A King's Ransom

by Sharon Kay Penman

  “No, wait!” Mercadier’s cry was too late. There was a sharp crack and the wooden shaft broke off in Richard’s hand.

  None of them spoke in the moments that followed. Richard had never denied that acting on impulse was one of his worst flaws. But never had he regretted following an impulse as much as he did now, for he’d just made it needlessly difficult for the bolt’s head to be extracted.

  It was then that the tent flap was lifted and Arne entered, with Morgan and Guy de Thouars right on his heels. “I saw your shield, sire. Shall I fetch— Ach mein Gott!”

  There were smothered exclamations from Morgan and Guy, too, quickly stilled, as they all stared at the broken shaft in Richard’s hand. “You always have a surgeon for your men, Mercadier,” he said at last. “You’d best fetch him.”

  WHEN RICHARD’S ARMY APPROACHED Châlus-Chabrol, only a few of the villagers sought refuge in the castle, knowing it could not hold out for long; the rest had fled into the woods with whatever meager belongings and livestock they could save. The priest’s house was small, with only two rooms, and scantily furnished. But it had stone walls, windows with shutters, and a fireplace, which made it palatial in comparison to the nearby cottages. While Richard usually preferred his command tent at sieges, he did occasionally commandeer a nearby house, so they hoped the move would not cause comment among his soldiers.

  The bedchamber soon felt stifling, warmed by as many torches as they could fit into the cramped space. As Arne scurried about, fetching wine, water, blankets, towels, and candles, Morgan felt a twinge of envy, for at least the lad could keep busy. All they could do was wait for the arrival of Mercadier’s surgeon. Richard was slumped on the bed, his mantle draped over his shoulders. His face gave away nothing of his thoughts, nor of the pain he must surely be experiencing by now. William de Braose and Guy de Thouars were leaning against the wall, and Guillain was straddling a rickety chair; he alone had been let in upon this dangerous secret so far, but Morgan knew others would have to be told, too.

  Unable to endure either the silence or the suspense any longer, Morgan strode over to the table and poured a brimming cup from the wine flagon. The Welsh were always a practical people, Richard thought, reaching for the cup. He drained it in several deep swallows; wine was not much of a crutch, but it was better than nothing. Well, he also had anger, although that was not much help, since most of it was directed at himself, at his accursed, idiotic carelessness. There was some fear, too, a purely physical dread of the ordeal that lay ahead of him. And because he hated to acknowledge that fear, even to himself, he sought relief in cursing Mercadier’s missing surgeon, demanding to know why it was taking so long to find the man. “He’s probably off drinking himself sodden with a few of the camp whores!”

  At that moment, the door opened and Mercadier ushered the surgeon into the room. Their first sight of the man was not encouraging. He was well dressed and clean-shaven, looking more like a prosperous merchant than one in the service of the notorious routier captain. But he was so ashen that his complexion had taken on a sickly, greenish-grey cast, a fine sheen of perspiration was coating his upper lip, and he kept his gaze aimed at his feet. Morgan was suddenly fearful that he might indeed be drunk. But after he took a closer look, he thought, No, not drunk—terrified.

  “This is Master Guyon.” When the surgeon still did not speak, Mercadier impaled him with a piercing stare that somehow managed to freeze and burn at the same time. “Would you have the king think you’re a mute?” he snarled, and Morgan realized the surgeon was just as afraid of Mercadier as he was of the king. He might have felt pity for the man if the stakes in this high-risk wager were not Richard’s life.

  Master Guyon shuffled forward to kneel before Richard. “If I may examine the wound, my liege?” he asked humbly.

  “You can hardly extract the bolt if you do not examine the wound,” Richard snapped, for the man’s demeanor was not inspiring much confidence. But he was all they had, for they could not very well ask the Viscount of Limoges to send them one of his surgeons.

  Master Guyon set his coffer of instruments on the table. It held the usual tools of his trade, for physicians spoke disparagingly of surgeons as being “in trade.” As if any of those smug pompous peacocks could have faced a challenge like this without their ballocks shriveling up like raisins. He stared down at the coffer’s contents: chisel, probe, tenaille, bisoury, saw, clamps, razors, hooks, mallet, cautery rods, tweezers, tongs, needles, sutures, rugynes for drawing out bits of bone, a trephine for boring holes in the skull. He was not attempting to decide which ones should be used. He already knew that: a tenaille to extract the bolt and, if that failed, a bisoury to dig it out. But he did need a few moments to calm his nerves. He’d never lacked for confidence in his own skills, yet now he felt as if this were his first surgery. “I will need as much light as possible,” he said, and a youth darted forward to hold an oil lamp over the bed.

  Guyon’s first look at the wound confirmed his worst fears. The shaft had broken off close to the entry point, and there was not enough wood left for the tenaille to grip. Nor was it a good sign that bruising was already visible. Moreover, the king was naked from the waist up, so Guyon could see that he’d gained weight in the years since his knee injury, and that excess flesh would complicate his task, making it harder to locate and extract the bolt’s head. There were only three ways to treat an injury like this, and he ruled out two at once. Surgeons would often try to push an arrow through a man’s body, but even if the shaft had still been intact, that would not have been possible for the king’s wound. Many surgeons believed in waiting a few days until the tissue around the wound began to putrefy, making the extraction easier. Guyon did not agree with this method, for it had been his experience that such a delay too often caused the wound to fester, and when that happened, the patient almost always died.

  “I fear, sire, that I shall have to cut it out.”

  “I did not expect you to conjure it out.” Richard was rapidly concluding that the man was both timid and incompetent. “Fetch me more wine, Morgan,” he said abruptly. “I’ve made enough mistakes already and am not about to add facing surgery whilst I’m sober to the list.” After draining another flagon, he braced himself then for what he knew was going to be a very unpleasant experience. “Arne, did you find something for me to bite down upon?”

  From the moment he’d halted in the tent, realizing that Richard had been shot, Arne had found that speech was beyond him; it was as if his throat were being squeezed so tightly that no words could escape. Mutely, he held out his offering, a pair of Richard’s leather gloves. As soon as he did, though, time seemed to fracture and for a horrifying moment, he was catapulted back to the Vienna market on that bitter December day, betrayed by those ornate gloves that only a king would have worn. Sweat broke out upon his forehead and he fought the urge to make the sign of the cross. How could he have been so witless? What could be a worse omen than gloves? He reached out to snatch them back, croaking, “Wait, sire! A piece of wood would be better. . . .”

  As their eyes met, Arne swallowed a sob. He was sure Richard knew exactly what he was thinking, for his voice softened and he even managed the flicker of a smile. “No wood. The way my day has been going so far, lad, I’d be likely to break a tooth.”

  Guyon would have given a lot to drain a wine flagon himself. He could feel Mercadier’s eyes boring into his back as he approached the bed again. “I’ll need more light. Sire, if you’ll lie down . . .” He hesitated then, not knowing how to say what had to be said without giving offense. “I’ve found that it is best if restraints are used during the surgery.”

  The look he got from the king was sharp enough to draw blood. “You think this is my first battle wound? I will not need to be restrained,” Richard said, in so flat and dangerous a tone that Guyon dared not argue further.

  Morgan, Guillain, and Guy carried torches over to the bed; they gave off more heat than light and cast eerie shadows that added to Guyon’
s unease. He would rather have performed this operation in his own surgical tent during daylight hours. He would rather not have performed it at all. Saying a silent prayer that God would bless his efforts with success, he reached for the bisoury.

  Richard flinched as he began to widen the wound, biting down upon the glove, but he did not shrink from the scalpel’s narrow blade as Guyon’s patients usually did. Blood was bubbling up and Guyon reached for a towel to blot it away. Sweat had already begun to sting his eyes. So much that could go wrong. If he cut into an artery, the king would bleed out at once. Bleeding from a vein would not be as quick or fatal, but it would be difficult to staunch.

  “Hold the lamp closer,” he told Arne, for its fitful flame was still safer than the smoldering torches. After switching to a probe, he wiped away more of the blood obscuring his view. He did not expect them to understand what he’d be telling them, but he’d gotten into the habit of keeping up a running commentary during his surgeries, a holdover from his early days of training. “It looks as if the bolt entered behind the king’s collarbone and went down into the muscles in front of his shoulder blade.” He knew the Latin terms for these bones—clavicle and scapula—but like most surgeons, his had been a hands-on apprenticeship, his knowledge gained on the battlefield and in surgical tents, not in university classes, and he preferred to use the names that his patients would have used themselves.

  Reaching again for the bisoury, he made a larger incision. He was amazed that Richard had so far been able to keep still. His jaw was clenched so tightly that Guyon thought they might have to pry that glove from his teeth afterward, the tendons in his neck were so taut they looked like corded rope, and his body jerked as the blade dug into his flesh. But his self-control was remarkable, for most patients thrashed around wildly even under restraints.

  Guyon could see what was left of the shaft now and fumbled for his tenaille. If he could clasp the shaft, mayhap he could maneuver the bolt up and out. That hope was short-lived, for nothing happened when he tugged. It was as he’d feared: the bolt’s iron head was lodged deep in the king’s muscles, wedged between his scapula and rib cage. “Sire,” he said desperately, “the iron will not budge. I shall have to cut it out, and that will cause you great pain.”

  Richard was drenched in perspiration by now and his chest was heaving with his every breath. His words were garbled, muffled by the glove, but Guyon understood. Closing his eyes, he made the sign of the cross, and then looked over at Mercadier and William de Braose, the only ones without torches. “You must be ready to hold the king down if need be,” he told them and then reached again for the scalpel before Richard could protest. Holy Redeemer, Lamb of God, have mercy upon your servant. Guide my hand.

  What followed would haunt Guyon for the rest of his life. He’d awake in the night, his heart thudding, remembering the heat of the torches, the blood, his shaking hands, his growing panic as he kept trying and failing to wrest the iron free, sure that if Richard died, he’d pay with his life; Mercadier would see to that. At least he and the other lord had done as he’d bidden them, and held the king down when his body finally defied his will and sought to escape that sharp, seeking blade. Thankfully, he’d soon passed out from the pain, the only favor that night that fate had deigned to grant either of them, king or surgeon.

  At the last, Guyon had resorted to brute force, having cut away enough flesh to expose the bolt’s head, a lethal piece of iron as long as a man’s palm. Positioning his clamps, he said another silent prayer, and then yanked with all of his strength. When it finally came free in a spray of blood, he reeled backward and had to grasp the table for support. The youth called Arne had gone greensick and was vomiting into the floor rushes; the fair-haired knight they’d called Guy looked as if he were about to do likewise. Guyon knew one of the men was the king’s cousin, and he braced himself for the other’s accusations and recriminations. But he said only, “You did your best,” and Guyon felt such gratitude he could have hugged the man.

  Mercadier had leaned over the bed, his fingers searching for the pulse in the king’s throat. “He still lives,” he said, and Guyon understood the warning in that terse commentary. Pulling himself together, he took one of the wine flagons and carried it over to pour into the king’s wound. When he asked for his jars of unguents and herbal balms, Arne wiped his mouth on his sleeve and hastened over to his side. They all watched intently as he mixed betony and comfrey with water, explaining that these herbs, Saracen’s root and woundwort, would assist in the healing. Once he had a thick paste, he applied it to a thin cloth and the king’s cousin helped him to lift Richard’s inert body up so he could fasten the poultice. He half expected them to demand to know why he was not suturing up the wound, but when none did, he realized why. They’d seen enough battlefield injuries like this to know that surgeons preferred to keep deep puncture wounds open so they could drain of pus.

  By the time he was done, the surgeon was trembling with fatigue. “He ought to sleep through the night,” he said wearily. “I’ll fetch my bedding and sleep in the outer chamber.”

  “I’ll send a man with you to carry what you need.”

  Guyon mumbled his thanks, even though he knew that Mercadier’s helpful routier would really be his guard. But he was so weary that when Morgan asked him if the king would recover from his wound, he could not summon up the energy to lie.

  “I do not know, my lord,” he said. “God’s truth, I do not know.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  MARCH 1199

  Châlus-Chabrol, Limousin

  Richard awoke to a world of pain. His entire body hurt and his shoulder felt as if it were afire. When he opened his eyes, there was an immediate outcry and then others were surrounding the bed—Arne, Morgan, Guillain. They looked so distraught that for a moment he almost believed this shabby, unfamiliar chamber was an alewife’s cottage in Ertpurch. But then the memories of last night’s botched surgery came flooding back.

  They did not ask how he felt, for that was obvious to anyone with eyes to see. They concentrated instead upon what little they could do for his comfort, explaining that the surgeon had thought it best to leave him in the priest’s bloodied bed. They’d brought his own bed from his tent and they could help him into it if that was his wish. Once Richard glanced down at the damp, befouled sheets, it was. But he soon discovered that his body was not taking orders from his brain and something as simple as changing beds became as challenging as a winter crossing of the Alps. It left him limp and exhausted, feeling as feeble as a newly birthed lamb. For that was what he was now. Not a lion—a lamb at the mercy of his shepherds.

  The shepherds were not lacking in solicitude, though; he’d give them that much. They hovered by the bed, fetching a wine cup and then a chamber pot as Arne folded up the priest’s straw mattress. Richard started to warn him to take care in disposing of it, for none must see those bloodstains, but then he realized that there was no need. They understood full well how important it was to keep his injury a secret from his men, from the castle defenders, from the French. He felt a little queasy, but thirst won out and he was taking a few swallows when the door opened and the butcher burst into the chamber—for that was Richard’s first uncharitable thought at sight of the surgeon.

  Master Guyon snatched up the chamber pot, for although surgeons did not view urine the way physicians did—as an indispensable diagnostic tool—he thought there was always something to be learned by examining a patient’s piss. He busied himself in taking Richard’s pulse and feeling for signs of fever, all the while keeping up a strained flow of chatter as he nerved himself to loosen the poultice so he could inspect the wound. When he did, he felt weak in the knees, so great was his relief that there were no signs of infection. He knew how little that meant, for he’d seen wounds fester within hours and others not for more than a week. But each day that the king’s wound remained free of corruption was a day that moved the king—and himself—further away from the precipice. Aware that his presen
ce was not welcome to Richard, he soon retired to a corner of the chamber to study the urine specimen, his nerves so shredded that he jumped and almost spilled the pot’s contents when Mercadier slammed into the room.

  Richard had never seen the routier so haggard. “God’s blood, you look worse than I do,” he gibed, but Mercadier seemed to be lacking humor as well as sleep, for he just grunted. His eyes raked the chamber, lingering for an unsettling moment upon Master Guyon before he picked up a chair and brought it over to the bed.

  “I promise you,” he said, “that I shall take that castle for you, and when I do, I shall hang every mother’s son in it.”

  Richard was surprised, not by the vow, but by the raw emotion that underlay Mercadier’s rage, for the other man had never been one to show his emotions openly; many were convinced he had none. Richard started to sit up then—a great mistake. Falling back against the pillow, he gasped as the fire blazed hotter than the flames of Hell. Once he was sure it was not going to consume him then and there, he said, “When you hang the garrison, mayhap you ought to hang Master Guyon, too.”

  Mercadier’s pale eyes glittered. “Just say the word, my lord.”

  Morgan glanced over at the surgeon, who suddenly looked as if he were the one in need of medical care. Moving toward the man, Morgan said softly, “There’s no cause for fear. The king is not serious.”

  Guyon’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed painfully. “Mercadier is,” he whispered, and when the routier shafted another glance their way, Morgan thought the surgeon might well be right.

  “The fool mangled your shoulder, my lord.” Mercadier’s voice was so fraught with menace that the surgeon shivered. “I’ve seen Martinmas hogs butchered with more skill.”