Page 88 of The Quest for Excalibur
Merlin and Llacheu approached, no doubt having left the organizing to Cei.
“Father?” Llacheu’s voice wavered as he stared at his stricken father out of wide, frightened eyes, suddenly a boy again.
“It’s nothing,” Arthur repeated the lie. “Let Bedwyr do his job.”
Merlin put a restraining hand on Llacheu’s arm, perhaps in comfort. “He knows what he’s doing.”
Disregarding this not quite glowing reference, and without a glance at either of them, Bedwyr took the saw and laid it against the shaft of the arrow close to where it stuck out of Arthur’s chest.
Merlin laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Let me do this.”
I shook my head. “No. I have this. But thank you.”
He stepped back to stand beside Llacheu, who’d gone as pale as his father. The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed several times. Like me, he’d seen enough of battles, deaths and wounds before, but it’s different when the wounded person is someone you love. And every one of us was acutely conscious of how any wound in these dangerous times of no antiseptics or anaesthetics could prove fatal.
Bedwyr began to saw. Under my hands, Arthur’s body quivered, and he gripped his knees. Bedwyr didn’t slow. “Best to get it done quickly,” he muttered. “Lucky it’s a bodkin and not a barbed arrowhead.”
The saw worked back and forth. Arthur’s knuckles whitened and the tension in his body twanged. At last, the arrow shaft snapped off, close to Arthur’s chest, with less than half an inch left showing.
Bedwyr let it fall to the ground. “I’m going to pull it through from behind,” he muttered, half to Arthur, half to me, Merlin, and Llacheu. “That’s the only way. If I try it from this side the arrowhead could come off inside the wound and be hard to get out. He’s lucky it went right through and missed his shoulder blade.”
“I am here, you know,” Arthur said, through gritted teeth. “Get on with it before I change my mind and decide to keep it.”
The pulling of an arrow shaft through a body is the most terrible thing to see. Well, it was the most terrible thing I’d seen, because it was being done to the man I loved. Bedwyr had a special tool he gripped the arrow with, close to Arthur’s shoulder and just below the long, vicious looking head. Bedwyr heaved on that arrow, while Arthur sat, rigid with pain, and this time both Merlin and Llacheu, with their greater strength, had to hold him still in place of me.
It didn’t want to come. A puncture wound from a long, thin, bodkin-headed arrow is like quicksand. What goes in, doesn’t want to come out. The flesh has been torn and damaged, but it’s hanging on tight, sucking onto the intruding weapon and not wanting to let go. Bedwyr had to twist the shaft to loosen it, as Arthur sat stonily silent, his face paper-white.
At last, with a horrible sucking noise, it slid out of the wound with a gush of blood.
If I’d had anything to eat that day, I’d have been sick on the spot. The blood, my wounded husband, the lack of food, my rising thirst– all contributed to a wave of dizziness that sent me staggering.
Arthur must have felt much the same. He swayed where he was sitting, and his eyes rolled up in his head. Bedwyr threw the damaged arrow aside. “Quick, while he’s fainting, get his mailshirt off.”
He, Merlin, and Llacheu had that shirt off in a moment, followed by his wet and blood-soaked, padded tunic. The rain hadn’t reached his undershirt, but they pulled that off too, keeping him propped upright on the horse’s flank as they did so. Bright blood ran down both his chest and back from the wound, but not so vigorously as it had when Bedwyr extracted the arrow.
“Let me see his clothing.” Bedwyr examined both tunic and undershirt, squinting myopically at the hole the arrow had made, while I held my breath. “It’s all there.” He grinned. “Nothing carried into the wound as far as I can see.”
Arthur’s eyes opened, unfocused and bleary. “It’s bloody freezing,” he muttered, wrapping his right arm across his torso. Balmy autumn had given way to early winter in one short day. Was he in shock? All I knew about that was that you had to keep the patient warm and it could kill as swiftly as a wound.
“I’ll be quick as I can,” Bedwyr snapped, glancing up at me. “There’s a blanket roll behind my saddle. Get it to wrap around him. We have to keep him warm.”
Glad of something to do, I unfastened the blanket and unrolled it, eyes fixed on Arthur’s face.
“Hold him still.” With calm efficiency, Bedwyr tipped spirits into the wound on both sides, eliciting a bitten off cry of pain from Arthur. Then he scooped honey from an earthenware jar and packed it into the wound, pushing it in as far as it would go. The only antiseptic ointment available.
Two large, clean linen pads went on next. With gentle fingers he applied one to the entry wound in Arthur’s chest, turning to me with expectant eyes. “Can you hold this in place?”
I did, as he covered the exit wound in his back in the same way. What was in the shoulder? More than you think, was all I knew. This wound was high– just beneath his collarbone. Hopefully it had avoided damaging anything important. At least he wasn’t coughing blood, so it hadn’t touched a lung.
Arthur briefly raised his eyes and shot me a weak smile, which I returned. While Merlin and Llacheu kept Arthur upright, Bedwyr wrapped bandages around his chest and shoulder, finally fastening the end in place with a copper pin.
I draped the blanket around Arthur’s shoulders and pulled it tight in front of him to keep the warmth inside.
His good hand came up to hold it firm. Drawing a shallow breath, he forced himself up straight, looking past me at Merlin. “Done. Find me my horse.”
“No riding until tomorrow,” Bedwyr said, his tone firm.
Arthur arched an eyebrow at him. “I need my horse. The men must see I’m recovered.” He set his hand on my shoulder and leaning heavily on me, got to his feet. The blanket fell away. “Clothes and my horse. Now.”
