Hans nodded, taking the tunic and rolling it into a ball. “We’ll have this washed. As long as we’re near the markets, do you need provisions for the day? Look around. These wares won’t get any fresher.”

Rob looked. Food merchants worked their stalls, craftsmen opened their townhouse shutters, and everyone got to work, weaving cloth, cutting leather and rolling bread dough in full view of all who passed by.

But it was the number of people with medical issues that drew Rob’s attention. A man with an oozing neck mass hawked sacks of beans; a woman hobbled on a broken leg that hadn’t been set correctly; a child with greenish crusts around his eyes clung blindly to a shop window.

“Don’t you dare give them any of your money,” Hans said, following Rob’s gaze. “They’re faking it to gain your sympathy.”

“Well, they’ve got that much. Forget shopping, Hans. I’m exhausted. I’m embarrassed. Frankly, I don’t even know what I’m dong here. Can we just go home?” Rob said just as the dull, stomach-turning sound of a body striking stone brought the whole world to a stop.

“Help!” a man cried from the rooftops. “Help! My son!”

Rob jolted into action, rushing toward the accident without another thought toward his problems. He didn’t have a doctor’s bag or first aid kit, a stethoscope or a single square of gauze.

All he had was his hands and a few years of medical training, which he hoped would be enough. Rob dropped to his knees by the injured body of a tiny, fair-haired boy.

“Hey there,” Rob said. “It’s going to be all right. Can you tell me your name?”

“My head hurts,” the boy said with a whimper.

“Okay. My name’s Rob. I’m going to check to make sure you’re all right. Where’s your mom and dad?”

“Out of my way! What are you doing to him?” A man with Popeye-class forearms muscled his way through the crowd that had grown around the fallen boy.

“Are you the father?” Rob asked.

“Of course I am! Who the hell are you?”

“I’m a doctor. I’d like to help your son, if I can.” Rob’s fingers twitched with nervous energy, but he didn’t want to touch the boy without the father giving him the go-ahead—at least not while the boy was still breathing.

“A real doctor? I’ve never seen you before,” the father said, eyeing him suspiciously.

“He’s the new town doctor,” offered Hans, who’d slipped in quietly behind Rob. “The Godmother will vouch for him.”

The father glanced at Hans and then back to his son, who looked terribly small against the flagstones. “I don’t have money,” he said.

“I don’t care,” Rob said. “I’m going to examine your boy, all right?”

The father hesitated. “Perhaps I should fetch the monks.”

“Fine. But I need to get started.”

The father nodded. “Please. Do what you can. His name is Tom, though we call him our little Thumb because he’s so small.”

Of course you do, Rob thought as he brushed his hand along the back of the boy’s head. His fingers came away red with blood, but no bone fragments.

“I’m going to lift your head now,” Rob said to the boy. “Just relax your neck. Can you wiggle your toes for me?”

“Don’t worry about his toes!” the father shouted. “What about his head?”

Rob cradled the base of the boy’s head with one hand and gently probed with the other. More blood, but still no bone or cranial fluid. “Hans, did he move his toes?”

“He moved both feet.”

“Okay,” Rob said. “Spinal cord is intact for the moment. There’s no apparent skull fracture, but I’m guessing he’s got a concussion. I need something to rest his head on.”

Someone in the crowd handed Hans a woolen blanket, which Hans tucked under the boy’s head.

Rob held his hand in front of the boy’s eyes, first shading them from the sun and then moving his hand away. “Pupils are even and appear to be dilating normally. Pulse steady, a little fast, maybe. How old is your son?”

“He’ll be nine at the harvest,” the father answered. “I know he should be bigger, but we don’t have much food.”

“What happened. He fell?”

“From the roof we were thatching. He slipped out of his harness, the boy’s got no hips to keep him secure. How is he?”

“I’m not sure,” Rob said. “His pulse is quickening. Something’s wrong, but I’m not seeing it. Little fella, you said your head hurts. Where else does it hurt?”

The boy’s eyes twitched and closed.

“Hey, wake up!” Rob said. “You’ve got to stay awake. I know it’s hard.”

The boy’s eyes fluttered back open, and while his lips parted, no words came out. Rob put a hand on the boy’s forehead, then on his cheek. His temperature was normal, perhaps a little warm but not unexpected. What worried Rob was the blue color seeping into his face.

“He’s breathing,” Rob said, dropping his ear next to the boy’s mouth. “But he’s not getting enough oxygen. What’s going on?”

“Don’t let him die,” the father said, looking frightened. “My wife—we’ve lost three children already. Please don’t let him die.”

“Do you have some pain in your chest? Your rib cage?” Rob shouted to the boy, but his eyes had closed again. The boy’s pulse raced, his breathing came in gasps, and Rob knew he was about to crash in a town without ambulances or emergency rooms.

He was all the boy had, and that terrible clarity gave Rob an idea.

“Bandages!” Rob called out. “I need bandages for a compression splint!”

“Robert,” Hans said. “We don’t know what that is.”

The boy’s breathing slowed. The boy’s heart rate slowed. Rob’s shot up to the moon.

“Long bandages I can wrap around his chest. I bet he’s got broken ribs in the mid-section impinging on his lungs. Get something I can use to hold this boy’s ribs together, fucking stat, or he will die.”

“Bandages! We need bandages!” the father bellowed while Hans darted out through the spectators. He soon returned with a bolt of plain linen.

“Will this do?”

Rob grabbed the linen. “Sit him up! Grab his shoulders and lean him against your body!”

The father froze for a moment, but when Hans began to lift the boy’s head, he moved in to help. Rob yanked off the boy’s tunic, tore off his long undershirt, and began strapping the linen cloth tightly around his skinny chest, trying to ignore the fact that he hadn’t felt the boy breathe in more than minute.

But Rob stayed focused on the first rule of pediatric medicine: Never give up on a child. Kids bounce back from the dark side with alarming regularity, his pedes attendings had explained to him during residency. They’re resilient as hell. That’s why you should never give up on a child.

Even when he hasn’t taken a breath in almost two minutes.

“Okay, he’s wrapped, and I think I felt a couple ribs snap back into place. We need to get him breathing again. Lie him down; I’m going to perform CPR.”

“What?” the father and Hans said together.

“I’m going to work his heart and lungs for him,” Rob said. “Just lie him down, damn it, now!”

Once his father had settled his son’s head back on the makeshift pillow, Rob pinched the boy’s nose and blew four quick breaths into his mouth. Rob knew chest compressions alone could be as effective as alternating with mouth-to-mouth, but he didn’t want to stomp on the boy’s chest any more than he had to. After the last puff, he tried to ignore how blue the boy’s lips were.

“What are you doing?” the father screamed as Rob located the boy’s heart and began pumping. “You just bandaged his chest! Are you trying to kill him?”

“His heart isn’t beating,” Rob said, working in rhythm to the Bee Gee’s song, “Staying Alive,” a trick he’d learned in medical school. “Or if it is still beating, I can’t feel it. His lungs should be open now, or as open as they’re going to get. Loosen those bandages. We’ve got to get him breathing again.”

Pump, pump, pump, pump: Staying alive, staying alive.

Pump, pump, pump, pump: Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah.

Pump, pump: Staying a-liiiiiive . . .

Rob blew four more breaths and was about to switch back to chest compressions when the boy sputtered and began crying. The crowd erupted in cheers, as if Rob had just scored a three-point basket with no time left on the clock.

“Sit him up, keep his chest straight!” Rob shouted over the din. Only Hans was close enough to hear, but after he repeated Rob’s instructions directly into the father’s ear, the father brought the boy upright, resting him against his large body.

“Thank you,” the father said. He wiped tears from his face while holding out a calloused hand for Rob to shake.

Rob got to his feet while stars danced before his eyes. If his time here was a dream, as Rob sometimes wondered, this would have been a perfect moment to wake up. But soon Rob’s vision cleared, his dizziness ceased, and Rob found himself back in what passed for reality around these parts.

“He’s not out of the woods yet,” Rob told the father, his mind snapping back to medical matters. “We’re going to have to keep a close eye on him, make sure any pulmonary contusion he might have suffered doesn’t tank his O-2 stats.”

“Thank you.”

“Also, we need to keep him resting in an upright position. Leave off those bandages unless he has to get up for the bathroom; his chest needs space to breathe. The last thing we want is for him to come down with pneumonia. Or sudden swelling from the concussion. I’ll probably be hovering around him for the next few days, but you’re going to have to watch him, too.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s okay,” Rob said, slowing down enough to accept the father’s hand. He tried to maintain an even composure, but he couldn’t hold back a relieved smile taking over his face. “It’s okay. This is why I’m here.”