by David Penny
“I don’t know. If I did we might be close to knowing the answer to my other questions. Was there anyone else who visited the ward?”
“Several people. Relatives of other patients. A few scribes who were called to rewrite a will. You know the Infirmary better than I do, people come and go all the time, it is impossible to count or control them.” Lubna’s gaze explored Thomas’s face, a frown forming on her own. “You’re not going to let this go, are you.”
“You know I wouldn’t be the man you loved if I did.”
“Sometimes I wonder about the love,” said Lubna, but her smile negated the words. “I should have been more suspicious when she died, shouldn’t I.”
“She suffered a blow to the head. We both know there can be complications later. A damaged blood vessel within the skull can suddenly burst. Or it might simply have been her time to die. To be a physician means we must accept death in the same manner we accept a life saved.”
“No.” Lubna shook her head, her hair, loose now within the house, flew dark and shining around her face. “I will never accept that. We mend people. We do not watch them die.”
“Then you will never make a good physician.” Thomas knew his words might hurt, but they had to be said. “Do the best you can, use your skill, but you have to accept not everyone can be saved. And most important of all, put the death behind you. Don’t dwell on it. Even if you think you have made a mistake, put it in the past. Learn from it, dismiss it, but never make the same mistake again.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm, the silk of her skin bringing a sudden arousal he suppressed. “You will be a better physician for it.”
“What, are you telling me not to care … like you don’t care?”
“I taught myself to move on. You’ll have to do the same.”
Lubna drew her hand away. “No wonder they call you the butcher.” She closed the book and started to rise.
Thomas held his hand out. “Can I borrow that for a while?”
“Why? So you can mark my notes?” She held the journal against her breast.
“I want to follow the events associated with her admission and treatment.”
“I did what I could to the best of my ability,” said Lubna. “I realise I am not the great Thomas Berrington, but you said she might have died anyway.”
“You are as good a physician as anyone I have ever known. And you will get better. Better than me, one day, I am sure of it, for as you say, I lack compassion.”
“You always told me that was a benefit.” But Thomas saw she was pleased at his remark.
“A man can change his mind, can’t he? No doubt you have softened me.” He held out a hand. “Am I allowed to read your notes?”
“Make of them what you will,” said Lubna, passing them to him. “But don’t you dare comment on them.”
Thomas smiled and watched as she turned away, as enchanted by her as he had been the moment they first met those five years before.
Thomas flicked through the book, starting at the beginning, familiarising himself with the way Lubna made her notes. They were concise, a trait he approved of, sticking to the facts, the only embellishment being when she had changed a treatment and wanted to explain the reasoning. As he browsed, Thomas saw that the words he had spoken as flattery would turn out to be true. Lubna was both skilled and knowledgeable. She might well exceed him, if only she could harden her heart and make the difficult decisions required. But he knew if that happened she would no longer be the woman he loved.
Only after a time did he turn to the more recent pages. The notes relating to Diego’s mother were scattered amongst others, but once again Lubna showed intelligence. Individual patients were clearly identified, a thin ruled line separating each examination, each learning she had made. Lubna recorded the name each time, Dionora Jinto Jiminez. A Spaniard living in a Moorish city. Thomas recalled Diego’s father was also Spanish. Malaka was the one city in al-Andalus where such a thing could pass without comment. There was no city anywhere in the world that boasted such a varied mix of people.
When Thomas looked up, his neck ached from leaning over and shadows had moved across the floor. Little more than an hour of daylight remained, but it would be enough.
He went to look in on Diego where he slept in a hastily erected spare bed in Will’s room. He lay on his back, arms straight at his sides, face in repose. Thomas saw in his features the man he might have become had he been more fortunate in his making. Handsome. Tall. Clever. But would that man have been as loving as Diego appeared to be? Thomas had met others like him, often surprised at their intelligence, the kind that others might do well to match.
Beside him, Will was curled against Diego’s side, his own bed empty. Thomas stared at his son and experienced an ache in his chest. Jorge told him the ache was love. Thomas wasn’t so sure. More likely something he had eaten that disagreed with him. Not that he didn’t love Will, because he did, with every fibre of his being … even if he might not be his true father, a certainty still denied him.
He turned left through the wide door at the side of the house and walked toward the path that would take him to the northern Buenaventura gate, the closest to the Infirmary.
Six
As Thomas made his way east toward the Muralla district where the Infirmary lay, a strong breeze tugged at his clothes and whipped his hair about his face. Far inland, beyond the peaks that loomed over the city, dark clouds promised heavy rain, and he wondered if it already fell on Gharnatah. He had given little thought to the city in some time and wondered if the ease of forgetting was a sign of some kind. He knew his life had changed over recent years. Was it an indication his certainties might be changing too? He had imagined dying in Gharnatah, hopefully at a good age. He felt fifty years approaching like a runaway horse, an age which had once seemed impossible to attain. Now he thought sixty years would be interesting, seventy a dream. If Thomas attained the age of sixty, Will would be a man of eighteen years, almost the same age as Thomas had been when he first came to Malaka with a letter of introduction from an old man he had met in the Pyrenees. What would Will become? A copy of Thomas, or something else? His own person, he hoped.
And then his footsteps slowed and he came to a halt. For a moment he had almost forgotten that Will might not be his true son. He was loved as a son, Will knew that, and Thomas felt it in his heart. But was he the true product of his loins? He had lain with Helena, that could not be denied, but still she refused him confirmation.
Sometimes Thomas saw Will act in a way that was so much a reflection of what he might have done himself that certainty came. And then, at other times, especially as Will grew older and became more his own person, there seemed parts of him that had nothing at all to do with Thomas. Often he put that down to the boy’s grandfather, Olaf Torvaldsson. Will shared the same wildness when fighting, the same sturdiness, the same stubborn streak. But, Thomas thought, does it matter? As far as he was concerned, Will was his and Lubna’s, even if neither had been involved in his conception.
He started off again just as a rumble of thunder shook the air, but when he looked up, only blue sky lay above Malaka. Strange times bring strange weather, he thought, as he started off once more, heading toward Diego’s house in Iron Street. Lubna had said a neighbour brought Dionora to the Infirmary. Most people would be home from work by now, and it was not such a long street he couldn’t knock at every door. He had almost reached his destination when a familiar hoarse voice called his name. Thomas stopped, not needing to turn to know who it was.
“Have you forgotten it is forty days?” The skeletal figure of Abbot Mandana walked slowly toward him. Beyond, a half dozen of his men stood watching without expression.
Thomas stared at the man. No, he hadn’t forgotten, but had hoped this encounter wouldn’t occur, and certainly he could do without it right now. But it was his own fault. He had allowed Mandana to soften his mind to what the man had done. Allowed himself to feel sorry for him. An old man. An old, sic
k man who might be dead already if not for Thomas’s ministrations and Belia’s salves.
“I’m busy,” Thomas said.
“And you think me not? I am on a task for Fernando, but I made time to come to you.” He held his left hand across his chest, cradling the stump that was all that remained of it.
“Then it will have to be later. Tomorrow even. You can find something to amuse you in Malaka tonight, I am sure, even a man of God such as you claim to be.”
Mandana shook his head slowly, as if disappointed in one of his followers. “And I thought we had become friends.”
“Then you thought wrong. Tomorrow, at my house. You know where it is.” Thomas turned away. He had Diego’s neighbour to seek and a mystery to solve.
“Was your journey worthwhile?” asked Lubna as Thomas slid the journal across the table to her. She sat between Jorge and Belia, all of them curious to find out what he might have discovered.
“I’m not sure. Possibly.”
Lubna placed her elbows on the table, her chin on her fists, and stared at Thomas. “Explain.”
He smiled. It was what he would have said.
“I found the neighbour almost at once. A smith who has a small business near the city wall. He claims he heard voices, an argument, and then the sound of running. When he looked out to see what was happening, he saw Dionora collapsed on the roadway and went to her aid. He says he could tell she was badly injured so took her directly to the Infirmary.”
“Was it him who told Diego?” asked Lubna.
“It was. He knows the boy. I asked did he go into the house, but he said not. I asked did Diego appear to be acting suspiciously, but he said no to that, too. Then he asked me should he have been suspicious. So then I said no.”
“That’s a lot of no’s. Did you find out anything useful?”
“Yes.” Thomas smiled. “It might be a lot of negatives, but it tells me something all the same. Diego was upset, the smith said, which is even more reason to believe him innocent of attacking his mother.” Thomas held a hand up as Lubna began to object. “It also tells me whoever that other man is who was in the house was not there at that time.”
“Why would he be? Diego’s mother would certainly not allow a dead body into her house.”
“Of course not. So I went to the Infirmary and questioned those on the ward to find out if they saw anything suspicious. Most of them had seen Diego at one time or another, but he would come and go, away from her side most of the time. No doubt it was during one of these absences he found the man’s body. He must have been distraught. His father already dead, his mother sick. It’s no excuse, but given the way he sees the world I can understand why he did what he did.”
“I’m glad somebody does. What else?”
“As you say, a lot of people come and go. The clerks and other doctors didn’t remember anyone in particular, apart from one of the nurses. She was on night-duty when a man came in. She said she might not have remembered him at all but he had no Arabic and his Spanish was truly awful. He was asking after Dionora, with a story that Diego’s father had left funds the city had only recently become aware of. He wanted to know where they might be sent.”
Jorge snorted but said nothing.
“Exactly what I thought,” said Thomas.
“Did the nurse believe him?” asked Lubna. “I think I know the one you mean. She is sharp, observant.”
“Her opinion of the man’s story was the same as yours would have been. She sent him away, but it seems he must have returned.”
“Is it he who killed her? Who struck that blow to her skull?”
“I believe so. It would help if I knew why she was killed.”
“Sometimes there is no why,” said Jorge. “You know that better than anyone.”
“But I would like to know there is no reason, or if not what the reason is.”
Jorge shook his head. “Sometimes you talk in riddles.”
“Pa! Diego says he’s awake.”
Thomas turned to see Will standing in the doorway and knew this conversation would have to wait until another time.
“Then go tell him to come through.”
“He is crying,” said Will. “He said someone had died. I told him not to be sad but he won’t stop.”
“I’ll go to him.” Belia rose, stroking Will’s soft hair as she passed. Hair that was as fine as silk, like that of his mother’s.
Thomas held his arms out, and Will came to him, walking fast, trying not to run. He pulled himself onto Thomas’s lap and lay against him, sleep not long departed. A long body for his age, beginning to lose the fat of childhood, though still far from a man. But Thomas could see he would be a fine man. As tall as his grandfather, and as handsome as his mother was beautiful.
“I like him,” said Will. “Diego.”
“We all do.”
“He’s a man but not a man. We talked.”
“About what?” asked Thomas, afraid if he pushed too hard Will might lose the thread.
“His Ma and Pa. He misses them. He said he tried to keep them with him but you took them away. Even his new Pa, the one he brought home.” Will looked up at Thomas’s face. “Why did you do that, Pa?”
“They were … not alive.” Thomas had no wish to hide the truth from Will. Lies never helped anyone, even when told in an attempt to soften the truth.
“Dead? Diego didn’t say that.” A frown formed on Will’s face so slowly and deeply, Thomas almost laughed, and raised a hand to hide his expression. “How?”
“He was old, my sweet.”
The frown remained.
“How old?”
“Diego’s father had almost sixty years, his mother a little less.” Thomas pictured the image of the corpse that Diego had sat in a chair. That man had been younger than sixty, but only by a few years. It had been close enough for Diego to accept him as his father. Or to persuade himself of such.
Will nodded. “You have forty-six years, Pa, don’t you?”
It was Thomas’s turn to nod.
“How much between forty-six and …” He hesitated, thinking about it. “… and sixty?”
“Fourteen years.”
“I have nearly five,” said Will. “How much more is fourteen?”
“Almost three times,” said Thomas. “You can work that out yourself. Use your wooden blocks and count them. I know you can count higher than fourteen.”
“But not forty-six,” said Will, and this time Thomas couldn’t suppress a laugh. He pulled Will against him and kissed the top of his head, inhaling the wondrous scent of him. He saw Lubna’s eyes on him, an expression on her face that filled him with warmth. And then Belia returned with Diego and the night turned into a strange kind of party as they all tried to cheer him up.
Thomas put thoughts of the deaths aside, but they returned as he undressed and slipped into the wide bed they had acquired after taking the house overlooking Malaka. He tucked his palms beneath his head and stared at the ceiling, thinking about what he knew and what he didn’t know. The latter, as always, outweighed the former.
Lubna’s voice came from the room along the hallway as she put the two boys to bed. No, Thomas corrected, one boy and one man. It was so easy to regard Diego as a boy, but he had the height and muscle of a full-grown man. It was only his mind that had refused to grow. Perhaps that was an advantage. Thomas had found little in adulthood to recommend it. But then, there had been little in his childhood to recommend it either.
He glanced up from his own thoughts as Lubna entered the room and closed the door behind her.
“Are they asleep?” Thomas asked.
“Not quite, but almost.” She smiled as she unwound her hijab, dark blue silk that played through her fingers like water. “Will likes Diego, and Diego likes Will. But he is sad. Diego, that is.”
“It will pass.” Thomas watched Lubna loosen the ties on her robe, the skin beneath slowly revealed. The swell of a breast. The curve of her belly within which lay their child. Th
is one, he hoped, would live, but the carrying of babies was dangerous work, the birthing of them even more so. But Lubna was married to the best physician in Spain, so he knew everything would be well this time.
“What is to become of him?” Naked now, Lubna walked to a marble bowl and poured water from a jug. She washed herself carefully, slowly.
Thomas shifted on the bed. “He has a family.”
“Who do not want him. Or did I hear wrong when his brother was at the Infirmary?” Lubna towelled herself dry, turning, aware of what she was doing as she displayed herself to Thomas, signs of her own arousal showing.
“You didn’t, but something will work itself out.”
“He can stay with us for a while at least, can’t he? For Will’s sake?” She knelt beside the low bed and drew the sheet down so that Thomas was revealed, as naked as she was. Lubna smiled and reached for him.
Thomas caught her wrist, and Lubna frowned.
“Do you not want me tonight?”
“I do. But I spoke with someone else today and have not yet told you who.”
Lubna laughed as she lay beside him, her skin against his, her fingers tracing the scars that marked his chest and arms, each of them familiar.
“Is it more important than what I want to do with you?”
“Likely not, but I need to tell you anyway, because Mandana is coming to the house tomorrow. Knowing him it will be at dawn.”
“Is it forty days since he was last here? Does Belia know?”
“I told her earlier because she needs to prepare fresh salves.” Thomas traced the underside of Lubna’s breast, the swell of her belly where their child grew within. “I will treat him and send him away as soon as I can.”
“Until another forty days have passed.” Lubna sighed. “None of us know why you do it.”
“I’m not even sure myself.”
“We can talk of such matters in the morning. For now I want you to finish telling me what else you found out.”
“Now?” Thomas reached for her, and she allowed it, melting into his touch, her skin silk and velvet, hot beneath his hands.
