Clara helped roll Cormac over, and they repeated the process. The sound, the smell, it was worse this time. By the end, both women sat on the floor, too drained to speak.
The fire crackled gently, throwing warm light over Cormac’s still body.
Aoife’s hands were trembling. She pressed them together in her lap, but the shaking only worsened.
“You can breathe now,” Clara whispered.
Aoife gasped a deep, full breath. A fresh wave of dizziness rolled through her, not from the work, but from the fear she had held tight against her ribs the whole time.
“I thought we’d lose him,” Aoife said. Her voice broke on the last word. “I thought… if he dies here, I’ll have killed him trying to save him.”
Clara reached for her hand and squeezed it. “But he didn’t.”
Aoife took a steadying breath. They sat in silence for a while after that.
“Who found him?” Aoife asked, breaking the silence.
“I don’t know their names.”
“Can you describe them?”
Clara thought. “One looked like his nose had been broken too many times to count. The other had long hair, tied back off his face by a strip of leather.”
Aoife smiled. “That’s Lugh and Norin.”
“Is that good?”
“We can trust them. They won’t tell anyone he’s here.”
Aoife let out a breath that shuddered. “Thank you. Truly.”
Clara nodded slowly. “I hope I never have to do that again.”
They fell quiet. The fire popped, sending sparks drifting up the chimney. Whatever they had been before, mistress and maid, strangers orbiting the same house, was gone. A new relationship had taken its place, built on blood and fear, and trust.
After a while, Clara’s voice broke the silence. “Who is he to you?”
Aoife looked at Cormac’s unconscious form, the rise and fall of his breath, slow but steady now. “My best friend,” she said. “He was there when my mother died. When my brother and sister died. He’s always been there.”
Clara hesitated. “It isn’t something more?”
“No,” Aoife’s answer was quick, instinctive. “He’s as good as family, if that’s what you mean.”
Clara toyed with a loose thread on her apron. “I thought maybe… maybe you felt for him the way I feel for Alton.”
Aoife blinked, startled. “No. Nothing like that.”
Clara nodded.
Eventually, they both knew they had to rise. There was more to do before they could rest. Aoife pushed herself up on unsteady legs and offered Clara her hand.
“We’ll need comfrey, slánlus, and yarrow,” Aoife said, voice steadier as she focused on the practical. “If you can’t find them, ask the gardener, the one you took the ointment to. He’ll know.”
Clara squeezed her fingers once before letting go.
Aoife turned to Cormac, the smell of burnt flesh still lingering in the air.
When Clara returned, they worked in silence. Aoife crushed the herbs, mixing them into a thick green poultice. “To keep the evil spirits out,” she explained to Clara, as her mother had once explained to her. She wrapped the mixture in cloth and bound it to both sides of Cormac’s shoulder.
