The Tiny Witch from the Deep Woods: Volume 2, page 8
Having heard that the apothecary had saved Geord’s life, he had expected a rather incredible wound, so this small scar was a bit disappointing. As if reading the doctor’s mind, Geord winced.
“I don’t know about how nice the scar is or how good his stitching was. I think the bigger deal is that he reattached my arm at all.”
“What?!” Conan was flabbergasted.
According to Geord, during his first deployment as a mercenary, he was attacked from behind. He’d lifted his arm up to protect his head, and his arm had been almost entirely sliced off, kept attached only by a single flap of skin.
“I tied up the wound to stop the bleeding and tried to run, but in the end, I had lost too much blood, so I ended up passing out. That’s when he found me. The next time I woke up, I was covered head to toe in bandages. And right beside me was the guy I thought I had taken down with me. It’s kind of funny to think about it now.”
A gentle smile had found its way to Geord’s face as he reminisced. He didn’t seem to harbor any ill feelings toward this stranger who had tried to take his life.
“As you can see, I have no problem moving anything, not even my fingers. The only people who ever believe me are the ones who were there, though. If it hadn’t been for the assistant helping with the operation, I wouldn’t have believed it myself. I would have thought losing my arm had just been a bad dream or something,” Geord explained.
He flexed his arm and fingers, well accustomed to others refusing to believe his story. While being called a liar was one thing, he couldn’t stand others insulting the man that had saved him, so it was a story he had learned to stop telling. This time, his lord had specifically requested him to entertain Conan’s questions, but he’d been more than ready to take his leave at the first sign of suspicion from the doctor.
Conan, meanwhile, scarcely believed his ears. A broken bone could be reconnected. An open wound could be sewn shut. But he had never heard of a limb being effectively removed and then reattached, maintaining all of its functions. He had heard of one case of a limb being cleanly severed and immediately reconnected and stitched back on, but it was a miraculous case. Necrosis hadn’t set in, and the patient had ended up regaining some degree of movement in the larger joints like their elbow, but their hand and fingers had still remained paralyzed.
Yet Geord was able to move his wrist and fingers freely, and his grip was still strong. Strong enough he could crush an apple in his hand like it was no more than a sponge—much stronger than Conan’s own grip strength.
“And your finger joints still work with such strength and precision. This is remarkable,” Conan commented, watching Geord move tiny beans from one dish to another one at a time. Geord only stared back in bewilderment at Conan’s questions about the miraculous technique used.
Conan was the greatest doctor in the castle. He was nobility, and had plenty of pride, so Geord had fully expected him to snort at his claims when he saw the tiny scar that remained.
I never expected him to believe me so easily, Geord thought. I guess this is just a weird country. Weird enough for a mercenary like me to become bodyguard to the king out of nowhere.
Unfortunately for Conan, Geord had been unconscious throughout the entire procedure, so he hadn’t seen what happened. The idea of his lost arm being reconnected had been enough of a shock to get him to question the man that had helped him, but for someone with no medical knowledge like Geord, less than a tenth of what the man told him had stuck. Regardless, it was a conversation he’d had ten years ago.
Conan urged him to recount any small detail he could.
“What did he say again? Something about the muscles wrapped around the bones in the body, and the paths for the blood...vessels, I think he called them? And...nerves? He mentioned something like that too. I think he said he reconnected all of those one at a time.”
Honestly, Conan didn’t understand what he was saying, but that didn’t bother him. There were plenty of things that no one understood and plenty of people who were trying to divine those secrets.
There had once been a plague that had suddenly broken out over the capital. Conan had seen it firsthand on the front lines, but in the brutal days of rebuilding, he’d nearly lost his sense of purpose from surviving the disaster. Now, however, he felt that passion reigniting.
First, he needed to raise the next generation. At the same time, he needed to gather and record the memories they had now, and they also needed to analyze the records of the past. That was a tall order for someone already sixty years old, yet he didn’t balk at the backbreaking task he had set for himself.
His students were doing well. By cooperating with other doctors who’d survived the plague and the war, he began educating those who showed promise. He could tell things were finally starting to move. Some fields had yet to bear any fruit, but this was still only the beginning. He had no need to rush.
But that plague... Conan had yet to find a satisfactory explanation for the Red Eye plague, as it had come to be called. Past records spoke of nothing similar, and the chaos during this plague had left notes sparse and unreliable. Above all, memory faded with time. That was all the more true when those memories held nothing but sorrow. People wanted to distance themselves from the pain. Many simply said, “It’s over now” and refused to speak further.
Attempts at finding thorough records hadn’t met with much success. Their only remaining hope had been to ask the People of the Forest for help, so they had been considering the logistics of sending an envoy to the mysterious village said to exist far to the north.
And then came the news of Misha’s visit. It was only natural that he’d become excited.
“First, do you have records of her height, weight, and illnesses since she was born?” Misha asked Conan today.
Hmm. This girl’s determined. Conan chuckled inwardly at Misha’s serious expression. She had seemed to transform into a different person when she was driving the spectators from the room earlier, but now she had switched again, taking an entirely different attitude.
“Let me see... Lady Lalaya is one hundred and thirty-eight centimeters tall, weighs twenty-three kilograms, and is now fifteen.”
“Fifteen?” Misha’s eyes widened slightly. If she hadn’t been in “apothecary mode,” she very well might have shouted in surprise.
Although Misha was two years younger than her, they were virtually the same height. If Lalaya was fifteen, she would be recognized as an adult in only one more year, something you’d never guess from her tiny frame.
“I thought she was the same age as me...” Misha murmured to herself.
Having overheard her, the doctor smiled sheepishly. “It’s hard to fault you for that. She hardly looks to be on the verge of adulthood. Believe it or not, the princess grew ten centimeters in this past year alone. I believe her body has struggled to keep up with the sudden growth, which is why she’s losing consciousness more frequently.”
“Does she have some illness that is impeding her growth?” Misha frowned, thinking back to her meeting with Lalaya in the library.
Conan shook his head. “About that, Miss Misha... I would like you to think of this as a challenge from me, the head doctor of the castle. May I ask you to give your opinion on her condition without any knowledge of her past illnesses?”
“Uhhh...” Confused, Misha glanced at him, not sure what he was trying to do.
“Oh, don’t think too hard on it. I simply wish to hear your opinion without any potential influence from us. I suppose I can mention two facts: She was born prematurely, and she has always had problems with her heart.”
Misha had already heard this information from Tia and Ryan. She sank into thought for a moment before finally nodding.
“I’ll go in and see her now.”
With a number of things on her mind, she turned to the door leading to Lalaya’s room.
Chapter 7: The Truth of the Illness
“You again...” Lalaya’s eyes shot wide open as she saw Misha step into the room. She was sitting up in bed, enjoying some tea. The sweet aroma of various fruits and flowers wafted up from the cup in her hands.
Misha smiled, also recognizing the smell of a number of herbs used as nutritional supplements.
“Pleased to meet you again. As I said before, my name is Misha Do Lindburg. I’ve come to ask if I can give you a medical exam.” Clasping her hands in front of her chest, she bent her knees as she would in a curtsy. It was the most respectful greeting used in the kingdom.
Clasping one’s hands in front of their chest was a sign of being unarmed, empty-handed. A bow that dropped one’s gaze and revealed the top of one’s head was a demonstration of defenselessness—in other words, to express that one had no intention of defiance.
After a long delay, the princess finally spoke. “Fine, I’ll allow it.”
Misha stood straight at the girl’s soft reply. Lalaya was staring at her, weighing Misha in her mind.
“You’re doing the exam? You’re just an apothecary, right?”
Misha nodded with an approachable air. “Yes, we examine a patient’s body to determine the most appropriate medicine for them. That’s what I was taught.” She then walked over to Lalaya’s side. She held the princess’s right hand in hers, measuring her pulse. “Did you sleep well last night?”
Bewildered, Lalaya hesitated, but she eventually gave a quiet nod.
“Did anything feel different when you woke up?”
Here was a girl close to her own age tossing questions at her like a doctor! Lalaya thought the whole experience bizarre, but not altogether unpleasant, so she answered as honestly as she could.
“When you sat up, did you feel dizzy at all?” Misha asked.
“A little bit, but that’s normal. It goes away if I sit still for a minute.”
Lalaya usually didn’t want to cooperate with the doctors around her, but for some reason, the young apothecary’s soft voice put her at ease.
“Okay, I’m going to check your heartbeat now.” Misha then pulled a strange tube from her bag.
“What is that?” Lalaya narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
“This? It’s a tool for listening to your heartbeat,” Misha responded, unsure what the big deal was.
It was a long tube, one end of which was placed on the patient’s body and the other in the user’s ears. With it, Misha could listen to the sounds coming from inside the patient’s body. Her mother had always used it unceremoniously. Misha didn’t understand why anyone would be surprised by it.
“Oh? And how exactly does one use this?” Conan asked from behind the apothecary, deeply interested.
When did he get here? Misha thought.
His sudden appearance came as a surprise, but she had granted a few of the doctors permission to accompany her, so she swallowed her complaints. Seeing the equally curious looks on his two assistants, Misha concluded that the tool was unfamiliar to this part of the world.
“It’s not that complex. You put this on their chest and listen. According to my mother, you can even do the same thing with a normal piece of paper in a pinch,” Misha explained as she handed the tool to the doctor, who was fidgeting in his excitement. “It’s easier to hear through this than by putting your ear directly on their chest.”
“So, you place your ear on the other end? What kind of metal is this? And what about the inside of the tube?” he asked, tapping the metal caps on the ends of the device.
Misha could only force a small grin at the rapid-fire questions, reaching to take back the tool. “Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about the interior. My mother always treated it like it was so ordinary, I never thought to be curious about it. I’m sorry.”
Judging by Conan’s demeanor, Misha thought he was one step away from dismantling the whole thing and looking inside for himself. As he handed the device back to her with a disappointed expression, she figured she hadn’t been far off.
“This tool is really important to me—it was my mother’s. Please be careful with it. This is how you use it.”
After pulling her top open, she placed one end of the tube over her own heart. That got Ryan and Tris, watching from beyond the doorway behind Conan, to whip themselves around and look away.
As doctors, Conan and his assistants were accustomed to seeing their patients in various manners of undress and curious enough about this new tool to not give much thought to what Misha had just done, but to those outside of medicine, Misha must have looked quite improper. It certainly wasn’t anything suitable for a girl her age to be doing.
“Oh, I see...” Conan’s eyes narrowed as he placed one end of the tube to his ear. After moving the other end of the tube to a number of different spots, he gave a sigh of admiration. He passed the listening end to his assistants. “You two try it as well. This is quite impressive.”
“Please excuse me, then.” The first of his students took the tube with a small bow, listening to Misha’s heart. He then traded places with the other.
Misha quietly stood still until they’d had their fill. She was happy to oblige them. After all, she was quite familiar with the desire to investigate a new tool.
“You can hear it quite well, can’t you?”
The two students started excitedly discussing among themselves. “Above all, not having to place your ear directly on their chest will help a lot with giving examinations to younger women.”
Even if it was necessary, most women were uncomfortable having some stranger place an ear on their bare chests, particularly young and unmarried women. If they were too embarrassed, then it would be more difficult for a doctor to detect lung disease early on, before it worsened.
Conan turned back to Misha. “What do you call this device?”
“My mother called it a stethoscope,” Misha replied as she closed her opened top once more.
“So it measures...your chest, I suppose? I see. But if your mother had this stethoscope since the time she was married, it must have been common among her people for well over ten years by now...” Conan trailed off, face troubled.
Misha tilted her head, about to unknowingly deliver another heavy blow to the three doctors.
“I guess so. She said this was already old-fashioned, so they’ve probably got much better ones now,” she murmured as she rolled the stethoscope over in her hands.
The device they had just seen was already incredible to them as it was, yet it had just been labeled “old-fashioned.” Logically, of course such an item could progress further in the span of ten years, but reason meant little to people observing something brand-new to them.
Conan could do little more than laugh dryly and then sigh. “I figured the rumors were exaggerated, but now that I’ve seen this... Wow, the People of the Forest are quite the interesting group.”
Misha motioned to the blankly staring princess behind her.
“May I continue the exam now? Assuming you’ve had your fill.”
“Ah, yes, my apologies. Please go ahead,” Conan said, having forgotten the actual reason they were present. He and his students stepped backward.
“It works better if I can place it directly on your skin. Should we lower the curtain?” Misha asked.
Despite Ryan and the others being there to make sure Misha didn’t do anything out of line, he quickly nodded, face a little red. Lalaya was a relative, but she was fifteen years old; the king thought it improper for a girl her age to be exposed in front of people. Conan and his students could only smile sheepishly at how Misha offered considerations to her patient that for some reason she felt no need to offer herself.
The maids quickly lowered the curtain attached to the canopy of Lalaya’s bed, cutting them off from the rest of the room, leaving Misha and Lalaya alone, with only Conan supervising.
“Sorry for the wait. I’m going to use this to listen to your heartbeat,” Misha began.
Lalaya loosened her top, evidently quite accustomed to doing so. Having been beset by countless illnesses since she was quite young, undressing in front of a doctor was something she had long since lost any sense of shame over.
Misha listened to the princess from her chest, then her back, then from each of her sides. Afterward, she tapped Lalaya’s body in a few places with her fingers. Finally, she checked the princess’s mouth, eyes, and ears. With that, the exam was finished. After Lalaya dressed herself, they opened the curtain.
Ryan was there, obviously concerned. “So? How is she?”
“Well...” The apothecary held a distant look in her eyes as she mulled over her findings. She then returned the king’s stare. “There is no immediate danger to her health.”
“Huh?” multiple voices blurted out in unison.
Lalaya herself, Ryan, and Tris—but none of the doctors.
“Actually, I took the liberty of discussing Lady Lalaya’s daily routine and diet with the maids before coming here for the examination,” Misha explained. “Taking that into consideration, I can now quite confidently say that she has no urgent health concerns.”
Ryan turned a bewildered expression on Conan, but the old doctor could only shrug. That was his answer too.
Misha continued, “First of all, as for the heart condition she supposedly suffered from since childhood, I can’t see any relevant symptoms. Likely there was a small hole in the wall of her heart, but as she’s grown, it’s closed naturally. It appears she’s had a cold recently, so her throat is a bit irritated. I imagine she’ll have a slight cough for a bit longer, and eating solid food will leave her throat a little sore, but there is no issue with her lungs. Her bad breath leads me to believe her stomach may have a problem, but as she’s expressed no subjective symptoms relating to her stomach, I don’t believe it is of any great concern. Her fainting spells are likely due to anemia. Besides that, her poor diet and frequent bouts of illness have considerably weakened her body. I will have to monitor her heart regularly, but it appears to me that her condition is currently improving. Her anemia, gastritis, and weak constitution can all be managed with improvements to her diet and daily routine. If she takes her medicine, she should recover with no problems.”
