Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims (37 page)

Beyond the abbey walls they find a stationer selling a poor selection of books, some of them unbound. These are of little interest to Thomas, but Katherine likes them.

‘It is as if their author will return at any moment to take up his reed and continue the conversation,’ she says.

Not all the books are religious tracts.

‘What is that one there?’ she asks, pointing. It is a series of folded sheets, roughly hacked at the edges, bound with strips of cloth the colour of shoe soles. Thomas unties the cords and opens it, watched by the stationer. It smells of must.

‘Saints,’ Katherine says.

On the very first spread of pages is a startling picture of a man in robes with his finger inserted in another man’s anus.

‘It’s a treatise on fistulae,’ Thomas reads aloud. ‘By a man named John Arderne. He is a barber surgeon of London, it says.’

They study the picture. There are more besides, each as peculiar and gruesome as the first. Thomas flushes.

‘So a fistula can be cured?’ she asks.

‘I think so,’ Thomas says, reading on a little. ‘Though I should not like to see it done.’

Katherine takes the parchment from him. Over her shoulder he sees there are many illustrations, including one of an owl. A shadow of doubt crosses his mind. Whoever has drawn the bird has obviously never seen one in real life, and has drawn a duck with claws and a pointed beak. Elsewhere are pictures of plants that might be used in cures and a picture of a zodiac man, suggesting propitious times to cut into particular parts of the body, and a wounded man, too, showing the sorts of injuries that might occur in war.

‘I wonder if Fournier has seen this?’ Katherine asks. ‘When was it written?’

‘It says in the year of our Lord 1376.’

‘Nearly a hundred years ago. Even Fournier must have had time to hear of it, then. We should buy it. How much is it?’

The stationer names his price and without demur Thomas reaches for his purse. Katherine beats the man down to half. As Thomas pays the stationer, the old man hands her the parcel.

‘You bargain like a Jew,’ he says with a smile. ‘Or a woman.’

She says nothing, but takes the parcel and turns.

‘Thank you, Thomas,’ she says as they walk through the abbey yard.

Thomas is struck with an idea.

‘Perhaps, though, we might use it to start your lessons in reading?’ he asks.

‘Lessons in reading?’

‘Yes, why not?’

‘It would help pass the time, I suppose.’

So they sit against a wall, shoulder to shoulder, and he begins to coach her in the art of letters.

‘“A tretis extracte of Maistre Iohn Arden of fistula in ano,”’ he reads aloud, his finger following the line, ‘“and of fistula in other places of the body and of apostemes makyng fistules and of emoraides & tenasmon and of clisteres: of certayn oyntementes, poudres and oils.”’

They look at one another.

‘A difficult text to start with,’ he admits, ‘but it is what we have, so—’

By the end of the second week Katherine is beginning to read, with her finger under each letter of each word, but in the process she has acquired an intellectual grasp not only of the process of John Arderne’s operation for the removal or cure of fistulae, but also his various salves and ointments that make use of hedgerow plants such as hemlock and henbane, and his various theories about cleanliness in the surgery.

For all that time Sir John waits patiently, unsuccessfully, for an audience with the Duke, but it is as Katherine is finishing reading Arderne’s pages for the second time, beginning to enjoy his lively turn of phrase and his light-hearted boasting, that the lords finally reach their decision in the matter of the Duke of York and his claim to the throne of England, France and Ireland.

Over the weeks the question has been passed to and fro between the justices, the serjeants-at-law and the royal attorneys. They are serious men in black fur-lined coats and each has taken his turn to wash his hands of the problem. It is for the lords to determine, they say, and so in the absence of a clear answer, the lords opt for a compromise that serves all in part and none in whole. The King will remain the king, they say, but the Duke of York now becomes his heir.

‘But the Duke is ten years older than the King,’ Sir John says. ‘He is sure to die first. Why ever would he agree?’

‘And why would the King agree to disinherit his own son?’ Richard asks.

‘If indeed he is his own son,’ Sir John counters.

A rumour has been circulating in the Palace Yard that the Queen’s son is not the King’s son, and that the boy was begotten while the King was indisposed. The rumour, swapped once, twice, three times, hardens into fact. The Queen’s son is
not
the King’s son. Some even say the Duke of Somerset is the real father. Only Katherine asks how the Queen might react to hear of her son disinherited and called a bastard.

‘She will not be best pleased,’ Sir John admits.

‘So this settlement has solved nothing?’ Katherine says.

There is a long pause.

‘No.’

‘So the Queen will come south with her army again?’ she continues.

Again there is a pause.

Finally:

‘Probably.’

THOMAS AND KATHERINE
follow Sir John and Richard out through Bishopsgate the next morning and they are not alone on the road. The news of the settlement has spread fast and it seems the whole country is taking stock and getting ready for what might come. Armoured men ride in packs, returning to their estates, while friars and messengers hurry in both directions.

Sir John, who has been enlivened by their time in London, now suffers a reverse. He can no longer sit on his trunk, but lies slumped in the hay in the back of the cart as they follow the road up towards Stamford. Near Ancaster there is a turning on the road that leads towards Cornford Castle and as they pass, all look down its hedge-crowded length.

‘I wonder what he’s up to,’ Richard says. ‘I half expected to see him in Westminster.’

Little John Willingham pipes up with the story of his mother selling Edmund Riven ale, of his questions about a girl and how he had been heading north with ten spears. Sir John is asleep at last, but Richard listens.

‘Could mean anything,’ he says, at length. ‘Or nothing.’

When they get to Marton Hall Fournier is still there, still at the table, though his boy and his guard have apparently taken his horses and deserted him. Goodwife Popham says he has been drunk by eleven every morning and asleep in his dinner by midday. Sir John pales when he sees him.

‘Why, Master Fournier, good day to you.’

‘And good day to you, Sir John. You do not look to have flourished since our last meeting. It is as well that I delayed my departure, so that we may cut you once more tomorrow, and restore the balance of your humours.’

Richard and Geoffrey help Sir John up to his room, leaving Thomas and Katherine and the others to their supper.

‘Master Fournier,’ Katherine calls down the length of the table, ‘are you familiar with the name John Arderne?’

The physician, who has picked up his cup, pauses.

‘John Arderne? Why yes. A surgeon. Of the last century, a great talent with the knife, but the possessor of dangerous and ungodly theories concerning the production of the laudable pus.’

‘Was he not an expert at curing fistulae?’ Katherine goes on.

Fournier takes a long drink and stares at her over his cup. He puts it down and dries his lips.

‘He had some small success,’ he allows, ‘but the intervention . . . Well. It is highly dangerous. I would not advise it. And do you know that Arderne ignored the need for cautery or purgatives? He recommended a clean sponge pressed against a wound to stop the flow of blood and thereafter nothing but bandages, changed only when dirty, and the wound kept dry? Madness.’

‘You know of his cure for fistulae then?’

‘Of course. Whatever do you take me for?’

‘I had you as a barber. A cutter of hair.’ She does not add ‘a drunk’. All talk has silenced on the table.

‘You doubt my skill to carry out such an operation?’

Katherine chooses her words carefully. ‘I do not doubt your skill. Only your courage.’

Fournier puts down his cup. He is thinking hard.

‘It is not so serious a fistula,’ he says, as if to himself. ‘And there is only one of them. I have the tools required for the operation in my pack.’

For a moment it seems to Katherine that Fournier will conduct the operation.

‘But no,’ he says. ‘I have none of the notes I need, nor sufficient recall of the details of the procedure.’

He returns to his drink with relief.

‘We have his instructions here,’ Katherine says. She nods to Thomas, who fishes the manuscript out of the pardoner’s pack. He is about to pass them along the table, then sees the greasy thumbs that might mark the pages, and so he gets up and delivers them to the physician himself. Fournier looks at them, casually at first, but then a frown gathers.

‘Now you have no excuse,’ Katherine says.

Fournier does not look up. He turns a page, folding it carefully. After a long moment he closes it. His gaze flicks around the hall, as if anxious not to settle on one thing too long, before settling on the door.

‘It is a pity,’ he says. ‘I should have done the operation first thing in the morning save that the moon is in Libra, and astrologers agree no operation ought to be undertaken while the moon is in the sign governing the part of the body to be operated upon. The stars are powerful forces in our fates—’

‘Yet you said you would bleed him tomorrow,’ Katherine interrupts. Fournier’s dark eyes deepen in his head.

‘Very well,’ he concedes, ‘I shall conduct the operation tomorrow, first thing in the morning.’

He drains his cup and bangs it down for a refill.

The next morning he is gone.

‘At least he didn’t charge for the bloodletting,’ Geoffrey says, before they discover he has taken a silver cup in lieu.

‘I had a dream in the night,’ Katherine tells Thomas later. ‘I dreamed that it was me who cut Sir John. I cut out his fistula and as a reward he gave me his cushion. For some reason I was pleased with it.’

Thomas narrows his eyes.

‘You don’t mean to do it yourself? Fournier said it is a dangerous operation.’

She shakes her head.

‘It is no more dangerous than any other. No more so than cutting the arrow out of Richard, and I would if I had the instruments. I feel I know it off by heart now.’

Thomas sighs.

‘We should find you something else to read,’ he says.

Katherine laughs, and is about to go out when Goodwife Popham comes down the stairs from Sir John’s chamber. She is carrying a leather bag.

‘Surgeon’s gone and left his instruments,’ she says.

Thomas turns to Katherine. He is staring at her, alarmed.

‘It is God’s will then,’ he says, very quietly, and she can see he wishes it were not.

Goodwife Popham hands Katherine the bag as if it is hers by right and as she takes it, Katherine feels her chest flutter. Her whole body is trembling.

Perhaps it really is God’s will?

‘There is a chance Sir John will not let me do it,’ she says.

‘Do you really want to do it?’ Thomas asks.

‘I want him to be well again. I want to see him walk.’

‘But to cut him?’ Thomas exhales.

‘When I took the arrow from Richard it was as if I had a power,’ she tells him. ‘As if I knew what to do. I feel the same now.’

Thomas nods, accepting her word, and together they climb the stairs and peer in through the curtains around Sir John’s big bed. Richard is awake; his father sleeps; the dogs are muddy-pawed.

‘He hasn’t stirred all night,’ Richard says. ‘And now I hear Fournier has skipped off.’

Katherine nods.

‘Richard,’ she says. ‘Do you trust me?’

‘What do you mean?’

She holds out the manuscript. Richard takes it and flinches.

‘Dear God,’ he breathes. ‘You can’t mean to cut it out?’

Katherine nods. Richard turns to his father. Just then the old man twitches as if in pain, and a grimace tightens his face. Richard passes back the manuscript.

‘Are you certain you can do it?’ he asks. ‘It is more than removing an arrow, you know? More than binding a wound like Thomas’s.’

‘I feel certain. I don’t know why.’

Richard strokes the hair from his father’s forehead.

‘Leave me to think on it,’ he says. ‘I will give you an answer soon.’

Katherine nods. She is just going when he calls out.

‘I trust you though, Kit. I know you can do it if you say you can.’

After their breakfast Katherine follows the others to the butts behind the church, bringing the manuscript with her. They loose their arrows, sending the shafts thumping into the earth banks at the far end of the clearing. They nock and loose, nock and loose. An hour, two hours. By the end of it Thomas is rubbing his shoulder and they are all grimy with sweat.

‘Let’s do it again,’ Brampton John says.

‘What’s got into you?’

‘Just the thought of twenty thousand northern bastards coming this way. I’ve got a wife now, you know?’

‘Have you? I thought that was your ma,’ Dafydd says and for once a fight doesn’t break out.

Later Richard comes down to the butts. He calls them away and into the church. They leave their bows at the door and assemble in the nave.

‘I’ve paid the priest to say Mass.’

‘To what end?’ Walter asks.

‘Kit is going to cut open my father’s fistula.’

Dafydd opens his mouth to swear but realises he is in the house of God. In the dappled light from the glass window their faces are discoloured, and Katherine feels a distance yawn between herself and the others, as if she is becoming something different, something to be feared. The curious thing is that they look to Thomas for their lead. It is as if because he is Kit’s friend, he has some special insight.

‘He can do it,’ Thomas says with a shrug.

Mass is swiftly delivered by a priest impatient to be elsewhere, but the prayers the men send up are heartfelt. Afterwards they troop silently back through the village to the hall. The atmosphere seems to have thickened, and every movement, every gesture is charged with added significance, as before a punishment.