The Riverwoman’s Dragon

Waking Asa from a restorative sleep, Magda told her that she and the captain must see to her deeper injuries, warning her that there would be pain. Broken bones to set.

‘I can bear it,’ Asa whispered.

With a feather-light touch, Magda placed her hands on Asa’s swollen forearm, sensing the heat, feeling for any breaks in the flow of blood through the limb. She did the same over the hand, staying longer, the bones so intricate. Now she told Einar to do the same. She saw his reluctance, his doubt, but he extended his hands and she softly talked him through it, inquiring about what he felt. He missed the extent of the damage in the hand, misinterpreted a break in the forearm, but he had some ability, which she had expected after what he’d told her of his father, how folk believed him to be a gifted healer because of his uncanny ability to read a body with the lightest touch. In his eyes she saw his hunger to learn more.

Next Magda adjusted Asa’s shift so that she might place bare hands on the swollen rib cage. A possible break there. Wrapping it would support her when she coughed. She moved down to the leg. Though swollen and no doubt painful, and the ankle twisted badly, she sensed no breaks. It should not bear weight for a while, but would heal if packed and bandaged with a poultice of comfrey and arnica like what Bird-eye had applied. She commended both men on their gentle handling, and Bird-eye for the poultice.

‘Not as bad as I feared,’ said Asa with an attempt at a smile.

Drawing Owen to her worktable, Magda confided that splinters of bone in the arm would render the setting painful but she could not risk a strong sedative. Since childhood Asa responded to physicks in ways one could not anticipate.

‘Such a brutal attack,’ said Owen.

‘And the victim an aging woman with brittle bones. Magda will depend on thy strength to keep her still. She will feel the splinters, and the broken bones in her hand will shift painfully as Magda sets her arm.’ She saw his concern. ‘Afterward thou shalt wrap the hand in bandages dipped in a healing paste. Magda will wait a few days for the swelling to lessen before she dares splint the fingers.’

‘The hand will never heal well enough for her to draw, will it?’

‘No.’

She held his arm as his anger flared. ‘Calm thyself, Bird-eye. There is much work to do. Thou canst hunt this man after Asa sleeps with more ease. Now remove thy shirt. This will be bloody and hot – the fire must be stoked to keep Asa warm. She might lose much blood.’

‘You will open her?’

‘Likely the arm, yes.’

The procedure was as difficult and grueling as Magda had predicted. For it happened that Asa’s splintered bones could not be set until Magda removed some of the fragments impeding her work, a long, painful, bloody process. After hours in the warm house, his mind and body devoted to supporting Magda, Owen escaped into the afternoon air, drinking in the breeze from the river, resting his attention on the sound of water, feeling his fatigue.

Magda followed. Lifting her face to the sun she rose on her toes, stretched her arms toward the sky, and let out a long sigh. Owen marveled at the short, slender, aged woman, so agile and graceful after hours bending to difficult surgery. And to subject her own daughter to it – he did not think he could do it. Yet he knew it was the only hope for Asa to have use of the arm and hand. Uncertain as that was. Magda’s eyes were calm now, but it seemed to Owen that the worry lines in her aged face were deeper.