Page 136 of Laird of Smoke
“We may have to cauterize it.”
Eve blanched.Cauterizing was an extreme measure, she knew.Not only was it excruciatingly painful.It was only successful some of the time.Often infection set in, causing the loss of the limb.
“Nay,” she blurted out.Then, before she realized what she was offering, she said, “I can do it.I can stitch it up.”
“Aye, stitch it up,” the injured man urged, none too eager to have a hot brand pressed against his flesh.
Peter looked as if he was entertaining the possibility.Then he grimaced with regret.“I can’t unlock your shackles, lass.”
The warrior frowned down at her, confused.“Ye’re in irons?”
“I don’t need them unlocked,” she said.
Even as the words spilled out, she regretted them.What the Devil was she offering?She’d never sewn a man’s flesh in her life.The one time she’d seen Adam do it, she’d nearly fainted.
Yet somehow she knew she could do it.She could steel herself for the gruesome task, remember her Greater Purpose, pray for strength, and save this man’s arm.
Peter stared down at the wound and pursed his mouth in indecision.
The warrior had no time for his hesitancy.“Give me opium wine.Let her stitch me up.”
“All right.”
He pulled a bottle out of his great chest of medicines and handed it to the warrior, who began guzzling it down.
“Not too much,” Peter warned as he kept pressure on the wounded arm.
With his free hand, he reached into a velvet-padded section of the chest and retrieved a length of fine catgut and a silver needle.
“Can you hold this?”he asked Eve, indicating the blood-soaked linen pad over the wound.
She bit her lip and gave him a curt nod.Then she set her hands to the task, stanching the flow.
Peter snatched the opium wine from the warrior, who would have drunk himself to death, and drizzled it over the needle and catgut.Then he quickly threaded the needle.
“I’ll keep him still and hold the wound closed,” he said.“Ye stitch, aye?”
She nodded, still aghast that she’d offered her services.But it was too late to back out now.The warrior was depending on her.The physician was depending on her.
At his first bellow of pain, Eve had to resist the urge to drop the needle, cover her ears, and cower into a shivering heap.
But if he could endure this, so could she.And if Adam could save a man’s life with his bare hands, she was hardly going to let him best her.
So, drowning out his groans by murmuring prayers for strength, she continued to stitch until the opium finally took him to a place of peace.By then she was able to regard her handiwork with less horror and more of an artistic eye.She made sure to keep the stitches small so they would heal neatly.
“Ye’ve done this before,” Peter said, snipping the catgut with a small pair of shears when she was done.
“Nay,” she admitted.“’Twas God who guided my hand.”
It felt like the truth.Indeed, she began to wonder if perhaps she was meant to be a healer.
Fortunately, she wasn’t so distracted by the idea of her new calling that she forgot to take measures for her eventual escape.As Peter bandaged the wound and cleaned up the bloody linens, she secreted the shears in her skirts.
She set to work at nightfall, after the campfires were banked.
Picking the lock of the shackles was fairly easy using one narrow blade of the shears.While Peter snored from his pallet, she freed herself and retrieved her satchel.
Before she left, she cast one last look toward the physician.He was a decent man.She hated to deceive him.She hoped the king wouldn’t make him suffer for her escape.
