“Has enough time passed to tell whether my master will live or not?”
The physician’s tone was not encouraging. Surprisingly, I was not particularly distraught by what he said, probably because of the dreams or visions I was having.
“The fact that he is still alive at all is a good sign, I suppose, but I honestly do not know why he is still breathing. In fact, I expect almost every breath he takes to be his last.” He chuckled, but without much humor. “But I have been expecting that for almost a week now.”
“But you said that since his bowel wasn’t pierced, he had a good chance,” Diocles protested.
I must say that news was a relief.
“No, I said that he had a chance,” the physician corrected Diocles. “I never said it was a good chance. And just because neither his bowel nor his intestines were pierced, that does not mean that his wounds will not become corrupt. Indeed, I am worried about the wound to his chest more than to his side because the flesh around the wound is turning proud and the pus is no longer clear.”
That explained why my shoulder and chest hurt relatively more than my side.
“I thought you got everything out of the wound. You said you were sure that you had gotten everything out of it.”
“I did.” The physician was beginning to sound irritated. “But that does not assure that the wound will not putrefy. Once I have done all that I can do, it is in the hands of the gods, and that is truly where the fate of your Primus Pilus lies. Do you know who his household gods are?”
Diocles assured him that he did.
“Then you should make offerings to them.”
Now it was Diocles’ turn to be indignant. “I have been, three times daily, and I’ve offered a white kid goat to the augurs when he recovers.”
“Then you should sleep well, because you have done all that you can do.”
“Don’t I have a say in the matter?”
I did not recognize my own voice, which was little more than a rasping sound that could only charitably be called a whisper, the forming of words feeling foreign to my tongue, but the reaction of the two men was worth the effort. It almost made me weep to see the joy on Diocles’ face as he knelt by my side, while even the physician looked pleased, impressed by his own skill, no doubt.
“Master, it’s good to hear your voice!”
“It’s good to be heard,” I replied, but that was all I could muster as I felt my eyelids growing heavy, so I turned my head away and fell asleep.
~ ~ ~ ~
The wound in my shoulder festered, becoming corrupt, the smell so sickening that it made keeping down what little I could tolerate almost impossible. I was beginning to think that I would not survive after all, but then the physician attending me brought Caesar’s chief physician along, and after a brief conversation, they talked to Diocles in low tones that I could not hear. I saw his expression change to one of disgust then he shook his head, but the physicians were insistent, so he left, clearly unhappy.
Only then did they turn to me, the man who had been treating me saying, “Primus Pilus, I think you know that you are in grave danger.”
I did not answer, only nodding my head.
“The wound in your shoulder has become corrupted, and while it is draining almost faster than we can change the dressing, it is not improving and in fact is getting worse.” He pointed to a series of red streaks radiating out across my chest and down my arm. “See those? That is a sign that the poison is moving through your system. Because of where the wound is located, cutting out the corruption is not an option. So,” he glanced at his superior, who had remained silent, “we are going to use the maggot treatment. It is your only hope.”
While I had suspected this was what he was going to bring up, it still made my stomach lurch. I had seen it used before, and while it was certainly effective, the men who had undergone the treatment had not recommended it. Diocles returned, his hands cupped together, his face wrinkled in revulsion and loathing at what he carried. It was not just the maggots themselves that I imagine he found so disgusting, it was how and where he found them. After a battle, in just a matter of three of four days, the air becomes black with flies busy laying their eggs in the rotting meat that is strewn about, so there is no shortage of maggots to be used. Nonetheless, plucking them from a rotting corpse is one of the more unpleasant tasks a man can undertake, and slave or not, I appreciated the fact that Diocles did so. He offered the physicians his harvest, and they peered into his hands, poking about before finally selecting three fat, wriggling specimens then bringing them to my bedside. Lifting the bandage, they placed the maggots in the wound, and the sensation of their movement in the hole in my flesh still ranks as one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life. Shortly after, I fell asleep again, my head filled with thoughts of worms eating my flesh.
~ ~ ~ ~
As disgusting and unpleasant as the experience of using the maggots may have been, it still proved to be effective. Barely two days later, there was a marked improvement in my condition as the red streaks subsided while the corrupted flesh was reduced, the maggots eating happily away. The only problem was that the maggots became engorged on my rotten flesh so quickly that they had to be replaced every day, forcing Diocles to trudge out to the battlefield again and again, which he did without complaint. I finally improved to the point that I actually had an interest in what had taken place after I had fallen, so the physician finally relented, allowing some of the other Centurions to come visit, though they were ordered to keep their visits brief and no more than two at one time were allowed to see me. It was from them that I learned that our victory was total.
“Well, it's finally over,” Scribonius told me as he sat next to my bed. Seeing my raised eyebrow, he gave a rueful laugh. “No, Titus, it's really true this time,” he insisted. Continuing, he told me, “Gnaeus Pompey is dead; he was caught outside of Carteia and had his head lifted from his shoulders. His brother Sextus has disappeared, but he’s just a whelp, so he won’t be any trouble.”
“Yet,” I interrupted grimly.
My mental outlook was not the best at this point, I will be the first to admit. As much as I trusted Scribonius, knowing that he would not be telling me anything that he was not sure was true, this war had been going on for so long that I found it impossible to accept that it would ever be over.
Scribonius seemed about to argue, then simply shrugged. “That may be,” he admitted. “But it won’t be for some time; he’s barely out of his teens, if he’s that old.” I was too tired to argue, and in my silence, Scribonius pushed on. “After you fell, the battle turned in our favor when the Pompeians finally broke. I don’t know what you remember. They had started to fall back, but they were still fighting for every single inch of ground.”
I nodded that I did indeed remember, the feeling of doubt and despair still very clear, the idea that we had finally met an enemy we could not defeat as fresh a wound in my mind as those of my body.