“Let me send for a physician,” he begged. “We have prayed, but it is not enough.”
“No,” Constantine said quickly, but even his voice was weak. His stomach knotted again, and he was afraid he was going to be sick.
He tried to get up to relieve himself urgently, but the pain doubled him over. He called for Manuel to help him. Twenty minutes later, drenched in sweat and so weak that he could not stand without help, he collapsed on the bed and allowed Manuel to pull the covers over him. Now suddenly he was cold, but at least he could lie still.
Manual asked again for permission to send for a physician, and again Constantine refused. Sleep would cure him.
Constantine lay still, his belly quiet. But the fear gripped his heart like an iron clamp, twisting inside him. He dared not lie down in the dark when the light spiraled away from him, his skin slick with sweat again and yet his limbs ice cold.
“Manuel!” His voice was shrill, almost hysterical.
Manuel appeared, candle in his hand, his face tight with fear.
“Get Anastasius for me,” Constantine conceded at last. “Tell him it is urgent.” The pain shot through his belly again. “But first assist me.” He must relieve himself again, quickly. He must have help. He also thought he was about to be sick. Anastasius was another eunuch and would not pity his mutilation or be repelled by it. He had had a whole physician once and seen the prurient revulsion in the man’s eyes. Never again; he’d rather die.
Anastasius would have only understanding. He too was lost, uncertain, carrying a burden somewhere inside him that was too heavy. Constantine had seen it in his face in unguarded moments. One day he would learn what it was.
Yes, send for Anastasius. Quickly.
Fifteen
ANNA COULD SEE FROM THE SERVANT’S MANNER AND THE high pitch of his voice that he was seriously alarmed. But quite apart from that, she knew that Constantine, a proud and private man, would not have sent for her were the matter not grave.
“How does the illness show itself?” she asked. “Where is the pain?”
“I don’t know. Please come.”
“I want to know what to bring with me,” Anna explained. “It would be far better than having to return for it.”
“Oh.” Now the man understood. “In his abdomen. He does not eat or drink, relieves himself often, and yet the pain does not go.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other impatiently.
As quickly as she could, she packed in a small case all the herbs she thought mostly likely to help. She also took a few Eastern herbs from Shachar and from al-Qadir, whose names she would not tell Constantine.
She informed Simonis where she was going, then followed the man out into the street and down the hill as rapidly as she could walk.
She was ushered straight into the bedchamber where Constantine was lying, his night tunic tangled and soaked with sweat and his skin a pasty gray.
“I’m sorry you feel so ill,” she said quietly. “When did it begin?” She was startled to see the fear in his sunken eyes, naked and out of control.
“Last night,” he answered. “I was listening to confession and suddenly the room went black.”
She touched his brow with her hand. It was cool and clammy. She could smell the sharp, stale odor of sweat and sour body waste. She found his pulse. It was strong, but racing.
“Do you have pain now?” she asked.
“Not now.”
She judged that to be only a half-truth. “When did you last eat?”
He looked puzzled.
“If you don’t remember, it was too long ago.” She studied his arm where it lay across his chest. She must never let him know she had seen the terror in him. He would not forgive her that. She must examine him intimately also-at least his belly, to see if it was swollen or perhaps if his bowel was obstructed. He might never forgive her that, either, if his castration was untidy-a bad mutilation. She had heard that they varied a great deal. Some eunuchs had had all organs removed and needed to insert a tube to pass water.
She hesitated. She was taking a terrible risk; it was an intrusion from which there was no return. Yet her medical duty to him forbade that she withhold any treatment she believed could help. She had no choice.
Gently she took the skin of his arm between her thumb and finger. It was slack, loose on the underlying flesh. “Bring me water,” she told the servant still waiting at the door. “And get the juice of pomegranates, preferably not quite ripe, if you have them. Bring it to me in a jug. One jugful will do to start with.” She handed the servant the honey and spikenard and told him the proportions to add. Constantine’s body was drained of fluids.
“Have you vomited?” she asked him.
He winced. “Yes. Only once.”
She knew from the feel of his skin and his sunken eyes that he had lost far too much fluid from his body.
“Perhaps it was unintentional,” she told him, “but you have starved yourself, and drunk too little.”
“I was working with the poor,” he answered weakly. His eyes avoided hers, but she did not think it was because he was lying. She suspected that he loathed the intrusion of anyone seeing him like this.
“What is wrong with me?” he asked. “Is it a sin unto death?”
She was stunned. The fear was deep and raw in him, indecently exposed. How could she answer him with honesty that was true both to medicine and to faith?
“It is not only guilt which afflicts,” she said gently. “Anger can also, and sometimes grief. You have spent too much of your strength in ministering to others and have neglected yourself. And yes, perhaps that is a sin. God gave you your body to use in His service, not to ill-treat it. That is an ungrateful thing to do. Maybe you need to repent of that.”
He stared at her, grasping at what she had said, turning it over and weighing it. Gradually some of the fear eased away, as if miraculously she had not said what he dreaded. His hand gripping the sheet loosed a little.
She smiled. “Take better thought for yourself in future. You cannot serve either God or man in this state.”
He breathed in deeply and let out a sigh.
“You must drink,” she told him. “I have brought herbs which will cleanse and strengthen you. You must eat, but with care. Bread that has been well kneaded, hens’ eggs lightly boiled, not goose or duck eggs. You may eat lightly boiled meat of partridge or francolin, or young kid, not older animals. A little stewed apple with honey would be good, but avoid nuts. Then when you are ready, in two or three days, take a little fish; gray mullet is good. Mostly you must drink water with juice mixed in. Have your servant wash you and bring you clean linen. Have him help you so you do not fall. You are weak. I shall give him a list of what other food to buy.”