Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [131]
“Now, Brother. You know what the doctors said. You are ill; you must not exert yourself.”
Sergius said accusingly, “I woke to find them anointing me with oil. They were trying to administer unctio extrema.”
The prelates smoothed their robes with ruffled dignity. They appeared to be men of importance; one who wore the pallium of an archbishop said, “We thought it best, in view of His Holiness’s worsening condition—”
“Leave at once!” Benedict interrupted.
Joan was astonished; Benedict must be powerful, indeed, to address an archbishop so uncivilly.
“Take thought, Benedict,” the archbishop warned. “Would you endanger your brother’s immortal soul?”
“Out!” Benedict swung his arms as if driving off a flock of blackbirds. “All of you!”
The prelates retreated hastily, exiting in shared indignation.
Sergius fell back weakly against his pillows. “The pain, Benedict,” he whimpered. “I cannot bear the pain.”
Benedict poured wine from a pitcher beside the bed into the golden cup and put it to Sergius’s lips. “Drink,” he said, “it will ease you.”
Sergius drank thirstily. “More,” he demanded as soon as he had drained it. Benedict poured him a second cup, and then a third. Wine spilled down the sides of Sergius’s mouth. He was small boned but very fat. His countenance was a series of connecting circles: round face connecting to round chin, round eyes centered inside twin rings of flesh.
“Now,” Benedict said, when Sergius’s thirst was quenched, “see what I have done for you, Brother? I have brought someone who can help you. He is John Anglicus, a healer of great repute.”
“Another physician?” Sergius said mistrustfully.
But he made no objection when Joan pulled back the covers to examine him. She was shocked at his condition. His legs were hugely swollen, the stretched flesh cracked and splitting from the strain. He was afflicted with a serious inflammation of the joints; Joan guessed the cause, but she had to make certain. She checked Sergius’s ears. Sure enough, there they were: the telltale tophi, little chalky excrescences resembling crabs’ eyes whose presence meant only one thing: Sergius was suffering an acute attack of gout. How was it possible that his doctors had not recognized it?
Joan ran her fingertips gently over the red, shiny flesh, feeling for the source of the inflammation.
“At least this one hasn’t the hands of a plowman,” Sergius conceded. It was astonishing he was still lucid, for he burned with fever. Joan felt his pulse, noting as she did the multiple wounds on his arm from repeated bleedings. His heartbeat was weak, and his coloring, now the fit of choler had passed, a sickly bluish white.
Benedicite, she thought. No wonder he suffers from thirst. They have bled him within an inch of his life.
She turned to a chamberlain. “Bring water. Quickly.”
She had to reduce the swelling before it killed him. Thank heavens she had brought corm of colchicum. Joan reached into her scrip and withdrew a small square of waxed parchment, unfolding it carefully so as not to spill any of the precious powder. The chamberlain returned with a jug of water. Joan poured some into a goblet, then infused two drams of the powdered root, the recommended dosage. She added clarified honey to mask the bitter taste and a small dose of henbane to make Sergius sleep—for sleep was the best anodyne against pain, and rest the best hope for a cure.
She handed the goblet to Sergius, who gulped it thirstily. “Pah!” He spat it out. “This is water!”
“Drink it,” Joan said firmly.
To her surprise, Sergius acquiesced. “Now what?” he asked after he had drained the cup. “Are you going to purge me?”
“I should have thought you’d had enough of such tortures.”
“You mean to do no more than this?” Benedict challenged. “A simple draft and that is all?”
Joan sighed. She had encountered such reactions before. Common sense