The sleep-house was a lofty and very spacious building, though nowadays it was less crowded than it had been of old. For since Bishop Poppo had repeatedly warned King Harald that he must take good care in every respect to lead a Christian life, the King had dispensed with the services of most of his women, retaining only a few of the younger ones. Such of the older women as had borne him children now lived elsewhere within the walls. On this particular morning, however, there was a great bustle of activity in and about the house, with many people of both sexes running around in anxious confusion. Some of them stopped to stare at the approaching procession, asking themselves what all this could mean; but Brother Matthias, breaking off his song, cantered like a drunken man through the crowd and into the King’s chambers, with Orm and Toke following him.
“Brother Willibald, Brother Willibald!” he cried. “There is yet balm to be found in Gilead! Royal King, rejoice and praise God, for a miracle has been performed for you, and your pain shall soon be driven away. I am as Saul, the son of Kish; for I went out to seek blood-leeches and found instead a holy thing.”
While Orm’s men were, with great difficulty, contriving to bring the bell into the King’s bedchamber, Brother Matthias began to recount all that had taken place.
Orm and his men saluted King Harald with great respect, gazing curiously upon him; for his name had been in their ears for as long as they could remember, and they thought it strange to see him, after all these years, in such a sick and sorry state.
His bed stood against the short wall of the room, facing the door. It was stoutly timbered and lofty, and was full of bolsters and skin rugs; and it was of such a size that three or four people might lie in it without crowding each other. King Harald sat on its edge, surrounded by cushions, wrapped in a long robe of otter’s fur and wearing on his head a yellow knitted woolen cap. On the floor at his feet squatted two young women, with a pan of hot coals between them, and each of them held one of his feet on her knees and chafed it to keep it warm.
The most ignorant of men, seeing him there, would instinctively have guessed that King Harald was a great king, though the circumstances of royalty were absent and an expression of unkingly misery was upon his face. His big round eyes goggled with melancholy anticipation of imminent agony as his gaze wandered around the faces in his chamber and finally alighted on the bell as it entered the door. He seemed unable to register much interest in the sight that greeted his eyes, and panted in little gasps, as though out of breath; for the pain had temporarily gone, and he was waiting for it to come back and torment him anew. He was heavily built and of powerful appearance, broad-chested and huge-paunched, and his face was large and red, with shiny and unwrinkled skin. His hair was white, but his beard, which was thick and matted and lay down over his chest in tapering tongues, was a grayish yellow, though in the middle there was a narrow ribbon, coming down from his nether lip, which had retained its full yellowness and contained no gray at all. His face was wet all round his mouth from the medicines he had taken for the pain, so that both his blue eye-teeth, which were famous for their length as well as for their color, glistened even more brightly than was their wont, like the tusks of an old boar. His eyes stood goggling from their sockets and were bloodshot, but an awful majesty lurked within them, and in his broad forehead and great grizzled eyebrows.
Bishop Poppo was not present, for he had been keeping vigil by the King’s bedside throughout the night, offering up prayers for him, and had had to listen to frightful threats and blasphemies when the pain had grown especially violent, so that in the end he had been compelled to retire and get some rest. But Brother Willibald, who had also been up all night experimenting with various medicines in company with Brother Matthias, had managed to remain awake and was still in cheerful spirits. He was a little, shriveled man, with a big nose and pursed lips and a red scar across his temples. He nodded eagerly as he listened to Brother Matthias’s account of what had taken place, and flung his arms above his head when he saw the bell appear in the doorway.
“This is in sooth a miracle!” he cried in piercing and exultant tones. “As the ravens of the sky succored the prophet Elijah with food when he was alone in the wilderness, so have these wanderers come to our aid with help sent from heaven. All our worldly medicines have only succeeded in banishing the pain for a few minutes; for as soon as our lord the King’s impatience causes him to open his mouth, the pain returns at once. So it has been throughout the night. Now, however, his cure is certain. First, then, Brother Matthias, wash the bell well with holy water; then turn it on its side and wash its interior, for I do not see on its outer surface any of the dust that we shall need. Then, in good time, I will mix this dust with the other ingredients.”
So they turned the bell on its side, and Brother Matthias swabbed its interior with a cloth dipped in holy water, which he then wrung out into a bowl. There was a lot of old dust in the bell, so that the water he wrung out of the cloth was quite black, which greatly delighted Brother Willibald. Then Brother Willibald set to work mixing his medicines, which he kept in a big leather chest, all the while delivering an instructive discourse to such of the company as were curious to know what he was attempting to do.
“The ancient prescription of St. Gregory is the most efficacious in cases such as this,” he said. “It is a simple formula, and there are no secrets about its preparation. Juice of sloe, boar’s gall, saltpeter, and bull’s blood, a pinch of horseradish, and a few drops of juniper-water, all mixed with an equal quantity of holy water in which some sacred relic has been washed. The mixture to be kept in the mouth while three verses from the Psalms are sung; this procedure to be repeated thrice. This is the surest medicine against the toothache that we who practice the craft of healing know; and it never fails, provided that the sacred relic is sufficiently strong. The Apulian doctors of the old Emperor Otto fancied frog’s blood to be more efficacious than bull’s blood, but few physicians are of that opinion nowadays; which is a fortunate thing, for frog’s blood is not easy to procure in winter.”
He took from his chest two small metal bottles, uncorked them, smelled them, shook his head, and sent a servant to the kitchen to fetch fresh galls and fresh bull’s blood.
“Only the best will suffice in a case such as this,” he said; “and when the relic is as powerful as the one we have here, great care must be taken over the other ingredients.”
All this had occupied several minutes, and King Harald now seemed to be less troubled by his pain. He turned his gaze toward Orm and Toke, evidently puzzled at seeing strangers clad in foreign armor; for they still wore the red cloaks and engraved shields of Almansur, and their helmets had nose-pieces and descended low down over their cheeks and necks. He beckoned to them to come nearer.
“Whose men are you?” he said.
“We are your men, King Harald,” replied Orm. “But we have come hither from Andalusia, where we served Almansur, the great Lord of Córdoba, until blood came between us and him. Krok of Lister was our chieftain when we first set forth, sailing in three ships. But he was killed, and many others with him. I am Orm, the son of Toste, of the Mound in Skania, chieftain of such as remain; and we have come to you with this bell. We thought it would be a good gift for you, O King, when we heard that you had become a Christian. Of its potency in countering the toothache I know nothing, but at sea it has been a powerful ally to us. It was the largest of all the bells over St. James' grave in Asturia, where many marvelous things were found; we went there with our master, Almansur, who treasured this bell most dearly.”