The Apothecary's Secret

by Johanna Geiges

  Gero shivered at the thought of the almost omnipotent magical power of a witch, but at the same time he was annoyed at his un-knightly fear. What he really wanted was to follow Anna Ahrweiler home, wait until dark and, somehow, get into the house to check personally whether this medica was a man or a woman. If the latter were the case, it would give him enormous satisfaction to show her what it was like to be taken by a real man. The mere thought of it caused a stirring in his trousers and he felt a strong urge to attack her there and then. But the more he thought about it, the more he knew that his uncle would never condone such behaviour. On the contrary, it would be utterly foolish to do anything of the sort. First and foremost, he would have to find out as much as possible about this medica and report it all to his uncle.

  Gero surmised that the archbishop had removed Father Urban and Brother Marian like insignificant chess pieces because they had stood in his way. If either one of them survived with knowledge dangerous to his uncle, the archbishop had to know about it in time and take countermeasures. Gero needed this medica alive. If he raped and murdered her, it would give him short-lived satisfaction, but then there would no longer be an opportunity to find out how much she knew – or what evidence she might be hiding.

  The medica left the city by the Gautor gate and took the path along the city wall in a south-westerly direction. There were many people out and about, so it wasn’t obvious that Gero was following her. He did not doubt that she would recognise him if she saw him, despite his full-grown beard, so he watched carefully and kept a safe distance behind.

  At the city walls, the medica crossed the river on a wooden plank bridge and walked through the archway of a large two-storey house. Gero stood still and watched how Anna Ahrweiler disappeared into the barn in the courtyard which directly abutted the city walls. That, of course, was exactly as the chaplain had described the house of the Jewish medicus who had fled in the middle of the night. Gero waited another while to be sure that she wasn’t coming out again. Then he turned back. He had seen enough for one day, and it was time to get in touch with his uncle.

  Chapter IV

  Anna had barely shut the barn door behind her when a red-faced Berbelin came running, her skirt flying. She was so agitated and frantically waving her arms around that Anna, who had learned to understand the most important gestures of her dumb maid, could not make head nor tail of what Berbelin was trying to get across. So she tried to calm her first.

  Berbelin started again and Anna understood from her that an apparently unknown and pushy patient had been waiting for her all morning. Whatever Berbelin had tried, she could not manage to get rid of him.

  When Berbelin again and again made a circular gesture above her head with her hand and then joined her hands and raised her eyes towards heaven, Anna at last understood that the patient in question must be a monk. She had never treated a cleric in the time since she had taken over the medicus’ patients, and so she wondered what he might be looking for. As Berbelin went on ahead of Anna to the kitchen, she also indicated that the monk had helped himself liberally to her beer supplies. Yet all they could find was an empty beer mug. The guest had disappeared.

  Then they heard sounds coming from the laboratory, where something had just broken on the floor. The two women exchanged worried looks and hurried down the hall to where the door of the laboratory stood open wide. As they entered the room they saw the back of a big man in a black habit and scapular crawling around on all fours collecting the shards of a broken pitcher. He turned around as soon as he heard them coming and said with minor frustration: ‘Would you happen to have a brush and a pan? I suffered a little misadventure.’

  Anna’s anger knew no bounds at the blatant trespass by a complete stranger who had barged into her holy of holies. ‘What in the devil’s name are you doing in my laboratory!?’ she demanded loudly.

  He stood up slowly, made the sign of the cross and, embarrassed, wiped his huge hands on his black habit.

  ‘Be careful, young woman, not to use the name of Lucifer in such an easy manner!’ he warned.

  He was overweight, with brown hair surrounding his head like a crown. His tonsure was impeccably shaved but his eyebrows were the bushiest that Anna had ever seen. She knew by his challenging glance and from the way he sized her up that this monk would not be intimidated by anything or anybody. She remembered him from the episode of the miracle healer and his unfortunate patient; how he watched stoically till he could take no more, and then launched a physical attack. That was when she took herself off to avoid the brawl. Anna also suspected that it was he who had been following her for some time now, and who disappeared every time she tried to confront him.

  So now she made use of the opportunity: ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I am still waiting for an answer!’

  The monk grinned showing his small and even teeth. ‘Apologies, my daughter, but I was just passing the time by having a look at your laboratory.’

  ‘Obviously with your hands rather than your eyes,’ Anna said curtly while Berbelin fetched a broom and began sweeping up the shards.

  ‘Moreover, I am the medica and not your daughter, please remember that,’ Anna added gruffly and folded her arms. ‘Well then, speak. Who are you and what do you want?’

  The monk couldn’t quite suppress a nasty grin and Anna had a vague feeling that he was up to something.

  He pointed to the various pieces of equipment in the laboratory and said: ‘You are amazingly well equipped and you even have a good few things I have never seen before. Are you an alchemist?’

  She did not answer but waited instead for an answer to her questions. It was a sort of silent power struggle until at last the monk gave in and, sighing deeply, said: ‘I am Brother Thomas. I have heard of your healing successes and have travelled a great distance because I need your help.’

  Anna didn’t believe a word he said. He probably did not know that she had seen him weeks earlier at the miracle healer’s on the market square. ‘You are ill? You certainly don’t look it. What’s supposed to be wrong with you?’ she asked warily.

  He touched his head behind his right ear and with a tortured expression moaned: ‘I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid, me-di-ca,’ lengthening her title theatrically into its syllables, ‘that you will have to cut a stone out of my head. At times it causes me terrible pain and I have heard that you are able to perform this operation. Have a look . . .’

  He walked towards her, producing a fat purse which he threw into the air and caught again. Anna wondered at the calm which the monk radiated despite the pack of lies he was telling.

  ‘For a Benedictine monk without possessions, you have a surprisingly well-filled purse,’ she remarked pointedly.

  ‘Oh yes, as God is my witness,’ he replied. ‘My brethren have been collecting for me so that I can be freed from the demon that has taken possession of me.’

  He looked at her with such disarming innocence that anybody but Anna would have believed him. She began to feel annoyed. She wasn’t going to be taken for a fool that easily. Or was there something hidden behind all this? Perhaps it was the castle chaplain who wanted to test her? Or even the archbishop? But no, she must be imagining things. Surely this monk knew nothing about her except something he heard about a young woman in Oppenheim who opposed authority and who, with her methods, had begun to shake the very foundations of the Church. It was not only possible but probable that the monk was not acting on his own initiative. So Anna decided to sound out Brother Thomas and use all the tricks in the book to show him what a real medica could do; a medica who was not a quack or a charlatan who messed people about to relieve them of their money. And strangely, that seemed to be what this odd monk was expecting.

  ‘Put away your money and follow me,’ she said walking ahead into the treatment room with its table in the middle. ‘You are lucky that I happen to have some time now. I will examine you very carefully and find out what’s wrong and what can be done for you.’

  With her eyes sh
e signalled to Berbelin that she wished to be left alone with the patient, and her maid retired. Hesitantly Brother Thomas followed Anna into the treatment room where he looked around with curiosity.

  ‘If you are as gifted as people say, why can’t you cure your maid of her dumbness?’ he asked, and again Anna thought she could detect from the tone of the monk’s question that he was trying to catch her out. So she decided to teach him a lesson for invading her house and for his cheeky behaviour, his chutzpah, as Medicus Aaron would have called it.

  ‘Even though it is none of your business,’ she said bitingly, ‘Berbelin lost her voice through profound grief. Only God and time can heal this. There is no medicine for it and whoever claims there is, is lying.’

  Brother Thomas, still playing with his fat purse, looked at her sharply as she chided him. Then he smiled again.

  ‘Do you or don’t you want to cut out my stone now?’ he asked provocatively.

  Anna smiled back and pushed her index finger so vehemently into his chest that the plump monk stumbled back against the treatment table.

  ‘Lie down on the table, Brother Thomas. I will proceed with you as with any other patient. Anybody seeking my help gets the same treatment. Be they count or peasant or even a monk,’ she said, and pushed him again with her finger because she saw by his gritted teeth that he did not like it at all. He probably thinks himself superior and that he can fool me, Anna thought.

  ‘Will you please lie down now!’ she ordered.

  Slowly Brother Thomas stretched out on the table. Anna pushed the straw pillow under his head and positioned herself behind where he could not see her. His insecurity increased.

  ‘First I will have to know more about you so that I can form a clearer impression of you,’ she said.

  He got more irritated as he kept trying to turn his head around in vain while she paced up and down behind and started to question him.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘I am thirty-five years old. Is that relevant?’

  She leaned over him from behind and looked directly down into his eyes.

  ‘You came here of your own free will because you are looking for help. Is that correct?’ she asked with a piercing look.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he said.

  ‘I did not ask you to come to see me, did I?’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘So let’s get one thing straight, Brother Thomas, you are the patient and I am the medica. You want something from me. And as a medica I must ask you questions that I consider relevant and you must answer them to the best of your ability. If not . . . please, you are free to take your leave. Well?’

  ‘Alright, alright then,’ he said placatingly. ‘Ask away and I will answer as best I can.’

  She withdrew again and continued. ‘Where do you come from?’

  ‘From a far-away monastery.’

  ‘And what is that monastery called?’

  ‘It is called Weingarten monastery and lies in the south of the realm.’

  ‘I have heard of it. Is it not a Guelph possession?’

  ‘No, it isn’t. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, the grandfather of our present emperor, bought it in 1178.’

  ‘You are well informed. And who is the present abbot?’

  Now he turned his head around to her again, almost dislocating his neck in the process. ‘Forgive me, medica, but with the best will in the world I do not understand how these questions might possibly help with my healing.’

  ‘Well, I am trying to establish how strong a hold the evil demon in your skull has of your soul. This I can tell by whether you tell the truth or lie. The deeper he has implanted himself, the more lies you will tell. That’s in the nature of the affliction.’

  ‘Oh, is that so? That is very interesting indeed. You seem to know a lot about demons.’

  ‘Well, that is not difficult. One usually knows at a first glance whether or not somebody is possessed by a demon,’ she said smugly.

  He laughed and seemed to enjoy their sharp exchanges. ‘Well, the present abbot of Weingarten monastery is Hugo von Montford. He is already very elderly, way beyond sixty. Is that helpful?’

  ‘We shall see. The monastery holds a particularly precious relic, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes indeed. The Relic of the Sacred Blood, a glass phial with a drop of the blood of Jesus Christ.’

  Brother Thomas winced when, suddenly, Anna palpated his head.

  ‘Does that feel sore?’ the medica asked.

  ‘No, it isn’t. It is quite pleasant actually, keep going,’ he said grinning.

  Just then Anna pressed hard with both thumbs at the base of his neck right beneath the skull bone and Brother Thomas jumped up screaming.

  ‘Are you mad?’ he roared.

  Unmoved, Anna pushed his head back onto the pillow.

  ‘Now we have him,’ she said.

  ‘Who, who?’ Brother Thomas wanted to know.

  ‘The demon in the shape of a stone who has taken possession of you. Just keep lying still while I go and get the instruments.

  ‘Instruments, what instruments?’ he asked with a tinge of fear.

  ‘The instruments with which I will cut him out. He must be removed immediately before he can do more harm.’

  She left a rather frightened Brother Thomas with this thought. But before he could get off the table Anna was back with her satchel and a bowl of water.

  ‘Just stay lying there!’ she ordered and disappeared again, returning with a pot which she placed on a stool close to the water bowl.

  ‘Try to think of something beautiful and you will hardly feel anything,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, but instead of answering Anna held up and examined one after another: a sharp-toothed bone saw, a drill that seemed more suited to masonry work and a carpenter’s hammer pointed at one end and rounded at the other.

  Brother Thomas swallowed nervously: ‘Do you really intend to . . . cut open my head with these?’

  ‘Well, what were you thinking? I must be able to get at the stone which you insist on having removed somehow.’

  ‘Do you not perhaps want to bleed me first?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary, as enough blood will flow so as to render bleeding superfluous,’ she replied unmoved and tested the blunt end of the hammer by striking the palm of her left hand.

  The patient on the table had the sweat of fear oozing from every pore.

  ‘That’s enough, medica. I have only . . .’ he said, his voice faltering. But he did not get any further, as Anna had only been waiting for this moment. What happened next followed as fast as lightning. Anna, laying the hammer aside, pushed a sleep sponge which she had secretly made ready right into the perplexed face of Brother Thomas. He had just been awkwardly attempting to get up but was completely surprised by her attack as she pressed him back onto the straw pillow. Breathing deeply from the sleep sponge, it was too late to fight back as the vapours took effect and made him progressively weaker.

  At last he lost consciousness completely. Quickly Anna threw the sponge aside so as not to become a victim of the vapours herself, and observed the sleeping patient with satisfaction. There he lay, the great and big-mouthed Brother Thomas, on his back like a helpless beetle. Except that he wasn’t even stirring.

  Now we will find out who you really are, Brother Thomas! thought Anna as she took a closer look at the monk’s fat purse. She detached it from his belt and poured the contents out onto the stool. Although there was a metallic tinkle, it was not coins that she saw but worthless round iron discs. So it’s with that sort of money that the Benedictine monk wanted to tempt me to do a job that only a quack would attempt.

  Anna checked that the unconscious man’s heartbeat and breathing were as they ought to be; after all, she didn’t want to do him any harm. Then she hurried straight to the kitchen where Brother Thomas had left his satchel next to the table. It was a cheap linen travelling bag, apparently one he had made himself
. She flipped it open and looked inside. What she found were a Bible with passages underlined and annotated; a hunk of dry bread, a piece of bacon and a lump of cheese, all wrapped in a cloth; a folded-up spare tunic; a piece of soap and a sharp knife, also wrapped in cloth; and at the very bottom, hidden in a side pocket that had been sown onto the satchel, two narrow booklets. Between the pages of the second one, she found a letter with a broken seal. Anna had a closer look at it. It was the papal seal, a tiara with two crossed keys. She turned the letter around and saw it was addressed to the abbot of Weingarten monastery, Hugo von Montford. Had Brother Thomas told her the truth after all? Surely there could be no harm in having a peek at the letter while the monk was still asleep.

  But first she had a closer look at the two books, obviously manuscripts from a monastic scriptorium. The first was Liber subtilitatum diversarum naturarum creaturarum, that is, Book about the Inner Nature of Different Creatures and Plants; the second was entitled Causae et curae, Causes and Treatments, both composed by Hildegard von Bingen. These were the two famous works by the abbess who had died many years earlier, and which covered the effects of medicinal plants and the origin and treatment of diseases. Anna had heard of them but never seen them. She knew immediately that she absolutely had to read the two books belonging to Brother Thomas.

  Finally, Anna unfolded the letter. It was in Latin and signed by a papal secretary in the name of Cardinal Raniero Capocci. The letter, which according to its date was about a year old, confirmed after the usual opening clichés and formalities that the excommunication latae sententiae of infirmarius Brother Thomas pronounced by Abbot Hugo von Montfort due to his constant and continued insubordination – despite repeated warnings – and guilty desertion of his order, was appropriate and legally effective, having by virtue of this letter been approved by the Holy See. Further, the undersigned declared himself in agreement with the abbot’s suggestion that the intransigent infirmarius Brother Thomas be excluded from Weingarten Monastery for all time, and in addition lose all rights pertaining to the office and status of an infirmarius. The letter closed with the formula ‘May God have mercy on his soul’, while conveying an Easter greeting to the highly esteemed abbot of Weingarten.