Physician's Tale

Chapter One In the time ofpestis secunda, Alejandro Canches knew too well the dread that came with a sharp knock, so he tapped gently on the door of William and Emily Cooper. Emily opened it, her eyes red and wet. She nodded gravely and tucked a stray strand of hair into her white cap. "I have sat with him all night," she said when she saw the physician on her doorstep. "He struggles, but he holds on. Come in, see for yourself." "His resistance is remarkable," Alejandro said as he entered. William Cooper had long since traversed the threshold over which one passes to reach the death stage of plague, but he was clinging ferociously to the last few bits of his life. The woman led him by candlelight to the bedside. The cooper's face was all Alejandro could see; everything else was covered. The sweat that his wife had so dutifully wiped away during the night had accumulated anew in her brief absence, and in the candlelight, the sheen of fever was visible on Cooper's forehead. The man's eyes were closed and did not open, even on hearing a voice. Alejandro covered his nose against the putrid plague smell and put his head to the man's chest. The heartbeat, though faint, was still surprisingly steady. He palpated the swellings in the man's neck and armpits with his fingers. Though he was gentle, Cooper moaned in pain. "Sorry," Alejandro whispered. "I did not mean to cause you pain." First do no harm, he reminded himself. The swellings were firm, but no more so than they had been upon his last examination two days prior. The dark blue coloration seemed virtually the same. "A fortnight," the physician said to Emily as he stepped back. "It is beyond my ken. You have done a fine job in caring for him." "It cannot be the result of my efforts," she said. "I do nothing more than wipe the sweat from his brow." Alejandro dipped his hands in the bowl of water that Emily had brought and dried them on the towel that hung over her forearm. It had become a practiced ritual between them over the course of William's illness, only this time she refrained from commenting on his obsession with hand-washing. "And there is nothing more thatcanbe done. It is in God's realm now." He did not add what seemed obvious to himthat Cooper's fate had belonged to God for some time. "That he has lived so long in this suspended state seems almost an aberration of nature." But years of rendering medicine had shown him many such oddities, and he had comeover timeto the conclusion that such aberrations might often be part of the divine scheme. He wondered what Guy de Chauliac might say to that notion and wished, for the thousandth time, for an opportunity to discuss it with his friend and mentor. As he went to leave, the woman took him by the arm and said, "My husband has said we ought to pay you." He had never asked her for money; he knew they had barely enough to get by. "No," he said, "I will not accept payment. I lack for nothing. But pleasetell me one thing. In all the time I have known you both, we have never spoken of why it is that your husband chose to bring you here to live among the Jews, when as Christians, all the rest of Avignon is available to you. I would know the reason." She hesitated briefly, as if judging his trustworthiness. Finally she said, "We had to leave our village, a place called Eyam, at the foot of the Peaks. It bordered on one of the king's favorite hunting reserves."Benson, Ann is the author of 'Physician's Tale', published 2006 under ISBN 9780385335058 and ISBN 0385335059.