The Physician's Tale

by Ann Benson

  He read it aloud from the beginning, in English, as de Chauliac listened.

  There lives a lady fair with hair of gold,

  Imprisoned in a castle built of old.

  Her captors, filled with enmity and hate,

  Now plot to make cold misery her fate.

  They’ll wed her to a man so dark and vile

  That sight of him could thwart an angel’s smile.

  But on the eve before the first of May,

  She’ll garb in drapes of flowers and slip away

  To ride all night and in the morning pass

  Between two loving oaks, one lad, one lass

  Who cling together in a bold embrace

  And guard the entry to an ancient place

  Where sounds and sights ethereal are the norm

  And sun shines bright, while all the world’s in storm.

  Safe there, she will await her father dear,

  With desperate hope that he’ll anon appear.

  “Dear God,” he said. The page trembled in his hands.

  “Colleague?” de Chauliac said, his voice full of concern. “What is it?”

  “She calls for me to rescue her, at last.” Alejandro then looked directly at his mentor and asked, “What is today’s date?”

  “The sixth—no, wait—the seventh of April.”

  Alejandro set the page down on the bed and sat frozen in the chair.

  “Do not keep me in suspense!”

  His confused thoughts finally gelled. “Chaucer is there in Windsor, is he not?”

  “I have told you that he is. But what does that matter?”

  “I believe,” the Jew said with increasing agitation, “that he wrote this. We spoke in English many times and he knows that I can read it as well. I daresay, de Chauliac, that you are right. When I was there, the king himself knew little of the language and could not decipher it written. In France, even fewer; you yourself, an educated man, are incapable. Chaucer knows this and wrote it as a code that few but I could understand! Listen,” he said. “I will tell you what it means, in French.”

  The translation was not exact, but de Chauliac clearly understood the meaning. “The first of May,” he said. He sat up straighter in his bed. “She has chosen the date wisely. It would be unnatural for the king’s soldiers to be afield on that night and quite ordinary for a woman to be out and about. Depending on how she dresses, she might be taken for a celebrant, perhaps even a witch. But she will not be bothered. Clever, very clever.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “The peasants have not always been Christian there,” his mentor explained. “Long ago, there were priests of a different nature, pagans, who worshipped things of this earth, not of the heavens. They have passed into history for the most part, but their traditions are deeply ingrained in the people. On the night of April thirtieth, the maidens will dance around a tall pole holding ribbons by the light of the fire; a Queen of the May is chosen from among them. The king casts a blind eye upon them, for they keep his people happy—at least for that night.”

  “Three weeks,” Alejandro said, his voice almost a whisper. He looked straight at de Chauliac. “I must leave immediately.”

  “Yes,” de Chauliac said quietly. “And we have only just gotten you back.”

  Alejandro found Guillaume in their turret room, sitting on the chair by the window. The afternoon light cast a warm glow through the windowpane, and the little boy’s hair gleamed in its rays.

  “What so absorbs your attention, young man?”

  “I am reading the Biblios that Monsieur de Chauliac lent me.”

  “Ah. Yes. I will be sure to thank him again for granting you that privilege.”

  The Bible that de Chauliac had sent to him many years before, a simple Latin volume, was the book Alejandro had used in teaching Guillaume to read. The first part of the tome was familiar, for it was the teachings and history of his own people, but the second part was new to him. On reading those parts for the first time, he recalled his own instruction in Christianity at the hands of a mad priest in England and how he had nearly howled aloud at the man’s insistence that Jesus was born to a virgin.

  Impossible. Beyond belief, and yet they believed, fervently—some so fervently that they devoted their entire lives to her glorification.

  But he would not keep this history from the boy, however inane he considered it to be, for his mother—at least in heritage—was a Christian, and though in their travels together she had not regularly practiced the rituals of that religion, she would often invoke this Virgin Mary for protection, or as part of a quickly said prayer. In honor of that, he allowed, even encouraged, Guillaume to learn of Jesus.

  “Look, Grand-père, there are pictures!” De Chauliac’s own Bible was beautifully illustrated, with colorful paintings and wonderful exaggerated letters written in gold ink. It was the paintings more than the pennings that held Guillaume’s fascination. They admired together the delicate strokes that the artist had laid upon the parchment. “I must interrupt you, I fear, for there are other important matters requiring discussion between you and me.”

  “Yes, Grand-père.” The little boy closed the book dutifully, but not without first placing the ribbon marker in the crevice between the pages.

  Alejandro pulled his own stool close to Guillaume’s and sat down. Guillaume stared up at him, his eyes wide, wearing an expression of solemn curiosity.

  “I must make a journey beyond Paris without you, to someplace very far away. I will be gone for quite some time, perhaps a full season.”

  Guillaume looked troubled. His voice became smaller. “But why?”

  “My voyage concerns your mother. And I alone can do it; no one else can go in my stead.”

  The boy sat up taller. “Will you bring her with you when you return?”

  “I hope so. If God grants it.”

  A look of excitement came over the boy’s face as he pondered the news. Then he made a bold announcement of his own. “I shall go with you, Grand-père. I will help you.”

  It was a sweet surprise; Alejandro had feared that the boy would whine or cry or make some other kind of distressing fuss. Instead, quite unexpectedly, he had offered to help.

  “Guillaume,” Alejandro said respectfully, “you will someday be a very fine man. Generosity such as yours is a fine quality and I thank you, but in this case I must refuse it.”

  The look of hope faded to one of woe. Alejandro tried to soothe him with a hug. “Now, before I leave, I need to tell you some things and you must listen very carefully.”

  Guillaume nodded soberly.

  Where to begin? I murdered a man in Spain and was forced to flee, and I found myself in England, where your mother was enslaved by her shrewish older sister, who now once again holds her captive and would marry her off to the foul underling of an even more foul fiend….

  No; it must be said in a way that would not frighten him.

  “I have told you about England….”

  “Oui, Grand-père, many times, that it is far to the north, and that we are at war with them….”

  We, Guillaume had said; the child considered himself to be French. Of course—his father had been French, and his mother was unknown to him. Still, it was something of a surprise to the nationless Jew to hear it said that way.

  “Well, yes, we are at war, and have been for some time, though right now there is relative peace. England is ruled by a king, as are we. His name is Edward. Many years ago, I served as his physician.”

  “Grand-père!”

  “Yes, I know, it seems an impossibility, but it is true. It was not my choice to do so; I was sent there because de Chauliac thought I could protect the English royals from plague.”

  “But de Chauliac is your friend—why would he want you to go to our enemy?”

  “Because it was important for all of the English royals to be kept alive during the Great Mortality, or so de Chauliac told me. And at the time our friendship was…” He struggled to
find the proper words. “It was not as well formed as it is now.”

  “You didn’t like each other?”

  “That was not really the case—I have admired de Chauliac greatly since the day I met him, for his remarkable intellect and his dedication to learning. It was more accurate to say that we didn’t trust each other. He did not know as much about me then as he does now, nor I about him. I believe I can safely say that for a good while, de Chauliac considered me a scoundrel. But over time we have come to respect and even enjoy each other. We are blessed now with a loyal friendship.”

  Guillaume digested what he had been told for a few moments before asking, “But why must you go there again?”

  “I am getting to that. Now, King Edward had many children, most of them by his queen. But as many royals do, he had other liaisons, some of which resulted in children.”

  Guillaume made no comment except to giggle.

  “One of those children is your mother.”

  The boy nearly leapt off the chair, then climbed up into Alejandro’s lap. “My mother is the English king’s daughter?”

  “Shhh! Keep your voice down. You will give up our secret to the servants! But, yes, it is true. She is a grown woman now, a wonderful woman, but when I first fostered her she was a young child. I have always called her ‘daughter,’ but in truth, she is the daughter of King Edward. I stole her away.”

  “Then he is my grand-père, not you.”

  Alejandro caught his breath on hearing that blunt truth from the child. “That is correct.”

  The child looked upset and said, “You stole me from my mother as well.”

  Alejandro explained quickly. “Of course, she wanted to be stolen—begged me to take her, in fact. As she begged me to take you so you would not be taken by the English royals.”

  He saw some relief in Guillaume’s expression, but the child was not yet calm. Alejandro prepared himself for the flurry of difficult questions that would surely follow. He was surprised to hear a simple statement:

  “King Edward must have been sorely vexed.”

  He reflected for a moment on the harrowing succession of events; anger hardly began to describe Edward’s reaction to their flight, though you would not know it from his carefully worded letter to de Chauliac. Someday Alejandro would tell Guillaume of the wild rides, the hiding, and his own battle with plague.

  Or, God willing, his mother could tell him.

  “He was past the point of mere vexation, child; he was enraged beyond all decency. He sent out his best warriors to capture us, but we were very fortunate, and we evaded them.”

  “But—why did Mère want to leave England, if it was her home?”

  “Because her sister Isabella had her shut up in a castle and would have harmed her in order to make me suffer, for she hated me.”

  “How could anyone hate you?”

  Sweet innocence, Alejandro thought. “Someday I will also explain to you about hatred, young man, but for now you will just have to believe that she did. She was convinced that I stole the affection of one of her ladies. That lady—Adele was her name—might have been my wife had she not died.”

  With great seriousness, Guillaume said, “What of Rachel, then? Arrière-grand-père says that you should marry her.”

  Alejandro forced a smile, knowing how Guillaume adored Rachel and that a marriage between them would please the boy immensely. “People of great age often have opinions that they deem worthy of expression,” he said. “Those opinions sometimes relate to matters that are the private business of other people. He means well, of course, but the question of marriage between Rachel and me should rest between Rachel and me, should it not? When I am of advanced age, I hope you will remind me to tether my own opinions, lest they annoy other people. Now, where was I?”

  “You were speaking of Mère’s sister.”

  “Yes. Isabella.” He recounted the events at Canterbury as accurately as possible and explained that Isabella once again held his mother.

  “A cruel sister!” the boy said.

  “Yes, and more. I know this will be difficult for you to understand, Guillaume, but royals often hurt their own family members, even kill them, in order to steal their power and holdings or to keep control over them. It is the same everywhere—Spain, France, England—and so we had no choice but to flee. We crossed to France on a boat of cargo. I paid the captain handsomely to keep our secret, and as far as I know he did, because we were not pursued or discovered for a very long time, and only then by odd coincidence. We traveled around the whole of Europa, until we found a place that seemed safe, not far north of Paris. It was there that your father came into our lives.”

  Guillaume went very quiet. Little had been said of his father, and he had not asked, as if somehow Guillaume Karle did not figure into his life at all.

  “My father,” he said, almost imperceptibly. The boy sat very still in Alejandro’s lap, saying nothing for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was very serious. “Mère was not a virgin, then.”

  Alejandro sat back slightly and put a hand to his mouth to stifle the laugh that threatened to break free. “No,” he said finally, “she was not. Such births happen only in the Christian stories. You have a father and a mother, both from terra firma. And though your mother looks like I imagine an angel might look, she is very much a human being, an exquisite one. It is time you came to know her.”

  The little boy threw himself happily into Alejandro’s arms, and they clung together for a few moments. When they released each other, both faces were wet with tears.

  It did not surprise Alejandro to find Philomène in de Chauliac’s surgery, for it was where he himself would have been, had he not been called away so urgently.

  “Good morning,” she said gaily as he entered. And then, seeing his dark expression, the gaiety left her voice. “You wear the look of a troubled man,” she said. “What ails you?”

  He stood still in the doorway for a moment, regarding the work in progress. He looked in her direction and said, “You know me too well for such a short acquaintance.”

  “A stranger could detect the uncertainty in your face.” She paused. “There has been news from England, I take it.”

  “There has,” he said. “I am troubled, and I am transported in the same moment. I may soon have my daughter back—a joy I cannot even fathom—but in order to save her, I must leave all this behind.” He gestured to the pages that lay on the table, then looked into her eyes. “And, to my greatest regret, you.”

  “How long will you be gone, if you can say…”

  There was no certainty that he would return at all, but he did not tell her that. “It may be as little as five or six weeks, but I suspect it will be much longer than that.”

  She set down her instruments and took one of his hands in her own. “The work will suffer for your absence.”

  “Perhaps. But I think not. I leave it in the hands of a capable physician, and I do not refer to the Frenchman upstairs.”

  She smiled, and then blushed. “You have paid me a fair compliment, Alejandro.”

  “It is well deserved. You will make wonderful progress while I am gone. De Chauliac will rise up from his sickbed and partake once again in the work. Only then,” he said with a little smile, “when he is standing over you with his invisible whip, will you understand how deeply you miss me.”

  She laughed lightly and stepped even closer to him. “It is I who will suffer most for your absence.”

  With his heart racing, Alejandro put his arms around Philomène and drew her close. “Well said, Mademoiselle,” he whispered into her ear. “That would be my confession too.”

  A prayer, nearly an accusation, formed in his mind as the warmth of Philomène’s body flowed through him.

  Why, Dear God, have You set a mountain in my path at this time, when there is another mountain for me to climb, also according to Your plan? You presented this good woman to me, and now You compel me to leave her.

  Thy will be don
e. But perhaps for once You will take pity on this lonely Jew, and soften Your will.

  He sent it off to his God with an internal shake of his fist.

  His boots were polished to a shine so perfect that Alejandro could pick his own teeth in the reflection they afforded. What clothing he would take was clean and folded into a satchel. Guillaume was asleep on the straw, as if the morning would bring nothing special. Alejandro was as ready as he could be; all that remained was to sleep through his last night in Paris, to prepare himself for the journey ahead. It seemed an impossible task, with his heart so torn.

  He was drawn to the surgery by the work he was about to leave behind—and the woman with whom he’d shared it. He hoped, as he pushed the door open, to find Philomène there, but the room was empty. On the table lay the pages they had recently completed, and as he gazed upon them, he felt a pride that could hardly be described.

  May it please God that I shall have the privilege of working on these pages once more.

  He heard soft steps behind him.

  “I say again, Physician, the work will suffer for your absence.”

  He turned and saw Philomène standing in the doorway. The way she looked took his breath away. Her hair fell in waves around the shoulders of her white nightdress. She carried a single candle in her hand; its light cast a warm glow on her face.

  “I see that sleep eluded you as well,” he said.

  “I think perhaps I shall not sleep well again until you return safely,” she said. “My mind races…in one minute, reason rules, with thoughts of our progress on the manuscript, but in the next, I am overwhelmed with emotions. I do not want you to leave. I have only just found you.” She looked into his eyes and said, “Is there no other way for this task to be accomplished save you going there yourself?”

  “Had there been,” he said quietly, “my daughter would be here now. But consider this: If this journey had not taken place, we would not have met.”

  “I cannot consider such a thing. It would be a mistake on God’s part.”

  “He does not make mistakes.”