Lionheart A Novel - By Sharon Kay Penman Page 0,221

same conclusion and expressed his relief in anger, scowling and demanding to know why Richard was fighting without a shield. Richard looked at him as if he’d suddenly gone stark mad. “When I unhorsed a Saracen with my lance, the guige strap broke. What was I supposed to do, André—call a halt to the battle whilst I sent a squire to fetch a new one?”

André’s emotions were still roiling, and he was not about to admit he was being unfair or illogical. Richard had diced with Death so often that even if he did not deserve a reprimand this time, he’d earned it for his past recklessness. “The Turks say a cat has seven lives. How many do you think you have, Richard?”

“As many as it takes to free the Holy City,” Richard said, managing to sound both flippant and utterly serious, and as usual, he got the last word.

“FOR GOD’S SAKE, man, take care with my hauberk!”

Master Ralph Besace was accustomed to dealing with a truculent royal patient; he’d been the king’s physician since Richard’s coronation. “If you will hold still, sire, you’ll make my task much easier.” Removing a hauberk was never easy in such circumstances, though. Ignoring Richard’s protest, he widened the torn links enough to slide the mail up and over the shaft. Richard would have pulled the hauberk over his head then, but his friends were waiting for just such a move and insisted that they be the ones to remove it. They could see now that the bolt had pierced the padded gambeson, too. Asking for a sharp knife, Master Ralph cut it away around the wound and then stood back while André and Henri helped Richard peel off the garment. It was soaked with sweat, but no blood; puncture wounds rarely bled much. Holding up an oil lamp, the doctor leaned in to examine the injury.

He was admittedly uneasy about what he might find. Arrow wounds were among those most commonly treated by battlefield surgeons, but they were still among the most challenging, for if the arrow could not easily be extracted, the remaining choices were not good ones. The doctor would have to try to push it through the man’s body or else wait a few days until the tissue around the arrow began to putrefy. The first option was not feasible, for he’d risk damaging the king’s internal organs, and the second was not doable either, not for a man who’d insist upon fighting on the morrow. But as he studied the wound, he felt a great rush of relief, thinking that Richard’s fabled luck had held up once again.

“You were fortunate, my liege. The bolt does not seem to have penetrated too deeply. Your hauberk and gambeson absorbed most of the impact.”

“Good. Get it out, then.”

Master Ralph signaled for a tenaille and clamped the forceps around the shaft. A moment later, he was basking in the grateful approval of the king’s friends. The king himself was much more stoic, but then the physician expected just such a reaction, for he knew Richard was determined to make his injury seem as trivial as possible. He was cleansing the wound with vinegar when there was a sudden uproar outside. Richard was all for going to investigate himself, but André was too quick for him. “I’ll go, you sit,” he insisted and ducked under the tent flap.

Richard was in a foul temper, vexed with his friends for making much ado about nothing and with himself for being so careless. He ungraciously accepted a cup of wine from his nephew, unamused when Henri joked that they’d had to post guards to keep all the well-wishers away. “Guy de Lusignan wanted to see for himself that you’re not at Death’s door and half the bishops are offering up prayers on your behalf. Even Hugh of Burgundy bestirred himself, sending a man to ask if the rumors were true. I really ought to have a public crier assure the camp that you’re not seriously wounded.”

“Of course I am not! I suffered worse hurts learning to use the quintain as a lad.” Richard finished his wine in several gulps, an indication he did not feel as fine as he claimed, but Henri was not foolish enough to comment on it, merely refilling the cup. And by then André was back.

“Another brawl over dead horses,” he said glumly, for this was becoming more and more of a problem. Soldiers quite understandably preferred meat over their daily rations of