“Perhaps,” Wren added, more out of desperation than any good idea, “you might turn your back, and I could, er, drape… something…?”
Everilda raised an eyebrow, but after exchanging a glance with Shrike, she turned around nonetheless.
With Shrike’s assistance, Wren got his nightshirt off over his head. Then he carefully arranged it across his left thigh so the folds covered what he considered absolutely necessary. The resulting display was not what most mortal women would consider decent, but it would have to do.
Wren cleared his throat. “I’m ready.”
Everilda turned ‘round and took him in with a quick up-and-down glance. Wren thought he caught something like amusement at the corners of her mouth. Then she selected a pair of silver scissors from the myriad instruments she’d laid out. The stitches of the linen gave way beneath their blades. As she unwound the bandages from around his waist, the clean crisp outer layer gave way to another where dark spots of rust had soaked through.
Likewise, dark spots began to gather at the corners of Wren’s vision. His head felt curiously light. His breath quickened.
Gentle fingertips caught him beneath his chin. Wren acquiesced to their bidding, which forced his gaze away from Everilda’s work and up towards Shrike’s face.
“Don’t watch,” he murmured. “Look at me.”
Wren found this advice rather easy to follow, since he quite enjoyed looking at Shrike. At the moment, however, he couldn’t help noticing how pale Shrike had turned, and how his smile, while sincere, appeared nonetheless wan.
Still, the sight of it leant Wren strength, and he found he breathed easier whilst he gazed into Shrike’s eyes.
The sound of ripping thread and fabric continued. The bandages fell away altogether. Wren’s stomach lurched as his gut sank free. Something cold and wet trickled down his side. His skin itched in its wake. A scraping sensation ensued along the lips of his wound and forced a hiss from betwixt his clenched teeth.
“Your pardon,” said Everilda. “There is some cleaning yet to do.”
Wren, having helped Shrike treat his wound after the midwinter duel, braced himself for the sharp scent and sharper sting of vinegar.
He did not expect a singular and sudden stab from an unmistakable needle pricking one of the teeth-marks. Nor the unaccountable sensation of something withdrawing a quantity of fluid from within him. A whimper escaped him alongside it.
“Your pardon,” Everilda repeated, her voice low and not unkind. “Nearly done.”
The needle slipped out—a sickening feeling which made Wren’s stomach lurch again. The scent of vinegar filled his nostrils as cold liquid poured over his wound. Then a damp clout, likely soaked through with the same stuff, daubed away at the bite in much the same manner as he’d daubed Shrike’s wound after the winter solstice duel.
Several minutes passed and several clouts dampened and discarded before Everilda ceased cleaning the wound. Wren began to tremble despite Shrike’s support. Beads of sweat had broken out and trickled down his brow before Everilda daubed him dry. Then a tight belt of linen coiled ‘round him, binding up what felt as if it threatened to spill out, layer upon layer, until Everilda pinned it in place and took up needle and thread to stitch it secure. Wren felt glad of it, for he found it braced himup. Though he felt gladder still when Everilda stepped away and declared him fit to return to bed.
With Shrike as his crutch, Wren hobbled back to the nest. Everilda washed up at the copper tap and refilled the cauldron to set on the hearth. Then she brought her queer glass tube to Wren’s mouth again.
“Under your tongue,” she said, “an’ it so please you.”
Wren obeyed. The fish turned crimson and swam furiously toward the far end of the glass. Everilda tsk’d as she took it back from him to examine.
“Feverish,” she declared. “Not surprising, given the infection. I’m more surprised it didn’t set in earlier. But we’ve a cure for that,” she added, much to Shrike’s evident relief, his brow having grown more and more furrowed and knotted as she spoke.
The cure came in the form of a mug filled with water, into which Everilda dispensed a few drops of a viscous mauve liquid from a vial in her instrument case.
“Drink this,” she said as she handed the mug to Wren.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Tincture of mould.”
Wren stared at her.
“It consumes the infection,” she explained.
Wren didn’t doubt it. He’d seen mould consume more than a few books in his day. Which made him not quite so confident as Everilda appeared to be that the mould would merely consume the infection and not go on to consume his whole body altogether.
But a glance at Shrike showed no trace of surprise or suspicion in his fine fae features. And so Wren surmised this tincture of mould was yet another vagarity of the unknown magicks at work in fae medicine, something which had proved true through centuries of practice and yet made no sense to his mortal mind.
He accepted the mug from Everilda and downed it in one gulp. It had a chalky taste that clung to his tongue. He pulled a face as he passed the mug back. No sooner had it left his fingertips than Shrike held out another to take its place, this one brimming with hot tea that smelt of honey and chamomile. This Wren took with more enthusiasm. Its sweetness helped banish the miserable memory of the mould.
