The Mer- Lion (5 page)

Deeper the lancet probed, and the blood spurted. Undismayed, Boorde took up his white-hot cauters and slapped them on the wound. The smell of cooking flesh added to the nightmarish quality of the scene. Boorde, Seamus admitted, seemed to know well his business and didn't waste a moment. Other than the whistling, he made no sound until the flesh had been cut through all around and scraped from the bone. With the bone bared, Boorde took up his monologue where he'd left off, this time rhythmically punctuating his comments with a rasping stroke of his saw.

"Exercise is good
...

"in moderation
...

"do some labor...

"or play at the tennis
...

"or cast a bowl
...

"or poise weights
...

"or plummet lead in your hands
...

"or do some other thing
...

"to open your pores
...

"and to augment natural heat."

The bone was almost severed, and Boorde's forehead was beaded with the sweat of his exertion.

Seamus's shirt was sweat-soaked, too, but from tension. The sounds of the saw traveled to the bottom of his feet and back up his spine and set his teeth on edge. The others in the room seemed not the least unnerved.

Suddenly, arm and elbow separated. Ignored, the arm fell to the floor as all grabbed for the stump which, released of its anchor, flopped wildly about, strewing blood in a shower of gore upon all those grouped around the earl's improvised bed.

"Here, friend Seamus," Boorde said in good humor, "give me a hand with his lackahand." The doctor seemed pleased with his joke as he handed Seamus the large tongs, the curve of which fitted tightly around the wriggling earl's bicep. "Hold it steady now while I coat it with burnt lead."

Slowly he began to pour the rose-scented molten lead from its crucible. As the first drop dribbled onto the living flesh, the earl's body galvanized in one violent convulsion, then ceased moving. Whether he had fainted or died, Seamus couldn't tell, nor could he spare a glance at the moment. The hot lead on the moist flesh sent up a cloud of blinding steam. Eyes closed, holding his breath against the stink, Seamus steadied the tongs to hold the foreshortened arm upright lest the molten metal find its way onto other flesh.

Once the stump was coated to the physician's satisfaction, he put the crucible aside and declared the operation a success. "Of course," he admitted, cheerfully scraping moist bone chips from the blade of his saw with thumb and forefinger, "the patient probably will not live. However, occasionally one of mine does. Now, while we wait for the metal to cool before I bandage the stump, how might I be of further service to you?"

Andrew, first gentleman of the bedchamber, complained of a toothache. For him Boorde recommended, "purges and gargles if the ache is due to a descending humor. Chewing horehound root is the French remedy. But if the ache be due to worms, men impregnate a candle with henbane seeds. Sit you with the mouth open to allow the perfumery entrance. This will stupefy the worms and they will fall into the basin of water you place in your lap. Then catch them and kill them on your nail."

Almost as an afterthought, Boorde warned, "Beware of giving over a tooth to be drawn out by the Pelican or the Davier. Pull one and pull out more, I always say."

For another's insomnia, Boorde's advice was in keeping with his whole mien: "To bedward go merry. Let not anger nor heaviness, sorrow nor pensivefulness, trouble nor worry disquiet you. Be sure the windows of the house, specially of your chamber, be closed. When you be in your bed, lie a little while on your left side, but .sleep on your right side, that troubles the heart less."

As he went about handing out advice, Boorde was also quietly packing up his sack. At last, jabbing within the mouth of the comatose man with his forefinger, he deftly plopped the gag out into his other hand. As he did so, the earl moaned, and Seamus held his breath, silently praying the man would not awaken yet. With his free hand Boorde tested the heat from the wound. "Not yet time to bandage the wound." Tossing the gag into his sack, he laughed impishly. "Are you Scots less than other men? No one has asked about white leprosy. Do you men not use too much Venus acts or are you somehow immune? In France, many a physician makes his living treating these sad victims of love." The gentlemen of the bedchamber demurred for themselves but did have a friend in need of such a cure and so pressed the good doctor on.

"There are at least three cures, my friends: finely powder a root of gentian and mix it with its own juice and white vinegar in a poultice. Have you no gentian, use madder root but add a dram of sugar. Apply freely. However, many swear that the best remedy of all is the simplest: take a scarlet cloth and rub yourself well with it.

Then take a handful of mandragora leaves and do the same. Twice a day do this until the skin grows back pink and whole. But rub not too hard lest you get yourself in a different humor, for especially now should you avoid the usage of a harlot or whore."

Spitting on his forefinger, he tested the lead on the wound and announced it cool enough. As he bandaged, he continued his dissertation. "Avoid you harlots, they are unclean. Do not think you can tell from their smell whether they be in good health or not, for I will tell you the harlot's secret. She does stand over a chafing dish of coals, like my crucible there, and into it she puts brimstone and, using her skirts as a tent, perfumes herself. Later she smells clean, but she is not. If you do meddle with such a woman and then meddle with another, you shall burn not just yourself but the other as well. You, if so burnt, best wash your secrets two or three times with white wine and seek out a surgeon. If this goes untreated, the guts will burn and fall out of the belly."

As Boorde was speaking, John Nairn turned pale and suddenly clutched himself protectively. "Physician, is there no other cure?" he choked.

Boorde adjusted the final bandage on the earl's stump slowly and meticulously. Then, as if in deep thought, he answered, "I have heard of such a one. It's an anointment that sometimes has the desired results. But, alas, it is most complicated to make."

When he did not continue, Nairn pressed him on. "Good doctor, for a man in such extremity, no cure is too difficult to undertake. And my friend would be most eager to show his generosity for your trouble."

Boorde considered a moment and then nodded agreeably. "Well, then, for your friend. Take boar's grease and powdered brimstone—"

"Good doctor, go slow," Nairn interrupted, counting the first two items out on his fingers to commit them to memory.

"Powdered brimstone," said Boorde, "and the inside bark from a vine that grows in a churchyard. Add the greenish deposit scraped from a copper pot. Or if you have not copper, use brass or bronze. Then you must get five ounces of quicksilver
...
and another of fasting spit, but not all need come from the same man. Two or three of your—I mean his—fellows may contribute theirs too. Beat this together and apply to the sores."

Nairn would have left the room then and there to begin gathering the ingredients together, but Boorde called him back. "Now, this is a cure, as I say, for the pocky person who has taken his case from lechery. But, it is of no avail if the cause of the case is sodomy. The' cure for that, young man, is truly extreme," and Boorde heartily clapped the young man on the shoulder. "A cure simple yet dire." He paused for effect. "Marriage."

The men all laughed, except for Seamus, who having kept his silence so far had had enough of this talk of sin, cures and ills. He wanted the earl back in his bed, the countess at his bedside. "Be you gossips finished?"

Boorde took the hint. "Yes, yes, friend Seamus, by all means we are through. Get your master back in his bed, and one of you summon your mistress." While the men followed his bidding, Boorde retrieved the now-lifeless forearm and hand from the pool of blood under the table.

Taking Seamus aside, he asked in a low voice, "Friend Seamus, do you think the duchess would give me this arm, seeing that the earl will not need it?" Seamus, shocked, didn't reply. Thoughtfully, Boorde manipulated the fingers one by one. "It's a good hand, a strong one, one that has probably served its owner well in life."

Seamus reached for the limb, but Boorde did not release it. "Nay, good Seamus, it's not what you think. I would not make this into a curiosity for the prying to see. I would have it to use to teach my students how their limbs work. I know the law forbids operating on the dead, but surely an arm freely given would not cause the authorities alarm." Seamus only stood there looking down at the grisly bloody remnant of the earl that he and the red-robed doctor clutched fast between them. Boorde with a sigh reluctantly released his grip. "You shall have it, my hand On it." Again the play on words pleased him and restored his good humor. He made Seamus just the slightest of bows and then returned to the bedside of his patient. Holding the arm at his arm's length, Seamus walked to the nearest chest, pulled out a cloth—a bright red one, he remembered later—and swaddled the bloody thing.

Just as he finished, the duchess appeared with a small ewer of salve clutched to her bosom like a magic talisman. Immediately, the doctor was again workmanlike, launching into the treatment of the patient. "The metal coating will fall off, lady, but do not worry. Wash the wound daily with vinegar or wine if you have it; sack is
very good, too. Then apply the salve                          "

- Seamus, his bundle in hand, stealthily edged his way toward the door as the physician continued. "He should awake soon. Dose him with opium. Within a day or two his wits may return. Fear not if he tells you his hand itches or suffers pins and needles. 'Tis a trick the 'Natural Spirit' plays on the body as it attempts to rejuvenate that which can't grow back."

The Lady Islean seemed not to hear. Her face had gone white as the featherbed; her eyes fixed on the smooth sheet that should have bulged from the presence of a lower right arm beneath. Seamus, grasping the clumsy bundle behind him, thought he'd never reach the door, then suddenly was through it.

On his way to the stair, he could hear the physician's hearty, healthy, almost happy voice follow: "Lady, if his wits do not return within the week, purge his head with a sternutation. White hellebore, if you can obtain it. Otherwise, simple pepper blown into the nostrils will effect a good sneeze. Do that daily until
..."

Seamus raced down the stairs and into the great hall where he found the servers preparing for dinner. He slowed his pace, lest he draw untoward attention, but moved on with purpose and without pausing to be questioned in depth.

Once outside the hall, he paused, his shirt soaked with sweat. Taking a deep breath, Seamus for the first time faced the consequences of his action. Rescuing the arm had been instinctive, an impulse. Now what to do with it?

In desperation, he turned, like the good Catholic he was, to the Church. Since he accepted the Church's tenet that parts of the body were hallowed having partaken of the Sacraments along with the whole, what better caretaker was there for such a part? Let Father Cariolinus take the problem of the disembodied arm on his prayer-stooped shoulders.

Such was his feeling of relief that, almost jauntily, he tucked his lord's arm under his like a parcel of dead fish from the market. In the small antechamber off the chapel he found his priest. But not alone. The priest, the priest-physician and the priest-assistant had evidently continued the discussion that had begun in the solarium up above. Now, fueled by a goodly draught of the earl's piment, a sour, thin wine sweetened with honey, they waxed philosophical. Seamus, debating what to do, stood at the door, unseen and unheeded, and listened as the unsavory duo pompously lectured the older, holier family priest. Seamus, once he caught the drift, grew ever more disgusted.

What the priest-physician expounded, his barber-assistant, in a helpful echo, explained.

"Hippocratemus," began the physician priest... "A learned man that, even if a Greek," confided the barber. "Discovered the immortal nature of man's complexion centuries ago." .    "Better than a whole hundred years that was from our present time," came the envying murmur. "There are four elements one should know," "Fire, air, earth, and water, they are." "and these four elements have attributes
..."

"Heat, cold, dryness, and moisture," mouthed the barber, "which fix the complexion."

An upraised hand stopped the barber's explanation before he could begin. The priest-physician leaned forward and looked the chaplain deep in the eye. "We in the Church who know our medicine—and that, my friend, after tonight shall include you—we no longer say complexion. We call it temperament." Leaning back, self-satisfied that he had made his point, he nodded to his assistant as if to say, now we go on, but Seamus had had enough. He knew not whether the doctor upstairs or the priest and barber downstairs were equally learned men or all quacks, or one the former, the others the latter. He didn't know and simply didn't care. He was sick up to his chin with all this medical talk. He wanted rid of the earl's arm, which minute by minute seemed to grow heavier, he could almost hear its blood pouring out.

Interrupting the threesome, he tried to keep his voice pleasant: "Ah, here you are. I've been looking the manor over for you. The Lady Islean wishes to do more than merely thank you, priest. She would have you and your assistant see the earl's Lord Controller, who is just without, in conference with the butler in the great hall. You are to telf the Lord Controller that the Lady Islean wishes you be paid"— he paused and mentally halved what he thought the countess would have wanted, figuring that between the chapel and the hall, somehow the amount would double—"twenty silver pennies for your labors. Of course, there is no hurry. If he be gone, I shall personally bring you those twenty pennies." The partners exchanged looks as if to say, better the controller. Avarice conquering their need to impress, these two exponents of modern medicine hastily took their leave.