by Susann Cokal
“What about him?” I snatch the charcoal from her hand, then put it back when I remember she needs it to answer.
She leans over and vomits again, a thin, clear stream.
When she is finished and I have again wiped her face, Midi rolls the charcoal stick between her fingers. She’s growing back to her stiff old self; that sly, hateful smile-that-is-not-a-smile creeps over one side of her face.
P, O, X.
I pull back. “What does that mean?”
ON YOU.
Her hand continues to move down the page, filling it up with more wavery black marks. But I refuse to look at anything she might write now; I stand and shake out my skirts and draw myself up like Countess Elinor. I even give a nudge to my bosoms. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling well enough to curse me. And now I hope you’ll be more careful what you eat.”
I am not unaware that this could be interpreted as a threat to poison her; but I am rather proud of it. I walk away, shrug off my clothing down to my shirt, and climb into my own little cot. I close my eyes and don’t watch what Midi does next. But as I tell myself to go to sleep, I see her black letters smearing across my eyelids: G, R, A . . .
There are many wrongs at court, it is true. One of those wrongs, surely, is that Midi Sorte can write and I cannot. And that I can guess, now, who taught her. Imagine the two of them bent over a table, passing a stylus or a pen back and forth, smiling as she mastered each letter. And when began words and sentences, perhaps something more — a kiss such as a mother gives a child who has just learned to speak, or a kiss such as Grammaticus gives me?
Does he read her stories and observations as he listens to mine?
Jealousy stabs my gut again and again, until I think I might be sick myself.
Sick.
I wish this to Ava Mariasdatter, who pretend kindness to capture some of me. I wish on her pox, and she be afraid. I smile to make her more so.
While she walk away, I am sick again. She stay gone.
I take my bowl to the jakes and leave it. This palace have plenty of scrub-maids to take it away. I go back to my cot in the room with two snoring girls, and I get in and curl up around my nasty stomach. I ask some questions of it.
First, What are you? And then be cause I can not stand to answer now, What be locked in the skin of Nicolas’ prick?
The best magic come from ordinary things, like an old bone and a wax doll and a scrap of glove that together become the holy relic of a princess. Or the same finger bone that turn to a sign of evil in the court. Such a trick bring power to the one who make it.
And also danger, as with poison-auntie. Who all ways knew what should be done with a belly, what ever did make it sick.
Any body recognize what some things mean. Any body who be not stupid. To vomit, to swell in the bosom, to stop with bleeding.
G, r, a, v, i, d.
Pox is not the worst that ’s in me.
HYDRARGYRUM
IT is through Nicolas that Christian finds the doctor who, at last, solves (or says he solves) the mystery of the children’s ailment. And it is only because this doctor has come through Nicolas that Christian considers believing his diagnosis, not clapping the man in the darkest oubliette in the foulest corner of the prison.
His name is Josef Krolik — no Latinate moniker — and thus far he has been employed by an assortment of towns and barons, recommended by a minor lord who has thought of marrying his daughter to Nicolas.
This Krolik, whose name in Polish means “rabbit,” arrives in a humble bark, in a plain black robe, with the merest of medical essentials rattling in his bag. He has a large head and thin body, a big nose and drooping eyelids. His teeth are yellow and small.
With the King, the Queen, the physicians, Count Nicolas (yes, Christian V has ennobled him further), other council members, and the usual attendants, Doctor Krolik visits the Crown Prince in the day nursery. Leaning over the wooden haunch of the lion bed, he strokes the boy’s sweaty pink cheek. Young Christian’s eyes open, wearily and without interest, as if a visit is being paid to someone else, not to him.
Krolik moves a finger slowly in front of the Prince’s face; the brown eyes follow listlessly. Krolik lifts the princely hand and flaps the arm attached, and young Christian moans. Flakes of the boy’s skin fall away like feathers; two of his toenails are missing. Krolik listens to the lark-fast beat of his heart and pronounces aloud:
“Hydrargyrum.”
When no one reacts but the physicians (who stiffen), Krolik clarifies. “Mercury. Quicksilver. There is your poison.”
“On the contrary, it . . . is our cure,” says Doctor Candenzius. “It is well known to draw infection out of the body, to strengthen the blood and quicken the heart —”
“In moderation,” says Krolik. “When used heavily, it is poison. What matters is the amount of the dose.”
There is a collective intake of breath, then a silence. These words are recognizable to all. Candenzius, after all, has been quoting Paracelsus on this subject since he arrived over a year ago: Every substance can be a poison; only the dose determines.
The quiet is particularly intense among the nursery staff; the air between them seems to crackle. Each of them has touched mercury. They use it every day. It has been part of the Morbus protocol for a year and a half, designed by Candenzius and —
With a moan, the Queen swoons.
The King, sick with love for Nicolas, wanting and yet not wanting this physician his Count has found to be of help; thinking of his own family, his throne, and the future, says, “It cannot be so.”
Doctor Krolik turns to the long-standing physicians, Candenzius, Venslov, and Dé. “Do you pretend you have not suspected it?”
The three men bow their heads.
The ladies revive the Queen with salts and bear her off to her chambers. The King dismisses all but the most essential people. With the medical staff and Lord Nicolas and the historian, he visits the two girls’ beds.
“Hydrargyrum,” Krolik says of Beatte; and . . .
“Hydrargyrum,” after one look at Gorma, rocked in her swan by the dark nurse’s hand.
Gorma wakes up and begins to whimper, as if she might actually understand the incantation.
The men retire to the King’s inner chamber to discuss the situation amid the odors of pleasant spices and perfumes, under the suffering gaze of an ethereal painted Saint Sebastian.
“Do you agree?” Christian asks the three original physicians. “Can you possibly agree?”
Before they have a chance to answer, Krolik puts his hands behind his back, fixes his gaze on the bright-painted ceiling, and recites: “Loss of hair, nails, and teeth. Loss of vision and hearing. Aching bones. Itching, peeling skin. Rashes. Weak muscles, red lips, pink cheeks and hands, fever.” He seems to develop a heart then and adds, “The youngest girl is not so badly affected.” But again with the coldness of a medical man: “We have found an excess of mercury leads to blindness, madness, death. But all of this, I am sure, you know.”
Christian can’t bear to look at Nicolas. He turns to the trusted court physician. “Doctor Candenzius, how do you explain yourself?”
Sorrowful — fearful — lines settle into the doctor’s handsome face. “This is a terrible thing, Your Majesty. But . . . I do not agree with the diagnosis.”
Krolik snorts. He clearly has no respect for these fine men of medicine; he just as clearly is a vulgar man not used to royal company. “It is so obvious that any layman could see. I’ll bet some of them have seen it — the nurses and such — only they were afraid to say it out loud.”
“Mercury is a precious metal,” Candenzius says, as if by way of explanation. “It is the First Matter from which all other metals are formed. It transmutes other metals into gold. It is a precious gift from God.”
Christian remains stern. “Do you mean to say someone has been performing alchemy on my children? Trying to turn them into a set of golden dolls?” Though he imagines them silver, there in the silvered nursery, in
their finely painted beds. Sweating little dolls that others dress and put to bed.
He means it seriously, but Krolik seems amused. His yellow teeth show in a sneer.
“Mercury is a medicine,” Candenzius says.
“One that you administered to my children?”
Candenzius bows his head again. “Your Majesty, it was one of several substances that Her Highness and I — and these two other excellent physicians — developed into a course of treatment. It was not the cause of their original illness, which came on suddenly, if you recall, some years ago —”
Doctor Dé, made nervous by his inclusion, jumps in without asking permission. “We have used the very finest extracts from Spain. Further refined and purified in our own laboratory here in Skyggehavn. Added to other precious healing ingredients —”
“Candenzius oversaw the purification,” Venslov adds. “At the Queen’s orders.”
If the men know so much about this substance, Christian wonders, why did they never see they were overusing it?
. . . Of course, because Isabel approved.
Krolik repeats, “Any substance can be a poison if incorrectly administered. Even mercury, even sugar, even the salt on the table can —”
“Ah,” says Candenzius, “you are a student of Paracelsus. Like myself.” He speaks as if delighted to have found a kindred spirit. But he is frightened; his eyes show it.
Christian feels sick in every limb of his body, as if some poison has affected him as well. He doesn’t know what to do with his own eyes. He must appear regal, even as he feels his careful world crumbling away. Pains stab his gut, and he thinks he might shame himself in front of the others.
He looks up and sees Nicolas, whose sharp, beautiful face is arranged in an expression of sympathy.
“Will they live?” Christian asks, in a small voice; but Krolik does not answer, not right away.
Nicolas declares, “The King trusted these physicians — and his wife — to make good decisions about the children’s care, even as the King made decisions about the country. The King has never made a study of medicine. No blame can fall on the King.”
Doctor Krolik turns to the court chronicler (who is, of course, tucked into a corner of the room). The historian is too busy writing to answer any unspoken questions, even if he knows about substances found seeped into the cracks of that silver-painted nursery. Even if he may have recorded that information, discreetly, somewhere.
Venslov breaks into a fit of coughing. He seems very old today. “The children show other symptoms,” Venslov says when he has the room’s attention. “Ones that do not follow a quicksilver presentation. The boils, for example.”
“Hmm,” says Krolik, gazing once more at the ceiling. “We must look into those.”
So it is established. Morbus Lunediernus, in its fatal form, is a result of overmedication. Of too much care on the part of their mother and physicians. Poison after all.
Isabel. Isabel. And Elinor.
DIADEM
IN the palace prison far beneath the ground, where marshy water coats the walls with nacreous rime, Countess Elinor Parfis of Belnát writhes in irons. Her left thumb is broken; the bottoms of her feet are scorched. Her arms are scored with delicate knife marks.
“I have nothing to say,” she swears during a pause in the proceedings. “Nothing at all.”
“Make your confession freely,” says the man in the mask. “Or it will be wrung from you.”
“Wring me, then. I hold nothing inside.”
A guard with a neck like a money purse approaches. This time he holds a traitor’s diadem, a jagged iron band fashioned with screws to tighten around the skull.
“You still have nothing to say?” asks the man in the mask.
Elinor presses her lips together, holds her breath to make herself dizzy. So, she thinks, she will quell her fear.
I will not approve torture, the King has often said. He has always left the commands to his favorites instead.
“I have nothing,” she insists, and closes her eyes as she feels the diadem descend.
“It is a bad time in the court.”
“It is a bad time in the court.”
We say it to each other as we go about our days and duties. It is a bad time in the court. No one can dispute this: Not only have four children died in under half a year, but the determination for those who have survived is bleak. Too much hydrargyrum — mercury — for which there is no familiar antidote, not even Candenzius’s theriac, which clearly hasn’t cured a single princess so far.
It is almost not to be believed. In the nursery, ladies declare that they never knew, never imagined, don’t believe it even now. After all, the Queen herself helped to design this treatment! Maids whisper the same thing, then mutter even quieter spells to ward both poison and guilt away from themselves. Midi Sorte, so recently ill herself, wears a disbelieving smirk, though she is as guilty as anyone if it’s true. I’ve seen her rub quicksilver into Beatte’s and Gorma’s sores myself. Following Countess Elinor’s orders, of course, and the Queen’s. Neither of whom has authority to command anything here anymore.
I can’t even dare to hope I’ll be restored to the Queen’s needlework now. She is not in a position to accept more seamstresses, even if she is tearing her garments to shreds in her grief. She is in disgrace, a condition I know well. She is the object of malice and gossip, also therefore like me. I might pity her if . . . if the rumors didn’t seem so true.
Here are the whispers about Queen Isabel, overheard in the yards and the dorter and the nursery itself: She is mad, in every sense. She intended to harm her children and is glad that it is so. She came to them through a secret door and crept among them with a knife, carving the boils and rashes into their skins and filling them with poison.
The Queen no longer visits the nursery. It is said that she’s locked in her chambers, mad with grief, even as she protests the diagnosis. Who is this Krolik? she’s shouted at her ladies. What does he know of the Lunedies?
But the King believes the diagnosis well enough to remake his court. This also sends a shock to the nursery.
First, the three original physicians are dismissed, though not released. They are forced to share a room in the outer wing, near the apron wearers — not exactly imprisoned, but they are told not to leave the palace either. It is said that they spend their time squabbling and inventing experiments that will prove they were right to treat the children as they did. I see them from time to time, storming out into the corridor after some argument among themselves. On one occasion, Doctor Venslov orders me to bring him a bucket of milk for some experiment. When I deliver it to the door, young Doctor Dé (who used to smile at me) looks down into it as if he’d like to spit or do worse.
The Polish doctor, Krolik, becomes Master of the Nursery, and he sets about saving the children. He does it in a way that many find peculiar, but the King is so desperate as to try anything that does not outright smack of madness.
First, the nursery is moved. No more silver walls and golden branches with glass leaves; now we occupy plain quarters in the east wing, and the other rooms are closed up, for they are believed to be poisonous themselves. The children’s elaborate beds are scrubbed till much of the paint rubs away, and the Queen’s seamstresses fashion new sheets and coverlets for them.
Krolik orders cattle brought in from the countryside and kept not in the town but in the outer courtyard, where they are bled and their blood brewed into a nourishing broth (and where their lowing keeps the soldiers and aprons awake). He buys gallons of viper’s milk and sets up a new laboratory to brew theriac from his own recipe, which calls for over a hundred ingredients rather than the usual sixty-four. He also orders a southbound merchant ship to bring back a crate of live vipers so he can milk them himself. He fills the nursery with braziers and pots of water that make it steamier than a rock spring in summertime, for perspiration is part of his cure.
As a result, the children sweat and so do their attendants. We
reek. We smell of fear as much as heat, for we’re all afraid of poison, and we all expect to find it everywhere.
Rather than reassuring us that medicine has mastered the problem, Krolik has awakened new terrors. We are unwilling to touch the children — or anything that they might have touched. It is as if the surfeit of mercury might well up through their skin to gnaw wounds in us as well.
“Scrub the princesses!” Krolik orders. “Wipe the sweat away!” When we do, the girls’ skin comes off in a thick scurf, and they are rawly pink beneath.
The children vomit their new theriac; we stir up more. Krolik shows the nurses how to force it down a rebellious child’s throat by holding his or her nose. In the moments when the children are not dedicated to sweats, he also shows us how to paint their sores with a white paste he calls “guaiac,” which is from a tree of the New World and is meant to speed the healing of certain wounds. “Like will cure like,” he says.
More water boils. The guaiac steams away. The nurses paint the sores again.
Midi Sorte is particularly grave in this endeavor. Alone of all of us, she seems to have no fear; without being told, she spends extra hours with Princess Gorma, and it is most often she who treats the little girl’s sores. I come to admire her dedication, although I still find her frightening as a person — even more so with this fearlessness. I have not seen her ill again.
The whispers develop into speculation about witchcraft, Sophia the Wraith Princess, the waxy finger from the witch’s hollow that might be working magic now. Only Midi seems unafraid. To ward away these evils, I whisper stories of my own into the children’s ears: sleeping princesses who wake to a good father’s kiss, goose girls who weave muck into magic cloaks, swans who discard their skins and emerge as princes ready to dance away a dull girl’s sorrows.
Oh, sometimes, fear makes me tack on the true endings, the ones my mother used to tell from her days in the forest. Nasty deaths, hurts, children who are abandoned or gobbled up by their grandmothers. These seem to come from a deeper place in me. But then I make myself start again:
