Master Guyon set his coffer of instruments on the table. It held the usual tools of his trade, for physicians spoke disparagingly of surgeons as being “in trade.” As if any of those smug pompous peacocks could have faced a challenge like this without their ballocks shriveling up like raisins. He stared down at the coffer’s contents: chisel, probe, tenaille, bisoury, saw, clamps, razors, hooks, mallet, cautery rods, tweezers, tongs, needles, sutures, rugynes for drawing out bits of bone, a trephine for boring holes in the skull. He was not attempting to decide which ones should be used. He already knew that: a tenaille to extract the bolt and, if that failed, a bisoury to dig it out. But he did need a few moments to calm his nerves. He’d never lacked for confidence in his own skills, yet now he felt as if this were his first surgery. “I will need as much light as possible,” he said, and a youth darted forward to hold an oil lamp over the bed.
Guyon’s first look at the wound confirmed his worst fears. The shaft had broken off close to the entry point, and there was not enough wood left for the tenaille to grip. Nor was it a good sign that bruising was already visible. Moreover, the king was naked from the waist up, so Guyon could see that he’d gained weight in the years since his knee injury, and that excess flesh would complicate his task, making it harder to locate and extract the bolt’s head. There were only three ways to treat an injury like this, and he ruled out two at once. Surgeons would often try to push an arrow through a man’s body, but even if the shaft had still been intact, that would not have been possible for the king’s wound. Many surgeons believed in waiting a few days until the tissue around the wound began to putrefy, making the extraction easier. Guyon did not agree with this method, for it had been his experience that such a delay too often caused the wound to fester, and when that happened, the patient almost always died.
“I fear, sire, that I shall have to cut it out.”
“I did not expect you to conjure it out.” Richard was rapidly concluding that the man was both timid and incompetent. “Fetch me more wine, Morgan,” he said abruptly. “I’ve made enough mistakes already and am not about to add facing surgery whilst I’m sober to the list.” After draining another flagon, he braced himself then for what he knew was going to be a very unpleasant experience. “Arne, did you find something for me to bite down upon?”
From the moment he’d halted in the tent, realizing that Richard had been shot, Arne had found that speech was beyond him; it was as if his throat were being squeezed so tightly that no words could escape. Mutely, he held out his offering, a pair of Richard’s leather gloves. As soon as he did, though, time seemed to fracture and for a horrifying moment, he was catapulted back to the Vienna market on that bitter December day, betrayed by those ornate gloves that only a king would have worn. Sweat broke out upon his forehead and he fought the urge to make the sign of the cross. How could he have been so witless? What could be a worse omen than gloves? He reached out to snatch them back, croaking, “Wait, sire! A piece of wood would be better. . . .”
As their eyes met, Arne swallowed a sob. He was sure Richard knew exactly what he was thinking, for his voice softened and he even managed the flicker of a smile. “No wood. The way my day has been going so far, lad, I’d be likely to break a tooth.”
Guyon would have given a lot to drain a wine flagon himself. He could feel Mercadier’s eyes boring into his back as he approached the bed again. “I’ll need more light. Sire, if you’ll lie down . . .” He hesitated then, not knowing how to say what had to be said without giving offense. “I’ve found that it is best if restraints are used during the surgery.”
The look he got from the king was sharp enough to draw blood. “You think this is my first battle wound? I will not need to be restrained,” Richard said, in so flat and dangerous a tone that Guyon dared not argue further.
Morgan, Guillain, and Guy carried torches over to the bed; they gave off more heat than light and cast eerie shadows that added to Guyon’s unease. He would rather have performed this operation in his own surgical tent during daylight hours. He would rather not have performed it at all. Saying a silent prayer that God would bless his efforts with success, he reached for the bisoury.
Richard flinched as he began to widen the wound, biting down upon the glove, but he did not shrink from the scalpel’s narrow blade as Guyon’s patients usually did. Blood was bubbling up and Guyon reached for a towel to blot it away. Sweat had already begun to sting his eyes. So much that could go wrong. If he cut into an artery, the king would bleed out at once. Bleeding from a vein would not be as quick or fatal, but it would be difficult to staunch.