I would surely have died if the two of you had not intervened.

I am not so convinced. Yes, we have tried to diminish your fevers and feed you sips of water and soup. But we have offered similar treatment to many of Father’s patients. Very few of them have survived.

I had observed the same in my practice. Is it possible that the blood of those impervious rats might offer some form of protection to the stricken?

Our brief conversation exhausted me, and resist as I tried, I soon lapsed back into slumber.

I have seen much of Gabriella over the past five days. She tells me that since her husband’s death she has no one to care for but her father, whereas her sister and brother have families of their own.

Gabriella is unlike any woman I have encountered. Behind the shy and kind demeanor, there is intelligence and a resoluteness of principle that would well suit a priest or lawyer. But science is her passion. She has confessed to me that, with her father’s blessing, she has studied his medical texts. Her knowledge of medicine is more extensive than that which some of my colleagues might possess. I have no doubt that, were she a man, she would be a fellow doctor.

She also possesses the ability to loosen my tongue like no one other than Camilla. We even share memories of our lost spouses. I have come to admire her Isaac for his stoic devotion to her, and Gabriella seems to enjoy my recollections of Camilla. She laughs heartily at the stories of Camilla chastising me for the sin of pride of which I was so often guilty. Gabriella tells me that she is convinced that she would have been friends with Camilla in life.

I do not remember ever spending an idler few days than these last ones. And yet, I have enjoyed the time spent in the company of this family, despite their foreign religion and my illness. I have also regained my appetite. However, my recuperation has not been without setback. Three days ago, Jacob had to lance the growing buboes in both of my armpits. I endured the procedure with the aid of the leather strap to bite upon, but I worried I was going to break a tooth against it. After the second lancing, the wound under right arm began to spurt blood in the arc of a fountain, the way only a severed vessel will. I grew faint from the loss of blood. Jacob had to compress the wound so tightly with a cloth that I could see his hand turn blue from constriction.

After the bleeding finally abated, Jacob was deeply apologetic and appeared ashamed. I am not the doctor I once was, Rafael, he said. These old eyes and knobby fingers do not cooperate as well as I wish and need them to.

You and your daughter have saved my life, I said. How many doctors can claim the same in this dark age, my old friend?