Кэндис Робб - The Apothecary Rose

Wulfstan hastened to the fire.

Apparently the pilgrim woke, for Wulfstan heard him cry out, then Nicholas’s voice murmuring some comfort. The sick man cried out again. Wulfstan was not surprised. The gentle knight burned with fever. Delirium was to be expected.

He tested the water, impatient for it to boil. The pilgrim sobbed. At last the water boiled. Wulfstan measured with care, said a prayer over it, stirred well, and hurried with it to the sickbed.

To his surprise, Nicholas was gone. He had left the pilgrim alone. “How odd to leave without a word,” Wulfstan muttered.

“Murderer,” the pilgrim hissed. “Poisoner.” His face was red and slick with sweat.

“Calm yourself, my friend,” Wulfstan said. “This emotion does you no good.”

The pilgrim’s breathing was tortured. He thrashed from side to side, his eyes wild.

Wulfstan did all he could do to calm him, whispering reassurances. “Fever visions, my friend. Visitations of Lucifer to break your will. Pay them no heed.”

At last the man’s eyes cleared. “He was a nightmare?”

“Yes, yes. There are no murderers here.” That was true enough. Wulfstan held the cup up to the man’s pale lips. “Now drink this down. Rest is what you need. A healing slumber.”

The watery, frightened eyes moved to the cup, then back to Wulfstan. “You prepared it?”

“With my own hands, my friend. Now drink.”

He did so. “Then he is dead. I did kill him,” he whispered. The dreadful thought seemed to calm him. Soon, warm and drowsy, the pilgrim drifted into sleep. But shortly after Compline he began to moan, then woke in a sweat, complaining of pains in his arms and legs. Perhaps Wulfstan had been wrong to call it camp fever. But his friend had not exhibited these symptoms before. Wulfstan tried to soothe his limbs with cloths soaked in witch hazel, but the pain persisted.

He summoned Henry. Together they prepared poultices and wrapped the pilgrim’s limbs. Nothing helped. Wulfstan was at his wits’ end. He had done his best. No one could fault his efforts. The Lord knew how deeply he felt the pilgrim’s suffering. He considered sending for Master Saurian, the physician who tended the monks when they were ill, but he had been little help when the pilgrim fell ill, and it was late, and Wulfstan feared Saurian would simply say God’s will be done. Of course God’s will be done. Wulfstan did not have to drag Saurian out in the middle of the night to be told that. But God’s will was not always clear to man.

The pilgrim’s breathing became labored. He gasped for air. Henry brought pillows to prop up the sick man’s head and help him breathe.

It was a long night. The wind found every chink in the infirmary, and moaned at the door. The hearth smoked and made the Infirmarian’s already teary eyes burn. Once, when Wulfstan bent over the pilgrim to blot his brow, the man grabbed his habit and pulled him close, whispering, “He has poisoned me. I did not kill him. I did not avenge her.” Then he sank back on the pallet in a swoon.

“It is the fever that burns within you, my friend,” Wulfstan said aloud, in case the pilgrim could hear and be comforted. “You would be worse without the medicine.” The man did not stir.

How unfortunate that the pilgrim mistook for a murderer the man who had come to save him. A murderer the pilgrim thought he’d killed. Was that why he had been so certain Nicholas Wilton was dead? He had tried to kill him? Gentle Mary and all the saints, no wonder Nicholas took alarm. But as Wulfstan kept watch over the suffering pilgrim, he convinced himself that it was all fever dreams. He could not imagine the gentle pilgrim attacking Nicholas Wilton.

Wulfstan watched in the smoky darkness. His heart sank as the pilgrim’s faint stretched on and on. His breathing was shallow, with now and then an explosive gasp, as if he could not get enough air. Wulfstan propped him up higher and prayed. Henry returned from Lauds and knelt with him.

But for all their care, the pilgrim’s shallow breathing ceased at dawn.

Heartsick, Wulfstan retired to the chapel to pray for his friend’s soul.

Henry came to Wulfstan as he nodded over his prayers. Archdeacon Anselm’s Summoner, Potter Digby, wished to speak with him.

Wulfstan could not imagine what Digby might want with him. It was a Summoner’s dreadful duty to investigate rumors of sinners who’d broken diocesan law, and to summon those he judged guilty to the Archbishop’s consistory court to be fined. For this he earned a commission. And for this Digby was disliked among the townspeople, who knew he waited to catch them in marital infidelities, marriage being a sacrament and infidelities his most lucrative charges. The lay clergy seldom had much money to pay for their sins. Many said it was the Summoner’s unholy diligence that kept the stonemasons and glaziers busy on the cathedral. Wulfstan thought it a pity that the beautiful minster should be linked to such greed. In truth, he disliked Potter Digby with a sinful energy. As Wulfstan followed Henry to the cloister, he wondered what unpleasantness brought the man to him.

Potter Digby, it turned out, was on private business. He’d found Nicholas Wilton in a faint near the abbey gate the night before and hailed a passing cart to carry him home. Wilton was in such a state he did not recognize his own wife. Digby thought Mistress Wilton would appreciate Brother Wulfstan’s presence.

“Nicholas? How strange.” Wulfstan thought back on Nicholas’s abrupt departure. “He did behave oddly last night. But you must forgive me. I have been up all night. I lost a patient and friend. I cannot come. I would be no good to them.”

“Wilton is bad. His wife is frightened.” Digby shrugged. “But perhaps Master Saurian–”

“Saurian? He’ll be no comfort to Mistress Wilton.” Wulfstan wavered. Though trembling with fatigue and a long fast, he could not abandon gentle Lucie Wilton to the cold Master Saurian.

“Then whom do you suggest, Brother Wulfstan?”

The Infirmarian shrugged. “I will ask my Abbot’s permission.”

Once more Wulfstan braved the snow, his old bones chilled and aching. It did not matter. He could not leave Lucie Wilton alone at such a time.

He need not have worried. Bess Merchet, proprietress of the York Tavern, next door to Wilton’s apothecary, met him at the kitchen door. Wulfstan was pleased to see her competent bulk in the doorway. She was a sensible woman, regardless of the brandywine on her breath, and a good friend to Lucie.

“She’ll be that pleased to see you, Brother Wulfstan.” Bess hustled him in and set a cup of something hot in his hands. “Drink that up and catch your breath. I’ll see how things stand up above.” She disappeared up the stairs.

Wulfstan sniffed at the mixture of brandywine and herbs, then decided it would do him a world of good. It soon settled his heart back in its caging and dulled the pain of loss.

Upstairs, one look at Nicholas told Wulfstan that he might soon suffer the loss of another friend. “Merciful Mother, what has happened to you?” Wulfstan knelt beside Nicholas’s bed, taking the man’s hands, which lay limp upon the covers, and trying to rub warmth into them. Nicholas stared ahead, moving his lips but making no sound.

“He has been like this all night.” Lucie sat on the other side of the bed, dabbing at her husband’s tears. Shadows beneath her eyes bespoke a night as terrible as Wulfstan’s. “He left here yesterday afternoon as you saw him, clear-witted and healthy enough to work in the garden, cold as it was, and returned crippled and bereft of speech, tormented by some horror I cannot know and so cannot comfort him.” She bit her lip. There was no time for tears.

Wulfstan’s heart overflowed with pity for her. He knew his own pain over the pilgrim. How much greater must hers be, seeing her husband like this. He must find a way to help. He tucked Nicholas’s hands under the covers and drew Lucie away from the sickbed. “Tell me everything you can.”