Warwolfe (de Wolfe Pack Book 0)(74)

“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




?

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.

No one felt very good about that.

The streets of Worcester were abandoned at this time of night, the only sounds those of nightbirds in the distance as they hunted near the river. The knights were weary and hadn’t eaten since morning, but that didn’t seem to matter at the moment. They were concerned about their little guide, who had only now quieted down and had fallen into a heavy sleep. She’d passed out during the cutting and scraping that the apothecary had done to her, only to be awakened by excruciating pain that she’d had to endure because she didn’t lose consciousness a second time.

There came a point towards the end where she couldn’t even scream anymore, only flinching as the old man stitched a wound that was now at least three times as big as it had been before. He’d had to cut the wound to get down into it, so now there was quite a hole in her leg, but it was as clean as the old man could get it. He’d cut away, scraped away, and even found a small piece of leather that he believed had been causing the poison. He’d removed it, rinsed the wound with vinegar, and stitched it up with surprisingly small and neat stitches.

After that, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Once the operation was finished, so was their task of holding Ghislaine down on the bed. The knights released her but they didn’t leave right away, watching her as the old man had her drink something he called “rotten tea”, a foul potion, before she fell into an exhausted sleep. Or, perhaps she had even passed out again. It was difficult to say, but at least she was reasonably at peace once the horror of the procedure was finished.

St. Hèver and Wellesbourne were the first to wander away, the tough and most heartless of the group who ended up being the most sickened by the experience. They were eager to leave. Gradually, they all went outside except for Gaetan, Jathan, Téo, and Aramis. Those four lingered for a few minutes, perhaps to prove that they weren’t as squeamish as the others, until Téo and Jathan, finished with his prayers for the lady, finally went outside.

That left Gaetan and Aramis, but Gaetan wasn’t going to leave before Aramis did. He sat at Ghislaine’s head, still holding her hand because she’d been squeezing it throughout the procedure. He was fairly certain she’d broken bones but he didn’t much care about that.