The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [157]
“The devil there?” Monique felt hot and cold and sick.
“The same. I did not know I was being followed, but followed I was. She had left a pair of old leggings at the clinic, and I kept them with me—”
“Nasty fuckin man.” Monique shook her head.
“What? I kept them so that if I caught her trail I could secure dogs to follow her—”
“Dogs?! You was gonna hunt’er with dogs, lump?!”
“If need be,” Paracelsus said defensively. “Unfortunately, something else picked up the trail. That monster. It thought I was she, from the scent in my bags, and it followed me here. I came into town a few days ago, inquired about the churchyard, and next thing I knew found myself held captive in a bandits’ den, a shack not far from here. They hardly fed me at all, and kept me gagged, and after thwarting my ingenious escape attempt they took me to the churchyard to give me to another band of brigands. I inferred they were operating as agents of some Inquisitor, which is hardly surprising—as a magus they don’t dare attempt to put me on trial, me, who would expose them as frauds, as corrupt, no no no, they tried to do it on the sly, knowing that as easy as it is to trick uneducated women into damning themselves the scholar will unmask them, will call attention to their—”
“It’s moving!” Manuel called. “It’s trying to get up!”
“Oh? Good,” said Paracelsus. “Tell me if it succeeds. Where was I, my dear?”
“I ain’t your dear, shitlips,” said Monique, her eyes rolling as he prodded farther up her arm. “You was gettin traded from chickenheads ta bounty riders.”
“Yes, of course. Well, that was that—the monster attacked from the darkness, and the one or two men that held their ground were disarmed or killed outright. One fiend against a dozen stout men, and they all fell, some running, some hiding, some praying, but they all fell. Then it gnawed through my bonds, curious why I smelled of she, I imagine, and the answers I gave it delighted the beast … I pretended to know where she was, and so it consented to let me live so long as I took it to her. I agreed, of course, and it set to making a den in the barrow. It meant to spend the night in its lair, eating all the men it had killed, and that is when you found me, tending the last dying man.”
“I—I think it might be dying,” said Manuel, and that decided things for the physician.
“You won’t bleed to death now, and amputating that arm ought to wait on better light and equipment.” Paracelsus stood, coated from brow to boot in caked blood and dirt.
“Amputate?” Monique said quietly, trying to move her broken arm and nearly passing out again. “Nah, no need, I broke bones afore an’—”
“It comes off or maggots will materialize,” said Paracelsus as he picked up his bag and advanced on the hyena. “Take comfort that you have your life.”
“Then maggots materialize, ya fuckin quack!” Monique screamed after him. “Fuckin piece of shit!”
“Yes yes, blame the doctor.” Paracelsus smiled at Manuel, who looked greener than the dark pines overhead. The physician was in better spirits than he had been in years, and turned his attention to the dying hyena. It looked up at him with its pleading golden eyes, and he walked around it thrice, like a dog preparing to lie down, then squatted just out of its reach should it muster its strength and try to bite him. In Latin he asked, “Can you understand me?”
“Ita,” it whined, the voice that of a boy not yet through the trials of manhood.
“Good.” Paracelsus reverted to German as he unscrewed the pommel from his sword. “Though ita vero is really more appropriate for conveying assent—must have eaten a novice, eh? Is that how your faculties work?”
“Help me,” came the little girl’s voice again, Manuel stumbling away and dry-heaving in the shadows.
“Certainly,” said Paracelsus. “Now, we don’t have much light left, this lantern’s almost empty. But before we got started I thought you might help me coin a term for the sort of examination we’ll be doing. I love language every bit as much as you evidently do, so since you’ll be contributing so heavily I thought you could offer