* * *
I laid a hand on Rabbie MacNab’s head. The shaggy hair was damp at his temples, but his jaw hung open, slack, relaxed, and the pulse in his neck beat slowly.
“He’s all right now,” I said. His mother could see that as well as I could; he lay sprawled in the peaceful abandon of sleep, cheeks flushed from the heat of the nearby fire. Still, she stayed tense and watchful, hovering over the bedstead until I spoke. Once I had given absolution to the evidence of her own eyes, she was willing to believe, though; her bunched shoulders slumped under her shawl.
“Thank the Blessed Mother,” Mary MacNab murmured, crossing herself briefly, “and you, my lady.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I protested. This was quite literally true; the only service I had been able to render young Rabbie was to make his mother let him alone. It had, in fact, taken a certain amount of forcefulness to discourage her efforts to feed him bran mixed with cock’s blood, wave burning feathers under his nose, or dash cold water over him—none of these remedies being of marked use to someone suffering an epileptic seizure. When I arrived, his mother had been volubly regretting her inability to administer the most effective of remedies: spring water drunk from the skull of a suicide.
“It frichts me so when he’s taen like that,” Mary MacNab said, gazing longingly at the bed where her son lay. “I had Father MacMurtry to him the last time, and he prayed a terrible long time, and sprinkled holy water on the lad to drive the de’ils out. But noo they’ve come back.” She clasped her hands tight together, as though she wished to touch her son, but couldn’t bring herself to do so.
“It isn’t devils,” I said. “It’s only a sickness, and not all that bed a one, at that.”
“Aye, my lady, an’ ye say so,” she murmured, unwilling to contradict me, but plainly unconvinced.
“He’ll be all right.” I tried to reassure the woman, without raising hopes that couldn’t be met. “He always recovers from these fits, doesn’t he?” The fits had come on two years ago—probably the result of head injury from beatings administered by his late father, I thought—and while the seizures were infrequent, they were undeniably terrifying to his mother when they occurred.
She nodded reluctantly, plainly unconvinced.
“Aye…though he bangs his heid something fearful now and then, thrashin’ as he does.”
“Yes, that’s a risk,” I said patiently. “If he does it again, just pull him away from anything hard, and let him alone. I know it looks bad, but really, he’ll be quite all right. Just let the fit run its course, and when it’s over, put him to bed and let him sleep.” I knew that words were of limited value, no matter how true they might be. Something more concrete was needed for reassurance.
As I turned to go, I heard a small click in the deep pocket of my skirt, and had a sudden inspiration. Reaching in, I pulled out two or three of the small smooth charmstones Raymond had sent me. I selected the milky white one—chalcedony, perhaps—with the tiny figure of a writhing man carved into one side. So that’s what it’s for, I thought.
“Sew this into his pocket,” I said, laying the tiny charm ceremoniously in the woman’s hand. “It will protect him from…from devils.” I cleared my throat. “You needn’t worry about him, then, even if he has another fit; he’ll come out of it all right.”
I left then, feeling at once extremely foolish and halfway pleased, amidst an eager flood of relieved thanks. I wasn’t sure whether I was becoming a better physician or merely a more practiced charlatan. Still, if I couldn’t do much for Rabbie, I could help his mother—or let her help herself, at least. Healing comes from the healed; not from the physician. That much, Raymond had taught me.