The crowd had grown too large to fit into the hall. Some were squeezed, like schoolboys, onto forms, placed in ordered ranks the full length of the room. Others stood behind, or clustered round the sides. The students jostled noisily, crammed in at the back, and spilling out through doors and windows to the night beyond. Giles stood on a platform on the far end of the hall, behind a small lettroun. Hew stood at his side, looking at the crowd. The candles in their sconces round the room were lit, and threw a random scattering of light. Hew called out to Paul, stationed at the door, ‘We want more lanterns here. Illuminate the crowd! Let no one rest in darkness, for I want to see them all.’
Giles produced two objects, which he set out on the board: a loaf of bread, and a piece of corn. Hew surveyed them curiously. ‘Have you brought your dinner?’
‘They are the properties. Or what you might call evidence.’
‘Evidence of what?’
‘That will soon emerge. I do not like this crowd,’ Giles muttered nervously. ‘I was not expecting quite so many. I had not understood ill feeling ran so rife between the college and the town. I should perhaps have sent the students to their rooms. The bailie, Patrick Honeyman, has made complaint of William Wishart, whom he accuses now of insolence, compounding some offence he has committed in the town. He demands apology, which Wishart has refused. I do not suppose you witnessed these events?’
Hew shook his head, ‘I was not party to it.’
‘That is to the pity, for I cannot find a witness that can be impartial here. The student and his friends deny it, as they might. Honeyman is adamant, and since he is chief magistrate, I feel duty bound to take him at his word. He demands that I punish the boy, or else deliver him for sanction to the burgh court. And I am quite perplexed, as to how to try the case,’ confided Giles. ‘Do I take the student’s part, for he is one of ours, and likely is the victim of a grudge against us all; or do I take the bailie’s word, and make him an example, the better to repair our damaged standing in the town?’
Hew gave this some thought. ‘I know the student who is here in question, and I know the baxter who has brought the charge,’ he replied judiciously, ‘and it would not surprise me, if both were found at fault.’
‘No doubt,’ Giles agreed. ‘Yet you are the one who told me so emphatically, there is no place for compromise, in laying down the law. So pray advise me plainly, which do I defend?’
‘In this case, I must answer, both,’ insisted Hew. ‘Though I will acknowledge that that does depart from rule. That is, advise Patrick Honeyman that the matter will be dealt with in the college, according to our laws; and advise the student he must make apology. Then make him write it out in Latin verse. This has the twofold effect, of proving irksome to the student, who will find it onerous, and infuriating to the bailie, who will not understand it, and will interpret it – correctly – as being condescending, without having any cause to make complaint. It will be an exercise of William Wishart’s Latin, and that, in itself, can only do him good.’
‘That is the justice of Solomon,’ Giles said admiringly, ‘for which I am most grateful.’
‘If you will,’ Hew offered, ‘I will oversee the task. And I will tell young William Wishart that since the bailie has no Latin, he may write whate’er he likes. so long as it is perfect in the grammar and the verse.’
‘Now that,’ reflected Giles, ‘is simply wickedness.’
‘It is a small revenge. A sop, to add sweetness to the student’s task, in case he is most bitterly aggrieved. It is entirely possible that he is innocent,’ said Hew. ‘Nonetheless, he and the bailies were better kept apart. I shall keep my eye on William Wishart.’
The coroner stepped forward. ‘Are you ready to begin? The mood is dark and fretful, and I would not have them wait.’
‘Aye, ready,’ Giles agreed.
‘I will make them still.’ Andrew Wood possessed a grim authority that lulled the restless audience into a sullen peace. ‘You are come to listen, not to speak; be still,’ he told them bluntly, ‘and this man will tell you how the sailors died on the wreck, and how the two millers here died in the town, and he will put your minds at rest, that ye need not be afeared of some black magic or the plague, which rumour I ken has beset you, that ye are all riddled with fears.’
There was a troubled silence, and then an answer rang out sceptically. ‘Oh aye, what man is that, then?’
Andrew Wood glared back into the crowd. And for all the score of swinging lanterns placed around the hall, the voice came from a hidden darkness. Hew could not tell whose it was.
‘He is Giles Locke, the doctor and professor of medicine, and besides that, the principal of this fine college, in whose hallowed hall you are now privileged to sit,’ affirmed Sir Andrew Wood.
‘Oh aye?’ the voice replied, in tones that answered all.
‘He is, besides, our visitor,’ Andrew Wood returned, ‘which is to say, he is appointed to visit and report on all suspicious deaths, whether by poison, or murder, or any other person taken away extraordinarily.’
‘Which you could say, right enough, is what has happened here,’ the heckler stirred.
Sir Andrew grew exasperated. ‘Will you stand, and show yourself?’
‘Oh aye,’ the voice returned, thick with scorn and irony, safe within the confines of the crowd. It was an ominous refrain, which returned to haunt Hew after in his dreams.
‘If not, then haud your tongue,’ demanded Andrew Wood. ‘This man is our visitor, as all of you must ken, and those that did not ken it, ken it now. And he is here to tell you, that there is no magic here.’
‘May I put a question?’ came another voice. The speaker rose up from his bench, and continued languidly, ‘As you may see, I am not afeard to show my face. The better I might say, sir, I am not cowed by you.’
It was Sir Andrew’s brother, Robert Wood, and Hew felt the coroner bristle at his side. He faced his brother square across the room. ‘Questions at the end.’
‘Yet some things are better to be set out at the start,’ Robert answered calmly, ‘the better to allow for perfect understanding. I question Doctor Locke, on his credentials, since he is disposed to speak with such authority, upon these strange events.’
‘What can you mean, sir?’ his brother charged indignantly. ‘His credentials are right here, as I have made most plain to you.’
‘There is a question you do not address, that causes some concern,’ continued Robert Wood. ‘I wonder if the principal would care to answer it. For it concerns a matter that I think must be made clear.’
‘Put your question,’ interjected Giles, ‘and I will do my best to set your mind at rest. Do you wish to know, where I obtained my degrees?’
‘Not at all,’ smiled Robert Wood. ‘Your education is not open to dispute. I merely thought to ask, whether you yourself have ever practised magic.’
The whole hall seemed to hold its breath. All eyes, save for Hew’s, were turned now to Giles. The doctor answered, ‘Not at all, in any sense. Why is it that you ask?’
‘I thank you, sir, in turning to the question,’ Robert Wood replied. ‘I have heard that you keep human body parts in your room, for purpose of experiment. Can you now confirm for us, whether this is true?’
The whole hall fell to shuddering, in horror and in fear. ‘What body parts?’ a nervous baxter asked.
‘As I understand,’ said Robert Wood, ‘it was a human foot. Is it true, sir?’
His brother interrupted. ‘Giles Locke is an anatomist. The parts of which you speak are vital in his work.’
‘Vital,’ Robert stressed the word, as though to point the irony. ‘Professor Locke, do you teach medicine in the schools?’
‘No, not as such,’ admitted Giles.
‘There is no course in anatomy? And if your students at the college wish to train in physic, they must go abroad? Is that correct?’
‘That is correct. And yet,’ Giles rallied, ‘that may not always be the case. The new foundation of the
university provided that a mediciner should be principal of St Salvator’s, and a lawyer his depute, and both to go about researches, to the enhancement of the college, and its higher faculties. The parts of which you speak belong to my experiments, into the way the body works; they serve no hidden purpose, magical or otherwise.’
‘Then you are not a witch?’
‘I can well assure you, I am not a witch.’
‘What is your purpose, Robert?’ demanded Andrew Wood.
‘In seeking out the truth. Is that different from yours?’ his brother retorted.
‘Your question has been answered. Hold your peace.’
‘It has,’ Robert bowed and took his seat. ‘And I am grateful for it, Doctor Locke.’
Whatever his intention, he had achieved success in stirring up the crowd. Hew felt the tension rise as Giles began to speak.
‘You come here today on account of the Dutch ship the Dolfin, to hear me explain to you how its crew died. Now most of you know that letters have been found, that describe the fatal symptoms that were suffered on that ship, and many of you feared the ship had been bewitched, or else it was a plague, that has since unleashed its torment on the town. I am here to tell you that it was not magic, and it was not plague, but a sickness known as ignis sacer, that is, holy fire. The symptoms of this sickness are twofold: on the one hand, it is manifest in burning of the limbs, which begins with a creeping and an itching of the flesh, and ends in a dry gangrene, whence the flesh will rot; the limbs affected blacken, and drop off. And the other set of symptoms – which may coincide, though rarely, in one and the same man, and which I am assured are due to the same cause – is a delusionary madness. Both sets of symptoms were observed in letters taken from the boat, both led to death, and both were visible in Jacob, who died at Benet’s inn.’
‘Who brought the sickness with him to the town,’ a voice moaned from the void.
‘Who did not bring the sickness with him to the town,’ corrected Giles. ‘The sickness died with Jacob. What happened to the millers was another sort of perfidy, and I will come to that. But for the moment, I mean to explain to you what I think caused this holy fire, and how, by that cause, it cannot spread to you.’
‘How can you say that?’ cried the voice. ‘It has already spread. My wife has had the itching in her hands. My daughters, too, complain of creeping of the flesh. Help them, doctor!’
‘Aye, mine too!’ another called.
‘And I!’ A wave of panic flowed around the room. ‘Is there no physic we can take?’
‘You have no need for physic,’ Giles assured them patiently. ‘Because you are not sick. The symptoms you report are in your mind.’
‘We are come for medicines, why won’t you give them to us?’ the crowd persisted fretfully.
‘Aye, then, very well,’ sighed Giles. ‘Come to me at the end of the lecture, if you remain still unconvinced. Yet answer this now; you complain of itching and a creeping of the flesh. Does any one of you have blackness, or decay of the extremities?’
This was followed by a short and earnest pause, a puzzled, close self-searching, in the secrecy of candlelight, broken by a scream from Giles Locke’s servant, Paul.
‘God help me, sir, I have! My thumb is black!’
He waved his hurt hand frantically, coming close to tears, while the crowd around him parted in a curve.
Professor Locke confirmed, his patience now a sliver, ‘And that is because, as you may recall, you hit it with a hammer, putting up a pothook by the kitchen fire. Your accident this morning turned the ether blue; it took a little longer to happen to your thumb.’
The ensuing laughter helped to ease the mood. ‘But why, sir,’ someone asked more reasonably, ‘should we suffer from these symptoms, if the windmill is not cursed?’
‘The symptoms are delusional. They are not real,’ said Giles.
‘And yet,’ said Robert Wood, ‘and yet, you say that delusions are a symptom of this fire.’
Giles admitted, ‘Aye, and that is also true. And yet, this is a different sort of thing. The mind is skewed by fear. In fact, I am persuaded that this was the type of delusion under which Jacob was labouring, when he died, and that the two sorts of symptoms – madness and dry gangrene – though they coincide, do not concur – that is to say – did not concur, in him.’
Hew shook his head and murmured, ‘Too abstruse.’
‘I mean,’ Giles replied to him quietly, ‘that the sickness does not have the same effect on each man it infects. Some have gangrene, some go mad. Rarely, they do both. Jacob’s madness, coming late, was conscience, as I think.’
‘So much I understand. Yet how can you be sure, that the delusions of the town are not the selfsame sickness?’ Hew whispered.
‘The truth is, I cannot, for there must always be that one small seed of doubt. But if my theory is correct, then they are not the same. Stay with me, Hew, for if I lose you now, there is no hope,’ Giles whispered in reply.
Sir Andrew turned to scowl at them. ‘I pray you, speak no whispers. Make your answers plain before the crowd.’
Giles nodded, and spoke out, ‘You have heard about a letter in the Flemish,’ he began, ‘that describes the sickness on the ship. I have seen the like before, in a small village in France, while I was at the university in Paris. It was known there, as I said to you, as ignis sacer, holy fire, on account of the burning and the blackening of the limbs, which has the appearance of charring.’
Hew wished that Giles would not dwell on the blackened limbs, which did little, as it seemed, to reassure the crowd.
‘This sickness, then,’ continued Giles, ‘is called the holy fire. Which is the name that we have given to that febrile sickness called the rose, for this other was unknown here.’
‘Until now,’ said Robert Wood.
‘Until now,’ acknowledged Giles. ‘It was also known of old as St Antony’s fire, because the monks of that order had some skill in curing it. And why was that?’
‘Because it was the devil caused it,’ someone else suggested. ‘And it is the devil brings it to us now.’
‘Tsk. We cannot count the monks a force against the devil,’ put in the man from Holy Trinity. ‘Or we might cure it now, by our own more honest prayer.’
‘There is no cause to cure it, for the risk is passed,’ insisted Giles. ‘Yet I am interested to know what led to their success, for as far as I can tell it was no art or medicine they employed, but rather . . .’
‘A more potent form of magic,’ came a murmur from the baxters, which Giles chose to ignore. ‘They took the afflicted into their monasteries, and there they were themselves immune to the affliction, which leads me to suppose that it was not infectious. Indeed, I am persuaded it was not what they did, but something they did not do there, that brought about the cure.’
‘You are too diffuse, and too mysterious,’ Hew whispered. ‘Take them to the point.’
‘I come to it. I am persuaded, it was something that their patients ate or drank, that was different from the matter that the monks ate or drank, that brought about recovery. The monastery was selfsufficient, and had its own supplies. Well then, what? I asked myself. The notion that the sickness came in food or drink is there in Jacob’s letters, and I sense that he suspected it. For here he says, We sailed up coast to Rotterdam, for casks of Rhenish wine. The schippar and his friends ate well that night. The meat and bread were fresh . . . I made my small supper of biscuit and salt . . . and here, It began with Frans Hanssen, the wine merchant, who suffered flux and creeping of the flesh, and burning in his limbs. Something, I would hazard, that they ate or drank, and that the whole crew did not eat or drink, at least at first. The cabin boy, Joachim, was last to be afflicted. What was it that they ate, they did not give to him?’
‘Wine?’ suggested Hew. The doctor shook his head. ‘Tainted wine is foul. And likewise, when we feast on tainted flesh, though we sweeten it with spices, yet we know tis rotten by the taste and scent. We know our food is rank
, when we see the little worms. Whatever it was that they ate, they had not suspected it. What was it then, in common use, that did not taste amiss, and yet was not consumed in common on a ship? Something that was plain, and yet was somehow fresh. Jacob told us, he ate biscuit bread and salt, and he was not afflicted, not at first. I asked myself, what was it, they ate on that ship, that nothing has remained of it, no single scrap or crumb. And then I came to thinking of the Kreuterbuch.’
‘And what is that?’ demanded Andrew Wood, impatient for an ending to the tale.
‘It is a book of herbs by Adam Lonicer, who is the chief physician in the town of Frankfurt – I spoke of him before, when you paid little heed,’ Giles said aside to Hew. ‘As some of you may know, my wife just recently has had a child; a few may be aware she suffers from the falling sickness.’
Hew wondered why on earth his friend would mention that, at such an awkward time, and frowned at him. Giles continued, unperturbed. ‘In the months that led to the confinement, I was greatly exercised, in finding any physic that might help her in her pains. And to this end, I wrote to Adam Lonicer, and he was kind enough to write to me. I have a copy of his latest Kreuterbuch, in which he talks of Kornzapfen – that is a little cone, that grows inside the grain – a grain of corn like this –’ he held up the sheaf, ‘save that this is barley, and no doubt his was rye, which is not quite so common in these parts. This little corn of grain he says the midwives use, to ease a woman’s childbirth and make strong the womb. I wrote to Adam Lonicer, to ask him where and how this grain core might be used, to which he gave a caution, that using in excess provokes the symptoms that I have described to you, as holy fire. And he sent me the case notes of a poor woman who had died most painfully in childbed in this way, on which account I set aside his book, and did discount the grain, as any use to Meg. But the symptoms he describes were the self same symptoms Jacob has described in his letter from the ship. And so I ask, again, what is such a common food that no one would suspect it, and yet is scarce upon a ship, so that they kept it from the cabin boy? The answer is fresh bread.’ Giles held up his loaf. ‘My theory is, the blight that killed the sailors was present in the corn, that they baked into their bread.’
Time and Tide Page 17