For now, she only looked up at the Mother Superior and asked, "May I hear that cassette?"
"Gladly, yet I think that first we should go on to the hospital. There is a case that I believe you would wish to see, and treatment cannot be put off."
"Nor should it! But what is this case, that I might find it to be of interest, Moth . . . Sister Testa?"
"A werewolf," Mother Superior said, "much as I told you of before."
"Well enough—you may rest," Geoffrey said with regal condescension.
Gregory sagged against the nearest tree trunk, panting and red-faced. His chest, arms, and legs seemed sickly pale by contrast, for he had taken off his robe to exercise, both of which he rarely did. Gasping for air, he asked, "Wherefore must I perform so silly a ritual when we are increasing my body by telekinesis?"
"Because it is not enough to build up bigger muscles— you must also exercise them, for they will change your balance, the proportion of effort for each action, and the speed and timing of your movements," Geoffrey explained. "Many adolescents are quite clumsy when they suddenly shoot up like young willows, because the greater length of limb and the strength that goes with it change such patterns. They can adjust their coordination over months, but you have not that luxury. You must learn the adjustment quickly, and not all at once either. That is one reason why you must exercise after each increment of gain in your muscles."
"One?" Gregory gulped down air. "Why else?"
"Because you must tone the muscles as they grow, not all at once. Then, too, you must develop endurance, which comes only with practice, not with the gain of muscle only, for you must adjust your breathing and learn to pace your flow of energy."
"I am not a warrior," Gregory protested. "Wherefore should I need endurance to love a lady?"
Geoffrey only gave him a long look, weighing his words, then decided to let them sink. 'Trust me—with this wench, you shall need all the endurance you can muster. To the calisthenics, then! The Salute to the Sun, now! Right sole against left knee! Balance on one foot! Arms up straight! Now bend slowly from the waist."
Off to their right, Moraga stirred restlessly, muttering; her eyelids fluttered. Cordelia looked up in alarm and probed her mind, finding her dangerously close to the surface of consciousness. With a gentle, lulling thought, she slowed pulse and rate of breathing and turned off synapses. Moraga sank back into sleep and began to dream again.
Cordelia read just enough of those dreams to shudder before she turned her attention away.
Chapter 12
Sister Paterna Testa led Gwen out across the courtyard into a long, low building with many windows, the last two of which were barred. Gwen wondered at that but was answered very quickly, for when they came into the hospital they passed directly by the rows of beds with straw mattresses, many filled by patients who were surprisingly cheerful—perhaps not surprising when the room itself, though spartan and with only a few religious pictures on the walls, was filled with light, reflecting off its cream-colored walls, and fragrant with flowers. They passed directly through it, though, to a stout oaken door, double-barred and guarded by two nuns who sat saying their rosaries, but with their eyes ever aware of what went on about them. They came to their feet as Mother Superior came up to them and ducked their heads in greeting. "Good day, Sister Paterna Testa!"
"Good day, Sisters. We must enter to see to the werewolf."
The women nodded, obviously expecting it, and turned to unbar the door. They went through into a short hallway with four doors opening off it. One of the nuns checked though the small barred window in the farthest door, then unlocked it and stepped aside. Inside the room, two stout peasants sat on either side of a narrow bed, sweating profusely. A third man was bound to that bed with many ropes—if you could call him a man. His face was covered with a wild, unkempt beard, his eyes were red-rimmed and furious, and saliva drooled from his mouth, foaming. The fury and hatred in his face were horrifying. His hands, bound to the sides of the bunk, bore cracked, chipped fingernails grown far too long, and his tunic was so ripped and filthy as to scarcely exist.
When he saw the women enter, he howled in rage, his whole body convulsing as he struggled to leap up and get at them. The men stiffened and stepped in, one swinging up a cudgel, but Sister Paterna waved them back and came closer to the bed. Gwen followed, amazed at the woman's courage.
"These two men and four others brought him in this morning, milady," Sister Paterna said, so calmly that she might have been discussing a joint of beef. "He was bound hand and foot with many ropes, and even then it took all six of them to bring him, for he has become monstrously strong."
"Is he not dangerous, Sister Paterna?"
"Most horribly dangerous, not only because he would rend us limb from limb if he could but also because he would delight in biting us and giving us this same disease that doth make him to seem to be half wolf."
"He was bitten by a wolf," one of the men contributed, "a hateful one, that did foam at the mouth."
"Did you see it?"
"Nay, Mother, but all do know that is how werewolves are made."
Mother Superior glanced at Gwen, and the look was as much as to say that she knew, as well as Gwen, that the villain could just as easily have been a hare or a squirrel; the germs did not restrict themselves to people and wolves.
"Yet we have some protection," Sister Paterna said and, stepping over to a little table at the side of the room, poured some water from a pitcher into a bowl. The man shrank away with a howl of rage. "He is half crazed with thirst," Mother explained, "but the mere sight of water induces such painful throat contractions that he dreads the sight of it."
"Hydrophobia!" Gwen breathed. She had learned enough of modern medicine to recognize rabies.
"So is it called," Mother Superior said, but not all have that fear—only some."
"How can you cure it?"
" 'Tis all due to seeds of illness, small, voracious creatures I have told thee of, likening them to wolves too small to see. We must transform them or slay them and aid the body in making watchdogs to harry them." Sister Paterna stepped around behind the man's head, drew up a straight wooden chair, and sat. Knowing she was there, he writhed against his ropes and howled, striving to reach her. " Tis to be regretted," she said, "but we must touch him, which he will loathe—and most carefully, too, so that he will not lunge and twist to bite us." Carefully, she laid a single fingertip against the man's forehead. He contorted his whole body, twisting his head to try to snap at her, but she moved with him, her face tightening in concentration. The patient's movements slowed; then his eyelids grew heavy and finally closed. Sister stayed intent, frowning in concentration, until his breathing eased and deepened. Then the nun relaxed with a smile. "I have but put him to sleep; 'tis a necessary precaution and will allow me greater room to mind what I must do inside his blood. Do you join with me, Lady Gwendylon, that you may study what I do."
Gwen was quite glad to accept the invitation. She came around behind the bed, and one of the men was quick to pull up the other chair for her. She thanked him with a smile, sat, placed one hand on the "werewolf's" head, and bent her mind toward observing what Sister Paterna did within him. The room grew dim, and the inside of the man's body seemed to appear through his flesh, growing larger. Sister Paterna directed her attention toward the festering wound near his ankle—far lower than was likely for a wolf—and made it seem to swell, filling all of their communal field of view. It kept on swelling till Gwen saw only the tube of an artery, then only the blood within it; then, without actually seeing them, she became aware of the microscopic organisms that thronged the infection and the vastly outnumbered crew of white blood cells that fought them.