater. Long lines of people converged upon the huge stadium from all parts of the city, and already the seats were half filled.

  The roads were crowded, as were the streets, and it was more than an hour before they were able to make their way to the theater itself. Long before they reached it, the roars of the crowd told them the games had begun. As they rode into the city they rehearsed once more their plan of action. Luke would try to reach the lower levels where Thecla would be confined before her appearance in the arena, while Probus would use the safe-conduct to make his way to the first level above the arena, where the boxes of the rich stood and the shining, golden throne prepared for Herod Agrippa. At some tense moment in the games, when attention would be drawn upon the arena, he would try to get close enough to the king to thrust the sharp stiletto he carried inside his cloak into Herod’s body, hoping in the resulting confusion to make his escape. Somehow, in the tumult over Herod’s murder, Luke would try to save Thecla. Both realized that theirs was a stratagem of desperation, far more likely to result in failure than success with death at the hands of Herod’s guards for both of them.

  “Look!” Probus cried suddenly. “There is Agabus.”

  The old prophet stood beside the gate, as gaunt as ever in his dingy robe and sandals. “Beware the vengeance of the Lord,” he shouted to the laughing throng entering the theater. “This day death will strike. Repent and seek God before His wrath is upon you.”

  Probus’s eyes gleamed suddenly. “We may be able to use Agabus,” he told Luke in a low voice. “Remember that Herod fears him. If we can make the prophet denounce the king before the crowd for abducting Thecla at the same time Herod sees that you are ready to die with her, he may relent for fear of both Roman justice and his God.”

  When Luke touched Agabus’s arm the old prophet turned burning eyes upon him. “The girl you seek still lives, Luke of Antioch,” he said at once. “But this day Herod will throw her to the beasts.”

  “Will you help us, Agabus?” Luke begged. “Will you go to Herod and denounce him for what he has done?”

  The prophet gathered up his long robe. “The wicked shall perish and the righteous shall triumph,” he intoned. “The Lord God has spoken; this day Herod shall die and the worms shall eat his body.”

  Luke hurriedly purchased tickets for them, counting out the gold with trembling fingers. Inside the amphitheater, Probus took Agabus and the tablet with the safe-conduct, for he would need it to reach the box where the king was directing the games. Luke must find his way to Thecla as best he could. The ticket seller told him that the gladiators were fighting now, whipping up the blood lust of the crowd in preparation for the venatio, when Thecla would be thrown to the lions.

  With a pounding heart Luke made his way through the corridors that ran beneath the building, past the rooms where the gladiators awaited their turns. He could hear the roaring of the lions held ready at the very side of the arena itself, the barred doors of their cages operated by a huge lever so that the beasts could be released directly into the arena at the proper moment. Farther along he crossed the broad rutted corridor leading to the “Death Gate” and saw the death wagon ring in the wall while the driver enjoyed the games before hauling away his load of mutilated flesh. Luke carefully mapped in his mind the location of the various passages so that if by some miracle he and Thecla did escape he would not become lost here in the maze and be recaptured.

  Where a narrow side corridor opened into the main one he came upon a guard, the first he had seen, and judged that Thecla must be confined nearby. “I am a physician,” he announced in an authoritative tone. “King Herod has sent me to watch the girl and make certain that she does not strangle herself or take poison to cheat the king of his pleasure.”

  The man bowed respectfully before the king’s physician and led him to a cell that opened on the side corridor. He unlocked the door and, when Luke entered, locked it again. Thecla was standing before a small barred window in the wall of the cell, the sun shining on her hair so that her head seemed ringed by a bright halo. Her face was uplifted to the rays while her lips moved in prayer. When she turned, a glad cry broke from her lips
and she threw herself into Luke’s arms. For a long moment neither of them could speak. Tears of joy were streaming down her cheeks and Luke’s own eyes were wet. “Oh, my darling,” she whispered. “I thought I would never see you again.”

  “Then you know—” He stopped.

  “That I am to be thrown to the wild beasts? Yes, but I am not afraid. When people see through me how Jesus gives strength to those who believe in Him, my death will not have been in vain. But how did you get here, Luke?”

  He told her of Peter’s release from prison, his dismay at learning that she had been taken away, and how he had fought to reach her. She touched his face then with loving fingers. “Surely in all the world there was never a love so great as ours, Luke,” she said softly.

  He kissed her fingers gently and went on to tell her of the plan he and Probus had evolved. It seemed more futile and hopeless now than ever, but the thought brought no despair. If it was necessary for him to die, too, he was ready, secure in the knowledge of their love. Then a new thought struck him and he told her of the dream last night on the mountain, when he had seen the two of them descending the road to Bithynia. “It must be an omen that we will escape,” he said, but he did not tell her how the dream had ended.

  “Bithynia,” Thecla repeated softly. “I have been thinking a great deal about it these last few days, Luke. No matter what happens to me, you must go on with your plans. And when I am gone—”

  “Don’t say it,” he begged. “There is still a chance of help.”

  “Then it can come only from God, Luke,” she said. “Let us pray to Him on our knees.” Her hand in his, they dropped to their knees on the stone floor of the cell and prayed, Thecla for strength during the coming ordeal, and Luke for some miracle to save her. And as he prayed Luke felt a great peace begin to fill his soul. It was almost as if a quiet voice had spoken to him telling him not to be afraid.

  When they rose from their knees Thecla said gently, “I could go out there happy, Luke, if I knew that you had found Jesus here in this cell with me.”

  He took both her hands and drew her gently to him. “I think I was very near to Him just now, my dearest. Nearer than I have ever been before.”

  The tramp of marching feet in the corridor outside the cell warned them that Thecla’s time had come, and they could only embrace hurriedly before the key of the guard grated in the lock and the door was flung open.

  The officer in charge of the guards took a tablet from beneath his arm and began to read: “‘Thecla of Iconium, having appeared before the presence of Herod Agrippa I, King of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee by the grace of the Emperor Claudius, you have been judged guilty of heinous crimes, as well as of being a follower of the pretender, Jesus of Nazareth. It is therefore the will of King Herod and the Emperor Claudius that you shall die this day by being lashed to a bull and sent among the lions.’”

  He put down the tablet and, stepping quickly up to Thecla, seized the collar of her stola and ripped it completely from her body, leaving her nude save for a small apron covering her loins. Instinctively the girl cringed before the gaze of the soldiers, covering her breasts with her hands and bowing her head while her cheeks crimsoned with shame.

  The rude violation of Thecla’s virginal beauty was more than Luke could stand. With a strangled cry he launched himself upon the officer. Taken by surprise, the man crashed back against the wall of the cell. Then one of the soldiers brought the butt of his sword sharply against Luke’s temple, felling him. As he sank into dark oblivion he heard a single cry of anguish from Thecla, then knew no more.

  Luke struggled from a painful haze in which the walls of the cell seemed to throb with a mighty force. Dazedly he wiped away the blood which was trickling down across his face from a cut in his scalp. Slowly then, memory of the recent past returned, the stripping of Thecla before the soldiers, his own futile attack, and the blow which had rendered him unconscious. Putting his fingers to his temple and finding only a shallow cut, Luke realized that he owed his life to the fact that the soldier had used the butt of the sword instead of the blade, else his skull would have been split. But he would far rather have died with Thecla than to have been left lying there, unable to help while she was clawed to death by the lions.

  But had she been killed yet? The blood around the cut was still fluid when he touched it; no clot had formed, as would have occurred if more than a few minutes had elapsed. There might still be time to reach Thecla.

  Luke pushed himself to his feet and staggered to the gate, clinging to the bars when the room dipped and swayed about him. The gate was not locked now, and he pushed it open and stumbled out into the corridor, leaning against the wall until his head cleared enough so that he could stand upright. Some instinctive reasoning made him turn toward the waves of sound rocketing through the corridors from the arena. There was no time to look for a weapon, but when he stumbled over something and fell to his knees, he saw that it was the handle of a battle-ax dropped by a wounded gladiator being borne from the arena. Picking up the ax, he thrust it under his cloak where it would not be seen.

  The sound of cheering grew louder, and Luke knew that he was near the entrance to the arena itself. He moved faster now, urged on by the need to discover what had happened to Thecla. Only one man was at the entrance to the arena when he reached it, a burly fellow whose duty it was to operate the long lever by which the doors of the animal cages were opened, letting the roaring and growling beasts out upon the field. The man did not try to stop him, however, when he moved out into the bright sunshine of the white-sanded arena.

  No one noticed Luke, for all eyes were upon the throne of Herod. He saw Thecla, hardly fifty feet away from him at the side of the arena, her nearly nude body lashed to the back of a young bull which was tethered by ropes in the hands of three slaves. Neither the crowd nor the slaves holding the bull were watching the girl, however. All eyes were directed on the golden throne of Herod Agrippa which occupied the largest box and was fully visible from where Luke was standing near the arena entrance.

  “People of Israel.” Herod’s voice rang out over the amphitheater. “I bring you this great spectacle in honor of the safe return of the emperor to Rome.”

  A roar of applause rocketed upward to the topmost seat of the great theater, and for a moment Herod could not continue. Luke could see him standing upon the dais that supported the throne, his rich purple robe shining in the sun only a little less brilliantly than the crown upon his head and the jeweled scepter in his hand.

  “Soon I will order the lions released,” Herod shouted, “and a cursed Nazarene will be sent to death under the claws of the beasts. But first I would give my people a small token of the generosity of your king.” At his words a hundred slaves in different parts of the amphitheater began to scatter gold pieces to the crowd as a sower would scatter seeds. Some of the coins fell into the arena, and Luke saw the slaves holding the bull to which Thecla was bound picking them up surreptitiously.

  Then a stentorian voice sounded: “The voice of a god and not of a man.” Luke saw that the words had been shouted by Geta, the torturer, who stood at the far side of the arena evidently for just this purpose. And as if they had been waiting for this signal, hundreds of well-rehearsed voices took up the cry, until the crowd joined in chanting, “The voice of a god and not of a man!” over and over in a swelling torrent of sound.

  The railing before which Herod stood was not more than a dozen feet over Luke’s head. He could even see a fatuous smile break over Herod’s face at this far from spontaneous tribute. Then another figure appeared suddenly on the dais beside the magnificently garbed king. With his height, his long beard, the flapping gray robe, and the bony forefinger lifted like a pillar of warning.

  Agabus was the very personification of doom. Luke saw the king turn startled eyes upon the old prophet, then the voice of Agabus boomed out over the hum of the crowd: “Repent, ye children of Israel. Fol
low not this false king who has led you into idolatry, for this day God shall smite him for his sins.”

  Herod’s face purpled with rage and he took a step toward the old prophet, raising the golden scepter in his right hand. Luke could see the maniacal rage in the king’s face, as could everyone in the great theater, when he struck Agabus with the jeweled symbol of his authority, bludgeoning him viciously again and again.

  The prophet’s upraised arms dropped to his sides, and he collapsed upon the dais at Herod’s feet, a crumpled pile of dirty gray robe and matted hair from which blood was already seeping where his scalp had been torn by the jewels of the scepter. For a moment Herod stood with the bloody scepter in his hand, staring in horror at the body of the old prophet with whose life his own had been tied by the soothsayer. Something of the terror that gripped the king was transmitted to the crowd, too, for a sudden hush fell over the entire theater. In that silence Herod’s strangled cry could be plainly heard, and the crash as the scepter dropped from powerless fingers. The king groped for the rail before him with one hand, while the other clutched at his throat. Then as death seized him, his body collapsed across the railing and fell to the white sand of the arena below, the royal robes making a splash of brilliant purple against the snowy sand in the bright sunlight.

  Stunned by the shock of the king’s death, the whole theater was gripped by some of the fear which had been in the king’s face those last few seconds. The bull to which Thecla was tied sensed the terror, as animals do, and rearing up suddenly, tore the tethering rope from the hand of one of the slaves. Then, wheeling, it plunged toward the entrance to the arena, jerking the ropes from the hands of the other two slaves. Free except for the helpless girl lashed to its back, the bull plunged instinctively for the passage through which it had been led into the arena.

  Luke was almost bowled over by the rush of the bull, but, still clutching the battle-ax he had picked up in the corridor, he managed to seize one of the ropes that bound Thecla to the animal. At the gate leading from the arena the bull swerved away from the crumpled figure of the king lying on the sand, striking its shoulder against one of the pillars supporting the gate, close to where the lever hung which opened the cages. The man who controlled the lever turned and ran, while the crazed animal stopped uncertainly, quivering with terror.