I didn’t wish to distract the bonesetter’s attention to his case, but Monsieur Forez appeared sunk in thought, slowly circling the patient, sidling back and forth like a large carrion crow, cautious lest the victim not be really dead yet. He did look rather like a crow, I thought, with that prominent beak of a nose, and the smooth black hair that he wore unpowdered, slicked back to a wispy knot at the nape of his neck. His clothes, too, were black and somber, though of good quality – evidently he had a profitable practice outside the Hôpital.
At last deciding on his course of action, Monsieur Forez lifted his chin from his hand and glanced around for assistance. His eye lighted on me, and he beckoned me forward. I was dressed in a coarse linen novice’s gown, and lost in his concentration, he did not notice that I didn’t wear the wimple and veil of a nursing sister.
“Here, ma soeur,” he directed, taking hold of the patient’s ankle. “Grasp it tightly just behind the heel. Do not apply pressure until I tell you, but when I give the word, draw the foot directly toward you. Pull very slowly, but with force – it will take considerable strength, you understand.”
“I understand.” I grasped the foot as directed, while Monsieur Forez made his slow and gangling way toward the other end of the pallet, glancing contemplatively at the fractured leg.
“I have a stimulant here to assist,” he said, drawing a small vial out of his coat pocket and setting it beside the patient’s head. “It constricts the blood vessels of the surface skin, and drives the blood inward, where it may be of more use to our young friend.” So speaking, he grasped the patient by the hair and thrust the vial into the young man’s mouth, skillfully decanting the medicine down his throat without spilling a drop.
“Ah,” he said approvingly as the man gulped and breathed deeply. “That will help. Now, as to the pain – yes, it is better if we can numb the leg, so he will be less inclined to resist our efforts as we straighten it.”
He reached into his capacious pocket once more, this time coming out with a small brass pin, some three inches in length, with a wide, flat head. One bony, thick-jointed hand tenderly explored the inside of the patient’s thigh near the groin, following the thin blue line of a large vein beneath the skin. The groping fingers hesitated, paused, palpated in a small circle, then settled on a point. Digging a sharp forefinger into the skin as though to mark his place, Monsieur Forez brought the point of the brass pin to bear in the same place. Another quick reach into the pocket of marvels produced a small brass hammer, with which he drove the pin straight into the leg with one blow.
The leg twitched violently, then seemed to relax into limpness. The vaso-constrictor administered earlier did in fact seem to be working; the ooze of blood from the severed tissues was markedly less.
“That’s amazing!” I exclaimed. “What did you do?”
Monsieur Forez smiled shyly, a faint rosiness staining his blue-shadowed cheeks with pleasure at my admiration.
“Well, it does not always work quite so well,” he admitted modestly. “Luck was with me this time.” He pointed at the brass pin, explaining, “There is a large bundle of nerve endings there, Sister, what I have heard the anatomists call a plexus. If you are fortunate enough to pierce it directly, it numbs a great deal of the sensations in the lower extremity.” He straightened abruptly, realizing that he was wasting time in talk that might better be spent in action.
“Come, ma soeur,” he ordered. “Back to your post! The action of the stimulant is not long-lasting; we must work now, while the bleeding is suppressed.”
Almost limp, the leg straightened easily, the splintered ends of bone drawing back through the skin. Following Monsieur Forez’s orders, I now grasped the young man about the torso, while he maneuvered the foot and lower leg, so that we applied a constant traction while the final small adjustments were made.
“That will do, Sister. Now, if you will but hold the foot steady for a moment.” A shout summoned an orderly with a couple of stout sticks and some rags for binding, and in no time we had the limb neatly splinted and the open wounds firmly dressed with pressure bandages.
Monsieur Forez and I exchanged a broad smile of congratulation over the body of our patient.
“Lovely work, that,” I praised, shoving back a lock of hair that had come unbound during our exertions. I saw Monsieur Forez’s face change suddenly, as he realized that I wore no veil, and just then the loud bonging of the Vespers bell rang from the adjacent church. I glanced openmouthed at the tall window at the end of the ward, left unglassed to allow unwholesome vapors to pass out. Sure enough, the oblong of sky was the deep half-indigo of early evening.
“Excuse me,” I said, starting to wriggle out of the covering gown. “I must go at once; my husband will be worried about me coming home so late. I’m so glad to have had the chance of assisting you, Monsieur Forez.” The tall bonesetter watched this disrobing act in patent astonishment.
“But you… well, no, of course you are not a nun, I should have realized that before… but you… who are you?” he asked curiously.
“My name’s Fraser,” I told him briefly. “Look, I must go, or my husband…”
He drew himself up to his full gawky height, and bowed with deep seriousness.
“I should esteem it a privilege if you would allow me to see you home, Madame Fraser.”
“Oh… why, thank you,” I said, touched at his thoughtfulness. “I have an escort, though,” I said, looking vaguely around the hall for Fergus, who had taken over escort duty from Murtagh, when he was not needed to steal something. He was there, leaning against the doorjamb, twitching with impatience. I wondered how long he had been there – the sisters wouldn’t allow him into the main hall or the wards, always insisting that he wait for me by the door.
Monsieur Forez eyed my escort dubiously, then took me firmly by the elbow.
“I will see you to your door, Madame,” he declared. “This section of the city is much too dangerous in the evening hours for you to be abroad with no more than a child for protection.”
I could see Fergus swelling with indignation at being called a child, and hastened to protest that he was an excellent escort, always taking care to guide me by the safest streets. Monsieur Forez paid no attention to either of us, merely nodding in a stately manner to Sister Angelique as he steered me through the huge double doors of the Hôpital.
Fergus trotted at my heels, plucking at my sleeve. “Madame!” he said in a urgent whisper. “Madame! I promised the master that I would see you safely home each day, that I would not allow you to associate with undesirable-”
“Ah, here we are. Madame, you sit here; your boy may have the other seat.” Ignoring Fergus’s yapping, Monsieur Forez picked him up and tossed him casually into the waiting carriage.
The carriage was a small open one, but elegantly equipped, with deep blue velvet seats and a small canopy to protect the passengers from sudden inclemencies of weather or slops flung from above. There was no coat of arms or other decoration on the equipage’s door; Monsieur Forez was not of the nobility – must be a rich bourgeois, I thought.
We made polite conversation on the way home, discussing medical matters, while Fergus sulked in the corner, glowering under the ragged thatch of his hair. When we pulled up in the Rue Tremoulins, he leaped over the side without waiting for the coachman to open the door, and sprinted inside. I stared after him, wondering what ailed him, then turned to take my farewell of Monsieur Forez.
“Really, it is nothing,” he assured me graciously, in response to my profuse thanks. “Your residence lies along the path I take to my own house, in any case. And I could not have trusted the person of such a gracious lady to the Paris streets at this hour.” He handed me down from the carriage, and was opening his mouth to say more, when the gate slammed open behind us.