The Sword of Damascus a-4

by Richard Blake

  I stepped forward and beat the ground with my stick. ‘I need help,’ I said. I was glad Wilfred wasn’t awake to see this. It wouldn’t do much for his faith in my ability to come up with plans if they involved begging off old Jews chosen at random in the street. But, if there are times when you’re given one, there are times when you have to take a chance.

  ‘Help you?’ the old man gasped. ‘Some piece of pork-chewing Nazarene shit?’

  ‘Better that than a baldy-cock Christ killer,’ I answered without a pause.

  ‘Jesus sodding Christ?’ came the inevitable reply. ‘Jesus sodding Christ? Some “Son of God” he was, I can tell you! Mary was a whore. Joseph was a fool for believing her.’ He waved the linen roll at me, the beginnings of a smile on his face.

  I heard a gentle scrape as Edward moved the wheelbarrow out of the sun. What he thought of two old men obviously swapping insults in an unknown language I didn’t bother wondering. He wasn’t Wilfred.

  ‘So, will you help me?’ I asked again.

  The old man came closer and looked carefully into my face. ‘I guessed it was you when you first came in sight,’ he said. ‘I saw you once when you were ruling in Carthage. You do know this entire coast is buzzing with rumours of your return? Do you know what is being offered, no questions asked, for your head?’

  ‘Less than it’s worth, I’ll be bound,’ I said. We looked at each other. I smiled and leaned back against the wall. ‘I can see you’re a man who doesn’t forget injuries to your people. Are you as keen to remember favours? Will it count for nothing now that I spent sixty years not enforcing the penal laws against your faith?’

  There was a long silence. Then: ‘What’s wrong with the boy?’ the old man asked.

  I looked down at the sleeping face and the pale, cracked lips. ‘It’s a consumption of the lungs,’ I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking. ‘I did hope he’d pull through this attack. That doesn’t seem likely at the moment.’

  The old man looked up and down the street. Except for us, it was empty. He pulled at his untidy beard and rolled his eyes. He bent down and gathered the coins they’d earlier left at his feet, and waved the boys about their business.

  ‘You’d better come quickly,’ he said with a resigned shrug.

  I stared at the house of old Ezra. Nowhere that Jews live is ever made to appear prosperous from the outside. My friend Simon of Magnesia was an exception. But he, of course, had lent money to emperors. And he’d made his youngest son convert so he could become Bishop of Nicosia. By and large, though, Jews don’t live in palaces and flaunt their gains. But if those outer walls could have done with a lick of whitewash, it was plain that selling old clothes to finance his work as a rabbi had been a thoroughly profitable line for Ezra, son of David.

  After a few hard taps with his stick, the door opened and, with a last look round the empty street, he ushered us in. I found myself in semi-darkness, under an arch that led from the gate right under the upper floors of the house to a central garden. I looked along the ten yards of brick archway to the greens and yellows of the garden. I thought I could hear the splashing of a fountain.

  ‘Welcome to the impoverished hovel that I must call home,’ he whispered in a weak attempt at irony. ‘Normally, I’d have my lazy bitches of granddaughters come down and wash your feet. Then we’d have all the ritual bits of hospitality to keep us going till dinner. In view of the circumstances, you will forgive me for hurrying you all into my counting house. No one dares disturb me there.’ From inside one of the doors that led on each side of the arch into the house came a sound of sandals flopping on stone. Ezra pulled me into the opposite door, and ordered his doorman to lift Wilfred out of the wheelbarrow and then carry him.

  ‘We’d better hurry,’ he said. ‘All my children live here with their families. My wife’s father has rooms straight across the courtyard. Until he gets really drunk, as opposed to just pissed, he can be a right nosy sod. We can save introductions till later. For the moment, let’s keep things private.’

  We passed through a succession of corridors and various storerooms. There was a continuous smell of fresh bread and spices. The rhythmical thumping of feet on board above our heads told of children at play. At last, we were in a tidy little office. There was a roll of Jewish scriptures half open on the desk, and, beside this, an open parchment ledger marked with entries, I think, in Greek. Opposite the window that looked out to the garden was a bright mural – an apparently formless jumble of birds and flowers, with a large building on one side and a lion on the other. Ezra ordered Wilfred to be laid out on a couch and sat me in a soft chair that he pulled out from behind the desk. He perched himself on the desk and looked across at me.

  ‘You know,’ he said in a Greek that sounded more natural than his Aramaic, ‘I did idly wonder, when I first heard you might be in Africa, if you’d come to us. It would make sense, I told myself. After all, the Christians won’t help you. And it doesn’t look like you’ve two coppers to rub together when it comes to buying help from them. But you’re right that we owe you. We owe you big – and you’re right that we don’t forget these things.’ For the first time, he smiled properly. ‘I thought you might come to us. I never thought for a moment you’d come to me!

  ‘Now, let’s drop all this talk of owing and favours. When I welcome guests into my house, they want for nothing. Nor do I ask questions of them. Welcome, then, Lord Alaric, to my house. Welcome to all I can give you, for as long as you want it.’

  He clapped his hands at the doorman. ‘Go to the kitchen,’ he said. ‘Go and arrange food and drink for our guests. Tell Miriam the Master would have her keep her mouth shut.’

  I sat back in the chair. It was the most comfortable resting place I’d known since leaving the ship. No, it was better than the ship. Here, no one was plotting to kill me – or to poison me by accident with slops and stagnant beer. I was hungry, and I wanted to give proper thanks for a stranger’s kindness. But the strain of those days on the road, and that long walk through Caesarea suddenly caught up with me. One moment, I sat there watching a shaft of sunlight creeping towards my feet. Another, and the office was in gloom. I could sense Edward asleep at my feet. I wanted to stretch and pull myself upright in the chair. But Ezra was behind me in a whispered conversation with someone.

  ‘For what little it may count with you, my dear and honoured father,’ a man said in Greek, ‘I think you’ve gone round the twist. A ship put in yesterday afternoon with a good description of him and the two boys. The price on his head’s been doubled, and may go up again. So you’ve brought him into the house and are proposing to give him sanctuary. Have you forgotten you have a family?’

  ‘And have you forgotten that we have duties?’ I heard Ezra reply. ‘We’ll tell the family at dinner. Rather, we’ll tell something to some of them. All else aside, can you imagine what our people would think of the family that turned in Alaric the Just? How long do you suppose the Empire will keep this town? One year? Two? Sooner or later, the Saracens will turn up, and then we’ll be free of the Greeks forever. In the meantime, I know my duty – and I suggest you remember yours.’

  I now decided to go through the motions of a slow waking up. The conversation behind me ceased, and Ezra was standing before me.

  ‘You slept a long time, My Lord,’ he said with an attempt at sounding natural that didn’t quite come off. ‘You missed lunch. But I’m sure you will be glad of a little wine.’

  I took the cup. Its contents were somewhat sweeter than I’d have enjoyed in Constantinople. But it was the best I’d had in years. I savoured its heady strength and waited for life to flow back into my limbs.

  ‘I heard you talking,’ I said. I decided not to say how much I’d heard.

  Ezra pulled a face and nodded. His son came and stood before me. He was one of those short, very sleek Jews you see supervising rent collections. His oiled and plaited beard reached down almost to his immense belly. I’d never have guessed he was a son of Ezra. But
he bowed and touched his forehead in the Eastern manner. Obviously, he’d have been pleased to see me and mine booted back out into the street. Since that wouldn’t happen, he’d put up with me. To be sure, he’d not be turning me in to the authorities.

  ‘My Lord will be pleased to know that he has not been forgotten by the Emperor,’ he said. I waved my cup at him and waited for a refill. He took it back to the top and helped it to my lips.

  ‘I didn’t expect any less on my return,’ I said with a laugh. ‘Can you tell me what might be the current price on my head?’

  ‘A lot,’ he said shortly. ‘Why a man of your years should have brought half the Imperial Navy to the West isn’t a question you will be inclined to answer. But we must get you out of here within days at the most. We have family in Cartagena. Even if you are recognised there, Spain is beyond the current grasp of the Empire. You’ll not object, I think, if I endorse my father’s treason – that I wish Africa were in the same happy position. Even the Christians are getting fed up with this.’

  I shrugged and tried to get up. But I still hadn’t woken properly from the long nap, and I had to be helped up.

  ‘You’ll not take it as a slight on your hospitality,’ I said, ‘if I tell you that Spain sounds delightful. That assumes you can get us there. I might also mention…’ I looked round for Wilfred. For the first time in that increasing gloom, I noticed that he was gone. Ignoring all the stiffness and aches, I stepped forward, a terrified question on my lips.

  ‘My son Jacob is a physician,’ Ezra said with an effort at the reassuring. He put a hand on my shoulder.

  His son took up the explanation. It was no more than I’d already guessed. But it was a shock to hear it set out in those flat, professional tones.

  ‘How long?’ I asked after another full cup. ‘How long has the boy got?’

  Jacob put on a vacant, professional face. ‘That I can’t say,’ came the answer. ‘The right lung is already gone. The left could go tomorrow. How he lasted the journey from Tipasa is a wonder. The young can be resilient, I’ll grant, and there may still be a partial and temporary recovery; we’re talking months, by the way, nothing more. It’s a question of nursing and of the right diet to rebalance the humours. But I do assure you he wouldn’t last a day of any crossing to Spain.’

  He’d been woken while I slept, so watery broth could be poured into him. He’d then been dosed with opium and put to bed. I was told I could see him in the morning. It was then that we’d discuss what was to be done with him.

  As I fought to control myself, Edward came back to life. He got stiffly up and looked at the long, quiet faces round him. I pointed at the clothes set out for us on the couch where Wilfred had been lying.

  ‘If you would have the kindness to direct us to our room,’ I said to Ezra, ‘and have water sent in, we’ll get ourselves ready for dinner.’

  An old man’s tears are pathetic things to behold. I’d let Edward see them, but no one else. For the moment, I fought hard to compose myself.

  Chapter 23

  The Imperial court still keeps up the old ways. So do some of the grander nobles in Constantinople. Ezra, fortunately, either didn’t know about the old ways, or chose to follow the modern pattern of dinner seating – so much easier on the body, I can say. Of course, I was at the top table. I sat on Ezra’s right, between him and his wife. Neither seemed unhappy with the arrangement. At right angles from us, two much longer tables filled the rest of the dining room. I didn’t ask what had been said to explain my presence, but nearly the whole family must have been there. Including the women, I counted fifty people. They varied in age from a girl of about sixteen to a man even older than Ezra – the wife’s father, I presumed. Naturally, the children I’d heard earlier weren’t present. They, plus the slaves, would have taken the population of the house to something like that of the monastery at Jarrow.

  Edward sat a long way down the left table, though not quite at the end. He’d been put between two of the plainer girls. Opposite him was a cluster of the older women. I looked several times in his direction. But he didn’t disgrace me. He didn’t tear at the meat. He didn’t touch the bread platter on which he piled the cut slices of meat and vegetables from the steaming pot. He sipped politely at the watered wine, and took the more than polite attention of all the women with proper modesty.

  No one thought it odd that I joined in the Hebrew prayers. When it became plain that I was the only one there able to understand their exact meaning, I found myself in a long conversation with two intense young men seated a few places down the right-hand table. Without meaning to, I slipped into my lecturing style, though had trouble keeping my voice heard above the surrounding babble of happy talk.

  There was no point trying with Ezra for any conversation beyond the formulaic. As the great man of the household, he had no end of duties throughout the dinner. There were serving and other instructions to be given. Then there was the matter of sending little tasters of the food served at our table to a favoured few among the other diners. Fairly early into the proceedings, Ezra’s medical son, Jacob, had been called away by one of the slaves. He’d thrown down his napkin, and, with a look at me that I couldn’t interpret, was off. To take my thoughts off his look, I turned to the right and opened a conversation with Ezra’s wife.

  Fat, like most Jewish women, she spoke loudly and at terrible length about the achievements of her sons – of whom I learned there were seven. Jacob was her favourite, and if just some of her cure stories were true, he should have been fished straight off to Carthage, or even Constantinople. Otherwise, there was the youngest, whose musical talents I’d surely be able to judge later in the evening. Once or twice – though it never stopped her from gushing away like a broken water pipe – she fixed a thoughtful eye on Edward. He was still keeping up the diplomatic charm. But I could see those girls were having trouble keeping their hands off him. Oh, I’ve had my own day, I thought. Let him have his. It passes before you know it. But Ezra’s wife was still loudly chattering. She had some faint notion of who I had been, and none whatever that I wasn’t that any more. She thought it only natural that, on visiting Caesarea, the greatest subject in the Empire should also drop in on her husband.

  So the dinner rolled on, through more courses than I could even think of eating. Edward steadily munched everything offered, including the honeyed cabbage in hot sauce that Ezra took care to send him. After the first meat course, I kept myself to bread soaked in wine, with occasional dipping into a large dish of barley pottage. The spices would repeat on me later, I knew, but the olive oil in which the pottage swam was beyond resisting for anyone who’d just spent more years than he should have making do on mutton fat.

  ‘My Lord.’ It was the voice, behind me, of Jacob. ‘My Lord.’ I twisted round. His voice had been enough. But there was one of those coldly professional looks on his face that ripped away all the cheer I’d absorbed from that brightly lit gathering. ‘I must ask you to come with me at once. I think you can manage them, but I will help you with the stairs.’

  My hands shook as I wiped them on the napkin. I made my excuses to Ezra and nodded to Edward to stay in his place.

  ‘I agree that the symptoms listed by Aretaeus shouldn’t be taken as a fixed definition of the illness,’ Jacob replied. I didn’t break in this time. Whatever I might have read on his subject, he was the expert. ‘But, while every patient is different, and while this boy is wholly different from my usual patients, I don’t think this is an ordinary case of consumption.’ He lifted the blanket and, in the barely adequate light of the three lamps beside us, we stared down at the sleeping boy. I hadn’t before seen Wilfred without clothes, and hadn’t paid nearly so much attention to his clothed appearance as I had to Edward’s. Still, the boy looked barely half the size he’d been aboard the ship. It was as if something had been hollowing him out, and what remained had collapsed into the resulting void. Except for the rapid rise and fall of his chest and the subdued gasps from his throat, he mi
ght have been dead already. Even I must have looked healthier. I swallowed, but Jacob hadn’t finished.

  ‘I won’t ask you to probe for yourself, but you will see the contours here on his stomach of a tumour that goes right through him. If I were to turn him over, you’d see a blue mottling on his back where the tumour has distended the skin. There are also these lumps on his thighs. This one on the right is the size of a duck’s egg. The others are substantial. These symptoms, with others, and the absence of the delirium that is almost invariable in advanced consumptions, lead me to believe the boy’s to be a different and more rapidly fatal condition.’

  ‘Two months ago, in the northern part of Britain,’ I said, ‘he’d been coughing on and off for about a year. But few of the inhabitants there can be called really healthy. The climate is cold half the year, and damp throughout. Except for the growing discomfort and frequency of his coughing attacks, I’d not have said he was other than a weakling.’

  ‘With respect, My Lord,’ Jacob replied to my unasked question, ‘the size of these growths within his body indicates a terminal decline that began long before the journey you describe from his country. On the one hand, the strain of travel may have accelerated the decline. On the other, the more favourable climate of these regions may have compensated for the earlier hardships.

  ‘Whatever the case, I do assure you that the boy wouldn’t have lived another year – whatever his movements, wherever his location. If I knew the reason, I’d give it. All I can say is that, as others are born to live longer, some are born to live shorter than the three score and ten promised in our common scriptures.’ He fell silent as, carrying a bowl and sponge, an old woman came back into the room. He moved closer to the lamps and fussed with a mixture of opium and mandragora.