‘How is our patient?’ My master walked over to the boy and checked his pupils.
The infirmarian shook his head. ‘Unwell, he has a fever.’
‘Help me to lift him a little then, Asa, I would like to listen to his chest.’
The man hesitated, looking at us like a hare cornered by two bloodthirsty hounds.
‘What is wrong? Are your hands full? What do you have there?’
The other man narrowed his eyes and, with great hesitation, showed my master. ‘It is a wonderful thing, preceptor. It measures the temperature of the corpus.’
My master looked at it in awe. A long cylindrical glass whose base ballooned out a little and whose interior seemed to hold some substance.
‘How does one read it?’ my master asked, most intrigued.
‘Well . . .’ the other man became excited, ‘one places this end,’ he pointed to the rounded segment, ‘in the patient’s anus, or in his mouth. Inside the glass there is alcohol. When it is heated the gas expands and it travels up this chamber, indicating the extent of a patient’s fever.’
‘I am astounded! It is very clever. Did you devise it? Better still, what do you say is the normal and abnormal temperature?’
The man looked down shyly. ‘I am not certain of its accuracy. I have simply marked incremental numbers along its side, and have come to know, after using it on both the healthy and the sick, where an unhealthy temperature differs from a healthy one . . . The glass maker and I have spent many hours perfecting it. You see the glass must not be too thick or it does not work efficiently. Also there is the added problem of the alcohol . . .’
‘Why, it is a marvel! You are a credit to your calling,’ he said with genuine admiration and warmth.
‘I have been hiding it from Brother Setubar . . . he would think it a sinful tool of the Devil. He would rather see men die than rely on earthly things to effect a cure. In this way he is not so different from the inquisitor.’ There was bitterness in his voice, but his mention of Setubar brought us back to the purpose of our visit.
‘Brother Asa, we are looking for your master,’ Andre said, in a grave tone, ‘has he been here?’
‘Here? No . . . Why, has something happened to him?’
‘He is nowhere to be found and we fear for his life.’
The infirmarian looked down, but he did not seem upset. ‘It is no secret . . . he did not like me, anyone will tell you, and yet I have always been, and shall remain, a good student. I must confess, however, that if he is dead, I will not mourn him,’ he ended in bitterness.
‘We believe that he has taken the poison with him that has killed so many. You have not seen him?’
‘You are not suggesting that he was the murderer?’
‘Was?’
‘I mean, is, of course . . .’ Asa corrected at once.
‘I do not know . . .’ my master eyed him penetratingly. ‘What were you going to tell me about Samuel that day we were interrupted, something about his last words . . .?’
‘Oh, yes, he said that he was flying. Those were his words . . . flying, just like Ezekiel . . .’
At that moment the bell tolled the commencement of the inquiry. Before anything else could be said two archers stormed in and took Asa away. My master called out to the larger of the two, ordering that he find Eisik and bring him to the infirmary. I thought he was about to perform an examination on the patient but instead he walked out of the dormitory and into the laboratory where Brother Daniel’s body lay on the examination table, covered and still. I was not accustomed to death, even after so many years at my master’s side a shiver still ran through me at the sight of a body covered by a sheet.
‘If Asa had told us that little piece of information earlier we would have come by our conclusions sooner . . . No matter . . . we must find Setubar!’ He walked to the door that led to the infirmary chapel. ‘Anselmo intimated that there was some clue here . . .’ It was bolted shut, but my master, in one of his moments of physical exuberance, managed to prise it open with an iron poker that he found by the fire.
Behind the door, steps led down to a dark rectangular chapel whose long and narrow nave drew the eye to a beautiful crucifix made from precious stones. There were no aisles, and no windows, only torches as we had elsewhere seen in these places, bracketed to the wall. Moments later my master discovered behind the altar that a little curtain obscured some small steps that led down once again, no doubt, to another tunnel.
‘But I did not notice any dirt under Asa’s shoes, master.’
‘No, but by now he could have cleaned them. He knew that we would be looking for it.’