Dear and Glorious Physician (14 page)

“Because you are administering this province to his approval. If you were not, he would recall you abruptly. I tell you, Tiberius and you are of the same kidney.”

“That does not flatter me,” said Diodorus. He stood up. “If I were Caesar I would put you senators in your places.”

“In other words, you would be a tyrant,” said the senator, smiling. “I would have discipline,” said Diodorus, pulling up his tunic belt. “I would encourage the ‘new’ men, the middle class, in Rome, the country squires, the merchants, the shopkeepers, the traders, the lawyers, the physicians, the builders. I understand that they are not patricians, but neither am I! Many of them are of ancient Etrurian families.” His eye kindled. “So far as I am concerned, we can give Italy back to the Etruscans, and let them, and the Roman ‘new men’, deal with the Roman rabble, not cater to them as you senators do for their filthy favors. Nor would I fill my chambers with gladiators and scoundrels and freedmen and call them my clients. Rabble!”

The senator was slightly amused again. “Tiberius is no Catiline, and, so far as I know, the ‘new men’ have not as yet produced another Cicero.”

Diodorus began to stamp away, grunting in disdain. Then he stopped. “You will remember, my good Carvilius, that we dine when the gong sounds. In the meanwhile I will wash some of the stinking dust of Antioch from my hands and face.”

The senator was left alone in the swift and purpling twilight, and he leaned back in his chair and sighed contentedly. A few days more would relieve his nervousness. This house, though barbarous, and containing little furniture of any luxury and distinction, and practically no ivory, no murrhine glass, few excellent statues even of the gods, and no Corinthian bronze candelabra, and no paintings of any merit, and though the bedrooms were mere holes fashioned only for plain animal sleep and not pleasure, it had a certain simple repose. Best of all, no one expected favors from him, and there was no need for him to be on guard. The barbarians, he reflected, could be admired at times. He also reflected that it did him no harm in Rome to be allied by marriage to the respected ‘old Roman’ family of Diodorus. Even Tiberius would smile on Carvilius Ulpian more often than he smiled at his colleagues, and if that smile was invariably thin and acid at least it was a smile. And he would often inquire of Diodorus.

The fountains in the garden behind the house sounded clear and musical in the silent dusk, and the birds chorused the music. Stretching in pleasure, the senator stood up and paced towards the gardens. He had an estate of his own, outside the gates of Rome, but he could not recall that it was as peaceful as this, nor did the fountains murmur and splash with such harmony to the golden curve of a rising moon. The west had become a series of small lakes of fire surrounded by a pellucid and haunting green, like celestial verdure. The white columns of the house, simple and Ionian, and the unfretted colonnades, resembled carved snow, dappled, here and there, with the last deep crimson of the sun.

The senator reached the gardens. The whole enclosure drifted with heliotrope light, hushed and secret, but the water in the fountains gleamed like silver. The scent of jasmine blew on the wings of a soft evening wind, and the palms fluttered their fans against a darkening sky the color of amethysts. He looked about him with pleasure, rejoicing again in the silence broken only by the sound of water and the languorous voices of birds. Then he started.

He had never noticed that beautiful, life-sized statue of a woman before, standing near the center fountain, one snowy arm extended so that the fingers might touch the faintly sparkling waters in the marble bowl. Where had Diodorus, who never appreciated works of art, ever obtained such a marvelous creation? The senator seethed with envy. From Sicily, perhaps. The Sicilians colored their statues, and sometimes with delicacy. The statue had golden hair, dressed in the Grecian fashion, and the lovely, brooding profile was so expertly touched with rose that one would swear it was living flesh. The alabaster chiton draped a most perfect and divinely beautiful bosom, which almost seemed to breathe in that drifting and mysterious light, and the folds of the chiton, simple and noble, fell from a waist as slender as a wand, and molded itself over the gleaming thighs. Never had the senator seen anything so adorable. Praxiteles had never fashioned so glorious a form and of such exquisite perfection.

Then, to the terror of the superstitious Augustale, who did not believe in the gods but only feared them, the statue swayed a little and moved. He retreated a step, moistening his lips. It would not have surprised him if the moving statue had lifted an argent bow and had turned to him, aiming an arrow at his heart for presuming to look upon Artemis in her virginity. It was then that he saw Diodorus, standing in an arch of the colonnades, unaware of his guest in that deepening purple shadow. Diodorus was looking at the stately girl, who, head bent low, was slowly gliding away to the garden gate.

The tribune’s absolute stillness caught the senator’s quick attention. He saw the face of Diodorus, and its dark intensity could be seen even in that dusk. He saw his profile, contorted with some heavy pain and desperate longing. The girl, not noticing the presence of the two men, reached the gate, opened it, and disappeared as into mist.

Now, by Jove, thought the senator, intrigued by the attitude and the expression of his host. He is not so invulnerable after all. That is not the expression of a virtuous husband and oblivious soldier. He is a man in love, nor do I blame him. That slave would excite Jupiter himself to ecstasies.

He heard Diodorus sigh, and it was a short and somewhat terrible sound in the dusk, and the tribune’s hairy hands knotted at his sides. More intrigued than ever, the senator coughed, then approached the tribune. Diodorus started, and looked at his guest blankly, the pain only slowly washing away from his fierce eyes. He did not seem to see the senator for a moment or two.

“Now,” said Carvilius Ulpian, with genial congratulation, “that is the most beautiful slave I have ever seen. I thought for a moment that she was a statue, and that I would purchase her from you. In truth, my offer stands.”

Diodorus said nothing; in fact, it seemed that he was temporarily incapable of speech. He could only stare with that strange blankness at the senator, as though he had been profoundly shocked. Carvilius Ulpian tapped him affectionately on the shoulder.

“Aphrodite was never clothed in such beauty,” he said. “What merchant sold you such merchandise, and where is this paragon? Does he have similar delights? Has he a stable of such Eurydices, of such bewitching forms and Olympian faces?” He delicately smacked his lips. He was suffused with desire and envy. The senator continued, “Though it is possible she has lost her virginity,” and he coughed, “I am prepared, my Diodorus, to make you a splendid offer for her.”

He was aghast at the face Diodorus turned on him, a face of such wild rage and suffering and affront that the senator stepped back precipitously and wondered if he was confronting a madman. But when Diodorus spoke, it was in a low hoarse voice, as though stifling.

“You are mistaken. That woman is not a slave. She is my freed-woman.”

“You freed so glorious a creature?” asked the senator, his trepidation overcome by his astonishment.

“She was to my mother as a daughter,” said Diodorus, his voice still muffled. “She is not a girl. She is a woman almost thirty, and the wife of my accounts keeper, Aeneas, a freedman.” He breathed heavily. “Moreover, she is the mother of my protege, Lucanus, whom I am educating as a physician.”

The senator, disappointed and chagrined, shook his head. “I would swear she was a young virgin. It is a calamity that she is free. She would bring a fortune to her master.” He tapped his chin artlessly with a polished fingernail. “Was she waiting for you by any chance, my Diodorus, and did I disturb you?”

Diodorus said, almost in a whisper, “No. She did not know I was here. It is evident that she was delayed.”

His eyes took on the dull shine of grief, and he turned away and vanished into the house. At that moment the gong rang, and the senator, trying heroically to swallow his annoyance at the rudeness of his host in preceding him without a word, followed him in his quiet elegance.

There was actually some Cephalonian wine for dinner. But this could not divert the dainty palate of Carvilius Ulpian. Apicius, whose cookbook was used in the very kitchens of Tiberius, had written of seventy-five ways to prepare beans, each delectable. But Aurelia and her cooks apparently knew only one, and that the grossest, fit only for galley slaves. The patrician senator looked at the dish of beans, well flavored with garlic, in which had been stewed some doubtful meat, either goat flesh or the less desirable sections of pork. The bread was coarse, the vegetables flaccid, and the only dish which did not revolt the fastidiousness of Carvilius Ulpian was the little salt black olives from Judea. He had forgotten how revolting the meals were in this house. Diodorus watched him ironically in the feeble light of the smoking lamps, which were of pewter, not silver. The tribune touched the base of one of them and said, “You seem distressed, my brother. I am sorry that these lamps are not of Alexandrian glass. If they were, you could see your dinner more distinctly.”

“You say those very words each time I visit you,” said the senator, patiently. What was that smear upon the bread? It was oily, and rancid, and the senator, who was a brave man, smiled and put a small piece in his mouth. He was also a polite man, and would have murmured something complimentary about the dinner if the bread had not suddenly nauseated him. “By Hecate, Diodorus!” he exclaimed in agitation. “Is it necessary to live like this? You are as rich as Croesus! You could cover your table with murrhine vases and fill your lamps with oil that does not make a man retch. You could have goblets glittering with gold and jewels, and the sound of lutes in the evening. You could also have a cook of some talent.”

Diodorus, whose dark face was livid from some past emotion, scowled at the senator. “I could also have couches on which to recline at my meals, and Cyprian girls to dance abominable dances and anoint your feet with balsam. I, however, am not an Urb. I am a simple soldier, and I live as a soldier.”

“What loathsome affectations,” said the senator. “Julius Caesar was also a soldier, and so was your beloved Gaius Octavius. They lived austerely in the field. When in Rome, they lived as Romans, not like base pugilists.”

Diodorus began to smile. He ate the bread with relish, and there was a black twinkle under his thick black brows. “Perhaps,” he said, “I prefer to save my money” — he ate a huge mouthful of beans — “for a dowry for my daughter, who is almost ready for marriage.”

The senator, who had no aversion for gold, and who had four sons, lost his unusual temper. “Ah,” he said, “that is a subject which interests me. The little Rubria is of a delicate constitution, yet she appears to have gained considerable health in this pleasant climate. Too, she has a beauty which is almost Oriental in its vividness.”

“Yes,” said Diodorus, thoughtfully. “I am considering sending Aurelia and the girl to Rome in the near future. There is no one of noble Roman family in Antioch who has a son worthy of her, nor of the proper age.”

“In that event,” said the senator, “it is possible that Tiberius, who is just though he has ice water in his veins, will recall you.”

“Yes,” said Diodorus. The two men sat alone in the dining hall, and as the tribune did not like the hovering presence of slaves he had a brass bell at hand with which to summon a slave when necessary. He rubbed his finger over the tracery of the bell, which was a cheap one. “I have been thinking much today.” He shot the senator a sharp glance. “I also have a headache,” he added, with what the senator thought was irrelevance.

Carvilius Ulpian was still curious about Iris, who was, he thought, beautiful enough to stir the cold Tiberius himself, and to create havoc in Rome. She was a freedwoman, yet there was no Augustale, no patrician, who would not be eager to bring her to his bed and shower upon her all the gold in his coffers. The senator daintily touched the corner of his lip with his tongue. “You will, naturally, bring all your household with you if you are recalled.”

Diodorus did not answer. His headache had not been relieved. He cursed Keptah to himself. The senator, impelled by desire and the memory of Iris, went on: “Also your bookkeeper and his family; he must be invaluable to you. Did you not mention at one time that he was the slave of your father, Priscus, and that your father was pleased with him?”

“Yes,” said Diodorus, in a dull voice. “However, Aeneas is as frugal as I, and he has saved his money. He has also bought a small olive grove not far from Antioch, which he deigns to have cultivated by two of my slaves. He has learned how to brine the olives as the Jews do, and they are fairly palatable. Moreover, he has a respectable herd of sheep, the flesh of which he sells to me and the Antioch markets. I doubt that he will be willing to return to Rome with me.”

Conversation languished. When the senator remarked that Aeneas would doubtless be loyal to his master and regard his wishes as one regards the wishes of the gods, Diodorus shook his head. “I shall not impose on his loyalty, if he has any,” he replied. “Besides, loyalty is a word with which the Greeks are not familiar.”

He would never see Iris again. He regarded her now as a terror. When he had seen her in the garden, so close, so near, as he had not seen her for years, his heart had leaped. He had had to control himself to keep from running to her and seizing her and pushing his face into her golden hair. There had been a cry in him like the cry of utter joy and anguish, mingled together. Desolation overwhelmed him.

The senator watched the open passions and despairs racing across the tribune’s vital and unsubtle features, and he smiled to himself. There had been a brooding sorrow in the young Grecian woman’s face, he recalled. Venus never had such reluctant devotees! Diodorus was a fool. Why did he not castrate himself and have done with it? The tribune glanced up involuntarily and saw the senator’s faint smile and worldly eyes, and he colored. He filled his plain goblet again and drank of the wine deeply. Then he said, “It may surprise you to know, Carvilius, that I am a virtuous husband.”

“Unfortunately, it is no surprise,” said the senator. He was a little astonished that Diodorus was so perceptive. He yawned, and this astonished him more. It was not a time to retire. And then he remembered that everyone in this barbarous household went to bed early. He reflected wretchedly that he would not be comforted in his hard bed by one of his pretty slave girls. Why had he thought that he could spend several days in this place? He would leave as soon as possible, after he had come to some agreement with Diodorus about Rubria.

Before going to bed Diodorus tramped into his wife’s quarters. Aurelia, whose red-brown cheeks showed the traces of recent tears, and whose kind eyes were pink along the edges, was permitting a pert slave girl to brush her long dark hair. She sat at a table in her night shift of white linen, and under the cloth her voluptuous figure was unmistakably matronly. When she saw Diodorus her ripe lips quivered, her eyes lighted. She restrained herself instantly, and made her face cold.

Diodorus gave a rough gesture to the slave girl, but Aurelia, for the first time since she had been married, said with uncommon sharpness, “Do not leave me, Calliope. You have not finished braiding my hair, and there are other matters.”

“Yes, Lady,” said Calliope. She had a rude, unpleasant voice that grated on the ear, a large voice for so small and shapely a girl.

Diodorus was always very vague about his household servants, and rarely noticed them. But, as he had something on his mind now, he looked closely at Calliope and said, with his usual lack of tact, “Calliope! And with that voice!”

The girl smirked and bowed her head. “Yes, Master.”

Diodorus studied her. She was evidently about seventeen or eighteen, with an impertinent and lively face, not pretty, but so animated as to give her a certain charm. She had a brisk and competent air, and her body had considerable comeliness, and her long, light brown tresses fell to her hips. Diodorus caught a bright if pale glimmer of brown under her eyelashes. He looked at her hands. She was accustomed to hard work, under the direction of her mistress. She was eminently fit for what the tribune had in mind.

“Would you like to be married?” he asked her abruptly.

“Oh, yes, Master.” She peered at him impudently from under her drooping eyelids.

“Good. I have an excellent husband for you,” he said, thus apparently concluding the matter. Again he waved her away, and this time the staring Aurelia did not countermand his order. When the girl had gone, pulling the heavy blue wool drapery over the door, Aurelia said in vexation, “I believe it is the prerogative of the mistress to arrange marriages for her slave girls and women.”

“Yes, yes,” said Diodorus, impatiently. “But this is a special occasion.”

Aurelia lifted her silver mirror and affected to be concerned over her complexion. Diodorus finally became aware that his wife was displeased with him. He said, “What have I done now?” Aurelia studied her complexion, and sighed. “It must be very bad,” Diodorus added. “But this is no time for matronly exasperations.”

Aurelia was outraged. She slapped the mirror on her table, and the lamp fluttered. Its feeble light shone on an austere bed of no bronze decorations, and no carvings. It was of unornamented wood, and the rugs that lay on the sheet were only brown wool. “Am I given to capriciousness?” she demanded. “Do I have tantrums? When have I disturbed you, Diodorus? When did I merit the insult you gave me tonight before my sister’s husband?”

“Oh,” said Diodorus, frowning. He sat down and stared at his bare knees. “I did not know I had insulted you. I ask your pardon, Aurelia. I have had hell’s own headache today.” He waited for Aurelia’s usual words of concern, but she only sniffed, and the coldness on her face became even colder.

“It must be very bad,” Diodorus repeated.

Aurelia began to braid her hair, and Diodorus tried to restrain his impatience. He was hurt that his wife did not commiserate with him, that she did not open her box of unguents to rub on his forehead, that she did not invite him to her bed so that she could hold him in her arms, as usual, and croon to him until he forgot his pain, or it was gone.

“I mean,” said the tribune, irascibly, “that it is bad that a wife shows no solicitude for her husband.” Aurelia sniffed again. The shining black lengths of her hair flowed over her fingers. “Besides,” said Diodorus, in a louder voice, “I swear by all the gods that I do not know how I offended you before that elegant in his toga. Why does he wear a toga in a simple household?”

“He is a gentleman,” Aurelia informed him, pointedly. Diodorus glared at her, and she glared in return. This was so unlike the amiable Aurelia, who had a large and diffused affection for everyone, that Diodorus was taken aback. “So. I am not a gentleman,” he observed.

“You never were.” In spite of herself a dimple appeared in her brown cheek. Then it faded. “What is this about a marriage for Calliope? And to whom?”

“Lucanus,” said Diodorus, and slapped his knee as if it were all settled.

Aurelia’s eyes rounded in astonishment. Her plump hands dropped from her hair and fell on her lap. “Lucanus!” she exclaimed. “The son of Iris?”

“Who else?” asked Diodorus, irritably.

“He has asked for this girl?” said Aurelia, disbelieving.

“No, no! I did not say so. I have decided this myself. Before he marries her, I will free her, and she will be my gift to him. Who is he to protest my orders?”

Aurelia’s mouth opened incredulously. “Have you forgotten that you cannot give him orders to marry a girl you have chosen for him, even if you are a proconsul and a tribune? He is freeborn!” She was more and more incredulous. She had an affection for Lucanus, who was the son of her friend, Iris, and a handsome youth, and Rubria’s fellow student and playmate. But she had thought that Diodorus was a little too enthusiastic about the boy.

“I can give him orders!” shouted Diodorus in a rage. “Who is he, but the son of a weak dog of a former slave, that Aeneas!”

Aurelia paused. Then, watching him closely, she said, “He is also the son of Iris.”

Diodorus started to speak, then was silent. Aurelia went on, “Do not bellow at me. It may surprise you, but I sometimes have headaches of my own, though you seem unaware of headaches which concern others. Let me continue. Lucanus was born free. He is proud. You cannot command that he marry a slave. Nor can you have him flogged or imprisoned for no cause if he disobeys you. I believe you mentioned approvingly that Tiberius himself has issued edicts restraining violence and unlawful commands.”

“Tiberius!” said Diodorus, in a tone which consigned the Emperor to the gutter. “Listen to me: I shall talk with Aeneas and tell him my will. He, at least, will not dare to disobey me. I have said it. I have done.”

He stood up with an air of finality. But Aurelia was not impressed. “Have you considered Iris, whom you are about to offend deeply? I cannot permit this outrage.”

The face of Diodorus swelled with fury at this. “Outrage!” he shouted. “I give the boy a slave to tend him while I pay his huge bills in Alexandria, robbing my own daughter of her dowry — ”

Aurelia put her hands over her ears. When Diodorus stopped, seething, she removed her hands and spoke quietly. “No doubt you are impelled by the highest motives. However, give Lucanus Calliope when he leaves for Alexandria, if you will.”

“I shall,” said Diodorus.

Now curiosity beset Aurelia. “But why?” she asked.

“I have said it. Is that not enough?”

“No,” said Aurelia. She began to braid her hair again. Then she shook her head. “I do not know what is in your mind. Did you know that you are occasionally sinister?”

Diodorus was about to burst out into angry shouts again, when the word caught his attention. Sinister. He had never considered himself so. For some reason the thought intrigued him. He rubbed his forehead sheepishly, and said, in a milder tone, “I have spoken it many times: I am only a simple soldier. My motives are always as pure as a cow’s milk.”

Aurelia looked very knowing, and this pleased Diodorus more. She said, “Even if Calliope were a pearl from Cos, endowed by the very Graces themselves, Lucanus would not have her. Iris told me today, with much concern, that he has taken a sacred vow to the gods that he will never marry.”

“Never marry!” exclaimed Diodorus. “What folly! What impelled him to such foolishness? Do not the girls attract him?”

Aurelia shrugged. “I do not regard Lucanus as a son, as you often do,” she said, significantly. She let that barb throb in Diodorus for a moment. “I am not in his confidence; he is too silent and reserved for so young a man. However, a man does not make a sacred vow to refrain from marriage if he is not attracted to young women.”

This seemed reasonable. Diodorus wrinkled his fierce brows. He was no longer angry. He muttered, “Nonsense.” Aurelia shrugged again. “You have something on your mind,” she said. “And I am very curious.”

Enormous relief flooded Diodorus. He smiled. “If he has taken that vow, then he will not violate it. So. It is ended.”

“I am still curious,” said Aurelia.

Diodorus knew that his wife was not intellectual, and not subtle. But she was shrewd. He also had a great respect for Aurelia. “I am not a man to satisfy a woman’s curiosity,” he said, chaffingly, his headache having miraculously disappeared. “I had thought to do Lucanus a benefit, and that is all.”