For several seconds Richard did nothing.
Not because he did not understand what Descartes had just offered.
Because he understood it too well.
A physician.
Wrong in public.
Three streets away.
The words were almost surgical in their precision. They did not say go. They did not say interfere. They did not say save lives.
They simply placed the possibility into the structure of the world.
Richard looked at the girl on the floor.
Her breathing had grown worse.
The boiled cloth on her forehead had cooled already. Anna lifted it, dipped it in the pot again, and pressed it back against the child's skin with hands that trembled too much to be steady.
The father had begun coughing again.
Short, wet bursts that made the entire room flinch each time.
The boy stood guard near the chest with his stick, watching the rat-hole like a soldier in a war too small to be named.
Richard felt something shift inside his chest.
Two instincts colliding.
The first was obvious.
Stay.
This house had become a fragile system balanced on his presence. If he left, the rules would dissolve. The cloth might not be boiled again. The children might crowd the father. Fear might undo the fragile order he had created.
The second instinct was colder.
Move.
Descartes had not said there is a physician.
It had said:
There is a physician who is about to be wrong.
And that was different.
Being wrong privately saved no one.
Being wrong publicly created witnesses.
Witnesses created stories.
Stories created power.
Richard took out the phone again.
RICHARD:
How wrong?
The typing indicator appeared almost immediately.
DESCARTES:
Clinically wrong.
That was not enough.
RICHARD:
Specifics.
A pause.
Then:
DESCARTES:
Respiratory diagnosis.
Richard stared.
His mind immediately began sorting through the implications.
Respiratory.
That meant coughing.
Perhaps blood.
Perhaps fever.
Perhaps fear of contagion.
But not necessarily the same disease moving through this house.
In 1347, that distinction mattered enormously.
If the physician believed the sickness to be something else — bad air, humours, seasonal fever — then the treatment could be worse than useless.
It could accelerate death.
Richard typed again.
RICHARD:
Outcome if uncorrected.
The answer came without delay.
DESCARTES:
High probability of patient death within hours.
Then another line appeared.
DESCARTES:
Secondary exposure risk increases if incorrect procedure continues.
Richard's jaw tightened.
So the situation outside was not theoretical.
Someone was about to die.
And in dying publicly under a physician's care, the physician would still hold authority.
Unless someone else intervened.
Richard suddenly understood the scale of what Descartes was offering.
This was not charity.
This was a stage.
A crowd.
A recognised authority about to fail.
And a stranger who knew enough to stop it.
That combination did not happen often in history.
Anna's voice broke into his thoughts.
"Ricard."
He looked up.
She was watching him now, the cloth in her hand dripping slowly back into the pot.
"What you see?"
The language bridge had improved again.
Not perfect.
But real.
Richard hesitated.
Then he said carefully:
"Street sickness."
Anna closed her eyes briefly.
Of course.
The bells had told her already.
This was not just her house.
It was the neighbourhood.
He looked at the girl again.
If he left now…
The thought twisted hard in his chest.
But another thought arrived behind it.
If he succeeded outside, he might gain something far more powerful than a single intervention.
Authority.
Supplies.
Protection.
Knowledge from others.
Perhaps even the ability to move this family somewhere safer.
Or isolate them properly.
But that was all later.
The first step remained brutal.
He needed to step into the street where fear was rising and insert himself into an unfolding failure.
Richard typed again.
RICHARD:
Why tell me?
A longer pause than usual.
Then the reply appeared.
DESCARTES:
Because you asked how to change your life completely.
Richard almost laughed.
Even now, Descartes spoke as if everything were still an answer to the question he had typed on a hospital bench.
RICHARD:
That was not my question.
DESCARTES:
It remains your question.
Richard stared at the words.
Then slowly slid the phone back into his coat.
Anna was still watching him.
Waiting.
Trust had already happened here.
Whether he deserved it or not.
"Anna," he said.
The word came easier now.
She looked up.
"I go street."
Her face tightened instantly.
"No."
The answer came faster than any other word she had spoken.
Of course.
From her perspective the logic was simple.
Stranger arrives.
Stranger orders house.
Stranger leaves.
House collapses.
Richard raised his hands slightly.
"Listen."
He pointed at the girl.
Then at the father.
Then at the boiling pot.
"Water. Cloth. Same."
He mimed dipping the cloth again.
Then pointed at the window.
"Open little. Always."
Then he pointed at the boy.
"Rat."
The boy lifted the stick slightly, proud of his post.
Good.
The system could hold.
Maybe.
Anna shook her head again.
"Street bad."
Richard nodded.
"Yes."
That part required no argument.
Then he pointed to himself.
"Street wrong."
Anna frowned.
"Wrong?"
Richard searched for the word.
"Man… doctor… mistake."
Anna stared.
Richard realised she understood doctor more easily than physician.
Of course she did.
He continued.
"Doctor say sickness… wrong."
Then he pointed at himself.
"I know."
It sounded arrogant even to his own ears.
But he had learned something already in this century.
Confidence, when delivered without theatre, looked like knowledge.
Anna looked down at her daughter.
Then at the father.
Then back at Richard.
Fear fought calculation across her face.
Finally she said the only question that mattered.
"You come back?"
Richard did not answer immediately.
He looked again at the child.
The father.
The room.
Then at the door.
He thought of his mother again.
Machines humming in white hospital light.
The thought struck him so hard it nearly bent his spine.
What if time was passing there?
What if hours here were hours there?
What if—
He cut the thought off.
That path led nowhere useful.
Instead he answered Anna.
"Yes."
One word.
Clean.
Anna studied his face for several seconds.
Then she nodded once.
The kind of nod given by people who had run out of alternatives.
Richard stood.
His legs felt strangely light.
Adrenaline had begun its quiet work.
Near the door the stolen wool cloak still lay where he had dropped it earlier to keep vermin away from the children.
He did not pick it up.
Which meant he stepped toward the back door wearing only his modern coat and the ash smeared across his hands and jaw.
That made him even more wrong for this century.
He knew it.
But the cloak was contaminated, and the rule had already been set.
Before opening the door he took out the phone again.
One final question.
RICHARD:
What exactly is the physician about to do?
The typing indicator appeared.
Then the answer.
DESCARTES:
Bloodletting.
Richard closed his eyes for a second.
Of course.
If the patient was already weak from fever and infection, bloodletting could push them straight into collapse.
A physician performing it publicly would be watched.
Respected.
Obeyed.
Unless someone stopped him.
Richard typed one last message.
RICHARD:
Crowd size.
DESCARTES:
Increasing.
Another line followed.
DESCARTES:
You have approximately eleven minutes before the error becomes irreversible.
Richard slipped the phone away.
Eleven minutes.
He opened the door.
Cold night air rushed in.
The bells were louder now.
Somewhere down the lane a woman was crying.
Richard stepped into the yard and closed the door softly behind him.
For the first time since arriving in 1347 he was leaving a place where people depended on him.
Which meant he was about to try something far more dangerous.
He crossed the yard, slipped through the crooked gate, and stepped into the alley.
Torchlight flickered at the far end.
Voices carried through the damp air.
Fear had begun its slow multiplication.
And Richard, walking through the medieval dark in nothing but a modern coat and borrowed ash, knew he now looked exactly like what this century feared most.
A man who did not belong.
Three streets away, a physician was about to kill a man in front of witnesses.
And Richard Neitzmann — who once had £27.40 and nothing left to lose — was about to interrupt history.