he claimed would cause it to disappear (it won’t). The German Inquisitors Sprenger and Kramer were so credulous they swore that “a certain virgin” who recited the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed while making the sign of the cross had cured a friend whose foot had been “grievously bewitched” (if only it were that easy). Even Albertus Magnus repeatedly stumbled in his Book of Secrets, recording for all time his assertion that mistletoe and a certain species of lily could open any lock in the kingdom. Magically.
Nonsense.
But the world-famous Albertus had the epithet “the Great” permanently affixed to his name, while she barely survived on the pennies she took from the poorest patients in the city. So he must have been on to something.
“What’s that awful smell?”
Kassy looked up from her bottles and flasks. A woman with a tangled mop of hair and dark circles under her eyes blundered into the shop, her shawl damp with rain, dragging a child dressed in rags, with snot dripping from his nose. The neighborhood of Bethlehem Chapel didn’t have much in the way of palaces and nunneries, but it sure had plenty of poor people. The revolutionary leader Jan Hus had preached in this very square, and started a mass movement that became the first of its kind to successfully resist the dominance of the Roman Church and carve out a zone of religious tolerance in the very heart of the Empire. But these days it was a Protestant ghetto, besieged on all sides by the resurgent Crusaders, even if it didn’t have a wall around it like the Židovské Msto.
“What’s the matter with your little boy?”
“He’s got the worms.”
“Intestinal worms?”
“What other kind of worms are there?”
“There are plenty of other kinds of worms. You’ve seen them in his stools?”
“Listen, missy, I’ve got five kids at home and I think I know when something’s wrong with them. And what on earth is that god-awful smell?”
Kassy opened the window to let in some cold air. Then she reached for a jug of pale gray liquid and a copper funnel, and carefully decanted a cupful of the bitter medicine into a small green bottle.
“The juice of the ash tree is a reliable vermifuge—”
“A what?”
“Sorry. It’s also called Bird’s Tongue, and the boiled bark of the tree will kill the worms, but it’s kind of bitter tasting. You can try mixing it with sugar or stirring it into his porridge.”
“Do I look like I can afford sugar? Will you be making a fine burgher’s wife of me then?”
“Here, this will help it taste better.”
Kassy tossed in some dry peppermint leaves at no extra charge just to get rid of the woman, but the boy was busy petting Kira, who had been sniffing around the mouse hole, and the woman had to yank him away.
Poor boy. His eyes were glazed over and his face was pale. He probably got the worms from eating dirt. She had seen many cases in the mountain villages of hungry children trying to fill their empty stomachs with clods of earth that were full of worm eggs.
They were almost out the door when Kassy called them back.
“Now what?” said the woman.
Kassy made up something about how the juice of the ash tree bark was cool and wet, so it worked best if taken in combination with something warm and dry, like freshly baked grains, as she cut a couple of thick slices of rye bread and brought them around the counter for the boy to eat.
“What’s your name?” she said, kneeling next to the boy and offering him the bread.
“Karel,” he said, looking up at his mother, his eyes as big as empty soup bowls, as if he were afraid to ask if he could really have the bread. His fine golden hair was plastered to his skin in places by sweat, and his lips were dry and chapped.
“Listen to me, Karel. You must eat this here, right in front of me,” said Kassy.
His mother nodded, and the boy grabbed the top slice and began stuffing it into his mouth.
“Slow down, I’m not going to take it away from you,” said Kassy, patting the boy’s hand. His fingers were unusually warm. Kassy felt his forehead. He was burning up with fever.
Kassy asked if she could examine him more closely. Then she unbuttoned Karel’s shirt, exposing a diffuse redness all over his chest and arms—everywhere except on his face.
Kassy pulled up a stool, sat down at the child’s level, and examined the