Padway hadn't anticipated that use of his products, but said he would have some ready in a week.
"Where do you get your power?" asked Nevitta.
Padway showed him the work-horse in the back yard walking around a shaft in the rain.
"Shouldn't think a horse would be efficient," said the Goth. "You could get a lot more power out of a couple of husky slaves. That is, if your driver knew his whip. Ha, ha!"
"Oh, no," said Padway. "Not this horse. Notice anything peculiar about his harness?"
"Well, yes, it is peculiar. But I don't know what's wrong with it."
"It's that collar over his neck. You people make your horses pull against a strap around the throat. Every time he pulls, the strap cuts into his windpipe and shuts off the poor animal's breath. That collar puts the load on his shoulders. If you were going to pull a load, you wouldn't hitch a rope around your neck to pull it with, would you?"
"Well," said Nevitta dubiously, "maybe you're right. I've been using my land of harness for a long time, and I don't know that I'd care to change."
Padway shrugged. "Any time you want one of these outfits, you can get it from Metellus the Saddler on the Appian Way. He made this to my specifications. I'm not making them myself; I have too much else to do."
Here Padway leaned against the doorframe and closed his eyes.
"Aren't you feeling well?" asked Nevitta in alarm.
"No. My head weighs as much as the dome of the Pantheon. I think I'm going to bed."
"Oh, my word, I'll help you. Where's that man of mine? Hermann!" When Hermann appeared, Nevitta rattled a sentence of Gothic at him wherein Padway caught the name of Leo Vekkos.
Padway protested: "I don't want a physician—"
"Nonsense, my boy, it's no trouble. You were right about keeping the dogs outside. It cured my wheezes. So I'm glad to help you."
Padway feared the ministrations of a sixth-century physician more than he feared the grippe with which he was coming down. He did not know how to refuse gracefully. Nevitta and Fritharik got him to bed with rough efficiency.
Fritharik said: "It looks to me like a clear case of elf-shot."
"What?" croaked Padway.
"Elf-shot. The elves have shot you. I know, because I had it once in Africa. A Vandal physician cured me by drawing out the invisible darts of the elves. When they become visible they are little arrowheads made of chipped flint."
"Look," said Padway, "I know what's wrong with me. If everybody will let me alone, I'll get well in a week or ten days."
"We couldn't think of that!" cried Nevitta and Fritharik together. While they were arguing, Hermann arrived with a sallow, black-bearded, sensitive-looking man.
Leo Vekkos opened his bag. Padway got a glimpse into the bag, and shuddered. It contained a couple of books, an assortment of weeds, and several small bottles holding organs of what had probably been small mammals.
"Now then, excellent Martinus," said Vekkos, "let me see your tongue. Say ah." The physician felt Padway's forehead, poked his chest and stomach, and asked him intelligent-sounding questions about his condition.
"This is a common condition in winter," said Vekkos in a didactic tone. "It is something of a mystery. Some hold it to be an excess of blood in the head, which causes that stuffy feeling whereof you complain. Others assert that it is an excess of black bile. I hold the view that it is caused by the conflict of the natural spirits of the liver with the animal spirits of the nervous system. The defeat of the animal spirits naturally reacts on the respiratory system—"
"It's nothing but a bad cold—" said Padway.
Vekkos ignored him. "—since the lungs and throat are under their control. The best cure for you is to rouse the vital spirits of the heart to put the natural spirits in their place." He began fishing weeds out of the bag.
"How about elf-shot?" asked Fritharik.
"What?"
Fritharik explained the medical doctrine of his people.
Vekkos smiled. "My good man, there is nothing in Galen about elf-shot. Nor in Celsus. Nor in Asclepiades. So I cannot take you seriously—"
"Then you don't know much about doctoring," growled Fritharik.
"Really," snapped Vekkos. "Who is the physician?"
"Stop squabbling, or you'll make me worse," grumbled Padway. "What are you going to do to me?"
Vekkos held up a bunch of weeds. "Have these herbs stewed and drink a cupful every three hours. They include a mild purgative, to draw off the black bile through the bowels in case there should be an excess."
"Which is the purgative?" asked Padway.
Vekkos pulled it out. Padway's thin arm shot out and grabbed the weed. "I just want to keep this separate from the rest, if you don't mind."
Vekkos humored him, told him to keep warm and stay in bed, and departed. Nevitta and Hermann went with him.
"Calls himself a physician," grumbled Fritharik, "and never heard of elf-shot."
"Get Julia," said Padway.
When the girl came, she set up a great to-do: "Oh, generous master, whatever is wrong with you? I'll get Father Narcissus—"
"No, you won't," said Padway. He broke off a small part of the purgative weed and handed it to her. "Boil this in a kettle of water, and bring me a cup of the water." He handed her the rest of the bunch of greenery. "And throw these out. Somewhere where the medicine man won't see them."
A slight laxative should be just the thing, he thought. If they would only leave him alone . . .
Next morning his head was less thick, but he felt very tired. He slept until eleven, when he was wakened by Julia. With Julia was a dignified man wearing an ordinary civilian cloak over a long white tunic with tight sleeves. Padway guessed that he was Father Narcissus by his tonsure.
"My son," said the priest. "I am sorry to see that the Devil has set his henchmen on you. This virtuous young woman besought my spiritual aid . . ."
Padway resisted a desire to tell Father Narcissus where to go. His one constant principle was to avoid trouble with the Church.
"I have not seen you at the Church of the Angel Gabriel," continued Father Narcissus. "You are one of us, though, I hope?"
"American rite," mumbled Padway.
The priest was puzzled by this. But he went on. "I know that you have consulted the physician Vekkos. How much better it is to put your trust in God, compared to whose power these bleeders and stewers of herbs are impotent! We shall start with a few prayers . . . ."
Padway lived through it. Then Julia appeared stirring something.
"Don't be alarmed," said the priest. "This is one cure that never fails. Dust from the tomb of St. Nereus, mixed with water."
There was nothing obviously lethal about the combination, so Padway drank it. Father Narcissus asked conversationally: "You are not, then, from Padua?"
Fritharik put his head in. "That so-called physician is here again."
"Tell him just a moment," said Padway. God, he was tired. "Thanks a lot, Father. It's nice to have seen you."
The priest went out, shaking his head over the blindness of mortals who trusted in materia medica.
Vekkos came in with an accusing look. Padway said: "Don't blame me. The girl brought him."
Vekkos sighed. "We physicians spend our lives in hard scientific study, and then we have to compete with these alleged miracle-workers. Well, how's my patient today?"
While he was still examining Padway, Thomasus the Syrian appeared. The banker waited around nervously until the Greek left. Then Thomasus said: "I came as soon as I heard you were sick, Martinus. Prayers and medicines are all very well, but we don't want to miss any bets. My colleague, Ebenezer the Jew, knows a man, one of his own sect named Jeconias of Naples, who is pretty good at curative magic. A lot of these magicians are frauds; I don't believe in them for a minute. But this man has done some remarkable—"