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You were certain you were dreaming. Wails of pain creeped into your mind, fading to reality.
You awoke to a pitch black room on a stiff bed of lumpy straw. The numbness in your legs turned to agony. With your eyes squeezed shut, you quickly tensed, taking deep breaths to endure the burn while you scanned your surroundings.
Low moans of suffering erupted at uneven intervals behind thin veils of darkness on either side. The ceiling, which you faced lying on your back, was quite low, supported by a tall pole in the middle of the room. Moonlight seeped through a slit in the fluttering fabric, indicating a large tent.
You sucked in the cool summer air and gripped your linens, joining the chorus of grunts, and pressing your hips in throbbing pain. Each pulse seemed spurred by the beat of your heart pumping blood through your battered lower half.
Exhaustion forced you to swallow your pain in exchange for some shut eye. But even with your eyes closed, the muffled sobs spilled elsewhere, like a form of maddening torture.
Soon you open your eyes, disturbed by the irate tugging at the tent's flaps. You hold your breath at the intruder. Harsh footsteps rush decisively to the origin of the noise, enticing choked pleas for salvation – promptly delivered by the blade plunged into the faithful's chest, making a sickly sound of cracking. The sound you'd heard field dressing deer. Without the adrenaline of battle, the simple sound of piercing ribcage made you violently ill.
The figure lingered for an instant, before vanishing completely, leaving the ambience of night. The song of crickets chirped quietly and you settled into bed.
Morning light accompanied the gentle slip of carving flesh. A heavy scent of iron penetrated your nostrils and you turned your head with folds of grimace, rubbing your leaky, heavy eyes.
A figure sat with its back towards you, a man, judging by the width of his shoulders, clinking metal instruments. A blue veil obscured his face, his body draped with tattered rags.
He pulled back slightly from the bed, revealing the bleeding throat of a young man upside down, hanging off the edge of the bed. The red stream pooled into a bucket, a safe distance from the carcass.
His left hand rested on shining metal and flicked his right amongst the innards. Wave after wave of fetid sausage were dropped from the confines of the warm pouch into the steel bowl at his hip. Towards the end he freed his hand and gripped the remainder of a stomach, pulling it away from the throat.
Gutting – you breathed through your mouth to avoid retching. Thick moisture permeated the air. You noticed the room was quiet.
With two wet thuds the offal dropped into another container outside and he stepped back, holding the bowl, when he noticed your fixed gaze.
"Ah. I see you have awoken."
A stone white mask enveloped surprisingly human eyes.
"How are your legs?"
His tools clinked against the wood.
You'd seen the tents in the distance, gathering the leftovers of battle and pickpocketing the dead. He must've been one of the thieves. The corpse laid shredded in the background, stripped of every inch of flesh.
"Do you know where you are?" You realised he'd asked a question and pushed yourself to nod your head, encouraging him to pull closer.
His bloodied gloves grabbed the linens, pulling them down to your ankles. You took a better look at his face, and that etched in smile. His voice was nasally and cheerful, discordant with his bloody clothes.
"Your legs appear to be fractured, but thankfully no bone has broken through. Do you remember how you got here?"
You searched your memory through the numbness.
"My horse..." A simple horse injury, you were dismounted by the enemy, and trampled by your very steed.
"I see," he spoke quickly and firmly. "It knocked you out amongst the corpses, but when the battlefield was spent, I found you still retained your breathing. Naturally, I took you in. I am Varré, a field surgeon."
He gripped your hand in confidence. "And from now, you're in my care. Don't hesitate to call upon me for anything you may need. Understood?" His voice was motherly, eyes doting, and you suppressed your mild discomfort at the traces of blood left by his hands, instead gesturing to your torso.
"Oh! You won't be needing that. Your armour's in a chest somewhere. I doubt you could even stand up."
Various jars of pickled meat lined the shelves, alongside dried herbs and spices, neatly arranged by size and colour. He left the bed and turned his back.
"I sure hope that you are not skittish, or you'd make a very poor knight. A waste of my resources, really."
He chuckled as he dragged the torso, dumping it somewhere outside, along with the straw he'd stained. He wiped his gloves upon his tarp and pulled it over his head, tossing both into a corner, before sloshing his hands in a bowl and shaking the water away. His nails were trim but rough and calloused, with bits of blood stuck in his nailbed and encased within his wrinkles.
Outside you heard faint taps of wood, followed by indistinct chatter. The field surgeon soon returned, covered in a cleaner tarp and walking at a leisurely pace.
"Careful. It's hot." He placed a hot serving of stew upon your bedside table and a tall cup of tea next to it, herbs floating limply in the steam.
"So," he began, tilting his head, "how are you feeling this morning? Taking to your predicament?"
You weren't one for small talk, but were compelled by courtesy.
"I suppose so."
Varré hummed.
"Some people have a violent reaction to their own incapacity, and take it out on the first person they see – which would happen to be me!... That's how they repay my kindness." His face rested upon his hands, bloodied glove and leather guard clasped together, and sweetly smiled. "I'm simply watching out for my own back."
You had never thought much of it, but in a time of scarce resources, field surgeons had to be picky.
Your fingers gripped the sheets in sorrow. You were still a fresh recruit, restoring the Golden Order. You had braced yourself for death, but never thought you'd lose your legs over a horse injury. You looked around. The tent was empty. The whereabouts of the others... The question couldn't leave your lips.
"Why did you save me then?"
His lashes drooped for an instant, a perverse glint in his long gaze.
"I took pity upon you, you know. So young and foolish. Some would've killed you for less, but I don't have the heart to do so."
You pursed your lips with repulsion. Sticky dread washed over you at each word from his sealed mouth.
Your eyes shifted to your meal, the surgeon racing to provide them to you.
"My arms are still working just fine."
His eyelids curled in irritation. You correctly opened your mouth for your feeding, but Varré quickly stood back up.
"Oh, I think I'll have you do just that then! I do have others to tend to."
Tragically, you retracted, feigning incapacity. With guided motion, you swallowed each tablespoon of his charity, and washed it down with bitter tea.
The tray left your bedside with satisfaction, followed by the same chatter amongst the men outside as before.
Upon his return, he bore a smile, and a jug of warm water. Small pieces of dirt and wood floated throughout the otherwise clear liquid, suggesting it had either been collected from a rainwater basin, or a clean well nearby. You felt rather comforted he'd taken the extra steps to boil and cool this jug of water, in spite of the impurities. He lined a rag upon its opening to let it travel through the cloth and gingerly set both aside, his tone back to clinical.
"I'm going to have to ask you to undress." He quickly paced to the tent opening, tugging to close the flaps.
"You require a bed bath. Unfortunately I cannot give you a bucket of water and a rag and simply leave you to it, considering you cannot stand."
Your silence meant dissatisfaction, but with a sigh your bosom raised, pushing your blanket aside, so that he knew you would comply.
The mask hovered beside your bed, gloves perfumed with alcohol, Varré's fingers coiled around your abdomen to grab at the cotton robe, lifting it above your head.
The cloth rubbed your face and neck, even the back of your ears, followed by your chest and armpit, the sweaty nape of your neck, brushing the crease of your breasts and trailing towards your midriff, accumulating increasingly more blood and grime. Your warring days were left behind.
Your gaze travelled to the surgeon, as he took a second cloth and dipped it in the clean water.
"I dread to think when you'd bathed last."
You hadn't proved outrageously dirty, so it seemed likely he was just making conversation.
An attempt to ease the tension of the rag scrubbing your thighs, just shy of your naked loins, before he reached your battered calves, bruised and bleeding in parts.
Crumbs of dry blood stuck to the damp cloth, making several passes at the lacerations.
"Hold steady."
Though not particularly gentle, he seemed displeased by the sting. A good trait to have in a doctor.
Clean to the tip of your toes, he rinsed and perfumed his gloves once more before pressing them into your calves, his fingers searching their length. Terrible pain accompanied a soft but grating crackling, emerging uncannily from within your flesh. The shattered bone scraping against itself. His hands released your swollen legs.
"Simple fracture in both legs. Though the bone may be quite broken up, your greaves must've protected you. I suspect they also caused the lesions considering how bent they were."
He stood up and searched his cabinet, setting several depleted jars on the bedside next to you. You eyed the mixtures curiously.
"Are you literate?" he asked.
You grimaced and nodded halfway. You knew several incantations, albeit only by heart. It was a cleric's duty to read the texts of the Order.
'Tinct. myrrh'
He scoffed at you and quickly lunged when you fiddled with the bottle.
"Oh, you haven't earned that quite yet!"
"'Earned'?" Your question accompanied a frown.
"That," he slipped the vial in his pocket, "is tincture of myrrh. Myrrh is a potent antiseptic, antifungal, analgesic, commonly used in sacrament. And perfumes." Varré's tone drooped and squeaked. "It is also rather pricey. Suffice to say, you won't be needing that."
He chuckled. "I would have to really, really want you to live to end up using that on you. Mm?"
You looked into the distance, sat on the chair outside. The setting sun enveloped the dry landscape in yellow as though the world had been brushed with yolk.
Summer. The buzz of flies was stronger than you'd ever heard. Carcasses attracted flies, and maggots crows. Crows – dogs, and a whole ecosystem emerged from the disintegrated corpses. And their feces became fertiliser.
Vibrant red roses opened their thick, shimmering blooms, resembling healthy bundles of muscle.
But rats brought lice, causing typhus. And easily as it could have been treated, the war surgeons simply killed off its sufferers. It was too much of a bother.
You looked upon the expanse of flesh. At the age of 24, you had already lived half of your life.
You gazed at the working surgeons from the chair you were sat upon, dropping peeled potatoes into a bowl. Their yellow was precious and clean.
You thought back to Varré.
After staring at red for so long, blue cloth helps the eye notice spots of blood, a potential vector of disease. But the grimy white tarps spoke to a disregard of personal safety or that of others. His brown glove, stitched with a guard. Victims attacked mercy killers.
The roses twisted open, drawing up pools of blood from the ground.
That night you rubbed him through his cloth.