Eadgyth’s voice came at once. “She sleeps.”
Slowly, I sat again.
“You cannot keep doing that,” he said.
“Doing what?”
“Waiting for every sound as though it is the beginning of a disaster.”
“I’m not.”
He said nothing, the infuriating man.
I picked up the bowl again, though my appetite had vanished.
* * *
For the next two days, my world shrank to the lean to and the narrow space around it.
Eadgyth tended the wound, cleaning it, replacing the honey dressing, brewing willow bark for fever and pain, making Gilda drink whenever she woke, and muttering over herbs whose names slid out of my exhausted brain almost as soon as she spoke them.
I did what I could to help. I carried water, boiled cloths, held the cup when Gilda was too weak to manage it herself, changed blankets when the fever soaked them through, and helped lift her while Eadgyth adjusted the pallet beneath her.
Mostly, though, I sat and waited. That was the hardest part. At a fire, there was always something to do. A hose to drag. A door to force. A room to search. A person to move. Even after the flames were out there were reports, equipment checks, tea, jokes, the practical rituals that kept everyone busy enough not to think about all the things that could have gone differently.
Here, there was no fire to fight, there was only Gilda breathing too quickly beneath a wool blanket while I counted the spaces between one breath and the next.
Whenever I left, even for a few minutes, my skin crawled. What if the fever climbed or her breathing changed? What if something happened while I was gone?
By the second evening, Eadgyth caught me moving the same clay cup from one side of the shelter to the other for no reason at all.
“Get some sleep.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are walking into things.” She narrowed her eyes at me.
“That branch moved.”
She pointed toward the entrance, but I ignored her and stayed where I was.
Then Wulfric appeared behind me silent as a ghost.
“You sent for him,” I accused as Wulfric bent and picked me up.
Eadgyth looked pleased with herself.
My head ended up against his shoulder, one of his arms beneath my knees and the other firm around my back, as the warmth of him soaked through my clothes with alarming efficiency.
“Put me down.”
“Nay.”
I would have objected more forcefully if I’d possessed enough strength to lift my head. Instead, I let him carry me through the camp while firelight flickered between the trees and people pretended not to watch. His stride was steady despite the uneven ground, and every now and then the edge of his cloak brushed my hand where it rested against his chest.
For one exhausted moment, I let myself lean into him. That frightened me enough that I nearly asked him to put me down again.
He carried me into a small shelter, lowered me onto a pallet, and pulled a wool blanket over me.
