Father Sebastian craned up into the darkness, the hackles of his neck crawling from the suddenness of the cry. “Mr. Struan?”
“Aye?” Struan said, his voice strangled.
“His Grace sent me. We’ve got the cinchona bark.”
“Where is it?”
The monk held up a small, soiled bag. “Here. His Grace said you’d be expecting someone.”
“And the price?”
“I know nothing about that, Mr. Struan,” Father Sebastian called out weakly. “His Grace simply said to treat whomsoever you’d take me to. That’s all.”
“I’ll be there in a second,” Struan shouted, charging back into the room.
He threw on his clothes, fought into his boots, rushed for the door and stopped. After thinking a second, he picked up the fighting iron and came down the stairs four at a time.
Father Sebastian saw the fighting iron and flinched.
“Morning, Father,” Struan said. He hid his disgust at the monk’s filthy habit, and hated all doctors anew. “Lo Chum, wen Mass’er Sinclair here—you fetch, savvy?”
“Savvy, Mass’er.”
“Come on, Father Sebastian!”
“Just a moment, Mr. Struan! Before we go I must explain something. I’ve never used cinchona before— none of us have.”
“Well, that does na matter, does it?”
“Of course it matters!” the gaunt monk exclaimed. “All I know is that I’ve to make a ‘tea’ of this bark by boiling it. The trouble is we don’t know for certain how long to boil it or how strong to make it. Or how much the patient should have. Or how often the patient should be dosed. The only medical treatise we have on cinchona is archaic Latin—and vague!”
“The bishop said he’d had the malaria. How much did he take?”
“His Grace doesn’t remember. Only that it tasted very bitter and revolted him. He drank it for four days, he thinks. His Grace told me to make it quite clear that we treat her at your own risk.”
“Aye. I understand very well. Come on!” Struan dashed out of the door, Father Sebastian beside him. They followed the
pra
ça for a little way and started up a silent, tree-lined avenue.
“Please, Mr. Struan, not so fast,” Father Sebastian said, out of breath.
“A fever’s due tomorrow. We’ve to hurry.” Struan crossed the Praca de Sao Paulo and headed impatiently into another street. Suddenly his instincts warned him and he stopped and darted to one side. A musket ball smashed into the wall beside him. He pulled down the terrified priest. Another shot. The ball nicked Struan’s shoulder, and he cursed himself for not bringing pistols. “Run for your life!” He pulled the monk up and shoved him across the road into the safety of a doorway. Lights were going on in the houses.
“This way!” he hissed, and rushed out. Abruptly he changed direction and another shot missed by a fraction of an inch as he reached the safety of an alley, Father Sebastian panting alongside.
“You’ve still the cinchona?” Struan asked. “Yes. For the love of God, what’s going on?”
“Highwaymen!” Struan took the frightened monk’s arm and ran through the depths of the alley and up onto the open space of the fort of Sao Paulo do Monte.
In the shadows of the fort he took a breather. “Where’s the cinchona?”
Father Sebastian held up the bag limply. The moonlight touched the livid whip sear on Struan’s chin and flickered in the eyes and seemed to make him more huge and more devilish. “Who was that? Who was firing at us?” he asked.
“Highwaymen,” Struan repeated. He knew that actually Gorth’s men—or Gorth—must have been in ambush. He wondered for a moment if Father Sebastian had been sent as a decoy. Unlikely—na by the bishop and na wi’ cinchona. Well, I’ll know soon enough, he thought. And if he is, I’ll cut a few Papist throats.
He studied the darkness warily. He slipped his knife out of his boot and eased the fighting-iron thong around his wrist. When Father Sebastian was breathing less heavily, he led the way across the crest, past the Church of Sao Antonio and down the hill a street to the outer wall of May-may’s house. A door was set into the high, thick granite wall.
He rapped harshly with the knocker. In a few moments Lim Din peered through the spy hole. The door swung open. They went into the forecourt and the door was bolted behind them.
“We’re safe now,” Struan said. “Lim Din, tea—drink plentee quick-quick!” He motioned Father Sebastian to a seat and laid the fighting iron on the table. “Catch your breath first.”
The monk took his hand off the crucifix he had been clutching and mopped his brow. “Was someone really trying to kill us?”
“It felt that way to me,” Struan said. He took off his coat and looked at his shoulder. The ball had burned the flesh.
“Let me look at that,” the monk said.
“It’s nothing.” Struan put his coat on. “Dinna worry, Father. You treat her at my risk. You’re all right?”
“Yes.” The monk’s lips were parched and his mouth tasted rancid. “First I’ll prepare the cinchona tea.”
“Good. But before we begin, swear by the cross that you’ll never talk to anyone about this house or who’s in it or what happens here.”
“That’s not necessary, surely. There’s nothing that—”
“Aye, there is! I like my privacy! If you’ll na swear, then I’ll treat her mysel’. Seems that I know as much as you about how to use cinchona. Make up your mind.”
The monk was distressed by his lack of knowledge, and longed desperately to heal in the name of God. “Very well. I swear by the cross my lips are sealed.”
“Thank you.” Struan led the way through the front door and down a corridor. Ah Sam came out of her room and bowed tentatively, pulling her green pajamas closer to her. Her hair was tousled and her face still puffed with sleep. She followed them into the kitchen with the lantern.
The cooking room was small, with a fireplace and a charcoal brazier, and adjoining the cluttered back garden. It was filled with pots and pans and teakettles. Hundreds of bunches of dried herbs and mushrooms, vegetables, entrails, sausages, hung on the smoke-grimed walls. Rattan sacks of rice littered the filth-stained floor.
Two sleep-doped cook amahs were half upright in untidy bunks, staring groggily at Struan. But when he carelessly swept a mess of pans and dirty plates off the table to make a space, they leaped out of their beds and fled out of the house.
“Tea, Mass’er?” Ah Sam asked, bewildered.
Struan shook his head. He took the sweat-stained cloth bag from the nervous monk and opened it. The bark was brown and ordinary and broken into tiny pieces. He sniffed it but it had no odor. “What now?”
“We’ll need something to cook the brew in.” Father Sebastian picked up a fairly clean pan.
“First, will you please wash your hands?” Struan pointed to a small barrel and the nearby soap.
“What?”
“First wash your hands. Please.” Struan dipped into the barrel and offered the soap. “You’ll na do anything till you’ve washed your hands.”
“Why is that necessary?”
“I dinna ken. An old Chinese superstition. Please—go on, Father, please.”
While Struan washed out the pan and put it on the table, Ah Sam watched, bright-eyed, as Father Sebastian scrubbed his hands with soap, rinsed them off, and dried them on a clean towel.