Chapter 7
Rain continued all the next day. I sought Arthur and told him we would not return to Abingdon until the morrow, when the deluge, I hoped, would have passed. I spent the day in my old bachelor quarters, playing with Bessie and enjoying conversation with Kate.
Saturday dawned clear but cold. After a loaf and a cup of ale, Arthur and I were off again for Abingdon, with a sack of my instruments and herbs slung across Bruce’s rump. I had spent so much of the journey on Thursday watching the road pass beneath me that I could not refrain from doing so this day as well. If the men I sought had found no treasure yet, perhaps they might be again upon the roads. They were not.
We left our horses in the mews behind the New Inn, consumed a dinner of stockfish and pease pottage, then set off for St. Nicholas’s Church and the abbey gatehouse.
The porter was not present, perhaps at his dinner, but the lay brother who served in his place trotted off willingly to seek the hosteler. Brother Theodore appeared soon after, the stained linen cloth pressed to his cheek. The monk did not seem comforted to see me.
I carried over my shoulder the sack of instruments and herbs I would use to mend Brother Theodore’s fistula. His eyes went to the sack as he approached and I saw him sigh.
“I have brought all things needed to deal with your hurt,” I said.
“I am sorry for your inconvenience,” the monk replied.
“You have changed your mind? You no longer wish me to treat your fistula?”
“Nay. I wish it heartily, but m’lord abbot forbids it.”
As we spoke the porter appeared, returning to his post. He overheard Brother Theodore and explained.
“Saturn is in the house of Aries, as any competent leech or surgeon should know, and will remain for a fortnight. No surgery upon a man’s head or face will succeed at such a time. Brother abbot has forbidden it.”
I knew the tradition that Saturn, that malignant planet, might bring medical and surgical care to naught, was the physician or surgeon so bold as to try his skill when Saturn was opposed.
But I also knew of Henri de Mondeville’s experience in mending men after battle. He once extracted an arrow which pierced a man’s cheeks, through from one side of his face to the other, no matter the position of planets or the moon in the zodiac. What good to a man wounded in battle to wait a fortnight, or even a day, to minister to his injury?
De Mondeville wrote of his cures that recovery from wounds seemed dependent more upon the skill of the surgeon than the position of the stars and planets. So after reading Surgery, which book set me upon my chosen work, I paid scant attention when learned doctors at the university in Paris required of us students that we become expert in the zodiac and the influence of the stars and planets over our work.
And while a student at Baliol College I read The Confessions of St. Augustine. He wrote that astrology strikes at the root of human responsibility. To men it says, “What has happened is not my fault, it was decided by the stars. Venus or Mars or Saturn did this, not my foolishness or sin.” God, creator of the stars and planets, is to be blamed for whatever mistakes we make or evil we do.
But if the abbot forbid me dealing this day with Brother Theodore’s fistula, so be it. An abbot may not be contradicted within the walls of his demesne. Brother Theodore had lived with his malaise for some years. He would need to endure a fortnight longer.
“How does Amice Thatcher?” I asked.
“Brother Anselm sent her away this morn,” the hosteler finally said.
“Away? Why so? She may be in danger. The infirmarer knew this. What cause did he give?”
“Said the children were too noisy, disturbed those who were ill.”
The hosteler seemed skeptical. Had it not been so, I would not have prodded the monk further.
“Did you hear of others who complained?”
Again the hosteler hesitated. “Nay… well, not much. My chamber is in the guest hall, so as to be near my charges. I’d not have heard even were the children troublesome.”
I believe he did not wish to seem disloyal to a friend, but wished to speak the truth. This is often a trying thing for an honest man, whether he serves abbot, bishop, or King.
“Did Mistress Thatcher annoy the infirmarer? Had she some distasteful habit, or did she demand more than proper of a guest?”
“Nay, not so far as I could see. But somehow she vexed him. He was in a choler when I saw him this morn, before matins.”
“Did she return to her home?”
The hosteler shrugged. “Brother Anselm didn’t say.”
“How long past was it she left the hospital?”
“She was gone well before terce.”
“I must find some other haven for the woman. There are men about who may believe that she knows of treasure, and would threaten harm to her and her children if she does not tell them where it is hidden.”
“Treasure? The woman knows of treasure?”
“Nay. But there are men who may think she does.”
“I could not think so poor a widow could possess knowledge of treasure,” said the hosteler.
“Let us hope the felons who seek the loot agree with you.”
“You know where the wealth is to be found?” Brother Theodore asked.
“Nay. But those who seek it have murdered a man already to have it, and I fear for Amice Thatcher if they believe she can lead them to the treasure.”
All this time the hosteler had held his stained linen cloth before the ugly fistula which lay aside his nose, high on his cheek. He looked down at the befouled fabric, then spoke again.
“’Twill be many days before Abbot Peter will permit you to deal with my wound. You are sure you can heal me?”
“Few things in life or surgery are sure. But I know how to repair the fistula so that God, does He will it, may complete the cure.”
“There is another matter,” the hosteler hesitated. “I own nothing, nor does any monk. If you are paid for the skills you apply to my face, it must be from abbey funds. What is your fee for such surgery?”
I thought for a moment of the wealth accumulated in the abbeys of England, then replied, “Three shillings.”
The monk’s eyes widened at this, and well they might, for I would serve a poor man who suffered so for three pence, which I believe the hosteler knew. But he voiced no complaint; he merely said, “A fortnight, then, when Saturn leaves the house of Aries.”
“Indeed,” I said, and was about to turn and seek Amice Thatcher in the bury when three monks appeared between the guest hall and the abbot’s kitchen, striding purposefully toward the porter’s lodge and the gatehouse. This path took them straight toward me, Arthur, and Brother Theodore. The hosteler saw my attention diverted and turned to see what had caught my eye.
“Oh, Lord,” he said softly.
Since none of the three who approached seemed to resemble the Lord Christ, I took his remark to be a malediction.
Two of the approaching monks were of normal size and appearance, but the third, who walked, or rather waddled, between the others, was nearly as wide as he was tall. His tonsured head thickened where it sat upon a neck which disappeared into multiple chins and rolls of fat. The monk’s robe billowed before him as if some great gust of wind had filled it like a sail, but ’twas his belly. An ornate cross hung from a golden chain about the monk’s fleshy neck.
Brother Theodore said nothing more as the three approached. I noticed that his eyes were cast down.
The three monks stopped before us and waited for Brother Theodore to speak. He did so, and introduced me to the cellarer, the prior, and the rotund abbot, Peter of Hanney. The abbot peered at me through the fleshy slits in his face, and said, “So you’re the surgeon who would treat Brother Theodore when the heavens declare any cure at such a time must fail.”