A cold wind carrying the scent of grass swept past. Charles cautiously opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the riding crop on the ground, then his brother approaching with a package taken from his Arabian Warhorse.
Joseph glanced at Charles, who was so tense he had gone rigid, and sighed again. At the end of the day, he was only a seventeen-year-old boy. Joseph himself had been just as "chuunibyou" at that age.
"Take off your clothes." Joseph's voice softened somewhat.
"Ah?"
"There are only the two of us nearby." As Joseph spoke, he opened a small leather case and took out a glass bottle filled with transparent liquid. "I'll tend to your wounds."
Charles's tears spilled out uncontrollably again. With trembling hands, he undid his breeches, only to gasp sharply from the pain.
Joseph used a small knife to cut open the trouser leg, then poured the liquid from the bottle over the wound.
It was distilled water, washing the blood from his skin and running down into the grass.
Charles merely kept whimpering, "I was wrong, Brother. I really..."
Joseph looked up at him, picked up another, smaller glass bottle, and said, "Bear with it. It'll hurt a little."
"Oh... ah—"
The instant the liquid from the bottle touched his wound, Charles let out a scream as though he had been branded by a red-hot iron.
This time, it was medical alcohol.
At present, France's two most effective disinfectants were Phenol and medical alcohol.
The former was not very painful when used to clean wounds, but Joseph knew Phenol was somewhat toxic, so he chose alcohol instead. He carefully used a cotton swab to wipe debris from the wound, then rummaged through the leather case for St. John's Wort Ointment and applied it to Charles's