The Master of Verona

"I can manage," muttered the Paduan through a clenched jaw. He looked at Pietro. "Next time, Alaghieri, you won't have a woman's skirts to hide under."

"Next time," replied Pietro, "she won't be here to save you."

"Wait in line, Pietro," cried Mariotto, shouldering forward. "He's mine first."

"Over my dead body," said Antony, also pressing towards the Paduan. "I owe him a clout on the head."

"Children, children!" smirked Marsilio. "There's enough man in me to face you all." He made an elaborate bow to Donna Katerina. "Madonna mia, it is an honour to be under your roof. I hope I can feel the hospitality I've heard you extend to all your male guests."

Katerina smiled warmly. "Young man, your tongue would have to be a good deal more talented than that for me to extend such hospitality."

Startled in mid bow and aware of the muffled laughter at his expense, Marsilio scowled. "Putanna." The lady's only response was to nod politely. Yet somehow when he turned he managed to get his feet tangled up, one on the other. He landed on his wounded arm and let out a shriek. Bleeding on the rushes, he had to be carried off in the wake of the other prisoners.

Katerina looked to Mariotto. "Did I hear you say my brother-in-law was wounded?"

"Yes," he answered. "Shot by that little-"

"Yes, yes. He made it quite clear what he is." She whispered instructions to a maid, who then scampered off. Pietro inferred her chore was to discover where the elder Nogarola's wounds were being dressed, and by whom. Pietro pitied the short lord. If his wounds were not sufficiently grave, he would never hear the end of not seeking Katerina's aid.

The trio were escorted through a large receiving chamber into a private suite and told to recline on three fine daybeds. Their protests of soiling them came to nothing. "My maid Livia has a brother who is an upholsterer. I have been looking for a reason to employ him — at my brother's expense, of course."

The surgeon arrived. Introduced as Ser Dottore Morsicato, he was long-armed, barrel-chested, and bald with a forked beard that curled up at the tips. Around his neck was the ubiqitous symbol of the medicine man: the jordan, or urine glass. Modern diagnostic theory was the balance of the four humours — phlegm, blood, bile, and urine. The jordan was designed to collect any and all of these, but the one most often used for diagnosis was 'yellow bile' — hence the unsavory nickname of the glass. The doctor would collect his sample, then compare its colour with a chart that listed twenty or more distinctive shades, each with a short list of illnesses attached.

Today it was not the urine glass but the surgeon's saw that was required. "Good God," cried Morsicato sourly, examining the wounds, "I was brought here for this? There are men really hurt out there!" He dealt with Antony's head first, pronouncing him fit as long as he did not sleep for another twelve hours. "Strange things have been known to happen if a man sleeps after a blow to the head. Sometimes he doesn't awake again at all." Antony kept to his feet after that, pacing while the doctor dressed Mariotto's wound. It was rather superficial and was medicined with a salve the surgeon described only as "coming from Greece." He advised changing the dressing he wrapped about the youth's torso as often as three times a day.

With the two simpler wounds now behind him, the surgeon began to examine Pietro's leg. The lady tactfully withdrew as Pietro's ruined hose were cut away and the long process of removing the broken shaft of the crossbow bolt began.

Morsicato had long experience with battle wounds — indeed, most of his knowledge had been earned on one field of Mars or another — and thus knew the best way to remove such a shaft. The problem was that, in all Pietro's activity after receiving the wound, the broken shaft in his thigh had shifted slightly right to left. The doctor turned towards Mariotto and Antony. "I may need your help to hold him."

With fire, with boiling water, with strong hands and several different-sized blades, the surgeon went to work. To his credit, Pietro resisted crying aloud for a very long time. He spent agonized moments comparing his plight to the souls in torment in his father's work. He tried to joke about it. "The Malebranche's claws can't be as bad as this."

"Shhh," said Morsicato.

"Now, upside-down, with hot pokers at your feet, now that's painful…"

"Lie still," whispered Antony, holding his shoulders.

"No, I'm just saying that — damn — Hell can't be as bad as all that…"

"It's almost over," said Mari, hoping he wasn't lying.

Morsicato pulled one end as gently as he could, tapping the other end with a hammer. Pietro howled at last, fighting to move his limbs.

"Hold him!" shouted Morsicato.

But, blessedly, Pietro had fainted.

Nine