The Greenest Branch

by P K Adams

  My heart ached for her, and I could find no words to comfort her in such depths of sorrow. “I am also here,” I said gently. “If you ever need to ease your mind, don’t hesitate to come to me.”

  Juliana did not respond, but I felt her calming down. Soon she was quiet and her breathing became more regular. She had succumbed to her exhaustion.

  I lay awake for a long while, pondering the irony and the injustice of Adelheid’s early demise; she had had such a desire to serve God through the rigors and privations of the anchorite existence. And I regretted even more the loss of the only vocation in that convent that had joy—not sorrow or duty—at its core.

  Apart from Abbot Kuno and the lay brothers who lowered the body, I was the only mourner at the funeral. Anchorites were obliterated from the world in life as everyone was in death, so it was fitting that Adelheid should embark on eternity in that way. Yet it made me sad, for she had made great sacrifices, and even if her life had been spent in seclusion it was surely worth more than a pauper’s burial.

  The freshly dug earth fell onto the shroud from the lay brothers’ shovels, the dull thuds providing a melancholy counterpoint to the abbot’s recitation of the Office for the Dead.

  “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, even if he die, shall live; and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.”

  I repeated the lines mechanically, then watched him sprinkle holy water on the grave. After he left, I reflected on the situation in the convent; it had a magistra who was all but unable to lead the community in mourning, and the other sister was in such a fragile state that she could not be relied on for much of anything. It was a ship without a captain sailing through turbulent waters, and there would come a time, sooner or later, when that responsibility would fall on me, even though I was the most junior of the crew.

  The thought scared me. It would be tough under any circumstances, but it would be a particularly lonely task at St. Disibod. And yet this was my home now, and I would do anything to save it from perishing. If called upon, I would accept the burden, then steer the ship toward calmer waters where the warmth of the sun would give us hope not just for clinging on, but for happiness along the journey.

  That promise should have been a consolation to me during that woeful season of illness and death, yet I was uneasy. Beyond the low wall of the graveyard, the green of the leaves had already faded, their edges crisping with gold. Down the slope toward the Nahe, the vineyards were bare of grapes, the joys of making new wine a memory. But it would happen again next year and the year after that, and that was reassuring. So what was that doubt that was lurking in my mind?

  In that moment I became aware that even as my thoughts were on the convent, my eyes kept wandering toward the monks’ cloister, to the row of windows in the western wing. I caught myself wondering if it was the refectory or the dorter, and was jolted by the realization that the only reason I wanted to know was because Volmar lived there.

  Confused, my stomach twisted into a knot, I looked down at my hands and saw that my knuckles had turned white from clutching the small wooden cross he had whittled for me after Adelheid’s death. I kneeled at the edge of the grave and dropped the cross into it.

  As I walked away, the ache that had been lurking in the innermost part of my head all day began creeping out and spreading its crushing fingers around it.

  15

  September 1120

  The year I turned sixteen, we built a new infirmary at St. Disibod. It had been paid for by a gift from a wealthy merchant who had been robbed and left for dead in the nearby woods. After he had recovered under Brother Wigbert’s and my ministrations, he left a purse of gold, and we had spent months pleading our case for the expansion against Prior Helenger’s argument that there were more pressing expenses. We prevailed in the end, for the abbot was a reasonable man who understood the benefits of a large infirmary, where, in addition to dispensing Benedictine charity, we could treat patients of means from Worms, Ingelheim, or even as far as Mainz.

  By the end of the summer, we were getting ready to re-open our doors. As I carried bottles of medicines from the workshop to stack in the spacious new cupboards, I paused to admire the building for what seemed like the tenth time that day. The freshness of the new timber, the clean lines of the walls, and the solidity of the tile-covered roof gave it a welcoming aspect the old infirmary had lacked. Once flowering shrubs were planted and vines covered the walls, it would become an even more wholesome place. But that would have to wait until next year, as I was reminded by the cool eastern breeze; soon leaves would turn russet and gold, days would grow shorter, and all gardening work would stop.

  Brother Wigbert was in the main ward, arranging piles of fresh linen on the shelves. He had aged lately; his hair, already thin when I had first seen him, was reduced to a few gray wisps about his skull. His fingers were more swollen at the joints, and he found it increasingly difficult to handle implements like knives or shears, so I had to relieve him of any work that involved those tools. He had also grown thinner in the way old people do; he had lost fat from under his skin, so it had become saggy and gave the impression of less bulk. But he had remained quite round overall and showed few signs of slowing down. “These will be kept in the surgery.” He motioned with his head toward a separate chamber opposite the front door where sounds of something heavy being moved across the floor could be heard. I guessed that was Thietmar, a strong, large-boned novice who had been helping us arrange the furniture.

  I deposited the bottles in a large cupboard behind Brother Wigbert’s new desk and returned to the ward, still fragrant with the aroma of fresh wood before odors of disease would overpower it. It was nearly twice as large as the old one and had two sections—one for men and one for women—that could be further separated by a cloth partition. “I will talk to Father Abbot about sending us another assistant.” Wigbert smoothed the linens, scented with lavender oil, and closed the cupboard. “Ideally someone with an interest in medicine.”

  “So not Brother Bertolf again,” I joked. Then I added, tentatively, “What if we hired someone from the town . . . a woman?”

  “Why?” The monk’s still-abundant eyebrows went up in surprise. “There are enough people around the abbey, and some of them could do with a serious occupation.”

  “Yes, but . . .” I was not sure how to breach the subject that had been on my mind. “I think there is more that we could do here as far as . . . women’s care.”

  “What sort of care?” The infirmarian turned to the nearest bed and pressed his palms to the new straw mattress in three different places to check its strength and thickness. The mattresses had been delivered that morning. After examining the first one, he moved on to the next. There were ten beds on one side of the ward and ten on the other.

  “Childbirth.” I followed him.

  Brother Wigbert straightened up, looking genuinely perplexed. “Wherever did you get that idea from?” He went back to his work. “These are not matters for monks to concern themselves with.”

  “But labor is a complicated process, and so many women die that it seems to me that an infirmary would be a better place for it than a home, with medicines and skilled staff—”

  “It is not monastic business to deliver babes.” He was already at the fifth bed, and I saw him wince as he stretched his fingers. “The town has a midwife and many villages have their own. They have plied their trade for generations and certainly know more about it than I do.”

  “But so many women do not survive! I have heard about some of these midwives who bring about the deaths of mothers and infants by their carelessness.” It was a common enough story among women, young and old, who came to the infirmary.

  “Bring about their deaths how?” The infirmarian was growing impatient. “Women should always call on midwives they know and trust, and watch them at their work. A good midwife will do no harm. And if the moth
er or child dies, that is God’s will.”

  I sighed inwardly. There was no arguing once God’s will had been brought up. But my instinct told me that the primary cause of childbed fever was of this world. I had befriended Bertrade, Disibodenberg’s midwife, and from her I had learned how unpredictable births could be; some women delivered quickly and without complications, while others of similar age and health died, often along with their child. Most puzzlingly, there were women who succumbed to a fever as much as two weeks after a seemingly successful delivery. Blood loss was often implicated in the quick deaths; as to the fever, the midwife was at a loss for an explanation, saying only that it seemed to happen more often in the warmer months.

  I had visited the little shack where she lived and cared for some of her patients and noticed immediately that Bertrade did not concern herself overmuch with cleanliness. Her black fingernails and the linens of questionable freshness she kept in the bag she carried on calls were proof enough of that. I cleansed all cuts and wounds in the infirmary with wine or vinegar, but Bertrade only rinsed her hands in lukewarm water while praying to St. Margaret, the patroness of childbirth, prior to handling a patient. I had no proof that that was why those fevers occurred, but if the town midwife was so careless, what about the ones serving villages who often worked in the fields or with livestock before delivering babies?

  I watched Brother Wigbert as he finished with one row of beds and moved across the ward to the women’s section, and I could see that I would not get anywhere. But I was also aware that it would be difficult to persuade the abbot to allow a lay woman around who was not a cook. I turned away, not wishing to fight a futile battle, but I vowed to come back to it again.

  Outside, the first drops of rain were falling with a muffled sound on the dry earth beneath the wilting summer plants. I went back to the workshop to make a rubbing oil for Brother Wigbert’s creaking joints. It was a new medicine I had learned about from a peasant woman who had brought me a basketful of aconite roots and flowers. It was the same patient who had stayed in the infirmary with a hernia the previous autumn and heard the infirmarian complain about his aches flaring up in chilly weather. Since then, she had been bringing me a supply regularly.

  Aconite was an unusual plant. While it apparently grew in abundance across the Glan, I had never seen it on the abbey side of the river. In fact, I had never heard about it before. According to the woman, despite the herb’s unassuming appearance—it had common-looking palmate leaves and purple flowers that resembled a monk’s cowl—aconite was extremely dangerous if used improperly. She had warned that it could prove fatal if ingested. Even when rubbed on a painful area, it could cause more harm than good if too much was applied at once.

  I set up the alembic. As soon as Brother Wigbert had felt the oil’s effect, he offered the treatment to the abbot who suffered similarly. As a result, I was now free to make the medicine, although the abbot had been careful to impress on me the importance of keeping quiet about its provenance. “Praising the benefits of herbs will only stoke the peasants’ superstitions. They already hang amulets everywhere instead of praying to God for health,” he had told me.

  I was still working when Brother Wigbert returned, his bald head glistening with the moisture of the now steadily falling rain, and announced that we had a patient.

  “A case that requires an overnight stay?” I inquired practically. The new building was not officially open yet, though exceptions could be made if necessary.

  “Yes. Young Volmar.”

  “Volmar!” An image of a terrible accident flashed through my mind, and I dropped the knife I was holding. It hit the edge of a mortar bowl with a clang. “Is he all right?”

  “Just a cough and a bit of a fever.” The infirmarian did not seem to notice my agitation. “The season is starting early this year.”

  I composed myself quickly. “And we are keeping him?” I asked to cover my embarrassment.

  He nodded as he set out to warm some elderberry wine. “The cough seems benign enough, but I want to keep an eye on him for a few days to see if it is not a more serious affliction of the lungs.” I shivered at the specter of consumption, even though Volmar had never shown any signs of it. “Besides, we might as well see how everything works before we open up.”

  “Good idea.”

  “When you are done, take this wine to him with one of your throat pills.”

  I smiled behind his back. Brother Wigbert still would not dispense them himself, but he was happy enough to see my herbal work.

  It rained for the next three days. Grumblings began around the abbey that the grape harvest would be ruined, but I was content. Volmar was doing well, and with nobody else for me to take care of—and Brother Wigbert either in the workshop or in church—we spent hours together. I showed him the lump of salt from Alzey that I always carried in its little box in the pocket of my robe so I could look at it whenever I missed my mother. In the five years it had been in my possession, it had not changed in any way I could discern; it was still hard and smooth, and white as a freshly fallen snow. Volmar told me about the Church Fathers they had been reading in the school, and we practiced Latin conjugations, at which he was considerably better than I.

  On the fourth day the rain ceased, and I came in at midday with a message from Brother Wigbert. “You have been coughing up no blood, so you will be released today.”

  Volmar leaped from his bed; three days of enforced rest was probably as much as any fourteen-year-old could take.

  “Here.” I opened a medicine box Brother Wigbert had ordered for me from a carpenter in town and produced a cloth-wrapped bundle. “A few more horehound pills. I added a little lemon juice to them. My nurse used to say that the juice of lemons is good for colds, although the fruit is expensive and hard to come by.” Indeed, at a silver mark a pound, Brother Wigbert would only let me buy one at a time from Renfred.

  Volmar took the pills. For a moment it seemed as though he would give me a hug, but then he stepped back and pressed the bundle to his chest in a gesture of gratitude. To my annoyance, I blushed fiercely.

  “Come, I want to show you something before you leave.” I turned around, calling over my shoulder more brusquely than I had intended. I wished the ground would open and swallow me whole.

  I led him down the narrow corridor between the ward and the surgery to the door that gave on to the backyard. I opened it, welcoming the cooling effect of the damp breeze on my face, and felt myself regaining my composure. The day was warming up quickly—it was still September—and we stepped out onto the drying gravel. “This is a retreat I am working on.”

  I had already planted box hedges along one side of the yard, all the way to the abbey wall, forming an isolated, rectangular space for ambulant patients to take the air. And benches had been placed against the infirmary wall and under the fruit trees that separated us from the herb garden.

  “It is lovely out here,” Volmar said, “and will be even better when the trees are in blossom.”

  We sat on the closest bench. “I believe that fresh air speeds up recovery. That is contrary to what many physicians recommend, but I simply don’t agree with those who want the sick to stay indoors away from the sun and the greenness. It is what restores vitality.”

  “I was brought up to believe that the air had an ill effect on a weakened constitution,” Volmar admitted.

  I sighed. There were so many misconceptions regarding nature and its purported evil influences on the health of the body and the soul; my experience had been quite the opposite. “I have noticed that patients who languish in bed take longer to recuperate than those who begin to move around as soon as they are able to.”

  “I can see why. Three days in the infirmary and I was going mad.”

  I felt warmed on the inside by our shared appreciation for the world out-of-doors. There was no other person with whom I had that kind of understanding—save
Brother Wigbert, perhaps, but the intensity of it did not come even close.

  It also reminded me of something. “When I was looking for a cure for Sister Adelheid, I read the sections of Naturalis Historia that deal with remedies derived from plants.” I lowered my voice, though we were alone. “It is fascinating, although—” I broke off.

  “You are worried that it is a pagan work?” He put the question without disapproval. “Brother Rudeger says that is the reason we are not studying Pliny.”

  “Well, he does recommend praying to the ancients’ gods, but . . .” I dropped my voice even lower. I had noticed that some monks who came to the infirmary gave me strange looks and watched me when I spoke with Brother Wigbert. The infirmarian himself had told me they were likely to report what they saw and heard to the prior, and that I should be careful. I was speaking in a near-whisper now, in case someone had wandered in looking for us. “He describes such a variety of remedies that I never knew existed that . . . I wonder if I should . . .” I hesitated again.

  “Make them for your patients and try them without the pagan invocations?”

  I nodded briskly. “There are so many useful applications. For example”—I started enumerating on my fingers—“wild mint juice can be used for jaundice and ear worms; rue taken with wine and mustard applied externally are both good for dropsy, as is the root of wild vine boiled in water and wine. Wormwood mixed with honey helps heal bruises, and mixed with raisin wine can cure defluxions of the eyes—”

  “Ugh!”

  “The point is,” I checked myself, “that even though the Church is suspicious of folk remedies, ancient texts talk about them all the time!”

  I had told Volmar of Brother Wigbert’s distrust of herbal healing long ago, so he understood my dilemma. “I think whenever you have the ingredients, you should try them out,” he said. “The worst thing that can happen is Brother Wigbert will tell you to stop, but he will never denounce you.” Then he laughed. “They say that this infirmary”— he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder—“used to be a place people went to die. But now the monks are rubbing their hands at all the gifts that are going into their coffers. They probably no longer object to the use of wild herbs, though they won’t admit it.”