trudged back to the hospital.
Soon it seemed even that effort would not be enough to keep up with the plague’s demanding maw. Roman soldiers rounded up Jerusalem’s beggars at spearpoint and forced them into my shelter. Most were not ill, but since the plague had begun among the poorest of the citizens, the wisdom of the powerful was that the disease itself could be confined if the beggars were all imprisoned.
A ring of troopers surrounded the warehouse. They were not present to lend any assistance, only to see that none escaped … unless carried out dead.
The space that had seemed ample for the army of boys was now jammed wall-to-wall with a hundred patients.
I wrote a letter to Nicodemus, imploring him to ask the Jewish Council to send aid.
What I got in response—with Nicodemus’s apology for the lack of caring on behalf of the Council—were four crones, matrons from the women’s prison. They were greasy, surly, uncooperative, brutish wretches barely qualified to empty chamber pots.
Much of my time was occupied carrying out Sosthenes’ instructions. He urged me to pay special attention to swabbing throats with the tincture he called phytolacca. It was the only means, he said, of stopping the progression of the disease into its acute phase.
My thoughts were haunted by dread of the malevolent olive-hued evil creeping down young throats and choking out their lives.
I dedicated myself to the task, though it was far from simple.
Eight-year-old Jason was braced against my knee as I sat on the floor. In one hand I held a bowl of the mixture. In the other I had a sprig of hyssop as a brush. Each time I attempted to paint his throat Jason would gag, cough, and spray phytolacca on both of us. Then he would apologize, and we would try again.
Meanwhile I was surrounded by pitiful cries for water. These were supplemented by the whimpering moans of children unable to care for their own sanitary needs.
“Rapha,” I said, calling the senior of the matrons, “Rapha, do you hear? Can you attend the water, please?”
She and her sisters looked around at me like a herd of cows studies a passing rabbit, then resumed their gossiping. A phalanx of unfeeling, lazy flesh prevented the comfort of a charcoal brazier from reaching the patients. The women warmed their hands around the fire and studiously ignored me.
“Rapha!” I repeated more sharply. “I need your help!”
“But sir,” she whined, “didn’t you just tell me to stir the kettle so the stew don’t burn?”
“How long does that take?”
She sniffed and sounded abused and unappreciated when she put her hand to the small of her back and said, “It’s this cold and damp. My old bones don’t move as well as they used to.”
Her complaint provoked a chorus of sympathy from her cronies. They also made sure to let me know that all these duties were beneath their station in life. According to Rapha, performing chores for beggars was lower than keeping hogs.
“And besides,” Rapha said, “none of us has no medical training. We wouldn’t want to do something wrong and accidentally kill one of these boys.”
The only success I had making them be of use was when I threatened to stop their food. Even that consequence only served before they had eaten. After sucking down a bowlful of lentils each, they were just as obnoxious and arrogantly slothful as before.
On more than one occasion I caught them stealing bites of stew that were supposed to go into the patients’ mouths. They also hid bits of bread in their clothing.
In almost every instance it was easier for me to perform the tasks myself, unless I was free to stand right over the women as they worked. The only reason I got any work out of them at all was that the guards stationed around my hospital had orders that no one could leave, so they had no choice but to remain.
The physician had expressly ordered that the medication, the doses of camphor in sweet oil, had to go on around the clock. Otherwise, he said, we had small hope of saving any of the patients. For that reason I had to snatch a few minutes’ sleep whenever I could.
It was not often. The rasping coughs and the cries for help kept me awake most times. If these sounds were not enough to prevent slumber, Rapha’s snoring was.
After a few days I was exhausted, stumbling from boy to boy in a stupor almost as profound as the worst of