Death of an Empire by M. K. Hume

Author:M. K. Hume [Hume, M. K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780755371488
Amazon: 0755371488
Publisher: Headline Review
Published: 2012-04-02T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

THE GARDEN OF PAIN

From the moment the wooden doors of Myrddion’s first clinic were thrown open, a crowd gathered, several persons deep, to peer into the premises in order to catch a glimpse of the barbarian who had predicted the death of Ferreus. In the subura, word spread like wildfire from tenement to tenement, and the new occupants of Pulchria’s building were far more interesting than the unvarying routines of poverty. They came – men, women and children – to stare blatantly through the doors in the hope of gossip, entertainment or, in some cases, an understanding of the reasons for their many bodily ills.

All day, a steady stream of patients, gawkers or personages of importance passed through Myrddion’s doors. As the long hours advanced, the healer worked to the point of exhaustion, his cracked ribs protesting every time he bent to examine rotted teeth or asked a crying child to show him the cuts, abrasions or wasted limbs that had brought its parents to his clinic. Cadoc and Finn did all the hard physical work, washing instruments and drawing teeth, and even, under Myrddion’s direction, setting simple broken bones. In a multi-coloured, multi-racial stream, the denizens of the subura flocked to the small shop-front with every ailment that Myrddion knew and a frightening number of symptoms that he didn’t.

Several family members presented in a very emaciated condition, although there was no lack of food available. The distraught parents swore that their children had lost their appetites and could only be tempted by sweet treats that they frequently vomited up as soon as they had eaten them. The children were listless, very small for their age and slow in their responses to his questions.

Myrddion prescribed a purgative herb and forbade the parents to permit the children to eat the sweetmeats they craved, asking them instead to provide them with fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs and meat. Privately, the healer knew that the parents were unlikely to be able to do so, for unfortunately the poor had little money to purchase the bare essentials of life.

More worrying were four adults who complained of blinding headaches that prevented them from carrying out the most basic of tasks. These chronic patients had visited many other healers but had received no lasting relief from their symptoms. After observing the patients closely, Myrddion noticed a common affliction with all four patients – that they were having difficulty walking. The gait of each was unsteady and all four had a peculiar walk in which the front of the foot took most of the weight. They were also having similar difficulties with their hands, so Myrddion deduced that something was causing problems with their tendons. He offered pain relief for their headaches, but the underlying cause remained a total mystery to him. His brows knit with perplexity, for although he consulted the scrolls until his eyes ached with strain, he was unable to offer even an elementary diagnosis for such a large group of patients. Failure settled over his shoulders like a cloak of frustration.

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