Ten Little Wizards: A Lord Darcy Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

monastery at Walsingham, where Saint Hilary Robert had lived, or to the other centers at Liverno, Geneva, and here at Castle Cristobel, to be trained in the healing arts.
    But some ills lay outside the skills of the healers. A broken bone, for example, had to be reset by a chirurgeon before the Laying of Hands would speed the recovery. And some ills seemed to lie outside the art of healing.
    The cure for most headaches lay within the healing arts. A headache caused by tension, by anxiety, by the retreat of an overly worried mind into pain, could be eased even by lay healers. Of course, the underlying cause would have to be treated or the pain would recur, but it could be eased. A headache caused by a complex sickness of the mind, or a headache with an underlying physical cause, such as a brain tumor, called for the services of professional healers, usually priests, who were well trained in the specialty in question. But usually these, too, gave way before the healer’s art; sometimes combined with the chirurgeon’s skill.
    But magic and healing were human arts, and thus imperfect; Miracles remained the province of the Divine. Some broken arms failed, for unknown reasons, to heal properly; some infections spread and worsened despite the most accomplished healer’s hands; some headaches refused to depart.
    Marquis Sherrinford’s headaches had at first been minor and easily abated by his family healer. But as they grew more frequent, and more extreme, they proved intractable to the Laying On of Hands. Some of the best sensitives in the Empire had examined him, and all agreed that they could find no underlying physical or mental cause.
    The Marquis bore his affliction with dignity and disdain, refusing to allow it to interfere with his work or his private life. But he also was wise enough not to allow himself to become a martyr. When the possibility of a new cure came along, he was willing to try it, provided it did not sound too silly or take up too much of his time.
    Father Phillip, the elderly abbot who was in temporal charge of the monastery, met Marquis Sherrinford at the door to his small, uncluttered office, where the lay brother brought him. “Good to see you again, my lord,” he said, waving the Marquis to one of the two hard-backed chairs. “Let us pray that we can do something for you this time.”
    “Visiting you is always a welcome pause in a too-hectic day, Father,” Marquis Sherrinford said, lowering himself into the chair. “And the additional possibility of some alleviation of these headaches makes this a haven indeed. Tell me about this Count d’Alberra. Do you think he can do anything?”
    Father Phillip shook his head. “I would not like to guess,” he said. “He helps some. More than I would have guessed. His record of success in Rome and Como and Verona is very impressive, and is attested by His Holiness himself. So there is no question that this method of his has merit. But he has only been here a few weeks—hardly long enough for me to judge what his system can or cannot do.”
    “Tell me about the man himself,” Marquis Sherrinford said, taking his glasses off and polishing them with a cloth.
    “A very nice, soft-spoken gentleman from the north of Italy. Count d’Alberra is attached to the court of King Pietro and is a professor of something they call ‘Mental Science’ at the University of Verona. His theories of healing come from his studies of the mind. He has written a book called Non-Physical Symptomology of the Mind and its Possible Non-Magical Treatment . He is not, himself, a healer, you know.”
    “No, I didn’t.”
    “It is true.” Father Phillip sighed. “One should not attempt to explain the ways of God to man, for life itself is enough of a wonder to spend a lifetime considering.”
    “Well, if he isn’t a healer, than what does he do?” Marquis Sherrinford asked.
    “Count d’Alberra talks and listens,” Father Phillip said. “As far as I can see, that’s what