‘Well, if you’re sure that I would not be an inconvenience, I’d be glad to accept.’

  Not wishing to arrive empty-handed, I detoured to buy a small bunch of flowers for Magdalena. It is strange but true that despite living in a country covered in flowers and often having better specimens in their own gardens, women enjoy receiving them. I once suggested buying a plant instead, but my colleague Constantijn Hop counselled me against it. Since he was a married man, I listened to his advice.

  ‘The thing about plants is that they go on living,’ he explained, ‘whereas bunches of flowers inevitably die.’

  ‘Doesn’t that make the plant a better gift?’ I said.

  ‘To a man’s mind, perhaps. But women prefer the flowers to die, because then you might buy them some more.’

  ‘But you might not?’

  Hop smiled gently. ‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll buy some more, believe me.’

  Magdalena was as gracious as ever. Having placed me in a seat by the window with a glass of wine, she went to give instructions to the maid and the cook. I could not help but notice that there were three places set for dinner, suggesting that Johannes had always planned to invite me. He would, of course, have known that I would be at church with him.

  The motive soon became clear.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about the Rectorship,’ Voet said, sitting at the other side of the window.

  ‘The Rectorship? I don’t have a vote but you know I would support you if I did.’

  ‘I wasn’t meaning me.’

  ‘Who do you want me to campaign for, then?’

  ‘Why, you, of course.’

  ‘Me?’ I squeaked.

  ‘Not next year, obviously. I’ve done it twice, so has Drelincourt, so has Spanheim. It’s getting harder to find good candidates. It puts your professional career on hold for the year, so asking anyone to do it a third time would be demanding a lot. And we’re getting behind Hermann for next year.’

  ‘Hermann?’

  ‘The botanist.’

  ‘Oh, that Hermann.’

  Hermann was director of the famous botanical garden and was often to be seen supervising the unloading of specimens from barges.

  ‘But then in 1691 it will be the Humanities’ turn, so we need a candidate.’

  ‘I understand that, but allow me to make the obvious objection that I am not a professor.’

  ‘I know, but strictly speaking you don’t have to be. You only have to be a professor or a man of similar distinction. I’d argue that your work for the Stadhouder has made you eminently suitable for the role.’

  ‘The Board of Curators are not all fervent Orangists.’

  ‘No, but they dare not appear not to be, given how things are now.’

  I think this was his oblique reference to the fact that Dutch prestige had never been higher now that a Dutchman was sitting on the throne of England. After all, we had never had a king before. Admittedly he wasn’t king of our country but still, a king is a king.

  ‘Anyway,’ Voet said, ‘let us enjoy our meal and discuss it later. If I knew you would accept the post if elected, I would begin to sow the seed with my fellow professors.’

  I dislike pomp and ceremony, and I could imagine no greater penance than sitting through repeated meetings of committees and boards. On the other hand, as Rector I could implement some necessary reforms, particularly to the salaries of philosophy lecturers, and I would have the use of a carriage and a fine suite of rooms. Moreover, I would be nearly indispensable, so if by some chance William decided to send me a summons I could justifiably argue that I could not be spared.

  ‘I would never seek the office,’ I said, ‘but if my friends persuaded me that it was my duty to my beloved university to serve, then I would reluctantly accept. I suppose. Probably.’

  It was a very convivial dinner; so much so, that it stretched into supper and it must have been nearly ten o’clock when, replete with good food and Rhenish wine, I took my leave of the Voets and set out to walk back to my room.

  Somehow during the afternoon the clasp on my cloak appeared to have moved, so that I found the greatest difficulty in putting it on and I was grateful for the assistance of the Voets’ maid, who also turned my hat around and chased after me with my gloves, at the same time retrieving Magdalena’s, which I had inadvertently picked up.

  I knew my way around Leiden very well after so many years, so I was not incommoded by the lack of lights. Having heard of too many men who came to a watery end, I hugged the wall on the side of the path further from the canal, and was just looking for a suitable discreet corner in which to make water when I spotted a familiar figure sitting on a bench. The creamy moonlight picked out the substantial form of Fat Lysbeth.

  I do not know whether the prostitutes had a guild, but if they did, Fat Lysbeth would have been its mistress. She was not a woman to trifle with; well, not in one sense, but you know what I mean. Many’s the time that a drunken hooligan has started a rumpus in Steen’s Inn only to find himself thrown out onto the pavement by the barman and Lysbeth acting in consort. I once saw such a man abuse her while lying on the cobbles, at which she simply dropped her entire weight on his ribs, bottom first, which effectively deprived him of the power of speech for some time, possibly permanently.

  Yet here she was, staring fixedly over the water, and as I drew nearer I could hear the sound of crying. I never knew her to cry before.

  ‘Lysbeth?’

  She never minded being called Fat Lysbeth. In fact, she relished it, but this did not seem the time or place for it.

  ‘Is that you, Master?’ she replied.

  ‘Yes. Here, I’ll come into the light. May I sit beside you?’

  She said nothing but patted the wood to indicate where I might sit. It was a long bench but there was only just room.

  ‘What ails you, Lysbeth?’

  She shook her head as if she would speak, but could not.

  ‘Come now, we have known each other these many years,’ I said.

  [No, not in the biblical sense, Van der Meer, as in “Such and such a man knew his wife”. I never laid a hand on her. When I was young I couldn’t afford it and when I was older I knew too much about the French disease to risk it, leaving aside any moral considerations.]

  She acknowledged the truth of my words with a nod.

  ‘I have no-one to tell but you,’ she said, her voice not much above a whisper. ‘I have found a lump in my breast. I know where this leads, Master. In a couple of years I shall be dead, and I have no way to amend my life.’ She broke into deep, anguished sobs. ‘I shall be damned for all time, Master! I feel the fires of Hell already. But I have no other way to make a living.’

  ‘Is there nothing that can be done? Perhaps a good surgeon…’

  ‘I can’t afford a surgeon. Poor women just die, Master, and there’s an end of it. They dull the pain with genever and pray that the end will come quickly. I’ve seen it too many times.’

  ‘But you’re still young,’ I protested. As soon as I said it I wanted to qualify the statement with an inserted “quite” but it seemed unduly pedantic.

  ‘Thirty-nine,’ she said, then gave a bitter laugh. ‘Forty-five, actually. What need have I of vanity now?’

  I did a quick sum. I was nearly fifty-one, and I had known her almost all the time I had been in Leiden. ‘How old were you when you took to … this profession?’ I asked.

  ‘Fourteen. My father died and I had no brothers to care for me. Whoring paid my bills. And now God has visited this upon me to repay me for my wickedness.’

  Now there were two of us crying on the bench.

  ‘That is nonsense, Lysbeth. God is love. He forgives those who repent.’

  ‘You believe that?’

  ‘Certainly I do. There will be people in Heaven whom I did not expect to see there. They may have been villains, but if they repented they will have found forgiveness.’

  Lysbeth brightened a little. ‘I don’t know that I want to go to Heaven,’ she said.

  I was shocked. ‘Whyever not?’

  ‘I won’t know anyone there,’ she replied. ‘Not until you turn up, anyway.’

  I took her hand and squeezed it. ‘It’s late,’ I said. ‘We should go to bed. To our separate beds,’ I added, in case of misunderstanding. ‘But we will face this together. Come and see me in the morning.’

  ‘I’m not very good with mornings,’ she said. ‘Years of late nights.’

  ‘Well then, I will meet you around midday at Steen’s Inn.’

  I fumbled for my pouch, opened it, and poured some coins into my hand, trying to tell them apart in the moonlight. I found a guilder and pressed it into her grasp. ‘Please take this. You need not work for a couple of nights.’

  ‘Don’t you want to get your money’s worth?’

  ‘No. Thank you, but no. If you want to amend your life, let’s start now.’

  On impulse I dumped some more coins into her palm. I had no better use for them than helping this poor sinner. I had no idea what Heaven would be like, but I had always assumed that it would contain some version of Steen’s Inn, and Steen himself would be there once more presiding over it, and Fat Lysbeth would be missed if she were not there.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I do not customarily frequent the anatomy lecture theatres. To my way of thinking, if God put some of our parts inside us, then He intended for them to stay inside and that is the best place for them. I can, of course, understand that surgeons and physicians need to know how the body is constructed. Apart from other considerations, I should like a bonesetter who was treating my broken leg to know what a leg ought to look like and which parts went where, but as a moral philosopher I am content for others to know these things.

  It was not a morbid fascination with anatomy that brought me to the theatres on that morning, but a desire to find someone. Charles Drelincourt was in his customary place. I recognised his French accent before I saw him.

  ‘Observe, messieurs, the course of the exposed great saphenous vein. Now, beginning at its junction with the femoral vein, we may begin to dissect out the latter.’

  What this entails, I cannot say, but I am able to tell you that the ceiling of the theatre has a small crack over the doorway and a number of cobwebs, since this was where my attention was directed.

  ‘Can I help you, Dr Mercurius?’

  I lowered my eyes to find Drelincourt in front of me, wiping his hands on a towel. Behind him students were delicately picking at the corpse like gourmet falcons.

  ‘I did not mean to interrupt you,’ I stammered.

  ‘Nevertheless, you have. But no matter. The students will be occupied for some time.’

  ‘I hesitate to ask this, but I hoped that you might do me a great service.’

  Drelincourt sighed. ‘Not you, too? The apothecaries will soon be out of mercury at this rate.’

  ‘What? No! No, I haven’t got the pox. But I know someone in need of a good surgeon and I wondered whether I could pay your fee for her.’

  Drelincourt was possessed of eyes that were set too close together in my opinion. He frowned aggressively, giving him the appearance of an owl who has just had his supper-time mouse stolen. ‘Mercurius! The destruction of a baby in his mother’s womb is a crime against the law of both God and man.’

  ‘No! Not that either! It’s Fat Lysbeth.’

  ‘Fat Lysbeth? But she is a notorious whore. What have you to do with her?’

  ‘Nothing. We have known each other a long time. But she is a sick woman and desirous of mending her ways. She has found a lump in her breast.’

  Drelincourt rubbed his chin. ‘How big a lump?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘And how long ago did she find it?’

  ‘I don’t know that either.’

  ‘Just one lump?’

  ‘She only mentioned one.’

  ‘We must look for others. And examine her armpits. Bring her to me. The students will go to dinner at midday. I will see her then.’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ I said.

  ‘If she intends amendment of life we must do all that we can to help her in that.’

  He walked away. Drelincourt was the best man for the job. A former army surgeon, he operated quickly and compassionately. If anyone could help Fat Lysbeth, I was confident that he could.

  My next port of call was the beguinage of St Agnes. Beguines are women who live like nuns but do not take full vows. They swear to chastity and obedience, but not poverty, because they support themselves by their work. In this case the beguines were particularly noted for their nursing skills, which no doubt Lysbeth would need.

  I sat with the Superior in the courtyard, beautifully tended and spotlessly clean, where we could be seen. Men are rarely allowed within the buildings for the sake of propriety. I told her of Lysbeth’s plight and while I cannot deny a perceptible movement of eyebrows when I disclosed about whom I was speaking, Christian charity soon supervened. As a result of my work for the Stadhouder I had accumulated a certain amount of gold, and I promised to make a donation to cover Lysbeth’s costs until she could work. I had no better use for the money.

  By this time noon was approaching, so I walked to Steen’s Inn. Fat Lysbeth was not there, but the potboy knew where she lodged and ran off to roust her out. She appeared a few minutes later.

  ‘I could do with a drink,’ she muttered.

  ‘No time for that,’ I said. ‘I have a surgeon waiting.’

  ‘I can drink very quickly,’ she said, and suited action to the word, downing a tot of genever so fast that I doubt the surface of her tongue got wet. ‘Anyway, what surgeon?’

  ‘The best surgeon in the country,’ I assured her.

  ‘I can’t pay him,’ she protested.

  ‘I can. Now stop arguing and start walking. This way.’

  She gawped at the university building as we approached. ‘In there? They don’t let the likes of me in there.’

  ‘You’re a patient of the celebrated Drelincourt,’ I said. ‘You have every right.’

  I took her by the hand and led her to the theatre where Drelincourt was waiting, his coat hanging on a hook, his shirt sleeves rolled back, his instruments laid on a small table. To my surprise, he bowed to her.

  ‘Madame, please make yourself comfortable.’

  Lysbeth sat, a stunned look on her face.

  ‘I understand you have a lump. May I examine it?’

  She unlaced her bodice. I turned my back, so cannot describe what he did. I know only what he said.

  ‘Recently found?’

  ‘Last week.’

  ‘Is there pain?’

  ‘No, no pain. A little discomfort when I touch it.’

  ‘When did you last feel your breast before this?’

  ‘I don’t know. When I wash, I suppose. I wash often, sir. Soap and water are cheap.’

  How many times have I heard a Dutchwoman say this!

  ‘I wish my students were as particular, madame,’ Drelincourt observed. ‘And now, if I may, I should like to examine your armpits and the other breast.’

  A few minutes later he had completed his examination.

  ‘I find no sign of spread. That is good. But that lump must go.’

  ‘You’re removing my breast?’

  ‘No, madame, just the lump. It may be a tumour, or it may be a cyst. Either way, it should be removed at once before it does more mischief.’

  Lysbeth was quite pale.

  ‘Have you felt the surgeon’s knife, madame?’

  ‘No, sir, never.’

  ‘I must tell you that there will be pain. There will also be a scar, though I will try to make it as small as possible. The lump is low in the breast, which is good. But if you are willing, I will do it now.’

  Lysbeth looked around, wild-eyed with fear. ‘I had not thought…’ she began.

  ‘You expected to die,’ I said. ‘Dr Drelincourt can avert that.’

  ‘Probably,’ Drelincourt added, in the interests of accuracy. ‘Perhaps, Dr Mercurius, while I dispose madame on the table you would have the kindness to ask in the kitchen if they could spare some ice from the ice room.’

  During winter ice is collected that serves to keep food fresh in the ice room. I ran to the kitchen and told Mechtild of my need. Not only did she promptly fetch some ice, she came with me to offer her support to a fellow woman, and held Lysbeth’s hand.

  ‘Here, dear, squeeze as tight as you need. I will not flinch.’

  Drelincourt wrapped the ice in a towel and held it to Lysbeth’s breast.

  ‘What happens now?’ I asked.

  ‘We wait,’ he said. ‘Haste is our enemy, and completely unnecessary.’

  I suppose it cannot have been more than a few minutes, though it seemed longer before he declared himself satisfied and took the towel away.

  ‘The cold helps to numb the tissues,’ he explained. ‘Now, courage, madame!’

  I knew that surgeons operated quickly but I was quite unprepared for Drelincourt’s dextrous rapidity. He knelt at her side, plunged in a small knife, widened the cut with his finger, sawed with another knife, wiggled his finger some more and finally took some tweezers and dropped something in a bowl. He stuffed a towel in the wound, took a threaded needle and in another minute the wound was closed.

  ‘Keep the wound clean, madame,’ he said, but then realised that Lysbeth had passed out. He felt the side of her neck. ‘She sleeps. Let her do so through the worst of the pain. Mechtild, could you kindly bring some water and a towel for my hands? And if you were to bring me something to eat I will stay here until she wakes.’

  I could hardly believe what I had just seen. When I say “seen” I really mean “been in the same room as”, because much of the time my eyes had been shut or averted. I am not good with blood.

  When Mechtild had gone I broached the question of Drelincourt’s fee.

  ‘Fee? There is no fee. Call it an act of charity. But I did not do this so that she could return to her former ways, Mercurius. See to it that she does not.’