Michael JECKS - Belladonna at Belstone

Hugh watched as Constance and Godfrey washed the stump of Cecily’s arm, wiping the blood away. Blood still seeped from the arm even with the tight tourniquet. Godfrey stood with a worried expression, and then reached for the large iron which sat in a charcoal brazier. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed its handle and thrust it on the stump. There was a hissing; steam rose. The slight figure of the lay sister leaped upwards, her whole body curving like a drawn bow in her agony, before slumping into unconsciousness. Godfrey closed his eyes, shuddered, and dropped the iron back in the brazier, while Constance resolutely swallowed before painting her poultice onto the ruined flesh.

Like most countrymen Hugh had witnessed enough suffering in his time to loathe seeing any creature in pain, but he had also seen many people die because of gangrene. Although he hated to see Cecily in such agony, he recognised and mentally saluted the kindness of Godfrey and Constance. If anything, it was those two who were the most affected in the room.

“An excellent job, I should say,” Hugh heard Baldwin say.

The knight had been unable to sleep through the hideous shrieks that the girl gave until she had been anaesthetised with a strong mixture of dwale in a pot of wine. While they waited for her to succumb to the stupefactives, Godfrey held up a glass jar of the girl’s urine to the light, trying to convince himself that he was doing the best for her.

“Thank you, Sir Baldwin, but…” Godfrey held out his hands in a gesture of distress. “Whether she will recover after such an experience is anybody’s guess.”

“You were swift to put her to the knife and saw, and swift to seal the raw flesh. Now all we can do is hope that she has enough faith. You have done your best.”

Godfrey gratefully took the pot that Constance proffered and walked to Baldwin’s side, letting himself slide to the floor, his back to the wall. “There are many who would look at such a wound and refuse to operate.”

“Especially clerks in major orders.”

“Balls to that! I can’t accept it’s wrong to do what I know to be right for the sick, no matter what the Pope may say.”

Baldwin rose to his elbow, and Hugh could see he was intrigued. “You were a trained surgeon, I seem to remember Bertrand saying. Weren’t you at university with him?”

“For a while, yes. I learned my craft before meeting him. We were both called to the cloth late in life. I learned my skills, such as they are, in the old King’s wars. I was with a set of London men. While we were in France I met a foreigner, and he showed me how to remove a limb. I know it can save lives when the gangrene has set in.”

“So you were a fighter?”

“Till I learned that peace was better than war,” he agreed and knocked back his wine. Constance refilled it from her jug.

Seeing her sway, Hugh rose and took the jug from her, setting it at Godfrey’s side, and helped the nun to sit on a chest. On the floor, leaking blood, was Cecily’s arm, and Constance shivered at the sight, turning from it. Hugh brought her a cup of wine, then shrugged and poured another for himself, shoving the putrefying limb away under the bed. Joan walked in a few minutes later, a pot in her hand, which she set on Costance’s table, but then she caught sight of the arm. Tutting to herself, she picked it up, wrapped it carelessly in a large scrap of linen from the table, and took it out.

Baldwin saw her burden as she passed. Blood was staining the end of the cloth and the sight made him shoot a glance at Cecily. She was as pale as the bleached linen she lay upon, a fine sheen of sweat dampening her brow and features. Every few minutes a shiver would rack her frame. Fleetingly Baldwin wondered what would happen to the arm. If it had been that of a peasant, it might have been thrown to the pigs – or in a town, tossed into the street, which came to the same thing in the end. He preferred not to think about it.

He faced Godfrey again, speaking gently. “I have seen the Moorish doctors at work, and Byzantines, and I congratulate your efforts.”

“How could I leave her looking like that?” Godfrey muttered, then hurled his cup from him. It struck the wall, shattering and splashing red wine over the plaster. “She’s the same age as my daughter.”

Baldwin saw Hugh leap into view in the doorway, his hand on his knife. Waving him away, Baldwin peered at Godfrey. “Your daughter?”

“It was many years ago. I don’t think we realised that what we did would become a lifetime’s commitment. But it has. Lady Elizabeth was already three-and-thirty years old, and I was five-and-thirty. Gracious heaven, how long ago it feels now!”

He wore a look of bemusement, as if there was truly little that could upset him now. Baldwin was sure that mostly this was a sign of his tiredness after the operation – the amputation had taken all of his nervous energy – but there seemed something else at the back of it. He maintained a steady silence, waiting for Godfrey to fill the emptiness.

“In those days, I suppose she was less certain of her vocation. She and I used to meet when I went to help the infirmarer. I found her kind, sweet, and gentle. I thought so then, and I still do now. She truly believes in what she does.

“Our Rose was a beautiful child. We should never have kept her, we should have sent her away to a wetnurse and ensured that she was given a Christian upbringing in another convent, but neither of us could face sending her away like a pet for which we had no further use. So we kept her here, although we didn’t tell her who her parents were.”

“No, it took an especially vindictive woman to do that,” said Baldwin, recalling what Simon had told him of Rose’s words.

“Margherita,” Godfrey agreed. “The bitch has ice in her veins, I swear. Rose went bad from that moment. She wouldn’t listen to her mother, wouldn’t treat any of her duties seriously, simply ran riot. She thought that if her prioress could fail in her oaths, why should she even bother to try? I saw her sometimes, when I came here to help with the sick, and used to feel my heart break within me to see how she was tearing herself and her mother apart. And then she ran away – but not, thank God, too far away, and she still kept coming to see me. Jesus save me, but she offered herself to me once, in gratitude for listening to her, and when I refused, she wept on her knees at my feet, saying that at least I was honourable, and if only she could have copied my example instead of being a jade like her mother. Oh, God! Her words tore at me, showing me how I had sinned – and my penance was the worst of all, not even being able to confess to her that I was her father, for fear that she would turn against me as she had her mother, that she would run away, this time to become a whore in Exeter or London, somewhere where I couldn’t help or protect her.”

Baldwin averted his gaze while the cleric sniffed and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “I think, Godfrey, you are lucky to have been able to know your daughter while she grew.”

Godfrey looked up and met Baldwin’s eyes sadly.

“If only she could have known me!”

Hugh returned to his seat, but when he saw that Constance’s pot was empty, he poured another measure for her.

She accepted his ministrations with gratitude. The operation had been hideous, and Constance was not convinced of its efficacity. Merely removing the limb without seeing to the inner body’s humoural balance seemed wrong to her, and after seeing the bloody object lying on the floor, the shards of bone mingled with the sliced flesh, Constance could understand why people looked upon surgeons as no more than butchers.

“Drink it up and have some more,” Hugh suggested.