That the Prince of Dol Amroth carried out most of his second courtship while lying
flat on his back is testimony to his considerable powers of charm. Not many
men could do that, and certainly not with my curmudgeonly colleague, Lutha, the
Master Surgeon of Rohan, as their object. It would not occur to many men
to try.
I was an apprentice to Lutha that year, the year of King Eomer's first campaign
into Rhun, when the lords of the West were quietly preparing for the war
they knew was brewing in Harad. I have no head for politics, and although
Lutha and Mervyn tried repeatedly to explain the motives and machinations
of the gaggle of diplomats who travelled at the front of Elessar's battelion,
I never understood more than that the kings wanted to stabilize the East
through trade agreements before chaos broke loose in the South. Power
balances shifted fast in Rhun in those days, and it took more than one campaign
to bully the chieftains into harmony and brotherly love.
But if anyone wishes to study the fates of the nations, let him visit the
libraries of Minas Tirith. As I said, mine is a love story.
Lutha, at the time of the king's first eastern campaign, did not look a likely
candidate for matrimony. She was a large, intimidating woman, not tall
but broad, big-breasted and bellied, and even stronger than she appeared.
She had a round, red face that bespoke sense and experience more than beauty
or gaiety. She had been on the Pelennor and had grey in her hair to
show for it. "My Battleaxe," King Eomer liked to call her, grinning
down from his enormous horse. "Fine metaphor for a surgeon," Lutha
growled testily on one occasion when I was standing by. "Your tutors
would be so proud." Eomer had laughed heartily at the insult and cantered
back to the front of the line, his yellow braids swinging in the sunshine.
The Prince of Dol Amroth lay face down on the cot, bare to the waist. A
down-sweeping axe had caught him from behind, spliting open his back from the
top of his shoulderblade to the bottom of his ribcage. Had he not pressed
his own attack forward the instant before, the blow would have cloven his head
in two. The wound was deep, and jagged where the blade had knocked against
bone and continued on a diagonal. He had fallen on his back, both arms useless,
and stayed there, feeling the blood drain out of him, for the rest of the battle.
"Bluebottle eggs."
"What?"
"Bluebottle eggs, about two days from hatching, by now … rather good timing."
The prince, who was already pale, turned paler. "If I understand –
do you mean to say … maggots?" he spluttered.
"Indeed. They will dine on the dead tissue surrounding your wound,
and thus reduce the chance of gangrene. After a couple of weeks they
will turn into harmless, rather pretty, shiny blue flies, and fly away."
"You are proposing to infest me with maggots," was all the prince could say.
"I already have," amended Lutha cheerfully.
Imrahil was silent for a moment, apparently gathering his strength. "I do
not approve," he said at last, weakly but with great determination. Lutha's
eyebrows went up, but the rest of her features remained professionally neutral.
"I am not a squeamish man, but I … every feeling revolts." I
looked at Imrahil and decided that whatever he said about feelings, his stomach
looked the likelier. Under the pretense of ordering the room, I quietly
moved a bucket closer to the bedside. Lutha's eyes flicked toward it, then
fixed again on wounded man's face. "I cannot abide the thought of being
food for … No. This is not medicine. Dead men may feed worms;
I shall not." He sank back onto the pillow and shut his eyes.
He should never have mentioned medicine. On nearly every point, Lutha was
willing to concede that the Gondorrim knew more of healing than the Rohirrim.
She had completed her apprenticeship in the court of Theoden, had learned to read
and value book-learning, had gone then to Gondor to study with the Masters and
haunt their libraries. She had taken the Oath of Galenil, and come back
to Rohan to teach his principles to anyone who would learn them. Still,
Lutha never forgot her earliest training in the North of her childhood, among
the wives with their strange folk remedies that had kept the ranches running long
before Galenil ever drilled holes in skulls or lectured on inflammation.