As we came upon the fallen thatcher he was loudly berating the friend who had unwisely sought to examine the injury. His cries included utterances unsuited for a maid's ears, but Kate did not blush. Rather, she pushed me toward the thatchers and spoke:
"We saw your friend fall. This is Master Hugh de Singleton, a surgeon. Perhaps he may serve…"
"A surgeon?" one repeated. "Aye, that we do need. Aymer, do you hear? The lad's a surgeon. Fix you up in no time."
Aymer seemed unimpressed with this announcement and continued to groan and voice anathema against the roof which had tossed him to the ground.
Aymer's companions stood away from him and I knelt before him in their place. He quieted and peered at me, propped up now by his right hand upon the earth behind him.
The fall had dropped the thatcher nearly before the cottage door. As I went to my knees to inspect the injury, I saw the yarn-spinner and his wife, attracted from the distaff by the commotion, observing the scene from the open door.
"You struck the ground upon your shoulder?" I asked.
"Aye," he grimaced. "'Eard somethin' pop, like, when I hit. Don't remember nothin' else 'til the lads sat me up."
"Can you move the fingers of your left hand?"
Aymer looked to his hand, wiggled the fingers, and seemed astonished that they functioned well.
"What did I do to meself?"
"I believe you have broken your collarbone, and perhaps suffered a dislocated shoulder as well. I must conduct an examination to be certain."
"Can you do aught for me?"
"Aye… when I have learned the nature of your injury."
"Best have at it then."
I took the thatcher's left wrist in my hands and squeezed. He made no response. I moved the pressure up his arm to the elbow. Still he made no complaint.
"You have broken no bone below the elbow," I told him.
I then pressed firmly upon his bicep. The fellow winced. "You feel pain there?" I asked.
"Nay, not in me arm. But when you pulled on me arm, me shoulder hurt."
"'Tis as I thought. But I must make one more test to see did you dislocate your shoulder. This may distress you some.
I took the man's shoulder joint between the fingers of both hands and pressed to see was the joint as God made it. Aymer drew in his breath sharply, but made no other complaint. It was his good fortune I needed to make no other examination. The shoulder was not out of joint.
"'Tis my belief," I said as I stood to my feet, "that you have broken your collarbone and this is your only injury. Such a fracture can heal, but you may do no work until Christmastide. Your shoulder must be held immobile for many weeks."
Aymer frowned, and peered up at me with concern and question in his eyes. "Ow do I do me work?"
"You do not… until Christmastide."
Aymer looked up to his cohorts. They stared back silently. No offer of aid was made. From Michaelmas to Christmas must surely be the busy season for a thatcher, when folk renew their roofs for winter with reeds cut at end of summer.
I turned to the yarn-spinner, observing from his door, and asked him to draw a bench to his door where I might set my patient. I had had enough of kneeling in the mud to inspect the injury.
A bench was provided, and the two undamaged thatchers assisted Aymer to it. But for his tender shoulder the fellow seemed whole enough and did not wince as he was helped from the mud to the bench.
I asked the yarn-spinner for a length of cloth. It need not be linen or wool. A cheap hempen fabric would suit. While the man entered his cottage to seek out such a fragment I left my patient, with assurance that I would soon return to set his fracture aright, and with Kate at my side walked 'round the Canterbury Hall wall to the entrance gate.
Kate was required to await my return outside the gate at the porter's hut. No women are permitted in Canterbury Hall's precincts so that the monks there remain unsullied by their presence. Some monks seem well sullied even without females at hand. But it is true, the sight of Kate might well cause a man to reconsider his vows.
I went to the guest chamber and from my box I drew two pouches. One contained the dried and pulverized seeds and root of hemp, the other dried, pounded lettuce. I returned forthwith to Kate, who surely felt out of place standing unaccompanied before the gate to Canterbury Hall. There were women of Grope Lane who stood so near Balliol College when I was a student. I did not wish Kate to be associated with their employment.
Together we hurried down Schidyard Street to the yarn-spinner's cottage. My patient sat where I left him. The yarn-spinner stood behind with a length of brown hempen fabric. I asked the man for a cup of ale. He frowned at this added expense for his roof, but grudgingly entered his cottage and returned a moment later with what appeared to be a cup of well-watered ale. Watered or not, it would serve.
I emptied part of both pouches, hemp and lettuce, into the cup and stirred the mix with a splinter of broken reed from the thatchers' work. This I gave Aymer to drink.
"This potion will dull the pain when I must prod your shoulder to see the bones set firm against one another," I explained.
Aymer took the cup with his good hand and, watered though it was, drank the potion down with approval, and a belch when he had drained the cup.
"The remedy will take effect in an hour or so. I will have you wait upon the bench, your back to the cottage wall. Your friends may be about their work while you rest here. I will be about my business and return when 'tis time to see to the injury."
I saw one of the thatchers turn and grin toward the other. If the fellow deduced my business, it was no concern to me. I offered my arm to Kate and we set off down the muddy path to St Fridewide's Lane, Fish Street, the water meadow, and the path along the Cherwell.
"Will the thatcher's shoulder mend?" Kate asked as we stumbled across the stubble.
"Aye, does he do as he is told and leave his work so the fracture will heal."
"So 'tis a break, then?"
"I cannot be sure 'til I feel my way across his shoulder."
"And this examination will be painful?"
"Aye. But the hemp and lettuce potion will diminish the hurt. Some."
We regained the path, and reversed our direction, walking in silence for a time along the stream, ducking under the occasional low-hanging willow branch.
"The theft you intend… when will you strike?" Kate asked.
"Soon, I think. Time lost in such a venture may never be reclaimed, and I have squandered much already."
We came to the end of the path, where the Cherwell flows under the East Bridge, and turned to walk back through the Eastgate to the town and my patient.
"There is time," I said, "to return you to your father before I see to the thatcher. Or, if you wish, you may accompany me while I see to him and we will return to Holywell Street after."
"I will remain with you. I think my father had no pressing work for me this day."
It was as I expected. When I put my fingers to Aymer's collarbone I felt the fractured ends move under my touch. And the shoulder was swelling, turning red and purple beneath the skin. Aymer gasped as the broken bones grated against each other. I have used hemp and lettuce before, with good result. God provides much for men to ease their suffering in this world. But he has provided nothing which will end all suffering. So Aymer's pain was less than might have been, but was real enough. Pain is God's way of telling us not to do some things again. Surely Aymer, when he is next upon a roof, will take more care.
The break was clean, so far as my probing fingers could discover. I placed the fractured ends of the broken collarbone together so well as I could, which was not difficult, as the bone is but beneath the skin in that place. I also had in my pouch a vial of oil of rue, mixed with oil of ginger root. This concoction I rubbed gently about the thatcher's swelling shoulder. Both rue and ginger relieve pain, but rue must not be applied alone or blisters will rise where it touches the skin, and the cure becomes worse than the complaint.