Aramis answered before Gaetan could; he was very worried for the lady. “It was a dirty wound,” he said. “We took out what we could find but there is always a chance that more was pushed deep that we could not get to.”
The old man bent over the leg, inspecting the wound very closely as Ghislaine was all but pinned to the bed by the knights. When the old man touched the cat gut stitches that Gaetan himself had put into Ghislaine’s leg, pus began to seep out from between the strands.
The knights all saw it and it was something no one had wanted to see. Pus meant poison, and poison would kill. The leg itself was swollen, the area around the stitches red and angry. The old man pushed again on the wound and more pus came forth.
Now, everyone was looking at the apothecary, waiting for a brilliant answer on how to cure the woman, but the apothecary remained silent as he continued to inspect. He had de Reyne help him bend the knee up so he could get a look at the exit wound, which didn’t have the pus or swelling that the entry wound on the top of the thigh did. De Reyne lowered the leg down as the old man stood up.
“There is poison in the wound, of that there is no doubt,” he said, “but the wound on the back of the leg is clean. That tells me that the poison has not spread.”
It was good news as far as news of the wound went, but she was still in grave danger. He moved away from the bed as the knights watched him with a mixture of curiosity and impatience. He just seemed to be puttering around at that point. Even Wellesbourne, who hadn’t shown much interest towards Ghislaine one way or the other, was unnerved by it.
“Well?” he finally demanded. “What do you intend to do?”
The old man went to one of the long dilapidated tables in his hut and began knocking things around, evidently looking for something. Mice scuttled off of the table as he banged about.
“I intend to cut the leg open and clean out the poison,” he said. “If I do not, she will die.”
It was a simple statement, to the point, but it was something no one wanted to hear even if they already knew that fact. The mood of the room had gone from one of great concern to one of sadness now as they realized their guide, the woman who had become part of them in spite of their rocky relationship with her, was seriously ill.
As it often was with wounds, if the initial injury didn’t kill then the chance of poison after the fact often did. Now, they were facing that very situation and there wasn’t one man who wasn’t feeling pity for Ghislaine.
Their little warrior was facing her most difficult challenge yet.
“How will you clean out the poison?” Gaetan wanted to know, although he already suspected the answer. He simply wanted to hear the old man’s process. “What medicaments will you use?”
The apothecary didn’t answer right away; he was pulling the items he needed off of his table. In fact, he had a handful of what looked like strips or straps, and when he rounded the table on his way to a second table over near the door, he held out the straps to de Winter, who was the closest to him.
“Tie her down,” he instructed. “She cannot move while I am cutting her wound open.”
Denis looked at the straps in his hand with a good deal of apprehension before looking to Gaetan for instructions. Would they tie her down? Or would they do as they were doing now, which was holding her down themselves. Gaetan saw Denis’ expression and he shook his head, faintly.
“Nay,” he said. “We will not tie her down. We will hold her. Tying her down would only terrify her.”
The old man was casual in his reply. “As you like,” he said, “but if she moves, I may cut more than needed. I may do further damage. Do you understand?”
“I do.”
“Straps will not touch her,” Aramis said in that threatening tone he used so often. “We will make sure she does not move.”
Gaetan’s gaze moved to Aramis, who was standing down by her feet. He was reminded, yet again, that his knight, his longtime comrade, might be feeling the same thing for the lady that he himself was. Gaetan was starting to think that he needed to have a word with Aramis about it if Ghislaine survived all of this. If he was going to stake a claim, then he’d better do it quickly.
Providing she lived.
That was all Gaetan cared about at the moment.
The old man wandered between tables, picking up what he needed by way of a cracked wooden bowl. He tossed a few things into it; a large needle, cat gut, two knives of different sizes, and a wad of boiled linen. He picked up a second bowl that had a cloth covering it that, when removed, filled the air with the stench of vinegar. Then he came back over to the lady on the bed, and the knights surrounding her, and began to hand things to the men who weren’t involved in pinning the lady to the bed. Wellesbourne and Jathan ended up holding the two bowls.
“Now,” the old man said as he settled himself between de Reyne and de Moray, who were on the right side of the bed and pinning down the right side of her body. “This will be painful and she will not like what I am doing, but it is necessary. You must hold her as still as you can else she will do more harm to herself. Are we clear?”
De Moray responded. “We are not fools, old man. Get to it.”
Gaetan shot de Moray a disapproving expression; he didn’t want the apothecary insulted just when they needed the man to do a job. But the old man seemed not to notice. He simply peered closely at the infected would and held out a hand.
“Bring me my knives.”
Wellesbourne came around and knelt down next to the old man, extending the bowl that had the knives and other sharp objects in it. Taking forth the larger of the two knives, he didn’t even warn them when he immediately began to cut the sutures on the entry wound of her thigh.
Ghislaine stiffened with pain and those holding her clamped down. The apothecary went to work on his screaming patient.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
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I Cannot Take That Which Does Not Belong To You
It was evening.
The door to the apothecary’s hut opened and men began spilling out, forming a group of exhausted knights that gazed up into the clear cold sky as the world outside remained dark and still.
It was in stark contrast to the screams and groans inside the hut. They’d come outside for a breath of air after the harrowing procedure on Ghislaine’s wound. Not one man had watched the event unfold and not felt a twinge of queasiness about it, though none would admit it. Men were meant to take such pain from wounds, but watching a woman go through it – and a strong woman at that – had been inherently wrong in many ways. She shouldn’t have put herself in harm’s way. She shouldn’t have taken an arrow on their behalf.
But she had and she was paying the price.