I had been holding my breath, and now I exhaled through my pursed lips, in a controlled hiss. "About the companionship in the bathhouse. Because I'll miss it."
"Caius, what in the world are you talking about?"
"About me, Luke!" Suddenly my tight control was gone, and all my fears and my bitterness came swirling to the surface, clearly astounding my friend, if the expression on his face was anything by which to judge. "I'm talking about me! About my condition ... about this—this cursed, damnable thing on my chest. I'm talking about leprosy!
Leprosy, Luke, and the evil of it! If that's what this thing is, this mark on me, this blemish—and you've said nothing to convince me that it isn't—then I'll never step inside those baths, because to do so would be murder. There's no other word in me to say it better. It would be murderous of me to incur the risk of spreading my contagion on to others. That's what I'm talking about, Lucanus, and I'm amazed that you should take so—"
"You are spewing shit!"
His interruption, loud, vicious and whip-like, robbed me of all impetus, so that I hung there, mouth agape. In all the years I had known Lucanus, I had never heard him utter so much as a mild profanity.
"Listen to yourself, man! Listen, for one moment, to what you are saying, and ask yourself how you dare! Do you really have so little regard for my concern, for my knowledge, for my skills? And do you really think me so uncaring about your condition that I would simply leave you floundering in fear and ignorance?"
Abashed now, and suddenly conscious of how rude and hectoring and condemnatory my angry outburst had been, I shook my head, mumbling, and totally unable to look him in the eye. "I ... No. No, forgive me, Luke, I had not thought to imply any of that ... " I could hear misery and something approaching too close to self-pity in my own tone, and my voice dried up. He moved towards me and thrust the cup of wine he still held into my nerveless fingers.
"You had not thought—you have not yet thought clearly in several respects, my friend. That much I can easily perceive. Here, take this. Now drink. And sit. Sit over there." He pointed to a chair against the wall.
When I was seated, he raised his cup towards me, holding it high until I returned the gesture, and then we both sipped. I had no consciousness of the taste of the wine, but I watched him as he moved to pull another chair out from the table to my left and turn it towards me, standing behind it. He drank again, the tiniest of sips, then leaned forward to place his cup on the chair's seat, after which he stood looking at me, leaning his weight forward onto his hands which gripped the chair's high back. The light in the room settled on the arched plane of his forehead, beneath the pronounced widow's peak that crowned it, making the tight, translucent skin of his high brow gleam and throwing a shadow into the dip of his left temple and the hollow of his cheek, so that I became aware of his age again—aware that Lucanus was no longer young. The silence stretched between us until I could bear it no longer.
"Luke," I began, but he waved me to silence before I had even begun. When he did speak, his voice held all of the detachment of his professional persona. My friend Luke was silent; my other friend, Lucanus the surgeon and physician, was speaking.
"You told me once, Caius, the last time we had words, that there is no need for apologies between us when we spark differences occasionally. That applies now ... But I deserved your reaction there, for my own carelessness in failing to be aware how concerned you are, still, about this—condition of yours. I know it frightens you deeply, but you conceal your distress so well that I had lost sight of it. So, we shall address it now. Undo your tunic."
"Why? You looked at the damned thing this morning."
"I did, but now I require you to look at it with me. Humour me. Expose it."
I did as he requested, laying bare my breast so that The Mark, as I had come to think of it, lay open to his scrutiny and my own, foreshortened as that was by the awkward angle from which I had to peer at it.
Lucanus moved close to me and reached out, pinching the flesh of my breast, then stretching it between finger and thumb so that the skin around The Mark whitened almost to the colour of the dead patch at the centre of the blemish itself.
"Does it hurt?" I shook my head. "Can you feel it at all? When I pinch?"
"No."
"Very well, now think carefully, has it changed in any way—shape, colour, sensitivity, anything at all—in recent months?"
I thought about it, stifling the immediate negative that sprang to my tongue. The blemish had not, in fact, increased in size since it had first appeared, so that I still could cover it completely with the pad of my thumb. "No," I said, eventually. "You know it hasn't."
"Correct, I know it has not, but we are conducting this particular examination for your benefit, not mine. So, there has been no change: no proliferation, no spread, no swelling, no soreness, no pus and no breaks in the skin; no leaks of fluid of any kind, and no itching. Correct?" I nodded again. He straightened up. "Good. Now cover yourself up again and listen to what I have to say to you." As I rearranged my tunic he went back to the chair opposite me, picking up his cup and sitting down to face me.
"As you know, I am familiar with what frightens you most: the disease of leprosy, and the very idea of it. I have worked with it, and among lepers, for many years. I believe, utterly and with totality, Cay, that this—manifestation, of whatever it is you have, is not a leprous lesion. It could be any one of a hundred other things, some known, some unknown. I'll know more when I lay my hands on that scroll I mentioned. If I'm right, it's in a chest that I once gave to your Aunt Luceiia. I've written to Ambrose and asked him to look for it. If he finds it, he'll send the entire contents of the chest to me by the next vessel of Connor's that calls in there. But!" He stood up again and crossed to stand directly in front of me, looking down at me. "But. Your fears, my friend, those fears that just now spilled from you, are groundless. Listen to me. Even if whatever it is that you now have were to become leprosy at some future date, it is harmless, at this time, to others. Do you understand that, Caius? It is harmless. To cause contagion, of any kind, it would have to be active ... to be leaking, to be exuding poisons, to be sweating secretions of some kind. That is not the case, with you.
"I have never lied to you, my friend, and I will not begin to do so now, over this. What you have on your skin, this mark, is merely a deadened surface area bearing some slight, arguable resemblance to some forms of leprous lesions. And the important word in all of that is 'lesions' ... plural. You have only one mark, and it has been unique since it appeared, almost a full year ago. It is my firm opinion, based on a lifetime of medical study and practice, that there is not the slightest possibility that you are capable of presenting any threat, of any kind of contagion, to any person. And that embraces, most specifically, your presence in the bathhouse. Have I made myself clear?"
"Yes."
"And, more important, do you believe me?"
I thought about all he had said, weighing not merely his words and his credibility but his tone and demeanour, and I felt relief and gratitude well up in me, so that a smile came easily to my eyes and lips, and my entire chest expanded with well-being. He was watching me closely as I nodded, very gently at first, then with increasing conviction and gratitude. I raised my cup again, this time anticipating the fullness of the wine.