The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [82]
“I never said that!” Awa cried. “I never told you, how did you—”
“But you did!” Paracelsus nodded. “As you slept you would mumble to yourself, and often when you were awake as well. I have transcribed some of it, and much of it is in line with what—”
“You want me to break ’is head in?” Monique looked very seriously at Awa.
“It’s my fault,” said Awa. “I shouldn’t have, I mean, I know I talk to myself sometimes but … Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim.”
“Yes?” Paracelsus blinked, pleasantly surprised that someone, anyone, had remembered his full name.
“Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, what is done is done, but I cannot have you telling people about me. Use what I have given you but trouble me no more.” Awa stepped between Monique and the physician, who tilted his head back at the sudden intensity of his nurse.
“Trouble you? Why, I—” Awa touched his knee and he died. A little, anyway, and it was the most marvelous, exciting experience of the doctor’s life.
“Christ!” said Monique, backing away. She knew a dead man when she saw one, and even if he had not noisily voided his bowels she would have known he was murdered.
“Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim,” Awa said his name a third time, and leaning in, whispered in Latin, “You are dead, but I shall spare you this end so that you may help the living, so that you may use the little wisdom I have given you to change the minds of men, both about witches and about the world we all inhabit. It would be far safer for me to leave you as a corpse, but instead I give you life. Do not make me regret my decision, Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim.”
And up he sat as she returned his life to him, only to double over again in agony as a migraine ricocheted behind his temples. By the time he had recovered enough to realize he had soiled himself, Awa and Monique were gone, as was his schnapps cask. He did not even clean himself before scribbling down the monumental experience of dying, the stench and itchiness not nearly distracting enough to delay him a moment more.
Manuel was waiting for them by the north gate with two horses Monique had acquired for their journey, a large bay and a dappled mare hardly bigger than a pony. The rapidity and thoroughness of his palm’s recovery, as well as Monique’s drying lesions, pleased Manuel greatly, and he waved his scarred hand at them as they approached. While Monique quibbled with Manuel over the strapping of the saddles, Awa tried to calm her unhappy heart enough to recite her farewell speech to her first and best friend among the living, Niklaus Manuel Deutsch of Bern.
“What’s this?” Manuel interrupted her before she really got the tangle of her words sorted out. “But I’m, that is, we’re sharing a horse, aren’t we?”
“What?” Awa could scarcely believe it. “But we’re not going to Bern.”
“Well, yes, but I thought I might—”
“Earn some coin,” said Monique. “I hired us some muscle for the road, lean though it fuckin is. Bern’s got ’ores, bein a civilized spot, an’ so we’ll pop in there long the way.”
“Really?” Awa could hardly believe it. “I can see your ladies!”
“Ah,” said Manuel, picturing himself riding up his walk with Awa and Monique, picturing his wife and niece and servants and maybe his already disapproving father-in-law coming out to meet them. “Ahhhh. Maybe we could, I suppose. I wouldn’t want to, you know, slow you down.”
“Don’t worry, Awa,” said Monique, swinging onto the larger horse. “There’ll be ladies aplenty soon enough, an’ ones what’ll put up with his queerness!”
Manuel turned a very deep shade of crimson, arousing Awa’s curiosity,