Healers (25 page)

Eva had the man lie down and then she hunkered down next to him. Tarc assumed she’d sent her ghost in. He sent his back in and realized this time that he could feel something hard in the middle of the abscess. Probably a piece of the stick had broken off inside the man. If it didn’t come out, there was no chance the infection would resolve. With the man about eighteen feet away, Tarc’s ghost couldn’t push very hard. It would probably take more than the couple of ounces he could exert to move the stick out.

Tarc sent his ghost to gather a few molecules inside Eva’s ear canal and said, “You’ll need to make a pretty big incision for me to push out that stick. It’ll be a lot better if you can get them to move him closer to the wall here.”

Eva stood up. Using the take charge attitude she always had when dealing with sick patients, she turned to the guards, “Put him on the table over by the wall there,” she said pointing, “I’m going to get my equipment.” She turned and walked to where her materials had been stacked on a small table.

Tarc assumed the guards had looked questioningly at the king because the king waved dismissively toward the wall and said, “Go ahead, wherever she wants.”

Tarc sent his ghost over to Eva as she sorted through her cloth wrapped packages with their sterile instruments. “I should block the
sciatic
nerve, right?”

Eva nodded and Tarc sent his ghost back to the man with the abscess. He was being helped up onto the table as Eva had directed. Tarc sent his ghost in and found the big nerve in the back of the man’s thigh. He didn’t do anything yet.

Eva walked across the small courtyard to the man with the abscess, now lying face down on the table. She set down a bottle of moonshine and a bottle of saline, then went back for the knife she used to lance things. It was a knife from the ancients, completely made of stainless steel so she could boil it to sterilize it without it rusting. She kept its edge honed to as high a degree of sharpness as she could possibly achieve.

Speaking to the patient as calmly and reassuringly as she could, she said, “You’ve got a piece of wood broken off inside your calf. A big collection of pus has formed around it and, just like you think, that infection’ll kill you unless it’s drained.” She put her hand on the back of his thigh over the sciatic nerve and pressed. “I’m going to have to cut the back of your calf open to let the pus and the chunk of wood out. Right now I’m putting pressure on the nerve to that area so it won’t hurt so badly.”

The man said tremulously, “What’s a nerve?”

“It’s how you feel pain. Don’t worry about it, but in a few minutes your leg’s going to feel all tingly like it’s asleep. If it’s tingly it won’t hurt as bad when I lance your abscess.”

“Oh. Yeah, I can
feel
it. Like happens when I sit the same way for a long time!”

“Okay. I’m going to wash your leg with some moonshine to kill the germs,” she said, pouring some moonshine on a rag and washing her hands first, then painting moonshine all over the back of his calf.

“What’re germs?”

“Tiny animals that cause infection. They’re what’s making your leg so red and hot.”

“Oh,” the man said. “My leg’s starting to feel really funny.”

“Good,” Eva said, unwrapping the knife. Carefully touching only the handle, she lifted it then turned to one of the guards, “Lift his leg by the foot so we can put this cloth underneath his calf.”

The guard stared at the wicked looking knife in Eva’s hand for a moment, then as he stepped towards the table, said, “If you try to stick me with that knife, my partner’s gonna run you through with his sword.” He lifted the man’s leg by the foot as instructed.

Eva slid the cloth under the patient’s calf and said, “Lay his leg back down.”

The soldier laid the patient’s leg down. Eva gently poked the patient’s leg near the wound from the stick, “Does that hurt?”

“Does what hurt?”

Lining the knife up with the piece of wood in the man’s leg, Eva plunged the knife in and sawed it back out to make a wound several inches long right down to the stick. Pus fountained out of the wound. Having lanced many abscesses in her life, with patients screaming from the pain, she was just as surprised as the wide-eyed soldiers when her patient only moaned a little. He said, “Let me know before you do it, okay?” After a moment’s pause, he continued, “What’s that horrible smell?”

“Too late for that,” Eva said maneuvering the knife to cut a strand of muscle that looked like it might still block the piece of wood from coming out of his leg. “I already opened your wound. That smell’s the pus that’s coming out.” The pus
did
stink atrociously; she wanted to step back and take a deep breath. Taking the knife out of the wound she set it down on the clean part of the cloth. “Hold still.”

Eva stepped back and took a deep breath, noticing the soldiers who’d been guarding her had stepped back several paces. One held his nose; the other bent over and retched. She stepped back to her patient. Picking up the knife, she said, “I need you to turn over on your back.”

Saying, “You really cut me already?! Oh! My leg’s
really
asleep!” The man started to turn, then said “I can hardly control my knee!”

“Just do the best you can,” Eva said.

The man flopped over the rest of the way then sat up a little to stare down at his leg. “I can hardly tell where my foot is! Is it going to be this way forever?!”

“No, the feeling will come back in a little bit.
Then
it’ll hurt. So the longer it feels asleep, the better you’ll like it.” She stepped forward and put her hands on both sides of his calf, “Now I’m going to try to get that piece of wood to fall out of your wound.”

Eva sent her ghost in and as she’d hoped, the fragment of the stick was wiggling, presumably under Tarc’s influence. She pretended to be doing something herself by pressing back and forth on the man’s calf. A couple of minutes passed but the big splinter didn’t seem to be coming out. She wondered if she was going to have to get one of her instruments and reach in to pull it out.

Tarc’s voice whispered in her ear, “I can’t seem to push hard enough to get it out.”

To the patient, Eva said, “OK, turn back on your stomach.”

“Okay,” the man said clumsily turning back over. “Did you get it out?”

“Not yet.” Eva went back to her table of supplies and picked up a cloth wrapped package labelled “forceps.”

She unwrapped the forceps and then washed her hands with moonshine again. “Is your leg still asleep?” she asked her patient.

“Uh-huh.”

Eva maneuvered the forceps into the wound. It was difficult even with her ghost telling her where the fragment was and whether her forceps had grasped it. The forceps didn’t want to open wide enough to go around the huge splinter of wood so she had to pull them open. She wondered how someone who didn’t have a ghost to tell them where things were could even do it.
They’d probably have to make a much bigger incision so they could actually see.

Finally she got a good grip on the piece of wood and pulled.

“There, it’s out,” Eva said as something gave way and the stick came out. She sent her ghost back through the wound, worried some smaller splinters might remain, but she didn’t find any.

Eva picked up her bottle of sterile saline and poured some of it into the wound. As she had hoped, it began swirling around in the wound under Tarc’s influence. She squeezed the wound to get most of the water out, then poured more in again. It swirled. She did this a couple more times, then said, “Okay, stay still for a minute while I get you a bandage.”

Eva washed her hands with moonshine again, then went over to the table with her supplies. She picked out a soft sterile cloth to put on the wound and a long strip to wrap around the man’s calf.

Turning back to tend to him, Eva stopped.

The king had stepped up to the table and picked up the piece of wood that had come out of the patient’s leg. He frowned and turned to the guards, “You saw this come out of his leg?”

One of them nodded.

Eva said, “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you, Sir King. It’s covered with germs.”

“Germs?”

“Like I told this man, Sir King, they’re the little animals that cause infection. His leg was full of them. We’ve drained and washed them out, but they’re still all over that stick. You don’t want them all over you!”

The king frowned doubtfully at her, dropping the stick on the ground. “How do I get rid of them?”

“Wash your hands, Sir King.”

The king rolled his eyes, “My mother was always telling me ‘the ancients said to wash my hands!’ She’s dead now and I don’t wash my hands anymore. Know what?” he said smugly, “I haven’t gotten sick.”

Eva shrugged her shoulders, “Suit yourself, Sir King.”

The King narrowed his eyes and stared at her for a moment, then stepped back and walked away. Eva noticed he carefully didn’t touch himself with his soiled fingers as he walked back to the table he’d had breakfast at. After he sat down, he carefully picked up his napkin and wiped his fingers clean while speaking to one of his men.

Eva turned back to her patient. She unwrapped the sterile cloth and placed it against the man’s wound. Telling him to lift his leg in the air so it wouldn’t come up against the disgusting discharge on the cloth covering the table, she wrapped the bandage in place. “Eat as much meat and as many vegetables as you can. Your body needs the protein and vitamins to fight off this infection.

The man gave her an astonished but hopeless look, “In the prison?! They don’t feed us those kinds of food.”

While she thought, Eva rolled up the cloth containing the pus and used the end of it to wipe the table. She soaked the wrapper the forceps had come in with moonshine and used it to wipe her hands, then the table. She looked the patient in the eye and said, “Wait here, I’ll see what I can do.”

She carried the two pieces of cloth over and threw them under the table her supplies were on. After wiping her hands a final time, she walked over to the king’s table. “If that man’s going to get over his infection, he’ll have to have better food than they feed him in the prison.” Eva picked up one of the plates on the king’s table and put several sausage patties, a couple pieces of fruit, and the remnants of a salad on it. She turned and began walking toward the prisoner.

Behind her, the king said, “Hey! What the
hell
do you think you’re doing?!”

Eva kept walking. Without turning, she said “You
told
me you wanted me to try to cure this man. If he’s going to have a chance, he needs meat and vegetables.” With fingers that only trembled a little, Eva held the plate out to her patient. “Eat this.”

The prisoner darted a glance at the king, then started stuffing the food into his mouth. He wolfed it down as if he expected someone to take it away at any moment, though it turned out the king didn’t order it confiscated.

One of the other prisoners started screaming on the other side of the courtyard. Eva’s eyes flashed that way and saw a prisoner being held by two of the guards. His pants were off and a third guard had just finished ripping a large knife through his thigh!

Eva turned flashing angry eyes on the king. He guffawed and said, “You said you could sew up wounds. Let’s see you do it.”

“I thought Realth claimed to be civilized?! Only
barbarians
would do something like this!”

“The man’s a criminal,” the king waved dismissively. “A little extra punishment will help to dissuade those who might follow in his footsteps.” He gave a cruel laugh, “
And
it gives you a chance to show us what you can do.”

Eva realized the guards were wrestling her new patient toward the table where she’d just drained the abscess. “No! Don’t put him on
that
table! Even though I’ve cleaned it, there may still be some of the germs from the first man. Bring me another table!”

The guards looked at their King. He shrugged, “Use that table, it’s already messy. My people don’t want to have to clean another.”

Eva drew herself up, “I thought you wanted to see if I could make people better? The
most
important part of it is keeping germs out of their wounds. If you
don’t
want him to get better,” she jerked her chin up, “just have your guard run him through with a sword and be done with it.”

The king turned to one of the men beside him and quirked a grin, his eyes twinkling. “Spunky, isn’t she?”

The man, looking as if he were uncertain how to answer, shrugged his shoulders.

The king said, “Get the woman another table. When she fails, we don’t want her saying it’s our fault.”

While they were getting another table and wrestling the patient onto it, Eva went through her supplies to find her package of needles and suture, forceps, and her needle holding tools. She also got new bottles of saline and alcohol, not wanting to use the ones from the table where she’d drained the infection.

As she walked back to her new patient, she wondered what kind of crime he’d committed. Eva did the very best she could for her patients, feeling she had a moral obligation to do everything she could to heal them. However, she also believed in capital punishment for murderers and rapists.