Free The Tainted Coin by Mel Starr

investigation.”
    “She?”
    “Aye. A widow and her two children.”
    Another silence followed. I would not plead with the porter, and he could think of no reason to deny my request that he seek the hospital infirmarer.
    “I will fetch Brother Theodore,” he finally said, then turned and slowly entered the hospital.
    Arthur and I stood before the porter’s chamber, shifting weight from one foot to another, for nearly an hour before the porter reappeared with two elderly monks following. If Lord Gilbert Talbot’s name could generate so little haste, it is sure that Master Hugh, surgeon, would have found even less regard in this place. Here was not the first time I had found it convenient to mention my employer’s name when I needed something from men who might otherwise be loath to provide for my need.
    One of the grizzled monks who followed the porter held a linen cloth over his mouth and nose. When he came close I saw that this fabric was stained with blood and a yellowish effusion.
    “Brother Bartholomew,” the porter said, “here is… Hugh, bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot. Brother Bartholomew,” he turned to me, “is infirmarer at the abbey and hospital.” The elderly monks bowed slightly, and I returned the greeting.
    “You require lodging for a woman, I am told,” the infirmarer said. Arthur, who had been standing near, displaying Lord Gilbert’s blue-and-black livery to add emphasis to my request, now spoke:
    “You’ve injured yourself?” he said to the other monk. It was impolitic for Arthur to interrupt so, but he is accustomed to speaking his mind, and voiced but what I had thought.
    “Nay, no injury. A fistula which will not heal.”
    “Master Hugh can deal with such as that,” Arthur said confidently. “Seen ’im put a man’s skull back together after a tree fell on ’im.”
    “You are a physician?” the monk asked.
    “Nay, a surgeon. Is there no brother in the abbey, trained in medicine, who can help you?”
    “Brother Bartholomew has prepared salves, but none will cure me. I will go to my grave with this, I think. I have prayed the Lord Christ to ease my affliction, and the saints, also, but as with St. Paul’s ‘thorn in the flesh,’ He has chosen not to do so.”
    “Some afflictions,” the porter said, “serve to bring us to God. As we suffer now, He will requite it of us in purgatory. Brother Theodore’s suffering will release him from years of misery to come. And Brother Bartholomew possesses much knowledge and skill. If he cannot deal with Brother Theodore’s complaint, ’tis sure no other can.”

    Arthur rolled his eyes, shrugged, but remained silent. He recognized that the porter was not a man who suffered lightly any contradiction, especially from the commons. The monk, however, saw no need to agree with the porter.
    “You made a man’s broken head whole again?”
    “Aye.”
    “An’ he walks now near as good as ever,” Arthur found his voice again.
    “Do you have salves which might help me, some ointment Brother Bartholomew does not know of?”
    “Nay, no ointment will remedy your hurt.”
    “See,” the porter said, “there is nothing to be done if Brother Bartholomew cannot work a cure.”
    Brother Theodore turned to me and said, “Is this so?”
    “Nay. Such a fistula can be repaired. I saw it done in Paris.”
    “Paris?”
    “Aye,” Arthur said. “Master Hugh studied surgery in Paris.”
    The monk looked from me to the porter, then slowly dropped the linen cloth which had covered his disfigurement.
    “Can you deal with this?” he asked.
    The fistula was between his nose and his right eye. I believe it had vexed the man for many months, perhaps even years, for it was of great size and oozed constantly a fluid of pus and blood.
    I approached close to the sufferer and studied the lesion carefully before I made reply. “Aye, I can. I must tell you, however, that such surgery as I must do to mend you will be painful.”
    “But after the pain I