Once he had made sure that the lady was all right, the older man assisted the others to retrieve the insensible body of his son from the saddle.
I asked a monk standing nearby what had happened, and who these people were, but he did not know, so I walked the short distance to my master’s side, and on seeing me, he grabbed me by the ear – not too harshly, but most embarrassingly – and said in a very loud whisper, ‘By my sword, boy! Where have you been? I have been very worried!’ To which I shrugged meekly, mustering a look I hoped would convey my deep contrition.
‘Later!’ he admonished, and left me to inspect the body of the man.
After a short, but decisive investigation, my master concluded that the young man had a broken leg. ‘I will need help. I will need the assistance of the infirmarian.’
‘He has been detained, and I will not allow it,’ the inquisitor answered emphatically.
My master looked up calmly from his kneeling position at the young man’s side. ‘I shall also need the services of my colleague, Eisik.’
Hearing this the stout noble, with the broad bony face whose son lay prostrate on the snow, scowled. ‘I will not allow a Jew to touch my son!’
‘Perhaps you’d rather see your son dead, my lord?’
The man made a gesture of irritation, but said nothing, and walked over to the woman, embracing her in a fatherly way, his face paler than the snow.
‘The bone here has been shattered.’ My master pointed to the young man’s left thigh, whose colour contrasted sickeningly with the gaping wound that exposed the two white protuberances of his femur. ‘We must hurry . . .’ he continued. ‘Wrap him in the blankets, and take him to the infirmary . . . I think he may yet have life in him. You,’ he pointed to a monk, ‘find Eisik, and the blacksmith, and get me a file, one with the finest tooth you have, and two strong, straight lengths of wood, as long as a man’s leg. We shall have to tidy those bones before we put them together.’
Two burly lay brothers wrapped the young man in thick woollen blankets, and carried him the long distance to the infirmary. Once inside, they laid his body on the table, where he was disrobed and once again covered. Andre ordered others to collect boiling water from the lavatory and to fill one-third of a bath in the infirmary with it, the other two-thirds with cold. It was at this point that the infirmarian, Brother Asa, entered the room, wearing a drained and weakened expression. Flanked by two guards, he looked shaken, but it was not until he came closer that we saw in his eyes that he had indeed suffered some measure of indignity.
‘Ah, my colleague!’ my master smiled, bringing him to the table. ‘There was an avalanche, the boy was buried, and as you can see broke his leg.’
The boy’s father, who was attempting to comfort the mysterious maiden, looked up. ‘We are travelling to Prats de Mollo, we lost our way and we saw the monastery . . .’ He paused, looking around him. His eyes were wide with images. ‘The avalanche . . . all our retinue . . . our carriages . . . my son was trapped under the snow for a short time . . . at the foot of the abbey!’
I wondered if the pilgrims in their shelter had been buried too? But I did not linger too long on such thoughts, for at that moment Eisik entered the infirmary, looking grim, his face grey and his eyes wide with fear. My master smiled, and said he was preparing to treat the patient. In one glance Eisik became transformed. His shoulders squared and his eyes filled with purpose. It was as if the misfortunes of another made him forget his own. Perhaps this was why he had become a physician.
Asa listened to the man’s chest ‘His heart is slow, but it beats. He will die if he is not warmed.’
‘Mon dieu! Hurry with that bath!’ my master cried impatiently. With gravity he said to Asa, ‘We shall have to fix his leg before we immerse him, otherwise he may bleed to death. Have you performed this procedure before?’
Asa shook his head. ‘Not many times, but I know the formula.’
‘Good,’ my master said, and with the swiftness of one used to such things, he prepared the wound. Momentarily, the blacksmith entered holding in his thick calloused hands the file and the wood that my master had earlier requested. He took the file, and also a large knife of Arabic design which I knew to be his, and placed the two over the flames in the fire for a time. After allowing the articles to cool a little, he gave the file to Eisik and motioned for Asa to hold the leg. He paused before beginning. ‘May the son of Apollo help us save this boy’s leg.’ He said this almost as a prayer, and I was instantly worried, for I could see the inquisitor’s eyes narrow and his thin lips contort in a grimace that was too discomforting. Shortly after, my master began to cut away at the skin and muscle with the knife to reveal the two bones, and taking the file from Eisik, began to file away the broken edges, so that they were smooth where they met.