First he had to carefully remove his garments without hurting himself too much ...

It was a lot of effort and the pain was getting worse. Luckily there was pain medication to hand .. paracetamol ...

He declined ... asking for something much stronger ...

He hobbled straight over to the bottle, hugged it, kissed it, and thanked me ...

He simply looked over and said ... "Let's get this over with ... ".

"Best come and sit down here" I replied ...

I handed him a plaster, and he said could I do it ... he wasn't up to it .. so I said ok ...

He turned quite pale, so I gave him some of his drink ... he had rather too much, before asking me to continue ...

He got up gingerly, and was rather shaky. Glad he had that sword to lean on ...