The Hand of Justice Read Online Free PDF Page B

already been measured out, marked with ropes and stakes, and foundation
     stones were laid in a long, even line. Judging by its dimensions, the church would be an impressive edifice once completed.
    ‘Will Isnard live?’ asked Michael quietly, when his friend did not reply.
    ‘It is too soon to say,’ replied Bartholomew, stifling a yawn. He had spent most of the previous night at the bargeman’s house
     and had not managed more than an hour of sleep. ‘His leg was so badly crushed that I was obliged to remove it below the knee.
     But it will be somedays before we know whether he will survive the fever that often follows such treatment.’
    ‘
You
amputated his leg?’ asked Michael uneasily. ‘God’s teeth, you play with fire! You are not a surgeon, and Robin of Grantchester
     has already made several official complaints about you poaching his trade. You also seem to forget that cautery is not a skill
     held in great esteem by your fellow physicians; they claim you bring them into disrepute when you employ knives and forceps,
     instead of calendars and astronomical charts.’
    ‘Isnard would be dead for certain if I had allowed Robin at him,’ said Bartholomew, too weary to feel indignation that his
     three fellow physicians – Rougham of Gonville, Lynton of Peterhouse and Paxtone of King’s Hall – should presume to tell him
     how to practise medicine.
    ‘I know that,’ said Michael impatiently. ‘I was not thinking of Isnard – there is no question that you have done
him
a favour by dispensing with the unsavoury Robin – I was considering you. It was different when only you and Lynton were in
     Cambridge, and people could not afford to be particular. But now there are four of you, you must be more careful. Several
     of your most affluent patients have already left you.’
    ‘I was relieved to see them go – it means I can give the remaining ones more time and attention. The rich are better off with
     Paxtone or Rougham anyway. They are good at calculating horoscopes while I am happier with people who have a genuine need.’
    ‘Like Isnard,’ said Michael, his thoughts returning to the stricken singer. ‘He is one of my most loyal basses. Can I do anything
     to help?’
    Bartholomew refrained from suggesting that he could ensure the choir – infamous for its paucity of musical talent – should
     practise well out of the ailing man’s hearing, and shook his head. ‘Say masses for him. You might tryreciting one for Thomas Mortimer, too, and ask for him to be touched with some compassion. He is a wealthy man, and could
     have offered a little money to see Isnard through the first stages of his illness.’
    ‘But that might be construed as the act of a guilty man,’ Michael pointed out. ‘And Mortimer maintains the accident was not
     his fault. Did I tell you that I went to see Lenne’s wife – widow – last night?’
    ‘She has a sickness of the lungs,’ said Bartholomew, recalling her soggy, laboured breathing from when her husband had shorn
     him of hair two days before. ‘Who will care for her now he is gone? Widows sometimes take over their husbands’ businesses,
     but she is too ill. Lenne was a barber, anyway, and shaving scholars and trimming tonsures is scarcely something she can do
     in his stead. The University would not permit it.’
    ‘And neither would I!’ exclaimed Michael in horror. ‘God’s blood, man! Women barbers would slit our throats because their
     attention is taken with the latest style in goffered veils or the price of ribbon. Barbers have always
been
men, and they should always
remain
men.’
    ‘Barbers must be male. Surgeons must conduct cautery,’ remarked Bartholomew dryly. ‘I had no idea you were so rigidly traditional,
     Brother. How will we make progress if we remain so inflexible? Many of our greatest thinkers have been deemed heretics merely
     because they dare to look beyond that which is ordained and accepted, but they are nearly always proven