A quarry miner gripped the infirmary cot so tightly that his knuckles blanched beneath Vella's examination lamp.
Vella stood over the examination table in the treatment bay, unwrapping a grimy canvas bandage from a quarry miner's right shoulder.
The forty-year-old stonecutter grimaced in agony, his skin glistening with fever as angry purple streaks radiated from a jagged laceration.
"A company chirurgeon stitched this wound three days ago," the miner rasped, clutching the edge of the mattress with trembling fingers.
"He charged me two silver pieces to sew the flesh shut with waxed twine, but the fever spiked before midnight!"
"Papa said he could still work tomorrow... is he lying to me, or is his arm going to die?" the girl asked.
"His arm stays if I remove the shard and clear the poison today," Vella said. "Stand back when I open the wound."
Vella leaned down, her golden hair streaked violet as she inspected the inflamed, throbbing knot beneath the ragged sutures.
