02.37: Hidden world

Over the next two days, the sensitivity of my new sharper senses finally went down from a roar to a mild annoyance. The first day, fabric had felt like sandpaper and voices like daggers piercing ears.

On the third day, I could finally leave my room.

Thankfully, my brain had also adjusted to handle the stimuli. I could also control how much of it I wanted to experience; narrowing it to the point of being an ordinary person, or opening the gates until my eyesight was almost half as good as a raptor and ears as good as an owl. It still came with a slight headache if I kept the doors open for too long, so I always kept them half closed.

Reshma helped me desensitize my sense of touch at every opportunity, but ultimately my flesh, spongy and bruised, could only take so much.

On the evening of the third day, I came out to the balcony facing the courtyard.

Cold air greeted me, along with Godwin, Moore and Grimric, while the courtyard below echoed with the noise of men drilling. The smell of sweat and oiled leather drifted upward.

The three knights stood waiting.

“How are the preparations?” I asked them.

“Finished, my lord,” Godwin answered. “The new recruits still aren’t ready to face an experienced enemy, but at least they look like soldiers from a distance.”

“Good enough for now.” I turned to Moore. “The catapults?”

“Tested multiple times, Sire. We can dismantle and reassemble them within a quarter hour.”

“Nordhaven?”

“They’ve sent a message that their force will depart tomorrow morning.”

“Wulfsden?”

“Poised and in position.”

“Do you need anything, Sir Grimric?”

“Nothing, my lord. The royal troops are ready. Your steward and young castellan have done an excellent job.”

I looked down at the yard. The men were heaving, covered in sweat.

“Give the men some rest. We march early.”

Saluting again, they left for their stations, leaving Elric and Reshma behind.

“So,” I said, turning to Elric, “do you have it?”

“I do, Sire,” he said, taking out a leather pouch from his pocket.

I took out its contents. A set of hollow tubes that slid over each other with satisfying precision. I could have given the lenses to the craftsman who made the tubes, but the tech had to be kept secret. I’d fix them later myself.

I met the steward’s eyes. “Don’t tell anyone about it.”

He seemed puzzled, but nodded.

“The rest?”

He produced a box.

Opening it, I removed a pouch from it and dumped the contents into my palm. Small, perfectly round and flawlessly transparent beads of quartz rolled in my palm, glittering like dew in the evening light.

“What are they?” Reshma asked.

“A key.”

“To what?”

“A hidden world.”

“Did you find me the healers I asked for, Elric?”

“Yes. As you asked; those whose teachers were annoyed with their constant questioning.”

“Why do you want such people?” Reshma asked.

“Because they are intellectually curious and brave enough to question men who don’t like being questioned. I want doc- healers who have the ability to come up with solutions when faced with novel problems.”

“Novel problems?”

“I’ve seen their ‘medical’ texts. Once I show them these,” I shook the balls in my hand, “everything will be new to them.”

Elric led us to a chamber where six people were sitting around a table. They stood up as we entered.

“Sire, this is Darron, the barber-surgeon of the Great Company,” he pointed to the big man with a bushy beard, who bowed slightly. “This is Gerrin, our own barber-surgeon.”

The thin older man with salt and pepper hair bowed deeply.

“These are Edran, Brand, Frieda, and Irma. Former monks and nuns.”

“No apothecary?”

“The nuns told me they have extensive knowledge of herbs.”

The two young women nodded to confirm.

I shook hands with the big man, who looked more like a grizzled soldier than a healer. “Master Darron, I was told you have been with the Great Company for seventeen years?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“How many surgeries have you performed in that time?”

“I couldn’t tell you the exact number, but at least five hundred.”

My eyes almost popped out. “How many of your patients survived?”

“More than half of the serious cases.” His face remained placid, but pride flickered through his voice.

I almost visibly cringed. I guess that was considered good in these times.

“How about you, Master Gerrin?”

The older man wet his thin lips, his eyes not meeting with mine. “I don’t have the extensive experience of Master Darron, my lord, but almost half of my serious patients have survived.”

I looked at Elric for confirmation.

He nodded.

I sighed. At least the man was honest. You worked with what you got.

I looked at the four youngsters, looking at me nervously. All were around twenty years old. “You all were in your final year as student physicians?”

All four nodded in unison.

“We paid quite a bit of money to let the monasteries part with you. Do you know why?”

The tallest of them, Edran, replied, “Judging by the company, you wish to teach us the art of surgery?”

“The art and the science.”

“Science?”

“The truth behind the ailments that plague us and how to cure them. You have the knowledge and they have the experience. Although your ‘knowledge’ makes a lot of wrong assumptions. Would you like to know the corrections?”

They were puzzled by my treatment, looking to each other, but nodded in the end.

“I will provide you with both knowledge and money. In exchange I want diligence and loyalty. Are you willing to give it?”

This time, the nods were instant.

I took out the parchment I had cut and folded into a specific shape and placed one of the beads into its center.

“This is called a Foldscope, and it will reveal a world to you that is all around us but invisible to the human eye.”

“Invisible?” Darron asked.

“Just like the air. You can’t see it, but you do feel its absence.”

They were all skeptical, but they remained silent.

I took out a small circular quartz slide I had the eyeglass maker make for me and submerged it into a cup of water Elric had brought from the courtyard trough. The dirty water smelled faintly of algae and iron.

I placed it in the foldscope and mounted the device on a mount similar to a traditional microscope. Putting the apparatus next to the window, I adjusted the mirror until it reflected the sun’s dying light onto the slide.

I adjusted the focus until my gut began churning from the view.

Bacteria and protozoa were writhing and zooming around in the water, their nasty little cilia fluttering like grass in the wind. A hidden world brought into view.

Moving back from the scope, I invited Darron to take a look.

Hesitating, he bent down and squinted his eye until his mouth fell open.

“What are those?” he asked.

“Guess.”

“They’re unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.”

“Obviously. This scope magnifies the view by a hundred times. No animal has eyesight that sharp. So?”

“They are like worms but shapeless. Are they some sort of living beings?”

“Yes. These are the creatures responsible for most of our diseases.”

I let the others look through the scope.

The room fell silent as the occupants contemplated what they had seen, faces frozen in shock.

Reshma recoiled so sharply she would have fallen down had I not caught her.

“They are in the water?”

“But… water is pure.” Brand said, questioning his own words. “It washes filth away.”

“Only if it is completely pure itself.”

Gerrin leaned in again for a second look.

“Creatures like these are responsible for every wound that turns foul,” I continued. “Every fever that spreads. Every death that happens from drinking stagnant water.”

“That is miasma,” Edran tried to defend his lessons. “Corrupted air.”

“Air doesn’t crawl inside your body. They do.”

Darron folded his arms. “These things… cause rot?”

“Yes. One surefire way to kill these buggers is to boil whatever they are on.”

“We add wine to water. If they are living beings, shouldn’t that kill them?” Barron challenged. “Some men don’t touch plain water and still die.”

“The same reason people don’t die of a little poison. It has to be strong enough. And not all sickness comes from water. Some is in the soil, and some in the air.”

They exchanged uneasy looks.

“This- this is heresy,” Irma murmured, scared as if her teachers could hear her.

“This is truth, regardless of who approves of it.”

I picked up a strip of linen from the table.

“When you bind a wound with this after it has touched some random table, you place thousands of those creatures into the flesh.”

Darron’s jaw tightened.

“I clean my tools,” he said defensively.

“How”

“With water and vinegar.”

“Then dry them on what?”

He stopped before answering. A quick mind.

“I’m not calling you a butcher. You just have been blind.”

Darron’s nostrils flared. Gerrin shrank into himself.

“If… this is true,” he said slowly, “then we have been killing men by dozens.”

“Not intentionally, but yes.”

Edran swallowed. “If they are everywhere. How are we alive?”

“Our bodies fight them. Constantly, and win most of the time. Most of them are weak. Some are not. When a new kind appears, one which is both strong and our bodies cannot recognize, it becomes a plague.”

Frieda’s hands trembled. “The Black Fever…”

“Probably one of their kind.”

“The humors?” Brand asked.

“Symptoms. Not causes.”

Darron sat down heavily. “You are challenging centuries of learning.”

“I am replacing guesswork with proof.”

“What do you want from us, my lord?”

“Proper procedures. Boil your bandages and instruments before they touch flesh. Boil drinking water as well. That reminds me, what is the status of the tanks?” I asked Elric.

“Under construction, Sire.”

“Tanks?” Darron asked.

“A slow sand filter. Not 100% effective at killing these ‘microbes’ like boiling, but very close, without burning any fuel. If maintained properly, a layer of microbes grows on top of the sand, which eat the nasty ones, while the sand below traps solids.”

“Microbes that eat microbes?” Brand asked incredulously.

“Yes. Just like how animals eat other animals.”

I looked at the doctors in training. “You four were monks and nuns, forbidden from cutting the body, but practice and theory cannot remain separate. A proper physician must know both. Are you willing to learn?”

“What if it contradicts the teachings of the Church.”

“Then you decide whether you care more about healing the sick and the wounded or following doctrine. All I will say is that I paid good money for you four for a reason.”

They hesitated; fear, excitement and defiance flickering on their faces, but eventually nodded.

“Good,” I said, smiling. “You will work under Masters Darron and Gerrin to become physician-surgeons. Experts in both theory and practice, ushering in a new era of wellness.”

Later, I stood by the balcony under the blanket of night. With my new eyesight, the stars were now even more beautiful.

Reshma placed her head on my back, wrapping her arms around my torso. “The poor bastards looked as if you had stolen the ground from beneath them.”

“I did.”

“Did you have to teach them all this right now?”

“Yes. I might need their help tomorrow.”

She grabbed my hand. I could feel her shaking.

“Do you have to do it?”

“You know I do,” I said with a heavy heart. “I can’t leave Blackrain and the bridge next to it in the Ironfeld’s control. Nobart needs a defensible border before I leave.”

I watched torches on the walls flicker.

I wasn’t looking forward to the upcoming battle, but it had to be fought. I just hoped that the surgeons wouldn’t need to apply their newfound knowledge on screaming men.