Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [121]
Max spat into the fire. “Thierry is skilled at defense. Let Grosswald handle matters.”
“Grosswald is not least among the brawlers. It is for Manfred to decide.”
Max scowled. “He won’t like it. Andreas, take charge of the men. Come, then, pastor. You’ll never find the chirurgeon in this maze.” He set off at a brisk pace and Dietrich had to match his stride to keep up.
“Is he grievous hurt?” Dietrich asked.
“He took a blow that cost him a cheek and several teeth, but I think the chirurgeon can sew it back together. The cheek, I mean.”
Dietrich crossed himself and offered up a silent prayer for the Herr’s well-being. The man had been a strange and cautious friend for many years, peculiar in his humors and given much to contemplation since his lady had died, visceral in his tastes, yet not without depths. He was one of the few with whom Dietrich could discuss any but the most mundane matters.
But he had misunderstood. It was Eugen, not Manfred, who sat strapped into a chair in the chirurgeon’s tent. A dentator was removing the broken teeth one by one with a pelican, a French novelty but recently come into use. The dentator’s muscles bulged with the effort and Eugen stifled cries with every pull. The junker’s face was black from the blow it had sustained. Blood spattered his brow, chin, nose, and painted the teeth exposed by the open flap of cheek a hideous scarlet. His skull grinned through the wound. Nearby, a blood-spattered chirurgeon read from a dog-eared book while he waited.
Manfred, who stood by the chair to fortify the lad, noticed Dietrich’s arrival and, by signs, indicated that conversation would wait. Dietrich paced restlessly about the tent, his mission pressing upon him.
Nearby stood a stained table on which the chirurgeon customarily worked and, beside it, a basket of dry sponges. Curious, Dietrich bent to take one up, but the chirurgeon stopped him. “No, no, padre! Very dangerous, those.” His patois of French and Italian revealed him for a Savoyard. “They are soaked with an infusion of opium, mandragora bark, and henbane root, and the poison, he may transfer to your fingers. Then …” He mimed licking a finger as if to page his manuscript. “You see? Very bad?”
Dietirch backed away from the suddenly malignant sponges. “What do you use them for?”
“When the pain, he is so great I cannot-a cut without a danger, I moisten the sponge to release her fumes, and hold it under the man’s nose—so—until he’s sleep. But …” And he held a fist out, thumb and little finger extended, and wagged it. “Too much of the fumo, he no wake, hey? But for the most grievous wounds, maybe better he die in peace than in torment, hey?”
“May I see your book?” Dietrich indicated the volume in the chirurgeon’s hands.
“He is-a called The Four Masters. He describe the best-a practice of the ancients, Saracens, and Christians. Masters of Salerno compile him many years ago—before the Sicilian famigliae kill all the Angevins. This-a book,” he added proudly, “he is-a copy direct from the master’s copy, but I am add to it.”
“Finely done,” Dietrich said, returning it. “Does Salerno then teach chirurgery?”
The Savoyard laughed. “Holy blue! Mending wounds is an art, not a schola. Well, at Bologna is a schola founded of Henry de Lucca. But chirugery is for clever hands—” He wiggled his fingers. ”—not clever minds.”
“Ja, the name ‘chirurgeon’ is Greek for ‘hand-labor.’”
“Oho, I see you a scholar—”
“I have read Galen,” Dietrich ventured, “but that was many—”
The Savoyard spat on the ground. “Galen! At Bologna, de Lucca, he cut open the cadavers and see that Galen knows shit. Galen cut up only pigs, and men are not-a pigs! I myself was apprentice when first public dissection—oh, thirty year since, I think—my master and I, we make-a the cuts while important dottore, he describe what he see for the students. Hah! We need no physician to tell us what we see with our eyes. Holy blue! You have the head wound! May I see her? Ah, she is deep but … Did you clean it with the vino as de Lucca and Henri de Mondeville command? No?” He