The question that had plagued Marcus for months now burned through his mind like a fever. He took up his goblet and frowned. “If this god was so powerful, why didn’t he save Paul from execution?”
Satyros shook his head. “I don’t know. I wondered that myself when I heard of his fate. But this I know: however hidden it may be, there was a purpose.”
Marcus stared grimly into his wine. “It seems to me this Christ destroys everyone who believes in him.” He drained his goblet and set it down. “I’d like to know why.”
“I have no answer to that, my lord. But I will tell you this. After meeting Paul, I know that the world is not all it seems to be. The gods we Romans worship cannot compare to the God he served.”
“It is Rome that rules the world, Satyros,” Marcus said sardonically. “Not this Jesus of whom Paul spoke. You’ve only to look to what happened in Judea to know that.”
“I wonder. Paul said Jesus overcame death and set the way for anyone who believes in him.”
“I haven’t seen a single Christian overcome death,” Marcus said in a hard voice. “They all face death praising Jesus Christ. And they all die just like any other man or woman.”
Satyros studied Marcus intently, sensing that some deep torment was driving him across the seas to a rebellious land. “If it’s this God you seek, I would tread very carefully.”
“Why?”
“He can destroy you.”
Marcus’ mouth tipped bitterly. “He already has,” he said cryptically and rose. He thanked Satyros for his hospitality and left.
The days passed slowly, though the winds held well and the conditions of the sea were advantageous.
Marcus walked the deck by the hour, struggling with the depth of his emotions. Finally, he returned to his quarters, a small private chamber that was simply furnished. He stretched out on the narrow couch built into the wall and stared at the polished wood ceiling.
He slept fitfully. Hadassah came to him in his dreams every night. She cried out to him, and he struggled against the hands holding him back. Julia was there, too, and Primus. Calabah gloated as lions roared. He saw one racing toward Hadassah and fought desperately against his bonds—and then the beast leaped and took her down.
Night after night he awakened abruptly, shaking, his body streaming with sweat, his heart pounding. He sat up and held his head. Digging his fingers into his scalp, he swore and struggled against the grief that overwhelmed him.
Closing his eyes, he remembered Hadassah kneeling in the moonlight, her hands raised to her god. He remembered cupping her face in his hands and looking into her beautiful brown eyes, eyes so full of love and tranquility. Every part of him yearned for her, yearned with a hunger so deep that he groaned.
“What kind of a god are you to kill her?” he rasped, his eyes burning with tears. “Why did you let it happen?” The anger burned in him and he clenched his fists. “I want to know who you are,” he whispered through gritted teeth. “I want to know. . . .”
He rose earlier than anyone else and dressed to go above deck. He needed the stinging cold sea air, but even standing at the bow, he felt Hadassah’s presence beside him. She haunted him, but he was thankful. His memories of her were all he had left.
Passengers awakened and moved about as the sun rose. He crossed to the leeward side to be alone. Most of the passengers were Arabs and Syrians who had completed their business in Ephesus and were returning home. He could speak only rudiments of their language and did not want company. The corbita could hold up to 300 passengers, but only 157 were on this ship because Marcus had ordered that most of the space be used for cargo. He was thankful there were not more people aboard.
The winds were good and the ship held a steady course. Restless, Marcus walked the deck each day until he was exhausted. He supped with the captain and returned to his quarters.
A few days yet from Caesarea, he grew calmer. He rested his forearms on a stack of crates and stared ahead at the blue-green sea as it flashed with reflected sunlight. He knew he would soon begin his quest across the land of Judea.
The sailors called to one another as they worked the lines. The square sails stretched taut above him. The ship moved smoothly through the water. The Minerva had made good time thus far, but Marcus remained impatient, eager to be at his destination.
A dolphin leaped below him.
He hardly noted it at first, then it appeared again. It dove and then came up, keeping easy pace with the ship. It came straight up once and made a strange chattering noise before splashing back into the sea again. One of the crew manning the sails spotted it and cried out that the gods were with them. Passengers hastened to the leeward side and crowded him in order to watch. An Arab wearing a red burnoose with a black band pushed his way forward to get a better look.
The dolphin rose again and again, just below Marcus. Arcing gracefully, it repeatedly leaped and then slipped elegantly beneath the surface of the sea. The playful animal was joined by three others, and they leaped in unison, delighting the passengers, who began to call out greetings to them in several languages.
“It is a good omen!” someone said in excitement.
“Oh, servant of Neptune!” another cried out reverently. “We thank you for blessing our ship!”
“An offering! An offering! Give them an offering!”
Several passengers tossed coins into the sea. One struck the first dolphin and startled it. It veered off and disappeared, the others following. The excitement died with the creatures’ departure, and the passengers milled around and moved away from Marcus, finding places and ways to pass the time. Several groups gathered to gamble with small dice, while others dozed in the sun.
Satyros gave the helm to his first mate and came down to stand beside Marcus. “A good sign for your journey, my lord.”
“Would a Jewish Messiah send word by way of a pagan symbol?” Marcus said dryly, his arms still resting on the side as he stared out at the flashes of sunlight on the blue-green water.
“According to Paul, all things were created by this god you seek. Doesn’t it stand to reason, he can send word to you by any means he chooses?”
“And so an almighty god is sending a fish.”
Satyros gazed at him steadily. “The dolphin is a symbol we all recognize, my lord, even those who have no faith in any religion. Perhaps God sent the dolphin to give you hope.”
“I don’t need hope. I need answers.” His face hardened. Defiant and angry, he stretched his hand out over the water. “Hear me, messenger of the Almighty! I accept no emissary!”
Satyros felt the fear Marcus should have. “Do you challenge God without thought to the consequences?”
Marcus gripped the side. “I want the consequences. At least then I’d know if this god truly exists, that he isn’t an illusion someone thought up to foist on gullible mankind.”
Satyros drew back from him. “He exists.”
“Why do you think that? Because you lived through a storm and shipwreck? Because a snake bit a man and he didn’t die of it? The Paul you speak of did die, Satyros. On his knees, his head on a block. Tell me, what use is a god who won’t protect his own?”
“I don’t have the answers you seek.”
“No one does. No man, at least. Only God, if he speaks.” He raised his head and called out loudly. “I want to know!”
“You mock him. What if he hears?”
“Let him hear,” he said and then repeated it, “Do you hear?” He called the words out over the sea like a challenge, unaware and uncaring of the curious glances he drew. “I want him to hear, Satyros. I defy him to hear.”
Satyros wished now he had kept his distance from Marcus Valerian. “You risk your life.”
Marcus gave a brittle laugh. “My life, such as it is, means nothing to me. If God chooses to take it, let him. It is empty and meaningless anyway.” He leaned on the side again, body rigid, jaw hard. “But let him face me when he does so.”
8
Ale
xander entered the courtyard of the Asklepion. Two men with an empty litter hurried past him to the gate and disappeared beyond the walls. Frowning, he leaned forward, assessing the dismal scene before him.
His father had brought him to the Asklepion in Athens when he was a boy, hoping their offerings and a daylong vigil would save Alexander’s younger brother and older sister from fever. It had been dark when he and his father had come, as it was now, with only the flickering torches to cast eerie shadows over the glistening marble of the grand court. The scene he had faced then upon entering the gates had gripped his stomach with an unspeakable anguish. . . .
And now, as he looked at the tragic sight before him, he was filled again with that same anguish—and with an overwhelming sense of helplessness.
More than twenty men and women lay upon the temple steps, ill, suffering, dying. Discarded humanity. Most had been abandoned in the dead of night by uncaring owners, left without even a blanket to cover them. Alexander fought his emotions as he let his eyes scan the forms scattered about him, then he turned to Hadassah.
Her stunned expression stopped him cold, and his heart sank. He had been afraid of her reaction to what she would see and had tried the night before to prepare her.
“My father was a slave,” he had told her, watching her face in the flickering light of the small oil lamp on the table between them. He could see the surprise in her eyes at what he had said, for Alexander had seldom spoken of himself or his past. He only did so now to help her understand what he planned to do.
“He was fortunate enough to have belonged to a kind master, and because he had business acumen, Father was put in charge of his master’s finances. He was given an allotment of money for his own personal investment and managed to earn enough to buy his freedom. As a means of retaining his services, Caius Ancus Herophilus, my grandfather, offered his daughter, Drusilla, in marriage. My father had been in love with my mother for a long time and gladly accepted. When my grandfather died, my father inherited his estate through my mother. They had seven children. . . .”
When he had paused, Hadassah’s eyes had searched his face. He had known she had seen that he was not finished. So she had simply remained silent, waiting.
Alexander had looked at her, his eyes reflecting an age-old pain. “My father and mother had property, money, and prestige. All the advantages one could desire. And yet, with all of that, I am the only child who survived. My brothers and sisters, one by one, died while still small. And all the wealth, all the prayers and offerings at the temples, all the tears on my mother’s face, couldn’t change that.”
“Is that why you decided to become a physician?”
“Partly. I saw my brothers and sisters die of various childhood illnesses and diseases, and I saw the cost to my parents. But it was more than that. It was also what I felt each time my father took me to the Asklepion to beseech the god’s favor. I was helpless in the face of the misery I saw there. There was no evidence of power. Just suffering. And I wanted to do something about it. I’ve learned since that you can’t change very much in this world. I do what I can and try to be content with that.” He had reached out to take her hand then. “Listen to me, Hadassah. You’ll see things tomorrow morning that will turn you inside out. But we can only bring one patient back with us.”
She had nodded. “Yes, my lord.”
“I warn you not to have expectations. Whomever we choose has little chance of survival. The slaves you see at the Asklepion are useless to their masters and have been left to die. I’ve failed more times than I’ve succeeded in treating them.”
“How many times have you done this?”
“A dozen times, maybe more. The first time I tried to treat a slave left at a temple in Rome. I had more money then, and private quarters. But the man died within a week. Still, at least he died in comfort. I lost four more after that and almost gave up.”
Her eyes had shone with compassion. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because part of my training involved a proper worship of the healing deities. I couldn’t walk by those people and pretend they weren’t there.” He had sighed, shaking his head. “I can’t say that my reasons were entirely altruistic. When a student of medicine loses a patient left on the steps of the Asklepion, no one cares. Lose a freeman of station and you can kiss your future good-bye.” A grimace had crossed his face. “My motives are both good and bad, Hadassah. I want to help, but I also want to learn.”
“Have any of these patients lived?”
“Three. One in Rome, a Greek every bit as stubborn as my father. And two in Alexandria.”
“Then what you did was worthwhile,” she had said with a quiet certainty.
Now, though, watching the look on her face, Alexander wondered if he was right to keep doing this . . . and if he should ever have brought Hadassah with him. Despite all he’d said the night before, he could see Hadassah was filled with horror at the sight of so many abandoned slaves on the temple steps.
“Oh,” she whispered, coming to a stop beside him, that single word piercing his heart with its wealth of compassion and sorrow.
Alexander looked away, his throat suddenly tight with emotion. After a moment, he spoke, his voice gruff. “Come on. We haven’t much time.”
He passed by an emaciated gray-haired man and bent down beside one younger. Hadassah followed him toward the marble steps of the Asklepion, but paused beside the man he had passed by. She went down on one knee and felt the old man’s fevered brow. He didn’t open his eyes.
“Leave him,” Alexander called to her as he strode across the courtyard to the steps of the Asklepion.
Hadassah glanced up and watched him quickly pass by two other abandoned slaves. Their masters had not even taken the time to place them on the uppermost temple steps where there was some shelter. This poor old man had been discarded barely a few feet inside the propylon. Others nearby lay unconscious, devastated by unknown illnesses.
“We’ll find one that might be cured and do what we can,” Alexander had told her several times last night, adding a warning. “You’ll see many who have fatal illnesses or are simply old and worn out. You must harden yourself to pass by them, Hadassah. We can only bring one back with us, a man with a chance of survival.”
She looked toward the glistening marble steps of the pagan temple and counted more than twenty men and women lying on them. Discarded humanity. She looked down at the old man again. He had been abandoned here in the night without even a blanket to cover him.
“Leave him,” Alexander called to her sternly.
“We might—”
“Look at the color of his skin, Hadassah. He won’t make it through the day. Besides, he’s old. One younger has a better chance.”
Hadassah saw the old slave’s eyes flicker and felt a grief past reasoning. “There is one who loves you,” she said to him. “His name is Jesus.” The old man was too weak and sick to speak, but as he looked up at her with fever-glazed eyes, she told him the Good News of Christ. She didn’t know if he understood or received consolation, but she took his thin hand between hers. “Believe and be saved,” she said. “Be comforted.”
Alexander looked around grimly at the selection of abandoned slaves before him. Most were too close to death to warrant attention. Glancing back, he saw Hadassah still bent over the dying old man. “Hadassah!” he shouted, commanding this time. “Come away from him.” He motioned for her to follow. “See about the others.”
She pressed the old man’s limp hand against her veiled cheek and prayed, “Father, have mercy on this man.” She removed her shawl and laid it over him, her eyes blurred with tears as he gave her a weak smile. “Please, Yeshua, take him up that he be with you in paradise.” She rose painfully, helpless to do anything more for him.
Leaning heavily on her walking stick, she crossed the courtyard and went up the steps after Alexander. She started to bend down to another man, but the young physician called out to her not to waste her time with that one either.
“He’s dead. Look at those others over there.”
As she moved laboriously up the steps, she looked at each abandoned man or woman on the white gleaming steps of the Asklepion. She wanted to cry out in anger. More than twenty sick and dying slaves had been left here by their callous masters. Some had already died and would soon be carted away by temple attendants. Others, like the old man, lay half-conscious, without hope or comfort, awaiting death. A few moaned in pain and delirium.
Temple attendants were already moving some—not to care for them, but to get them out of sight so that they might not offend the eyes of early morning worshipers, some of whom had already arrived on plush, veiled litters born aloft by slaves. As the wealthy devotees alighted and walked up the steps, they kept their eyes straight ahead, focusing on the majestic temple rather than on the human suffering before it. They had their own problems to concern them and—contrary to those sprawled about them—the money needed for ceremonial offerings and prayers.
Hadassah bent to another man. She turned him gently and found he was already dead. As she rose, she felt weak and nauseated. So much pain and suffering, and yet only one of these pitiful creatures would gain Alexander’s full attention and medical assistance.
God, who is it to be? Whose life will you spare today? She looked around, confused and disheartened. Who, Lord?
She sensed someone watching her and turned. Several steps above her lay a large, dark-skinned man, his black, fever-glazed eyes staring at her without blinking. His features were aquiline, and he was wearing a soiled gray tunic.
An Arab.
He reminded her piercingly of the long march from Jerusalem when she had been chained with other captives. Men who looked very much like him had thrown dung at her and the other Jewish prisoners. Men like him had spit on her as she passed by.
This one, Lord? She looked away, her gaze passing again over all the others and coming back to the Arab above her.