Ego's Odyssey, Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Fraud

‘Tell me more about Nero,’ she said, sitting on the stool beside my bed the following morning.

‘The worst part was, the attacks, they seemed to come out of nowhere. I couldn’t understand it. I still can’t,’ I said, shaking my head.

She placed a tender hand on my wrist.

‘Have you ever done anything to make him resent you?’

‘No!’ I almost shouted at her, eyes ablaze.

She remained impassive, unimpressed.

‘Well,’ I equivocated, sheepish now, ‘there were some boyish pranks.’

‘Such as?’

‘I would call him names. When we were younger, you understand.’

‘What names?’

‘Coward. Bastard, son of a whore – it was well known throughout the village, his mother was promiscuous, and his parentage dubious. I was not the only one to make fun of this.’

She persisted in her withering glare. She knew I was holding back.

I sighed, reluctant and ashamed to divulge further misdeeds. Until now, I had been the wronged party. Now I was becoming the villain of the piece.

‘And I suppose, I used to beat him when I caught him stealing milk from our goats, or when he lied to my mother and blamed me for drinking the wine that he and his friends had quaffed ­– and she believed him!’

‘Is that all?’

‘I called him goat-fucker. I do not know why. Maybe because he was always good with animals, whilst I feared them. Unjust, I know ­– but hardly proportionate to the horrors he would later inflict upon me!’

‘And you feel no guilt for your misdeeds?’

‘Of course not! If I’d known the monster he would become, I would have hit him ten times harder!’

‘And what of the other village boys – did you never torment any of them?’

‘There was one lad, Propius. I once threw a bucket of shit in his face and kicked him in the balls. Though he had stolen my book, he didn’t exactly deserve it.’

‘You feel guilty,’ she said, her face hard as stone. It was not a question.

‘I suppose so,’ I said, mouth squirming in discomfort.

‘Say it.’

‘I feel guilty!’ I said, hotly. ‘There. Are you happy?’

‘That depends,’ she said, placing the back of her cool hand to my forehead. ‘Your fever has broken. You are telling the truth.’

She was right. My limbs were no longer leaden, the throbbing in my head had ceased and I felt suffused with new life.

‘You can tell whether I am lying or not from my physical symptoms?’

‘The body does not lie. And it is not for nothing that the prophet said, “the truth shall set you free.”’

I blinked. I had never considered this before. Like most of my countrymen, I no longer honoured the gods, and had written religion off as a crock of shit that was only good for the odd day off work. But her words added a new shade of meaning, of living colour, to the dry old catechism.

‘Here, have more potion.’

I took a swig.

Instantly, my spirits lifted, my head cleared, my eyes brightened.

‘Anyway, after the cook was killed, Nero took the man’s place in the kitchen. Soon his cronies swapped jobs with the kitchen helpers, and next thing we knew, that gang of thieves had control of the food supply!’

She shook her head, sympathetically.

‘You can guess what happened next. Nero and his gang grew fatter while the rest of us starved on half-rations. They kept the captain and first mate well fed, so they wouldn’t complain. They were all too glad of an excuse not to confront Nero, the cowards. Then the water supply began to mysteriously dry up. We were reduced to two amphorae, which meant three swigs per day for every man. And the rats - the rats thrived, for Nero fed them the scraps from his bowl – he was ere an animal lover, that one! The damn vermin dined better than most of the men! If only he had shown me such compassion!

Well, the rats grew bigger and bolder and bit one of the men, an unlucky fellow named Scorpio. Whilst working in the kitchen one day, Scorpio fainted and took to his hammock. Then one day, as I was emptying his bedpan - for on Nero’s ship I got all the best jobs! – I noticed there was a black blob under his armpit. I ran off, crying plague. This finally roused the ships doctor – your friend Placebo – to come take a look at the wretch.

“Mmm, that’s not good,” he says, after sticking his finger in the bubo and tasting the goo! You see, he thought it was a squashed prune or common boil!’

Anima burst out laughing – a harsh, violent cackle.

I stared at her askance.

‘I suppose it is funny, but not to us! For half of the crew caught the disease off the very man they looked to for a cure! They came to him with jaundice, constipation, headache, the runs – the everyday niggling complaints most men suffer from on a poor ship’s diet – and they left infected with plague!’

I shook my head.

‘Hey, I’ll hear no more against Doctor Diodorus Placebo, thank you very much!’ came the jeering voice of my neighbour, a thickset rustic called Apos, who was also suffering from plague.

‘And why not?’ Anima asked, coolly.

‘That man is a martyr! He’s tending to the sick while ‘is own body falls apart! Sure, he’s not perfect, but the poor fella is trying ‘is best fur us, so ‘e is,’ Apos said, stirred by anger to sit up in bed.

And just like that, the screen folded back and in stepped Placebo.

‘What’s this – have these charlatans been badmouthing me again?’ the old man said, his choler rising.

Apos was right; the doctor was indeed falling apart. His eyelids drooped, and his face was riddled with buboes of all shapes and sizes; a cluster had spread from his jaw to the left side of his mouth and was beginning to slur his speech. They dangled off his sagging old arms like bunches of rotting grapes, and each time he took a step on his crutches, his festering armpits squelched. His feet were bulbous, trailing bloody unravelling bandages across the marble. He reeked as bad as he looked; like a rancid dead animal left by the wayside.

‘Speak of the devil…’ I muttered, under my breath.

‘Keep yer damn quackery to yerself!’ he rasped, eyes wild.

He raised a crutch to wave at Anima, threateningly, then lost his balance and clattered to the floor with a gruesome splash of exploding buboes.

Apos struggled out of bed, wincing with the pain. Placebo brushed aside his offers of help.

‘Stop, fool, don’t you know touching spreads the sickness!?’

‘But doctor, you’re already infected—’

‘I said touching spreads the sickness, damn it!’ he hissed.

Apos withdrew his hand, terrified.

Arms quivering, Placebo raised himself up on his crutches.

‘You can have Ego here – there’s no helping such simple-minded fools. But I’ll not let you bewitch a good sensible lad like Apos, with your hocus pocus nonsense,’ he croaked, between gasps.

‘Ego here is recovering under my care. Ego, show him your buboes,’ she commanded.

With a sadistic smile, I lifted the bandage on my stomach, and was shocked to find the bubo reduced to the size of a squashed plum.

Placebo’s eyes flashed with annoyance, as if I had miraculously healed myself merely to show him up. The impudence!

‘He never really had plague – it must have been some sort of benign tumour or rash.’

I laughed.

‘What kind of tumour goes down that quickly? And all the other “tumours” are shrinking, too,’ I said, showing off the ones on my arms and face.

‘Well, it would take time to conduct a proper diagnosis – perhaps you have some strange foreign pox, unknown to our physicians.’

‘How could I catch a foreign pox when we never visited any foreign lands on our voyage?’

‘By frequenting the port brothels, which are packed to the rafters with foreign whores, all of them crawling with disease. In any case, one in ten men recover from the plague. Even if you were infected, your recovery is not due to this harlot and her witchcraft; you are simply blessed with a strong constitution.’

‘Wish I was so lucky,’ murmured Apos, resentfully.

‘Me? A strong constitution? Do you not remember? I was always pestering you aboard ship with one complaint or another.’

‘Oh, that? That was all in your head,’ he said, waving my rebuttal aside.

‘Maybe Ego is lucky. But if there is even the slightest chance my methods have healed him, why would you not try them for yourself? If, as Placebo says, you’ll be dead within a week with his treatment, then you have nothing to lose by seeking alternatives,’ Anima said.

The crude lines of Apos’ homely peasant face scrunched in thought. He was not accustomed to pondering such subtle arguments – and doing so made him deeply uncomfortable.

‘Do not listen to her. And do not envy Ego. Even if he is recovering from plague, the wretch is still a cripple for life, on account of the injuries to his spine! He’ll never walk again! Better death than such a fate!’

My spirits sank at these cruel words, which Placebo took a strange relish in uttering.

Anima turned to look at me. She weighed me with her big green eyes.

‘Ego, stand up,’ she said.

‘But—’

She placed her hand on my arm.

‘Do not think. Stand up.’ Her voice was calm but commanding.

Semi-hypnotised by those beautiful eyes, so full of compassion and understanding and implacable will, I absorbed some of her confidence, and before I knew it, I had swung my legs out of bed and sat up, all in one sudden movement.

‘That’s it. Now stand.’

Following her injunction to not think about what I was doing, but simply do it, I acted quickly and straightened my legs.

I stood. Quivering, uncertain – elated.

‘Now walk!’ she boomed, her voice extremely deep and loud.

Trembling, I took a step. Then a second. A third. The pain was there, but dull. I seemed to have caught it unawares. Then I began to falter, and she was there, by my side, taking me by the arm, murmuring, ‘That’s enough’, and easing me back into a sitting position on my bed.

It was only now that I looked up to see the reaction of Placebo.

His mouth was open. So was Apos’. They were speechless.

Finally, Placebo regained his wits, such as they were. He cleared his throat.

‘Well, it’s obvious what has happened here,’ he said, quite calmly and reasonably. ‘You are a fraud!’ he screeched, levelling the trembling finger of accusation at me. ‘Go on, admit it, you were never really ill, were you, you were just putting it on so you could win the sympathy of this ripe young whore! Liar, demon, fornicator!’ he shrieked, hysterical with rage and stumbling toward me.

Anima punched him square in the face.

He flew backwards, like a leaf in the wind, and landed with a heavy thud that shook Apos’ bedframe.

The entire ward, patients and nurses alike, had stopped to look. They were all speechless.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

‘Get out!’ she said, calmly.

Placebo looked up. I’m sure the shock of the blow damn near killed him.

‘Out! Back to your bed!’

Two nurses came to help him. Seeing his legs were quivering, they dragged him across the ward. He left a trail of black stinking ooze in his wake, like a giant slug.

‘And you, Apos. What more proof do you need before you will believe?’

The big peasant whimpered like a kicked dog. He couldn’t meet her eyes and folded himself back into bed. He lay staring, unblinking, at the ceiling. Events had surpassed his capacity to comprehend them.

‘Suit yourself,’ she said.

‘That was incredible. How did you know I could walk?’

‘After curing hundreds, one develops a certain feel for these things.’

‘You could have warned me! I would have prepared myself!’

‘If I had prepared you, I would also have prepared The Deceiver within you and given him time to plot his sabotage. When you plan, he plans. That is why it is best to ambush yourself – to catch The Deceiver off-guard.’

‘You are right. By the gods, you are right. I must confess, at first I didn’t believe this talk of a Deceiver – it all seemed rather abstract, and the thought even crossed my mind that he was some sort of bogeyman you had invented to keep me in line, as if I were a child.’

‘You were a child. But today, you have taken the first steps towards adulthood.’

‘Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?’ I stammered, for I was no longer a youth.

‘Grown-up children are the rule, not the exception. There are greybeards who know no more than babes at the teat. Placebo is such a one.’

I pondered what she said. As usual, a sentence from her could fill books written by others.

‘Whatever doubts you have in future, remember this day; it will be valuable evidence to use against The Deceiver in the courtroom of your mind.’

Then she left. Read the full title online: https://www.robertensor.com/post/ego-s-odyssey

Or buy it from amazon in ebook or paperback formats: https://www.amazon.com/Egos-Odyssey-Ego-Aeonia-Book-ebook/dp/B0BSHD2MT8