You stare back; you just look at her. That's a ceiling around her, not a halo, or maybe just a window? She is the most beautiful woman you have ever seen, the first woman you have ever seen, ever noticed, ever felt a thing for. Those brown eyes, so large and like a deer's as much as a fox's, so capable of turning into daggers or poppies or just a woman's eyes; they smile when she does, they turn stormy with her angry words, they droop and wilt with her tears. Her lips. Full, full lips, warm lips, lips that never quiver no matter what it could have been you put her through, hiding white and straight teeth and a soft tongue you've felt with your own. And there's that little mole on her left cheek, like a shade through her thin dusting of powder, revealed further by the streaks flowing down from her below her eyes. Your bleary mind begins to put it together: she's been crying. Yes, you remember her – how can you forget? She has curled the hair around her ears.
"Don't look down yet," she says, as you feel cloth being drawn over your body. Mariana looks over her shoulder. "Jesus Christ be praised, he just blinked." She turns back to face you. "Stanisław, can you hear me?"
"Yes. You're Mariana."
She exhales with a smile, something that's almost a laugh. "I am."
"Who were you talking to?"
She moves aside, and you begin to blink rapidly as you lift your head up effortfully. You begin to settle into your waking body, so sapped of the boundless strength you felt on the battlefield, wielding the Archangel's sword to save a woman you didn't realize you loved until that moment. Your head is light, your vision nearing a kind of greyscale, you feel hot in the face but cold in the body. That taste in your mouth is vinegar and strong spirits. Your eyes sting, and your right leg hurts as ever.
It's very, very bright, but you force the silhouettes before you to turn into people despite your eyes. You keep blinking; there's Sir Marszowski, and there's the German physician beside his surgeon, both men wearing splotched aprons with dyed hands – is it… blood? – and there's a priest. They all look a little shocked.
"Their Serene Highnesses, your brothers and father, will be here tomorrow, lord prince," says Marszowski, looking much more sickly than he did in the dream, his face scabbed-up and gums dark red. "They were running a bit late from Wilno. A bridge collapse, I'm told. They were already in a great hurry."
"For what?"
"For the Convocation, Your Serene Highness."
It floods back into your mind. This world, the world you're living in, where you are and what you were here to do. "This is Warszawa. There's an election on." Everyone nods. You turn your attention to your wife. "Why are you so made up?"
Her eyes shift around, looking to the men in the room, then to the wall, then to you. "Well, I… I was told to wait outside – I just wanted to look my best – ah…"
"Her Serene Highness insisted she be allowed to watch the procedure," says the physician.
"I wanted to look good so that you'd either wake up to it or see it as you went," she says.
"I don't understand." You remember being on a litter. They were taking you through the streets, but you couldn't see anything, only listen. "I fainted, yes?" They nod. "But then I awoke. They were taking me out of the Sejm camp, and then I was having the most marvelous dream, the Heavenly Host came down and–"
The priest makes the Cross.
"Forgive me, Your Serene Highness," says the medicus, pinching the bridge of his nose, "but can you remember yesterday at all?"
"Yesterday? Why, certainly," you say. " I was laid up here," you gesture around at the bed in which you lie. "You were bloodletting me in preparation for the surgery." Looks are exchanged among all.
"That was not yesterday. That was three days ago."
"What?"
"Yes. It is the Fifth of October," says the physician. His surgeon looks you up and down blankly. "Your Serene Highness, you spent all of yesterday and most of the day before in a daze, thrashing around in a deep sleep. You would open your eyes on occasion – call out – but you were delirious, speaking nonsense."
"And in tongues," says the priest, shooting the man of science a look. "Extreme Unction was issued both yesterday and today, Your Serene Highness. You are absolved, for now."
You weakly Cross yourself at his final words, before knitting your brow. "Extreme Unction? Twice?"
"We weren't sure if you were going to awaken yesterday, lord prince," says Marszowski. "The medicus here said your fever was peaking, that your urine tasted of death."
"And indeed it did – but," the physician smiles. "Here you are."
What about..? "Why was Extreme Unction given to me the second time?" you ask.
Everyone in the room twitches, scratches their head, crosses their arms. Mariana puts a hand to her chin and stares at the floor, as if deep in thought. Her shoulders rise and fall under her padded dress. She begins to fiddle with the cross she's wearing. Marszowski sucks in his lips.
The physician wordlessly draws down your blanket. Your right thigh goes on for about eight inches and then terminates. There just isn't anything there anymore. A ligature of horsehair is tied tightly above a plaster cast, round and blunted at the end. You stare at it and try to comprehend. You know what you're looking at, but you're not seeing it.
"Yesterday, the rot was spreading down to the knee and beyond," he explains. "It would turn upwards next, into Your Serene Highness' entrails and stomach, then the lungs, then the heart, and then death would come. A decision was made."
You don't answer him. "That was this morning. We pray that the fever will recede because of this. It was a clean amputation, Your Serene Highness."
"Very little blood was lost, relatively speaking," says the surgeon, who smiles at you.
You look at him, bewildered. Your mind is utterly empty. What is happening? Where is your leg? "Amputation…" You lean back so that all you can see is the ceiling. Your ears thud and ring. There's been too much ringing these days, too much gunfire and fear and illness. "I'm ruined," you say.
Mariana lets out a dry sob, and then clears her throat. She kneels down beside you, lifts a compress off your forehead that you only now register, and begins stroking your hair. She's inches away from your face, wearing a grimace, jaw tight. The room is silent. You hear someone rifling through what must be a bag, metal and leather shifting.
"God is with you," mutters the priest. He speaks a little louder. "Twice to the brink, twice to Unction, and He kept you. I have never seen such grace in my life."
"He saved you," says the physician. "He has restored you to life, for now. And man can restore you, too." You wipe your eyes. "Your Serene Highness recalls the physician Paré from your time in France?"
"Little good he did," you say, details of the surgery returning. "What am I to–"
"Look, Your Serene Highness."
You truly do not want to, but you groan as you sit up once more. The physician is holding an open book before you, on the right-hand page a numbered and lettered schema. It is complex and full of lines and circles and cylinders, like a clock or something, you don't know. On the left is a knight's greave. "This is Seigneur Paré's design for a false leg. It possesses a hinge at the knee that will allow Your Serene Highness to do nearly everything short of running: sitting in a saddle, kneeling for prayer – I have heard of soldiers walking up to ten French leagues in a day with these devices."
"We've already copied down the plan and sent a messenger to Kraków with a fat purse, looking for carpenters and smiths and tinkerers and those sorts," says Marszowski, mustering up a smile. "You'll be walking again in no time."
"I'm still ill," you say flatly. "This fever may take me."
"Don't say that," says Mariana into your ear, breath on your cheek. "You were fighting in your sleep. You're a hussar."
"Ajax Lithuaniensis," adds Marszowski, placing his hands on his hips. He's never been so proud. "Everyone's talking about you at the Sejm camp – you're a hero."
"I'm no hero. I did what was necessary."
"And not only did you succeed in doing so, but you did it without pissing yourself," laughs Marszowski. "That's a hero."
"I'm an invalid now," you say, voice cracking. "A cripple."
Mariana shushes you gently. "Enough of that, enough of that."
"God has seen it fit that you live," cautions the priest. "It is best to focus on that. Pain is a sign of survival."
"Perhaps," you reply. It's good that there's a man of God here.
"We shall do our utmost to stem the fever, Your Serene Highness," says the physician. "Because of your weakened state, we cannot bleed you for some time, but we will continue with the regimen of protective odors, good oils and powders of herbs," he explains. "We shall see your diet committed to rebalancing the humors in the direction of the phlegmatic-melancholic."
These words mean nothing. These words will not bring back your leg. You will never be whole again. Let the fever take you, forget all of this… Under the plaster, whatever is there is throbbing with pain.
"Is there anymore drink?" you ask. "I want gorzała." The bottle is quickly produced for you; you swig from it greedily. Ambrosia, manna, burning calm. Mariana remains stooped by your side.
You wipe your lip and say:
[] "Let me be. All of you."
[] "I'd like to try sleeping now."
[] "Leave me with my wife, sirs."
[] "God, I'm starving."
[] "Where are my letters?"
[] "I would like to speak to the father alone, please."
). To say I wasn't aware of the risks... well, let's just say that I was a bit surprised by the sudden downward spiral, but it hindsight, I would vote the same.
