Claiming the Forbidden Bride. Gayle Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ at the front of the caravan, they stood in its narrow aisle, awaiting Nadya’s instructions. If she asked them, they would remove his wet clothing, but she found that, despite the shivers that now occasionally racked his body, she would rather do all that herself.

      There was little room in her profession for prudishness. Not when lives were at stake. That was the first thing her paternal grandmother, who had been drabarni before her, had taught her. The mysteries of the human body. All of them.

      ‘Thank you,’ she said to the men without looking up.

      ‘You want us to help you undress him, drabarni?’

      ‘I’m not sure how badly he’s injured. Maybe it would be better if I determine that first.’

      ‘As you wish, drabarni. Call us when you need us.’

      She had asked Anis to take Angeline to Magda for the night, so that, as the last of her helpers exited her caravan, she found herself alone with the Englishman. She bent over the platform bed she had converted for her patients’ use from what had once been her father’s workbench.

      Thom Argentari had been a silversmith of great renown, even in the world of the gadje. He had bought this caravan from a travelling showman in order to have a safe place to keep his tools and the precious gemstones and metals with which he worked. At his death, the vardo had passed to Nadya.

      As soon as she’d entered tonight, she had lit the lamp that provided light for the front of the caravan. Now, as she moved it to the table at the head of the bed, her initial impression of the injured man’s features was verified.

      The gaujo would be considered handsome by any standards. Even, she acknowledged, her too exacting ones.

      Dismissing that evaluation from her mind, she gently turned his face into the lamplight, examining it for injuries. She found what she had expected, given his prolonged unconsciousness, above his left temple. The gash no longer bled, but with a blow to the head, she knew that whatever was going on beneath the skin was often more serious than what was visible.

      Carefully, using only the sensitive tips of her fingers, she felt the area around the cut. Then, using the same method, she traced over the rest of his skull, searching for the telltale signs of fracture as her grandmother had taught her.

      When she straightened, this part of her examination complete, it was with a sense of relief. She had felt no breaks in the bone that protected the brain. As for his continuing unconsciousness.

      She shook her head, still puzzled by that. Then she directed the same careful attention she’d given his head to the rest of his body. She felt along his torso and then down each extremity, looking for damage, which her experienced fingers would quickly identify. Once more she discovered nothing.

      Now she sat down on the edge of the bed besideher patient. She struggled a moment to understand the intricate folds of the knotted cloth at his neck, but was soon able to pull it free. When she had, she pushed aside the edges of his shirt to expose his throat.

      She placed her fingers against the pulse in his neck, reassured by its strong and steady beat. After a moment, she raised her hand to put the back of it against his forehead.

      The heat she found there confirmed her suspicions. Since she had found no other injury that would explain his condition, the gaujo was obviously developing a fever, undoubtedly the result of exposure after his immersion in the icy water.

      As she began to take off the rest of his garments, she tamped down a renewed sense of outrage at the girl who had left him, injured and alone, on its banks. Quickly discovering the impossibility of removing his coat, given the fashionable snugness of its fit, she briefly considered sending for her helpers. Instead, in the interest of efficiency, she used the tip of a knife to slit the seams, removing it in pieces and then the waistcoat.

      She decided that, with its looser fit, she should be able to take off his shirt by slitting it from the deep neck opening to the hem. Once that was done, she eased his right arm from its sleeve by the simple expedient of rolling his body slightly toward the front of the bed as she’d worked the material off.

      That accomplished, she slipped her arm under his left shoulder in order to push his torso in the opposite direction, which would then allow her to remove the other sleeve. As soon as she applied pressure, he moaned, the sound low and anguished, as inarticulate as an animal in pain.

      Startled, Nadya glanced up to find his eyes were still closed. Perhaps this shoulder had been dislocated when he’d jumped into the water. That could be remedied easily enough, although she would have to call the men back in to hold him while she manipulated the joint into place.

      She eased him down against the bed and then pushed aside his shirt. As soon as she did, she realized the injury that had caused him to cry out in pain had been inflicted long before his rescue of Angeline. Hardened by years of dealing with the variety of wounds and accidents suffered by members of the tribe, she was still shocked by the extent of the scarring. Was it possible he still had the use of his arm after such damage?

      She pushed his sleeve upward, revealing that the muscle in both the lower and upper arm appeared almost normal. Despite whatever had happened to him, the limb hadn’t atrophied. Manipulating his shoulder more carefully now, she managed to remove the shirt without provoking any other outcry.

      As she tucked a dry blanket around her patient, she bent to take another look at the cut on his head. There was still no swelling, and the clot seemed to be holding.

      Other than that, she had found no evidence of new injuries. In an older person, she might suspect an inflammation of the lungs. In someone his age, who seemed to be in relatively good physical condition, that seemed unlikely.

      All she could do tonight was watch over him. If his fever increased, there were remedies for that, even if she was unsure of its cause.

      In her very limited experience with prolonged unconsciousness, there were only two possible outcomes. He would wake up on his own, his faculties intact. If he didn’t, eventually he would die. And despite all her grandmother’s careful teaching, Nadya knew of nothing that could tip the scales toward the more favourable outcome.

      As she had expected, due to the rapid onset of symptoms, her patient’s fever began to climb during the night. She knew that her English colleagues, with the advantage of their medical degrees, would at this point begin a very rigidly proscribed course of treatment. The patient would be bled and then blistered. If the fever did not abate, both remedies would be repeated until it did. Or until he died.

      Nadya instituted instead a regimen she had learned from her grandmother. She’d had the men remove the rest of his clothing, and then, despite the night chill, she pulled the blankets they had put over the Englishman down to his waist. Using a cloth dipped into a basin of water drawn from the barrel that served as the camp’s cistern, she bathed his face, neck and torso.

      At first, his shivering had increased, so strongly that at one point his teeth rattled with the strength of the tremors. He tossed and turned, as if trying to escape the discomfort of what she was doing, but she persisted.

      On the morning of the third day, when the congestion of the lungs she feared had not materialized, she added another of her grandmother’s remedies to the treatment. With endless patience she dribbled tea brewed from her small supply of a dried bark, supposedly acquired from some medicinal tree in Peru, between his parched lips.

      At some СКАЧАТЬ