An Echo in the Darkness(49)

When they reached the booth, Alexander placed the Arab on the table to examine him further. Hadassah took the goatskin bottle from the wall hook and poured water into a clay cup. She hung the bottle back on its hook and came to slip her arm beneath the man’s shoulders, raising him enough so that he could drink.

“Shall I mark his cup lest we use it by mistake, my lord?”

He laughed. “Now that you’ve gotten your way in bringing him here, it’s ‘my lord’ again.”

“Of course, my lord,” she said again, and he heard the smile in her tone.

She lowered the Arab, and Alexander watched her stroke the man’s hair back like a mother would. He knew the tenderness that would be in her touch and the compassion that would shine from her eyes. A sudden surge of protectiveness shot through him. The thought that anyone could have wished her dead, could have ordered her sent to the lions, filled him with a fury that startled him.

Abruptly he directed his gaze at the Arab. “Your name,” he said.

“Amraphel,” he rasped. “Rashid Ched-or-laomer,” he finished.

“That is too much name for any man,” Alexander said. “We’ll call you Rashid.” He took the damp cloth Hadassah handed him and wiped the man’s sweaty face. “You have no master now, Rashid. Do you understand me? Whoever left you on the steps forfeited all rights to you. I claim none. Your only obligation to me is to do as I say until you are well. Then it will be up to you whether you go or stay and work with me.”

Rashid coughed heavily. Alexander stood by, watching him with a grim expression. When the spasm finally passed, Rashid groaned in pain and sank back weakly on the table.

Hadassah came and stood beside the table again. She put her hand on Rashid’s chest and felt the steady, strong beat of his heart beneath her palm. He will live. The still small voice assured her again of this. God knew how. God knew why.

Relaxing, Rashid put his hand over hers and looked up at her with deep-set obsidian eyes. She smoothed his black hair back from his brow again. “God has not abandoned you.”

He recognized the Judean accent and frowned slightly. Why had a Jew taken pity on an Arab?

“Rest. We’ll prepare a bed for you.”

When it was ready, Alexander helped him into it. He was asleep almost within the moment he was covered with the wool blankets.

Alexander stood with his hands on his hips gazing down at his sleeping patient. “In good health, he must have been a man worth reckoning with.”

“He will be again. How will you treat him?”

“With horehound and plantain—not that it’ll do him much good at this point in the disease.”

“I’ll prepare a poultice of fenugreek,” she said.

“Frankly, it would be more productive to beseech your god in his behalf.”

“I have been praying, my lord, and will continue to do so,” she said. “But there are things we can do for him as well.”

“Then let’s get to it.”





9

Rashid did little else but sleep over the next few weeks. His mat was against the back wall of the booth, out of the way. When he was awake, he watched Alexander and Hadassah care for patients. He listened to all that was said and observed what was done.

Hadassah gave him fish, vegetables, and bread soaked in wine twice a day. Though he had no appetite, she insisted he eat. “You will regain your strength.” She spoke with such certainty, he obeyed her.

When the long day ended, he watched her prepare the evening meal. She always served him first, then the physician, which surprised him. As he thought proper, the woman served herself only after they had eaten their fill.

Each night he listened as they carried on lengthy discussions of each patient. It became quickly apparent to Rashid that the veiled woman knew more about each man, woman, and child who came to the booth than the physician himself. The physician had heard words; the woman had heard their pain, anguish, and fear. The physician saw each patient as some physical ailment. The woman knew their souls . . . just as she had known his the moment she looked into his eyes. He had felt it when she touched him.

People came more often to see her, but she guided them gently to the physician. Yet Rashid could not help wonder over the weeks that passed if anything the physician did would do any good without her presence.

He looked at Alexander sitting at his worktable nearby, transferring all that Hadassah had written on the tablets onto scrolls, adding what he had done for each patient. When he finished this task, he would take the evening inventory of drugs, making note of what was needed. He would prepare medicines.

And all the while he worked, she sat, hidden beneath her veils on the small stool near the brazier, praying.