"Tibelda isn't—yet—but I am." She gave Harvey a deliberate smile. "I'm also a registered nurse."
The older man's white brows rose. "Nurses of this region are required to be registered? Like Jews? How novel."
A distraught wail from inside the home made Anne move. "Excuse me. I should go check on the reason I was kidnapped."
The two dignitaries escorted her into the farmhouse, which like Tibelda's cottage consisted of one room. Unlike the old woman's home, it was much larger, with stone walls and a packed-dirt floor strewn with clean straw.
Someone had been making cider, and the smell of apples was strong. Larry, Curly and Mo sat at one large center table, muttering as they passed around a jug of something that probably wasn't cider. Baskets filled with grain and root vegetables sat stacked against the walls, while cooking pots and utensils crowded shelves near a large hearth. The blazing fire added heat to the warm glow of candles and oil lamps.
Anne's mouth hitched. Farming sure pays better than witchcraft.
Tibelda crouched by the hearth, sorting through bunches of herbs from her satchel. On the other side of the room, a peasant woman knelt and prayed at the foot of a wood frame bed.
Anne went to the bed and pulled the heavy coverlet back. "This the patient?" Without waiting for an answer, she put her backpack beside the enormous man sprawled on the straw-filled mattress and took out her stethoscope.
Harvey joined her. "Are you a giddy midwife, to administer to him with such unseemly haste?"
"Not now, doctor." Anne glanced at the peasant woman. "Wie heißen Sie?"
"Uli." The woman sniffled. "I speak English."
Harvey blocked her view with his bulk. "I've already personally examined this man."
"Good for you." Anne leaned over to look around him. "Uli, how long has he been like this?"
"Since this morning, when those men brought him home." She bowed her head over her clasped hands. "Drud is never sick. Never."
From her place by the hearth, Tibelda made a scoffing sound. "He is probably drunk."
The peasant woman stiffened. "He never drinks!"
"Ladies, please, no bickering." Anne depressed Drud's tongue to check his throat. Airway's clear, no obstructions or inflammation.
She didn't realize she'd spoke out loud until Harvey asked, "What has his throat to do with anything?" When she didn't reply, he tapped her shoulder. "I asked you a question."
Oh, sure, explain standard traumatological procedure to a man who thinks leeches are a cure-all.
"Let's chat later, shall we?" She rolled a black cuff around Drud's upper arm. "BP's two-ten over one-twenty. Pulse's irregular, two-fifteen." She moved the diaphragm of her stethoscope from his arm to his chest. "Tachy, fluid in his lungs." She reached automatically for drugs she didn't have, then exhaled her frustration. "I need some digoxin or lidocaine, he's going to stroke out on me."
Adam Olearius came to stand beside her. "Can they be obtained locally? I can ride back to Jena."
"No, not from Jena." She slung her 'scope around her neck and straightened. "I can't risk moving him. We need to get a doctor out here."
The farmer Anne had dubbed as Curly stalked over, looked down at Drud, then shouted at Tibelda in German. Her response was equally blunt.
Adam's dark brows drew together. "Perhaps I should ask Drud's neighbors to accompany me."
"Ambassador, don't encourage this nonsense." Harvey turned to Anne. "As for you, young woman, I am a doctor."
Now he'll want to bleed him or something. "Right." She took out a styrette and jabbed Drud's finger, then squeezed a drop of blood onto a chemstrip.
"Pricking the finger is not enough," Harvey told her, his expression smug. "Shall I demonstrate the proper method of opening a vein for you?"
See? "Thanks, but we'll skip that for now." After the strip showed normal, she put a hand on Drud's brow. "Blood sugar's okay, but he's burning up."
The great anatomist stalked off in a huff, but Adam bent closer to study the chemstrip. "That scrap of paper indicates he has the fever?"
"No, this does." She pressed a digital thermometer to Drud's ear canal, then read the display. "Temp's a hundred and three. Could be viral pneumonia, with cardiac comp." Anne jerked the linens off the bed, startling Curly. "Uli, open all the windows and bank that fire. You"—she dropped the linens in Curly's beefy arms and gave him a push toward the table—"move. Adam, I need the cleanest water you can find, and Tibelda, start boiling some more."