The Cole Trilogy: The Physician, Shaman, and Matters of Choice

by Noah Gordon

  Perhaps it was not incorrect to call it fear.

  17

  A NEW ARRANGEMENT

  The first time Rob walked into a public house wearing arms—it was in Beverley—he felt the difference. It was not that men showed him any more respect, but they were more careful with him, and more watchful. Barber kept telling him that he had to be more careful, too, since violent anger was one of Holy Mother Church’s eight capital crimes.

  Rob grew weary of hearing what would happen if reeve’s men should drag him into churchly court, but Barber repeatedly described trials by ordeal, in which the accused were made to test their innocence by grasping heated rocks or white-hot metal, or drinking boiling water.

  “Conviction for murder means hanging or beheading,” Barber said severely. “Often when someone does manslaughter, thongs are passed under the sinews of his heels and tied to the tails of wild bulls. The beasts are then hunted to death by hounds.”

  Merciful Christ, Rob thought, Barber has become an elderly lady complete with faint sighs. Does he believe I’ll go out and slay the populace?

  In the town of Fulford he discovered he had lost the Roman coin he’d carried with him since his father’s work crew had dredged it from the Thames. In the blackest of humors, he drank until it was easy to be provoked by a pockmarked Scot who jostled his elbow. Instead of apologizing, the Scot muttered nastily in Gaelic.

  “Speak English, you damned dwarf,” Rob snarled, for the Scot, though powerfully built, was two heads shorter than he.

  Barber’s cautions may have taken hold, for he had the sense to unbuckle his weapons. The Scot did likewise at once, and then they closed with one another. Despite the man’s lack of height it was a rude surprise to find him unbelievably skillful with his hands and feet. His first kick cracked a rib and then a fist like a rock broke Rob’s nose with an unpleasant sound and worse agony.

  Rob grunted. “Whoreson,” he gasped, and called upon pain and rage to extend his strength. He was barely able to stay in the fight until the Scot was sufficiently used up to make mutual withdrawal possible.

  He limped his way back to the camp feeling and looking as though he had been set upon and beaten mercilessly by a band of giants.

  Barber was not overly gentle when he set the broken nose with a crackling of gristle. He dabbed liquor on the scrapes and bruises, but his words stung more than the alcohol.

  “You’re at a crossroads,” he said. “You’ve learned our trade. You’ve a quick mind and there’s no reason you shouldn’t prosper, except the quality of your own spirit. For if you continue along your present path, you’ll soon be a hopeless drunkard.”

  “Pronounced so by one who will himself die of the drink,” Rob said disdainfully. He grunted as he touched his swollen and bleeding lips.

  “I doubt you’ll live long enough to die of the drink,” Barber said.

  No matter how hard Rob searched, the Roman coin was not to be found. The only possession that remained to link him with his childhood was the arrowhead his father had given him. He had a hole bored through the flint and wore it on a short deerskin thong tied around his neck.

  Now men tended to move out of his way, for in addition to his size and the professional look of his weapons, he had a motley nose that wandered slightly on a face in various stages of discoloration. Perhaps Barber had been too angry to do his best when he had set the nose, which was never to be straight again.

  The rib hurt for weeks whenever he breathed. Rob was subdued as they traveled from the region of Northumbria to Westmoreland, and then back again to Northumbria. He didn’t go to public houses or taverns where it was easy to get into fights, but stayed close to the wagon and the evening fire. Whenever they were camped far from a town he took to sampling the physick and developed a taste for metheglin. But on a night when he had drunk heavily of their stock he found himself about to open a flask on whose neck was scratched the letter B. It was a container from the Special Batch of pissed-in liquor, put up to provide revenge on those who became Barber’s enemies. Shuddering, Rob threw the flask away; from then on he bought liquor when they stopped at a town and stowed it carefully in a corner of the wagon.

  In the town of Newcastle he played the Old Man, taking refuge behind a false beard that hid his bruises. They had a good crowd and sold a lot of physick. After the entertainment, Rob came behind the wagon to remove his disguise so he could set up his screen and begin his examinations; Barber was already there, arguing with a tall, bony man.

  “I have followed you from Durham, where I observed you,” the man was saying. “Where you go, you draw a crowd. A crowd is what I need, and I propose we travel together and share all earnings.”

  “You have no earnings,” Barber said.

  The man smiled. “I do, for my task is hard work.”

  “You are a fingersmith and a cutpurse, and you’ll be caught one day with your hand in a stranger’s pocket and that will be the end of you. I do not work with thieves.”

  “Perhaps the choice isn’t yours.”

  “The choice is his,” Rob said.

  The man scarcely favored him with a glance. “You must be silent, old man, lest you attract the attention of those able to do you harm.”

  Rob stepped toward him. The pickpocket’s eyes widened in surprise, and he drew a long, narrow knife from inside his clothing and made a little movement toward them both.

  Rob’s fine dagger seemed to leave the scabbard of its own accord and slip into the man’s arm. He wasn’t conscious of effort but the thrust must have been forceful, for he could feel the point grate against bone. When he pulled the blade from the flesh it was at once replaced by spouting blood. Rob was amazed that so much gore should appear so quickly from such a skinny crane of a person.

  The pickpocket backed away, holding his wounded arm.

  “Come back,” Barber said. “Let us bind it up for you. We shan’t cause you further harm.”

  But the man was already edging around the wagon and in a moment had scurried off.

  “So much bleeding will be noticed. If there are reeve’s men in the town they’ll take him, and he may well lead them to us. We must leave here quickly,” Barber said.

  They fled as they had when they had feared the death of patients, not stopping until they were certain they weren’t pursued.

  Rob made a fire and sat by it, still dressed as the Old Man and too tired to change, eating cold turnip from yesterday’s meal.

  “There were two of us,” Barber said in disgust. “We could have rid ourselves of him.”

  “He needed a lesson.”

  Barber faced him. “Listen to me,” he said. “You’ve become a risk.”

  Rob bridled at the injustice, for he had acted to protect Barber. He felt new anger bubbling in him, and old resentment. “You’ve never risked anything on me. You no longer provide our money—I do. I earn more for you than that thief could have gathered with his pinching fingers.”

  “A risk and a liability,” Barber said tiredly, and turned away.

  They reached the northernmost leg of their route and stopped in border hamlets where the residents didn’t rightly know whether they were English or Scots. When he and Barber were playing before an audience they joshed and worked in apparent harmony, but when they weren’t on the bank they settled into a cold silence. If they attempted conversation it soon became a quarrel.

  The day was past when Barber dared raise a hand to him, but when he was drunk he still had a filthy and abusive tongue that knew no caution.

  On a night in Lancaster, camped next to a pond from which moonpainted mist rose like pale smoke, they were plagued by an army of small flylike insects and took refuge in drink.

  “Always were a great clumsy lout. Young Sir Dunghill.”

  Rob sighed.

  “I took an orphaned arsehole … molded him … would be less than nought without me.”

  One day soon he would begin to practice barber-surgery on his own, Rob decided; he’d been a long time
coming to the conclusion that his path must separate from Barber’s.

  He had found a merchant with a store of sour wine and had bought in quantity; now he tried to drink the abrasive voice silent. But it went on.

  “… ham-handed and slow of wit. How I did labor to teach him to juggle!”

  Soon Rob crawled into the wagon to refill his goblet but was followed by the terrible voice.

  “Fetch me a bloody stoup.”

  Fetch it for your miserable self, he was about to answer.

  Instead, taken by an irresistible notion, he crept to where the flagons of Special Batch were kept.

  He took one and held it to his eyes until he saw the scratch marks that identified what it was. Then he crawled from the wagon, unstoppered the clay bottle, and handed it to the fat man.

  Wicked, he thought fearfully. Yet no more wicked than Barber’s giving Special Batch to so many through the years.

  He watched in fascination as Barber took the flagon, tilted his head back, opened his mouth, and lifted the drink to his lips.

  There was yet time to redeem himself. He almost heard his voice calling upon Barber to wait. He would say the bottle had a broken lip and easily replace it with an unmarked bottle of metheglin.

  But he kept his silence.

  The neck of the bottle entered Barber’s mouth.

  Swallow it, Rob urged cruelly.

  The fleshy neck worked as Barber drank. Then, throwing away the empty flask, he fell back into sleep.

  Why did he feel no glee? Through a long and sleepless night he thought on it.

  When Barber was sober he could be two men, one of them kindly and with a merry heart, the other a baser person who didn’t hesitate to dispense the Special Batch. When he was drunk there was no question, the baser man emerged.

  Rob saw with sudden clarity, like a spear of light across a dark sky, that he was transforming himself into the baser Barber. He shivered, and a desolation crept over him as he moved closer to the fire.

  Next morning he rose with first light and found the discarded marked bottle and hid it in the woods. Then he restored the fire and by the time Barber stirred, a lavish breakfast awaited him.

  “I haven’t been a proper man,” Rob said when Barber had eaten. He hesitated and then forced himself to go on. “I ask your pardon and absolution.”

  Barber nodded, astonished into silence.

  They harnessed Horse and rode without speaking through half the morning, and at times Rob was aware of the other man’s thoughtful eyes on him.

  “I have long dwelt on it,” Barber said at last. “Next season you must go out as barber-surgeon without me.”

  Feeling guilty because only the day before he had reached the same conclusion, Rob protested. “It’s the damned drink. The stuff transforms each of us cruelly. We must abjure it and we’ll get on as before.”

  Barber appeared moved but shook his head. “It’s partly the drink, and partly it is that you’re a young hart needing to try his antlers and I’m an old stag. Further, for a stag I am exceedingly huge and breathless,” he said drily. “It takes all my strength for me simply to climb the bank, and each day it’s more difficult for me to get through the entertainment. I would happily remain in Exmouth forever, to enjoy the soft summer and tend a salad garden, to say nothing of the pleasures I’ll gain from my kitchen. While you are gone I can put up a plentiful store of the physick. Too, I’ll pay for maintenance of wagon and Horse as heretofore. You shall keep for yourself the proceed from every patient whom you treat, as well as from every fifth bottle of physick sold the first year and every fourth bottle sold each year thereafter.”

  “Every third bottle the first year,” Rob said automatically. “And every second bottle thereafter.”

  “That’s excessive for a youth of nineteen years,” Barber said severely. His eyes gleamed. “Let us dwell on it together,” he said, “for we are reasonable men.”

  In the end they agreed on the income from every fourth bottle over the first year, and on every third bottle in years following. The agreement would run for a period of five years, after which they would take stock of it.

  Barber was jubilant and Rob couldn’t believe his good fortune, for his earnings would be remarkable for one his age. They traveled southward through Northumbria in the highest of spirits and with a renewal of good feeling and comradeship. In Leeds, after their work they spent several hours at marketing; Barber bought prodigiously and declared that he must make a dinner suitable to celebrate their new arrangement.

  They left Leeds along a track that rode low beside the River Aire, through mile on mile of ancient trees towering high above green thickets and twisted groves and heathy glades. They camped early among alder beds and willows where the river widened, and for hours he helped Barber create a great meat pie. In it Barber placed the minced and mingled meat of the leg of a roe deer and a loin of veal, a plump capon and a pair of doves, six boiled eggs and half a pound of fat, covering all with a crust that was thick and flaky and oozing oil.

  They ate it at great length, and nothing would suit Barber but to begin drinking metheglin when the pie raised his thirst. Remembering his recent vow, Rob drank water and watched as Barber’s face reddened and his eyes grew surly.

  Presently Barber demanded that Rob carry two boxes of flasks out of the wagon and set them close to him, that he might help himself at will. Rob did so and watched uneasily while Barber drank. Soon Barber began to mutter untowardly about the terms of their agreement, but before things could go thwartly he sank into a sodden sleep.

  In the morning, which was bright and sunny and filled with the song of birds, Barber was pale and querulous. He didn’t appear to recall his overweening behavior of the previous evening.

  “Let’s go after trouts,” he said. “I could do well with a breakfast of crisp fish and the Aire appears to be likely water.” But when he rose from his bed he complained of an ague in his left shoulder. “I’ll load the wagon,” he decided, “for labor often works to grease an aching joint.”

  He carried one of the boxes of metheglin back to the wagon, then returned and picked up the other. He was halfway to the wagon when he dropped the box with a thump and a clatter. A puzzled look crept into his face.

  He put his hand to his chest and grimaced. Rob saw that pain was making him hunch his shoulders. “Robert,” he said politely. It was the first time Rob had heard Barber pronounce his formal name.

  He took one step toward Rob, thrusting out both his hands.

  But before Rob could reach him he stopped breathing. Like a great tree—no, like an avalanche, like the death of a mountain—Barber toppled and fell, crashing to the earth.

  18

  REQUIESCAT

  “I did not know him.”

  “He was my friend.”

  “Nor ever have I seen you,” the priest said dourly.

  “You see me now.” Rob had unloaded their belongings from the wagon and hidden them behind a copse of willows, in order to make room for Barber’s body. He had driven six hours to reach the small village of Aire’s Cross, with its ancient church. Now this mean-eyed cleric asked suspicious and surly questions, as if Barber had pretended to die, solely for his inconvenience.

  The priest sniffed in open disapproval when his inquiry revealed what Barber had been in life. “Physician, surgeon, or barber—all of these flout the obvious truth that only the Trinity and the saints have true power to heal.”

  Rob was burdened with strong emotions and not disposed to listen to such sounds. Enough, he snarled silently. He was conscious of the weapons on his belt but it was as though Barber counseled him to forbear. He spoke softly and pleasingly to the priest and made a sizable contribution to the church.

  Finally the priest sniffed. “Archbishop Wulfstan has forbidden priests to entice away another priest’s parishioner with his tithes and dues.”

  “He wasn’t another priest’s parishioner,” Rob said. In the end burial in sacred ground was arranged.


  It was fortunate he had taken a full purse with him. The matter couldn’t be delayed, for already there was the smell of death. The joiner in the village was shocked when he saw how large a box he must construct. The hole had to be correspondingly generous, and Rob dug it himself in a corner of the churchyard.

  Rob had thought Aire’s Cross was so named because it marked a ford on the River Aire, but the priest said the hamlet was called after a great rood of polished oak within the church. Before the altar at the foot of this enormous cross was placed Barber’s rosemary-strewn coffin. By chance the day was Feast of St. Callistus and the Church of the Rood was well attended. When the Kyrie Eleison was said, the little sanctuary was almost filled.

  “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy,” they chanted.

  There were only two small windows. Incense fought with the stink, but some air came through the walls of split trees and the thatched roof, causing the rush lights to flicker in their sockets. Six tall tapers struggled against the gloom in a circle around the casket. A white pall covered all but Barber’s face. Rob had closed his eyes and he looked asleep, or perhaps very drunk.

  “He was father to you?” an old woman whispered. Rob hesitated, then it seemed easiest to nod. She sighed and touched his arm.

  He had paid for a Mass of Requiem in which the people participated with touching solemnity, and he saw with satisfaction that Barber wouldn’t have been better attended had he belonged to a guild, nor more respectfully prayed away if his pall had been the purple of royalty.

  When the Mass was done and the people departed, Rob approached the altar. He knelt four times and signed the cross upon his breast as he had been taught by Mam so long ago, bowing himself separately to God, His Son, Our Lady, and finally to the Apostles and all holy souls.