“I swore never to tell the ingredients. But I do not think you have them all here.”
“Digs me perdone,” said Mariana. “You can work magic but not nowl”
“I could try. Is the scald healing?”
“Hahl Healingl” said Rodez.
Mariana said: “Tell the little piojo to go away; he makes my head to ache.”
“Let me see the scald,” I said.
They looked at me as if I had said something indecent.
“See it?” said Mariana. “It is on my leg.”
Considering what I had seen of her in this candle-lit bedroom a few nights ago, I thought her modesty a small matter over-done.
Rodez said: “They poultice and poultice and it grows worse. Maugan has sisters of his own.”
“Don’t let him touch me,” said Mariana. “I could not bear ill “
“If part is on the foot,” I said, “suffer me to see the foot.”
“A child of your age,” she said contemptuously over her shoulder. “What have you had to do with witches?”
“Does flax grow in this country? And bog moss? And indigo? I don’t know if I could find the ingredients.”
For the first time they seem impressed.
“There are a dozen quacks selling their nostrums every morning in the square,” said Rodez.“I do not know if they have anything you want or would sell it. See tomorrow. Mariana, do not be a stupid pig; if Maugan knows something you can hardly be worse off to try it.”
“Let him mix it first,” she said. “Then I will decide for myself. Now go away; his voice makes my head to ache.”
It was lucky that I did not see the burn then or I might have been afraid to try. Even so I wonder at the courage. But youth is reckless and confident; something of my own faith in Katherine Footmarker gave me faith in myself. The next morning I was out early with Rodez. Often I could not be sure; the names were different and I was no expert at knowing herbs on sight or smell.
We came home with a dozen things: oil from the flax, lime water, powdered bark of the red elm. I diluted and sprinkled and mixed them with a salve which had a white soap from Flanders as its basis. When it was done it was a pungent un-assimilated mess very different from what She had given me in a box for the Michell child. But I spread it on moss I had bought and that all on a white cloth and carried it upstairs.
She was less vituperative this morning after another feverish night, and allowed me a sight of her leg as far as the highest burn which was on her calf. The blisters had long since been pulled off the burns and left festering sores, rank and raw and almost bleeding. They were still discoloured with the dressings of the latest apothecary, and Footmarker would have said this had first to be cleansed away; but a look at Mariana’s bottom lip told me that if once she was put in more pain she would refuse to be touched. So I cut the poultice into two parts and put one on her foot and the other on her leg. She muttered something under her breath, and the tears which came into her eyes she shook away. I waited for an explosion but none came, so was in haste to tie a light bandage around each burn to keep the salve in place.
Later that morning there was an angry commotion in the bedroom when one of the apothecaries came and protested against his not being allowed to see the wound. Supported by the duenna, he warned Mariana and Señora Prada of the dire risks they were running in allowing a heretic and a child heretic at that to meddle in such matters. They were imperilling not merely Mariana’s life but her soul. It was well known that the Devil used such people as one of his most favourite instruments.
But Mariana, once set on her way, would not be moved. They had had their throw, she said; now, by good Jesu, let another be given the chance.
In the evening she sent word down that I was to prepare another such poultice for the morrow. I heard privately that the morning application had brought some relief, and that no doubt had fortified her in my favour.
So for three days it went on. Each day another mixture never, I thought, quite the same as the last, and each day I put it on a leg and foot that were growing cooler and less inflamed.
So was she. She took now to calling me, ‘Doctor Leech’, with that irony of voice which absolved her of any risk of being thought serious. Yet others in the house knew of her improvement, and both Rodez and Isabella used me with greater consideration. Looking back now, I am in wonderment that I was not more surprised. Perhaps I have not ever been as surprised or as grateful for this gift as I should be.
On the day before the auto de fe she hobbled downstairs and I told her she had no more need of ointment.
She said: “But the best apothecaries never finish. Siempre seras bien recibido.”
Rodez and I went to the auto de fe alone. He was by nature late for everything, so when we got to the Plaza Mayor just after dawn two or three thousand people were already there, as well as hundreds crowding the balconies of the four-storey houses. At one side of the square was the King’s balcony, and opposite on a raised dais two cages in which about sixteen prisoners were housed. I could see all this plainly, but the floor of the square was cut off from my view by the heads and shoulders of the people in front of me, and the wooden stands which had been built for the occasion were swarming with people who clung to them like flies to a meat bone.
About seven a.m. the King and Queen and Prince Philip and a number of people of the court began to take their seats, and towards eight the procession began. Peering through heads I could see perhaps 100 charcoal men carrying muskets and pikes, and two or three hundred Dominican monks with banners, led by a man on a white horse carrying the standard of the Holy Office, red with a silver sword in a crown of laurel.
Then there were halberdiers and grandeesand three men bearing a crucifix wrapped in black crepe. The crucifix and the standard were fixed on the altar and prayers began, led by the Grand Inquisitor.
I stood back on my heels and stared at the crowd, listened to the great murmur of voices, the chanting. In the centre were solid ranks of glittering soldiery, the massed squares of monks. This was the generative core of a nation far richer and more populous and more famous in arms than ours. If England were ever conquered scenes such as this would take place every week in London, and there would be no lack of fuel for the fires.
After another parade the Grand Inquisitor began to preach. It had been cold in the square in the early morning, but as the sun rose the heat grew until the air was foetid and stifling From here it was impossible to hear what was said and the patient crowd began to shuffle and fidget. Some took out rolls of bread and began to eat them with garlic and leeks. Stallholders had set up trestles at the foot of the stands, and they did a good trade selling cups of cordial and bowls of broth. A monk with the strange hood of a capuchin was collecting maravedis and gifts in kind for the poor.
It was past noon before the Grand Inquisitor finished. The King rose to reply. Although the voice was dry and thin there was a quiet passion and fervour in it; several times he roused his listeners to murmurs of approval, and once there was a grumbling roar when he said something of reconversion by fire and the sword. As soon as he had finished the royal party went inside to eat and to rest. Most of the ordinary spectators squatted where they were, trying to take their siestas in the hot sunshine. Monks were still chanting and singing, and lesser penitents made endless processions round the square.
As the afternoon wore on the shadows of the houses formed new geometries across the crowded square. About five the royal party reappeared. A procession of monks made a circuit of the amphitheatre bearing statues and effigies of saints and a dozen coffins with flames painted round them. These, Rodez said, held the bones of heretics who had recently died in prison.