over, under my breath. Silence, and then the knock comes again, more insistent, louder, and my heart sinks. Soldiers, then.
The latch rattles and I dart forward, realizing too late that the door isn’t locked. As it swings open, I see a figure holding a large bundle in its arms.
“Help,” Silas says, staggering to my pallet and dropping a body on to it.
I close the front door, then move to where Silas is crouched next to what I think is a man. His face looks like a slab of raw meat. His nose is smeared across his face, one cheek slack, his hair blood-soaked. He’s unconscious, and I press my fingers to his wrist. To my surprise I feel a pulse, faint as the brush of a moth’s wing, and I count the beats, concerned by how weak they are, how far apart.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” Silas says, sounding pained, and helpless. “I’m sorry.”
“I need water.” I don’t look at him, continuing my assessment of the man’s injuries. He’s lucky to be alive. I don’t think he’s likely to stay that way. “I know it’s risky, but…”
“I’ll get it.”
While he’s gone I reach for my knife, cutting along the lines of the man’s tunic and exposing a battered, muscular chest that’s as bruised as his face. Gently I press along his ribcage, trying to feel for fractures, but can find none. I pass my hands over his left hip, then down the leg, exploring the knee and ankle firmly. Satisfied that it’s unbroken, I begin along the right.
“Got it,” Silas says, racing back into the cottage and slamming the door shut, making me wince and turn to my mother’s door. We both pause, eyes wide and waiting.
“I’m sorry,” Silas says, and I shake my head.
“Forget it. The water needs to be boiled.” I nod at the bucket in his hands, noting the severed rope, and wince inside at the questions the soldiers will have when they try to use the well tomorrow. He carries the water straight to the fireplace, sloshing some of it into the pipkin. I hear him build a fire, the rustling of light papers and the faint cracking of flames. Then he’s standing over me again, watching me finish my examination.
“We need bandages,” I say. “Take one of the clean blankets from the washing line. Tear it up into long strips.”
He fetches one and sits near me, tearing with a violence that puts me on edge. For a while the ripping of fabric is the only sound, and eventually I start to speak, to fill the gaps around that awful noise.
“His nose is broken, and I think his right cheekbone too,” I begin. “I suspect his ribs are fractured: two of them, maybe more. His legs seem to be unbroken, though his right ankle is badly swollen, so I can’t be sure. It looks to me as though he’s been beaten severely.”
“Will he live?” Silas asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. I move to the table and rummage in my kit for willow bark and arnica balm. “Add some salt to the water,” I tell Silas before I continue. “Do you know him? Is he the person you were going to meet?”
Silas’s gaze is fixed on the injured man, his mouth open. His hood wasn’t up when he arrived; his hands are trembling. He’s losing it; whatever wherewithal he had to get the man here, it’s leaving him.
“Silas, I need your help,” I snap at him. “I need a stick. A sturdy one. About this long.” I hold up my hands six inches apart.
He looks at me, his expression blank, and I realize he’s useless to me right now. So I haul myself up, wiping my hands on my already stained dress, and sneak out into the darkness. It’s a clear night, and above me a hundred thousand stars wink conspiratorially at one another. The moon is full, pale and heavy in the dark high over my head, the world lit up bright as day, though it’s as if all the colour has been leached out of it. It’s not even midnight yet.
I find what I’m looking for quickly, an oak branch that’s thin and straight enough to use as a splint, and I turn back to the cottage. I freeze when I see a shape, light glancing off something on the outskirts of the trees behind the hut, before it moves deeper into the shadowy forest. I remain still and narrow my eyes, scanning