The Cole Trilogy: The Physician, Shaman, and Matters of Choice (93 page)

The lecture concerned fractures of the arm, forearm, and ribs, and dislocations of the jaw, shoulder, and elbow. Given by a short, round man named Tyler, it was the poorest kind of lesson, containing so many errors in method and fact that it would have sent Jalal the bonesetter into a rage. Rob sat and kept his silence.

As soon as the speaker was done, they turned their conversation to the witch’s drowning.

“Others will be caught, mark my word,” said Sargent, “for witches practice their foul art in groups. In examining folks’ bodies, we must seek to detect and report the devil’s spot.”

“We must take care to appear above reproach,” Dryfield said thoughtfully, “for many think physicians are close to witchcraft. I’ve heard it said that a physician-witch can cause patients to foam at the mouth and stiffen as though dead.”

Rob thought uneasily of the stable groom who had been taken by episthotonos, but no one accosted or accused him.

“How else is a male witch recognized?” Hunne asked.

“They appear much as any other men,” Dryfield said. “Though some say they cut their pricks like heathens.”

Rob’s own scrotum tightened with fear. As soon as possible he took his leave and knew he wouldn’t return, for it wasn’t safe to attend a place where life could be forfeit if a colleague should witness him passing water.

If his experience at the Lyceum had resulted only in disappointment and tarnished reputation, at least he had hope in his work, and rude health, he told himself.

But the following morning Thomas Hood, the red-haired snoop, appeared at the house on Thames Street with two armed companions.

“What can I do for you?” Rob asked coldly.

Hood smiled. “We are all three summoners for the Bishop’s Court.”

“Yes?” Rob asked, but he already knew.

It pleased Hood to hawk and spit onto the physician’s clean floor. “We are come to place you in arrest, Robert Jeremy Cole, and bring you to God’s justice,” he said.

77

THE GRAY MONK

“Where are you taking me?” he asked when they were on their way. “Court will be held on the South Porch at St. Paul’s.”

“What is the charge?”

Hood shrugged and shook his head.

When they arrived at St. Paul’s he was ushered into a small room filled with waiting folk. There were guards at the door.

He had a sense that he had lived through this experience before. In limbo all morning on a hard bench, listening to the gabble of a flock of men in religious habit, he might have been back in the realm of the Imam Qandrasseh, but this time he wasn’t there as physician to the court. He felt he was a sounder man than he had ever been, yet he knew that by churchly reckoning he was as guilty as anyone hailed to judgment that day.

But he was not a witch.

He thanked God that Mary and their sons weren’t with him. He wanted to request permission to go to the chapel to pray but knew it wouldn’t be granted, so he silently prayed where he was, asking God to keep him from being sewn into a sack with a cock, a snake, and a stone and cast into the deep.

He worried about the witnesses they might have summoned: whether they had called the physicians who had heard him tell of poking about within human bodies, or the woman that had watched him treat her husband who had stiffened and foamed at the mouth before dying. Or Hunne, the dirty bastard, who would invent any sort of lie to make him out a witch and be rid of him.

But he knew that if they had made up their minds, witnesses wouldn’t matter. They would strip him and see his circumcision as proof, and they would search his body until they decided they had found the witch’s spot.

Doubtless they had as many methods as the Imam for gaining a confession.

Dear God …

He had more than enough time for his fear to mount. It was early afternoon before he was called into the clerics’ presence. Seated on an oak throne was a squinting elderly bishop in faded brown wool alb, stole, and chasuble; from listening to others outside Rob knew he was Aelfsige, ordinary of St. Paul’s and a hard punisher. To the bishop’s right were two middle-aged priests in black, and to his left, a young Benedictine in severe dark gray.

A clerk produced Holy Writ, which Rob was bade to kiss and swear solemn oath that his testimony would be true. It began matter-of-factly.

Aelfsige peered at him. “What is your name?”

“Robert Jeremy Cole, Excellency.”

“Residence and occupation?”

“Physician of Thames Street.”

The bishop nodded to the priest on his right.

“Did you, on the twenty-fifth day of December last, join with a foreign Hebrew in unprovoked attack on Master Edgar Burstan and Master William Symesson, freeborn London Christians of the Parish of St. Olave?”

For a moment Rob was puzzled and then he felt tremendous relief as he realized they weren’t stalking him for sorcery. The sailors had reported him for coming to the aid of the Jew! A minor charge, even if he were to be convicted.

“A Norman Jew named David ben Aharon,” the bishop said, blinking rapidly. His vision appeared to be very bad.

“I have never before heard the Jew’s name nor those of the complainants. But the seamen have reported it untruly. It was they who had been unfairly ganging on the Jew. That was why I intervened.”

“Are you a Christian?”

“I am baptized.”

“You attend regular service?”

“No, Excellency.”

The bishop sniffed and nodded gravely. “Fetch the deponent,” he told the gray monk.

Rob’s sense of relief dissipated at once when he saw the witness.

Charles Bostock was richly clothed and wore a heavy gold neck chain and a large seal ring. During his identification he told the court he had been elevated to the rank of thane by King Harthacnut in reward for three voyages as a merchant-adventurer, and that he was an honorary canon of St. Peter’s. The churchmen treated him with deference.

“Now then, Master Bostock. Do you know this man?”

“He is Jesse ben Benjamin, a Jew and a physician,” Bostock said flatly.

The nearsighted eyes fixed on the merchant. “You are certain of the Jew portion?”

“Excellency, four or five years ago I was traveling the Byzantine Patriarchate, buying goods and serving as envoy from His Blessed Holiness in Rome. In the city of Ispahan I learned of a Christian woman who had been left alone and bereft in Persia by the death of her Scottish father, and had married a Jew. Upon receiving invitation, I could not resist going to her home to investigate the whisperings. There, to my dismay and disgust, I saw that the stories were true. She was wife to this man.”

The monk spoke for the first time. “You’re certain this is he, good thane, the same man?”

“I am sure, holy brother. He appeared some weeks ago on my wharf and tried to charge me dear for butchering up one of my thralls, for which of course I would not pay. When I saw his face I understood that I knew it from somewhere, and I studied on the matter until I recalled. He is the Jew physician of Ispahan, of that there is no doubt. A despoiler of Christian females. In Persia, the Christian woman already had one child by this Jew and he had bred her a second time.”

The bishop leaned forward. “On solemn oath, what
is
your name, master?”

“Robert Jeremy Cole.”

“The Jew lies,” Bostock said.

“Master merchant,” the monk said. “Was it only a single time that you saw him in Persia?”

“Yes, one occasion,” Bostock said grudgingly.

“And you did not see him again for almost five years?”

“Closer to four years than five. But that is true.”

“Yet you are certain?”

“Yes. I tell you, I have no doubt.”

The bishop nodded. “Very well, Thane Bostock. You have our thanks,” he said.

While the merchant was escorted away, the clerics looked at Rob and he struggled to remain calm.

“If you are a freeborn Christian, does it not seem strange,” the bishop said thinly, “that you are brought before us on two separate charges, and the one states that you aided a Jew and the other states that you are a Jew yourself?”

“I am Robert Jeremy Cole. I was baptized half a mile from here, in St. Botolph’s. The parish book will bear me out. My father was Nathanael, a journeyman joiner in the Corporation of Carpenters. He lies buried in St.
Botolph’s churchyard, as does my mother, Agnes, who in life was a seamstress and an embroiderer.”

The monk addressed him coldly. “Did you attend the church school at St. Botolph’s?”

“Two years only.”

“Who taught the Scriptures there?”

Rob closed his eyes and wrinkled his brow. “That was Father … Philibert. Yes, Father Philibert.”

The monk glanced inquiringly at the bishop, who shrugged and shook his head. “The name Philibert isn’t familiar.”

“Then Latin? Who taught you Latin?”

“Brother Hugolin.”

“Yes,” the bishop said. “Brother Hugolin taught Latin at the St. Botolph’s school. I recall him well. He has been dead these many years.” He pulled his nose and regarded Rob nearsightedly. Finally he sighed. “We shall check the parish book, of course.”

“You will find it as I have said, Excellency,” Rob told him.

“Well, I shall allow you to purge yourself by oath that you are the person you claim to be. You are instructed to appear again before this court in three weeks’ time. With you must come twelve free men as compurgators, each willing to swear that you are Robert Jeremy Cole, Christian and freeborn. Do you understand?”

He nodded and was dismissed.

Minutes later he stood outside St. Paul’s scarcely crediting that he was no longer exposed to their sharp and pecking words.

“Master Cole!” someone called, and he turned and saw the Benedictine hastening after him.

“Will you join me in the public house, master? I would like to speak with you.”

Now what? he thought.

But he followed the man across the muddy street and into the tavern, where they took a quiet corner. The monk said he was Brother Paulinus, and both of them ordered ale.

“I thought that in the end the proceedings went well for you.”

Rob said nothing, and his silence raised the monk’s eyebrows. “Come, an honest man can find twelve other honest men.”

“I
was
born in St. Botolph’s Parish. Which I left as a young boy,” Rob said gloomily, “to wander England as a barber-surgeon’s helper. I will have damn-all of a time finding twelve men, honest or otherwise, who remember me and will be willing to travel to London to say so.”

Brother Paulinus sipped his ale. “If you do not find all twelve, the issue is thrown into doubt. You will then be given an opportunity to prove your innocence by ordeal.”

The ale tasted of despair. “What are the ordeals?”

“The Church uses four ordeals—cold water, hot water, hot iron, and consecrated bread. I can tell you that Bishop Aelfsige favors hot iron. You will be given holy water to drink and holy water will be sprinkled on the hand to be used for the ordeal. Your choice of hand. You will pick a white-hot iron from the fire and carry it nine feet in three steps, then you will drop it and hasten to the altar, where the hand will be wrapped and sealed. In three days the wrapping will be removed. If your hand is white and pure within the wrapping, you will be declared innocent. If the hand is not clean, you will be excommunicated and given over to civil authority.”

Rob tried to conceal his emotions, but he had no doubt that his face had lost color.

“Unless your conscience is better than those of most men born of women, I think you must leave London,” Paulinus said drily.

“Why are you telling me these things? And why do you offer me advice?”

They studied one another. The man had a tight-curled beard and tonsure the light brown of old straw, eyes color of slate and just as hard … but secretive, the eyes of a man who lives within himself. A slash of righteous mouth. Rob was certain he had never seen this man before he had entered St. Paul’s that morning.

“I know you are Robert Jeremy Cole.”

“How do you know it?”

“Before I became Paulinus in the Community of Benedict I was named Cole. Almost certainly I am your brother.”

Rob accepted it at once. He had been ready to accept it for twenty-two years and now he felt a rising jubilation that was cut short by a quick and guilty caution, a sense of something amiss. He had started to rise, but the other man was still seated, watching him with an alert calculation that caused Rob to sit back into his chair.

He heard his own breathing.

“You are older than the baby, Roger, would be,” he said. “Samuel is dead. Did you know that?”

“Yes.”

“Therefore, you are … Jonathan or …”

“No, I was William.”

“William.”

The monk continued to watch him.

“After Da died you were taken by a priest named Lovell.”

“Father Ranald Lovell. He brought me to the Monastery of St. Benedict in Jarrow. He lived only four more years himself, and then it was decided I should become an oblate.”

Paulinus told his story sparely. “The abbot at Jarrow was Edmund, who was the loving guardian of my youth. He challenged and molded me, with the result that I was novice, monk, and provost, all at an early age. I was more than his strong right arm. He was
abbas et presbyter,
devoting himself wholly and continuously to reciting the
opus dei
and learning, teaching, and writing. I was the stern administrator, Edmund’s reeve. As provost I was not popular.” He smiled tightly. “When he died two years ago I was not elected to replace him, but the archbishop had been watching Jarrow and asked me to leave the community that had been my family. I am to take ordination and serve as auxiliary bishop of Worcester.”