Dear and Glorious Physician Read Online Free PDF

and appeared to notice him for the first time. “I was praying for Rubria,” he said, and his voice was the voice of the young Iris.
     
    Diodorus moved around the circle of the fountain, hesitated, then squatted on his heels and looked earnestly at the boy, who sat in such utter relaxation and bemusement before him. The tribune had removed his heavy military clothing on returning home; he wore a loose white tunic, belted with simple leather inlaid with silver. Under the thin material his browned body was square and hard, and his thick legs bulged with muscles. He folded his strong arms on his knees and contemplated Lucanus, who smiled at him with simple serenity.
     
    Lucanus was neither awed nor frightened by the soldier. He regarded the fierce dark face, beaked and stern, as tranquilly as he would have regarded his father. The harsh and jutting chin did not alarm him, nor the sharp and penetrating black eyes set under black and swelling brows. But Diodorus, confronted with the very image of the child he had once known, was conscious of his own hard round head covered with stiff black hair, shorn and lusterless, and the crude strength of his disciplined body.
     
    The boy had no business in this courtyard, thought Diodorus automatically. And then he was ashamed, remembering Iris. But what had he said? “I was praying for Rubria.” The two children were playmates, just as he and Iris had been playmates.
     
    Diodorus softened his grating voice. “You are praying for Rubria, boy? Ah, she needs your prayers, the poor little one.”
     
    “Yes, Master,” said Lucanus, seriously.
     
    “To what god are you praying?” asked Diodorus. (Surely, he thought, the gods were especially touched by the prayers of innocents, and some of his pain lightened.)
     
    Lucanus said, “To the Unknown God.”
     
    Diodorus’ dark eyelids flickered in surprise. Lucanus was saying, “My father has taught me that He is everywhere, and in all things.” He extended the strange stone to Diodorus simply. “I found this today. It is very beautiful. Do you think He is here, and that He hears me?”
     

Chapter Two
     
    Diodorus took the stone in his hands, gravely, still squatting on his heels. He could barely see it in the twilight now, but he felt that it was warm, and when he turned it in his fingers it gave off a curious faint glow of many colors, which caught the last light.
     
    It was warm, most probably because it had lain so long in the palms of the child’s hands. But the warmth did not decrease, though the air was cooling rapidly. Rather, it increased. The superstitious Diodorus wanted to drop the stone, but that would be an embarrassing gesture before the child.
     
    “Do you think, Master, that He is here, and that He hears me?” repeated Lucanus. He had a clear and steadfast voice, without servility, the voice of one of patrician birth.
     
    “Eh?” said Diodorus. Again he turned the stone about in his fingers and peered at it.
     
    “The Unknown God,” said Lucanus, patiently.
     
    Diodorus knew all about the Unknown God. Once, in a Greek temple, he had sacrificed to Him, though the Greeks had believed He did not wish sacrifices. Who was this God who had no name? What were His attributes? Of what men was He the Patron? There were no images of Him anywhere. Could He be the God of the Jews, of whom Diodorus had heard much in Jerusalem? But he had known that they, the Jews, sacrificed to Him, doves and lambs, on some festival, the Passover, in the spring of the year. The Jews called Him Lord, and they appeared to know Him very well. In his mind’s eye Diodorus could see the great gold and pale marble temple hanging against the peacock sky of Jerusalem. Lucanus was a Greek, not a Jew. It was possible that the Greeks had heard of the Jewish God, and as they did not know His name they called Him the Unknown.
     
    Diodorus shook his head. A great moon, like a bowl filled with soft fire, was rising behind the palms now. It