The Cole Trilogy: The Physician, Shaman, and Matters of Choice

by Noah Gordon

  “Oh, sir. It is Amelia Simpson.”

  “Mistress Simpson?”

  “I am unmarried.”

  Barber closed his eyes. “A waste,” he said gallantly. “What color ribbon would you like, Miss Amelia?”

  “Red.”

  “And the length?”

  “Two yards should do me perfectly.”

  “One would hope so,” he murmured, raising his eyebrows.

  There was ribald laughter, but he appeared to forget her. He cut a piece of rope into four parts and then caused it to be rejoined and whole, using only gestures. He placed a kerchief over a ring and changed it into a walnut. And then, almost in surprise, he brought his fingers to his mouth and pulled something from between his lips, pausing to show the audience that it was the end of a red ribbon.

  As they watched he pulled it out of his mouth, bit by bit, his body drooping and his eyes crossing as it continued to emerge. Finally, holding the end taut, he reached down for his dagger, placed the blade close to his lips, and cut the ribbon free. He handed it to the barmaid with a bow.

  Next to her was the village sawyer, who stretched the ribbon on his measuring stick. “Two yards, exact!” he pronounced, and there was great applause.

  Barber waited for the noise to die and then held up a flask of his bottled medicinal. “Masters, mistresses, and maidens!

  “Only my Universal Specific Physick …

  “Lengthens your allotted span, regenerates the worn-out tissues of the body. Makes stiff joints supple and limp joints stiff. Restores a roguish sparkle to jaded eyes. Transmutes illness to health, stops hair from falling and resprouts shiny pates. Clarifies dimmed vision and sharpens dulled intellects.

  “A most excellent cordial more stimulating than the finest tonic, a purgative gentler than a cream clyster. The Universal Specific fights bloating and the bloody flux, eases the rigors of the childbed and the agony of the female curse, and eradicates the scorbutic disorders brought back to shore by seafaring folk. It is good for brute or human, a bane to deafness, sore eyes, coughs, consumptions, stomach pains, jaundice, fever, and agues. Cures any illness! Banishes care!”

  Barber sold a good deal of it from the bank. Then he and Rob set up a screen, behind which the barber-surgeon examined patients. The ill and the afflicted waited in a long line to pay a penny or two for his treatment.

  That night they ate roast goose at the public house, the only time Rob had ever eaten a purchased meal. He thought it especially fine, though Barber pronounced the meat overdone and grumbled at lumps in the mashed turnip. Afterward Barber brought onto the table a chart of the British island. It was the first map Rob had seen and he watched in fascination as Barber’s finger traced a squiggly line, the route they would follow over the coming months.

  Eventually, eyes closing, he stumbled sleepily back to their campsite through bright moonlight and made his bed. But so much had happened in the past few days that his dazzled mind fought sleep.

  He was half awake and star-searching when Barber returned, and somebody was with him.

  “Pretty Amelia,” Barber said. “Pretty dolly. A single look at that wanting mouth, I knew I would die for you.”

  “Mind the roots or you’ll fall,” she said.

  Rob lay and listened to the wet sounds of kissing, the rasp of clothing being removed, laughter and gasping. Then the slithering of the furs being spread.

  “I had best go under, because of my stomach,” he heard Barber say.

  “A most prodigious stomach,” the girl said in a low, wicked voice. “It will be like bouncing on a great comforter.”

  “Nay, maid, here is my great comforter.”

  Rob wanted to see her naked, but by the time he dared to move his head the tiny bit necessary, she was no longer standing, and all he could see was the pale glimmer of buttocks.

  His breathing was loud but he could have shouted for all they cared. Soon he watched Barber’s large plump hands reach around to clutch the rotating white orbs.

  “Ah, Dolly!”

  The girl groaned.

  They slept before he did. Rob fell asleep finally and dreamed of Barber, still juggling.

  The woman was gone when he was awakened in the chill dawning. They broke camp and rode from Farnham while most of its people were still in bed.

  Shortly after sunrise they passed a blackberry bramble and stopped to fill a basket. At the next farm Barber took on provender. When they camped for breakfast, while Rob made the fire and cooked the bacon and cheese toast, Barber broke nine eggs into a bowl and added a generous amount of clotted cream, beating it to a froth and then cooking without stirring until it set into a soft cake, which he covered with dead-ripe blackberries. He appeared pleased at the eagerness with which Rob downed his share.

  That afternoon they passed a great keep surrounded by farms. Rob could see people on the grounds and earthen battlements. Barber urged the horse into a trot, seeking to pass it quickly.

  But three riders came after them from the place and shouted them to a stop.

  Stern and fearsome armed men, they examined the decorated wagon curiously. “What is your trade?” asked one who wore the light mail of a person of rank.

  “Barber-surgeon, lord,” Barber said.

  The man nodded in satisfaction and wheeled his horse. “Follow.”

  Surrounded by their guard, they clattered through a heavy gate set into the earthworks, through a second gate in a palisade of sharpened logs, then across a drawbridge above a moat. Rob had never been so close to a stately fastness. The enormous keep house had a foundation and half-wall of stone, with timbered upper stories, intricate carvings on porch and gables, and a gilded rooftree that blazed in the sun.

  “Leave your wagon in the courtyard. Bring your surgeon’s tools.”

  “What is the problem, lord?”

  “Bitch hurt her hand.”

  Laden with instruments and flasks of medicinal, they followed him into the cavernous hall. The floor was flagged with stone and spread with rushes that needed changing. The furniture seemed ample for small giants. Three walls were arrayed with swords, shields, and lances, while the north wall was hung with tapestries of rich but faded color, against which stood a throne of carved dark wood.

  The central fireplace was cold but the place was redolent of last winter’s smoke and a less attractive stench, strongest when their escort stopped before the hound lying by the hearth.

  “Lost two toes in a snare, a fortnight ago. At first they healed nicely, then they festered.”

  Barber nodded. He shook meat from a silver bowl by the hound’s head and poured in the contents of two of his flasks. The dog watched with rheumy eyes and growled when he set down the bowl, but in a moment she started to lap up the specific.

  Barber took no chances; when the hound was listless, he tied her muzzle and lashed her feet so she couldn’t use her paws.

  The dog trembled and yipped when Barber cut. It smelled abominably, and there were maggots.

  “She will lose another toe.”

  “She mustn’t be crippled. Do it well,” the man said coldly.

  When it was done, Barber washed the blood from the paw with the rest of the medicinal, then bound it in a rag.

  “Payment, lord?” he suggested delicately.

  “You must wait for the Earl to return from his hunting, and ask him,” the knight said, and went away.

  They untied the dog gingerly, then took the instruments and returned to the wagon. Barber drove them away slowly, like a man with permission to leave.

  But when they were out of sight of the keep, he hawked and spat. “Perhaps the Earl would not return for days. By then, if the dog were well, perhaps he would pay, this saintly Earl. If the dog were dead or the Earl out of sorts with constipation, he might have us flayed. I shun lords and take my chances in small villages,” he said, and urged the horse away.

  Next morning, he was in better mood when they came to Chelmsford. But there already was an unguent seller set
up to entertain there, a sleek man dressed in a gaudy orange tunic and with a mane of white hair.

  “Well met, Barber,” the man said easily.

  “Hullo, Wat. You still have the beast?”

  “No, he turned sickly and became too mean. I used him in a baiting.”

  “Pity you didn’t give him my Specific. It would have made him well.”

  They laughed together.

  “I have a new beast. Do you care to witness?”

  “Why not?” Barber said. He pulled the wagon up under a tree and allowed the horse to graze while the crowd gathered. Chelmsford was a large village and the audience was good. “Have you wrestled?” Barber asked Rob.

  He nodded. He loved to wrestle; wrestling was the everyday sport of working-class boys in London.

  Wat began his entertainment in the same manner as Barber, with juggling. His juggling was skillful, Rob thought. His storytelling couldn’t measure up to Barber’s and people laughed less frequently. But they loved the bear.

  The cage was in the shade, covered by a cloth. The crowd murmured when Wat removed the cover. Rob had seen an entertaining bear before. When he was six years old his father had taken him to see such a creature performing outside Swann’s Inn, and it had appeared enormous to him. When Wat led this muzzled bear onto the bank on a long chain, it seemed smaller. It was scarcely larger than a great dog, but it was very smart.

  “Bartram the Bear!” Wat announced.

  The bear lay down and pretended to be dead on command, he rolled a ball and fetched it, he climbed up and down a ladder, and while Wat played a flute he danced the popular clog step called the Carol, turning clumsily instead of twirling but so delighting the onlookers that they applauded the animal’s every move.

  “And now,” Wat said, “Bartram will wrestle all challengers. Anyone to throw him will be given a free pot of Wat’s Unguent, that most miraculous agent for the relief of human ills.”

  There was an amused stir but no one came forward.

  “Come, wrestlers,” Wat chided.

  Barber’s eyes twinkled. “Here is a lad who is not fear-struck,” he said loudly.

  To Rob’s amazement and great concern, he found himself propelled forward. Willing hands aided him onto the bank.

  “My boy against your beast, friend Wat,” Barber called.

  Wat nodded and they both laughed.

  Oh, Mam! Rob thought numbly.

  It was truly a bear. It swayed on its hind legs and cocked its large, furry head at him. This was no hound, no Carpenter’s Street playmate. He saw massive shoulders and thick limbs, and his instinct was to leap from the bank and flee. But to do so would defy Barber and everything the barber-surgeon represented to his existence. He made the less courageous choice and faced the animal.

  His heart pounding, he circled, weaving his open hands in front of him as he had often seen older wrestlers do. Perhaps he didn’t have it quite right; someone tittered, and the bear looked toward the sound. Trying to forget that his adversary wasn’t human, Rob acted as he would have toward another boy: he darted in and tried to unbalance Bartram, but it was like trying to uproot a great tree.

  Bartram lifted one paw and struck him lazily. The bear had been declawed but the cuff knocked him down and halfway across the stage. Now he was more than terrified; he knew he could do nothing and would have fled, but Bartram shambled with deceptive swiftness and was waiting. When he got to his feet he was wrapped by the forelimbs. His face was pulled into the bear, which filled his nose and mouth. He was strangling in scruffy black fur that smelled exactly like the pelt he slept on at night. The bear was not fully grown, but neither was he. Struggling, he found himself looking up into small and desperate red eyes. The bear was as afraid as he, Rob realized, but the animal was in full control and had something to harry. Bartram couldn’t bite but it was obvious he would have; he ground the leather muzzle into Rob’s shoulder and his breath was strong and stinking.

  Wat reached his hand toward the little handle on the animal’s collar. He didn’t touch it, but the bear whimpered and cringed; he dropped Rob and fell onto his back.

  “Pin him, you dolt!” Wat whispered.

  He flung himself down and touched the black fur near the shoulders. No one was fooled and a few people jeered, but the crowd had been entertained and was in good humor. Wat caged Bartram and returned to reward Rob with a tiny clay pot of unguent, as promised. Soon the entertainer was declaiming the salve’s ingredients and uses to the crowd.

  Rob walked to the wagon on rubbery legs.

  “You did handsomely,” Barber said. “Dove right into him. Bit of a nosebleed?”

  He snuffled, knowing he was fortunate. “The beast was about to do me harm,” he said glumly.

  Barber grinned and shook his head. “Did you note the little handle on its neckband? It’s a choke collar. The handle allows the band to be twisted, cutting off the creature’s breathing if it disobeys. It is the way bears are trained.” He gave Rob a hand up to the wagon seat and then took a dab of salve from the pot and rubbed it between thumb and forefinger. “Tallow and lard and a touch of scent. And, oh, but he sells a good deal of it,” he mused, watching customers line up to hand Wat their pennies. “An animal guarantees prosperity. There are entertainments built around marmots, goats, crows, badgers, and dogs. Even lizards, and generally they take in more money than I do when I work alone.”

  The horse responded to the reins and started down the track into the coolness of the woods, leaving Chelmsford and the wrestling bear behind them. The shakiness was still in Rob. He sat motionless, thinking. “Then why do you not entertain with an animal?” he said slowly.

  Barber half-turned in the seat. His friendly blue eyes found Rob’s and seemed to say more than his smiling mouth.

  “I have you,” he said.

  6

  THE COLORED BALLS

  They began with juggling, and from the start Rob knew he would never be able to perform that kind of miracle.

  “Stand erect but relaxed, hands at your sides. Bring your forearms up until they’re level with the ground. Turn your palms up.” Barber surveyed him critically and then nodded. “You must pretend that on your palms I have placed a tray of eggs. The tray can’t be allowed to tilt for even a moment or the eggs will slide off. It’s the same with juggling. If your arms don’t remain level, the balls will be all over the ground. Is this understood?”

  “Yes, Barber.” He had a sick feeling in his stomach.

  “Cup your hands as though you’re to drink water from each of them.” He took two wooden balls. He placed the red ball in Rob’s cupped right hand and the blue ball in his left. “Now toss them up the way a juggler does, but at the same time.”

  The balls went over his head and fell to the ground.

  “Observe. The red ball rose higher, because you have more strength in your right arm than in your left. Therefore you must learn to compensate, to use less effort from your right hand and more from your left, for the throws must be equal. Also, the balls went too high. A juggler has enough to do without having to pull back his head and peer up into the sun to see where the balls have gone. The balls should come no higher than here.” He tapped Rob’s forehead. “That way you see them without moving your head.”

  He frowned. “Another thing. Jugglers never throw a ball. The balls are popped. The center of your hand must pop up for a moment so that the cup disappears and your hand is flat. The center of your hand drives the ball straight up, while at the same time the wrist gives a quick little snap and the forearm makes the smallest of motions upward. From the elbows to the shoulders, your arms shouldn’t move.”

  He retrieved the balls and handed them to Rob.

  When they reached Hertford, Rob set up the bank and carried out the flasks of Barber’s elixir and then took the two wooden balls off by himself and practiced popping. It hadn’t sounded hard but he found that half the time he placed a spin on the ball when he threw it up, causing it to veer. If he hooked the
ball by hanging on to it too long it fell back toward his face or went over his shoulder. If he allowed a hand to go slack, the ball traveled away from him. But he kept at it, and soon he grasped the knack of popping. Barber seemed pleased when he showed his new skill that evening before supper.

  The next day Barber stopped the wagon outside the village of Luton and showed Rob how to pop two balls so their paths crossed. “You can avoid collisions in midair if one ball has a head start or is popped higher than the other,” he said.

  As soon as the show had begun in Luton, Rob stole away with the two balls and practiced in a small clearing in the woods. More often than not, the blue ball met the red ball with a small clunking sound that seemed to mock him. The balls fell and rolled and had to be retrieved, and he felt stupid and out of sorts. But nobody watched except a woods mouse and an occasional bird, and he continued to try. Eventually he was able to see that he could pop both balls successfully if the first one came down wide of his left hand and the second one went lower and traveled a shorter distance. It took him two days of trial and error and constant repetition before he was sufficiently satisfied to demonstrate it to Barber.

  Barber showed him how to move both balls in a circle. “It looks more difficult than it is. You pop the first ball. While it is in the air, you shift the second ball into the right hand. The left hand catches the first ball, the right hand pops the second ball, and so on, hop, hop, hop! The balls are sent into the air quickly by your pops, but they come down much slower. That’s the juggler’s secret, that’s what saves jugglers. You have plenty of time.”

  By the end of a week Barber was teaching him how to juggle both the red and the blue from the same hand. He had to hold one ball in his palm and the other farther forward, on his fingers. He was glad he had large hands. He dropped the balls a lot but finally he caught on: first red was tossed up, and before it could drop back into his hand, up went blue. They danced up and down from the same hand, hop, hop, hop! He practiced every moment that he could, now—two balls in a circle, two balls crossing over, two balls with the right hand only, two balls one-handed with the left. He found that by juggling with very low pops he could increase his speed.