Thanks for the feedback, Anon, I'm pleased to see how concerned you are about making me a better writer of fiction, the kind that totally mirrors reality. I understand there are people for whom suspension of belief is outside their range. People in that narrow category were unable to grasp the message or enjoy stories such as Gulliver's Travels and Mobey Dick, which are clearly, by your standards, deeply flawed literature. Had you been the writer of this tale, you would have to put the young lady through a blender first, to ensure an even slurry. That would, unfortunately, ruin the intent, which was to follow historical practices.

I'm not a medical guy, but I do know there is relatively good consistency inside the torso, all of it a high percentage of water, as long as you avoid the bones, not too difficult in a human torso, and somewhat denser meat of organs, which are also mostly water. I've read in several accounts that this is how Damascus Steel was first made, as far back as 300 BC.

Here is an excerpt from a story printed in the New York Times, Sept. 29, 1961

In a recent letter to the museum a Pakistani told of a sword held in his family for many generations, quenched by its Afghan makers in donkey urine. Some medieval smiths recommended the urine of redheaded boys or that from a three-year-old goat fed only ferns for three days.

For eight centuries the Arab sword makers succeeded in concealing their techniques from competitors -and from posterity. Those in Europe only revealed that they quenched in red medicine or green medicine. A less abrupt form of cooling, according to one account, was achieved when the blade, still red hot, was carried in a furious gallop by a horseman on a fast horse.

Writings found in Asia Minor said that to temper a Damascus sword the blade must be heated until it glows like the sun rising in the desert. It then should be cooled to the color of royal purple and plunged into the body of a muscular slave so that his strength would be transferred to the sword.

In the ancient accounts there is more than one reference to such homicidal quenching. In a recent interview, Dr. Nickel pointed out that while many of the quenching techniques were based on superstition, they may have contributed to the success of the process, as by adding nitrogen to the alloy.

No ideas are new, it's what we do with them that counts.