I kept my gaze on the young girl on the table before me. She wasn't seriously injured, fortunately, but she was unconscious. And she'd clearly been attacked, because I noted a bunch of shallow holes on her back, which indicated that she'd been shot with arrows that were of such poor quality that they just kind of fell off of her as she moved. Each hole was about an inch or less deep, enough to draw a concerning amount of blood, but definitely not enough to kill her. There were, at least, five such wounds. I figured she just fell unconscious from the shock and the pain that likely followed.
But, she was alive for now and that was what mattered. My problem now was how I was supposed to keep her that way. It was highly likely that the arrows, while not outright poisoned, were not at all clean, which meant she was at risk of infection. Heck, I wouldn't put it beyond the Wildlings to spear their arrows with shit, just to make it more fun for everyone else. So, now, I was really regretting my choice to be a Necromancer. I should've chosen a Cleric or a Paladin, instead, or, really, any class that had a healing spell.
Why?
"That's Lady Lysa Mormont!" The Aldorman saw fit to inform everyone, back when I'd picked her up off the ground and asked if anyone knew who she was.
Because she was a fucking Mormont.
Well, Mormont... it was quite a slap to the face, actually. I'd kind of forgotten who ruled Bear Island. I mean, sure, I'd been pretty busy, but it was something I should've have forgotten outright. The Mormonts had been the vassals of House Stark for thousands of years, serving the Kings of Winter. It was, after all, Lyanna Mormont, from the show, at least, who famously said that House Mormont answered only to the King in the North, a Stark.
Anyway, I made up my mind to list down every single major event and character I could think of once this little debacle was done. I also needed to figure out when and where in the timeline I actually was. Because, frankly, I had never heard of a Lysa Mormont before. The only Mormont characters I knew were Jorah, Dacey, Lyanna, and Jeor Mormont. There was very little information about their ancestors, as far as I could recall, though I might've been mistaken. It was entirely possible that Lysa Mormont was Jorah's mother, because Jeor's wife was never once mentioned. However, the girl on the table looked a little too young for marriage, even by Westerosi standards, which meant that she was born a Mormont. So, she could've been Jeor's mother, instead, because no one knew what the fuck the Mormonts were up to before the first book. To be perfectly honest, they weren't my favorite house – that honor belonged to House Tyrel, because farming was overpowered – but I did know a few stuff about them, mainly their bravery and resilience and yadda yadda yadda.
"Can you please boil some water?" I told the woman who was dressed in a bright red dress, Tamara, the village healer. Or, at least, their closest approximate to a doctor, because who knows what the hell these people imbibed as medicine? Nah, I was going to do this my way. I wasn't about to let a potentially important character die, because some witch doctor decided to rub cat shit and piss into a bunch of open wounds. Medieval medicine was honestly something else.
Seeing as I also had about ten Wights in the room with me, Tamara did not at all protest. Instead, she simply nodded and fed more firewood to her hearth, before placing a large pot, filled with water, right above it. The first thing I had to do was clean her wounds, which I couldn't do without boiling water. Once that was done, I'd also need to knit each wound shut, something I also couldn't do without first boiling a needle and the thread that goes with it.
"Someone bring me a needle and thread!" I barked. Halga and the other villagers waited outside the tent. I specifically did not allow them inside, because I didn't want to be disturbed and I most definitely was not in any mood to be corrected or argued. I was going to perform the stuff that I vaguely remember from that one First Aid class I took when I was fifteen. Yes. But you know what? It was probably still going to be a lot better than whatever the villagers could've done.
I wasn't sure if they genuinely cared for the Mormonts or if they were simply too scared of my Wights to argue with me, but, whatever the case, the villagers obeyed without question.
Shit. The Lady Mormont was covered in blood. I've have to clean that shit up too.
I turned to Tamara. "Do you have any soap?"
"Yes, of course, my lord!" She answered, frantically, before turning and opening a bunch of cupboards and cabinets. Finally, after a few seconds, she pulled out a bowl with a slurry inside of it, which honestly smelled a bit like bacon. However, it was also undeniable soap, just uncured and likely made from pig fat, which was fine. I didn't need some antibacterial stuff from Cetaphil or some shit; I just needed it to get rid of oil and dirt and blood.
"Now, once the water boils and cools a bit," I began. "You and I are going to clean up her body with soap and warm water. The blood and dirt will surely cause some kind of infection and I'd really prefer it if she made it through this. Once that's done, you're going to help me with sewing her wounds shut; I assume you're capable of that."
The bandages were ready too, extremely thin pieces of fabric that I was going to boil.
Tamara nodded, her brunette hair, unwashed and unkempt, swaying wildly. Yep, she was definitely scared of me. But, for now, that hardly mattered. And, honestly, aside from Halga, everyone in the damn village was scared of me. "Yes, my lord. I can bind wounds well enough to make sure they don't open again. Shall I prepare a healing poultice?"
I raised a brow. Fucking fine, I'll bite. There wasn't much to be done while we waited for the water to boil anyway and Tamara added enough firewood that the flames were roaring dangerously now. "What's it made of?"
"It's a paste, my lord, made of garlic and lemongrass – nothing else, I swear." She said, bowing her head to me.
Hmmm... both of those things had pretty strong anti-bacterial and anti-microbial properties. So, I guess it might just work well enough to keep the young Mormont alive. So, without further ado, I nodded. "Go ahead. The water's still not boiling anyway."
Tamara bowed again, before turning away to grab a mortal and pestle, a bunch of garlic cloves and lemon grass stalks, and beginning the arduous task of grinding them into a fine paste. The poultice would very likely sting like a motherfucker, but it was a lot better than nothing. Some alcohol would've been nice, but the villagers only had old beer and some mead that'd been aging in oak barrels for years. Neither of those things made for a good antiseptic, due to their sugar contents, which would surely attract microbes.
"Here!" Halga walked right into the tent, carrying a thin needle and a whole spool of thread, both of which I took and placed on a wooden plate by the pot of water that still wasn't fucking boiling. Tamara had lost her supply of needles during the Wildling attack, though it was probably still somewhere in the village, merely misplaced. Halga walked up to the table and eyed the unconscious Lady Mormont. "She's unclothed."
"Yes, and?" This was a medical emergency and, frankly, the girl was a child. There was no need for any of GRRM's weird fetishes to get involved here. And, really, I hadn't even thought about her nakedness, until Halga brought it up.
She shrugged. "The lady's pale as a ghost's arse. You sure she's still alive?"
I nodded. I'd checked her pulse a bunch of times. She was still alive. Though, that fact remained to be seen. "Yes, I'm sure. I've been monitoring her this whole time."
Halga nodded and stepped away. She knew that she'd be of little help during the actual medication process and so made herself as scarce as possible and I honestly respected that a lot. Her tone also very clearly indicated her concern for the young lady. "Anything else you need, Jason?"
"For now? Nothing. Thanks for the help, Halga." I said. "I'll call you if I need anything, but I'm quite sure I have most of what I need right here."
Though, unfortunately, I couldn't do much until the water actually started boiling.
"Then, I'm off. Take care of her, Jason." She said, casting one last look at Lady Lysa Mormont, before she limped out of the tent.
It took nearly fifteen minutes of constant burning, before the water finally began to boil. And, when it did, Tamara and I got to work immediately. First and foremost, Tamara and I washed out hands with soap and hot water.
After that, I instructed her to fetch a small bowl of water from the pot. I then used the water to wash away the dirt and filth from her body, after which I lathered the wounded areas of her skin with the soap batter to further minimize the presence of dirt and grime. Tamara also washed the young lady's hair, rinsing the dirt and blood off with soap, something I hadn't really thought of. The whole process of washing took us almost an hour of nonstop work; it was tedious, but overall a simple affair. All the filth we'd washed off was pooled inside a large wooden basin, which was then brought out by a bunch of volunteers, who poured it all into the soil – waste not. Once she was thoroughly cleaned, Tamara and I then began the equally arduous process of sewing her wounds shut. I heated up the needle and the thread, immersing both in the water for long enough that I felt they were more or less as clean as I could possibly get them, before I then threaded the needle.
I had no idea how to sew a wound close. Tamara did. So, albeit with some hesitance, I had no choice but to let Tamara perform the operation. I resolved to watch and learn so that I wouldn't have to depend on her ever again. She pierced the skin at a surface level, taking great care not to pierce the layer of fat beneath it, before then joining and closing the wound. She did the same thing four more times, before she was finally finished. Once Lysa Mormont's wounds were sewn shut, we then applied the garlic and lemongrass paste over each sutured patch of skin, after which we sealed the paste using the bandages, which we wrapped tightly over her body.
Once that was done, the only thing left to do was wait. Despite all Tamara and I did to save her, there was still a pretty big chance that she'd just straight up die from her wounds. If that happened, I could use [True Resurrection] on her, but I was hesitant because I didn't quite fully understand how the spell truly worked and how, specifically, it worked here in Planetos. So, that was pretty much the nuclear option.
"Do you think she'll live through this?" I asked Tamara, wiping the sweat that'd gathered over my brows. At some point during the procedure, I'd lowered my hood, which – I suppose – came as a sort of shock to Tamara.
The village healer sighed and shrugged. "Truly? I do not know. We will have to pray that the Old Gods are merciful. The Mormonts are good and just rulers; they care for the smallfolk, offering us sacks of wheat in the cold winter months when our stores run low. I have no wish to see her die."
Ya know, with everything that's happened, finding an unconscious Mormont lady was the last thing I expected. But that also brought on its own fair share of issues. For instance, just how many Wildlings were there that Lysa was forced to run away? Was this a full on invasion or something? Because, as far as I recall, nothing like this was ever in the books, unless this was somehow before Aegon's Conquest? The World of Ice and Fire book mentioned a bunch of invasions by the Wildlings. But, I don't know.
"Then, let's hope these Old Gods are actually listening."