Free The Dark Monk by Oliver Pötzsch, Lee Chadeayne Page A

pine chip and a few more sprigs of lavender. At one time, as a dashing young army surgeon in the Great War, he had been an imposing figure and had made eyes with many a pretty girl, but now, stooped over with thinning gray hair, he looked older than his fifty years, and all that remained of his former self was his piercing, alert eyes. And his harsh tone.
    “I’ve been waiting for you for hours!” he snapped softly enough that the three patients on the bench couldn’t hear. “I have to pay a visit to Master Hardenberg, a member of the city council. He’s come down with it, too! And instead, here I am fooling around with a few farmers who can only afford to pay me with a few eggs, at best!”
    He poked his withered index finger at Simon’s chest. “Tell me the truth—you’ve been keeping company with the hangman again and sticking your nose into those filthy books! People are already gossiping, and you’re giving them a reason to.”
    Simon rolled his eyes. Bonifaz Fronwieser hated the hangman, who he thought was corrupting his son with books and his unorthodox methods of healing.
    “Father, the priest—” he said, trying to interrupt his father’s harangue, but his father cut him off nevertheless.
    “Aha, so that’s it! No doubt you were partying with the fat old codger, eh? Hope you enjoyed your meal, at least,” he croaked. “His housekeeper at least is supposed to be a good cook!”
    “He’s dead, Father,” Simon said softly.
    “What?” Bonifaz Fronwieser seemed irritated. For a moment, he wanted to continue his litany of complaints, but now he hesitated. He hadn’t reckoned with this news.
    “Koppmeyer is dead, so there were some things that had to be done,” Simon repeated.
    “I’m…I’m really sorry,” the older physician grumbled after a short pause. “Did he have this fever, too?”
    Simon eyed the three patients, who looked at him partly out of curiosity and partly out of fear. Then he shook his head.
    “No…It was something else. I’ll tell you later.”
    “Very well,” his father grumbled, falling back into his familiar role. “Then get to work. As you can see, there are still a few of the living here and they need to be treated.”
    Simon sighed, then helped his father in examining the patients. There wasn’t a lot to do: fetch a few dried herbs for a potion, listen to a few chests, check tongues, the usual sniffing and observing of urine samples. Simon had no illusions—most of this was just cheap playacting performed to give sick people false hope and take their money. Even doctors with university degrees couldn’t usually tell very much. The two Fronwiesers were just as helpless in the face of this fever, which had been spreading around Schongau for a full two weeks and had killed a dozen people. People were getting chills and pain in the joints, and some died suddenly overnight. Others survived the first onslaught, only to be overcome with terrible coughing fits soon after.
    It made Simon furious to stand by helpless in the face of this epidemic. His father, on the other hand, seemed to have resigned himself to it. The relationship between them was tense, to put it mildly. As the town doctor of Schongau, Bonifaz Fronwieser hoped his son would someday follow in his footsteps. But Simon didn’t want anything to do with his father’s old-fashioned methods—enemas, bloodletting, sniffing old men’s urine. The young medicus preferred to occupy himself with the books that the Schongau hangman was always lending to him. He had long ago worked his way through the box of leather folios that Jakob Kuisl had given him as a present almost a year ago, and he longed for more. Even now, as he was occupied with treating the three patients, he couldn’t help but think again about the theories of controversial scientists. Currently, he was rereading the work of an Englishman named William Harvey, which dealt with the circulation of blood in the human body. Was it possible that blood