Epic Historial Collection (187 page)

But he spoke at last. “All of them,” he said in a whisper. “All three. All dead.” He looked at Gwenda, and she saw tears come to his eyes.

She put her arms around him, and felt his big body shake with helpless sobs. She squeezed him tightly. “Poor Wulfric,” she said. “Poor, beloved Wulfric.”

“Thank God I've still got Annet,” he said.

 

An hour later, the bodies of the dead and wounded covered most of the floor of the nave. Blind Carlus, the subprior, stood in the middle of it all, with thin-faced Simeon, the treasurer, beside him to be his eyes. Carlus was in charge because Prior Anthony was missing. “Brother Theodoric, is that you?” he said, apparently recognizing the tread of the fair-skinned, blue-eyed monk who had just walked in. “Find the gravedigger. Tell him to get six strong men to help him. We're going to need at least a hundred new graves, and in this season we don't want to delay burial.”

“Right away, Brother,” said Theodoric.

Caris was impressed by how effectively Carlus could organize things despite his blindness.

Caris had left Merthin efficiently managing the rescue of bodies from the water. She had made sure the nuns and monks were alerted to the disaster, then she had found Matthew Barber and Mattie Wise. Finally she had checked on her own family.

Only Uncle Anthony and Griselda had been on the bridge at the time of the collapse. She had found her father at the guildhall with Buonaventura Caroli. Edmund had said: “They'll have to build a new bridge now!” Then he had gone limping down to the riverbank to help pull people out of the water. The others were safe: Aunt Petranilla had been at home, cooking; Caris's sister, Alice, had been with Elfric at the Bell Inn; her cousin Godwyn had been in the cathedral, checking on the repairs to the south side of the chancel.

Griselda had now gone home to rest. Anthony was still unaccounted for. Caris was not fond of her uncle, but she would not wish him dead, and she looked anxiously for him every time a new body was brought into the nave from the river.

Mother Cecilia and the nuns were washing wounds, applying honey as an antiseptic, affixing bandages, and giving out restorative cups of hot spiced ale. Matthew Barber, the briskly efficient battlefield surgeon, was working with a panting, overweight Mattie Wise, Mattie administering a calming medicine a few minutes before Matthew set the broken arms and legs.

Caris walked to the south transept. There, away from the noise, the bustle, and the blood in the nave, the senior physician-monks were clustered around the still-unconscious figure of the earl of Shiring. His wet clothes had been removed, and he had been covered with a heavy blanket. “He's alive,” said Brother Godwyn. “But his injury is very serious.” He pointed to the back of the head. “Part of his skull has shattered.”

Caris peered over Godwyn's shoulder. She could see the skull, like a broken pie crust, stained with blood. Through the gaps she could see gray matter underneath. Surely nothing could be done for such a dreadful injury?

Brother Joseph, the oldest of the physicians, felt the same. He rubbed his large nose and spoke through a mouth full of bad teeth. “We must bring the relics of the saint,” he said, slurring his sibilants like a drunk, as always. “They are his best hope for recovery.”

Caris had little faith in the power of the bones of a long-dead saint to heal a living man's broken head. She said nothing, of course: she knew she was peculiar in this respect, and she kept her views to herself most of the time.

The earl's sons, Lord William and Bishop Richard, stood looking on. William, with his tall, soldierly figure and black hair, was a younger version of the unconscious man on the table. Richard was fairer and rounder. Merthin's brother, Ralph, was with them. “I pulled the earl out of the water,” he said. It was the second time Caris had heard him say it.

“Yes, well done,” said William.

William's wife, Philippa, was as dissatisfied as Caris with Brother Joseph's pronouncement. “Isn't there something
you
can do to help the earl?” she said.

Godwyn replied: “Prayer is the most effective cure.”

The relics were kept in a locked compartment under the high altar. As soon as Godwyn and Joseph left to fetch them, Matthew Barber bent over the earl, peering at the head wound. “It will never heal like that,” he said. “Not even with the help of the saint.”

William said sharply: “What do you mean?” Caris thought he sounded just like his father.

“The skull is a bone like any other,” Matthew answered. “It can mend itself, but the pieces need to be in the right place. Otherwise it will grow back crooked.”

“Do you think you know better than the monks?”

“My lord, the monks know how to call upon the help of the spirit world. I only set broken bones.”

“And where did you get this knowledge?”

“I was surgeon with the king's armies for many years. I marched alongside your father, the earl, in the Scottish wars. I have seen broken heads before.”

“What would you do for my father now?”

Matthew was nervous under William's aggressive questioning, Caris felt; but he seemed sure of what he was saying. “I would take the pieces of broken bone out of the brain, clean them, and try to fit them together again.”

Caris gasped. She could hardly imagine such a bold operation. How did Matthew have the nerve to propose it? And what if it went wrong?

William said: “And he would recover?”

“I don't know,” Matthew replied. “Sometimes a head wound has strange effects, impairing a man's ability to walk, or speak. All I can do is mend his skull. If you want miracles, ask the saint.”

“So you can't promise success.”

“Only God is all-powerful. Men must do what they can and hope for the best. But I believe your father will die of this injury if it remains untreated.”

“But Joseph and Godwyn have read the books written by the ancient medical philosophers.”

“And I have seen wounded men die or recover on the battlefield. It's for you to decide whom to trust.”

William looked at his wife. Philippa said: “Let the barber do what he can, and ask Saint Adolphus to help him.”

William nodded. “All right,” he said to Matthew. “Go ahead.”

“I want the earl lying on a table,” Matthew said decisively. “Near the window, where a strong light will fall on his injury.”

William snapped his fingers at two novice monks. “Do whatever this man asks,” he ordered.

Matthew said: “All I need is a bowl of warm wine.”

The monks brought a trestle table from the hospital and set it up below the big window in the south transept. Two squires lifted Earl Roland on to the table.

“Facedown, please,” said Matthew.

They turned him over.

Matthew had a leather satchel containing the sharp tools from which barbers got their name. He first took out a small pair of scissors. He bent over the earl's head and began to cut away the hair around the wound. The earl had thick black hair that was naturally oily. Matthew snipped the locks and tossed them aside so that they landed on the floor. When he had clipped a circle around the wound, the damage was more clearly visible.

Brother Godwyn reappeared, carrying the reliquary, the carved ivory-and-gold box containing the skull of St. Adolphus and the bones of one arm and a hand. When he saw Matthew operating on Earl Roland, he said indignantly: “What is going on here?”

Matthew looked up. “If you would place the holy relics on the earl's back, as close as possible to his head, I believe the saint will steady my hands.”

Godwyn hesitated, clearly angry that a mere barber had taken charge.

Lord William said: “Do as he says, Brother, or the death of my father may be laid at your door.”

Still Godwyn did not obey. Instead he spoke to Blind Carlus, standing a few yards away. “Brother Carlus, I am ordered by Lord William to—”

“I heard what Lord William said,” Carlus interrupted. “You'd better do as he wishes.”

It was not the answer Godwyn had been hoping for. His face showed angry frustration. With evident distaste, he placed the sacred container on Earl Roland's broad back.

Matthew picked up a fine pair of forceps. With a delicate touch, he grasped the visible edge of a piece of bone and lifted it, without touching the gray matter beneath. Caris watched, entranced. The bone came right away from the head, with skin and hair attached. Matthew put it gently into the bowl of warm wine.

He did the same with two more small pieces of bone. The noise from the nave—the groans of the wounded and the sobs of the bereaved—seemed to recede into the background. The people watching Matthew stood silent and still in a circle around him and the unconscious earl.

Next, he worked on the shards that remained attached to the rest of the skull. In each case he snipped away the hair, washed the area carefully with a piece of linen dipped in wine, then used the forceps to press the bone gently into what he thought was its original position.

Caris could hardly breathe, the tension was so great. She had never admired anyone as much as she admired Matthew Barber at this moment. He had such courage, such skill, such confidence. And he was performing this inconceivably delicate operation on an earl! If it went wrong, they would probably hang him. Yet his hands were as steady as the hands of the angels carved in stone over the cathedral doorway.

Finally he replaced the three detached shards that he had put in the bowl of wine, fitting them together as if he were mending a broken jar.

He pulled the skin of the scalp across the wound and sewed it together with swift, precise stitches.

Now Roland's skull was complete.

“The earl must sleep for a day and a night,” he said. “If he wakes, give him a strong dose of Mattie Wise's sleeping draft. Then he must lie still for forty days and forty nights. If necessary, strap him down.”

Then he asked Mother Cecilia to bandage the head.

 

Godwyn left the cathedral and ran down to the riverbank, feeling frustrated and annoyed. There was no firm authority: Carlus was letting everyone do as they wished. Prior Anthony was weak, but he was better than Carlus. He had to be found.

Most of the bodies were out of the water now. Those who were merely bruised and shocked had walked away. Most of the dead and wounded had been carried to the cathedral. Those left were somehow entangled with the wreckage.

Godwyn was both excited and frightened by the thought that Anthony might be dead. He longed for a new regime at the priory: a stricter interpretation of Benedict's rule, along with meticulous management of the finances. But, at the same time, he knew that Anthony was his patron, and that under another prior he might not continue to be promoted.

Merthin had commandeered a boat. He and two other young men were out in midstream, where most of what had been the bridge was now floating in the water. Wearing only their underdrawers, the three were trying to lift a heavy beam in order to free someone. Merthin was small in stature, but the other two looked strong and well fed, and Godwyn guessed they were squires from the earl's entourage. Despite their evident fitness, they were finding it difficult to get leverage on the heavy timbers, standing as they were in the well of a small rowing boat.

Godwyn stood with a crowd of townspeople, watching, torn by fear and hope, as the two squires raised a heavy beam and Merthin pulled a body from beneath it. After a short examination, he called out: “Marguerite Jones—dead.”

Marguerite was an elderly woman of no account. Impatiently, Godwyn shouted out: “Can't you see Prior Anthony?”

A look passed between the men on the boat, and Godwyn realized he had been too peremptory. But Merthin called back: “I can see a monk's robe.”

“Then it's the prior!” Godwyn shouted. Anthony was the only monk still unaccounted for. “Can you tell how he is?”

Merthin leaned over the side of the boat. Apparently unable to get close enough from there, he eased himself into the water. Eventually he called out: “Still breathing.”

Godwyn felt both elated and disappointed. “Then get him out, quickly!” he shouted. “Please,” he added.

There was no acknowledgment of what he said, but he saw Merthin duck under a partly submerged plank, then relay instructions to the other two. They eased the beam they were holding to one side, letting it slip gently into the water, then they leaned over the prow of the little boat to get hold of the plank Merthin was under. Merthin seemed to be struggling to detach Anthony's clothing from a tangle of boards and splinters.

Godwyn watched, frustrated that he could do nothing to speed the process. He spoke to two of the bystanders. “Go to the priory and get two monks to bring a stretcher. Tell them Godwyn sent you.” The two men went up the steps and into the priory grounds.

At last Merthin managed to pull the unconscious figure from the wreckage. He drew him close, then the other two heaved the prior into the boat. Merthin scrambled in after, and they poled to the bank.