273 Castley Rock II
Eight hours. Eight hours and dawn had not yet broken. Eight hours of Lady Joanna's pale and fitful rest as she hovered between life and death. Eight hours since the cry of a hungry child raised, and Pycelle had heard Tywin's cold, carrying, order that they
get that thing out of here before it disturbs my wife! Eight hours and they were finally ending the long and tense night that followed his nightmarish day.
Pycelle sat up on the cot and rubbed his sleepy eyes again. His vision was clearer than it had been when he'd misread the vial labels sometime in the night. The Healer had pushed him onto the cot and insisted he rest for the shift. Pycelle's eyes had shut too fast for him to argue, as sleep smothered him instantly. He stretched, sitting up, to see Talagan was seated at the far end of the cot, his head back against the wall. Tywin was sat by Joanna, holding her hand, in exactly the same position as he had been when Pycelle had collapsed into his sleep.
"Any bleeding?" Pycelle asked, by way of showing he was awake and demonstrating to Tywin's ears that he was focused only on the patient.
"A little. A yarrow-treated poultice has controlled it." Talagan replied, without moving. The healer had been busy; the blood and mess was cleaned away but all it revealed was that Joanna's waxy, clammy, skin, was as pale as the sheets. The healer looked little better, dark shadows showing under his eyes. "There's beef broth ready. I would feed her but the risk of choking..."
"Or vomiting," Pycelle agreed, cautiously unfolding himself to lower his legs to the floor and rub feeling back into them. The sleep had been needed, but the cot was cramped and tiny.. "There is another method..."
"I would not traumatise that area further." Talagan was already shaking his head, somehow still lent back against the wall at the same time. "Moving her to insert the tube must be weighed against risk the bleeding begins, or infection in the wound from overflowing broth. She is stable for now."
Pycelle nodded, stretching the aches out of his arms and back. Any treatment they could try carried that damnable risk of bleeding. It was good to talk with someone familiar with the hard truth of healing; that sometimes all any healer could do was wait.
"Your turn to sleep?" the Grand Maester said, standing up.
"It's needed." The healer shuffled across a little, not bothering to lie down, and stifled a yawn as his eyes closed.
"You seem exhausted." Pycelle kept his voice down to not disturb the sleeping Joanna, or her more dangerous husband. The healer yawned again, not bothering to open his eyes.
"I've been up since dawn," Talagan replied, and that was not something that interested Pycelle, but it was as well to ingratiate himself by showing interest. "A collapsed scaffold by the stonework on the bridge and seven trapped workers." Now that was more intriguing. If they escaped this alive - and their chances of living were greater than Pycelle had expected this morning - the Grand Maester would have questions: who had involved Talagan, and why. Another complication to unravel.
"A long day then?"
"I've had longer ones, but I'm not as young as I was." Observing him, Pycelle would have judged Talagan around Lord Tytos' age or perhaps younger, though without the ravages of drink that had so aged the Lord. Certainly old enough to have experience in his craft, as he had demonstrated. Still before he slept, there were questions to be asked.
"How much poppy has she had?"
"Too much for her blood loss. I'd give no more for another hour. Better to have poppy prepared." The healer kept his voice low. "She'll be in pain, and if she moves she could tear the clot again." His robes brushing the floor quietly, Pycelle checked the vials as Talagan took a moment to recover and refocus. Unless the healer had more, they had perhaps a half-dose of poppy remaining at most, and their yarrow....no, observing the supplies, Pycelle was not best pleased with what few medicines they had left to work with.
"We have little remaining. Do you have more yarrow?" If not, Pycelle would need to obtain some, and they were running out of wool and of bandages.
"Not here. If you have a better styptic...?" Horsetail would suffice, but Pycelle did not recognise it among the healer's supplies and he had not brought any.
"I did not travel with my full supply." This was meant to be a political trip to discuss Essos and the trade situation, not this appalling mess. Valorick hadn't told him anything until he was here, or Pycelle would have brought his supply. Honestly, if he had known, he would have made any excuse he could to stay in King's Landing and keep his hands clean of this whole disaster. "If I may leave the patient in your hands, I will access Maester Valorick's."
"They're probably locked," Talagan said, rather than
the Maester may object. The healer cared as much for Maester Valorick's opinion as Pycelle. Obviously a wise man.
"The steward has a key," Pycelle said, and then added with a vague sense of spite, "and if not, the guards can break the door down." Talagan's quiet chuckle made Pycelle smile behind his beard. Tywin would not object, and Tytos would be brought into line by his formidably competent son.
"The Lord might," Talagan said, and paused. "Don't get into trouble."
"Rank has priviledge, Master Healer," Pycelle said, benignly. Talagan's smile matched Pycelle's own as he inclined his head.
"Then I shall defer to your judgment, Grand Maester." Pycelle nodded and hurried out. If he wasn't there, he couldn't be blamed if she died. Unless he was too slow with the medicines, he thought to himself and that lent extra speed to his feet.
"Take me to the Maester's quarters," he ordered the first servant he saw. The man bowed.
"This way, Grand Maester." The servant pointed, beginning to walk unhurriedly in that direction.
"And hurry!" Pycelle instructed, through gritted teeth. Some urgency got through and the fellow led him out into the courtyard and across to the Maester's tower, the Raven's tower, as was usual. Up a few steps to keep the rain out, in a halway that turned away from the wind, the wooden door wasn't locked, and Pycelle would chide Valorick for that later as he pushed it open.
The Maesters' quarters were empty as expected, and dusty which he had not. The few instruments here were cobwebbed and broken or antiquated. There wasn't even a bed and whatever cleaning had been done, avoiding the implements, had not removed the musty smell of neglect.
"Where are Maester Valorick's things?" he demanded. Had Valorick seen the way the wind blew and made for the Citadel at haste?
"Sorry Grand Maester, he moved out of the Maester's quarters and into the Lord's - "
"Never mind, just take me to his work room!" Cursing the idiot, Pycelle followed the now thoroughly-scared servant as the man outright ran into the main courtyard.
Servants hurried passed towards the great hall, rolling barrels ahead of them. Even from here Pycelle could hear laughter and merriment from within. His good-daughter was on her deathbed and Lord Tytos had spent the night getting drunk. Pycelle did not waste another thought on the spendthrift sot, having to quicken his own pace to keep the servant in sight.
Why a Maester should be in the family tower he did not know, and he utterly disapproved of it simply for the look of the thing. Maesters were assigned to a castle, not a family. This foolishness compromised the neutrality that sheltered them all. It was far from the ravens, far from any workroom a Maester could use for his duties, and but two floors down from the Lord's own. A cannier Maester should have refused even if it was the Lord's decree, and Tytos was not a hard Lord to refuse. Taking such a place as much as declared Valorick's interest was in politics not science. Fool indeed.
"The door is locked-"
"Then get the key!" he ordered, and the man ran. Lock-picking was not one of his better skills, but he was not even going to try if a key was available. With all the bustle in the corridor, it would merely waste more time. Finally, far too many heartbeats later, the servant returned with another and a bunch of keys. As the Grand Maester snapped at him to hurry, he found the right key and unlocked it. Pycelle pushed the door back, not listening to the blather about the steward, and ignored the rich trappings and tapestries that had obviously been meant for a Lannister cousin. There were dressers, cabinets within and he went from one to the next throwing the doors open. There were the Maester's alchemical supplies, neatly labelled in their small pouches and bottles.
Yarrow, Yew, Good Queen Aly's leaves, Hemlock, Poppy milk... Much of it was gone, most likely taken with him, damn the man. For all Valorick's silver link, little here was good for healing, more for alchemy, and even his alchemy equipment was dusty. Pycelle searched the small pouches left, in increasing anger. No Arrack, no Feverfew, did Valorick not have any of the herbs a birthing woman may need?
The few pouches he could find, a half-opened Yarrow, and a few of Panay, he checked what little was there for their colours and scents and judged the quality good. Loading the servant with the ones he thought useful, he looked at the dusty healing instruments and discarded the idea immediately. He'd use his own, he knew them better and they were clean. If it gave Lord Tywin another reason to credit Pycelle and blame Valorick, that was so much the better.
"Get those to the birthing room, and send someone else in here for the rest!" There were enough of the basics, he didn't see anything else on that shelf and scanned the rest. The small pouch at the bottom caught his eye, next to the dried mushrooms that gave men odd dreams, and a small bag of poppy milk, dried and not yet brewed. He thrust the poppy out to the nearest servant, and lifted the unnamed pouch cautiously, saw the blackened grains within, and snatched it up. Ergot, dried and prepared more for pleasure than medicine, but he could brew a tincture of it easily enough. Strong, but this was not the time for half-measures.
He hesitated but a breath, slipping the pouch into his robes, and hurried out leaving the steward's man to lock up. He must attend Joanna, but there were ravens to send. Talagan could attend Joanna, but could not send ravens. Tytos was too drunk to ask consent-
Two golden-haired faces stared up at him, both still in their night clothes, blocking the entrance to the courtyard.
"Lord Jaime, Lady Cersei," Pycelle acknowledged, and would have brushed passed them but they did not move.
"Mother's going to die, isn't she?" Cersei asked, accusingly.
"My Lady, I must send ravens." He stepped round them carefully, trying not to give offence, and it was Jaime that stepped back to let him through. As ruled by his sister as Tywin was by Joanna, Pycelle thought, and then:
Seven help us if that woman dies. He hurried to the Raven's Loft, snatching up quill and parchment as he went, and why had Valorick moved his quarters so far from the birds?
"Mother's going to die, and you aren't doing anything." Cersei's voice carried. The twins had followed him up the stairs, an unwanted distraction that he could not ignore as he scrawled a letter to the Marbrands, and another to Lady Genna's abode. Let Valorick try to refuse his demand that he rush back. Ser Stefford and Ser Kevan were within range of runners, so no use wasting ravens....
"We are doing what we can," he said, climbing to the steps to the loft itself.
"She's going to die. That's why you're sending ravens isn't it?" the girl accused, peering up through the gap. Even this morning Pycelle would have said yes, but now he did not know. He affixed the letter to the raven's leg and released it before answering her and paused. The girl wasn't crying as a child should be. She was furious.
"We are trying to save her life-" he began, because mollifying a Lannister was always wise.
"Who is we?" Jaime interrupted, blocking the way down as Pycelle quickly fastened the other letters and released the birds.
"My pardon, I have no time to talk with your mother's life in the balance." He hurried down the steps, stepping round the boy to find his sister right behind him. He sidestepped her and rushed onwards.
"You left mother. You left her to die!" Cersei accused, and her rage was terrifyingly like her father's. "Who's looking after her while you're here?"
"Your father's with her, my Lord, my lady." He bowed his head and quickened his pace. They ran after him.
"Father's not a healer!"
"There's a healer with her," he said, hoping to dismiss them.
"But you're better, and you're not there." Cersei's spiteful shout carried her father's capacity for holding grudges. Pycelle did not care for the moment, so long as Joanna Lannister lived, he was safe. He hurried back to the birthing quarters, shouting for a basin and scrubbing his hands and body, discarding the soiled linen robes to remove the dirt from the raven's tower.
"What are you doing?" Jaime demanded. "Get to mother!"
"Dirt in her wounds will kill." Pycelle said, not even thinking as he finished cleaning, and rushed back into the room. The guards could handle the twins. The servant was ahead of him, the pouches dumped on the side in utter confusion and Pycelle would have rebuked the man but instead he took in the scene and would have sworn.
Red stained the sheets, the bed was in disarray and Lord Tywin was holding his wife's shoulders while the healer held another poultice in place. Pycelle shouldered the servant aside, snatching up the last of the healer's yarrow vial.
"What happened?" He was already decanting the yarrow extract onto a wool ball as he spoke.
"Yarrow, now," Talagan said, tersely. The sheets were bright red and soaking as Pycelle passed the poultice across, setting to work on the next and adding the Horsetail. Maybe both would be more effective.
"The bleeding-"
"
Aspirated saliva," Talagan said, distracted into unknown words. "Breathed spit and choked. Tore the clot." It was the red of internal blood, the lifeblood of a stab wound. Was the bleeding slowing? Pycelle passed across the large swab and the healer pushed it into place. Pycelle was already setting the dried yarrow to steep, but there wasn't time for it, it was needed now.
"A little Yarrow. We have Horsetail." Pycelle added that to the mix, as the healer cursed and pressed harder.
"Arrack?"
"I have ergot." Pycelle held up the pouch, and the healer looked across frowning. Pycelle didn't bother to explain, shook out a few of the blackened grains and held them up. "From spoiled grain?" Talagan's eyes widened.
"Thank - prepare the extract." Thankful for the newly-boiled water the healer insisted upon, Pycelle found a space upon the table and set to it. Four ounces of water to one to one sixteeneth reagent... he halved the water so make a stronger mix, not trusting her to swallow easily. The little yarrow he had found went into a second bowl with water, and he thrust it at the maid.
"Steep it well, girl. Where I can see!" He had the ergot to work upon, and the poultices to prepare and altogether too few hands.
"She has clots within her, they obstruct the contracting," Talagan said over his shoulder to Pycelle and then: "My Lady, this will hurt, but if I do not you will die. Hold her, ser. She will scream, and for that I am sorry." The healer reached in, did something, and Joanna should have screamed, and she didn't which was far worse. The bright red on the bed was joined by a lump, darker, the size of a lemon, and he did it again, and now the yarrow was ready but weak. Pycelle prepared a second poultice in case, something better than naught, and checked the ergot again. Gritty and warm, but she could swallow it.
"It is ready." He took up the bowl and a rag, moving Tywin aside and dripped what he could slowly into Joana's slack mouth. She was too far gone, he was sure, too much blood lost. Yet she swallowed, with difficulty, and he dripped more in until she'd about a third of the mix. "Healer?"
"I have removed the clots. More bandages." And he was packing the wound again, with bandages and cloth not wool swabs and that was bad. Pycelle set the ergot aside and rushed to make more poultices and now he was certain the bleeding was slowing. She tried to move, crying out faintly as the ergot took effect, and Pycelle restrained her hands gently as Tywin held her shoulders.
Long silent moments passed before Talagan slowly released his grip.
"I think the bleeding has stopped," he said, tiredly.
"The vein." Pycelle hid his disquiet, for to his eye she had lost too much blood. The healer's hawk-like focus on her said that he felt the same.
"Still sealed. Had that ruptured, she would have died." From the pallor and the weakness of her grip Pycelle estimated maybe as much as a third of her blood had left her body, and she hovered now between life and death.
"She may still. She has lost too much blood." There was a faint gasp from the doorway, some guard not disciplined enough for silence. Pycelle gave it no more thought than that.
"I know," Talagan said, and then simultaneously "There is-" with Pycelle's "You said that-"
"Save her!" Tywin's voice cut across them.
"There is no way to," Pycelle said, and Talagan drew a breath.
"The only way that I know has a high chance of killing the patient. It means giving her the blood of another. I have told you the risks." There was another hushed breath and Pycelle looked to the door in annoyance at the guard's poor discipline. The twins had followed him and were standing there, pale-faced.
"And without it, she dies. Do it." Tywin said, bluntly. Talagan looked the Lord square in the face and nodded, leaving the bedside to wash the blood from his hands. He was red to the shoulders.
"You would donate?" he asked, and again he used that unusual scrubbing method from fingers back towards elbows. "You said you were related?"
"I am her cousin."
"How distant?" Talagan was drying his hands off carefully.
"We share grandparents."
"And you are her husband. She has born you children?"
"Obviously," Tywin said dryly. Two examples were standing shocked in the doorway. So long as they did not interfere, Pycelle did not care.
"Good, then you should be a strong match." Talagan's speech hesitated, but his hands kept working. "You understand that when this procedure is done, there is a tossed coin's chance of her surviving, but if it is not, she will die. Grand Maester Pycelle, do you concur?" Pycelle did not have to look at the bed where Joanna Lannister lay in sheet soaked with her own blood, but he did for form's sake.
"My Lord, your Lady is beyond any saving I know of," he said, honestly. "There is no healing art in Westeros that could save her, and should it fail it would not even hasten her demise-"
"Enough." Tywin snapped. "What must I do?"
"Sit down. I shall draw your blood from your arm and pass it to the lady, by use of a syringe." Talagan's breath hissed in exasperation. "My transfusion equipment did not survive the journey. Grand Maester, when I withdraw the needle be ready with a wool swab. Press it to the blood, and when the bleeding has stopped, bandage it tightly in place." Talagan was screwing pieces of a device together, a glass tube and steel or silver fittings, as he spoke. "Ser once the needle is in, do not move. After your blood is drawn, do not stand. You may feel dizzy or faint."
"As a man would after blood-letting," Pycelle opined, moving Tywin's chair closer to the bed and turning it so the healer could reach both arms.
"Exactly." Talagan nodded, and looked to Tywin. "Which is your sword arm, Ser?"
"My right."
"Bare your left." Tywin rolled the sleeve up to his shoulder. Talagan pulled a strap from his kit, fastening it tight about the bicep. Pycelle frowned. Would he not hand Tywin a grip to hold to make his veins rise, like any sensible blood-letting? Talagan did not, securing a similar strap around Lady Joanna's arm in the same place, and going to the table for what he had assembled. There was a clatter and a thump from the door as the healer lifted the device, a horrifyingly larger version of the syringe he used for saline. Talagan didn't even look round.
"Out," he ordered, attention entirely on the cumbersome device as he returned to Tywin. Pycelle glanced round to deal with the disturbance to see Jaime pushed back against the wall by Cersei, her hand clamped over his mouth as she watched wide-eyed. Satisfied they would not interrupt again, he could turn his attention back to this new procedure if it should perhaps work.
Talagan bent over Tywin's offered arm, tapping his fingernail above the elbow as he examined the skin for something. The veins were raised and blue, standing proud, and with a single movement he slid the needle in. There was a single. sharply indrawn. breath from Tywin, but nothing more. Fascinated, Pycelle watched as the tube began to fill with vivid, red, blood. The healer was slowly drawing the plunger back, keeping pace with the blood as it slowly flowed in. It was not so fast as bloodletting, but far more controlled. With such a device, a Maester could measure the exact amount of blood drawn, and assess its results on temperament or condition. And it was far less damaging to the skin than a wooden lancet, or even Pycelle's preferred razor-sharp, toothed, knives.
"Pycelle, ready." The syringe was nearly full, and Pycelle hastened to attend. Pressing a hand to Tywin's upper arm, Talagan slid the needle out from under the Lord's skin. A drop of blood welled immediately, just one, not the gush Pycelle was used to, and he pressed the woollen swab tightly to it. Holding it against the wound, he judged it would clot in but a few moments. This was, he decided, a far better way to let blood than his own for there was so much less chance of the subject bleeding excessively. It would even retain the blood for examination and easy decanting to tubes rather than sampling from a bowl. With his head still bent over the wound, he glanced sideways without moving his head to watch the healer as he approached Lady Joanna.
Below the strap tied about her arm, Talagan examined her elbow closely, tapping at the skin as he had wth Tywin. Lowering the needle, he tried to slide it into the soft skin of her inner elbow, but to withdraw it with a sharply bitten-off breath. Talagan clamped his hand round Joanna's arm tightly below the strap, staring intently at the veins. Now he leaned in, and slowly, more slowly than he had with Tywin, he slid the needle in. Just as slowly, he began to depress the plunger.
Tywin's focus was entirely on Joanna, but Pycelle knew better than to be caught giving the Hand of the King less than his full attention. Without removing the swab, Pycelle reached for a bandage and wrapped Tywin's arm tightly to keep the wool in place. His hands were moving automatically. Such a tiny wound hardly required much of a bandage, though Pycelle could see the wisdom of it. The hole went straight to the vein, and he was not going against the advice of a man more familiar with the procedure.
That task done, Pycelle was finally free to look to the patient, watching for a flush to the cheeks, or a healthy redness spreading down the arm. The syringe plunger was not even half-way depressed yet. He did not dare speak; distracting the healer's concentration would be unwise. It took some minutes before the syringe was nearly empty, and the healer just as carefully withdrew it.
"Done," he said, reaching for a wool swab and pressing it one-handed to Lady Joanna's arm.
"When should it take effect?" Pycelle asked, leaving Tywin's side to take over pressing on the swab to Joanna. It let him examine the more interesting patient.
"It is working already." Talagan stepped back gratefully, holding the syringe up and still studying Joanna Lannister's arm. "We must hope the match is close enough."
"If it is not?"
"Look for a red rash or fever, trouble breathing." Lady Joanna did not seem to be showing those symptoms, Pycelle noted. In fact her breathing seemed more even, if still shallow.
"Will you require more?" Tywin asked, standing up. Pycelle frowned and tutted, at the same time as the healer.
"Do not stand. You have lost significant blood." Unable to move from holding the wool, Pycelle hastily tried to persuade Tywin to sit as the Lord caught the arm of his chair. "You have had blood let before. You must rest."
"She has nearly one pint of your blood." Talagan laid aside the syringe and hurried to Tywin's side. "To take more would harm you. Do you feel nauseous?"
"No," Tywin responded, but for all he did not sway he seemed spent. With some reluctance, the Lord sat, ignoring the healer's offered arm.
"Then when you are up to eating, strong beef broth and dark ale." Talagan turned aside, back to their weaker patient, checking under the blanket again and raising the sheets to preserve her modesty.
"What are you doing?" Cersei's voice piped from the door, fascinated and outraged at once.
"Making sure the bleeding has stopped," Talagan replied, and Pycelle nodded sagely. It was but common sense to make sure the new blood added would not leak out. There was the faintest colour to Joanna's lips, a pink flush displacing the blue as he watched.
"Her colour has improved," Pycelle said, as if he had expected it and it were not a miracle. The healer nodded, lowering the sheet.
"There is no further bleeding. We may have been lucky. Pycelle, watch her breathing." Without complaint the Grand Maester obeyed a order to do exactly what he wished to. The lady's face was indeed a healthier colour, her lips pink not deathly blue, and her breathing had eased. So fast, he marvelled privately. Even if the risks of the procedure were high, to win back a soul Pycelle himself would have deemed lost to the Stranger was a formidable power for any healer. The Sept may have their concerns with such a thing, but in the hands of the Maesters such knowledge would be invaluable.
Talagan was separating the pieces of the device, unscrewing the needle and removing the plunger and its parts, and dropping them into the first bowl of steaming water.
"Will you not need that to draw more?" Pycelle questioned.
"Blood solid, needle clogged," the healer replied tersely, pouring a vial of something clear into the the water. Carefully and thoroughly he began to clean out the glass cylinder. The quality of the piece was exceptionally fine glasswork, Pycelle judged, equal to Myrish but without the tint that so much of the cheaper works had. If the healer knew the making of such glass as well, he would be well worth cultivating even should Lady Joanna die.
"It had already begun to clot?" he asked, checking the patient. The lady's heartbeat was steady, Seven be praised.
"A fine needle clots quickly." Talagan examined the tube again and plunged it back into the water, scrubbing.
"You did not use all of the blood?"
"No. Air in the vein kills." Satisfied with his work, Talagan placed the glass in the second bowl and moved on to the needle. "Better to leave out blood than add air." Pycelle nodded sagely, though the information was new to him. The healer obviously knew what he was about. "She has no rash?"
"No, her colour is much improved, and her breathing is steady."
"Good. Then she may yet live." Talagan was soaking the needle now, alternately lifting it and immersing it to test if the water would run through. It didn't.
"Why didn't you do that first?" Jaime demanded.
"The risk," Talagan said, leaving the needle to soak and moving on to the silvered plunger. "Flip a gold dragon. If the heads lands upwards, the patient dies. Otherwise they live."
"You could have killed mother!" the boy gasped.
"Had we done nothing, she would have died," Pycelle said, kindly because this was Tywin's heir and worth treading carefully around, but his focus was on Lady Joanna. She lived. Impossibly, she still lived. That she was breathing, that she looked nearly healthy, after the sheer number of women he had seen die in such circumstances, stunned him.
"Give her more," Jaime demanded and Talagan shook his head.
"No. Each time it is done, there is a chance it fails. I do not take chances with patients' lives." The healer moved back to the bed, reached down, and gently lifted her eyelid to check the pupils as the lady muttered fitfully and tried to move. He drew a scalpel out of the surgical tools, holding it flat over Joanna's mouth.
"Mist upon the blade," Pycelle said, as he noticed. "A good sign." Talagan nodded and stood up, wiping the scalpel blade clean.
"Ser, if you wish to sit by your wife?" Talagan offered, moving a chair closer. Tywin did not run, but he moved to the offered chair with no wasted movement.
"What more can be done?" Tywin asked, his hand curled lightly round his lady's.
"For now, nothing. She must be left to rest, heal, and grow stronger."
"Will she live?"
"So long as she does not bleed," the healer said, "Ser," and it took Pycelle a heartbeat to realise Talagan was addressing Tywin. "Your wife is recovering, but still gravely ill. If your Lord will pardon your service for a day-"
"Tell Lord Tytos I will be unavailable until my wife recovers," Tywin said, before Talagan could finish. A servant bowed and left at run. The healer blinked, moving away to give Tywin as much privacy as he could. "Grand Maester, if you could aid me with the herbs?" Pycelle nodded, grateful for a chance to finally talk skills, though the healer seemed exhausted.
"Yarrow, Horsetail, and ergot are steeping all ready," the Grand Maester said, and gestured to the pile of pouches from Maester Valorick's stores. "If there is anything else you deem useful?"
"I don't read Westerosi yet." Talagan admitted, not a lie any Westerosi or Essosi fake healer would make: claiming false literacy was easy when patients couldn't check. Pycelle ran along the row, naming each and their function, half his attention on the bed and the short, blonde, head approaching it.
The other healer was faster, getting between her and the bed before disaster could strike. Cersei's rage as she drew herself up faded to shock as the healer dropped to one knee to speak quietly.
"Please keep very quiet. Your mother is extremely weak, and needs quiet to recover. Every moment she can have rest she gets a little stronger. You may sit by her and hold her hand, but be gentle and do not touch her stomach."
"Why not?"
"She has a wound within her. It is the size of that plate." The healer pointed to the beef broth cooling on the table. "For now it has clotted, but if she moves it will tear. As when you graze your knee and move it, it begins to bleed again."
"Why aren't you healing it?"
"You've seen sword wounds. Once they are bandaged, all the healer can do is wait and make it not bleed again. Her injury has been banadged, but she lost much blood."
"And you put my father's in." The sudden slight stiffness in the healer's shoulders caught Pycelle's attention, but he answered easily enough.
"Yes."
"Why didn't the Maester do it?" Cersei jutted her jaw out; Tywin's expression most unbecoming on a child's face. Talagan - most ungraciously, Pycelle felt, - looked to him to answer.
"Because of the risk. It is not a procedure the Maesters perform," he explained.
"But it worked."
"Lady Cersei, we must both devote our time and attention to saving your mother-" Pycelle began, rather than explain again, and was cut short.
"Cersei, Jaime, go to your rooms." That was Tywin, and there was no gainsaying that, even by Cersei. The guards obeyed without even being asked, removing the children before they could protest. Talagan stood up, a little creakily, and rubbed his face with both hands as he blew out a breath. Tywin was already focused on Joanna again, and perhaps wisely Talagan returned to the herbs.
"
Fuckaduck," Talagan muttered quietly. "Those were Cersei and Jaime Lannister, were they not?"
"Yes," Pycelle said, surprised.
"And the patient is their mother?"
"Yes. Did they not tell you who she was?"
"No." Talagan pinched the bridge of his nose. "Only
'Labouring mother, bleeding, at the castle.'"
"Would it have changed your treatment?" Pycelle had enough of the measure of the man to predict his answer. It was exactly as he had expected, and useful for ceertain people who were doubtless paying more attention than they seemed.
"Of course not," the healer snapped, irritably. "I treat conditions, not rank."
"We'll need more yarrow," Pycelle said, not acknowledging the comment he had engineered for Tywin's benefit, "and ergot I suspect."
"There's more in my shop, if it hasn't been robbed blind while I was away," Talagan said, "but that's a hour's run there and back."
"Send servants."
"I don't have..." Talagan smiled ruefully. "If you wouldn't mind, Grand Maester?" The acknowledgement of his rank was welcome, and Pycelle inclined his head graciously approaching the guards as Talagan followed.
"Go to the baracks and send two guards to the healer's shop," he ordered and looked at Talagan for further instruction.
"If you can send a servant down there, go in through the front door, cupboard on your right on the wall by the door. Bring everything on the bottom shelf, if it hasn't been robbed while I was away."
"Captain Mikal set two guards on the door," one of the guards said, and Talagan nodded.
"Thank you." He paused. "Jehan, when you go off-duty, could you see if anyone is going to Lannisport? I need someone to tell the Sept I won't be there on the senday. I have a critical case that can't be left. And they should refer my ongoing patients to the apothecary on the corner of Jospen's way and Aegon's Street, by the Twisted Rope Inn. She knows what to do. Tell them if she has any spare poppy or yarrow, or All-heal, come morn we'll need it." Tywin never looked away from Joanna, but his quiet, terse, order cut the room:
"
Go." The guard bowed imstantly and left at a run. Pycelle's interest piqued. Talagan knew the guards well enough to know them by name through the closed helmets, and request favours - no, well enough that the Captain did favours
unasked. As Talagan yawned again, Pycelle decided it was not the best time to ask.
The Sept was a new complication, and potentially an unwanted rival for the healer's talents. Nothing he could not overcome, he was sure. Now dealing with Valorick, when the man inevitably returned, would be harder. Tywin would be best applied to - and neatly distracted by - that issue. Shuffle a few pieces around and everything would work out exactly to his benefit. He smiled genially, checking the brews he had steeping on the side, and accidentally jostling the healer, who swayed on his feet.
"Your turn to sleep, I believe." As Talagan bridled, and looked to Joanna, Pycelle turned his own words against him. "A tired healer makes mistakes, don't they?"
"I take your point." The healer stumbled as he walked to the cot, neatly demonstrating Pycelle's point for him. As the man nearly passed out as he sat, falling asleep instantly before he even lay down, Pycelle set to work at the vital task of proving to Lord Tywin that there were two miracle healers here.
--
Apologies for the long delay. I have limited computer access at the moment, and real life has been involving too many family members, critical illness, and hospitals for much free time.
