The Riddle Of St Leonard's

Twenty-two

Bess’s day began earlier than usual, and so did Tom’s. She had wakened him to give him instructions regarding the maids, the cook and his assistant, and Simon the groom. ‘I depend on you to see that they complete their work today, Tom. I must go out.’

Tom rubbed the sleep from his eyes. ‘What do you mean to do — ask every woman in York if she lay with your uncle?’

What was wrong with him of late? ‘You will see, Tom Merchet. I am not the silly woman you think me.’

‘I was teasing, for pity’s sake. I did not mean it.’

‘You are not a man enjoys hearing himself chatter, Tom. You think Owen foolish for asking my help. But you will see. And you will have me to answer to if all is not as it should be when I return.’

‘I told you I was teasing, and I’ll not say it again.’

‘What has been said has been said.’

‘Had I known helping Owen would put you in such a mood, I’d have begged him to reconsider.’

As if he had any say in it. Men thought they ruled the world.

They broke their fast in silence. Bess then donned her second-best gown and one of her ribboned caps and set off to seek out Nell, a sometime laundress at the hospital. A woman might note much as she scrubbed other’s clothes and bedding. Nell had oft provided Bess with important insights into her neighbours.

As Bess hurried past the crier, he shouted good news: a day had passed without a plague death in the city. Praise be to God. Mayhap they were safe now. Bess pressed two pennies into the crier’s palm.

Nell lived off Lop Lane in a tiny wattle and daub house in the shadow of larger buildings that faced the street. Little light meant a scraggly kitchen garden, but it was imperiously guarded by a hen who eyed Bess with distrust and clucked her disapproval of the early morning caller. Bess found Nell round the corner of the house, preparing to lead her cow out of the rear gate.

‘Good morning, Nell. Off to the strays?’

Nell wore a much mended gown and a cap stained by the morning’s milking. The peaceful look on her round, freckled face quickly changed to worry. ‘Bess Merchet? What trouble brings you here so early in the day? I have had my share of trouble.’

‘What trouble?’

The laundress lifted a rough, chapped hand to her opposite shoulder, clutched it as if protecting herself. ‘My son’s baby died the day before yesterday. And now his daughter burns with fever.’

Sweet Heaven, that was a heavy sorrow. ‘The crier gives us hope, Nell. None died yesterday.’

‘I cannot see how that will save my grandchild.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘This pestilence is a curse on my house.’

Bess wished she had not spoken. Nell had every right to feel the pestilence as a personal curse. She had lost her husband to it in the last outbreak, now one grandchild — two most like. ‘Come. I shall walk with you to the strays.’ The fields where the cow grazed were just without the city walls. Bess could spare the time.

As they led the cow out into the quiet street, Nell gave a great sigh. ‘Not all are dying. In faith, far fewer than the last two times. But still my family is taken one by one.’ She blotted her eyes on her sleeve, took a deep breath. ‘Forgive me. I have never been one to complain. I do not wish to start now. You have not told me why you sought me betimes.’

‘You will have good ale tonight if you help me, Nell.’

The laundress glanced over the lumbering cow at Bess. ‘I am sorry about your uncle. Is it sommat to do with him? I have not been to spital in a month. I know naught of his death.’ She patted the cow and coaxed her to turn on to Petergate. ‘He was a good man, Master Taverner.’

‘Amorous, I am told.’

A twinkle in the tired eyes. ‘There was talk of that. I envied his women. But he did not fancy me.’

And no wonder. Nell was a lumbering woman in movement and wit, much like the beast they led. Though she was blessed with an unscarred, unmarred face and most of her teeth. ‘Did my uncle have a leman at the hospital?’ Bess asked.

‘There were rumours — one of the servants. Or a lay sister — and what are they but servants who do not know their place?’ Nell sniffed.

So they were impatient with Nell. Bess might be, too, if forced to work alongside her.

‘But most of the gossip was of someone without,’ Nell added.

‘Who?’

‘Some said Felice Mawdeleyn. But I could not swear to it.’

Well. Her uncle had had an eye for a pretty face, that was for certain. ‘Sly Felice. How did she keep such straying from Will?’

‘They do say Will Mawdeleyn lost more than his leg when that horse came down on him.’

‘Do they now? Who might know for certain about my uncle’s women?’

‘Barker the gatekeeper.’

‘You are a good woman, Nell. Come to the tavern when you will. I shall see you feast well.’

They had reached the grassy strays. Here no trees or buildings hid them from the sun. Bess could feel its warmth. It was easy to forget the pestilence on such a day.

Nell nodded to Bess. ‘You are kind. I have told you naught you could not hear from another.’

‘I trust you, Nell. You are no idle gossip.’

‘Never idle.’ Nell turned and slowly led her cow towards the river, where the grass was high.

In Spen Lane, near St Andrew’s Church, Brother Wulfstan noticed a red cross on a house that was one of the abbey’s properties in the city. He had thought the house vacant. But that meant nothing; many abandoned houses in the city were at present home to those escaping the ill in their own households, and sometimes it was the sick who were shoved through loose shutters and left to die, the shelter considered a kindness.

After a long night watching at the bedside of a dying child whose mother was too terrified to comfort her, Brother Wulfstan’s head and bones ached, his eyes burned, his tongue was woolly, and he yearned to sit on a bench in the shade of his garden sipping watered wine freshened with mint leaves. But if there was a body within he must say prayers over it and arrange for its removal. With Gog and Magog abroad in the land, he could not desert the needy. How much worse must it have been in the first visitation, when half the city’s inhabitants had died? Half his brothers had died also, but they had been cared for in their suffering, no one had been sent away.

Wulfstan took a deep breath of what little fresh air there was in the street, preparing himself for the stench of the plague dead. Holding a sack of herbs to his nose, he pushed open the door.

Light filtered weakly through shutters at the rear of the main room. Dust danced in the light. A rat ran over the monk’s foot and escaped out into the street. Wulfstan blinked as his weak eyes adjusted, took his scented bag from his nose, sniffed. He coughed violently as the stench hit him. Dead or dying. But there was no one in the main room. He opened a shutter better to see the room. A ladder led to a solar or loft. The thought of climbing it made him ache all the more. But he must. He opened another shutter to let in some air. It hung crookedly and banged against the wall.

‘Who is there?’ someone called weakly from above.

‘God go with you,’ said Wulfstan. ‘I am the infirmarian of St Mary’s, come to help you. I saw the cross on the door.’

‘Leave me. I am better dead.’

‘Do you have water up there?’

A brittle laugh. ‘Neighbours do not bring gifts when the red cross is on the door.’

Pressing his aching lower back, Wulfstan let himself out by the back door. Across the rear yard he explored the kitchen. A lidless jug half filled with water smelled musky. Best not to chance it. Beneath the table he discovered a bottle of wine. It was turning, but it would be useful for mixing a salve if he should need to. He put the bottle in his pack. Returning to the house, he climbed the ladder, slowly, gagging on the stench which grew stronger with each step.

‘I am a sinner, Father.’ The man’s voice was hoarse from fever and thirst.

Wulfstan had made it to the top of the ladder and was too short of breath to reply. He put the herbs to his nose, clutched his side and waited until the room stopped spinning, then walked round the screen which shielded the sick man from view.

The room in which he lay was large, with shuttered windows facing away from the street. The man was naked, curled up on a filthy pile of straw. A mouse sniffed at his clothes, which had been thrown over a stool. Wulfstan shooed the mouse away. The stench of plague mingled with urine and sweat. Wulfstan approached the pallet. ‘Was it for you they put the cross on the door?’

‘No. I took it as a sign I would not be disturbed.’

‘And then you fell ill?’

The man lifted his arm, revealing an oozing boil the size of an egg. ‘One has burst.’

And thus the intensity of the smell. ‘Praise God. It is a good sign, my son.’

The man curled up, facing away. ‘I do not need lies.’

‘It is no lie. Some whose boils burst live.’

The man turned his head. There was a flicker of interest in his wet, red eyes. ‘You speak true?’

‘I have no reason to speak otherwise.’ Wulfstan felt the man’s forehead. A fever, but not so high as to be dangerous. ‘It was painful when it burst?’

‘More painful before.’

‘How long ago?’

‘Dawn.’

The sickness might already be abating. Wulfstan noticed a boil in the man’s groin, almost as large as the one under his arm. ‘Your other arm?’

The man lifted it, revealing a small black knob.

‘Could you bear my lancing the burst one? And the others?’

The man closed his eyes. ‘Will it save me?’

‘If God wishes.’

‘And if He does not?’

‘It sometimes hastens the end.’

A deep breath. ‘Do it.’

Wulfstan noticed another blemish on the man. On one arm a red-lipped wound oozed puss and was hot to the touch. ‘How did this happen?’

‘A bitch bit me here. And there.’ He lifted his leg to display a scabbed thigh wound.

Wulfstan touched it, gently pressed it. ‘They do not look like bites.’

‘Forgive me, Father.’

Wulfstan glanced up. The man watched him with the eyes of a frightened beast. Wulfstan remembered him now. ‘Both wounds would have closed had you returned with me to St Mary’s. Why did you take the bag and not the man with skill to use the medicines?’

‘You will leave me now.’

‘No. It does not matter.’ Wulfstan opened his pack, handed the man a small leather flask of brandywine. ‘What is your name?’

‘Why?’

‘I must call you something.’

‘John.’

Wulfstan did not believe the man’s name was John, but it did not matter. ‘There is not much left, John, but drink what there is.’ While the man drank, Wulfstan knelt and prayed God to give him strength, a steady hand, and clear vision. And if it was not John’s time, that he might live and repent.

‘I left your things in a safe place.’

Wulfstan nodded as he knelt awkwardly on his aching knees, drew his knife from its leather scabbard. ‘Be as still as you can bear, my son. There will be pain, but the more you move, the worse it will be.’

First he probed the burst boil. John cried out. Wulfstan sat back on his heels, watched as the putrid blood flowed faster. He wiped the sticky poison from his hands with a cloth. In a small dish he mixed powder of hemlock with a few drops of wine, stirred it, poured more wine. With the edge of a square of cloth he applied the salve to the boil. ‘To ease the pain.’ He then folded the cloth into a thick compress. ‘Hold this over it with your other hand.’ The man’s breath was uneven. Wulfstan prayed God he was not killing him. He would like to see one man survive after watching so many die. ‘Are you ready for the other arm?’

A silent nod.

Wulfstan said a prayer, leaned back and squinted, drew the knife across the boil. Nothing. He had not pressed hard enough. Sweat blinded him. He wiped his eyes, said another prayer, tried again. As the blade sank into the skin, black poison shot out and John cried out in pain. Wulfstan hurried to the window and gulped the air. The rooftops swam before him and he clung to the windowsill as his legs threatened to fold beneath him. He was too tired. He should have gone back to the abbey. But if he saved the man …

John moaned.

Wulfstan turned, steadied himself, and keeping one hand on the wall crossed back to him. ‘Forgive me, my son.’

‘I can bear it,’ John whispered.

‘I shall lance the one below and let it drain while I mix the salve. Are you ready?’ Wulfstan wiped his hands, dried the sweat on his brow, knelt to the last boil. It lanced with ease. Now the dirty straw on which John lay was saturated with the poison. It would be good to move the man, but where to? And how, with Wulfstan’s head spinning and his legs so unsteady?

His hands shook as he mixed the salve, smoothed it on the boils. ‘I must leave you now. I will be back. Or one of my brothers.’

‘You will not say the prayers over me and shrive me?’

‘I must rest. I promise you someone will come.’

‘You never meant to save me.’

‘God help me, John. I am ill.’

The man turned away from him.

Wulfstan managed to make his way to the ladder. As he descended, he could not grasp the ladder tight enough with the bag in his hand. He let it drop to the floor. The loss of the burden helped, but his knees threatened to buckle on each rung. By the time Wulfstan had struggled down, he had forgotten the bag. He pushed open the front door, took a step backward. The bright sunlight burned his eyes and made them water so badly he could not see. He withdrew, finding the dark interior comforting. He settled down against the wall. A nap might strengthen him.