The Physician's Tale

by Ann Benson

  She lay down dutifully on her blanket, keeping her eyes on the knight.

  In a few minutes, his eyes began to flutter; his head dropped down and then abruptly jerked up again as he fought off sleep.

  “I am suddenly so tired,” he said. “Perhaps I should tie you as well, so I can sleep myself.” He came up to sitting and then made to stand, but his legs would have none of it. He sat back down again. A look of confusion came over him, and he slumped to one side but steadied himself on one elbow. He reached toward his sword, as if it might somehow stave off the sleep that threatened to overtake him.

  But even the sword of a great warrior was no match for the dram of potion that coursed through his veins; he rose no more and soon drifted into a deep sleep.

  To the sound of his snores, Kate untied the rope that held Alejandro to the tree. Once freed, he went to Chandos and listened to his breathing.

  “He sleeps as the dead,” he said.

  And when he awakened, both knew, his head would pound so badly that death would seem welcome.

  The body of the sick man still lay where it had been brought, to a seldom-used stable at one of the far corners of Windsor. The castellan had ordered two of his men to take the tracker there while he was still alive and to leave him water and food, should he awaken again. But he never did; for several days his corpse lay where he’d died, in the May heat, until finally the smell was too powerful to ignore. His blanket was wrapped around him, and the stretcher from which he had never risen was used to pull him out of the stable. He was rolled into his grave with only a hurried blessing by a priest, who stood as far back from the hole in the earth as decency would allow.

  The wedding of Isabella Plantagenet and Enguerrand de Coucy had taken place without so much as a sniffle from any of the guests.

  De Chauliac stared into a bowl of holy urine but saw nothing amiss. He sighed to himself; the weight of this pope’s worries would produce a bevy of complaints, the same as in his predecessors.

  “Just as I thought,” the Frenchman said to Guillaume de Grimoard, who had, at his investiture the previous year, taken the name Urban, as four other popes before him had done. “It is a flaring of your rheumatism. You must rest, Holiness, or this malady will cause you even greater distress.”

  “Surely it can cause no greater distress than those matters that are before me for decision, Guigio—this mess with England will not go away! I have missives from Edward—almost daily, it seems. Each time I hear of a bird landing on the roof, I tremble to think what we might find strapped to the ankle! He raves over matters that are too old for consideration, and will not leave me in peace.”

  Matters too old for consideration. De Chauliac set down the bowl of urine and straightened up. “I have given orders for you to be treated daily with a small amount of laudanum. This will dull your pain and calm your temperament. However, you will notice over time that its effects will diminish, so the apothecary will increase it slightly according to my recommendations. And he will administer poultices favorable to the production of bile. Tell me, Holiness, what matters does Edward press?”

  “It seems his arrangements for the marriage of Benoit to the daughter I restored have not come to fruition. He wishes for me to support him against the claims of the famille de Rais in Bretagne. Of course, I cannot do this without offending them mightily. I am not fool enough for that.” He sighed and held out his arm. “Shall I be bled?”

  De Chauliac took the arm and gently placed it on the armrest of the throne. “I think not at this time. My findings on examination of your urine indicate that such treatment is not warranted.”

  The pope seemed disappointed somehow, but said, “Very well. I am relieved, I suppose, to know it is nothing more serious that plagues me. One does worry with one’s physician at such a distance as Paris. Tell me, Guigio, how goes the Cyrurgia?”

  “As well as I could hope,” de Chauliac told him. “But I am eager to get back to work; I must beg your permission for another absence.”

  “Which, of course, you shall have.” The pope raised his staff and passed it back and forth a few times, then made the sign of the cross over de Chauliac’s bowed head. “Go,” the pope said, “and do your work.”

  As de Chauliac backed out of the audience chamber, he was passed by a cardinal carrying a large stack of papers. The pope’s expression soured as the cardinal approached; de Chauliac knew the next summons would not be long in coming.

  He hurried through the palace to his own apartment there, and when he arrived, he quickly changed into his traveling clothes again, leaving his physician’s robes behind. Outside the door, his escorts awaited.

  “Come with me,” he said. They followed him through the streets of Avignon on foot, until they arrived in the Jewish Quarter. When they came to the street where Alejandro had lived, he told them to wait.

  He went down the narrow street himself, bringing stares of wonder, for he was a giant compared to the people he passed. When he came to the door that had been Alejandro’s, he stopped.

  He backed up a few doors; a small boy was at play not far from there.

  “I seek a woman named Rachel,” he said to the boy.

  The boy pointed to her door, then ran away.

  De Chauliac tapped on the door and waited. It seemed a long time until the door opened, and then just a crack; he saw only a portion of the face that looked out at him, and that was in shadow.

  “Do you know who I am?” he said.

  The door was opened fully. The woman nodded and beckoned him in.

  “Is he dead?” she asked quietly.

  De Chauliac did not answer her question. “I have come to see the father, if I may.”

  “He is resting.”

  “Then he must be awakened, for I have not much time.”

  Rachel eyed him with suspicion for a moment, then said, “Wait here.”

  After a few moments she returned. “He is awake.” She pointed toward a small room at the back of her house.

  De Chauliac bent over as he passed under the doorway. There in the bed lay a very old man, raised up on a pillow.

  “My son speaks of you as if you were God Himself,” Avram Canches said. “Have you come here to deliver sad news?”

  “I have no news, else I should already have seen to it that you were advised,” he said. “But I have made a promise to your son that I would care for those he loves. I have come for you, sir, if you will allow me to take you to Paris. If Alejandro returns, you will be reunited. If he does not, I will see to it that you are afforded all the necessary comforts.”

  Avram was silent for a few moments as he considered de Chauliac’s offer. “Tell me,” he said finally. “Is there someone such as Rachel in Paris? It is only by her devotion that I am alive to hear your generous offer. Perhaps you should extend it to her as well and save yourself the bother of finding three people to do what she as one can do with ease.”

  “I cannot speak to your question, sir, I regret to say.” De Chauliac glanced back to see if Rachel was within hearing. “There are good reasons why it may not be so.”

  Avram eyed the Frenchman for a long moment; he was deeply saddened by the realization that the hoped-for marriage between his son and Rachel would not take place. But this would certainly be his last chance to see Alejandro.

  “You had best tell her that yourself.”

  He did so. Tearful Rachel would not accept the gold that de Chauliac tried to press upon her, nor would she take any from Avram. De Chauliac thought he had never seen a more desolate look on a woman’s face than the expression she wore as his young soldiers placed Avram Canches into the straw-laden cart they had brought for him. She stood in the doorway and watched in silence with her shawl wrapped around her as Avram Canches began the last long journey of his life, to Paris.

  Alejandro spread the beautiful map out on the ground before them.

  “How marvelous,” Kate said. “It is as if we were angels hovering over the earth.”

  “
To have this, I believe there must be angels hovering over us! One is surely named de Chauliac.” He pointed to the area of the Peaks. “We are near here, I think.”

  A look of terrible unhappiness came onto Kate’s face. “Oh, Père,” she said, “we have come so much farther north than I thought!”

  “Yes, too far north. But now we are free to ride south, and we must do so quickly. If Sir John comes out after us again, he will not be alone, nor will his temperament be benign.” He ran his finger straight down through the center of England, settling finally just above the Isle of Wight. “This port of Southampton will have shipping—to Normandie and Bretagne. From there we can ride to Paris.”

  “But it will be so long before we reach there!” She paced out the distance on the map with her fingers, and for a few moments she was silent as she figured the time in her head. She let out a long and sorrowful sigh; Alejandro knew that she was thinking of her son, of how long it would be until she finally saw him with her own eyes.

  He folded the map and stowed it away in his satchel. “If we go southeast to Dover, your son will likely never see his mother or grandfather again. He has waited seven years for you; a bit longer will not be his undoing.”

  The horse went lame just outside Coventry. The animal had brought him all the way from Avignon and knew all his master’s quirks and idio-syncracies, but he’d suffered under the burden of two riders, and it was time to give him a rest. In a small town on the northern edge of the Salisbury Plain, where they could ride at a good pace with the proper animals, they found a miller whose simpleminded son needed a gentle mount. The man had a stable full of horses, for he was fond of breeding them, to see what sort of progeny would come of each match.

  “Give us two that can ride all day and pull at their tethers through the night, for the love of the next day’s ride,” Alejandro told him. “We have a long journey yet to go.”

  The new horses performed admirably as Alejandro and Kate headed south, keeping Oxford with its royalist fervor well to their east. After many days of steady travel, they found themselves in the heart of the great plain. The hills that had impeded their progress through the midlands gradually gave way to an expanse of rolling rises carpeted in the lush, waving grasses of spring.

  The next evening, as they were about to end their day’s ride, they saw in the distance an odd formation.

  Kate peered south, shading her eyes. “I cannot make it out. Some sort of building, I think. There are people within it.” She turned and looked at Alejandro. “What if it is an encampment of soldiers?”

  He considered the possibility for a few moments, then said, “We should dismount and walk closer for a better look. We are far too visible on horseback.”

  They pulled the horses along and came, after a time, to a place where the earth rose just enough to conceal them. They left the horses and made their way to the top of the rise, and crouched in the grass to observe the oddity that lay ahead on the plain.

  “It seems to be nothing more than a stand of large stones,” Alejandro said. “Not a building at all. But their circular arrangement—”

  “Père,” Kate said as she herself stared at the stones, “this is the Hedge of Stones! I have seen it in a drawing; a minstrel came to court, many years back, and he carried with him a parchment rendering of this very arrangement.”

  “An apt name,” Alejandro said. “They have built a fire in the center. I see a priest among them, and there are women.” He looked for another moment. “But I see no soldiers.”

  They decided, after watching the gathered folk for a while longer, that there was nothing to fear from them.

  They remounted their horses and rode toward the stand of stones, and as they neared it the people who were gathered there came together and watched their approach.

  Sir John Chandos entered the king’s study and found the monarch poring over a pile of papers. The page Geoffrey Chaucer sat at the secretary, quill in hand, awaiting the king’s words. Chandos went down on one knee; the king made a wave of his hand, and the knight stood, with some difficulty.

  “My fellow of the Garter returns at last,” Edward said. He did not bother to look up but concentrated his attention on the stack before him. “The tumult of celebration has barely faded, and now come the bills.” He picked up the top parchment and waved it around. “Fifty-three pounds for a veil,” he lamented. “What can I have been thinking to allow such profligate spending? Ah, well, new taxes will have to be imposed. Thank God my own dear wife is not Godiva—she is too old to ride naked through the streets in protest.” He placed the bill for the veil back into its proper pile. “You were wise, Chandos, to stay away.”

  “Begging your pardon, sire, but it was not by choice that—”

  “Do not underestimate my knowledge of my retainers and what they do outside my observation,” the king said, finally looking up. He glanced pointedly at his scribe. “You are excused, Chaucer.”

  The lad stood and bowed, then turned and headed for the door. As he passed by Chandos, their eyes met for a very long moment. He saw the knight’s eyes narrow just slightly and forced himself, with great difficulty, to make no reaction to the unspoken accusation he saw in them.

  “He’s a good lad,” the king said as Chaucer disappeared through the door. “Despite his quirks. Diligent and, I hope, loyal.”

  Chandos paused a few seconds before saying, “You have always inspired true loyalty, sire. In myself especially.”

  The king gave him a look of frank disbelief. “You are an old friend, and I will forgive you that insult to my intelligence. Now, sit,” he ordered. “Tell me, through your loyal eyes, what transpired in the north.”

  Chandos had thought long and hard, as he rode back through the midlands with Benoit’s corpse in tow, of what he would tell the king. He had decided along the way that he would tell him de Coucy’s cousin had met his death at the hands of robbers, who thought them fair game since there were only two.

  He would not tell him of the pounding headache he had upon awakening to find Alejandro and Kate gone, or of how that misery had persisted for a full day beyond his awakening.

  He would not speak of his surprise to find that they had left him all of his weapons and half of his dried beef. Nor would he speak of how he had found himself covered with his own cloak against the rain that fell during the night. The king would not appreciate knowing how his stalwart comrade-at-arms, the hero of many battles, had fallen prey to simple trickery. Nor would he begin to understand Chandos’s gratitude for the kindnesses they showed him, though he had shown them little grace himself.

  He would not tell him of the desperate offer he had made to Kate, or of her refusal.

  “They are gone, sire” was all he could say.

  “Gone? Just gone, and that is all?”

  “I heard of them in Eyam, Derbyshire, north of your hunting grounds. I have found out that the people there banished them from the town. That is the last news there was.”

  “And it was then that you sent the rest of your company back?”

  Chandos nodded silently.

  “Your fellows, no doubt, appreciated being present for the festivities. It was—brave of you to continue the search on your own, sacrificing your own enjoyment, having company only with Benoit, may the idiot rest in peace.”

  “I am not much a lover of celebrations, Your Majesty.”

  “Of this I am only too aware.” He rose and came directly in front of Sir John. He stood over him and looked down with his eyes full of mistrust. “Tell me, Chandos, in your experienced opinion, what is the advisability of sending out another party? Surely these two cannot simply vanish into the ether. Sooner or later we will find them and bring them to justice.”

  Chandos remained silent for a moment, considering what he ought to say. When he had formulated a response, he stared hard into the king’s eyes. “You are my liege, and I your most loyal subject. But beyond that, sire, you and I are old friends, as you have just said.”

&nb
sp; The king made no immediate reaction beyond a narrowing of his eyes. Eventually, he said, “As much as any king can have a friend, I will aver that I have one in you.”

  “I have stood by you and your son in many a conflict, and in honor of that I would ask your permission to speak plainly.”

  With uncharacteristic quiet, the king said, “Permission is granted.”

  Chandos shifted nervously. “It is my considered opinion that one ought to leave the matter be.”

  “Explain,” the king said coldly.

  “The lady will never bend to your will. She much prefers the company of the Jew to that of her own family here. And with all due respect to yourself, for you are a fine and capable ruler, I must say that in view of the turns her life might have taken here, her preference is more than understandable.”

  The king took a moment to digest what his knight had said. “Your tale of robbery lacks credibility. I must ask you now, did the Jew kill Benoit?”

  Very quietly, Chandos said, “No, sire, he did not. Of that I am certain.”

  “If he did, then she is as much a part of it as he, even if it was he who pulled the bowstring. De Coucy, quite understandably, wants revenge for his cousin. He is making new demands.”

  Chandos recognized the slight nervousness in his king’s voice. “The marriage was consummated, was it not? Therefore, you have no need to consider his demands. If he wants revenge, then let him go out and search.”

  In a hundred years of hunting, Chandos thought in his heart, de Coucy will never find them.

  The king was quiet for a few moments, until he said simply, “Thank you, Chandos. You may return to your saddle, which seems to suit you so well, and do whatever pleases you. Tell Master Chaucer that we will resume.”

  Chandos stood, made a curt bow, and left.

  Beloved companion,

  It is my joy to write that Guillaume has recovered. How I wish this glad news could break free of the page and fly on to you and Kate! He does not care for strong light just yet and keeps to himself in his room. His playmate has recovered from the pox, but he is badly scarred on his face, and when Guillaume first saw him, he was frightened. I reassured him that his friend was indeed the same person and that inside his heart he has not changed. But I wonder if that is true—how can one live through the depths of horror and the disfigurement of the pox, especially as a child, and emerge intact? The world would forever be an altered place for one whose face elicits a gasp on first sight.