The Abbot's Agreement (24 page)

I turned the skull and examined the teeth. Only one was missing, and the others had few flaws. Here, I thought, was the skull of a young man. I took a femur from the table and held it aside my leg. I am somewhat taller than most men, so did not expect the bone to match mine in length, but was surprised how short the femur was when compared to my own. ’Twas perhaps a woman, I thought, who burned in the fire, or a very short man. How to know?

I puzzled over this as I stood over the bones, and remembered a lecture from my year as a student of surgery at the University of Paris. The instructor had placed before his students two pelvic bones: one male, one female. That of the man appeared larger. Then he placed before us a plaster imitation of the skull of a newborn infant, and showed how a babe’s head would pass through the female pelvis, but would not do so through the opening in a man’s pelvis, even though the male pelvis seemed the greater.

A movement in the door of Galen House caught my eye. Kate had left her fire to watch my examination of the bones. She held Sybil in her arms.

I called to Kate to bring the babe to me. At five months old her head was larger than when newly born, but not much.
I spread my hands about her head to measure, then went to a corner of the toft where mud from recent rain had not yet dried. I fashioned a sphere of the proper size from the mire, then returned to Kate and Sybil and the table of bones.

Kate drew back as I approached with the muddy ball. “What are you about?” she asked.

“Watch,” I said. I held out the muddy orb to compare it in size to Sybil’s head. It was somewhat smaller, which was as I intended. I turned to the pelvic bone upon the table and tried to pass the mud ball through it. I could not do so. The opening was far too small. ’Twas the bones of a man which lay in the sun upon our table. A small man, who had lost one tooth.