The Scribe(54)
Pushing aside the bramble, the monk saw Hoos slumped over, sitting on the tree stump.
The monk immediately ordered two novices to carry him into a nearby enclosure. Theresa followed without questioning, crossing through the animal pens to a squat building protected by a door with a crude padlock. The monk took a key from his sleeve and after a couple of attempts pushed open the door, which gave way with a creak. The novices cleared several bowls from a table and lay Hoos on top, then following the elderly monk’s instructions they returned to the garden to continue weeding and repairing the fences. Theresa waited in the threshold.
“Don’t stay out there,” said the monk as he cleared away the pots, jars, flasks, and vials that were balanced precariously on either side of the table around Hoos. “So the barber sends you? And he told you I would help?”
Theresa thought she knew what he was hinting at.
“I brought you this.” She offered him the meat pie that Helga the Black had prepared.
The monk glanced at it and set it aside without paying it any more attention. He turned back to the table and continued to tidy the jars while he interrogated Theresa about the cause of the fever, biting his lip when he heard about the problem with the lung.
He moved an alembic to one side, ducking under a wooden press that seemed to be tilting slightly. Then he picked up some hand scales and a flask, which he filled with water from an indoor well, carefully measuring out the quantity, and then turned to a great dresser, where he began to search through dozens of ceramic containers. By the way he squinted, Theresa could tell that he was struggling to read their written labels.
“Let’s see: Salix Alba… Salix Alba,” he said, his nose up against the jars. “You know, health is the whole body, the balance of nature based on heat and moisture. That’s what blood is. Hence we say sanitas, as though we were saying sanguinis status.” He picked up a jar, examined it, and put it back in its place. “All illnesses originate in the four humors: blood, bile, melancholy, and phlegm. If they exceed their natural levels, illnesses occur. Blood and bile cause acute conditions, while phlegm and melancholy are the sources of chronic ones. Where have they put the willow bark?”
“Salix Alba. Here it is,” said Theresa.
The monk looked at her as if caught off guard. He turned toward the jar that the young woman was pointing at and saw that it was the right one. “You can read?” he asked incredulously.
“And write,” she responded with pride. The monk arched an eyebrow but said nothing for a while before picking up where he left off. “He has phlegm in his lungs,” he explained. “And there are multiple treatments and remedies for that problem. But there are so many tinctures, incantations, and potions that it will take some time to find the right one. Take this remedy, for instance,” he said, removing a piece of bark from the jar. “It is true that willow infused in milk reduces fever, but so does barley flour dissolved in tepid water, or saffron with honey. Each remedy behaves differently, depending on the proportions of its ingredients—and each patient responds differently, just as the organs that make up the person are different in nature. Weak or badly wounded hearts sometimes heal as if by magic, while others, by all appearances more vigorous and healthy, swell without reason with the arrival of spring. Incidentally… what is this young man’s trade?”
“He possesses lands in Aquis-Granum,” she explained, and she informed him that they were staying with Helga the Black until she could find work.
“Interesting,” he said and put down the jar of willow bark before crossing the room to a stove, which he lit with a candle. “God sends us illnesses, but he also provides the remedies we need to get better. Just as we must study His word to reach paradise, we must also study Empedocles, Galen, Hippocrates, and even Pliny to find cures, whether it be in the powdered mineral of an alum, or in the glands of a beaver’s foreskin. Hold this tincture,” he instructed.
The young woman grasped the container in which the monk had poured a dark liquid. She was concerned he was talking too much, and that the church envoy that Maurer had mentioned might appear at any moment and expel them from the monastery before the apothecary could complete the treatment.
“If there are several remedies, why not use them all?” she asked.
“Alibi tu medicamentum obligas. Pass me that.” The monk added a pale powder to the dark liquid and whisked the solution until it was whitish in color. “Medicine comes from measurement, or in other words, from moderation, which is the premise that must guide our every action. The Greeks were the fathers of this art, which Apollo introduced, and his son Aesculapius continued. Later it was Hippocrates who adopted this wisdom and developed it with his careful, learned approach. It is to him that we owe our understanding of healing that is based on reason, experimentation, and observation.”
Theresa was growing impatient. “But how will you cure him?”
“The question is not how, but when. And the answer is, it does not depend on me, but on him. He must therefore remain here until that happens. That is, if it happens at all.”
“To be honest, I don’t think that’s a good idea. The barber told us that a foreign monk sent by Charlemagne arrived at the abbey last week, and if he’s as strict as they say, I fear he may find reason to reproach you.”
“And what is it that he would rebuke me for?”