Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [129]
“Your brother is skillfully attended, I trust?”
“He is surrounded night and day by holy men offering prayers for his recovery.”
“Ah!” There was a silence. Both men were skeptical of the efficacy of such measures, but neither could own his doubt openly.
“There is someone at the Schola Anglorum,” Anastasius ventured, “a priest with a great reputation for healing.”
“Oh?”
“John Anglicus, I believe he is called—a foreigner. Apparently he is a man of great learning. They say that he can perform veritable miracles of healing.”
“Perhaps I should send for him,” said Benedict.
“Perhaps,” Anastasius agreed, then let the matter drop. Benedict, he sensed, was not a man to be pushed. Tactfully, Anastasius shifted the discussion to another matter. When he judged a reasonable amount of time to have passed, he stood to leave. “Dominus tecum, Benedictus.”
“Deus vobiscus.” Benedict mangled the form once again.
Ignorant oaf, Anastasius thought. That such a man could rise so far in power was an embarrassment, a stain upon the reputation of the Church. With a bow and an elegant sweep of his robes, Anastasius turned and left.
Benedict watched him go. Not a bad sort, for an aristocrat. I will send for this healer-priest, this John Anglicus. It would probably cause trouble, bringing in someone who was not a member of the society of physicians, but no matter. Benedict would find a way. There was always a way, when one knew what one wanted.
THREE dozen candles blazed at the foot of the great bed in which Sergius lay. Behind them knelt a clot of black-robed monks, droning litanies in deep-voiced unison.
Ennodius, chief physician of Rome, raised his iron lancet and drew it deftly across Sergius’s left forearm, slicing into the chief vein. Blood welled from the wound and dripped into a silver bowl held by Ennodius’s apprentice. Ennodius shook his head as he examined the blood in the bowl. It was thick and dark; the peccant humor that was causing the Pope’s illness was compacted in the body and would not be drawn out. Ennodius left the wound open, letting the blood flow longer than usual; he would not be able to bleed Sergius again for some days, for the moon was passing into Gemini, an unpropitious sign for bloodletting.
“How does it look?” Florus, a fellow physician, asked.
“Bad. Very bad.”
“Come outside,” Florus whispered. “I must speak with you.”
Ennodius staunched the wound, pressing the flaps of skin together and applying pressure with his hand. The task of binding the wound with grease-coated leaves of rue wrapped in cloth he left to his apprentice. Wiping the blood from his hands, he followed Florus out to the hall.
“They’ve sent for someone else,” Florus said urgently as soon as they were alone. “A healer from the Schola Anglorum.”
“No!” Ennodius was chagrined. The practice of medicine within the city was supposed to be strictly confined to members of the physicians’ society—though in actuality a small and unrecognized army of medical dabblers plied their questionable skills among the populace. These were tolerated, as long as they operated anonymously among the poor. But a forthright acknowledgment of one of these, coming from the papal palace itself, represented an undeniable threat.
“John Anglicus, the man is called,” Florus said. “Rumor has it he is possessed of extraordinary powers. They say he can diagnose an illness merely by examining a patient’s urine.”
Ennodius sniffed. “A charlatan.”
“Obviously. But some of these medical pretenders are quite artful. If this John Anglicus can mount even an appearance of skill, it could be damaging.”
Florus was right. In a profession such as theirs, where results were often disappointing and always unpredictable, reputation was everything. If this outsider should meet with success where they had been seen to fail …
Ennodius thought for a moment. “He makes a