The Riverwoman’s Dragon

‘Master Bernard,’ said Jasper. ‘He’s a new physician in town. The one rumored to have called your kinswoman Dame Magda a heretic.’

‘He calls himself a physician?’ Einar seemed to find that amusing.

‘Do you know him?’ Owen asked.

‘Do I? No. No. But look at him – is he a man to inspire healthy habits?’ Einar glanced up at the sky. ‘It is later than I thought. Next Sunday?’

‘You are staying in York?’

‘Much depends on whether I might find work.’ Einar kept sliding his eyes toward the arguing pair.

‘Where are you lodging?’

‘Old Shep’s house, near Dame Magda’s.’

‘Would you be willing to come into the city for work? I might ask some folk.’

That caught Einar’s attention. ‘Would you do that?’

‘Come to the apothecary tomorrow.’ Owen was thinking about Michaelo. He might observe the lad. A way for Owen to keep him close, possibly second-guess his intentions thereby preventing harm to Magda or others.

With a surprised, Thank you, I will, Einar hurried off. Gavin Wolcott was now setting himself up at the butts being used by other merchants’ sons, but the physician was gone. Einar did not pause by Wolcott, but disappeared into the street.

‘Would you like me to follow him?’ asked Jasper.

‘I would, yes. But stay hidden and do not engage. Just see where they go.’

Leaving his bow, glove, and quiver of arrows with his father, Jasper wound his way through the crowd and out onto the street. He called to a former classmate, describing Einar and asking if he’d seen which way he’d gone.

‘That way,’ he pointed. ‘He’s following the leech with the sly eyes, the one spreading lies about the Riverwoman. Lives across Foss Bridge off Walmgate.’

Calling out his thanks, Jasper hurried on, caught sight of Einar as he crossed the bridge. Running to catch up, he saw Bernard farther along. A woman hailed Jasper, asking whether the shop was open, whether he was headed to someone with the pestilence– Stay away, another one implored, we need you healthy. He shivered, answering with brief but courteous words, as his father would do. Just past St Denys’ church the physician slipped into an alley. Einar seemed to nod to himself and begin to turn away, but he saw a gray-haired woman hurry as best she could on her cane toward the same alley, disappearing into it. Jasper had crept close enough to hear Einar mutter, ‘Merde!’ and follow them. Asking a passing woman whether she knew where the physician Bernard lived, Jasper was told to stay away from that alley.

‘Pestilence,’ she hissed. ‘The Riverwoman has cursed the good leech’s neighbors for spite, pagan witch.’ She spat and crossed herself, hurrying on.

Torn between returning to report to Owen and trying to learn more, Jasper crept to the head of the alley. At the far end, where some light fell through a crossing, Einar paced back and forth, then paused, leaning toward the light, as if listening. Now Jasper, too, heard the voices of a man and a woman, the woman’s coaxing, the man’s whining. But he could not make out their words. Time to return to St George’s Field.

On the way there he encountered his acquaintance and asked exactly where the leech lived.

‘He has lodgings in the Fuller home, next to the plague house. Mark me, he will run away, fearful lest the pestilence see that it missed his lodgings. It’s the one that juts out at the side almost to the roof of the plague house.’

Jasper crossed himself as he hurried on.