Glancing at me, he said, “Might get messy.”
My thought was that Flier should have had another mug or two of wine before this. But when looking at his face, his jaw was set, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
Spike spread more of the substance from the tree bark, this time over a larger area, and waited. Then, after feeling the knee with probing fingers, and without warning, he used the smaller knife to cut a slit. Yellow puss mixed with blood oozed out. Then more.
“Keep it cleared away so I can see,” he ordered, which made me turn to the two candles providing a dim, yellow light.
I wiped and cleaned, he made the incision longer, and used the tip of the knife to probe gently, not cutting, but feeling in the puss and blood welling up. He grinned at me and nodded. “Metal touching metal.”
He reached for a few rags and inserted them into the cut to gather the blood and puss, then pulled them back quickly and looked before the area filled with more blood. My small magic could keep the blood away, but Spike would sense something wrong. He might stop the operation if he suspected I’d done it. Sailors are superstitious, and they don’t like mages in any form.
He inserted his finger into the slit and nudged the arrowhead with a dirty fingernail. It didn’t seem to move, so he adjusted his finger and tried moving it the other way. “Stuck,” he muttered. “Bone probably grew around it.”
He reached for the pliers.
“Try again,” I said, fearing he’d need a much larger cut to get the pliers inside. Besides, I had other plans. I closed my eyes and reached my mind to the metal arrowhead. As Spike’s finger pushed, I exerted more and more pressure, first in one direction, then another. My breath quit. I ignored the sweat running down my forehead into my eyes. My magic pulled, pushed, twisted, and turned.
“There!” Spike almost shouted.
Flier screamed.
Their shouting exclamations startled me. Spike’s arm drew back, his fingers clutched an arrowhead as wide as my thumb. Flier sat, eyes wide, centered on the bloody object.
“Want it?” Spike asked him proudly.
Flier held out his palm. Spike dropped it in his hand.
We all looked as if it was the first we’d ever seen. It was covered in blood and who knows what else, but it was definitely an iron arrow tip, looking rusted, the tip slightly bent, probably from striking his knee bone.
Spike lurched to one side, reaching for rags as he pointed to blood flowing freely out of the knee and running down Flier’s leg. I took the rags and stemmed the flow as I cleaned up the floor and wooden side of the bed, while Spike dribbled a powder from a vial into the wound. Then he pulled a curved sewing needle used for carpets and a spool of thread heavy enough to repair sails.
“Better put some more of that tree-stuff on before you sew the wound,” I suggested and was rewarded with a nod from a white-faced Flier.
Spike was already reaching for it. “I know what I’m doing. Look away,” he told Flier again.
Flier winced and gritted his teeth with every stitch, but in the end, Spike did a respectable job of closing the cut. I folded the cleanest strips of cloth for a pad, and dirty ones to wrap around his knee to hold it in place. As soon as Spike left us, Flier used my shoulder for a crutch, and we limped two doors down to our cabin.
Spike had given me a powder to mix with water for Flier. His advice was to ignore his moans and make him drink the concoction no matter what. “Might take away some pain or not, but it’ll put him out for the night and half of tomorrow.”
I gave it to Flier and left him in the lower bed, his eyes already foggy. I had a mug or two of wine to drink. At the door of the salon, I’d intended to head to the gaming table and relax. It didn’t happen that way. Kendra stood and drew my attention. Yes, I’d forgotten we’d used her cabin instead of mine for the operation, and she had no idea of the outcome. In retrospect, we could have performed the operation in our cabin and used the powder to put him out before Spike made his cut.
“How is he?” she asked.
“Sleeping. But we pulled an arrowhead from the side of his knee. Every time the knee bent, there must have been excruciating pain. He bled all over your cabin. I tried to clean it up.”
“Don’t worry, we can finish up. Is he going to walk again? I mean, without a crutch?”
“I have no idea. But his knee was hot before we started. It was swelled and leaked pus. You were right. I could tell it was hot around his knee before we saw it.”
“So, your magic was helpful?” She grinned as if to say, I told you so.
Pouring a full mug of red wine, my least favorite but all they had tonight, I said, “Spike was going to make the cut much bigger so his pliers could get a grip on the arrowhead. It was stuck in bone. I convinced him to try with his fingers again. When he did, I assisted with my mind.”
“A smaller incision should mean less healing time.”
“You can take the girls to your cabin if you’d like,” I said while pouring more wine. I intended to drink several mugs.
“So you can get to the table and play your silly gambling game with those crude men. You’re not cheating them, are you?”
A direct answer was hard. There were times I could confess to manipulating the game, but never to win for myself. The stakes were generally very small, and the game was more for companionship and to pass the slack time on the ship. However, I’d caught three players cheating so far. As each was identified by me, they encountered a losing streak. One expressed, “Never had such bad luck.” The others just accepted their sudden losses.
Kendra waited for an answer. “I have no need for their copper coins.”
“Tomorrow, I wish to have some time for myself. Will you be free to escort the girls around the ship?”
It was impossible to refuse. She left me to the empty seat at the table and the raucous greetings of the players. To their delight, I lost the first three rounds. That was acceptable. They were all small. Then the fourth round came, and the pot grew and grew. I held three five-spots. Not the best hand by far, but one that seldom lost. I raised.
The coins in the center of the table shifted without a hand to move them, and for the first time, I noticed the ship was rolling side to side, and lurching ahead now and then. The moon had risen, and the silver streak of light usually upon the water was broken by waves. The wind tore the tops of each wave and churned the water white.
Before long, a partially filled mug slid across the table in my direction. I gathered it and handed an embarrassed player his drink. A sailor entered the salon and shouted for attention. “Pardon the interruption, but the captain says we’ve encountered a spot of foul weather. The outside decks will be closed until notice. Prepare your cabins for shifting cargo. If it ain’t nailed down, you better put it away before it flies and hits you in your face.”
He must have realized he’d insulted many of us. His face reddened, and he turned and ran from the salon as if chased by angry passengers. Behind him, the door was caught in a gust of wind and slammed shut with a bang loud enough to emphasize his words. Three of us were willing to stay and play, but the other three in the lounge stood and left. The few other people in the salon soon went to their cabins, leaving only us at the table.
I was about to deal when the ship rolled more than usual, and I had a mental image of Flier rolling from his bed while drugged and hurting himself in the fall. “Tomorrow,” I said to them as I stood, which turned out to be a lie, although not an intentional one.