Anthony Riches - Altar of Blood

‘Good day to you, sir. Please do take a seat.’

The aristocrat sat down, inclining his head in thanks.

‘And good day to you, Doctor.’

The medicus smiled approvingly at the reply, couched as it was in the same language that he had used for his greeting. It might have been hundreds of years since the first Greek doctors had abandoned their home country and claimed Rome for their own, but a gentleman still spoke to his physician in the language of the greatest civilisation the world had yet seen. Clearly this was an individual of some substance, despite the rather villainous appearance of the men who had accompanied him into the surgery. He drew breath to enquire as to what might be the malady on which his esteemed client sought counsel, only to find the man before him speaking somewhat out of turn.

‘You’ll have to forgive me, by the way, I’ve taken the liberty of posting a pair of my men on the street outside to deter any new clients from attending upon you for the time being. I will of course compensate you for the lost custom entailed, but I thought the precaution essential given that I’m here not with regard to matters of my health, but instead to clear up a rather sensitive matter.’

He fell silent and looked at the doctor with what might, under other circumstances, have been taken for a severe expression but which, the doctor was swift to decide, was understandable enough if the man was about to present him with the painful evidence of the pitfalls of a debauched lifestyle.

‘Is it …?’

He raised both eyebrows and inclined his head to indicate the man’s crotch. To his surprise the patient laughed tersely and shook his head.

‘Indeed no, although I can see how my previous comments might lead you to assume that I’ve dallied with the wrong sort of lady. No, Doctor, my visit is to do with something entirely different. A question of childbirth, as it happens. But before we speak of that matter, I’d appreciate your opinion as to the state of some wounds my companion here incurred in the course of our duties in the east, a few months ago.’

He gestured to the hulking giant waiting silently beside the ex-soldier who was apparently guarding the door in the absence of the doctor’s assistant, who had failed to return to the room having summoned the patient and his associates.

‘Come forward, Lugos, and show the doctor here your leg.’

The medicus studied the scars that pitted the massive thigh muscles before him, consulting a book from his shelves before voicing an opinion.

‘I can’t claim to be any sort of expert on the matter of wounds incurred on military service, but what I see here would appear to be a pair of arrow perforations to the upper leg that seem to have been expertly treated, presumably by a legion’s doctor, and which, given the time required, seem to have healed as well as might be expected for such intrusive damage to the muscles involved.’

He switched from Greek to Latin.

‘I noticed that you limped as you crossed the room — do you have any residual pain from the wounds?’

The giant looked at the man who was presumably his owner with a look of bafflement.

‘Forgive me, Doctor, my colleague here is from Britannia, and still finds our language a little difficult to understand on occasion.’

The equestrian spoke slowly to the subject of their discussion.

‘Does it still hurt?’

The big man shook his head, his voice a deep rumble.

‘No. Only a little stiff.’

The doctor nodded sanguinely.

‘To be expected. Letting blood from around the wounds will reduce the stiffness, I diagnose. I’ll be happy to perform the procedure.’

He sat back with a smile.

‘And the other matter? You mentioned childbirth? Perhaps we might start with your name, sir?’

The equestrian nodded equably.

‘My name, Doctor, is Gaius Rutilius Scaurus. I was until recently the commander of the Third Gallic legion, but now I am little more than a private citizen awaiting his next imperial duty. I have been away in the east, with my colleagues here, fighting the Parthians and restoring the emperor’s rule over those parts of the empire that were disputed by our enemies.’

The doctor inclined his head respectfully at his client’s evident eminence.

‘Then you are to be congratulated, sir. How might I be of service to so celebrated a client?’

The man before him fixed him with a stare of uncompromising directness, clearly intent on communicating the seriousness of whatever it was he wished to discuss.

‘As I said, it is a matter of an unresolved debt, I’m afraid, a debt incurred to yourself during a matter of childbirth.’

The doctor nodded slowly, his expression becoming suitably grave.

‘I think I know the matter in question, Rutilius Scaurus. A childbirth early last month?’

‘Yes, not far from here on the Viminal hill.’

‘Indeed. In truth I’d written the debt off, in the light of the lady’s unfortunate demise.’

He paused, looking at Scaurus with the expression of a man intent on setting the right tone for their discussion.

‘In which case, Doctor, I may bear the resolution you had given up hope of receiving. All you have to do is ask, and I will pay you out the sum owed, plus a consideration for your lost custom this morning.’

‘Ah …’

The medicus thought for a moment, then smiled with evident gratitude.

‘In which case I will be happy to accept twenty-five denarii for my services that fated evening and declare the slate to be wiped clean.’

‘You’re sure? A gold aureus will suffice?’

The doctor nodded magnanimously, and Scaurus reached into his purse, placing a single coin on the table before him.

‘Then the account is paid.’

He stood, looking down at the doctor with that same serious expression that might have been mistaken for a glare under other circumstances.

‘Paid from my side, that is. Having accepted my gold in return for services which, it seems, were never offered freely, there remains the question of the way in which you discharged your responsibility to your patient.’

He raised the scroll he’d been reading in the waiting room.

‘A responsibility made very clear by the writings of the imperial physician Galen. There also remains the other question, as to what should be the reckoning for your evident shortcomings. How, to be blunt, you are to make amends for your errors and failures that cost a dear friend of mine her life.’

The doctor started, sweat beading his forehead.

‘You took money, Doctor, for attending the birth of a child to the wife of a good friend of mine. In the course of which my friend’s wife died.’

The other man looked up at him, his face reddening.

‘She died because she left it too long to call for me. It’s not my fault if my clients hold off seeking help in order to save themselves money.’

Scaurus stood up and leaned forward, placing his bunched fists on the table and staring down intently into the doctor’s face.

‘Her companion sent a man to your house shortly after dark, by which time she’d been in labour for 12 hours, more or less. And you arrived when, exactly?’

‘Soon enough!’

The hard-faced aristocrat shook his head slowly.

The runner deduced your location by talking to your slaves, then tracked you down to the house of a friend where you had just started dinner and delivered the suitably worded and urgent summons to your patient’s bedside directly to you. He waited, at your instruction, and accompanied you to the lady’s house three hours later. By which time you had consumed enough wine to have made you less than steady.’

His answer was a terse laugh.

‘I’d like to see you prove that. And where’s this runner, for a start-’