Part 45 (1/2)
Matthew reached the end of the doc.u.ments. He had found nothing. He realized he was looking for a shadow that may or may not exist, and to find it-if it was discoverable-he must concentrate on reading between the lines. He ran a weary hand over his face, and began once more from the beginning.
Twenty-Eight.
Isaac Woodward inhabited a realm that lay somewhere between twilight and Tartarus. The agony of his swollen throat had spread now through his every nerve and fiber, and the act of breathing seemed itself a defiance toward the will of G.o.d. His flesh was slick with sweat and sore with fever. Sleep would fall upon him like a heavy shroud, bearing him into blessed insensibility, but while he was awake his vision was as blurred as a candle behind soot-filmed gla.s.s. In spite of all these torments, however, the worst was that he was keenly aware of his condition. The deterioration of his body had not yet reached his mind, and thus he had sense enough to realize he was perilously close to the grave's edge.
”Will you help me turn him over?” Dr. s.h.i.+elds asked Matthew and Mrs. Nettles.
Matthew hesitated, his own face pallid in the light from a double candleholder to which was fixed a circle of reflective mirror. ”What are you going to do?”
Dr. s.h.i.+elds pushed his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose. ”The afflicted blood is pooling in his body, ” he answered. ”It must be moved. Stirred up from its stagnant ponds, if you will.”
”Stirred up? How? By more bleeding?”
”No. I think at this point the lancet will not perform its necessary function.”
”How, then?” Matthew insisted.
”Mrs. Nettles, ” the doctor said curtly, ”if you'll please a.s.sist me?”
”Yes sir.” She took hold of Woodward's arm and leg on one side and s.h.i.+elds took the opposite side.
”All right, then. Turn him toward me, ” s.h.i.+elds instructed. ”Magistrate, can you help us at all?”
”I shall try, ” Woodward whispered.
Together, the doctor and Mrs. Nettles repositioned Woodward so he lay on his stomach. Matthew was torn about whether to give a hand, for he feared what Dr. s.h.i.+elds had decided to do. The magistrate gave a single groan during the procedure, but otherwise bore the pain and indignity like a gentleman.
”Very well.” Dr. s.h.i.+elds looked across the bed at Mrs. Nettles. ”I shall have to lift his gown up, as his back must be bared.”
”What procedure is this?” Matthew asked. ”I demand to know!”
”For your information, young man, it is a time-tested procedure to move the blood within the body. It involves heat and a vacuum effect. Mrs. Nettles, would you remove yourself, please? For the sake of decorum?”
”Shall I wait outside?”
”No, that won't be necessary. I shall call if you're needed.” He paused while Mrs. Nettles left the room, and when the door was again closed he said to Woodward, ”I am going to pull your gown up to your shoulders, Isaac. Whatever help you may give me is much appreciated.”
”Yes, ” came the m.u.f.fled reply. ”Do what is needed.”
The doctor went about the business of exposing Woodward's b.u.t.tocks and back. Matthew saw that at the base of the magistrate's spine was a bed sore about two inches in diameter, bright red at its center and outlined with yellow infection. A second, smaller, but no less malignant sore had opened on the back of Woodward's right thigh.
Dr. s.h.i.+elds opened his bag, brought out a pair of supple deerskin gloves, and began to put them on. ”If your stomach is weak, ” he said quietly to Matthew, ”you should follow Mrs. Nettles. I need no further complications.”
”My stomach is fine, ” Matthew lied. ”What... is the procedure?”
The doctor reached into the bag again and brought out a small gla.s.s sphere, its surface marred only by a circular opening with a p.r.o.nounced curved rim. The rim, Matthew saw with sickened fascination, had been discolored dark brown by the application of fire. ”As I said before... heat and vacuum.” From the pocket of his tan waistcoat he produced the fragrant piece of sa.s.safras root, which he deftly pushed to the magistrate's lips. ”Isaac, there will be some pain involved, and we wish your tongue not to be injured.” Woodward accepted the tongue-guard and sank his teeth into the accustomed grooves. ”Young man, will you hold the candles, please?”
Matthew picked up the double candlestick from the table beside Woodward's bed. Dr. s.h.i.+elds leaned forward and stroked the sphere's rim from one flame to the other in a circular motion, all the time staring into Matthew's eyes in order to gauge his nerves. As he continued to heat the rim, s.h.i.+elds said, ”Magistrate, I am going to apply a blister cup to your back. The first of six. I regret the sensation, but the afflicted blood will be caused to rise to the surface from the internal organs and that is our purpose. Are you ready, sir?”
Woodward nodded, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. s.h.i.+elds held the cup's opening directly over the flames for perhaps five seconds. Then, rapidly and without hesitation, he pressed the hot gla.s.s rim down upon Woodward's white flesh a few inches upward from the virulent bedsore.
There was a small noise-a snake's hiss, perhaps-and the cup clamped tightly as the heated air within compressed itself. An instant after the hideous contact was made, Woodward cried out around the sa.s.safras root and his body s.h.i.+vered in a spasm of pure, animal pain.
”Steady, ” s.h.i.+elds said, speaking to both the magistrate and his clerk. ”Let nature do its work.”
Matthew could see that already the flesh caught within the blister cup was swelling and reddening. Dr. s.h.i.+elds had brought a second cup from his bag, and again let the flames lick its cruel rim. After the procedure of heating the air inside the cup, the gla.s.s was pressed to Woodward's back with predictable and-at least to Matthew-spine-crawling result.
By the time the third cup was affixed, the flesh within the first had gone through the stages of red to scarlet and now was blood-gorged and turning brown like a maliferous poison mushroom.
s.h.i.+elds had the fourth cup in his gloved hand. He offered it to the candle flames. ”We shall see a play directly, I understand, ” he said, his voice divorced from his actions. ”The citizens do enjoy the maskers every year.”
Matthew didn't answer. He was watching the first brown mushroom of flesh becoming still darker, and the other two following the path of swollen discoloration.
”Usually, ” the doctor went on, ”they don't arrive until the middle of July or so. I understand from Mr. Brightman-he's the leader of the company-that two towns they customarily play in were decimated by sickness, and a third had vanished altogether. That accounts for their early arrival this year. It's a thing to be thankful for, though, because we need a pleasant diversion.” He pressed the fourth blister cup onto Woodward's back, and the magistrate trembled but held back a moan. ”My wife and I used to enjoy the theater in Boston, ” s.h.i.+elds said as he prepared the fifth implement. ”A play in the afternoon... a beaker of wine... a concert on the Commons.” He smiled faintly. ”Those were wonderful times.”
Matthew had recovered his composure enough to ask the question that at this point naturally presented itself. ”Why did you leave Boston?”
The doctor waited until the fifth cup was attached before he replied. ”Well... let us say I needed a challenge. Or perhaps... there was something I wished to accomplish.”
”And have you? Accomplished it, I mean?”
s.h.i.+elds stared at the rim of the sixth cup as he moved it between the flames, and Matthew saw the fire reflected in his spectacles. ”No, ” he said. ”Not yet.”
”This involves Fount Royal, I presume? And your infirmary?”
”It involves... what it involves.” s.h.i.+elds glanced quickly into Matthew's eyes and then away again. ”You do have a fetish for questions, don't you?”
If this remark was designed to seal Matthew's mouth and turn aside his curiosity, it had the opposite effect. ”Only for questions that go unanswered.”
”Touche, ” the doctor said, and he pressed the sixth blister cup firmly onto Woodward's back. Again the magistrate trembled with pain but was steadfastly silent. ”All right, then: I left Boston because my practise was failing there. The city has a glut of doctors, as well as lawyers and ministers. There must be a dozen physicians alone, not to mention the herbalists and faith-healers! So I decided that for a s.p.a.ce of time I would leave Boston-and my wife, whose sewing enterprise is actually doing quite well- and offer my services elsewhere.”
”Fount Royal is a long distance from Boston, ” Matthew said.
”Oh, I didn't come directly here. I lived for a month in New York, spent a summer in Philadelphia, and lived in other smaller places. I always seemed to be heading southward.” He began peeling off his deerskin gloves. ”You may put the candles down now.”
Matthew returned the double candlestick to the table. He had seen-though he certainly didn't let his eyes linger on the sight, or his imagination linger on what the sensation must be- that the flesh gripped by the first two cups had become hideous, blood-swollen ebony blisters. The others were following the gruesome pattern.
”We shall let the blood rise for a time.” Dr. s.h.i.+elds put the gloves into his bag. ”This procedure breaks up the stagnant pools within his body, you see.”
Matthew saw nothing but grotesque swellings. He dared not dwell on what pressures were inflicted within the magistrate's suffering bones. To keep his mind from wandering in that painful direction, he asked, ”Do you plan on staying in Fount Royal very much longer?”
”No, I don't think so. Bidwell pays me a fee, and he has certainly built a fine infirmary for my use, but... I do miss my wife. And Boston, too. So as soon as the town is progressing again, the population healthy and growing, I shall seek to find a replacement for myself.”
”And what then would be the accomplishment you crave, sir?”
Dr. s.h.i.+elds c.o.c.ked his head to one side, a hint of a smile on his mouth but his owlish eyes stony. ”You're a regular goat amid a briar patch, aren't you?”