‘Not good,’ I said and got to my feet, making way for him to have a closer look.
He knelt down and took the cloth from me, wringing it out and pressing it to the side of the big Englishman, trying to staunch the bleeding, before wrapping it around his torso to make a kind of bandage.
‘What do we do?’ I asked.
The priest rose to his feet. ‘First we need to get him back to my house,’ he replied. ‘I can’t do anything for him here.’
I didn’t need to be told twice. ‘Come on,’ I said to Turold. ‘Help me carry him.’
?dda was not a small man by any means, but even so he was heavier than I had expected, and straightaway I felt the strain upon my shoulders and back. Together, though, we managed to lift him up. He was barely conscious; there was no question of him being able to walk even with our help, and so we staggered forward across the yard and out of the gates, with Robert and the rest of my knights making sure that the villagers stayed out of our way. Some of Robert’s men must have heard the noise and had left their horses while they tried to find out what was happening, but someone else would have to tell them, for at that moment I was thinking only about getting?dda to the priest’s house.
It was less than a hundred paces down the cart-track, but it felt much further. Erchembald was waiting when we arrived, with a stool beside him and an open box at his feet, inside which were all the implements leech-doctors use to weigh and crush and mix different remedies: pewter spoons, pestles made of bone and steel spatulas. He gestured towards a bed with a mattress of straw that stood against the wall on the other side of the room.
‘Lay him down there,’ he said.
I gritted my teeth. Turold and I managed to haul the stableman’s limp form across the room and on to the mattress. He groaned, and this time he sounded even weaker than before.
‘I’ll need to remove the arrow before anything else,’ Erchembald said. ‘Here, take this.’
He was speaking to me, I realised, and he was holding out a small glass bottle no larger than the width of my palm, which contained some clear liquid.
I took it from him, frowning. ‘What is it?’
‘Extract of nightshade and poppy dissolved in spirit,’ he replied as he went to the shelf on the wall and retrieved a bone needle, which he began to thread. ‘Mix one part of it with three parts wine. There’s a flagon and bowl on the table there.’ He glanced at Turold. ‘Fetch me the tongs and piece of wood from the chest under those blankets.’
I did as he asked, unstoppering the bottle and pouring in the clear liquid until the bowl was one-quarter full, or as near as I could manage, then adding the wine. Only a few last dregs were left in the flagon, but it was enough.
‘Now what?’ I asked.
‘Now stir it,’ Erchembald replied. ‘Then he must drink. With any luck it will help to alleviate the pain. And you’ — he gestured again to Turold and handed him another cloth — ‘come and stand here. When I say, you must press this against the wound to staunch the flow of blood.’
Taking one of the spatulas from the box at the priest’s feet, I stirred the mixture until it was the same colour throughout, then carried it across to the bed. I knelt down beside?dda, cradling his head in one hand while I lifted the bowl to his lips. At first he resisted and would not drink, but I saw Robert standing just outside the door and I called him over to help hold him still while I grabbed the Englishman’s nose. He tried to draw away, but very soon he had to breathe, and when he did I was ready with the bowl. I tipped some of the mixture into his open mouth; he spluttered but I clamped his jaw shut with my free hand until he swallowed. He gasped and mumbled something that might have been an insult, but if it was I could not make it out, and then his head sank back on to the mattress.
‘Fetch me some more wine,’ said Erchembald, to no one in particular, as he rolled up the sleeves of his robe. ‘The stronger, the better. He’ll need it.’
‘I’ll see to it,’ Robert said.
‘And send everyone else away,’ the priest called after him. ‘I need to be able to see what I’m doing.’
I glanced towards the door, and saw the faces of Serlo and Pons, with a number of the villagers pressing behind them, straining their necks in an effort to see what was going on. Together they were blocking the priest’s light.
Erchembald peered at the arrow. ‘There are no barbs that I can see. With any luck that should make this easier.’ He turned to me. ‘Hold him still. Otherwise this will only take longer. Give him that piece of wood to bite down on.’
He pointed to the block that Turold had brought him, which rested on the floor just behind me. On each side there were marks where previous patients had buried their teeth.
‘Here,’ I said to the Englishman as I placed it between his jaws.
Outside I could hear Robert shouting at the gathering crowd, driving them away from the house, and suddenly bright sunlight flooded into the room.
I pressed down on both of?dda’s shoulders with all my weight, pinning him to the bed as I met his gaze. The look of steely determination that I had grown used to had all but vanished; instead there were tears in his good eye, tears rolling down his bruised cheek, though he was trying to hold them back, and I could feel his fear.
And then it began. First the priest worked two long-handled spoons into the wound, which he cupped around either side of the arrowhead before extracting it with great care.?dda grunted and clenched his teeth firmly around the woodblock, but this was not even the hard part.
‘The cloth,’ Erchembald said, as a trickle of fresh blood ran down the Englishman’s side.
While Turold did as instructed, the priest set aside the arrowhead, then he inspected the wound.
‘No shards of wood or steel left inside.’ He lifted up a steel pin, fearsomely sharp, from the stool next to him, and I saw the whites of?dda’s eyes. To Turold he said: ‘Take those tongs. When I say, you must hold the flesh either side of the wound while I make the holes. Grip tightly and don’t let go unless I tell you to.’ He turned to me. ‘Are you ready? He will struggle, but for this I need you to make sure he doesn’t move.’
‘I’m ready.’
While Turold gripped?dda’s flesh with the tongs, the priest drove the steel pin through the skin, making the holes where he would later sew the linen sutures to bind the two sides of the wound together. I had seen it done before, but never so deftly or so quickly.
Not that it made it any easier for?dda, who roared through it all. He roared every time the pin penetrated his flesh and he roared every time it came out again. He yelled through gritted teeth, biting down so hard on the wood that I thought it might split, his whole body shaking with agony. His cries filled the air, so loud that when Father Erchembald told Turold to grip the flesh tighter with the tongs, he had to shout so as to be heard. But I did not relent as I held the stableman down, leaning on his shoulders with all my weight, preventing him from struggling. I did not want to cause him pain, but I knew that if we didn’t do this, his suffering would only be worse.
Robert returned with two wineskins as the priest was about to begin stitching, although there was little need for them by then for?dda had passed out. It was probably just as well, since it meant Erchembald could finish what he needed to do without further difficulty, and I could rest my arms. Even so, I stayed until it was done, crouching by the Englishman’s bedside in case by some chance he came to. But he did not, and when at last the priest laid down his needle and tied off the final suture,?dda was asleep, his chest rising and falling in even rhythm.
‘It is done,’ Erchembald said. His brow glistened with sweat as he stood up, wiping his hands with a dirtied cloth. There was blood on his fingers and on his forearms, and his sleeves and his robe were stained a deep crimson.
Without another word he went outside, and I followed him to the stream which ran beside the herb-patch behind his house. The sun was almost at its highest, and I was struck by the heat; it must have been cool inside, though I hadn’t been aware of it. Flies darted about us, attracted by the stench of fresh-spilt blood, and I had to fend them away from my face.
‘Will he live?’ I asked.
The priest did not reply straightaway, and I wondered if he had heard me. He crouched down by the edge of the brook, cleaning his hands in its clear waters and rinsing out some of the cloths he had used.
‘Father?’
He splashed some water into his face and, blinking, stood up. ‘God alone has the answer to that question,’ he said, his expression solemn. ‘I have done what I can for him, but so often it is hard to tell. Some live; others die.
