Mistress of the Art of Death

“I rescued you. I saved you from that monster.”

“You did that, too.”

But it had been the jumble of powers she and Simon of Naples possessed between them that had led to the discovery on Wandlebury Hill, despite her own misjudgment in going there alone.

Those same powers had led to the saving of Ulf. It had liberated the Jews. Though it had been mentioned by none except the king, their investigation had been a craft of logic and cold reason and…oh, very well, instinct, but instinct based on knowledge; rare skills in this credulous age, too rare to be drowned as Simon’s had been drowned, too valuable to be buried, as hers would be buried in marriage.

All this Adelia had reflected on, in anguish, but the result had been inexorable. Though she had fallen in love, nothing in the rest of the world had changed. Corpses would still cry out. She had a duty to hear them.

“I am not free to marry,” she said. “I am a doctor to the dead.”

“They’re welcome to you.”

He spurred his horse and set it at the bridge, leaving her bereft and oddly resentful. He might at least have seen her and Walburga home.

“Hey,” she yelled after him, “are you sending Rakshasa’s head back east to Hakim?”

His reply floated back: “Yes, I bloody well am.”

He could always make her laugh, even when she was crying. “Good,” she said.

MUCH HAPPENED IN CAMBRIDGE that day.

The judges of the assize listened to and gave their verdict on cases of theft, of coin-clipping, street brawls, a smothered baby, bigamy, land disputes, ale that was too weak, loaves that were short, disputed wills, deodands, vagabondage, begging, shipmasters’ quarrels, fisticuffs among neighbors, arson, runaway heiresses, and naughty apprentices.

At midday, there was a hiatus. Drums rolled and trumpets called the crowds in the castle bailey to attend. A herald stood on the platform before the judges to read from a scroll in a voice that reached to the town: “Let it be known that in the sight of God and to the satisfaction of the judges here present the knight yclept Joscelin of Grantchester has been proved vile murderer of Peter of Trumpington; Harold of Saint Mary Parish; Mary, daughter of Bonning the wildfowler, and Ulric of the parish of Saint John, and that the aforesaid Joscelin of Grantchester died during his capture as befitted his crimes, being eaten by dogs.

“Let it also be known that the Jews of Cambridge have been quitted of these killings and all suspicion thereof, whereby they shall be returned to their lawful homes and business without hindrance. Thus, in the name of Henry, King of England, under God.”

There was no mention of a nun. The Church was silent on that matter. But Cambridge was full of whispers and, in the course of the afternoon, Agnes, eel seller’s wife and mother to Harold, pulled apart the little beehive hut in which she had sat outside the castle gates since the death of her son, hauled its material down the hill, and rebuilt it outside the gates of Saint Radegund’s convent.

All this was seen and heard in the open.

Other things were done in secrecy and darkness, though exactly who did them nobody ever knew. Certainly, men high in the ranks of Holy Church met behind closed doors where one of them begged, “Who will rid us of this shameful woman?” just as Henry II had once cried out to be rid of the turbulent Becket.

What happened next behind those doors is less certain, for no directions were given, though perhaps there were insinuations as light as gnats, so light that it could not be said they had even been made, wishes expressed in a code so byzantine that it could not be translated except by those with the key to it. All this, perhaps, so that the men-and they were not clerics-who went down Castle Hill to Saint Radegund’s could not be said to be acting on anyone’s command to do what they did.

Nor even that they did it.

Possibly Agnes knew, but she never told anybody.

These things, both transparent and shadowed, passed without Adelia’s knowledge. On Gyltha’s orders, she slept round the clock. When she woke up, it was to find a line of patients winding down Jesus Lane, waiting for Dr. Mansur’s attention. She dealt with the severe cases, then called a halt while she consulted Gyltha.

“I should go to the convent and look to Walburga. I’ve been remiss.”

“You been mending.”

“Gyltha, I don’t want to go to that place.”

“Don’t then.”

“I must; another attack like that could stop her heart.”

“Convent gates is closed and nobody answering. So they say. And that, that…” Gyltha still couldn’t bring herself to say the name. “She’s gone. So they say.”

“Gone? Already?” Nobody dallies when the king commands, she thought. Le roi le veut. “Where did they send her?”

Gyltha shrugged. “Just gone. So they say.”

Adelia felt relief spreading down to her ribs and almost mending them. The Plantagenet had cleansed his kingdom’s air so that she could breathe it.

Though, she thought, in doing so, he has fouled another nation’s. What will be done to her there?

Adelia tried to avoid the image of the nun writhing as she had on the floor of the refectory but this time in filth and darkness and chains-and couldn’t. Nor could she avoid concern; she was a doctor, and true doctors made no judgments, only diagnoses. She had treated the wounds and diseases of men and women who’d disgusted her humanity but not her profession. Character repelled; the suffering, needy body did not.

The nun was mad; for society’s sake, she must be restrained for as long as she lived. But “the Lord pity her and treat her well,” Adelia said.

Gyltha looked at her as if she, too, were a lunatic. “She’s been treated like she deserves,” she said stolidly. “So they say.”

Ulf, for a miracle, was at his books. He was quieter and more grave than he had been. According to Gyltha, he was expressing a wish to become a lawyer. All very pleasing and admirable- nevertheless, Adelia missed the old Ulf.

“The convent gates are locked, apparently,” she told him, “yet I need to get in to see Walburga. She’s ill.”

“What? Sister Fatty?” Ulf was suddenly back on form. “You come along of me; they can’t keep me out.”

Gyltha and Mansur could be trusted to treat the rest of the patients. Adelia went for her medicine chest; lady’s slipper was excellent for hysteria, panic, and fearfulness. And rose oil to soothe.

She set off with Ulf.

ON THE CASTLE RAMPARTS, a tax collector who was taking a well-earned rest from assize business recognized two slight figures among the many crossing the Great Bridge below-he would have recognized the slightly larger one in the unattractive headgear among millions.

Now was the time, whilst she was out of the way. He called for his horse.

Why Sir Rowley Picot found himself compelled to ask advice for his bruised heart from Gyltha, eel seller and housekeeper, he wasn’t sure. It may be because Gyltha was the closest female friend in Cambridge to the love of his life. Maybe because she had helped to nurse him back to life, was a rock of common sense, maybe because of the indiscretions of her past…he just did, and to hell.

Miserably, he munched on one of Gyltha’s pasties.

“She won’t marry me, Gyltha.”

“’Course she won’t. Be a waste. She’s…” Gyltha tried to think of an analogy to some fabled creature, could only come up with “uni-corn,” and settled for “She’s special.”

“I’m special.”

Gyltha reached up to pat Sir Rowley’s head. “You’re a fine lad and you’ll go far, but she’s…” Again, comparison failed her. “The good Lord broke the mold after He made her. Us needs her, all of us, not just you.”

“And I’m not going to damn well get her, am I?”

“Not in marriage, maybe, but there’s other ways of skinning a cat.” Gyltha had long ago decided that the cat under discussion, special though it was, could do with a good, healthy, and continual skinning. A woman might keep her independence, just as she had herself, and could still have memories to warm the winter nights.

“Good God, woman, are you suggesting…? My intentions toward Mistress Adelia are…were…honorable.”

Gyltha, who had never considered honor a requisite for a man and a maid in springtime, sighed. “That’s pretty. Won’t get you nowhere, though, will it?”

He leaned forward and said, “Very well. How?” And the longing in his face would have melted a flintier heart than Gyltha’s.

“Lord, for a clever man, you’m a right booby. She’s a doctor, ain’t she?”

“Yes, Gyltha.” He was trying to be patient. “That, I would point out, is why she won’t accept me.”

“And what is it doctors do?”

“They tend their patients.”

“So they do, and I reckon there’s one doctor as might be tenderer than most to a patient, always supposing that patient was taken poorly and always supposing she was fond of un.”

“Gyltha,” Sir Rowley said earnestly, “if I wasn’t suddenly feeling so damn ill, I’d ask you to marry me.”

THEY SAW THE CROWD at the convent gates when they’d crossed the bridge and cleared the willows on the bank. “Oh, dear,” Adelia said, “word has got around.” Agnes and her little hut were there, like a marker to murder.

It was to be expected, she supposed; the town’s anger had been transferred, and a mob was gathering against the nuns just as it had against the Jews.

It wasn’t a mob, though. The crowd was big enough, artisans and market traders mainly, and there was anger, but it was suppressed and mixed with…what? Excitement? She couldn’t tell.

Why weren’t these people more enraged, as they had been against the Jews? Ashamed, perhaps. The killers had turned out to be not a despised group, but two of their own, one respected, one a trusted friend they waved to nearly every day. True, the nun had been sent away to where they couldn’t lynch her, but they must surely blame Prioress Joan for her laxity in allowing a madwoman the terrible freedom she’d had for so long.

Ulf was talking with the thatcher whose foot Adelia had saved, both of them using the dialect in which Cambridge people spoke to each other and that Adelia still found almost incomprehensible. The young thatcher was avoiding her eye; usually, he greeted her with warmth.

Ulf, too, when he came back, wouldn’t look at her. “Don’t you go in there,” he said.

“I must. Walburga is my patient.”

“Well, I ain’t coming.” The boy’s face had narrowed, as it did when he was upset.

“I understand.” She shouldn’t have brought him; for him, the convent had been home to a hag.