The Horse Healer (42 page)

“I know it, I admit it. … When I saw that the poor family needed a final solution, I took advantage of an old spell that could have, so to say, a dark effect. Yes, that's how it happened.”

“You don't sound remorseful.”

“Nothing is more satisfying than destroying evil, it is true, and that man's soul was rife with it.”

Diego was worried. The answer was not especially convincing, and he failed to see the logic in looking for God knows what information in that colored water.

Efraím had disappointed him. Maybe he had overestimated him.

“Do you think there could be black magic behind the evil that's descended upon us?” Diego asked.

“I have the feeling there is. Some time back, I heard the story of a Prussian colleague who apparently won his reputation with sinister deeds. They say that he once cursed an entire town for refusing him entry, and as vengeance, prepared a concoction that brought great misery to the inhabitants. When he threw it into the well where the people got their drinking water, the effects struck everyone. I memorized the formula, more from curiosity than anything else.”

He closed his eyes and modulated his voice as he recited it.

“It went thus: Take fourteen laurel seeds and five mustard seeds, mill them very fine, put them in a clear spring with a mix of calf and sheep rennet, and cover the whole with goat's milk; beat it, and the mix will cause madness to all who drink it, and no one will know the source of the madness.”

Efraím stared at Diego, waiting for some commentary.

Diego said, “I don't know. … The rennet ferments the milk and I suppose the seeds have some toxic element, and once they're mixed … it could be … but I still think our problem has a more basic origin, something more accessible to the knowledge we have.”

Efraím pushed the cauldron with the mixture of water and blood toward him.

“Then look for it there. … And quick!”

Diego felt overwhelmed by his insistence and looked into the colored liquid.

“Clear your mind,” Efraím told him.

Diego paid attention and concentrated on what he had seen in the sheep, their symptoms, the miscarriages, the nervous convulsions, their rapid deaths … He remembered the inflammation in their livers and the hemorrhages in their intestines when he opened them up.

He also thought of that strange recipe the magician had just told him. He thought it over slowly. None of the ingredients he had mentioned could provoke such a reaction on their own. Something had to happen when the laurel was brought into contact with the rennet, or the mustard with the milk, or all together, to produce such a terrible effect on the mind.

He remembered hearing Efraím say that sometimes, different elements in nature could come together to transform the use of something.

He turned these ideas over in his head repeatedly without coming to any solution. That is what he told Efraím. His plan hadn't worked. He had seen nothing.

The magician left, destroyed, without a single hope of doing anything to prevent his sisters' deaths or those of so many others who would follow on them sooner or later.

For the rest of the day, Diego couldn't stop thinking about it. He felt as if he were stuck in a maze, sensing there was an exit close by but unable to take the right path. For days now, he had the sense that the cause must lie with some food or perhaps the water supply.

That same afternoon, when he was headed to the house of a client, he had to cross a damp pine forest that scarcely anyone ever passed through. The sky was still blanketed with clouds after the day's rainfall, but the temperature was still mild that early autumn afternoon.

Sabba heard the crunching of fallen branches under her hooves as she crossed by the tree trunks. Amid the leaves, Diego saw a great quantity of mushrooms and got down to pick some. He loved them. There were all different shapes and colors, the most delicious ones right alongside those that could kill with just the smallest taste. He found one of the worst, a red one with white spots on its cap, and stomped on it so no one would mistakenly pick it. He remembered reading of its effects in a treatise on botany: blindness, attacks of madness, and fantastic visions, among others. He saw another like it, still bigger than the one he'd destroyed, and went to crush it as well when he stopped, smelled his hands, and realized something that hadn't occurred to him before then. He shouted with joy.

He had just figured out what was killing the people. It had been right under his nose, and neither he nor anyone had figured it out.

He just needed to do one more test to prove it, just one.

IX.

V
eturia watched what Diego was doing without knowing what he was after.

The afternoon before, the woman had returned home somewhat calmer; she had decided to forget what she had seen and heard in the presence of the Jew. They always told her she suffered from an excess of imagination, and maybe she had wanted to see things where there was really nothing.

First thing in the morning, she crossed paths with Diego when he was running out to the stables. He disappeared inside and then galloped off shortly afterward on the back of his mare, Sabba. Though she imagined she wouldn't see him until lunchtime, soon he was back. He had a number of bags, some full of rye bread, old and hard looking, and others with seeds of the same grain.

As soon as he'd greeted her, he asked her for ten mugs filled with water and a bigger one with hot water and fennel. Veturia made it for him and left it as he had asked. She decided to stay there, dying with curiosity, to see what he was going to do with all that.

Diego sniffed a few pieces of bread and scraped the moldy parts of the crust with a knife. He made a mound of the worst parts in the center of the table. He seemed happy as he looked at the result. The color was purple, the consistency dusty. He took a pinch of that powder on the tip of a spoon and dropped it in the first cup of water. He did the same with two or three handfuls of damp rye, mashing the seeds before he put them into the cups.

“Sir, pardon my curiosity, but may I ask what you're doing?”

“I'm going to lock horns with this evil,” he responded forcefully, his spirits inflamed. “Yes, that's what I'm going to do.”

Veturia held her breath and felt much worse than the day before. She thought he had gone completely mad and decided to keep her eye on him.

Diego, unaware of the reaction he had just provoked, took two of the cups and emptied them into another one. He stirred it well and then emptied a teaspoon from one cup into another until he had gotten a very low concentration of the mold in the last one. He shook it up energetically and then drank it in one sip.

“But what are you doing?” Veturia shivered when she saw him swallow that disgusting brew. “That's not going to be good for you.”

Triumphantly, Diego stood up, threw the rest of it in a bucket, and answered her.

“Veturia, listen to me. I know how to cause that illness everyone is afraid of!” He paused for a moment. “Now I will be affected by it, too; I may begin to note the effects in a moment. If you see me very sick, tell someone, but most important, make me drink milk, lots of milk.”

“But how can you say that? How stupid. How are you going to know how to cause an illness?” The woman was terrified.

Diego sat down and raised his hands to his head when he began to feel the first waves of nausea. His strength was so low that his arms couldn't even support the weight of his skull. Immediately he felt himself floating through the air, above an enormous green prairie. Surprised by his own speed, he looked at his arms and saw two long wings full of black-and-white feathers. He flapped them enthusiastically and at his side there appeared a group of swans with women's faces, beautiful and completely identical. He was going to touch them with his feathers, but then their faces changed to horrendous demons, cold and dark. Diego shouted, afraid he would die.

In the meanwhile, Veturia wiped his chest with a hand towel, horrified at what was happening. A terrible suspicion began to creep into her thoughts.

The day before, she had seen Efraím with that dreadful serpent saying things she couldn't comprehend. And now, she saw her master moving his hands like a madman, his eyes rolled back in his head, and screaming like someone possessed. She felt defeated, nervous, unsure of what was going to happen.

She put a damp cloth on his forehead, asking herself what was happening. A force inside her was telling her to do something, and soon. But what? All that had happened—could it be witchcraft? Or even worse, some dreadful satanic ritual?

Though she was consumed by doubts, she felt an enormous responsibility, being the only person who knew that secret. For a moment, she thought she should call Señor Marcos, but he might not believe her, or maybe he would take his friend's side. She didn't know what to do. …

Then, Diego opened his eyes, looked around, confused, as if he'd just woken up from a long dream, and acted as if nothing had happened. He just said, before he left the kitchen, he was going to lie down for a while.

Once she was alone, Veturia was assailed by the same doubts. Though she didn't want to report him, she couldn't keep what she knew to herself.

In that sea of tribulations, she thought she had found the one solution that could clear her conscience. She took off her apron, looked for a clean linen shirt that wouldn't smell as bad as the one she was wearing, and after combing her hair, she left the house as quietly as possible.

She went uphill, and after crossing the arch of Saint Martin, she entered the Church of San Pedro and looked for a confessional. Luckily there was one empty, and even more luckily, she found the abbot there.

When she began to recount her fears and what had produced them, she felt relieved. The soft voice of the abbot, his questions, the promise that things would get better—everything pressed her to go into detail about what had happened. She told him everything Diego had admitted, and about his strange companionship with that Jew. She also talked about the different potions he had prepared, their ingredients, and that grotesque snake.

After she'd been absolved, the abbot thanked her enthusiastically for the information she'd given. Through the wooden screen that separated them, Veturia saw his acid gaze and a strange smile. Her blood froze immediately and she felt filthy inside. Her master had always acted well with her, and yet, she had just betrayed him. Veturia regretted doing it, but she didn't fear any consequence, because she had admitted everything as a matter of confession.

“What penance shall I do, Father?” The abbot had just blessed her and had forgotten it, getting up quickly from his seat.

“None, my daughter. Others will do penance for you, you'll see.”

Diego awoke with a sharp pain in his spine. Something was jabbing him there. The sharp edge of a stone. He felt around and identified others, as damp and sharp as the first.

When he opened his eyes, everything was dark except a small grille to his left where a bit of light filtered in. He touched his arms and face. For a moment, he feared he had died.

When he sat up, he felt the presence of another person at the other end of the room. He heard him cough. He turned when he heard steps at his back.

“Who are you?”

“And you?” the voice was deep and scratchy. “Damn! Some company I've managed to get.”

Diego saw a person pull away. He looked at the walls, and his eyes stopped at a small window. Standing near it was a man of forty or so years of age, tall, with a gray beard. He looked like a nobleman.

“You were unconscious when you arrived, talking nonsense, with your eyes rolled back in your head as if you were possessed. You slept for at least half a day. I guess you got nice and drunk yesterday and couldn't stand up.” The man sat on a bench attached to the wall. “They treated you even worse than me, I don't know what you must have done.”

“Where am I?” Diego raised his hands to his head, shocked at how his words echoed.

“In jail.”

“I'm a prisoner?”

“Smart conclusion, my friend,” he responded sarcastically.

Diego remembered the rye and what he had done before he entered into that spell of unconsciousness. His body was living proof that the strange illness had a name and a cause. He wondered what had happened to make him end up in jail. He remembered flying through imaginary worlds and dreamscapes; he had even floated among the clouds. Could he have done something wicked while in that state?

“What happened to you?” He observed the man's fine clothing and a belt where his sword had hung. “Why are you here?”

The man grumbled something incomprehensible and then began to cough to clear his throat, until he finally regained his voice.

“I drank too much. … And when I do that, I lose control.”

“You're not from here, are you?”

“That's correct, I'm from Oñate. Though actually I live farther to the south.” Another coughing fit overcame him, and it took him a moment to recover. “I was just passing through.”

“I never heard of them throwing people in jail for drinking.”

“Only when they do it and then strike the most reverent abbot. I did it last night. He insulted me when he saw me stumbling from the tavern, and …”

“Now I understand.”

Diego began to notice an intense trembling in his hands and a strong urge to vomit. When he understood these were new symptoms of the disease, he had a sudden feeling of anguish. If he was imprisoned and isolated from outside, this was not only bad news for him, it was the worst moment for everyone. He should warn them, tell the authorities what he had found out, and as soon as possible.

“My name is Bruno de Oñate, and you?”

“Diego de Malagón.”

When they shook hands, Bruno noticed Diego shaking uncontrollably.

“Is something happening with you?”

“You might see me get worse.”

That response disconcerted the man even more.

“What do you mean?”

“I might start having convulsions and hallucinations, even an episode of delirium.”

“Can you tell me what's going on?”

Diego felt better for a moment and breathed in and then sighed, relieved. He even felt his hands stop shaking.

“I have given myself an illness, and listen to this closely, for the sole purpose of being sure of its cause. The symptoms I'm showing are more benign than they would be if I was truly affected. I'm speaking to you of something that has killed more than a hundred people in this community in the past few weeks, and their livestock as well.”

“I knew nothing of it.”

“The worst is that until now, no one's been able to do anything about it because they didn't know the cause. But yesterday I was able to find out. Because of that, I know what to do. I could still save many people.”

“And what is this sickness?”

“Have you ever heard anyone speak of Saint Anthony's fire?”

“Never.”

“It's a poisoning that comes from eating damp rye or black bread made with that grain. Its consequences are terrible. People begin to suffer frightful hallucinations and all sorts of convulsions, tremors, and nausea. Many end up dying. Sometimes the extremities are struck with gangrene, and if a pregnant woman ingests it, she will miscarry. Cows, sheep, and goats also suffer from it, but it is rare in horses, because they don't usually eat rye. I figured it out almost by chance when I saw a group of poisonous wild mushrooms. That made me think of the sickness that affects men and animals when they eat these mushrooms, and then the rye, because they grow there too, though they're very small.”

Diego explained that on his way back from the pinewoods he had remembered a description of the problem in a book written by a nun, Hildegard of Bingen. He said, “The existence of this fungus is due to the poor storage of grain in the presence of excessive humidity and high temperatures.”

Bruno de Oñate looked at him, shocked for a number of reasons. If what he said was true, then what he had done was not only generous; it showed a bravery that had to be described as heroic. He was also surprised by Diego's fantastic memory, hearing him recite whole paragraphs from a treatise that he claimed to have read only once, years ago.

“Are you a doctor?”

“No, an albéitar.”

“And no one but you has figured this out?”

“No one, I don't think. It's not a common illness in this area. It's better known in climates more humid than ours, since that is where the fungus grows better.”

“And if you die? How will your discovery be known?”

“I'm trusting that I didn't make a mistake in the dosage I ingested; at least, that's what I hope. …”

“Bruno de Oñate, you have a visitor.” The voice of a guard interrupted their conversation. “Come close to the bars.” Bruno went to see who it was. It was a Calatravan knight. Over his white tunic, there was a Greek cross with gules and a fleur-de-lis at each end.

Diego could hear nothing they discussed, but the man was looking over at him the whole time. Soon he began to notice a slight burning in his feet and a pinprick feeling. He thought the fungus from the rye must contain some substance that drew blood away from the extremities. That was the reason many of the infected ended up suffering from gangrene. Now he had no doubt. The cause of that massive poisoning in Cuéllar was nothing other than the rye.

He needed the guard to tell the authorities. They couldn't keep making bread with that grain or feeding it to the animals. Why had they locked him up? he asked himself over and over.

He screamed for a guard, but nobody came.

“If someone can hear me, go and tell the authorities,” he continued loudly. “They should burn all the rye in the storehouses. Nobody should make cakes or bread with it. … It's poisoned! I'm telling the truth.”

“Shut it, you imbecile,” he heard at the end of the long hallway, on the other side of the bars.

The two men there were frightened when they saw how suddenly the young man suffered a rapid series of convulsions throughout his body.

Diego tried to bend his legs, but his muscles were as rigid as stones and wouldn't obey him. He shouted with pain, trying and failing to get up. For a moment, he feared he had taken too much of the poison, and he imagined a slow, anguished death in jail.

He looked to the light of the small window and its reflection drilled into his head, and he was suddenly tired. Without realizing it, he fainted and fell to the floor, striking himself against a stone.