Glory and the Lightning (30 page)

CHAPTER 18

Al Taliph did not call for Aspasia for several nights, but she heard him coming and going in the courtyard, which now echoed for so few entered it from within the inn or without. So the fountain in the center could be heard clearly in the darkness and any voices. Sometimes she could hear Al Taliph’s voice and it was increasingly slow and weary. Then she rose from her cushions and looked down at him in the light of the red torches, saw he walked with bent head. She wanted to call to him but her pride would not permit it. She was no importunate woman, whimpering for love like a dog, desiring above all things to grovel at his feet.

The motionless days repeated themselves. There was little noise from the city; it lay mute, cowed by fear. Then one morning Aspasia received a summons to go to the chambers of Al Taliph. She hastily drew a comb through her disheveled hair, for in these days she neglected her appearance. She rubbed her cheeks and lips with a red unguent; she had become pale and drawn in her sunless and imprisoned state. She dressed herself in a hyacinth-colored tunic and clasped a silver and amethyst necklace about her throat and touched herself with attar of roses. Then she hastened to Al Taliph’s chambers. It was very early and this summons was most unusual. The two armed eunuchs at his door opened it for her in a dull silence, and she entered.

To her honor she saw Al Taliph reclining on his cushioned bed in an attitude of total collapse, his gray profile staring at the ceiling. Three slave girls huddled at a distant wall, and two strange men stood at the bedside, rubbing their chins and conversing together in low voices. They were Egyptians, she saw by their garb and their dusky features, and medical pouches were beside them. There was a horrific stink in the hot closed room of vomit and feces, and Aspasia stood and swayed and suddenly trembled. No one noticed her or marked her arrival. Almost creeping, she went to the bed and looked down at Al Taliph. She bent over him and he became aware of her scent and her presence, and he turned his face to her and tried to smile. His eyes were sunken far back into his skull and were dim. The bronze metallic shine had totally left his cheeks, which were sunken also. His mouth was dry as dust, and he panted. A heavy sweat covered him with glistening beads. His flesh had dwindled.

He lifted his hand feebly to her. She fell to her knees and took his hand and it was burningly hot as if she had touched fire. In spite of her anguish this manifestation startled her, for it indicated very high fever. Al Taliph was obviously very ill and close to death. There is little fever in cholera, she recalled through the haze of her terror. She put her hand under the coverlets. His belly was swollen, and he winced and moaned though her pressure was gentle. The Egyptians looked down at her in surprise, and exchanged glances with upraised brows. Forgetting everything but her beloved’s extremity Aspasia continued her examinations and for an instant his old ironic amusement shone in his eyes. The area on his right side was especially prominent and had a thickened feeling under her fingers. Again she pressed gently on it and he exclaimed and pushed away her hand.

Aspasia flung back her loose hair and looked up at the physicians, and they attempted to smile disdainfully. Then they saw her large and wine-brown eyes, glowing like topazes with imperative authority. “He does not have cholera,” she said, and her voice was strong and clear. “How long has he been ill?”

They were silent a moment and then one of the physicians said, “For several days, Lady. Why is it that you say it is not cholera?” But his voice was almost respectful and did not have the contempt in it for women which the Aryan peoples invariably displayed. One of the physicians thought, She appears as Isis, gold and white and rose, and resembles a priestess.

“I was taught considerable medicine by a famous physician in the house of Thargelia in Miletus, and it has been my abiding concern. Tell me, sirs. Has my lord had frequent bloody stools, and hard colic?”

The younger of the physicians moved closer to her with interest and now his expression was grave. “It is true,” he said, almost as if she were a colleague. He saw the profound intelligence in her face and eyes and recalled that priestesses were frequently physicians in Egypt. He forgot that she was but a favorite concubine, a mistress, hardly possessing a status above an adored slave woman. “But this can occur in rare cases of cholera also.”

“There is little fever in cholera,” said Aspasia, addressing him while the older physician thoughtfully stroked his beard. “Does he vomit profusely, as in cholera?”

“He vomits, but not very frequently.” The young physician’s face quickened.

Aspasia, still holding Al Taliph’s hand, sat back on her heels. “But in cholera, as we were taught, there is no thickening and swelling of the right region of the belly, and there are clear feces or brownish or murky, and no bloody ejaculations except in the most rare of instances. Tell me, is his urine deficient, or not present?”

Now the older physician drew closer to her also. “His production of urine is almost normal, despite his vomiting and diarrhea. Sometimes he retains water he has drunk.”

“He is in deep pain,” said Aspasia. “He cannot endure a touch on his belly. This is not true of cholera, which affects the bowels but little.”

The older physician tried for indulgence. “What is your diagnosis, Lady?”

“The flux,” said Aspasia. “It is very serious and can be fatal, but it is not so serious as cholera.” She trembled again and held Al Taliph’s hand tightly as if to imbue him with her own young strength and determination to live. Now her brow was wet with the intensity of her emotions.

“The flux?” said one physician, disbelieving. “We see that very often, and this seems not the flux.”

“It could be, sirs, that it is because my lord has a virulent case of it. In Egypt, I have heard, it is endemic and so is more benign than in these regions where there is little defense against it, and it is therefore overwhelming.” She clasped her hands together and lifted her face to the physicians imploringly. “I beg of you, lords, to let me treat Al Taliph, for the flux is not rare in the region where we live, among slaves and the poor. It is rare only among the rich and the comfortable. Let me treat him! He is almost in extremity. It can do no harm.”

Al Taliph’s hot hand lifted feebly to her throat then her cheek, as if both touched and rebuking. Again she gripped his hand and held it tightly. “What have you been giving him, lords, in treatment?”

“Purges,” said the younger physician. “And herbal wine.”

“O gods!” Aspasia murmured, and shuddered. Then she said, “I have your permission to order his treatment?”

They glanced at each other again, smiling, shrugging. “Love,” said the younger, kindly, “can often accomplish what the most skilled physicians cannot. His case is desperate. Your care can do no harm.”

“Aspasia,” said Al Taliph in a very weak voice. But she looked at him fiercely. “You are in my hands!” she cried. “You shall obey me, or die!”

Intense astonishment touched his sunken face, and he said nothing.

Aspasia beckoned to the huddled slaves near the wall. “Open the windows, lest my lord stifle, and fan him gently. Fetch me cool water with Syrian whiskey, a full goblet of it, in the water, and soft cloths. Bring at once a large goblet of goat’s milk, with three spoons of honey in it and a half spoon of salt. Order, from the kitchen, the boiled juice of beef in quantity. This, heated, must be given him every half hour, the milk and honey and salt every two hours. Hasten!”

The slaves remembered that this alien woman was a sorceress, and hurried to follow her commands, making the sign against the evil eye. The physicians said, ‘That is not the treatment for the flux, Lady. We give but boiled goat’s milk and rice.”

“I have said that in your country the flux is not so vehement, and is easily cured by rest and care. O gods! From what house did my lord contract this?”

She looked at Al Taliph with the eyes of a mother reproaching a child. “Lord, if you had but remained in this inn you should never have sickened!”

He tried to laugh but it was a feeble thing. She nestled her hand against his cheek and he kissed the palm. “You must help me,” she said. “You must not contradict my orders. You must struggle to retain what is fed to you. Thank the gods it is not cholera.”

He looked at his eminent physicians with the old satiric glint on his face but to his amazement the physicians nodded. “We leave you, lord, in the most competent of hands,” the older one said. “We shall see you at evening.”

They hesitated. Then they each formally lifted Aspasia’s free hand and kissed it deferentially. Al Taliph was more amazed. Aspasia acknowledged the accolade with a dignified inclination of her head, and an inner gratitude that she was not dealing with Aryan physicians who would have dismissed her like an impudent slave. They left her in a stately fashion, and she smiled at Al Taliph with tears in her eyes, and his fingers suddenly entwined themselves in the pale gilt of her hair, and she turned her head and kissed them.

The slaves brought the cool water and the strong whiskey in it, and Aspasia bathed Al Taliph with the mixture. She made him drink of the honey and milk and salt, then stared at him threateningly when he made a gagging sound. “You will only have to drink it again,” she said, and he made a wry face. Within an hour she forced him to drink the pungent beef broth. While waiting she sat beside him on the floor and watched his face constantly and pressed her fingers against his wrist and his throat. The feverish pulse began to subside. Long before evening he slept in exhaustion.

At evening the physicians returned and examined their patient. Then they said to Aspasia, “Lady, you have brought your lord back from the gates of death, and we do not know if it is your solicitude or your treatment.”

She never left him for many days, except to bathe and to partake of food for herself. She would not let a slave approach him without first washing hands and face with lye soap and water and wine. She watched his excretions. She fed him with her own hands, sternly admonishing him when he complained. She bathed him several times a day with the whiskey and water and his fever fell each time.

“Once,” she said to him, “you remarked that I was a veritable child. But women become mature humans and leave their childhoods behind them. However, this is not true of men, particularly when they are ill. They are the most petulant and intransigent of children.”

His strength was so returning that he could say almost with his former power of voice, “That is a woman’s illusion.”

“What we see in men is also an illusion, the most fatal of all,” she replied. “If Hera and Artemis and Demeter and Athene Parthenos did not guard us women, and comfort and guide us, mankind would have long disappeared from this earth.”

“Would that have been so terrible?” he asked her, teasingly.

“Not at all,” she said and they laughed together. Never had they been so tender, so dearly as one, not even in passion. But the resolution was gaining in Aspasia’s mind. Her lips were taking on a new firmness. I am young no longer, she would remind herself. I am now nineteen years of age, and I must take up my life lest it be too late. The infirmities of age come quickly to women. Then her heart would become weak and heavy and she would weep when she was alone.

She said to him lightly on one gold and crimson evening, when he sat up in his bed to eat the food she had prepared for him, “I will return you in good health to your wives and your women, and for that they should be grateful.”

He paused and looked at her intently. “You do not speak of yourself, my dearest one.”

She looked at the windows where the sun lay redly in a lake of emerald, and she said, “I hear far winds and they echo in my soul.”

He fondled her intimately, not understanding, and she smiled through her tears then fed him again. He could not have enough of her ministrations and when she slept on her cushions beside him he would rise on his elbow and look down on her pale face.

It came to him that she was no longer young but that she was more precious to him than life itself, and all other women were as naught. He could not speak of this to her. She would not comprehend, being a woman. She sighed in her sleep and he wondered why she sighed. “Far winds?” That was ambiguous but women were full of fancies and they meant nothing. He touched her hair and slept also, content.

CHAPTER 19

There was a great garden in the city, filled with birds and monkeys and fountains and many strange animals. The cholera had subsided and the city teemed again with noise and bazaars and caravans and music and shops and laughter, and bells, and the temples were crowded with those who gave thanksgiving that the plague had gone. Even those who sorrowed for the dead felt the quickening of the year, for the almond blossoms were blooming and the myrtle trees and the sycamores wore enameled green leaves. The olive trees were shining with new silver and the fruit trees were clouds of pink and white snow against a sky resembling an opal. Even the grumbling camels moved faster and the horses pranced.

Al Taliph and Aspasia sat side by side on a marble bench in this vast garden, watching the changeful colors of the fountains as they threw up their transparent arms in the sun. The armed eunuchs stood about them, and Aspasia’s attending women. Their litter waited, its carved golden roof shining in the light. Aspasia was at once sad, weary, and hopeful. Al Taliph held her hand in his under the shelter of her crimson cloak, and her eyes, above the veil, smiled upon him. He was still weak and sometimes he had fits of shivering in the night, but it was obvious that he would soon be well. His gauntness was decreasing.

“In four weeks I shall be able to travel with my caravan,” he said. “We shall return home.”

She did not answer. She had averted her eyes. “You will not be sorry to leave Damascus?” he asked.

She shook her head. A scarlet bird alighted near them, avid-eyed, then lifted its wings in the sun and was gone.

“I owe my life to you, beloved,” he said. “Had it not been for you I should now have been gathered to my fathers.”