“Butler, bring him some tea and food,” bellowed the roundest doctor after he had finished poking and prodding him.
Of course, Fatty wants me to eat the moment I’m conscious, he thought as they finally replaced his covers and backed away. “I’m not hungry.”
“Lord Sorrell, you need your rest and plenty of nourishment after the ordeal you have been through,” the barrister began pompously, counting off the events on his fingers. “The crash, the fire, the surgeries—”
“Wha—what surgeries?” Eilian stammered, suddenly feeling very alert.
Patrick paused with his hand poised on the door. Somehow he knew this moment would not go well. He looked back at his master’s eyes and found them wide and full of the terror one only sees in a child.
“We amputated your right arm.”
“You did what?” he yelled hoarsely as he struggled to sit upright.
“We excised it.”
“Wait, wait, I don’t understand.”
“We cut it off.”
“I know what excise and amputate mean, you dolt! Why would you do this?”
Eilian grabbed the edge of the sheets and pulled them away to reveal a heavily bandaged and bloodied stump where his right arm had been. He hadn’t realized it was gone. In his mind, the fingers were still wriggling. He tried to lift it, but the movement sent sharp pains through his chest and what remained of his arm. The breath caught in his throat as Eilian ran his fingers over the end of his shortened limb. It was true. It was gone. His eyes watered as he stared at it before turning back to the group of men at his feet.
“Why did you do this?” he choked with tears burning his lids. “Was— was there no other way?”
“There was simply no other choice. You simply must accept that it had to be done,” the doctor replied in the same arrogant manner as before. “You have much more convalescence ahead of you.”
The anger steadily rose up his throat, threatening to venomously spew out. Each physician was staring down at him, making him feel less than human. How dare they speak so offhandedly about his altered state. The flippant yet portentous manner in which they had dealt with him was enough to make him strike them if he had the strength.
“Get out!” Eilian roared. “All of you, get out!”
“Lord Sorrell, you have no right to be ill tempered with us,” reprimanded the corpulent doctor.
“I am still master of this house, and I have every right to be ill tempered!” He pointed at each of them with his left hand. “All of you, out!”
They both separately turned to protest, but the fire in his eyes and the authority he exuded even in his deteriorated state deterred them. As the barrister stormed out with a slam of the bedroom door, Patrick watched the strength seeped from Eilian’s body as he gradually sunk into the pillows. The butler hesitated at the door. The doctors he had brought to care for his boss were leaving while he was still on the verge of death, and worse yet his master had been the one to dismiss them. Lord Sorrell held his head in his hand and fought back the tears collecting behind his eyes.
“Sir,” Patrick began uncomfortably, “do you want me to escort them out or would you like them out of the room temporarily?”
“Show them out. Tell them they will be paid later.”
Patrick nodded and disappeared into the hall.
Eilian raised his left arm and stared at his wrapped, swollen hand. Every muscle ached as he reached up and touched his face. The skin was puffy near a few cuts that were stitched closed, but it was wholly unburned. As he inched toward his chin, the sting of healing blisters became more pronounced. What state was he in? His neck and jaw were bandaged as was his chest and torso on the right side. He reached below the sheets and ran his hand over the gauze around his thigh. He tapped his big toes against each other. Both feet are here, so both of my legs are intact.
“Hello,” he said to himself, testing his speech. “How are you? The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
Apart from being slightly weak, he could pronounce every syllable even with the tight wrappings encumbering his jaw. He then promptly ran his tongue over his teeth. Thank goodness they are all there. Despite hating that he would eventually inherit a title, he didn’t want to look like a common beggar or be forced to wear dentures. As he reached up to touch his teeth, his heart sank. His fingers would never reach. The nub hung suspended in midair. Eilian knew his hand and forearm were missing, but he could feel his fingers clenching and relaxing. Did his body not realize it was gone?
“Sir, are you all right?” Patrick asked from the threshold as he watched Lord Sorrell stare longingly at his missing limb.
“I can still feel it.” His eyes were rapidly filling with tears. “Why did they do this, Pat? Was there no other way?”
Patrick weightlessly sat on the edge of Eilian’s bed. “I knew this would be very hard on you, and I wanted to be the one to tell you. Despite the tactlessness of the men you sent away, they are some of the best surgeons and doctors in England.”
“So even the best were powerless to save it?”
He nodded. “When I heard about the airship crash, I got to the hospital as fast as I could. The doctor unwrapped your arm to ask me what you would want done. It was blackened below the elbow and burnt to the bone. You could,” he paused and swallowed hard, “see it when they lifted up the skin. That’s why I hired the other doctors in London and had you brought back here for treatment. They decided that removing it was the best option, the only option.”
His eyes grew wide. “But what about…”
The butler raised his hand, and Eilian fell silent. “If you were allowed to keep it, you would have gotten gangrene and died. You don’t seem to grasp the gravity of your condition. You may care most about your arm, but there are other injuries that are much more pressing.”
Eilian’s chest tightened as Patrick continued, “You have severe burns from your neck to your thigh on your right side, you were in a coma for five days for seemingly no reason, and you have dozens of cuts and bruises. Who knows if you have any infections or if you will be able to move or walk normally again?”
Tears flooded Eilian’s eyes. His ribs squeezed until breathing was nearly impossible. His heart pounded as the words reverberated through his mind. He rubbed his shortened arm as he fought against the intense stinging in his eyes. Patrick was looking at him with the soft, concerned eyes of a friend, but he couldn’t bear to meet his gaze. As his roving fingers trailed to the curve of his arm, his resistance finally broke down. The stifled sobs shook his back, sending sharp pains through his ribs and spine. All hope drained from his body as he poured out his soul and strength to his friend. What if everything that could go wrong did?
Patrick watched helplessly as Eilian finally broke into ragged, hiccupped sobs that sounded as painful as they were heart-wrenching. Never had he meant to make him cry. He had let his own built-up emotions and stress get the best of him and had taken it out on his friend. Even when Eilian had been gravely ill with various tropical diseases, he had never lost his underlying fire, but for the first time in years, the young adventurer and writer looked frail and broken. The butler stared at his companion and tentatively reached out to gently squeeze his shoulder, faltering as he did not know what to do without overstepping his bounds.
“I’m so sorry,” Patrick whispered. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Through quavering breaths, he cried, “It wasn’t you. I want to go back to sleep and have all of this be a nightmare. I’m only six-and-twenty. I could die or be maimed for life. How will I write or travel or do anything anymore? My life is ruined, ruined, and it wasn’t even my fault.”
“Sir, you were a victim of chance, but you’ll make it. I know you will. You’ll learn how to do everything, just in a different way. If you still can’t write, you can dictate everything to me, and I’ll write it down,” the butler answered with a smile, hoping one would appear on his master’s face.
He sniffed and sighed, wip
ing away tears with the back of his hand. “Thank you, Patrick, you’re a good friend.”
“This is the last thing I ever wanted to have happen to you, but somehow I know you’ll be all right in the end.”
Patrick reached into the pocket of his jacket and carefully wiped Eilian’s eyes and bruised cheeks with his handkerchief. Eilian slowly inhaled and exhaled, allowing his body to relax and his mind to quiet. As his muddled thoughts began to clear, his stomach growled, breaking the silence and his concentration.
“Why don’t I make you one of your favorite dishes? It’ll take a while, so you can take a nap and rest until dinner.”
As much as he didn’t want to admit it, crying and yelling had exhausted him. By the clock above the hearth, he could tell he had only been awake for a little over two and a half hours, yet he was already ready for a nap. Eilian inched lower in bed as the butler covered him with blankets until he was safely cocooned within their gentle pressure and warmth.
Patrick once again stood on the threshold, watching his battered friend sleep, but for the first time in nearly a week, he knew he could leave the room and not worry he would never wake again.
Chapter Three:
Doctors and Dragon Breath
Patrick Sinclair gingerly carried the silver tray of food up the polished stairs, careful not to spill anything onto the new rugs that had been acquired on their trip and laid out before the airship had crossed the English Channel. He lightly rapped on the bedroom door before opening it. Within the folds of the massive mahogany bed, Eilian stirred slightly as the floorboards creaked under the butler’s familiar, light tread. He blinked away the crust from his eyes and slowly pulled himself into a sitting position. The short rest had chased away the lethargy and seemed to dull the ache in his temples. As Lord Sorrell stretched out his back and shoulders just as he did every time he awoke, Patrick’s eyes widened and trailed up to his missing forearm.
“Oh,” he muttered calmly as he spotted the red blotch spreading across the bottom of his bandaged stump, “that’s not good. I guess I popped a stitch or two in my sleep.”
“Sir, I really think you need to be under a doctor’s care, at least until your burns begin to heal. The others didn’t teach me how to properly tend to your wounds before you sent them away.”
“Get James then,” Eilian replied with a sigh. “I at least want someone I know and trust.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to fetch someone closer? It’ll take me over an hour to go to London and back at this hour.”
“I want James Hawthorne. If you go, I know he will come.”
Patrick frowned, unsure if he could spare an hour away from him. “Would you be all right if I left you alone that long?”
“It’s not bleeding very much, but I will probably get worse if you don’t go.”
He sighed as the corners of his dusty-blue eyes sank behind his spectacles. “Promise me you’ll stay in bed and eat. No trying to get up yet and nothing strenuous.”
“I will stay still, I promise.”
The butler hesitantly left the room, turning back to take one more look at Eilian’s battered face before heading downstairs to get his coat. Eilian sat very still, listening to his friend’s steps echo through the empty halls. The coat closet door opened and closed, the footfalls stopped, the front door squealed, and then softly clicked shut. For the first time in three weeks, he was finally alone. He sighed contently as he turned his attention to the food piled on the silver tray.
A steaming mug of Turkish coffee sat beside a plate piled nearly two inches high with Tandoori chicken and rice. The fiery, red meat smelled of chili and turmeric, and as he inhaled the spicy aroma, a smile spread across his purpled cheeks. With his aching wrist, he carefully slid the plate from the tray on the nightstand to his lap. Grabbing the utensils, he was poised to dig in when he realized he had two pieces of cutlery but only one hand. Eilian clumsily held the fork and tried to peel the tender meat from the bone, but after several minutes, he had made little progress. He put the fork aside and attempted the same technique with the knife but to no avail. A sigh escaped his lips. How could he grow so tired trying to feed himself?
Eilian’s eyes trailed back to the glinting surface of the knife. His eyes narrowed on their target as he raised the knife above his head like a hunter about to strike. He carefully listened to the rhythm of his breathing, waiting for the perfect moment. Then, between breaths, he slammed his weapon down. The knife hit the china with a sharp clank and sent half the chicken skidding across his bed and onto the parquet floor with a trail of rice following behind on the sheets.
“Well, that was less than ideal,” he murmured as he scooped the rice back onto his plate and stared longingly at the chicken lying beyond his reach on the rug. Eilian tossed the knife back onto the tray and picked up the remaining chicken from his plate and the coverlet. It was spicier than he remembered, but he didn’t care. He was starving. Greedily gobbling his meal, he downed the Turkish coffee to squelch the burning in the back of his throat. Before they left India, he had instructed Patrick to purchase an exorbitant amount of spices, vegetables, and dried fruit to bring back to Greenwich, so his cook could replicate the new dishes he had grown to love. Thank God my first meal back was not English food. Eilian gulped down the frothy drink, finished his remaining rice, and checked the clock on the mantle. He had at least fifteen minutes before Patrick and Dr. Hawthorne arrived. The large piece of chicken on the floor would undeniably arouse questions, so he strained to place his plate and glass back on the tray and inched nearer to the edge of the bed, swallowing down the pain in his back.
Eilian rested on his side and stretched his arm as far as it could reach, but his fingertips barely brushed the edge of the chicken and only made it dance farther away. He continued to propel himself closer until his fingers nearly wrapped around the bare bone of the chicken thigh. With one final push, his fingers closed around it, but he lost his balance and slid off the bed with a thud. Eilian lay on the floor stunned. Landing on his left arm, he couldn’t quite figure out how to sit up. If he moved onto his right side, he would undoubtedly injure himself further. As he eased onto his back, lightning pains shot from his jaw to his leg, and the breath hitched in his throat. Rice clung to his face and bandages, leaving saffron stains from the Tandoori seasoning. With one leg, he untangled his feet from the covers and scooted back until he was finally freed.
Never had the bed looked so high. Eilian’s first instinct was to call out to Patrick for help, but the words died in his throat. He was alone. What if he couldn’t walk? He threw the chicken onto the plate and grabbed onto the top of the nightstand. The muscles of his back and shoulder ached under the strain of supporting his weight as he slowly shifted to his knees and then onto his shaking legs. The muscles quivered in the back of his thighs, pushing against the confines of his bandages. He took a step forward, too afraid to let go of the nightstand, as his knees threatened to buckle. Going from post to post, Eilian hobbled closer to the mirror until he could make out his reflection. A half-wrapped mummy with swollen cheeks and sunken grey eyes stared back at him. His raw umber hair was disheveled as usual and stuck out from the gauze encircling the top and right side of his face.
Eilian stared at his arm, running his eyes from his shoulder to the abrupt, bloodied end of his elbow. He teetered on the edge of tears again. They stung and reddened his eyes, but he pushed them back. I can walk. His hand finally left the mahogany post. After a momentary tremor, his legs held. Those pompous bastards are wrong. My convalescence will be short, he thought proudly as he shuffled back to the bed. He reeled in the covers and watched the fire flicker and flutter toward the chimney before dying in the hearth. The room darkened in the waning light, but Eilian sat in the shadows and ate his meal. If he turned on the gas lamps, it would undoubtedly raise questions.
***
Dr. Hawthorne sat in the passenger seat of the steam carriage, gripping the door as Patrick Sinclair haphazardly steered thro
ugh London’s busy streets, nearly clipping several other steamers and pedestrians along the way. He was certain by the time he made it to Greenwich, he would have a few more grey hairs interspersed with the chestnut ones at his temples. All he had been told was that Eilian was in need of a doctor. I wonder what disease he brought back this time, he mused as he listened half-heartedly to the butler continue to ramble on. Despite chattering nonstop since he picked him up from Wimpole Street, he hadn’t told him what actually happened. James Hawthorne and Eilian Sorrell had been friends ever since they were in boarding school together and had remained close ever since. After returning from several trips all over the empire with parasites and illnesses, Dr. Hawthorne had become the one to help him through each bout of vomiting and fever. Now, he had come to expect a call from the harried butler whenever Eilian arrived back on English soil. As the steamer pulled in front of the Gothic great house, Patrick sprung from the driver’s seat to open the doctor’s door. Hawthorne lugged his heavy Gladstone bag out of the backseat and strolled inside past the butler. Man-sized wooden crates stamped with fragile in half a dozen languages still littered the foyer and what he could see of the parlor.
“So, Eilian,” Dr. Hawthorne called upstairs as he headed up the stairs towards his bedroom, “what is it this time? Yellow fever? Malaria? Elephantiasis?” He reached the top step and continued down the wood-paneled hall with the butler trailing behind. “You know Eliza wasn’t very happy when I had to leave in the middle of dinner, but she told me to tell you that she sends her best—”
The words trailed off as Hawthorne turned the corner and laid eyes upon Eilian Sorrell. He had expected to see him with his head in a bucket, not sitting in bed under the mahogany and green canopy bed purpled and bandaged. For a second, all professional etiquette escaped the doctor as he froze at the threshold. His dark eyes ran from his bruised face to his bound chest until they finally reached his right arm. He resisted the urge to clean his glasses to make certain he wasn’t seeing things.
The Ingenious Mechanical Devices Box Set Page 2
