Matilda Bone Read online

  Matilda frowned. Surely God had sent such suffering and should be the one to see to its release, not this woman. And certainly not Matilda, who yearned for higher things.

  "What we do," Peg continued, "depends on what we think wrong. Bonesetting is also a skill of the brain." She smiled at Matilda. "Come here and I will show you." Peg reached for the girl.

  Matilda backed away and crossed herself.

  "By the broken bones of Saint Stephen!" Peg shouted. "Just what has you trembling and quaking now? Are you still afeared of the Devil grabbing you?"

  "No, I am afeared of you grabbing me. Will this hurt?"

  "Not a jot. Just hasten on up here," said Peg with a soft whack on the girl's rump, "and lie on your back."

  Matilda very slowly climbed up onto the table, brushing away the remaining bread crumbs, sausage leavings, and other dusty, lumpy substances. Peg pulled clamps from the ceiling, measured Matilda's height with a critical eye, and chose a section of rope. She attached the clamps to the girl's leg with ropes and pulleys.

  Matilda recoiled, inhaling with a hiss. Peg's hands felt warm and strong, but she was not used to being touched.

  "If there is aught you do not understand, just ask me. Anytime," said Peg. "Now we begin.

  "Fractures are breaks in the bones. We pull the edges apart, straighten the bones, and push the pieces back into place. Then we must hold them together until they mend." Using the girl's skinny leg for a model, Peg showed her how to pack the limb with comfrey root and wrap it in wet leather that would shrink as it dried to act as a splint. "Here," Peg said, "watch how I thread the ropes through this pulley to break down a stiffened joint." And she demonstrated how to restrain struggling patients and how to sit atop those having ill-mended breaks rebroken to keep them from shifting or running away. Peg bounced once, and the girl said, "Oof" and then "Oof!" She was smarting and sore when Peg released her from the table.

  "You will also be brewing our lotions, potions, tonics, and ointments. The dried herbs are kept in these crocks by the table. See, here is comfrey, also called boneset. Here, houseleeks and nightshade berries, watercress and wormwood. And sicklewort for stanching cuts. You'll soon learn which is which. Always be careful to use only what I tell you. Do as I do." She added herbs to a kettle and hung it over the fire. "This is horseradish to boil with grease for a liniment. Stir it carefully and watch it closely. And never let the mixture boil over."

  She treats me like a kitchen maid, thought Matilda. As if I am fit for nothing but measuring and brewing. Why, I know Latin and French and some Greek, as well as reading and writing and figuring. I can name the three wise men, the seven deadly sins, and a great many of the 133,306,668 devils of Hell: Abaddon, Abduscius, Abigor...

  The mixture boiled over onto the dirt floor.

  "You beef-brained ninny!" shouted Peg. "You could have roasted yourself! And now it has gone to waste. Here. Pour what is left into this jug."

  Matilda tipped the kettle and spilled the remaining liquid.

  "It seems I have made a bad bargain," Peg said, grabbing the kettle. "You are not good for much."

  Matilda's stomach knotted with fear. She would not want Father Leufredus to come back and find her in disfavor. Or what if this hard woman turned her out? She had nowhere to go until he returned. With tears in her eyes she said softly, "Please, Mistress Peg, show me again. I will attend carefully."

  Peg, her face red with anger and teeth clenched, said, "Perhaps we should start with something easier. Now, watch closely." She stuck her own sturdy leg up on the bench and rolled the stocking down to her ankle. "For those who are overworked or suffer the pains of old age or need a gentle touch, I rub a bit of monkshood oil into the joints, like this, and wrap them to keep them warm. Beware, however, my girl. Like meekness, holiness, and clumsiness, monkshood oil can be overdone."

  Matilda looked up quickly. Was Peg mocking her? Or jesting? Or was she telling her something important?

  Peg stood up and continued. "We do not brew the monkshood oil here. My Tom brings it when he comes." Her face softened. "Tom, now, he travels, comes and goes like the rheumatics. Ten years we have been wed, and still I miss him when he is gone. He betakes himself here and there sharing his knowledge and instructing others. My Tom is a man of learning, wise, clever, and well-mannered."

  "A man of learning?" Matilda repeated, suddenly attentive.

  "Oh, yes. A great man."

  "It is well that he is a great man," Matilda said, "but Father Leufredus advises against earthly attachments, for they take our minds away from God and Heaven."

  "Well, everyone prefers a different sort of cheese, I suppose," said Peg.

  What a thing to say! Matilda looked at the woman in surprise and horror. If Father Leufredus could hear her! The priest would be appalled at this blasphemy. But he would not wish Matilda to argue with her mistress, so Matilda said only, "Where might I be alone to pray?"

  "Right now?"

  "Father Leufredus instructed me to pray seven times each day, standing, kneeling, or prostrate on the floor, with arms—"

  "I go to Bertrand Buttercrambe's to tend his leg, for he cannot be moved," said Peg. "Scrub down the table and you may have this room until dinner. You have learned enough this morning." And she left the shop muttering, "Would I could adjust a person's thinking with ropes and pulleys as easily as I can a fractured leg."

  Matilda, lying on the floor with arms outstretched, frowned at the hearing, thinking Peg hurtful, heretical, and much too heavy for sitting on folk.

  Chapter Three: Going to Market

  "After that unsatisfactory breakfast I am more than ready for dinner," said Peg when she returned.

  "And I," added Matilda.

  Peg said nothing but pulled a small brass knife from beneath her belt and began to clean the dirt and goose grease from under her fingernails. Finally Matilda sighed and, fearing the answer, asked Peg softly, "What are we eating and when are we eating it?"

  "We are eating what you buy in the market, and we are eating it when you bring it home and cook it."

  "I cannot."

  "Maybe in Heaven," said Peg, "food buys and cooks itself, but on earth someone must do it. And here in my shop that someone is you."

  "But I do not know how to buy food or cook it."

  "Why not?"

  "At the manor others did that. I am no kitchen maid. I seek higher things."

  "You had better seek fish heads or chicken pies, else there will be no dinner. Get what is fresh and cheap. And bread. And maybe a cabbage or a ginger cake."

  Peg gave Matilda three pennies and directions to the market. Matilda said, "Yes, Mistress Peg," but did not listen as she pulled on her boots and cloak. She had no idea where the market was, but if someone as lowly and uneducated as Mistress Peg could find it, so too could Matilda.

  A gusty wind rattled shutters and set shop signs swinging as Matilda walked up the alley and turned onto Frog Road. She looked carefully about her, for she had arrived in near darkness and had not seen this town, this Chipping Bagthorpe, halfway between London and Oxford but near to neither. It was the first time she had been over a mile from the place where she was born. I never knew, she thought, there were so many people in the world, so many roads. And so many buildings: houses and shops crowded together, leaning higgledy-piggledy against each other and away, to the left and to the right; taverns and inns, dark and crowded and ominous; churches with their bell towers pointing up to Heaven.

  What if I lost my way in this place? she thought, dazed by it all. I could starve to death around the corner from a baker, die unshriven down the road from a church, and never know.

  Taking a deep breath, she turned right past the Church of Saint Zoe the Martyr, who had been hanged from a tree by her hair before being roasted like a snipe, Matilda knew. The streets grew more crowded. Peddlers called out, advertising their meager winter wares: onions and turnips, apples only slightly withered, salt meat, salt fish, salt! Church bells clamored from every s
treet corner. Beggars whined, dogs barked, pigs snorted as they rooted in the refuse. "Have you any rats to kill?" cried one tradesman. "Or clothes to mend?" called another as Matilda walked by.

  She went left two streets, up past the well, and around the corner, trying to avoid the occasional housewife emptying her chamber pot out the window, then past the Church of Saint Zoe the Martyr, and then...

  Matilda stopped and looked around. Saint Zoe? Again? What now? Straight ahead? Left or right? Matilda prayed for a sign, like the moon on fire or a two-headed horse. But, it being day, there was no moon, and all the horses she saw had but one head.

  She turned and went past the Church of Saint Zoe the Martyr once more, three streets the other way, through the Street of the Cupmakers and past the Church of Saint Zoe the Martyr. "Saliva mucusque!" said Matilda as she turned again and went four blocks left, past Shoemakers' Street, up along the river to Fish Street, and finally there was the market square.

  The rain had stopped for a time, and the square was packed with people, bundled up in woolen scarves and gloves, buying and selling, begging and thieving. Never before had Matilda been to a market. Her nose filled with the smell of beeswax candles, fine perfumes, onions, and nutmeg. She pulled her cloak tighter against the wind as she paused to watch the magicians, acrobats, and jugglers. She lingered at the silk stall and the leather booths, lost in the sights and sounds and smells, until her stomach rumbled a loud, hungry rumble. A chicken, she thought. It was not Lent, and she was not fasting today. Father Leufredus would approve of a chicken. Let us have a chicken, then, fat and juicy and golden from the fire.

  She turned toward the Poultry, where chickens lashed together by their feet hung squawking and wriggling from the beams of the stalls. "How much for a chicken?" she asked the poultryman.

  "Three pennies."

  It was all she had. There would be no bread or cabbage. She thought again of the chicken, roasted golden.

  "One chicken," she said. "Kindly kill it and pluck it clean."

  The poultryman laughed. "You bought it, you kill and pluck it," he said, handing her a chicken by its feet. She reached out warily to grab it. The chicken squawked, Matilda squealed, and she dropped it as though it were on fire. The chicken made its escape amid baskets of duck feet and wild partridges.

  "Where are my pennies?" asked the poultryman.

  "Where is my chicken?" asked Matilda softly as she walked quickly away. The poultryman cursed loud and vulgar curses as he jumped over the duck feet in his haste to get his chicken back.

  "Obviously God did not intend for us to have a chicken for dinner. Perhaps something easier and already dead," said Matilda to herself. She headed back to Fish Street to find a fishmonger's stall.

  There were so many kinds of fish. "I need for dinner some fish that is fresh and cheap," she said to the pock-faced man at the stall.

  "Do you know much about fish?" asked the fishmonger, looking hard at her.

  "Oh, yes," said Matilda. "Fish escaped God's curse on the earth by dwelling in the water and thus are blessed among living things. The fish is the symbol of Saint Peter, who was a fisherman, and Saint Zeno of Verona. We are allowed to eat fish during Lent and on other fast days when meat is forbidden."

  "But do you know what fish is good to eat?"

  "No," Matilda admitted.

  "Then it is your happy fortune that you came to me, for some others would try to cheat you. You can trust me." The fish man smiled a smile empty of teeth but full of guile. "The best fish for eating is the eel, and," he said, lowering his voice, "I have a special one here. See how big his head is—means he was sharp-witted and wise. Eating a wise fish makes you wise. And his skin is that mottled brown that means he is ripe. I will give you this eel for ... how much do you have?"

  "Three pennies."

  He shook his head. "This eel is worth much more than three pennies. I cannot sell it for so little. Oh, well," he said, with a great sigh, "you look so little and so hungry. Here, take it for three pennies. Take it and go. Quickly. Quickly. And show no one, for they will all rush to my stall looking for a bargain to equal yours." He took her pennies, wrapped the eel in wet grass, and handed it to Matilda.

  She stepped back. "It smells so strongly offish," she said.

  "Strong smell means fresh fish," said the fishmonger. "Do you not know the saying?"

  Matilda shook her head, took her eel, and left.

  On her way back to Peg's, near as tortuous a route as that she had taken to the market, people crossed the road to avoid walking near her, but she did not notice as she was occupied pretending to be Saint Doucelina floating three feet off the ground in ecstasy.

  As she turned onto Frog Road, she saw a crowd following behind an impressive-looking man in black sur-coat lined with fur and embroidered red shoes. At his waist was a leather belt, from which dangled a small book bound in gold and russet. He looked learned. And worthy. And clean.

  "Who," she asked one of the crowd, "is that man?"

  "It is Theobald, the physician," she was answered.

  "Master Theobald the Wonderworker," said someone else. And yet another person said, "It is that Theobald who saved the Lord Mayor's life by dosing him with pepper and spikenard and sitting on his stomach."

  Matilda watched him with awe.

  He was approached by a well-padded woman—a goose girl, perhaps, or a butcher's wife—with a broad red face, strong teeth, and feet like mandolins. "Master Theobald," the woman said, "I am come again to beseech you. You say I am not worthy to physick. Then teach me. Or assist me. Or—"

  "I do not teach those who can read neither Latin nor the stars," the master physician said, wrapping his cloak about him. "Nor those who are loud or blasphemous. Nor women." The crowd murmured in agreement.

  "I have just seen a woman give birth to a dead son and three days later follow him to Heaven or Hell," the red-faced woman responded. "I dosed and cleansed, patched and prodded, watched and listened, held her and sang as sweetly as I could. I used massage, rare stones, tansy wine, holy amulets, prayer, everything I know. For nothing. Her life poured out of her with the blood that drenched her pallet. How would your reading and your Aristotle have changed that?"

  "I believe the answer must lie in the stars. Perhaps she chose to begin her labor at an ill-omened moment—"

  "Chose! As if a woman could choose when to begin labor!"

  The man turned to leave. "Wait, Master Theobald. Wait," the woman called. His steps slowed. "I am sorry for my temper. Let us say perhaps she did choose to begin labor at a less than propitious time. What then could I have done to save her? Help me! Teach me!"

  "Read Galen and Aristotle," he said as he walked away.

  "Galen and Aristotle," she muttered. "If he wants to know whether a frog has teeth, does he read Aristotle and Galen on frogs? I want to know what he knows, not what dead men have said."

  Matilda watched the physician disappear, the goose girl calling, "Master Theobald! Master!" as she ran after him. Father Leufredus always said, "Learned authority is more true than mere experience." No doubt that was what made this Master Theobald a great man. Anyone could look in the frog's mouth.

  Matilda sighed. Would that I had been sent as attendant to this great and learned doctor instead of the loud and unholy Peg, she thought as she walked on.

  Chapter Four: Encountering Doctor Margery

  "What do we have for dinner?" asked Peg when Matilda returned.

  "Eel," said Matilda, flopping it onto the table.

  "And what else? Cabbage? Onions? Parsley? Bread?"

  "Just eel, Mistress Peg. It took all the pennies, but I made a good bargain." She unwrapped the fish.

  The door opened and closed. "What is that loathsome smell?" asked a voice Matilda had heard before. It was the goose girl from the street.

  "Dinner, dear Margery," said Peg, "purchased by my new and useless helper, who hasn't the wit to know rotten fish." Peg shoved Matilda forward.

  Matilda's face burned.
She longed to hide, be gone, vanish altogether.

  "Were you not put off by the reek?" Peg asked her. "Strong smell means fresh fish, he said," Matilda told Peg.

  "He said this was fresh?"

  "Yes, Mistress Peg."

  "A fresh eel has a white belly, a small head, glistening skin, and a mild salty smell. This eel was neither sound when alive nor edible now." She shook her head. "How much did he ask for it?"

  "Three pennies."

  "And how much did you pay?"

  "Three pennies!"

  "For that reeking eel? You were cheated mightily." Peg sighed. "Never give what is asked at first. And never buy an eel with a big head. Throw this into the alley for the cats. We will have porridge for dinner."

  Matilda opened the door. She wished to disappear into the alley with the stinking fish. To be made to do lowly things, and then to fail! She sighed loudly as she tossed the fish out, slammed the door, and turned back toward Peg and the goose girl.

  Peg poured grains and water into a kettle and hung it over the fire for a porridge. "This," said Peg to Matilda as she stirred, "is our physician, Margery Lewes—a woman, of course, for no true physician would work here on the alley with barbers and bonesetters."

  "True physicians work where the streets are cleaner, the houses larger, and the fees bigger," said Margery, laughing a laugh like the screech of a rusty cart wheel as she sat down on the bench.

  "But woman though she be," Peg continued, "she is physician indeed. Have you fever or boils? Fallen arches or wambly gut? Marg here can mend them all."

  A physician! Matilda measured the woman with her eyes the way Peg had measured the rope for the pulley. The short, stout Margery could not possibly be a physician! No wonder her patient had died.