The Unquiet Bones Read Online Free PDF Page B

and the two grooms who had accompanied Lord Gilbert to Oxford. Arthur had a flagon of wine and another of ale.
    “Cicely is heating water. She’ll send a girl ’round with it as soon as she can.”
    “Cicely?” I asked.
    “My wife, Master Hugh. She be in charge of Lord Gilbert’s scullery.” I caught just a faint note of pride in Arthur’s voice.
    I took from my bag two pouches: one contained willow bark, ground fine; the other held hemp seeds and roots, also crushed fine. The willow and hemp I mixed freely with the ale. Lord Gilbert’s ale was of good quality; Alfred drank the mixture with relish. Willow and hemp can relieve pain. In the surgery I was about to do, there would be great pain, willow and hemp or not.
    I explained to my four assistants what I was about to do, and where I intended to do it. Not in the dim hut: I would need all the light I could get, for where I planned to work the sun did not shine much. One of the valets went quite pale when I finished my instructions.
    I asked for the toft behind Alfred’s hut to be cleared and for his bed to be taken there, with him in it. I got him maneuvered across the bed with his kirtle pulled up and his buttocks pointed toward the sky. He must have been mortified to be made to assume such a position, and in great need to do so willingly.
    A girl, blushing at the sight of Alfred – or what she could see of him – brought the water and I set to work. One man seized each of Alfred’s arms and legs, as I had instructed them. I will spare you details of the procedure and list the events of Alfred’s surgery in rudimentary fashion.
    I asked his wife for lard, and with it greased several fingers. These I must then insert in Alfred’s rectum until I felt his bladder. With luck, I would also feel the stone.
    God was with me, or with both of us, for I found the stone immediately. It was large, and so easy to locate. No wonder that he could not pass it, and that it caused him such torment. Using my finger, I worked the stone down to the neck of the bladder. Alfred grunted several times, but bore the pain stoically.
    I took several deep breaths to steady myself for the hazardous work I must now do. I used the hot water and a fragment of linen to wash Alfred’s private parts, then bathed the area in wine. There is no precedent for this, and I know most consider it a waste of good wine. But it seems to me that, if washing a wound with wine aids healing, washing the skin with wine before a wound is made might do so as well.
    I made an incision between Alfred’s rectum and scrotum, and deepened it carefully, trying to avoid damage to the complex plumbing in that place. I wanted to cut no deeper than necessary, so several times probed the incision with my finger, to see if I had got to the bladder yet. Alfred twitched and gasped a few times, but gave his captors no serious struggle.
    This was good, for just as I felt the stone through the wound, the valet holding Alfred’s left leg shuddered, rolled back his eyes, and dropped to the ground. Alfred’s wife, who had been standing apprehensively in the door of the hut, rushed out. But rather than tend to the fallen man, she took his place at Alfred’s leg and attached herself to it like a leech.
    I used a tiny razor to slice into the bladder and pried out the stone with a finger. Alfred gasped again. Reader, you would, also. Most would probably scream. I suspect I would have. Alfred had lived with pain for so long that additional distress seemed to torment him little.
    All that remained was to once again wash the incision with wine, and sew him up. I made few stitches. Alfred needed no more pain, and where I was working Alfred was unlikely to show off my handiwork. Four stitches would work there as well as ten.
    The fallen assistant came out of his swoon as we rolled Alfred to his back and replaced his bed in the hut. I left instructions with his teary-eyed wife, washed my bloodied hands in what remained of the warm