"Gordon R. Dickson - Dragon Knight 09 - The Dragon and the F" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

In the Bishop's case, this had made him a prelate who might actually have been
happier in life with a sword in his hand rather than a crosier. Certainly he was
built to take on the duties of a medieval swordsman, from his ruddy, tough-
featured face to his meaty, powerful-looking hands.

But this was a new Bishop, a different, fully ecclesiastical Bishop, very much a
leader who thought in the long terms of the Church, and the survival of his
communicants.

"It seemeth," he was saying now, "there is no medicine for itтАФno salves to ease
the pain of the cruel buboes of those dying from it, so that they are already in
Hell before they die. Carolinus tells me, Sir James, that you and the Lady Angela
come from a far place. Could it be that either of you know more of this plague
and what might be done to stop it than we do?"

Information rushed from the back of Jim's mind. As a graduate student working
toward a degree as a medievalist he had done a paper on the plague, and facts
jumped forward, only to be pushed back before he could utter them.

file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/Gordon%20Dickson%20...night%2009%20-%20The%20Dragon%20and%20the%20F.html (18 of 682)16-2-2006 15:23:12
Gordon R. Dickson - The Dragon and the Fair Maid of Kent




He could tell the tough-looking man sitting opposite him nothing that would stop
the disease or cure those who had caught it. The medical terms that would
explain the known later-day details would make no sense in this time.

"We believed it was spread by the bites of fleas, who'd already fed on rats with
the disease in themтАФbut that's all," he said. 'The rats that brought the disease to
GenoaтАФfrom which it's been spreadingтАФmust have come on a ship from the Far
East, where the plague has been known for some centuries, they've had no cure
for it there, either."

That much was an honest answer. The details about its pneumonal form, spread
by the breath of those already infected, were not only unexplainable in
fourteenth-century terms but could not help the situation. There was nothing else
Jim could say which would give the Bishop any assistance.

"тАФit might be wise," he added, however, "to clean your church property and
people as much from fleas and rats as possible."

"I will remember that," said the Bishop, and Jim, knowing the medieval
memory, even in an educated literate man like the Bishop, knew the other would.

"тАФAnd Your Lordship is undoubtedly aware of the penny-royal? That small
mintlike flower that fleas do not like and which therefore repels them? We'll be
putting it all around the castle here generously, ourselves," said Angie.