Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [6]
There were enough rooms to have a bedroom each, a dining room, an entrance hall for patients to wait in, and a room for consulting. There was also another room with a heavy door to which Leo could attach a lock and where Anna could keep herbs, ointments, unguents, and tinctures, and of course her surgical blades, needles, and silks. In here she placed the wooden cabinet with its dozens of drawers into which she put the herbs she had, each one labeled, and including one whole leaf or root so one could not be mistaken for another.
But in spite of the discreet notice she put at the front of the house stating her profession, patients would not come to her. She must go out and seek them, let people know of her presence and her skills.
So it was at midday that she stood on the step of a tavern in the hard sunlight and the wind. She pushed open the door and went inside. She walked through the crowd and saw a table with one empty chair. The rest were filled with men eating and talking excitedly. At least one was a eunuch, taller, long-armed, soft-faced, his voice too high, with the strange, altered tone of his gender.
“May I take this seat?” she asked.
It was the eunuch who replied, inviting her in. Perhaps he was pleased to have another of his kind.
A waiter came and offered her food, cut pieces of roast pork wrapped in wheat bread, and she accepted.
“Thank you,” she said. “I have just moved in, the house with the blue door, straight up the hill. My name is Anastasius Zarides. I am a physician.”
One of the men shrugged and introduced himself. “I’ll remember if I am ill,” he said good-naturedly. “If you stitch up wounds, you might stay around. There’ll be business for you when we’ve finished arguing.”
She was uncertain how to reply, not sure if he was joking or not. She had heard raised voices from the doorway as she came in. “I have needle and silk,” she offered.
One of the others laughed. “You’ll need more than that if we’re invaded. How are you at raising the dead?”
“I’ve never had the nerve to try,” she replied as casually as she could. “Isn’t that more of a job for a priest?”
They all laughed, but she heard a hard, bitter sound of fear in it and realized the power of the undercurrents she had barely listened to before, in her own urgency to find a house and begin a practice.
“What kind of a priest?” one of the men said harshly. “Orthodox or Roman, eh? Which side are you on?”
“I’m Orthodox,” she said quietly, answering because she felt compelled to say something. Silence would be deceit.
“Then you better pray harder,” he told her. “God knows we’ll need it. Have some wine, physician.”
Anna held out her glass and found her hand was shaking. Quickly she put the glass on the table. “Thank you.” When the glass was full she held it up, forcing herself to smile. “Here’s to your good health … except for perhaps a slight skin rash, or the occasional hives. I’m good at that, for a small sum.”
They laughed again and lifted their glasses.
Two
ANNA CALLED UPON HER NEIGHBORS ONE BY ONE, INTRODUCING herself and her profession. Several of them already had physicians they chose to consult, but she had expected that. She told them that she specialized in complaints of the skin, especially burns, and of the lungs, then left without pressing the issue.
She also shopped for various household items of as good a quality as she could afford, buying them from smaller shops within two or three streets of her house. Here she also introduced herself and told them of her own skills. For the favor of recommending their wares, they were willing to recommend her to their customers.
In the second week she gained only two consultations, and they were for ailments so slight as to require only a simple potion to ease itching and heat. After the busy practice she had inherited from her father in Nicea, it seemed so small. She had to struggle to keep up her spirits in front of Leo and Simonis.
The third week was better. She was called to an accident in the street in which an elderly man had been knocked over and his legs badly scraped.