"Perhaps they are another clan of the Bad Ones."
"Perhaps. We will follow them."
"Carefully," the first man to speak said. "These are not quite so clumsy in the bush, either."
King Shuriash was far too proud a man to show emotion before a foreigner, particularly anguish over so slight a thing as a concubine's likely death in childbirth, and that during a war as well. But Lieutenant (Medical Corps, Republic of Nantucket Coast Guard) Justin Clements recognized it well enough.
"Can you save her?" the Babylonian asked abruptly.
"My lord king, that I cannot answer until I have seen the woman," the doctor said. "It may be that I can; it may be that it is beyond my powers or that it is too late."
Shuriash's heavy-featured face showed somber approval. "It is well," he said. "So many promise more than they can do, especially to kings." A wry, difficult smile showed strong yellow teeth. "But I have noticed that you Nantukhtar are more likely to throw the truth in my beard than to dip it in honey. Will you try?"
"It is an honor to help the household of our host, lord king," he said-or hoped he'd said; this archaic-Semitic language was awkward in his mouth, despite nearly a year's drill.
"Very well," the king said. To the eunuch guards: "Show him to the women's quarters, him and his assistants."
The journey wasn't long, although the tall, dim corridors of the palace were a labyrinth. And the eunuchs make my skin crawl, he thought. Poor bastards. It was mostly the thought of deliberate mutilation that disgusted him, but part of it was sheer elemental repulsion. And maybe it's because one reason they don't look more mutinous than they do is that I'm clean-shaven-which no man in the land of Kar-Duniash was-and because, face it, I'm a little plump too. Objectively the eunuchs knew he was a whole man. Subconsciously, they probably perceived him as one of their own.
The passages of the palace wound inward, hung with bright knotted or woven rugs up to head height while the walls above bore scenes of palm trees, griffins and fabulous beasts, winged hawk-headed men bearing objects that probably meant something if you knew the symbolism. The floor was terra-cotta, covered in woven mats of rush or straw dyed in pleasing colors; the whole effect should have been gaudy but wasn't, and it lightened the massiveness of the adobe architecture. At last they crossed an open courtyard, and thence into a last suite of rooms.
We should supply them with bicycles or skateboards, Clemens thought. This place is bloody enormous. Although a palace here was far more than a king's house; it held warehouses, barracks, armories, libraries, and office space for most of the civil service as well.
"Here is the birthing chamber," one of the eunuchs said.
Clemens's nose and ears had warned him. Most of the palace smelled slightly of wool and people, with an underlying hint of wood-smoke and incense. Now he could detect sickroom odors-sweat, blood, urine. Two smooth-cheeked guards brought their spears up, then lowered them uncertainly as the escorting eunuchs waved them aside.
The room within was not very large but crowded. Mostly with women and eunuchs, although he recognized a few bearded figures in the fringed shawls of priests, and others who were probably priestesses. They flickered across his consciousness without much impact. It was the naked figure on the birthing stool that caught and held all his focus.
Too young, he thought at once; fifteen, possibly a little more. Thin, and slender in the hips, so that the swollen belly showed all the more plainly. A ripple went across it as he watched, but the girl was too far gone to scream. Blood dribbling down between her legs, but not the arterial gushing that would mean it was too late-
"Out! " he roared, turning on the small mob of spectators and flushing them out the door, nearly pushing when they jammed. "Smith, Kelantora"-to his assistants-"get her up on that!"
"That" was a table off to one side; he grabbed it and dragged it into the center of the room. A cloth from one of his bags went over it, and he glanced around. No time to transfer her. We'll have to do it here. God help us, what a germ farm.
It was then that he noticed a third figure helping transfer the panting, sweat-slick figure of the girl to the table. A woman, gaunt-faced under a plain headdress but young, in her twenties; a big hooked nose and receding chin, huge dark eyes. In a long robe with a shawl pinned over it, stained with blood and fluids that also splashed her strong, long-fingered hands.
"Who are you?" he snapped. "The midwife?"
Level black eyes looked at him. "No," she said. "The sabsutu"- midwife-"and the ashipu"-sorcerer, his mind prompted, or witch doctor-"have left. I am an asu."
That meant "physician," or as close as Akkadian came to having a word for it. Extremely unusual for a woman to claim such a title, but she couldn't be lying, not here in the royal palace. Of course, a witch doctor had higher prestige; to a Babylonian's way of thinking, physical treatments were superficial, a mere tending of symptoms. Only a supernatural approach got at the root causes of illness.
"I am an asu as well, of the Nantukhtar, the Eagle People," he said, as he laid out his instruments on another sterile cloth. "The king has asked me to save this woman's life."
"That cannot be done," the Babylonian woman said flatly. "The child is misaligned and cannot be turned-the midwife tried, and she is skilled in her craft. The woman will surely die within three hours."
Clemens looked up. He found not the cool indifference the tone suggested, but an utter and burning frustration.
"Perhaps, and perhaps not. Do you wish to help?" he said. She nodded, a single sharp gesture. "Then you must obey my orders without argument." Another nod. "First, go tell them that I need water. Water in bronze vessels, several of them, heated until it boils-have them put more on the fire and keep it boiling until I need it. And clean cloth-boil the cloth too, first. And wash-rub this on yourself, wash in the boiled water, and dress in this. Put this mask across your mouth. Hurry.'"
The operation that followed was a nightmare that he never remembered very clearly, except for an occasional question-questions that somehow didn't distract him, that soothed his mind away from gibbering panic and allowed his training to move his fingers.
Tapping the hypodermic…
"What is that?"
"An extract of poppyseed. It banishes pain and makes the patient sleep… Smith, is the autoclave heating?"
" Yessir." The safety valve hissed, and the assistant swung it off the charcoal brazier with tongs and popped it open.
"You will use the sipir bel imti?"
His Akkadian seemed to improve under stress; "the way of cutting with sharp bronze" came through easily.
"Yes. The child must be removed from the womb."
"Then the girl must die, as I said?"
"No. Although it may happen."
The first incision, and the skin peeling back from the cut like saran wrap under tension. Smith and Kelantora setting up the saline drip…
"What is that?"
"Very pure water with salt and a few other things. It replaces some of the blood lost during an operation. Blood is better, but it must be matched or it will be poison." He switched to English. "Smith, type her. We might luck out. And type her, too. I don't like the way the hemorrhage is increasing."
Deeper, through the subcutaneous fat. Clamps, the cut held back with extensors, sutures for the spurting veins-clamp and tie off…
"What is that?"
"Catgut-thread made from sheep intestine. Kelantora, get the extensor in here-and move that lamp closer, I need to see what I'm doing."
The Babylonian woman picked up a cloth and imitated Smith, swabbing off his forehead to keep sweat from dripping into the working area.