As a rule whenever you find Isolde at an event, I will be there, and vice versa. However, there are occasions when you will find one of us without the other. Early in our sojourn in Meridies, this happened when Isolde attended an event at considerable distance from Seleone and I could not get that Friday off to travel. I am quite convinced that folk of the barony of the Stepps in Ansteorra believe that I am just an invention of Isolde to keep the young men from hitting on her. Isolde traveled to Trimaris several times when it was still a principality of Meridies, all without my accompaniment. She once had a rather interesting adventure there which I shall now relate.
Isolde had been traveling with a band from Axemoor and they arrived rather late. Most of the rest of the party decided to socialize in the Great Hall after getting their bed space but Isolde opted to call it an early evening. She had just removed her contact lenses when she heard the sound of several pairs of running feet and people yelling, “Chirurgeon!”
Isolde, who was a qualified Chirurgeon at the time, started to fumble in her travel bag for her glasses. As many of you know, Isolde is nearsighted enough to be considered blind without glasses, and with the yells becoming increasingly frantic, Isolde decided, “What the heck,” and headed out into the night to try to find out what was the matter.
The next time she heard the approach of running feet she put out her arms and caught by the tunic a very frantic young lord. “I’m a Chirurgeon,” she said, “What’s the problem?”
The young man quickly explained that a lord in their cabin had been trimming a boffer tube with a very sharp knife. The knife had slipped and he had been badly cut. Isolde wanted to know where this cabin was. The fellow started to run off saying, “Follow me!”
“Wait!” Isolde shouted after him, “I’m blind.” Perhaps it was a good thing that she couldn’t see the reaction on the young lord’s face.
At Isolde’s instruction the young man woke Albert Blue the only other Axemoorian in the cabin. Bertie retrieved the chirurgeons’ kit and they went off together to find the cabin. Isolde reports it was a very surreal tramp through the forest with trees materializing on front of her and roots reaching up to trip her.
When they got to the cabin Isolde found it packed with people milling about, and thick with the smell of blood. Immediately she ordered all the extra people out and told them to find Santos, who was kingdom Chirurgeon at the time. Zeroing in on the smell of blood she found a quite gray young man laying on a bunk bleeding. No one had even thought to put direct pressure on the cut.
It was at this point that Isolde became aware that Bert (a somewhat gentle soul) was starting to faint from the sight of all the blood. “You’re my eyes,” she barked, “You’re not going to leave me now.”
This seemed to snap Bert out of it, but he was so shook up that when Isolde asked for a roll of gauze, the gauze went flying out of Bert’s hands. Eventually, with direct pressure they stopped the bleeding, but the funny thing was that Isolde was still smelling fresh blood. She instructed the patient to continue the pressure and once again followed her nose.
On another bunk nearby she found another young man who had taken a tumble into a concrete fire pit. This lord had lacerated his leg rather badly but, coming back to the cabin after the first emergency had started, he had been overlooked. Fortunately his bleeding was not as severe as the first patients’ had been so he wasn’t in as bad a shape. One wonders how long he would have laid there bleeding before someone noticed him.
Isolde was just getting more gauze out when Santos arrived. She quickly appraised him of the situation and asked to be relieved and taken back to her cabin. Santos took over and Isolde was led back to the cabin at a more sedate pace. Both injured young men made full recoveries but I often winder is stories still circulate in Trimaris about the blind chirurgeon.