Fiction

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(Part 2)

Lucas left Syrian Antioch and pulled a heavy pack mule through the Syrian Gates to Issus. It had taken two days to reach the small Mediterranean seaport and several more to enter Adana west of the Seyhan River.

Later, he passed under the arch of Cleopatra’s Gate and walked into Tarsus, the queen city of the Cilician plain on the banks of the Cydnus River. By the time he arrived, his water pouch was empty and so was his stomach. He had been in Tarsus before with a fellow Greek medical student who served in Nero’s army.

He continued down the deserted street until coming to an old house. Tying the shoulder bag holding the codex book on the mule, he lowered a bucket into the well to refill his pouch with water and sat and rested.

“What do you want?” inquired a man's voice from the house.

Lucas grabbed his shoulder bag to safeguard it. “I’m from Antioch, on my way to Nicaea." He moved to the open door where a lamp cast a shadow, revealing the outline of a body on the floor. He then heard a woman cry.

“Do you need help?” Lucas said. “I’m a doctor.”

A small Jew appeared in the dim light. He had a Levantine face with scanty hair and large eyes, a somewhat bald head, framed with an ebony beard and shaggy eyebrows. His broad shoulders and crooked legs moved aside to allow Lucas to come in the house.

“My name is Benjamin . . . my mother has a fever.”

Lucas drew back a brown cloak to reveal an old woman with knotted white hair and a sallow wrinkled face. She lay like a child in the womb, her spine curved and her arms and legs bent. She shook with chills and coughed. He found a wet cloth and wiped mucus and blood from her lips.

“What’s her name?”

“Hannah.”

“My chest hurts when I breathe,” she cried.

He rested her head on a rolled tunic to be more comfortable and gave her warm water mixed with pomegranate. “You seem to have an infection in your lungs,” he said, and turned to Benjamin.

“Go brew some fenugreek tea with honey. It will lower her fever.”

Rummaging through his medical bag, Lucas found a tin of pine tree oil. “This should ease the pain,” he said, as Benjamin returned with a pot of steaming tea.

“Why are you going to Nicaea?” Benjamin asked, putting the tea pot on the floor. He was an affable, curious young Jew of his time and heritage.

Lucas poured the healing herb. “Try this tea,” he said, lifting a white cup up to Hannah’s cracked lips until she coughed and spit up. He helped her drink the liquid, and she was able to keep some down.

“Now sleep,” he said, remaining close by that night.

“Are you going to tell me?” Benjamin asked, shaking him awake the next morning.

“What?” he said, rubbing his eyes.

“About Nicaea. . .”

Lucas sat up, yawned and stretched. He glanced over at Hannah who appeared sound asleep. “Oh, yes . . . well, my patron is sending me to that region.”

“Patron?” Benjamin interrupted.

“A man named Theolphilus.” He showed Benjamin the codex who had never seen such a book.

In the coming days, Lucas helped restore Hannah’s health, and she grew stronger, even walking without feeling dizzy. He was encouraged by her progress and by Benjamin’s care for his mother, although he was worried she might have a relapse. The morning he left Tarsus, Lucas informed them a local doctor would check on how they were doing.

Trading laced sandals for heavy shoes, and wearing a wide brim hat, Lucas trudged through the Cilician Gates. He followed the deep river gorge splitting the Taurus Mountains, through the same narrow and rocky passage used by armies and traders since the dawn of history.

Fresh air wafted in his face passing streams of water, glistening in sunshine. He thought of days spent with Flavia, and her ivory face and long black hair.

A wooden wagon bounced, swayed and rattled behind him. A caravan of camels plodded along the narrow road toward him, led by a diminutive man and his donkey that kept the camels from breaking away and going over the precipice.

After crossing a bridge, he walked beside a winding stream and then came to a road leading to the small frontier town of Derbe and turned north to Lystra. From there, he went to Iconium on a plain of lush farms growing grains and fruit.

Then he headed northwest to Pisidian Antioch, a large Roman colony spread over seven hills. A flurry of building activity greeted him inside the city’s main gate. He sidestepped workmen laying new paving stones and slaves hoisting columns to form a grand colonnade along the street. In the agora he found an empty bench on which to sit and eat, while observing the busy daily life of local Pisidians in the marketplace.

As a doctor Lucas considered himself good a student of human behavior, but soon noticed that someone was paying a lot of attention to him. A gnome-sized man in a black cloak stared from a market stall with hanging baskets for sale.

Whoever it was darted behind a vegetable stand and disappeared in the crowd. Was he a former patient? If so why would he vanish? For now the incident was a mystery, so Lucas turned his attention to adding supplies to the mule.

He left the agora along the main avenue and into a tunnel that lead to an outdoor theater built by the Greeks.

“You can’t bring that mule in here!” shouted a lumpy, bald man running toward Lucas, waving his arms. “Leave that stupid beast outside.”

“No, it might be stolen.”

“Just pay my brother. He’ll look after it like the others. My mule is also out there, so don’t worry.”

The man’s brother received Lucas’ coin in payment after being instructed not to let anyone near the mule. He continued going through the tunnel until it opened into bright sunshine.

Shading his eyes Lucas scanned the amphitheater and then climbed to a top row of seats. He sat and recalled the legend of a noble woman named Thecla, an 18-year old virgin from Iconium who escaped death by wild beasts in this outdoor theater.

After a while he went back through the tunnel and spotted his mule tied to a post. Sitting against a wall nearby, resting like a bear in hibernation, was the man who had been paid to keep an eye on his property. He checked his travel supplies and shoulder bag. Nothing was missing.

The man stood up, brushing off his cloak, and asked, “Is everything all right, sir?”

“Yes, thanks for watching my property.”

“It’s no trouble, I . . .” There was a sudden thump, and the man’s fleshy face twisted in pain, his eyes bulging. Both knees buckled and he landed in the dust like a heavy sack of grain.

A knife was wedged in the victim’s back. Lucas searched for a pulse but felt nothing. As he pulled out the weapon, a slender, square-bladed dagger, his mule bucked and jumped for no reason.

A crowd soon gathered, among them the dead man’s brother. “Who did this?” he demanded, searching for the culprit, crouching next to the body.”

Lucas stepped back. “I have no idea . . . here’s the dagger I pulled out.”

The man stood, peered hard at Lucas and took the weapon. After close examination, he announced, “Sicarri! It’s a poignard, the dagger those crazy bandits carry.”

Lucas knew about the Sicarri fanatics who stirred the Galilean rebellion in Judea. Concealed knives lay tucked in their tunics on crowded public festival days in Jerusalem, ready to stab enemies who sided with the Romans.

“I will keep this,” the man said, putting the dagger in his belt. He removed his cloak, using it to cover the body.

He then turned to Lucas and said, “You should leave now,” and walked away.

The curious also drifted away from the murder scene, leaving Lucas alone with his thoughts. He had seen men killed before but not this close.

~~~

Resting under the shade of a tree, Lucas decided it would be wise to carry the codex instead of leaving it in the shoulder bag on the mule. But as he untied the bag, it seemed lighter than expected. He pulled open the top and looked inside –- the codex was missing!

Retracing his steps to where the man was killed, he replayed the sequence of events and then recalled his mule had been spooked when he pulled out the dagger.

He asked people if they could tell him anything about what had happened. Men shook their heads and women covered their faces. So, he went to the agora to find the stranger in the black cloak. He sat on the same bench and waited.

It was almost dark when a voice was heard behind the bench. “I know who did it.”

“Did what?” Lucas tried to turn when two thick hands grabbed his shoulders, pressing down hard.

He didn’t move. “What are you talking about?”

“The person who killed that man and stole your valuable property,” he revealed in a taut voice.

“You mean my book of writings?”

“Yes . . . and now listen.” He was an impatient person living in the shadows, eager for a quick transaction.

Lucas’ money was intended for a long journey, not for paying off an unknown informer.

“I have only a few coins, besides, how do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“You have to trust me . . . I can’t say anymore.”

Lucas pulled out a silver drachma. “What can you tell me for this?”

The man hesitated and then leaned close to Lucas’ ear. “I have connections,” he said, taking the coin. “They told me to follow you . . . see where you go and what you do.”

“Sit down so we can talk,” he told the stranger, who slid next to him on the bench.

Lucas noticed the man’s black linen cloak. “Were you here yesterday in the agora . . . spying on me?”

“As I said, I was paid to follow you . . . do you know the House of Kathros?” the informer asked, nervous about who may be watching him.

Kathros was a family of rich high priests who spread lies with pens of deceit.

“Yes . . . Kathros, a temple priest,” Lucas said, now recalling the name. “He lived in the upper city.”

The informer nodded. “I was a servant for Bar Kathros. Miriam and I came and worked there. She was a maidservant, a friend. Then we heard screams when the Romans attacked our city.”

Huge battering rams pounded the walls of Jerusalem until they fell. Soldiers then built siege ramps against the remaining Antonia Tower, so they could bring the machines of war to bear.

But Jewish forces struck back, burning down the ramps. Titus then changed tactics, building a new city wall and burning surrounding wheat fields. The Jews became prisoners and starved to death. Once again the Romans attacked the city with overwhelming force. It was hell on earth, an inferno of blood, smoke and tears.

“We saw flames rising from the Temple high into the night sky. You could smell burning flesh. Bodies lay piled on the altar steps. Homes and fortunes were going up in smoke. There was no food. Kathros and his family escaped through the drainage tunnels. I also crawled out. I thought Miriam had gone with them. Much later I returned to the upper city and sneaked through their house. The stone walls and wooden beams were burned and broken. Near a side room at the
staircase, I found a body and the right arm seemed to reach out to me.”

He shuddered. “I knelt closer . . . it was Miriam. I must leave,” the informer said, standing up.

Lucas also stood up. “Was it a son of Kathros?”

“Aaron . . . he paid me to follow you.”

“And my book . . . why did he take it?”

He put a folded papyrus in Lucas’ hand. “You don’t know me, remember that.”

“Where do I find Aaron?” Lucas asked as the informer hurried away into the night. He studied the papyrus in the dim light and saw the name ben Zakkai in Hebrew.

~~~

Aaron pushed his servant against a wall in the empty arena tunnel, demanding to know what he had told Lucas in the agora. He admitted nothing. Aaron accused him of lying, claiming he told Lucas about Rabbi Zakkai.

He then thrust a dagger between his servant’s ribs, and he slumped to the floor. Aaron pulled out the poignard, wiped off the blade and slipped the weapon inside his cloak. He then caught the glint of a silver drachma by the dead man’s left foot and picked it up.

Without delay, Aaron fled from Pisidian Antioch, headed for the Mediterranean coastal town of Jamnia. There, he planned to see Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai, who had been smuggled out before the Romans sacked Jerusalem.


(TO BE CONTINUED)

Copyright 2010 Warren Lamb

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