Page 92 of The Shadow Key

It is just when Henry is tying off a suture to a split elbow that an unconscious man is brought to the top of the line, carried by three of his fellow miners. Only when he is set down on the grass does Henry recognise him. This is Rhodri Jones, their guide from the other day. The man’s sandy hair is matted with blood. Carefully Henry parts it to find the cause.

‘Jesus,’ he mutters. The flesh is torn along the cranium, a flap of skin exposing the ghost-white of skull. The skull itself possesses a deep compression of fractures, shattered fragments of bone reminiscent of cracks in broken porcelain.

Henry tries to measure the mathematical certainty in his head. The collapse happened (he removes his pocketwatch) four and a half hours ago. It is likely Rhodri will have been unconscious all that time, and the longer someone maintains such a state, the worse the outcome is likely to be. Henry peers closer at the skull. While there is blood present from the flesh surrounding the tear, there is very little of it within the bone’s hairline cracks, and that can mean only one thing: the blood is pooling beneath, building pressure on the brain, with no place to go.

The miners are looking at him expectantly. Henry runs a hand through his hair. He has only done one of these procedures before, on a soldier who suffered a fall from his horse.

It did not work. He died from fever three days later.

This injury, Henry knows immediately, is worse than that soldier’s. Would such an operation even work?

‘Tada! Tada!’

Cai Jones, pointed face filled with abject panic, is running across the field as fast as his limp will allow and inwardly Henry groans. So far he has been lucky – Linette has managed to keep the rest of the villagers at bay – but he should have known that at least one would slip through, and for it to be Cai seems like a cruel sort of injustice. With a feeling of rising dread Henry watches him approach, only a little relieved to see Linette and Rowena close at the lad’s heels.

‘Paid â chyffwrdd ag ef!’ he cries, flinging himself down on the ground next to his father. ‘Paid â meiddio!’

The tirade of words coming from Cai’s mouth is too fast for Henry to interpret, but from the mixture of hate and fear on the boy’s face the general meaning is clear. Linette, caught up now and breathing heavily, confirms it.

‘He doesn’t want you to touch him.’

‘If I don’t,’ Henry says, ‘he will die.’

Linette translates, but Cai shakes his head at her with such violence that Henry feels sorry for him. They argue for what seems like minutes, and all he can do is try to drown their harsh voices out. Instead Henry plans what to do and, decided, reaches for his knapsack. Cai pushes his hand away.

‘Mi fydd o’n ei ladd o!’ he cries, and Henry must rein in his patience.

‘Don’t be a bloody fool! Either I try and he dies or I try and he lives, but if I don’t try at all his death is a certainty. Which will you choose?’

Something in Cai’s face makes Henry suspect that the boy comprehends some of what he has said. Cai stares at him across the unconscious body of his father, lip trembling. His cheeks are wet with tears, his nose snotty and red, but then Rowena very gently takes him by the shoulders.

‘Gad iddo drio, Cai,’ she says softly. ‘Dyna ei unig gyfle.’

For a long fraught moment they stare at each other. Then, to Henry’s intense relief, Cai nods.

‘Right, then.’

He reaches for his knapsack again, removes a small green case.

‘What is that?’ Linette asks.

She looks tired, weary. Her unruly blonde hair has fallen from its heavy plait, her shirt is smeared with dust. It occurs to him that she too has been working without relief, and Henry feels a wave of affinity run through him.

‘A skull drill set.’

He lifts the lid. Linette pales at the sight of the instruments resting within.

‘What are you going to do?’ she whispers.

‘Trephination. I’m going to drill a hole through his head, release the pressure of blood building on the brain. If it works, Rhodri should wake up.’

‘If it works?’

‘Ie,’ he says. ‘If.’

He clears a space around him, sets the cylindrical instruments out on the grass, some clean cloths, needle, thread, then moves to kneel directly at the top of Rhodri’s head.

‘I need two people to hold him down, keep him steady.’

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