The Bloodletter's Daughter by Linda Lafferty Page A

next to the tavern-keeper to discuss ale and beer and conduct business. The shopkeepers were placed near the purveyors, the greengrocers alongside the farmers, who enjoyed a nice soak after hour upon hour toiling over their crops.
    And on this day, the bloodletter’s daughter and the elegant young man from the royal court formed a group of their own.
    Marketa moved the stool over so that he could climb into the barrel and submerge himself.
    “Ahhh!” he sighed, closing his eyes as the herbed water lapped over his shoulders.
    “Marketa!”
    Lucie came bustling toward them, a bucket in her hand.
    “How have you bathed our guest with such haste,” she said, her voice cross. “Have you made the gentleman—comfortable?”
    Marketa’s lips moved to utter an answer, but a reply came from the gentleman himself.
    “Your daughter has greatly pleased me,
pani
. Far greater than the bathmaids in Prague—she has the hands of a goddess. The only thing that would please me more would be for her to sup with me. Bring cheese, bread, and ale for us both. I should like to finish my conversation with Marketa.”
    Lucie bobbed her head, staring openmouthed and gaptoothed at the stranger.
    “Yes, my lord,” she stammered. “And cake, I will bring you cake.”
    Marketa stared at the man in the barrel.
    “I cannot take food and drink with you,” she whispered. “I am working.”
    “I will pay for your daughter’s time,” called Jakub from his bath. “I will pay you well,
pani
.”
    “Just to talk?” said Lucie, her hands on her stout hips.
    “My bath is losing heat. Fetch a warm stone,
pani
. And then bring the refreshments for the two of us.”
    Marketa sat down on the stool, not knowing what else to do. She studied the old tarred wood of the barrels, splintered on the outside from decades of use. The wet wood smelled of fresh lavender and river water.
    “You must know Annabella,” said the voice from the barrel.
    “Yes, my lord,” said Marketa. “Do you know her as well?”
    “Ah, yes, the good healer of Krumlov,” he chuckled. “She has a superior knowledge of herbs and medicines. I have known her most of my life.”
    “She has the Book of Paracelsus,” said Marketa.
    “I know,” he said, and his voice was obscured by the splashing of his arm adjusting to more comfortable position.
    Marketa looked up as her sisters, Dana and Kate, brought a plank to place across the barrel. Lucie followed carrying heavy platters of food and two steins of ale, her sweaty cheeks puffing with effort.
    “And that hot stone,
pani
,” said Jakub as the plank creaked with the weight of the food.
    Lucie motioned to Marketa, out of habit.
    “No,” said Jakub. “She is my guest. She shall remain at my side. And do not worry,
pani
. I shall pay you handsomely for her—services.”
    Marketa smiled into her hand. She looked around the bathhouse where every face was staring at her.
    For the next hour, no one spoke a word in the bathhouse but the physician and the bathmaid, who chatted on about medicines, herbs, bloodletting, and other cures. They spoke of theimpending public dissection of a human body to be performed in Prague by Jan Jesenius himself.
    Marketa argued the virtues of balancing the humors through bloodletting, while Jakub dismissed it as fraud.
    “You do not believe in Galen’s humors?” said Marketa, rising to her feet to peek over the rim of the tub. She stared at the bathing physician, forgetting altogether her earlier shyness.
    “Charlatanism,” he pronounced, raising the stein of beer to his lips. “Chemistry is the secret to medicine. I am a scientist, not a sorcerer. In my laboratory I distill medicines from herbs, roots, and flowers. I isolate healing minerals from stone, water, and soil.
Slecna
, I cure my patients without stealing their blood.”
    Marketa scowled at the bather, not knowing what to think about this doctor who mocked her father’s profession.
    “Do not frown, Marketa,” said Jakub, wiping