Page 271 - The Grotesque Children's Book

Chapter 33.

Finding a balm doctor

Not one to waste time, it took Francesco only a few days to hire a personal physician to
attend to Bianca and Bianca alone. Actually, very little of his hiring was motivated by her
request for balms or oils. He was worried for her. She had been shivering more and more often,
and more and more noticeably. He knew she thought she was succeeding at hiding her shivering
from him, slipping into some dance or pretend pantomimed character at the onset of a shiver,
allowing her to slink out of his arms or distract him with a little shimmy or spin or bounce. But
the fact she was trying to hide her shivering made him think she herself was concerned. He
couldn't bear the thought of losing her, not a second time. He would do anything, anything, to
make sure she stayed healthy and alive.

So her silly notion of a rejuvenating balm gave him the perfect subterfuge to hire a doctor
who could watch over her and report back to him. Bianca wouldn't ever need to suspect her
doctor's true directive was obverse her symptoms and slyly treat her. As far as she was
concerned, she would think the doctor was administering rejuvenations, and she wouldn't know
that the doctor was to tell Francesco everything. Everything.

Francesco set his most discreet adjutant to the task of finding doctors who were experts in
the area of shivering which, it turns out to the Duke’s surprise, was a symptom common to a fair
number of diseases. Many of the doctors said that shivering wasn’t even an actual disease but
merely a sensation of being cold, the cure for which was the insightful “wear warmer clothes.”
Charlatans!

However, one doctor showed more promise than the rest: a certain Ludovico Valerius,
with a struggling practice down over in the Ognissanti parish. Francesco instructed the adjutant
to set up a very private confidential meeting.

Translator’s Note. The location of this scene. There’s a big tear in the
book right where the scene’s location would have been established. There are
three possibilities, I think: one of the Duke’s private chambers; or the doctor’s
office, or maybe a third location which hasn’t come up yet, which is a dark
dungeony kind of room at the end of a dark dungeony hallway. I would vote for
the third location, but it would be odd for the original author to describe that
location in such detail later and not here. So, you pick. Doesn’t really matter;
the point is that the Duke and the doctor are in a location where they both feel
comfortable to speak their minds without being overheard. We continue the scene
somewhere after the big tear in the book.

Dr. Valerius turned out to be gangly, bony man, with thin unruly black hair tumbling
down in front of his face, on either side of his unusually thin, long nose.

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