Mistress of the Art of Death

“Perhaps we should leave well alone, Doctor,” Simon said.

“The man is dying,” she said. She was as aware as Simon of the danger to them if the operation failed; she had felt little but desolation in this unfamiliar country since they landed, its strangeness giving even the most jovial company a seeming of hostility. But in this matter, the possible threat was of as little account as the possible benefit to them if the prior could be mended. She was a doctor; the man was dying. There was no choice.

She looked around her. The road, probably Roman, ran straight as a pointing finger. To the west, on her left, was flatness, the beginning of the Cambridgeshire fens, darkening meadow and wetland meeting a linear sunset in vermilion and gold. On her right, the wooded side of a hill of no great height and a track leading up to it. Nothing habitable anywhere, not a house, not a cottage, not a shepherd’s hut.

Her eyes rested on the ditch, almost a dike, that ran between the road and the rise of the hills; she’d been aware of what it contained for some time, as she was aware of all nature’s goodies.

They’d need privacy. Light too. And some of the ditch’s contents.

She gave her instructions.

The three monks approached, supporting their suffering prior. A protesting Roger of Acton trotted alongside, still urging the efficacy of the prioress’s relic.

The oldest monk addressed Mansur and Simon: “Brother Ninian says you are doctors from Salerno.” His face and nose could have sharpened flint.

Simon looked toward Mansur over the head of Adelia, who stood in the middle of them. With strict adherence to the truth, he said, “Between us, sir, we have considerable medical knowledge.”

“Can you help me?” The prior yelled it at Simon, jerkily.

There was a nudge in Simon’s ribs. Bravely, he said, “Yes.”

Even so, Brother Gilbert hung on to the invalid’s arm, reluctant to surrender his superior. “My lord, we do not know if these people are Christians. You need the solace of prayer; I shall stay with you.”

Simon shook his head. “The mystery about to be performed must be performed in solitude. Privacy is a necessity between doctor and patient.”

“For the sake of Christ, give me relief.” Again, it was Prior Geoffrey solving the matter. Brother Gilbert and his Christian solace were knocked into the dust, the other two monks pushed aside and told to stay, his knight to stand guard. Flailing and staggering, the prior reached the cart’s hanging tailboard and was heaved up it by Simon and Mansur.

Roger of Acton ran after the cart. “My lord, if you would but try the miraculous properties of Little Saint Peter’s knuckle…”

There was a scream: “I tried it and I still can’t piss.”

The cart rocked up the incline and disappeared among the trees. Adelia, having grubbed around in the ditch, followed it.

“I fear for him,” Brother Gilbert said, though jealousy outweighed anxiety in his voice.

“Witchcraft.” Roger of Acton could say nothing unless he shouted it. “Better death than revival at the hands of Belial.”

Both would have followed the cart, but the prior’s knight, Sir Gervase, always one to tease monks, was suddenly barring the way. “He said no.”

Sir Joscelin, the prioress’s knight, was equally firm. “I think we must leave him be, Brother.”

The two stood together, chain-clad crusaders who had fought in the Holy Land, contemptuous of lesser, skirted men content to serve God in safe places.

The track led to a strange hill. The cart bumped up the rise that eventually led to a great, grassy ring standing above the trees, catching the last of the sun so it gleamed like a monstrous bald, green, flat-topped head.

It cast unease over the road at its foot, where the rest of the cavalcade had decided not to proceed now that its force was split but to camp on the verge within call of the knights.

“What is that place?” Brother Gilbert asked, staring after the cart even though he could not see it.

One of the squires paused in unsaddling his master’s horse. “That up there’s Wandlebury Ring, master. These are the Gog Magog hills.”

Gog and Magog, British giants as pagan as their name. The Christian company huddled close around the fire-and closer yet as the voice of Sir Gervase came whoo-hooing across the road from the dark trees: “Bloo-oo-od sacrifice. The Wild Hunt is in cry up here, my masters. Oh, horrible.”

Settling his hounds for the night, Prior Geoffrey’s huntsman blew out his cheeks and nodded.

Mansur didn’t like the place, either. He reined in about halfway up, where the cart could be on a wide level dug out of the slope. He unharnessed the mules-the moans of the prior inside the cart were making them restless-and tethered them so that they could graze, then set about building a fire.

A bowl was fetched, the last of the boiled water poured into it. Adelia put her collection from the ditch into the water and considered it.

“Reeds?” Simon said. “What for?”

She told him.

He turned pale. “He, you…He will not allow…He is a monk.”

“He is a patient.” She stirred the reed stems and selected two, shaking them free of water. “Get him ready.”

“Ready? No man is ready for that. Doctor, my faith in you is absolute but…may I inquire…you have carried out the procedure before?”

“No. Where’s my bag?”

He followed her across the grass. “At least you have seen it performed?”

“No. God’s ribs, the light will be bad.” She raised her voice. “Two lanterns, Mansur. Hang them inside from the canopy hoops. Now, where are those cloths?” She began delving in the goatskin bag that carried her equipment.

“Should we clarify this matter?” Simon asked, trying for calm. “You have not performed the operation yourself, nor have you seen it done.”

“No, I told you.” She looked up. “Gordinus mentioned it once. And Gershom, my foster father, described the procedure to me after a visit to Egypt. He saw it depicted on some ancient tomb paintings.”

“Ancient Egyptian tomb paintings.” Simon gave each word equal weight. “In color, were they?”

“I see no reason why it should not work,” she said. “With what I know of male anatomy, it is a logical step to take.”

She set off across the grass. Simon threw himself forward and stopped her. “May we pursue this logic a little further, Doctor? You are about to perform an operation, it may be a dangerous operation…”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose it is.”

“…on a prelate of some importance. His friends await him there”-Simon of Naples pointed down the darkening hill-“not all of them rejoicing at our interference in this matter. We are strangers to them, we have no standing in their eyes.” To continue, he had to dodge in front of her, for she would have gone on toward the cart. “It could, I’m not saying it will, but it could be that those friends have a logic of their own, and, should this prior die, they will hang the three of us like logical washing on a clothesline. I say again, should we not let nature take its course? I merely ask it.”

“The man is dying, Master Simon.”

Then the light of Mansur’s lanterns fell on her face and he stood back, defeated. “Yes, my Becca would do the same.” Rebecca was his wife, the standard by whom he judged human charity. “Proceed, Doctor.”

“I shall need your assistance.”

He raised his hands and then let them drop. “You have it.” He went with her, sighing and muttering. “Would it be so bad if nature took its course, Lord? That’s all I’m asking.”

Mansur waited until the two had climbed into the cart, then settled his back against it, folded his arms, and kept watch.

The last ray from the dying sun went out, but no compensating moon had yet taken its place, leaving fen and hill in blackness.

DOWN ON THE ROADSIDE VERGE, a bulky figure detached itself from the companionship round the pilgrims’ fire, as if to answer a call of nature. Unseen in the blackness, it crossed the road and, with an agility surprising in the weighty, leaped the ditch and disappeared into the bushes by the side of the track. Silently cursing the brambles that tore its cloak, it climbed toward the ledge on which the cart rested, sniffing to allow the stink of the mules to guide it, sometimes following a glimpse of light through the trees.

It paused to try and listen to the conversation of the two knights who stood like forbidding statuary on the track out of sight of the cart, the nosepieces of their helmets rendering the one indistinguishable from the other.

It heard one of them mention the Wild Hunt.

“…the devil’s hill, no doubt of it,” the companion replied clearly. “No peasant comes near the place, and I could wish we hadn’t. Give me the Saracens any day.”

The listener crossed himself and climbed higher, picking his way with infinite care. Unseen, he passed the Arab, another piece of statuary in the moonlight. Finally he had reached a point from which to look down on the cart, its lanterns giving it the appearance of a glowing opal on black velvet.

He settled himself. Around him, the undergrowth rustled with the comings and goings of uncaring life on the woodland floor. Overhead, a barn owl shrieked as it hunted.

There was a sudden gabble from the cart. A light, clear voice: “Lie back; this shouldn’t hurt. Master Simon, if you would lift up his skirts…”

Prior Geoffrey was heard to say sharply, “What does she do down there? What’s in her hand?”

And the man addressed as Master Simon: “Lie back, my lord. Close your eyes; be assured this lady knows what she’s about.”

And the prior, panicking: “Well, I don’t. I am fallen to a witch. God have mercy on me, this female will snatch my soul through my pizzle.”

And the lighter voice, sterner, concentrating: “Keep still, blast you. Do you want a burst bladder? Hold the penis up, Master Simon. Up, I need a smooth passageway.”

There was a squeak from the prior.

“The bowl, Simon. The bowl, quick. Hold it there, there.”

And then a sound, like the splash of a waterfall into a basin, and a groan of satisfaction such as a man makes in the act of love, or when his bladder is relieved of a content that has been torturing it.

On the ledge above, the king’s tax collector opened his eyes wide, pursed his lips in a moue of interest, nodded to himself, and began his descent.

He wondered if the knights had heard what he’d heard. Probably not, he thought; they were nearly out of earshot of the cart, and the coifs that cushioned their heads from the iron of their helmets deadened sound. Only he, then, apart from the cart’s occupants and the Arab, was in possession of an intriguing piece of knowledge.

Returning the way he had come, he had to crouch in shadow several times; it was surprising, despite the darkness, how many pilgrims were venturing on the hill this night.

He saw Brother Gilbert, presumably attempting to find out what was going on in the cart. He saw Hugh, the prioress’s huntsman, either on the same business or maybe investigating coverts, as a huntsman should. And was the indistinct shape slipping into the trees that of a female? The merchant’s wife looking for somewhere in private in which to answer a call of nature? A nun on the same errand? Or a monk?

He couldn’t tell.