Chapter 42
Grand Army of the Sunrise encampment
Zilah
“Ellie! Ellie! Wait!”
She left the radio mic swinging and was out the communications tent and moving toward Tuva’s Dvorak before anyone could catch her. Fuck them all, she thought as she focused her attention on the small plane waiting in a wet field. Where Tuva was currently, Ellie didn’t know. It didn’t matter. By God, she was going to the capital to be with Len, to be with her husband, and that was that. If she had to fly there by her damned self, she’d do it, and no matter the poor weather.
She pulled open the cockpit door and tried climbing in. A hand from behind grabbed her shoulders and pulled her out.
She rounded on the person standing behind her and checked her swing when she saw Morris Roth’s face. “Leave me alone, Morris. I’m going to Len. He needs me!”
He held her firmly. He was stronger than he appeared. “Let me go, goddammit!”
“Ellie…Ellie, please, hear me out!”
She wanted to punch him out, but suddenly all her emotional strength collapsed into his arms. Her face was soaked with tears. She leaned into his shoulder and buried her face into his coat. “He’s going to die, Morris. I just know it.”
She felt him move his head. “No,” he said, “he isn’t. He’s going to be fine. They’ve stabilized him and moved him off the field. Don’t worry, Ellie. We’ve got Denise in the air. She’ll be picking up Isaac in Kolozsvár any minute now. Len’s going to be just fine.”
“But I need to be there, Morris. I need to be there to make sure. He’s my whole world.”
No matter how knowledgeable Doctor Kohen was about up-time medicine, he was still a young man, still inexperienced. And this was the seventeenth century, not up-time America. Len would get an infection for sure. He’d die in a deep coma, burned through with fever. “I have to be there.”
“You will be, I promise.” Morris pushed away but held her shoulders and stared into her face until she met his eyes. “But listen to me, Ellie. Listen. The weather right now is lousy. We try to launch this plane with the wind shear we have right now, it’ll go down hard. Denise was already in the air giving us a signal boost to Len, and she’s racing ahead of the storm. If I put you and Tuva in the air right now, I might lose you both.”
To accentuate his point, the thick storm clouds above cracked with lightning. The wind surged.
“As soon as this squall passes, I promise I’ll have Tuva get you there. Okay?”
She was stuck. She couldn’t fly the damned plane; foolish for her to even imagine doing so. But Len…God, how could she go on without him? How could she navigate through this medieval century without her husband? Okay, it wasn’t the Middle Ages, she knew, but still. She’d been able to bear it all at Len’s side: the trauma of displacement through the Ring of Fire; the realization that she’d never again see everything and everyone she had left up-time; the loss of simple, day-to-day comforts taken for granted. All of it. Without Len?
“Okay, Morris, you win.”
He shook his head. “It’s not about me winning, Ellie. It’s about keeping you and Tuva safe and providing the best care that we can to Len.” He gave her an earnest shake. “You will see your husband again. I promise.”
He hugged her once more and then he turned them back to the tent.
Kolozsvár
Isaac paused before approaching the Dixie Chick, knowing full well that doing so could mean the difference between Len’s life and his death. Christian had regaled him with stories of his personal experience flying inside the up-time machine, but now it was his turn to fly. He didn’t know if he could do it, especially in this foul weather.
Denise Beasley shocked him from his pause. “Come on,” she shouted, waving violently. “No stalling. We’ve got to keep ahead of this weather!”
He took a deep breath and walked the last twenty feet to the craft, burdened by two large satchels of medical equipment and supplies, with rain soaking his yarmulke.
Denise took one look at his portage and shook her head. “We can’t take all that.”
Isaac set his satchels down. “I don’t know what I’ll be facing with Len, Denise. I won’t have my medical staff or my best nurse. I need to take a lot of equipment to be prepared.” He sighed, shook his head. “Or you go and get him and bring him to me.”
Denise shook her head again. “Nah…radio chatter indicates he can’t be moved. Too risky.”
“What about General von Mercy and Prince Rákóczi?”
“From what I’ve heard, von Mercy isn’t too bad off. Don’t know about the prince. They won’t speak his name. I guess they’re worried about zips in the wire.”
Isaac didn’t know what that meant but said nothing. He pressed the issue. “I have to take these bags, Denise, or I can’t go.”
She sighed and cussed under her breath. “Okay. Give me a sec.”
Denise climbed into the Dvorak and did something in the back compartment. He couldn’t tell exactly what she was doing, but then a red canister dropped out of the cockpit. Then another. She climbed back out with a grunt.
“Okay, that’ll free up enough weight to accommodate your bags.” She wiped her hands and pointed her thumb to the craft. “Let’s go. We gotta haul ass. We’ll be running at top speed. The capital’s about fifty miles or so from here. It’ll be a short flight, all things considered, but damn bumpy. I hope you didn’t eat anything today.”
No such luck there. He’d dined on local bread and cheese and had washed it all down with a cup of wine. Preparing for the day when the desperate call came in from Ellie and General Roth. In that moment, the anxiety and doubt that Isaac had been able to control since his last conversation with Christian and Rabbi Gotkin came back tenfold. It dissipated as fast as it had erupted, thankfully, and he had girded his courage and packed his bags. Len Tanner needed him. Ellie needed him. Von Mercy, and maybe even the prince, needed him. Time to grow up, put away the self-doubt, and do his duty.
Denise helped him with the bags and got him strapped into the passenger seat. “Hold on tight, my friend,” she said, giving him a confident smile and a pat on his cheek. “It’s gonna be a rough takeoff.”
Gyulafehérvár
Lieutenant Enkefort guided them into the capital via radio contact, onto a short, narrow, and relatively straight path that led alongside the Collegium Academicum. That was where the victims of the assassination attempt had been taken, including the prince.
Christian von Jori met them on the path as the Dvorak came to a halt. He greeted Isaac warmly, but with a clear mark of anxiety on his face. “Good to see you again, Christian,” Isaac said as the cavalry officer helped with his bags. “Do you know the situation of our wounded?”
Christian nodded. “A little. The prince is in a…coma? I think that’s what you call it.”
Isaac nodded. “Yes, that’s the term.”
“Not so much from the shot as the fall. He struck his head on a rock. They say he has a fractured skull. He’s alive, but I don’t know much more than that. His wife and children are with him.”
“The general?”
“He’s sleeping. He lost a lot of blood, but he’s well. They put a tourniquet on him in the field. I think it saved his life.”
Isaac hesitated then, “And Len?”
“He’s alive, praise God. The physicians here at the college put some kind of poultice on his wound; it’s pretty bad. The mini-ball hit him in the shoulder. Not a full, deep strike. More of an indirect hit, but it tore him up badly. His shoulder is dislocated. The physicians here have stopped the bleeding, I think, but they haven’t done anything to remove the mini-ball. He’s in a lot of pain.”
“Okay,” Isaac said. “Thank you. Can you assist me today? I’ve no staff.”
Christian nodded. “Absolutely. Whatever you need. Whatever I can do.”
They were led into the college by Prince Rákóczi’s personal guard. There was no argument as to whom Isaac had to see first.
The prince’s wife Zsuzsanna and their two sons were at his side. When the princess consort saw Christian, she immediately began to cry and fell into his arms. That surprised Isaac. How in the world did they know each other? he wondered. It was a story Isaac wanted to hear, but not now. Now, the prince of Transylvania lay still in his bed, his head wrapped in bloody strips of wool.
Isaac felt immediate unease. Everyone in the room—and the number was substantial—was staring at him, and some in not a very positive way. Were they just worried about their prince, he wondered, or were they anxious that a Jew was about to administer care? It was hard to know, and it made him nervous. He wanted to tell everyone to leave the room, but did he have the authority to do so, and would they listen if he did?
Gáspár Bojthi Veres, who stood near the bed, seemed to detect Isaac’s worry. He motioned to the door. “Okay, now. Everyone needs to leave. Please. Let’s give Doctor Kohen some room and privacy to do his work.”
The crowd hesitated, then slowly filed out, including the princess and her sons. Christian led them to the door.
Isaac sighed gratefully. “Thank you, Herr Veres.”
But not everyone left the room. There were still guards in the corners and at the door. Two young medical students from the university begged to stay. Isaac let them. Christian returned to the prince’s bedside. “What do we do?”
“I need to check his vitals first.”
Isaac removed a stethoscope from his bag and checked the prince’s pulse and heart rate. Thready pulse, irregular heartbeat. But based on the condition the prince was in, that was a positive sign. He then checked airflow. It was decent—for now. He checked for a fever; none. He then reached into his bag and pulled out a blood pressure cuff, one that he had gotten from the Leahy Medical Center. He wrapped the cuff around the prince’s right arm.
“I suspect his blood pressure is quite low,” he said, “but I want to make sure.”
It was, and dangerously so. He removed the cuff and tucked it away in his bag. “He needs fluids to try to bring his BP up.”
From the second bag, Isaac pulled out IV equipment and got the medical students to help him set it up and attach it to the prince’s arm. “Fluids from this bag will drip into this line,” he said, pointing out the mechanics of the device now hanging near the bed, “and then into his body. This will help increase his blood pressure. We need to watch the bag closely and replace it when it’s empty. I only brought four.”
Isaac then leaned over the prince. He reached for the woolen head wrappings. “Help me remove this bandage. Carefully now. We must take great care. I don’t know what kind of trauma his neck might have suffered in the fall—if any.”
Christian and the two medical students helped to stabilize the prince’s body while Isaac slowly unraveled the bloody wool wrap. He nodded as the head wound was revealed. “I see that someone cleaned the wound well.”
“That was me, Herr Kohen,” one of the students in the room said.
Isaac nodded. “Well done. I’d like you to serve as Prince Rákóczi’s personal attendant while he is in this condition. You keep me informed of his status by the hour. Understand?”
The students looked at each other and, again, Isaac wasn’t sure if their apprehension to his order was because he was a Jew. Finally, the student nodded. “Of course, Herr Kohen. It would be an honor to serve the prince.”
The prince’s long hair hindered Isaac’s examination. “Get someone to shave his head around the wound. We need full access to it for proper treatment.”
“How does it look?” Christian asked, keeping his hands level and strong as he cradled the prince’s head.
“The wound itself isn’t too bad. Deep gash, yes, but see the minimal bruising? The young doctor here did a good job on its immediate care. But notice the bone?”
Christian shook his head. “I cannot see anything clearly.”
Isaac winced, suddenly concerned about his friend’s eyesight. He let it go—for now. “This is a side trauma. The sphenoid and zygomatic bones are fractured.” Isaac moved the prince’s head so that Christian could see clearly. “There…and there. Very serious fractures.” Isaac made room so that everyone could see.
“Yes, I see them,” Christian said. “That’s what put him in a coma?”
“The rock strike certainly knocked him out. As for the coma itself, I want to check one more thing… ”
Isaac moved his hand underneath Christian’s. He set his fingers along the cervical spine bones and carefully massaged upward toward the cranium. He halted, and his heart sank.
“Okay, let’s wrap a new bandage around his head.” Isaac looked at the students. “Can one of you do that for me while I examine his other wounds?”
“Yes, Herr Kohen.”
While the students got to work on the next bandage, Isaac examined the gunshot wound that pierced Prince Rákóczi’s side. “A clean shot right though the muscle tissue and out the back. Luckily, it missed his kidney, though it may have perforated his bowel.”
“What does it mean if the shot perforated the bowel?” Christian asked.
Isaac reapplied the bandage over the wound, sighed, and said, “An infection like peritonitis and possibly sepsis. Someone’s got to go in there and look. If the bowel is torn, infection can spread rapidly. I didn’t smell anything foul, thankfully, but to know for sure, at some point I’ll need to go in there and see.”
The other wound was more of an injury, a simple ankle sprain when his boot got caught in the stirrup on the fall. His ankle was puffy, but not broken. Finally, some good news.
“What is his condition, Doctor?” Christian asked as Isaac washed his hands in a pot of clean water.
“Not here,” he whispered. “Let’s open the door and allow his family back in. Then let’s speak to Gáspár privately.”
The crowd rolled right back into their places in the room. Isaac spent a little time reassuring the princess consort and her children about their father’s status. He smiled and put as positive a tone in his voice as he could, remembering the need for a good bedside manner. Then he and Christian pulled Gáspár out of the room and found a private corner in which to speak.
“I am no expert on the human nervous system,” Isaac said. “I have a working knowledge, but it’s one of the weaker parts of my training and study.” He sighed, rubbed his forehead, and continued. “But he’s in a bad condition, Gáspár. The fall severely cracked his skull. There may be brain damage, I don’t know. The gunshot wound is manageable, assuming no infection develops. The ankle sprain is unimportant. But… ”
He paused. They waited for him to continue. “The real problem is his spine. His cervical spine—the part in his neck that connects to the skull—it’s pinched, badly, from the trauma and impact of the fall. It may be cracked somewhere between the C4 and C5 vertebrae. There’s no doubt in my mind that his spinal cord is compressed…severely. If he survives everything else that he has suffered—and I’m not guaranteeing that—I suspect he’ll be paralyzed. Again, I’m not an expert on the human nervous system, but that’s my professional judgment.”
The pause was palpable. Frightening, in fact, for the voices of the people in Prince Rákóczi’s room nearby gave the silence of the hallway a ghostly quality, an echo of false hope. The man lying in the room was dying…and there was very little Doctor Isaac Kohen, junior surgeon for the Grand Army of the Sunrise, could do about it.
“We cannot release these details to the public,” Gáspár said.
Christian shook his head. “They will get out there eventually.” He pointed to the room. “Forgive me, Herr Veres. I am no politician, but who can you trust in that room? How many of them would keep a secret like this?”
“They will if I demand it,” Gáspár said, almost spitting. “Do you understand what is happening, gentlemen? Two belligerent armies march on our capital. War is upon us, and you have no concerns about the truth of his condition getting out? Chaos will ensue if it does. No,” he said, shaking his head furiously. “No, it cannot be done. We will say that he is in serious, but stable, condition. I’ve heard you use those very words, Doctor Kohen, on the march.”
Isaac nodded. “Fine, fine. As Christian said, we’re not politicians. You do what you feel is right. My duty here is to save lives. But Prince Rákóczi? He is in God’s hands now, and I just pray that, in this matter, God is a better surgeon than I.”
Isaac walked away. Christian followed. “He is foolish if he thinks the prince’s condition will remain a secret.”
“I know, Christian, I know.”
“Someone in that room right now must have told whomever it was flying that airship that the prince would be in that field. There’s no way that that ship would have been there at the time, at that moment, by accident.”
Again, Christian would get no argument from Isaac. “You are right. But let’s not worry about such things right now. Our duty now is to save Len.”
✧ ✧ ✧
What remained of the mini-ball that had struck Len Tanner was lodged about half an inch into the glenoid cavity between the scapula and the humerus. Upon entry, the ball had apparently struck both the humerus and scapula, leaving bone fragments everywhere. Some of those fragments now threatened to tear the axillary artery. The skin and muscle in that area were heavily damaged.
“It’s worse than I had hoped,” Isaac said as he and Christian prepared themselves for surgery, “but not as bad as I had feared.”
A group of local physicians and ladies volunteering to assist had arrived. Isaac sent most of them away, save for four—two men, two women—who would assist, like Christian, in ensuring Len remained still and cooperative during the surgery. A small portion of morphine had been administered, giving Len some relief from hours of pain. In his stupor, however, he shouted Ellie’s name and tried sitting up.
“Keep him still!” Isaac shouted to his volunteers. “We cannot allow those bone fragments to move even a millimeter, lest they puncture the artery.”
And then it would be a mad scramble to try to keep him from spouting blood like a fountain. If that happened, there’d likely be no choice but to sever the arm and ligate the artery.
“I won’t be able to use the magnet like I did with you, Christian,” Isaac said through his mask as he approached Len lying on the makeshift surgery table. “I’m going to have to go in and pull each of those fragments out one by one.” He checked Christian to ensure he was wearing his prophylaxis properly. “Keep close, keep the magnifying glass closer, and hand me my scalpels and tweezers when needed, and swiftly.”
“I understand, Isaac,” Christian said, holding up his hands to reveal he was wearing his gloves properly. “I want this to go well. For Len. For Ellie.”
“Ellie!”
Len tried lifting himself off the table at the sound of his wife’s name, but one of the ladies Isaac had picked to assist pressed her hands firmly into Len’s chest, leaned over, and whispered softly against Len’s sweaty forehead, “Shhh! I am here, my love. Please, be still.”
The woman’s lips grazed Len’s balmy skin, and the touch of them with her words soothed him immediately. “Ellie? Ellie? Are you here?”
Through his morphine-induced stupor, he couldn’t tell whether the woman was his wife or no. “Yes,” the woman cooed again. She stroked his head with soft fingers. “I am here. Be still now. Be still.”
Impressive, Isaac thought, as he selected tweezers from his array of medical tools and got to work.
Four fragments removed—the easiest ones—and Isaac paused and asked, “What is your name, young lady?”
“Oana Dalca,” she said.
“And how old are you?”
She paused, then: “Eighteen.”
He huffed. “You handled that problem well.”
“Thank you,” she said. She did not raise her head to acknowledge him. She kept her focus on Len and her hands on his chest, his other shoulder, to keep him still. “My mother used to assist our Rabbi, who was also a physician, when men were sick and high of fever. They too would call out for their mothers, their wives.”
“Ah, so you are Jewish.”
“No,” she said, then paused as if she were embarrassed or afraid to continue. Finally, she sighed and said, “I am Sabbatarian.”
“Should we really be having this conversation, Isaac?” Christian asked.
Isaac smiled and suppressed a laugh. “It is fine, my friend. What do the up-timers say? I’ve got this? Well…I’ve got this. I’m almost finished.”
He had worked from the easiest fragments to the harder, and so far, he’d removed twenty. The last five were now waiting, and they were the most critical.
“I’ve got some blood seepage here,” Isaac said, looking up at one of the physicians.
The man moved quickly to staunch the blood. The other physician and the two ladies held Len down firmly.
“Len,” Isaac said, “you may not be able to hear me well, but I want to be honest with you. The next several minutes are going to be painful. But you can handle it, my friend. I have faith in you. Are you ready?”
Len gave a halfhearted nod, the effects of his morphine still working, though only partially.
“Okay,” Isaac said. He waved Christian closer. “Hold the magnifying glass directly over the wound, and close.”
Isaac breathed deeply, mouthed a silent Yiddish prayer for strength and courage, and then moved in toward the axillary artery with scalpel in one hand, tweezers in the other.
✧ ✧ ✧
Three fragments down, two to go, as Isaac’s back and neck ached from so much standing, stooping. And worry. His muscles were so tense, his heart racing such that it was difficult to breathe. Oana and one of the physicians helped to keep him upright, to alleviate some of the pain, by allowing him to put his weight into their hands as they held him in a semi-hug. He could feel Oana’s breath on his neck. That, too, was distracting.
He pulled the penultimate fragment free of the swollen flesh around the axillary artery. It was a big one, the biggest yet, and its extraction created a pool of blood that seeped out of Len’s shoulder. But not a spray or gush. Isaac breathed a sigh of relief. The artery was intact.
A student physician staunched the blood as Oana helped Isaac stand and catch his breath. “There’s one more,” he said, wiping his brow with a washcloth. “I can see the top of it, but I don’t know how deep it rests or how fragmented it is. I may have to cut into the pectoral to get it out. I hate to do it; he’s already suffered enough damage.”
The guard outside the room started to shout something. There was a scuffle, more shouting, and the door burst open.
Ellie Anderson and Tuva came in. Tuva walked; Ellie stormed.
She ran toward the table. “Len!”
Christian caught her before she reached her husband’s side. “Let me go, goddammit! Let me—”
“He’s just fine, Ellie!” Isaac put up his bloody, gloved hand. “Please, stand back, and let me do my work.”
“Is he gonna live?” She strained against Christian’s arms.
Isaac nodded. “Yes, if you let me do my work!”
She burst into tears. “Please, please, don’t let my Len die. Please!”
Christian let her go, and Oana led her to a chair.
It was heartbreaking for everyone in the room. It added a level of anxiety and stress to Isaac that he did not need, but he didn’t let it show. Christian grabbed his shaking hand. “It’ll be all right, my friend. We’ll get you through this.”
The smile on Christian’s face was enough. “Very well. Let’s continue.”
✧ ✧ ✧
The last fragment turned into two. As Isaac pulled it carefully out of Len’s pectoral muscle, it broke in half and the bottom portion slipped back into the muscle. Luckily, it wasn’t anywhere near the axillary artery, so it was a simple matter of a small cut into the muscle tissue and then extraction. Pulling out that last piece of bone was almost the most satisfying thing Isaac had ever done in his short medical career.
He spoke loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, especially Ellie. “All the fragments are out. Now we address the mini-ball.”
The shoulder was dislocated due to the impact of the mini-ball into the glenoid cavity. Getting the mini-ball out and then popping the humerus back into place was not the major concern. The damage to the humerus itself, and the articular cartilage, was the issue.
Compared to the time and care needed to extract the fragments, the surgery on Len’s shoulder moved quickly. A careful cut around the mini-ball, a quick pluck with needle-nose pliers, and the ball was out. The heat of the shot had cauterized some of the flesh around the entry point, making bleeding less of a factor.
When finished, he spent some time stitching up the most egregious wounds along the mini-ball’s entry point, and then they wrapped Len’s shoulder tightly with a harness that Isaac had acquired from the Leahy Medical Center specifically designed for dislocated shoulders. It was the only one his medical team possessed, but hopefully, it’d do the job. The key was to completely immobilize Len’s shoulder for…how long? That was hard to know for sure. Everyone’s recovery rate was different, Isaac knew. Len, otherwise in reasonable shape with no chronic medical conditions, would probably recover quickly. But “probably” was not “for certain.”
Isaac cleaned up, provided care instructions to his helpers, ordered another morphine shot despite low supply, and then met Oana and Ellie outside the room.
“How is he, Isaac?” Ellie said, exhaustion and sincere concern rimming her red, swollen eyes. “Will my husband live?”
“He’s fine, Ellie,” Isaac said. “For right now. The fragments have been removed, the mini-ball removed, and the shoulder snapped back in place and wrapped. I gave him another shot of morphine to keep him calm. But the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours will be critical. The short-term concern is infection. If we can keep him from getting an infection, he should be fine. Fine meaning, alive. Ellie, I don’t want to lie to you. The wound he suffered was serious.”
Isaac held up his arm as if he were pointing at the ceiling of the hallway in which they stood. “He must have been pointing into the sky—perhaps at the airship—when the ball struck. It hit his humerus up near the shoulder and scraped along the bone, lodging itself into the glenoid cavity. The cartilage in that area, Ellie, has been severely damaged.”
“What does that mean?”
“The cartilage won’t heal on its own. In time, it’ll break down even further, at which point the underlying bone will react by creating bone spurs. This will eventually cause swelling, pain, and possibly immobility.”
Ellie waved her hand. “Don’t waste my time with medical details, Doc. Tell me straight: is Len going to be okay or not?”
“Yes, I believe he will. But he has a long, long road to recovery ahead. The next few days are critical, but the next several weeks will determine if he regains full motion in his arm and shoulder. I can’t tell you yes or no, Ellie. What needs to happen is for him to be airlifted to Grantville or Magdeburg. He needs to recover fully in a facility that is superior to this, with doctors better trained than I.”
Ellie shook her head. “Morris is never going to agree to that.” She sniffled and rubbed a tear off her cheek. “He’s not going to spare an entire plane for just one man.”
“I’ll talk to him about it,” Isaac said. “But in the meantime, Len’s here, he’s safe, he’s resting, and I will personally see to his recovery. On my honor.”
“Thank you, Isaac.” She hugged him, harder than he expected, and longer too. He hugged her back, patted her shoulder, and let her squeeze as long as she needed. She then pulled away. “Can I see him?”
“Yes, of course. He’s heavily sedated right now, so he’s not going to respond to you or talk.”
Ellie huffed. “That’ll be a first.”
She burst into laughter, nervous laughter, the kind manifest from hours upon hours of stress. He laughed with her. “Now go…see your husband. Oana? You will accompany her?”
The young Sabbatarian nodded, took Ellie by the arm, and guided her into the room.
When they were alone, Christian said, “You did well in there, Isaac. The best I’ve ever seen.”
“Thank you. God was with me today.”
Christian nodded. “Why don’t you get some rest, my friend. I can keep an eye on Len for you. If anything comes up, I’ll let you know.”
Isaac shook his head. “No, not yet. There’s still one more patient to visit.”
✧ ✧ ✧
Isaac felt immediate guilt upon entering von Mercy’s room. Not because the general’s wound was worse than those suffered by his other two patients, but because of the result of their last meeting. Isaac had, in effect, publicly rebuked and embarrassed von Mercy in front of his staff. Isaac was expecting the general to refuse his treatment. He did nothing of the sort.
“Guten abend, Herr Doctor.” Von Mercy seemed in a good mood. Someone must have given him a sedative. Maybe opium. “Please, come in and give me a proper examination. These so-called physicians here cannot seem to settle on a proper diagnosis.”
Isaac leaned into one of the local physicians in attendance and whispered, “Do you have a supply of opium here in the capital?”
The man nodded. “Yes. As a vassal state of Sultan Murad, opium is available. Not in large quantities necessarily, but enough for pain management.”
Transylvania wasn’t a vassal state any longer, though Isaac figured that it would take some time for the citizenry to come to that realization. And, if the battle to come ended badly for the Army of the Sunrise, the man in front of him wouldn’t have to accept his country’s political changes at all. “Let’s talk after my examination of General von Mercy about what stores of opium are available.”
Isaac turned to his patient. “So, General…what ails ya?”
The up-time idiom seemed lost on von Mercy for a second, then he understood. “The bastards shot me in the leg.”
Von Mercy was lying on a bed with legs exposed. Isaac pulled on a clean pair of gloves and leaned over the left leg, taking hold of it carefully and turning it to see both sides of the wound. He nodded. “A clean shot right through.” Then he winced. “Looks like it nicked the femur…but just a centimeter or so. Any pain?”
“Not right now.”
Of course not, Isaac thought, rolling his eyes. All tanked up on opium, it was a wonder the general’s speech wasn’t slurred.
“Hand me my tweezers, please, Christian,” he said, pointing to the bag.
“Ah, yes, Captain von Jori,” von Mercy said. “Are your men ready for a fight?”
Christian reached into Isaac’s satchel, pulled out the needed tweezers, and handed them over. “Yes, General. They’re ready.”
“Good. I’m going to need my cavalry to sweep the field of these cowards who attack from the sky.”
“Who do you suspect they were, General?” Christian asked. “The ones who fired at you from the airship?”
Von Mercy shook his head. “I did not see the shot, young man. My attention was on Prince Rákóczi. But it’s our understanding that it was Moldavians who acquired the airship from Murad. The Moldavians!” He shook his head. “I guess we didn’t whip them hard enough at Déj.”
“Gentlemen,” Isaac said, leaning back from von Mercy’s thrashing leg. “Can you please discuss military matters later? I’m trying to remove a couple fragments here.”
The local physician now moved to settle von Mercy’s leg. Isaac thanked him and proceeded.
Von Mercy chuckled. “You’ll have to forgive my personal physician, Captain von Jori. He has a singular focus that can be…irritating.”
“Sir,” von Jori said, “Isaac Kohen is the finest physician I know.”
How many do you know? Isaac wanted to ask, but that would be petty and unproductive. Besides, given the look on von Jori’s face, he meant it.
The general mumbled something indecipherable and laid back down.
There were only two small fragments that Isaac found in his search. He plucked them out quickly and then helped the physician and the lone nurse given to von Mercy’s care rewrap the wound and set his leg down carefully.
Isaac then made a quick check on the general’s vitals, and said, “Okay, General von Mercy. You are a fortunate man. The shot went right through your leg, not striking any arteries. I’d say the tourniquet saved your life. A couple bone fragments off the femur. That alone will cause some significant pain for the next several days. But otherwise, you’re going to be fine. You’ll be off your feet, though, for weeks.”
Von Mercy shook his head and moved as if he were going to get up. “No, that’s not possible. There’s a battle coming. I have to be with my men.”
Isaac and Christian tried to hold him down. “No, sir,” Isaac said with a grunt as they worked to keep von Mercy calm. “Trust your doctor on this. Whatever you need to do for the army, it’ll have to be conducted from this room. And don’t you go thinking you’ll be riding a horse soon.”
“You take orders from me, sir,” von Mercy blurted, though the punch and potency of its authority was lacking due to the opium. “You take orders from—”
Isaac reached up and took von Mercy’s face into his hands. He turned the general’s head to look him in the eyes. “General…General. Look at me. Look at me!”
Von Mercy opened his droopy eyes. “You are on bed restriction until I say otherwise, sir. Your calf muscle was severely damaged. You’ve lost a lot of blood. You’re weak, disoriented, and I suspect in a lot of pain, which is why they gave you so much opium. You stay put. That’s an order from your physician. Please…trust your doctor.”
They laid his head down carefully, and von Mercy tried again to argue the point, but his speech was slurred, his resistance minimal.
“Let him rest,” Isaac said to the attending physician and nurse. “Do not give him so much opium again, is that clear? You check with me first on the dosage. And check his bandage hourly. Clean the wound in an hour, and apply a new bandage. Keep everything clean. We don’t want infection setting up in that wound. I’ll be back around in a few hours to check his status. Understand?”
Isaac turned to leave the room.
“Isaac.”
It was von Mercy’s voice. Isaac turned. “Yes, General.”
“I do trust my physician…completely.”