Chapter 14
"I'm going down to the Asclepion," Publius told Geta. Two days had passed since their arrival in Paneas and they had quickly adapted to the routine of life in Secunda's house. They ate breakfast together and then Publius and Secunda talked for an hour or so before Secunda had a nap that lasted most of the morning. When she woke Publius carried her into the sunshine of the courtyard and they talked until dinner time. After the meal it was siesta time and Secunda slept again until it was time for the evening meal.
"What are you going to do there?" Geta asked.
"I'm going to talk to the priests," Publius said. "I just want to make sure that Secunda is getting the best treatment."
"Master, what if she already is?" Geta spoke with a lowered voice.
"You mean, what if there is no hope of her getting better?"
"Yes, Master." Geta came and stood close to Publius. "Master, you can't marry a woman like her. She couldn't travel with you, she can't bear you children, she can't look after your household. You'd have to leave the army to look after her!"
Publius sighed. "Yes, I know. That's why I want to see what the doctors have to say. You've no idea how much I've dreamed of meeting Secunda again and now, to see her like this - it's heart wrenching."
He stood up and slung his cloak over his shoulder. "I'd better be off, otherwise I won't be back before she wakes up."
"Do you want me to come with you, Master?" Geta asked.
"No, you stay and see if you can help that Antiope. See if you can find something that Secunda will like, something that will give her an appetite."
Publius walked out of the house and set off down the street towards the Asclepion, which was on the banks of the stream not far from Herod's palace. A priest greeted him at the entrance and Publius asked to speak to the chief priest, thrusting a gold coin into the man's hand to ensure a ready compliance. The man glanced down at the coin and then scurried off: visitors who paid in gold were not to be kept waiting.
The chief priest was an impressive old gentleman who inspired instant trust by his grave speech and friendly smile. Even more impressive were the dozen or so scrolls that stood upright in a bucket by the table, though Publius was amused to note that the man was actually reading one of those new-fangled biblia, a sort of scroll that had been cut up into separate pages and arranged in a pile. The chief priest gestured to a couch in his office and sat down beside the table. "How can I help you, sir?" he asked.
"I've come about the Lady Secunda," Publius said. "Do you know her?"
"Indeed I do," the chief priest replied. "You realise, of course, that my Hippocratic Oath forbids me to discuss her case with you."
"Oh?" Publius was taken aback. "Well, I suppose so, but you surely will not refuse to tell me whether I can pay for a better doctor for her or more expensive medicines or something? I would do anything to help her recover."
The man looked at him keenly. "What is your interest in the lady?" he asked. "Are you related to her?"
Publius shook his head. "No, though I would like to be. It's a long story, but basically I have always loved her and now that her husband is dead I want to marry her."
"He has been dead a long time," the chief priest remarked.
"I know," Publius shrugged. "But you see, until recently I was posted in Gaul and I only heard of his death two years ago. It's taken me this long to contact Secunda and then arrange for some leave to come and visit her."
The chief priest nodded. "And what did the Lady Secunda say when you arrived? I presume you have told her what you have just told me?"
Publius laughed harshly. "Yes, I proposed to her the first day I arrived. She says that she can't marry me - and to be honest with you, sir, although I made a show of not being discouraged by her refusal, it would be very difficult for me to have an invalid wife and stay in the army."
"Then I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news." The chief priest looked even graver. "As you know, the Lady Secunda has had this problem for many years and in my experience, when a condition carries on this long a cure is not possible. I told her this several years ago - I told her that she was wasting her money spending it on every doctor and healer who comes by - but she refuses to give up hope and I suppose I cannot blame her for that." He sighed. "The fact is that some of these wandering doctors are not always what they profess to be."
"So there's no hope of a cure," Publius asked slowly.
"I'm afraid not." The chief priest shook his head. "I'm very sorry, but there is no point in nourishing false hope or encouraging you to spend your money to no end."
"Are there no gods who can be invoked?" Publius demanded.
"We've tried them all," the priest said sadly. "I even dispatched a priest to Baalbeck a year or two ago to offer a sacrifice to Jupiter Helios on the Lady Secunda's behalf, but it made no change. Fortune, for whatever reasons, has turned even the greatest gods against her."
"And can Fortune not be propitiated?" Publius cried.
"That is perhaps your only hope," the chief priest rose to indicate the end of the interview. "I must be honest with you, however, and say that so far she has refused to hear our prayers."
"Well, I thank you for your honesty," Publius said, getting to his feet. He turned and walked slowly out of the room and behind him the doctor sadly shook his head.
Publius went out into the sunshine and up the steps to the agora. Hucksters called their wares, guides plucked at his sleeve and offered to take him round the temples, a tout extolled the comforts of the inn for which he worked; Publius hardly heard them. As he left the agora by a narrow lane a pretty slave girl smiled at him and slid her robe provocatively down off her shoulder and Publius didn't even see her. He walked out of the town onto the road and then, finding it too busy for his thoughts, took a turning off to the left along a neatly swept path that ran beside the stream.
A mile or more further on the path ended at a gate and a bearded Syrian stood up as Publius approached and smiled at him. "Sir, come and see the waterfall. Only half a denarius. Stay all day, enjoy the shade and bathe in the pool beneath the falls. There are beautiful girls to keep you company - or boys, if you prefer."
Publius stopped and stared at the man, dimly aware that he had spoken.
"Come, sir. Many people are already within. See how the great god Pan provides ..."
"Tchah!"
Publius swung away and strode across the rock-strewn meadow, hardly feeling the thorns that scratched at his ankles or the rough ground underfoot. He was well out of sight of the Syrian and his tawdry garden of delights when he came to a rough stone wall that marked the end of the meadow. On the other side was a dusty road and just a little way to the left a fig tree hung its gnarled branches over the wall. Publius went and threw himself down in the shade of the tree and put his head in his hands.
Not for one moment did he doubt the word of the chief priest. An Asclepion anywhere in the world held to the same high standard of medicine and the doctors they provided were probably as good as could be found. In any case, despite his bold words, he did not have the time to take Secunda to somewhere like Pergamon or Athens or Alexandria where more famous doctors practised - and he rather doubted that she could stand the trip.
As for the gods, if all those of Olympus had been implored on her behalf there was little to be gained from trying elsewhere. If the priests were to be believed - and they, after all, were the experts in these matters - even the non-Roman gods like Belaunos of Gaul or Amon-Ra of Egypt were merely manifestations of the familiar gods of Greece and Rome, bearing different names, requiring different sacrifices and worshipped with different rites, but the same gods nonetheless.
Publius came to himself with a jerk, suddenly aware of the voices coming towards him along the road. He raised his head and looked over the wall. To his horror he saw a band of rough-looking men striding in his direction - Jews! Too late he realised his folly in wandering alone in the open country where zealots lurked and dagger-men roamed free. They were too close for him to escape and his pride would not let him run - it would not do for a Roman centurion to be hunted across the fields like a hare.
Publius shrank back into the shadow of the tree trunk, hoping that the men would not notice him, and as they came level with him he froze into immobility, all but holding his breath as they passed on the other side of the wall - and then they stopped, for the tree must have cast its shade that side of the wall as well. The man in the lead wiped his hand across his forehead and sighed noisily.
"Tell me," he said, speaking in heavily accented Greek, "whom do people say that I am?"
The voice that replied, apparently coming from a man with a dusty blue head scarf, had an accent that rendered it all but unintelligible. "Some say that you are Elios," the man said and Publius pricked up his ears at mention of the sun god before he realised that it could have been "Elias", which presumably was a local name.
"I've heard people say that you're John the Baptiser come back from the dead," a young man with a chuckle in his voice broke in. It took a moment for the name to register on Publius' consciousness but when it did he leaned forward slightly, interested despite himself.
Another man shrugged and shook his foot as if to dislodge a stone from his sandal. "Whatever, they're all convinced that you are a prophet," he said, shaking vigorously. "One of the old prophets come back from the dead, though no one can agree which one."
"That's all very well," the leader said after a pause, "but whom do you say that I am?"
There was an awkward moment as the men exchanged glances with one another, but then an elderly man with grey in his beard swung round and faced the leader. "Well, I say that you are the Christos, the son of the living God."
"Well done, Simon Petros," the leader cried. "No human being could have told you that, only my Father in heaven." He turned his head and looked directly at the spot where Publius sat. A thrill of terror ran down Publius' back as he recognised the man as the one they had passed on their way to Paneas. Before he could do anything, however, the leader swung round and set off along the path and the other men trailed along behind him. As they went Publius could hear him saying something about a stone and a rock and how something or other would be the foundation for an assembly.
Publius breathed more easily once they were out of sight, but determined to stay where he was to give them time to get well away. As he sat he couldn't help thinking of the words he had overheard: "Christos" and "son of the living God". "Christos" meant "anointed one" and, assuming that these people were using the word correctly - never something you could take for granted among barbarians - implied that the band of men regarded their leader as someone special.
"Son of the living God" Publius dismissed. Every charlatan claimed to be the favoured son of one god or another - but then it occurred to him that Jews would not be speaking of just any god but only of their own God, the one they regarded as the All-highest, the equal of Jove or Jupiter. That was a somewhat larger claim than most wandering prophets aspired to and Publius wondered who this man might be whose followers regarded him so highly.
The words of Marcus, the centurion in Nazareth, came into his mind. Whoever this man was, it was enough that he claimed - or his followers claimed on his behalf - to be a son of the God. Was this fellow setting himself up to be that Messiah thing that Marcus had spoken of? In Judea that was probably treasonous talk.
It occurred to him that they might be a band of sicarii come to assassinate Herod Phillip and the authorities might be grateful for knowing that they were in the vicinity. On an impulse he got to his feet and started to walk, not back towards the waterfall and the dubious safety of the Syrian tout but in the same direction as the band of men had gone.
Ten minutes later Publius found them, lolling at their ease beneath a tree and listening to their leader. There was no cover, so Publius couldn't get close enough to hear what they were saying, but by circling round them he hoped to find somewhere he could lie up and keep watch on them without being seen himself. He carefully worked his way from one tree to the next until he had completed a half-circle round them and was now crouching behind a tree between them and the town.
Just then one of the men stood up and held out his hand to another man who appeared to be somewhat better dressed than the others. The second man felt in his girdle and produced what looked like a wallet, from which he extracted something and gave it to the first man. The man then turned and started to walk towards the town and Publius wondered whether he had been given a coin to buy food or a token to meet a conspirator or even poison to slip into Herod's food. He rose to his feet and silently moved to intercept the man.
Ten paces away there was a thick clump of thorn bushes and Publius slipped into its shelter and waited. A moment later he heard the footsteps of his quarry trampling through the long grass towards him. He tensed himself and put his hand on his dagger.
