CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Rory had two years of Pre-Med in college before switching majors. She had thought, long ago, that she wanted to be a doctor and even became a certified Emergency Medical Technician. But the lure of Biblical Archaeology had changed all that. Still, she knew quite a bit about medicine but she felt disoriented and out of her league when she entered Jeffrey’s chamber. There was a trail of blood on the floor where his sons had carried him to his bed. Rory followed the trail until she came to a very pale man upon his bed, bleeding heavily.
Kaleef was in the room but Jeffrey was conscious, refusing to allow the dark-skinned old man to touch him. There was quite a bit of chaos going on as Kieran and Sean tried to convince their father to allow the old man to work while Andrew advocated his father’s wishes. Christian had his father propped onto his side, holding a rag up against the bleeding wound. He stayed out of the argument going on over his head, having his hands full with a gushing injury.
Rory was a little wide-eyed at everything going on. She tugged on Kieran’s arm. “Why am I here?” she hissed.
Kieran’s face was pale, his features strained. “You know something of medicine, do you not?”
She looked around the room hesitantly, at all of the stressed faces, and her gaze returning to her husband. “Yes,” she replied. “But you have more experience tending battle wounds than I do. What in the hell happened to your father?”
Kieran didn’t answer her question. He glanced over at Kaleef. “Kaleef can save his life,” he grumbled. “But my father will not let the man near him. He believes Kaleef is a savage.”
Rory gazed up at Kieran, hearing the desperation in his voice. Once, Kaleef had saved Kieran’s life. Both Rory and Kieran knew what the old man was capable of, but no one else did. They had no idea that the tiny old man’s knowledge spanned mysticism and medicine, encompassing things that weren’t even known yet in modern times. He had the ability to suspend a life and then heal the body. The man had the ability to work miracles.
Pained to see the desperation on Kieran’s face, Rory made a bold decision. She left her husband, pushing past the servants and family crowded around the bed, and knelt down by Jeffrey’s head. Her face was inches from his as she spoke.
“Listen to me,” she half-hissed, half demanded, grabbing the man’s bloodstained hand. “If you want to live, you’ll let Kaleef tend you. Right now, you’re bleeding to death. There’s no time for this bullshit and stubbornness. Kieran wouldn’t suggest letting that old man tend you if he didn’t know for a fact that he had the ability to save your life. Do you really think he’d let some fool near you? Don’t you trust your son more than that?”
Jeffrey was pasty and in pain. He closed his eyes against Rory’s words as she spoke to him, but as she finished, his brown eyes opened. He was looking at her and Rory impulsively reached out, touching his bearded cheek.
“That old man saved Kieran’s life once,” she murmured. “I know because I was there. I saw it. Your son was dead and that man brought him back to life. He has that gift. You must let him examine you.”
Andrew had been listening to her. He knelt down next to Rory, focusing on his father. “Do not listen to her,” he insisted fearfully. “If you do not want the savage to touch you, then he shall not. We have sent for our surgeon. He will be here soon.”
“Your father will be dead soon,” Rory snapped, looking at the scared young man. “If you want your father to live, then you’ll tell him that he has to let Kaleef look at him. It’s his only chance to survive and time is trickling away the more we argue about it.”
Andrew was terrified. He looked back at Rory, a woman he did not know but a woman his oldest brother desperately loved and respected. He could see strength and confidence in her. Still, he was afraid for his father. He was afraid of the unknown.
Rory could see his dilemma. She held the young man’s gaze a moment longer before returning her focus to Jeffrey, grasping his hand again and squeezing it.
“My lord?” she whispered earnestly. “Will you please let Kaleef examine you? I would really like for you to meet your grandson in the fall.”
Jeffrey’s eyes flew open and he stared at her with a piecing gaze very reminiscent of Kieran. Kieran, in fact, had knelt down behind his wife, his enormous hand closing over hers as she squeezed Jeffrey’s fingers.
“Please,” Kieran begged in a whisper. “I swear this man can help you. I would not trust your life to someone whose skills I did not greatly respect.”
Jeffrey gazed at his eldest son, his son’s strange but beautiful wife, and closed his eyes. But as he did so, he nodded his head, briefly, but it was enough. Kieran bolted to his feet and waved over Kaleef, who was escorted through the servants and knights by Yusef.
“Do what you can for him.” It was a plea. “I would be grateful.”
Kaleef didn’t bother looking at the sons of Jeffrey Hage who were surrounding him. He went to work, rolling the man onto his stomach so he could gain a better look at the puncture wound to his back. Rory and Yusef jumped in to help him, making sure Jeffrey was comfortably moved. But Jeffrey was in agony lying on his stomach so Kieran and Sean lent their assistance, positioning their father so that he was not in excruciating pain.
Kaleef lifted the tunic, exposing Jeffrey’s back. The broadsword had entered his lower back, just above the pelvis on the left side. It was a clean cut that was bleeding profusely. After a few moments of visual examination, he turned to Kieran and Sean, standing next to him.
“From the manner in which your father is bleeding, vital veins have been cut,” he said quietly. “I do not have any of my instruments or medicaments with me. They were burned in Nahariya.”
Rory jumped into the conversation; she’d had Anatomy as part of her Pre-Med studies and understood some of what was going on. “If a major artery had been cut, he’d already be dead,” she said. “But you need to go in and sew up whatever is bleeding, and do it fast.”
Kaleef nodded firmly. “I will need a needle and thread, a goodly amount of alcohol, and the sharpest dagger you can find. Bring it to me now so that I may save this man’s life.”
Sean and Christian scattered, sending servants running for the requested items. Meanwhile, Rory was looking at Jeffrey, thinking that they had no anesthesia to offer him. The thought of digging into his back while he was conscious made her squeamish but she knew there was little choice. She turned to Kaleef.
“What options do we have to put him to sleep while you operate?” she asked.
Kaleef was in the process of very closely inspecting the oozing puncture. He lifted his head, looking at Rory curiously.
“Sleep?” he repeated. “He will not sleep.”
“Sorry, that’s not what I mean,” she tried again. “What I meant was, are there any options to take his pain away while you work on him? Maybe poppy?”
Kaleef shook his head. “I have no poppy.”
Rory thought quickly. “If I remember correctly, ether won’t be discovered for another seventy-five years yet,” she muttered to herself, wracking her brain to come up with something that could ease Jeffrey’s pain. “How about hemlock? That has sleep-inducing qualities, doesn’t it?”
Kaleef’s dark eyes glittered dully. “If I had my own medicaments, I could provide the lord with something for his pain,” he said softly. “I do not believe the Christians have these ingredients.”
“But they have a surgeon,” she insisted. “He must have something you can use. If you can get ahold of opium, that would do it.”
Kaleef shrugged just as a burly man entered the room, shoving the servants aside and calling for hot water. He froze when he came to the bed with Jeffrey upon it, staring at Rory and Kaleef as if they were from Mars. His fat, ruddy face grew more inflamed at the sight.
“Be gone!” he boomed, waving his arms. “Move aside!”
Kieran was suddenly in the man’s face. “This is my wife,” he growled. “You will keep a civil tongue in her presence. She is here to help my father and so is the man with her. You will give them all due respect and assist them or you will leave this place and never return.”
The burly surgeon looked rather startled to see Kieran Hage. He hadn’t heard that the man was returned from the Quest and his attitude changed dramatically. “My lord Kieran,” he offered and stepped back, bowing apologetically. “I did not know you were returned, my lord. Praise God that you did not suffer in your journey.”
Kieran eyed the man he had known the majority of his life. The surgeon was arrogant and brash, but knowledgeable. His tight manner softened as he turned to Rory and Kaleef. “This is Marcuson,” he indicated the big, hairy man. “He is Southwell’s surgeon. Tell him what you need and he will ensure that you receive it.”
Kaleef was literally half the size of the man; a tiny, shriveled old man with a leather-like face against a bull of a pale-skinned man. As he gazed up at the fat Englishman with some trepidation, Andrew suddenly cried out.
“He is not breathing!” He was kneeling at Jeffrey’s head, his young face full of panic. “He has stopped breathing!”
Everyone in the room whirled to Jeffrey’s still form, startled by the cry. A couple of the serving women, standing near the door, began to wail. Rory was the first one to react. She ran to Jeffrey, trying to flip him onto his back. “Help me!” she cried. “Turn him onto his back!”
Without question, Kieran, Sean and Christian moved in swiftly, rolling Jeffrey onto his back as Rory held his head and neck carefully. Once the man was flat on his back, Rory adjusted Jeffrey’s head, tipped it back slightly, pinched his nose and blew into his mouth. As the room watched in shock, she counted to five, blew into Jeffrey’s mouth, and repeated the process five times. Then she leapt up onto the man’s chest and put her ear against it, listening.
No one had any idea what she was doing, least of all Kieran. Everyone was looking to him for answers but he had none to give. All he knew was that his wife possessed knowledge about medicine that he could never hope to understand. He knew he had to let her do whatever she was doing because she was trying to help his father. He kept telling himself that. But when she suddenly sat up on Jeffrey’s chest and brought a fist onto his sternum, hard, even he began to wonder if she’d lost her mind. She was beating the man right in front of them.
Rory began CPR, her hands folded against Jeffrey’s chest and counting out each thrust she delivered. After four rounds of five-counted thrusts, she scrambled back over to Jeffrey’s head and blew in his mouth in the same counted fashion. The vision was growing increasingly disturbing for those who did not know what she was trying to accomplish. Finally, Sean hissed to Kieran.
“What is she doing?” he asked.
Kieran, eyes riveted to his wife, shook his head slowly. “I do not know,” he admitted. “But whatever she is doing, you must let her complete it.”
Rory moved back and forth between chest compressions and breathing, counting everything out with even, measured strokes. No one dared offer to help. But after five rounds of the breathing and chest compressions, Marcuson finally boomed up.
“She is killing him,” he declared, turning to Kieran. “Will you let her kill your father?”
Kieran was on edge after what had happened that night. His patience was gone and he could not withstand a personal attack on Rory. He moved for the old surgeon menacingly but was intercepted by Sean. Kieran glanced at his brother’s pleading face and calmed somewhat, although he was still righteously angry.
“Another word and I will throw you from this keep,” he rumbled. “She is not killing him. She is attempting to help him.”
The old surgeon wisely kept his mouth shut but he was not convinced. He was horrified at what he saw, more distressed that the Hage brothers were allowing it to go on. He was, therefore, pleased when Andrew rushed up to Kieran, horror on his face.
“Stop her,” he begged. “You cannot allow her to kill father!”
Kieran could see how distressed everyone was. He was distressed, too. But because he trusted his wife, he was permitting her to continue. But these people did not know her as he did, of her amazing abilities and altruistic deeds. His gaze moved between his brothers and Rory, who was still working furiously on their father. With a faint sigh, he finally moved towards the bed as his wife alternately blew in his father’s mouth and pushed on his chest.
“Lib?” he said hesitantly. “What are you doing? Kaleef must…”
She cut him off as she straddled Jeffrey’s chest and resumed thrusting. “He can’t work on a dead man,” she grunted as she worked. “I’m trying to get him breathing again.”
Kieran still wasn’t clear. “But what are you doing?”
“CPR,” she grunted again, turning to look at his perplexed face. “It’s called Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation. I’m trying to get his heart and lungs working again.”
She said it loud enough that nearly everyone heard her. Then she suddenly stopped and put her ear against his chest again, listening. Kieran leaned closer as if he could hear whatever she was listening for. She lay there, concentrating, until a smile slowly creased her lips. Then she put her fingers on Jeffrey’s neck, feeling for the pulse. Satisfied, she sat up and held out a hand to Kieran, who helped her climb off his father’s chest.
“He’s breathing on his own and I can feel a pulse.” She looked at Kaleef. “Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better do it fast. His pulse is weak and his breathing is shallow.”
Kaleef’s dark eyes glimmered at her and she swore she saw a flash of a smile. Perhaps, in this lady, he saw someone as strange and talented as he was in the medicinal arts. He understood her where no one else could. He moved past her, rattling off orders to Yusef and Marcuson. The men went to work on Jeffrey as the rest of the room seemed fixated on Rory. She noticed that everyone was staring at her as if she had just resurrected a corpse. But she realized that, to them, she had. She had just accomplished something very strange and very wonderful. Andrew was suddenly beside her.
“You…” He had an incredulous expression on his face. “You brought him back to life.”
She shook her head. “Nothing so amazing,” she said. “It’s a simple technique, really. It’s not magic, I promise.”
Andrew wasn’t convinced. “But he was dead,” he insisted strongly. “He was not breathing and you gave him life again.”
Rory was growing the slightest bit uncomfortable; she didn’t like the implications. She didn’t want people to think she was a witch. “Trust me, he wasn’t dead,” she replied. “He was still very much alive. I just helped him to start breathing again. Sometimes great trauma to the body can shock it and… well, believe me, he wasn’t dead. He was very much alive.”
“She works miracles,” Sean said, his dark eyes glittering with renewed respect. “My brother has married a most amazing woman and I, for one, am very grateful. Thank you for your skill, Lady Hage.”
She smiled thankfully at Sean’s gracious statement. It didn’t make her sound like she had the powers of darkness over life and death. Looking over her shoulder, she could see that Kaleef seemed to have enough help with Jeffrey. She didn’t really think she could help him through Medieval surgery, anyway. The mere thought made her queasy. She turned back to her husband.
“I am really exhausted,” she said quietly, pressing her weary body against him. “I would love it if I could just go to bed now.”
Kieran put his powerful arm around her shoulders and, without another word, whisked her from the room. Those left behind were still attempting to process the amazing skills of Kieran’s very strange and beautiful new wife. But for Sean, Christian and Andrew, a serious respect for the woman began to bloom. As far as they were concerned, she had brought their father back to life.
Maybe she really was as wonderful as Kieran said.