'Nothing. A mystery. My prodigious remedia: all useless. Understood? And Bedfordi is dying. And we shall never get out from here. Done for. All of us, done for.' He spoke in fits and starts and his voice sounded unnatural.
On his face I saw with anxiety a pair of tremendous bags under the eyes and a vacant, bewildered expression. His speech was fragmented and he seemed to have lost the use of verbs.
The Englishman's health had indeed never improved, nor had the patient ever regained consciousness. I looked around me; the kitchen was completely upside down. Vases, flasks, lit ovens, alembics and cups of all sorts invaded every surface: tables, chairs, corners, shelves, passages, even the floor. In the fireplace two cauldrons were boiling, and a fair number of cooking pots. I saw with horror chopped up on the fire our best provisions of lard, meat, fish and dried fruit from the pantry, all horribly mixed with unknown, stinking alchemical preparations. On the great table, on the plate rack, on the dresser, and on the pantry shelves lay an endless range of little pots full of oils and piles of powders of many colours. Next to each little pot or heap of powder was a label: Zedoary, Galangal, Long Peppers, Round Peppers, Juniper Berries, Rind of Lemons and of Oranges, Sage, Basil, Marjoram, Laurel Berries, Penny-royal, Gentian, Calamint, Leaves of Elder, Red Roses and White Roses, Spikenard, Cubeb, Rosemary, Mint, Cinnamon, Calamatus Odoratus, Chamidrys Stocis, Meleghetta Maris, Maize,
Thuris Albi, Hepatic Aloes, Wormwood Seeds, Wood of Aloes, Cardamom, Laurel Oil, Galbanum, Gum of Ivy, Incense, Cloves, Comfrey, Nutmeg, White Burning Bush (Dictamnus Albus), Benzoin, New Yellow Wax, Finest Turpentine and Cinders from the fire.
I turned to the physician to request an explanation, but then I held back: pale and seemingly lost to the world, Cristofano wandered confusedly from one side of the room to the other attending to a thousand operations without completing any.
'You must help me. We shall risk all. Bedfordi's accursed tokens have not opened. The disgusting things have not even matured. And so we… we shall slice them clean off!'
'Oh no!' I exclaimed, for I knew well that to cut off tokens before they have matured can be lethal for he sufferer from the pestilence.
'If the worst comes to the worst, he'll die anyway,' he cut me short with unusual harshness. 'And here is the plan: first, he must puke. But enough of the imperial musk. Something stronger will be needed, for instance, my diaromatic: for distempers both intrinsic and extrinsic. Two drachms on an empty stomach and out with the vomit. It salves the body. It unburdens the head; and it provokes sputum, a sign that it kills all maladies. Recipe!' Cristofano screamed suddenly, causing me to jump. 'Fine sugar, ground pearls, musk, saffron, wood of aloes, cinnamon and the philosopher's stone: one mixes all and reduces it to tablets, which are incorruptible. These are miraculous against the pestilence. They refine the gross, corrupted humours which generate the tokens. They comfort the stomach; and they cheer the heart.'
Bedfordi was in for trouble, I thought. Yet, on the other hand, what choice had we? Every hope of salvation was vested in Cristofano, and in the Lord God.
The doctor, exhausted by so much agitation, issued repeated commands without giving me the time to execute them, and repeated mechanically the recipes which he must have read in the medical texts.
'Point the second: elixir vitae in order to restore the patient. That enjoyed great success here in Rome in the visitation of '56. It possesses so many virtues: it cures many sorts of grave and malignant infirmities. It is by nature most penetrative. Its virtue is desiccating and it comforts all the places offended by any malady. It preserves all things corruptible, salving catarrh, coughs and tightness of the chest, and other similar complaints. It cures and heals all crude sorts of putrid ulcers and resolves all aches and pains caused by frigidity et cetera.'
For a moment, he seemed to vacillate, with his gaze lost in the void. I made to succour him, but suddenly he reprised: 'Point the third: pills against the pestilence of Mastro Alessandro Cospio da Bolsena, Imola, 1527: great success. Armenian bolus, terra sigillata, camphor, tormentil, aloes hepatick: four drachms of each; the whole spread with juice of cabbages. And, a scruple of saffron. Point the fourth: medicine for buccal administration of Mastro Roberto Coccalino da Formagine; a great physician in the kingdom of Lombardy, 1500. Recipe! ' he again screamed in strangled tones.
Thus, he commanded me to prepare a decoction of black hellebore, sienna, colocynth and rhubarb.
'The buccal medicine of Mastro Coccalino, we shall administer to him up his arse. Thus, it will encounter Mastro Cospio's pills half — way, and together they will get the better of that disgusting plague. And we shall win, yes, we shall win!'
We then ascended to the chamber where Bedfordi lay more dead than alive; and there I collaborated, not without horror, in putting into practice all that Cristofano had excogitated.
At the end of the cruel operation, the chamber resembled a knacker's yard: vomit, blood and excrement, all mixed in puddles, in itself the most disgusting and foul-smelling of spectacles. We proceeded to excise the tokens, spreading on the wounds vinegary syrup with oleum philosophorum, which, according to the doctor, would relieve the pain.
'And last, we bandage the wounds with wax plaster gratia dei,' concluded Cristofano, panting rhythmically.
And I indeed prayed that we should be aided gratia Dei, by the grace of God, which we so dearly needed. The young Englishman had in no way reacted to the therapy. Indifferent to everything, he had not even been moved to groan with pain. We stared at him, awaiting some sign, whether good or bad.
With clenched fists, Cristofano gestured that I should hasten with him to the kitchen. All bathed in sweat and muttering to himself, he began roughly to pound a great quantity of aromas. He mixed them all and put them to boil in the finest aqua vitae in a retort, over a wind furnace which gave a very slow fire.'Now, we shall have water, oil and phlegm. And all separated the one from the other!' he announced emphatically.
Very soon the vessel began to fill with a milky distillate, which then turned smoky and light yellow. Cristofano then changed receptacles, pouring this white water into a well-plugged iron vase.
'First, water of balsam!' he exclaimed, shaking the vase with exaggerated and grotesque joy.
He increased the fire under the retort, in which there had remained a boiling liquid which turned into an oil as black as ink.
'Mother of balsam!' announced Cristofano, pouring the fluid into a flask.
He then augmented the fire to the maximum, until all the substance came out from the retort. 'Liquor of balsam: miraculous!' he rejoiced savagely, handing it to me in a bottle, together with the two other remedies.
'Shall I bring it to Bedfordi?'
'No!' he screamed, outrageously, pointing his index finger upwards as one might with a dog or a small child, and inspecting me from head to toe.
His eyes were narrowed and bloodshot: 'No, my boy, this is not for Bedfordi. It is for us. All of us. Three excellent aquae vitae. The finest!'
In my hand, he placed the twisted flask, still hot, and with rustic frenzy poured himself a glass of the first liquor.
'But what are these for?' I asked, intimidated.
His sole response was to refill his glass and again pour it down his throat.
'For buggering fear, ah, ah!' swallowing a cup of the third aqua vitae and filling it for the fourth time.
He then forced me to make a mad toast with the empty retort which I held in my hand.
'Thus, when they bear us all off to die in the pest-house, we shall not even realise it, ah, ah, ah!'
Having said which, he threw the glass over his shoulder and emitted a couple of vigorous belches. He endeavoured to walk, but his legs became entangled. He fell to the ground, horribly white in the face, and at last lost his senses. Seized by terror, I was about to call for help, when I restrained myself. If panic were to spread, the situation in the hostelry would descend into chaos; and we should then run the risk of being discovered by the watchman on guard. So I ran to enlist the help of Abbot Melani. With great care (and great effort) we succeeded in carrying the doctor up to his own chamber on the first floor almost without making any noise. I told the abbot of the young Englishman's agony and of the state of confusion into which Cristofano had fallen before collapsing.
The doctor meanwhile lay pale and inert on his bed, panting noisily.
'Is it the death rattle, Signor Atto?' I asked with a knot in my throat.
Abbot Melani leaned over and studied the patient's countenance.
'No: he is snoring,' he replied amusedly. 'Besides, I have always suspected that Bacchus had a hand in physicians' nasty mixtures. What's more, he has been working too hard. Let him sleep, but we shall keep an eye on
