As for the rest of our trip, there is little point in going into details. The patients came in thick and fast once we had established ourselves in the various inns on our route and I returned ten days later sixty-five shillings the richer. The average fee was four pence, nobody ever paid more than one and sixpence, and when I was paid in kind I had to sell the various geese and ducks and hens at a discount to local traders (we ate one goose, but I could hardly return to Oxford with a farmyard menagerie trailing behind me). All this should give an idea of how many patients I treated.

I will retell the events of one day, because they were of significance. This was in Great Milton, a small settlement to the east of Oxford, to which we had repaired because a distant branch of Boyle’s family owned a property there, assuring us a comfortable bed for the night and a chance of ridding ourselves of the lice which we had acquired over the previous days. We arrived about seven in the morning, and went straight to our separate rooms at the nearby inn, while the innkeeper sent a messenger around the village announcing our presence. We had barely prepared ourselves when the first patient arrived, and by the time he had been dealt with (Lower lanced a boil in his fundament, to which treatment he responded with rare good humor) there was a queue forming at the door.

That morning I extracted four teeth, drained several gallons of blood (fancy notions about therapeutic efficacy get you nowhere in the country; they wanted their blood let and that was what they were determined to have), bound wounds, tasted piss, applied salves and took in seven shillings. A brief pause for lunch and then we were off again; lancing sores, wiping pus, setting joints and taking in eleven shillings and eight pence. Throughout, all of Lower’s grand theories about the new medicine were abandoned. The patients were not interested in the benefits of iatrochemical potions and were disdainful of innovation. So, instead of prescribing careful concoctions of mercury and antimony, we rebalanced humors like the most hidebound of Galenists, and consulted the stars with a fervor worthy of Paracelsus himself. Anything which might work, for we had not the leisure to consider novel approaches, nor the reputation to apply them.

Both of us were exhausted by the end and even so we had to skulk out the back of the inn to avoid still more patients waiting their turn. The old couple in charge of the house had promised us a hot bath when we introduced ourselves at midday and I was eager to take up the offer—I had not immersed since the previous autumn and felt that not only could my constitution stand it, my morale would be immeasurably lifted. I went first, taking the brandy bottle with me so as to save time, and felt very much better when I emerged. Lower was less carefree about bathing, but the itching in his skin from the lice was such that even he decided to take the risk.

I stretched out in a chair while Lower took his turn in the tub, and was almost asleep when Mrs. Fenton, the servant, told me that there was a message for me. Brought by a servant from the nearby priory.

I groaned. This sort of thing happened all the time; the gentry and families of higher quality would want to avail themselves of the services of a passing physician, but naturally found it beneath them to wait with the rabble. So they would send a message desiring our presence. We attended on them rather than the other way around, and charged heft-ily for the privilege. Lower invariably took most of this trade, he being English and wanting to make connections for the future, and I was happy to allow him that task.

This time, however, he was in the bath and, in any case, the servant said quite pointedly that my services in particular were desired. I was flattered, yet again amazed at the speed with which news travels in the countryside, and quickly fetched my bag. I left a message for Lower that I would return in due course.

“Who is your master?” I asked, wanting to make polite conversation as we walked back up to the main street of the village, then down a smaller road to the left. My teachers had often recommended this course—by careful questioning of servants, it is often possible to reach a full diagnosis even before you see the patient, thus earning a wondrous reputation.

This time the technique was of little use, as the servant, an old but powerfully built man, did not reply at all. Indeed, he said not a single word until we had walked all the way up to a medium-sized house on the outskirts of the village, gone through the large door and I had been shown into what the English call a parlor, a public room for the reception of guests. Here he broke silence, asked me to sit, and disappeared.

And so I did, waiting patiently, until the door opened and I found myself in the presence of Europe’s foremost murderer, if Mr. Wood’s tales were to be believed.

“Good evening, doctor,” John Thurloe said to me in a quiet, melodious voice as he came into the room. “It was kind of you to come.”

Although I could study him properly for the first time, nonetheless I stood by my original assessment. Even knowing his reputation, he still did not at all look like any sort of evil tyrant. He had watery eyes that blinked as if unused to the light, and the meek expression of one who wished desperately to be treated with kindness. If pushed, I would have placed him as a gentle prelate, eking out a quiet but worthy existence in a poor parish, forgotten by his betters.

But Wood’s description had penetrated my mind, and I found myself gaping, almost awestruck.

“You are Dr. Cola, are you not?” he went on as I said nothing. I eventually managed to reply that I was, and ask him what was his trouble.

“Ah, not a problem of the body,” Thurloe said with a faint smile. “More a problem of the soul, you might say.”

I ventured that this was hardly my area of expertise.

“Indeed not. But you may be able to render some assistance. May I be frank with you, doctor?”

I spread my hands as if to say, well, why not?

“Good. You see, I have a guest, who is sorely troubled. I cannot say that he is welcome, but you know how it is with hospitality. He is cut off from the society of his fellow men, and finds my company insufficient. I cannot blame him for this, as I am not an interesting conversationalist. Do you know who I am, by the way?”

“I am told you are Mr. Thurloe, Lord Cromwell’s Secretary of State.”

“That is correct. Anyway, this guest of mine needs information which I cannot provide, and he tells me that you might be able to help.”

He had completely lost me, of course. So I said I would willingly oblige. But surely, I continued, Great Milton was not so very cut off from civilization? Thurloe did not reply directly.

“I understand you knew a gentleman by the name of Robert Grove. A fellow of New College, recently deceased. Is that correct?”

That Thurloe should have heard of this amazed me; but I said that, yes, I did.

“I hear there is a question mark over the matter of his death. Would you care to tell me the circumstances?”

I could see no reason why I should not, so I summarized everything that had taken place, from Lower’s investigations to Sarah Blundy’s conversation with me and the magistrate. Thurloe sat impassively in the chair as I talked, hardly moving at all, an air of the most complete tranquillity upon him; I could barely tell whether he was listening or was even still awake.

“I see,” he said when I had concluded. “So if I understand you correctly, when you left Oxford, the magistrate had questioned this Blundy girl, but no more?”

I nodded.

“Does it come as a surprise to learn that she was charged with the willful murder of Dr. Grove two days ago? And is now in prison awaiting the assizes?”

“It would astonish me,” I replied. “I did not know the English law worked so swiftly.”