“No one speaks ill of you. The physician and I—”
“Physician! Zut! Joseph of Galilee is but a leech.”
Joseph found himself squirming like one of his own leeches under the intensity of her indignation at being labeled possessed by demons. “I did not claim to be a physician,” he protested. “You were dancing and fainted. The noble tribune caught you and I offered to help.”
The girl’s anger seemed to depart as suddenly as it had come, like the quick play of emotions in a child. She smiled, but upon the handsome Roman, not the Jew in the dingy robe. “I regret if I have troubled you, noble sir,” she said graciously in flawless Greek, and again Joseph marveled at her self-possession and her manners. Most girls of her age would have been dumb before the magnificence of the procurator’s nephew.
Gaius Flaccus bowed with equal grace. “If you still feel faint, my uncle’s villa is only a short distance away.”
But something else had claimed the girl’s thoughts. “Hadja!” she called to the leader of the musicians, who waited nearby. “What of the coins? There should be many.”
The Nabatean smiled and held out his cupped hands. They were almost filled with gold and silver. “We picked them up, O Living Flame, while you lay in the fit.”
Mary stamped her foot. “How many times must I tell you I do not have fits?” she cried angrily.
“Then you have had them before?” Joseph asked.
“Sometimes when I dance, I grow faint. It is nothing.” She stood up but swayed, and Joseph caught her or she would have fallen. Her body was soft under his fingers about her waist, and he could not deny the stirring of his pulses at the contact.
“Let me carry you to my uncle’s villa to recover,” Gaius Flaccus suggested eagerly.
“I am all right now.” The girl pushed away Joseph’s supporting hand. “Thank you for your kindness, sir,” she said graciously to Gaius Flaccus. “I must return to Magdala with my musicians.”
“You can ride my mule,” Joseph suggested. “I am going directly there.” He did not stop to think that his patients in Magdala would be angry because he was late. Right now being with Mary of Magdala was more important.
III
The road climbed sharply up the black basalt cliffs of the mountain above Tiberias, and Joseph had to lead the mule carefully because of the girl’s weight upon its back. When they came to a level spot on the mountainside he stopped for the animal to rest, but the Nabateans went on ahead, since their long strides covered ground more rapidly than the plodding mule. Mary sat on a rock at the edge of the lake with the white marble buildings of Tiberias below them. “How cool it is up here!” she exclaimed, pushing her hair back from her face. “Tiberias is much too hot.”
“Hot air breeds fevers for physicians to treat,” Joseph told her. “I should like it, but I am always glad to leave Tiberias.” Herod had failed to take into consideration the nature of the prevailing winds when he built this new city. While the flow of air through the mountain defile in which the lake lay kept the center of the inland sea and the cities around its northern curve cool in summer, it failed to stir the hot sultry air close to the western shore, where Tiberias was located. So for all its beauty, the magnificent Roman palaces, and Herod’s own luxurious edifice on the higher ground of the acropolis, it was an unhealthy city.
“Who were you treating today?” she asked.
Joseph reached for the bottle containing his leeches and held it up to the light. Three of the sleek black squirming animals were fat and turgid. “My leeches are plump from the blood of Pontius Pilate,” he said proudly.
She seemed entirely unafraid of the leeches, which was unusual for a young girl. “They say in Magdala that the blood of David flows in your veins, Joseph. Why do you work as a leech?”
“My patients pay me well. Meanwhile I am learning all that Alexander Lysimachus can