I took Lieutenant Hitch into the cottage that had the sound fireplace. I eased him down, and then went to the shed for Clove’s saddle blanket. I made it into a flat pallet and then fetched kindling and firewood from the pile I’d made for Amzil. My panniers were outside her closed door, along with a tumble of my other possessions I’d left inside her home. The message was plain. I carried them all back to the hut where the soldier waited.

“Looks like you pissed her off right good,” he observed. I couldn’t tell if he was grinning or gritting his teeth with pain.

“It’s a talent I have with women,” I told him.

He hissed through his teeth and then fell silent.

I made a fire, and then fetched water and set my small pan over the flames. When the fire had warmed the room a little and the water was hot, I helped him undress.

I tended the minor wounds first, washing the ragged scratches as best I could. Every one of them was warm to the touch and suppurating. He hissed and swore as I washed them clean. The deeper ones bled a bit.

When I reached to undo the bandage on his chest, he stopped my hand with his. “Got anything to eat or drink?” he asked me shakily. “I could do with a bit of fortifying before we take this on.”

“I think I have a little bit of tea left. That’s about it out of what I can call mine.”

“That would be good, then. There’s some dried meat in my saddlebags.

Could you bring them in?”

I took the saddlebags from his horse’s back, and then slipped his bit so he could graze easily on the weeds between the huts, carefully moving him away from the half-choked vegetable garden. As I passed the garden again, I found two overgrown carrots and tugged them from the ground. When I carried them into the cabin, the lieutenant looked at me curiously. “Soup,”

I explained. “They’re too tough to eat any other way. With the dried meat tossed in, they ought to stew up fine.”

That was easier said then done. They were so woody I had to chop them up with my hatchet. I cut them fine and tossed them in a pot of hot water.

I then went into Hitch’s saddlebag. He watched me, and as I took out a large packet tightly wrapped in several layers of oilcloth, he said, “No. Not that one. Put that one back.” The second packet, wrapped in greasy brown paper, proved to be the smoked meat. I took a slab of it the size of my hand, chopped it fine, and added it to my carrots. By then my kettle was boiling. I made the lieutenant a cup of hot tea and waited while he drank it. When he set down the empty mug, he nodded to me. “Let’s get at it,” he said grimly.

I took out my untouched medical kit. Hitch’s eyes widened at the sight of it. He clenched his teeth as he watched me dissolve the healing salts in the hot water; he knew how they would burn and sting, but also knew they were necessary. The bandaged claw slash across his chest was a nasty one.